If you want to follow my adventures, my Twitter address is @Eingang.

I suppose, however, it would be permissible to give a big update for those who are interested.

It's a lovely three-bedroom end-of-terrace house with a conservatory and a decent-sized back garden that looks like it will be great for BBQs in the summer months and for the cats to frolic about in.

For those of you behind on things, I've been living in London since last July when I moved here from Brighton. Stephen and I got very amicably divorced last year and he's now back living in Canada, although he did promise to come visit "early in 2008". His definition of "early" apparently is a little different than mine, given that it's now April. (-:

I'm currently intermitting from my Ph.D. at the University of Sussex while I try to decide what I'm going to do about that and earn money or become rich enough to finish it. In the meantime, I've been continuing to do work at the Open University here in the United Kingdom, including chairing a cohort of Singaporean students for TT381: Open Source Development Tools, moderating on TT281: The Client Side of Application Development, and writing course materials and assessment questions for those courses. At the beginning of May 2008, I'll be starting a position as an associate lecturer on a new course: T320: Ebusiness Technologies: Foundations and Practice, which I'm looking forward to.

My life at the moment consists a lot of running around like a chicken with its head cut off as I run between meetings in Milton Keynes to finishing marking to developing face-to-face tutorial content to last-minute re-writes of guides to install Apache/MySQL/PHP for Windows to filing change of address notifications with everyone I know to trying to sort out the moving process to being scared about how much money this house is costing. Oh yes, and I sleep--sometimes for even as many as 7 hours.

Life's not really about to get much simpler. In the next 30 days I need to move house, clean the existing apartment, plan and host a tutorial for M150: Introduction to Data and Information, mark a whackload of end of course assessments (ECAs) for TT281, start moderating on TT381, and read through a whack of new course material for starting tutoring on T320. That's plus whatever's required for Transcena (Canada). Piece of cake!

In fact, I'd better stop writing about it and get to it. Perhaps I'll post pictures of the house another day.

A local house is identified by this sign outside. I never had the urge until now. I can hardly wait for my rock climbing shoes to arrive.

Fork Up

In Britain, by law, you must pay more to eat in some place nice.

A patron at a local Grease & Chips shop had to fork out more dough between mouthfuls. He apparently sat in the "nice" seats, where he had access to amenities like cutlery, padded seats and a table at the right height. If he were clever, he would have perched against the wall on the stools up front with the rest of the lepers and common scum. I know I would have. Not good enough for us lepers, hmm?

We saw a local contraption that was more motor than car. It was literally an engine with a seat behind it and three wheels thrown on for good measure. The entire contraption was about the height and weight of my cat and went like snot. (What an odd expression. I better buy some more man-sized Kleenex.)

Surge Tide Warning

Our friends in London phoned us up to bring news of extreme tides scheduled for our area. "DANGER! DANGER!" said the news. We live but half a block from the sea in a property that is mostly sunken compared to our neighbors. "Oh boy!" I thought, picturing mounting rental discounts as we perch in our upstairs room. Actually, our six-page tenancy agreement makes us responsible for most things including floods, pestilence, and famine.

I was rather disappointed when the sea didn't even touch the hundred-foot wall guarding the roadway.

The winds did come up quite spectacularly, whisking away garbage and unanchored locals. That night a clatter arose from the roof

<CREEK!>
<THUMP!>
<BUMP!>... <Bump>... <bump> ... < b i n g >

I hope that wasn't Santa Claus.

More likely it was the expensive-looking satellite dish on the roof going for a wee walkabout. Now we'll be in trouble for not huddling on the roof through the storm, bracing the dish. (Or more likely clinging to the dish with feet flying.)

Movies

We saw End of Days in London for $22.50 a person. Good thing we picked the cheap seats. Got popcorn and a drink too for considerably less than a down payment on a Volkswagen. End of Days is fine if you shift your brain into neutral and learn to enjoy Arnie's acting.

