Headless Hollow

Headless Hollow posts, categorised for your convenience and enjoyment. On this page you’ll find all the posts vaguely related to Stuff.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Simple pleasures

Occasionally, my girl goes off on a business trip to the States, and I’m left to hold the fort for a week or two.

Sure, I get a bit lonely on my own when she goes away, and it reminds me of how important that one big thing is in life: love and companionship, that someone special in your life. That someone with whom you watch documentaries on DVD and sit in the park and read books; who reads you ghost stories when you’re making dinner and listens to you whinge about your day. It’s amazing how two weeks can seem like such a long time without those simple pleasures.

But I know, when she gets back from overseas, there’s always a little bit of (duty free) compensation …

Posted by universalhead at 1:28 PM

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Have a good one

Happy Xmas

Posted by universalhead at 9:25 AM

Thursday, December 25, 2008

25.12.08

Happy Xmas

Posted by universalhead at 3:50 PM

Monday, September 22, 2008

Geeky Stuff Going Cheap

I’m selling some geeky stuff on ebay at the moment. Especially, my limited edition green xbox! Go check out the goodies—and bring ya money with ya!

Posted by universalhead at 3:48 PM

Monday, February 4, 2008

8 Things You Didn’t Want to Know About Me

A quick shuffle back through my records reveals the somewhat shameful truth—only about thirty blog entries during the whole of 2007. I’d be amazed if I had any readers at all beyond a few friends, though I do know a few boardgamers drop by now and then to download my game reference sheets.

I really do have to pick up the pace a bit, because I do enjoy having a blog. It just gets relegated to the bottom of the ‘to do’ pile too often. I’ve been planning to change my blogging system for a while so that may give me the impetus to jazz things up a little round here.

Anyway, let’s kick off the year. Pat included me in one of these ‘viral meme’ things (who comes up with these wanky names?). I have no idea what the point is (actually, maybe I’ll pick up some new readers …), but here goes …

The Rules:

Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves
People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules
At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

So here goes, eight things you didn’t know about me:

I’ve played the drums in bands for about 25 years, and only gave it up as a relatively regular activity recently. Back when I was about 16 my friends started playing music and I wanted to join in, but I couldn’t be bothered learning music. I can’t remember if a tendency to bash things in time started before then, but drumming was a natural choice. I tried getting lessons a few times but the teachers would always try to get me to start from scratch, which was annoying after I’d be playing live for a few years and considered myself a pretty good drummer. Don’t ask me to play a decent paradiddle though, I’m technically crap.
I still occasionally enjoy listening to prog rock bands like Yes, early Genesis and even Rush. Deeply unfashionable, but I love the complexity, the pretentiousness, and the fact that sometimes they really hit an incredible emotional high note. Listen to the end of ‘And You and I’ on the live Yes album Yessongs, or the last bit of ‘Supper’s Ready’ by Genesis if you don’t know what I mean. A more innocent musical age.
Every Tuesday night my girlfriend and I cook fish fingers, mashed potatoes and broccoli and sit down to watch Time Team. We even have a little song about this particular ritual.
I have a mild Indiana Jones obsession. My 40th birthday party was themed around it. When I went to Egypt I quietly imagined I was Indiana Jones when I entered tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Needless to say, I’m really hoping they don’t stuff up the fourth film.
I write a letter to myself every ten years, something I started doing when I was 12 after reading one of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Emily’ books. I just opened the one from myself at 32 to myself at 42, and am currently wondering what the hell I’m going to say to myself at 52.
I keep trying, but I just can’t bring myself to like olives.
The older I get, the more I want to move away from everyone and just go live in the country with the love of my life and not have to deal with annoying people, traffic jams, selfishness and corporate and commercial bullshit. Does everyone get like this?
I’m terrible at watching ads and shutting up. I can’t help commenting on the absurdity of every one. Similarly, I tend to point out misplaced apostrophes on signage, bad kerning and inappropriate typographical choices, and advertising photography clichés. I imagine it can be very annoying for people around me.

