Walking And Talking

I went for a long walk in the marshes with a friend. I wasn't wearing any windproof clothing so, despite the clear blue sky and bright sunshine, I got quite cold whenever there was a breeze.

At around 3:30 pm it began to snow. The snow was light, but cold. I wished I owned better, warmer clothes. One day I'll by some. By that time global warming will be o severe that the world will be one giant paradise. Maybe.

We ate at Olive's Cafe. Despite the rather high prices, I'm starting to like Olive's a lot. The staff are friendly without being annoying, and the food is great. The only problem with Olive's is that there's not enough space. It's a problem that most cafes in England suffer from, but that doesn't make it any easier to accept.

Got a little bit of study done before going to bed.

Bullet In The Head

I got shot in the head this morning during a particularly vivid dream. I was traveling in a dangerous country, I'm not sure where. Whenever I was walking there was a constant barrage of bullets. The bullets were being fired from far away. I remember that whenever I was walking I had to maintain an awareness of where my body was all the time so I could avoid direct hits. When I got hit in the head loads of blood and bits of skull sprayed out everywhere. I think the bullet took off part of my forehead and didn't penetrate my brain. I remember thinking about whether the blood would clot: I had to keep walking and I was worried that I'd die through loss of blood before I could reach a safe place. I woke up soon after that so I guess I didn't make it.

Zen Bones, Zen Flesh

I was up until 1:30 am this morning revising for a Microsoft server administration exam. When I reached the point of total exhaustion I read more of The Futurological Congress.

I managed to pass the exam with a good score. I hate Microsoft, their exams, their software, their attitude, choice of colours and anything else that is Microsoft-related. This does not change the fact that in the UK Microcrap qualifications are still important for people wanting to work in IT.

I'm doing a reasonably good job at not feeling anything about the exam. It's just as important not to give a fuck if you pass than if you fail. I feel nothing. Passing an exam is nothing to be proud of, just as failing an exam is nothing to be ashamed of. "Being well-adjusted to a sick society is no sign of good health" - Krishnamarti.

AFK

I've hardly written any email in the last few days, chatted online, listened to Internet radio or used Skype. I will start dealing with my email backlog at the weekend, and hopefully get listen to a few Internet radio shows as well. And eat some sensible food...

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".

Sick, Sorry And Tired

Watched 6 episodes of the BBC comedy series Red Dwarf. Didn't eat anything.

Today a British soldier died in Iraq, bringing the total to 100. More than 100,000 Iraqis are said to have been killed as well as several thousand US soldiers.

Started writing a huge list of tech stuff that I want to learn about over the next few months. Will post it here soon.

Recently I have been eating very little apart from the following:
Soup
Chocolate
Paracetemol

Still can't sleep much.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Although I woke up many times during the night, feeling fevorish and bored, it was so bad because I was never cold(as I was in a sleeping bag)

While trawling through Wikipedia I discoved a link to Tim Wright's website, Cold Storage Tim Wright made the music for the cult Amiga game "Shadow Of The Beast II". I downloaded a couple of MP3's of the soundtrack to Shadow Of The Beast II and listened to them off and on all day. The game has been a huge influence on my life, and the name Karamoon was taken from it. Reason enought for you all to learn about the game, play it, listen to the music and buy the t-shirt.(they go for about £40 on ebay)

Watched a Jonathan Meades documentary called "Meades Eats: Fast Food" on BBC4. It was all about English people being crap at cooking, eating and buying food. Yet again all I can say is that Meades is God.

Off to watch the new series of "The Mighty Boosh" on BBC2, one of the few comedies in recent years to be worth 30 minutes of my life. Good night, and good luck.

Friendship Month

Met my friend Phil for lunch to plan our radio show. We got a lot done and I feel we have a good chance of getting a show. Initially the show would just be for four weeks as the radio station will be using a temporary license but later it would be every week forever:)

Ate lots of soup today, and some bad curry. Drank two pints of coke, some Lemsips and some hot chocolate. Avoided sweets, so maybe things aren't too bad.

AG emailed me this evening. Among other things, she said that she is going to dedicate the whole of February to keeping in touch with her friends by email, phone, letter etc. I too am going to do this. February is going to be my first and last "Friendship Month". From March onwards I'm going to be super-organised:
I'll use AIM/ICQ, MSN, Tor etc.
I'll start using VOIP
I'll send a card and letter to everyone who's address I have
I'll post to my blog at least twice a day
I'll call a friend at least once a day

Yet again I'm going to have to sleep in my sleeping bag, wrapped up in my duvet, just to have even the smallest chance of staying alive during the bitterly cold night.

Sleepless in C-attle

When I went to bed at 1:30 this morning, I knew that the only way I was going to survive would be to climb into my 4-season sleeping bag and then wrap myself in my 13.5 tog duvet. I still spent most of the night awake and in pain. My throat is so sore that, in my half-asleep state, I kept thinking I must have stabbed myself in the neck, possibly as some kind of protest against the rising cost of chocolate.