They gave us our money's worth by treating us to an extra 25 minutes of pre-movie commercials. Most of it bizarre enough to my proper Canadian mind as too quickly slip through the tender net of memory. One commercial did stand out though:

Audio: Man and a woman in bed giggling and laughing.
Visual: Bedroom, side of bed barely in camera.
The man grunts with effort and a pair of men's socks in tossed into view.
Shirt... <giggle> belt... <giggle, giggle> trousers... and finally with a grunt and sigh his briefs drop into view.
He sounds pleased and expectant.
"And THAT too!" she chides
<Sigh> <Grumble>... and on the dresser is placed a large Australian beer.
Voiceover: "Beer too good to put down."

Advertising

Being loosely affiliated with the advertising industry (or is that afflicted), I find it disconcerting to be, um, disconcerted by British ads.

Figure 1

Today's paper features a full-colour, double half-page spread for Marlboro. A forest is burning in front of a black, swampy river filled with brutish crocodiles. "Welcome to Marlboro country." I guess we know what happened to the Marlboro man. He didn't die of lung cancer. He was an amateur rural pyromaniac before succumbing to guilt and stumbling into the turgid river to become crocodile-smoked beef jerky.

Figure 2

A series of huge bus shelter adverts designed apparently to humanize the perception of the disabled:
2a - Picture: man in wheelchair. Caption: "I spent my paycheque at the pub." Oh, I feel so much better about him now. He's a drunken git like me.

2b - Picture: Woman in wheelchair with friend. Head: "She's such an embarrassment". Subcaption: "Her laugh is so dirty." Ah, another person like me. An embarrassment.

I must be getting old. Subtle reverse meta-humour is offending my political correctness.

More Financial Fun

We had lunch at the Smuggler's Pub. (Formerly headquarters for a successful cross-channel smuggling gang until their leader was taken away on trumped up sheep stealing charges. I suspect it has undergone a name change.) Michelle had a nice little sandwich with fries and a pop. I had some french bread with cheese, raw onion salad, and a Coke. Being a Stilton cheese virgin, I had to take it on faith, when my plate arrived, that visible pustules of mold were in fact intentional and not a result of cost-cutting. It tasted like extra, extra sharp Mozzarella, vintage 1987. The pustules were not a result of cost-cutting. Total cost $28.75

The Euro just fell to 1.004 against the U.S. dollar, down 15% since inception. Hmm.

PS - We're having fun. Really we are. All these files should be taken with a smile and a smirk. Tomorrow we get to party like it's 1999. And eight hours ahead of all you Millennium laggard Canadians. :) Happy New Year!

PPS - It would be interesting should the millions that head into London by rail to party discover that Y2K has stopped the trains at midnight. At least the party hats will keep their heads warm. :)

What a cute notion to fly a kite next to the crashing surf. But these were not ordinary kites. The kites themselves were little parachutes, and their masters were decked out in extreme kite wear. The huge contraptions seemed to take great joy in launching their captors high into the air and then dragging them across the beach. As I recall, sandpaper is made from sand.

Fortunately, Brighton does not have sand.

Brighton has pebbles.

Apparently, I was witnessing para-boarding, or sailing, or some such thing. Put yourself on a surfboard (tricky), fly an overgrown kite (trickier), and let it pull you across huge waves without falling off (trickiest). Here we have a sport that combines the best traits of frustration and humiliation with random Pavlovian reinforcement of pain. I was surprised I wasn't instantly hooked.

This is a buddy sport. You steady your kite. Your buddy jumps on you. You bound down the beach out of control with your buddy affixed to your ankle. He's not just holding you down but trying to affix a surfboard to your flying feet. Just when you think you have it, a huge wave crashes over you, buddy and surfboard. Do not let go. Repeat, do not let go of the kite, despite pebbles cramming deeper into your nasal cavity.

Eventually, our hero did get into the water. He sailed at the speed of sound, hit a sea turd, and did a salty face plant. Instantly he was yanked full out the water to do the face plant again.

