November 2008
23 posts
1 tag
The anxiety of an absence of anxiety
Yesterday, the packers finished packing up and left us with a mostly empty apartment. This moment also signifies the end of the week of stress. It means that everything we had to do before being ready to move on Tuesday is done. You’d think that this feels fantastic, right?
The trouble is that I’ve become trained over the past couple of weeks to be constantly thinking of what needs to...
October 2008
32 posts
2 tags
I'm a legal alien
Image by Jose P Isern Comas via Flickr
That was a significantly simpler process than I expected.
The plan was to get up at 0600, deal with Oliver, make sure everything was in order so the packers could work without supervision for the day and get to the US embassy by 0745. A mixture of tiredness, mild hangover (for me, not for the sensible one in the family) and bureaucracy ended with us diving...
And she does it again
Me: Mirto, let me tell you about my super awesome idea for a novel that I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo that is both super and awesome!
Mirto: Don't tell me. I don't want to know.
Me: But... But...
Mirto: If you tell me about it, you won't be as excited about it, and then you'll never finish it.
Me: . o 0 ( How is it that you have learned more about me in seven years than I managed to in 31 years? )
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When the mover comes around
Today is the day that the last two weeks have built up to. The moving company is in and they’re packing up the house. They’ll finish packing today and then load everything into a container tomorrow, which means one night surrounded by boxes and then life in an empty house apart from a couple of suitcases.
This relocation has been more organised than any previous relocation. I may have...
“and above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around because the...”
– Roald Dahl (via betterlookalive)
WatchTalking Heads - Once in a Lifetime
I’ve adored this video since I first saw it on MTV. It was my first exposure to David Byrne and I’ve had a soft spot for his music since.
1 tag
What I need right now, is another project
I often have many things on the go. Most of the projects have the same life-cycle: I start incredibly enthusiastic, solve the main ‘problem’ involved in the project, and then get bored before completing it.
I’ve tried recently to break this cycle and I keep telling myself that the reason I’m not finishing the One Great Project I’m meant to be focusing on is the move....
“Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a fourteen inch strap-on”
– Vince Masuka
Dexter season 3, episode “Turning Biminese”
3 tags
It's really gone and begun now
Eight days to go until we fly out of here and into SFO. Today is the day things really kicked into gear. We get three opportunities to get our stuff from here to there: The luggage we carry, an air shipment with volume and weight limits, and a sea shipment with volume limits. They arrive, respectively, with us, one week after we arrive and five weeks after we arrive. Having done this more than...
1 tag
oscillations
anxious. excited. anxious. excited. anxious. excited. anxious. excited.
round and round and round it goes…
6 tags
MUDs, MMOs, and me, oh my!
Two pieces of news have inspired this today. News the first is that the humble text-based MUD is 30 years old. The second is the news of a new MMO from a company that I have a vested interest in seeing succeed, and based on an IP that I have a certain fondness for.
Most of my gaming background is rooted in role-playing. I started gaming when I was around 12 or 13 when I was invited to a...
2 tags
Harnessing my powers for good
Today is the first working day off in a break that will last three weeks. I woke up as normal, checked my sites, caught up with my friends lives and started wombling around the house. By 9.30 I was on edge. This is not like me as I tend towards a rather sedentary life with my natural cycle revolving around nocturnal activity. But there it was, I needed to do something, anything.
So I broke out...
2 tags
Making the choice to read
As always, Mr Wil Wheaton has given me cause to ponder. In a blog post today, he quotes from an interview with Neal Stephenson regarding making the choice to read a book rather than engage in one of the many other activities we have available to us now.
It’s something that I’ve recently rediscovered: While I might love to browse my netvibes feeds and keep up with twitter, not to...
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Last day of work
Last time I touched on this subject, I ended up writing more about starting the new job than leaving the old one. I’d like to remedy this by writing now about today: My last day at work.
I suppose my usual feeling when leaving one job to go to another is terror. The anxieties of how the last day will go kick in, as well as the concerns I mentioned previously about the new job.
Again, this...
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T-24 days
It is 24 days until I fly out to yet another country to start at a new company. This time, and there have been a few times already, it’s a bit different as this will be an internal transfer.
I’m writing about this now because this week everything has really kicked into gear: The relocation company have contacted me, IT have started arranging the transfer of my email (3Gb of email in...
“EINSTEIN’S FORMULA DETERMINATION INDIVIDUAL SPECIFICS RELATIVITY READS...”
– Concise | Futility Closet - Buckminster Fuller explaining Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity in a telegram in 1936.
The US Election VP debate
I’m trying to think of what to write about the VP debate I watched this morning, but I want to avoid writing what other people around the world will put far more eloquently than I.
I’m taking a greater interest in the US election this year than I have in any previous year. Mostly, this is because I’m moving there in a few weeks (on election day, no less) but also because I feel...
riotclitshave →
While it doesn’t have the quality of images as Boston Globe’s Big Picture feed, riotclitshave has a range of subjects and surreality that is captivating. And a great name.
1 tag
WatchI’ve loved seeing the tilt-shift effect in photos and have often browsed the flickr group, but I’ve never seen the effect in video before…
“You are as American as the Olympics are.”
– David Hasslehoff
The Big Picture - Boston.com →
This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite sites.
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An introduction
I think the best place to start is with a little snippet about me.
My name is Dominic Hamon, and I’m an alco.. wait, wrong forum. I’m a software engineer working in the video games industry. I was born in Jersey, Channel Islands and have lived in London, Vancouver, Singapore and, soon, San Francisco.
There’s links at the top of the page to my facebook profile and twitter feed,...