The moving finger rants

The Waters of Mars

2009-11-15T20:22:00Z

Patchy, and there were bits that I could have done better, but it improved greatly about half way through.

Method acting? What's that?

Lindsay Duncan has apparently stolen Frances de la Tour. I seem to be okay with this.

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In which pajh suffers an existential crisis

2009-11-11T21:41:10Z

Buggeration. It turns out that there already is a Paul Hamilton, he works for the RSC and is thus more successful and handsome than I, and naturally he's Equity-registered. So I'm not allowed to use my name for professional, performance-related purposes.

Insisting on the A J isn't enough, apparently. The rules have changed since Russell T. Davies or Richard E. Grant. This is Annoying. I don't even like the bloody name—my mother chose it—but the one thing I've always been most successful at was being Paul A J Hamilton, and now I'm not allowed to do that any more.

I need a new name. It's not going to be an issue until someone starts paying me for work, but I suspect it's better to start sooner rather than later.

~~From now on I want you all to refer to me as Loretta.~~ I can pretty much guarantee that Pajhy McCloakGuy isn't taken.

I'm thinking about dusting off an old roleplaying character, but he's not likely to have sufficient Google presence. George Ominokouhai? Ian Spector Fuckup?

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I'm Lord frickin Byron, bitches

2009-10-09T01:16:26Z

I was awesomesauce bottled tonight. Gods, but I've missed the stage.

And now, a gift for my loyal readers: your very own pajh-inna-box. Go to cereproc.com, and select William (Southern English) from the Live Demo list in the topbar (requires Flash). You can make me say anything you like. If you make me say anything nice about David Cameron, I will find you and kill you.

scattergather is already finding it useful for phrases like please drink my booze, I do not want it.

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On the perils of Scottish living

2009-10-03T10:38:48Z

Gale force winds forecast today, up to 60 knots.

What a fucking day to be wearing a skirt.

This entry was originally posted at http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/193748.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Sent

2009-09-26T00:05:40Z

To: tycho@penny-arcade.com
From: [me]
Subject:Seasonal microbrews, brigand

Dear Jerry/Tycho

I've enjoyed reading PA for many years, but today's comic was a stroke of pure genius that struck a chord deep within my very soul.

I hereby unconditionally offer you my firstborn.

All the best,

pajh

They're my lungs [their title, not mine]

Sirs,

Sheila Duffy of ASH Scotland witters interminably about the already well-known dangers of smoking (Opinion, 23 September), with cherry-picked statistics about the cost of smoking to the NHS. She neglects to mention that tobacco tax revenue far outstrips this figure and provides plenty of extra money left over to pay for the generous government grants that make up her salary. [sources: http://tinyurl.com/lvbm37, http://tinyurl.com/m2z8pk]

The simple fact of the matter is this: at no time in the last fifty years has a rational human being in the western hemisphere, whether adult or child, ever read the Surgeon General's warning, smacked their forehead in despair and cried to the heavens that they should have been told before. We all know what smoking does to us and some of us still choose to do it, and the figures show clearly that we more than adequately cover the social costs of our choice. It is not within the Government's remit to tell us what we can do in the privacy of our own lungs, and is certainly not up to interfering busybodies like Sheila Duffy and ASH.

Fact is it's got precisely fuck-all to do with the dangers of smoking to the individual, and it's got even less to do with somebody please thinking of the chiiildrun. It's got everything to do with the fact that Sheila Duffy personally doesn't like the fact that some people smoke.

I am glad to live in a world in which Sheila Duffy doesn't get to tell me what to do.

This entry was originally posted at http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/193517.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

On undignified introductions

2009-09-22T21:59:43Z

This evening was the first time—and the last, I hope—that I'll ever have to say Hello, you must be my daughter.

This entry was originally posted at http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/193268.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

All this has happened before, all this will happen again

2009-09-20T23:38:34Z

TRAPPED IN PEEBLES STOP SEND HELP STOP

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On overnight success

2009-08-19T11:41:15Z

People are totally willing to pay me real money to talk into a microphone.

Form an orderly queue, ladies, there's enough pajh to go around.

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Calling all right-thinking Edinburgh people

2009-08-03T18:46:28Z

Spike Milligan's Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall at the Lyceum, early part of October.

Who's going?

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Who could live without it? I ask in all honesty

2009-07-18T19:38:51Z

Random guy in queue in Scotmid: Thank you for the cookery.