Yank!
Splash!
Oof!
Yank!
PLOOSH!
Ugh!
Yank!

Do not let go. Remember the mantra.

When he was far, far out, I begin to wonder about the kite dunking itself. Maybe a 1/2 mile swim through raging surf attached to leaden kite is good exercise.

Extreme Hazards

Our intrepid surfer would have a much easier time if it were not for wild Brighton sea turds. Apparently the pipe from my little commode (and every one else's) leads directly to the sea. Yes, folks, raw sewage, toilet paper and all, from a major population center dumped directly into the sea. But it's ok, the pipe goes out beyond the swimming area so your chance of coming face to face with this morning's deposit are slim. Thanks to the tourism board, they process it in the summer into a more consistent paste to reduce chunkiness. Did I mention the popularity of curry?

Extremely Commercial Weather

"And now the Barbados Tourism Authority weather: London - Rain. South East - Windy and rain. Forecast - Dull, wet and windy."

It seems English weather is sponsored by Barbados Tourism. It's sort of the opposite of trying to sell fridges to the Inuit.

I wonder if they take plastic? I'd like to order some wicked sunshine for Brighton.

Extreme Behaviour

This morning greeted us with an exceptionally windy seaside day. My morning tour to the sea was interrupted as I watched a familiar face chase his hat down the block. I flapped my arms lightly against the gale in sympathy. He retrieved his hat, waved his hands in the air, let out a whooping yell, and marched up to plant himself but inches from my face. I could see quite clearly his two front teeth were mostly gold, which worked nicely with whole rasta-man gig he had going.

My small demonstration of solidarity was all he needed. He clapped his large black hand on my back and grinned even wider. We were brothers against the storm.

"Oh what a crazy world it is, mon, " he exclaimed loudly into my face. It was genuine Jamaican-rasta with a British accent. "Why can't we all a just be happy, my friend? Why just a last night night I was a singing and a laughing and a yelling MERRY CHRISTMAS! And you know what?"

I stared into his face. I didn't know what.

"Well, I tell you what," he continued with another thunderous pat on my back. "They came and tried to take me away. Oh, yes, they did. They wanted to puts a me in an institution just for being happy now. An institution!" Except he said INSTA-TOOOoo-SHUN .

I patted him on the backm and he was satisfied that I understood. I'm now an unofficial rasta-storm-brother. I get my secret handshake next week.

Extreme Conspiracy

I was greeted by an unusual sight when I finally continued down to the ocean. A large section of the beach was sectioned off with high fences and patrolled by plainclothed guards in bright yellow pants. (On the beach plain clothes include bright yellow pants.) Far beyond the fences on the beach were more men from the yellow pants unit scurrying around several large, carefully tarped objects. I had obviously stumbled across the covert yellow alien space craft retrieval unit.

I approached the guard. I knew it! He was a dead ringer for Mulder. Now where was that sexy Sculley?

He ran an unconvincing story about fireworks tonight. Celebrate the shortest day of the year he said. (He really did look like Mulder.) Even the English aren't silly enough to celebrate the lack of sun, are they?

That night we dashed out of the house into gale force winds in response to several terrific bangs. The crowds were gathered thick and sure enough... there were no fireworks. Instead, one of the large towers, now untarped, was on fire.

Instead of launching fireworks into the sky, it simply fell over slowly and burst into multicolored flames. <Fzzzz> <Crackle> <Crackle>

The yellow pants unit scurried like...well, not like ants...like British. They casually walked around the burning carcass, as if nothing was wrong, and lit up the ground displays. These were supposed to spin and sparkle like Chinese wheels. They flapped madly in the gale, letting off streams of glowing fireflies.

The second tower did a bit better. Instead of falling over and catching fire it stood firm and caught fire. <fzzz> <Crackle> <Crackle>

The yellow unit let the crowds watch the burning towers a while longer, thanked everyone, thanked the corporate sponsors, and bid us goodnight. As we walked home, I secretly admired the cunning of the yellow unit as the alien crafts burned in full public view.

