Dreaming Of A White Tuesday

Got up at 10:30 am. When I opened the curtains I was surprised to see that snow had fallen while I had been asleep. The snow made the scene outside more visually appealing, but in my heart I knew that beneath the snow nothing had changed.

Spent all day studying. Didn't waste much time at all today, but I'm still not feeling very confident about passing my next exam.

I haven't left the house all day. If I had, I would probably have bought lots of chocolate. And happiness.

Went to bed, physically exhausted and sick of living.

Understudy

I devoted the majority of the day to study. I was relatively successful, although I won't know how successful I've been until I take my next exam.

At 5:30 pm I went to the university for yet another showing of "The End Of Suburbia: Oil Depletion And The Collapse Of The American Dream". It was the 5th time that I had seen it, and it hasn't got any better. About 80 people attended the screening, although only about 30 stayed for the discussion afterwards. I'm getting increasingly concerned by the use of mock-scientific arguments regarding environmental issues. I shall write an essay on the Peak Oil theory soon, and shall post it on Tokyo Robotnik for all to see.

I'm currently reading "The Futurological Congress" by the Polish author Stanislaw Lem. It's a satirical science fiction novel I read it over 10 years ago, but amazingly I can still remember many parts of the book. Like Lem, I generally think science fiction is poorly-written junk. I don't read much of it, but the little that I do read is always great.

The Switch, The Witch And The Cupboard

A good friend of mine took me out for lunch. We ate a traditional English roast in a pub. Following tradition, it was of pretty poor quality.

I left the city centre and walked to the university to correct the English in my friend Keiko's essay. We cooked Japanese cream stew which we ate with our friend Yoshiko. Our friend Yumiko was unable to join us because she had foolishly arranged to eat some Greek pizza elsewhere.

A cupboard in Keiko and Yumiko's flat had been left unlocked by the cleaner. As well as the usual cleaning equipment, the cupboard held a small computer equipment rack which contained a network switch and some patch panels. I was tempted to unplug the cables and randomly reconnect them, but I'm able to resist temptation due to my unusually strong willpower.

On my way home I found myself in a phone box where I spent approximately an hour. Make of that what you will.

My Life Is A Tapestry

In the early hours of this morning I watched episode six of The IT Crowd on the Channel Four website. Exceptionaly good, and sadly the last in the series.

At 10:30 I walked into the city centre to meet a friend. I spotted her walking to the cafe where we had agreed to meet, and walked in her shadow for about 10 minutes. She paused to let me overtake her, and then saw that it was me. This kind of thing amuses me greatly.

We took morning tea in a very comfortable cafe(I in fact had hot chocolate, my friend had coffee), and discussed subject ranging from daily life in England to how old people's bones break.

Making a new friend is always a positive experience for me, but sometimes it's far beyond what one might expect. I shall write on this at length sometime in the near future.

My friend and I went to Norwich cathedral to see the Quaker Tapestry. It's a bit like the Bayeux Tapestry in France which depects the invasion of Britain in 1066. The Quaker Tapestry depicts the history of the Quaker movement, a subject that is far more interesting than it sounds. I was unaware of how anarchistic the Quakers were, rejecting the hierarchical system that Christianity and other releigions are usually based on. I was also unaware of the fact that the Quakers were persecuted in England; one of the most moving panels in the tapestry showed a group of Quakers holding a meeting in the rubble of a Quaker meeting house that had been destroyed. The founder of the Quakers, George Fox, was imprisoned for, amongst other things, refusing to pledge allegiance, use titles of respect and remove his hat in court.

Lunch was less than satisfactory, as is often the case in Norwich. I had a prawn-mayo baguette and a very dry piece of carrot cake. Next time I'll opt for the soup.

Sharks And Shrimps

I saw a lot on my way to work today: people waiting at bus stops, a bag woman, business men in pinstripe suits, an old man taking food from rubbish bins, workers waiting to be let into work by thier supervisors, people walking, people standing. Very few people were talking. Why the fuck are we living like this?

Spent some time in a pub. Will try to avoid doing it again for a while. Pubs are bad. People in pubs mean nothing to me.

More people are reading Dislocated than ever before. Please spread the word.

