OK, I’m not sure exactly what is going on over at ASPnix at the moment – this site has experienced some long periods of service interruption, particularly in the last month (the last one was over 48 hours I believe) :-\
Apologies for the inconvenience. I will be taking action to remedy the situation as soon as I can.
Carly
This weekend I had the pleasure of attending Winter Heat with some of the guys and gals from work, their partners and some other friends. We have some new starters over at Izilla, so this turned out to be a great opportunity to hang out with some of them and enjoy the great weather, great atmosphere and weird music.
Following that, some of the guys invited me to go down to a local pub to watch some of their friends perform in a band.
My friends expansively declared that “everyone agrees it is the best pub in Newcastle” – I thought I should probably give it a try.
Best. Decision. Ever.
The Lass O’Gowrie is a small sort of pub in the somewhat deserted area of Wickham, near the railway tracks. It is the haunt of the young and the artistic – the goths, the hippies, the art and music students. The beer garden was awash with a wonderful mix of dreadlocks and natural fibres, 50s dresses, suits, an occasional top hat, and at least one lycra outfit. There were a lot of young people, but more older faces than I expected too.
It was a really great night – the Sunny Mechanic was teh awethome (whassup Tommie B!), as was the band before them (Grandmaster Monk); the company was good, and I had the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of interesting new people (and observe a whole bunch more).
The coolest thing about the Lass O’Gowrie is the friendliness. I was warmly welcomed into any group I was introduced to, even during the occasional times my hosts absent mindedly wandered off (hehehe). In fact, I would go so far as to say that I could have seated myself at any table in that place and been accepted into the conversation without an issue.
The other great thing is that I can’t recall a single negative word being said during the whole evening, at least from the people near me. There was also no aggression, no brawls, no drunken yells or anything like that. Just a bunch of people either chatting, dancing, or chilling out listening to the music.
Be not mistaken, there was alcohol at this venue – I’m certain that many people were very drunk, but unlike other establishments, this didn’t prompt an incident. These guys are pretty happy drunks – well, this weekend anyway 
I saw so much of this friendliess – my friend stopping mid sentence to step over to offer to light the cigarette of a complete stranger whose lighter was out of fluid; a box of cigarettes put out on the table for all to share, even though many at the table were strangers; one of the guys being introduced to a newcomer and not more than half an hour later having such a conversation with them that anyone less informed would think they had known each other years.
My friend Amos (somewhat to my dismay 
) had mentioned me to some of his friends before we arrived – my introductions were frequently followed by “Oh, you’re the one who plays the fiddle, aren’t you? Cool!”. I think I also got invited to join a band somewhere in there, lol. I imagine that plan may fall through when they hear how bad I am 
It was a pleasant change to actually be in a place where you can be the way you want, where no one will mind too much who you are, what you wear or what you do with your time, as long as you can relax and enjoy the vibe. I know everyone always says that, but so many times I have been at social occasions where much of the conversation has revolved around negative topics such as “OMG what is she wearing? Hahaha”; “I can’t believe he said that, urgh, I wish he’d get a life”; “That guy? He is such a dickhead – if he says one more thing to me he’ll find my fist in his face”.
I realised that much of my “mainstream” socialising (at least in my experience) is limited by the need to conform (fashion, thought, humour, interests, pastimes) – some parts of society are losing the confidence to be who we want to be; we’re losing the trust in others to love us for who we are, even if that is a bit weird or crazy or “not cool”; and finally we’re losing the love: respect for others, common humanity, the comradeship resulting from enjoying the same music together.
A long time ago a good friend told me that I think a lot of “big thoughts” – I dwell on questions about life, purpose, meaning, the future. This weekend has given me a lot more to think about. I’m sure these thoughts will evolve in the next few months as I meet more people from the Lass O’Gowrie, make some music with them, and start to erase the social conditioning established by years in conservative company.
I am looking toward the future, interested to see what is ahead. What can I learn? What new friends are around the next bend?
OK, so more apologies (yes, yes, I’m always apologising). My blogging efforts have been delayed because I have a newcomer to my household.
I have finally let my spare room to a friend of mine, and a flurry of activity has ensued as I prepare the room and take care of those little things that I can put up with, but which others may find annoying. Bleh.
Anyway, I promise (no, really) that I will blog about something soon. Sure, that sounds good. “Soon”
I haven’t read fiction for a while. I often declare that I will never read fiction again, that as an entertainment-only pastime it was a waste of time. I then throw myself into non-fiction, into learning. Eventually I end up back in the fiction section of the bookstore, poring over the titles, searching, even though I may not have had any intention to find a book to read when I set out shopping.
My latest tactic when finding a fiction book, particularly a fantasy book, is to open the book about a third of the way in. If, after reading the blurb and that one page, my mind has started to build a detailed picture of the “feel” of the book, the character of it – if I can, at the end of that page, begin to actually see the setting in my mind, then it is usually going to be a pretty good read.
So it was with Jennifer Fallon’s “The Immortal Prince“. I had never read anything of Jennifer Fallon’s before, nor had I heard of her (at least, not my my recollection). But after reading that one page a vivid image had formed in my mind, I had a feel for the tone of the book, and I was engaged. I bought it before I remembered that I was “never going to read fiction again”. Hehehe.
The book is a fairly recent release – the first in a planned series called “The Tide Lords”.
Jennifer’s style is to invest in the characters. They are complex and well illustrated – I’d go so far as to say that the characters are this novel. The depth of the characters allows Jennifer to touch on concepts such as the value of life and the appreciation of death, the age old struggle between belief and logic and issues of trust within personal relationships.
The storyline (loosely) is that a man who survives a botched hanging claims to be an immortal – a Tide Lord. Tide Lords gain power from the Tide Star – when the star’s orbit brings it nearby, they have immense power. When the star is further away, they are powerless, except for their immortality. But the tides can take generations to turn, and it has been low tide for so long now that the Tide Lords are only a myth to most people.