Breakfast this moring consisted of "Tomato Rice Soup" which I'm told is a well-know American dish. It was jolly good for something that came out of a can. A bit like my past.

The Dead And The Dying

I'm feeling truly shit. 'Flu, a sore throat, insanity, general irritability and bad hair are all conspiring to kill me. It's possible that I may last a few more days but, in case I don't, please take this opportunity to post some comments on my blog and email me: karamoon (at) gmail (dot) com

The sky was beautifully clear tonight so although it was fucking freezing, I spent quite a while watching the stars (and discussing the possibility of hijacking a space shuttle) with my friend Yoshiko.

On Tuesday I called British Telecom to inform them that the light and windows in one of my favourite telephone boxes were broken. The woman I spoke to claimed it would be repaired in couple of days. I assumed that she was on another planet yet today I noticed that they telephone box had been fixed. It just goes to show that I am great.

No More Nukes

Attended a meeting tonight about the Faslane 365 campaign. Faslane is a nuclear base in Scotland, it is home to some of the UK's Trident nuclear missiles and submarines. Faslane 365 is a campaign to blockade the base for a whole year, starting in October this year. I'm not sure if such an ambitious project can be successful give the apathy in this county, but it will certainly be interesting to see what happens.

I had a nutritious dinner consisting of a Cadbury's Creme Egg and a bag of Haribo jelly sweets. Fuck.

Wake Up, Sleepy Head

Managed to get to bed at a sensible hour last night. Due to the cold I had to sleep with extra blankets and bed covers. Possibly as a result of this, I woke at around 5:30 am. A couple of minutes later it was 7:04 am and Ed Pacman was wondering why I wasn't up and ready to run...

A slow day at work. Spent a long time chatting on SDF. Tucked up in bed by midnight.

If This Was LJ

If this was Live Journal, my posts might look something like this:

Music: "Too Young" by Phoenix
Mood: Fucked-In-The-Head
Food: Nothing, I'm fucking starving. Send Kara a goddamn food parcel already!
Shoes: None
Weather: Shite, but hey, this is England
Eyes: Right
Odour: Old books and cobwebs
Reading: www.Bloggerheads.com

To be honest, I don't read any LJ pages, so I don't know what they look like. It would be kind of odd if they looked like this, but I guess it's possible.

Man With A Plan

I think I may be on the verge of getting a weekly local radio show. Hopefully I'll get a demo show recorded this weekend. So far the radio station, Future FM seems very enthusiastic.

"His motive[...], it's in his dreams"(Manhunter, 1986) Things are finally coming together. Soon Tokyo Robotnik will become something, something big and real and wonderful. Success will be when Karamoon and all his friends are working together, they shall be free. They cannot be stopped. Until then, Karamoon will continue to have sleepless nights, longing for the silence of the lambs.

I'm waiting in anticipation for the Datrecorder blog, which I imagine will cover all the crazy stuff that goes on in Birmingham, with photos and possibly podcasts as well. Watch this space.

Note: If you are reading this you should also be posting comments, reading Tokyo Robotnik and emailing me: karamoon at gmail dot com.

(Japanese)Food For Thought

The Tokyo Robotnik empire is finally starting to take shape! I've just started two new blogs and am assembling a team of experts who will help me to run them.

Nihon Tasty is about Japanese food, cooking and eating. Snack Fan Japan is about Japanese snacks such as Pocky and Cup Ramen.

More Tea, Mr Tea?

As loads of people have emailed me since my post regarding Mr T, I probably ought to explain who is is.

Mr T is the presenter of a motivational video for kids called "Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool". The video is very hard to get nowadays but there are some clips from it on various websites. Mr T's main advice is that you should respect yourself and love your mother. I urge all readers of this blog to do some googling and learn about Mr T.

In other news, Karamoon is about to start two new blogs!!! One will be about Japanese snacks, the other will be about Japanese food in general.

And Suddenly There Is Change

Norwich is still fucking freezing. It took all my energy just to leave the house to buy chocolate this evening. On the way back from the convenience store, something magical happened, something that has made several years of failure all worthwhile. I'll post more details in the future, suffice to say, Karamoon is a very happy bunny.

Mister Tea

Some of my afternoon was taken up with learning all about Mr T. Some of you may not know who Mr T is, if that is the case then please email me for details: karamoon at gmail dot com.


The following facts may be of interest:

- Mr. T destroyed the periodic table, saying Mr. T. only recognizes the element of surprise.

- Mr. T can walk on water. He can also walk on fire. His preference however, is to walk on fools.

- Every time a church bell rings, Mr. T pities a fool.

- Mr. T scared the black out of Michael Jackson.

- When in the presence of Mr.T a magic-8-ball ALWAYS predicts PAIN!

- Satan sold his soul to Mr. T.

- Mr T tried to break the speed of light in the A-Team van because he wanted to prove that quantum physices was a bunch of Jibba Jabba.

