My last update today, this photo was taken at the same time as the winter pictures you can find further down the page. I found these odd straws in skip near work, and I thought they were so pretty I’d take a snap.

This subject’s being covered in many places at the moment, but I just had to make my feelings known. The Hutton Report has been a massive disappointment, and I’m extremely irritated on two counts. Firstly the implications for journalism and freedom of speech are quite frightening. It draws into question the ability of every UK news institution to actively question the government. Secondly it’s given the government a green light to run roughshod over not only the media, but public opinion as well.

Interestingly a Channel 4 news poll showed that only 10% of the UK population believe Hutton was right, with a massive 90% thinking he was wrong. Looks like the great British public have a lot more affection for Auntie Beeb than they do for Uncle Tony.

Just recently I’ve started to notice how many people are furious about things that I consider relatively insignificant. At the moment my biggest bugbear is people’s attitudes toward immigrants. It’s hard to believe that in this day and age we haven’t learnt the lessons of the past. Over the past couple of days I became involved in a forum thread about illegal immigration in America.

Now, if I’m honest I did lose my rag a little, and it wasn’t terribly adult of me, BUT the attitudes of what can sometimes seem like the majority are so disgusting that I faced a choice, either get depressed, or get angry. So in what’s actually quite uncharacteristic for me I choose to get angry. I would link to the thread, but I don’t want to give these people more ‘air time’. What amazes me is how easy people find it to project every little gripe and concern they have on to what is one of the most defenseless and abused groups in our society today. What is equally unfathomable is that many of these people are actually rather privileged, yet they still makes claims of asylum seekers, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants being a drain on the system. It seems most of them would be happier having an extra colour tv rather than helping those less fortunate than themselves.

Well it’s been a lovely icy couple of days here, I’d been hoping we’d get some snow, and we did! The photo below is of a sheet of ice trapped between the glass of a discarded window.

Spring is nearly here!

But I’m not sure I’ve got the most appropriate footwear.

Sad that the snow clouds have gone, but the sky is worth it

I recently found myself in a difficult position. I’m a relatively active net user, and as such I post in several forums from time to time. If you use forums yourself you’ll probably know that most of them allow you to choose a nickname, and what’s called an avatar (an image used to represent you, often a self-portrait, but it can be anything). Well I’ve been posting in one forums quite a lot recently, and have begun to develop ‘virtual friendships’ with some of the other people who use it. All good so far, BUT there’s one person who I chat to occasionally who I just can’t figure out. Let me explain….

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Why on earth do parents insist on painting girls’ bedrooms pink, and boys’ blue?

I was watching some shoddy DIY show last night and it struck me how cruel and twisted it all is. We’ll never achieve true gender equality while parents force their kids into such stupid little boxes. If I ever get around to spawning there isn’t a hope in hell of my kids getting either pink or blue rooms. They’ll get a room, and what posters they want to put up will be their own affair, but I’m not going to subtly attempt to force upon them some kind of dumb-ass stereotype. What can it be about? Fear of gay children? Concern that your daughter will grow up to be a really ugly mug unless she has ‘feminine’ colours on the wall? Do people really think their sons’ are gonna start forcing their fingers’ up their butts if they have a picture of a flower on their socks?

Sometimes I despair.

My Head, It Hurts!

It’s all work for me at the moment. On top of my day job as one of these new fangled multimedia designers, I’m also working on a 25min animation/cartoon with my friend Patrick Wray (a founding member of dietsoda.net), entitled ‘Pure Love’, doing some flash work for another friend Simon, trying to get around to developing this blog, creating a supernatural community mapping site, AND tidying my house and improving my being. Sheesh! It’s too much for my feeble mind to cope with it really is. Fortunately mankind has created coffee and cigarettes. Here’s to human progress!

It’s been a while since I’ve been that intimate with anyone.

Well this morning I had to go to the dentists before work. It’s been at least 6 or seven years since I last had a dentist and consequently I am in need of several fillings, as well as having my wisdom teeth out. They’ve got these fancy new instant x-ray machines, but I have to admit, I’m not sure my dentist was very familiar with the second machine. He did say it was new, which didn’t fill me with confidence. I can feel the tumors developing as I write. I have to go back tomorrow for some fillings, yuck. More bitter tasting latex fingers probing my cavities, and he hasn’t even bought me dinner.

*EDIT* This is no longer true, the first experiment in bloggin was based on Geeklog, and very nice it was too, however I’ve moved over to the slightly simpler Moveable Type now.

So I’ve not got much time till next weekend to continue exploring and setting up this blog/portal site.

This site is powered with Geeklog and is currently using a modified version of the Axonz/v3.2CSS/Red theme. I’ll do more to customize it until there is none left of the original, but for the time being it makes a good looking blog. The only things that are different right now are the logo, and the news topic button. The button gives a good impression of where the design of this site is going.

Hmm… well bare with me please as I attempt to customise this system.

I’m sure there’ll be a gazillion bugs with it for several weeks to come, so please don’t write in complaining. It’s new!