You ought to learn more about yourself – Caroline

The first week of work is over and I enjoyed it. Most of it was spent introducing myself to the various libraries and frameworks that I’ll be using, and to the different projects that the company works on. I also did some pair programming, which was a good way to get a gentle introduction to things. It’s still going to take a while to get comfortable with it all and get up to speed, but I think I’m going to enjoy working here.

Here are some more songs that I’ve been listening to (oddly enough, like with the previous post, it’s a paired set of songs again). First is an amazing, sometimes sung, sometimes spoken, version of Lou Reed’s Caroline Says II:

And this is a riff on Caroline Says II by Amanda Palmer — or maybe it’s a homage, or both? It’s called Blake Says, and it might play on a few other Lou Reed / Velvet Underground songs as well (All Tomorrow’s Parties perhaps?), but I’m not sure.

Both of these songs break my heart in little ways.

New Year

It’s been a while since I last posted here — not since May, which is one long run of quietness. So, what’s been happening in my life?

After a year of posting fortnightly flash fiction, the Micro Fiction project that some friends and I have been working on has come to an end. It was sad to see the project finish up, but some of the authors have gone on to work on another site, Fictitious, where the projects are not necessarily limited to the flash fiction format. Also, if you want to try your hand at writing something, they’re open to people helping out on their different projects.

A bigger change is that I’m starting a job at Brandseye on Tuesday. I’ve been thinking of finding full-time work for a large portion of the year, and a few months ago began looking around. They’ve offered me a four-day work week, so hopefully the PhD will still be coming along, although at a much reduced pace.

Some music videos I’ve been watching and that have stuck in my brain: this seems to be a fan made video for Placebo’s cover of Running up that hill; I think the montage of people’s video messages works very well.

I’ve also finally listened to some of Radiohead’s newer music. In a vaguely similar theme to the Placebo track, Radiohead’s Videotape is quite explicitly about sending video messages (it’s a gentle, lovely song, but comes with a suicide trigger warning).

Speditioning Again

It’s been weeks since we’ve speditioned properly, but it seems to be starting up again. Last week we visited Signal Hill during a particularly foggy day and snapped some shots:

Cape Town Stadium fogged in

Some of the other speditioner’s shots are available, too:

• Maximilian Barñers.
• Ushinatta
• A’s

On further news, most of this fortnight’s micro fiction submissions are in. Mine is called Vitae.

Spam!

Got a phone call earlier today from someone who sounded as though they were in the middle of a shopping mall. My cell number, I was told, had been “possibly” selected to win R10 000 of award money. I was amazed, but not because of the prize money: I was wondering how long it would be before I’d get calls to sell me Viagra, or to embiggen my penis. I didn’t ask the R10 000 person if they were offering easy access to drugs or penis enlargement, though — I semi-politely hung up instead.

End of the iPod

I had my 20GB iPod for nearly five years, it’s been with me in six countries and given me hours of entertainment — now it’s finally given up the ghost. A few weeks ago it displayed a little sad iPod picture when I tried starting it up, and Apple tells me that this means it’s suffered from some “unspecified” hardware failure. The iPod has reached its end. It is an ex-iPod.

Gonna miss it.

I’m not going to replace it just yet, and I’m sure there are much better mp3 players to get whose manufacturers aren’t actively trying to make impossible to use with Ubuntu, so when I do I’m unlikely to get an iPod again.

From our last spedition, somewhere in Cecilia Forest.

 

Missing posts

It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything. I’ve got two half-finished posts sitting as drafts, but it’s unlikely that I’ll finish them. One is the beginnings of a review of Robin Hobb’s Rain Wild Chronicles, which was fun but continues her streak of publishing novels filled with bad typos and poor editing (including spelling “giving” as “giv/ing” in Dragon Keeper‘s opening sentence). The Chronicles also read as a moral about how we should fit into society’s imposed roles for us, otherwise Bad Shit Happens. That’s a frighteningly simplistic view of the world, and maybe if I ever reread the novels I’ll get down to finishing off the review.

The other post is about the play Waiting for Godot, which I saw with James and Luciano at the O.R Tambo Sports Centre in Khayelitsha. Was great, and Ian McKellen still seems fit and active at 71.

Spedition photo from Kirstenbosch. The whole scene looks like a diorama in a museum. Very lovely.

Yesterday I began a Warhammer 40K roleplaying game with my D&D group. We’ve barely roleplayed this whole year, I think mostly because everyone’s been too busy to organise themselves around DMing. So I offered to DM this, although James seems happy with the idea of him running some of the sessions, which I will look forward to. I’m going to enjoy playing around in the Warhammer 40K world — it’s science fiction meets horror meets Cthulhu, and promises to be fun.

Oh, and my latest micfic went up this weekend.

None additivity of my kitchen scales

My kitchen scales are awful. I suppose that’s what happens when you buy cheap from Clicks. I discovered that if I have a lump of dough weighing 200g (according to the aforementioned kitchen scales), and I split this into two halves, both halves weigh less than 100g (again, according to the aforementioned, dodgy kitchen scales). But together they still, miraculously, weigh 200g. Humph.

Found the book!

For the last few days I’ve been looking for a library book that I’d lost. I’ve been quite ticked, because it’s the first library book I’ve ever lost, and I don’t have money to spend on replacing it. If you’ve been visiting me this week, you probably would’ve heard me complaining about it. Or maybe you’re one of the lucky people who heard about it via email.

Tonight I had supper with Jak and I mentioned the lost book to him. It turns out that he’s had the book in his car all along. Phew. I’m not sure when or why I ever had the book in his car, but that’s perfectly fine. I’m just glad that it was his car where I left it, and not a taxi or a train. Now if only I’d had supper with him earlier in the week, like on the Monday when I’d decided the book was officially MIA. It would have saved me a few mad searches of my flat, and some desperate phone calls to shuttle services and lost+found desks.

But things are good: not only don’t I have to pay the library anything (or even mention this to them), I get to finish reading the book. Hoozah!

Fiction, World Cup

Another round has finished over at MicFic, and a new round has started; this fortnight’s theme:  “Sure thing“. You can read and comment on all of the last round of entries here. As usual, I managed to get my submission in not only last, but on the very last day as well; but it’s done, and on time.

Last night a I also went over to a World Cup Finale party to enjoy Spain beating the Netherlands. Wasn’t the most exciting soccer. but the party was fun: full of wine and snark.

Oh, and if you’ve seen a copy of Set Theory and its Philosophy laying around and you’re wondering who it belongs to, give me a shout! I’ve managed to misplace a copy; I’m hoping that it’s still in my flat somewhere, and that I just lost it after reorganising some books last week. But I’m losing hope

Breath

The second round of our flash fiction writing has completed over at MicFic. The topic was “breath”. Go have a look!