Archive for October, 2005

Dunny Dramas

Monday, October 17th, 2005

On Saturday morning I was told a very disturbing story from the night before about a drunk person who lost their balance while going to the toilet (at Brown Alley of all places). He failed dismally in his attempt to prop himself up and ended up sitting in the urinal. He was having a lot of trouble getting up and his fellow bathroom occupants were unable to help him up due to being crippled with laughter.

Horrifying.

So anyway, after discovering that the sewerage pipes out the back of our house are leaking we have implemented some toilet restrictions until the plumber arrives.

The closest public toilets to our house are at the supermarket down the road. I recall using them once and being somewhat consternated. Something about that UV light scares me. Not to mention the smell. Maybe they’ve fixed them up since then?

I am reminded of a Seinfeld episode:

Jerry: Anywhere in the city?

George: Anywhere in the city – I’ll tell you the best public toilet.

Jerry: Okay.. Fifty-fourth and Sixth?

George: Sperry Rand Building. 14th floor, Morgan Apparel. Mention my name – she’ll give you the key.

Jerry: Alright.. Sixty-fifth and Tenth.

George: Are you kidding? Lincoln Center. Alice Tully Hall, the Met. Magnificent facilities.

Gold.

Procrastination Hack

Thursday, October 13th, 2005

Today I am trialling the Procrastination Hack outlined at 43 Folders to see if it will make my working day less scattered.

The idea is that you focus on a particular task for 10 minutes, follow it up with a 2 minute break, then repeat. I am already noticing a difference. After 10 minutes I use the 2 minute break to deal with any emails, instant messages, rss feeds, etc. All those things that distract you from the task at hand.

There is a nice little freeware app called Take a Break by Scirocco which seems to work quite well for this purpose.

Google Dot Org

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

Hello Google.org.

One percent of Google’s profits fund their new philanthropic arm.

Respect!

Summer Rain

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

The instructor at the gym is a really nice girl. But I’m not sure how many more times I will be able to listen to the pop-trance (is that even a genre?) remix of Belinda Carlisle’s Summer Rain.

I have contemplated offering to supply her with some tunes, if only for the sake of variety. I would never do it though. Awkward. Plus, it ocurred to me this morning that I am probably the only person there that dislikes the music anyway.

Can you imagine the gym junkies rocking out to Phil K and the like? No, me neither. :)

FrostyStart

Monday, October 10th, 2005

I am the proud owner of Coldplay tickets. July 2006 can not come quickly enough.

Now I just need to find someone to take with me.

Rectracted

Sunday, October 9th, 2005

An interesting retraction by Dr Prentice Steffen, who recently made comments (in L’Equipe, where else?) about Lance Armstrong and doping. The former doctor of Armstrong’s US Postal team issued a statement saying:

I do not know Lance Armstrong personally and have I never witnessed him taking banned substances. I based my assumptions about Mr. Armstrong on rumours I had heard, instead of on anything remotely factual and I want to issue this public retraction of comments.

Second, my intentions in participating in the L’Equipe interview were not to impugn anyone’s character. I understood the purpose of the interview to be a discussion of the great strides being made by anti-doping agencies around the globe and the opportunity to improve testing for banned substances.

Unfortunately, the L’Equipe article overshadowed these issues and focused, instead, on my comments relating to specific athletes.

Props for the retraction. But seriously, anyone that hasn’t figured out by now that L’Equipe can’t be trusted deserves a little bit of public humiliation.

Unsettled

Sunday, October 9th, 2005

I’m feeling very anxious and agitated. I can think of a million reasons why, but none of them make sense (cryptic huh?), and none of them make for interesting reading. Perhaps I’ll snap out of it soon, or “just let go”, as Nat would say.

Now I remember why I have tried and failed at this weblog thing many times before. The only things that I want to write about are the things that are deeply personal to me. While this is an extremely theraputic thing to do, when you do it on your weblog; well, people just end up thinking you’re a crazy person.

It’s been a long day. Need sleep. Over and out.

Bacharap

Thursday, October 6th, 2005

This is by far the most outstanding thing I’ve heard all day:

Classic Bacharach teams up with rap giant

Burt Bacharach has teamed up with rapper Dr Dre for a new album of passionate protest songs.

Thank you waferbaby for this most excellent news. And much respect to Burt Bacharach for spreading the good word. :)

Chapel Street Slippers

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

The first item for my Christmas list this year: BrightFeet Lighted Slippers.

I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve walked into a large solid object while going to the loo in the middle of the night. Or lost my balance after turning the hallway light on and blinding myself.

Armstrong & EPO

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

There was a lot of talk about this but it seems to have died down over the last week.

One of the things that really bothers me about this situation is that the EPO test has returned a number of false positives recently, but no one seems to mention this in the same context as the retrospective testing of Armstrong’s samples. Perhaps I’m getting out of my depth here. The science lab at school was definitely not a place I liked to spend time. But when you look at it you have:

  • A test that has returned false positives.
  • 6 year old B samples.
  • No A samples.
  • Extremely questionable handling of the samples and associated (supposedly private) test data.

The thought of all these allegations being true saddens me, and I suppose there is a chance that there is some truth to them. But given the doubt surrounding the test and samples it seems impossible to conclude with any certainty that Lance was in fact using EPO in 1999. While the UCI and WADA are busy pointing the finger at each other, L’Equipe continues to drag cycling through the dirt with it’s shoddy reporting.

Just real good going guys. Great stuff.