August 01, 2006
The Ultimate Sportsdrink
I can't stand it. The first thing I heard on the radio this morning was some sqeaky American slurring that coconut milk, drunk from a coconut, is the latest trend in New York. "Eh, like yeah, you know, the ultimate...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 12:56 PM |
Read Comments (0)
July 11, 2006
The Coleman Epsilon 2 Tent: A Preliminary Review
Do you remember the old joke about the swing designed by a committee? It ends up with the swing dangling in the centre of a tree with the trunk suspended above it by scaffolding. All the customer wanted was an...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 05:15 PM |
Read Comments (0)
June 07, 2006
Online banking
The Bank of Scotland is driving me crazy. When I registered for online banking (essential for overseas travel), they failed to provide me with a username—presumably because I'm not a BT Broadband/Internet Explorer clone. Two months later, I went to...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 05:12 PM |
Read Comments (0)
June 04, 2006
Citizenship Pipedreams cont.
I mulled it over and thought that, yes, perhaps I should obtain British citizenship before our 20th wedding anniversary. BUT... ...not only would I still have to swear allegience to the Queen (what is the point of a monarchy in...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 03:59 PM |
Read Comments (0)
June 02, 2006
Hen's Teeth
I must confess I still haven't booked my flights to Prague, but this is because I'd rather book our flights to Morocco first, as soon as possible, in fact. This year, Eid falls on New Years Eve—and we are invited...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 11:31 AM |
Read Comments (0)
May 26, 2006
Citizenship pipedreams
By autum of next year, I will have lived in Great Britain for twenty years and been married for nineteen of them. Every now and then, my thoughts turn to adopting British citizenship—particularly with view of any future possible medical...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 12:03 PM |
Read Comments (0)
May 04, 2006
Current State of Affairs
It's gone quiet on this blog, I know. I simply don't feel like writing up my Indonesia experiences at the moment. There have been some developments on the insurance claim. At long last, the Internal Dispute Resolution Committee is looking...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:46 PM |
Read Comments (0)
September 29, 2005
US shipping
BTW, having a really ancient, out-dated PDA such as the Palm m125 can have its advantages. I just saw the PalmPak ebook series SciFi edition on offer at Amazon.com for a mere 88 cents (and that is for a pre-loaded...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 10:55 AM |
Read Comments (0)
July 06, 2005
London scoops Olympic bid
Ohmygod! —Should I laugh or should I cry... Great promises have been made to the denizens of the neglected wastelands of East London, but I can already see the greed glinting in people's eyes. I guess we can forget about...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 02:28 PM |
Read Comments (0)
G8 rant
What is the matter with the G8 protesters? Don't they know where Gleneagles is? Now they are rioting in Stirling of all places. Doubtlessly, they have made Sheriff Wyllie Robertson's day—finally he gets to fill up his jails—but some of...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 02:04 PM |
Read Comments (0)
July 03, 2005
How American are you?
Not very, but apparently still more so than some... You Are 23% AmericanYou're as American as Key Lime Tofu Pie Otherwise known as un-American! You belong in Cairo or Paris... Get out fast - before you end up in Gitmo!...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 02:57 PM |
Read Comments (0)
June 24, 2005
Guts no Gusto
John has said that he doesn't like chitlings. I don't get it. Sure, the dish wasn't as delicate as the one we had in Taiwan, but it wasn't cooked wrong—that is the way they taste! But if it means an...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 10:54 AM |
Read Comments (0)
June 23, 2005
Dreams
The loss of The Nervous Breakdown Manual is extremely upsetting. Over the past five months it has been a therapeutical tool with which I have tried to understand what happened in the 3½ years between April 2001 and the end...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 10:11 AM |
Read Comments (0)
June 22, 2005
How are we led astray? or: The R&D Game
You have an idea, formulate a hypothesis and write a grant proposal. Because you have to sell yourself (the timid don't get funding) you make great predictions. Pharma latches onto it because it sounds promising ("Wow, if that is true,...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 10:16 AM |
Read Comments (0)
May 29, 2005
Colours and Culture
How is this for a travel-related research project? Paul Kay from the International Computer Science Institute in Berkley, California examined data from no fewer than 110 different cultures around the world, all with unwritten languages. Representatives from each were asked...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 03:40 PM |
Read Comments (0)
May 23, 2005
The Laotian 'puzzle mouse'
Scientists have made a stunning discovery on a food market in Laos. According to this week's New Scientist (21 May 2005, p. 18), what Robert Timmins from the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York spotted next to a pile of vegetables...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:09 PM |
Read Comments (0)
May 16, 2005
The Sudoku Craze
The country is in the grip of a craze. Everywhere—on the tube and trains in cafés and at home—people are obsessively filling in grids with the numbers 1-9 in each column, row and 3x3 square. I first came across one...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 06:32 PM |
Read Comments (0)
April 24, 2005
Blogging break
Looks like I'm not going to post here for a while. I'm currently caught up with other projects and travel isn't one of them. I haven't been on the boards for ages, nor followed my favourite bloggers (and, gosh, there...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 03:01 PM |
Read Comments (0)
April 17, 2005
Loser's London
<rant> Thatcher used to say that anyone over thirty still taking the bus, is a loser. I think anyone over 40 who can't afford to live in the capital is definitely a loser. Coming to London for the writer's group...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 08:31 PM |
Read Comments (0)
April 15, 2005
Story finished
Phew, the first draft of my first ever SF story is finished. It only took two months...and without John's help I couldn't have done it. And the writer's group meeting is tomorrow. They have reluctantly accepted my attendance and send...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 04:06 PM |
Read Comments (0)
April 10, 2005
We're in the money!
