subtitles: June 2003 Archives

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June 29, 2003

I Bought CDs

I just spent about 50 pnds on CDs :). God damn that record industry, saying we don't buy CDs anymore. Here's what I bought:

Pixies - Doolittle
Breeders - title TK
REM - Murmur
Soundgarden - Louder than Love
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths - The World Won't Listen

Basically delving a bit deeper in to the classics and getting the new Breeders CD, which, from what I've heard so far, is superb. The rest are just things I'm embarassed I don't have more of, especially the Pixies. Bought all of it from this place in York called Track Records, near the Burger King.

Seems like a pretty good place for alternative stuff, ie not the pop-alt stuff that they sell at chain stores. And they had most of the stuff I bought at about 5.99, which is nice.

I'm sure I could get this stuff on Amazon from resellers and stuff for that price, but it's just nice buying a whole bunch of CD's from an independant store. And it's nice sifting through bargain shelves and finding exactly what you should be buying/what you wanted to buy.

I suppose my taste is a bit dated by now, which is why what I bought was in the bargain section anyway...

Oh, and the TV reception depends on the weather apparently, so whatever. Shall now go e-mail Cari to ask her if she wants a slightly damaged TV cabinet.

Posted by subtitles at 5:24 PM | Personal

June 28, 2003

Packed and Moved

Have moved into Ingram H, where I'll be until graduation. Depressingly, it's that much of a nicer room than my old one - the TV reception is absolutely flawless and sharp after the intense fuzziness I've become accustomed to.

Emen will be over in a minute, as will the curry (again). Everyone seems to be pretty damn sick of moving and carrying all this crap all over the fuck-shop. I know Delwyn and Dion are pretty grumpy having to keep going back and forth to Manchester.

But well, will be leaving for Holland on Tuesday, which is actually when my results come out, but *what-ever*. I've pretty much got the route to Stansted, we'll have to pre-book the parking so it's cheaper, and we've got accomodation sussed for both Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

I think the plan is that we just spend the last day farting around Eindhoven, but not actually staying there. Apparently it's that boring that hostels aren't actually a priority.

I've found "What Katy Read", so I'll see what Su-lin says, whether she wants me to try and get the money back or whether she wants a last reminder of her time in York, a souvenir if you will. Like I planned to do with the Golding books in the RJC library - which no one ever took out :P.

Posted by subtitles at 9:08 PM | Personal

June 27, 2003

Speeding

I'm feeling pretty shitty now after a night of packing, and I've just been looking at websites about speeding in the UK. The good news is that if indeed I got snapped, then all Dion has to do is state that he was not the driver, and that it was me driving. I just wonder what they'll do when the discover I'm not a UK citizen...

I'll probably ask Dion to give my Singapore address and we'll just see what happens. But the speeding laws really do look fucking draconian. Fine there were speed camera signs all over the place, but... I just suspect that because I was going to overtake someone, that my speed might well have been rather high, which would mean a larger fine/more points. Not that it really matters about the points, since I won't be driving in the UK anytime soon. Bastards.

Posted by subtitles at 7:19 AM | Personal

June 25, 2003

Louis and Manual Cars/Karen's stuff

Maybe Louis should stay away from manual cars.

Aside from the fact that I left the handbrake on while driving for a considerable amount of time (sorry Dion), I was sweating like crazy for most of the time (it was hot, but not that hot). I can't remember driving that badly since I first started driving. Had problems moving off, stalled a couple of times, became far too fond of stepping on the clutch... I should be shot.

But yes Karen now has a place to store all her crap, one that she will gladly pay for - won't you Karen? The fact that she'll be getting most of my ~~crap~~ thoughtfully leftover presents should be a lovely consolation.

Posted by subtitles at 3:55 PM | Personal

Firefly

Just been through a Firefly marathon. I really cannot praise the series enough. It's just the way it stands up to multiple viewing that impresses me to no end. Of course certain portions are a bit affected, but the rest that isn't genuinely moving is just gorram funny. I have no doubt that it's the feelings of loss that accompany it's less than illustrious history that allows it that particular poignancy, but that is special in itself, and worthy of comment. If only the movies are this good. Movies. Plural.

Delwyn and Michel are nice company, and so is Chateau Online. Delwyn I have no doubt I will see again, but thinking of Michel strikes me as a particular kind of redemption. Michel's nice. And above all nice to me, which is nice.

Because, as Firefly is testament to, that sentimentalism is never quite complete without the uproariously hilarious, have a look at this, and wonder. We wish we all had Cheezy Bao.

