Unde Praha...

The Bay, Prij, 01/06/06

Fuck, how can it almost be July? I completely forgot it was the solstice today, and any hopes of seeing Sol, let alone photographing it, are out the window with this constant cloud overhead (not a metaphorical cloud).

Feeling under the weather is quite a suitable phrase - I feel the year's ran out of steam, and we're only half-way. Listening to Metamatic, Low, Dazzle Ships, The Dignity of Labour, and the Blade Runner Soundtrack hasn't (and was never expected to) make me any happier. Why do I listen to so much night-driving music if I don't have a car or, indeed, a license?

Now that we're at the peak of Summer, perhaps it's time for a redesign. I'll probably scrap the Dardanelles site in the coming months. Looking at it now, most of the graphics could do with a decent anti-aliasing. Why fix the two year old issues with the site preceeding that when I can design a whole new one? The only thing on my calendar for the foreseeable future is some summer job with the council and looking out for new crescent moons (the next being on the 25th).

[201]

If You Stand Up Like a Nail

Just perusing The Register and noticed a good chance for more fun with search engines in China.

I went to yahoo.cn and tried the usual: 'amnesty international' (their German site is the top result for some reason), 'corruption'. Then I tried the Simplified Chinese searches...

My combinations of 1989年6月4日 (June 4th 1989) with:
民主 (democracy) - Link
赵紫阳 (Zhao Ziyang) - Link

The above all give immediate time-out errors. "The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading." I'll continue to think of other subversive combinations until I get myself barred from yahoo.cn

Scream Like a Baby

Truly, it has been the worst day. Whilst the early hours of Wednesday were utterly frustrating until I managed to fall asleep at 0530, this morning was constant pain - sleep on my right one minute, on the left the next... no, that's worse. Try the right again... ad nauseum.

It feels like someone poured concrete into my left ear. I've got conductive hearing loss, and the ear canal is inflamed. Would you like me to describe what it's like to have a shooting pain in the ear every 5 minutes and having to hear the perpetual throbbing of your pulse for 2 days straight? The only sleep I got last night was about 30 minutes around 1AM, and 5 minutes at about 0430.

[Redacted]

An improved and more eloquent version of what I tried to communicate here will be appear in the future post 'Marxism III'. July 2011.

The Light of a Distant Fire

...and the last tab read. Crap, it's 0400 again and light outside. Sunrise is at 0432 and the horizon is clear - so clear I can see a Sun Pillar. Bollocks, the camera's full. Better get a new set of batteries too. The bank of clouds way off to the NorthEast horizon and the hills on the other side of the river delayed visual sunrise for 20 minutes, and I was beginning to think the cirrus clouds were going to reduce Sol's disc to a diffuse glow. I had taken a closeup of a spider on its web with the sunrise in the background... and then.