Subtitles

Posted 6/15/2003 01:45:36 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/13/2003 05:44:58 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/13/2003 04:19:09 PM by Louis
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...

Posted 6/13/2003 02:27:04 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/12/2003 11:37:37 PM by Louis
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).

Posted 6/12/2003 11:12:25 PM by Louis
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?

Posted 6/12/2003 07:15:31 PM by Louis
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?

Posted 6/12/2003 04:11:00 PM by Louis
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...

Posted 6/12/2003 03:41:03 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/12/2003 03:29:11 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/12/2003 03:17:25 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/12/2003 02:56:59 PM by Louis
Huh, trying to edit my sidebar.

Posted 6/11/2003 02:59:49 AM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/10/2003 01:05:33 PM by Louis
Hmm... trawling through the Opera forums, I've found rather interesting posts about CSS, some with tonnes of info: here, for instance.

Posted 6/10/2003 12:51:06 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/8/2003 08:28:08 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/8/2003 05:47:43 AM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/7/2003 07:11:03 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/3/2003 06:06:47 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/3/2003 12:39:20 AM by Louis
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*.

Posted 6/2/2003 08:45:44 PM by Louis
Clever open source people who make lovely workarounds for mouse gestures.

Posted 6/2/2003 08:25:13 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 6/2/2003 08:22:44 PM by Louis
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

Posted 6/2/2003 06:13:37 PM by Louis
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.

Posted 5/27/2003 05:06:33 PM by Louis
Lovely having a blog to post links to download.

Posted 5/24/2003 08:46:50 AM by Louis
Wish I had some Soundgarden with me now.

Oh, my switch is turning out rather well, even though my notebook only has one ps/2 port. It's a bit sqeezy using a USB to PS/2 adaptor on the switch itself, but it works, so who's to complain. I wonder if the Belkin will be able to handle the adaptor. Well, I probably won't have to find out till I get *another* computer, or I get a job... :).

Posted 5/24/2003 08:40:47 AM by Louis
It's so nice writing to Cari again.

Going back to York on Tuesday - don't worry, Mahjong will numb the pain. Planning to go for the Computing Service classes when I go back, always wanted to learn how to code by hand - and they seems to be teaching how to do nice standards compliant stuff - things like CSS and impressive things like that. Also really need to get to grips with Excel and Access, so hopefully it's a godsend.

Went to the most fantastic Sushi place for dinner, which I've been to before, but regardless it's absolutely sublime. It's called Kamehachi here in Chicago, and this branch has a special called the North Brook roll which is to die for. The Dragon Roll is also unbelievable.

Oh my Supergrass is lovely, doing a nice job of drowning out the French idiots below who think 2 o'clock is fun party time for everyone. Trust me, I'm not someone who's easily annoyed by these things, I lived under Spong's sub-woofer for 2 years, but this is pissing me off. My lovely logitech speakers are nice and directional, so actually once I step out from my little nook, the noise from them isn't too bad.

Hope I get to see PJ Harvey in London - hope the rest of the people get off their ass as well and get tickets.

Posted 5/21/2003 08:40:29 AM by Louis
Poke me with a fork.

Just when I thought I could shut the fuck up and leave things be, Alvin's got to send me an e-mail saying he's read this stuff. *sigh*.

I'm not even going to try to catch up on what's been going on, can't be bothered.

Tired.

Posted 5/2/2003 03:17:15 AM by Louis
I'm done, woo hoo.

Posted 4/24/2003 01:36:55 PM by Louis
Beginning to realise that the media have led up to this for a while now. This gives some idea of the timeline that's involved: this, then this .

Posted 4/24/2003 12:54:39 PM by Louis
If anyone knew of or was a part of the site, drop me a line, especially if you know anything about what's happening.

Posted 4/24/2003 12:52:54 PM by Louis
A bunch of articles, probably all from the same reuters report, can be found here.

Posted 4/24/2003 12:50:25 PM by Louis
I just posted this on NTFS.org, on hearing from their article that MP3/WMA Land has been closed down and the webmasters arrested. It seems to have affected me rather profoundly for whatever reason.

I'm sort of shocked, I've been going there for years now, and these guys are just basically nice guys who share mp3s. sure they weren't the most legal of people but they weren't trying to profit from it in any way, they were just a bunch of kids who thought it was cool to share music.

It says something about those that arrested them that they're not going after the hardcore warez sites or the IRC channels/ftp dumps - they're going after people who were just not bothering to hide - who sincerely believed that they weren't really doing that much wrong.

Mp3 Wma always prided themselves on making downloading easy for people, and avoiding annoying, money-centric behavior when every other mp3 site (and there were, and are so many others) was pushing porn pop-ups in your face.

They were just a small time op who just leeched off gullible isp's who hosted them for nothing - you'd think they'd have better targets than kids just out of school.

Whatever you might want to say about them, they were a very community centric group who used their site as a social gathering place as much as a place to get music you could get off Kazaa for much less fuss - or off IRC if you knew how to.

They were optimists, perhaps of a reckless sort in hindsight, and so devoted to somthing that was theirs - they seemed to me for a long time what the promised land of the internet was supposed to be. They seemed to spend more time fighting off leechers than they did trying to conceal their presence from the law - I wonder if they were ever even sent a cease and desist letter for their candour.

I hope they don't get into too much trouble.

Posted 4/14/2003 09:09:04 AM by Louis
I got my picture on the "Fans of Opera" page here. Hoorah :)

Posted 4/12/2003 07:31:37 AM by Louis
I'm seriously considering shutting down my Yahoo account because of the spam, especially since I shifted over the fastmail recently. It's really not Yahoo's fault, I was careless with the address so... But that said, Fastmail, with IMAP, is the best free way to read mail in Outlook (or any mail client probably) - Hotmail is a bit flaky with Outlook, which is a pity since it wan't quite as bad with OE. So people who know me and read this have been warned, switch over to my fastmail accounts, I'll eventually not be reading my Yahoo mail anymore. My "public" account will still be the one one the left, but my private one I'll only give out to people I know. Die spam die. Filters are just not the answer since it's almost as much work to check the bulk mail folder for false positives, and you still get the occasional mail that the filters don't catch - which is all the more annoying.

Posted 4/12/2003 04:59:02 AM by Louis
I look forward to the time when blogging can be something I can be committed to every day, without feelings of guilt if I do so. That said, I have to tell the world that Opera 7.10 has been released, and my it's a nice browser. Anyone who has a spare half an hour should really give it a spin. Any reservations I had about recommending 7.0x is gone, and if you're doing a fresh install of 7.1, you're in a for a great - and exceptionally stable - browsing experience.

I've been hanging out at the MyOpera forums quite a bit the past week due to the betas, and I must say that the only really addictive portions of the web are those that involve other people. Content providers can try their best, but personal interaction, if only through a message board, is something that can really keep people coming back for more. But if news is still the new porn for you, Klipfolio is a fantastic app that has just released a surprisingly bug free beta that you can get here. It's fantastic for keeping abreast of news all from a central source - it's got weather, and is particularly good with tech news sites like CNET, Slashdot etc.

Posted 4/9/2003 07:44:43 AM by Louis
Everyone should marvel at the wonder that is Tush. Don't really feel like writing, but feel the need to type. Will simply spew for a minute. Spew.

Posted 4/7/2003 06:15:21 AM by Louis
Wondering about the status of my monitor, since there's some flickering when Opera is open but without any pages. Pretty annoying. But then it probably means there's no signal degradation from using the switch. Too dispirited to blog further.

Posted 4/4/2003 10:22:51 AM by Louis
Just on a side note, the other thing I don't write about here is porn. (What does that MEAN?)

