Life Is Short - Butterfly Boucher

When it doesn't rain it snows

Yeah the cookie crumbles but in who's hand?

All things said and all things done

Life is short

Oh I am young but I have aged

Waited long to seize the day

All things said and plenty done

Life's too short

Another door to peek in through

The floor is filthy

But the couch is clean

At the end of the day

That's another day gone

Life is short.

Oh I am young but I have aged

Waited long to seize the day

All things said and plenty done

Oh I am young but I have a past

Travelled far to find the start

Yes I am scared and I've been burnt

But life is short

Cocky Cow

No, I'm not slinging around insults. I'm simply referring to the cattle-variety in the field across my house. For some reason, this particular specimen has adopted rooster-habits. Every morning, at the crack of dawn, one of the local roosters starts off the day with a crowing session. Quite normal, one would think, if it weren't for the fact that one of the cows has taken to "crowing" along with him. For a whole half hour each morning, we're greeted with incessant moo-ing, in response to the crowing. I'm normally up bright and early and find it amusing rather than annoying, but waking up to this unlikely duet with a stinking hangover is far less entertaining. My Saturday morning therefore didn't start off all that well.

It got gradually worse when I realised there were no painkillers in the house. I was suposed to be at the Belgian Gay Pride by noon, but somehow ended up at a DVD-store and eventually crashed, quite miserably, in a heap on the sofa. Thankfully I was soon joined by my brother, who felt, if possible, even worse for wear.

That's the deal with going out in a familiar city tho I supose, something which I'm still not entirely accustomed to. Anonimity goes straight out the window and you never quite end up where you aimed for. One initially goes to an art-expose with a friend [free drinks and artsy-fartsy-ness-a-go-go] but inevitably bumps into friends or family and things just develop from there: End up at strange private parties, entirely uninvited and in several different pubs, fully invited. I got offered a very respectable job at one point, but felt a tad too "happy, footloose and fancy-free" to accept it. [Might regret that at some point!]. At any rate, I got served a few too many things of very dubious quality at a few too many random establishments and I guess I paid the price for accepting them. Am seriously considering a return to my T-Total days.

On a different note. Might I recommend: Happy Endings & Proof. Both excellent sofa-day viewing. Maggie Gyllenhal!! And Jake.

Flappers

During my thesis write-up, it seems my laptop was incessantly downloading music. I'm a collector of the worst kind. When it comes down to books & music at least, I have an uncontrolable urge to "own" things. I might never get down to reading or listening to said book or album, but I want to at least be able to say: oh, yes... I have that one somewhere!!! Ready at my fingertips should anyone prompt me to listen to it or read it.

Now that I've heaps of time to actually listen to the stuff I've gathered these last few months, I have to say I'm pretty damn pleased with my mp3 collection! I've been getting stuck into a lot of 1920's-1940's music. Anything from the Golden Jazz-age up to the earlier Big Band stuff. The likes of Bessie Smith & Ella Fitzgerald. Brilliant stuff.


People fetching a ride in my car these days invariably raise an eyebrow at first, but the enthousiasm is catching.

I have decided that should I ever fall into the weddingtrap or should there ever be any need for a big kick-ass party to celebrate something in my life, then it shall be a full-fledged 1920's theme. Flappers galore!

And, should I return from my travels, short of an executable POA for my career path, I may just decide to open a little 1920's style establishment somewhere. Yes yes, I am aware that the 1920's marked the era of prohibition, but I'm not adverse to opening a wee bootleg style pub ;-) Passwords to get in and all that! Considering the lack of licencing back then, they seemed to have had a hell of a lot of fun. Women had embraced emancipation with a good sense of humour and without the need to demasculinise their male counterparts. The age of The Lost Generation, Art Deco, Gertrude Stein, the Charleston, the Flappers, bootleg liquor and bobbed hair... excellent themes for some fun methinks...

Guess where I'm going....

I've handed in the 160-page monstrosity that is my thesis! *whoooop*

Which means... I've finally got time to properly plan my 6-month travel stint. It needs to include lots of skiing, mountains, the oppposite hemisphere of this little planet and fun, lots of it. And guess what I found today... *smug grin*:

Gay Ski Week Queenstown, New Zealand

(September 2nd-9th, 2006)

Y'all know where I'll be that week ;-)

Heroic

I'm so glad I have friends that keep me entertained with highly appropriate lil quirky things now that I'm so near to my deadline... It's incredibly motivating :-) A very big "FANKS!!!" has to out to Ann for this one:

Heroic Computer Dies to Save World from Master's Thesis


I especially like the part that says the department staff and faculty will hold a ceremony to award the dead laptop a Purple Hard Drive... an award traditionally given to computers that die at least 100 pages into a dangerously boring thesis. Excellent stuff ;p

Tho may I just add that I hope MY laptop isn't quite that brave. On that note... I'm off to make a final back up ;-)

