Skin of Stars

EDIT: correction to Active Thanet link.

I’m now in the last few weeks of the rundown to the end of the semester, which means I’m crazy busy. This also means that I don’t really have anything prepared for todays post. I’ve decided to just post a collection of what I thing are cool links and you can spend your time there:

http://www.maninthedark.com/

http://www.xkcd.com/

http://www.activethanet.com/

http://www.digg.com/

http://www.delicious.com/

Which means I’ve come round to my promised post time. I don’t really have a lot to say for myself though. Perhaps I’ll chat about what I’ve been up to.

I was back in Thanet over the weekend, just thought it was about time I visited me Ma. For my efforts I got roped into helping set-up the Manston Parish Plan open-day. Some of the local residents wanted to get together some form of formalised plan in order to give some direction to the parish council as to what they people in the area wanted. I think this is a really good idea, a sentiment initially shared by a hundred or so other residents of Manston, it helps guide the councilors in their decisions on funding allocations rather than just pampering to their own whims. During previous village events a team of volunteers handed out questionnaires covering topics such as transport links and traffic, public services (like doctors, etc), clubs and the local environment with a reasonable response rate. I’ve also been ‘lucky’ enough on previous visits to help input this information into spreadsheets so the information can be easily analysed. What I found on reading through was that many people wanted to see all sorts of events being run, such as computing courses or art classes, but no-one was willing to help out run them.

This attitude is very familiar to me as it is something I have encountered with any and every event I have organised in the past. The attitudes of apathy from others are morally draining when you are trying to do something for the better in your community. If what I saw in typing up the figures from the survey wasn’t enough the fact that the open day in the village hall on Saturday, asking for further discussion, had around ten people come visit. I wasn’t all that surprised to be honest, I was in the Jolly Farmer the night before and you could see people visibly squirm when asked if they were coming, various weak excuses rolling off their tongues. It still doesn’t make it any less disappointing to find that residents care so little about their village that they won’t spare ten minutes to come and tell someone who’ll listen what they think.

So Saturday night I went out with Danny. After what happened during the day I was looking forward to a good ale session. We started in the Dickens in Boardstairs, which was just snoozeville. I even question whether it was actually a Saturday night and I’d not just got my days mixed up. To resolve we decided to leave Sleepy Hollow and head to the bright lights of Canterbury city. This was certainly more bustling and it was good to go to the Hobgoblin again after such long time. The place was as punk-rock as ever and good fun to be in. Funny really, we have a Hobgoblin pub here in Oxford but it’s just not the same. I expected it to be just as cool as the Canterbury one but it just doesn’t have the same character. Anyway, after that we headed to the Orange Street Music Club and I’m pleased to say that was as delightful as ever, with a fantastic trad-folk band playing some soaring music. The down side? Last train out of Canterbury to Thanet is ten past eleven so we only got to hear a couple of songs and had to do a runner. Still, a good night out.

And now, well, it is Monday and I have work to do. See you next week.

Hey, just wanted to highlight an article in Kent Online that my friend Jay linked me to. Its about a pair of local artists who are trying to bring a little love to Margate this Valentines Day. The main reason I’m bringing this up is that I know the work of one of them, Selina Tolfree, and I very much like what she does. Because of that I’m urging you all to hunt out her work where you can (I’ll try to update with links at some point) and have a look for yourselves.

Just finished my final exam (computer networks) for this semester of my second year. That should mean I’m exactly half way through, not sure I am though. Unfortunately I feel that I did terribly this semester, including this exam, and I’m kinda woried that it will mean I’m going to have to add an extra semester onto my course. Still, we’ll see, I may yet be able to pull it back. Otherwise, I’m pretty glad this bit is over. The last few months have been a real struggle and I’m looking forward to coming home for an all be it brief period of time.