- Mr. T shot J.R

- When Chuck Norris interrupted Mr. T's breakfast of diesel fuel and shovels, Mr. T stood up and Chuck Norris sh1t himself, knowing a roundhouse kick to the face was useless to Mr. T's pity

- Mr T does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Mr T goes killing.

- Mr T counted to infinity - twice.

- When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Mr T

- Mr T ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

- When Mr T sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, Mr T has not had to pay taxes ever.

- Mr T can touch MC Hammer.

- Mr T likes to knit sweaters in his free time. And by "knit", I mean "eat", and by "sweaters", I mean "babies".

- Mr T died ten years ago, but the Grim Reaper can't get up the courage to tell him.

- Mr T doesn't sleep. He waits

- Mr T has already been to Mars. That's why there are no signs of life there

- President Bush did have an exit strategy for the Iraq war. However, Mr T was too busy that day pityin' fools

- If Mr T is late, time better slow it's foolin' ass down

Sleeping Beauty

The great Karamoon didn't fully wake up until after 12pm today! This was after a series of very strange dreams, some of which told Karamoon that getting the Tokyo Robotnik Magazine started is the only way to save his friends, the world and the human race.

An Important Question

How Many People Under 40 Really Know Who Abbie Hoffman Was?

The Princess And The Pea

This evening I got an email from a princess. I don't mean someone who is like a princess, I mean a real princess. She emails me occaisonaly, usually to cheer me up. Her email certainly did give me a much needed motivation-boost, which was most selcome as I was just about to give up everything. Although AG, as she is known, is a genuine, 100% authentic princess, she still has to do a day-job(she's a translator, a food-safety consultant and a philosopher, among other things) and, thankfully, she reads blogs.(Princess AG, if you are reading this blog today, please email me again!)

In other news, I've been hunting out all the tech stuff I have secreted around my house. Unbelievably, it all seems to work. I've now got a couple of Cisco routers set up by my main PC and loads of nice toys covering my desk.

The Karamoon Who Came In From The Cold

At 12:30 am I met with Emily and some others from the Norwich Stop The War group at The Greenhouse Cafe, which is crap. The cafe had a few shelves of used books for sale. I bought "Lewis Carroll's Games And Puzzles" compiled by Edward Wakeling. It's published by Dover, my favourite publisher. Dover use great paper and bind their books very well. They also charge very reasonable prices. Please visit their site www.doverpublications.com and buy some books!

I ate some Lemon Drizzle Cake, which was quite pleasant but I drank some kind of natural vegan Coke substitute. It tasted of medicine and made me want to kill.

We set up a stall in the city centre and spent a couple of hours handing out leaflets. It was very, very cold.

We returned to The Greenhouse Cafe where I had a drinkable cup of breakfast tea. We had lost some people due to the cold but those of us who were left, Emily, Vic, Peter, Jan, Luzie and myself, had a long discussion on how life will change over the next 10 years as natural resources (rapidly?) run out. We didn't reach many conclusions, the main question is whether to try to reverse the trend, or whether to find a remote place and set up an independent community.

Sleep Stalking

Had a quick morning run with Ed. I had to cut it a bit short due to the fact that I was pretty much still asleep. Ed had some French boy in his flat who wouldn't leave. Sounded quite harsh.

Work has been hectic this morning. Just Em and I here, with a constant stream of students, phone calls, exams and enrolements. My teeth hurt.

A sales call today:
Twat: Can I speak to the owner of the business?
Karamoon: No, I'm afraid not.
Twat: Why not? Aren't they there?
Karamoon: We don't take sales calls.
Twat: This isn't a sales call.
Karamoon: It sounds like one.
Twat: I know but it isn't. This is 4UBusiness, I'm just calling about your
current mobile phone provider.
Karamoon: We don't take sales calls. Goodbye.[Hangs up phone and laughs]

Met Jon after work for a weekly haxor meeting. Nobody else turned up. We discussed tech support, Cisco, manholes and tunnels. On my way home I resisted the urge to spend several hours in a phone box.

Listened to "Off The Hook" and "Off The Wall" while looking for my Cisco routers.

Windoze Blowz

Our Windows 2003 server fucked up today. I spent about two hours trying to sort it out. In the end I had to call a friend for advice.

I had booked a place at a lecture on Japanese archeology but I felt unable to attend. I went home and read Make magazine.

Watched most of the second series of the BBC comedy "I'm Alan Partridge".

Calling All Callers

I recieved an interesting histry lesson in a pub after work. I now know a reasonable amount about Iraq(1902-1939). That will come in handy when I start knitting.

I was tucked up in bed by 5am, after several hours in a phone box. Phone are fun. Very fun.

Back On The Brain

Been listening to old Brain Damage shows downloaded from 2600.org

I watched a repeat of the Jonathan Meades documentary "Jerrybuilding" on BBC4. It was great, as is everything he has ever done. I then forgot to watch the Ross programme on Hong Kong films.

I'm thinking of making a Jonathan Meades fansite...

