I'm desperate. I'm hopeless. I'm like a heroin addict who's lost his needle, and has now reached the point where even using a funnel is starting to look like a good alternative.

Yes, you guessed it, my computer is broken. And we're not talking about a simple problem, one that could be solved by a quick trip down to the computer store. Oh no. Because it's the inner sanctum of the computer that has been violated, it's beating heart, the next most important thing after the processor. In short, the motherboard has given up the ghost. The deus is no longer in the machina. So long, gaming, watching DVDs or downloading new podcasts.

The kindly repairman told me that he could get a replacement really soon, "maybe already next week". He must have seen the hint of despair in my eyes, because he left rather quickly after that.

So all that's keeping me sane are the 24-hour computer labs at uni. Barely keeping me sane. Now if you'll excuse me, I will be trying to sneak one of these computers out of the building without security catching me...

Filed Under: edinburgh, life

So I made it back to my cozy flat without any major problems. It turns out the weather is better here than it was at home. Not that I could take much advantage of that while I'm madly rushing about to restock my cupboards, sort out my mail and get ready for the next university year.

Meanwhile, the company where I worked over summer seems to have decided that it would be cheaper to only pay me for one month instead of the two I worked there. You can imagine how thrilled I am by this.

Still, it's good to be back.

Current State: optimistic

Filed Under: edinburgh, life

(Whoops, seems I'm a bit behind)

Down Under by Bill Bryson


It's no secret that I'm a Terry Pratchett fan. In fact, I think of him as one of the
greatest living humorists. The only draw-back to being obsessed with Terry Pratchett is
that I can't recommend him to anyone who doesn't like fantasy. It's not that you have to
like fantasy in order to read Pratchett books, but the setting acts as a barrier, putting
people off before they've even given it half a chance.

Why do I bring this up when I'm reviewing a Bill Bryson book, you ask? Simple: Bill
Bryson is almost as funny as Pratchett, but he doesn't write fantasy novels. Instead, he
writes travel books, a genre which is lacking the stigma of fantasy. And that means, of
course, that I can recommend him without misgivings.

This particular book is chock-full with interesting information about Australia. Bryson
tells us about its lost prime ministers, about its unknown wonders and (again and again)
about its dangers. We're with him as he stumbles from one misadventure to the next, and
we can laugh because it's not us these things are happening to.

My only gripe with the book is that Bryson apparently didn't visit large parts of
Australia. But then again, it is a vast continent, and you can't really expect him to
write about all of it. The parts he did cover, he treated well, and you felt as if you
were traveling with him.

So, if you can't convince your friends to pick up The Last Continent, try giving them
Down Under. It's the next best thing.

Filed Under: books

Yes, my two-month ordeal (also known as summer job, or "a taste of the working life") has finally come to an end. I've decided that I don't want a nine-to-five job when I graduate. Instead, I want to become a hermit and live in a cave. Preferably a cave with broadband access.

The workload wasn't even that bad. The main problem was that I wasn't getting paid for getting the job done, I was getting paid for staying there for so many hours. And eight hours per day, plus lunch hour and commute, don't really leave a lot of time in the evening for yourself.

Anyway, I'm back now, and I hope I can post more frequently again*.

*I just noticed that I promised the same thing two posts down, only to promptly not post for a month. Hmm...

Filed Under: life

Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace

Let me start this review with two caveats. First, you have to realise that this book was written at the beginning of the last century. It is unrealistic to apply modern-day standards to it. Second, the book is firmly rooted in the pulp tradition, along with classics like Tarzan or Doc Savage. In other words, it is not high literature you will find here.

If you take this into consideration, then maybe you can overlook the simplistic morals and sometimes glaring inconsistencies of the book, and appreciate it for what it is: A piece of entertainment in an era before Jerry Bruckheimer films, when "breathless action" was a strange concept, and criminals were universally reviled.

For that time, the Four Just Men was ground-breaking, because the Just Men are murderers, at least in the eyes of the law. They, themselves, don't see it that way, however. They only seek to bring those to justice that the law can't reach: Powerful men, who can buy there freedom.

Edgar Wallace's genius is that, despite their murderous and calculating nature, he manages to make the actions of the Just Men understandable. Even if we don't agree with them, we still wish for them to carry out their murder - if only to see how they are going to do it.

Because the Just Men are not only just, they're clever, and their actions are almost never traceable. It's like an inverse detective story: Instead of the murder being committed at the beginning and the method resolved at the end, the murder is announced at the beginning, and we spend the rest of the book wondering how it is going to happen.

The Four Just Men may be an old-fashioned book, but it is still entertaining, and certainly worth reading if you like mysteries.

