And relax. Thanks for your responses to the good ol' cap.comp., you excelled yourselves, anonymous and Dave.
And so I return to these sloggish shores, ones I have ignored for so long, tempted away so many times from my computer based work but really with nothing at all to say so silence remained.

And so I come to the end of my 3rd year of university education. and it has been. A fantabulous year. I owe much thanks to Neel and everyone else who told me to come, really. the fruits of my recent labour can be found at the following links, although they are a poor representation of my education this year - they're just presentation documents that might give one some idea of what i did.
the drum kit project
the computer modelling (needs flash 6 and links to some big movie files)

And so to some linking:
climbing up the walls (video, but not radiohead) and how to do it. Reminds me of a certain night in Glasgow involving a monkey man swinging from bridge to tree at Charing X and later on some squeezing into the gaps in the st georges cross bridge, and after that trying to gain entry to a house of fun without using the front door.
Urban free running. street climbing. call it what you will but I'm sure we invented it somehow and that Glasgow would be the perfect venue for it so i expect to see you all at training in september. I was just training my wall-run to limited success - not the right shoes of course..
That paragraph will make little sense unless you watch the video. Btw.

So I completed all my exams and presentations (1 and 2 of respectively). Quite successfully too I think and hope. And now a period of severe relaxation (floating, excessive late night partying of sorts, cabin trip with vaclav, sleeping, walking, guitaring, eating well, wandering aimlessly, boat trip, festival, boredom, scrabble, cycling, did i mention sleeping..) is blending into a period of severe stuff to do and packing before my departure on Friday. I continue to probe possibilites of a work placement in the summer, perhaps in Prague, even better perhaps paid work in Prague, and then further into the future, some kind of project to keep me busy next year. And I mean work project not another sideliner of which I have many lined up. Including:
build climbing wall in flat.
build bunk in room in flat.
redo flat.
get a bar in flat.
invent some musical stuff.
make a flute from a carrot (/that ones quite easy)
improve cookery.
start a street climbing revolution.
improve the working conditions in PDE.
start a social scene for PDE.
clean up the garden.
restart NYK.
get back into dBass.
start band with saxophonist Kenny.
play frisbee.
solve transportation problem.
use trnasportation solution to get down to Troon with the kite and buggy.
use transportation solution to build cabin in the wilds of scotland.
and so on...

As I say I need a project for my final year. Answers on a postcard.

I had so much to say and now its gone.

Caption Competition

(your caption here)

Real life Pacman anyone?

Or maybe just another cool flash site authored by the author of 58hours, the incredible real time Radiohead gigography.

My mum came back from the breakfast buffet a little confused. I do not recall her exact witty words but they must have included "bread in", "toaster", "contraption", "lost forever", "life of its own" "possibly automatically delivered to the table".

It was one of those Reith Hall-esque contraptions - indeed, not so much a toaster as a Bertha-inspired flame thrower. A brief description: A wire conveyor belt transports any unfortunate inputted items through a dark and mysterious toasting chamber, hopefully to be outputted abruptdely through some unknown orafice well out of sight of your hungry eyes. Ah, memories of bleary eyed students looking on nonplussed as their only meal of the working day disintegrates in cruels wisps of smoke, their only crimehaving been being a little too thickly sliced to make it out of said orafice.

I digress. The toaster in question was similar but different. For one thing it was even slower than Reith's.

"You'll be able to control the speed of it though" I said confidently, recalling Reith's toaster's three controls: conveyor speed, top hotness, and bottom hotness (some people like variety i guess. Note that there was no science to mastering the equilibrium of these three controls, indeed, I don't think there was even an art to it..)

My ma looked apologetic. "Umm.. No. There was one dial and that was set to 'toast' or something."
"What was the something?"
"...um... 'Shoes'."

So here you have it folks:

The bizarre love child of a toaster, an electronic shoes dispenser and one designer's sick mind. And perhaps my mother's tenuous grasp of Norwegian..

"But the tree huggers were trying to save trees, Roy, they weren't just hugging them for the sake of it."

This disappointed me slightly. A lot in fact, as I had the previous day surmounted my towering but irrational fear of high voltage to hug an electricity pylon.

Look: In the 70s the hippies hugged trees, in the noughties we hug pylons. Its a beautiful symmetry, a postmodern OK computerish comment on the state of our lives, and particularly the state of the Trondheim suburbs whose secure, homely estates and cul-de-sacs are ruthlessly scythed, divided by the power grid techinician's pen. I told him this.

He pointed out subtly that this was rubbish. He didn't say as much, but I realise now that I do spout a lot of crap. Please tell me, I need to know.

As soon as I think of a reason to save electricity pylons I'll show him..

Sentinels

Although theSlog does not condone the hugging of electricity pylons, it points out that if you get close enough to a pylon to seriously consider doing this, the structure is probably not live so it is probably safe. Probably. No liability accepted.

Too much to do, too little time. All is quiet on the web at the mo, seemingly simultaneous calls to work for all, bean, dawg, socks. Time for some weblogging however.

