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As I'm reorganising a lot of my web stuff (not that there was ever that much anyway), things are in something of a state of disarray at the moment. No stylesheets, no home page, just this blog and its archives. Job seeking stuff is taking priority at the moment, so it might be like this for a little while. But I will get round to sorting this out, eventually.
I thought it was feeling cold in my room. Due to the direction of the wind, I've actually had snow settling on the inside of my window! I've now closed my window, and pulled the secondary glazing across.
I'm glad I forgot to launder my curtains yesterday, otherwise it would be damned cold in here!
It snowed on the day I was born.
I don't actually remember that, but I've been told a number of times that that's what happened. Just now, I've been told again. The day started off with no snow, and finished with snow on the ground.
Interestingly, it's snowed today. And it's settled. A few inches deep. I thought we'd already had our 'deep' snow for this winter. Hmmm, I've heard of white Christmasses, but this is the first time I can remember having a white birthday. (Well, there've probably been a few previous ones, such as the day I was born, but I just can't remember them.)
Today has also been the day of coming up with the idea of a shop that sells jigsaws of your dreams. I don't mean your ideal jigsaws, but jigsaws of dreams you've had, you know, while sleeping.
There'd be a section of nightmares, a section of those particularly vivid dreams, maybe even a shelf of lucids. Of course, there'd be those jigsaws that are just impossible to do, and they'd be the dreams that were just impossible to follow mish-mashes of stuff that don't even have the prospect of making sense. And, perhaps, there'd be the adult section. Just imagine wandering into that shop, and spotting your parents in that section of the shop of your dreams.
I've also just wondered if, perhaps, sometime in the future when I'll have money to spend, and I buy digital telly, that I'll find there's a channel actually broadcasting dreams I've had. It'll certainly be handy for when I have dreams that are just so good that I wish dreams could be recorded. (And I don't necessarily mean those sorts of dreams. But I bet they'd broadcast them, too, late at night.)
I wonder if I'll have good dreams tonight. I've just eaten pizza.
When I got up today, as soon as I started the process of just getting out of bed, I found myself to have a bad back.
It had that feeling, a strong feeling, of being dangerously close to great pain. It had that strained feeling, that almost good kind of achy feeling from when having exercised for the first time in ages, but with the volume turned up and a richer, less healthy flavour to it. (I say flavour, metaphorically, even though I perceive pain, and other such tactile senses, with a little bit of colour, nonmetaphorically. This morning, my back was going orange, but it does go back to a sort of darkish, but still vaguely vivid, grainy brown.)
It was because of my bit of a clear-out yesterday. There was some not-so-good stretching, combined with some heavy moving, so I'm not really surprised that I've actually strained my lower back. My back will always be on the weak side, always susceptible to such things, due to lordosis and kyphosis when I was growing up. (Wow, they sound really serious, don't they? All they mean is that I had a spine in the shape of a question mark, '?'.)
So, I've started off today by moving around very carefully, hoping not to cause myself pain. It's eased off somewhat, but still, it's still not as it should be.
It's quite different to the usual kind of backache that I get, which is usually brought on by sitting over things in chairs, or just sitting in chairs with backs that are too straight and hard, or sitting on stools. (That's a kind of icy light grey sort of feeling, as if drawn on white cartridge paper. Really nothing in the way of colour. Both colour and brightness are of relevance, it seems.) Doing jigsaws usually brings on that kind of achiness.
My back is bad today.
Bad as in orange, not icy gray.
Bad as in strained, not tired, but pained.
My back is bad, but I'll be okay.
In the morning dew.
Today, so far, (and the day is far from over,) I have:
Actually, I could go into some more detail on The Big Clear-Out: Part [whatever the number would now be].
This time, I dared to tackle my wardrobe, which, for quite some time now, has been pretty much full of bags and boxes of stuff just waiting to be sorted out. I didn't sort out all the bags, but did still manage to throw away an almost overly full binbag of stuff. This is good. What's more, the wardrobe also had quite a stack of old magazines (still not those sort), which I also threw away. Those magazines themselves must have taken up a couple of cubic feet of space.
It wasn't just throwing away of old stuff, though. It was also a bit of a crude tidying and sorting of stuff. And a bit of relocation.
