Not only did they start destroying an apartment in my building, without telling me beforehand, at the ungodly hour of 8am this morning, they blocked the entryway with their little debris truck. I had to lift my bike bodily over it and squeeze through a small gap.
Went out for crepes last night with Jacques, Sophie and Estelle. After getting home I queued up a couple of episodes of six feet under. It would have been one, but I can't help myself.
Thursday, 15 September 2005
Wednesday, 14 September 2005
mea culpa
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a news conference.
Well, um, der. And about bloody time. Still, better late than never I guess.
change in transmission
I had occasion to use the wayback machine to revisit one of my old blog (by name, not tech) entries from 2002, and its interesting to note how things have changed. My writing style now is more formal but, perhaps by consequence, I blog much, much less often. I've decided to try and change that. Prepare for more posts, with more dropped subjects. Example follows.
Hooked up with Paul last night for a quick bout of NWN, continuing the game we started on the weekend. Its frustrating having to run over the same ground again and again, a condition not helped by my deciding to launch a single-player game at the same time. In the meantime I'm going to grab a copy of BG1, a game that I haven't played through before, that might offer some more story novelty satisfaction. I also continued ploughing through my TV stash, watching another episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and another couple of Six Feet Under. So well made, that show.
Today, at work, I'm mostly doing jack shit. Forecast has that continuing into the afternoon and into tomorrow.
Hooked up with Paul last night for a quick bout of NWN, continuing the game we started on the weekend. Its frustrating having to run over the same ground again and again, a condition not helped by my deciding to launch a single-player game at the same time. In the meantime I'm going to grab a copy of BG1, a game that I haven't played through before, that might offer some more story novelty satisfaction. I also continued ploughing through my TV stash, watching another episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and another couple of Six Feet Under. So well made, that show.
Today, at work, I'm mostly doing jack shit. Forecast has that continuing into the afternoon and into tomorrow.
Monday, 12 September 2005
meyer-briggs all over again
Like many in my field, I suspect, I'm INTP, although INTJ might be more common. My details:
Although I've seen this result before, the results were more moderate than I remember. Perhaps I'm getting soft in my old age.
(Test via Anna, Kerry)
- moderately expressed introvert
- moderately expressed intuitive personality
- moderately expressed thinking personality
- moderately expressed perceiving personality
Although I've seen this result before, the results were more moderate than I remember. Perhaps I'm getting soft in my old age.
(Test via Anna, Kerry)
Thursday, 8 September 2005
the last week
Its been a fairly quiet week. Last Thursday I went for a drink at the Webb with Soso and a friend of hers who's going to Australia soon for 8 or 9 months of working holiday visa goodness. I told him about the absolute necessity of doing the Cairns-Sydney or at least Cairns-Brisbane coast over a couple of weeks, all with not a small tinge of jealousy. Later on a bunch of familiar faces - Liz, Sandy, and a few others - joined us.
On Friday Liz and I went to Soso's folks' house for gallettes. Good gallettes, and nice to chat to Soso's dad. I also met her brother, who invited me to a basketball training on Tuesday.
The weekend was given over to playing cricket - on computer unfortunately, but still better than nothing. The game, EA's contribution, has a fairly steep learning curve, particularly in batting, and despite having played a game with the same controls a couple of years ago, it was only after a few hours that I managed to start registering scores in excess of 20.
On Tuesday I went out to Vezin le Coquet for basketball training with Jeremy. There were about 13 of us, with myself and one other guys the only newbies. I struggled with the early drills, my inability to hit a jumpshot somewhat of a hindrance. I also came to realise that I'm not as fit as I could be, and was blowing pretty hard at times. Later we moved onto some 3-on-3 games, and I did better, getting a nice tipback and generally not feeling too out of place playing in the post. We moved onto 5-on-5 and, likewise, I thought I was doing OK, but my calves started cramping up pretty badly and, despite a break to stretch and rub them a bit, I basically had to sit out the end of the session.
Since then I've been pretty sore. My back was tender after the game, but a little stretching down sorted that out. My calf, hip flexor and groin muscles are still tender a couple of days after though, despite my efforts to stretch them a couple of times each day. I probably need to start going for some runs if before I think about going to another training, or my fitness is going to be a problem.
On Friday Liz and I went to Soso's folks' house for gallettes. Good gallettes, and nice to chat to Soso's dad. I also met her brother, who invited me to a basketball training on Tuesday.
The weekend was given over to playing cricket - on computer unfortunately, but still better than nothing. The game, EA's contribution, has a fairly steep learning curve, particularly in batting, and despite having played a game with the same controls a couple of years ago, it was only after a few hours that I managed to start registering scores in excess of 20.
