Christmas Cards Are A Wonderful Thing

I know that the end of January is a bit late for such statement, but it did take some time for such surprises to show themselves.

This year I sent Christmas cards/emails to the usual list of people, who also included some people with whom I’ve lost touch a bit in the past year. Soon after I received letters and emails from three people I haven’t heard from for ages! It’s so nice to catch up!

Film Review: 24 Hour Party People

Films such as 24 Hour Party People take a bit of a long time to get to the screens in Israel. Last night I finally got to see a movie that I wanted to see a long time ago.

Enjoyment of such movie depends very much on whom you are, what are your interests, and what you expect.

The movie is a very strange combination of fact and fiction, a documentary and the tale of music in Manchester between 1976 and 1992. It is the story of the beginning of punk, new wave and all the way to raving culture, told from the point of view of Tony Wilson, former Factory Records boss, a Granada television reporter and owner of the notorious Haçienda club. It is the story of Joy Division/New Order and the Happy Mondays. It is not, according to the movie, about Tony Wilson: “It’s not about me, it’s about music”.

It is obvious that much of the story told in 24 Hour Party People is fiction. This is a fact stated by the real Howard Devoto in response to a scene in which he is portrayed having sex with Wilson’s wife in a toilet cubicle. It is also stressed by Tony Wilson himself in this interview:

"...There are drugs where there weren't drugs and sex where there wasn't sex - there are lots of untruths. But hey, what do you want? There's that line about the choice between truth and legend - always pick the legend. And that's what they've done."

More than telling a story, the movie conveys an atmosphere. It may not all be true, but the feeling is there, the music is there, and many of the real people are there too.

For a music addict like me, the movie was a fantastic learning experience, no matter which part of it was true and which wasn’t. However, someone less keen will find himself constantly looking at a watch and wishing they could switch the channel to MTV or a non-music-related channel.

Bottom line: a wonderful movie, but for enthusiasts only.

Addict’s Nightmare

Last night I experienced one of an addict’s worse nightmares: lack of bandwidth!

I have no idea what was causing it, and I was too busy to try and check it out. I just hope that when I get back home tonight everything will be fine.

It is amazing how easy it is to get used to broadband. Many years ago, when the 28.8 modem was the highest point of technology, an experience such as the one I had last night would have been the norm, but now anything slower than my ADSL annoys me. Or maybe it’s just me. Could it be that I have turned into an impatient person? And if I did, what caused it? Could it be just that I moved on with technology, was it age, or was it something else?

I love new things and new technology, but I keep wondering if being a geek could be harmful in ways that I did not imagine.

A question comes up: Could we live without technology? How will survive if we are deprived of our gadgets for a long period? Does anyone want to test it?

Sex Survey – A Statistical Dysfunction

A research on BBC News today claims that today’s women have less time for sex than their 1950′s counterparts.

Reading this article was very amusing. One of my favourite paragraphs is:

"According to the study, 42% of women who cohabit with male partners have sex two or three times a week. This compares to just one in three married women."

Isn’t semantics a wonderful thing? The comparison of 42% to one in three does sound like a huge difference, but it doesn’t take too much thinking to realise that we’re talking 42% compared with 33%… doesn’t sound that much now, does it?

A few more questions come up:

"The findings are based on telephone interviews with 853 women between the ages of 20 and 65."

If some stranger called me asking about my sex life for “research purposes” I’m not sure I would have answered… most likely I would hang up the phone right there and then. What does that say about the women that did answer the survey?

"Fifty years ago, most women were stay-at-home mums with more free time. Few had jobs and television sets were rare.

Today, many women hold down jobs while also raising children. Any spare time is often spent shopping, working out in the gym or watching their favourite television programmes."

Here it is important to read between the lines – the survey was conducted about women, not the men in the relationship. It points out that one of the major reasons women don’t have time for sex is that they hold down jobs while raising children. It does not point out that women are still expected to take on the full burden of bringing up the children, despite changes to their employment status. Just another way of saying that the struggle for full equality is far from over. This is proved even further in another article from the BBC News today showing that the gap between women’s and men’s pay in the UK is still widening. I believe that this will also be true in other parts of the world.

I have a strange feelings that only women’s sex lives are researched in that way, as if assuming that men never have problems or never need any help.

I’m looking forward to reading the other side of the statistics, if they are ever published. Other numbers I would be interested in will be comparison of the sex lives of people who are not in steady relationships, society’s attitude towards such people, and maybe a few statistic that do not ignore men’s sexual habits, lifestyles and dysfunctions.

Happiness

Just thought I’d share my happiness. Happiness is always a good thing to share, especially on a Sunday.

It’s just a state of mind. The result of many happy things and a very good weekend in which, not only did I manage to catch up with quite a lot paperwork that needed doing a long time ago, but also got to spend the whole of Saturday happily with Veggie Vampire, doing happy things. (That feeling was a bit upset by VV cutting himself in a DYI accident, nothing major, but there was a lot of blood everywhere).

To this, add a very good meeting this morning, followed by the discovery that Deviant Brainwave is now listed on Walla (a major Israeli search engine – Hebrew link).

I just hope that knowing all this made you feel a little happier too.

Lego

Lego is such a wonderful thing… so creative. I used to spend ages playing with them when I was a kid.

Today I read about real creative people doing some real creative things with Lego by creating miniatures of famous works of art. Reading this also reminded me of Defective Yeti who suggested using Lego as currency.

And if we’re on the subject, here’s another creative Lego site. (Adult content – you must be over 18 to click here!)

Any other Lego suggestions?

Efficiency

How is it that I do my best work when my boss is not around?

In the past couple of days my boss has been away on business, and during this time I managed to work efficiently, finish urgent work on two projects while helping my team with two others, and still get home early enough to have a bit of a life. Yesterday I even took the time to cook!

I’m happy to say that my boss will be away until the end of the week, which means I actually have the chance to get a month’s worth of work done.

Link Who?

A report in Slashdot today tells about sites that campaign against sites with stupid linking policies.

This is something I’ve heard of before, but with no actual examples, but Don’t Link To Us provides them all, including linking to the unlinkables.

These are sites that for some peculiar reasons require anyone who would like to link to them to fill in forms, or prohibits the linking all together.

The actual idea of posting something on the World Wide Web (yes, that’s the Hyperlink GUI version of the Internet! Invented for linking!), but prohibiting linking is an oxymoron. The WWW created a whole culture that is now a normal way of life, based, among other things, on the links between pages, that create links between people. Blogs are a major part of that culture. Isn’t such linking policy missing the point?!

Politeness

One of the good things I have to tell about my parents is that they’ve taught me to be polite and pleasant to the people around me. One of the results is my constant tendency to ask for permission. This includes situations in which the permission is obvious, with sentences such as “If you’ll excuse me, I will go to the restrooms”, or “With your permission, I’d like to take a shower”.

My boyfriend gets annoyed with me every time I ask these questions, taking them literally as a request for permission to do the most basic tasks that I would do anyway. So much so, that I’ve just got a telling off for doing it again.

It makes me wonder: Where is the limit? What is considered a required courtesy, and when is my politeness turning into pompous pretentiousness? Will I ever learn?

A Green Desert

This weekend I went to visit my brother in the Negev desert.

The recent rainy weeks in Israel brought an amazing richness to the usually dry hills and filled them with gorgeous green grasses.

I took some pictures with my dad’s new digital camera, but he hasn’t sent them over yet. I think he is still trying to figure out how to use that technological wonder.

As soon as I get the pics I’ll make sure to post them.