Month: March 2005

Well that was an odd experience. Completely painless of course but that doesn’t mean you can’t feel what is going on as the doctor pulled and sliced and snipped at my skin.

I don’t want to make a big deal of this, twas but a mole, so hats off to the NHS staff at Hairmyres hospital. Wait wasn’t too long, they told me exactly what would be happening and they even make a nice cup of coffee. Proof that our much maligned NHS can work.

Unfortunately they wouldn’t let me take my mole home with me as it needed to go for testing. I had hoped to have it mounted and given pride of place on top of the TV.

It’ll be a tad quiet here today, as I’m off to the hospital to get a mole removed. I’m not particularly attached to it and it’s a constant source of irritation so I’ll be quite pleased to get shot of the little bugger.

It’s right in the middle of my back and quite pronounced meaning that anytime I scrap my back along or down something it gets caught and … well it gives me a real sick feeling in the pit of my stomach for some reason, like really bad nerves. Odd that.

Mind you it’s not as odd as my wife’s request of a photo of it whilst it’s still attached*. As she put it “You’ve had it forever and after today it will be gone, forever”. Granted that’s a tad OTT considering we are talking about a mole and not, say, my left leg but she has a point. Today a very small part of me will be sliced off and thrown in the bin.

I’m feeling very disposable.

* like a good husband I acquiesced but no I won’t be posting it here.

Music is a huge part of my life yet I don’t really write that much about it here. Odd that.

I now have three Mozilla applications installed, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird (calendar application). I know have three separate folders in my Start menu, one for each. Why not one top level folder “Mozilla” and then sub-folder per application?

I have around £8 in my iTunes Music Store account. Which tracks should I buy?

UPDATE: New NIN track isn’t out yet! Kenny Burell – “Summertime” in the shopping cart so far.
A quick guide to my musical tastes (why didn’t I post that last night?)

Gardeners: We have a plant in our garden which I really like, it grows leafs like long very thick grass to about two feet high and then produces orange flowers spread up a central stalk. I’ve been under the, obviously wrong, impression that it’s called “lumbrecia” (my spelling based on my pronunciation), but Google says nothing.

Any suggestions? It’s very common, I’ve seen it loads of places but have obviously been calling it the wrong thing. Numbrecia? Mumbreshia? Neuromancer??

UPDATE: Montbretia, also known as Crocosmia. Thank you, thank you, thank you. P.S. Mum, I meant to ask you about this last night!

I’m stuck.

I’ve got two posts in draft that are constantly crossing over into each other’s territory, one of which is threatening to prompt me to start a new category called “Essay”. I’m trying to focus on specific aspects of some things that are currently doing the rounds across the Atlantic, and if possible kick off a UK-centric look at these issues. Trouble is, everytime I head down one path I end up cross-referencing myself into illogical loops in which you, dear reader, would be trapped for some considerable time.

So I’m returning to a tried and trusted method which comes in two parts.

Part 1: Make a list of the topics

• The lack of women in the blogging hierarchy – from Burningbird
• The evolution of the blogging hierarchy
• Pros and cons of blogrolls and Top 100 lists – the popular continue to retain and garner links, which self perpetuates their popularity
• How much of a reflection on me is my blogroll?
• The Blog Maturity model – from Anil Dash
• Seeking diversity in blogs (race, geography, religion, politics) – why should blogging differ from real life? Do we constantly seek out large scale diversity in real life and if so should that have a bearing on our blogging habits?
• The Bloggies – re-enforcing the A-listers or opening the eyes to the many?
• Matching blogging maturity to social development – forming true online communities
• The internet is seen as lawless, is the blogging scene suffering because it’s also seen as morality-less?
• Is the UK blogging scene behind that in the USA? SXSW suggests it might be, but as that was dominated by white males
• And loads of other stuff that I can’t keep out of my head…

Part 2: Post it and see what develops.

Survived. Just. Not sure how well my legs will function in the morning though.

And whilst I’m here I’d like to thank the person that sent me a book from my wishlist (Alasdair Gray – Lanark). I have a few suspicions of WHO sent me it but as you didn’t say who you were when you add a note to the order I can’t thank you by name (hint, hint).