I recently finished Cold Comfort Farm, which is a parody of a certain genre of “rural” novels which emerged in the 1930s. It’s hilarious, and I recommend you read it, but I’m writing this entry because the book is full of direct address and thus very amenable to being read aloud. So I did. Here is the first part, the foreword, in which the author praises a fictional fellow author for his “grave and lucid prose” and humbly presents her own work for his consideration. Cold Comfort Farm 1.mp3, about 5 minutes long.

There’s a Belle and Sebastian song which includes lyrics which go something like “Like a fresh manifestation of an old phenomenon, the wind whipped through the trees…” but isn’t that a bit self-evident? I mean, it’s not just like a fresh manifestation of an old phenomenon, it actually is.

I guess “A fresh manifestation of an old phenomenon whipped through the trees” wouldn’t scan.

I wrote a song for Catie’s recent birthday, using GarageBand, my keyboard, and a MIDI interface. Have a listen here: arr.m4a.

All the instruments are software instruments and were played on the keyboard (including the drums). The fairground theme was partially inspired by a (much better) song that Catie’s friend Sarah once wrote for her named “Valse and Verhallend”, but there are also elements of other tunes, such as the Millennial Fair theme from Chrono Trigger, and some things from Sky. It was fun to write, and by the end I felt that I had learnt something about how to put the next one together.

Congratulations to Catie, who is now a doctor!

Belated congratulations to Leonid, Dave, and Matt, who also became doctors recently. You are an inspiration to me.

“Contrary to popular belief, some of the most influential British punk rock recordings of the 1970s were not sloppy, primitive affairs, but ambitious, meticulously crafted studio productions.^{[citation needed]}”

• Wikipedia believes you, millions wouldn’t

Students are flooding back to colleges across the country this weekend, and, as Mom and Dad pull away from the dorm-side curb, their kids are unpacking clothes, books, toaster ovens… and, in a few cases at least, swine flu.

Ah, NPR. You make me laugh.

“Mooom, did you double-bag the swine flu? My Hendrix vinyl is all sticky!”

When all you have is a Leatherman, everything looks like a bolt, or a small screw, or a large screw, or a bottle top, or something that has a rough surface, is insufficiently levered up, or that needs cutting in some way.

Google News results for articles making the “take a bite out of Apple” joke in the last two weeks: about 12.

Bill Clinton just showed up unannounced in North Korea, met with Kim Jong-il, and rescued two journalists who had been sentenced to twelve years’ hard labour for illegally crossing the border.

How cool is that? It’s like something out of The Simpsons. I imagine he arrived wearing cowboy boots and handed out American flags to the guards.

I enjoyed this great transition from a great American tradition (racial profiling) to a great American tradition (patriotic consumerism) courtesy of NPR’s All Things Considered today:

Daniel Schorr: […] And marking Black History Month, the president’s attorney general, Eric Holder, called the United States “a nation of cowards” for not confronting the issue of race.

All this is part of the backdrop Thursday night as the president clinks beer glasses with the black professor and the white cop who, by coincidence, is the one who briefed his colleagues on avoiding racial profiling.

But perhaps Obama need not wade into every racially charged conflict. After the Cambridge, Mass., affair, the president searches for teachables. Could I address a first teachable to Obama?

Remember, Mr. President, that you are the president, and when faced with an emotionally laden encounter, you cannot afford to act on your visceral reactions.

Or, to put it briefly, don’t do something. Just stand there.

[This blank part is the good bit. Enjoy the segue!]

Presenter: More importantly, what will each man be drinking? Reportedly the President will have a Bud; Professor Gates, Red Stripe; and Sgt Crowley, Blue Moon. None chose the beer associated with Boston, and that is Sam Adams. We have Jim Koch on the line – he’s the founder of the Boston Beer Company, the brewery that makes Sam Adams. Welcome to the program.

Koch: It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Presenter: Sadly they didn’t choose your beer.

Koch: Well, I – that’s okay. I think I was hoping, along with hundreds of other American breweries, that American beers would be chosen at the White House rather than, you know, beers that were owned by big foreign global conglomerates. But I’m at least happy that they’re getting together, they’re having a beer – beer has, since the founding of the Republic, been this glue that held us together way back when Sam Adams was plotting the revolution in the taverns over a beer, or Thomas Jefferson was sitting at Queenshead Tavern in Philadelphia, drafting the Declaration of Independence over an American brew.

Presenter: This has been referred to as a “teachable moment” – the President called it that – and if you were asked to make a special beer for this summit, a teachable beer, what would it be?

Koch: You know, I think I’d make a blend of ingredients from all over the world, which is certainly what’s represented there with the three participants…

Jackson dominates Oz charts

1) Michael Jackson put out an album titled “Number Ones”
2) It’s at number two.

When I cook something in the microwave, I generally put it in for some time between 30 seconds and 3 minutes. This usage pattern is borne out by the wear on the buttons.

I wondered if this would follow Benford's law, but it doesn't seem to. Here are the buttons arranged in order of usage, based on the amount of wear:

There's no particular reason why it should, as the amount of time I want to heat my food isn't so much related to the actual heating requirements of the food as to the amount of times I feel like getting up and stirring it. Plus a bunch of other reasons. :) Sadly I think the wear patterns are too noisy to work out if the arrangement follows a Zeta distribution.

Wear on buttons can have more serious side effects: Bruce Schneier recently posted about security-code keypads which leak information by showing a pattern of wear on the correct keys.

Handy tips, number 1: Remember to make sure you know where to buy a replacement toilet seat before you remove the incumbent seat and throw it away.

With more than a hint of double entendre, McManus asked: “How many times a day do you actually shake the sauce bottle?”

After a brief pause, Mr Rudd rejoined with: “Not often enough.”

(source)

Iphone 3GS: Finally, a worthy successor to the Apple ][GS!

Thanks to a comment on this page I now know that you can sing Emily Dickinson’s poems to the Gilligan’s Island theme, and that is now the only way I will ever think of them.

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
(More foot-tappin’ stanzas)

Everyone has (been 14 and) giggled at “man touch”, but I like:

man pow
man screen
man 2 write
man strfry

Sadly the last one is Linux only.

The worst joke ever, my previous entry notwithstanding, is this joke recounted by an unnamed Labor guy during the Senate proceedings:

Unnamed Labor guy 1: How do you confuse the opposition over climate change?

Unnamed Labor guy 2: I dunno, ask them about sequestration?

ULG1: No.

ULG2: Err... talk about biochar?

ULG1: Nope.

ULG2: I'm really at a loss here, unnamed Labor guy 1! How do you confuse the opposition over climate change?

ULG1: You don't have to say anything, because they're already confused!

ULG2: *reaction unrecorded*

Honestly, that's hardly even a joke. I'm beginning to suspect that people don't get up during Senate proceedings to tell jokes at all, but instead to make some rhetorical point.

Follow-up to this post.

1. Garlic flakes (or what have you), chili flakes, and pepper.

Actually the bread I use is called “Lebanese bread”. In Australia (at least), Lebanese bread (a.k.a. Syrian bread) is a lot flatter than “pita bread” — it’s totally unleavened. But apparently this isn’t the case everywhere. There is probably a fascinating etymology here that I am too full of delicious pita bread triangles to look into.