Fish-Eye

- Picture Courtesy of Richard King, click image to enlarge -

I think I may have mentioned lomography on this blog before. Anyway, not much time to write a proper explanation, but a very fortunate chance encounter in Scotland got me introduced to the "fisheye" lomograph (and to the lovely Richard, of course ;-).
I myself own the "supersampler" lomograph, but due to everpresent lack of funds generally don't bother developing the filmrolls. Richard's pictures are so good, however, they made me want to get into it properly. So I purchased a fisheye camera online and have taken both the fisheye and the supersampler off out with me wherever I go since. Come Monday (final thesis hand-in), I'm off to the shop to get my filmrolls developed, so I will no doubt put some pictures of my own on here before too long. Until then, however, I shall leave you with one of Richard's shots. Taken last time I was up in Scotland. Cheers Twitch! ;-)

Interim Post

It's been a while, I know. I do appologise. It's proper crunchtime what with aiming to hand in the FINAL version of the thesis on Monday... I have a few pictures to post and some anecdotes to mention, but it'll all have to wait till next week. In the meantime, I shall leave you with a comment found on a university departmental webpage of a Physics Group (thanks to Od for telling me about this one!) :

"Theory is when you know how it works but it still doesn't. Practice is when it works but you don't know why. In this Department, theory and practice are joined together: nothing works and no one knows why."

I think I might try and apply for my next job there. Will fit right in! ;-)

Kid's Logic

LifeStraw

How's about this for a clever invention: the LifeStraw.

The plastic tube is designed to purify water as it is drunk. Inside are disinfectant filters, a chamber impregnated with iodine and a chamber with active carbon. These kill the bacteria, remove parasites & improve the taste of the water. You could take this puppy off with you to the Thames or your local nasty equivalent, dip it in the dirty pool of water and have yourself a drink. For the price of £1.85 you can drink your way to 700 liters per straw.

When the inventors first presented the Lifestraw to a group of journalists, they were asked to demonstrate its effectiveness by drinking from city fountains and the likes. According to the inventors, it can even be used to drink water from club toilets or sewers. And I'm thinking... when would I EVER be in a situation where I'd want to drink from the club loo?? I mean, no matter how paraletic one may drink themselves, surely one would remember how to ask the bartender for a pint of tap?! But then I supose I have yet to party hard in the remote foreign realms of say... Borneo. I'll be sure to take it with me then ;-)

Joking aside, the invention could prove very useful as a short-term solution in certain Third World countries. Clever invention... at any rate.

Purity

Ohh, how we like questionaires these days... I've found a good one: The Purity Test.

I managed to rope a few mates into taking it and it's such a laugh. The questionaire consists of 400 questions though and some of them a bit disturbing (i supose that's the nature of the game ey), but the test eventually gives you a score for your weirdness and your purity level. Very funny.

120808 people have taken this purity test at some point or other. The average purity score achieved by them was: 65.5% pure, so they were 34.5% dirty.

I, on the other hand, scored 48.3% pure, which means I'm 51.7% dirty. Who'da thunk ;p
Oh, and I'm 18% weird. Figures.

Election Promises

It appears some politicians do in fact stick to their election promises after all. Since Evo Morales came into power as President of Bolivia last December, the headlines have been as follows:

Bolivia's new leader vows change
Bolivia leader halves his own pay
Bolivia to write new constitution
Bolivian leader seeks debt relief
Bolivia natural resources takeover alarms powerful allies
Crisis talks on Bolivia gas move

It's an impressive little list after a mere 5 months in power, to say the least. I know too little about the natural resource situation in Latin America to give a sufficiently educated comment on his latest move to de-privatise the country's natural resources. But I can't help but be intrigued. Here's a man who not only believes in a radical change away from the current globalisation trend in politics but also seems to have an executable strategy at the ready. It's interesting to watch these events unfold. If anyone has any good links related to this topic, feel free to post them in the comment section, I'd much appreciate it.

Radio Soulwax

I feel like death.

It's never a wise thing to go out on the piss with your brother, when your brother happens to be MY brother. The boy knows how to party. Hard. It just so happens that all the circumstances were right for a wickedly debaucherous unfolding. The ICC was hosting a Radio Soulwax night featuring 2Many DJs and DJ duo Fredo& Thang. It was by far the best music night I've been to for a long time. I got a little overexcited when they mixed tunes like Teachers (Daft Punk) and No Good (Prodigy) with some of the more recent subversive beats, and consequently spilt my highly expensive voddie-red bull all over myself. Mind you, I'd a fair few voddies in my system already by that time, so I'm guessing spilling it might have been a temporary saving grace.


There's a few hazy moments in my memory of which I'm sure I'll be reminded before too long, as gossip in this town tends to travel fast and if waking up to my mobile phone's messages at noon was anything to go by, the travelling has begun. If anyone reading this blog actually witnessed me and feels compelled to remind me, please don't.

I woke up at noon after a mere 4 hours of sleep, feeling like death. By then I was feeling so nauseated that I simply had to drag the hangover to the kitchen to get it nursed by my infamous hangover-tabasco-y-cheesy-egg. Here's to hoping tomorrow's a less rude awakening ;-)