The UN Style Council

The good people at Ubuntu Linux sent us 50 Ubuntu Linux packs at work. This was both welcomed and unexpected. The covering letter said something along the lines of "We think you are in a position to spread the Good News." I hate Ubuntu Linux because it has a stupid name. Not interesting but true, like a lot of stuff in this blog.

What I've been...
Doing: Scanning my old photos (for you guys!)
Reading: Linux In The Workplace
Listening to: Cafe Bleu by The Style Council
Eating: Whatever I can find. This is getting really bad. I'm living on tea and
promises.
Watching: The world go by, and hoping that it never, ever comes back.

Born On The 4th Of July

Sir John Keegan, the English military historian, today made the following statement: "I've received notification that Karamoon has suceeded in copying his blog entries for July of 2003 from the Tokyo Robotnik website to the "Dislocated" blog. The insight provided by what is literally a glimpse into the past cannot be overstated. This is a great day for historians everywhere."

By the end of next month I will have copied all of my blog from Toyko Robotnik to here. Enjoy.

Of Cloudless Climes And Starry Skies

When I woke up this morning the sun was streaming through my curtans, bathing my room in a warming glow. After a second or two I realised that something was wrong. The weather in England doesn't give you energy, it takes it away. A quick look at my alarm clock told me what had happend. Instead of saying "It's 7 am, you can have breakfast, check your email and go to work" it said "Fuck, fuck, fuck etc. It's 9 am, you should be at work now. What you gonna do, homeboy?" I don't usually do Tuesdays but a couple of members of staff were away so I said I'd be able to work.

Without waking up, I got dressed and rushed to work, texting my boss on the way to say I would be late. I got to work at 9:30 am, hungry and bored.

The day passed without anything interesting happening. A day just like any other.

Got home and watched the 3rd episode of Indigital, a 30 minute technology show. Download it at www.systm.org Not very good, but worth watching if you have no friends and are tired of being alone.

Japan: It's Not What It Used To Be

Spent a very plesent evening with Yumiko and Keiko. We discussed various social issues relating to Japan such as the large homeless population there and the lack of health education in Japanese schools. We ate Miso Ramen, one of my favourite Japanese dishes. It consists of Chinese noodles served with a very rich fermented-soya sauce.

Onegai-shimasu

BlogCode is a new website which provides blog recommendations based on how people describe blogs.

I need people to rate this blog on BlogCode so please take a couple of minutes to do it for me now:

Go to the BlogCode site
Click "Browse Blogs"
Type "karamoon" into the title box and click the Search button
You'll see my blog, click "Code this weblog"
You code the blog by moving the each slider to indicate aspects of the blog
Click the Submit button
It should take about 5 minutes. Thanks!

The Eyes And Mind Of God

My friend Keiko came over in the morning for some help with an essay she was writing. It was very heavy going but also intellectually stimulating. I learnt a lot about Bourdieu's concept of culture although I'm not sure when it will come in handy.

Keiko and I watched "Stop Making Sense", a film/documentary of a Talking Heads concert. The DVD includes an interview with David Byrne, an unusual aspect of the interview is that Byrne interviews himself, as several different interviewers. Very strange.

One must strive to see things with clarity and thus make decisions with certainty. This can be called having the "eyes and mind of God". While giving my friend Suzi an account of what happened at EASF I suddenly understood something that I had been unable to see at EASF on Saturday. It's likely that this sort of thing will occur with increasing frequency as my mind gets stronger.

The Burning Keeps Me Alive

Although I woke up at a reasonable time, I was still running late this morning. In fact, I had to do a great deal of running to prevent myself being late.

I had to get a few things together that I wanted to take to Cambridge today for the East Anglia Social Forum. It took me quite a while to find everything: notepads, copies of The Great Commotion(a free news sheet in Norwich), a book to read on the train, culture-jamming stickers, Ubuntu Linux cdroms and a map of Cambridge. Once I had got everything together I was 15 minutes behind schedule. I had to run to the train station, a 40-minute walk, just to catch my train.

Running felt very good; the burning in my body(lactic acid?), the sensation in the soles of my feet, the images in my mind of the world rushing by...

Found a seat on the train and started to do some reading. I wanted to just fall asleep but the fact that I might have woken up 6 hours later in Liverpool prevented me from doing so.


