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27 july jaded but cultured... the christchurch arts festival is on here at the moment and thanks to rockeys involvement with the management of the event i have been privileged enough to have seen four of the productions on offer, including the clinics new show -the peculiar case of clara parsons-... very cool... last night we went to see -the flight of the concords- who describe themselves as -wellingtons fourth most popular folk parody duo-... their performance is a kinda weird combination of standup comedy and parody songs accompanied by guitar... but these guys are funny... hilarious infact... by the time their act had finished i was sore from laughing... if you get the chance to see these guys dont miss it... the only downside to all this culture has been the fact that it has been far to easy to make a big night of it... what with the free local producers gigs on at the pavilion in vic square and rockeys contacts galore and unstoppable nature... so ive spent far too many nights out until the wee and not so wee hours of the morning recently... and now im really tired... that is all... 19 july stayed in bed for most of the day today cos the weather was pants and i didnt really have anything to do anyway... i couldnt even pretend that i needed to go in to school and do some work cos my project is at a standstill at the moment... im waiting on some pcr primers (little bits of dna) that are coming from the states and are only -three- weeks overdue now... delivery was supposed to be in six working days (allowing me to neatly time their -arrival- with when they were needed) however i have since found out that the -guaranteed- delivery time doesnt apply if the shipment is -lost in transit-... go figure... a fully insured (~$2500) and traceable air courier package completely vanishing... they dont even know how far it got... and i only managed to get them to admit it was lost at the start of the week... somewhat frustrating... without these things i literally cant go any further with my thesis project so i have pretty much been sitting round twiddling my thumbs for most of the last month... but all going well they will be here this week so i can get started on this huge chunk of work that i need to have done by november... when i get to spend a month in melbourne!!! 15 july i have a new found respect for my computer... this has come to me after an incident in which some coca cola and my laptop happened to occupy the same space for a very brief period of time on saturday afternoon... the laptop reacted by refusing to do anything... at all... interestingly, the coke remained delicious... needless to say a very stressed 24 hours followed during which various parts of my computer were disassembled, cleaned, dryed and reassembled in varying sequence and arrangement... i was convinced that i had completely fried my poor laptop... but the computer-geek gods were smiling on me... sunday morning saw my computer spark into life and begin to do all the things that it should... i now have a fully functioning (apparently) computer again. ive been informed by a number of people who know about these things that i am a very lucky boy... i have yet to decide what course of action to take concerning the coke involved but am considering giving it up... (no im serious... really) i would like to think that im not a slave to the technology... but this experience has shown me just how lost i would be without my computer and all the information it contains... the moral is that coke and computers start with the same two letters but should always follow different trajectories... (in my defence the amount of coke involved was minimal and none of it actually went on top of the computer... it seems that a very small amount wicked up into the case from underneath... crazy) 10 july comments!!! i finally have a comments page... who will be the first to leave a message... i managed to find a remote cgi host that would let me define page style but didnt have on-page banner adds... unfortunately there are popup adds (which should only -popup- once) but thats what you get when youre doing things on the cheap (read: free)... 06 july i like snow... i like watching snow fall... i like seeing it settle on the ground... i like watching it melt... i like throwing it... i like driving in it... i like walking in it... i like skiing on it... i like snow-dags on the cuffs of your pants... i like that it is white... i even like scraping it of my windscreen... i just plain like it... there is just something quite special about being out in the falling snow... it would be a pretty disappointing christchurch winter if we didnt see at least a little snow here in the city... the last couple of days have treated me to a -lot-... so maybe... just maybe... we will get a decent ski season this year... and perhaps i will just have to make time for a few (or many) days on the slopes... 02 july huge big congratulations to paul and his bandmates from -my dad bill- who just won the first heat of the rdu roundup (bands comp)... placing them in the semifinals early next month!!! it was the first time i have seen these guys live and in my humble and completely unbiased opinion, they totally out-classed the opposition tonight... wicked -my dad bill- have a track a-play-listed on rdu at the moment but if you cant pick up rdu you can check out their latest tracks on pauls website... watch these guys... theyre going places... 