Posted by subtitles at 2:20 AM | Personal

June 24, 2003

Claire Sighting and other things

Saw Claire today, and must remember to go and meet her again at 10.15 on Friday in Vanbrugh. Claire, as always, is nice, and she wasn't just ignoring me, since she only finished her stuff 2 weeks ago and is still recovering. I saw her in Vanbrugh where I was going to have a sandwich.

I must endeavour to promote my site to her, since she's not one who's likely to be online perpetually with messenger, and the forums might be a nice spontaneous place for her to come once in a while.

And of course since she wants to know all about me, she can come and read this lovely blog. I shall endeavour to send her an e-mail (which. like all my e-mails now, contain a subtly placed link to this site) with my internal no. so she can perhaps remind me of our meeting so I won't forget.

Hope Dion found his car radio place, if not he's a bit cock :D. Should have mentioned to him that slot loading players are probably the way to go rather than disc changers, but I suppose they're cheaper anyway, so he shouldn't go wrong there. Hope my boxes are able to get delivered, Parcelforce should be smart enough to put it with the porter if no one answers the door.

Otherwise when I'm not packing I might go and practise driving manual again, which shouldn't be too bad of a stretch. Still haven't remembered to go buy cucumber. Might try and drive to somewhere with cucumbers then.

Andrew's been a bit tardy with his e-mailing me the number of the storage company, but I suppose he's having exams. I might give him a call tomorrow or something.

Michel's coming over for dinner, shall try and message him to bring me a copy of the unaired firefly episodes.

I'm returning to being impressed with Chateau Online, since the mixed case they sent Delwyn looks pretty good. Granted we probably drank the nicest bottle of the lot, but it was rather superlatively pleasant, and very smooth.

Have decided that even though this is a long entry, because there is no central thread or link to the various portions of it, that using the extended entry function would not be a good idea. To use the extended entry function, the entry body would really be like a kind of teaser to the rest - Showtalkers does that a lot - and the best bits of the entry (referred to in the title) should be in the extended portion. In this case, since it's rather meandering, that wouldn't make much sense - though if the content spread across a no. of categories, I'd probably split up the entry, as I have done.

Posted by subtitles at 11:03 AM | Personal

Assessment

I've just sent my assessment e-mail to my course tutor so he can grade my website. Hoorah. Only 5 hours of assessment to go... Hopefully once he's had a look at it I can take off all the temporary links on the main page, and I can become bothered to polish off the other sections of the site.

Posted by subtitles at 10:39 AM | Site Updates

June 23, 2003

Bastards

I'm feeling sombre. That fucking bitch Yu-wen probably has something to do with it. :P If she ever reads this, ah well, who cares. Louis likes to burn bridges, not that there was much of a bridge to burn anyway.

I know I'm an ass in so many ways, well, in a lot of ways, but at least I know that I always try to make thing better between myself and other people. The martyrdom involved no doubt is part of the appeal, but then I always feel very earnest doing it. Is that too cryptic? Sucks huh?

I mean, fine, you fuck things up and you know it, boo hoo. But trying to be nice and being ignored? Yahtzee...

Delwyn was right, the new guys this year lack drama. But I suppose the rest of us make up for it.

Feeling a swell of sympathy for Spong right now, knowing that Kuan Ming probably fucked him over in Cambridge. That's not right. I'm crying me a river right now.

Posted by subtitles at 11:51 PM | Personal

Steve Jobs my Hero

I can't quite believe that I've set Opera to refresh every 30 secs on this page, so that I can watch another Steve Jobs Keynote. But that said, it's always entertaining to enter into the reality distortion field he generates. Though nowadays I really get a sense of how much I'd really never switch to a Mac. Click here to tell me how sad you think I am.

Posted by subtitles at 6:38 PM | Computer Stuff

Dion the Dude, more Wimbledon

Dion posted in my forum, which is nice of him, you can find his sparkling witticisms here. You can also see how he voted in my ongoing poll.

Oh, apparently the random fetching women in the Wimbledon stands were not so much random or girlfriends but convenient representatives of the BBC, who are now pottering about in filler between matches. Hanging out and cozying up to more dishy tennis men.

Posted by subtitles at 6:30 PM | Personal

Dinner

I've just cleaned out the rice-cookers in the kitchen. It would be wrong to say things were alive in them, more that things had evolved and civilisations crumbled. Not that I'm one to talk.

Am planning a dinner for the psycho students who have finished their first exam today, so I can make use of the Emperor chicken spices I have. Chicken rice is planned for Wednesday. Wonder if there'll be enough food for everyone. Emen's in a mood so he's not joining us for what ostensibly would have been his brithday dinner.