“The Immortal Prince” deals with the issue of immortality – attempting to understand a mind that has lived for thousands of years, having seen deaths of all those around them, senseless destruction perpetrated by other Tide Lords. It also looks at the human face of immortailty – of a normal man who became immortal; prone to mistakes whose effects are sometimes now magnified because of his power, and the fact that the consequences of those actions can haunt someone for eternity.
The book also introduces the Crasii, a collection of species said to be created by the Tide Lords by merging human and animal, bred specifically to serve. The Crasii were servants to the Tide Lords, and are currently enslaved by humans. They bring another layer of issues into the story – racial and class inequality oppression, the vicious side of human nature and ultimately the definition of humanity.
The Crasii are offspring of both human and animal, and much of their actions are driven by uncontrollable animal instinct – can they be included in the human world? Can they have an input into human affairs when so much of their character is driven base animal response? The Tide Lords are humans become immortal. Have they lost their humanity? If so, has this happened gradually, or is it a sudden transition? Is it possible for someone to be immortal, shouldering responsibility for every action and mistake for the thousands of lifetimes they have lived, and still retain their humanity?
I really enjoyed the book – when I finished, I immediately began hunting down the next in the series, but much to my disappointment Jennifer is still writing it!
At the moment, it hasn’t quite displaced my most-favourite-books-of-all-time, the Hyperion Series by Dan Simmons. Not because it isn’t as well written, but because it is a different style of story, a different style of writing. And I have more to read yet ��
It is a very good book, and I am looking forward to reading more of Jennifer Fallon’s other books while I am waiting for her to finish up on the next in the Tide Lord series.
OK, so I like Flickr. I have always been a fan. I have had an account for a while (since 2003 or 2004 I think). As I am not a photo junkie, I didn’t log into my Flickr account for a while – the last time I logged in was earlier this year – March or so I think.
At that time I noted that Flickr had been bought by Yahoo, and that as an “old school user” I was forced over to a Yahoo logon. No worries – I did so. Over the next few weeks I logged in and out without an issue – I added photos, left a few comments here and there etc.
Last month I went to log into my Flickr account (via the Yahoo login panel)� and it told me I had an invalid username or password. Assuming I had the wrong password I tried 4 or 5 others that I sometimes use – no luck.
I went to the password retrieval page in Yahoo help, where it asked me if I had ever used a credit card with my yahoo account. I indicated “never” and it told me it didn’t have enough information for me to retrieve my password. Unlucky. After hunting around for ages I found a page that was meant to reset my password for me – and (I assume) send it to the email account I used to set up Flickr. After supplying pertinent details (age, postcode, secret question etc) the page told me my account was locked out due to inactivity.
Now this is where it gets fun… I had successfully (and happily) left my old Flickr account for a few years and then logged back in without issue. Once it went over to Yahoo my account was locked out after a few months.
“OK,” I thought. “I’ll just look this up. They must have a mechanism to unlock these things”. After hunting around for several hours in the quagmire that is Yahoo Help, I still had found nothing. Then I started looking for a way to contact Yahoo support… that took even longer. I finally found a little form and sent an email through describing my plight – I supplied as much info as I could – my account name, what I had tried and the results I had received. The form asked for most of this anyway I think.
OK, I have to admit, they did respond, and within 24 hours which is pretty good considering how many requests they must get.
The first response I got was an automated spiel asking me to send through my account name, what the problem was, and what I had tried already. Funny, I thought I had done that before. Anyway, I did it again.
The next email I got was an automated response telling me that if I had forgotten my password I could go to the “retrieve password” page, fill in the form and get my password. I had already tried that form earlier, but just in case they had changed something on my account I tried again. Same result.
I replied politely, thanking them for the response but informing them that their suggested form hadn’t helped.
The next email I got told me my account may be deactivated (gasp!). It told me that I am welcome to register again.
I responded asking if there was any way to unlock the account, or if I could re-register using the same ID at some time in the future.
The next email contained exactly the same script as before. My account may have been deactivated, and I am welcome to register again.
Again, I politely replied that I would like to know if my account could ever be unlocked, or if I could re-register with that ID at any time. I indicated that my account may have been locked out due to too many invalid password attempts.
The next response told me that I should log in and then apparently be able to re-activate my account.
As you can imagine, I was overjoyed – especially considering that for the entire length of this request I had indicated that I had been unable to log in.
Anyway, just in case they had changed something on my account, I tried again. Still no dice. I responded. Again.
When I responded that I couldn’t actually log in, the only answer I got was a short message, finally maybe typed by a human? “You will need to register under a new ID”.
Thanks Yahoo. Why couldn’t you just have an “email me my password” link, instead of this crap? Why did you have to expire my account at all? Flickr� haven’t deleted my photos, so what advantage do you get from deactivating my account? You certainly don’t free up much space if my photos are still there….
After I hunted around for a while I found some bits and pieces that seemed to indicate that the reason my account had been deactivated was because of a Yahoo email account that expires if you don’t log in enough. The stupid thing is that I don’t use or ever intend to use a Yahoo email account… and you can’t choose not to have one there – when you sign up, you get an email account.
Flickr help indicates that I can swap my Flickr account over to another Yahoo ID, but I have to be logged into the current Yahoo account in order to facilitate the swap over. Nooo.
I hope someone can prove me wrong. I hope there is something I have missed that will help me get access to an account which I have happily used for the last 3 years without incident. But right now I am so put off Flickr that I have switched over to Picasa Web Albums, and I have no intention of going back. sigh
Check out some of my recently uploaded pics if you like.
Back in Australia. Living, working and adventuring in Melbourne.
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