Month: November 2005

Those were the days

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I have just been down the geekdom memory lane. It was fun. A coworker is having problems with his laptop. It's running windows 98. His PCMCIA network card won't work. Dealing with OEMSETUP.INF files, VXD drivers, hell, dealing with DOS and memory management and IRQ/DMA conflicts. Most of you won't have a clue what I'm talking about. That's ok.

Playing around with that stuff brought back memories of Michel and I spending waaaaaaaaaaay too much time putzing around on my 486DX33, trying to install windows 3.1 on floppies, tweaking arcane S-registries on my 14.4kbps USR sportster v32bis modem to get the last baud possible (hell, I think I knew those settings better than the engineers who designed the thing at one point).

Then his Norton Disk Doctor flashed up during boot, telling him that he had lost chains and lost clusters on his HD. That brought a tear to my eye. I remember fighting with QEMM, an evil! piece of software to try and get as much base RAM† so I could finally get Castle Wolfenstein to load :) *happy sigh*

† Remember Bill Gates saying that nobody would ever need more than 640kb of memory? That innocent lack of vision caused so much pain to so many gamers :)

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We are all connected by a network so big we can't even begin to imagine it

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… it's called plumbing.

No, I haven't lost my mind. It's one of the things I have retained from the Blue Man Group show Katy and I went to see in London. In one word, it was stupendulous! (ok, so it's more than one word, and the last one isn't even a word, but if you can see the show, do it!).

It's hard to describe the show. It's funny and cynical, without being pretentious. It's original. It makes you laugh, it makes you go wow! It makes you think, without driving the point home. It's musical, but not in the traditional way. Most of the instruments are made out of PVC or 45-gallon drums, though there is also a kick-ass backup band.
The Blue Men are silent, they never speak. You'd also think that they'd be expressionless, given the fact that they're completely anonymized by the mask. They're not. It's impressive just how much they manage to convey without actually saying anything out loud.
The show really involves the audience, and in a way that isn't coerced. They really do understand the human psyche, if you want, because you want to do to it. it's scripted in a way that you pick up your cues and you don't really even realize that you're doing. All of a sudden, you're unraveling meters upon meters of toilet paper and you're giggling like a small child. The next minute, you're yelling your guts out and it feels good.
One of the skits in the show involves paintballs and paintings. You could buy the canvases (and the money went to charity). I have to admit that I was impressed by human nature. It's not often that it happens. We'd asked the guy running the merchandising stand if we could pre-order one of the paintings. He said no worries and that he'd save it for us. Once we were seated, I started doubting that, thinking that he either wouldn't remember us or would give it up to the highest bidder. Not so!!! Apparently, tons of people asked him for it, but he kept it for us. Dang! (though lugging a wet canvas back to our hotel and all around London the following day turned out to be a pain!) Oh, and one of the Blue men “signed” it by kissing the back of the canvas. Those masks are covered in paint, so there's a bright blue kiss on the back of the canvas :D

The weekend itself was also fun, though a bit frustrating at times. We got into Kings Cross around 1:30pm and didn't make it to our hotel before 3pm! We got completely turned around in the underground, even though we knew which line and which station to go to, we just couldn't actually get to the right platform! Apparently, we both have the sense of direction of drunken pigeons. Anyway, we decided to take a cab, but even that was an ordeal. We had to wait in a stupidly long queue to get one. Apparently, when the weather turns a bit chilly, people refuse to walk. One of the first things we did after that was to get a pocket city map to avoid such further problems and we walked everywhere after that.

I wanted to go to Portobello Road and see the antique market. I expected it to be like the song from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a place to spend lots of time investigating interesting knick-knacks and doodads. I was sorely disappointed, really. It's all… well crap, really. Nothing like what I expected.

