Adventure Rocket Ship

... Was rather good fun. Apparently you can get away with all sorts of mischief at ic.ac.uk (and traditional bangpath variations thereof) by striding about purposefully and declaring that 'Ben said it was OK.' In fact, the entire org team were lovely. Especially the poor sods volunteered to wave a mag-card at the slidey doors in the aeronautics building whenever someone obviously fandom-related hove into view.

(Will the next one be numbered 0x20 ?)

Guests excellent, beer excellent, buying stuff from the SFnal-destinations-as-railway-posters chap excellent. Only made a mild idiot of self when speaking to SPinborough. Also accused of being a crypto geek, which is a filthy lie.

I was grovelling across the wykipeejah for something-or-other and found the entry for 'Espedair Street'. Reading the synopsis and looking at the list of Banks-books gave me a weird kind of combined adrenaline rush and ache because I remembered just how good it was to read it/them for the first time. A lot like the difference between a 128k mp3 through nasty sqeakers and a well-managed CD (or fresh vinyl) played on halfway-decent kit. Or the difference between a low-end digicam snap and medium-format film.

Some experiences take hold of a chap and are the sensory equivalent of wiggling your toes in the warm sand right on the tide-line. Others are... A lot like being told about something that someone else thinks you'll like, only that someone is tediously drunk and lacking in descriptive powers anyway.

Perhaps I am reading the wrong books. Perhaps I should confine myself to experiences akin to sliding into fresh bedlinen when righteously tired.

I try to keep an open mind on this whole MeejaBiz vs Terrible Interweb malarkey. I put my hand in my pocket where I can because I have this daft socialist idea that the workers should be recompensed for their labour and favour direct exchange rather than any corporatist nonsense about rewarding the distribution agents.

I understand that there's been some debate on the usenet about one or other of the EBM/Cyber/Whatever labels having to shut up shop due to internet-based piracy. Seems an odd business, if true.

Anyway. There was minor discussion about a film called Moebius. It's Argentinian and seems to involve a train going missing when the tube system goes over-complicated and collapses in on itself. In the topological sense, rather than the structural and/or Hollywood Epic Disaster one. It sounded interesting, but the chances of seeing it seemed to tend toward zero unless some random arthouse cinema found it. However, there was a torrent link. Which, surprisingly, worked. The next problem was the lack of subtitles. Little did I know about the several internet subtitling projects...

As someone who has watched this whole port-80 business more or less lurch into life from day 0, I'm gleefully surprised when any of this stuff works.

(I don't have a point, I'm just rambling.)

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