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  Blogging as an "art form" must make a come back soon, surely, given that online communication has almost reached the lowest common denominator; from blogs, to facebook updates, to twitter - surely the next step is to just have a site that allows people to subscribe to other people's emoticons:
Jane (11.21) - 
Frank (11.10) - 
Dave (10.30) - 
I despair. Well, I don't really. I don't much care, but the fact that facebook's latest look is basically twitter with ads means that it's going to kill itself off, twitter will implode due to a distinct lack of business plan, and the world will get it's online fix by returning to dusty forgotten blogs. Like this Hurrah!
CJ
3:37 AM
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Does anyone remember that show from Channel4? Where the contestants have to stay awake for a week? It was awesome! They should do that with Big Brother. Or at least lace their water with hallucinogens...  Christ, I'm shattered. I've been "on-call" for a few days and nights now, and although I rarely have to do any actual support work, I still have to have the work Blackberry on, and there tends to be a flurry of automated "alert" emails sent out every 20-40 mins from about 3am until 6am. Not that I have to actually do anything with them in most cases, but I still have to check just in case. I think I've managed to develop a stomach ulcer in, like, a day. Or bad gas. Not quite sure. But I've not slept properly for a few days and drank lots of coffee, both of which are unusual for someone with a cushy lifestyle such as myself, and now I have what is medically know as "ball of lava where stomach used to be" syndrome. Yeah, you won't have heard of it - it's pretty rare. Like being born with an extra knee. Anyway. Tired. And am on call most of June - except for the week I'm in Egypt for a wedding!  But then back on call. Hey - I need to start saving more I think, so being paid overtime for being on call is one easy way to do that! My neighbours listen to Venga Boys - I think they might be a little "slow". For a change, I've decided to listen to BBC Asian Network's bengali radio and the Bobby Friction show (just because that's the worst porn name in the world). Oh, and go check out MondayJazz.com for some really good mixes. Being on call meant that I couldn't really leave the flat, so I managed to crack on with the wallpaper scraping in the living room, and I've done the whole thing except a small alcove where I have to try and rip a shelving unit out to get to the wall behind! Wow, huh guys?! Wheeee! I doubt this will make any sense to anyone who reads this, but work is getting better - lots better: we've managed to completely change the structure of the programming model to a better one and have, as of today (i.e., as of my current project) changed the language we code in from VB.net to C#! This is a huge deal for me, as it's a programming language that I've always preferred, plus it means I'm finally getting to learn something new! My brain was in danger of going into atrophy from lack of stimuli recently... Anyway - all geeky, and all good hurrah. I'm so knackered. I'm gonna find me a net and catch some Zs. g'night, y'all.
CJ
9:17 PM
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 Maybe it's an early mid-life crisis (perhaps a third-of-a-life crisis. Or if I'm lucky, a quarter-of-a-life crisis!), but I'm really getting bored with my daily routine. I was on the tube, reading a book I'm not really into but it's better than reading a newspaper where you feel like your brain is slowly oozing out of your ear due to the lack of intellectual challenge - ignoring the sudoku, but that's more pattern matching anyway.. maybe I should try that more just as something to do... - just like the other morons around you (no offence, morons) when, standing by the open tube doors at Knightsbridge station I saw directly to the escalators leading up in front of me like a metal, clunky, stairway to paradise - to escape, to freedom, to no more of the daily crap. I was severely tempted to just run: the doors beeped, alerting they were about to close and I prepared myself to jump out at the last minute - in case someone I worked with was, unknown to me, standing nearby ready to haul me back in if I made a break for it; my breathing quickened, muscles coiled ready for that last minute leap to start the bid for freedom - I could be the master of my destiny! I could do whatever I want! I could spend the day in a comic shop "browsing" (also known as "reading for free"); I could go play arcades until all my notes have been changed to coins and disappeared in the vast array of metal slots allowing momentary escapism where I fight/ shoot/ drive/ dance my way (... uh.. dance?.. yeah, why not! I'm Master Of My Own Destiny after all!) through the afternoon, buzzing on a sugar high from the bag of flying saucers and cola bottles I've had after my lunch: a burger at Ed's Diner - not just a burger, mind you, but a Big Bubba! And Wet Fries! And a BANANA MALT SHAKE! YES! YEESS!! That's what I'll do! And I'll go and become a fighter pilot! Or an astronaut! YES! AND I'll be a games tester! And I'll work in films! And music! And I'll be creative! I'll open a bar! A restaurant! A club! I'll get a fast car and drive places! Lots of places! FAST! I'll travel the world, learning things, making things, living off the land, travelling under my own steam (except for maybe trying to updgrade to first class where available, maybe use air miles or something - I'll work on that idea a bit more later), not a care in the world! ... and the beeping stops as the doors shut without me having moved an inch. Damn. Maybe tomorrow...
