Aidan’s blog

Penguin (beret?) with two pistols aiming at both the Windows and the Apple logos, which of course each have arms and legs and are aiming pistols at both the penguin and each other. The penguin should be searing slightly. Large caption above should read either "OS" or “Soft revolution?”  Even larger captions underneath this scene should read "Go on, make my day!"

And yes, The subversion of the peaceful trope is intentional. And with luck I could probably sell the idea better than I could sell actual tee-shirts.

Well, im at home and having a great time, except I need a haircut later today.

I have never particulary liked haircuts, and what is worse because my graduation is coming up my parents have offered to take me to a proper hairdresser so I can look good for my photos and so my grandchildren won’t be able to laugh too much on seeing these photos in the distant future. I don’t really want to go, but as restrained and person  who knows how much it means to them (damn you British reserve and stiff upper lip, what have you done to my mind!) I was too polite to say no.  

But the problem is I have always had my hair cut by the same person, a friend of the family, for as long as I can remember and would trust with my life. And my hair. She knows exactly what I mean when I say "um, can I have it a bit like it was last time but not quite?"  and peacefully trim by hair whist I sit their tharn.

And yet in three hours I will find myself in a hairdressers/barbershop, with big glass windows so I am on public display whist some total stager wields sharp bits of metal around my head and tries to make small talk, something I have never been good at unless with a peer of similar interests. (”So, what’s your favourite element of archaeological science then?”  or “What did you think of Wales’s performance in the six nations this year?” does not sound like hairdresser friendly conversation….”What’s your favourite Prog-metal band?” is frankly not even worth considering).

To be fair, I would rather anyone waving scissors in the vicinity of my ears would not talk but would instead pay utter attention to what he or she is doing. Also I hate mirrors; I use an electric razor and shave by feel, not sight and I have never quite trusted mirrors. Oh yes, and I don’t know whether or not I will shave my beard of, so any haircut that looks good with a beard may look stupid without it, I hate hair gel, like long hair but have a receding hairline I ideally need to hide, and need to look respectable enough for my grandmother. Help!

If you could leave notes for the future, what message would you have left in the past for today?
Submitted by Nameless.

Forgive Us.

What question do you hate being asked?

"So, dig up any dinosaurs then?" which is inevitably asked when I tell people I'm an archaeologist. Being who I am I don’t correct them and say that that would be a palaeontologist, I simply make up far-fetched stores and wait for them to realise they are very slowly being wound up. "Oh, so you design buildings then?"  is nearly as bad and Architects themselves are no better; when the University had its societies fair 6 architects joined "arch soc" the archaeologist society, bevelling it was for architects; despite the togas, trowels and Indiana Jones costumes much in evidence by the recruiters. The best ever response I got was "Wow, So you build speedboats then? How exotic!" by a very attractive if somewhat easily confused girl at a house party. My response was "Yes, yes I do. Brad Pit just bought our companies ‘Monte Carlo’ model in fact."

The fact I was wearing a Cardiff arch Soc t-shirt seemed to have passed her by.  Then again if you think an archaeologists job entails luxury speedboat design it is possible she noticed but attached a rather more glamorous and utterly false significance to it.

Also, As i write this i have an odd sensation of déjà-vu.

What have you been putting off all weekend?

Bloging, oddly enough. I enjoy it, but I soon get tempted to put music on and the frustration over how long it takes to upload songs irks me 

