Miscellany the thirteenth

Posted at 4:15 PM

Following from last time, I can report that “grace” has increased its importance (in Google’s eyes at least) on this website. Unfortunately, while my top three important words remain at “God”, “Matthew” and “Christian”, it seems “joy” has been kicked off the fourth spot (no longer in the top 100 either!) by the word “work”. Luckily of course this shows the trend into more entries about work, careers, calling etc. and not any profound point (just in case I’m misunderstood!).

Radiohead were amazing in concert last night, playing Everything In Its Right Place, Idioteque, Planet Telex, Pyramid Song, How To Disappear Completely and Cymbal Rush (!) amongst other amazing tracks (The Gloaming had never sounded so good!), and we managed to make it home shortly after two despite having to walk from Oxford city centre.

Currently reading: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, and The Shadow and Night by Chris Walley (in preparation for The Infinite Day).

Currently listening: Cymbal Rush by Thom Yorke (played on piano at the gig last night!) has finished; now Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring; earlier, our own covers of Disney songs, jazz standards, Muse and Coldplay.

Currently watching:

The Count of Monte Cristo is so far an amazing book; I’ve been reading it for three days now (it’s quite long) and it’s still gripping (despite knowing overall what happens, having seen the film) and generally fascinating. I may write more once I’ve finished it. It’s taken me a long time to start on these kind of books*, and now I’ve started I plan to continue.

* As to what I mean by “these kind of books”, I’m not really sure. Great novels of the past? Works that require use of a dictionary, or a passing knowledge of Latin? Books likely to contain a scholarly forward and possibly historical notes in an appendix? (Books likely to be known only as a modern film to the majority of the populace, who probably won’t even have heard of the author? Books that, once you’ve read, you end up feeling superior to those who haven’t? Hopefully not the latter, but already the temptation is there…)

UPDATE: I use the word amazing far too much.

The twelfth miscellany

Posted at 5:00 PM

UCCF have just put a video they showed at New Word Alive up on Youtube, so for those who weren’t there or aren’t students, here it is!

I’ve read a few of them and it seems an excellent selection. Delighting in the Trinity and Let the nations be glad! are on my to-read list.

Sam Allberry posted a list entitled “You know you’re an Ebbe’s student when…” back in 2006, which I’ve just discovered. Favourites of mine (which are more widely true, I’d say!) include:

• You can’t remember the last time you asked a Christian “How are you?”. “Are you well?” is the only appropriate enquiry.
• You can distinguish between a Iwernite, a Lymington-Rushmorer or a CYFA camper on the basis of fashion sense alone.
• Whenever a chorus in a Christian song is repeated more than once you have an involuntary eyebrow-raising reflex.
• If someone asks you out for coffee, you lie awake at night beforehand examining your conscience and preparing for the worst.
• During a break in lectures you have an unaccountable urge to turn round and get to know the person sitting next to you.
• You secretly wish you could carry off addressing people as “brother” or “sister”.
• You know you can’t, but you start doing it anyway.

And in a long-running tradition of amusing search terms that bring up this website, this year’s are positively tame:

• saying what you’re subconsciously thinking
• what type of government did the lion king have
• ways to lose your job

Now Google has search analysis tools as well, and so I can inform the world that in Googlebot’s humble opinion, the four most important words on this website are:

• God
• Matthew
• Christian
• Joy

Grace clocks in at #17 – should probably work on that.

Recent Wikipedia articles

Posted at 5:25 PM

I do love a good Wikipedia link trail. (In no apparent order.)

• [Fopp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fopp_(retailer))
• Emilíana Torrini
• Joanna Newsom
• ZFS
• Great Britain road numbering scheme
• Compulsory purchase
• Hertzprung-Russell diagram
• Utajärvi
• Jack Vettriano
• May you live in interesting times

Educate yourselves!

(Yes, things have been slow here. Blame uni.)

