Laat deze plaats...

St. John: Die Wahrheit macht frei. (The truth makes you free.)
The Nazis: Arbeit macht frei. (Work makes you free.)
Me: Macht macht frei. (Power makes you free.)

The view as they got off the train in the Birkenau camp:



Now make an effort:

Beta is better

Now this is nice, Blogger have got their act together and now the service is running even more smoothly than before. Foul-ups, I should expect, will be much fewer and farther between than before. Which means more pictures!

Here is Greg's ass, and [not-Greg]'s (can anyone prove me wrong? actually I think I might, but please somebody else try first!) hand:



And to cheer you up after that ordeal, have a beer: (hopefully the people in the background won't feel too incriminated if ever their parents come along here (I know, I know, yeah right wtf and all))


Or, if you don't like beer, something a little more unusual for you to ponder over while the rest of the world gets drunk:


Polish people are so Catholic, they have 3 Jesuses (Jesii?)
(Don't worry I'm not that ignorant about ignorance.)

Alternatively, if you're offended by my going-to-hell-anyway-so-whatever way of thinking, this should at least bemuse everyone:

Choo-chew

Woot! Yesterday it was off with my braces! Can't actually tell the difference it apparently made for my teeth, though. Rip-off anyway, but an insured one. I'm sure, as with a lot of things, if I had much more of an incentive I would have cared more.

The cloud filling this particular silver lining is why they were taken off. Ideally the orthodontist would have had me were them a few more months, to get even more money re-correcting the little gaps that had appeared (due to his incompetence in the first place), but due to my relapse of encephalitis (at least that's what they're calling it this time, but in fact they plain old just don't know) I have to go for an MRI scan next month, using really big magnets (not the crappy pseudoscientific ones you get in bracelets that are supposed to get the iron in your blood flowing better "or something" - what an insult to human intelligence) that would rip the sharp metal bits of my braces out of my head, in several (vitally inefficient) directions at once.

Also yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my first proper headache. And I don't mean a bit of dizziness due to watching TV for too long, I mean intracranial hypertension provoked by viral (although quite which virus is unclear) meningitis. Worse than the worst hangover imaginable, even from several Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, and I should know.

In the meantime I've been hanging out with the (mostly) non-complete-tools at www.skepticforum.com which is well worth a visit if you care about human rational thought at all. Recently I've realised that because I spend most of my time with averagely intelligent people, we should all be getting very worried about the bottom of the pile.

Let me stand next to your fire

Just... wow. With extra-long exposure, so woooooooooooooooooooooooow. All of these were taken by me (except one by Antoine) in Krakow. There were more that didn't turn as nice, there a surprising amoun of luck involved when your camera is as cheap as mine.






Karo and Greg, this is for you.



That last picture is from Antoine's blog: link. And because he's such a (clever) nerd it's even licenced "under Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0 France": link

Nie mowie po polsku.

("I don't speak Polish." I didn't know how to spell the words for "Sorry, I'm English." which was basically the rest of my grasp of that language.)

This one goes out to Filip, damn boy I which I had a name that was so nearly spelt the same as a Muse song. Oh and everyone else (Aga, to you I say: "perfunctory". Kasia: Mickey Mouse is punk and comfyhugs!). "What is zees number?" tu te reconnaîtras. Ah vive le symbolisme.

Can't we laugh and joke around
Remember cuddles in the kitchen
Yeah, to get things off the ground
And it was up, up and away
Oh, but it's right hard to remember
That on a day like today when you're all argumentative
And you've got the face on

Still can't listen to the Arctic Monkeys without having to lie down in bed through all of it and end up really quite very nearly almost being late (haha kudos to the timekeeping!) for stuff.

Tamara

Happy Birthday (yesterday) ! Hope you got lots of prezzies.

Dzien dobry!

I'm in Poland!

Alive And Amplified

Yay, for I have received my 4-input dual-speaker stereo amp, including mic', plus 2 DS boxes, and it's very fucking loud.

Also, I'm going to Poland for a week. So what if it's not great for my studies? I can catch up. It's not like I'm missing two months like last year or anything, and I managed fine then. We get to see Auschwitz, which will be... "interesting" is all I shall say for now, but hopefully I will write more soon.

In the meantime, a little gem from history class:

The time might come when in your own country, on going to the cinema, you would be seeing American films sold for foreign consumption - and not those of the better quality, but those manufactured in greater quantity, and circulated and imposed abroad by the agents of powerful firms and cinema companies which have grown particularly rich during the war.

V.M. Molotov,
Problems of Foreign Policy, Speeches and Statements, April 1945-November 1948

Relief

*sigh*... haaaah. at last, Gmail is working again, at least for now. So I get to read my e-mails about the plans I was making for LAST FUCKING WEEKEND!

Philosoppy of why?

I know perfectly well that shit happens, but still this repeated non-working of G-Mail is getting annoying. Anyone else had similar loading trouble? I hope I'm not the only one in this mess. I have vital unimportant gatherings to organise! I need G-Mail!