Hopefully celery and oyster mushrooms will be enough. If not I could just make the steamed egg. I've got to remember to buy cucumbers for wednesday.

Posted by subtitles at 6:22 PM | Personal

CD/DVD recording and viewing software

I'm posting links in my forum to download really good CD/DVD burning software, particularly things like the new Clone DVD (from the makers of CloneCD) and the new version of PowerDVD. If you're already a registered member, click here. If not, you can register here.

Posted by subtitles at 5:50 PM | Computer Stuff

Wimbledon

Wimbledon's on, though I can't seem to find out when Henin is playing. It's all men's tennis now, with gratuitious shots of pretty women in the audience (I assume the girlfriends of the dishy male players). Bored now.

Posted by subtitles at 5:48 PM | Personal

Packing stuff

It's so god-damn humid here right now, having just rained. It's been about an hour or more since I moved all my books and tapes out onto the landing (and into the bath). They will all be packed by tuesday night after I get all my lovely boxes from seven seas (my moving company).

I'm hoping to fit everything into about 3 boxes, since I really don't have a lot of clothes that I want to keep. The weight limit of 30kg per box might be an issue, but I'll try and spread the weight out.

Thinking about looking for a job is fucking depressing. I wonder where the hell I'm gonna get a suit.

Hopefully I can get them to ship my stuff later so I don't have to hold on to the stuff here before shipping it. All my crap is going to storage. Karen had better know what Paypal is.

Posted by subtitles at 1:34 AM | Personal

June 22, 2003

Dion bought a car

Yup. Bought a car. Which I could have done. But no. No car for me. I'm so getting a car in Chicago.

He got a pretty nice Vauxhall, about 9 years old, but runs pretty well. A bit rough round the edges and the non-facade externals are showing a bit of wear, but otherwise quite nice. Seems to purr along quite admirably. But not exactly the ideal road trip car - need to get air conditioning and a slightly less rickety car for that. And Ryan Air is like 40pnds return, so... And they fly to Eindhoven :D.

Posted by subtitles at 4:26 PM | Personal

Site Plans

Hmm... thinking of putting up Klips for a number of my favorite sites, like Whedonesque.com, CDFreaks.com, Showtalkers.com, Opera Skins... (all soon to be found here: Links Basically all this things for which I'm using this klip, which you can use to read any rdf/php/rss/xml feed.

Including my brand spanking new site built with php-nuke. I'm trialing it on opera.fallingbeam.org, but if it pans out it could replace my existing home page (though I doubt it). Unless I'm running a news site, the content management stuff is just a bit extraneous to my needs. Something nice to pick up though.

Posted by subtitles at 4:21 PM | Site Updates

June 19, 2003

Sorry Su-Lin

I feel bad for being so snarky about Sulin's site. I've not been able to reach her to show her my 5 minutes of work on a new template she can use for her blog: here. Very rough work, I just changed the colour of an existing template to the first green colours I could find.

If Su-Lin comes to York she can get short tutorial in how to change colours in HTML code (well actually in the template CSS...). But yes, as Peishan pointed out I like things nice and clean none of this huge image background malarky.

Posted by subtitles at 7:22 PM | Personal

Images

I've put up a little image page, with a couple pictures of Anna Paquin, just because I had them on my hard-disk, and I wanted to test out putting up images, and automating it through ThumbsPlus, which is okay, but probably not the best way of doing it. Suggestions would be welcome.

I won't update my navigation bar or anything until I make sure I want to put these things up. What it'll probably become is a collection of wallpapers that I've resized and rather like.

Unfortunately the pictures are arranged using tables, I'll have to find out how to do it using CSS, which I suppose is another reason why I'm not going live with it too prominently. Basically if your screen's too small the right column overlaps, and there's wasted space since the tables are a bit rigid. Well that and the fact that the images aren't mine and I've not acknowledged the sites I got them from.

Also it's not really meant to be an Anna Paquin picture page by any means... I'll have to update my links page with references to Anna Paquin, Katherine Heigl etc. pages...

Posted by subtitles at 6:27 PM | Site Updates

Hail Hail

I will now blog out of boredom. I'm surprised by how much I like "No Code", one of

The link above is to www.allmusic.com, which is a fantastic resource for quick overviews of artists and their albums - very canonical and very biased towards the popular and the mainstream, but a useful resource nonetheless. It's where I sent Peishan when she asked me about political activism in rap/popular music.

Posted by subtitles at 6:20 PM | Personal

Su-Lin's Blog

May I recommend to you the blog of the esteemable Sulin, to be found here. (Sulin, did you get my ICQ messages about your new template?)

