Love and the Quantum Butterfly

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Previous 20

Sep. 12th, 2009

Cuthulu in a tutu!

mood:

chipper

Okay, I lied about cuthulu in a tutu, but there is a kraken especially for

fatkraken .

Well not just for The Kraken, other folks will like kraken love also. I promise....
(let's be honest, with at least eight appendages there's gonna be plenty of kraken love to go around anyway.)

the woman wot did this cool vid is

m_stiefvater, when she's not trying to convert the world to squid love she writes books. She's got a new one out . It's called Shiver, it's great, you should totally buy it.

Posted at 01:28 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Sep. 1st, 2009

typsetting can be a bit of a bugger

Literally....

The accidental headline of the year

Do read it, it's hilarious, although I'm not convinced that this isn't a fake story that's been planted, just to see how fast it'll spread and how.
False stories having being very much in the news recently, following a bit of a debacle where a number of papers reported that Chris Grayling (the shadow home sec) apparently got lambasted on the Mayor of Baltimore's website, for comparing Britain to the TV show the wire.

Anyway, I'm still a boring person who only posts quizes and links, I'll write more interesting things when my life's more interesting.

Tags: ant, dec

Posted at 06:38 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Aug. 23rd, 2009

'cos all the cool kids are doing it -- meme nicked from the fair flower of Northumberland

mood:

chipper

In other words I thieved it from

mametsuki (there's no' a difference between Northumberland and Cumbria is there lassie?)

Rules:

*Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find the fifth sentence.
*Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal.

*Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Sadly the closest is "Geometry and Symmetry" by Paul B. Yale, since pornography and books about summoning demons are never close at hand when it would be entertaining -- they're only clearly on view when I have straight laced visitors who already think my life style is too extreme. And all the most intellectual books I own are on the coffee table in the sitting room in the after math of a vain pre-attempt to convince my straight laced visitors that I'm secretly deep. It might have helped my cause if I'd either read the intellectual books in question, or my straight laced visitors(SLV) had not, but you can't have everything in this world.

The fifth sentence of the 56th page is:

With this information it is tedious, but trivial, to complete the proof

I shall leave the derivation of the theorem as an exercise for the reader.

May. 20th, 2009

Sita sings the blues

mood:

chipper

I'm always late to the party, but on the off chance that you haven't watched Sita Sings The Blues yet, you totally and utterly should. It rocks harder than a rainy day at Glastonbury, albeit in a totally different way.

I've just finished watching the thing and I'm still in that state of bouncy enthusiasm one gets from having watched something one really loved. In fact, I'm still so bouncy and enthusiastic that I'm not sure that I can actually write anything more coherent than I loved it, and if you haven't watched it, do so immediately so that I can rave about it with you.

( but not being able to talk coherently has never stopped me from talking )

Sita Sings the Blues is a feature length animation, written and produced by Nina Paley and distributed under creative commons license. You can download it here, watch it here and chuck them some cash here.

You should definitely watch this film if you've ever had your heart broken. Actually you should definitely watch this film fullstop.

Tags: review thingy

Posted at 11:26 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Apr. 25th, 2009

Deary deary me -- what's up yours?

mood:

amused

I'm turning into one of those people who only post memes, quizes and youtube links. Bad me. I was going to tell y'all about my exciting week off work in which I was supposed to be recovering from stress and exhaustion. I er.... spent the week suffering from weird adventures which included a somewhat unsettling encounter with a crazed horse and a slightly odd nearly drowning incident. My laptop has finally breathed its last, which is a tad irritating. I also started my own business (more on that in another post, once everything has had a chance to sink in). I still haven't quite managed to write any of those gazillion emails I owe folks, can we assume epic fail on my part. I will spend Monday morning writing them, because I'm off Hellraising this evening and I'm working tomorrow.

Meantime have a youtube link. I was actually looking up a link to John Wright, a much underappreactiated singer/songwriter in the same vein as Eric Bogle, but I got sidetracked by this.

The only thing I can really say to this, is "oh dear, oh dear" and also can some one wave said clip at the Bears, for 'tis practically their anthem already.