Posted 4/4/2003 10:20:38 AM by Louis
This is taken from a reply to one of Allison's e-mails:

There's a reason why I don't write about who I'm with - it's one of the Rules. That's not one of the things I want people to have access to simply because as I'm sure you know, what happens between two people is always special, always unique, and always misinterpreted - even if (or especially if) you are the one doing the representing. People judge other people's relationships first with less kindness than they do their own and second with only a fraction of the understanding that's required to actually be in that relationship - I know this because I'm guilty of it. Knowing about these things is an imposition - on both sides, because of unfair judgement, and because it causes unfair judgement. Hence taboo subject - I allude to her, her name is Hiaw Khim, but I don't talk about her and I don't talk about us. The only way people would know about her in relation to me is if they met us, not because I told someone about us. But if it clears things up, she's a big reason why Chicago is a happy place - because she's here. And she is always on my mind, but only implicitly in my writing - I might express her opinions or her observations, but they come out as mine, because those thoughts become mine.

Awwww....

Posted 4/1/2003 09:39:41 PM by Louis
CDR's came. Woke up after about 5 hours. Starting to require nicotine. Will start work in a minute.

Posted 4/1/2003 11:14:11 AM by Louis
It's all about drugs. It's all about shame.

Posted 4/1/2003 10:52:31 AM by Louis
Oh and I figured out a couple of days ago that I can be the no. 1 hit on Google if you search for subtitles weltenschauung, like so. In fact unless things change, that is a legitimate google-bash, though with more than one word obviously.

Posted 4/1/2003 10:47:13 AM by Louis
I just need to write, I need to see my thoughts and ideas appear before me in corporeal form, in the fixation of linguistic signs. Does this mean that when they occur in my mind that they are somehow non-corporeal, that fixation is not just about that, the inscription of thought rather than the manifestation of it? If I simply concentrated on a thought or an idea, would it manifest as readily as it does when I write like this?

Happy April Fools.

I'm wondering when my CDR will arrive and whether my essays can survive me going off and writing CD's every 20 minutes. I'm feeling in a better place about my Fiction and Narrative essay now that I've read through some of what I wrote. Now that I've let go of being an academic, why is it still so hard for me to just get this stuff done? I can't stop thinking about how in 3 weeks I'll have absolutely nothing to do except mong and plan my devious schemes on building my computer. Got a spanner in the works today with ATI announcing they'll release the All in Wonder 9000 in the US. I'll probably still go for that over the 8500, just because it's newer and will ship with newer software (hopefully). There shouldn't be too big a price differential, event though OEM prices for the 8500 have bottomed out so much. But anyway at least I've settled on having Ulead as my video editior, thus reducing the need for me to get the retail box of these cards if I don't want to. The Pinnacle software just wasn't as intuitive.

I actually did a whole editing thing with the copy of Vanessa Carlton's Pretty Baby video that I have, and which turned out okay. Because they edited the last shot of the Roswell guy with duct tape over his mouth, I decided to finish the job for them and edit out all the instances of duct tape in the video - to complete the bowlderisation process if you will. Turned out quite well, and realised that music video's really do edit their cuts very closely to the music.

Posted 3/31/2003 08:14:41 PM by Louis
Woke up and recieved an authorise request on ICQ, wondering who was my nice new friend today. Found out it was Elaine with some asinine thing about her website being used to host this thing on boycotting American goods. In the words of a great band: Who Invited You? Moron.

Posted 3/31/2003 07:01:33 AM by Louis
Looking forward to watching Michael Moore on Bill Maher's show later. Always entertaining surely.

If I hear about another journalist "embedded" in an American/British military unit, I'm going to embed something up CNN's ass.

Bought a new mousepad from CompUSA, which otherwise is a poor excuse for a retail store selling overpriced, substandard hardware.

Found Allison on the Opera fans picture gallery here. Aerospace design. Nifty. Yeah, working for Opera? Where do I sign up :)? She also has a number of skins, that are nice and useful, due to their small toolbars - maximising screen space (you're on 800-600 too?). They're not really my style, I prefer more eye-candy-ish stuff if I was still using the XP visual styles, and anyway I've gone back to classic now to save resources and am just using the "windows" skin. Or Nemo.

Just ordered another bunch of CD-R's, TDK as usual - never went back to nasty unbranded stuff after all the trouble it gave me. Got another 150, since the last 150 are gone :). Especially when I started burning series they went pretty fast, what with Firefly, Enterprise, Roswell, Twin Peaks etc. Especially those on VCD.

It's really only here that I feel this mixture of happy and unhappy together, nice to be where I am and happy about the situation but unhappy about all the things I'm normally unhappy about. Thank god I'll never have to deal with academic work ever again after all this is over. Have half a mind to promise myself to build my system after I'm done. But then I'd have to find a job first. Hope the careers advisor got my mail and replies to it soon, or else I'll have to get annoyed. Looking forward to having even better resolutions to utilise with my groovy new monitor, since using my notebook's graphics isn't doing it justice I don't think.

Posted 3/31/2003 04:12:49 AM by Louis
Apparently people are finding my site at random nowadays, some guy from france (hello Mr.Bryce), a nutty fucker basically, told me he found it searching for subtitles and buffy. I'm no. 6 on Google searching for subtitles and Louis. Woo Hoo. Watching what is really a pretty shit new WB series called Black Sash. I suppose it's interesting since the main star is a the older Chinese guy which is a change, though they managed to get me to watch it by trailing it with young pretty women, with nary a mention of the main storyline.

E-Donkey's annoying me, since it's pretty slow and doesn't seem to understand the idea of queues. I suppose it is pre 1.0, but it's still pretty annoying.

Bored now.

Nothing's on TV except second rate films and half assed series, mostly repeats. Enjoying ads the most at the moment, just saw the Sprint PCS one with the teenage girls having a drop down all out bitch fight over their shared mobile. Very Fight Club, very funny. The lack of heating isn't so bad at the minute, but has the great potential of pissing me off. Been craving large hunks of meat recently, might succumb to a steak-burger soon, just because I can. Suppose fish-cakes isn't too bad. Wish I could start building my new system now.

Posted 3/30/2003 06:48:43 AM by Louis
Just feel like typing. Lowered my table so as to be more ergonomic, and it is. Mouse still seems a bit annoying but I'm sure I'm just obsessing. I'm just wondering whether after all it wouldn't be better to have a normal rather than split keyboard. Perfect Strangers is on BBC America, which is nice. Wouldn't it be nice to live life to Poliakoff music. Been discovering the wonder of E-Donkey, though I must say, all the more popular files can already be found on Kazaa, and Kazaa's just more efficient as far as I know. Might be having some issues because I'm behind a router but can't be bothered to fix it, even if I could figure out how.

Helped Peishan out installing her USB 2.0 drivers over the phone a couple of days back. Wonder how her burning is going. At least she finally bit the bullet and bought the stuff. Just imagine her going for the nicer looking Iomega over the rather blocky ones that are de-rigeur nowadays.

Posted 3/27/2003 05:49:45 AM by Louis
Have just spent the entire day, instead of working, installing and uninstalling antivirus products. Had decided that PC-Cillin was acting up a bit in not updating automatically all the time due to proxy problems left over from York. I now realise a simple uninstall reinstall would have worked. Well at least I know now that Mcafee stuff is pretty much air-tight in terms of it's product activation, and hasn't had a proper widespread crack that works to get auto updates. But like Norton, PC-Cillin is pretty easy going, though you still have to manually crack the exe file for the latter. Norton has the penchant of coming pre-cracked and ready to go. Am also going to give the Trend Micro firewall a whirl, though I've been trained to concieve of firewalls as requiring a bunch of alerts etc. Not having to use Zonealarm is nice though. Blah blah blah.

