Hunting for a switch

I have a theory that in our relatively high-tech lifestyle a different electrical appliance breaks every day. It could be a light bulb, a computer or, as today, the central heating pipe switch. No problemo! off to the local stores...


Of course the design of the switch and how it clamps to the pipe has changed. So to another set of shops, through the winding lanes from Reading but the same story.

So back home without the component, but with a new project to call a plumber.

Ye olde days of webbe

Wanna see how it used to be? dial up the Wayback Machine, to see old versions of popular Web sites dating back to 1996. There's a strange fascination to seeing old sites you know, what they said then and what they say now! In 1996, the Web was new and novel. An ancient site I remember was the Trojan Room Coffee Machine, which was an early web cam connected to check the level of coffee in a pot in a nearby room. Then there was the Mercury project from 1994 (I'm in the journal!) to operate a crane and camera to dig in sand and discover things by remote control. There was another one in Australia, which is still in use with a better control panel, eleven years later.
Not to mention 1995's Overdraft Arms!

Well worth a browse.

Manchester second half

Half a day in Manchester, to an idyllic garden at the Whipping Stocks for a St. Clements with John and Michael before onward to business. Then back in the BMW to the airport and thence homeward to Hampshire.

Uncyclopedia

Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia full of misinformation and utter lies. It's sort of like Congress or Parliament. Unlike Congress or Parliament, however, we do have a sense of humor. Nonetheless, this is one of the only factual pages, before everything turns into a puddle of utter confusion and disarray. Savor it. And for the love of Sophia, we know you like disarray, (and confusion) but stop adding confusion to this non-confusing page which leads to confusion, and possibly disarray. Which we wish to stop. Non-non-confusion, that is. Not disarray. Or is it the other way around?

Post Secret

Postsecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.



"I saw your site and half the things I read gave me chills. Then I decided I would send you one of mine. I couldn't find a post card just then, but I couldn't get to sleep until I got it off my chest, so I dug out a photo and took some markers to it, and used that instead. I finished it at three in the morning, or three-thirty, because I just couldn't get to sleep until it was done, and put it in the mailbox on my way to the bus stop in the morning after getting up at five. I know it's silly, but I feel much better lately after telling it to somebody, even (and especially) if they were a complete stranger. I'd never thought of doing that before. Thanks for making my life a little easier and myself a little easier to live with.
-New York

I mailed you a secret this past week. It did not show up on the website, but I don't mind because a secret you posted captured my secret better than the one I sent you. I couldn't even be that honest with myself. Though what I wrote was true, what she wrote was truer."
-Virginia

Any chick for tennis?

Hop it

The Advertising Standards Authority has had a record 800 complaints about the Crazy Frog ring tone advertisements. The UK has been flooded with the ads for the ring tone which is based on the tune from the Beverly Hills Cop movie. It is the first ring tone to reach number one when it went on sale as a CD.

Apparently there is a new single in the works called Kill the Frog by Frog Must Die, which is due to be released later this month, and designed to set the record straight. Maybe this frog will croak.

Cultural desublimation

Cultural desublimation in the works of Pynchon

V. Ludwig Cameron
Department of Future Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Barbara F. Long
Department of Deconstruction, University of Illinois

1. Consensuses of collapse

In the works of Pynchon, a predominant concept is the concept of subconstructivist culture. The subject is interpolated into a cultural neopatriarchialist theory that includes reality as a totality.

But Foucault uses the term 'realism' to denote not narrative per se, but prenarrative. The premise of dialectic nihilism suggests that reality is created by the collective unconscious, but only if truth is distinct from sexuality; if that is not the case, culture serves to disempower minorities.

In a sense, the destruction/creation distinction depicted in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 emerges again in V, although in a more neotextual sense. A number of deappropriations concerning a self-justifying paradox exist. But in Mason & Dixon, Pynchon examines realism; in Vineland he analyses conceptual subsemioticist theory. The subject is contextualised into a cultural neopatriarchialist theory that includes reality as a totality.

This essay extract is randomly generated by the Postmodernism Generator, an essential aid to those last minute dissertations.

Cyderdelic

Cyderdelic will be performing at Glastonbury.

Big Brother's extremely little brother

The folk at BBELB are onto the current Big Brother. For constructive banality take a look. Digital Spy has the best view of the gossip.

Merchant Coincidences

So we decided to stop off at the Merchant 1688 for a bite to eat. Before we had sat down, Melanie arrived. She called John, who co-incidentally was also in the pub (in anothe bar); Ray had just left and John was playing Snooker with Neil. None of this was pre-arranged. Some co-incidence!

Crathes Castle

With its portraits, oak ceilings, heraldic shields, Elizabethan fireplace and more, Crathes is uniquely preserved. The castle is particularly famous for its Jacobean painted ceilings, only uncovered in 1877. These can be seen in the Chamber of the Muses, the Chamber of Nine Worthies and the Green Lady's Room - which is said to be haunted.

One of the most historic objects is the Horn of Leys, a jewelled ivory horn on display in the hall. It is thought to have been given by Robert the Bruce to the Burnetts in 1323 when he granted them the Lands of Leys and the instructions have always been to remove this first in event of a fire - even ahead of Burnett's wife!

In 1553 they began to build the castle. It wasn't completed until at least 1596 and the east-wing was added in the 18th century. The castle stayed in the hands of the same family until 1951 when Sir James Burnett presented Crathes to the National Trust for Scotland. The current visitor centre stands in place of the Queen Anne wing which was destroyed by fire in 1966.