Food must either go bad faster here, or we North Americans are used to rancid. The roast chicken is labelled EAT WITHIN 24 HOURS. It's good for up to an hour unrefrigerated. My grapes almost expired by the time I got home. :)

On the plus side, food seems to be less Americanized here. That is, the ingredient list does not take up two panels of the cookie box. There is also a lot more organic and vegetarian food readily available. Well, readily if you are readily rich. Grapes are $6 a pound. It's cheaper to fly to Spain for $125 and pick your own.

Our fridge is small. You might know this, but you do not understand this. It is SMALL. We have two (2) shelves. Neither is big enough to fit a 2- litre carton of milk at any angle. The crisper is the size of a very large hamster. I would kill for the bar fridge at the office.

In a way, it's very much like camping out. You carefully pack and unpack your food each time you need some, taking care not to create empty pockets. You light your stove with a match. You wear multiple layers of clothing. It's the West Coast Trail X 2.5.

We live in a mews. It's much better than living above a fish and chips shop. It has heat (mostly).

A mews is a converted stable. Our house is a little cottage (room upstairs, room downstairs) connected to a mews down some steps. The mews has a very high ceiling but little light because the only windows face northwest onto a sunken, walled garden.

The obvious solution to this is to put the most outlandish wallpaper you can imagine up your one-and-a-half-storey walls. Say, solid metallic silver with deep blue vines and giant yellow tulips the size of your head. The agent had listed it as "unusually decorated."

Actually, the end effect works surprisingly well. It's like being a cat crouched in deep grass.

The mews itself contains a kitchen, dining nook and reading nook plus glass french doors leading out onto a garden. The kitchen is wide enough for two people stand if they intend to get very intimate. The garden is big enough to stand with your arms out and spin if it were not full of shrubberies. It is full of shrubberies.

Each room is heated by a little wall heater that is reminiscent of a fireplace. We've taken to heating just one room of the house at a time. At the fish and chips shop, our favourite saying to anyone who got uppity about the lack of heat was "Put on another jumper!" To which the standard reply was "I'm already wearing all my jumpers!"

The English don't actually believe in insulation. Their concept of insulation is to build your house smack against your neighbours' to steal their heat, those rich coal-hogging bastards! Hence, our house is surrounded on three sides by our neighbours sucking our hard-won heat, you coal-hogging bastards! :)

I think part of our ceiling is someone else's floor. It's hard to tell in urban jungles like this.

The entrance to the house is past a very tall gate and into a little courtyard, a couple of feet wide and the length of the "cottage", filled with plants, stone and shrubberies. At the end of this, there is a drop into the tiny mews' garden and a look into the french doors. When we first arrived, Michelle looked ahead at the mews and then to the "cottage" on our left and said "Who lives there?" To which I replied, "You will, Love."

We live on a dead end back alley lane just a half block from the main road that runs along the sea wall. Heading few hundred feet down the sea wall and across another road and an acre of small stones brings you to the crashing surf! I bounce in my head every time I think of this.

The whole house is pre-furnished. This is good, because unfurnished houses are often missing things like carpets, fridges and stoves.

Cozy is an apt description. Everywhere, there are rugs and carpets. Rugs on the walls, sofas with cushions, pictures of old time scenes. Little notes are scattered throughout making the whole experience seem very much like playing a game of Myst -- exploring someone else's world.

Despite having minimal light, the place is very lovely and charming. This is exactly the character-rich kind of house that one needs in order to know where they truly are.

Indian Pizza. Not surprisingly, and more to my delight than Michelle's, Indian cuisine is prevalent here. The local Safeway has a complete Indian dinner for two next to the frozen pizzas. I'm curious to discover what lies in the "ethnic" foods section.

Fish and Chips. Still waiting for decent fish and chips. The local shop downstairs seems to believe in a long soak in grease followed by a gentle warming.