Radiohead. New site. tales from the cryptic...

a couple of new pics at theSound but nothing too special, other than my lovely sister in law and brother. Expect more photos over the coming days/weeks if anyone cares.

Claim to fame: Franz Ferdinand rehearsed in the same warehouse where I did with dBass last year. I sense their growing popularity from here without knowing that much about them. Not dBass, Franz Ferdinand. dBass are going strong apparently with a gig in QM planned and one in the soundhaus i think. Imiss it. I'm in line to be playing again come August. Anyway, Franz Ferdinand. They recently edited a n edition of G2 with some vaguely interesting commentary on blogging, though I'm not sure if I concur fully with the views expressed in the article.

Back to work. I miss eyes of a blue dog.

Tony has written some kind of pledge to arms in the Observer. Quite well written I think. Composed but scathing in his accusations, overwhelmingly towards the media, particularly the "appallingly one-sided ... Western reporting" and "al-Jazeera, the radical Arab TV station". tut tut tut. We woudn't want that now would we, vicar?

But really, "There is a battle we have to fight, a struggle we have to win and it is happening now in Iraq."? Which movie do you think you're the hero in Tony?

I guess I'm humbled that Mr. Blair has made the effort to come down to our level honouring us with his opinion in the likes of the Observer. Yes thats what I am, humbled.


Vaclav has returned from his Moroccan escapades (czech out his Trondheim pics too).
Particularly typical Vaschek moments: 1 2 and 3 . Sorry I'm not allowed to link to the pics. Anyone fancy a trip to Morocco, the coolest looking place, some time?

I'm back from the enormous trip. It was good. driving, cruises ships, eating, lazing, eating, oohing, aahing, you get the picture. Hence no pictures here.

Snow once again yesterday. We built a snow castle with integrated mini bar for enjoying the Glenfiddich. Thank you Daddy and Mummy and Ayla. Happy Easter Monday one and all.

I'm about to go to Bergen to meet my parents and my sister for a week's Easter touring of, it would seem, all of Norway. I leave you with a link to some of my friend Greg's pictures of our lives here in Trondheim. He also provides explanations if you have time..

God Påske!

R

I've been snowboarding again today. The last time this year probably. But I made quite a bit of progress so I can quite easily see myself surfin the precipitation once again some time.. I went with the crazy Finn in my class, Tapsa. He's nuts. I feel quite surrounded by people who are slightly but very visibly eccentric. Maybe its a Norway thing. There was a guy snowboarding in a suit. He wasn't eccentric, he was just cool of course, but I guess my point is its comforting to feel relatively normal among your friends. There are times when stuff happens here that is so unexplainable and apparently irrational that it makes me for a rare moment take a little pride and appreciation in my English upbringing. Its not that I'm ashamed of little britain, (this is an issue I perhaps have tried and failed to explain to some of you guys before), I'm beginning to refer to my attitude to britain as a country as 'indifferent', but I'm surprised and happy when occurences might suddenly make me think of british attitudes as pretty 'well formed' for want of a better phrase. This is a strange monologue. Anyway, there's a lot of mileage in the opinion that going away makes one, whether one likes it or not, more patriotic and less liberal rather than the expected vice versa. If patriotism is eked out of me, there must be something in that opinion.

Time for a picture.

Turning the Tide is a blog dedicated to publishing various ramblings of Noam Chomsky. Cool. Be warned: Some of the 149 commenters on this site are complete nutters.

I should say I found it because it is top of blogdex's list today. Blogdex is a MIT Media Lab thesis gone haywire: It picks what thousands of blogs in its database have recently linked to thus determining what are the most 'talked about' ideas in the blogging community right now. Its mostly full of news stories unsurprisingly, but a few of the links make pretty interesting reflections. Awful topic for a Phd though...

Checkee the new Customisation interface <--. Of course, theSound wouldn't be theSound without bugs: If you check 'links open windows' then the commenting ceases to work. ah well. It does remember your settings though thanks to the veiled blessing of cookies. Feedback welcomed, especially on the fonts.

Thanks anyway to Elvis Costello. I mean Eric Costello...

Things to do:

Look out for one of these doin the rounds.

Check out some Baghdad blogging.

Try putting some ham, a pineapple ring and some cheese on a slice of bread and toasting it in the oven. Cheap and cheerful.

Get your teeth into 'to kill a mocking bird', Harper Lee, for clear, sensitive, daily moral living. that isn't annoying.

Look after those you love and look out for them. Look once and then look again harder. Use the phone. Tell me to ring back and I will.

Never take advice from me.

Play, sing, hit something, nothing feels better.

Listen to Mark and Lard in the afternoon on Radio 1 before its too late.

When your son tells you how to set the video to record from satellite, write it down.

Ever wondered how to juggle 100 balls? This Java applet could help...

A new little animation I made for NYK..

teeheehee..

its the 'tache that really gets me..

For some real blogging rather than this morning's sorry excuse from me, check out eyes of a blue dog.