So now it is time to go have a few ales. I’m gonna try to hold back tonight as tomorrow is my birthday and we’re planning a raucous affair. I’m in Wales for Christmas but will be spending NYE in Thanet, most probably at the Lido, where I hope to catch up with some old friends. I’m a little sad to say this may be one of my last trips back since the family home is now up for sale with the intention of leaving the area. One can’t help but feel a little loss at the thought of not returning to an area where I spent so many of my formative years but its difficult to imagine that I would return without a family home there. I guess some people flee from the nest, others are pushed and some just have the nest taken away while they’re not looking.

Not only has Arts and Elbows not posted -in several months, but I’ve also noted that the IOTA website has been taken over by cybersquaters, with the last record I can find (thanks to the waybackmachine) is in April. Whats going on?

Ok, I’ll break my silence, if for nothing more than the fear that I may soon end on ECRs ‘Where are they now?’ list!

I’ve not ignored Thanet in any way, I take the Thanet Times back to Oxford with me (or get them brought to me!) when I can and keep up with blogging through the wonder of the internet. You know, I found I can be anywhere to read these blogs, not just in Thanet, amazing things these Internets.

I often find that when I see something interesting I think about how I would put it in a blog post, but it would seem I’m now into the habit of not posting. Lets take this example: The other day I was in Margate and was almost knocked over by Sandy Beach who was rounding a corner at high pace away from the town, only to find that when I got to Margate centre the whole town was without power… link perhaps?!

The topic of the moment though does seem to be TBLs birthday. I can hardly believe it to be a year already. That curious, spiraling turning of events that began with turmoil on the blogger circuit to the rise of the blog list. Though for my sins I may have started it, to my better judgment I handed it to Adem who has made it into a truly useful and enjoyable resource… though I must be honest, I cannot stand this Snap preview thing (cue tech tip). If you want to turn it off this is what you have to do: hover over a link to the snappy thing appears, got to options in that pop-up, check the boxes to disable, when it saves reload.

Ok, I’m here for the next month so I’ll probably post again, mainly because I see this as a Thanet blog. After that I’ll probably pull it into my new personal site that I’m planning (see if you can guess the web address ).

For all you Thanet bloggers: Keep up the good work!

Made a nice change today, waking up in the morning. Went down for breakfast, life is that much easier when other people are cooking for you, it is also a good motivator to crawl out my pit in the morning. I thought it was important to make the effort and get up for food today seeing as I have rugby training at 2pm. We have our first match in four weeks and to be honest my laziness over Christmas has raised my own concerns over match fitness. What is the chances of a full time smoker and general layabout being able to run for 80mins. I can see me being sick on the touchline.

I’ve been playing with the new Bloglist and frankly I’m loving what he’s done with it. The Recent Feeds section is awesome and is a great to use in conjunction with netvibes. For example, though I have about 17 Thanet blog feeds on a netvibes page I would never have known that Old Ramsgate and Thanet Underground has been adding new material if it hadn’t been for the Bloglist. I’m not going to add every feed to my netvibes just in case, but the Bloglist does that for us.

In view of this I’ve decided to add the new button that is made available in the promote section. I’ll admit that I wasn’t altogether happy with the code, but frankly I always find something to moan about so I suggest you all use that mental filter now that I’m sure you all use on banner ads for the rest of the web… Actually, if you really don’t like banner ads there is a great Firefox extension that will clean the internet of them for you, its called AdBlock Plus

I’m now getting closer with my oonagi redesign with pretty much only one thing left to do on it, which alas due to my lack of php knowledge I have to place a request to ask someone else to fix for me. Shame really, maybe by the end of this year I’ll know what to do, though by the end of this year all the knowledge will probably be out of date anyway!

Whilst at work the other day I met many of the members of the Global Generation Church. They do alot of work in the area with the community, infact it is their primary goal as a church. This may be related to the fact that this is a very young organisation (over 30 and you stand out) and so they want to make an impact on the community and get more members, or perhaps they are just good people. They certainly shook my view as to what a church is like, these guys weren’t middle England style baking competitions and tea with vicar. Hell, they don’t even have a vicar to lead the flock, the task is taken on by a team of shepherds who are as much leading themselves as others.