When I changed trains at Ely, I met Sam, a friendly young man who I had met several times before. We got on the train to Cambridge and, 15 minutes later, got quite concerned that we were not in Cambridge. Somehow we had taken the wrong train although I'm sure we were right and the train was wrong. We eventually got to Cambridge and found our way to the EASF, which was being held at the Friend's Meeting house.

EASF takes place every couple of months in East Anglia. The last one was held in Colchester and the one before that was in Norwich. The Next EASF will be in Ipswich. Various people attend and discuss social issues such as housing, human rights, work and food etc. The atmosphere at EASF is always wonderful and basically EASF is the best thing I'm involved in.

The first Cambridge EASF session was about the future of free healthcare in the UK. Our National Health Service is a terrible state and things are rapidly getting worse. There were several people from the NHS there who shared some of their experiences and opinions and we had a good discussion on whether community run hospitals could replace centrally run hospitals or at least alleviate some of the pressure the NHS is under.

Lunch was very light. I had 2 biscuits, 2 cups of water and an apple. I talked to a lot of lovely people and felt very good about life. Such is the power of EASF.

The people from Ipswich had brought some Swap Shop things with them to give away. I picked up a book on programming in the Macromedia Flash MX animation language. I was tempted to take the Nintendo 64 games console but I was able to resist.

The second Cambridge EASF session was about resisting globalisation. Some heated debate at points, lots of general chat about what everyone was up to and what they wanted to do in the future.

At 4 pm we all went for a walk through Cambridge, ending up a pub. It's hard to explain why English people go to pubs. They[the pubs] are generally very unpleasant. I can only imagine it's some kind of genetic memory.

Phil and I re-recorded the our radioshow, this time with one of Phil's friends in the USA. It was ok but not great. You can download it here. It's about 50 megs or something but it does stream. Hopefully next week's show will be much better.

Caught Off Guard By The Arrival Of A Canadian

Being caught off guard by the arrival of a Canadian really isn't as bad as it sounds. I shall explain. I've recently made a point of being armed with a fact about Canada whenever the Canadian, known as LS, arrives at work. This morning, however, I had failed to look at the schedule and was, consequently, taken by surprise when LS arrived. Thanks to my quick-thinking, and the magic of the Internet, I was able to find a fact about Canada in a matter of seconds: "Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world".

Got some stuff fixed at work. Feeling almost good about it. Still have to escape this job as soon as possible.

After work I met up with Jon and Phil from the Norwich 2600 Hacker group. I talked to Jon about the Sun Solaris operating system. A couple of Phil's friends arrived and things went downhill.

Watched the 4th episode of The IT Crowd on the Channel Four website. Don't bother.

Hope For HOPE

One of the most amazing experiences of my life was attending the 5th HOPE conference in New York in the summer of 2004. HOPE stands for Hackers On Planet Earth and is organised by NYC 2600. Details can be found at Hope Number Six.

The Sixth HOPE call for papers has just been announced. I'm working on several papers that I plan to submit. If I am invited to give speak at HOPE it will be pretty intense and I'll have to essentially give up all aspects of my life to prepare my talk as each HOPE talk is usually attended by 400-700 people...

Got home from work at 9 pm and spent the evening reading and listening to a recording of a radio show Chris Morris presented in 1990 on Greater London Radio. So good it hurts.

Mathematics, Not Schematics

Had an interesting, and strange day. I was helping to run a mathematics seminar at work for some 15-year olds. The guy running the seminar is an associate of our company, but not an employee. He used to be a senior detective in London, and as a result all the examples he gave during the seminar were related to crime and distasters. It was very strange, and very cool.

I miss mathematics so much. Although the mathematics we were doing today was very simple, it was still interesting. I'd like to spend some time in the near future looking at colouring problems and also some cryptographic stuff. I'm currently brushing up on boolean logic with a view to building some simple calculators from transistors. Anyone interested in this should read "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charels Petzold.

Life Is A Vampire, Sent To Drain

Somehow I managed to get up shortly after 8 am for my Chinese lesson with Yi. Every time I use Skype I love it more. The lesson was very tough because Yi was teaching me the four different tones for Chinese syllables. Needless to say they all sounded very similar to me.