On Tuesday I went out to Vezin le Coquet for basketball training with Jeremy. There were about 13 of us, with myself and one other guys the only newbies. I struggled with the early drills, my inability to hit a jumpshot somewhat of a hindrance. I also came to realise that I'm not as fit as I could be, and was blowing pretty hard at times. Later we moved onto some 3-on-3 games, and I did better, getting a nice tipback and generally not feeling too out of place playing in the post. We moved onto 5-on-5 and, likewise, I thought I was doing OK, but my calves started cramping up pretty badly and, despite a break to stretch and rub them a bit, I basically had to sit out the end of the session.
Since then I've been pretty sore. My back was tender after the game, but a little stretching down sorted that out. My calf, hip flexor and groin muscles are still tender a couple of days after though, despite my efforts to stretch them a couple of times each day. I probably need to start going for some runs if before I think about going to another training, or my fitness is going to be a problem.
Tuesday, 6 September 2005
homesick again
Chris has been taking awesome, awesome photos of Australia, and it's making me homesick. The country around the Herbert river reminds of a couple of camping trips we did when I was little, the stuff from Mt Mulligan really captures the burnt-out, desperate scrub/forest country around Mareeba, and the shots of animals (redclaw, lizards, birds, etc) really serve to remind that the tradeoff for 500-year-old churches found in Europe is an almost total lack of wildlife.
Friday, 2 September 2005
natural disaster madness
Ricky wonders about the madness following the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, and whether the same thing would happen in Australia. I guess the closest thing we've had is the destruction of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy in '74 - obviously a much smaller storm in area, if not intensity, and mitigated by Darwin being above sea level - which basically levelled the city. Now obviously one can't compare a storm that killed 65 and evacuated 30,000 to a storm that will likely have killed thousands in a city of 1.3 million, but I've never heard of any great level of lawlessness in the wake of Tracy, and everything I've heard and read suggests the government response was much more immediate (effective too, but that's again of less viable comparison given the scale - immediacy is fair game though). I'm sketchier on other big Australian natural disasters like Black Friday or Ash Wednesday, but they're of even less direct comparison being fires.
Now, Australia's a country very prone to natural disasters. Cyclones and large-scale bushfires are an annual risk, and droughts are fairly regular and frequently followed by floods. However, so is the US. Hurricanes and tornadoes happen every year, in predictable regions, so there is really no excuse for unpreparedness or for tardy reaction. (Talking to people in Bretagne about natural disasters is silly; there aren't any, and I don't care what they say).
Now, Australia's a country very prone to natural disasters. Cyclones and large-scale bushfires are an annual risk, and droughts are fairly regular and frequently followed by floods. However, so is the US. Hurricanes and tornadoes happen every year, in predictable regions, so there is really no excuse for unpreparedness or for tardy reaction. (Talking to people in Bretagne about natural disasters is silly; there aren't any, and I don't care what they say).
Thursday, 25 August 2005
korean spam
For the last year or so I've been scanning my yahoo spam for messages that inadvertently slip through. I've probably found 2 or 3 in that period, but the escalation of volume has continued, and I stopped the practice three weeks ago. There are now 1056 in the box, as in indication of the volume, and I reckon 60% or so are in korean (the rest are loans, fertility drugs, porn and cheap software). This makes for a bemusing sort of spam - I can't read it, and the illustrations are so cryptic that they give no help to deciphering the nature of the product. It was the same at DSTC, and just recently they seem to have found my other webmail account. For the moment, my uni account hasn't been picked up to any great extent.
Monday, 22 August 2005
rennes beach
I'm just back from a ride, the first I've done for a while - I put it down to the distraction (welcome distraction, but distraction nonetheless) of having guests for a month or so. I didn't manage 50k this time - just a shade under 40 - and although it was the same canal, I went in the direction this time, out towards and past what might be generously called the local beach. There were quite a few people out, on bike, on foot, and just sitting and lying around the parklands which form the more notable part of the beach area.
Thursday, 18 August 2005
hot ashes
Its been perhaps 20 years since Australia had a competitive cricket series with England, but they now find themselves up to their armpits. I can remember maybe 2 tests (AUS vs WI in Adelaide and AUS vs RSA in Sydney) in the last 20 years as exciting as the 2nd & 3rd of this series, so to have 2 in a row is just incredibly good for Ashes cricket. Having English cricket back in the media, and rightfully (for August) ahead of the football, is long-overdue and very welcome.
