Matts Meanderings

Walked out of the tube station the other night, and had to check my watch... It was already dark, and it was only 7.20pm...

So much for summer... I must have blinked...

(S'pose it's still better than the middle of winter - dark at 4.30pm... gah!)

Just watched an advert on tv, and it was advertising a magazine for kids about the human body. One of the 'sample' things was “why is my brain wrinkly”.

So, doing a google search on this (who doesn't want to know why their brain is wrinkly?), i came across this site - good for a laugh...

(btw, apparently its because “the cortical folding makes the brain more efficient, because it can increase the surface area of the brain and the amount of neurons within it” [from theanswerbank] See? You even learn stuff on this blog... ) .

She got a friend of mine to bring over a cake for me (all the way from Aus), for my birthday last month. A beautiful, tasty, scrumptous fruit cake.

Love you mum! You're ace!

A few weekends back, headed down to Kent, to Nettlestead Place, for Andrea & Mark's wedding.

Was an amazingly beautiful venue, a country house set in beautiful gardens, and it was also a very nice ceremony. I've uploaded some photos of the day - taken with my new camera, so they're pretty good. Go check them out... Long and short of it is that I'm really happy for them both, and wish them all the best .

Matt and Rob - guys from Redgum and friends of Andrea - had also come over for the wedding, so it was really good to catch up with them too. Went out a few times - check out the photos for that as well - quite amusing .  Rob is still around for a few more days - we're heading out tomorrow for his birthday - so much for Friday .

Hmmm... Really lost the motivation/ability to write too much more here... Maybe I should just stop for tonight, and save Oktoberfest for another time...

Just arrived back from Oktoberfest yesterday, and spent today recovering from exchaustion... There was a little bit of recovering-from-drinking-so-much, but mainly exhaustion from such a long bus trip. Anyway, should start from the start, especially seeing that a few things have happened since I last blogged about what I've been up to.

I think the last thing that I did blog about was Belgium. Getting back from Belgium, Biscuit and I headed up to Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and also the Military Tattoo. Also met up with Paul and Lydia while we were there, as they got to the end of their four month trip. Had a good time there, managed to see quite a few shows, including:

• Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen - very odd, but very cool.
• Tao - Martial Art of the Drum - cool drumming dudes and chicks from japan
• Gamajobat - “a shut up comedy from Japan” - Japanese mime artists - very cool and very funny.
• Stephen K Amos - “100 Greatest Things Ever“ - pretty funny
• Paul Merton's Impro Chums - very funny improvised comedy by very talented guys
• and quite a few others...

All in all, had a good time there. Didn't see anything super funny, but it was a good time all up. Also a nice relaxed time - got a good chance to kick back and relax and not do anything. Very enjoyable.

Come to think of it, I also went and saw the Military Tattoo. Was good to see, but it was more gimmicky than I was expecting. It had a lot of military marching bands, and stuff like that, but it also had some kids on motorbikes and a demo by the SAS. The kids on motorbikes were pretty cool - they were doing cross-overs and the like, and I think at one point they had 15 kids on 5 bikes. Pretty clever - all done by kids about 8 years old. Also some done by teenagers - one of which managed to jump two cars successfully, but managed to fall over doing a wheelie... . The SAS demo was also a bit gimmicky - it was a demo of them rescuing the crown jewels from thieves, but it really didn't look that good. But, other than that, the whole thing was quite good. Definitely enjoyed myself there. I've uploaded some photos from there - they're pretty crap, cos my old camera doesn't seem to take night photos very well. But, I've kept the best of them, and you can use your imagination to figure them out .

Come to think about it, I might leave the other things (Andrea & Mark's wedding, Rob and Matt coming over, and Oktoberfest) for another entry - don't want you to get bored .

I don't get it... I mean, really, I don't get it...

Finding someone who could be the right person is damn hard. I mean, if you're honest with yourself, you're picky, and you only want to be with someone where it feels right. So, lets say that for every 50 girls you meet (just to pick a nice even number), you find one that you want to be with. I'm not talking seeing someone on the train - I'm talking meeting properly, and getting to know.

Then take the same approach from the other side. There's a 1 in 50 chance that that girl wants to be with you. Following me?