I'm sure Sulin will be ever so cross, but I just have to speculate as to the nature of her blog's Title: Fitzie's Arms. I surmised that it was probably a rather ironic reference to Fitzie's distinct lack of arms, but Su-Lin assures me otherwise. The real reason for the name is somewhat more pedestrian :P.

Just at this moment Sulin's blog is having issues with templates. Or to be more exact, I'm having issues with her templates - Su-Lin, dear, background images fuck the hell up this wonderful thing called smooth scrolling and are the work of the devil and the bane of the internet (well them and spam, pop-ups, animated gifs, embedded sound files, flash, and any browser other than Opera).

Posted by subtitles at 3:21 PM | Personal

Surprise in the forums

Okay, in order to get people to register to my forums, I've got something special that can be viewed only by registered users. You can find more details here. Enjoy.

Posted by subtitles at 12:58 PM | Site Updates

June 18, 2003

New Opera Skins and MSN Messenger

Hoorah for Christian Krebs, who designs rather nice skins for Opera. He's got a new skin out which is probably the nicest of the Safari clones I've seen - not really my thing, I prefer his older skins which were more graphical and strikingly colourful. But yes, a muct check out for all Opera fans.

And yes, the best of the stand-alone IM clients has a new version in official beta, which you can find here. Been running the leaked betas for a while now and it's nice and stable on XP; and it's got chat logging, which is nice and useful. If you're still running ICQ, shame on you.

I won't keep doing this, but here's a link to the ad-remover for this preview version: here at OSbetas.com, thanks to Neowin.net.

Posted by subtitles at 7:43 PM | Computer Stuff

What to do...

Nice to listen to Rage Against the Machine again. Peishan was asking about political activism in rap, so obviously they came up. And as I suspected, the forum was a bit too much for Peishan to handle ;). Oh, and Su-Lin's comp is acting up, suspect it's her modem drivers - if Su-Lin's reading this, please just go to windowsupdate and download whatever new available drivers there are...

Site seems pretty much sewn up, in terms of formatting. Spent far too much time tweaking the layout of the style sheet... But yes the content will get there eventually. Teo seemed rather disappointed that my resume wasn't up.. :P

Oh yes, just wanted to comment that whoever's been downloading my Klip, hoorah for you, since you'll probably be reading this quite regularly. Good for you :D. At least I know Teo will be proficient enough to figure out how Klipfolio works...

Andrew's over with a couple of bottles of wine, but it's just a bit early at the moment. Xiao Ran's coming over for mahjong, so that should be a good time. Bumped in to her after seeing Clarissa going towards her and Michelle's place. Michelle's funny :D. Lots to say about being pampered upper middle class in this country that privileges ghetto cred - also has lots to say about the innumerable racial encounters she's had. Must be something about her demeanour. Her and Ve-Yin... *sigh*.

Posted by subtitles at 7:39 PM | Personal

Remember to do Work

I've got homework to do god-damn it. Basically I've still got to do the Solver thing from Excel and the picture bit from the end of today's lesson. I'm going to have to e-mail files to myself probably.

This might not actually get done.

Posted by subtitles at 2:06 PM | Computer Stuff

CSS is good, and TOC's

Hoorah, I've managed to insert TOC's using Mozilla Composer, clever me. And they even update when things change, which is shiny.

And yes, the wonder of CSS struck me today as I managed to get rid of the grey background from the content and right columns. CSS rocks. Deal with it.

Posted by subtitles at 9:36 AM | Site Updates

Old blog still alive

I've added an archive of my old blog here. And will be adding links to it from this blog. There's a static link already in the About page. Just a precaution really in case the old site fucks up (which it shouldn't).

Note though that the blog is all on one page, so it might take a while to load (though it means you can search the entirety of that blog now), and it has no functional links on it that I know of - there's not need for the archive with everything on one page. If I'm ever that free I'll remove the banner, but to be honest it's just looks better with the banner there...

Now discover that there's actually a way to import posts from blogger - but which will entail me RTFM. Again. Well part of it anyway. We'll see.

Posted by subtitles at 2:52 AM | Site Updates

It's late

It's just past 3.30 at night right now. I didn't sleep the night before, thought I sort of made up for that last night already. I've had an excruciating day at my computer classes, so much so my eyes are vaguely swimming as I read myself typing this.

I suppose I'm being stubborn, as I tend to be, under certain circumstances, late at night, when I decide I'm not too fond of sleeping just yet - which is why I was awake to go and see Su-Lin the day before yesterday.

