Lots of little bits and pieces on RSS today. I think I've pretty much fixed the text rendering routines so that they actually work. Previously they could truncate strings which weren't at spaces (due to problems with the ScanString function which I hadn't understood - again), and the line spacing was quite uneven for some renderings. I've also added a nice 'bullet' style which should allow me to provide much prettier renditions of the RSS feed output.

I really need to divide the RSS and the presentation side of the processor, though as, presently, it sucks. Maybe if I thought about making it into a simple production parser I could use XSLT to process it. That would be quite scary.

For some reason, I was dreaming I was in town. I don't know what town it was, but it was town. I was looking for an Indian restraunt. There were three in the square but for some reason I wandered toward the train station. On the way there, I met a very pregnant Caroline going the other way to the doctors. She didn't want to talk to me much, so I returned to my search for a restraunt. Whilst searching, Caroline came out of the doctors and we chatted for a little bit. I don't remember any more.

Strange dream.

Music to listen to together :

• Donna Lewis - I Love You Always Forever.
• Kim Wilde - You Came.
• K.D.Lang - Constant Craving.
• Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles.
• Avril Lavigne - Complicated.
• Meja - All About The Money.
• Melanie C - I Turn To You.
• Pat Benatar - Love Is A Battlefield.

For christmas this year, I've received what must be the ugliest, most useless watch ever. It's a Casio W-733. What you can't see from that image, of course is that it's like a brick. It's just stupidly deep.

The one thing it's got right about it is that it doesn't try to have any special functions. Except that it can measure 200 hours to an accuracy of 1/100 second. Like you ever really need that. It's a 'yacht watch', apparently, so isn't particularly useful. It's got these silly bars on it that move quite pointlessly once a second. Firstly, what the frig are they trying to show, and secondly, why the hell would you care about what they're trying to show ?

So, I'm going to have to go out and just get a new strap for my old watch at some point. Or just not bother with a watch.

As a bonus to this, the Casio website wins an Iiyama award for pointless and useless flash usage (the award itself being named after the Iiyama site that manages to be possibly the most pointless and useless flash usage in the history of the Internet).

Just don't buy me presents. You know that I won't like them.

Oh good God! You know how it is when you're hunting desperately for something and you find another thing that's utterly unrelated ? Well... Maybe not, but it seems to happen far too often to me. Possibly because I'm easily distracted.

I found a document called 'Dream' whilst I was looking for an old demo program I wrote whilst at uni. Thinking that it might have been something I'd dreamt about and forgotten, I looked at it. The title 'The Dream Of A Life' was vaguely familiar, and the poem it contained suddenly made me remember what it was... It was a poem I wrote for Caroline after we split up. Gawd, I was a bit crazy.

Friday was a Marillion concert in Oxford, with Julian and Simon. Quite a good night actually - the did a nice selection of tracks which surprised me. I was quite expecting more from the last album, but was only treated to "This Is The 21st Century" which I was quite glad of. You see, it's a bad track. It just annoys me. It doesn't start anywhere interesting. It doesn't have anything interesting in it. And it doesn't end up anywhere interesting. It's devoid of any reason to remember it and really isn't worth my writing these comments, even.

But other than that , the only other low point was 'The Strange Engine' which I also can't stand. But having got the lows out of the way, they also did 'Seasons End', 'Man Of A Thousand Faces', 'Cover My Eyes', 'Beautiful', 'The Great Escape', 'Between Me and You', 'Quartz', 'Map Of The World' and an absolutely great version of 'This town / The Rakes Progress / 100 Nights'. I can't quite remember hat the rest were - I do remember a quite cool version of 'The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came' as an encore (strange ? very interesting though). Looking through the list, there's a lot more than I had thought from the Anaraknophobia, which surprises me. Why ? Well, I didn't realise I knew the last album that well.

I got to see Julian and Simon, too. And, more importantly, I got to see Helen again for the first time in about three years. I invited her out to lunch with us as I was in Oxford and it seemed like a good opportunity to catch up. She's still gorgeous, but that's not exactly unexpected . I didn't actually expect that she'd have the same mobile number as she had thre years or so ago, so it was quite a surprise when I actually got through to her.

She's hoping to do a second degree when she finishes this one. I dunno. It's weird. Julian's on his second degree. Simon wants to do a second degree. Is it just something about education I've missed out on that makes it necessary to get more degrees ? Is there some competition ? And if so, I'm behind . Oh well.

Simon also lent me his Archive CDs he'd bought recently. So, I've now heard a number of the singles, as well as the entirity of 'Take My Head'. So, what can I say about this album ? Well, it's actually quite good. I was expecting something very different to 'You All Look The Same To Me', and I wasn't entirely disappointed. Musically it still has some of the elements of the latest album, but it's quite different. It's quite fun though. Prior to hearing the whole album, I'd only heard 'Well Known Sinner' (which is funky) and 'Rest My Head On You' (which I could happily have bought the album for, myself - don't ask me why; it's just a compelling track).

I'm not sure what tracks stand out, really - it's quite an interesting album. 'You Make Me Feel' is funky; 'The Way You Love Me' runs on quite nicely from it (for some reason). 'Brother' and 'The Pain Gets Worse' seem to have some similarity which I can't put my finger on. 'Love In Summer' is an instrumental, and was one of those "Which track is this ?" moments whilst I listened to it, first time. By contrast, 'Take My Head' was unappealing. It just didn't do anything for me. Interesting use of overlaid vocals, but it doesn't do anything for me. Oh well.

I was woken up this morning by the woman coming for the Betterware catalogue. Now, it strikes me that if you want something back, you don't go stuffing it through people's doors. Repeatedly. I mean, if it were kids coming around asking for their ball back, I'd not actually mind as much, because... well, it's just not as annoying to accidentally have a ball kicked over as to have deliberately given something to someone and then to ask it back. And it wouldn't bother me as much if I hadn't been asleep when they rang the bell and banged on the door.

Angela's going to Hawaii next year ! Coo ! She missed out this year, but they've been scheduled time on the telescope for sometimes in Semester 3. Dead exciting .

Some days I cry alone, but I know I'm not the only one; I'm here, and another day is gone, I don't wanna die... Please be there when I arrive, don't let me cry, please... [ Falling again, from In A Reverie, by Lacuna Coil ]

I blame Chris for this. He lent me a copy of "In a reverie" and I had no idea what it was. I still have nearly no idea, but it sounds great and the lyrics are quite interesting.