OK, a few points to note:

Firstly, Up until yesterday I was loathing the existence of email for its general information overloading properties, even if said information is very welcome and useful, it is frustrating to require so much time to respond to it all adequately. Thiunnking about it this qualmstill exists for me buti it was offset severely this morning by the quality of received emails. It probably says more about my misuse of the information superhighway that I respond to these on a blog, rather than replying immediately to them but this is a working day ticking away right now... (weak justification for blogging...).

First up, another beautifully crafted email from my friend Matt in the US. No points for guessing he was an English major...

>So I was complaining about something to someone the other day (I forget to whom about what but that's immaterial) and they said something that I thought was absolutely brilliant. "Matt," they said, "instead of just complaining about this why don't you do something about it."
So I did.
What follows is a list of things (in no particular order) that annoy me. Admittedly, this probably wasn't what the person meant when they said I should I should do something but it's a start. So without further ado...

-Non-alcoholic beer
-Decaffienated coffee
- The Family Circus
-Genocide
-People who say "unique" when they mean"unusual"
-Computer-based GRE's
-My mom's cat
-Republicans (there are a few exceptions to this one, such as John McCain and Bob Dole, but they are few and far between)
-Wearing wrinkled clothes
-Ironing
-Driving at sunrise or sunset when the sun is low on the horizon and it's blinding you
-Chris Kattan
-Shopping for a toothbrush (seriously, what the fuck? there's toothbrushes with straight bristles, criss-crossed bristles, a mix of straight and criss-crossed bristles, hard bristles, soft bristles, medium bristles, large heads, small heads, flexible necks, straight necks. Toothbrushes that are guaranteed to reduce plaque, prevent gum disease, clean between the teeth, help you lose weight. Then there's electric toothbrushes. Do you get the one that uses batteries or the one with a base that plugs into an outlet and charges the toothbrush? Do you get the one with the round head that moves in a circular motion or the square head that moves back and forth? I can't wait until I get dental insurance again and the dentist just gives me a new one every six months.)
-Being nearly 23 and still unable to grow a proper beard
-Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh (I know I already covered these guys under Republicans but they're so annoying they deserve a separate mention)
-Being poor
-Having a job
-The radio stations in my area (there's like 4 classic rock stations, 4 hip-hop stations, and 4 top 40 stations so if you want to listen to something other than Nickleback, Ja Rule, or Rush you're shit outta luck. If it wasn't for NPR I'd go crazy.)
-Pop-up ads

Well that's about all I can think of right now so I guess I'll wrap it up. Bye for now.

-Matty

He sent this email to nigh on 50 people so I have no qualms about reprinting it for public consumption..

Other highlights from my inbox were a long and highly amusing and homesick inducing email from the sister, more longlost emails from lonlost american aquaintances, A topsy turvy email from Jo in Australia - despite her being there for ovre 6 months I have only just come to the realisation that physically she is actually upside down. For yours my subconcsious discounted this as a joke, a young wives tale if you will, but She is Actually Upside Down. (capitals signify the gravity of this point - hohoho).

Also a cryptic email from Glasgow announcing "Fw: Opening hours and power shutdown". Power shutdown? Just what is going on at home? If its not mass staff walkouts its the uitility companies withdrawing the library's supply. Completely!?! I'm pretty sure this never happened last year.. Some dispatches from the frontline of the Glasgow disputes would be greatly appreciated in comments..

Lastly, which should have been firstly, I have to register my disgust at the happenings in Madrid on Thursday. I would have blogged or at least emailed my counterparts in Spain were I not so sickened and world weary. I am currently trying to block out thoughts that this heralds the continuation of a complete nonexistence of morality and rebirth of cruelty in our modern world. A feeling I haven't sensed so intensely since Iraq last year.

As acts like these proliferate there is less and less I feel there is to say.

I don't know why but for some reason recently pictures speak much louder than words...

I can't say I'm normally a great fan of churches architecture wise - unless they're cathedrals - but this one we saw in Kristiansund was darn cool.

Didn't look that much from the outside, just a crazy whitewashed 70s radical kinda building,

but inside was a triumph of light, minimalism, calm and awe...

Its enough to make you want to go regularly, unlike some other churches i can think of..

PS. I now, like Gilly, have a sitemeter (that number under the credits on the left) that tells us all pretty useless information so why don't you provide more interesting info about your whereabouts using theMap on the left there...

theSound is truly up to date again. Honest. There's still a lot of crap on there in fact which if you're clever you may just stumble across. Goodness knows what I'll do when I lose my entitlement to megabytes and megabytes of university hosting. God forbid I may have to start paying *gasps*.

Anyhoo, I promised some updates from eel and Kath's visit and didn't really elaborate. It was great, fun was had, lots of money spent, one memorable boat trip taken and many memorable things uttered. MOSTLY though I'll probably just remember this:

a very big spanner.

Hardware store for very big people in very small Kristiansund

The Guardian have started a digital edition! isn't that cool? How can I read their site every day yet I've only just noticed this month old news? stoopid eyes..