Posted 3/26/2003 05:23:55 AM by Louis
Found a lovely new mail service that offers IMAP for free, comes with really good reviews and probably worth checking out: Fastmail.

Posted 3/26/2003 05:19:48 AM by Louis
Really must start writing again, if only to give me some momentum. And I do have a lovely new keyboard which is working out rather well. Natural keyboards are so the way to go for people who can touch-type. The monitor is turning out quite well, it's a Viewsonic P-95f+, which I got for a rather handsome price on Pricegrabber. None of that faux flat-screen stuff from Samsung, which I was considering, but which cost more anyway. The only thing is these lines across the screen that comes with trinitron based monitors, which are faint but noticeable, expecially if you have a white background. It's really not a problem, and I'm more or less okay with it. To be honest, I just don't feel I'm missing out too much not having an LCD, since the screen size is just fantastic for the price. Text really turns out well on the display which is super. Only thing is with the KVM, there seems to be some flicker, which is sort of annoying, but we'll see how that pans out, I'm sticking to having the monitor plugged straight into the notebook, since I don't really need the switch at the moment. Am really tempted to just buy my desktop after I hand in my essays. Wonder if they'll keep letting me into the country if I keep popping in and out. Waiting longer might convince me to go for Serial ATA drives, since the Asus motherboard supports RAID on them. But the price difference at the moment is just too high, especially with the Western Digital drives going for cheap as OEM. Might consider just getting a single 120 IDE and moving to SATA when the price drops, and if that doesn't happen, just get the other 120 drive later. We'll see.

Haven't been talking to people, and people should be able to guess why. Feeling guilty about not fulfilling Allison's request, but I'll get around to it someday - maybe I'm not someone who can just write on demand after all. Got listed on a blog directory, which hopefully will get more traffic to this, it's nice to have strangers read this stuff.

Posted 3/24/2003 08:09:31 PM by Louis
Of all the things people want to cover and export to the US; Whole Again? I have to admit I actually quite like Atomic Kitten, and have done since their inception, but this blatant attempt at repackaging something for the US? And the one lyric change that sounds so awkward - "you still turn me on" to "you can do no wrong" - just smacks of them marketing youth. That said I'm finding Lillix rather fetching in their nicely contrived way.

Posted 3/24/2003 03:31:31 AM by Louis
Oscar night, nice to have some festivitiy, even though I couldn't care less who's winning. Rather appreciated WGN airing their attempt at a proper awards pre-show - nice, catty, and all about frocks. Feeling in two minds about the whole managedness and appropriateness of the ceremony - makes me root for Michael Moore as documentary filmaker, just so he can go off on one and provide some entertainment. And he did :). Nice speech on fictiousness - probably the best, most sensible, thing I've heard against the war and the American administration.

My monitor is still not here, hope it'll come tomorrow. My KVM switch is turning out pretty well, but because it's purely a keyboard controlled switch, I can't just have the mouse attached. Really considering buying the Belkin switch instead of the stop-gapness of getting a PS/2 to USB converter - which would only work for one notebook anyway. Suppose the 4 port one might be a good investment, since I have more than one notebook. The audio would really not be a problem, since I'd probably be wanting to play music on a different box, but with the potential for a second desktop, it'd be nice to have 5.1. But then again I'm not going to be getting another box for awhile so that should be able to wait.

Posted 3/14/2003 10:43:12 PM by Louis
Hello. Now I'm not sure who I'm saying hello to, whether it's my neglected blog or simply my adoring public, but yes, hello. Anyone who's read my blog at length, or actually knows me, knows that when I'm in Chicago, I'm quite a bit happier. That's the reason why I don't blog so much when I'm here. No need for it to make me feel better, and I'm not stuck in front of my computer quite as much.

But I figured that since the reply to my application STILL hasn't arrived, I should at least write somewhere, since I'm so not going to be writing much of my essay until I get a reply.

I'd like to draw attention to my recently acquired and quite wonderful purchases. I just bought a Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard and an Intellimouse Explorer, and my are they rather fantastic. Nice and ergonomic, and just a wonder to use. Even got them really cheap through PriceGrabber, since there you can get stuff from retailers who sell things as OEM/brown box, so all you have to do is download the drivers and you're ready to go. Just be aware of the retailer scores and reviews, so you don't pick an annoying retailer. One plus was that I actually got the black/two tone keyboard which I assume is explicitly for the OEM market, and not the blue one, and it goes better with my decor. My old Intellimouse Explorer Optical as just giving me ergonomic problems from not being a moulded right handed mouse, so I'm quite thankful I switched.

My biggest indulgence since I'm been here has been to watch almost continual episodes of Once and Again, from the Season One boxed set. Fantastic stuff. Whatever it is the writer's are smoking, they are really able to make having kids basically look cool. I'll write more about Once and Again soon.

Posted 3/9/2003 05:00:33 PM by Louis
Been watching Bangles videos again. Oh my Susanna Hoffs is hot. Girls, there was a reason why she was the front-woman - so there. And judging from what Diamond (or Pearl?) aka Ms. Carpenter said about Prince and his penchant for girls who look a particular way, Suzy would have been an ideal candidate. Very come hither, very distinct sounding voice, very active. Always want to tease the connection between the Bangles and Suzanne Vega - Hero takes a fall/When Heroes go down, In Liverpool/Going down to Liverpool, and probably more that doesn't spring to mind.

Posted 3/9/2003 12:30:34 PM by Louis
This is an e-mail that is in reply to Leigh, which I'll send out in a minute, that's a reply to her mail to me.

Hi Leigh,

First things first, my name is Louis ;). Thank you. In a way I really do apologise for the fact that I write about so much nonsense that I know no one is going to give a toss about. You're actually the first person I don't know to comment on my blog, and I'm quite happy about that. I'm sure you know, having written, that especially hearing someone talk about what they like about your writing makes you want to just tell them exactly what is wrong with your writing and why you find it so cringeworthy. But anyway, I'm coming to feel more an more that it's quite constructive (if not really useful) to just write regularly, and it's really rather empowering having a blog (especially in the beginning when no one knows about it) so you should try it. I promise I'll have at least one look ;). Well, to be honest I'd be fine if people actually read what I wrote about them, as long as they didn't go apeshit and never talked to me ever again... if I can say it, they should be able to hear it - if just for a lack of looking on their part. I'll just indulge myself a bit now and say that really - swearing and being angry is not startling or "new" in any way, and I'm getting more and more self conscious about it (thanks a bunch). Not that I'm not angry when I'm writing it, rather when you are you tend to fall back on rather unflattering stereotypes and verbal cliches which are very simply not great writing by any standard.

I've already decided that this is going to be an entry in by blog, so that's why it's going on as it is, I'll mail it to you as well. You'll find the entry here. (such meta-ness) Just thinking that your mail turns out rather well from Operamail, but more so that I think Outlook handles it with quite a bit of pinache - but then that's what you get with a pirated-worth-several-hundred-dollar-Office-Suite. Is it also from the Opera mail client? Honestly cannot stand the Opera client, for a number of reason's I've set out in the forum, it's not my favorite. Scrolling in Outlook is smooth, but sort of jerky really, which is soft and nice, and hence ergonomic, but a bit annoying.