I found, when putting some stuff back in the wardrobe (for next time), that there was a huge amount of space left in there! What to put in it? I decided to shift a load of books in there, so that the shelves (which aren't really bookshelves, but used in that capacity none-the-less) can be used for the more frequently used books. This is good, because those books were just floating around, always getting in the way.
There was still plenty of space. What to put in there?
Well, the bags of stuff which I didn't sort out went back in there. Also, there's an old record box, for ten inch records (yes, there really were such things, filling the gap between seven and twelve inches), which was in there, and back in there again. But this time, it's full of videos (not those sorts), instead of telephone cable (its previous contents).
Oh, and I put my purple velvet jacket in there, too. In the wardrobe, that is, not the ten inch record box. And a couple of bags of ties. And a blue scarf with a Welsh dragon on it. And some bags of cassette tapes (some of which came out of the wardrobe anyway). And there's still some space left!
Now, this time, I did not end up being perturbed - even a little tiny bit - while sorting through stuff. Instead, I feel really quite satisfied.
I feel like today has actually been a day of true variety. Alright, not that much variety, perhaps, but compared to my usual day it's been a whole kaleidoscope of variety. A very cheap kaleidoscope, with only three bits of plastic falling around at the end to make patterns with, but any kaleidoscope's better than none, right?
I also feel less burdened. I feel there's less of a weight weighing on me, somehow. A weight I'd got used to, and had stopped noticing was there. Well, there's certainly less weight weighing down on the floor of my room! I feel more sorted out, which is what my room now is. I feel that I'm actually in a better state. Could it, perhaps, just simply be that one's state of being is nothing more than a manifestation of one's state of room? If I had a really empty room, would I myself be empty inside? If my room was jam-packed full of pornography, would I have a dirty mind? If my room was full of money, would I be rich? Well, yes, probably.
For a couple of days now, I've been reading lots of stuff about John R Searle's Chinese Room.
It started when I read a mention of it in Marybeth's archives. A Chinese Room argument? AI? Can computers think? Fascinating stuff! So, I just had to look it up on the web.
I first came across The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on it. That just made me want to know even more. Already it seemed to me that Searle was making some fundamental mistakes.
I came across some more pages on the web, including:
(I'm sure there are plenty of other things on the internet relating to Searle's Chinese Room, but I've only just launched into this.)
Now, I'm so fascinated by this whole thing, that I've decided I really will write an essay (or a whole bunch of them) on it. I've got things to say! In particular, I have this to say: John R Searle's making a real hash of it.
It's one of those things were I find that I've already thought about these kinds of things, had these sorts of ideas, thought about such ideas, reached conclusions, and so on. I didn't realise that I was already familiar with the Chinese Room idea (I believe I'd already heard of the Chinese Room, but didn't actually know what it was about, really), but just hadn't realised that it was already known as the Chinese Room. Reading through the stuff these last couple of days, I've recognised so many ideas that I've thought my way to and through. It gives me a great feeling of immense self-satisfaction, because, hey, these people are famous (or infamous, even) for thinking such things! It's why I've just got to seriously, properly (and officially) study philosophy one day (well, not all in one day, that would be a bit too much to ask).
Anyway, I'm finding myself increasingly persuaded, by what Searle himself writes, that Searle ain't no philosopher. It's not that he seems to get things confused (which he does), and it's not that he's got ideas that I disagree with (there are plenty I don't disagree with!), it's that he seems to be relying on the prior assumption that computers can't, in just being computers and nothing more, ever think.
He introduces this assumption in dubious ways, sort of in disguise, and then proceeds to work towards and draw the final conclusion that computers, in just being computers and nothing more, can't ever think. It's just circular reasoning! Of course if you start with that as an assumption (however well or badly disguised), it's no surprise if you then end up drawing that assumption as a conclusion.
Anyway, it's really got me absorbed and hooked and fascinated and stuff, and I'm just bursting to express what I think on these matters. But at the moment, it's bursting too much! And I haven't yet fully studied the relevant stuff, yet, either. I'll just have to try and contain myself, take notes and stuff, and that sort of thing.
Ahhh, if only I could be an official student doing these things...
Recently, I've been having some rather vivid dreams about Tigger the cat.
I can't really remember the dreams particularly well, but they were really quite intense. The general theme was that Tigger was somehow unwell, with this possibly being how she'll finally go (as in die), but with there still being a hope that she'll be okay.
Or was that the theme in the second one? I don't think she was, but she was still in it, and it still had much the same kind of intense, vivid feelings in it.