Sunday was a good day. We had a leisurely morning, checked out of the hotel and went walkies. We spent a bit of time at the British Museum, one of my favouritest places in London, until the shops opened. We investigated a lot of funky shops on Tuttenham Court, found a star for our xmas tree and headed out to Picadilly Circus. I found a really cool bookstore in Soho that had a very complete Sherlock Holmes section. We had a pub lunch and then went walking along Saville Row and Bond Street. That place looks and smells of SERIOUS money. If I had money to burn, I'd get a handmade fitted suit in Saville Row, but until I can afford to throw money out the window, that'll stay a dream. Walking up Bond St, where Tiffany, Cartier, De Beers and Rolex are all neighbours, you realize that you are so not even in that same ballpark. While we were window drooling (I wanted to lick a parked Bentley), Katy turns to me and says “Is it bad that all I can think about now is cake?“. I'm sooooo lucky :)

I just don't get the fashion world. Katy summed it up correctly when she said that when you're rich and into fashion, you need to dress like you're poor and have absolutely no taste. Thing is, she's true. Rich people get away with looking like idiots. Anyway.

On our way back to the underground, we passed in front of a really cool shop display. The shop is called Fortnum & Mason and brings the term posh to new heights. Staff uniforms involve greatcoats and tails. You have to be seriously rich to shop here. I mean, seriously. People think that M&S food is expensive – they ain't seen nothing. I was blown away by a pound of coffee for £55. Now granted, it comes in a humidoir made out of rare african hardwood and has a built-in hygrometer, but still, IT'S ONLY FRIGGIN COFFEE!!!!

I bought Katy two mince pies (which only cost £2) and, a bit shell-shocked, we headed to the train station and home. All in all, a nice weekend. It was nice to sleep in our own bed though. The bed at the hotel was small, noisy and not that comfy.

Edit: just so you know, each word in the links can point to a different picture.

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Guess I should update

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I realize that I've been less than chatty online recently. Slow news week, really. Things are ok for the most part. My back's been acting up a bit and Katy and I aren't really sleeping well. Her cough wakes her up at night and she's been having weird dreams. She's also been trying to roll me out of bed during the night and I have to poke her to give me more room so I don't fall out of bed.

Things at work are going nicely. Got my confirmation that my contract is extended past the probation period for the full 3 years. Got a raise. Playing with lots of new technologies which will look good on my CV when the time comes (though I honestly have no idea where I want to go after this place – but that's not for the here and now). Hopefully I'll be able to release a new version of my project live early next week implementing some nice new features and performance improvements.

Things on the home front are going well too. Our xmas tree is nice (though we need to buy a nice star to put on top of it). People keep harassing me to know what I want for xmas. I don't know. I don't want anything, really. I have everything I need, and most of what I want. I'm in reasonably good health and good spirits and I have love in my life. I'm truly blessed.

I was acutely reminded of this earlier this week. I went to the chippy near my place to get some chips for dinner a few days ago. It was a pretty chilly night; the first frost of the year. I was bundled up, so it wasn't really a problem. As I was walking, I ran into a little old lady at the crosswalk. I didn't really pay much attention. I got to the chippy, ordered and waited for my food. While I was waiting (and for a reasonable stretch), the old lady hobbles slowly into the chip shop. She was walking with a cane and had to brace herself against the door frame to walk up the step that leads into the shop.

She looked old and frail, dressed in typical old lady clothing: a battered fake fur coat and a fake leopard fur hat with flaps. There was this aura of sadness around her. I don't know what makes me say that. It just really hit me. She was holding an empty plastic 4L water jug in one hand, which she bent over slowly to put down, and a sainsbury bag in the other, which seemed pretty heavy as she was transferring it from one hand to the other, slowly flexing her hands to try to get circulation going back into her hands. Her hand was all red and marked (you know the feeling, when you're carrying lots of heavy plastic bags and they bite into your hands).

I really noticed her feet. She was wearing open toe sandals, the kind that are really just one sole and are held in place by loops between your big toe and all the rest of them (like flip-flops, but not the cheap plastic ones). Anyway, she was wearing sandals in weather what made me glad to have my winter coat and boots. She'd wedged some a bit of fleece between the loops of her sandals and the top of her foot to try and keep warm (I guess), but her toes were open to the rather frigid air. Her feet were grey. This might be pure speculation on my part, but I'm thinking that she has trouble bending down and those sandals are the only shoes she can put on.

The whole encounter lasted maybe a minute. My order was ready and I left. I don't know who the lady was and what her story was. She was a complete stranger and for all I know she's the happiest woman on earth. She just made me realize that I have a hell of a lot going for me right now, and that my complaints probably don't add up to much in the grand scheme of things. Here endeth the lesson.

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