I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly.

This entry was originally posted at http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/191856.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Schadenfreude, samizdata, and schmoozing

2009-06-23T17:57:26Z

The EHRC has requested that the BNP comply with the Race Relations Act. Well, I'm glad that's all been sorted out. What would we do without the EHRC to defeat fascism for us?

Following this moderately amusing exchange in recent Scotsman letters pages—which, for once, I had nothing to do with—comes the story of Larry W. Peterman, acquitted on pornography charges because of the records of what everyone else in the community was watching at the time. Further information in the New York Times. I love it when stuff like this happens: there are fewer dirty secrets, and the secrets that are left don't stay dirty when we know that everyone has a handful of harmless ones. The unbounded accessibility of information makes us all a bit more equal.

Related: via miss_s_b's random squeezings comes tyrell's insightful post: There is no more plausible deniability in the world. It's harrowing to hear of Neda Soltani's death, but the ray of hope is this: it can't be long before despots realise that they can't get away with this shit any more. If the state-sponsored murder of an Iranian woman doesn't hit your personal buttons, then remember Ian Tomlinson. That which affects Iran affects us all.

They've got guns and sticks, but we've got the Internet. The panopticon works both ways.

Next: find some way to empower the dissemination of information on tyranny such that that it will actually stop tyrants doing it.

I'm going to the Actor Expo tradeshow on Saturday. I'm not entirely sure what one's supposed to do there, but I've signed up for a couple of seminars, including How to make it big in Hollywood, from which I'm hoping that some generalized non-Hollywood-specific information can be extrapolated. If it turns out to be an hour on how to get a US visa I'm going to be disappointed.

Typically, neither my headshots nor my business cards are likely to be ready until after the expo. Oh well.

This entry was originally posted at http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/191632.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I have a Bacon Number of 4

2009-06-20T14:44:52Z

I was in Macbeth with Ailidh Mackay
who was in Atonement with Keira Knightley (mmm)
who was in Love Actually with Colin Firth
who was in Where the Truth Lies with Kevin Bacon.

Anyone out there got an Erdos number, and if so, can we co-author something?

This entry was originally posted at http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/191138.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Happy Birthday, Mrs Rommel

2009-06-06T18:51:20Z

Today is the anniversary of 1944. People did different things then, such as storming beaches to defend humanity from fascism so you wouldn't have to. Remember that the next time you see the BNP claiming legitimacy on a ballot paper.

Tonight I raise a glass to those 175,000 men braver than I.

~

I have decided upon my new life goal. I shall design and build miniature bridges to allow waterfowl to cross roads in safety. I shall call my invention the `duckqueduct'.

This entry was originally posted at http://gominokouhai.dreamwidth.org/190769.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Mostly about Babbage

2009-06-06T12:41:44Z

Lovelace and Babbage!

Starring: Ada Lovelace!

And Charles Babbage!

This is quite possibly the best thing ever. And the artist claims that she's not doing a comic. I need all of you to email her and tell her how many copies you'd buy, and convince her otherwise.

The old music piracy debate has resurfaced, after Dr Ben's excellent piece in which the government lies, and lies, and lies. I think we can all agree by now that piracy is not theft, since theft is intent to permanently deprive the owner of goods or chattels and I can't steal something from you if you still have it when I've finished. Shakespeare understood this. And yet, Greg Pye still protests:

But, in any reasonable context, giving something to someone that they would otherwise have to buy sure looks like theft. You can try and dress it up by talking about gouging by record companies, new technology or most erroneously `failing business models' – but if it was applied to something like groceries then it would be seen as stealing, and I simply don’t see why it is any different.

Groceries? So if I grow basil on my windowsill, I'm stealing from Tescos now? Since when do grocery stores have a monopoly on grocery provision?

Sharing is a social activity; it's how we communicate. Communication is what makes us human. Terry Pratchett understands this. I can appreciate that there can be such a thing as too much sharing, but the people who are trying to monetize every single instance of information sharing are trying to turn us into consumers first, and people second. That's morally repugnant, and as far as I'm concerned the theft of what amounts to our essential humanity is far worse than a wee bit of intent to deprive the owner of goods or chattels.