In the first one, there was some catastrophe in the kitchen. This, I think, was based on a public information advertisement thing on telly some years ago. It involved a little boy who'd put some cans of dog food in the cooker, and they then exploded. But, come to think of it, it wasn't a public information thing, it was an ad for an insurance company! But anyway, there was dog food all over that kitchen, and the cooker was a cooker no more (but was somewhat open plan instead, in that it wasn't all in one piece). Anyway, our kitchen in my dream looked vaguely similar.
There was, I think, some problem with the plumbing. In particular, it had something to do with the boiler, which I think had exploded. Tigger, in the meantime, had something wrong with her back (which, somehow, was supposed to be related to the disastrous state of the kitchen, which had water everywhere). She was extremely thin around her waste, and her fur around all of her latter half was extremely short, as if it had been recently shaved off. Her spine was twisted right round. If we tried to untwist her spine, she couldnt' walk properly, and seemed to be in some sort of pain. But if we left it twisted, which obviously wasn't how it was supposed to be, then she seemed okay. It was, by the way, twisted a full 360°!
In the latter dream, I had somehow ended up agreeing to visit my father, and stay the night, or weekend, or something. His wife's children were all there, too. (They're all grown up, by the way. They're 'children' in the sense that they're her offspring.) But somehow I felt I'd been tricked into going there, or something. Or that I'd been kidnapped by my father. There was something about conditions being broken, but he'd broken them because there was no other way he'd get to see me.
Anyway, I'd taken Tigger along in a bag, or in her basket (with caged front, for when she goes down the vets), depending on what part of the dream it was. This was either something of a condition, or she'd been brought along when I got kidnapped, or it was being seen as a violation of a condition I'd agreed to, but the agreement didn't hold because my father had already broken the agreement, or something. Or maybe it was that my father was trying to retroactively apply the condition that Tigger not be brought along.
Anyway, in both dreams I was concerned for Tigger. I was worried about what would end up happening to her. I wanted to protect her and look after her, and keep her safe. I was worried that she'd end up hurting herself somehow, either by straying into an unsafe part of an unsafe house (my father's house), or ending up wounded in part of the catastrophic kitchen.
Dunno what these dreams mean, but I was definitely in a beligerant mood towards my father!
You know, my bout of insanity in the middle of last year seems to have been more profound than I'd thought.
From what I remember from the first half of last year, I was really trying to give up smoking, aiming to get some sort of a job, seeking to generally become healthier (such as putting on weight), and so on. But in the second (and final) half, things seem to have been rather different.
I think it was that sense of resignation, when I resigned myself to just not being able to get a job until I'd solved the catch-22 I was in. That catch-22 is that I have a terrible CV which I stand no chance of getting a job with (not one that won't drive me insane, anyway), and it's damned difficult to do anything much about it while getting a job remains so implausible. It's compounded by the fact that I lack references, which, similarly, are difficult to get without getting employed in order to have employers to then act as referees.
But make no mistake, it was wise of me to accept that I'm stuck in that catch-22. It would have been silly of me to deny it! It's just that that sense of resignation seems to have extended beyond just that catch-22.
In the second half of last year, I really didn't try to give up smoking (not good!). I didn't do much to put on missing weight, or exercise, or whatever. I've been crap at getting things done, and have not sought a social life (social lives tend to cost money, after all). And I haven't even particularly bothered watching TV!
But is it really that I'm overly resigned? I'm not sure that it is. At least, I don't think it's entirely an overextensive sense of resignation.
For the last several months, I've been trying to find ways to get myself out of this catch-22. Firstly, I want a CV that isn't going to doom any attempt I make to apply for a job. Secondly, I want to think of a way to get myself some referees. It's that first one that I've been working on most.
The solution I'm pursuing is that of releasing open-source software, so that I've got that to put on my CV. That'll hopefully turn it around quite magnificently. So, I've been trying to think of good software projects that I can do myself, and pursue them. That's what my parser framework library project thing is for. But, of course, it takes time.
There are various other projects that I have pursued at various times (I'll work on something, leave it for a while, come back to it, leave it, and so on), but generally they've not been the sorts of things that could really be turned into viable open-source products by just me, though were very much solo activities. Or they were more of an academic nature, and so really need me to be in some sort of academic role officially, which I'm not. Or whatever.