Leigh, if you don't mind, I was wondering if you'd be so nice as to suggest me a topic - anything that I suppose would interest you in some way and you think I have some vague idea about - so I can write about it. Yes, I'm taking requests. I can't promise you when it'll be up, but I just want to see how it goes, and if people want to send in requests, I'll certainly consider them. Makes me feel like some kind of columnist.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Louis

Posted 3/8/2003 11:10:14 PM by Louis
I figure I should do some sort of writing, since the other kind is so obviously not happening.

(It is heppening... again... It is heppening... again...)

Just a recommendation to those clever people now using Opera, I'm currently a big big fan of this guy's skins. His name is Christian Krebs, and his skins are breathtaking, especially Strange Truth 2 (if you like things clean), and Oxid (if you like things striking, with a very graphic designer kind of feel). Oxid is now my default skin. The red of the Hotlist button is just breathtaking on the main bar - I'm actually displaying the main bar just for that, since I don't actually use the buttons. He's also quite receptive to "bug" reports about his skin, and quite nicely acceded to a couple of requests I had about Oxid.

I've been binging on TV again, which sort of makes me happier.

Just saw the paedophile episode of CSI Miami. Don't quite know what to think. I'd like to point out the almost surreal alarmism and media frenzy surrounding paedophilia, much like the serial killer theme that was so popular in the late 90's, but cannot fully divest myself from the almost irrational manipulation that occurs with the presentation of childhood. Childhood innocence is a cult - perpetrated by adults no less - which the Hansel and Gretel episode of Buffy addressed quite well. And yet, like so many other things - war, train crashes, atomic bombs - it is not the rational, proportional loss of life that occurs to us but rather the impact on our psyche of something that is just wrong - somehow abhorrent as if it were naturally so. It is the affective nature of this that worries me about this, that in acceding to these impulses, we lose the ability to concieve of a conscientious rationalism/pragmatism. I'm not saying that rationality is utmost and inviolate - that would too simply be exclusive of man's limitation of perception and ability of imagination - but at the point of action do we dare to act on anything other than what we can concieve of as making sense, and pursuing that with eyes half closed in fear and determination, half open with conscience and unbelief?

Posted 3/8/2003 07:17:46 PM by Louis
I feel really paralysed by the fact that I'm still waiting for the response to my application.

I'm currently waiting for Ben to finish showering so I can go. Woo Hoo.

Posted 3/8/2003 05:50:30 PM by Louis
Ah, the Economist. You need a subscription to read this unfortunately, but the gist of it is summed up in the title and subsequent subtitles:

"Anti-war students

Dream on

Students think their protests will stop the war. Tremble, Tony"

Lest you think this is all I read, here's something from the Register. The last line is just classic.

Posted 3/8/2003 04:34:41 PM by Louis
This is what I love about the Economist. There are surely a great number of things wrong with being eminently sensible, but many a time it's nice to have the Economist fight your battles for you. Look at this and this. Since when did we start legislating language again? You'd think it was the French for fuck's sake. The sky is falling. Dude, your dick's on fire.

Speaking of shithead loser morons, look at this. The comments by Seeker just remind what an idiot this guy is. He was a fuck-head when he was riding me about the SDI thing, and he's still a fuck-head now. I could go off on one about him and his small mindedness regarding culture but I haven't the strength. Let's just say his sig says it all, the pseudo-liberal, bible-thumping, platitude-spouting idiot who thinks the world revolves around him. Four words my friend, SMACK MY BITCH UP.

Can't believe he's on the My Opera homepage. Bastard.

Posted 3/8/2003 03:11:03 PM by Louis
Hmm... Seems as if my ploy of putting my blog url in my Opera forum's sig is getting people to actually come here. How scary :D. Hi, fjames, nice to know you don't think I'm a complete nutter.

I suppose I always wanted more or less complete strangers to read my blog more than the people that I knew around me, since I'll probably be writing about those around me and I don't want to feel as if I can't talk/bitch/handbag whoever the hell I want to. Case in point would be me talking about people I'm attracted to like here. People already think I'm some creepy leery bastard enough anyway without stuff like this getting to the people involved. But yes, I do feel as if this is somehow a kind of record of myself, and that I want to write what I want to write about, though obviously some things (which remain known to me alone) which are off limits.

fjames seems to like MyWay, and really the main thing I like about it is that it's the first properly customisable (usefully so) TV listing guide I've used online. You can sort by just the channels you like and cut out all the crap that you don't understand/want to watch. And it works great in Opera, which is more than I can say for TV Guide online. I think I could do something like it with the SBC Yahoo service, but that's just cuz I subscribe to the ISP, MyWay is open to all, as it should be. Proprietary content that has that much of a barrier to entry - ie having to switch ISP's, just doesn't make sense. Who's going to move to AOL just to watch a couple of videos or whatever? ISP's should be access providers - and compete on price - content providers like Real etc. can move on top of that with value added services. Really, the association of yahoo with SBC sort of cheapens Yahoo's potential as a portal, if only because you can get stuff with SBC that you can't get from Yahoo ala carte, which is rather an alienating idea. The idea of an ISP locking me in to useing their service with features other than how good the access is will only succeed in me not using those services - which is why I have autonomous e-mail addresses, so that I can move ISP's at will (ironically with Yahoo...).

Need to get breakfast now, and promise to be more diligent in updating this. It's more worth it when you have an audience. And now at least one that isn't as technologically illiterate as the rest of my friends... :D

Posted 3/7/2003 08:02:32 PM by Louis
Now that I'm sure people have given up looking at this due to lack of updates (or let's face it - interest) I can get back to writing whatever the fuck I want. Well the real reason would obviously be that I'm just unhappy and can't be bothered to write.

That pretty much stopped me in my tracks for a couple of minutes at least. I capitulated about the whole Opera SDI thing in the forums today, you can find the post here, go to page 7.

Went for the screening of The Trial today (of my own tape no less), and really wasn't terribly impressed on the second watch. Not touching the Trial with a ten foot pole in my essay. Have to say there is a kind of effectiveness about it though, I was feeling a bit pursued when I went out to smoke, brought back memories of Ulrika and my first term. Getting really pissed off with being in York. Looking around at the Uni makes me really not want to be here any more. Been trying to get worked up with Richard about not seeing me or replying about my essay, but the more I think about it, the more I think that it's more to do with me, and there's not that much he could/would do anyway. Starting to think the premise of my work is decidedly unworkable, but who gives a flying fuck by now.

Watching Christina lipsyncing (badly) on TOTP. She's pretty pathetic doing that, but I suppose you can't blame people for not wanting to perform continuously.

Posted 3/3/2003 08:02:07 AM by Louis
Just found the quote I was (not too actively till now) looking for from the Third Man,

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cukoo clock."

- Orson Welles as Harry Lime in "The Third Man"

Quite wonderful I think, and I'm not surprised Dollimore was so emphatic in bringing it out. The idea that conflict and flux seem to be the catalyst of creative vigour seems to hold a kind of ironic and ambivalent fascination for those of us who study this. I don't even know what more to say about it, except to acknowledge the amibvalence again of this observation, which Welles rightly makes so wry and pointedly funny.

I was just struck by this educational program on the BBC, probably tied to the Open University, that dealt with reading - something like how to read through editorial bias. They say things that basically the narrative theorist might say, that in reading a text - a news story in this case, that despite pretences towards objectivity, that the editorial presence is always there, that newspapers are not "the thing itself" - the immediate experience of the act. Talking about strategies of reading, they stress the need to think about intention, of why and for what these things are being written. We're looking for the author, I would say the implied author, since the author would too easily be thought of as the scriptor himself, whereas with newspapers, the more accurate description would be to think of the institutional intention.