From being a pain in the arse, to having one.

Well, the story of my summer I now choose not to share in detail, because it wasn't the same as last year, I feel different, and doing so identically would be really bad generally. The purpose of my intrusion onto the Internet has evolved and telling people about what I do just for the sake of making them jealous is bloody pointless and mean and unfunny. So there. Incidentally, I went SCUBA diving in Marseille and surfing in Biarritz, with my first ever proper hangover at my cousin's while visiting Universities and gettting through London on that day when err nothing much actually happened and there was all that critical security fuss.

It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine.

***

Oh yeah and my arse is killing me because I went through surgery (general anaesthetic and all) to have a cyst removed from just below the smalll of my back. The op went fine and I'm recovering OK. Apart from feeling like I have a ping-pong ball strapped into me.

***

Today me and Alain marked the one year anniversary of the red bull adventures by having a litre of Kick (the amazingly good (and cheap!) Tesco clone) between us. Hence all this posting all of a suddenness. *twitch*

***

I have the solution to the problem of terrorists blowing planes: give the same amount of newspaper space to plane crashes as to car accidents, which kill loads of poeple every day; namely, zero. No coverage, no point. End of problem. But let's just hope no terrorists get the idea of putting a large suitcase bomb in the check-in cues, to which lots of people have access without going through any security, and are all crowded together. No need even for suicide. Inifinitely more efficient.

***

Back to school soon, last year ever, exams and stuff... Can't wait! Bring it on, want to see all my friends again. Oh and I moved house. A lot closer to town now so a lot more freedom.

yeehappyeehahahardyharhardasnails

roflolmaowtfbbqrtfmffs

Oi!

Fucking G-Mail not working! fuck!

Summer

Well, I think I'll just do the same as last year, and not think too much in the meantime.

The results are in...

My exam results, for those of you who might be curious, are:

French Written: 14/20
French Oral: 17/20
TPE: 18/20

Needless to say I'm pleased. The mere fact that it has got me round to posting should tell you.

Which means that so far my total is 78/80, and here's why:
Both French exams have a coefficent of 2, so that's (14*2+17*2)/(20*2+20*2) which is 62/80, and TPE, because it is an option (albeit a compulsory one) is entirely a bonus, with a coefficient of 2 for all points above 10 (18-10 = 8 so I get 8, coefficient 2, 8*2 = 16). So that's an extra 16 points towards my total, "for free", hence (62+16=78) 78/80, which is a rather good start. Although next year there are no more bonus points.

10 reasons why I'm not terribly convincing.

- Most of what I write is a walking paradox, including that.
- I don't write nearly regularly enough to be taken seriously.
- My humour isn't nearly universal enough, and I overdo it a lot.
- I don't care enough to take the time to explain problems fully enough for people who don't already know about it to become interested.
- I afford my readers far too much unattainable insight.
- When quoting, I'm too pedantic when it's not important.
- When quoting, I'm not sufficiently pedantic when it does matter.
- I'm not nearly modest enough.
- I write "ten reasons".
- Whatever
- I can't count.

The Be(a)st

666
6.6.6
2006-06-06.
Whatever.
You all know what I'm talking about, although I must admit exactly what was supposed to happen I'm not sure, this is another case of several different rumours.
Last tuesday.
I'll keep this succinct because I'm very hungry.
What must they have been thinking for the entire month of june in 1966? Well, a few West Germans must have been scared when England won the world cup...( although zat vass Yuly I peleaf.) Or in 1066? Battle of Hastings, anyone? (Although I'm not sure if at the time they called it 1066, or again if that was necessarily june (georgian calendar's more recent I think - speaking of which what happens if you use a different calendar? end of the world and you don't even know it! hm... Also, again I'm a litle hazy on this but that doesn't matter because I'm so unbelievably right about this anyway (proof = I am alive to write this), I think it says in Revelations that 666 is "the number of the Beast"... what the hell? I hope some farmer somewhere got bitten by his sheep marked #666 just for the fun of it... I think God might be a little less predictable than just using the date, which is an approximation anyway. Whatever happened to Infinte Wisdom?))
Come on people, this is nothing special.
Besides, at the time of the writing of the Bible, they used Roman numerals so "Six hundred three score and six" (as it says in my version of Revelations) would have been written DCLXVI (500 + 100 + 50 + 10 + 5 + 1 ; notice how that's one of each (apart from M (1000)). So I think I'll get scared when the date is DCLXVI, because that would be special.
It's no big deal!
And what would you say had humans had evolved (yes that did happen) only having 8 fingers? That way we would have a whole different system of counting and 6/6/6 would have happened ages ago. Or if we had only thought of counting on 1 hand? 6 would even exist!
Uch, woo-woo land can be fun, but not when taken so damn seriously. Reason and science- they work! And there's no denying it... you can read, can't you?

++

^^

suggestivism...