Filed Under: books

Yes, I'm still here, and I haven't been swallowed by the black hole of no internet connection either. The reason for my silence is that I am working from eight to five every weekday, and, even worse, the company proxy is blocking LiveJournal.

I've been working for <unnamed tire manufacturer> for two weeks now, and I already know way more about tires than I ever wanted to. I get to help developing their new software for managing test requests (e.g. tire endurance tests). Unsurprisingly, their development process is not one bit like what we were taught at university. Maybe it's just my supervisor, but the whole thing seems rather slapdash. Which, of course, is nice for a newcomer, because it's easy to get started right away, but I wonder if it's so beneficial to the project.

The team is way older than me, and it's quite startling to see fourty to fifty year old people who are better at programming than me. Of course, rationally I know that computers have been around for a while, but it hasn't really sunken in until now.

The tasks I'm given are challenging, but not "too challenging" (aka impossible), and it's all in Java, so I don't have to worry about the programming language. The only annoying thing is that my supervisor keeps leaving early, and is often not around when I need an explanation for something.

Anyway, I promise I'll try to post more frequently again.

Current State: busy
Current Distraction: Al Jolson With Orchestra - Liza (All The Clouds'll Roll Away)

Filed Under: life

One Fearful Yellow Eye by John D. MacDonald

This is the third Travis McGee book that I'm reviewing here, so forgive me if I'm brief. This time, our favourite Floridian private eye has to deal with widow, a lot of missing money, and a load of family secrets. The plot is not quite as polished as some of the other books I've read, and some of the turns are a bit predictable, but it's an engaging read nonetheless.

The characters, on the other hand, are superb, in that, despite appearances, they are not clished at all. On the contrary, one of the most stereotypical characters of all, the greedy inheritress, turns out to be a lot more human than we've been lead to believe.

All in all, it's another solid entry in the Travis McGee saga.

Current Distraction: Loiutma - Ievan Polkka (Leva's polka)

Filed Under: books

I haven't written for some time, mainly because I'm lazy (like you hadn't figured that out), but also because I went to visit a friend in Bonn. Bonn is a pretty city. It's smaller than I imagined, and in a lot of ways more provincial than Edinburgh, but it has its own charm. God, I sound like a travel guide, don't I?

It reminded me a bit of Malmö, but it was probably not a good idea to point that out on the day of the big Germany-Sweden football match (2:0, in case you didn't hear). Boy, those Germans sure know how to celebrate. I felt sorry for the lone Sweden supporter we saw in Bonn.

I can't claim that we saw a lot of culturally edifying attractions, but I can say that we ate some pretty good ice-cream. Not to mention a delicious vegetable lasagne. Call it a culinary vacation.

Oh yes, a note about road signs in Bonn. Don't trust them. Especially if they say "Hauptbahnhof".

Coming back to football, since that seems to be the one theme that can't be escaped this summer, it's astonishing how much the Germans hate the Netherlands, to the point of supporting the opposing team. In this case, that team happened to be Portugal (they won 1:0, in a game not characterised by lack of yellow cards). For some strange reason, it's impossible to find Portuguese flags (not to confuse with Cameroon) in Bonn, although they have a glut of Brasilian ones.

That's about all I have to report, although I'm sure my friends could add a juicy story or two. But mum's the word on my side.

Current State: warm!
Current Distraction: Johnny Cash - Give My Love to Rose (Live)

Filed Under: life

I passed all my exams! Yes, even the impossible one. I have no idea how I did that - they must have marked extremely leniently on that one.

We only got 61% for the group part of our System Design project though. However, since our robot wasn't actually moving, and the final report was, quite frankly, crap, I suppose that was more than adequate. And combined with the individual mark, I got an A, so it's all good.

Current State: chipper
Current Distraction: Alabama 3 - Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness

Filed Under: university

The Fate of the Artist by Eddie Campbell

I've already mentioned how much I like Eddie Campbell's art. What I haven't mentioned yet is that I like his story-telling equally well, if not more. Campbell excels in the autobiography form, a genre sadly abused by graphic novel authors (Craig Thompson comes to mind). Where others have produced a plethora of touching-yet-unoriginal coming-of-age-stories*, Eddie Campbells graphic novels, most notably "Alec: How To Be An Artist" and "After The Snooter", are funny, insightful and self-depreciating. They show Campbell stumbling through life much like any of us, accidentally screwing things up or getting them right, in about equal proportions. Eddie Campbell might well be one of the most accomplished humorists working in the comics industry (You can use that as a blurb on your next book, Eddie!).

