26/27/28th May great weekend in Bath with Py – check out here.

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.

3. It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it.

4. Sex is like air. It’s not important unless you aren’t getting any.

5. Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.

6. No one is listening until you make a mistake.

7. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.

8. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

9. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

10. It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

11. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

12. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

13. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

14. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat & drink beer all day.

15. If you lend someone $20/£15, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

16. Don’t squat with your spurs on.

17. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

18. If you drink, don’t park; accidents cause people.

19. Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield.

20. Don’t worry, it only seems kinky the first time.

21. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

22. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

23. Timing has an awful lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

24. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

25. Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side & a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

26. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

27. Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your mouth is moving.

28. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it

29. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

30. We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse…

Anon? or let me know if you wrote this!

Early morning started ordinary enough – (last night) I finally finished the book Py gave me to read Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress.

Excellent book, she forsaw the developments in dangerous Nanotechnology in 1993! Pretty much just a dream in the research labs back then.

Signed the contract on the flat today and paid the deposit.
The completion date looks like it might be August 6th – by my guess after speaking with the hubby. The builders finish their place on the 20th July…

Now for the spooky bit, my father who I haven’t seen or spoken to since 1981 has written to me and the letter arrived this morning. I must have been 11 or 12 at the time.

The

“fuji finepix 2400 with rechargeable batteries, charger and a 32mb smartmedia card”

arrived today & now I’m off to open it!

(O & I mowed all the lawn after work)

Work trip to Dorchester – scortcher of a day.
Set off from Saltstone at 8:30, arrived at 10:15, spent 30 mins attempting to park my car. Nightmare. 101.7 miles from home.

Have ordered a :

“fuji finepix 2400 with rechargeable batteries, charger and a 32mb smartmedia card”
from http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk

2.1 Megapixels for the technically inclined. In ideal world I would have bought the top of the range Fuji SLR which takes the Nikon lens. But I think it might be best to wait for the Digital SLR to become common place, the outlay for an amateur is just too much.

Digital Photograhpy here I come, to keep the three Minolta’s and a Rolleiflex company. I always thought a Speed Graphic was going to be my next purchase – but I’ve cracked. Since meeting Py I’ve shot more film than I have done in years and we really like popping stuff up on the web and the scanning is getting me down.

The Ministry of Silly Photos is coming soon…

Py’s COOL banner – just created today 🙂

=http://www.pythonesque.org>

Well done Py!

Friday night popped over to be with Py for the weekend.

Dead on 7pm, Py myself, Mesh & Keg make it into Bar “Cuba” to catch their Pizza and a Pint for £5 – *WICKED*

Then we go on a small pub cruise and finally make it to the Metal night at JFK’s.

Great night – Py and I left a little early and Mesh & Keg stayed on a little longer.

Saturday we looked at beds, had pasties for lunch in town at Oggy’s and consumed the worst milkshake ever.

Py bought the soundtrack to “The Hole” with her “fiver off at HMV” International student’s bribe. (They had to pay them to attend a meeting about their experience about Plymouth University.) Like it would be nice if lecturers turned up to give lectures. It would be great if the Halls of Residence was somewhere where you could sleep within humane hours and the powers that be enforce their own rule book on people who choose to be plainly anti-social in the Halls.

When I was at Plymouth Uni – I can remember about 3 cancellations in 2 years, Py seems to suffer one EVERY two weeks or so. Now when you are paying top whack to study here as an International student… How about a rebate for every cancel? The purpose of the meeting was to find out how Internationals found Plymouth and with all the cancellations that Py has had – I’d be hard pressed to recommended it. But the problems do seem to be just related to the Psychology Department, I have only fond memories of the organisation within the Computing Deparment, which was excellent while I was there and now whenever I contact them again.

Since leaving the lab facilities for students to use in the “building formerly known as the GTB” are suberb – it’s now called the Babbage building. Only minor point being – they shut at 10:30pm. Py’s US University’s were open 24hours. Now there are security guards on at Plymouth on 24hours, the labs are CCTV’d up- so why not leave them open? Bizzare!

Saturday night – reformatted Py’s Laptop for the summer.
Sunday – we’re going to do Mesh”s Laptop for the summer.

Paid a surprise visit on Py on Wednesday night – grabbed our FAVOURITE Chinese from the “Wah Tin Garden” resturant. WICKED.

Then we saw THE HOLE – which was quite scary!

The motto of the National Science Foundation:

“Where scientists, engineers, and artists concur — that is the territory of imagination.”

Joseph Bordogna,
Deputy Director, NSF
April 17 CNET

Also check out :

“Ultimately, nonbiological intelligence will dominate because it is growing at a double exponential rate, whereas for all practical purposes biological intelligence is at a standstill.

Human thinking is stuck at 10^26 calculations per second (for all biological humans [on the planet”>), and that figure will never appreciably change (except for a small increase resulting from genetic engineering). Nonbiological thinking is still millions of times less today, but the cross over will occur before 2030.

By the end of the twenty-first century, nonbiological thinking will be trillions of trillions of times more powerful than that of its biological progenitors.”

From “The Singularity is Near”
A Book Précis by Raymond Kurzweil

A good summary of Kurzweil current thoughts can be found here.

http://www.pythonesque.org/photos/ 🙂

Check out http://www.pythonesque.org/cgi-bin/sitemap.pl – thanks Uncle Eric .

“The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create.”—Leonard Sweet

wow it’s Summer here in Devon.

Time for the old John Cross office competition of the loudest shirt – of which I could only ever equal him at Greymatter. + Shorts + Sandals… Py got scared – photos to follow.

Saturday we went to Dartington Hall garden with Py and in the evening we went with Mesh to see Bridget Jones’s Diary. Despite an American actress playing playing a English girl, I was prepared to be disappointed, however Renée Zellweger was excellent and if hadn’t known I wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

I think Py had a good weekend 🙂

Odd you get the Bank Holiday following the May Day?

Anyway – Friday I popped over to Py’s – Rupert nearly healed up. Py cooked my Cottage Pie which is one of my favourite’s. I started to snuffle…

Saturday morning was slow event – coffee and croissants, PM we strolled into town.
Evening we chilled in with a pork based curry. Yum.

Sunday, I can’t really remember – sorry.

In the evening we popped over to Steve & Lee’s to catch up with them. And watched a cool Brit Click called Purely Belter on DVD.

Monday Py woke up feeling terrible with a sore throat – now the two of us are feeling crap!

Afternoon was really chill and I/we slowly burned on the patio at S&Ls.

About 4ish we pushed off and I drove Py to Bigbury.

The day was wicked polished off with our fav Chicken Kiev and Turkey steak + pasta and cheese ~ courtesy of Mr Safeway.