Probably the news item that struck me the most from the morning news was the item about this school girl who had run off with this older policeman, known to be her boyfriend of sorts. Articles can be found here. The way they reported it seemed to stress the emergency of it, that they needed to be contacted. That seems a strange way of thinking about it, even though certainly their safety is probably a concern. My imagination posits them as simply a couple run off for the simple "romantic' reason that they wanted to, and all the constitutive reasons that precipitate that. The fact that their car was found at the tip of the island, at the northernmost point when they were nowhere near it, seems to point to a kind of desire for escape, if not simply escapism - a kind of nurturing in the indulgence of romance. All of which makes the rather rational furore around their "almost inexplicable" disappearance seem a kind of repudiation of the legitimacy of that drive, to the extent that they are simply unwilling to be cognisant of that possibility. They wished to visit The Ends of The Earth, is that so strange? En route, and under disguise of attending to the normality of their daily lives, they had made an arrangement, a cunning plan, whose intentions (perhaps they knew?) would be incomprehensible/unacceptable to those immediately around them. I want to condition all of this in case it all turns out badly but can't bring myself to dispel the wondrousness of the gesture that they are engaged in - which hollywood's earnest sentimentality renders so often as a deadened obeisance to idols of spontaneity and the gut wrenching clash with duty and responsibility - trawthe.

Reminds me of "A Chalked Heart" lying on the floor of my room, and of the youngness of the protaganist and the wonder whether I will ever bring myself to speak to her author.

Posted 2/26/2003 04:05:13 PM by Louis
Can't remember what I was so eager to blog about just now, since the page had trouble loading. Yeah, I was going to e-mail Richard again, just to prove how "indulgent" he can be :). I suppose the core of my essay will still be the same, using Larsen to make the case for a demarcation of focalisation, narration and an implied author (or textual intention/meaning). What's changed though, is I'm convinced that in doing so I must not fall into the essentialist trap of arguing for a unitary notion of a text. Hence all the bringing in of Hernstein Smith talking about social interaction and just generally things about how the text is constituted as cultural artifact. The act of interpretation within this schema is dependant on recognising the conventions of the social communication - specifically that the text addresses itself as text rather than as voices within the story world.

Posted 2/26/2003 09:41:21 AM by Louis
Just uninstalled Norton Antivirus and installed Pc-cillin 2003. Surprised by the gain in responsiveness, rather impressed. Worried about the efficacy of the firewall though since it doesn't work by asking for permission by each program, rather is simply screens out known trojans etc. Suppose it's fine, I've never been particularly picky about what's running, even the Real stuff - if I install it, I don't mind giving it access.

Essay is shaping up, but feel the need for small respite, and I'm still waiting for Richard to reply. I suppose my ideas have moved on a bit to include broader ideas about reading - suppose I should read Hernstein Smith again. Might be going out again later to pick up reading for next week. Feel like using the quote from Third Man as the epigraph for my Norse essay. Wonder if Richard remembers me from previous lectures.

Norah Jones isn't quite that evil, it's just the fact that she's so hyped that makes her seem a bit annoying.

Posted 2/24/2003 09:02:58 AM by Louis
Someone or somehow, my stuff has been clear out of the kitchen spaces and the place actually looks tidy. I’m sure I have Emen to thank, if not the whole bunch of them. I should feel angry like I did last night, because it really isn’t anybody’s buisness and I would have confronted rather than given in. The fact that they didn’t let me has me a bit ashamed and a bit grateful, though in a way that doesn’t want me to show my face.

I’m writing this on Word because blogger’s down for maintenance.

Started smoking again and it really was the boost I needed to send of Richard’s e-mail. Throat is sore and I haven’t had a proper meal in days. Can’t even bring myself to go into the kitchen to experience my shame.

It’s nice having non-Lit friends. Though we might have been stretching for conversation at points it was nice being with Clarissa. Missed talking about the film, but then I could do that with anyone I suppose.

Turned out it was Terry who did the moving. Wonder what to think about that.

Posted 2/23/2003 04:07:57 AM by Louis
I've got to return alot of shit tomorrow. Both sets of Angel and Buffy boxed sets and the 2 CD's I've bought. My god those CD's are some of the most anodine half assed elevator music I've heard in a while.

Posted 2/20/2003 08:56:45 PM by Louis
Nothing like a good awards show to perk you up. The Brits just came on, and watching Kylie perform with Timberlake was pretty fun. Must say I like the sound of Ms. Dynamite. Oh yeah and I heard the Sugababes sort of mangle "Shape of My Heart" by Sting yesterday, someone's fishing for cred... Oh yes and Mahjong is fun fun fun.

Just to mention, I've been to a number of customisable web portals and I think I've found one that puts Yahoo to shame, even the repackaged SBC one. MyWay was concieved largely as a Yahoo killer, and if only for their customised homepage and their (unfortunately US only) TV guide they win hands down in terms of usability and usefulness. They haven't introduced a fantastic e-mail system like Yahoo has and Google and Yahoo still have a better news page, but as a portal, MyWay has alot going for it. In particular if you're on dial-up, they are very bandwidth friendly in not having banner/pop-up ads and images in general unless you request for them. Conveniently situated Google search bar is apparently part of their buisness model - clever. But Opera users like me have a google box in the personal bar already so revenue's going to Opera... (hopefully)

Hate to admit it, but I'm finding MDI probably the best option for supercharged browsing, especially with the keyboard shortcuts for navigation. If I've learnt anything from the whole SDI campaign thing, it's that momentum can be an irresponsible thing. The peace campaigners might want to take notice and have a gander and the rampant fascism here. I'm really not willing write more about that unless someone's really that interested.

Must watch double bill of French Films on Sunday: Ma Femme Est Une Actrice + Read My Lips, City Screen Listings to be found here.

Must buy a mahjong set when I go back to Singapore.

Posted 2/20/2003 05:24:31 PM by Louis
When you fuck it up later do I get my money back?

Posted 2/19/2003 08:33:20 AM by Louis
A bit annoyed that I'm playing shuttlecocks with browsers but I'm back with Opera for a while. Anyway I've just been watching Roswell for the past couple of hours and inevitably after watching a series and having convulsions of the soul for the entirety of the night, I'm in that sentimental place again. Watched the 2nd season Christmas Nazi episode which was particularly moving I thought, the second and third seasons really look substantially better than the first, at least from the episodes I've got. I'm also quite enamoured by the new Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow song, Picture, which can be found on Rollingstone.com - use the Quicktime broadband stream if you can the quality is so much better than WMP for this file for whatever reason.

Bumped into Judith today while walking with Johnny, will try to post the e-mail I send her which will inevitably be one of those :P.

Becoming quite interested in Jonathan Frakes now because he executive produced Roswell. He must have a particular vision to back something like that. Can't say I think too much the Star Trek movies, maybe he should leave the directing to someone else... But he did great cameo's though, in Roswell. I got my episodes of Kazaa - there's a new version of Kazaalite K++ edition - if you don't know what that means it's just the best client for Kazaa around and can be found here. I've been using as my episode reference this page.

Must explain about "marks consciousness".

Posted 2/17/2003 02:34:38 PM by Louis
This is pretty much a reaction to Cari having gotten my much delayed mail and threatening to read this.

So yes, for whatever reason, I've not been writing the whole time I was in Chicago, which is probably a function of how happy I am there. What annoys me is the fact that I can't seem to equate work with anything other than making myself not so happy. It seems as if the only thing to be said for work is momentum, at least the work I'm currently doing. The fact that the alternative to school work that I envisage as some other form of writing (such as this blog) is not much different isn't encouraging. Of course management could always beckon...

