Wednesday, 10:23 pm, 29 December 2004

Top 10 for 2004

Here are my top ten from the year in reverse order.

10. July - Just a generally good month

9. January Snow

8. Historical Images

7. Goffik Rokkers - Still my desktop image

6. WeFunk Exclusive Snaps/Mridul P Unmasked

5. Something Is Wrong

4. Butta Recording

3. Walk In To Work - the Musical

2. WeFunk Show 350

1. Games Day 2004

Good night.
Saturday, 11:36 pm, 25 December 2004

A quiet Christmas. I updated a couple of docs - one on educating the public on open source and another on the Noble Warfare file format. Finished a draft of the Mailout.

Best gift received? A tie from my wife. Simpsons' Horror trump cards, already well worn, and surprisingly the JayZ/LP CD. Nothing like hard rock and rap. Very crisp. Not raw organic but almost a satire of both artists. Best gift given? Still to come. Of those that have already been unwrapped, I've repeatedly sent Christmas hampers to my mother in Australia. They always go down well.

Good night.
Thursday, 01:05 am, 23 December 2004

The 'fridge is buckling, and my wife admitted some defeat in the volume of food for Christmas. Following a dinner of smoked salmon, a small serving of sliced thin Italian cold cuts, scrambled eggs and croissants washed down with a glass of milk, I found myself awake around midnight. I'm a light sleeper at the best of times.

Tammy Haye - Mocking in Action

Following through my usual haunts I checked email and found an update on Tammy's site. The two chaos figures are my commissions. I had forgotten which terminator I sent Tammy. Good choice and my favourite of the group. Of course, the MIA reference... Barbalet's Log.

I find myself naturally rhyming in day to day life. I have never been a freestyler, but I do like the WeFunk freestyle featuring shows the best. If I were a freestyler, I suspect my best selling CD, Apple G4/G5 Installation Disc 1, would feature rather heavily. It wasn't a solo effort, I just have some of my cuts featured!

But I laughed out loud at Tammy's MIA reference. The hunter has become the hunted.

Good morning.
Wednesday, 01:57 pm, 22 December 2004

Long time no Log. I have been writing entries. Just not posting them. So through the lost Logs, some dot points will remain. Others have been edited to nothing. I start a fresh.

My wife and I are spending Christmas together this year. Just the two of us. Not a lot of gifts, but a vast quantity of food. In fact, by my estimates, we have three weeks of food for Christmas. My wife claims it just appears to be a lot of food. But as most of the food is super filling, I don't think we will make a basic dent in it. I digress.

Christmas is a Lot Like Democracy

Reflecting on Christmas, I think of it in similar terms to democracy. Democracy needs to change. Democracy in its current form fails to represent. It is a monistic culture of views. In short, there isn't sufficient difference and depth in the political parties to bring about meaningful change for the better. But those in positions of power, who could change it, don't. They don't because it serves their interests.

Christmas as a collection of pagan (Germanic and Norse), Christian but most fundamentally capitalistic traditions, fails to serve the people. Yet it won't change. Obviously the pagans aren't advantaged by Christmas, but I particularly feel the religious point of Christmas is lost to the capitalistic traditions. The Puritans disliked Christmas and I think the orthodox churches are right in separating the capitalistic festival from the religious festival by a week and a half. Modern Christianity, traditional Protestant Christianity outside fundamentalism, is a deteriorating group. Those in positions of power in these institutions fail to adequately address the issues of deterioration. They don't because it serves their interests.

... And On a Personal Note

As a capitalistic festival, I spend less at Christmas time. My in-laws are not giving us gifts this year. We have decided that seeing each other should be the point where gifts are given. If we can't see each other at Christmas time then the times we see each other should be a time of gift giving. Defusing the capitalistic reason for the season.

For me, Christmas is a time of reflection. For my wife, it is a time of baking for her workmates. Various sweet breads and biscuits are planned a month in advance and executed without the worry of a husband's hands being involved. I stick to cooking savouries.

Additional Updates... Miniatures

I have been receiving updates from Kirill about the Orcs in Space sculpts. He has done some sketches which he will email on at the end of the week with a bit of luck.

It is interesting corresponding with a contemporary who has a good knowledge of WWII. For me, my knowledge of WWII probably abutted my interest in toy soldiers as something which may not fit in with the broader personality I like to portray with my work. It brings me some calm corresponding with such a clearly talented artist who also share some interest in the correct representation of WWII.

Programming...

Lots of bit work with code over the past week. Bringing Carbon Events to the Noble Ape Simulation and Noble Warfare, the ongoing saga. Getting the event loop to exit appears to be more complicated than documented for Mac OS 9 run Carbon applications. Slow going. Frustrated by early problems. Really I need to develop it thoroughly on a Mac OS X machine rather than my Mac OS 9 machines.

Other than Carbon Event work, I have been working on re-introducing the Altivec code (aka Velocity Engine code) back into the Noble Ape Simulation. It's almost all there. Probably a release early in the new year when I bump up the Copyright date.

Good afternoon.

[ Previous Log ]

Barbalet's Log

[ Log Archive ]