Given our new budget I've adopted a new diet. I call it "Anything on Sale." We've had prime cuts of Happy Cow (formerly Mad Cow) discounted beef.

We've been making a study of the locals; well mostly Simon here at the flat though most people call him Psi. (It's like living in a Dr. Who episode.) The preferred diet seems to consist of grease. Fish and grease. Burgers and grease. Grease and grease. Every evening we ask Psi what he's going to have. "Oh, " he says getting his coat on, "I think I'll go out and get me some grease." This morning I noted a change in feeding behaviour as Specimen A dashed out the door with breakfast in hand: Mars bar and Coke.

I've given up explaining what we paid in rent in Canada. It's the equivalent to a Canadian being told that we come from a land where we lived in full sized house with jacuzzi and sauna on a few acres of green for $200 / month. Be thankful oh you young Canucks.

Michelle just informed me that we are paying $50 / day in rent + utilities on top of that. About the same as a hotel in Edmonton.

Commercial real estate on the other hand does not seem too far overpriced. It appears Class B space can be had for £6 / sq ft or less making it cheaper than our Class A Edmonton office; well cheaper if we were paying rates than normal mortals pay.

Pssst, Used Railway Tunnel, Sir? For rent. Prime SouthEastern abandoned railway tunnel. Great for storage, shooting ranges, bondage and specialty service establishments, clubs. Requires some cleaning.

Shops and a Jolly Gay Neighborhood

It's really like living in a giant Old Strathcona. The shops are just crammed in. Across the street I can see a drugstore, clothing store, Radio and TV shop, convenience store, bar, picture shop, knickknack shop and a hardware and ironmonger. The last one sounds like a crime.

"What are you in for?"

"Ay, mate, they got me for a bit of Hardware and Ironmongering."

The pattern repeats on every street across the city.

"Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub."

*Sing it!*

"Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub."

Oh! "Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub."

Yeah! "Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub."

Kindy catchy!

Just down the street is apparently Brighton's only gay bar and coffee house. We're living in gay central which is good because apparently it adds character and creativity to the neighborhood and makes us Uber designers.

Everything is within walking distance. A local Jeweler advertises "Last Jeweler for 25 yards!".

Weather

Had some variety today. Big storm clouds instead of grey. I've yet to see a soul wearing sunglasses. Bright sun does not seem to be a predominant concern. Brighton <> Brightsun.

News Flash: Bright sun for several hours. Sat on the roof above the fish and chips shop watching the sea and reading the Inland Revenue guide to taxation. Was inspected carefully by neighborhood patrol seagull who made his opinion known in a brief and effective ceremony involving a small rooftop deposit. He didn't approve of my sunglasses.

Fall. It's like perpetual early autumn here. All the leaves are caught in terrible indecision over the trendy colour du jour. Some, fearing heavy snow, have given it up for the Ally McBeal twig look. Most sport fashionable green, yellow and auburn. Weather remains mild with only occasional call for mittens and flying umbrellas.

Technology

Have been spending our days researching mobiles. This apparently is a full time occupation that only anal-retentive North American's undertake. The local Carphone Warehouse seems appalled every time we show up with some obscure question. The manager's eyes recede and go all beady . Most people apparently just sign up to Whatever and when quizzed don't even know what network they are on. The Warehouse's first recommendation to us would have more than doubled our costs.

When people first recommended the Carphone Warehouse, I pictured in my mind a smaller Futureshop kinda store. Actually it's about the size of a decent bathroom with just enough room to wind up before you sprint for the door. We'll likely be back because they are apparently the best in town. A competing store would take our tough questions, smile and then quickly phone the Carphone warehouse and thus still end up with the wrong information.

Would you believe there's no way to plug your Mac laptop into a mobile. The best solution involves having a modem in your laptop, one in your mobile phone and another (expensive) one on a card in your laptop. I have a potential solution that involves four different connected cables and gender changers and will of God. Maybe.

