All in the game

For windows XP, this is a pretty cool theme. XP has been crying out for a black theme and now it has it. It goes really well with windows media player 11. If Vista looks this good, then it will nothing short of utter disappointment. The only thing is you need windows SP2 installed which a bit of a bitch.

Give your desktop a spruce up with this site of wallpapers and icons. I like the wallpapers especially this one.

A mention for this dedicated poster who posts cricket videos in neatly packaged highlights. Keep up the good work man.

An image of Malvern theatre, one of the many ‘delights’ of Malvern.

The pond where I spend most of my days, Chillin out maxin relaxin all cool, And all shootin some b-ball outside of the school.

I hate having to make political posts - not because politics is not important, but often it tends to achieve very little. The BBC has blanket coverage on it website and you can read about it here. Whilst it’s worrying to see the transportation through which I have and will travel attacked like this (this will not make an iota of difference to wheter I will travel on the tube, terrorist attack is still one of the least likely ways to die), It should not come as a great surprise, the underground system is, I suppose, the most vulnerable to attack. This is also a time to keep a sense of proportion and not overblow the impact of these attacks.

Sometimes watching the blanket news coverage that I see on the BBC, there is a sense I get of the reporters wanting to exaggerate and make it bigger than it is. The deaths of any people is terrible enough. I just hate it when reporters urge all their guests to somehow give them death tolls that are ever increasing. There is a mix of morbid fascination and bizarre self promotion in being the first to get the exact death toll. This is sickening. I think one of the ills of blanket coverage as opposed to bulletins are there are these tonnes of reporters all over the place who often arrive after all the action has taken place and thus have no live action to report upon but have the cameras ready to roll. Rather than taking their time to assess the situation and providing a cool and rational analysis, reporters are forced to parrot for hours on end the same thing they said 10 minutes ago as though it was new news. Thus if each time they are asked to report, and they have news in terms of increased death toll, or wild speculation on the perpetrators of the attacks or ill informed reports from the scene of the action, the greater the justifications of their jobs. Get all these stupid reporters out of here. For every ambulance or police worker there seemed to be ten news reporters parroting the same ill informed crap again and again. I think bulletins, followed by a news programme at a specified hour is more than sufficient. This blanket news coverage is not at all useful and at times like this, I believe, harmful.

I hope they catch the terrorists and try them appropriately. However, a sense of proportion is called for. In Iraq the joint actions of the Americans and British forces has estimated to have cost the lives of about 10,000 civilian Iraqis. These terrorist attacks, possibily caused by the presence of British troops in Iraq (wild speculation I know),have cost, so far, the lives of 38 Britons. Absolutely not a justification of the terrorist attacks but a sobering thought …

Being a fan of family guy some of the latest episodes have been some of the best and most random efforts. I particularly like the sarcastic twitterings of stewie, the baby born with the personality of upper class 1930’s English playwright (you know the one I am talking about). Listen to some of his better efforts here and here. I particularly like the the first one where is voice goes higher and higher, pure genius. I think I find him funny not so much for his sardonic wit as much as his pathetic state. I may upload some of his better efforts later on and discuss some of the other tv shows that I enjoy.

After the graduation came the inevitable goodbyes. Being one of the friends’ (Sheriff, happy 21st!) birthdays, it provided the perfect opportunity to get together for perhaps the last time (i keep forgetting about the graduation itself). We met at Nando’s, a fine restaurant. It proved the perfect place for discussion of the past and our forthcoming future, ‘huh’? Typically conversation seemed to drift into bizzare directions (mostly by my initiation), with ideas about the writing of a new novel- a heady and exciting story of an Anglo-japanese undergraduate student solving disturbing mysteries of the wierd goings on in the college library - with sexy results (search the page for sexy results). What’s wrong with me, I promise I have no affinity for the college library, oh who am I kiddin’, Library - let’s never fight again.

Of course, being Imperial graduates (though not for a few days yet), every aspect of the course was disected and analysed. Particular delight seemed to be expressed at my nightmare presentation. With all the things done, it seemed as though people were starting to return to their normal selves again, but the long term effects of chronic exam addiction is not known. Damn, that’s a weak joke, sounds like something an extremely boring person, who was just learning English from a language that nothing do with Inglish would write.

Finally, we went to see ‘Batman Begins‘. A thouroughly enjoyable movie, though there was some debate as to why an opera house would be placed in the middle of the run down part of town, if you are taunting the poor by putting down an opera house to show them what they are missing, you deserve to get shot, right?

Above is a photo taken outside the cinema theatre (an important picture of a close friend is missing and will be added when i get the picture of him - I know, its ‘fucked’ up). Click on the link below the photo and go to the flickr site to view notes that I have attached to the faces. For some reason, IE seems to f up, the position of the photos and margins, for best results view in firefox.

Friends

update: received the new pic of the other dude and am adding the picture into it. click pic to visit notes on it.

Zaid included

I have finished my graduation from Imperial College. Four years of stuff and junk later, here I am. Wherever here is, I am not looking forward to it. Anyhoo, I will put up a post of greater significance at a later date, or whatever.

Imperial College