The visit with Su-Lin went well, she's handed in her stuff, I watched her photocopy and bind her thesis and hand it in. Apparently that bitch Alison (Alyson?) O'byrne is a TA at Leeds now. I gave her name the finger on the staff name list on Emen's behalf. Her kind (including Ulrika obviously) deserve nothing less than damnation.

The revival of Su-Lin's computer went well, she now has a reasonably up-to-date Operating System that wasn't installed 4 years ago. She's also made Opera her default browser the clever girl. If only all my evangelising went so well. Cross cable is a wonderful thing - as are PCMCIA network cards. I must remember to bring back whatever spare parts I can from HK's place to Singapore.

The Category system for the site is pretty useful, if a bit paranoid making since I tend to be composing halfway and thing of something that's more applicable to another categoy and switch halfway to another post. But it's all good, as long as Peishan doensn't whine to me about reading too much computer stuff (I'm not letting it go - boo hoo; muahaha).

I'm a bit torn about whether I should go to Andrew's birthday party on Friday, since it would be an ideal time to go to Leeds and play bridge with Su-Lin. Again, we'll see. It's nice to know that Emen's going to Andrew's do though, so I'll know someone at least. Shouldn't I remember that I hate events like these?

Posted by subtitles at 2:46 AM | Computer Stuff , Personal

Remember

I must remember to change the Nav bar to reflect the name of this blog "Subtitles". Also add a section on Links to CSS sites.

Posted by subtitles at 1:47 AM | Site Updates

Ask the man

Louis must remember to ask HTML guy how to create/automate the creation of a contents page from the headings of my content.

Posted by subtitles at 12:59 AM | Computer Stuff

June 17, 2003

Styles at last

Have finally managed to get styles to work and they have been applied to the main page. Utilitarian my ass - my ass - Peishan you hear?

Posted by subtitles at 5:40 PM | Site Updates

Just to be Official about

Just to be Official about it, my web-presence has moved to this site: www.fallingbeam.org or if you want a direct link to my new blog, it can be found here: blog.fallingbeam.org. If you're wondering why, or you have any questions, you can direct them to my email link on my main page, or just post in my new forums here: forum.fallingbeam.org.
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Posted by subtitles at 4:44 PM | Blogger Entries

June 16, 2003

www.icdsoft.com

Oh my fucking god. These people are actually fucking fantastic. I got the resolution to my issue (small though it was) by the time I'd posted that last message. I'm very impressed. I'm telling my friends. Oh yeah I'm already doing that. Clever huh?

But yes, this host is good shit. Have to find out if the latency in ftp connection and uploading is just them, but otherwise - outside standing.

Posted by subtitles at 7:18 AM | Computer Stuff

Reminder to Self

Must remember to open new subdomains for my resume and for operafanboy :D. Unfortunately my host seems to have fucked up already and I can't seem to access my Control Panel. The bastards. Let's see if their tech support is as good as they claim.

Posted by subtitles at 7:12 AM | Computer Stuff , Site Updates

What I Intend to do to Su-Lin's Comp.

Louis will probably be trying to install Win2k on Su-Lin's comp. Unfortunately this means that Louis will not be able to use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in XP, which is a pity.

Regardless, Louis still remembers how to back up e-mail folders and the like manually, and he will remember to export Su-Lin's address book properly. Other than that, most of this will be taken up with installing Win2k itself and whatever apps Su-Lin might need. Should probably make a back up of the Win2k CD for her. We'll see.

Posted by subtitles at 5:23 AM | Computer Stuff

Su-Lin's Dire Struggle

By the time anyone reads this, probably Su-Lin will be done, but she's struggling hard away with her thesis right now, and I'm sure she could do with some positive thoughts flowing her way. And anyway it's just nice to be able to support the wonder that is Su-Lin.

Louis will be going to visit her when she's done, in about 3 or so hours. It should be a hoot, and we shall have a nice lunch and I shall come away with nice food and Su-lin will hopefully have a nice newly formatted computer.

Posted by subtitles at 5:19 AM | Personal

Categories and Announcements

I've set up this blog, which is new, the old blog is still there, I'll decide what happens to it later.

There's now a forum, please do go there and sign the guest book or just hang out.

Things are pretty much still in flux, but the main things are up, the main page has links to the various sections (it will soon no longer have Site Updates, that will be taken over by this category) which are really the blog and the forum.

Posted by subtitles at 5:03 AM | Site Updates

The First

Beginnings, supposedly, are alway hard, and this has been no exception. I've spent most of the past day setting stuff up. It's late. Or early. Certainly brings to mind the fact that this beginning is not one that is a Beginning - but then, so few instances are.

