Callan 的个人资料Shadows and Crystals照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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7月31日 The Phone Saga - Part IIIThe phone shop rang again today. I told them that offering me an old phone as a replacement for the SLVR was not acceptable. They said, fine - we won't give you anything. I've written another letter, telling them what I will settle for, asking them to complete any further communication in writing and informing them that I will take them to court, as well as writing to various publications including Which? and the Petersfield Post about the issues I am having with them, such that other people do not make the same mistake in buying from them. On that note, I will quickly publicise the name of this phone shop giving me lots of trouble, inform you all that you can get phones cheaper elsewhere, and that elsewhere won't hassle you so much about trying to get your own phone back after repair. Do not buy anything from Syn-Star shops. Shout it from the rooftops. And with that, I'm off to begin the process of making a claim. 7月30日 The Phone Saga - Part III delivered my Angry Letter to the phone shop yesterday. Nobody was in, it was sunday, but today there must've been because they rang me to offer me a 'goodwill offer' of a Nokia 6320 handset. Hmm, I thought. A phone worth about £40 in exchange for one worth £160 at the time of purchase. How about NO! So tomorrow I'm going to go in and tell them how it goes from here. They will give me the same handset, or better - they won't fob me off with a worse one because it saves them money. grrr. Feeling kind of annoyed at the moment and the phone shop IS going to get the brunt of it... 7月26日 Long Times PastSo, I received a message from my blog the other day. I didn't even know my blog had this function, but apparently it does. Anyway, this message was from someone who'd heard from someone else about my antics with the Xtreme Everest project, and read my blog on there, and found this blog from that blog and worked out how to send a message. The interesting bit is this: I haven't seen, heard from or heard about this person in over twelve years. She was my best friend back in my old house when I was 6-7 years old, and it just so happens that she vaguely knows another person from the expedition. Talk about coincidence...I was astonished. Surreal or what?! It's kind of pleasing though - a) somebody remembers you and b) this could be the (re)start of a friendship, and that is always good news. 7月24日 The Tory PartyThey aren't very positive are they? In fact, they seem to be a bunch of whining politicians - here are a number of quotes from the BBC news website, on a range of stories: On yobs:"However, the Tories said Labour had ignored the problems behind anti-social behaviour." On improving the rail system: "Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers said nothing had changed under the new prime minister, Gordon Brown." On MRSA: "However the Tories said MRSA had got worse under Labour." On elections "The Tories have said that labour have shot themselves in the foot." On crime "The Tories said Mr Blair had had eight years to deal with it, but chose to try to keep the issue "off the front pages with a blizzard of misleading denials"" On the Tory party: "The Tories said it was "utter nonsense" for the lib dems to portray themselves as political heavyweights." On the smoking ban: "A gimmick" Have they really got nothing better to do than take cheap shots at the Labour party? Quit complaining about stuff and go and actually DO something instead! Comment replies: Jenny Mohan: Actually, it's simply something I noticed while trawling the BBC news website and their news stories, and started feeling a sense of déja vu because I'd read about the tories complaining already. No single article, and the Lib Dems and Labour never complained... Both (no names) : both good points. Negative soulless vampires with an agenda, all of them =) Millie: Excellent point. Exactly what I was thinking - why bother complaining if you don't have something useful to say about it? 7月19日 Whining About WorkThis is me, whining about work. Reference Manager 11 is boring. References, are boring. PubMed, while a gem of scientific resource, is boring. The papers I have to organise are not all boring, but I don't have the time to read them all if I have to reference them all. Tomorrow I have to account all the satellite phone usage for 3 months. This will be even more boring than reference manager. Sure, it's money, but I haven't worked long enough to earn any yet. I have to commute for almost 5 hours a day. Whine complain whine. Ok that's over now. Just needed to get that off my chest...I'll be lodging in London from next monday, if everything goes to plan, and hence life will be better. Cash, and something to keep me occupied while I wait for uni. At least the people are cool at work... 7月18日 Silver Ring ThingI'm in two minds about the whole court-case-no-ring thing that's been going on in the news recently. On the one hand, I can see that this ideal means a lot to some people and that as such there would be a formidable reluctance to remove it. I also doubt the school would prevent someone wearing a turban despite the general rule against headwear in class, provided it was based in religious belief and not simply alternative dress. Having said that, the biblical passage-inscribed ring is not a token of a religion, as much as a statement of intent not to have premarital sex. Wear one if you like, but if it's against a previously-laid rule of the