December 2002 Archives
NASA's Earth Observatory has a cool picture of the Soufriere Hills volcano which erupted on December 27th.
From the 'you won't see this on CNN' department:
The Washington Post has yet another interesting article. This one concentrates on the role the US had in the Iraq buildup. I'm now starting to understand why the Bush administration is claiming with so much certainty that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction - it's because they gave them to Iraq in the first sodding place.
Here are a couple of interesting snippets from the article:
A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the "human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.
----
A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee turned up dozens of biological agents shipped to Iraq during the mid-'80s under license from the Commerce Department, including various strains of anthrax, subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program. The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.
I got Attack Of The Clones on DVD for Christmas. It seemed better watching it the second time around - not sure why...
I really like the second disc because it contains all the 'behind the scenes' stuff. I remember watching the Return Of The Jedi 'behind the scenes' back in the day. It's interesting to see how far special effects have come in 20 years. Back then everything was either a model or a puppet. Now everything is done with computer animation. Cool stuff indeed :-)
A got my PAUSE ID a couple of weeks ago which now means I can start uploading some of my Perl modules to the CPAN. Today I uploaded the initial version of SETI::WebStats. I've got a couple of things I need to add to it but those can wait until future releases.
11 years after it came out I finally got Kraftwerk's The Mix. It's not the first time I've heard their re-worked versions of some old faves (I was lucky enough to see them at the Brixton Academy in London when they toured back in 1991) but it's the first time I've actually owned them.
Interesting to note which songs they chose to re-mix/re-work. As a sort of re-mix Greatest Hits I'm surprised they left off my own personal faves - Europe Endless, The Model, and Tour De France.
Some of the songs are far better than their original counterparts. 'Radioactivity' is probably the best one on the album and I've loved this version ever since I heard them play it live. They also did a really good version of 'ComputerLove'. Unfortunatly the worst one on the album is probably the new version of 'Trans Europe Express' which I think they butchered to death.
If they made a DVD of one of their live shows I would buy it in a second. Alas I have not been able to find such a beast :-(
The largest single winning lottery ticket ever -- $314.9 million. Won by a bloke from West Virginia on Christmas Day. This just proves that life is not fair at all. The bloke was already a sodding millonaire !
Oh yes. New tires on my 11 month old car. About a week ago I noticed that the car would vibrate a lot when approaching 60mph or so. It got really quite bad at the weekend so I called the Saturn dealer to set up an appointment. I took the car in first thing yesterday morning. Good thing I did. Apparently there was some sort of defect in one of the tires which caused it to wear. So, they gave me 4 brand new tires free of charge and re-aligned the wheels for me. Cool :-)
Watched A Christmas Carol last night. It was really quite good - one of best adaptations I've seen. Patrick Stewart really makes this movie and plays the best Ebeneezer Scrooge!
You've got to love that last minute rush to get everthing done before Christmas. Last night we decided to grab the last few things on our Crimble list so that we can stay the hell away from nutters this weekend. This meant that we were still at Arrowhead Mall at 10:30pm last night. We weren't the only ones, there were loads of people out. We also decided to brave Best Buy - 10:00pm on a Friday night, how many shoppers could there be? Loads. They had such a long queue of people waiting to pay it looked like one of those rollercoaster queues you see at theme parks - it twisted this way, it twisted that way. We left as quickly as we could :-)
Will someone please tell me that this is all a dream and this man isn't really in charge.
Yet another clue that Orwell's Big Brother vision might not be far off. The Bush administration wants to monitor all internet use.
Why stop there? Why not go the whole hog and just pass a law that requires CCTV cameras in your house. Oh, and you have to wear a microphone 24 hours a day so that your every conversation can be recorded also.
Where will it end?
All Survivor, all the time. A 3 hour Survivor extravaganza in fact. Being the sad case that I am meant that I loved every minute of it :-)
Now it's only two months until the next one...
Circumventing the Patriot Act.
Poindexter gets a taste of his own medicine :-)
It's getting a little nippy now (well, for Arizona anyway). I set the alarm clock to go off 10 minutes early this morning as I had a couple of things I wanted to do before going to work. But it was cold and there was no way I was getting out of bed. So, instead of getting up 10 minutes early, I decided to sod the alarm and get up 1/2 an hour later than I would normally. Of course this meant that there was now a mad rush to get ready (no time for breakfast) so that we wouldn't be too late for work.
Don't you hate it when that happens?
Sally's friend came back from Germany yesterday. She took us out to dinner to say thanks for looking after (and fixing) her car while she was away. We went to Dillons and had excellent BBQ. Good time was had by all. Ate far too much of course :-)
The New York Times has an interesting article about the Pentagon debating the use of propaganda in allied countries.
"The Defense Department is considering issuing a secret directive to the American military to conduct covert operations aimed at influencing public opinion and policy makers in friendly and neutral countries."
Scary stuff indeed.
Google have posted their 2002 year end statistics. Interesting to see what the most popular searches were in the past year.
