Black Dog Blog

Archive for September, 2006

Imagine if you will, walking into the lavatories and seeing two of your colleagues in there opposite the washbasins. They have a number of sheets of A3 (twice letter size) white paper which they have laid out on the windowsill and against the window itself. Upon the white paper is a cauliflower in a plastic packet. One colleague is holding two more pieces of paper up to block the fluorescent strip lighting above the cauliflower. The other is taking photographs of the cauliflower.

You'd laugh too.

I was the one with the camera. I love bringing mirth into people's lives.

An amazing, astounding and completely adequate </sarcasm> 404 words written this evening (so far, though I'm not sure if I'll get anything else done before going to bed).

Eh, at least I'm getting to the part where I know roughly what happens. I'm not sure if I'm dragging out the intervening time, being overbrief (I doubt it) or generally whether this is all any good. Pretty much suck at lit crit of any sort, let alone analysing my own things.

Two kilos? What sort of a pansy-ass weight loss is that? And I know I haven't failed on the clinical instructions at any point (though there was a phase in the last couple of weeks where I kept dreaming I'd eaten some cheese by mistake).

If next week isn't significantly better I'm going to become very discouraged. I haven't been tempted to cheat, I haven't undergone any unmanageable cravings (though I'm getting grumpy and jealous about not being able to eat, because I remember enjoying the process, it's never occurred to me to do it – my self-programming's just about worn off, but I still have will, laziness and force of habit on my side).

I only have ten more weeks before I have to start eating food again… *makes a face*

Mummified dogs uncovered in Peru

Check out the photo. *hugs an' skweezes it*

I know I'm not gonna be universally popular for liking him, but tough. I can't but fangoy the man.

Richard Dawkins interviewed about his latest book, The God Delusion (Realmedia audio)
From Sunday (24 Sep 06)

Despicable disgusting little poppets! Couldn't you just smush them all into a big puddle? Well, now you can do so without sneezing.

A personal remark is a personal remark to me. And I find them intrusive and offensive.

Just in case you ever want to comment that my ass looks smaller or my skin looks clearer or anything, no, I won't thank you. I will be annoyed. Sometimes upset. At a compliment. Yes. My physical aspect and behaviour are off limits. (It comes from living so long in a body and reflexes that are utterly alien to you.) Thus, unless I'm being deliberately rude, I don't comment on other people's bodies or behaviour either.

I interpret such things as judging me. Even though I'm very much an Iorich, being 'judged' is something that angers me. So yeah, finding out that someone's been talking smack about me makes me want to kill things, even though it was my little bro saying I've been much 'nicer' on this starvation diet (it's called ketone euphoria, you imbeciles, nothing to do with your hippie wheat allergy theories – and, incidentally, typical that other people get the benefit of this 'euphoria' and I'm still miserable).

*sigh* *headdesk* Bad mood…

I've discovered that the trick to this medically-enforced water-drinking (4.5 litres a day – that's 8 pints) is not to drink it too cold.

I'm having a much easier time chugging it at 'cold tap' temperature than 'water cooler' temperature; even though I'm not noticing the difference myself, I get through more.

I once, back in the mists of childhood memory, saw a few minutes of a film on tv. In the film was a giant anthropomorphic carrot ((root?) vegetable of some kind?). In the film were also humans, possibly being terrorised by this carrot. The line that has stuck in my mind to this day was when the carrot went off to water itself, saying "Moisture, moisture, I must have my moisture".

Free villanelle* to the first person who tells me the name of this film or, better, gives me an IMDb link.

*may actually be a limerick

edit: if you stare at the word 'moisture' for too long you will forget what it means?

I deleted, I think, every single word I wrote yesterday. Sometimes you just need to. I'm happier with what's there now.

I forgot to count the words tonight; not many more than yesterday. Nowhere near the end. And it's all depressingly generic, meaning nobody much but Ree will really be interested (because she requested the topic). But at least I'm satisfied that I'm telling it more or less as it happened.

Holy like-classical-music-except-actually-good, Batman! One of the Epiclore bunnies does orchestral!

I run mp3Gain on all my new stuff (plus mpTrim in the case of the live one, because applause noise does bad things to my brain), and always make sure the tags are filled in correctly to my liking. Takes a few minutes, but I get it all losslessly equalised and cropped and organised by MediaMonkey. I dunno if the equalisation works; I kind of trust machines to have a better ear than I do (extremely likely). My bandmate's musical and he says it works.

MediaMonkey has three customisable fields, and I'm going to earmark one to denote tracks I own legally. If you scout around, there are lots of cool samples, and often one or two full-length, on people's official sites.

edit: e.g. try Googling for DGM, the prog metal band – lots of nice, free full-length stuff! I'll have enough to make an entire 'legal' mp3 CD soon.

Only 340(?ish) words tonight. Useless. *g* Difficult part to think out, and I'm not in a state of mind where it comes easily.

I think I should take my own advice and just vomit out any old thing and edit later, but then I'd be rushing to the good parts instead of trying to make the interval cool as well.

Anne Atkins is rejoicing in my innocence.

How strange. But she is a strange, strange adult.

Jesus was reported saying a few things about how his people would be looked down on or hated, would never fit in, and that family trouble was likely. And, as Atkins said, that childlikeness of spirit was a Good Thing. Jesus himself (as portrayed) was disruptive and unlikeable, a black-and-white thinker.

So: blessed are the autistics? Discuss.

Stupid headline of the week!

Stupid journalism too. I sent in an official complaint about this story, something I've never done before.

• The words "pagan festival" associated with concepts like occult and antisocial behaviour
• Christian spokesperson's ridiculous claims unchallenged
• No representation of pagans
• No representation of majority of the country which sees Halloween as a bit of secular fun
• Suggestion that we become just like America and dress up as fairies and frogs and Narutos instead of 'scary' things to appease the bible bashers (I didn't really complain about this – I just find it laughable)

So anyway, that idiocy aside…

Puffy planet poses pretty puzzle

Video game exhibition announced

Prunella Scales returns to 'Fawlty Towers'

Dog lost overboard swims ashore

Police chief's animal trade anger

P.S. *gloat*

Piper is not pleased.

This morning, one of the kittens from across the road (they've just been allowed to roam further than their back garden recently) came up to our front door and had a quick look round the hall. He met Lance. Lance hissed. Lance ran away. He then met Piper. Piper made no noise. Piper slunk away.

The standoff moved to the turning circle outside our front door (we live in a cul-de-sac). Kitten found Piper's sunning-himself-place in the rockery and went in to investigate. Piper followed and stuck his head in. Piper ran away. Lance crept along the road with his huge coat fluffed up. Lance jumped over a fence and left.

Win for the baby silver tab!

Though, I suspect, rematch to follow when he's neutered.

Today I have written… *slips into bedroom to ask TextPad*
…1904 words. Is that a lot?

This is all down to Charly for telling me I should write. Sometimes I really need telling.

Ree will be pleased to know that I have managed to fulfil one of the suggestions I, stuck for ideas, begged from her last night.

Shiny and new!

(Personally I hate the homepage, but the inside pages are fairly nice.)

edit: Serious request here: if you have any comments or suggestions for the new design, or just like or dislike it, please use the contact form. My boss wants user feedback. (Er, no need to say you came via me, though – I don't use my preferred name at work, so she'll be "who's Mutt?" and it'll be v. awkward.)

CoworkerR: "The Dalai Lama's a Buddhist, right?"
Mutt: "Is the Pope a Catholic?"