CJ
9:57 PM
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 Ahhh, Amsterdam. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.. uh... three, maybe?.. Last weekend was Ned's 30th bday celebrations in 'dam, and as I haven't been back there for over a year I was very very glad to be returning. The weather was perfect, and instead of finding a coffeeshop and just not moving for 48 hours, we managed to find two gorgeous parks and wander through thr streets, finding a big ol street market in one place and a fantastic pancake bakery in another. I luuurve that city! And when you get the amazing sunny, hot weather that we had last weekend, then, well - what more could ya ask for?! uh... the mouse will.. play nintendo and read comics all day, not getting out of bed until mid afternoon... heheh. Ana's off in San Francisco for a week of meetings, so I'm taking the opportunity to do absolutely nothing! Other than yesterday - where I managed to make it back to Ipswich for a bit of Wii Mariokart, GTA IV, and an excellently massive pub lunch. Other than that I have mainly been sitting around playing Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass on the DS; which is a great game, causing me to be standing on the tube blowing on the DS touchscreen to blow out candles in the game or to start windmills turning. Embarassing. But fun! .... But it's sunny outside. so now I feel guilty for being indoors. DAMMIT! Gah. Maybe I'll go outside. Weather-conscience sucks.
CJ
12:43 PM
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 I have a training course today: "The Charisma Key". Should be a laugh. However, I went to see (and hear) Hijak Oscar at the Camden Barfly last night and one of my ears (the one next to the speaker) is ringing and refusing to let any other sound in... gah.. I'd even stuffed it with tissue paper - the classic impromptu earplug! - to no avail.. Good fun though - the suport acts were probably better; there was one group who looked like a reasonably modern rock-y band (not a Rocky band, like the ArnoCorps are an Arnie band, although that would be awesome) but sounded like a fifties rock band with lots of "do do do do dooo dooo" between the more modern vocals of "don't you dare come back or I'll break every bone in your body... do do do do doood doooo". Very cool stuff. Right. Time to key my charisma 
CJ
8:18 AM
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 This weather is crazy - and weathermen LIE! They talk and they point at their charts and they LIE! They said that the rain would start in the west and move east - I, living in the west, looked out the window one weekday morn and saw that - lo! - the rain was barely starting! I could outrun it, no doubt! I get into my cycling gear and off I go, in the drizzle. But then - DISASTER! A half mile down the road I meet sa torrential downpour, head on, coming from the EAST. The EAST, dammit! The weathermenm - they lie. On the plus side, today was so sunny at the commuting times that it was shorts and t-shirt cycling weather. very very niiiice. I've worked out that I can use my newly aquired Mac's internal wifi doohickey to create a new internet-sharing network specifically for my Nintendo DS to get online without having to downgrade my main home network's wifi security! Whooo! So far - I've got my ass KICKED at Bleach, and have got my ass KICKED on Castlevania, even with a ranom person from somewhere in the world to help out. Cheeky swines. Anyway. Merry St. Georges Day for yesterday. It wasn't exactly a massive pissup, was it? Guinness have St Paddy's, but until Carling step up and claim St G's, it's never going to be a new bank holiday is it? tata.
CJ
7:26 PM
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• OpenSlug audio - rubbish
• Rebuilding Unslung to do your bidding - crappo
• Installing Debian - bullcrap!
 I give up. I bloody give up! Even though my degree had me using Unix for 3 years, I'm just no good with Linux. I've wasted my Saturday (and most of my Friday evening too) trying to get my NSLU2 to run a version of linux such that I can use it as a jukebox. Debian takes 2 hours to install and then fails partway through - I've no idea why, so I can't debug and fix it. SlugOSLE/BE fails to install the audio components, so that's no good. Unslung requires you to know how to build your own OS in order to get USB audio. So that's it - I've put the Linksys firmware back on there, plugged everything back in and am using my new (ebayed) mac mini to watch Battlestar Galactica episodes. But even that didn't make me happy, so in a protest to technology I turned everything off save for a light and am instead reading a book. Take that, technology. I hope you rust.
CJ
5:08 PM
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