There you go, now you can go forth into your day with a little bit more knowledge about Headless Hollow. Lucky you!

Now, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to spread this somewhat benign virus. I’m talking to you Reverend, Atlas Cerise, Steelbuddha—hold on, I don’t read eight other blogs! Who has the time?

Posted by universalhead at 3:10 PM

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Happy Pagan Winter Festival!

Have a good one, Headless Hollow readers (all four or so of you)! May 2008 be a year of unfettered happiness, intellectual stimulation, creative satisfaction, unconditional love and personal fulfillment for you all! My fervent hope for a year in which the world enjoys a bit more tolerance, freedom, equality and understanding than it did in the last 200,000.

And don’t forget your Armour of God kids!

Posted by universalhead at 10:06 AM

Sunday, November 11, 2007

OCD Porn

Coins For some reason, my girl and I share the same affliction: we tend not to carry our loose change around much. We had two very full coin bowls in the house, and another bagful she’d been lugging from house to house for a few years. So we decided to finally count all these coins and take them down to the bank. And as we started counting, I started laying them out in neat rows on our tiled floor … OK, so I have a mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Anyway, it looked good. And it made them easy to count.

How much you ask? $1,128. In coins. Onto the mortgage.

Posted by universalhead at 1:52 PM

Friday, October 19, 2007

Jasmine

Jasmine The jasmine flowering in our backyard … the perfume is wonderful.

Posted by universalhead at 2:41 PM

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Fhtagn!

This place needs a little cheering up! Click the image above to see the lovely detail in a larger copy. I can’t find out who the artist is, but nice work whoever you are.

Update: The artist is Francois Launet, and he has a whole site chockers with wonderful Cthulhoid goings-on here.

Posted by universalhead at 11:54 AM

Sunday, December 24, 2006

A Very Headless Xmas

Perhaps that last post wasn’t quite in the spirit … but a very Merry Xmas to my readers—and may 2007 bring you much health and happiness. I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!

Have a good one.

Posted by universalhead at 1:01 PM

Friday, December 22, 2006

Hell is Other People Part II

Regular readers may recall a little rant called Hell is other people? back in June. It was sparked off by an altercation with my neighbour, a boofhead who refused to modify his lifestyle the slightest iota despite the fact that our side windows are about a metre apart and our front two rooms share a wall seemingly made of tissue paper.

Every morning I would awake to a deafening SNNNOOORRRTTT!!! as he blew his nose in the bathroom; every Thursday night we would be woken by his child, who stayed one night a week, waking up bawling her eyes out because of some nightmare in the early hours of the morning; every evening I would go to bed with the sound of his TV playing too loud late into the night.

Finally, this jerk moved out of the rental terrace next door and we had a couple of weeks of blissful silence. Surely, we thought, we’d have better luck next time? A nice couple in their late thirties/early forties with no kids or yapping dogs? Is it too much to ask?

Apparently. Yesterday, the gods took their revenge and gave us everything we had before, but turned up the dial marked “Fucked” another couple of notches. A couple with two screaming little kids with voices like flensing knives. One woke up bawling its eyes in the early hours of this morning, pulling me out of sleep. They’ll be at home all day every day and I work at home. The father stayed up til 1am watching TV, but they’ve moved the TV one room closer to our bedroom now. The couple are sleeping in the bedroom next to ours and I can just about hear every time they turn over in their sleep. and - wait for it - the final nail in the coffin. 6am this morning, I’m awoken by a SNNNOOORRRTTT!!!

Sigh. Right now, we we’re looking at the expense of double glazing, sound reinforcing the walls, air-conditioning, and anything else we can find to get a little bit of our sanity back. And trying to work out what we did to deserve such rotten luck.

Tell me your noisy neighbour stories people. What do you do to stave off the madness?

Posted by universalhead at 8:28 AM

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Brief Ruminations #1

You know all that lint that collects in the lint collector in the dryer every time you dry your clothes? Where does it all come from? How come your clothes don’t eventually disappear?

