tonym0304

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Opportunity hits the beach. The Mars rover peers at an ancient shoreline.

The Reg's hacks get slammed for saying T. Rex lived in the Jurassic age. The toothy carnivore actually lived in the Cretaceous Age, about 80 million years earlier (the Allosaur was the top Jurassic slayer, and ole T-Rex seems to have been more of a scavanger than a predator). Still, Cretaceous Park doesn't have quite the same ring about it ...

Yesterday, the garlic got planted in the top bed: first real seed to go in this year. Balmy spring-like weather to greet it.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Got loads of seed potatoes, garlic and onion sets at Mackey's of Sandycove. Standouts: Cara, a lovely Connemara spud I grew in the tiny backgarden at our last place, Hunter's Brook; Belle de la Fontayn, a great French salad potato: small, waxy and yellow flesh with loads of flavour. I also got asparagus plants (hope springs eternal) and a few seed packets, but resisted the normal seasonal urge to buy loads of things I don't get planted for months.

Thanks to the landscaping antics, the seed is going in later than normal (Paddy's Day is the recommended date for planting spuds, and the onion sets should be in the ground already at that point. But it was an exceptionally late and harsh winter weatherwise (even though everything was early on the plant front, there were some bad frosts and black winds that carried off some of the early braveheads).

Monday, March 22, 2004

40 things every drunk should do. There's a handful I've done: (23) Get loaded in the land of your forefathers (obviously an Americanism, since I live in the land of my forefathers); (29) Eat a pickled egg from the big jar (did this in a pub in Wales); (33) Steal some booze (when I was a teenage delinquent); (39) Make your own beer, wine or moonshine (I've made both wine and beer, and harbour a sneaking ambition to do some illicit distilling). Not too cheesy, though most of the other entries are much bigger league - e.g. (1) Open and close a bar (i.e. be the first one to arrive and the last one to leave that night) and (2) Go on a bender (defined as four straight days and nights of non-stop drinking).

The Bloggies are the Oscars of blog land. Kudos for some good strong sites - though I'm disappointed the Agonist didn't win its category (special interest blogs). Here's the site that beat out the Agonist: Bookslut, a site devoted to the wonderful world of books.

Last blog from Baghdad for this brave man - I'm against the war, but I'm sure many decent people are caught up in it, and seeing the last blog of what seems like one of those decent people certainly puts a human face on life being snuffed out: the blogger, Bob Zangas, was killed shortly afterwards.

Back from a blissful week off, during which nary a computer was switched on, and the busy keyboarding fingers got a chance to rest up. Plenty work done in the garden though no actual gardening: but on the landscaping front a big milestone was levelling off the boules court: approxiately twelve tons of bluechip later. I had a nice outing with C. on Monday, where we walked Arklow North beach in high winds. In fact the gales continued to blow very strong all week, giving generally misery-inducing conditions. On Thursday, Ais and I took some time out and went down to Wexford by the coast road, dropping in on the Slobs where many thousands of Brent geese and white-fronts are peacefully grazing. We had a couple of pints in the interesting pub, the Sky and the Ground, and a bag of blocks and a swimmer for munchies after. Sunday was Mum's Day, so we had Y. and the S. family down for dinner: a classic roast beef and Yorkshire pud from Ais. Back in harness now ...

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Despite all the cold weather, today sees the first snow at sea-level: should be a lot more at higher altitudes down Wicklow way ...

Dept. of "I can see for Miles": Hubble peers deep into the birth of the universe.

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

An excellent discussion of how news travels on the Internet.
(Thanks KL, whom we welcome back into the land of the living blog - a major news conduit closed down there for a while).

Monday, March 8, 2004

A very fine weekend: walked over Cushbawn on Saturday - 4 hours - the first proper hillwalk since last June, and a real benchmark of returned health. Worked on the boules court project on Sunday.

Seems like the amount of raw material to manufacture a PC is about one and a half tons: mainly water, but that still is a lot of material. This UN report convincingly makes the case for upgrading rather than replacing - and certainly routing the PC onwards for chirtable and other uses rather than junking it.

Spam reaches 10 years of age. Unhappy birthday to you, dear spaaaaam, unhappy birthday to you. Here's the Monty Python sketch that gave spam its name.

Post-blogging: my one year anniversary in blogland (March 7) just floated by me there. Well (unlike poor Bob Zangas in Iraq), I'm still blogging. No bloody thanks to the motorcyclist who nearly iced me while I was crossing the road last Thursday in Wexford: go have yourself a prang, butthead!

Thursday, March 4, 2004

The open source folks often liken buying Microsoft warez to purchasing a car with the hood welded shut. Well it seems that Volvo already thinks this is a good idea for their new concept (F for Feminine) car.

Wednesday, March 3, 2004

With Super Tuesday putting the US electronic voting system to the test, many problems have been reported. Quelle surprise!

Tuesday, March 2, 2004

The good weather continues: though it's icy cold at nights, the days are dry and either sunny or lit with a pale North European luminosity. The pond has been frozen for most of the last couple of weeks. Spring comes late to the Wicklow hills.

The ISM project hits the letter M: half way through the alphabet.

Monday, March 1, 2004

Great weekend, weatherwise and otherwise. Had a great dinner on Sunday in honour of C's birthday - classic roast from A. Good progress in the garden too - the famous rockery nears completion.

Going large on e-voting: India, the world's largest democracy, gets in on the act with a million machines. Goodness gracious me!

posted by A Seeker after Knowledge 7:23 AM