Apr. 21st, 2009

I told you so (but folks never listen)

I'm not so keen on the meme thingies and the quiz thingies, but I have a week off work (at least I hope I have a badly needed week off work and haven't just been fired so nicely by my best mate that I failed to notice the firing -- note to self: ask for clarity on this issue at end of week) and one day into the week off work I'm already so bored that I'm climbing the walls.

so....

Your result for The Greek Mythology Personality Test...

The Oracle

33% Extroversion, 67% Intuition, 17% Emotiveness, 81% Perceptiveness

Heuristic, detached, and analytical to a fualt, you are most like The Oracle. You are able to tackle any subject with a fine toothed comb, and you possess an ability to pinpoint nuances and shades of meaning that other people do not have and cannot understand. Accomplishment and realization of ideas are, for you, secondary to the rigorous exploration of ideas and questions -- you are, first and foremost, a theorist. You hate authority, convention, tradition, and under no circumstances do you accept a leadership role (although, you will gladly advise leadership when they're going astray, whether they want you to or not). Abstraction and generalities are your interests, details and particulars are usually inconsequential and uninteresting. You excel at language, mathematics and philosophy.

You are typically easy-going and non-confrontational until someone violates one of the very few principles that you deem sacred, at which point you can fly into a rage. Although you possess a much greater understanding of process and systems than the people around you, you are always conscious of the possibility that you've missed something or made a mistake. You don't tend to become attached to particular theories, and will immediately discard mistaken notions once they're revealed to be incorrect (but you don't tolerate iconoclasts who try to discredit validated theories through the use of fallacies and bad data). Despite being outwardly humble, you probably think of yourself as being smarter than most other people. That's because you are. In fact, in your dealings with people your understanding of their motives is so expansive that you know what they're going to say before they say it, and in world affairs, you usually know what is going to take place before it actually does. This ability would make you unbeatable in debates if only you were a little less pensive about your own conclusions, and a little more outgoing.

Famous people like you: Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, John McWhorter, Ramanujan, Marie Curie, Kurt Godel

Stay clear of: Apollo, Icarus, Hermes, Aphrodite

Seek out: Atlas, Prometheus, Daedalus

Take The Greek Mythology Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

Folks are allowed to laugh hysterically at this assement of my personality, but I liked it. I particularly like the suggestion that I should be more outgoing. I'm off to do more Hello Quizzy quizes in order to boost my already enormous ego.

Anyone who feels prompted to do this quiz please tell me your results, so that I know whether to shun you like the plague or stick you at the top of the cake list. What ho!

Mar. 12th, 2009

Waterloo Station

mood:

contemplative

Waterloo Station

The dreams which defined us at sixteen
Gave us meaning at twenty
And left without us
As twenty-three became
An endless fury of uncaught trains
Which roared like monsters in the night

At twenty-five conductors
Sneakily sold tickets
Valid only on another platform
And we sat in carriages
Bound for places quite different
Than our plans

Thirty was spent in smoking
Thoroughly standard class
Thinking we could get bumped up
But didn't want the fuss
Some of us were lucky
And never saw the substitution
We took the trolley tea and cake
And called it caviar and wine

And thirty-five was nine to five
Commitment the coin of entrance
We'd met the others on our journey
Our transit tempered by
The company of strangers

There were those who traveled with us
In an storm of missing luggage
And ill-thought words
Those we met on platforms
During signal failures and strikes
who we waved away on journeys
Going quite the other way
And never saw again

And there were one night stands
And absent conversation
Among those who traveled light

There were those who planned their journeys
Baedecker was their constant consolation
As they too were misdirected
But thought they knew the time
To change their trains
At forty we shared their carriages
And found that those whose purpose was the journey
Still traveled much the same

There were those who watched from windows
As fifty-five slipped past
And mourned the country side unseen
The towns and fields lit by the golden light
Of approaching autumn afternoons
With crisp cold sunsets
And they shuddered with the chill
As winter nights drew in

Then finally came the terminal
The destination we all traveled to together
Regardless of our route
And no matter what the stations
We had changed at
None were lost upon the way

Tags: poetry

Posted at 08:09 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Feb. 15th, 2009

I'm only doing this so I can use the pretty icon

And also 'cos I've got the bloody song on my brain

After me, kids --- "Zydrate comes in a little glass vial...."