Currently listening to Howard Shore – The Breaking of the Fellowship

The eleventh miscellany

Posted at 5:22 PM

Having just returned from the CU weekend away, I found that George Bush has a better grasp of the English language than I suspected. I also learnt a wonderful new version of Rock Paper Scissors called Cat Tin Foil Microwave. The cat shreds the tin foil, the tin foil makes the microwave explode, and the microwave… well, you get the picture. (Idea provided by a member of staff at St Ebbes who will be giving half the talks during mission fortnight.) As to the actions, the microwave has a door opening with a “ping” sound, the cat meows and claws the air, and as tin foil russles, my new friend Dave suggested something from Gladiator. Finally, the number of amusing search terms finding this site seems to have dropped – this month’s new arrival was the positively boring “blueberries”.

The tenth miscellany

Posted at 6:29 PM

No very interesting search terms at the moment, the only one of note being “tales of the emerald sword saga download”, which found this site goodness knows how. The new iTunes has two blue quavers in its icon rather than two green ones, a change that appears to have absolutely no reason other than someone at Apple was bored with green. In a fit of insanity, I wrote three parallel (very) short stories on a jungle exploration gone wrong, wasting a good hour and producing extreme worry about my mental health as the stories, seemingly under an external influence, wrote themselves into a rather disturbing ending. I’m thoroughly enjoying my holiday when I can, but seem to have got myself into far more work than I expected to – I’m now leading a Bible study on Monday, the only stipulation being that it be “something from the Old Testament that can encourage everyone as they go off to university”. Right. I have, however, managed to watch about ten episodes of the wonderful drama House, after putting the free trial period of Lovefilm to good use. Another twelve to go, then. I also saw Howl’s Moving Castle, a Studio Ghibli film that I hadn’t yet seen – which was excellent. I’ve performed in a concert, in which I played the piece of music badly, but apparently was able to cover my mistakes well enough for about five people to approach me afterwards to tell me I’d been excellent. Always nice. Maybe next time I write one of these I’ll put in some paragraphs.

Currently listening to Radiohead – True Love Waits.

The ninth miscellany

Posted at 1:48 PM

People are still finding this site by Googling for “disowning parents”, which worries me as I’ve never written about this. Like I’ve said before – not a good idea. There was also the question “what do octopus eat?”, to which my answer would “it’s octopi, not octopus” where it not for the fact that Wikipedia tells me otherwise. Amazingly, “she’s got a chicken to ride” was featured. Finally, we have the (fragmented) question “Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson dating?” and the answer “Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are dating” featured with one hit each. (Note: I’ve no idea if this is true, but if it is, you really shouldn’t care.)

In Japan-related news, there’s nothing like living with 8Mb/sec broadband for almost three months to make a 1Mb/sec connection seem unbearably slow. Also, it’s the Japanese for “excuse me” (sumimasen) that I’ve been saying automatically.

Muse’s “disco space rock” on their new album is really good, and Keane have really improved as well. The Death Cab album’s as good as I remembered, and Thom Yorke’s album is good, but not quite Radiohead.

I’ve just discovered Delicious Library which is a rather over-the-top but fun way of keeping track of who I’ve leant DVDs and books to. I’ve just started filling it out, so currently it’s a bit sparse.

The thing I found interesting when I first ran it was the list of “borrowers” that it imported from my address book. It imported family only (using my surname), but, even though there is no distinction in the address book between male and female, it assigned a female icon to my mum and aunt, and a male icon to my dad. (My brother gets his custom icon.) Very clever.

Anyway, enough for now. I’ve managed to write an entry for each day this month so far, but from Saturday I won’t have internet access for a week. Six more entries in two days? I doubt it. (That would equal my record.)

Currently listening to Muse – City of Delusion

The eighth miscellany

Posted at 2:21 PM

Following my brother’s speculation on what a strawberry and maple tree looks like, I bring photographic evidence:

On Japanese geography:

David: “Is Jonan in south Hirosaki?”