The parser framework library project seems to be the best choice, because it's something that I can build other projects on top of, and generally use in other projects I have. It's good, because it's something I can do myself (important for rescuing my CV), and doubles as part of other projects, further boosting my CV. It shows intelligence (I hope!) at the same time as showing ability, and generally should work as a way for me to showcase my talents/skills/etc. It seems to be a damned good solution to the CV problem. And so I've been working away on it.
But it took me a while to settle on that project. It took me a few months to really find that that was the project to go for. My grammar description language project (which is not the same) just doesn't quite fit the bill. It doesn't itself lead directly to software, even though it implies implementation in software. It's also a rather long term thing, and I need something a little bit sooner! But anyway, I eventually found a suitable, good project to do (sort of a resurrection of the project which mutated into the grammar description language project, anyway), and that's what counts.
I've been so determined to find something, and to pursue that something, that I seem to have done little else over the past six or seven months. So, it seems it isn't really that I'm overly resigned, but rather that I've been really trying to do something about it! And I certainly haven't felt like I've been in a state of pathetic resignation. Rather, I feel that I've been facing up to my situation, and managing to stick to seeking a solution.
But here in my blog, which was somewhat neglected for a while (and which now seems to be read by no one, but that matters not), I do feel somewhat introspective in what I write. That's okay, I think. I just have that need to take a good look at myself, at my situation in life, and do a bit of self-assessment. It just seems that there isn't much else that I write about here! I'm just a little bit self concious of that.
Generally, I don't seem to have much to say. Not watching much TV, and having no social life, and no working life in an environment with other people in it, and not going to the cinema (though I'd like to!), and so on, there's really not much opportunity for me to have interesting things to write about. I could write about my project, but that's something I do too much anyway, in documenting what I'm doing (it's important to document such work as it progresses). And it would seem to be generally a rather boring subject matter for what's s'posed to be a personal blog, anyway. So, I'm just using this space to bounce my thoughts off myself.
But oh! I would like more to my life than just this! I do want a social life! I do want more variety! Well, just variety at all! I've just got good at accepting my situation as it currently is, without failing to hope and look forward to better times. I just need to remind myself, sometimes, that it's all worthwhile (assuming things philosophical, that is), and to remind myself of the so-called bigger picture.
I'm wondering about my memory. This is what I was a little bit perturbed about yesterday. I'm not sure how good it is, or how bad it is, but I do think it's improving. Then again, maybe it's getting worse, and I just can't remember it being better than it is now.
For a number of months now, I've been remembering things that I'd forgotten to such an extent that I was even surprised that I'd even had such things to remember. I don't mean like remembering to do this or pay that, but remembering things from the last thirty years of my life generally. It's been challenging the way I've come to understand the last five years or so.
One of the problems with trying to determine how good ones memory is is that one cannot remember anything that one's forgotten. One can only remember things that one remembers. The consequence of this would seem to be that one is in danger of concluding that ones memory is very good. That, of course, is as erroneous as inferring that one has seen everything, as one has never seen anything that one has never ever seen.
One has to assess the quality of one's memory in less direct ways, such as taking note of how many times one remembers something that was previously forgotten. However, if one is in doubt about the quality of ones memory, one may also need to take note of times when things are remembered without having been forgotten. Further compounding this is the question of how good one is at remembering to note such things.
It's a little tiny bit perturbing, but not much. I do happen to remember seeing stuff on telly about just how bad the average memory can be. Well, I hope my memory's not so bad that I'm forgetting just how incredibly bad my memory might actually be!
I feel like I keep writing the same stuff over and over again. This is because, recently, I have been writing the same stuff over and over again.
It's my parser framework project. I had to write a description of it to apply to have it hosted at SourceForge.net. Then I wrote another description of it as the first 'news' item for that project. And now, I'm writing much the same stuff again (though in rather greater detail) to document the design of the framework. And that itself, too, involves some repetition. (It has some repetition because I wrote an overview section before getting into the detailed sections.) Oh, and before I even applied to have it hosted at SourceForge.net, I was already keeping my own, private, personal project log.
Soon, I'm going to know more about this project than I do!
Anyway, I've got lots more to write. I'm only on the section about grammars and parsers, and am yet to get onto the sections about grammars (in detail), parsers (in detail), lexicons, semantics, and so on. It feels like I'm writing a whole book! Well, it'll save time if I ever do go on to write a book about it, I suppose.