My mobile has been ringing constantly throughout the day. I don't remember being this busy for several days. Life would be easier if I had a reliable way to access the Internet while out and about. Most of the phone calls I got today were about various emails, having them in front of me would have helped greatly. I also need a better voice mail system. It will be quite a long time before I have any money, so I'll be without mobile Net access and happiness for the foreseeable future...

I still feel like I waste a lot of time. I must get more organized and more focused. I'm going to try to get into media this year although I'm not sure whether I should go for TV, radio or journalism. I guess I should try to get into all three. I have an idea for a comedy blog which may or may not work. I'm going to ask my good friend Phin if he'd like to be involved. Yet another exciting project in my action-packed, fun-filled so-called life.

In the evening I got a yet another phone call: "Do you want to live in my squat in London?" The offer was from PHM, a friend of mine I know through The Super Dimension Fortress. PHM plans to start a squat in London this summer with several people from SDF. It's something I definitely want to be involved with, so I should probably think about quitting my job soon.

To Go To Sleep Is To Admit Defeat

Fuck. It's almost 1 am and I'm very tired and I still have loads to do and I just want to sleep and I have arranged to speak to Ming and Yi in China at 8 am and my head really hurts. I've spent most of the past 14 hours in front of my computer. This can't be healthy.

Giving up, going to bed.

Making Friends In China

I made two friends in China today, without having to leave Norwich! It was, of course, due to the magic of Skype.

Ming was one of the people I contacted when I first installed Skype. She set up a conference call with me and her friend Yi. The audio quality with Skype is fantastic, much better than a long distance telephone call. The only problem I had was that sometimes Ming's voice was faint. Yi's voice was always clear so maybe the problem was at Ming's end of the connection.

Yi and Ming are both university students in Changsha, a city in Southern China, with a population of 6 million(London is 7.4 million).

Yi and Ming taught me some Mandarin, and I tried to teach them some English. I'm going to get a self-study Mandarin course soon, and I'll practice with Yi and Ming regularly.

There are many things that I'd like to ask Yi and Ming but can't because it would be unwise. I am however content just to find out what it is like to be a young person in China.

Talking to Yi and Ming made me miss China so much, even though I only spent a couple of weeks there, several years ago. I should return soon, China is obviously waiting for me.

Much Too Much, Much Too Soon

Managed to get up, but only just. I can foresee sometime in the near future when, instead of dying, I'm just unable to get up. I'll be awake and aware but I won't care enough about anything to get out of bed...

Bought some junk at a convinience store. It wasn't very convinient. It never is, but I still go there.

At 10 am my friend Yoshiko came over for some help with an environmental impact study she is doing as part of her Master's course at UEA. It was straightforward but time-consuming.

My friend Keiko came over for lunch. Keiko gave me some chocolates and some very strange paper napkins. One might wonder how strange paper napkins can be. These napkins have a form printed on the back, the idea being that when you meet someone you can fill in the form on a napkin with your contact details to give them. Very, very peculiar. We ate Thai green curry and talked about art.

Phil and I had a go at doing a radio show. It went very well for a first attempt. One of Phil's friends in the USA has set up a telephone conference system which I called into. It was quite difficult to stay on topic but surprisingly easy to find things to say. Phil and I are going to redo the show and use it as a demo to send to Future FM. We'll also put it online.

Watched The South Bank Show, an arts magazine TV program presented by Melvyn Bragg. It's not the sort of thing I'd usually watch but I made an exception becuase the subject of the program was Armando Iannucci, a man in whoose footsteps I wish to follow. Iannucci has written, directed and starred in some of the greatest comedy ever made.

Considereing it's Sunday, I've done far too much today. Hopefully this will continue in the future as it's the only way I'm ever going to get anything done.

First Steps With Skype

Brief summary of this post: Skype is great, technology is great, I'm great, life is great and my new friend in Hokkaido is great!

When I installed Skype a couple of days ago and sent messages to some people at random in the Skype directory asking if I could talk to them. A few hours ago I got a message from someone in Japan who I had contacted. And so it was that I had my first Skype session thanks to a Japanese woman called Yumiko, who lives in Hokkaido, northern Japan.

We talked about life in Japan, travel, cooking, America as a destructive force and many other topics that were of immense interest to me. Yumiko may join Snack Fan Japan sometime in the future and I'm sure she'd make a great addition to the team.