29 june i opened a savings account on thursday... so look out world im coming to visit... i figure ive got a year to save up as much dosh as i can to blow on travel when ive finished this phd dealy of mine... theoretically speaking, saving up shouldnt really be that difficult for me since im gonna be -working so hard- on getting my phd finished that i wont have any time to be spending extra money... but well see... 24 june well i guess thats one kinda roundabout way of finding out what the track is... i was sent an email this evening by jo eaton (now scovell -!!-), who had stumbled upon the site, saying that the track is called -rabbit in your headlights- and is actually by u.n.k.l.e (james lavelle and dj shadow of mo' wax records) featuring thom yorke... which kinda makes sense now that i think about it... so thanks for that jo!!! im actually quite surprised at how much feedback i have had since updating over the last couple of days... i dont think i really expected people to -actually- visit... so thanks for the support yall.. by special request i have put a link to the clinics web site up for rockey... its a cool site... go have a look... 23 june jed is a legend... a couple of weeks ago i rediscovered a cd compilation that he made for me years ago of a whole lot of old radiohead and thom yorke b-sides and tidbits that i dont own... not surprisingly, this cd got top play-time from me at the time... but as these things seem to go, after a while the cd went mysteriously missing. well it turned up... and in the most unexpected place... amoungst all my other cds... would you believe it... so needless to say ive been playing it non stop ever since... and every time i play it this one track jumps out at me... i dont know what its called or where it comes from but it is a piece of pure radiohead genius... not driven by thoms voice but more by the beat and this huge crescendo that lasts for most of the track... anyway the point is that i thought i would share it with you... so here it is... 22 june wow over week since i have updated anything... well it is all still changing but i think that i have accepted that thats just the way its going to be. i have redone the italy photos -again-... so now they fit in to my super modular design... i had to reduce the size of the upright photos significantly but i think it has all come up millhouse in the end. it was the shortest day of the year yesterday (im pretty sure) and damn has it been cold here. i was watching dvds at mikes place last night (cape fear - very cool) and when i left at about midnight my car had iced up already... now we arent talking just your standard run of the mill christchurch-night-frost here... what i had was sizeable droplets of ice all over my car which wouldnt budge from my windscreen even when dealt to by the trusty 2000 u-card that i keep handy just for such occasions... there was a point to this story but i forget what it was... 13 june black friday... but it hasnt been very black. well im finally happy with how the site looks... you got your frame divider and your page spacer... you got your absolute center allignment (check it out... change the size of the browser window)... so its friday night and im sitting playing code-jockey... but as if to prove that im really -not- a complete geek im off out... see ya tomorrow is a day... 12 june new banner... nice. i should stop faffing around with the layout and post some new content... hey rockey!!! 8 june 2003 'well' i thought 'mike, you might as well redo those italy photos... whats the point of having a format if you dont keep to it...' but i swear it will be the last time i touch them. it has taken me all day to get them up and running properly. ive played round with some new styles too... big thanks to scott for the quick tutorial... i bought a new jersey yesterday and its really nice and warm... coming soon: some new content.... how about that 5 june 2003 web design... funny thing... you never know how it will turn out till you get there and decide that what you really wanted was something almost entirely different to what you have created. but here it is... finally... a format that im happy with. at least for a little while... friends have told me that frames are evil and they may well be. perhaps ill end up agreeing, but i like the concept, and besides these are inline-frames which were recommended to me by www herself in her infinte wisdom im not going to update my italy photo album to bring it in line with this format cos it seems too much like hard work and i spend too much time thinking about this site already... have a look round may... sometime... 2003 n-other-home, the web home of one mike griffin is finally live. this is actually due in the most part to pressure from certain quarters for a look at photos from my recent trip to italy. of course, i'm far too lazy to get my perpetually half built web site posted of my own volition. but you know what they say - an excuse is as good as a kick in the pants... the rest of the site is completely bare cos i havent finished all the things that are supposed to go there yet. things will be steadily added... i promise... |