Pajamas In The Daytime

A good run with Edward Pacman this morning. Each run is easier than the last, but I still need to improve quite a bit before I'll get back to the level of fitness I had a few months ago. Maybe it will be easier once the mornings are warmer and brighter.

I bumped into an old friend on SDF. She's pregnant. I remember when she was just a kid(2 years ago). It's so fucking scary. Age and death are always with me now.

Later Than Late

It's been a long day. In the morning I went to a meeting to launch an envoronmental campaign group in Norwich. I then had lunch with Emily and then had tea with a bookseller who wanted advice on streamlining his business.

At 15:00 I met a friend of mine, Yoshiko for afternoon tea. Yoshiko is a petrologist studying Environmental Sciences at UEA. We went to a cafe near the telephone exchange and drank hot beverages of reasonable quality. Most of our discussion centred around undergroud exploration. Yoshiko has spent a great deal of time carrying out inspections underground and told me how I could find horizontal inspection tunnels called adit tunnels.

Yoshiko and I also discussed working conditions in Japan. Yoshiko recently worked for 90 days straight. Poor working conditions are, perhaps unsurprisingly, really fucking Japan up. The brith rate is dropping and the population is rapidly aging, meaning there won't be enough young workers to support the elderly.

On my way home I found a pay-phone and spent a couple of hours there. When I finally got home I couldn't sleep so I spent a few hours reading wikipedia. I finaly got to bed around 3am.

Giant Robot

Picked up the new issue(39) of Giant Robot magazine at Borders bookshop. There were some really great articles and features, the best being an interview with Wayne Lo, an Asian-American serving life in prison for shooting some students at his university.

Jon from Norwich 2600 came to meet me. It's been several months since I've seen Jon. I didn't recognise him as he has cut off all his geeky long hair. We went to a quiet pub to catch up and discuss tech stuff. Phil was unable to join Jon and I, probably due to a foot injury.

At The Coalface

Work, work, work. I imagine that this is what being dead is like. Days spent reading Bash, Bloggerheads, B3ta, Wikipedia and Google Groups. It's easy to survive work if you just play around and also eat lots of unhealthy food. But is it living???

One of my students passed a computer maintainance exam today after several months of study. I'm glad he did as I am his tutor...

Workin' in a coal mine
Goin' down down down
Workin' in a coal mine
Whop! about to slip down
Workin' in a coal mine
Goin' down down down
Workin' in a coal mine
Whop! about to slip down
Five o'clock in the mornin'
I'm all ready up and gone
Lord I am so tired
How long can this go on?

Fatso's Speakeasy

Strange day at work today. We were meant to talk about what can be done to make the company profitable. Instead we just talked about nothing all day, and had a bad lunch at "Fatso's Speakeasy". Such is life.

Due to some political BS happening in the US at the moment, the hacker radio show "Off The Hook" was 2 hours long, instead of the usual 1 hour. Although it was still kind of crap, at least it gave me something to do for 2 hours.

Wed Nes Day

Back at work after 4 days. Fortunately Claire, our work experience girl came in so I spent quite a while chatting to her about travel and security.

Girls On Film

Watched a very decent TV programme on Japanese film presented by Jonathan Ross on BBC Four. Next week the programme will be on Hong Kong cinema. I can't wait.

Brass Eye

Watched a couple of episodes of Brass Eye on dvd. Spent many hours reading about Brass Eye, The Day Today, Chris Morris, Alan Partridge and other related stuff.

Sunday, Cruddy Sunday

I watched Lost In Translation while doing some stuff for the Tokyo Robotnik website.
I watched it partly because I had to and partly because I had been discussing it with some other SDFer's last night. Watching Lost In Translation is a way of returning to Japan for me.

Next time I meet someone really stupid, I'm going to hit them, very, very hard, just so they know what it's like to be both stupid and have a broken jaw. The inspiration for this comes from the character Kelly in Lost In Translation, a girl so dumb she deserves to be shredded. It is alleged that Kelly is based on Cameron Diaz.
I quite like the idea of being famous for beating the stupidity out of people.

I watched Wargames with the commentary on. The things we do...
I went swimming this evening but, as usual, spent most of my time in the steam room and sauna. When I got back I ate an exceedingly large bowl of stirfried noodles with chicken and oyster sauce.

Tokyo Robotnik Is Currently Recruiting!

Tokyo Robotnik is looking to expand its team. There are several oportunities with the web team at the moment, so if you are living in Japan and want to write for the Tokyo Robotnik site, please get in touch.

Karamoon Is In A Very Bad Place

On my way home from work I went to a discount book shop where I bought a diary for £1.50 and an A4 box file for £2.50. This is the extent of my life. There is no more. Just this. Fuck.

Work is Teh Suxor

I've been back at work for two days and already it's killing me. As far as jobs go, mine is fantastic. I work with great people, little is expected of me and things are generally fun. The pay is very low, but that;s not such a huge deal. The problem is that I just hate work. Working sucks so much. It steals my time and my soul and my will to live and my hair. How long must this go on??????