One thing I found very interesting when talking with Yumiko was how having access to the Internet greatly enhanced our conversation. When Yumiko mentioned parts of Japan that I was unfamiliar with I was able to look them up and get a better understanding of what she talking about. Yumiko was looking at this blog and also Snack Fan Japan while we were talking. For some reason my blog didn't make her hang up...

I learnt so much during the 1.5 hours Yumiko and I spent chatting. There's something really wonderful about the sense of freedom you get when you can talk to people across the world for free. Over the next few months I'm going to do more and more to integrate technology into my life and use it to free myself from the forces that restrict how I am able to live.

I hope that all the readers of this blog will try out Skype and use it to make some new friends.

Running On Empty

I went to the second meeting of the Norwich Campaign Against Climate Change at 10:30 this morning. I didn't manage to get up until 9:50 am and the meeting was in the city centre, 30 minutes walk from my house. After running to the meeting I was a bit out of breath but I still managed to argue with everyone else at the meeting. They didn't stand a chance against my superior wit and wisdom:)

Against my better judgment, I decided to watch the forth episode of Channel Four comedy series "The IT Crowd". It has improved since the first episode, but not much. If you have fast Internet access you can watch the episode online on the Channel Four Website.

I've found the power adapter for my scanner!!! As a result, I'll be able to add some interesting stuff on Snack Fan Japan. Please take a look and post some comments. I'll add something to Nihon Tasty in the next few days.

I drive a Rolls Royce 'cause it`s good for my voice

It's just getting harder and harder to go to work. Things will be better when the weather improves, but that could take years.

One of my students passed the second(and final) part of his IT certification today. He seemed very happy, and so was I. He said he'd bring in some cake and chocolate for everyone at work.

Popped into the library on the way home. It was rubbish.

When I got home I did some reading and chatted on SDF for a few hours while listening to "Children Of The Revolution" on continuous loop.

Skype Me

I've got Skype set up on my main PC at home. A brief into to Skype for those unfamiliar with it:
Skype is a system for having telephone conversations via the Internet. There are several alternatives, but Skype is the most popular. All you need is an Internet connection, a microphone and headphones/speakers. You download the Skype software and register a username. You can then chat to any other Skype user around the world for free.

So get Skype, then drop me an email and we can get chatting.

Working And Smirking

I'm alone at work today. There are quite a few students here and the phones were ringing most of the morning. I was unable to eat breakfast this morning due to being asleep. A consequence of being the only person here is that I can't go out to buy food. We've run out of mineral water as well, so I'm relying on hot chocolate from the drinks machine for my calorific intake.

Watched the second episode of Indigital, downloaded from www.systm.org It wasn't very good. The three presenters talked about various gadgets and said little of note. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I have no interest in the thoughts and opinions of stupid people.

STOPPRESS: More minerial water for watercooler has just been delivered!

Radio Who Do?

Still feeling quite ill. Bumped into Edward Pacman this morning. He's off to Berlin later this week.

At midday I went to meet the manager of Future FM Radio. He was ok, but smaller than I had imagined. He still seems quite enthusiastic about the radio show that Phil and I want to do. He did however want us to start by recording the show ourselves and host it on the Future Radio website as a Podcast. This is a pretty crappy offer because there are hundreds of sites that will host Podcasts anyway. On the other hand, if it leads to us having a weekly FM radio show it will be very cool.

Listening to: "Children Of The Revolution" by T. Rex
Eating: Chicken Soup For The Soul
Drinking: Pepsi Max
Reading: Your Palm
Watching: Them Watching Us Watching Them

Be A Winner At The Game Of Life

I spent the evening with some Japanese university students.
We ate Nikku-Jaga, a Japanese dish consisting of potatos, onions, beef, soy sauce and rice wine. I'll cook next time...

After dinner we were joined by Ali, a law student from Oman. The five of us talked about a very wide range of issues including, but not limited to, intellectual property, human rights, the suicide rate in Japan and fine art.

Played several games of Categorically Speaking. Went to bed very late, very tired.

Soho, So Low

Phin, Amy and I wondered around Chinatown for a while. Everytime I go to Soho a couple more shops and restaurants have closed. We spent a long time in a Chinese supermarket looking at many different Asian foods that were too heavy and too expensive for me to buy.