Posted by universalhead at 11:31 AM

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Don’t you just hate it when …

… you’re too busy to post anything on your blog and most of your recent posts disappear off the front page because they’re so old?

Posted by universalhead at 9:42 AM

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Beauty of the English language, wherefore art thou fucked?

A friend of mine just went to a meeting and got to twenty playing Buzzword Bingo:

take it offline, stakeholders, deliverables, key inputs, clock starts ticking, ‘rock ‘n’ roll’, timeframes, milestones, critical path, committed to, working model, limited resources, liaise with, walkthrough, empowerment, methodology, dependencies, on-stream, lock that down, go-forward date

BINGO!!!

Update: Thanks top Sarah for pointing out that ‘wherefore’ means ‘why’, not ‘where’. See, you can never stop learning!

Posted by universalhead at 12:56 PM

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

The 6th of June, 1944

D-Day Today is the 62nd anniversary of the D-Day landings, as was pointed out to me by my far more educated-on-the-subject friend, Will. Take a moment to look around you and be grateful you’re not storming the beaches of Normandy right now.

It may seem strange, but playing games can be highly educational. The Days of Wonder game Memoir ‘44 has taught me a lot about this particular subject, and also given me an insight into the specific struggles that happened during and after the landings. I’m also playing the XBox game Call of Duty: Finest Hour at the the moment, and it’s certainly as close as I’d ever like to get to real warfare.

Thanks to those men, most of us can never imagine what they had to go through. And we can only imagine what the world would be like if it wasn’t for their sacrifice.

(Photo from the U.S. Coast Guard/National Archives, Washington, D.C. Used without permission.)

Posted by universalhead at 7:01 PM

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Fear of Food

I’m happy to say I’ve surmounted a few challenges in my life—travelled to interesting places, climbed a few mountains, started my own business, worked in a foreign country alone—all things I thought were pretty difficult at the time. But they all seem chicken feed in comparison to the challenge I find myself faced with lately—an allergy diet.

Let me tell you about it. For quite a few years I’ve been plagued with various stomach problems. No need for details. But I was beginning to wonder if stomach cramps were just something I’d have to learn to live with, when a friend recommended an allergy specialist. Not just any allergy specialist, but one experienced and qualified enough to not only decifer my allergies through a series of blood tests, but to prescribe a course of treatment that would fix them.

Well, a couple of appointments later I have learnt I have the classic symptoms, and I’m allergic to a number of foods. And here they are kids—wheat, grains, dairy, nuts, soya and nitrites (processed meats). And, I hasten to add, this is a mild allergy problem. You could also be allergic, should you be so unlucky, to eggs, yeast, fruits, sulphites (things like onion and garlic), msg and glutamates; not to mention any number of inhalants from the lawn to mould to the family dog.

Apparently, it’s a symptom of modern life. In the case of foods, there are so many chemicals in everything, and so many foods used in other foods (look at a few labels and be shocked at how many things contain wheat), that our systems are going haywire.

For me, unaccustomed as I am to denying myself much of anything in the food department, it has been a hell of a shock, which I’m only just starting to adjust to after two weeks of truly monumental whinging. I’ve found myself always thinking about food, having to plan all my meals again, searching out foods I’m allowed to eat and rejoicing when anything passes the test (Smith’s Crisps are only potato, oil and salt. Hallelujah!) Living without beer, however, is hell.

There are some advantages to this whole life upset. I’m learning to cook again, and we save a lot money on takeaway. My palate is becoming re-educated to enjoy the most basic foods again—ye olde meat and three veg back on the plate instead of Indian curries, Thai food, gourmet pizzas. And I’m learning the many virtues of herbs.

The real good news is, with luck and strict discipline, the diet will only last thirteen weeks. If all goes well an allergy vaccine I’m taking will build up an immunity and I’ll be able to reintroduce all those things that we all take for granted. Not to mention live a life free of stomach cramps. But I’m telling you now though, when finally I get the all-clear, I know the first thing I’ll be tucking into with gusto.

A big bowl of the chocolatiest, nuttiest ice-cream I can find.