environment you are in than you are obliged to respect that rule - same with the woman from BA a while back wearing a crucifix necklace - it doesn't matter that it IS a crucifix, simply that it is a necklace, which are not permitted. If rings are not permitted, then rings are not permitted, regardless of significance.Covering hair can be a stipulation of a religion, whereas wearing jewellery is not (in so far as I am aware) a religious requirement. Having said all THAT, I think the school in question could be a little more lenient with the fact that pupils are not allowed to wear a single, simple ring. Making such an enormous fuss seems a little disproportionate, over a band of metal worn about one finger. I guess having written this entry and hence thought about it more coherently I believe the school is in the right - the Silver Ring Thing, while being a religion-related group, is not a religion or stipulation of religion in itself and hence is not entitled to the sort of religious flexibility that can be allowed for prayer times etc. Incidentally, I don't agree with the ideal of the silver ring thing - I feel that it limits people, based on a passage from the bible that was there for a reason once - to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STIs, both of which can now be easily avoided by use of basic contraception. I admire people's willpower in doing so, but I think it leads to marriges too early, or puts unnecessary strain on long-term relationships; however much some people would like to deny it, sex and it's related activities are an integral part of human nature, and in the end standing up to a million years of evolution (or, as is likely with the SRT members, the way God made you) with a few years of will isn't going to do anyone any good, even if it doesn't do them any harm. Comment reply: ianmaccuaig I agree with you. The one issue I have is full hijab dress on girls in school - that is asking for trouble as they will be picked on by other students, and it makes them much harder to teach and for them in integrate in any way with people - it's difficult to talk to someone with no expressions and not knowing anything about what they look like. In that respect I'm a bit torn between respecting their traditions, and them respecting our way of life. 7月15日 Drink Good WineThis is an article from yesterday's Guardian. Ignore the poor writing quality, and hear the randomness of it all... "It's a good thing it wasn't cheap plonk. The last guests at the barbeque in the Capitol Hill neighbourhood of Washington were savouring the remains of s very fine bottle of Chateau Malescot St Exupery when a robber appeared in their midst and held a gun to the head of a teenage girl. "He said 'Everyone give me your money or I will start shooting. I am very serious about this'," Micheal Rabdau, the girl's father, said. By that point in the evening only close friends were still left in the garden of the home, 13 city blocks from the great white dome of the US Capitol. Nobody saw the intruder slip in through the gate, which the homeowner had left ajar while he took his dog for a walk."He was like a shark. No one saw him coming," Mr Rabdau said. The intruder, who had a hood pulled over his face, first levelled his gun at the head of Mr Rabdau's daughter, Khyber, 14, and demanded money. When she said she had none, he moved towards the other guests, handgun drawn. In the following minutes the terrified party guests tried to calm the robber. After what seemed like an eternity another guest offered the robber a sip of the bordeaux they were drinking. "He tasted the wine, and said: 'Damn, that's really good wine.' And it really was," Mr Rabdau said. the guests offered him a glass, and then the entire bottle. The would-be robber helped himself to a piece of camembert. He put the gun away, and told the guests: "I think I must have come to the wrong house," and told them he was sorry. He asked for a hug, and each of the guests gave him a squeeze. The robber then asked for a group hug, and the guests formed a circle to embrace him. The robber then poured himself a full glass of wine and let himself out. By the time the stunned party guests summoned the courage to go indoors and telephone the police, the robber was long gone. But nothing had been stolen, and nobody had been hurt." Comment reply: Millie It was one of those little snippets in the pages which people tend not to bother reading...on the right-hand side of the left-hand page 7月11日 Job, money, fortune, nahI am once again employed! Go me, onwards to vague promises of riches and prosperity! Onwards to university, and subsequent beyond-bankruptcy! Generally, onwards! Yup, I've managed to get a job for the period of two months, with Xtreme Everest, no less. Working in London - anyone up there fancies meeting me in the evenings as of (most likely) next monday, just say the word and I'm sure we can arrange something. Keep me posted. Comment reply: Ben I'll be doing what is politely termed "data management", along with organising a few photos (and by a 'few' I mean a few thousand) along with some other jazz no doubt. It's not exciting but it pays well =) FormulaI heard something on the radio a little while back in the context of some radio drama or other (I wasn't really listening), but a little bit of it stuck in my head. It went as follows: If you could stop time, and get the position and speed and direction of every atomic and subatomic particle in the universe, and write a formula to predict how they'd move and interact, could you predict the future? Initially I thought yes. Then