Psychic archaeology

Ticks

While stuck at home for three weeks with a severe case of pneumonia, I have watched plenty of Foxtel, mostly documentaries and motoring reality shows, e.g. "Wheeler Dealers" and "Chop Shop: London Garage" on Discovery Turbo MAX. My biggest complaint about the state of cable telly - besides bullshit about the moon landings being faked appearing on The History Channel and not SCI FI - is the overwhelming number of insurance adverts, all based around scare tactics. Life insurance, income insurance, funeral cover... It's no exaggeration to say that every second commercial break, the viewer is confronted with scenes of fictitious families worrying about how they're going to cope without some financial plan or other. These ads tend to be longer than the regular variety, too, as the parasites responsible attempt to drive their suckers deep for a good drink of blood.

Late-breaking news

A Facebook freund posted this link. It's not exactly current, but I reckon it's still very cool. Back in '03, the duo from the "Mastermind" game box were reunited after 30 years to recreate and tell the story of that famous image - http://bit.ly/IlLvn. I've always found the shot slightly sinister, probably because they remind me of a Bond villain and his hench-babe! (Or, if you prefer, a Bond femme fatale and her thrall.)

No Mercy, sir

"We are now looking at coming to Australia and New Zealand another time. We'll let you know when." So reads the homepage of The Sisters Of Mercy in the wake of the Soundwave Revolution festival's sudden, LAME-O cancellation (how can they blame one headline act pulling out when there were 30-odd bands on the bill?). [Sigh] I just knew it would fall through :-(

Goblin Fartknocker (2012 Core Set pre-cons)

1st - "Blood And Fire" (R/b) - 4 matches, 9 games
2nd - "Sacred Assault" (W/g) - 2 matches, 7 games
3rd - "Entangling Webs" (G/r) - 2 matches, 6 games
4th - "Grab For Power" (B/u) - 2 matches, 5 games
5th - "Mystical Might" (U/w) - 0 matches, 3 games

* "G/F/P" might have fared better if I'd got the Crown/Scepter/Throne Of Empires combo out more than once in 12 games that were generally quite lengthy.

2038

"Is programming a kind of creative writing? The notion seems outlandish at first blush. Any discipline that involves complex mathematics and symbolic logic does not seem to share the same cubbyhole with poetry and self-expression. Yet the programming field could learn much from the writing world, argues Richard Gabriel, a veteran of the Lisp and object-oriented programming worlds who is now a Distinguished Engineer at Sun. 'My view is that we should train developers the way we train creative people like poets and artists. People may say, "Well, that sounds really nuts." But what do people do when they're being trained, for example, to get a master of fine arts in poetry? They study great works of poetry. Do we do that in our software engineering disciplines? No. You don't look at the source code for great pieces of software. Or look at the architecture of great pieces of software. You don't look at their design. You don't study the lives of great software designers. So you don't study the literature of the thing that you're trying to build'"
- "Dreaming In Code" (2007) by Scott Rosenberg, p.299.

Red underarmy blues

"If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist"
- slogan on back of Old Spice stick deodorant.

Sarah frank

"I've heard that when one writes in a diary, they are secretly hoping that it will someday be read and appreciated by others. But have you actually ever read anyone's diary? I doubt it, because they are unreadable. If life is a meal, then diaries are the toilets in which we shit out its vile remnants. They are litanies of complaints, grandiosity and self-pity. There's always the occasional happy entry, but they tend to be more brief. If my experience with this book is any guide, the very act of sitting alone in a room writing fuels misery. If you're happy, you probably don't have time to write for long periods in a diary because you're out barbecuing or doing some sort of fusion-y sport like surf-ball-skiing or heli-yoga-jumping"
- "The Bedwetter" (2010) by Sarah Silverman, p.135.