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Tweet Windows 7 BSOD! Lost a little work, but worth it for the nostalgia.
9/2/'12
Tweet Best. Song. Ever. youtu.be/4xKjGqefH7U
16/1/'12
Tweet Happy New Year, everyone
1/1/'12
Tweet Merry Christmas, everyone!
25/12/'11
Occupy Harrow
29/11/'11
In October, I moved to Harrow, north west London. This is the first time I've lived near a tube station. Years ago, I would have taken the Underground to see London's most amazing sights. Now, I take it to go to the supermarket. Oh, the glamour!

I've added mini-updates to the main page of the site, so it's a one-stop shop for news, tweets, OpenJazz updates, and sporadic Wikipedia Articles of the Day. It's like a one-man social networking site, assuming you're bad at spotting oxymorons.

In other news, I now have my very own entry on IMDB, thanks to Anne LaBarbera!
Sarah
4/5/'12 05:50

Hi Alister.eu<br />n<br />nCheck out my show on Harrow Community Radio. I'd like to welcome you as a new Harrovian! Hope you have a happy weekend and maybe tune into my show on Monday. I'm looking for people who want to join my happiness campaign in Harrow.

Cheers
@happyharrow
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Wikipedia Article of the Day Reasons for the failure of British Caledonian
28/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Stack interchange
27/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day List of science fiction themes
26/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Polyglot (computing)
25/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Albanian sworn virgins
24/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle
23/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ
22/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Well to Hell hoax
21/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day London Post Office Railway
20/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Tropical nations at the Winter Olympics
19/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day List of U.S. state partition proposals
18/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Defenestrations of Prague
17/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day Families in the Oireachtas
16/11/'11
Wikipedia Article of the Day List of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity
15/11/'11
Tweet 5584 words in, and my oh-so-serious novel has descended in to farce. Yippee! #NaNoWriMo
3/11/'11
Tweet First day, and it's already less than 100 words short of my entire last attempt. Double hurrah! #NaNoWriMo
1/11/'11
Tweet Got almost half way to my target daily word count before I even hit "save"! Hurrah! #NaNoWriMo
1/11/'11
Tweet Successfully moved into me and @zara_p's new place, with the help of @andrewlatheron!
8/10/'11
Tweet Lots of people waiting for the train, waiting to head into London on a Friday night. Needless to say, I'm the only one with a potted plant.
7/10/'11
Tweet And I guess 48 years is quite enough time to prevaricate! #DoctorWho
1/10/'11
Tweet An hour ago: "Nah, too obvious." Oh dear. An otherwise enjoyable romp, though! #DoctorWho
1/10/'11
Tweet Saw the headline "Waiter linked to Turkey killings" and thought "Well, obviously." Oops. Capital T.
20/8/'11
So, there's been a lot of turmoil about lately. There's been rioting throughout England. There've also been quite a few people telling whoever will listen what they think of the rioters. Consequently, there've been many rants and counter-rants about who exactly is to blame for the destruction. It goes something like this:

Alice: The looters are bad people, and they must be severely punished.
Bob: The looters are predominantly socially excluded individuals and their actions are a consequence of our society's failings.
Alice: What are you talking about? These people had a choice, and they chose to do bad things.
Bob: How can you possibly think it's that clear-cut?

And so on. It's pretty polarised, and the "Alice" characters are vicious fascists. Right?

I don't think so. I've seen some terribly harsh things written about the rioters by friends who are ordinarily fairly progressive. They've been buying into the idea that the rioters are sub-human and deserve whatever can be inflicted on them, short of corporal or capital punishment.

Meanwhile, I've seen one friend refer to these others as bigots.

Now, before anyone invokes friendship divorce proceedings, take a step back. The riots are still fresh in people's minds. There's been massive, immersive media coverage. We've all been able to see the destruction to people's property and livelihoods, and the general fear and misery that's been inflicted. It's only natural to be angry, and it's only natural to direct that anger towards the rioters. However, anger fades.

Until that happens, I'd advise everyone to be very careful about what they say.