Today, my flatmate B moves out. We'll keep in touch, but not Uni is officially over and people are moving out. I may never see some of them again. Sad thought; but at least me and B were both at the Boss concert last night. It was an awesome set, and the Millennium Stadium is a great stadium. big, perfect coverage all round, no pillars or supports anywhere to block the view. If only the stairways were wide enough to have ice-cream hot-dogs and beer vendors walking up and down like in American stadiums, but the shops for food beer and merchandising were close enough, and i got some beer and a Springsteen barge before the concert started. My sister got a poster. Me and my family were in what in a theater would be the gods, about as far from the Boss as it was posible to be, but right in front of the stage; the distance was bad but the angle was great; near enough back-row-center. I don't know were B and his dad were. I was next to my Boss crazed sister, and i think that by about the third song i had hurt my hand clapping. After a hello Cardiff the Boss launched into about twenty or thirty minutes of non-stop songs before taking a break, during which he told a story about how he had to play a gig in New Jersey to pay bail in Virginia only to get the police breaking up his gig and arresting band members in NJ because he played for too long, just like Virgina. He also grabbed some placards from the front row with requests on, and went straight on playing. We got to here "the River" played for the first time in Wales thanks to a request. After the requests it was straight into some more of his classics, with a bunch more saved for the encore. He didn't play "Born in the USA" or  "Dancing in the dark" but he did pleasantly surprised everyone by pausing for a bit after "born to run" which we all thought must have been the last song, before carrying on for another twenty minutes at the least, Including

 a version of "the American land" which nearly finished of my hand and hand enough soot stamping in time with the beat to do in my foot as well. All in all, Brilliant!

01 Born To Run

Bruce Springsteen

1 comment

What lesson did your father teach you that still helps you in life?

Have a good breakfast, be honest and always ware clean underwear 

Well, today lorry drives, truckers and hauliers protested in London and Cardiff to try and ensure a tax rebate to keep diesel costs down. I am sympathetic towards them, but i don't feel that threatening to blockade refineries will help anyone. I'm also sympathetic to the government for trying to make Britain more environmentally friendly but frankly their policy of taxing existing polluting cars rather than only new ones wont encourage anyone to by environmentally sound motorcars nor help the transportation industry; even Greenpeace says their tax policy is helping no-one. I just hope Britain can avoid the sorts of protests we had in 2000. The government has put up the pressure on oil producing countries in opec and on Russia to up oil production. No doubt as I type this more oil and gas is flowing towards Europe via the Ukraine, and will continue to do so as long as Russia wins Eurovision. It annoys me that the former soviet republics are all still so dependent on Russia for gas and electricity and so largely friendly towards Russia despite Putin's medaling in the Ukrainian elections that if Russia put three ugly people on stage for two minutes of fart noises they would still win Eurovision. At least when Britain looses we lose fair and square because our music is awful. Latvia, on the other hand, was brilliant, as were Finland and Azerbaijan. The world needs more Pirates, hard-rockers and weird Gothic singing angel people, its only too bad Dustin the turkey didn't make it to the finals...

On the subject of the UK in international competition I would like to congratulate Ricky Hatton on his come back after his first ever professional loss. Juan Lazcano was as hard as nails and it was good to see Hatton bet him decisively. Also on the professional fighting theme I would like to congratulate BJ Penn and Wanderlei Silva for their wins in UFC 84.

And to finish on a lighter note, my DJ friend had got his hard-rock and metal night back after having it canceled. Well done mate, glad to see they are giving you free rein over the music again!

What did you do for fun when you were a kid? How is it different from what you see kids doing now?
Submitted by jaklumen.

Well i watched TV, played computer games, read books and comics and ran around the garden screaming like a lunatic... but TV was BETTER back then; live and kicking, Animals of Farthing wood, animanicacs, Pikny and the Brain, secrets of treasure island, pirates of black water, Conan the barbarian the cartoon and Ewoks the cartoon. Kids films were better in the 90's Aladdin and the lion king ect. Computer games were better, the snes, megadrive and n64. books and comics were beter, the Brno was only 40p and still had black and white pages in the middle. and GARDENS were better then; they contiand far more interesting stick to pick up an wave whilst running about pretending to be a pirate or jedi or whatever knowing you had limited running around like a loon time before your parents made you come inside and playt with your sister (the end result always being making my action man and her Barbi fight) . Yes, these 21st century kids don't know that they're missing. The 90's were amazing!