We're now experts on the subject having stumped even the 1-800 specialists and will be opening our own shop next week.

High Speed Internet

Whenever we ask for this, we get names of Internet Cafes which are in abundance here. Nobody quite understands this concept of fast access from home.

Apparently BT's (UK's AT&T) ADSL trials were poor because their routers/hubs couldn't handle the load. It's also going to be expensive. The cable company is coming out with cable modems but won't admit to it. Rumour is around March or April. Unlimited high speed access if you sign a 1 year plan. Limited access for month-to-month.

Actually the cable company offers all kinds of phone packages that blow the lid of phone company. If they can expand their coverage, BT literally will not be able to compete. It is a crying shame that the Mews won't be supported until around April.

Interestingly the Cable company won't install ISDN in December because it's just too laid back a month for the British and they don't want to work their technicians too hard.

Currently, it costs about $30,000 / year to get high speed, 24 hour Internet access. (It costs the office under $3000 for speeds that are better than double.)

BT is going to be selling ADSL to resellers for $120 / month soon.

Stay Tuned

More funky adventures from the S&M channel coming live to you from across the ocean. Next weeks episode: How to live in a converted stable and not freeze to death; a story of hope, romance and heat.

To support our efforts, last year I secured a non-profit license for Atlassian's enterprise-level wiki/blogging software Confluence, and it's on this end of the guild's web site that I spend the most time. Over the last year, I've added polls, group chat, calendars, dynamic tabbed content, and many other features, plus upgraded the backend database and wiki software more times than I can shake a fist at.

Behind the scenes is all kinds of web goodness that perhaps others don't appreciate, from XHTML-compliant two- and three-column CSS layouts, to RSS feeds (and a way to create your own custom feeds), AJAX cross-browser WYSIWYG editing, Java servlets, IRC servers, Apache Tomcat servers, Velocity templating, modular plug-ins, and SOAP services. I've barely scratched the surface.

Is it fun? Yes! Is it time consuming? Oh yeah! Is it worthwhile working on The One @ WoWKindness Wiki? I think so and I hope others do too. Will other Thunderhorn World of Warcraft guilds be envious of our fine wiki and web site? We hope so, because ... We are The One!

I'm afraid that I also have to confess to Dead Can Dance as being a "guilty pleasure." In fact, according to LastFm (AudioScrobbler), they're my 7th most-listened to artist. Lisa Gerrard does have a fanastic voice. She does the vocals in Now We Are Free, that haunting track from the movie Gladiator, which I also love.

Of the Dead Can Dance tracks I have, the one that sticks in my mind most lately is Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book, from the album Aion. Firstly, because it has a title which is, I think, rather cryptic, causing me to wonder about its origin and meaning. The second thing is the orchestration, so vivid and so sharp, but so unmodern. The lyrics too are unconventionally philosophical, as so many songs sungs by Brendan Perry are, highlighting the capriciousness of life and Murphy's Law.

When you expect whistles it's flutes
When you expect flutes it's whistles

Again, science fiction strongly dominates, although the last three are more suspense and thriller books. Nine of these were from the shelf of my friend in Vancouver while I was visiting him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the last book in the Rani Trader Glasswright series. I’ve been left in suspense as to what happens to bring the whole thing to a tidy close.

The keen-eyed amonst you might have noticed that I haven’t listed any audiobooks lately. The truth is, I haven’t had time to finish any, because I often listen to them while on the bus or while walking up and down the seafront. While I was in Canada, I didn’t do those things. As a result, I’ve been working my way through the unabridged Life of Pi (Yann Martel) for ages now, but the end is in sight!

Grand total for the year is 88.

See more progress on: read 100 books in 2005

1. The Bad Beginning, book 1 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
2. The Reptile Room, book 2 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
3. The Wide Window, book 3 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
4. The Miserable Mill, book 4 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
5. The Austere Academy, book 5 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
6. The Ersatz Elevator, book 6 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
7. The Vile Village, book 7 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
8. The Hostile Hospital, book 8 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
9. The Carnivorous Carnival, book 9 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
10. The Slippery Slope, book # in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unofortunate Events
11. Tides of Light, book 4 of physicist Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series.
12. Seventh Son, book 1 of Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series.
13. The Eye of the World, book 1 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I listened to the unabridged version as an audio book.