A bunch of SDF users from the UK will meet up next month in London. I'm very excited about it as it could become a regular thing. I'll probably give a talk on something very technical. Or not.

Midnight At The Oasis

Met up with Mr Cross, Emily and Edward at a cafe/bar/whorehouse. I drank hot chocolate while Ed and Em drank bear and Cross drank red wine. We left around midnight. Sad but true.

It rained on the way hom. I couldn't sleep so I read and tried to listen to the latest Off The Hook.

One Small Step: New Year Resolutions

Projects for 2006:

Build the KaraDome, a dome owned and built by me, Karamoon.
Get a decent computer job, preferably one which is very hard.
Present a weekly radio show.
Read every computer book I own.
Resist the urge to buy any books for a year.
Give a talk at HOPE in New York.

Happy New Year

I returned home from Berlin to a hero's welcome. 2005 has been quite a bad year for me, despite being full of good stuff. It's very much going to be a case of sink or swim for me next year. If things don't work out then I'll just go find something difficult and dangerous to do.

CCC Day 4: It's All Over For The Unknown Soldier

About half the people at the CCC have left so there's quite a strange feeling here.

"Quantum Entanglement"
I find it hard to get interested in anything quantum-related. I spent most of the talk using my laptop to read the Hack-A-Day website which is a daily listing of interesting projects on the Net for you to try at home.

"Covert Communications On A Dark Network"
Social networks are really, really interesting. Seriously interesting. Before this talk I had not thought about the "6-degrees of separation" theory which states that packages can be delivered anywhere in a system in 6 steps. This was explained in the first few minutes of the talk so I spent the rest of the hour thinking and writing about the theory.

"Lightning Talks Day 4"
I sat through a bunch of lightning talks but few caught my interest. I still think lightning talks are a great idea though.

"The Very Early Computer Game History"
This talk covered computer games from the 40's and 50's. It was a very fun talk but it was more interesting to see old computers than the games that were played on them.

"22C3 Network Review"
Although I didn't directly use the network much, it was nice to know that it was there. The CCC had several connections to the Internet, totalling 20 Gigabits. This is more Internet power than THE WHOLE OF AFRICA.

"22C3 Closing Event"
Lots and lots and lots of clapping. Rop talked about the reactions that he had got from the talk "We Lost The War" which he gave on the first day.

CCC Day 3: H4RDC0R3

"Academic Tools And Real-Life Bug Finding In Win32"
This talk made me miss maths so much! The first part was on computerbility and the halting problem. The second part was on how to use software tools to search through source code and find security holes which may be there. Great stuff.

"Private Investigations In Searching"
Fravia was one of my favourite speakers at the CCC last year. He looked a bit different this year and may have been someone else... The talk was the same subject as last year but a lot of the techniques had been updated.

"I See Airplanes!"
I've been interested in passive radar for a couple of years now. This talk explained a lot of the science behind the idea and talked about several current passive radar projects.

"Lightning Talks Day 3"
Some interesting lightning talks, covering a wide variety of stuff. One that stood out was a talk by Christian Tan about how hard it is to run an record company that supports the free distribution of music.

"Learning JavaScript With The Google Maps API"
I've played around with JavaScript a bit, and for a long time I've been meaning to make some nice things for the Tokyo Robotnik website with JavaScript.

"Random Windows Stuff"
Ollie Whitehouse failed to turn up to give this talk, hopefully nothing harsh has happened to him. Fortunately Dan Kaminsky decided to give an impromptu talk on interesting things he has been thinking about recently. If Kaminsky joined the dark side he would be so much cooler. Whitehat hackers just don't get it.

"WarTracking"
A basic but interesting talk on the different satelittes that exist and how they can be explored with very common equipment.

"Intrusion Detection Systems"
A rather straightforward talk on IDS's and how they should be linked up on a LAN using a common data format.

"Honeymonkeys"
A good technical talk on a way to actively discover what techniques malicious websites are using to attack computers which visit them. Kathy Wang, who I met last year at HOPE, is doing interesting things in this area.

"Breaking Down The Web Of Trust"
Americans generally shouldn't be allowed to talk about identity issues in an international context because they fail to understand that identity in some countries is not as big of a deal as it is in the US. In particular, the US uses social security numbers for so many things in daily life and also driving lisenses are used in many transactions whereas in many countries this would be unacceptable.

CCC Day 2: Picking Up The Pace

"A Way To Fuzzy Democracy"
I don't find fuzzy logic massively interesting, but it is quite useful. This talk covered voting systems where the votes aren't of equal weight eg. with a vote on a local issues, the closer you lived to the area the stronger your vote would be.

"3G Investigations: GPRS/UMTS"
I've always considered GPRS to be too expensive, but it's something I'd like to use in the future. This talk covered some basics on how Internet connections work with mobile phones and other handheld devices that use GPRS/UMTS.