So, thats a 1 in 2500 chance that you'll get together... Now. Take a look around, and see how many couples there are out there... Does that look like the results of a 1 in 2500 chance? Even in you go for 1 in 20, its still a 1 in 400 chance.

That sort of leads me to several conclusions, not all of which are mutually exclusive:
a) There's a lot of couples out there that have settled for less than they should've, -or-
b) I'm too damn picky, -or-
c) I'm just unlucky, -or-
d) I'm just doomed.

Its probably D, isn't it?

I think I'll just go crawl under my desk for a while, and suck my thumb.

Got a little carried away the other day, and went and bought myself some new toys...

Got myself one of these little babies, and also one of these little babies.

For those that couldn't be bothered following the links, the first one is a digital SLR camera, the Canon EOS 350D - 8 mega pixels. Its pretty much the entry level model, but seeing I don't know that much about SLR cameras, its probably better to not spend an absolute fortune on my first camera. I've had a bit of a play with it already, and it seems to come out with some pretty nice shots... Just got to learn more about the funky effects that you can do with them.

The second is a pocket point-and-click model, the Canon Ixus 50, a 5 mega pixel jobby. Got this one cos its a perfect size to just stick in your pocket - much easier to fit in your pocket than a SLR camera. Looks like its a decent camera, but the screen seems to be a bit grainy. You can do some cool things with it, like pick a certain colour, and the rest of the photo will be black and white, except for anything that color. Pretty cool, really.

So, all in all, a pretty easy way to spend £1000...

Managed to take about 250 photos for Andrea & Marks wedding the other day, and managed to get some decent shots out of it. As I learn more about the camera, hopefully they'll get even better... Have to do a course at some point soon to learn some more about it...

Hopefully should upload some photos within the week for your enjoyment .

For a while I've been meaning to write a bit of an essay on how it seems our society doesn't really think for the future anymore - but I've never quite got around to it. It also seems that I've forgotten how to write essays, so i think I'll just start writing, and see what comes out. Inspiration for this came from K. Scott Allens article of the same title, with the caveat that he's talking about software.

Way back when, rulers built monuments meant to last for Ages - for example, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Cathedrals of the middle ages and the like. Yet, today, doesn't seem to be much happening like that. Buildings have a life-expectancy of around 50 years max, and minimizing cost seems to be the overriding factor. No-one seems to be building for the benefit of future generations - just their own.

Granted, we have science and technology moving ahead in leaps and bounds, but very very few people focus on things that wont be completed in their own lifetime. About the only thing I know of that people are doing that will deliberately out-last them by a very long time is the Long Now Foundation, which recently built a clock that is intended to last for 10,000 years, considering things like how to power it, how to protect it from the elements, natural disasters and even teenagers, and how to provide instructions to people to maintain it (how do you know what language they'll be speaking in 10,000 years time?).

Other than that, there are those who are cryogenically freezing themselves to be 'woken' at some point in the future - but i don't think that really counts as leaving something for the benefit of future generations (though those being frozen may disagree...)

The flip side of this is that most of the monuments from earlier Ages were built by dictators on the blood and sweat of slaves, and I definitely don't condone that.

But one must ask the question - In a thousand years, what will be left of our accomplishments, our society, us?

So, is it a failure of todays society, that nobody has grand visions like that anymore? Or is it just society focuses on the more immediate problems of hunger and disease?

Or is it just a sign of a inward looking generation?

Ran across this site a while back - a competition where you can win ipods, dvd's, or a space flight, 99 km above the earth, just for entering a competition...

Whatever will they think of next...?

Been meaning to write about this for a while, but never quite got around to it.

About 2 months ago, the US government announced that it would not be relinquishing control of the root name servers that are the basis of the internet, and retaining control indefinitely.

This is decidedly worrying, as it would allow the US government to bring the internet to its knees at Bush's whim. (And given Bush's history of unilateral action...) Its the same kind of threat that forced the European Union to build Galileo - a competitor to the GPS system of satellites, which could be disabled by the US government under the guise of 'national security' (causing untold damage and loss).

Hmmm... Don't know if this worries you, but it worries me...