Posted by universalhead at 6:29 PM

Friday, April 7, 2006

Bin Wars

After buying our own place recently, I vowed I would make an effort to better get to know my neighbours. But people are … weird. Take the saga of our recycling bin, for example.

I notice we don’t have a yellow recycling ‘wheelie bin’ in the back lane behind our house. However, there’s one a few doors down that is suspiciously missing a second numeral. Could it be ours? Well, I have no proof, so I don’t go grabbing it and saying it’s mine, of course. I call the council, who send someone out to try and track down my missing bin.

Sure enough, they identify my bin as the one with the missing numeral, slap a sticker on it to identify it as such, and I think the problem is solved.

Only next collection day, my bin goes missing, and I get a note—sure, a pretty friendly one—in my postbox from the neighbours. “We noticed you took our bin, so we took it back” or words to that effect. The bin is now out of the lane and sequestered away in their back yard, out of reach of nasty neighbours like me. Oh well, confusion on the part of the council, I think. I go round and apologise for the mixup in person. Then I call the council again and this time they send me a new bin. That’ll be $81.50 thanks. Oh, and if you ever find a bin with this code number—it’s yours.

This morning, I notice the old bin is out in the lane. You guessed it, same code number. It was ours all along.

So, do I let the whole thing slide and, in effect, pay for my neighbour’s bin? Or do I go round there with the proof?

You think war, pestilence and famine are tough? Try getting on with your neighbours.

Posted by universalhead at 11:02 AM

Saturday, April 1, 2006

Indiana Giff

Sorry things have been so quiet around here, it’s been a busy month. Now that March is finally over my girl and I can breath a sigh of relief that we made it out the other side intact.

We moved into our first house at the end of last month; I got was sick with a virus for two weeks; both my parents visited from overseas; it seemed every bill imaginable—especially the raft of them that appear when you buy a house—was due in March and I finally got around to holding my 40th birthday party, which I was determined to have even though the actual birthday date was back in December.

It was quite a bash, and I feel like the occasion has been well and truly marked, and our new house has proved to be very able to hold a successful party. In a nice bit of synchronicity, some forty guests came, most in costume for the night’s theme, Indiana Giff in the Raiders of the Lost Youth. To ensure that people would dress up a created a small site with costume ideas. There’s a link there to photos from the night if you’re interested.

There was some mammoth preparation involved; I created a pretty big ancient temple entrance out of foam pillars, complete with gold idol surrounded by snakes. As you entered the house a stone ball surrounded by vines and featuring a big rubber snake loomed over you. I like to get people in the mood.

Oh, and by the way, please don’t send the lawyers Steven, George—it was only a one off and it was purely a not-for-profit event (though I did get some excellent presents …)

Now, it’s time to pick up the pace here a little at Headless Hollow, dear reader.

Posted by universalhead at 5:35 PM

Monday, February 27, 2006

Homeownin’

The office is set up, the bookcases are filled (is there anything more satisfying than getting all your books out of those imprisoning cardboard boxes and back on the shelf again?), the blinds put up, and despite the back room still pretty much being full of unpacked things, we’re here in our very own house and getting back to normal. Symbolically, they removed the ‘Sold’ sign from the front this morning.

I can’t describe what a relief it is to have that whole house buying experience behind us. Having a place I could call my own is something I was beginning to think wasn’t going to happen—well, not a house in Sydney, at any rate. I’ve been renting for twenty-one years. Let’s not think about how much money has gone into other people’s pockets in that period. But my girl and I somehow managed to finally do it. House prices finally came down a little from the ‘you-have-got-to-be-kidding’ range into the ‘just-affordable’ range, and six months later here we are.

It’s a great spot too. There’s a large shopping centre around the corner; close enough to walk to but far away enough to be out of sight and hearing. There’s a nice big park around the corner. We have rear lane access and a decent-sized back courtyard. And wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, we’re in a cul-de-sac, so no passing car traffic. What a difference that makes.