Now that I've got my parser framework library project hosted at SourceForge.net, I really do feel like I'm really working, even though I've been working effectively full-time on this for a little while now. It's just having it public, having it out in the open, that makes it feel really valid and legitimate.
I seem to be doing pretty much eight hours a day (including an hour for lunch, or whatever), though some days I don't do as much. But that's okay, because it's normal to have weekends. I just have my weekends in smaller, more frequent bits, distributed throughout the week.
I almost feel like I've got a job, even though no one's paying me to work. I am my own project manager, my own supervisor, my own boss. The only 'will this be acceptable?' issues are just ones of 'will other people actually use my software?', and, 'is this a worthwhile way for me to spend my time anyway?' The answer to the second question is certainly 'yes!' The answer to the first rather depends on what others think of my work, and whether or not they actually need such a thing (and I know there are most certainly many uses for such a thing!).
Anyway, now that it's a published, open source project, it just feels more real, as I've already said.
Perhaps I'll have to sort out some sort of donations scheme, so that people can send me money (and maybe other things) to work on free software?...
Aren't legal things confusing? I've spent the last couple of days trying to decide which open source license to release my parser framework library under.
Back in 1998, I bought Microsoft Windows 98. When I got it home, I opened up the box, and found an installation boot disk inside. It was inside it's own, little envelope, with stuff printed on it. That stuff claimed, quite ridiculously, that by opening that envelope, I would be agreeing to Microsoft's EULA.
Supposedly, the way these sorts of things work is that one can only copy copyright software with the permission of the copyright holders, no matter what form that copying takes. That copying can be things as simple as just running the software, 'cause it gets copied into the computer's memory. Installation is another form of copying, so that, too, supposedly requires the permission of the copyright holders.
The copyright holders have the right to decide who can and cannot copy their copyright material. That means that they get to decide under what conditions they'll give that permission, and what kinds of copying they will permit. That means they can attach all sorts of conditions, such as having to become Bill Gates' personal toilet cleaner (there was a Dilbert cartoon (I think) with something like that in it). And, as it's their right to decide on such things, they don't need any prior agreement from you, or anything like that. (They can't impose things on you, as you can always decide not to do any copying.) And so, the licenses accompanying copyright material can be entirely unilateral. When it comes to copying, anyway.
But there's always the reasonable use thing, and the issue of making private copies for one's own, personal, private use. Copyright has limits.
Buy a piece of software, and you expect to be able to actually use it. Any copying that occurs as a result of just using it, and just installing it, of course, must surely come under reasonable use. It must surely be copying that is implicitly permitted, the permission to do so being implied by the copyright holders' decision to actually sell it to you (directly or indirectly) in the first place!
So, on those reasonable, surely legitimate grounds, I do not accept things such as end user license agreements for purchased software as legitimate, as permission to use, and therefore copy for the purposes of normal use, has already implicitly been given. (But such licenses are, of course, legitimate when it comes to copying that would not be in the normal course of use, copying for which permission has not implicitly been given.)
The EULA which came with Microsoft Windows 98, then, did not automatically apply, and at least one of the claims made on that little envelope with the installation disk in it was incorrect. It was just an attempt, my Microsoft, to automatically retract permission postpurchase, and surely just does not stand up.
Furthermore - and this is where it was really ridiculous - just opening that envelope - the act they claimed would constitute agreement to their EULA - did not actually constitute nor require an act of copying anyway! It was just really silly of them.
Such licensing strategies are really not very wise, anyway. Overdo it, and you (if you're a copyright holder and licensor) run the risk of having your licensing claims overruled by the courts - which is potentially costly! You can end up with a self-tarnished reputation, inspiring the distrust of your own customers, and may possibly even end up having to refund all those people who turn around and say, 'This isn't fair! We want our money back!' And, of course, it just promotes the alternatives - such as open source!
Anyway, I've decided to release my parser framework library as open source because, well:-
copyright is becoming even less enforceable as copying technology, and various kinds of copying, become increasingly more common, normal and routine (not that infringing copyright should necessarily be considered 'normal');
I need to do something to rescue and resucitate my chronically 'real work, real jobs' anaemic CV;
I like open source, and would like others to freely use my software!
But there's a problem: licensing.
