Words of the Day: it must be love, love, love...
Pigeons courting is a somewhat amusing and yet rather heartwarming sight. A pair have been going through the motions on a rooftop in my line of sight for a few days now. From what I know, the feral pigeon (aka the rock dove) pairs up year in, year out, so why they have to go through so much effort to come to an accord is rather beyond me. Surely a sensible creature would say "ah, it's you again, ok, let's do this thing" and just spend all their energy breeding and raising their young. I don't know, really. Perhaps it's something to do with them having to reaffirm that both birds in the relationship are up to the task. Either way you look at it, though, pigeons are clearly doing something right, because there are a LOT of them. More than 200,000 breeding pairs in the UK alone (stats from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds website). That's more than 400,000 birds. Now consider all the other bird species they are in competition with, and that's some feat. You may not like them very much, but you have to admire the effort.
It's a bit snowy here right now. Not a lot, but a bit. Enough to make the walk into the department this morning quite interesting. And not only in a 'falling over on the ice' sense, but also aesthetically. My morning detour through a local park turned into a sejourn through a winter wonderland of crunchy, untouched snow, past an iced over pond where the ducks did their slapstick routine just for me and a foreign student eagerly snapping away with a digital camera. It always makes me happy to go through the park, as I may well have mentioned before, but today's journey made me that little bit happier than normal. There were even people making a snowman, which is cool, even if it did bear an uncanny resemblance to the MSN Messenger logo.

Words of the Day: Feeling like there's a hedgehog in my throat.
For anyone not familiar with the creatures, hedgehogs are small spiny things much loved in the UK by old people and me. Not happy that my throat feels that way, but there you go - if you're going to live in a place like England, you have to expect to get ill once in a while. It's all par for the course.
I know it's been ages since I blogged, but I've been rather busy, so there. Taking the opportunity today though, since I decided that I was ill enough to take the day off. Not that I have a great deal to be doing right now. I did make some piss-coloured polymer gel the other day. it was meant to be fluorescent, and though I haven't tested it under excitation yet, I have a feeling that the heating process which makes it a gel as denatured the fluorophores. I don't think that'll make a lot of sense unless you know about polymers and fluorescence, but this is my blog, dammt, and I'll make it as scientific as I like!! AAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Words of the Day: shut the hell up!
GM protestors. Never before have so many, with so few informed opinions, done so much to damage so little. Idiots.

voodooshoes.com - buy shoes online, designer footwear
Shoe Company of the Day: Voodoo Shoes
Sold me the Vans I was after for a great deal less than Schuh, whose website failed to work. Otherwise, I would have been paying a premium. A lesson to look around the net a bit before you buy, I would say. Jen does it all the time, and always saves money, but then she's always been a bit sharper than me... only problem I can see with the Voodoo website is that when you're filling in forms, you can't see what you're typing, unless you highlight it afterwards, because the form field is cream, and the text on the pages is white. Not great, but also not enough to dissuade me from buying my shoes there. Go register, people, it's good and you get something free when you do (I have no idea what, but it's free!).
In other news, EJ (here) has been trying to convince me that using the Firefox browser from Mozilla (here) is a good idea. I'm almost tempted, because it's quite different. Problem is, I'm totally used to Explorer, and I'm also intrinsically lazy, so I probably wouldn't take the time to learn something new, no matter how basically similar it is. We'll see. If you're unhappy with Mr Gates and his software, you might wish to check it out.

Note to self: use the f***ing spellchecker, that's what it's there for

I've spoken of it before, but the sheer brilliance of the Air album Talkie Walkie stills blows my mind. It's made me not care that the rain is falling outside. I don't mind that my artwork is not what it used to be. I'm not bored when it's playing, I'm relaxing in a decadent world of samples and beats, and Gallic charm. It's no secret that there are plenty of things about France as a country that I dislike, but it's hard to write the place off when music this beuatiful is being pumped directly into your head. It's the kind of album which makes me want to hide myself in a room with some big speakers and no lights, and listen very, very loudly. It's summer days, it's futuristic anime, it's long days working in the garden, painting the boat we're going to have lifted in (it's a thing thing thing thing). I want to draw towering cities, flying creatures, rolling hills of grass. I almost want to be sitting at my desk, staring at the rain falling and writing lovely things. Oh well, two out of three isn't too bad...

I have no idea how it works

now I can't get the italics syntax right...

BBC - Nature Wildfacts - House mouse
Words of the Day: Pest control...
...or a lack of it. Our resident woke me up at a little past six this morning by chewing on something under my chair, or just generally rustling about, I couldn't decide which. I saw a flash of it as it disappeared under the drawers, but that was it really. Not much of a mouse experience, but I am a bit of a fan of wildlife, so I enjoyed it. Most people wouldn't, but I have a thing about being close to nature. I touch trees in the park on my way in to work. It makes me feel better. And they inspire me at times. Yes, I am a little strange.
I'm bored. Very bored.