February

1. Red Prophet, book 2 of Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series.
2. The Great Hunt, book 2 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I listened to the unabridged version as an audio book.
3. Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb, an unabridged audiobook.
4. Star Surgeon by James White, book 2 of his Sector General space hospital series.
5. Major Operation by James White, book 3 of his Sector General space hospital series.
6. Ambulance Ship by James White, book 4 of his Sector General space hospital series.
7. Sector General by James White, book 5 of his Sector General space hospital series.
8. Star Healer by James White, book 6 of his Sector General space hospital series.
9. The Secret Garden by Fances Hodgson Burnett.
10. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
11. Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell.

March

1. Code of Emergency by James White, book 7 of his Sector General space hospital series.
2. The Genocidal Healer by James White, book 8 of his Sector General space hospital series.
3. Final Diagnosis by James White, book 10 of his Sector General space hospital series.
4. Mind Changer by James White, book 11 of his Sector General space hospital series.
5. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, an unabridged audiobook.
6. Consider Phelbas by Ian M. Banks, one of his Culture series books.
7. Use of Weapons by Ian M. Banks, another of his Culture series books.
8. Zodiac by Neil Stephenson.

April

1. Double Contact by James White, book 12 of his Sector General space hospital series.
2. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, an unabridged audiobook version.
3. Jennifer Government by Max Barry, another unabridged audiobook.
4. The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, the second book in her Adrian Mole series.
5. Indemity Only by Sara Paretsky, book 1 of her V.I. Warshawski novels.
6. Deadlock by Sara Paretsky, book 2 of her V.I. Warshawski novels.
7. Killing Orders by Sara Paretsky, book 3 of her V.I. Warshawski novels.

May

1. The Dragon Reborn, book 3 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I listened to the unabridged audiobook version
2. Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat, book 2 of Victor Appleton’s classic Tom Swift series.
3. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
4. Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming
5. Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
6. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson, about his adventures in travelling around England.
7. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. I listened to the unabridged audiobook version.
8. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, book 1 in his Ender trilogy. I listened to unabridged audio book version.
9. God Stalk by P.C. Hodgell

June

1. Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
2. Moonraker, by Ian Fleming

Now that the first fifty are out of the way and I’ve read another 29 since then, I’m switched my goal to reading 100 books by the end of 2005. With only 21 to go and three months left, will I be able to do it? Of course! And you can, too, so get reading!

See more progress on: Read 50 books in 2005

More than once I’ve had 100+ messages pending in my inbox. Even today, as I type, I have 64 messages waiting for me to do something with them, whether that’s “Junk” it, file it, or deal with it and file it. Why should this be so hard, you ask? I do receive more mail than the average person and definitely more spam than the average person as a result of holding down multiple roles (technical support, domain registrar, Ph.D. student, university lecturer, friend, technology advisor). According to Eudora, I receive 12, 145 messages on average per month, of which about 74% is spam. Of that 74% that’s spam, half of that is tagged as spam automatically by SpamCop and Eudora, but I’m manually junking the other half. Hmmm! That might explain a lot! I’m manually junking just under 4500 messages a month!

Nevertheless, I still need to reduce the amount of mail sitting in my inbox. Some of it, I notice, is mail I need to habitually do something with, like search report results from Atomz For these, I’m going to write some new Eudora rules to auto-file them. I don’t actually need to read them—I just need to be able to get at the information later, if it’s required. Done. That should make a small dent and I should look for others too. Master the mail!

