I became an uncle just before xmas. I wasn’t overly bothered when my sister told me she was pregnant as I don’t see her very often and I didn’t really get the significance of the whole event.
I saw him for the first time in December when we got together to celebrate my dads 70th birthday and I realised that rather than being just another baby he was actually related to me. I understood for the first time why and how children can affect people. I look at him and see a connection rather than something I can’t (or won’t) understand.
Welcome to the world Lewis.
Possibly the saddest part of Thursdays attack is those waiting for news of loved ones who haven’t been in contact yet. As much as logic dictates otherwise, I don’t think I’d give up hope either. It’s what makes us human.
If a week is a long time in OS X then it’s been at least half a lifetime since I last said something.
So what have we been doing all this time?
I finally decided to take all the web code/design skills I have and start putting them to good use. It’s obviously taking a while to get things moving so I’m juggling a day job with what I want to do, which is what most people do I guess when starting out. Getting a business website for myself is something that keeps slipping down my “todo” list. This place could also do with a revamp as well.
Eve still continues to take up a lot of my free time with the side effect that, as it doesn’t work under Linux (yet) I spend all my time working in Windows. I can’t remember the last time I booted into Slackware. Eve does have some support under WINE/cedega but not enough to make it playable and I’m too lazy to keep booting back and forth.
As far as the OS X work related problems I was talking about back in November are concerned they never really went away. We just got used to them and created workarounds or simply said “we can’t do that anymore”. I wonder if that happens to other companies when a big change over occurs.
Well that’s all I’ve really been up too since November. I think I’ll post some thoughts on specifics under seperate posts. It’ll look like I’ve more to say than I actually have.
Venice didn’t really click with me to be honest. The people there are really friendly but it all kind of melded into one. A typical conversation went like this;
Kim: Do you recognise where we are?
Me: No.
Kim: But we’ve been down this street six times in the last two days!
Me: Did you just call me Piggly Wiggly?
I didn’t suffer tech withdrawal quite as much as I thought I would. The evening we returned there was a series of programmes about Venice on tv. Life’s like that sometimes.
Earlier in the week I decided to check on the site stats for monkiboi dot net and found two or three site I hadn’t seen before clocking up marginal hits. After checking further they turned out to be Livejournal Manson freaks who’d decided to hotlink a blackbox screenshot I have of a Manson theme and use it as a background to their own site.
Initially I was peeved as hotlinking (and with no credit either) is up there amongst other web crimes such as eating babies. My next thought was to substitue the image with something altogether less savoury. The idea lasted all of 10 seconds when I realised I was being a bit petty about it all.
We’re talking marginal hits so as far as bandwidth theft is concerned, so what? It’s a non issue. The non-credit bit hurt but that was just my ego and that’s big enough as it is. I’m confused as to how these site found the image as they don’t appear to link to each other and google doesn’t turn up anything but what the hell.
I guess the reason I’m feeling so generous about the whole thing is that these people remind me of my teenage years. Yes I was a goth. My teenage years seemed to be full of the usual self doubt and I tended to express my fears by listening to the Sisters, The Birthday Party, ASF and the Banshees. Life didn’t feel pleasant but at least my music made me feel better.
Reading a livejounal written by a goth is a one way trip to anguish city with it’s only stop being torment mall, but that was me all those years ago. I so wanted to stand out from the crowd, to be noticed but to also be accepted by the “normal” people around me, the problem being acceptance and (the idea of) individuality are poor bedfellows. Trust me, you may think you’ve managed to combine the two but your friends just think you’re odd.
The idea that wearing dark eyeliner and having black spiky hair as a way of expressing your individuality is also at odds with the fact that every goth looks just like you. My teenage brain couldn’t cope with that one and so I dismissed it entirely. Of course this is entirely my take on the whole thing and some would argue they do it for different reasons. What do I care?
I’d like to think I wasn’t as anguished, disturbed and fucked up as these people appear to be but I’d probably be suffering from a selective memory. Still, I thought I’d give them a break.
We’ll be in Venice in a few days time. I realise we’ve left it a little late but that’s what life’s like around monki towers. Disorganised.
We have guide books and things but any tips on where to go would be appreciated.
I’ve just realised the date. I’ve always been really bad when it comes to remembering birthdays. It’s not as if they move about each year but I still get caught out. I think my family have given up on me but every now and again I like to suprise them by remembering to get them a card or something. It doesn’t always get there on the correct day but…
Usually it’s a something but then you are talking to the man who turned up at a friends wedding reception with an Easter egg as a wedding gift so something could be anything. Really.
Have a good one sis.
update - While talking to my sister last night I found out that her and her husband share the same birthday and I only discover this after they’ve been married 2 or 3 years. Told you I was disorganised. Anyway, happy birthday to you both. The dead fish is in the post.
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