So yes, would much rather talk about watching Roswell, which is really rather pleasant. It's a pity that there's not more Firefly or Enterprise to be had for the moment. Even though I've watched quite a bit of the first season of Roswell, it's still rather comforting watching the series again, sort of like watching Cold Feet again, though Roswell is probably more pleasant for being less pretensious.

Feel good about having bought the Once and Again boxed set, pity that only season one is out, probably look forward most to watching season 3 again. Especially the whole thing with Grace, as well as the whole thing with Eli's sister. The adults are the angsty boring bits in that season. Which reminds me of what is probably my favorite episode of Buffy, "The Yoko Factor". As anyone reading this for a while would have guessed (Hi, Cari) I don't often go into great detail about my rather random comments unless I really feel the need to, which is really dependant on mood and oppurtunity. And the random skipping of my thoughts. More coherent strings of thoughts etc can probably be found much earlier in the "archived" bits near the beginning before I became that bit more boring.

Shall console myself further by watching more Roswell or taking a nap. Just feel the need to put into context the fact that I watch Roswell. I really like teen drama. Hence the obsession with 80's teen movies. Even like a bunch of the more recent stuff, and to be honest, most Sci-Fi is really so targeted with people of teen maturity/intelligence... Except perhaps Firefly, but firstly that's probably not totally true and secondly we'll never really know since Fox cancelled it. I suppose I should recommend Whedonesque which is a website dedicated to Joss Whedon and his writing, even though the site is pretty hardcore, and Joss-boy himself is really a rather limited writer in many ways and really not much of a director.

Looking forward to Buffy radio coming up on Wednesday. Hope the new CNET Radio Direct isn't as crap as it has been the past couple of days. Brian Cooley really isn't as fun as David Coursey, and the talk is far too news-like and paced.

Gradually realising how much nonsense I was talking in my Larsen essay about focalisation. Looks like it's back to the drawing board on that one. Not that the textual analysis was horrible, but the understanding of narrative is just so lacking. Thank god that's not the one I submitted to Chicago. Really must distract self and eventually reply to Cari. Tinkering with her comp sounds like *fun* but Edinburgh is probably that bit too far for random fun acts of kindness. Could consider sending care packages of lovely pirated (and hence free) software... muahaha... ha.

Oh, by the way, I've just moved back to using Zoom Player for video media playback, which is pretty swanky. It's pretty much just a front-end for stuff you could play in WMP, but with lots more customisation available. Haven't tried it with DVD's but it should work like a charm.

Posted 2/12/2003 07:27:47 PM by Louis
I've moved back to Internet Explorer. Thanks to Meaya's Popup Ad Filter the experience had been quite good. It's trialware but if you visit this lovely site you'll find a way to get around that. I've only really bought software online once, and that was audiocatalyst back when I was ripping my entire CD collection. Regreted it then and still think it was a waste of cash. Despite the return of some old annoyances with IE the transition has actually been a rather pleasant one, so I'll be sticking with this for awhile. I even got google working through the address bar (instructions can be found in the midst of this page), which is so much better than the clutter of the google toolbar. Am quite annoyed with all the localisation crap that's foisted on you when you set your country/region in Windows. Pretty annoying that you can't change it without changing language and location settings.

Don't feel like writing. Hope I manage to download Bang and Blame from Kazaa.

Posted 2/8/2003 12:49:01 AM by Louis
I've just finished watching 7 straight episodes of Enterprise. Let's just say it's going well... :P. I don't know, the problem is I don't feel particularly unhappy, on the contrary I'm actually quite contented, and can't really bring myself to face the aggravation of work. Plus it's bloody cold. Washing machines are still spoilt, will have to get Hiaw Khim to call.

Posted 2/7/2003 09:48:07 PM by Louis
What is my fixation with women? I've just been watching what might be called a "Hoshi" episode of Enterprise, basically focusing on Hoshi. I was fixated and squealing all the way through it. *sigh*. Hoshi had her inaugural shower scene... got to wear revealing gym gear for alot of it, and managed to let her hair fall for most of it. I suppose what was also so interesting about it was the fact that the episode was also a Pincher Maritn rip, where Hoshi experienced a couple of days in the 8 seconds she was caught in the pattern buffer of the transporter. Curious all these coincidences creating a web of signs around us.

Still not working, just feel so relaxed and away from it all, I just want to mong my life away. But yes, Hoshi. Mmmmmm...

Posted 2/7/2003 06:59:45 PM by Louis
How fantastic to type this in a space that's not 800x600. Listening to Michelle Branch now. Fantastic stuff, bought her unreleased first album, called Broken Bracelet and it's amazing. If anything it's more moving than Spirit Room. Got it from her personal website here. Got to e-mail her dad at the same time which is pretty cool.

Torn now about whether I'll eventually get an LCD or a CRT. The static image quality on Hiaw Khim's screen is fantastic depite it being a pretty cheap screen. Luckily no dead pixels that are glaringly noticable as well. And no adjusting for the image to fill up the screen. And I really don't use up that much screen real-estate. 1024x768 should be enough for me. But then if I want room to grow the 19 inch CRT's still a pretty good idea.

Shall succumb to watching Enterprise in a minute, but was really struck by what I suppose I'd call the parable of "Broken Bracelet" in Michelle Branch's album. She has a little story explaining the origin of the album name. Just the presentation of it, as a kind of parable, like the one in the Trial and the one in Hammett, was just so striking, like one of Wesley's "eureka" moments. ("He actually goes "Eureka"?"). Basically these inside stories which are meant to be some tantalising glimpse into meaning. Again I keep coming back to the Derrida thing about communication and the deferment of meaning. Guess I'm destined to be a bit more of a failed academic then.

Posted 2/7/2003 01:41:15 AM by Louis
Fuck me it can get cold here. It's better today, but yesterday was pretty miserable. Thing is the washing machines downstairs are broken as well, so I haven't been able to do my promised laundry. Downloading Firefly and Enterprise has been going well, most of it is on disc already. Made a copy of Valmont for Sulin, shall have to find a way to get it to her. Must remember to send off transcript for U Chicago. Migration to Outlook is going well, and it's making using Yahoo bearable despite the spam. And when I stop using the York imap account I should have less pop up warnings. Seem to feel less like writing here. Not been doing work, just been fiddling with the comp. Might try using the http tunneling thing when I get back to york. Hope it doesn't get me banned. Pleasantly surprised that my old Iomega CD-writer is doing so much better than my brother would like to think. It's even overburning properly which is pretty cool. Might actually end up using the 150 stack of CD-R's.

Posted 2/5/2003 05:57:17 AM by Louis
Kazaa is a miraculous thing. And so incidentally is massive amounts of storage - I'm getting quite a bit of mileage out of the 80 gig drive I got for the computer here. Must remember to make copy of Valmont for Sulin. Flight wasn't horrible, if a bit sick making. Had no trouble at immigration this time, seems as if they might have lightened up on entry by Singaporeans. Maybe not. They did seem to be breezing through people though. Didn't watch a single feature on the plane, which I suppose I've not done for a while. Got some sleep and read FHM and the Economist.

Setting up my network again was much less hassle than I thought it would be, hope the router doesn't flake on me again. Considering reinstalling a firewall on my notebook, probably Sygate. Migrated to Outlook, which is a bit bumpy, but overall not too annoying, if you don't consider having to rebuild my address book a setback. At least the yahoo filtered spam can be redirected more easily. Feeling quite tired. Should do my laundry tomorrow.

Gaby the giraffe is rather cute, but not quite in the way I remembered her from the shop window.

Posted 2/4/2003 12:11:01 AM by Louis
Turns out that I didn't actually waste money on my flight by ordering from BMI. Hope it goes okay, wonder if I'll have to go to ticketing before checking in. The ticket from BMI was just 249 while NYS was doing it for a about 290, though they probably could have offered me another flight for less. It's just that SIA is also Star Alliance which is nice. Along with United.