I thought, no - what about conciousness? Surely that formula would work for a universe in which there is no sentience, and hence no choice in actions, but would fail in this one? And then I thought again. What if brain function and our perception of choice is simply based on the movements of electrons and atoms in our brains? If it is, then that would apply to all brains on this planet*, as they are all fundamentally similar in function. And if so, then it WOULD be possible to predict the future. Thing is, that isn't the point - I'm willing to bet that it is impossible for the path of every particle in the universe to be tracked and calculated.. The key point is, that if that formula can exist, regardless of whether it does, then fate exists as well, and hence our entire futures are mapped out in an inevitable sequence. Which kind of goes against everything I think, but now that a mechanism is suggested I find that I can't completely deny the possibility any longer. I guess what it all comes down to is the concept of a soul. If you believe there is more to a body than the materials from which it is made and the energy cycle that keeps it alive, by which it thinks and functions, you do not believe in fate by this mechanism. If, on the other hand, you believe that the mind is neurones, electronic currents and chemotransmitters, and from the complex interactions of all these we derive consciousness and thoughts, then by this forumlaic definition you believe in fate. I don't know what I believe on that front, so I ponder still. *assuming that there is sentient life only on this planet. If there is not, other such life is far enough away as to be undetectable for the purposes of determining the future on this earth for the next few hundred thousand years, and that life would only invalidate the formula idea if it functioned in such a way as to not be dependent on atoms and subatomic particles. Comment reply: Lucy I thought that Chaos Theory was...ah yes. It's kind of backwards Chaos Theory I suppose... 7月3日 Northern LightsWhy is it that the Americans are seemingly incapable of having the book "Northern Lights" called "Northern Lights"? Why on earth would anyone want to rename it to something as inane as "The Golden Compass"?! I mean, where has subtlety gone? So fine, I don't mind if they call this masterpiece of literature "The Golden Compass" somewhere out of earshot, but making a film out of it with the incorrect, simplified and significantly more childish title is just annoying. On that note, why can't they just call things what they are actually called? Spooks became MI-5, Changing Rooms became Trading Spaces (why? did they just go through a thesaurus for something different?), Fawlty Towers became Chateau Snavely, and empty desert became weapons of mass destruction. Grrr. I am unreasonably annoyed about this. 7月2日 Wales, Politics and AutomobilesSo, I went to Wales. I went up Snowdon, and it was driving with rain. Sideways. The weather was dire, the wind must've been about 50mph, and it almost blew me off the mountain once and blew me over another time. The rain hit you so fast that it stung your face and made your eyes water, and the water went straight through my waterproof boots, my waterproof trousers and my down my waterproof jacket. My fingers didn't work properly anymore because they were so cold because of the wet/wind combination. The mountain was covered in people getting totally soaked, and out of about 200 people I saw that day, not a one of them was unhappy. Including me. In fact, the whole experience was hilarious. The weather was SO bad, the rocks SO slippy, the whole thing so patently ridiculous that you just had to laugh. We slaved on through these conditions for about two hours, to reach a summit from which you could see a grand total of ten metres, all grey, in each direction. It was terrific. Not something you want to do every day, but great fun nonetheless. Next up, politics. I was listening to the radio on the way back and they were talking about the latest terrorist attacks and failed attacks, and they were talking about what actions the prime minister might take etc, and at this point I suddenly realised just how much I didn't trust Tony Blair when he was in power. For some reason, I trusted Gordon Brown to make much better decisions, and not just introduce new powers or new measures or deny us the right to buy petrol without a license and a fingerprint check, or something along those lines. I somehow have the impression that he's a bit more mature and thoughtful than Blair was. Totally unfounded, I know, but he seems less of a crowd pleaser and more a thinking leader. Just never realised how much I distrusted Blair, and that surprised me. Finally, cars. Or my car to be specific. It broke down the other day on the way back from Judo, or more specifically a large metal component started hanging off and clattering down the road. I walked to a friend's house, because naturally my phone still isn't back from the phone shop and my other one is still in Lobuje and will stay there forever, to use their phone. The AA man came along 60 minutes later and took it off, told me that it wouldn't be too expensive to repair, and left me with a car that sounds like a porche because the noise reducer has fallen off. I don't know why boy racers do it. I just feel like a tit when I drive somewhere with a throaty roar and people look round and see a muddy Corsa hobbling up the road. Why would you want to advertise to everyone that you're a prat? Just why? |
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