"The Fate of the Artist" is something of an experiment, maybe influenced by his work with Alan Moore. The story-telling is no longer straight-forward; instead, we follow the investigation of a fictional detective into the disappearance of one Eddie Campbell ("played here", as the book notes, "by an actor"), through interviewing his family and acquaintances. The book is not a typical graphic novel; short graphical narratives are interspersed with prose passages, to the point that I even managed to fool my mother into thinking it was a regular book.

Despite all these formal excentricities, which, in someone less gifted, might have seemed gimmicky, the book is still capturing, and largely, I believe, autobiographical. The trademark Campbell humor is evident in both the illustrated and the text parts of the book, and although the ending is a bit surprising, it nonetheless does the title justice. Without giving too much away, I'd say that it is, ultimately, the fate of all artists.

*Look for my forthcoming graphic novel:" Left Out: How I Went Through My Teenage Years Without Any Drama At All"

Current Distraction: KT Tunstall - Through the Dark

Filed Under: books, comics

Can't get... song... out of... mind...

Current Distraction: I don't even know what it's called

Filed Under: fun, music

The Dark Tower by Stephen King

So, after seven books, and God knows how many pages, Stephen King's Dark Tower series is finally over. He has never made a secret out of the fact that he considers it to be his magnum opus, and the first four books of the series were certainly the finest sci-fi/fantasy/western I'd ever read. Also the only.

Unfortunately, starting with book 5, "Song of Susannah", the quality went drastically downhill. The first warning sign was the appearance of Father Callahan, a character from another King book, "Salem's Lot". Recycling a character is seldom a good move. At the same time, the protagonists we had grown to love, Roland, the gunslinger who wants to reach the Dark Tower, and his companions Jake, Eddie and Susannah, started to lose their appeal. Roland was not mysterious and charismatic anymore, Jake started to be annoying, Eddie stopped being funny, and Susannah, well... King was never been too great at portraying female characters.

Add to this a deterioration of the writing - something that has been apparent in most King novels since his accident in 1999 - and you get all the reasons that made the conclusion of the series less fulfilling than it should have been. I knew all hope was lost when Stephen King himself appeared as a character in the book. The only things that kept me reading was a sense of loyalty to the series, and a determination to find out how it ended.

While the last book wasn't much better than the preceding two, it wasn't much worse either. Oh, there were flaws, and some plot threads could have been resolved in a more satisfactory manner, but altogether it wasn't too bad. As for the ending, well, let's just say that it could not have ended in any other way without disappointing the whole readership.

Filed Under: books

So I finally managed to go to a First Aid course on Saturday, after several failed attempts because they were never at a time when I could make it. I approached the whole thing with some trepidation, because I didn't really know what to expect. As it turns out, the basics of First Aid aren't hard to grasp, even for a klutz like me. Upon seeing an unconscious person:

- Check if the person is responsive. A good pinch will do the trick, although if the person is responsive, they might not like it alot.

- If the person is not responsive, but breathing, get him/her into the recovery position. Apparently I was the only person left on earth who hadn't heard of the recovery position.

- If the person is not breathing, call an ambulance and start CPR. You know, chest compressions alternating with mouth-to-mouth, like they do on ER or whatever hospital show you're watching. Unless you're watching House, in which case your first idea might be to intubate. You don't want to do that.

Let me add that CPR is really exhausting. I actually had some of my muscles aching from all the practicing they made us do. (On a dummy, before you get the wrong idea.)

Now you all have to be nice to me, because I have the power to save your life*.

*Terms and Conditions apply.

Current State: chipper
Current Distraction: The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes

Filed Under: life

A Disease of Language written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Eddie Campbell

Ok, first of all, you cannot approach this book thinking "Watchmen" Alan Moore. It won't work. This is Alan Moore two decades later, and this book is about as far removed from Watchmen as it gets.

Now, if you want to approach it thinking "From Hell" Alan Moore, you're getting closer. Close, but still no cigar. True, he's paired up with the same artist as in "From Hell", the brilliant Eddie Campbell. But this book is not a story, at least not in the usual sense. It contains illustrations of two performances that Moore gave after he decided to become, well, a magician. It also contains a lengthy interview with Alan Moore, done by Eddie Campbell.

What are the performances about? Well, one is titled The Birth Caul, and is a sort of reflection on life, from birth to death. The other, Snakes and Ladders, deals with love and loss and artistic creation (magic?). What they both are is very confusing in a poetic, I'm-sure-this-has-meaning-I-just-can't-figure-it-out way. If you liked the occult tour of London in "From Hell", there's a chance you'll like these two trips as well.

