Dan Q
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Went to the castle to see The Hot Puppies yesterday evening. Everything I’d heard was true – they really are very good. They play well, they sing well, they look good… and they exude confidence. A wonderful show.
Troma Night was somewhat shorter than usual, owing to the aforementioned puppi…
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[an image in this post was recovered on Thursday 30th December 2004]
Here’s some photos of my trip to Malawi, as the group have now started uploading photos to me at last!
Dan looks down on Lake Malawi.
Dan on the descent.
Two baboons, at Vwasa National Park.
Livingstonia Hospital: This woman and her baby have both been diagnosed with AIDS
Thanks to ARVs, the woman’s condition is improving. Her baby cannot be treated and will die.
Beautiful waterfall, on a river running from Livingstonia to Lake Malawi.
Will post more when I can be bothered. Meanwhile, photos are continuously being uploaded to Scatmania’s Malawi Album [update: link killed 2006]
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[the image in this post was recovered on Thursday 30th December 2004]
Sounds like an excuse to lounge on soggy grass and drink real ale if ever I heard one. Yay….
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
[more of this post was recovered on Friday 24 November 2017]
Wierder than all the rest, this dream’s insane. Perhaps it’s time to be thankful that I only remember fragments of it. The bits I remember, in an order that seems to make sense in hindsight.
I’m travelling by car – down the A1, South, towards Leeds. Somebody is driving, but I’m not sure who. There are two other passengers: one is Claire, and the other is Not Claire. I don’t understand why I’m transporting both of them, but apparently I need them for something important in Preston.
We arrive at Preston, and go to my mum’s house. (recurring theme, anybody? – what’s going on in my head) I leave Claire and Not Claire there, and excuse myself.
I find myself at some kind of crypt, made with red bricks and with a black slate roof. (this particular building featured in a dream once before, when I was in primary school) I go inside, and find a dead horse inside a coffin. (spacial awareness was somewhat screwed by this point) The ghost of the horse was here, I knew, and, concentrating on it, I was able to see ‘through it’s eyes’ that it was looking over my shoulder at the body. And then, something else: I could see …
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
[more of this post was recovered on Friday 24 November 2017]
Here’s some stuff I found interesting this weekend:
Swedish health workers, in an effort to stem the growing cases of chlamydia among young people, have launched a ‘condom ambulance [BBC News]. If you find yourself ‘caught short’ in Sweden, just give them a bell and they’ll rush around to your house with a pack-of-three, for the equivelent cost of about £4.
Chinese researchers have used a carbon nanotube [Wikipedia] as a filament in a new, experimental light bulb [The Register]. This bulb emits more light and works at a lower threshold than tungsten at the same voltage, and was still functioning fine after being switched on and off 5000 times. The future of lighting?
And finally, researchers from Hebrew University in Israel may have found a solution to the problems associated with passwords. As it stands, ‘secure’ passwords are hard to remember, and often find themselves written down, whereas insecure ones can be cracker. Plus, for real security, passwords should be …
Come join us on the beach for fire and beer, if you’re still in Aber!…
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The Register have this story and photo, taken in Aberystwyth: can anybody identify the woman in the picture?…
[picture removed]
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
Feel rotten. And I’m supposed to be back at work, today. Called in sick, especially apologetically.
Had another lariam-induced mood swing yesterday, and became especially grotty to people, so went and excluded myself from them for awhile. I’ve made an appointment to see the doctor next Monday, pre-emptively: if these side-effects don’t get any better by then (I’ll be taking more of the drug today) I’ll ask about switching to one of the alternative meds. After all, as margi said, if I’m becoming intolerable in quiet company with friends, what am I likely to be like under the African sun with strangers.
And if today’s pill brings everything into line, I can cancel my appointment. Winner.
In other news, as promised, below is a picture of my beard in it’s new “Ming The Merciless” (Flash Gordon, for those of you with no film culture) configuration. And yes, I mean the 1936 one:
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It’s really quite scary to look at the original Flash Gordon and realise that…
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
[more of this post was recovered on Friday 24 November 2017]
Another weird dream last night. Surprisingly similar ‘cast’ to some previous ones.