Posted at 08:12 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Feb. 13th, 2009

I laughed and laughed and then I laughed some more

mood:

amused

I dedicate this youtube offering to Catboy.

Incidently, yup that is Paris Hilton.

ps. it's Friday today

Feb. 4th, 2009

It's been nice, but now I want to scream

mood:

aggravated

Okay, so yesterday it seemed like I took loosing virtually everything I'd done since November really well.

That was shock.

Now the reality has hit me and I'm not taking it well at all.

Yesterday I was all "well that's actually a good thing, because... blah, blah, blah." Today I'm all on the phone to nerds saying things like "well I know it was a stupid thing to do, but if the FBI can find pornography and stufff off people's hard drives even after they've reformatted them fifty million times, then why can't I...? Okay. No... No... Yes it was a stupid thing to do... No... No... Okay, maybe it wasn't a real news story, maybe I'm thinking of CSI, or numb3rs, or something like that, but seriously if that character in that Neal Stephenson book can do it and anyway there's recovery programs on the net that can. Oh shit... shit.. I'm sure that wasn't supposed to happen... crap! Yeah, I didn't want that data anyway."

One of my neighbours does aromatherapy and hypnotherapy and massage and stuff. I'm going to see if she can hypnotise me into total recall of every word I've written since November. Maybe I can get a hypnotherapy package deal -- total recall and giving up smoking in ten easy sessions.

Jan. 20th, 2009

randomness

livredor made me think about old protest marches. What gives

Belfast '93
The one thing we do well is hatred
It exports well too
In every paper there’s a piece on hatred
And why it's all so bad;
And why it's all so good
For the Fat Cat politicians who reel in the dollars
Making peace with two sides
With far more in common
With each other
Who are far too blind to see.

The Protest march
There was a protest march in Belfast, “I'll go” said Lyn, “But only if it doesn't rain.”
We were big on symbol then, the cease fire'd barely finished, and to mark the death
Of a year and a half of peace, we set free eighteen pigeons, kidnapped off the streets
And painted white.

We wore flowers in our button holes, made of toilet paper, Beth spent a morning
crafting them, and when the downpour came our blazers were caked in their decay.
The soldiers on the corners just looked bored, as yet again we said a thousand things
we've meant before, and never carried through.

A girl burst into tears and spoke of the death of her Da, a not altogether innocent victim,
It turns out. But then our dead are seldom innocent, save in retrospect, or by default.
There was unity among us, as we huddled together for “the cause”, admittedly something
Many of us had done before
For different people.

Later in the rain we hurried off our seperate ways, the proddys stuck together
The hibs were just as bad. We could try and socalise among ourselves, but most
Of us would not have known how, segregated practically from birth, for some
This was almost the first time...

And in a country where you can get shot just for opening your mouth with the wrong
Accent on yer, why would you do something as risky as talk to a bunch of people
You don't know, and anyone can write a protest song.

Patsy and me, went down to the station, sitting on the benches by the Europa Hotel
And the little boys from Crumlin, aye – sure they threw stones at our pigeons
As they sheltered 'neath the arches, and the dye on those birds...
Just washed out in the rain.

edited: because nostalgic totally was not the right word

</lj>

Tags: poetry

Posted at 08:57 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Dec. 30th, 2008

In the Bleak Midwinter

It's been bitterly cold all day and a dense fog started to draw in with the evening -- one of those thick freezing fogs that turns everything it touches into spikes of ice and reduces visibility to glimpses of moving shapes with ghostly auras beneath the street lights. It's a pea-souper of a night. A night from a murder book written in the thirties, the sort of night that could have been written by Margery Allingham or Christiana Brand.

And it's death I'm speaking of though, not the knife man in the fog, but death from cold. I can't tell you how cold it is exactly, but it hasn't been much above freezing at any point today. The grass outside my house crackled with ice when I walked my dog this morning, the path was break neck icy when I walked him this afternoon, and it was so cold when I walked him this evening that I actually thought I was going to die of cold.