There were two reasons for me to buy this book. One was Eddie Campbell's art. I tend to value story over art, to the point where I won't even notice mediocre art if the story keeps me enthralled. But Eddie Campbell is one of the rare artists that I really admire. Do yourself a favour and read some of his self-published books, such as "Alec: How to be an Artist".

The other reason is the interview, which gives a fascinating insight into Alan Moore's mind. When you look at pictures of him, you tend to see a hirsute madman, and his decision to become a magician doesn't really do anything to dispell that impression. In the interview, you get a glimpse of the real Alan Moore, a sly, intelligent fellow who's having a laugh at the rest of the world - all the while trying to teach us something.

Filed Under: books, comics

I'm not a fan of hard rock, or the Eurovision song contest, but how can you not love a band who put zombie cheerleaders into their video?

Current Distraction: Guess

Filed Under: music

"It will just make it a little more difficult for people who want to come into the country and abuse the compassion and tolerance we Americans have."
- Lady helping to build a barbed wire fence on the Mexican border.

This is why I love the Colbert Report.

Filed Under: fun

Very very very addictive game ahead. I'm serious. Don't click this link if you have exams due.

Current State: addicted
Current Distraction: I Read Comics podcast

Filed Under: games

Le Temps retrouvé by Marcel Proust

Finally, the last books of Proust's epic saga. And it has only taken me, what, five years to read them all? In this book, the narrator finally finds the time he lost in book one. Turns out he left it in the car.

Seriously though, like any of Proust's books, this one is filled with reflections on art, high society and the various facades that people present to each other. Unlike the preceding books, however, love plays less of a part. In the preceding book, Albertine disparue, the narrator lost his "love" (and I use that term in the loosest way possible, because with Proust, love is always fabricated, always obsessive, and never romantic). In this book, the narrator has aged considerably, and returns to Paris after the war to find that the people he used to frequent have (surprise!) also aged.

This observation leads the narrator to conclude that he wasted his life (call it an end-life crisis if you will) and makes him resolve to spend the rest of his days working on a book that will record his insights into human nature. Rather like Mister Proust himself.

Now I wouldn't have read all the books if I didn't love Proust's writing. I don't always agree with his portrayal of human nature (love and friendship come to mind, and for a gay man, he certainly had an ugly view of homosexuality), but more often than not, his observations are spot on. The conclusion of this book, that the only ultimate salvation lies in art, is something I can at least partly agree with.

Filed Under: books

Total Exams: 9
OK Exams: 5
Easy Exams: 3
Impossible Exams: 1

Not too bad, all things considered. But I'm still glad they're over.

Current State: relaxed
Current Distraction: BBC Radio Newspod

Filed Under: life

God, already May and I'm only at book 15?!? In my defence, I left out a few books when I was busy with SDP and now I can't remember which ones. Anyway, book 15...

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

I've always liked books that debunk pseudoscience and superstitions - whether it's creationism, astrology, witchcraft or ufology. Ironically, this taste for skepticism came after I devoured books on Tarot cards, the Bermuda triangle and positive thinking as a kid. I suppose it's a kind of pendulum effect, like how the staunchest atheists are often people who used to be religious and lost their faith. But I digress.

When it comes to debunking pseudoscience, you'd be hard-pressed to find a greater authority than Carl Sagan. Well, ok, maybe James Randi (who has the advantage of still being alive), but few other people. This book is more than just a case study of pseudoscience: It's a plea for rationality, and a defense of science. When Sagan dissects alien abduction claims, it's not to prove that the people who reported these abductions are crooks - it's to show that the method with which these claims have been investigated is flawed. If you want to really investigate if there is any truth behind them, you have to use the methods of science - what Sagan call the bogus detection kit. And every time this has been done, the evidence was found to be inconclusive.

Of course, you could counter that by pointing out that the methods of science could be insufficient. Maybe, you'd say, maybe we need to just accept some things, even if science can't find any evidence of their existence. Sagan has a nice metaphor for this, what he calls "the dragon in my garage". There's a dragon in his garage, but it can't be seen. Nor can you touch it. It breathes fire, but you won't feel the heat. Oh, and it doesn't make any sounds either. But it's there, honest. If we believe in things that science can't detect, then there's no reason we shouldn't believe in his dragon.

What struck me most about the book was the respect with which Sagan treats believers in pseudoscience. He doesn't call them fools, or ridicule their beliefs. Neither does he completely dismiss these beliefs (Richard Dawkins anyone?). Rather, he points out that there is little evidence for them, and that it is more reasonable to accept the explanation that is supported by the most evidence, until such time as that explanation is proved wrong.

There is more that could be said about this book, but really, why don't you just go and buy it. You won't be disappointed. Well, unless you believe in alien abductions.

Filed Under: books