So if we are really to pretend that this is the start when we know it is not, then let us not bother with half-delusions - which is why this is the The First post. And as we all know, in the beginning, when things are just minted, we are to create rules, things to make things tidy and neat and organised.

Posted by subtitles at 4:59 AM | Personal

Need to put in pages

Need to put in pages for the parables of Subtitles and the Falling Beam.
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Posted by subtitles at 2:54 AM | Blogger Entries

I've spent most of the

I've spent most of the day figuring out how to use Movable Type, so that I don't have to rely on blogger anymore for my blogging needs. It'd be nice if I could save the entries here to the new blog, but I don't think I can be bothered. I'll probably just load all the entries into one page and then save that page for archiving. My new blog address should be active soon enough here. It's basically a subdomain of what will now be my permanent site presence, which is www.fallingbeam.org. It looks pretty scruffy, but hopefully by the end of the week I'll know that bit more about CSS.
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Posted by subtitles at 1:31 AM | Blogger Entries

June 15, 2003

I'm a bit cheesed off

I'm a bit cheesed off at the fact that the "My Pictures" button on my keyboard (which I actually use to open Word) is being a bit flaky. I could return the keyboard and get a new one, but that would mean I would be sans keyboard for god knows how long. Ah well, this keyboard can go back to singapore then :D. I still wish I had managed to get the older kind of Natural keyboard, which I probably will, just out of pique, when I go back to the US. I have to step out and get some food now, since I've been too lazy to order from Tesco, and there is absolutely no food left in the house. Shall be back in time to watch the MTV movie awards on UK TV. Hoorah.
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Posted by subtitles at 12:54 PM | Blogger Entries

I've moved my site, not

I've moved my site, not that it's particularly finished, to www.breezeland.com who seemed to have the best free hosting I could find. They offer ftp access, which is really what I was looking for, and the responsiveness is pretty nice. The url on the left has changed to reflect this, and so have the redirected urls below. I'm still contemplating what content I could use for my opera-fanboy site, but I'll probably need a nice bunch of pictures of me surrounded by opera things (which I don't have), though I'm pretty sure I'll put up screenshots of my opera setup, and an idiosyncratic guide to the functions that I use the most. Maybe a tip of the day kind of thing. Maybe a little feature as well on Microsoft input hardware, which I keep going on about.

I suppose the reason why peishan would be less than happy with all this stuff that I've been writing about is because it's not the me that used to do English. Now that's it's over, I find myself happier at the fact that my work does not bleed into every single part of my mental existence - I'm not thinking about aesthetics, politics and marxism in everything I see around me, and I'm not trying to make meaning out of whatever I concieve around me. It's nice. I get to think about the world around me as it is, as just things. I quite revel in the fact that all I'm thinking about really is Vantec Heatsinks, whether the new 800MHZ FSB on the new Intel chips means that the Athlon XP is no longer that budget chip of choice, why my wireless mouse seems less than responsive at times. I've not become braindead, I've just not got to expend that kind of energy and be that engaged with thinking about things all the time. It's nice to be able live life in banality, at least for a while. I can concentrate on things that make me happy and things that I can do. It make me feel useful. So there.
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Posted by subtitles at 12:45 PM | Blogger Entries

June 13, 2003

Hmm... found a link on

Hmm... found a link on how to spam-proof your site, basically how to display an e-mail address on your site without spammers sucessfully scanning for it. I'll try it for a while and see if it works - and use my york address :D. Here it is.
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Posted by subtitles at 4:44 PM | Blogger Entries

I've actually gotten a number

I've actually gotten a number of redirect URL's now from www.cjb.net. Convenient, and happily, free. The would be www.louiskhor.cjb.net www.fallingbeam.cjb.net and www.operafanboy.cjb.net, all of which work with or without the www in front. Unfortunately, they all seem to cause scrolling problems in IE (not in Opera or Mozilla though) and you end up stuck in that frame...
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Posted by subtitles at 3:19 PM | Blogger Entries

Rather impressed by a pretty

Rather impressed by a pretty good (not to mention reasonably funny) article in the Inq today, it's about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and an automated vacuum cleaner. You can find it here.
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Posted by subtitles at 1:27 PM | Blogger Entries

June 12, 2003

So far this place seems

So far this place seems to have the plan that best suits my needs, I need to check a number of things, but they come highly recommended from here. And they have cheap domain registration. It's tempting. I'll sleep on it and see how. Have to wonder about domain name transfer as well in case I ever grow beyond what they offer (highly unlikely of course).
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Posted by subtitles at 10:37 PM | Blogger Entries