D'oh, still haven't got that link syntax sorted...

Word of the day: regeneration
The sun's out, and strongly. The season has turned at last. It's not far off palpable. You can taste something in the air which connects with a far deeper part of your consciousness. There's some ancient celt in me somewhere, some gene altered under the grey skies of the north, and I can feel it. Yeah, we'll still have a few wet days, and some cold nights, but I think the worst is past. Welcome to spring, ladies and gentlemen.
It's also time for something to be done which I have been meaning to do for some time. It's been hard to divine exactly how to change the tattoo on my upper left arm to suit my more mature vision. It's not a bad tatoo, it's just an angry tatoo, and one which I think might serve my aesthetic sensibilities more productively if it is changed in form. I had it done when my day had gone badly, and it shows - the choice of spikes on the ring around it, the three-pronged Mitsubishi symbol like I'm some hard core drug dealer rather than the surfer-kid pussy who avoids chemicals like the plague, even if they're pharmacuetical. If you don't understand the reference, it because you're lucky enough to not have been exposed to some of the shit that gets pushed at you in drum 'n' bass venues - in this case, a particularly potent variety of ecstacy called a Mitsubishi, named for the symbol which adorned its face. Other include the Apple Mac, the smiley (strange, I always thought that represented acid), and the Mickey. I'll leave you to guess what symbol that last bore. I don't take this shit - after all, I find it hard enough to injest the chemicals peddled by reputable pharmaceutical companies, let alone shit from some wanker in a club wearing more fake jewellry than Jimmy Saville and trying to act like he thinks I'm a 'geezer' when really he knows I'm a Red Bull'd up student. So why the hell did I get the Mitsi symbol in a ring on my shoulder, like some kind of totem to the gods of hard core driugs and all the shit that represents? Either way, it's being changed. I've been working on the design without a great deal of success, but I think there are certainly ideas there to be followed up. I'll have to take a digital photo of the thing and have a play around in Photoshop. Perhaps I'll post a before and after bit on my homepage homepage about it...

Words of the day: Wale Williams
It's finally happened. After years feeling as if I have been left out of some huge party, barred at the doors by the big guys in the sharp suits, I have finally received an e-mail from a Nigerian advance fee fraud scammer, one Mr Wale Williams. I'm sure most of you have heard from Mr Williams, or one of his colleagues, at some point or other, so I'll spare you all the gory details. What's interesting is that the university at which I perform my research has a fairly powerful spam filter, sometimes even too powerful. It amazes me that this e-mail has somehow squirmed its way through. I almost want to congratulate the guy for his tenacity. For those of you interested in these kinds of scams, there is a facinating website out there which delights in stringing the scammers along, and even manages to get money out of them at times. Have a look at http://www.whatsthebloodypoint.com/. It's an education in how to do things right.

I'm turning into one of them. Damn.

Word of the Day: loser
Lost the football, played badly. Just couldn't be bothered with it after a while, so I sort of strayed up the pitch and waited for the long ball, which didn't work because when the long ball came, my control was so poor the other team started laughing. Not a good sign... At least it wasn't quite as fun as Saturday, which found me playing hockey in the rain, then harder rain, then a bit of hail, some snow, a bit of wind, thunder, a little more rain and finally a bizarre few moments of sunshine. You wouldn't have believed it if you'd seen it. It probably didn't help that we only had ten men in an eleven man game, though we did pull it back to 6-5 at the end. Hard fought, but we were still losers. One of these years I'll join a winning team.
If you haven't heard the new Air album yet, you're missing a trick. Listen to it if you have the chance, though if you do go out and buy it there might be that stupid copy protection thing on it which means you can't play it on some CD players. All mine worked fine (including the seriously dodgy one in my car), but you should probably check it out with someone else's copy first. I'm not entirely sure it's legal to sell you something you might not be able to actually use, but I'm no expert, and there are some serious issues out there to go into which I'd rather not be quoted on. Either way, check it out, and I hope you like it. It has the ability to make me smile, an attribute almost solely possessed by funky Gallic chill-out music.

It's weird, but I feel like I want to sit here an write for the whole night. I want to tell you all everything. I'm beginning to understand the strange compulsion of the blogger to pour out everything within themself. Just being here, at the keyboard, engenders some sort of need to relate. To tell someone.
I feel like screaming and shouting and laughing, and like being quiet. Clearly a confused mind. G'night, then, I'm off to watch the snooker and write more bad poetry with a pen that I've had for years now.

I freestyled for a while. Not something I am prone to, so fear not, this will not be a regular occurrence. But I decided to share nonetheless...

Summer days, halcyon days, amorphous haze,
Sun warm, not hot,
Willpower forged in a brittle atmosphere,
And dust, in dust we trust,
Was it thrown away or snatched from our grasp by Old Father Time?
We used to run for running's sake,
Now we walk for we have lost our way,
Not a shadow cast by the sun falls from our feet,
And the days lie weary on our souls.