Now, I can finally stop worrying about whether we might have to move again in six months, or whether I can save enough for a house deposit. All I have to do is make sure there’s enough money in that bank account every two weeks to pay my mortgage. And, at last, I don’t have to wait for real estate agents to fix things that are broken. Every time I fix or improve something here I feel like I’m doing it for us; improving the place we live, and increasing the value of our home.

God, I sound like an ad for a bank. Anyway, if you’re wondering if it’s worth buying a house, I recommend it. The runaround with solicitors and real estate agents and banks is an absolute nightmare (I’ve never felt so at the mercy of luck in my life—buyers have very few rights and caveat emptor is the excuse for every kind of slackness on the part of the seller), but once you come out the other side it’s a great feeling.

Oh, and that’s the floor of our living room in the picture above.

Posted by universalhead at 8:50 PM

Friday, December 23, 2005

Happy Xmas to you, happy Xmas to you …

Here’s a little Xmas story I wrote for my writing group, for your reading pleasure. It’s called Bah Humbug. Happy Xmas and New Year, Headless Hollow readers. Time is precious—thanks for spending a little of yours here.

Usually, the first indication that another bloody Christmas is about to hit comes when I’m walking around my local shopping centre, happily minding my own business, and I suddenly realise with mounting horror that Christmas Carols are playing over the sound system. And not just any Christmas Carols these days, oh no. The people who make these decisions have decided to blend two of the worst forms of auditory torture known to mankind—a combination which I hereby christen “Carols and Carey”. The songs are the same tired old favourites that get trotted out year after year, but now they are sung by the most atrocious, screeching harridans that the American music industry can produce. This produces the kind of irritating and prolonged cacophony that one might hear should your dear Aunt Agatha, who fancies herself a bit of an Opera buff, accidently stumble backwards into the stove and put her hand on a hot plate with her full weight behind it. A relatively peaceful shopping expedition becomes akin to a trip through that special Circle of Hell reserved for people who use leaf blowers on a Sunday morning.

Happy Xmas to us, happy Xmas to us …

We’ve exchanged contracts. Whew. Our own home at last.

Posted by universalhead at 4:33 PM

Saturday, December 10, 2005

House Buying

Well, if all goes as it should, tomorrow will be my last day free of major debt*. Because on Monday my girlfriend and I will be signing an agreement which will make us obligated to paying off an obscene amount of money over an unimaginable amount of time (30 years). However, I have several consolations while facing this frightening prospect: a) I think we’ve got a pretty good house at an OK price; b) millions of people take on the same amount of debt every day and manage to survive; c) now that I’m working from home, my mortgage payment is still less than what I used to pay on home rent plus studio rent; d) I’m lucky enough to be entering into this agreement alongside a wonderful girl I love and e) I’m almost 40, how much longer can I put off this mortgage thing anyway?

It’s been a stressful ride, and it ain’t over yet, but it may actually work out. From what my more responsible and have-their-shit-together friends tell me, it gets easy after the first year or two.

I keep joking to my girl that soon she’ll be up on a ladder in white overalls and I’ll put a dab of paint on her nose and then we’ll both laugh. And we’ll spend all our weekends ‘doing things around the house’. And thumbing through Ideal Homes Magazine (quick, be the first to identify that Joe Jackson song!) But on the whole it seems like the right time to be doing this stuff. And what a pleasure it’s going to be to hang a picture without worrying about getting the bond back.

PS Yeah I know I said I wouldn’t talk about real estate. But hey, this is big stuff for me OK?
PPS No, it’s not this place. (Sorry, I never did check it out.)

*Maybe. Maybe the debt starts when we settle in seven weeks—hmmm, I must check that…

Posted by universalhead at 10:30 PM

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Tiny Room in Purgatory

Tiny room My girlfriend and I are looking to buy a place of our own at the moment. And while usually I dislike talking or writing about real estate, I had to share with you this little gem she discovered yesterday: ‘Too Good to Be True.’