Personally, I lived and died on the BBC online radio commentaries of both 5th days, and am counting the days to the 4th test, the 5th test, and then to boasting about Australia's majestic victory to Laurie Tratt in Montego Bay.
Personally, I lived and died on the BBC online radio commentaries of both 5th days, and am counting the days to the 4th test, the 5th test, and then to boasting about Australia's majestic victory to Laurie Tratt in Montego Bay.
Pointe du Raz
Here's a belated photo looking west from the Pointe du Raz, taken when Lee and I were there a few weeks ago.
Trip to paris
After Brittany, Lee and I headed east for the obligatory visit to Paris. The first afternoon we headed up to Sacre Coeur to have a look out over Paris. The hill itself was bitterly crowded, but a minute stroll over the hill down into Montmartre saw the masses off, and we enjoyed the atmosphere of the obviously very expensive area. After dinner we dropped by the tour eiffel to see it lit up.
The next day we popped into the Louvre, the first time I've been in my half-dozen trips to or through Paris. We checked out the french sculptures, italian paintings, egyptian relics, and arts of africa, the asia pacific, and north america (somewhat bemusing to see an exhibit devoted to 2/3rds of the earth). The french sculptures were really nice, but the Italian paintings were far too crowded to be pleasant. The Mona Lisa bore the brunt of my resentment, since I was unable to properly appreciate the Titians and Tintorettos because the queue to take photos of the little lady took up so much of the room. We joined the queue, as much to say that we had braved it as to see the painting. Shocking.
In the afternoon, already half gone, we walked around the tuileries, place vendome and the obelisk. After a lie-down in a parc on the champs-elysees, we had dinner in a restaurant just of the main drag, then popped down to see the arc de triomphe at sunset.
On our final morning we used the hour before our train left to visit the Musee de Rodin, or at least the sculpture garden, in front of which I appear above. This was my favourite place of the trip: not too crowded, nice sculptures, and a genuinely nice place to hang out.
The next day we popped into the Louvre, the first time I've been in my half-dozen trips to or through Paris. We checked out the french sculptures, italian paintings, egyptian relics, and arts of africa, the asia pacific, and north america (somewhat bemusing to see an exhibit devoted to 2/3rds of the earth). The french sculptures were really nice, but the Italian paintings were far too crowded to be pleasant. The Mona Lisa bore the brunt of my resentment, since I was unable to properly appreciate the Titians and Tintorettos because the queue to take photos of the little lady took up so much of the room. We joined the queue, as much to say that we had braved it as to see the painting. Shocking.
In the afternoon, already half gone, we walked around the tuileries, place vendome and the obelisk. After a lie-down in a parc on the champs-elysees, we had dinner in a restaurant just of the main drag, then popped down to see the arc de triomphe at sunset.
On our final morning we used the hour before our train left to visit the Musee de Rodin, or at least the sculpture garden, in front of which I appear above. This was my favourite place of the trip: not too crowded, nice sculptures, and a genuinely nice place to hang out.
back to work
I've been back at work for the last week and a bit now. Upon returning I came across a call for papers for the MTIP workshop at Models, so I contacted Mike Lawley and we rustled up a paper together on Tefkat, which I hope to present, since no DSTC (Disbanded, Stopped, Terminated, Ceased) people will be at Montego Bay.
On Montego Bay, things are looking grim for my bank account. The conference hotel is in reality a resort, 16km from the town itself, and I've been told this afternoon that my budget is US$70 per day for accomodation, food, and misc other. This is a little less than half the conference hotel rate, which I estimate puts me in a $1000 personal hole for the week if I can't find some other way to manage it. If I had a license, I could stay in a cheap dive in town and rent a car, but that ain't gonna happen in the next month. Its weird how the french public service is quite happy to throw money about willy-nilly in some ways (tenure), but not in others.
On Montego Bay, things are looking grim for my bank account. The conference hotel is in reality a resort, 16km from the town itself, and I've been told this afternoon that my budget is US$70 per day for accomodation, food, and misc other. This is a little less than half the conference hotel rate, which I estimate puts me in a $1000 personal hole for the week if I can't find some other way to manage it. If I had a license, I could stay in a cheap dive in town and rent a car, but that ain't gonna happen in the next month. Its weird how the french public service is quite happy to throw money about willy-nilly in some ways (tenure), but not in others.
Tuesday, 2 August 2005
photo finish
When Lee and I were in Quimper, we visited the Maritime Museum there. To be honest, its not the sort of stuff that flicks my switch, and a lot of the time I couldn't be bothered labouring through the written french descriptions of the exhibits.