"Military Intelligence For Terrorists"
This was really just a talk on GoogleMaps. The only surprising thing was how much people in the audience knew about aeroplanes. They were able to identify most of planes at various airbases that the speaker had found on google.

"Black Ops Of TCP/IP 2005"
Dan Kaminsky's "Black Ops Of TCP/IP" talks are always interesting and always entertaining. I love TCP/IP and it's great to see that there are people in the world who continue

"Search Engines: Oracles Of The Information Society"
Three random guys talking about search engines.

"Old Skewl Hacking: InfraRed updated"
I saw this talk last year at the CCC, and it hadn't changed much. I'm glad I watched it again though because it was very entertaining and besides, you can never know too much about infrared devices.

"Technological Art Off The Trodden Tracks"
This talk started with an overview of various new media art projects, many of which I was already familiar such as stuff from the IAA and the Critical Art Ensemble. The talk then tried to address the question of whether spoof art projects were just as effective as real art projects.

"Corp vs. Corp: Profiling Modern Espionage"
This talk was given by a couple of Italians. They basically said that corporations use very well-known hacking methods to spy on eachother.

CCC Day 1: It's Good To Be Back

Nothing beats a good hacker conference. The CCC(Chaos Communication Congress) has been taking place every year since 1984 and is one of the most important events in the hacker calendar. 150 talks, 3000 hackers, computers, phones and phun.

"Private Investigations Keynote speech"
Joi Ito used his keynote speech to assert that democracy is broken but that there is still lots that can be done to improve things in the world. Ito is a member of several important international committees so he tends to say stuff like that...

"Understanding Buffer Overflow Exploitation"
A standard talk on the consequences of slack coding on VN architecture. Nothing special.

"Hopalong Casualty"
This talk covered ways of getting video surveillance systems to recognise varios types of activity, using weak artificial intelligence. There are several talks on machine learning, fuzzing, and other AI-related stuff at the CCC this year. Usually I'd say it's something that interests me greatly, it was, in fact, a big part of my life when I was younger, but with something practical like CCTV it seems silly to focus on what's interesting instead of what works.

"Hacking CCTV"
Fuck. Trapped in a German lecture. I had though that this talk would be in English because the description of it in the CCC programme was in English. Fuck.

"Hacking Data Retention"
A good overview of data retention but not much that isn't obvious.

"Bad Trips"
A decent talk on how the WTO fuck people over through the use of trade regulations to assert Intellectual Property rights.

"We Lost The War"
This will be the defining talk of the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress. Rop and Frank said a lot of things that people didn't want to hear, let alone believe. The talk mainly covered the emergence of the surveillance society and the technology behind it. My favourite quote from the talk: "We need to build crypto and we need to build it fast".

Packing For Hacking

My good friend Richard will be over in less than 7 hours to drive to Gatwick airport and I'm still struggling to pack. Like always, I want to take just hand luggage if at all possible. I have three main issues: which coat to take, which books to take and which shoes to take.

I've been listening to talks from hacking conferences all day so I'm feeling pretty psyched-up.

I settled on taking a yahting jacket, a copy of "The Art Of Deception" by Mitnik and a pair of army assault boots.

Karamoon's Christmas Address

Highlights of 2005:
Giving a talk on culture jamming at Norwich EASF
Getting a "Borders" bookshop in Norwich
Attending "What The Hack" in Holland
Attending "BrumCon", the UK's best hacker conference
Reading "Beneath The City Streets"
Going to Armenia
Being interviewed by the BBC four times!
Speaking to Tim Ireland on the phone
Making loads of amazing friends in Norwich

Aims for 2006:
Speak at a hacker conference
Pass lots of computer exams
Turn Norwich 2600 into a decent group
Publish Tokyo Robotnik Magazine

Watching Them Watching Us.

My good friend Dr Edward Bearskin came over this morning. Like all sensible people, we decided that the best way to get into the Christmas spirit was to stay inside all day watching cool stuff. First we watched "This Is What Democracy Looks Like", a documentary about the 1995 demonstrations against the World Trade Organisation. We then watched "The Yes Men", a documentary about the subversive infiltration of commerce conferences by anti-capitalist agents. Very inspiring stuff.

I Dream Of Jeannie

When I awoke this morning I recalled a strange dream I had had last night. In the dream I stabbed a man in the eye with my thumb. At the time, I thought I had destroyed their eye but it later turned out that the injury wasn't has serious as it had first appeared.

Pass The Porcelain

This evening I attended the 50th lecture on Japanese culture organised by the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts & Cultures. The lecture was given by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, the director of the Institute. Dr Rousmaniere's lecture covered the emergence of porcelain in Japan, a subject which is of little interest to me although the porcelain was exquisite.

On my way home I met Pete Smith from Ipswich. I've met Pete several times at the East Anglian Social Forum and have always found him to be a source of stimulating conversation.

I watched an episode of the Japanese anime series Outlaw Star before going to sleep. I should probably watch much less anime, or much more. Either way, the amount of anime I'm watching at the moment is clearly sub-optimal.