So is this a good thing? Should it be down to a church to provide youth clubs as well as providing advice on drug use and sexual health? Is it because of the gaping hole in public services that these groups feel compelled to set up these services or is it because organisations like Global Generation set up these services that our elected bodies feel they now don’t have to deal with these social issues?

Meeting these guys gave me a new found respect and hope for Christian organisations but in my mind it still raises some troubling questions about society.

My recent general lack of internet has severely severed what I am able to do on my Christmas projects. Our house in Manston sits outside the Thanet wired broadband catchment area. Of course there is always a workaround. For us the answer is wireless broadband beamed in through a toaster styled receiver attached to the side of the house from up near the Uni campus. We were with a company called SoBroadband from Rainham but alas they went into some kind of liquidifidation and was subsequently taken over by VFast from Ashford. They all seem very nice so we don’t really mind that their temporary transmitter (put up for Christmas) keeps being blown down by the high winds we’ve been having of late.
projects, broadband, sobroadband, vfast, manston

Christmas was turned out well considering. It was my first without my father and his brother, both having died earlier in 2006, assuming I’ve not mentioned it before. We went down to that side of the family in Dorset and frankly it was generally pretty good fun. My cousins are all come of drinking age and so it was a good fun starting from almost as soon as I arrived. Just got to get them to move off the lager onto some good ales.
christmas, family, dorset

Friday the 29th of December was showtime at the Lido, Margate. Evil Elvis were playing with support from Black Static Transmission rinsing out a Christmas set in the last Plan9 show of the year. ‘This is almost like Christmas with the family’ I explained to my friend Danny as I talked him into coming. ‘Your not sure that you really want to go but you know your going to have awesome fun when you get there’. He succumb, but frankly I think he was lured by the Elvis, a now almost annual event of \m/Rock\m/ and Roll. I played in the 2000/2001 NYE show and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the first. Anyway, loads of others made the same pilgrimage and a very cool night was had by all with lots of drinking and dancing. Even Danny had came out grinning, if not a little worse for wear which meant we had to get out the taxi a little early (if thats not the mark of a good night, I don’t know what is?!)
evilelvis, blackstatictransmission, plan9, lido, margate

Two days later and its New Years Eve and I was working. I’ll admit that this was a night that I wasn’t looking forward to. I always feel this night of all nights is the biggest of disappointing nights of the year. There again, I think I can just be a misery sometimes, which was something I did well on this night. I did have some fun though, there were nine of us working upstairs around one till, a night of continual weaving but sooo busy that the evening flies. I like work to be busy . This bar dance was set to a soundtrack of the Sharpees who played better than the last time I saw them, though I have to admit they are still not one of my favourites. In all honesty though it would have to be one hell of a band for me to have a covers band as one of my favourites… and at least they didn’t play Mustang Sally! The shift finished at some ungodly hour, so we went on to a party in Margate in the home of **On The Rag zine**. It was a house gig but unfortunately we missed the bands, new boys ‘Cubs’ and one of my favourite locals ‘We Are Carnivores’, due to time. Shame really, I would have put up with the bleeding eardrums you get in house gigs for those two.
nye, newyearseve, work, sharpees, cubs, wearecarnivores, ontherag, ramsgate, margate

I recieved a letter from the court service… fear.. had they really found me?! I slowly opened the envolope and pulled out the pink paper… jury duty! Wuh?! How terribly exciting, though I have had to defer though due to school… erm, not sure I can talk about that, if not then I’ll just edit this post ^^
juryservice

Luckily I’m getting a good few shifts while I’m here, lots of last min calls but thats fine by me. One of my more recent shifts has been real relaxed but I’m starting to be aware of a necessity of a more appropriate part time job. Not sure exactly what that is at the moment but its certainly something I need to think about. Answers to ‘life, the universe and everything’ on a postcard to 42 Hitchikers Way…
work, career,

Well there is a summary of the past few weeks in an entry that probably takes as long to read. Hopefully once our interwebulation connection is rectified I can summarise my return to Thanet in more bitsize pieces.