Let’s look at this paragon of the advertising art for just a moment. Everything about it screams care and attention to detail. Linger on the way it’s all written in capitals, so it feels like the agent is shouting at you. Delight in the spelling: “TO GOOD TO BE TRUE” … “AVAILBALE FOR INSPECTION”. Wonder at the tempting adjectives and the way they work together: “IMPRESSIVE” and “LIVEABLE”. And then, the piece de resistance, the photo … yes, that is the only photo. But don’t despair, you can click on it to get a larger view and revel in the glorious detail of the image!

I don’t know about you, but I’m reaching for my chequebook as we speak …

Posted by universalhead at 8:30 AM

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The boots were made for etc

I’ve been working from home again for almost two months now, and the temptation to turn into a mindless slob who spends all of his time staring mindlessly at a glowing computer screen is so strong, I’ve recently begun forcing myself to get up and go for a walk. Sure, I walk up to the shops with my little Thermos mug and get a large takeway cappuccino ever morning, but I’m talking about a decent, mile-munching late afternoon/early evening leg-stretcher.

And what a difference it makes. After a day at the coal face—others may call it a 15 inch Mac LCD screen of course—there’s nothing more mind- and lung-expanding than striding about the back streets of your neighbourhood for half an hour. I’ll put some good walking music on the shuffle (today happened to be Turin Brakes, Coldplay, Spain and Aimee Mann) and head off in my chosen direction. Slowly I’m forcing myself to remember to get a good whiff of the flowers I pass, or register the tasty smells of what people are cooking for their evening meal. I’ll stop and say hello to the odd friendly cat. And in just a few minutes I’ve forgotten about the design I’m working on and my senses take over and give my brain a rest.

I highly recommend it. But you may have other ways of rewinding after a long day’s work, especially those of you who work from home. What are they?

Posted by universalhead at 7:26 PM

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Heron Island

If you’re ever down in Australia and feel like a ‘resort holiday’, I can highly recommend Heron Island. Five nights there felt like a month’s break. I also managed to fit in six dives on the Great Barrier Reef, and the highlight was encountering two huge (at least 2.5 metres from wingtip to wingtip) manta rays, slowly circling above a coral outcrop 15 metres below the surface.

The island, at least when we were there, swarms with birds chattering away all day and all night; a bit noisy when you first arrive but you soon find the calls relaxing, and it sure beats traffic noise. Every evening we went down to the beach (a complete circuit of the tiny island takes about forty minutes) to watch baby turtles crawl out of the sand and make their desperate rush to the sea. Truly the cutest baby animals on the planet, the staff know them as ‘sea biscuits’ because of the unfortunate fact that just about every form of wildlife in the sea or flying above it loves to snack on them. Only about 1 in a 1,000 make it to adulthood. Trying to improve the odds, we would protect them from gulls and, at least for a little way into the water, small reef sharks and eels.

The city seems a mad, noisy, smelly place after a tropical island. Check out some shots on the Photos page.

PS. Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ll back in the swing of things soon.

Posted by universalhead at 2:36 PM

Monday, February 21, 2005

Attack from the Deep

Us Australians laugh at the cliche that the country is swarming with deadly beasties with the capacity to kill a human with a single bite. I’ve seen a few television specials that really pump up this angle, going into great detail about shark attacks, funnel-web spiders, snakes, stonefish, crocodiles etc etc. You’d think they’re jostling for space down Pitt Street in Sydney (along with the kangaroos). Your average Australian has a good laugh and plunges back into the surf or embarks on another bushwalk.

My girlfriend and I were swimming at Soldier’s Beach on the Central Coast on Sunday, however, and for the first time since I was about six I was stung by a bluebottle. That’s a Portuguese Man-of-War to you overseas readers; a small blue jellyfish with long, streaming stingers that is often washed up onto Australian beaches by westerly winds. It’s also an integral part of the childhood of anyone who grew up near the coast.

Unfortunately, my girlfriend was stung as well, and considering she’s not 100% comfortable in the surf and I was slowly encouraging her to be more confident, I was surprised by the bad luck. Despite the press, you don’t often get bitten or stung here in Australia. Fortunately, it was a minor ‘attack’. A bit of ice to the stings eased the pain, though I have a row of itchy red bumps down my right wrist as I write (note to forgetful self: don’t scratch bluebottle stings).

