There’s a Volvoid sense of security that comes from knowing that, despite all the changes on this site, I am still #7 when you Google for “fucking“.

It would be even better if I hadn’t altered the page to be a forwarding one. I was young, I didn’t know about page ranks then.

(And still #1 if you Google for “kilroy is a cunt“. That’s even better.)

I like how a whole half of sky lights up, and the storm is still at least ten miles away.

There was a tornado warning this morning for an area some way to the north of here.

I find that my writing has become very prosaic.

I’m not sure exactly how this has happened. I think it’s a combination of my media diet and my day to day life.

Addressing the first point first, which seems reasonable, I read a lot more journalism than I used to a few years ago. Very little fiction, almost no poetry. (The last poetry I actually bought and read was some Ted Hughes when I was at university, at least five years ago.) Most of the rest of my reading is documentation and corporate emails.

I also find that, professionally, I have to be able to explain things in a clear, precise and boring manner. Otherwise I get a lot of people asking me stupid questions again and again.

Now, this isn’t all bad; more than once I’ve had people say “that was a really good explanation” or “you just expressed everything I wanted to say but clearer than I could have”, which feels good, I wish people would say it more. But I also wish I could spend more time exploring the other side.

I like to think I have an appreciation of the rhythm of language – in my time moderating boards, I’ve become quite good at identifying people posting under different usernames, because I can sense underlying rhythms in how they express themselves. I spend a lot of my time analysing different aspects of the corporate-speak that I come across, identifying repeated themes, gauging someone’s experience and position by the language they use. I frequently translate emails into the appropriate dialect for other people to give a certain impression. (Corporate-speak is not a single dialect; even within one organisation there are certain differences between emails sent by people at different levels and in different departments.)

Oh okay, I realise the only solution to this is to (a) read more widely and (b) actually try to write something, and keep at it. Well, those are two things I can do.

I’m looking forward to the next NaNoWriMo, though at the time I may be moving back to the UK, which will make things a little difficult. Can’t really advance or postpone that, unless I want to pay off my contract early or live in a hotel for a month.

Incidentally, I just finished reading Jennifer Government, by the guy who produced nationstates.net. The two don’t seem to be that connected. JG is what one might describe as a knockabout satire of free-market capitalism and corporatism, and it’s good fun, though it’s hardly subtle… Snow Crash did the “corporate secession” thing with a lot more wit and detail. The characters are, if not completely flat, certainly rather stereotypical. Still, the plot moves along at a pace – I can see this being made into a film – and it’s a nice comfortable read.

Okay, relating to my “draft” entry a couple of days ago – I did actually check out the sponsors a bit after posting it, and, you know, they’re not Bush supporters, they’re Democrats. So I’m a mindless link propagator, because, while I could pretend that I knew that, I didn’t.

This is why I don’t post links that I get from other blogs very often; they’re quite frequently overblown or misleading. I can only say in my defence that I was a bit drunk at the time.

Now, I think most of the content of my actual post still stands, in that things are being put in motion for a possible draft and I find it hard to believe anyone thinks it’s a good idea. This isn’t the only piece of evidence for this (e.g. draft boards being reinstated) and, if certain theories are correct about this being a Democratic response to a possible draft that eliminates the possibility of the rich fleeing to Canada, that still means they think there might well be a draft. It might simply mean that some Democrats actually do want a draft, though I gather from the reputations of some of the people concerned that this isn’t likely to be the case.

It’s just that this particular link is misleading and doesn’t provide quite the evidence that it is presented to, and I posted it, and I shouldn’t post these stupid political links that spread around the net, partly because they’re frequently bollocks but also because it’s simply a sad thing to do. I’ve said it before, but I fell off the wagon. No more MLP for me. The best way from now on to stop me from posting a link in my main blog – not the sidebar, that’s just any old crap that I happen to have read recently – is to post it in your blog, assuming that I actually read your blog on a regular basis.

I should really not post links as the main components of posts at all. All I was looking for was an excuse to talk about the draft and the fact that any resident could be drafted. I could have done that without a link.

Well, that’s enough “making myself look like a twat” for the moment.

Oh yeah, and this is getting creepy now.

Please explain why my post about a pine tree on top of a water tower gets far by the most comment spam of any of my entries. You won’t see it, because I block and delete them, but it’s just weird. I’ve had three already today. Stop it. Just stop it, it’s freaking me out.

bloody hell, I just got another one after posting this

Oh yeah, I said I was going to make an “overall impression” post on the DiMAGE Xg. So. Uh.

