18 September 2001
These should not be forgotten years
I'm still around, just busy with my new job. I'm online editor of a medical newspaper, which means I work as a news journalist all day and juggle a bit of site development. Returning to full-time work is always a personal battle, trying to face your demons while slaving politely for the artificial reality that is capitalism, wondering why everyone else is so much better at pretending to love it :)

Witnessed the World Trade Centre disaster live on TV and experienced all the symptoms of shock afterwards. "Our sons need never be soldiers / Our daughters will never need guns / These are the years between / These are the years that were hard fought and won." Starts to feel like a historical song, rather than of the present.

It's nice to have this basic site that can be updated without doing a total revamp. None of those "I'm making a new Web site" promises any more! You hear from me when you do, and nothing more.

11 August 2001
Needs work
Dodgy chapter. Difficult short story.

Fact: The code red virus warnings are part of an ongoing campaign by the new US presidential regime to make China look bad and benefit the US defense industry. Seriously, would a Chinese person make a virus that posted "Hacked by Chinese" all over the Net?

You can't "slow down the Internet", only pockets of it. While the BBC reported that the earlier US communication problems attributed to Code Red was found to have been caused by a tunnel fire which knocked out some vital cabling, Netscape's news service used these subliminal messages:
and

It's amazing how easily you can blind the media with science. They don't understand viruses or hackers, so they report it as gospel. You will now see "... and threatening the Internet with viruses" on the list of China's alleged misdemeanours whenever Bush needs to justify his aggression.

3 August 2001
Where credit's due
So much for online shopping! These guys want photocopies of my driver's license and credit card faxed to them with a signed letter, just so I can buy something from their site using my Visa card. Until I do, my order (a memory upgrade) is "delayed". Which is a bit crap as I don't currently have a fax or a photocopier and I selected 48 hour courier delivery.
It's also a bit disconcerting to give them so much info. I thought the whole point of online ordering was convenience and simplicity?!

23 July 2001
Tax sucks
Added a page of feedback about A Cycle Tour of Scotland which I'm thinking about rewriting as a magazine article.

Doing a lot of "sorting out my life" stuff. Tax, more tax, change-of-address notifications, tax, etc.

16 July 2001
A bicycle ride
How does this sound? Wholegrain porridge with honey for breakfast, one-hour of leisurely hill-climbing on a bicycle in the evening. Might get fit again.
To tell you the truth, I missed milk, so from now on breakfast is porridge plus a glass of organic snowy mountains milk. End result is still cheaper than a bowl of Kellog's.

I watched Big Brother last night. Not really my cup of tea, but Richard (my cousin) said the British version came good in the end. The whole Sara-Marie thing was kinda cool, but Gretel Killeen the host is hugely uncool. I pick Ben.

14 July 2001
Lunchtime
I've added a vast amount of stories written for Newswire (former employer) to the writing section. They are in raw form from the Newswire database, to give prospective employers something to browse.

13 July 2001
The banks they're like cathedrals,
I guess casinos took their place - U2
Another Friday 13th? We seem to be having a lot of those lately. A solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse, Mars snuggling up to Earth.
Did you ever get well after a bout of 'flu and suddenly crave pizza? I'm like that at the moment, except the illness was depression and I feel like writing. Although pizza and a bottle of red wine would work.

11 July 2001
peex
Looking through old stuff on my sites. I still like this pic of Alan Jones, a heartless right-wing talkback host in Australia.

And this one of Dubya.

And how he got elected.

10 July 2001
Fresh sun
Found this today. I wrote it a few months ago.
Today the sun was fresh. The air hung softly on the ground. I rose to sit among the dust while anger fell.