John's inheritance money has arrived! While most of it will be invested (and some is sadly needed to make up the shortfall resulting from John's artificially low salary this year), he has promised me the funds to go on a...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 03:48 PM |
Read Comments (0)
April 05, 2005
Open Access Biology
It looks like the Open Access movement is winning. Slowly but surely. —Finally! A lot of (former) students will have shared the frustration of not finding an important article in the library. In my postgrad years, I have spent a...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 06:13 PM |
Read Comments (0)
April 04, 2005
The Future Revisited
In the 'summations' at the start of his annual 'best of' SF anthologies, the editor Gardner Dozois repeatedly comments that many critics, readers and even writers lament the 'death of SF' (he then goes on to show them how wrong...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 04:51 PM |
Read Comments (0)
March 30, 2005
Brief Intermission
I'm behind with this blog because something for the other one has caught my attention: The Mood Virus (!) Sounds like a good idea for an SF story, doesn't it? But this is because it has been done to death....Read this update
Posted by Denni at 11:08 AM |
Read Comments (0)
March 20, 2005
Healthy School Dinners
You can tell that an election is looming when the Prime Minister, no less, is quick to back a campaign that school dinners be made healthier and food cooked freshly. Such campaigns have been around for years, but thanks to...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 05:56 PM |
Read Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
More Alien Foodstuffs
At this rate, I think that the types of food that I'll encounter on my prospective SE Asia trip will be mundane... Tonight I am going to make a noodle and veg stir-fry to go with some leftover slow-roasted five...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:49 PM |
Read Comments (0)
March 11, 2005
Random talk
(about SF): me: "...strong AI is self-aware AI, obviously. You've got the weak stuff already!" John: "And how do you know it's self-aware?" me: "I don't know. Run a Turing test or something. —Well, you can be pretty sure the...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 02:34 PM |
Read Comments (0)
Intolerance
I have a strong desire to leave the country—as in emigrate. There is a sour taste of intolerance in the air and with the general election coming up I can't be sure which of the two big parties are the...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 02:27 PM |
Read Comments (0)
February 24, 2005
Trip delayed
My planned Asia trip has been delayed by at least a month. At first I was relieved as I thought I had become bogged down with other projects, but this isn't actually the case. My writing has stalled for the...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:07 PM |
Read Comments (0)
February 13, 2005
SciFi Ramblings
It has gone a little quiet on this blog—my apologies. But the truth is that nothing much is going on until I leave for the trip in six weeks or so. In the meantime, I do a little scribbling here-and-there...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 06:45 PM |
Read Comments (0)
January 13, 2005
Time for another Tobacco Run
Soon it will be time for another tobacco-run. It is amazing where you can fly to with EasyJet these days. The whole of Europe is opening up. Fifty quid will get you to Slovakia—or I could go to Prague for...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:39 PM |
Read Comments (0)
January 05, 2005
To Toil or to Travel?
I know, this should be a no-brainer. But my original plan was to find some part-time work and save up for a trip later in the year. However, it turns out that jobs in the village are thin on the...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 10:01 PM |
Read Comments (0)
December 05, 2004
Blogger's Block
I've got Blogger's Block. The stress of the imminent move is getting to me. We have not yet found a flat—or rather we have but the landlady is away so we don't know if we'll get it (and it is...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 06:44 PM |
Read Comments (0)
December 01, 2004
Winter's coming
My body clock is all shot: here in Scotland it gets dark over two hours earlier than in Portugal! That is on a clear day. Today it is sunny but at two in the afternoon, the sun has already sunk...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 06:52 PM |
Read Comments (0)
November 30, 2004
Back on the Blog
It is amazing what two weeks away from home can do... Two weeks in which I haven't seen the news, besides glimpses on TVs in cafés and bars. From those, I'm pretty much up-to-date with recent transfers of various football...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 08:51 PM |
Read Comments (0)
October 26, 2004
John Peel dead
While I am sitting at the computer, radio one usually plays in the background. I am still dumbfounded by the news I heard. The legendary radio DJ and Godlike Genius John Peel is dead. Along with millions of listeners all...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:59 PM |
Read Comments (1)
October 08, 2004
Off to Portugal
Landround Travel have sent a letter after they could not reach me by phone. When I called back they just wanted to confirm my first choice of destination and date for my complementary flight to Europe -- no hard sell...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 06:06 PM |
Read Comments (0)
July 01, 2004
Internet Access in Ard
So my departure to ARD is imminent. Tomorrow in fact. Three months of whalewatching! Life is hard... I have translated and uploaded my entire African Journal to edit at leisure (plenty to do on rainy days) but I cannot promise...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 08:32 PM |
Read Comments (0)
June 28, 2004
Spam attack/comments
Chris has dealt with the spam that has recently appeared as "comments" in this blog. Thanks Chris. Please place your comments under more recent entries, even if they relate to older stuff, because the old entries will automatically be blocked...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:36 PM |
Read Comments (0)
June 22, 2004
Well done England
After all that ranting against English flag waving, why am I so happy about yesterday's game? It is true, I am chuffed. Well done England! Especially the boy-wonder Rooney. I've got to go to the library today, it is my...Read this update
Posted by Denni at 01:11 PM |
Read Comments (0)
June 02, 2004
Not much to blog about...
There isn't much to blog about in the next two weeks. The summer is up to a slow start. Even Ken from the Alba Re-inactment and Clan Heritage Trust says it is the slowest season he has experienced so far....Read this update
Posted by Denni at 07:17 PM |
Read Comments (0)
May 29, 2004
My best and worst restaurant meal
Three weeks until the start of summer. Time to make plans for our wedding anniversary. It is a big one this year, our fifteenth. Time stands still for no-one......Read this update
Posted by Denni at 05:42 PM |
Read Comments (2)