I took a sample picture at 3MP highest quality this morning but I can’t be arsed putting it up here – I posted it on my Geocities “don’t have to pay for data transfer and space” site:

Sample image from Minolta DiMAGE Xg

It’s a little dark but that’s not the camera’s fault.

This isn’t a structured review. I’ll just post up a few things about it.

» Continue reading “a thing about the DiMAGE”

I missed the President’s speech on TV!

Oh well, it doesn’t look like he actually said anything. We will be handing over control to someone on June 30, doesn’t really matter who since we’ll still be running the place anyway. We’ll make everything safe and get all those countries around the world who don’t want to, to help. Somehow. We’ll “urge” national elections. Hmm. There was the bit about demolishing Abu Ghraib and building a new prison (presumably privately-run), I suppose that’s pretty definite, but it’s not really that important now, is it?

Watching it would just have made me angry, anyway.

Okay, here are some of the cute noises the DiMAGE Xg makes.

• camera on
• camera off
• shutter noise
• focus noise then shutter
• deleting a file

Obviously, I have the sound completely turned off. Voyeurism and industrial espionage just aren’t much fun when your camera goes “bliWEA”. Well, they’re more eventful, but less productive.

I’ve started playing Animal Crossing again, in the hope that the tedium will make my real life look more interesting, or at least inspire me to dig up fossils and sell them to a raccoon.

True to form, one of the inhabitants of the town this time is a penguin.

(If anyone knows a way to transfer a save file onto a different card I’d appreciate it, because it won’t let you save the game on a card that wasn’t the one with the game you loaded on it, and the Cube’s card manager stops you copying the file onto another card for reasons which escape me.)

While I was sitting here typing this, the left lens of my glasses suddenly popped out with a “bink” and fell onto the carpet. Pardon? I had to get onto my hands and knees and sweep the floor with my palms to find it again, then fix things with a set of computer screwdrivers.

Looking at the bills relating to the draft, which appears to be planned for Spring 2005, I see that I am exempt:

Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward this year, entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, “to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.” These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services.

Not exempt because I am not a citizen, you understand, but because I am not a young person. The above makes no mention of citizenship status and explicitly includes women. My dad told me the story of a friend of his who practiced as a doctor in the US during Vietnam and faced being drafted, even though he wasn’t a citizen; apparently he fled, reasonably enough, and had to negotiate after the war to be let back in.

There appears to be growing evidence that a draft is planned, something that falls under the category of “they’re not really going to do something that stupid, are they?” for me. A draft would be catastrophic domestically. If there’s a better way of saying “yes, this is a bit like Vietnam actually” I’m not sure what it is, and the number of people who actually believe invading Iraq has anything to do with defending the US (even if they’re not bothered enough about it to say anything) and are prepared to risk their lives over the issue is surely vanishingly small.

It’s all very well to argue the toss on the internet over whether deposing Hussein was a good idea for the region, but when it comes down to the question of getting your head blown off in Fallujah, the “global war on terror” becomes a lot less abstract.

Pollster: Do you support the President’s decision to send troops to Iraq?
Pollee: Sure, I guess, Saddam was a bad guy, right?
Pollster: So you’d be quite happy about being drafted then? They’re coming to this area next, I hear.
Pollee: Hell no! Where are the WMDs, Bush? No blood for oil!

I’ve been saying “they’ll never do that, it would be so incredibly unpopular it could bring down the government” for a while but I have to face the fact that it appears that they are seriously considering doing it. It’s not like things are going to get better for the US in Iraq in the near future, and it’s not like the US is really going to leave and never come back, certainly not if Bush wins and quite possibly not if Kerry wins either.

I don’t know, I was making the prediction based on the issue of political self-interest, judging that I could rely on that being of primary importance. I really don’t see how a draft could be justified to the public, that justification believed and mass civil unrest not be the result. I can see how they thought that they could get away with invading Iraq, risky but potentially very profitable, and they still might – wouldn’t be the first unprovoked war of aggression that’s been painted as a “police action” in even the last couple of decades. Or the second. Or the third. But the draft as well?

Still, I’m sure they won’t attack Iran or Syria. That would be crazy. They’d never do that.

-

P.S. I like that last clause in the quote: “in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes“. So you can’t get out of it by saying “well, I wouldn’t mind if this was to defend the nation, but it isn’t, is it?” In fact, if you were drafted into the 2nd Ann Coulter Brigade for the express purpose of executing all liberals for treason, you wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.

-

P.P.S. Confirmation that, were I to be of the right age, I’d be subject to the draft on this page, second paragraph. Though I imagine I would fail an examination for “mental, physical and moral fitness”, given that I am a baby-eating prevert who believes in dope, guns and fucking on the streets.

-

See this entry for a little clarification on the above link.