Matthew: “I think so. Aaron, is Jonan in south Hirosaki?”

Aaron (fluent Japanese speaker): “Of course, that’s why it’s called Jonan.”

His logic was inescapable, if incomprehensible.

And finally, you may not be aware of the net neutrality debate going on at the moment, but in case you missed the technical side, a US Senator can explain.

The seventh miscellany

Posted at 5:05 AM

Quote from a Sun football pundit on the radio, commenting on Rooney’s untimely exit: “That was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen in a football match! Of course, according to the letter of the law it was a red card offence, but…”.

Text from a t-shirt I bought recently: “Late take off: the newborn type that surfers in the world enjoyed it”.

Some more search terms:

• rhino costumes
• deviantart marsupial pouch
• famous songs penguin cafe orchestra

This last one is particularly perculiar: I have never mentioned the Penguin Cafe Orchestra on this website before, and have in fact until yesterday never heard any of their music. A sudden desire gripped me, however, and yesterday (without seeing this search term in the logs) I bought a PCO song. How incredibly perculiar. (It’s pretty good, if you’re interested.)

Muse have decided to spite me by removing the preview of their album from their website just as I discovered it was possible to play it there. Yes, I know it was released in Japan before any other country so I could just have bought it here. CDs are expensive in Japan though. (You thought they were expensive in the UK? You have much to learn.)

You should go watch the Studio Ghibli back catalogue, in Japanese if you can get them (with English subtitles of course). I saw Castle in the Sky on Friday, and it’s brilliant.

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The sixth miscellany

Posted at 9:30 AM

Continuing my tradition, I bring you search terms that have thrown up this site in the past month. All the old favourites (such as pineapples, Emma Watson and proportional representation) are present, with some interesting new entries:

• hairstyles from pride and prejudice
• disowning your parents bible
• Jessops EasyPay

With regards to the middle one, let me give this verse to anyone searching for Biblical advice with regards to disowning parents.

On the theme of site statistics, I have discovered through careful analysis (read “a quick calculation”) that the Top 5 category incites the most discussion (with 10.4 comments to each post), whereas the Advice category incites the least (2.5 comments a post). Obviously my advice is good enough that it isn’t contradicted by many people, but not good enough that people find the need to reply with a loud “Amen!” Science/Nature topics also scored highly, as did Politics. Maybe I should write about these more – between all three of the top comment-inducing categories, I have written 22 entries (out of a total of 249).

In music I bring you news of two new songs, one rather more well produced than the other, but both free: Two Margarines by John Shuttleworth, and a new song by Switchfoot that you can download by signing up for their newsletter. (The Switchfoot song is excellent.)

Finally, I bring you news of Leonardo Da Vinci’s last invention.

The fifth miscellany

Posted at 4:24 PM

After the wonderful series that was Musical Education, it’s only after its abject failure that I discover something I like. My thanks to Rory for suggesting Led Zeppelin. Stairway to Heaven is completely overrated, but the other songs are great.

In the long-lived tradition of search terms that have brought up this site, December’s collection includes:

• mr cow how do you say
• rewiring brain ipod

The latter worries me greatly. Granted, however good the click wheel is it won’t ever rival thought control, but I’m sure this would void Apple’s warranty.

My entry on how to cut up pineapple is still doing well with “cut pineapple”, “how to cut up pineapple”, “slice a pineapple”, “cutting pineapple”, “how to cut up a pineapple” and “how to cut a pineapple” all featuring – and Harry Potter fans are still featuring highly with:

• info on Emma Watson’s email address
• Daniel Radcliffe’s girlfriend
• emma hermione goblet review watson
• goblet of fire duvet
• goblet of fire review rupert
• dumbledore shippers

Switchfoot’s new album is excellent, and I have one of these, with the other on the way.

After my last fanboyish entry on the MacBook Pro I decided to take a shower, then promptly changed my desktop. And finally, while on the topic of Apple products, Levi’s announce a new product line.