A Jar For A Head

I managed to obtain a ticket to a preview screening of "Jarhead". The screening was at a cinema I had not visited before. The reason I had not visited it before is that the cinema is in heart of "Riverside", an area of Norwich where the streets often flow with blood and people speak a strange tongue, as different from English as a monkeys are from chips.

The film was quite good. Essentially it was a remake of "Full Metal Jacket" set during Gulf War I. Harsh, but not harsh enough.

Attending the preview screening reminded me how much I hate students. If they are ouyr future, we're well-and-truly fucked.

My Mate Marmalade

After some shopping in the city centre, I hurridly baked a marmalade cake to take to the house of my friend Peter. I'm always wary of cooking things to take to other people's houses. I find it jolly embarrassing to eat a meal at someone's house, all the time knowing that my desert will put them to shame. Fortuanately Peter's wife Jacky is a great cook, so the meal wasn't upstaged by my fantastic, although slightly over-cooked, marmalade cake.

Got Wood?

Regular readers will know I often feel depressed after watching Woody Allen films. Today I felt the need to watch the 1979 film "Manhattan" while eating my lunch. Woody Allen films are depressing for me because they remind me that (1) I'm not anything like Woody Allen, and (2) that my life is not like a Woody Allen film.

Watching Manhattan made me think about how culturaly dead Norwich is. One of the major issues in the UK is that there are so few places to hang around. So much "public" space is in fact owned by various companies.

My good friend Suzi called my around 11pm and I discussed the cultural things with her. She seemed to genuinely understand my pain. We are going to start a book group in an effort to inject some culture into our lives. It will fail.

Looking at a far mountain?

The clowns at Amazon claim to have finally dispatched my Ethernet ADSL adapter. I'll be surprised if it arrives tomorrow, and jolly pleased. Assuming it arrives, I'll be faced with the task of getting it to work with my broadband provider and my wireless router, not to mention the task of setting up VPN access for my PC and Apple Powerbook.

Kein Mitleid Fur Amazon

Called the scum at Amazon again about the Ethernet ADSL adapter that they have failed to send me. I spoke to a woman this time. After calling the order-fulfillment centre she informed me that the item was, and always has been, in stock and that it hadn't been sent to me because the Amazon computer system couldn't cope with the fact that my one of my registered phone numbers didn't start with +44, the dialing code for the UK. The most sensible course of action would have been to commandeer a car, travel to the nearest Amazon office or depot, and send the managers and supervisors to Hell, possibly through the use of petrol and/or under-cooked chicken(which is lethal in the UK) Being such a sporting chap, I instead asked for an explanation to be emailed to me and a money off voucher...

Boris-Fucking-Johnson

Boris Johnson, the only person in British politics worth baking bread for, has today proved himself to be one of the greatest MP's to ever live. Boris has said that if he receives the leaked memo about Bush's plan to bomb the al-Jazeera TV station, and Blair's role in persuading him not to, he'll publish the document in The Spectator, breaking the Official Secrets Act and going to prison if necessary.

Go Boris, Go!

The blind leading the blind

Emily was off sick today and my boss wasn't at work either so it was just me and the office manager. I did, however, have the pleasure of training Claire, a young woman who is doing work experience with at my computer school. When I say young, I mean she is a few years older than me, as most people are. I also spent quite a bit of time teaching networking to Andrew, one of the few students who ever does anything. All in all, a very good day.

Men at work

Due to various members being of staff being away, I had to work today.

Studying for fun and profit

A good day of almost solid study.

I've got your number

Attended the SISJAC lecture on Japanese ceramics. It was held at Blackfriar's Hall, instead of the library in the Sainsbury Institute where the Third-Thursday lectures are usually held.

I spent some time talking to a friend of mine who works at British Telecom laboratories. I wanted to ask him about t eh role that British Telecom may or may not play in Numbers Stations, the short-wave radio stations used for one-way secure communications to spies around the world. I wasn't sure how to phrase my questions so I'll save them for another time.

Going nowhere fast

Failed to go to London for the SISJAC lecture at SOAS on Japanese ceramics. Probably not a bad thing. Stayed at home studying instead.

The breakfast of champions

I had a mid-morning brunch with my friend Peter and his wife. We talked about the criminal destruction of the UK's library service as well as other issues of the day. It was my first time to drink coffee since Armenia. Coffee is very strange and I'm not all too sure why people drink it.

Spent a cold afternoon handing out anti-war leaflets with 5 friends. There was a good level of public support and some crazy kids helped out as well.

We're on the road to nowhere

This evening I attended a rather sureal meeting about a new road which will be built around Norwich. Only a handfull of people tuirned up, and the meeting was held in a very unpleasent pub in the centre of Norwich.

The road itself will be a disaster for the people of Norwich. Although local government are claiming that the road is required to reduce congestion in Norwich it is, in fact, a development road. It will be part of a project to encourage urban-sprawl. The project will involve 100,000 people moving to the outskirts of Norwich. Where the 100,000 people will come from doesn't seem to have been addressed yet.

