Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in beigesheep's LiveJournal:

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Monday, July 2nd, 2007
10:42 pm	Kids first. A few years back, the state of Virginia designed a "Virginia - kids first" licence plate, complete with hand-paint marks. All very twee. Until someone with a subversive mind uses it for their vanity plate... (poke)
Friday, March 9th, 2007
1:00 pm	The next big race... Just found out that my crew (Nottingham Rowing Club IV) have been accepted to race in the Head of the River Race in London. This race is basically the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race course, except the other way on the other tide (so it's about as hard) We weren't sure we'd get four entries, although since the trophy we're racing for was donated by a club which we're the successor to, they might possibly have looked kindly on us. Or maybe not that kindly. The crew starting behind us is Leander V. Leander Club are the oldest non-college rowing club in the world. They are invitation only. Those club members who haven't rowed for the country probably will in the future. Their fifth crew is only starting so low because they only put three crews in last year. In other words, come the 2012 Olympics, I could well be watching someone racing for Great Britain and be able to say "His crew started behind us in the HORR in 2007". If someone then asks me how long they stayed behind us, the answer will probably be "Ooh, about thirty seconds..." (poke)
11:24 am	The Thinking Rat I thought those of a ratty persuasion who have academic access to this article in Science (i.e. Arathrael) might like it. Or at least the photo. (poke)
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
8:50 pm	Rowing Last year - winning crew (in the category) at Trent Head, won a nice pot. This year - seventeenth. *sigh*. Mind you, I was competing against people *younger* than me this time. And there were only three crews in the category I was in last year, as opposed to racing 24 this year. (poke)
Saturday, December 16th, 2006
5:25 pm	I have seen the end... Flickr seems to comprise largely of stupid pictures of animals which tend to be less entertaining if you don't know the animal in question. This one, however, I liked. (poke)
Friday, December 15th, 2006
10:53 am	Useless Amazon Bah. Amazon shouldn't advertise for Christmas shopping if they're not able to deliver bestselling books ordered in the first week in December before Christmas. Useless, useless, useless halfwits. Fortunately, it was the book I'd bought that Dad has already got. Which I thought I'd read anyway. A couple of stocking fillers were also on the list, and since they weren't delivering them until mid January - they're cancelled. So warning for next year - Christmas wish lists by MID NOVEMBER or you're getting what I can find in Nottingham. And I'm a bloke, so I'm crap at shopping. (poke)
Thursday, November 23rd, 2006
1:01 am	Salvador Dali is a short legged dog. I was flicking through flickr and say this The resemblence is uncanny. (poke)
Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
5:54 pm	Avast, me hearties! So, today be Talk Like a Pirate Day! Arrr... Actually, a lot of the best* pirates were Welsh. Henry Morgan and Bart Roberts. Anne Bonny was Irish. So why the stereotypical Bristol accent for a pirate? Why is it "me hearties" and not "boyos"? So, < Welsh > "Avast, boyos, today is Talk like a pirate day, look you" < /Welsh > *Best being a relative term of course. Morgan took a lot less ships than Roberts, but wasn't dead by the age of 40. And being of the wishy washy liberal bent, taking things by force and killing people isn't particularly a nice thing to do, anyway. (poke)
Saturday, September 16th, 2006
1:24 pm	Oh, forgot to say about the conference. Or at least the bits anyone other than a fellow scientist might be interested in. Normally, for the conference meeting, they have some distinguished scientist address things for a bit, and they might have some local musical entertainment. In the case of this conference, the main address was given by a researcher who's written a number of papers on gobiid fishes. He's better known as His Imperial Majesty Emperor Akihito of Japan. The musical entertainment was by The Sapporo Symphony Orchestra. Which was nice. Particularly as I got a second row seat. (6 peeks |poke)
Thursday, September 14th, 2006
8:18 pm	Anyhow, now I've got the rant about the uselessness of British public transport (particularly when compared to that of Japan), something about the actual trip Despite being somewhere that has hosted the Winter Olympics, Sapporo in early September is still a little bit warm for my liking - my favourite theory for the fact that they have the sun rising at 4am and setting at around 6pm at this time of year is that it's actually quite comfortable once that huge ball of gas has slunk down behind the mountains. It's also a lot cheaper than I'd expect people would believe - you can eat and fill yourself quite contentedly for a grand total of about £3:50 in Ramen Alley (if you like Ramen noodles that is, which I do). Transport is also cheap - just over a pound for a single ticket on the underground. And the sake is very cheap if someone else is buying (work has just spent a very large amount of money with a Japanese company, I'm there representing work, so the Japanese company invites myself and some others out to a bar, where we end up singing karaoke. Not sure quite what the Japanese thought of the rendition of "Anarchy in the UK" by myself and a three previously highly respectable British scientists) Oddly enough, the clouds seem to be very low over Sapporo, which gives the disconcerting impression that the sky is on fast forward all the time. (poke)