I was listening to NPR on the way home from work the other night and they had a really interesting article. It was about the Killer Fog Of 1952. I can honestly say that I had never heard of that. It's funny that in my years growing up in Blightly I never once heard that mentioned. You learn something new every day :-)
I can't believe what I just read. Not only are Spurs thinking of leaving White Hart Lane, they're considering sharing a ground with bloody Arsewipe, er, I mean Arsenal.
The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are one of those bands where I like a lot of their songs but I don't own a single CD of theirs. Today on the radio I heard "The Zephyr Song" which I have to say is one of the best songs I've heard in ages.
Mental note to self - buy Red Hot Chilli Peppers CD's.
The bloke that lives across the street from us has decided to park his truck right in front of our house on our side of the road. It's been there every night this week. I'm getting a little annoyed looking at the sodding thing through our living room window to be honest.
He's got 2 cars, 2 trucks, and a caravan. Obviously there's not enough room for them all but he obviously didn't think about that when he bought yet another vehicle. Well, to be honest he could park the bloody truck on his driveway (but that would mean he would have to back it out everytime his wife wants her car out of the garage - how inconvenient for him).
If he had actually asked me if I would mind him parking there I would have let him do it - or told him he could use our other driveway (temporarily of course). It's the fact that he just decided to park there that peeves me.
If the bloody thing is there tonight when I get home I'll park Linda's car (the car we're looking after for Sally's friend) there before I go to work tomorrow morning. We'll see how he likes them apples as he'll be forced to park it somewhere else.
The following CD's found their way into my car CD changer this morning (funny how that happens isn't it?):
Korn - Follow The Leader
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Sisters Of Mercy - Floodland
Skinny Puppy - Rabies
Glendale really will be the new sports mecca of Arizona. Not only are they building the new Coyotes Hockey arena and the new Cardinals football stadium within walking distance of my house - now Glendale is making a bid for the 2008 Superbowl. Where will it all end? Glendale hosting the Olympics?
So The Sopranos is over for another season. The extended season finale was last night. I can't quite put my finger on it but I think overall this season was just not as good as previous seasons. I don't know, perhaps it's all the unfinished plotlines or something. I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed last night at the end of the program.
While we were out yesterday I stumbled across a new PS2 game that I'm sure I'll add to my collection in time for Christmas. It's a remake of that classic 80's shoot-em-up Defender. I used to play the Commadore 64 version for hours.
The Powerball jackpot is now up to $101 million. Like a total sap I continue to buy lottery tickets twice a week. You know, just in case and all that :-)
In case you ever want to ruin your movie experience by already knowing the ending, here is a site that will let you do just that.
For some reason that I didn't have time to figure out, gav's weather plugin mysteriously broke last week. I grabbed his latest version and it all seems to work again - see Weather In The Desert to the right.
There are a couple of "seasonal" movies that we watch every year without fail. Every halloween we watch the original Halloween. Every Christmas there are a few more.
Last night we watched the classic Christmas Vacation. No matter how many times I watch that movie (and it's been a few, trust me) it always cracks me up. Right off the top of my head are three other festive favourites that we watch without fail and all still crack me up (I know, I'm really sad): Scrooged, Home Alone, and The Santa Clause.
This weekend will be spent cramming for my two exams on Monday. Can't wait to have a break before it all starts again in January. Actually, it won't be a proper break until the week after that. I still have a 12 page essay to write that's due on December 15th - that should be a bundle of laughs to write - not.
Bad things that is. I think I've had my three (hopefully).
Number 1 was the ol' buy a new TV, get it home and realize it's smashed trick. I briefly mentioned that last Friday.
Number 2 was the ol' get locked in the garage trick. Well, we weren't totally locked in but we could not get the cars out because the spring on the garage door snapped. This caused the cables to unwind and fall out. The spring itself is about 2.5 feet long and about 3 inches thick (i.e big) and made one hell of a noise - scared the crap out of me. Without the spring you're pretty much buggered as there's no way the door will open at that point. $90 and two hours later we had a new spring.
Number 3 was the ol' car won't start because of dead battery trick. It wasn't one of our cars though. We're looking after a car for Sally's friend while she is out of the country. Once a week I take it out for a spin so that the battery doesn't die. Died anyway. Spent last night trying to get the old one out. Total pain in the arse because of a sodding plastic 'heat shield' and bolts that were in the hardest to reach places imaginable. Now I've just got to buy another one tonight and put it in her car before she comes home in 2 weeks time :-)
I remember back in the day when I first started programming I was amazed that my code actually worked. It took a lot of concentration and studying (not to mention trial & error) to begin with. Trying to understand that one original language was going to be all that my brain could handle.
Fast forward to present day. Yesterday I wrote Perl & PL/SQL at work followed by Java and C when I got home - all without batting an eyelid. I can honestly say that I never thought (a) I would be capable of programming in the first place and (b) I would find myself writing code in 4 different languages in one day.
Just goes to show what you can do if you set you mind to it.