Open source licences, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL), can be long and complicated, and include political stuff which doesn't necessarily speak for eveyone (and doesn't really speak for me). They can even have clauses which appear to forbid people from using any software licensed under such licenses if they do something such as seek legal action for alleged patent infringement in just one such licensed piece of software, as appears to be the case with The Open Software License (clause 10).
Open source licenses which require your agreement with those kinds of political beliefs don't really seem entirely consistent with the principles of freedom and openness which open source software is supposedly founded upon. It just seems a bit self-contradictory to me. Some of the conditions that sometimes appear in such licenses seem just as excessive - if not more so - than the sorts of objectionable claims that can be made in or with closed source licenses. I just won't license my software under such licenses.
What I want is a license that's clear, simple, not excessively long or complicated, doesn't make requirements of the user's political beliefs, is reasonable, and which actually works. That's not an easy set of requirements to satisfy!
In copyright law, there's all this stuff about derivative works, aggregate works, translations and transformations, modifications to work, and so on. This is where it can get really quite tricky with things like libraries, as compiled software which uses such libraries could be considered to be derivative works, for example. Use, derivation, modification and copying all sort of overlap, and the edges are difficult to identify (and can depend on exactly how the libraries are used in the source code, and exactly what the compilers actually do, and so on).
So, what I've decided to do is to go for the zlib/libpng License, which seems to sum up what I want very nicely! It's short, concise, appropriate, and, if common sense prevails (which I hope it will), clear and easy to correctly understand.
Agh, software licensing can be such a minefield.
We were in the old club, seeing how things had changed, seeing what was still the same, and catching up with the staff behind the bar. It was basically a nostalgia visit for old time's sake.
While we were chatting to the ladies behind the bar, one of my companion's friends arrived, rather unexpectedly. I recognised her, having been introduced on a previous occasion, and greetings were exchanged.
(I'd better say at this point that I'm not naming names, due to the nature of these events. This is making it a little tricky for me to write this as naturally as I otherwise would, but still, I think I must record what I witnessed. Anyway, I couldn't remember what my companion's friend's name was anyway - and still can't!)
There was quite some delight expressed in the greetings exchanged between my companion and his friend. You know, real joy, but not excessive.
It did make me wonder for a moment, though, if I'd been a dullard, and had failed to recognise that his friend was actually his wife. But no, his wife was, as far as I knew, still back on the other side of the country, where they lived. He was just up here on a brief visit, no more than a few days. Still, I wondered if the greetings would be quite so openly joyful if she was also here.
After not much chatting, barely through the initial catching-up stuff, my companion's friend cluched her abdomen and let out a cry - she was going into labour! I hadn't noticed, until that point, that she was pregnant. And she didn't look as pregnant as I thought she would be for going into labour, not that I'm experienced in such matters.
It's not s'posed to happen yet!
she exclaimed, grabbing onto my companion's shoulder. He was immediately quite concerned - quite concerned? He was very concerned! He was nearly in a panic! Anyone could have thought it was his baby she was carrying, and about to drop.
Not entirely discretely, my companion said to me, [My wife] mustn't know about this.
Oh, dear. Oh dear, oh dear. It was his. It is his. He's had an affair, and I'm here to witness the consequences. I was really quite surprised, and a little disappointed, but mostly surprised. He adored his wife, and just surely would never do something like this. But, evidently, he had, risking not only his marriage, but his wife's marriage, too!
Obviously, she had to get to hospital. We went out into the car park, where one of their cars was parked. I don't know whose car it was, though, and there was that feeling of common ownership about it, as if they were married. But they weren't married, were they? Well, it didn't matter whose car it was. She was in pain, seemingly in premature labour, and he was in something of a panic.
I'll drive,
I said, and was swiftly given the keys. We didn't even talk about whether or not I'd be insured, but I thought it was a safer risk than either of them driving.
I got in, and started the car. In third gear. Initially panicked, and somehow managed to career once around the car park before getting back in control. Don't know quite how I managed that feat - it should have stalled! Anyway, I was obviously more out of practice with driving than I'd thought.
My companion and friend got in, and he navigated. It was nice to be driving again, and I could feel this car had a nice, big, powerful engine. In only a few minutes, we were at her house. I didn't really think about why we had rushed to her house rather than the hospital, but anyway.
It was a nice, big house, with a particularly large sort of lounge/living area, rather open plan as it were. And very yellow. Yellow walls, and lots of brown furnishings. Perhaps a little on the dark side, but maybe that was because of the choice of lighting. It had the look and feel of a place that was just really comfortable to just hang out in. But this wasn't the time to just chill out.