I went back into my nice warm house and had a nice warm drink and after that I felt a lot better, but some people may well die of cold tonight. They might even die of cold in the city I live in. The people most at risk are the old, the poor, the vulnerably housed and the people with no homes at all. And the street people are having it hard tonight. From what I saw earlier this evening they were already suffering badly, and the temperature has dropped rapidly since then.

( in the bleak midwinter )

Posted at 09:59 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Oct. 19th, 2008

A little story about electric light

mood:

contemplative

music: Red Light Company -Scheme Eugene

In the beginning there was light, then came money.

As civilizations discovered about money they had to hide it. With the net result that everybody went underground and hid, so that no one could see their money. People then mutated so that they could see in the dark. After this massive change, the underground cave dwellers decided it was a waste of time hiding in the dark.

Not wishing to leave their underground homes, they invented electric light instead.

They then discovered that while money was fun, money and electric light was even more fun. That was until they started getting electricity bills.

After this, a bill was decreed, stating that people could have either electric light, or money, but not both. Some people decided to stay with the money and moved outside into the light. Some of them went to Mars, but most of them didn't. Some of them mutated into frogs instead.

I hate the electricity company

The end

Sep. 10th, 2008

Good Golly Miss Molly!

mood:

cheerful

music: JIVE BUNNY

Guess who is in a spectacularly good mood, because they found a copy of Jive Bunny -- the essential party experience for three quid in Asda?

Yup, that's pretty much got to be me. JIVE BUNNY!!!! (cue the little dance of joy) THREE QUID!!!

Want to know the best bit? Go on... I know you do.

The best bit are the extras. There are Mega Cool Groovy Extras. There's a Jive Bunny colouring book to print off and colour in (I'm going next door to steal felt tips/crayola from the munchkins). And... there's a kareoke Cd.

You see, sometimes life seems shit and bleak, and basically it is really, but then there's JIVE BUNNY!!!

Runs off to gloat. With colouring book and stolen crayonage. My inner child is thoroughly assauged.

Tags: little dance of joy

Posted at 07:29 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Sep. 1st, 2008

23

Innocence has too short a summer
Its length measured not by deeds
But in its dreams.

You loose it not through action but
Acceptance of the very things you
Railed against in youth

Autumn comes with compromise
And words that cover up the cracks
And adult woes

Are born of things we never planned
When we built castles out of quicksand
At seventeen

Tags: poetry

Posted at 12:07 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Aug. 21st, 2008

Soda bread recipe

mood: foul

music: Jack off jill: sexless demons and scars

It's been a funny funny week. And since it was funny in a peculiar, surreal, wtf kinda way, I think I've lost my sense of humor on the subject.

I haven't posted up the second half of "why we don't like Wednesdays" yet. I appear to have a day entirely to myself on Saturday, I'll finish it then, for my own satisfaction and then I'll post it, because I hate not finishing things once I've started.

Have a soda bread recipe. I'm in a bad mood (more than a bad mood actually, I'm a towering rage of fury) so I'm baking.

( soda bread recipe )

Tags: recipe

Posted at 06:07 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Aug. 18th, 2008

Some days are diamonds, some days are rust

mood: too tired to sleep

But my momma always told ne there's be days like these...

1. Things you never say to some one who has been sitting in front of a keyboard for over 36 hours:
(brightly) so, did you know Danny Kaye used to open up his living room as a restaurant.

Apparently that's completely true. Either that or I fell asleep by accident and never noticed. In which case no one is going to say "I can't believe you believed that tomorrow. Unless it's true. There's no way that fact is real, it's there to confound the confuddled, surely?

Thing You Never do to someone who has been sitting in front of a keyboard for over 36 hours:
Buy a new cordless telephone, that looks exactly like the old cordless phone, but apparently doesn't work off the same base and then leave both the old phone and the new phone lying round the house in different random places (but never the same random place twice).

Oh yeah. Got it in before 9am Monday morning!!! SIX HOURS EARLY!!! Does the six hours early dance.

