tooth soup

photo credit: phrenologist

20/05/10 Update:

Seems like semi-amusing emails do work, as I received a call from a lovely, well-informed lady from iinet named Shelley, who put all my fears to rest by assuring me that I could still get ADSL1 with iinet. Huzzah! I’m pretty glad that my message got through to someone with a sense of humour. Thank you Shelly and thank you iinet. (:

My

self imposed exile from the Internet has now become one of technical fault. After the usual three weeks of waiting while iinet did their thing, connecting the phone line and giving the mandatory 10-20 working days while we connect the tubes, etc. I received a phone call yesterday that informed me that they cannot provide me with a service. Apparently our house has a fibre-optic connection only, not the copper line that most houses do, and that services such as iinet rely on to piggyback. I was informed at the time that I will basically only be able to go with Telstra at this stage (yay), and in response, emailed this message through to the sales team:

Dear iinet,

My name is Phillip and until recently I was a customer of yours under the username ‘[REDACTED]‘. This afternoon I received the disastrous news that the house that I have moved into does not have a copper cable, rather a fibre optic one, and therefore you guys would be unable to continue providing me with an internet service.

This made me pretty damn sad, as I think you are a great ISP. I’ve really enjoyed getting emails seemingly every single month informing me that my download limit has been upgraded. That’s a totally swell thing for you lot to do! I’ve also enjoyed my girlfriend’s stories regarding the epic office parties you have in your Subiaco, Perth office, and how you’d always run over the road to buy an ice-cream from her at her place of work (Baskin Robbins). And an ISP that likes beer and ice-cream is an ISP that I can do business with! So when I learned that I couldn’t continue to enjoy the benefits of your random charity I was bummed, to say the least.

Nonetheless, I picked myself off the floor and managed to wipe away the tears for long enough to type in a query into the Whirlpool.net.au forums, searching to see what the options were for houses like mine with only fibre optics to offer. Turns out that there is really only one alternative, and if you’ll excuse my language for just a second here, it’s gosh-darned Telstra.

I don’t want to go with Telstra. I would rather slit my wrists with a spoon than go with Telstra (an action which, incidentally, would likely take less time than downloading an email with their terrible service). So I turn back to you, my dear, darling iinet and ask–no, plead!–that you advise me on any way out of this predicament. My number should still be in your system, or feel free to email me. Save me from the dreaded T-monster.

Sincerely,
Phillip.

I’m aware that this will likely have no effect at all on the company’s ability to provide me with a service, but I figure it’s worth a try, and if it gives someone a chuckle then hey, no harm done.

Alright, back to work.

Tonight, as I

was driving my father back to his apartment, I saw a large sign outside the Christadelphian congregation hall (which you can see in the picture above, though it was dark and I was driving, so you can’t read the sign–just trust me on this one). Its light shone forth the following proclaimation:

RUSSIA WILL INVADE ISRAEL ONLY TO BE CRUSHED BY CHRIST

Which immediately prompted me to consider exactly what they meant. On the surface, one could suppose that the intended message was one suggesting that the entire Russian forces would invade Israel and, after completing that task, be crushed by the mighty fist of Our Lord. Why Jesus would wait until after an invading army has finished destroying a country is beyond me, perhaps he has a deadline on creation-ey things that week.

But then, as I sat waiting for the red glare of the traffice light to change, I re-examined the text. The thing is, given the propensity of Church message boards to not have punctuation, the message could be interpretted a number of different ways. The first being that Russia is, in actual fact, going to invade somewhere (presumably Australia?) while Israel is going to be crushed by Jesus, i.e.:

RUSSIA WILL INVADE! ISRAEL, ONLY, TO BE CRUSHED BY CHRIST.

Alternatively the crushing of Israel could be completely devoid of Christ’s involvement, instead just being said with real gusto by the signer:

RUSSIA WILL INVADE! ISRAEL, ONLY, TO BE CRUSHED, BY CHRIST!

Or the signer could feel really sorry for Russia being crushed?

RUSSIA WILL INVADE ISRAEL, ONLY TO BE CRUSHED. BY CHRIST. :’(

Okay, so I put that emoticon in there myself. Call it artistic interpretation. Anyway, I think this highlights the importance of grammar. A big thank you to the Christadelphians for their subtle wordplay. I’ll be keeping an eye out for further examples whenever I drive past.

My second roll of film from my first toy camera, the Lomo Oktomat. It will also be the last unless I find a way to unstick the winder. Still, some nice shots came out of this batch. I particularly like the one of Louise blowing bubbles with herself. (:

Some quite nice photos out of this first batch. The vignetting isn’t as pronounced as I thought it would be, but on reflection I kind of like the subtlety. Most of these were taken at the ‘Sculptures by the Sea‘ exhibition at Cottesloe Beach, Perth.

Unfortunately they are not available at any higher resolution, because the folk at the photo shop at Carousel decided to scan the negatives at exactly the resolution you see here. After making me wait for 2 hours. Needless to say, I won’t be going back there. As an aside, does anyone know any decent photo shops? I only need development, planning on buying a negatives scanner next week.

photo credit: launceston_lad

A week from

yesterday, I will be on a four-month deadline to finish my thesis. It seems apt, coming less than a week after the storm you may have heard about. The storm was a rebirth after one of the driest (or perhaps the absolute driest?) Summer we’ve had on record. So, too, is this deadline. It marks the end of the three years that were given to me at the start of my PhD. Everything from here on in is a bonus.

What this means is that from the 4th of April, I’m going underground. Radio silence. I’m uninstalling my I.M. programs, deleting echofon, and blocking every website I’ve ever procrastinated on for more than five minutes. And yes, that includes Google Docs. No writing unless it’s in a file ending with *.tex. I think I’m heading back into the ideas phase of my writing cycle, which is convenient. I’ve completed (or very nearly completed) half-a-dozen short stories in the last month or so, and found initial markets to submit them to, so going back to jotting notes in my little black book isn’t going to seem like a waste of motivation. Luckily this coincides with Perth’s weather shifting to being a bit milder; my shorts can’t fit my notebook in them comfortably.

I guess the take home message is that if you don’t hear from me, don’t panic. I’m okay, but this is essentially the set-up for the next decade or so of my life I’m trying to bash out. If I finish my thesis early–and this the primary goal I am trying to achieve by going dark–I’ll be able to pour my efforts into producing a publishable paper, which is something I’ve yet to do. And in scientific research, papers are everything. Your rank as a scientist is measured entirely in terms of how many people have read and referenced your work. As far as I can tell, nothing else is relevant. The maxim is ‘publish or perish’. It doesn’t even really seem to matter if you split a piece of research over multiple papers just to increase your numbers. However, my feelings on that particular practise, and the game of research in general, are for another blog post.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I might be putting together another UtW soon on some snippets that have been floating around. Besides that I’ll try to continue commenting on people’s blogs, but if this experiment is going to work, even that activity will be sporadic and controlled.

Wish me luck, y’all.