In a way, it was good she was stung. It’s like a rite of passage in Australia, getting stung by a bluebottle. Everyone should try it.

Update: I’ve changed my mind. You shouldn’t. She’s fine but I’m suffering rows of itchy red welts on my arm, leg and foot. Guess I’m allergic to bluebottle stings as well as mosquitos…

Posted by universalhead at 9:53 AM

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Barbie and Ken go on a Trek (TM)

A friend took this photo in a toy store in Tokyo recently. Actually, when you think about it, Barbie and Ken would be perfect on the Enterprise. Shame she’s a ‘red shirt’ though, they never last long …

Posted by universalhead at 2:34 PM

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me …

The day closes on my 39th birthday, and what an excellent birthday it was, largely due to my wonderful girlfriend who showered me with thoughtful gifts and attention. Books (‘1001 Films to See Before You Die’, ‘The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe’), games (‘Corsairi’ and ‘Babel’), a DVD (‘Edward Scissorhands’), an Edward Gorey-illustrated Dracula stage play cardboard set, Moet, and an original 1954 bakelite ViewMaster. What taste! Now, I just have to get used to the concept of only one year of my thirties being left …

Posted by universalhead at 10:34 PM

Thursday, November 11, 2004

The meaning of the meaning of life

Listening to the radio in the car today I learned this fascinating tidbit. If it were possible to drill a shaft from the precise point of the North Pole to the precise point of the South Pole, and if you could fall through the shaft without friction (and without all the other annoying inconveniences; stick with me here, this is theoretical), you would speed up until, at the centre of the earth, you were at escape velocity (11 kilometres per second) then, as you passed the centre, you would begin slowing down, until you emerged at the other end of your journey slowed to a stop. Amazing, no? Well there’s more. The journey would take precisely 42 minutes. Forty-two. According to Douglas Adams, the answer to the question of the Meaning of Life. Co-incidence? Or … not?

Posted by universalhead at 9:57 PM

Wednesday, October 6, 2004

Love Without Hope

Love Without Hope. That’s the title of a new blog by a friend of mine. She’s new to the blog game, go and give her some encouragement. Then again, how about giving me some encouragement?? (More coming soon, I’m working like a madman lately.)

Posted by universalhead at 8:14 AM

Friday, July 9, 2004

Phoebe from Cassini

Phoebe
Saturn’s moon Phoebe as seen from Cassini. More information and photos.

Posted by universalhead at 12:02 PM

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Joke of the day …

A guy drives into a service station with two penguins in the back of his car. The service station attendant says to the guy “what are you doing with those two penguins in the back of your car?” The guy answers “I don’t know what to do with them.” The attendant says “well, why don’t you take them to the zoo?” The guy says “that’s a good idea, I’ll do that.”

Next week the guy drives back into the service station with the two penguins still in the back of his car. The attendant says “didn’t you take those two penguins to the zoo?” The guy answers “yeah, they really enjoyed themselves. Today we’re going to the beach.”

Boom-tishhh.

Posted by universalhead at 11:14 AM

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Welcome …

What the world needs now is another blog… ahh, here’s one. If you’re a designer, you might enjoy it. If you like movies, music, art, books, writing, travel… well you might find it occasionally interesting too. There’s nothing too personal here, and hopefully nothing too boring either. If you like, leave comments about posts using the ‘Comments’ links.

Talking about launching… the practice of breaking a bottle of wine over a ship’s bow was introduced by the British navy in the late 17th century as a cost saving measure. Previously the ships were baptized with a ‘standing cup’ of precious metal, which was then promptly thrown overboard. The rapid production of ships during the height of the British Empire put an end to that.

Posted by universalhead at 8:24 PM

Monday, May 17, 2004

Quote of the day

“A committee is a dark alley down which bright ideas are lured and silently murdered.”

Posted by universalhead at 9:16 AM

Friday, May 14, 2004

Drum kit

Drumkit.

Posted by universalhead at 4:42 PM