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Rathergood.com sends Seasoning's Greetings, courtesy of the Rev. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) drjon, who certainly represents An Authority To Be Harkened To on these matters. But enough Sheeping of the Memes. tz119 is currently asleep, while I am thawing this year's minimum-effort feast from the local supermarket. Maybe we'll have some rice with it. All in all, we have slightly more important things to do than dedicate the day to celebration, though we are pretty durn cheerful about it and have even done some minimal decorating for the occasion. Why, I myself slung the garbage bags over my shoulder while a festive red-and-white cap adorned my head. "Ho ho ho! Now, are you a recyclable or a non-recyclable little junk pile?" And while I do miss my family back home a none-too-small bit, I am sure they're having a good, if a wee bit less secular, time without me as well. I think I'll put on some solstice carols by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (though solstice is now in the past, it is never too early to practice) and clean a little more tonight. If I'm feeling especially musical, we could play some SingStar if I can get it hooked up, or as a last resort dig out the roll-up keyboard and saxophone which have been gathering large volumes of dust. Then I suppose we'll watch a movie. I feel like Dr. Horrible again, or possibly The Producers. Possibly we'll bake some cookies as well, but at 10 there'll be David Tennant on QI — an unmissable event, especially thanks to BBC iPlayer. That's it for now. Tags: holidays, religion, secularism, telly, unseasonal, writer's block
Current Location: /home/bugarupMkV/
Current Mood:  chipper
Current Music: Paul and Storm - Forgettable Side-Dish
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First off, the great Paul and Storm are wishing you a very merry Christmas Eve Eve. Though it's been quite a stressful, soggy one for me so far, the song itself is excellent. Especially since it, much like the rest of this concept album, is in the style of They Might Be Giants (in fact, it sounds quite similar to Now it's over; from Flood, which is the only TMBG album I actually own so far (though I suspect the CD is no longer readable - I wasn't particularly careful with my belongings when I bought it, and am still trying to better myself). But yes, lovely song there. Go listen. Again. The kitten says so. In other news, I'm getting some antibiotics again. Silly skin infections, why must you plague me so? I shall stop the trip into TMI country around here, and instead head towards the lovely linkage beckoning over yonder. An E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy. This was posted almost immediately after I joined the EFF myself, lured by the promise of deliciously exclusive anniversary XKCD clothing. I have yet to regret my decision. I support the Open Rights Group; as well, but suspect a multilateral approach to digital rights may be the best thing for a wandering soul such as I. Hence I am also looking at the German FoeBuD e.V., but as my wallet has been slimming at a worrying pace this month, my donations to their cause may have to wait a little bit. Now I just have to wonder what equivalent national organisations exist in Japan, and whether they would take my funny moneys. Speaking of good causes, I've been wanting to get started on Kiva's microloans for well over a year now, but always seem to conveniently forget when I find myself with a bit of positive cashflow. Quite annoying. Also, I am a regular reader of the infamously glorious Pharyngula and slightly less infamous Bad Science, and have been for quite some time. If only I had another 24 hours in each day, I might even take ajollypyruvate up on her suggestion to finally join the Straight Dope Message Board one wonderful day. In more LJ-centric reading, the great jwz has a post on Reading Facebook in a feedreader. Partially, at least, this is relevant to my interests. I say partially mostly because I don't actually mind the shoddy web interface most of the time, but also because I'm not much into using feedreaders. Yet. I do recognise its shininess, though, so linked it gets. Anyway, I am also happy to report that the drama llama is slowly getting fed up with staring accusingly at our living room floor, and I've caught it staring longingly out the window. Perhaps it will soon time for it to move on. In closing, Many belated Solstice Greetings! Surely it is never too early, though, to consider being one of the lucky few who shall be eaten first? The product behind the link seems like just the thing to turn you into a marginally more attractive morsel when the stars are finally right! Tags: linkage, llamas, music
Current Location: /home/bugarupMkV/
Current Mood:  busy
Current Music: Dog Sweater
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Trouble being, of course, that I'm a first-year undergrad, barely managing my introductory JavaAlice and Processing course as it is. And next year there'll be C and Unix to explore, which promises a lot of fun. So I suspect this is yet another case of me attempting to branch out too early, before I have decent roots in the ground. Shan't have a lot of Copious Spare Time anyway, but AI is definitely perceptible in the blurry nebula of my far-off interests, right next to kernels and the hardware-software interface. [Also, this year I've definitely been getting more interested in astronomy. Curse you, Makoto Shinkai, Mami Kashiwabara, Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, The Space Fellowship and Phil Plait! I don't want to save up for a telescope, durn it. (Admittedly, though, I'm in a pretty decent location for stargazing.)] So yes, any book recommendations for me to shove on the shelves and look at longingly every so often? I should point out in advance that comments from non-friends will be screened. Cannot be bothered to check my defaults right now. Also, the laptop randomly shut itself off while I was typing the entry. Thank the devs for saved drafts, I guess. In terms of causes I currently suspect: - Partially crystallised battery due to AC woes as of late
- Dust in the fans leading to overheating
- Silly hardware incompatibilities
- Some of the above
- All of the above.
Tags: computeringness, followday, japan, manga, science with a capital science, tales of interest(s)
Current Location: /home/bugarupMkV/
Current Music: ‽Cartel
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Having embraced Facebook as my primary online platform for socialising (and by using my birth name discarded a considerable amount of online anonymity), I have had little to say on Livejournal lately, despite the past two months having been quite eventful in academic terms. Long story short: I failed my Chemistry labs due to abysmal attendance and lab reports. The University of Sheffield's Chemistry department has an odd — and in my opinion unfair — policy of not allowing re-takes of the year for anyone who has failed a semester of labs. Thus, having unsuccessfully applied for transfers to several different departments (including Linguistics, Engineering and once again Japanese Studies), I have un-enrolled from the university (though still living with Shadow in the same Sheffield flat) and am now submitting the third UCAS application of my life: I am applying for electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Southampton, Sussex, Sheffield Hallam, Oxford Brookes and Manchester. In the case of Southampton, Sussex and Manchester, whose A-level maths requirements exceed my achieved grades, I am applying for courses that include a Foundation year. This time, I am also going to make sure that there will be a disabilities support framework (e.g. mentoring) in place from day 1 (which I did not have here), to help me cope with problems arising from my autistic spectrum disorder. And now for something completely different: A link to an interesting Facebook discussion thread (I checked: you do not need to be logged into a Facebook account to read it) on the topic of "Why do you hate Christianity even though you have Christian friends you get along great with?": http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=7991&post=33258&uid=5494567031#post33228Was there anything I neglected to mention? Tags: academia, facebook, sheffield
Current Location: Sheffield
Current Mood:  creative
Current Music: 酒よ
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