Some friends and I, and my mum, are driving in a silver SUV-like thing to a hill in what looks like the lake district. The hill is tall and long, with steep sides – not unlike Wernside – and is covered with lush grass. We’re going to play hide-and-seek. I’m hunting first. But this hide-and-seek game is different from most – each player has to take a llama with them (on a lead), and the hunter can use his llama to track the other llamas (and by proxy, their owners). Llamas apparently have an amazing sense of smell, and can identify each other by it over vast distances.
My llama is called Molly, and we start to climb the bank on one side of the hill, to try to find the others. As Molly sniffs the air, she feeds back information to a device I’m carrying, which projects a heads-up-display onto my retina. This shows me the direction that the other llamas are in. It points out the direction of a llama called Mike. That’s Claire’s llama, I remember, and follow it. I find Claire and her llama in a cave, and we continue hunting together.
The next person I find is my mother. …
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Want to see me do my impression of a coconut?
[picture removed]
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
[further content was partially-recovered on 13 October 21018]
Another somewhat trippy-themed dream since I’ve been under the influence of lariam:
I am at my mum’s house, and I’m watching some live chat-show-like TV program, and my little sister Sarah is on it: however, she appears a lot younger (6 or 7ish, and she’s wearing her primary school uniform) than she actually is (which, oddly for a dream, I notice is odd). In true chat show style, according to the host, she’s going to meet somebody from school who she hasn’t seen in years (???). Some other kiddies appear behind her. Sarah turns around and looks at them, then starts writing something on a large yellow board using a chunky marker. She holds up her little placard to the screen. I don’t remember exactly what it says, but it implies that the show was being staged and that those people weren’t really there, but that they were being digitally added.
I leave my mum’s house and begin to walk to my dad’s house. I’ve rounded the corner between Holme Slack Lane and Primrose Road, and my mum pulls up alongside me…
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Fucking hell; this stuff is weird.
For those who might think to the contrary; no, it’s not usual for me to snap at something which wouldn’t usually have bothered me, and march myself out of Aber. Several miles (and two hills) later, came to a halt and wondered what had set me off.
Later, I completely broke down into tears and collapsed into a blubbering mess, for no reason at all.
Last night, I slept for the best part of two hours. Just couldn’t get settled. Which is insane, because after my little marching exercise earlier, I was completely exhausted and could have quite happily just lay on the grass on the banks of the Ystwyth and fallen asleep.
Still got a killer headache and occasional nausea. It’s hard to comprehend that, despite the fact that all I did was eat a tiny (well, actually – quite chunky, but you know what I mean) tablet, two days ago, and I’m still feeling the effects. Weird shit.
Can anybody else out there who’s taken Lariam tell me: does it get better than this? If not, I think I ought to speak to my doctor before I start really …
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I feel kind of odd. And no, I’m not just referring to my (still kind-of burny) Lariam headache:
I’ve just had my final exam. And I mean ever.
I know I’m not a graduate yet (assuming I even pass these buggers), but… there’s something kind-of final feeling about leaving that exam room. It took me a good few minutes walking down the hill before it really hit me that this is the end of it.
Five years.
I’ve been a student here at Aberystwyth for almost five years. That’s over a fifth of my life. That’s pretty much all of my adult life (going by the legal definition of ’18’).
I’ve been in apprehensive anticipation of this moment all year. Perhaps longer. I’m not trying to cling on to it – I know when it’s time to let go and get on with other things – but I still feel a certain… sadness… at something having passed by. It’s not unlike… the death of a pet. Or a loved-one moving away. It’s just a hole in me that waits – not fearful… but: presentiment at what is to fill it.
Five years.
When I was in my first year, I talked with folks like Rory …
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
[more of this post was recovered on 13 October 2018]
You can blame Paul for this, but here we go:
1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says: You enter these seven digits as your password. (See Figure 2.1.) If you have a password
2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?: Two bottle caps.
3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?: I can’t even remember the last time I watched TV.
4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is: 11:40?
5: Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?: 11:37
6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?: The other computer. A truck backing up. A generator. A woman’s footsteps. A bus. Quiet chattering. A woman coughing.
7: When did you last step outside? Outside? That’s like here, but with lower resolution, isn’t it? I guess it must have been yesterday sometime.
8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?: An SSH shell.
9: What are you wearing?: Black …
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
Oh your god. What a dream! It’s been years since I’ve dreamt anything so ‘out there’. Perhaps a result of all the Hobgoblin I drank last night. Perhaps caused by exam stress. Perhaps we really are just a product of the things we take in from the world around us – my dream seems to twist and contort …