I, however, will opt for mildly inappropriate humour. Look, this guy's looting a lute!
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Tweet My thoughts on thoughts on the rioters: alister.eu/showthread.php…
16/8/'11
Tweet Looting has spread to Aberdeen! youtu.be/pgcCR-koJ6g
9/8/'11
Tweet Also, I've checked, @zara_p is not in the area.
8/8/'11
Tweet Should probably explain that Rye Lane is the main shopping street in Peckham. It was/is on fire, and there's apparently been looting.
8/8/'11
Tweet After last night's riots, I was ready to gloat. "See? Peckham's not that bad!" Rye Lane is now trending worldwide.
8/8/'11
Tweet Regretfully, did the weeding today. Have just destroyed several mini ecosystems. Also, turns out I have a nettle. Ow.
2/8/'11
Tweet Why pretend it's a person? I'm talking to a) a sophisticated machine with a large database of answers, or b) an idiot with no manners.
30/7/'11
Tweet T-Mobile website sales chat. Am I talking to a bot? A lazy/overworked human with copy & paste? A human assisted by a bot?
30/7/'11
Tweet Up late, ironing my hankies. Clearly, the madness has set in.
15/7/'11
Tweet Conclusion: Every man should have at least two wing-collar shirts, so there's always a spare.
6/7/'11
Tweet Ah, there you are, Last-Minute Disaster. Long time no see.
6/7/'11
OpenJazz News The Mouse, the Bird, and the Carrots
3/7/'11
Tweet It's the mid-point of the year. Happy new half-year!
2/7/'11
Tweet Happy 20th, Sonic!
23/6/'11
Tweet Notorious for spending his unethically-obtained fortune on a homophobic hate campaign. URL says it all: ipetitions.com/petition/notos…
14/6/'11
Tweet And, let's face it, Wikipedia basically runs the planet.
11/6/'11
Tweet Once again, eligible to vote in Wikimedia board elections. Once again, don't feel I can make an informed decision.
11/6/'11
Tweet I've just watched An Officer and a Gentleman. That final scene is a health and safety nightmare!
25/5/'11
Tweet Me and @zara_p's train is due in 16.5 minutes. Somehow this has been case for the last half hour.
20/5/'11
Tweet Azerbaijan will host Eurovision in 2012. I think it's safe to say Armenia won't be hosting in 2013.
15/5/'11
Tweet Thinking back to my trip up the Empire State Building last week, managed to get vertigo. In the basement.
8/5/'11
Tweet Don't think I've ever voted so late before. Polling station quiet, despite local election and it being 7:30pm. Oh dear. #yes2av
5/5/'11
Tweet 3,500-mile commute this morning.
3/5/'11
Tweet Sitting on the plane waiting to fly to a republic. Enjoy your royalist hysteria, folks!
28/4/'11
Tweet In less than 48 hours' time, I'll be in New York, New York! So good, they named it once and also named the state once!
26/4/'11
Tweet Reading suggested ethnicity abbreviations for census from ONS. Includes "Nord Ar Med Eur", where "Ar" stands for "Aryan".
22/4/'11
Tweet Finally, a bright side to @LondonMidland's appalling service - a beautiful day to spend sitting idly in the sun!
6/4/'11
Tweet Got home during the daytime! Yay!
10/3/'11
Tweet Census form arrived today! Q15: How would you describe your national identity? Um... #2011census
9/3/'11
Tweet http://youtu.be/szZsKdJYR-A #internationalwomensday
8/3/'11
Tweet Not parody. I repeat, not parody. http://youtu.be/sCO5szDnSI8
28/2/'11
Tweet "Willy Wonka needs more cowbell... NOT an alternative voting system" http://av.argh.tc/o-matic/ #argh2av
24/2/'11
I have now been living in England for a whole year!

I've been taking a look at the site's stats for last year. After OpenJazz, the most popular search phrase was "Doctor Who clipart". Apparently, a non-insignificant portion of this site's visitors end up looking at some low-quality clipart I threw together when I was 13. Sorry, folks.
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Tweet Am I the only one who saw the #SOTU hashtag and went "Flash! Aaa-aaa! Saviour of the Universe"?
26/1/'11
Tweet Happy birthday, Wikipedia!
15/1/'11
Tweet Watching K9 TV series. In the future, everyone in London will have a slight Australian accent.
9/1/'11
Tweet Despite much drama, made it home in time for Christmas! Thanks for the rescue, mum & dad! And Merry Christmas everyone!
26/12/'10
Tweet Train assigned, 80 minutes late. Standing room only, lots of luggage. Train de-assigned, everybody disembarks. Train re-assigned. Gaah.
24/12/'10
Tweet Guy in the seat in front of me reeks of pot, but I am on the train to Brussels.
24/12/'10
Tweet On the first train of the day!
24/12/'10
Tweet Ugh. 3:30am. Have now been up for an hour.
24/12/'10
Tweet PROPER snow!
18/12/'10
Tweet Hey... on the 24th, I'll be waking in Watford, brunching in Brussels and lunching in Luxembourg. Awesomely alliterative!
11/12/'10
Tweet Surprised to discover I'm averaging only 1 mince pie per day.
10/12/'10
Tweet Okay, Google Maps has had the M25 labelled as the "Autoroute britannique M25" for at least a week. Technically correct, but... what?
3/12/'10
Tweet 'Tis the season... for people to start pointing out how much I look like Harry Potter.
29/11/'10
Tweet There's going to be a Harry Potter theme park less than 3km from where I live!
9/11/'10
Tweet It must be Christmas. Why else would I have just bought some Rudolph slippers? P.S. Skweeee!
7/11/'10
Tweet Ugh. Station without ticket barriers + forgetfulness + maximum Oyster fare = unhappy Alister.
6/11/'10
Tweet Got home to discover fire engine parked outside house, worryingly.
3/11/'10
Tweet Stopped to buy the i this morning, missed train. If it's supposed to be for overly busy people, is charging for it going to work? #ilaunch
26/10/'10
Tweet How would you get to £49bn? Joyless but compelling: http://bit.ly/8Z6yiH
19/10/'10
Tweet Hah! The kitchen clock, which keeps randomly stopping, has drifted a full 12 hours and is now only 3 minutes off the correct time! Victory!
7/10/'10
In the middle of August I moved to Watford, and have spent most of the intervening time without access to the internet. This has made me realise just how much I depend on it. For example, I would not normally go to a new supermarket without first finding out exactly how to get there, and what time they closed. It has been a liberating experience.

A lot has happened since my last update. I've been a teller at a polling station (in one of the safest constituencies in the country). I've run 8.1 miles (13 km) in 77 minutes. I've added rudimentary support for Jazz Jackrabbit 2 levels to OpenJazz. I've had a mole removed from the end of my nose (which is not the best place to have a scar). And finally, I've found myself some gainful employment. I now work for Imagination Technologies (LSE: IMG) - hence the move to Watford.
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