wendy house

(gush warning)  

 only the very young and the very beautiful can be so aloof

this opening lyric of Tom Robinson’s song ‘War Baby’ (1983) spoken softly over  saxophone with the  keyboards creating a gentle relaxing atmosphere hints at sadness.   His alternating soft then demandingly passionate voice dominates and drives the song in stark  contrast to  the gentle pace and tone of the music.    He paints the fun and tensions of living in the gay scene “hanging out with the boys,   all swagger and poise…”  ”…I’m scared,   so scared”  then  deftly shifts focus to bigger themes as he raises the pace “corresponding disasters every night on the TV,   sickening reality keeps gripping  me in its disgust”    The song just has so much in it.   It sounds good too     23 years later it’s still one of my favourite songs.   Tom’s been one of my personal hero’s since the late 1970′s.       The directness and poigniency of Tom’s beliefs and writing  in so many forms (songs, web-pages, DJ-ing)  is extremely impressive. To me he is awe inspiring.

Despite the original BBC ban on “Sing if you’re glad to be gay” it was heard in streets, homes, clubs and  during political  protests.    It was a wonderfully positive rallying song in a time when homophobia was much more overtly prevalent than today.    Followed by a notable turnaround  when the  BBC employed Tom as a World Service presentes then DJ and gave him awards for his documentary on the history of ‘gay music’.  

I was lucky enough to attend two of Tom’s birthday parties  in the mid 1990′s.  Able to luxuriate in listening to his conversations and singing in the intimacy of a small room….  

(gush over)

Language certainly evolves at a high speed here in the US.   Especially in the service industries.   The  Comair  ‘flight attendant’* said:

“make sure you have all of your belongings before you de-plane“

De-plane?   what’s wrong with ‘leave’,   ‘get off’   ‘go’ or even the familiar previously used shipping terminology – ‘disembark’

“make sure your cell phone is in the off position’

Now this was just silly.   I understand making sure my seat is in an upright position.    This is just gratuitous wanton repetition of a phrase used in flight-attendant-land.   SILLY.   Then she repeated the same message for Laptops.  SILLY. SILLY.

Are attendents told  not to use normal language like  ”turn your cell phones off?”   WHY?     I will ask if  it happens again on my return flight.

*  an air hostess or steward.  I suspect that calling out the gender  with different names is now considered politically  incorrect, if enabling more descriptive precision. For one extra syllable you get  increased ambiguity through being gender neutral and  possibly the impression of some form of job status  kudos…

the US ABC TV sitcom ‘Sons and Daughters’ uses the Gary Glitter song “Rock and Roll (part 2)” as the sound track for their sitcom trailer.   Hearing it  I spontaneously  think ‘convicted Peadophilic sex tourist‘.    Is a  show called ‘Sons and Daughters  using a convicted peadophile’s music  a lamentable  merging  of themes?   Feels like it to me.  

I bet you can’t wait to find out ‘what are the top twenty search phrases‘ that bought new seekers to this site.   These people were here,   with you!

Other statistics provided by the web service provider include:

• “Distinct hosts” (computers?) “served in the last 7 days” – 262.   If we guess that my 7 friends use 3 computers in a week that still leaves 241 computers.   Maybe 1/3rd,   80 of those are  searchers and  80 are blog-summarising computers.   That still leaves about 80 computers  with strangers-to-me accessing this blog.
• “Successful requests for pages in last 7 days” – 2,859.    That’s an average of approximately 408 per day.    If we deduct the 200 times per day that I  read my blog that still leaves 208 page loads.   If my 7 friends read my blog once per day that still leaves 201 page load unaccounted for…   …wow,   for me that’s BIG!   I have no idea how blog readers influence this statistic.   I’m confident they do.

I hope the computer users with successful page loads  were happy readers  

Jesus Christ’s Girls:   http://www.jcsgirls.com/

Their mission includes:    ”seek to share God’s message of hope and forgiveness by reaching out in a nonjudgmental way to those  who are in the sex industry.”

Interviews with ‘JC girls’:

• Heather Vietch
• Lori Albee (web site developer)

 The existence of an industry that commoditises female sexuality  for male consumption disturbs me.   I am impressed by the proactive approach of these girls.   I’m less confident that  the message will actually have a significant impact on the existence of the industry,   both have been around for a long time….

Tinkerbell (HP Compaq nx9010) exceeded expectations.   Originally purchased as a ‘cheap’ functional laptop to enable exchange-student lovely, Swedish Frida, study and instant message from anywhere in The Wendy House.   Neither  were intended to last more than one year.   Rent a teenager,   buy a laptop.  

First power-up by Frida.   Connected to the internet with a new Microsoft wireless base station. (17 Aug. 2003)

Blaster worm  victim,  rescued by Mark and Fizzz  for the bargain price of a curry. (Aug. 2003)

New external wireless card.   Her internal wireless was Frida-irritatingly flakey. Irritating Frida is a very risky and dangerous passtime.   (Sept. 2003)

Bonding with Frida.  They regularly slept together (2003-2004).

Frida ceases torturing us by returning to Stockholm and leaves Tinkerbell with me. Tinkerbell becomes my main digital photograph store (Jul. 2004)

I bonded with Tinkerbell by  blogging on MSN Spaces (Feb 2005 thru Feb 2006)

Grinding noises  spook me.  I purchase a Network drive and use it to back-up Tinkerbell’s contents. (Aug. 2005)

Tinkerbell tours the UK.  I store my  travel photographs on  flick-r.  After several blue screen’s her hard drive ‘dies’. (Sept. 2005)

New hard drive. Installation was not easy.   Mark solved  the problem with  a bit of expert serendiptious trouble shooting  (Oct. 2005).  

Replaced Tinkerbell’s original Microsoft wireless base station with LinkSys wireless base station. (Nov.  2005)

Power-supply cable melts into Tinkerbell’s casing. (Jan. 2005)

Purchased a USB keyboard to augment Tinkerbell’s dodgy keyboard. (Feb. 2006)

Keyboard connection flakiness,   power-connection flakiness,  USB connections flakiness,   display reliability and recent bluescreens suggest that euthenasia is the best choice for Tinkerbell. (Mar. 2006)

Tinkerbell will be  dismantled to satisfy my curiosity and for parts. (Apr. 2006)

Tinkerbell resting in pieces (RIP)