winter holidays

another day off work. and without clearly defined goals I seem to drift randomly about in the universe. today I ended up in a café in fashionable didsbury village. the coffee was a bit fierce for my tastes. later I have to go into town to take some CDs back to the library

the blogger login is getting integrated with the google login. I could put it off but it will have to be done sooner or later. I'm a bit apprehensive. If you don't hear from me again then it didn't work, but to paraphrase Rorshach, I regret nothing. Have blogged free from compromise and step into the shadows now without complaint

shortest day/longest night

after today the days get longer (at least for my readers in the northern hemisphere) which is good. I like to see sunlight, other light just isn't the same colour. And warmer weather should follow which is another plus.
I've been thinking about musicians whose output doesn't really grab me, but who have done one song that I think is brilliant. Sometimes the phrase "one hit wonder" would apply, sometimes a particular song scores with me because it has played in a film or a significant moment of my life. It's recently been suggested that I pretend to like strange stuff just to confuse people. Anyway, here is the track listing for the all-time greatest, one-off track compilation tape that never existed.

Ten Pole Tudor	Swords of a Thousand Men
Edith Piaf	Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
Screaming J Hawkins	I put a spell on you
Martha & the Muffins	Echo Beach
The Only Ones	Another Girl, Another Planet

Five songs isn't really enough for a decent compilation tape, if anyone has any suggestions please comment....

Fruit & veg today? - ample
Exercise today? - nil
Hours of sleep I'm going to get tonight? - should be okay for 8 or thereabouts

insomnia

How d'you do, O pasty moon?
I want to ask of you a boon.
I want to fall asleep tonight,
And wake refreshed in Dawn's new light.

Avoid spam

I was taking a web survey and they wanted an email address. I hate spam, so I gave them a shot of mailinator.
Mailinator is like webmail, but disposeable. You pick an email address e.g. matt@mailinator.com and if anyone sends email to it then it shows up in a totally non-private way on the site. Did anyone send mail to that address? Probably, it's a pretty common name - take a look
But for a more private approach I like Jetable which gives you an alias for the email address you enter. So it all goes to your normal mailbox, but when you get an alias you give it an expiry date, like 1 day or 1 week or 1 month. If a spammer gets hold of it you'll get the spam but for one month at most. Jetable is great, but it's down at the moment. I hope they come back

Fruit & veg today? - some salad, a clementine and a banana to come
Exercise today? - kung fu day!
Hours of sleep I'm going to get tonight? - 6 or seven

life in the big city

I don't think I'm burned out yet. My new job is a lot less stressful than my previous one. The work isn't super tiring, not like digging ditches or lugging stones about. But I still fantasise about living in the countryside, growing soya beans and turnips. Being self sufficient - as long as I can stomach turnip wine. Why should modern life be so stressful though? I think things are probably easier now for most people than they were a couple of hundred years ago. I've got clean drinking water, a TV, and enough to eat in the fridge.

The article suggests that for some people in the modern world the feeling of achievement is lacking. Which could be true. I find it more satisfying to look at a dry stone wall I've built (for example) than to have recorded some good up-time stats and have ticked off a few things on my To Do list. But then I don't need to build any dry-stone walls. I need to sort out my life goals and make some progress towards them.

Who is Lee Hazlewood?

People I like to listen to (Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch and others) seem to like to listen to him. And this gives me an excuse for some embedded youtubery

vegan sushi

"sushi" apparently doesn't mean 'raw fish' but 'something edible made with rice and vinegar'
It's taken me a while to build up my stock of sushi ingredients (seaweed, sticky rice, grain vinegar and wasabi) but on saturday I got my stuff together. I still haven't mastered the technique. I think ideally the contents (I used red pepper, cucumber, cashew nut pieces and some other stuff. Would have used avocado but it wasn't ripe) would be in the centre of the rice but mine were usually located eccentrically.
As these photos show. Tasty though.

Currently reading: Nick Cave - And the Ass Saw the Angel Actually I finished it today, second time I've read it. Sometimes funny, often disturbing. Fascinating prose: the reader works out what has happened from the internal monologue of the main character, even though  the character can't work it out. Sometimes I wanted to look away but I had to find out how it ended.

Currently listening to: THE FALL - THE REAL NEW FALL LP (FORMERLY 'COUNTRY ON THE CLICK')