See more progress on: keep my inbox to only 20 messages

I've had "improving my German" on my list of goals in LifeBalance for over a year. My goal was to do at least an hour a week. Since purchasing Rosetta Stone in November of 2003, I've completed two entire units at level one, comprising 22 total lessons, and I'm a quarter of the way through a third unit. Given that each lesson takes about an hour and I've had at least 54 weeks, I obviously haven't been very successful at doing the hour a week. I'd like to improve my consistency at working on my German and then expand my skills to being able to read things at a Reader's Digest level.

See more progress on: improve my German

My only complaint about PowerBooks is the chips in them are usually well behind the desktop in terms of power. Apple's just released a speedbumped PowerBook, but it's still only a G4 chip and 1.6 GHz at that (OK, it's faster than mine, but still!). Compare that with the desktop G5 offerings or even the dual G4 towers. My two-year-old PowerBook is only a little above the minimum specification for playing World of Warcraft. (-: So, as you might gather, this isn't much of a complaint. My Lombard stood me in good stead for all three of my spheres in life for just over three years. This one will probably go that long too. I'm not sorry about the investment in the least, even though laptops are more expensive. Go for it!

Do strongly consider buying AppleCare for your laptop. The only things you can cheaply replace in them are memory and hard drives. Everything else costs big bucks if it has a problem. AppleCare is expensive, but it's worldwide coverage and good peace of mind. I've never been sorry about AppleCare on a portable product.

"How do I do it?", you ask. I usually read an hour or so before going to sleep. Combining this with a high reading speed, you can knock through books at a good clip. I also like to read in the bathtub. I often take a book with me there and read for an hour, at least once a week. Finally, I have many books in electronic form, courtesy of Project Gutenberg and Baen's WebScriptions project. This means I can carry many books easily with me on my handheld to read on planes, trains, and buses, and while waiting in line.

Oh yes, I also listen to unabridged audio books. I belong to Audible and I download two unabridged books a month to listen to on my iPod. I find it very soothing to have someone read me to sleep (remember that from when you were very young?). I set the iPod to "sleep" in 30 minutes and pick up in an audio book at the point I last remember hearing. This is usually a very slow way to get through a book as I often fall asleep within five or ten minutes of starting.

I plough through more of an audiobook while working on my 10 000 steps goal. I do 4- and 6-kilometre walks along the Brighton seaside. To do the 6-kilometre walk and return home gives me about 8500 steps and takes just over an hour. Many unabridged audio books I choose will fit into 8-12 hours. If I'm walking every day, like I should, in theory I can listen to one audiobook in under two weeks.

Step up to the plate. See if you can make 50 books this year or match my list.

I am not going to say that by simply drinking 8 glasses (2 litres) of water a day I miraculously cured my migraines and other ills of my life. That would not be the honest truth. However, I had read many articles on migraines and more than one suggested that, for many people, migraines were often induced by a combination of co-occurring factors. Stress, implicated in so many things, was obviously one factor. Another one was dehydration. Most people simply do not drink enough or drink things, like coffee, which are actually diuretics, causing a loss of water.

So now you know how I did it, you're probably wondering why it was worth it to do. Did I eliminate my migraines? No. I still have migraines, but at least now they're usually related to my hormonal cycles. They're less frequent and less painful. Is water responsible? I can't positively say, but I'm pretty confident it did and I'm convinced that it did no harm. I feel better and my kidneys have an easier time flushing my body of various toxins, which is also a plus.

What I can say is that I drink almost nothing else except for water (and herbal teas). I'm saving a small fortune on processed drinks while grocery shopping and even more when going out for a meal, as tap water usually isn't that expensive. It's true that the Brita's getting a good workout and the Brita filters cost money, but that cost is a drop in the bucket compared to how much people pay for coffee, Coke, and alcohol. As a side-benefit, the Brita removes all kinds of other impurities in the water.

So, in the end, I have fewer (and less painful) migraines, save a fortune on processed drinks, feel better, and help my kidneys flush toxins out more easily. And... It's easy to do now, without thinking. Start your water habit today!

See more progress on: Drink eight glasses of water each day