I got a 70 for my 1900-1950's. Woo fucking hoo. As I've heard Jared having said, a first is a first. Just wondering which of the other people in that group got the other 3 (significantly higher) firsts. Angela I think I can understand, but off the top of my head I can't really remember who else would have done well from that seminar. Probably no one particularly good looking. Well there was the stoner dude and that guy who used to smoke with me that I can remember. The latter probably did well. But yeah no one quite the level of radiating sex as Canadian girl (as I discovered today) in Fiction and Narrative. It must be the whole thing with the sort of tousled hair and sort of blank look.

Was just telling Johnny how well we've been trained by now not to waffle in seminar. Richard is an effective guy at whipping people into shape. I must say I was suitably impressed by the clarity and brevity of what people were talking about today. But it was generally a more congenial seminar anyway since talking about media isn't really our "thing". "Where is my mind?" Love the whole thing about Fight Club, and talking about my Star Wars novel with a soundtrack, pity I didn't bring up things like computer games. Was just generally in a good mood anyway after getting my results. And Richard seemed in a good mood as well. I suppose if I was being charitable about him and that woman, she must be the object of nostalgia all that faffy nonsense she goes on about - she's not really been picked on by him, and hence still seems to go on a bit. Smack my bitch up, that's what I say.

Quite proud of having done so much stuff today, even got my NUS card. Bought a nice copy of the Economist for light reading on the plane :). Been having delusions of e-mailing Judith Woolf, but think I've calmed down since. Edel's not handed in her essay yet, but I suppose she's not as annoying in sending Mary e-mails as I am wont to be. Feel bad about telling her about it. Resolve to e-mail Cari. Looking forward to Buffyradio tomorrow when I get to Chicago. Hope the set up of the LAN and the router doesn't cause problems. Got to start moving all my porn off the computer there to download Firefly, hopefully some Enterprise as well. Remember to bring back CDR's (should ask Michel if he wants some), Michelle Branch CD, Vanessa Carlton, various CD's, DVD's etc. Wonder if I should bother bringing stuff over from here. Probably not, will most likely just stuff dirty laundry to pad my books and papers. All this is sort of pointless anyway since I hardly read over my blog entries anyway. I'd hate to have to edit all of this stuff.

Posted 2/3/2003 05:30:37 AM by Louis
So not only have I been a bit of a raw nerve the past couple of days, today, going out to get my seminar readings was a particularly Lost Highway moment. Night-time with sort of humming burnished skies, peculiar; and having to walk through all that mud in more or less sleeping attire with a coat; turning back and going round. There are still times when wandering round Spring Lane is still some freaky/spooky shit.

Not yet sleeping, didn't tell my parents I was flying off, wonder if my overdraft will be okay. Sort of worried about my result coming out tomorrow, won't really feel the anxiety again till later I think. Have to make a list of what to do tomorrow. Check for rest of readings. Return Bordwell. Get NUS card and bring proof of student status. Buy/collect tickets. Do laundry. Photocopy Kureishi article. Pack Sight and Sound and Lost Prince.

Posted 2/3/2003 12:42:07 AM by Louis
Been very involved in my campaign to save SDI in Opera, hence the lack of updates for all of a day... I've started a blog for it, which you can find here. Quite exciting that I got mentioned by the Inquirer, even though they slanted the story to the extent of getting it wrong, but they sort of fixed it, and it's pushing a bunch of traffic to my thread on the forums. The link to the Inq can be found in my other blog, as can the links to the forums and my petition.

A bit disappointed that none of the other news sites has picked up the story. Pity really, but at least the Inquirer was quite a coup.

The change of reading by Richard was quite good, even though it deals much more with the text than with film/media. Very incisive on Kafka, ripe for me to rip apart. Really starting to see similarities with the Trial and Passing. Norse essay is in a state of being optimistic, though I'll have to wait till I'm in Chicago to really work on it more.

Thinking of food.

Posted 2/1/2003 05:47:05 PM by Louis
I suppose I'm still reeling a bit from the whole CNET radio closure thing. I think what one of the analysts said was true, that another voice in the industry has been silenced. I suppose it makes me reconsider what I suppose can be rather puerile ideals of economic efficiency in people losing jobs, especially when it happens to people you know and it affects you. Even if they're many miles away and people over the radio. I had just been reacting the day before to David Coursey saying that all the outsourcing to foreign countries of technology jobs was something that could be contained by tariffs. I suppose unlike myself, he reacted both out of a recognition of what was happening to himself, what was happening to his colleagues, and what was happening to his industry and the friends he has in that industry. Who can say to someone like that, and other people in that position, as they did in Shooting the Past, that they no longer make economic sense? And yet even Poliakoff seemed to recognise the inevitability of it, that the desperation and the search for redemptive action and behaviour has a certain primacy and is in a sense so fundamental to that experience of change. Again another document of the moment of flux, of change, of the movement from one frame of perception to another.

Posted 2/1/2003 05:30:58 PM by Louis
I wonder whether Woody Allen really meant it when his character said that "comedy, is tragedy plus time". A space shuttle just failed to land, it probably scattered all over texas. I don't suppose I have any particular attachment to the shuttle or anything to do with space, but I'm still sentimental, and I just woke up to discover this. An article can be found here. I go to two places when I'm looking for news, Yahoo, and Google.

I really like Crimes and Misdemeanours, which where the quote above came from. Always sort of appreciated his homage to Bergman in everything he did, until I realised what a joke it was. I wonder if the Holy Grail titles are meant to be a joke on that. But yes that quote, even though it's associated with a figure of scorn in the film, has always sort of stuck with me. I'm just thinking of the X-Files episodes that dealt with the Challenger shuttles from earlier on, and how that must have been recieved. George Harrison is still dead.

Posted 2/1/2003 12:17:09 PM by Louis
Someone should invent headphones, and I mean proper headphones - not earbuds, that don't pinch specs into the side of your head. I suppose some that don't require that elasticity to stay in place. But that will have to wait till I have something to eat.

Posted 2/1/2003 12:03:57 PM by Louis
More people in need to being lampooned, poet laureates' my ass. Not to say that the Bush administration is any better, "believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum" as if it could be anything else... But I suppose here is where I wear my hypocrite hat and say, people who study the "humanities" should know better (at least better than politicians, but that's still me as hypocrite), ''I think there was a general feeling that the current administration is not really a friend of the poetic community and that its program of attacking Iraq is contrary to the humanitarian position that is at the center of the poetic impulse''. Humanitarian position my ass. Whose poetry have you been reading fuck-head? To be honest, with the Bush admin, it's almost par for the course, but for this so called "poet laureate" to assert something like that is just irresponsible. You have your own political views, great, attributing it to the "poetic impulse" is (not to put too fine a point on it) wrong. Listening to Spong talk about his own personal fuck-head in his seminar group makes me all the less kindly to that kind of faffy-ness. Thank god for Cari. Not that I think she'd particularly agree with me, but at least I know she's not talking out her ass.

Whinging is hungry making work. But then so are so-called "self-conscious" detractions. Party to my own object of scorn. Blah.

Don't think I quite appreciate as much as I should the subtlety of that season premiere of the Soprano's that dealt with the Twin Towers is such an oblique manner, very much in the manner of collecting responses in the lives that are in so many ways untouched by what happened. Addressing a political event head on in a literary work I suppose is fine (see bottom of article), whatever, but then what differentiates it from the limp polemicism of a political diatribe: which is what these inevitably end up being - if only because their aesthetic becomes contaminated by the directness of their representation.