I'm thinking of purchasing a

I'm thinking of purchasing a domain name. the best that I've thought of so far is fallingbeam.org - a reference to something that stuck in my head from Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. Fallingbeam.com obviously seems to already be taken, and to be honest I'm not even really sure how domain names work, and whether it'll be able to link to a non-paid hosting site. I should probably just take the plunge, considering how much cash I haemorrage anyway, but for the moment, while I'm checking things out, I suppose free is a good way to go. I suppose quite a few concerns are addressed here, along with pretty good suggestions, but we'll see. If I went with this, Movable type would become more of a way to go... I could even host a forum with phpbb, but the question would then be: for fuck?
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Posted by subtitles at 10:12 PM | Blogger Entries

Peishan's been rather naughty in

Peishan's been rather naughty in suggesting that this blog has become rather laden with computer jargon. One word for Peishan. Neh.

But well, just one small mention then of my daily pet peeve: People who use coloured backgrounds and text in IM clients, esp ICQ. You know who you are, god damn would you please come to understand that text is meant to be read, not squinted at?
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Posted by subtitles at 6:15 PM | Blogger Entries

Just found a fantastic site

Just found a fantastic site for getting music videos online (other than Zone, which is still premier shit). You have to register for the forum (much like MP3WMA before) but they have links in the forum to tonnes of sites. Once you've registered here, you can view this link, with just a *few* sites to start you off. I think my computer's suddenly so non-responsive because of the extreme downloading now going on.... Might actually have to reinstall flashget...
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Posted by subtitles at 3:11 PM | Blogger Entries

Okay, think I should find

Okay, think I should find out more about styles before cutting an pasting stuff wholesale. Made my site look not too bad, but sort of glaringly badly formatted. Barg.
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Posted by subtitles at 2:41 PM | Blogger Entries

Hmm. Can't seem to get

Hmm. Can't seem to get my archive working as I want it. Bugger. Small changes to the template, so that the layout will be more similar to my site, which I'll probably go and edit now.
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Posted by subtitles at 2:29 PM | Blogger Entries

Hoorah, now I have a

Hoorah, now I have a link to my new/inconstruction site to my left, cunningly labelled "My Site". Starting to think more and more that I can't be bothered to move to Movable Type, despite their promise towards standards compliance. I'll probably just edit my template for my blog to match the template of my eventual site.

Oh and yes I went clubbing in Leeds last night. I really shouldn't do this, but what the hell, it's only Dion reading this shit anyway (hi Dion). Andrew's got quite a couple of fetching friends - I wonder who he's trying to hook up with. Both Hannah and Chloe were pretty hot, though I suppose Hannah's the one who really attractive - got the whole eurasian thing going for her - looks good with her hair tied back. Chloe was not surprisingly not as communicative, despite doing english, but then not everyone likes talking shop - she was very much more the brassy loudmouth (in an attractive way obviously) English girl type. How does he do it? :D. Men are so predictable, but then, well, it's fun to ogle pretty women. Like it's a crime.
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Posted by subtitles at 2:17 PM | Blogger Entries

Huh, trying to edit my

Huh, trying to edit my sidebar.
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Posted by subtitles at 1:56 PM | Blogger Entries

June 11, 2003

I've actually added a Site

I've actually added a Site Meter, which is rather novel, which you might notice on the left below the blogger button. Now I'll really know how few people give a rat's ass.
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Posted by subtitles at 1:59 AM | Blogger Entries

June 10, 2003

Hmm... trawling through the Opera

Hmm... trawling through the Opera forums, I've found rather interesting posts about CSS, some with tonnes of info: here, for instance.
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Posted by subtitles at 12:05 PM | Blogger Entries

Oh my god, this stupid

Oh my god, this stupid HTML course. Designed for mental midgets :D. Other than the fact that they have to hand-hold people through copying folders from one place to another it's not horrible... The good thing is that it makes you sit down and actually do junk, so it's not so pathetic, and apparently they'll get to things like css later. Garg. 4 more hours to go. Neither Clarissa nor Eugene were around so I'm stuck back in the computer room doing fuck-all. Woo followed by Hoo. But yes apparently Diet Vanilla Coke is catching on in this country and is at least more or less widely available. Cari must be told :D.
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Posted by subtitles at 11:51 AM | Blogger Entries

June 8, 2003

Hmm, maybe I'll have to

Hmm, maybe I'll have to change my mind about how useful mobile phone cameras are. Reminds me of the whole JC girls website thing in S'pore. waiting for this guy to get sued, but otherwise it seems pretty fun :D. Apparently the spirit of the JC girls thing hasn't died out a quick google search yielded this.
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Posted by subtitles at 7:28 PM | Blogger Entries

