When I got home last night, my sister was on the computer doing nothing out of the ordinary. I shut down the computer.

I turned it on this morning and it has reverted to bog standard windows. As in, all my little preferences are gone. I had to go find the way to open iTunes and it told me to accept an agreement for whatever you have to agree to to run iTunes. Mozilla is a much older version and has none of my bookmarks or homepage preferences. The background of my desktop is a stock windows field rather than the usual photo of Annalise.

So. Um. Any of you smart ones think this sounds familiar? Any ideas how to get my old settings and such back? Or is it gone forever?

It says I'm logged in as Administrator which normally it doesn't bother to mention, but Guest doesn't change anything.

By the by, this has happened once or twice before, but usually I just restart the computer and its fine.

This article was an interesting diversion. I'm not too keen on the more elaborate outfits, but I could see the appeal in simple ones. I'm curious how music became part of the idea, which to me is simply advancing old technology to a level it never achieved. Hence the computer keyboard made from old typewriters, etc. And especially curious how a goth band has reimagined itself as Steampunk. I mean. What? I would have imagined some sort of pseudo-acoustic industrial sound would make the most sense....

I say Wild, Wild West, though a movie you may despise, is a great example of Steampunk. It's got a Southerner who has his legs lost in the Civil War getting around in a steampropelled wheelchair. It has a train with James Bond style gadgetry aboard. They rig a dead man's head to a particular projector in order to see the last thing the dead man saw, false tech to be sure but cool. Oh, and a giant war spider made of iron girder, steam engines and thick twanging cables. What more do you want?

I've seen the iPod protector/case thingys that look like brass and clockwork is what runs the music player. And I really want one.

Wouldn't mind one of those keyboards either.


This is why I wanna live in one of those old villa houses, with all the old person stuff in it. Find a way to blend it up.

This movie was everything I wish I'd gotten out of Transformers, it really was. Because, and I know everyone else seems to have thought Transformers was stunning, but it had some pretty major bloody problems in my opinion. I don't think I need to go into them here though.

But Iron Man. Iron Man had terrorists and big metal men (and when they fought you could tell what was going on!) and Robert Downey Junior (The lack of that Megan girl was a little troubling, I'll admit) and explosions and wit and a plot that made enough sense to get me back home before I've even begun to consider if it was as daft as these things sometimes are. Grand little summer action comic book movie, go see it.

And while you wait for the very anticlimatic post-credit surprise, try and spot the credit that had my sister and I in hysterics:
Ahmed ... Ahmed Ahemed

That's right. Ahmed was played by some guy named Ahmed Ahmed. What a pearler production this was.

I while back I watch the movie Night Watch and it was awesome. Then I read the book and it was even more awesome. And now I'm reading the second in the trilogy and it's still very cool.

One of the things that I can't remember about the movie Night Watch was whether the music was a big part of the atmosphere. In the book the main character is always listening to his walkman and snippets of lyrics are used to convey how he's feeling and what's going on around him. All through.

So far in Day Watch there have been quite a few uses of lyrics in a similar way, but the main character is at a camp and listening to someone sing them accompanying themself on guitar. The lyrics are great and I don't know if they are real songs or not.

Here's one song:

I'm afraid of babies, I'm afraid of the dead
I feel my own face with my fingers
And I turn cold with horrow inside -
Am I really the same as all these people?
These people who live above me,
These people who live below me,
Who snore on the other side of the wall,
Who live beneath the groun...
What wouldn't I give for a pair of wings,
What wouldn't I give for a third eye,
For a hand with fourteen fingers on it!
I need a different gas to breathe!
Their tears are salty, their laughter is harsh,
They never have enough for everyone.
They love seeing their faces in fresh newspapers,
But next day the papers are flushed away.
These people who give birth to children,
These people who suffer from pain,
These people who shoot at people,
But can't eat their food without salt.
What wouldn't they give for a pair of wings,
What wouldn't they give for a third eye,
For a hand with fourteen fingers on it -
They need a different gas to breathe.


Once more I say, Here's to the Russians.

- My mother had a bath the other night and related that Thet, the cat I got as a graduation present, sat on the side with his tail in the water, watching her. He didn't care when she spalshed him either.

- I watched Thet follow mum around meowing for food. He jumped onto the bench in the bathroom. Then, when she still didn't feed him, he jumped on top of the door. From just below waist height to over her head, balanced on about an inch wide piece of wood, just watching us. Daft animal.

- I was talking to Annalise the other day and she asked what my number was. I answered 25, not sure what else to say. Then I heard loud beeping. She said she was trying it out on the buttons of the phone.

- Later that conversation she wanted to prove how good she was at spelling and said she would spell my name. She spelt it thusly: A N 5 2
So, she got the A and N sounds and used the numbers I said were mine.

- The other day I was at Westgate Burger King, minding my own business, when I saw something indicative of the coming apocalypse. A group of about eight 'homie' dressed youths were sitting outside. And all of a sudden tensions falred, the situation snapped, and they were having a dance off. One by one they strutted into the middle of the group and did their very best Crump Moves. There was no music. I was terrified.

I just finished watching Equilibrium. I don't ahve time to talk about it much, but I will give a quick impression.

Christian Bale. Sean Bean. Other recognisable faces. A future where emotion is outlawed. Gun based martial art trained law enforcement named the Tetragrammaton Clerics.

A sci-fi movie that is packed with action, that does some exploration of what part emotion plays in the makeup of humanity and society.

You liked the first Matrix movie because it was smart and action packed? Go rent Equilibirum. I don't think you'll be dissapointed.

(You should also look for The Final Cut, though it is way less action it is also very interesting about humanity.)

Unfortunately it's an electronic version, but still. Read Neil Gaiman's utterly brilliant novel American Gods for free at this link.