Fuck, no matter how much I try I can't get that to look quite right!

HAHA

One of the most genuinely entertaining msn conversations I've ever had (especially because I had a headache). Now, for the sake of keeping it kinda special or whatever, I'm not going o give you all of it, just the absolute number one higlight.

- S+eph - We live in an age obssessed with success says:

so why do you hate french so much?

- S+eph - We live in an age obssessed with success says:

don't you, um... live in france?

@£€% // St. Jimmy says:

yes

@£€% // St. Jimmy says:

"absence makes the heart grow fonder" ... therefore by inverse extension, spending too much time with someone makes you sick of them. i've spent my entire life around french people, so i hate them. but don't ell them i said that

- S+eph - We live in an age obssessed with success says:

awww. what a shame.

- S+eph - We live in an age obssessed with success says:

...

- S+eph - We live in an age obssessed with success says:

i see what you mean though.

Some things I think (Nothing Else Matters)

Right, serious post now.

Not just random anything, but still most things that just go through my mind while I listen to rock music, so be warned. Free typing or something. I had some ideas for something to say, which I can still remember so here goes....

I realised posts were getting a little spaced out in time, so here's one to read in the meantime, a sort of update on generally what's been happening to me, while I think of somehting I really want to say. I could have mentioned what happened during the holidays, like going GeoCaching with Alain and my dad in the Doubs, getting 20 in three days (Excellent, we beat our total for one day in France (it's now 8, 2 better than before)) and seeing loads of snow and generally having a great weekend. Then the following weekend was my uncle's wedding, so I had to go out and get a suit, which made me look very classy indeed. That whole weekend over in London was really good, because I got to see my Grandparents again (they're at that age where every time you see them might be the last), and lots of new extended family who are all really nice, although we're having a hard time working out exactly what they are in relation to me. My mum's brother's wife's brother = ??? And I met up with Nat for a chat, which was great despite the stupid rhyme. And dad broke his record for most caches in one day anywhere, now it's 12 (!), including the travel bug hotel near Stansted. Then after a week of vaguely homeworking (teachers seem to have forgotten about that *again*) and missing Tamara, there was the Artefacts festival, where I saw Kagerou, who were awesome. Now I know how french-speakers feel when they listen to most music (ijn english) - I couldn't understand a word, and had it not being obviously Japanese it would have sounded like Greek to me. After them was Less Than Jake, who are definitely worth it live (never been terribly impressed by the records, but these guys know how to party). Finally it was the Dropkick Murphys, on the last date of their Warrior's Code European Tour. What can I say? They really went for it. I bought a T-shirt. Drinks were pretty cheap too. It's surprising how many big-name bands actually bother to come to Strasbourg. All in all a pretty nifty 18 days' holiday. And then was the school party (finally) on Thursday. This was extra cool because I got to pay nothing and bluff a free drink! Oh and the bands were all really good, even though we screwed up our best song for no obvious reason and I was too loud (the typical problem). And this weekend I saw some really good movies, like Donnie Darko and American Beauty (must get round to finding out about American Brains - related? got to be really) and the new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was better than I had expected. Plus cricket on Sunday, which was good (perfect weather), first game of the season. I still haven't got round to playing properly, but I had a good catch-up chat with friends, and played mini-cricket with Alfie, who's now the 3 years old and phenomenally cute and well-behaved. And bloody strong. Today was my Mock French (written) Bac. 4 hours of insincere bluffing about some very good texts that we are forced to butcher horribly (<~~ "redondance, soit une acculmuation révelatrice d'une émotion forte"- see what I mean?). BUt otherwise, things are running pretty smoothly.

Et voilà, not quite what i had intended (that's what you get with improv though), leave lots of comments people!

Muslims in Orbit

From JREF's Swift, because I just had to, this is so great:

Next year, we’re told, Malaysia will be sending a Muslim astronaut into space via the Russian space program. This poses several tricky problems for the Malaysian government's efforts to promote what it calls “Islam Hadhari,” or civilized Islam. This variation encourages Muslims to embrace education, science and technology. About equality for women and such other basics, we’re not told…

Consider the busy day of an astronaut, and know that a Muslim on board the space station will be confounded by the fact that he experiences more than a dozen sunrises and sunsets within each 24 hours, each event requiring that an appropriate prayer be offered. He’ll be very busy. And, since Muslims always wash before they pray, and water is a precious substance in space, attempting to wash up is also expensive and impractical, especially in weightlessness, where the water will be distributed all over the place.

Even before facing those difficulties, facing Mecca – essential for prayer – will be pretty tough in zero-gravity, and may lead to catastrophic spinning of the devotee as he tries to keep pointing toward a rapidly-moving target below.

As reader Andrew Williams comments, “It appears that Muslims might have to evolve in their views regarding life in space. Unfortunately, evolution runs against the grain in most religions.”

Progress has its penalties…

I'm not entirely sure Mohammed would approve, although I have a bit of an idea what he might look like...