I think it's a winter thing, you know. Something to do with that whole SAD thing. Seasonally affected disorder. In other words, you feel like a miserable git all winter, but it's ok, it'll be summer sooner or later. I do wonder sometimes, but they assure me it will happen. I don't think I could carry on if I didn't have the summer to look forward to. It'll be the first time in a long time that I don't have a summer holiday. I only graduated from my second degree last year, and though parts of my summer we often occupied with jobs in recent years, I still feel I have lost something. There is no 'breaking up for the summer' any more, just one long, continuous haul through to winter again. It's times like these I feel like taking up an extreme sport just to prove I am not old yet. Not that, realistically, I am particularly old. Mid twenties isn't really over the hill quite yet, so I shouldn't feel this way, but there is something rather symbolic about the loss of the summer holiday which makes it seem that much more of a problem.
Anyway, let me know what you think about it all - tom_rowson@hotmail.com
Oh, by the way, just noticed I spelled Australia 'Asutralia' in my last entry. Apologies. Especially to my mum, since she is Australian. And to think I wondered why on Earth you would want to spell-check a blog...

It is wholly possible to become totally involved with this whole blogging thing. People put their whole lives out there for you to read. Some of it is truly disturbing. For instance, I learned all about someone's food poisoning, and the effect it had on their bowels. I don't even know this person, and yet I know their bowel movements for the past seven days. Why? I suppose I shouldn't be totally surprised - after all, I have seen both the best and the worst the net has to offer, and come out the other side a stronger person. I both hate and love the internet. I could live without it - after all, I gave up television, computers, mobile phones and decent sleep for a month and a half last year as I drove around the east coast of Asutralia in a camper. I almost didn't miss any of them at all, and I know I wrote a lot of my next book, so there was a positive end to the experience. Not that the literary output of the holiday was the only positive. I thought it was pretty amazing that my girlfriend and I only had each other for company and didn't manage to even storm out on each other once. Not that we're particularly prone to fireworks, but that was a long time to spend in confinement. We did well. Yay us...

Word of the Day: snagging
As in a snagging list. I'd never heard of this use of the word until yesterday, but it seems to have suddenly become very important. There's a snagging list for the house I share with my friends, and there's a snagging list for all the work recently done on the labs here at uni. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it simply relates to the whole big list of things which still need doing even after the builders have walked away with a fat cheque in their grubby mitts and a smug smile on their faces (ok, so not all builders are that bad, but a hole appeared between my back door and the alleyway out to the main road recently, so I'm kinda pissed off with the whole construction thing right now).
It's very suddenly turned into one of those days where I have meetings every five minutes. So does everyone else, so we've reached the point that we have to very carefully plan our day's activities around every other member of the team. It's like some crazy 3D dance of the timetables, and I have a horrible feeling that just like every other extreme sport, this is going to end in pain for one or more people.
There's also very little on the internet of note, which is probably a good thing given my rather restrcited availability. It ought to be noted that the Swedish rally kicks off today - check out www.wrc.com for the latest standings if that kinda thing rocks your world. It does mine.
Talking of things which rock, my mate is insistent that the sample track Song To Sing When I'm Lonely at www.johnfrusciante.com is a work of genius. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but it is quite good, and more than worth a listen if you happen to like the Chili Peppers and have a few minutes to spare.

This disturbs me:BBC NEWS | UK | Pigeons reveal map-reading secret
Not because I believe that pigeons are intrisically evil, it's just that they've taken things to a whole new level. Obviously, we all know that rats follow the sewers around, but that's just an extension of the whole river thing, isn't it? I mean, they don't pop their heads out of drains to find out what road they're on and which turning they need to take to get home. There are a lot of pigeons, almost as many as rats, I reckon. No such numerous species should have knowledge that advanced. Look what we did with it...

Words of the Day: Broken glass
Saw a lot of it this morning, sitting there on the pavement. And outside my house, where the light fitting had tumbled to the ground. Makes you wonder how so much of the stuff survives when it breaks so easily.
So anyway, a new blog. New to the whole thing, really, though I'm told it's a bit of a craze. More likely to be a phase with me - no attention span to speak of. Still, if it sits there in the list I might remember. You know, the list, the thing that every bored worker in every office has. The list of websites you feel you must visit every day, then you can get on with some work. If you're in England, as I am, it no doubt contains the BBC website. If you don't already, check it out, it really is rather a good way to waste a few hours (www.bbc.co.uk). I'm a scientist, of sorts, so I always read the Science and Nature bits. I should really be reading high-brow journals, but I find my filtered approach to the subject keeps me informed well enough. So anyway, back to the writing of the lab scripts - oh yes, my evil science is performed in a university.
By the way, add 8 hours on to the time stamp to find my real time. I suffer from insomnia, but not that badly...