Once my companion's friend was sitting down, and she had satisfied him that she was okay for the time being, he went off to another part of the house to do some packing for her. Again, there was that feeling of overfamiliarity, as if they were married, when, in fact, they weren't. I really did have to double check that she wasn't his wife after all.
I'd better just send a text message home, just so they know I'm okay,
I said. I just knew it was going to be a long night.
As I fiddled with my phone, she got up and came over to me.
He mustn't know this,
she began, in slightly lowered voice. He can't know this, but I don't think it's his.
Really? Are you sure?
I don't think it can be. The timing's all wrong. But he mustn't know this.
It's a long time since I last wrote anything here. I've just not felt like blogging, and/or just haven't got around to it. But just now, mere moments ago, I felt like writing something here.
So, it's 2003. Christmas has come and gone, and my new year's resolution is to generally not be so crap.
My Christmas was pretty much completely standard. I was exceptionally crap at sending Christmas cards (didn't send any!), and didn't do my Christmas shopping until just a few days before the day itself. Bought the usual few presents, too, for immediate family members - tokens and chocolates.
Christmas day was very much standard. Turkey for lunch, followed by leisurely present exchanging. And this year, Tigger the cat wore a red ribbon (red tinsel last year). Watched Chicken Run, and got the joke about how Rocky probably wasn't even a real American. Also got the Klingon joke, but was unfortunately reminded of a rather childish, lavatorial joke from when I was at school:
Q: What did Mr Spock find in the toilets on board the USS Enterprise?
A: Captain's log and a couple of Klingons.
Obviously, it's a shit joke.
Okay, enough with the bad jokes. Now, where was I? Oh yes, my Christmas was very run-of-the-mill. But good. Except the bit about Christmas cards.
I did mean to send Christmas cards this year. But, somehow, it's just a bit of a duty thing, and I'm crap at duty things. The thing is, you're supposed to send Christmas cards. You're supposed to send Christmas cards to show that you care, to show that you're thinking of people you haven't seen or whatever in a while. The implication is, of course, that if you don't send them, then you don't care, or just don't think of whoever you're not sending them to anymore. So, you've got to send them. And so it's become a duty thing.
But that's not the way it's supposed to be, is it? It's supposed to be that you want to send people Christmas cards, you want to add to their Christmasses, in that small but meaningful way. It's supposed to be a delight to send Christmas cards!
So, um, I was crap, and didn't send any. I just had the wrong attitude towards them, as usual.
But it's not that I didn't think of people, it's not that I didn't wish others to have a good Christmas. And this isn't just something I'm saying now so that I can lamely say, 'It's the thought that counts, right?'. I really did have the thoughts that count, but I just didn't express them - particularly in the form of Christmas cards.
This aversion I have to sending Christmas cards is really quite longstanding now. I think it must have started when I was still at school. It was sort of a cynical thing, 'cause Christmas card greetings and messages are supposed to be real, and genuinely sincere (as opposed to the fake, plastic 'sincerity' about which my cynical ire is irked). But anyway.
So, I hope you, anyone who is reading this, actually did have a good Christmas, and is already having a happy new year. Really! :-)
Anyway, I didn't mean to go on about my personal issues with Christmas cards. What I meant to write was, well, I dunno, really, I hadn't thought about it. I just felt like writing something.
Recently, as well as being crap, I've been not crap. I've been not being crap with busily writing a parsing library for C++. In just a week and a half, I've written about 3500 lines of code! That includes blank lines and comments, so it's just an average of, say, 20 characters per line, but I think that still counts, as good formatting and commenting is important for readability and maintainability.
Um, I've also been looking, occasionally, at the snow. We haven't had snow like this since 1995, or 1996, I think. And this year, people on telly were going on about The Big Freeze before the snow had even fallen! This global warming is just making us southerners even more silly about Winter being Winter.
Anyway, I've just downloaded the DocBook book, 'DocBook'. I think it's about time I learned DocBook, so that I can use it for writing stuff up.
This site (though not necessarily everything in it) is © copyright 2002 Simon 'Barsticus'.
If we all produce standard conforming websites, and all use standard conforming browsers and servers, then we won't have to worry about whether or not our efforts work on different browsers, but just whether or not our work makes sense. Seems like a good compromise to me!