And those idiots on the West Wing, basically caving in after what happened, saying "we're just actors - we know nothing of politics". Entirely contrary to their artistic (or at least Aaron Sorkin's) agenda up to that point. If you're caving in because you believe your own rhetoric about force and the protection of you citizenry by force, say so, don't dress it up in being coy about your own impulses, however unpopular they are in your milieu.

Like I said, fuck-heads. Bunch of related articles can be found here.

Posted 2/1/2003 11:39:54 AM by Louis
I'm just finding writing now very much comforting, so you'll forgive me for keeping going for at least a bit more. I think I've really sold REM short on New Adventures in Hi-Fi, though it might just be me being sentimental at the moment. How the West Was Won is actually a remarkable almost-transfiguration of the ur-song of Monster. Keyboard riff is fantastic - if I was a shitty music journalist, I'd say it's hypnotic. But I suppose really it's the continual dialogue between the guitar and keyboard that makes the counterpoint so poignant. Of course by now it's Wake-Up Bomb, so mood's shifted slightly, even by the end of that sentence. So what, the putting down of words itself is subject to the variations of the moment? I suppose I'm just sick of analysing other people's writing, wish I could just read my own and revel in it. But how to put meaning and purpose into each syllable? Other than the purpose and meaning that is constitutive of Me.

I just revel as well in the timbre of Michael Stipe's voice, plaintive and open, raw and almost out of control. It's like the bang and blame video, you almost feel he's flubbing the line, when it's still so clearly sung.

Fuck, Li Peng just came up to tell me to turn it down. Suppose Spong's sub really isn't the best thing for the middle of saturday morning. I always wondered if he was annoyed by the noise. Well there's no longer a radio show to play in the middle of the night. And right now the definition of the bass and the sharpness of the treble in my earphones is incredibly pleasant. One thing I'm rather ambivalent towards is all this "commentary" in music about "society" the particular leper of which seems to be talk-show hosts ala-Springer. That whole Barry Williams show thing by Peter Gabriel has put me off him forever. Pettish and not particularly insightful - full of righteous angst and affectation. Pretty much as bad as the Alanis Morissette school of lyric writing. Music is actually great, but decides that lyrics need not have any transcendant relationship to that music. And it's not even that you can't write bad lyrics, it's just if you do, don't foreground it so much in the song.

And Spike Lee going off on one at BET. What's that about? It's not that I disagree, and I think he's quite right as an influential figure to critique his own community (unlike Bill Cosby on the Osbournes, which is just annoyingly unperceptive); it's just that Spike Lee looks so smug and the sentiment of him doing it just strikes me as being so proprietary and parochial.

Posted 2/1/2003 11:10:43 AM by Louis
Must say the scrolling in Opera 7 final can be as smooth as shit from a duck's ass.

One of the last tracks of Star is playing now, Untogether. I can't say why, maybe it's because it's a love song, of the rarity that occurs in alt-rock, but right now it's so incredibly moving. And over. In fact a large part of the end of this album in fantastic in that light. Lots of people write about honesty and how personal songs can be, but some of Tanya Donelly's stuff is really just open without being un-genuine.

Still think that fucker from last night is, well, a fucker. God damn those people were sad-deserving to be shot.

Posted 2/1/2003 10:52:43 AM by Louis
Oh yeah, I suppose I should mention that CNET radio's gone belly up, which is rather upsetting. I suppose they were right not to drag out the fact that they knew it was all ending, but it was quite a shock, there suddenly being a "final" Anchordesk on the Air. David Coursey's rather readable columns can be found at Anchordesk. It's not even that he's that good, other than being, as I said, readable, he was just very personable on the radio and handled the format well, which has more to do with it I think. It was never that you got that much hard news or biting commentary from his show, it was more like a leisurely cogitation on things that were happening, really part of the process of digesting information, having people react to it. And it was a good thing to listen to as you were falling asleep to. Which for me does not necessarily mean anything bad at all. Used to listen to all my new albums, especially the ones I liked, by falling asleep to them. Particularly so with Mariah, with the first and second albums, keeping Tony awake.

I don't know why I can't seem to write more than a paragraph without moving on to another topic. As it is I tend to just change tack in the middle of the paragraph, I wonder whether I'm leaving something out, or whether that's all I really want to say, that saying too much just isn't quite right. I suppose there's something of Borges' pith that strikes me as very ripe for emulation. I say it's really so telling that I still think quite well of Judith Woolf despite her being rather stand-offish. I'm really doomed to admire people who treat me like shit. Motherfuckers.

Posted 2/1/2003 10:46:03 AM by Louis
Bizarre night last night. Had the Chinese New Year dinner thing with Edel and posse. It was okay, nothing special. Fish was nice. Came back, played bridge with Spong, Edel and Clarissa. After which the weirdness sets in.

I'm being judgemental but you know, hello, it's me. Went over to one of the Hickleton houses where it was a bunch of Malaysians and Chinese nationals. Hoping to play tai ti, since Lisa was there. They broke into groups and had a snowball fight. They attempted to organise themselves into groups beforehand. Okay fine, for a lot of them it was their first time seeing snow etc. but the quality of their playing was just quite different from the people in my house. I suppose I'm just being grouchy and sour in my old age. Getting pelted with snow and being wet and cold is not quite as fun as a nice round of bridge. I should get green fur and a trashcan. Worm for a friend. I suppose all that was okay, but after that they decided to have more organised fun. I really can't help but think of them as being... I suppose provincial is the best way of putting it. Garg. Won't say it wasn't amusing, but well.

On a more significant note, listening to Belly now, which is always good. It's a pity they broke up. I suppose I should try listening to a Tanya Donelly album, just afraid it'll be too slow and draggy I suppose, without the rest of the band. I actually like King, probably grown on me better than Star has aged. Suppose it's about time I bought Pixies albums. Going to watch the Mary Luckhurst comedy revue thing, sounds like fun.

Almost forgot to mention, I suppose what really annoyed me (which I admit was still an amused kind of annoyance) was the fuck-head who was organising the whole thing - he seemed nice and all, think his name was Matthew. He seemed to look askance at my rather reasonable and I would think pleasant enough demurring to join them in the snow. He also made rather throw-away comments about Singaporeans in general. Apparently he studied in S'pore in secondary school. Can't say I could tell. I suppose the best vengeance I could wreak upon him would be the fact that when I was in his room to put my coat and fuck around while they were in the snow, I couldn't help but notice the rather earnest and militant sounding christian rock being belted out from his CD player. Fuck-head. And he had a Matrix screen-saver. Smiting him would just be too kind.

Posted 1/31/2003 03:44:30 PM by Louis
Well my eyes didn't pop out, but I played bridge, and didn't write my essay. I'm feeling sort of better today, but wish I hadn't had that beer last night. I think it's a sure sign that it's about time to stop this habit.

Just did one of my monster washing up throes. Wish there was more to do online. Anyone got any suggestions about where to visit? Can't decide whether I should just take it easy for another day. I just feel as if I'm on the threshold of being remarkably creative, but I'm just not quite there yet. Wondering if Richard Walsh will take it amiss if I shut up during seminar. The rest hardly say jack anyway. Motherfuckers.

Terry, as always, was rather gratifying to talk to last night if only for a while. Not as boring as he could be :). Spong was supposed to be coming last night, but due to the excess of snow, he wasn't supposed to get here till 8 in the morning, spending the entire time in train stations. Poor guy. Probably sleeping it off now. Will be having dinner with him and the bunch of people at Maxi's later, a kind of reunion dinner for those