Feeling incredibly dissolute for not

Feeling incredibly dissolute for not being more productive. Hopefully Emen's starting to get my subtle hints that asking about what I'm going to do after graduation are not welcome. Have resolved to clear up my room tomorrow, maybe even do my laundry and throw away all the stuff that needs throwing. Shall have to ask around about where's the best place to get free web hosting so I can start putting to use my limited html skill ahead of the comp service course.
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Posted by subtitles at 4:47 AM | Blogger Entries

June 7, 2003

Oh my god Microsoft makes

Oh my god Microsoft makes fan-fucking-tastic input hardware. They keyboard I got is definitely replacing the one I have in the states - the responsiveness is so wonderful, not as much resistence as the one I have - pity it's in UK format though. The mouse is fantastic, if anything the scrolling looks smoother than the old one, and the handling is sublime - pity it's very much USB only, so my switch is that bit less useful now. Muahaha.
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Posted by subtitles at 6:11 PM | Blogger Entries

June 3, 2003

Very happy to hear the

Very happy to hear the sound of the windows XP startup music again, after foolishly deleting my SUSE installation in the hope of installing Red Hat, which inexplicably refuses to start anaconda. Bastards. Had to reinstall Suse all over again, 2 hours of ftp install, fun fun fun.
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Posted by subtitles at 5:06 PM | Blogger Entries

June 2, 2003

Someone's been naughty and bought

Someone's been naughty and bought yet another keyboard and a nice new wireless ergonomic mouse. Oh dear. No prizes. I sooth my conscience by telling myself they'll go towards building the computers back in Singapore.

I must find out how to update Mozilla rather than just doing the install as I've done - makes using Ximian that bit harder. And I can't find the path to the Evolution executable. But the toolbar is pretty cool, and KDE icons are *perty*.
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Posted by subtitles at 11:39 PM | Blogger Entries

Clever open source people who

Clever open source people who make lovely workarounds for mouse gestures.
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Posted by subtitles at 7:45 PM | Blogger Entries

Now if only they'd detect

Now if only they'd detect my mouse buttons correctly for mouse gestures, I'd be pretty grateful. Opera does it fine, but then it's Opera.
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Posted by subtitles at 7:25 PM | Blogger Entries

I'm just now very very

I'm just now very very impressed with what previously was something pretty nonsense: Mozilla. On Linux it's seems to be the best browser of the lot, the smooth scrolling is AMAZING. It might just be me, but at present it's actually the one thing that's better on linux than on windows. And for whatever reason, I'm not so finicky about the size of toolbars in linux as in windows. woo hoo, score 1 for the browser that's gonna die out soon. :P
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Posted by subtitles at 7:22 PM | Blogger Entries

Installing Linux is one of

Installing Linux is one of those things that people do when they feel very very very free. And yet there's this absolutely strange draw about using it, despite all it's multitude of shortcomings. I've had SUSE 8.2 on my notebook, dual booting with XP for about a day now, and I find I'm using Suse more than XP. Not because it's better by any means, simply because XP has become boring. Linux, however, is not "boring".

I have never had this much headache installing and configuring a system ever. Well unless you count me installing Red Hat on Karen's comp. Kudos to Suse on Yast2, the installation interface that contols the apps that run the system - fantastically easy to use compared to Red Hat, which I could figure heads or tails of, even with the correct RPM's.

That said, running Opera on Linux isn't too bad, but disappointing after using the window's version. Having problems with font size (they're tiny) and scrolling is a bitch, it doesn't use global settings so while Konqueror is fine, Opera scrolls really slowly. And obviousl smooth scrolling sucks ass on Linux. Someone should tell these people what ergonomics is. And my mouse buttons are pretty much useless.

Oh and I have to bitch about Karen's keyboard, which is pissing me off right now. It's okay, but after hearing about Cari's wrists, I doubt I will ever voluntarily use a non-Natural Keyboard again. I'm considering buying one here just to use, and maybe to bring back for HK's father's system. We'll see. I'm also tempted to get the Wireless Intellimouse Explorer from dabs.com but feel myself ripe for being thought of as frivolous.

Didn't do anything useful today, will make a concerted effort to go and buy my ticket back to Chicago, book my room for graduation etc. tomorrow. Find out where that deadbeat Michel is and maybe I can be in Leeds by wednesday.

Oh, and Teo passed me a rather lovely link to a site that anyone trying to figure out html should visit - I'll post the link later when I'm not in Opera. Here.
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Posted by subtitles at 5:13 PM | Blogger Entries

subtitles

(Click here if you came looking to download subtitles)