Part of an unhealthy diet

I started the day off with a bowl of high-fibre cereal and skimmed milk. Things went rapidly downhill from there.

I spent a long time looking for my magnetic stripe card reader as I wanted to take it to the Anglian Linux Users' Group kit meeting. Richard arrived in his so-called car so I just put my Powerbook, some books, some Linux disks and some networking gear into a big rucksack and we left for UEA, where the meeting was being held.

The meeting itself was bitterly disapointing. Fewer than 15 people came, not many people had hardware with them and the room was crap. Life is full of things like these.

My lunch and dinner consisted of bakewell tarts, almond slices, 4 types of biscuits and several cuyps of tea. I can't go on like this.

By a hair's breadth.

At 8:30 this morning I went to a local barber shop in order to have my hair cut. 30 minutes and 9 quid later I was almost unrecognisable.

At 10:30 I visited my good friend Edward Pacman. Edward had an old laptop which he didn't use anymore and had very kindly said I could have. I now own four laptops, which is a big increase on the one that I had previously. We drank tea together and Ed showed me the telephoto lense that he recently purchaced for his SLR camera. I don't believe Ed is a stalker, but he certainly has the equipment to be one. The camera has a full-auto mode which allows you to take 6 photos in quick succession. Coupled with the sports-mode autofucus system, the camera is ideal for people sitting in cars, photographing girls as they walk by.

Study Leave

Got up at 8am to begin the next phase of my life. It felt odd not to have to go to work. My running partner Edward Pacman is having a few days off as he works at the local university and term has just started so things are very hectic. I'm hoping that running with him every morning at 7 am will help a lot in my quest not be organised and not just lie in bed when I'm not at work.

I ate some rather stodgy porridge for breakfast and then got down to some study. My study mainly consists of watching IT training cdroms so it's not too taxing. I find that I can recall 60-80% of what I have watched without too much effort. I have piles of tect books which I will try to tackle next week.

I had a heavy lunch consisting of curry, nan bread and rice left over from last night. I then took a walk in the afternoon and returned home to do more study. Yet more study after dinner. I'm starting to find the guy in the training videos slightly annoying but fortunately I'm interested in the material so it's not such a big deal.

Several of my friends from SDF have left brithday messages in the guestbook of my website www.tokyo-robotnik.com I feel lucky to know such lovely people. Please leave a message if you have time.

I'm still buzzing with energy from BrumCon. Although some of the talks were rather weak it was all very inspiring. Only working three days a week from now on will mean that I have far more time for learning important stuff, and less money to waste on unimportant stuff.

A Very Sad Day

Today has been one of the saddest days I can remember. A few hours ago I got home from work to find a small package addressed to me from Canada. I opened it up to find the book "Access All Areas" by Ninjalicious, the editor of Infiltration zine. I had pre-ordered it months ago and completely forgotten about it.

I've been reading Infiltration for many years now. It has always been inspirational in its content and style. It has been a massive influence on my life, and was one of the reasons I started my website and blog.

While sitting on my bed, looking through the book, I noticed a slip of paper in the package. It said the usual thank-you-for-your-support type thing, but also said that Ninjalicious had died in August. I checked this at www.infiltration.org and found it to be true.

I feel completely devastated. Infiltration meant so much to me, and since I started reading it I always saw Ninjalicious and his girlfriend(later his wife) Liz and role models. Regular readers will recall that I listed them as people I wanted to meet in the very near future. That was the 19th of August, just a few days before Ninjalicious died.

In the past few hours I've been reading various things that fans of Infiltration have written about the tragic news. It's amazing to see how many lives around the world were enriched by Ninjalicious and his zine.

RIP Ninj, you are mourned by many.

Listening at Work

Just Emily and I at work today. A few students came in, but none whom were particularly interesting. I spent some time listening to "Off The Wall", one of Emmanuel Goldstein's radio shows. Goldstein is currently traveling around the world by ship, train and car, doing a radio show in each major city. See 2600.com/offthewall

Listened to Off The Hook when I got home. Goldstein is on the last leg of his trip, traveling back to the USA on a cargo ship.

Catching Up

Fuck... At the time of writing this post, the previous post is dated Friday, August 26th. My sources tell me it's not even August anymore...

I will go through my paper diary and write blog entries for the last couple of weeks very soon, so hang in there, and enjoy the wait:)

Chillin' on a Sunday in da Norwich area

At 2pm Suzi and I cruised over to the Norwich Playhouse, which is being used as a cinema while Cinema City is being renovated. We watched a film made up of clips from the East Anglian Film Archive. We very lucky to get in as the 250-seater theatre was packed out. While we were queuing outside the Playhouse my good friend and jogging partner Edward Pacman walked past. We agreed to meet up with him later as he didn't feel like joining the queue. The film was reasonable, but as I hate Norwich it was difficult to be too interested in it.

We then went over to the Stranger's Hall Museum where we had tea and biscuits in the garden with Edward.