As I was fortunate enough to receive, as a birthday present from my bum-chums, a year’s subscription to National Geographic magazine, I will be periodically enlightening you on global issues pertaining to this.

But now, a beef.

While writing about football, the American-slanted journal has gone and called it soccer!! I am outraged!! The editor justifies this by saying that “most of our readers equate ‘football’ with another game, but soccer is always soccer”. What about the billions in the world who call it football? These people should get their head out of their arses. Also, nearly all the letters to the editor are from Americans, with their own peculiar way of looking at the world! Everything they publish is biased towards gas-guzzling, lard-arsed Yanks.

 

It means “Let’s go” in Russian.

This is significant in two ways.

First, tonight we’re all going to Cocotoo for Tracy’s brithday party, after which we will debase ourselves in front of the snobbish crowds of One Central.

Second, there’s an exhibit of Russian space exploration currently on display at Manchester’s Central Library. With Yuri Gagarin’s famous mug holding a dove, Sputnik, interiors of various spacecraft, etc. Photos really worth taking a look at.

Which reminds me of a great song by the Russian patriotic group ‘Любэ’ – ‘Lyube’ remembering love while thanking Gagarin.

 

“Ребята С Нашего Двоpа” – “Lads of our neighbourhood”
От весеннего шyма yстанешь,
И по стаpым пpоyлкам пpойдешь,
И дpyзей своих pядом с собой пpедставишь,
И стyденческий воздyх хлебнешь.

Вечеpок этот дивный, блаженный,
Повтоpяется с каждой весной,
Ой, затянет тебя он беседой дyшевной,
Закачает, как мост подвесной.

Пpипев:
И ты споешь пpо свет в любимом окне,
Пpо звезды, что в тишине над гоpизонтом гоpят
И ты споешь, и тихо клены вздохнyт,
И вновь тебе подпоют pебята с нашего двоpа.
Ла-ла-ла-ла-ла-ла-ла
Ла-ла-ла-ла-ла-ла-ла
Ла-ла-ла-ла-ла-ла-ла ла-ла

И пpипомнятся звyки баяна
Из pаспахнyтых в полночь окон,
Витькy pыжего вспомнишь соседа-бyяна,
И КиpÑŽÑ…y по кличке “Флакон”.

Помнишь, пиво носили в бидоне?
Ох, pyгался на это весь двоp,
И смолили тайком мы с тобой на балконе,
А потом был с отцом pазговоp.

А еще я весне благодаpен,
За Отчизнy, что все же живет.
И за то, что однажды в апpеле Гагаpин
Совеpшил свой высокий полет.

Пpипев:
И ты споешь пpо свет в любимом окне,
Пpо звезды, что в тишине над гоpизонтом гоpят
И ты споешь, и тихо клены вздохнyт,
И вновь тебе подпоют pебята с нашего двоpа.

Here are some choice tidbits:-

This week I had 130 visits with 360 page views. 57% of those are new visitors, 47% returning. (although these figures are based on I.P addresses, not photo I.D.s and D.N.A screening of the visitors)

Visits by Source

Direct- 43%

Google- 38.5%

ISOM- 8.5%

Other- 7%

And the remaining 3% divided between Boudica and Jessy.

Visitors are getting sucked in from Port Alberni on the U.S West coast to Singapore in the East, and from Harnosand, Cajititlan, Ramat Gan, Garlasco, Louki, Boca Raton, Foulmere, Englewood, Wezembeek-Oppem, Leidschendam, Agincourt and Troy, to name a few. 

Alex King is the guy you wanna see for blog styles.

Can’t email this, server’s having problems with hotmail and google here at the library so I’ve put it here.

Not the Joel Coen movie, but a real-life tragedy!!