Someone say, "so, Red, what was actually wrong with your computer? What was the hardware problem that it took three nerds to fail to fix, and one small child to point out?"

Go on, some one ask me.

Aug. 14th, 2008

(no subject)

music: random classical music from a mix tape

My laptop won't power up, which is really annoying, because it's the only machine in the house which runs windows and also the only machine in the house which has all the mathematical software and statistical software I need for the maths thing that was due on Friday.

( rant )

So (takes deep breath) ... I'm very run-on sentencey today, I've noticed. Then I decided to write Freud in Wonderland instead. It's gone stupidly long, I'll stick the other half up tomorrow. Also I nicked the zombie boyfriend, and I can't remember from whence.

( Freud in Wonderland )

Tags: life rants, story, why we don't like wednesdays

Aug. 10th, 2008

I can haz music meme

Drat that

wiffly_shwoo for infecting me with a music meme thingy (and drat

spawnofweevil for infecting her).

Wiffles gave me the letter P, and I cursed her long and hard, for I could think of no tracks that begin with the letter P. Then when I got thinking about it ALL my favourite tracks begin with the letter P, and I had great trouble reducing my list to five.

( I can haz music meme )
Now then, as I understand this meme, if you haven't done this one already you ask for a letter of the alphabet and then you recommend five songs beginning with that letter in your LJ. Flaming easy, innit.

Also

I'm Mrs Dumbledore

So anyway.... as you can tell I have more deadlines and I'm procrastinating. I'm off to do mathematics (unwillingly).

Posted at 11:47 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Aug. 8th, 2008

Darnouter '08

mood:

bouncy

music: Vaya Con Dios - the ultimate collection

I take back my sulk of last week -- the one that went "Belgium turns out to be a place you can't not go to if you don't want to" and continued with me suggesting I was on the wrong side of a continent torn apart by continental drift, because....

The festival was amazing and Tori Amos was one of the headliners. That will larn me to bitch about going to a music festival I didn't have to pay for, when I haven't even looked at the line up.

Herewith a surprisingly coherent account of Dranouter. I'm starting with the music - 'cos the music always comes first - and then I'll fill you in on the craic, though most of that probably comes under the heading of "you just had to be there".

While I was certainly buzzed about getting the chance to see Tori Amos live, she wasn't actually the highlight of the festival. In fact I missed the very beginning of her set, because I was watching Lonely Drifter Karen in the showcase tent and put off leaving 'til the very last minute. Yes, Lonely Drifter Karen were so good that I was prepared to forgo fighting my way to the very front to see one of my favourite singers of all time perform live. A band has to be pretty special in those circumstances, you'd better assume that Lonely Drifter Karen were amazing.

Other highlights were the Blindnote concert (charity gig I gatecrashed by mistake, more later); Dolfijntjes XXL (no one should be allowed to have that much stage presence, it should be illegal); The Tribe Band (multi-talented musicians showing off and doing it with style); and Arsenal (though that pretty much goes without saying).

We didn't get back till late on Tuesday, and the last few days have been unbelievably hectic (mostly doing all the things I should have done before I left), though I also got forced to party by the fun brigade on weds evening (that was an odd evening, btw). I've got lot's of festival write up however, since I don't want to spam you and everything's gone a bit long, I've redacted things to the appropriate days on the calendar.

Tags: festival

Posted at 12:01 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Previous 20

Love and the Quantum Butterfly

September 2009

Links

Tags

Page Summary

Syndicate

Sep. 12th, 2009

Sep. 1st, 2009

Aug. 23rd, 2009

May. 20th, 2009

Apr. 25th, 2009

Apr. 21st, 2009

The Oracle

Mar. 12th, 2009

Feb. 15th, 2009

Feb. 13th, 2009

Feb. 4th, 2009

Jan. 20th, 2009

Dec. 30th, 2008

Oct. 19th, 2008

Sep. 10th, 2008

Sep. 1st, 2008

Aug. 21st, 2008

Aug. 18th, 2008

Aug. 14th, 2008

Aug. 10th, 2008

Aug. 8th, 2008