In the afternoon we headed to an art gallery in search of the Laughing Cavalier. We found it.

The 8:30pm train service to Norwich was partly replaced by bus service, increasing the journey time from 2 hours to 3 hours. The battery in my Apple Powerbook was only half charged but I was still able to watch 3 episodes of "Black Books", a comedy series I borrowed from Phin and Amy on DVD. It wasn't really my kind of thing but it was a very welcome way to pass the time.

Got home shortly after midnight. One can't return to Norwich without wanting to burn it to the ground.

THX-1138

I got to Norwich train station slightly before 8 am and took the delayed 7:37 train to London. Richard was waiting at Liverpool Street Station for me. We took the tube to South Kensington and found our way to the Imperial College Union buildings. Our previous visit there had been on a beautiful summer's day for NotCon, a one-day conference organised by Need To Know e-zine.

I was surprised and very pleased with the number of people attending the UK SDF meetup. Poff, PHM, Richard, Voidzero, Vosi, Plewylli and Brenden all came. We had some talks and lots of random discussion.

Poff recommended a local sandwich shop. Which turned out to be very good and was almost completely staffed by lovely Polish girls. I got a chicken curry baguette and some chocolate cake.

In the afternoon we watched "Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB", a short film directed by George Lucas. It was exceptionally good, far better than his later stuff like Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

The first day of the UK SDF meetup was a great success. It's always interesting to meet other SDF users. People are seldom how you imagine them, even if you've known them online for a couple of years.

At about 7:30 pm people went their separate ways. I took the tube to Stockwell where my friends Phin and Amy live. Stockwell is quite rough compared to South Kensington so I had to keep my wits about me.

At Phin's I ate Bean Pie. It was so good that I promised myself then and there to make some pies when I can be bothered. Phin, Amy and I watched The Yes Men on DVD, then I went to sleep on an army camp bed.

Mike Tee Vee

I watch the first two episodes of a new comedy series called "The IT Crowd". I was intending to watch it on TV, but I forgot. Amazingly, I was able to watch both episodes on the Channel Four website. I really am amazed. Things like that just don't happen in England.

The IT Crowd is about a tech support team in a large company. The tech support team consists of two male techs and their female manager. The first two episodes were terrible. The only feature of The IT Crowd is that Chris Morris, one of the greatest men to ever live, has a supporting role as the company boss.

Although I'm generally not a fan of light comedy, I can understand why it's nice to watch it sometimes. The Mighty Boosh is an example of a well-made, funny, watchable AND light comedy series. There is no good reason to make something as bad as The IT Crowd. The three main characters were very weak, there was loads of pre-recorded laughter, the lighting was bad so you could always tell that it was being filmed in a TV studio and Chris Morris should have been on screen all the time...

Dr Givingsome, I presume.

When I woke up at 7:30 this morning I coughed up some blood and found that I had lost my voice, and to some extent, my will to live. I tried some anti-bacterial mouthwash and some throat sweets but my voice didn't return. I called work and left a messege saying I wouldn't be in and then made an appointment to see a doctor.

On my way to the doctor's surgery I took a short detour through a new housing development. I walked around the development for about 15 minutes without seeing anybody else. It's a very creepy place. I'll post some photos soon.

My appointment was at 10:10 am but I didn't get to see Dr Harris until 10:35. She said that I have a viral chest infection and therefore there was no point in prescribing me antibiotics. I'm not sure that I agree because I think I have a bacterial infection in my throat, she probably thinks it will just go away.

When I returned home I ate soup and played with my cat Tabetha. Tabetha was recently taken to the vet where she had her claws clipped, she is very unimpressed.

BT? TB!

British Telecom have fucked up our Internet access at work. Fortunately my boss recently bought a GPRS card for his laptop, so I was at least able to check email and do some light web surfing. It highlights the importance of having a couple of different ways to access the Net.

After work I attended a vigil for the 100 British soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have been killed in Iraq since the UK and USA invaded. The vigil lasted about an hour, by the end of it my body was ice-cold. The same as usual:)

Feeling very, very ill. Having the 'flu isn't so bad but whenever I try to breathe deeply I just start coughing painfully. Although I'm not, strictly speaking, a "real" doctor, my diagnosis is: "The onset of old age, and a general lack of satisfaction with daily life".