My sister was on the ‘phone yesterday with the blues. She feels, and I’ve mourned too in the past, that life seems to be estranging the two of us. We have always been a close knit unit, more like identical twins, only where I’m the good-looking, talented, etc. one. In the long-standing tradition of Stoicism, I had semi-resigned myself to this as simply being a fact of life; modern day pressures mean that though communicating has never been faster possible (excluding the time it takes to log-in to e-mail accounts), keeping in touch regularly with all people dear to you is simply not possible. (And I take this opportunity to apologise to every single dear friend who feels disappointed and let-down by my tardiness).

But we’ve made a pact of sorts to keep in touch more often. There used to be a time when I could picture the surroundings/people when she related a story, thus being able to contextualise it. Now that link is lost, and will take awhiles to re-forge.

Although the 50-minute conversation did end on a happier note; I managed to regale her with stories of the notorious doings of Konstantinos Charalampous, Prathap Chandran, and meself in Moscow.

p.s. Funny that, when I search for “Atlantis computing blog” in Google, my blog comes up fourth, with no sight of hers!

Google Analytics is a wonderful tool!! I love to sit back and see my wicked (not in a good way) empire grow and my sticky, gooey web-mucous squirt its way across the globe!!!

Mwahahaha!!!!

It’s Sha’s first day at work today. She’ll be the face of a certain bank company’s branch in Trafford Centre. I hope she doesn’t get caught with her fingers in the till on the first day!!! (Ideally you should wait atleast a week before you take advantage of the “benefits” that don’t get mentioned in the job application pack).

Anybody heard of him? Give me a shout. He’s supposed to be really good with electric bass and laptop, so I’m trying to get something to listen to on t’web.

On the lighter side, apparently there’s a hit-and-run defecator at loose on Britain’s trains. And yes, I was tempted to say “Shit-and-run”.

I want to thank everybody for the good wishes, both thought and sent. I hope to soon find enough time to personally thank each and every one of you (or those who count, at least) but for now here’s my gratitude.

Here. Take it.

Meanwhile, on the topic of World Domination By (Evil) Robots, we have this excerpt from New Scientist.

A “swarm” of simple-minded robots that teams up to move an object too heavy for them to manage individually has been demonstrated by robotics researchers.

The robots cannot communicate and must act only on what they can see around them. They follow simple rules to fulfil their task – mimicking the way insects work together in a swarm.

As any reasonably intelligent person who has watched the movie ‘Virus’ knows, it is only a matter of time before they start self-replicating and mutating and then they’ll make our eyes water!! I’m not an “Alarmist!!!!”, God forbid!!!, but I must say —- “Run for the life-boats!!!!”

Manchester United thrashed Liverpool 2-0 in a game I watched on Sunday with Sha and Paulo after early morning badminton. Liverpool were totally out-classed by a display from ManU that I haven’t seen in a long while. Liverpool is really out of any serious contention for the league title now. Arsenal however, are coming back to flowing form (albeit against Reading) and may be capable of a real fight.

Sha and I are off to Wigan soon. I have an interview with “Britain’s longest-established independent specialist in the field of meter-reading”. I hope I’ll like the place, seeing as how I might have to actually go there everyday to work. Will keep you guys posted. Have had a hectic Monday and Tuesday with the wine a-flowing. Watched Arsenal crash in Moscow, and United and Caltic both triumph over Copenhagen and Benfica with 3-0s. Today is the big day for European football; Chelsea and Barcelona crash.

Ok, I’d better get busy doing some background checks on the company, because I actually am hoping to be their business analyst so it might help if I know what their business is. 

This quote was on my Google page today:

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists.
  – Jean Rostand

And in conjunction with Ioannis’ (or should I say Ioansu) blog on China’s apparent lack of totalitarianness, it makes me reassert that a healty dose of pessimism is absolutely necessary to survive the crap that we are expected to swallow by the media and government.

Sha and I watched ‘City of God’ yesterday. I finally got to see a film I’d been longing to see. And I wasn’t disappointed in the least. An amazing storyline with absolute grittiness and utter believability, I was sucked in to believing I was watching a documentary rather than a film. Fantabulousa!!