We're already in a post-scarcity economy where information is concerned. It's possible that we always were. It's the rest of the world that has to catch up. Babbage understood this:

It is always advantageous for a traveller to carry with him anything of use in science or in art if it is of a portable nature, and still more so if it has also the advantage of novelty. At the time I started on a lengthened tour the stomach-pump had just been invented. It appeared to give promise of great utility. I therefore arranged in a small box the parts of an instrument which could be employed either as a syringe, a stomach-pump, or for cupping. As a stomach- pump, it was in great request from its novelty and utility. I had many applications for permission to make drawings of it, to which I always most willingly acceded. At Munich, Dr. Weisbrod, the king's physician, was greatly interested with it, and at his wish I lent it to the chief surgical instrument-maker who produced for him an exact copy of the whole apparatus.

Having visited the Thames Tunnel a day or two before I started for the Continent, I purchased a dozen copies of the very lucid account of that most interesting work. Six of the copies were in French and the other six in the German language. I frequently lent a copy, and upon some occasions I gave one away ; but if I had had twice that number I should have found that I might have distributed them with advantage as acknowledgments of the many attentions I received.

Charles Babbage believed that information should be free. And you don't mess with Charles Babbage. He invented the Winnebago.

I had built for me at Vienna, from my own design, a strong light four-wheeled calèche in which I could sleep at full length. Amongst its conveniences were a lamp by which I occasionally boiled an egg or cooked my breakfast. A large shallow drawer in which might be placed, without folding, plans, drawings, and dress-coats. Small pockets for the various kinds of money, a larger one for travelling books and telescopes, and many other conveniences. It cost somewhat about sixty pounds.

There was also the minor matter of the invention of mechanical computation. You do not mess with Charles Babbage.

Off to the West Coast for the weekend. I need a holiday.

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I've got Euro Election fever, Ted

2009-06-03T21:47:07Z

Jason Rust, Scottish Conservative Candidate for Edinburgh South West, has sent me a nice letter indicating that he looks forward to working with me in the future. Bear in mind that the elections haven't happened yet. Say what you like about the Tories, but they're not backward about coming forward.

The letter includes a nice headshot of Jason Rust MP. Tell me: have these two men ever been seen together?

Jason Rust MP

Alan Partridge

I think we should be told.

A note for anyone who thinks blogging political satire (FSVO `satire' natch) is easy to do. In order to produce this post I had to save images of my local Conservative candidate and Alan Partridge to my computer. I accidentally saved them to my porn folder. I'm very, very glad that I discovered this before the next time I just put the whole directory on slideshow view.

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Balkanizing the blogosphere for fun and profit

2009-05-03T15:20:52Z

The actual exodus to Dreamwidth seems to have begun. I've had a play around on the site, and it looks pretty reasonable; it already does several things significantly better than LJ. And it could be a lot worse. It could be DreamWidth.

spudtater's post here (which is the same as spudtater's post here, I think) contains some pretty good suggestions on how to handle the transition. If I'm doing this right, you should be able to read this post on LJ, just like we all did in the old days, when the internet was built out of tin cans and string, and before LJ sold us all to the Russian Mafia, or whatever it was that they did.

Dreamwidth posts from yr. corresp. are syndicated at gominokouhai_fd for those who want to continue reading me on LJ, although I'm not sure how well that will handle friends-locking. Let's find out.

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Not for the obsessive-compulsive

2009-03-26T23:41:35Z

I know you're going to dig this.

On momentous occasions

2009-02-13T23:44:52Z

Happy time_t = 1234567890, everybody!

Where's my flying car?

OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE

2009-02-02T16:23:32Z

It's snowed a bit today. Naturally the South-East has ground to a halt, the newspapers are panicking in an apocalyptic frenzy, and Sainsburys is full of people stocking up on cans and bottled water. I expect the looting to start any minute now. Hordes of bondage-gear-clad barbarians will be clubbing each other over the head to get to the last packet of organic rocket. All because it's a bit nippy today.

I came to work in my boots and changed into my shoes once I got here. That was the total inconvenience suffered today. Other than that, the world is all pretty and white.

Jesus Christ, people, put on a jacket or something. Or you could move to the south of France, where you'll never have to worry about winter weather occurring during winter, and I won't have to listen to you.

In other news: I aten't dead. How are folks?

On making mince pies

2008-12-24T04:11:35Z

I made mince pies for verdandiweaves' pseudo-party on Friday. Now I'm making more of them. The previous ones were just for the guinea pigs. These ones are important: they're to go to stormsearch's parents.