Wednesday, September 13th, 2006
7:56 am	London Blunderground Time taken to travel from Japan to Heathrow: 11 hrs Time taken to travel from Heathrow to St Pancras: 5 hrs. I'm on a London Underground train, should take 45 minutes to get to St Pancras. Outside Knightsbridge, it stops - someone has thrown themselves under a train. An hour later, the medical teams have done their job, and they can restart the train - if it hadn't broken down, that is. But although underground trains get very hot and very stuffy very quickly, it takes another 45 minutes before they conclude that they can't fix it and decided to transfer us to another train. Oh yes, and most London Underground staff are sarcastic and unpleasant. No I can't see your coworker, you moron, he's wearing a blue shirt that looks like any other blue shirt and in the middle of a crowd, while you're wearing a high visibility jacket and standing around not doing anything obvious. It's no wonder they have a problem with violence to staff if that's the attitude of some of them. (Not all of them - the fifth one I found on South Kensington station was actually very sensible and helpful. Pity the first four were useless buck passers "Go to the ticket office" "What, the one six feet away with the 'Ticket Office is Closed' sign on it and nobody in"?) (poke)
Friday, August 25th, 2006
11:07 pm	日本国 Just a reminder to siblings - I *am* going to Japan in September, so if you want me to get something for you there, speak now or hold your peace. And please make it something not too hard to get, I don't want to spend hours traipsing round shops terrifying Japanese workers who can't understand what this mad gaijin is after. (12 peeks |poke)
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
12:14 am	Virgin on the reasonable "Your journey was utterly awful? Not really our fault? Have all the money back, we'll claim it from Network Rail anyway". So, that hideous train journey which ended with me taking the French nausea machine from Exeter to Barnstaple (one of the worst car journeys in my life, and I've had a number which involved being headbutted by a dog every time a car went past the other way) has at least ended up costing me nothing, as I've got a cheque for the whole cost (yes, a cheque - not vouchers, actually stick-it-in-the-bank-and-use-it-to-buy-beer-if-you-want normal money). Hope they'll apply this to NTL now that Virgin have taken over - it'll still be crap, but at least you can get your money back if you complain at them... (poke)
Monday, August 7th, 2006
8:25 am	The sort of program I watch... Ahh, the ever-cynical and sarcastic speechwriter. Gutsy and not afraid to speak up or clash with authority, his dry wit is amusing. But under it all he's just a big teddy bear... and the world's biggest Yankees fan. :: Which West Wing character are you? :: </html> (poke)
Friday, August 4th, 2006
2:46 pm	In the event of a nuclear bomb... The Federation of American Scientists has noted that, in the event of a nuclear bomb, the US government advises running around the corner. Maybe this explains why they think they need so many of them. The FAS also go on to note: The first piece of advice given in the Ready.gov guidelines instructs “quickly assess the situation,” which could be replaced by a more useful recommendation, since an individual who sees a mile or more of their downtown disappear will automatically assess their surroundings. http://www.fas.org/reallyready (poke)
Tuesday, June 20th, 2006
12:52 am	That's no ordinary cat... Terrified bear chased up a tree by - a small cat. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5067912.stm That is one cowardly bear... (poke)
Tuesday, June 13th, 2006
1:15 am	Monday morning This morning, I got into work a bit early, and at about 8:30 I found myself thinking - I've got up early on a Monday to get into work, it's raining, and I'm sat in this office for the next ten hours (I'd a lot of work to do), and that this was a good thing. I haven't gone completely mad though. My office has air conditioning... (poke)
Monday, April 24th, 2006
11:44 pm	Spell with Flickr This is quite nifty - Spell with Flickr (poke)
Saturday, April 22nd, 2006
7:28 pm	Pimp my snack! I like the sound of Jaffzilla, myself (or at least, the final version, not the hoofey disturbing orangey bit version) Pimp my Snack I'd be tempted to try making one, except I'd then eat it myself. (poke)
Thursday, April 6th, 2006
8:26 pm	What if advertisers had to be truthful? (Don't worry, I haven't been robbed again, but I do get fed up of having to go through extra lengths to avoid it having had a bike stolen, a wallet stolen, been burgled once and had my office broken into repeatedly in the six years I've been in this place. So I found this funny. In a sort of black-humour type way.) (1 peek |poke)