At one point, though, Lee called me over and said there was a piece on a guy who visited the Solomons and Australia in the late 1700s. That struck me as interesting, so I had a read. The guy was La Pérouse, and I was shocked to read that the plaque said the he visited the Solomons on January 1st of 1788 and then Sydney Harbour (then Port Jackson) on the 26th of the same month. Now, being a good patriotic Australian, I noted that as an important date, because its when the first fleet landed at the same harbour. I was a bit shocked, and to be honest suspicious of French revisionism, that a frenchman was there on the same day.
As it turns out, Captain Arthur Phillip (who in fact reached the continent a week earlier, but found Botany Bay unsuitable for settlement) was equally shocked upon seeing French ships in the harbour on the day. La Pérouse had in fact been sent to explore the southwest Pacific in response to Cook's voyage in 1770 (or thereabouts), and had undertaken a massive voyage around the Pacific rim, and was later given instructions to check out the colony while stopping in Russia.
The English he met there (dare we call them Australians? perhaps not) were unable to give him food, and in the end were among the last westerners to see him or his crew alive. His ship was later found wrecked in the Santa Cruz islands in the south west of what is now the Solomons.
Anyway, I found all that jolly interesting.
At one point, though, Lee called me over and said there was a piece on a guy who visited the Solomons and Australia in the late 1700s. That struck me as interesting, so I had a read. The guy was La Pérouse, and I was shocked to read that the plaque said the he visited the Solomons on January 1st of 1788 and then Sydney Harbour (then Port Jackson) on the 26th of the same month. Now, being a good patriotic Australian, I noted that as an important date, because its when the first fleet landed at the same harbour. I was a bit shocked, and to be honest suspicious of French revisionism, that a frenchman was there on the same day.
As it turns out, Captain Arthur Phillip (who in fact reached the continent a week earlier, but found Botany Bay unsuitable for settlement) was equally shocked upon seeing French ships in the harbour on the day. La Pérouse had in fact been sent to explore the southwest Pacific in response to Cook's voyage in 1770 (or thereabouts), and had undertaken a massive voyage around the Pacific rim, and was later given instructions to check out the colony while stopping in Russia.
The English he met there (dare we call them Australians? perhaps not) were unable to give him food, and in the end were among the last westerners to see him or his crew alive. His ship was later found wrecked in the Santa Cruz islands in the south west of what is now the Solomons.
Anyway, I found all that jolly interesting.
Sunday, 24 July 2005
more brittany
Another week, another round of tourism.
The original plan last Tuesday was to catch some trains up to Bayeux and Rouen and check out Normandy, but forecasts of bad weather and dodgy train timetables made us reconsider, so we took the easier option and jumped a TGV out to Brest, via St Brieux. After an afternoon there exploring the maritime museum and various parks, we caught the train down to Quimper, where we ran into a large celtic/european cultural festival. We took in a concert or two and wandered around amongst the crowds, and along the way established (or, in my case, reestablished) the opinion that Breton dancing is entirely without rhythmic, diversionary or any other sort of merit. We had a quick visit to the gallery there, but had to cut it short, which was a shame.
On Thursday morning we caught a ridiculously cheap but out to the Pointe du Raz and had a scramble on the rocks. It was a very different day to my previous visit. The visibility was high, the winds low, and the gulls largely absent, and the flowers that had been so colourful had seen their hues quite dulled by the sun in the month since.
After an afternoon of sun, we were pretty tired catching the TER back to Rennes, and collapsed basically on arrival, even forgetting to check the score in the cricket.
The original plan last Tuesday was to catch some trains up to Bayeux and Rouen and check out Normandy, but forecasts of bad weather and dodgy train timetables made us reconsider, so we took the easier option and jumped a TGV out to Brest, via St Brieux. After an afternoon there exploring the maritime museum and various parks, we caught the train down to Quimper, where we ran into a large celtic/european cultural festival. We took in a concert or two and wandered around amongst the crowds, and along the way established (or, in my case, reestablished) the opinion that Breton dancing is entirely without rhythmic, diversionary or any other sort of merit. We had a quick visit to the gallery there, but had to cut it short, which was a shame.
On Thursday morning we caught a ridiculously cheap but out to the Pointe du Raz and had a scramble on the rocks. It was a very different day to my previous visit. The visibility was high, the winds low, and the gulls largely absent, and the flowers that had been so colourful had seen their hues quite dulled by the sun in the month since.
After an afternoon of sun, we were pretty tired catching the TER back to Rennes, and collapsed basically on arrival, even forgetting to check the score in the cricket.
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