I made the mincemeat myself, and the pastry, and everything.

I don't own a star-shaped pastry cutter. No matter: I have a knife and an understanding of geometry. I want five-pointed stars made out of pastry: that's easy. I can make do with circles of pastry, made with a conventional pastry cutter, and a knowledge of 72° angles.

It feels faintly sacrilegious to be carving pentagrams into pastry for Christmas-themed mince pies. No matter: I know that I've got several millennia of culture that Jesus simply wasn't born early enough for.

And if the Abrahamic religions had anything going for them, then the resultant pagan munchies wouldn't be so damn delicious, would they?

(Food porn:)

Sacrilicious.

A merry Yule, or Solstice, or whatever, to you all. Goddess bless us, every one.

Ram it—I'm RDP

2008-12-22T21:50:01Z

The Hotel usually closes for three days over Giftmas. This year we've got nobody staying on the day either side, so I'm getting a longer break than usual.

I've got very little to do, so I'm sitting here with a Festive Irn-Bru waiting for my shift to end. Then I can have five days off, and get some laundry done. I love the fact that other people's holidays mean that I get time off.

ION, a very pleasant evening was had at verdandiweaves' and draugluin's on Friday for the now-traditional reading of A Christmas Carol. I made mince pies and they apparently tasted like mince pies are supposed to taste. Then, on Saturday, the entirely non-traditional pub evening with fire_sermon, mindwanders, cairmen and xenophanean.

Exhausting. I think that's my sociability quota for the next year or so.

Wirk

2008-12-16T16:44:21Z

I will not take lectures on professionalism from a bunch of raging arseholes whose sole job is handled by an automated system, when they can't even do that right and have to get me to bail them out.

Thank Goat that libel laws don't apply to true statements.

Thanks to an impromptu meeting this morning, today's already been three hours longer than it should be, and I've spent my booze fund on taxis rushing about the place. That was before I had to deal with this defensive bitch from $AGENCY. I need a holiday.

My New Phone Has A Camera In It, part II

2008-12-07T19:43:32Z

It seems there's no escape.

The old phone died with a pathetic whimper, but the nice people at the Orange Shop told me that I was due for a free upgrade. So now I have this thing with a 3.2 megapixel camera with Zeiss lenses, radio, mp3 player, video player, and an ARM processor core driving quad-band GSM, GPRS, and UMTS. I'm told it makes phone calls too, but I've not found that function yet.

All I actually want is something that will allow me to sometimes make phone calls when I'm not near a telephone. Instead I'm lugging around a billion times the processing power of the Apollo missions on my belt, probably. Meanwhile, even as they cram unsolicited silicon into my pocket, I can't help but think about all of those proteins going unfolded.

Having said that, the radio is quite nice. I'm rapidly learning about the current standard of voiceover talent, and thus that breaking into the industry really shouldn't be very difficult. On the other hand, given the quality of the scripting, I'm not sure I want to any more.

On the best pizza ever

2008-11-28T04:22:22Z

Hello to new readers that I've picked up during my sudden, and inevitably all-too-brief, period of Internet Fame. Hello to regular readers, too, while I'm at it. Hello, regular readers! We know each other already, sometimes even in person, and that's fantastic!

Regular readers will know that I’m a big Doctor Who fan. New readers should probably learn that, pretty damn quickly. Inspired by Emo-Doctor’s amusing whingeing in this comic (and partly by the Tam of Rassilon), I wondered today: what would Time Lords eat at a Time Lord pizza party?

This is the kind of philosophical quandary that plagues me on a frequent basis. I’m deep like that.

Behold: the Pizza of Rassilon.

More information, more glorious deathless pin-sharp prose, and more pictures, at the Kamikaze Cookery site. Those of you who are on Who fora, do feel free to link, blog, whatever. Go ahead.

I feel like I've crossed a nerd threshold of some kind.

On change

2008-11-06T14:35:26Z

It's a brand new day, and the sun is high. (I presume—this is Scotland, and I can't see it.)

The leader of the free world seems to be a reasonable chap, for the first time in years. And I have a nephew. 12.05am this morning, so he started annoying his mother at a very young age, and 8lb 2oz, which for the benefit of future generations is 3.69kg.

I plan to be a responsible uncle. What's an appropriate age for his first drum kit?