cynosure (noun [in singular]) : a person or thing that is the centre of attention or admiration.

Is it not extraordinary? I am not sure I enjoy saying it as much as jocosely, but I do adore that there should be extant, a single word carrying such a meaning!

More soon!

With thanks to Agatha Christie for drawing my attention to it, through the incomaprable medium of Poirot (the definition of which was been borrows from the Oxford Dictionary Online):

Jocosely (adjective, formal) playful or humorous:a jocose allusion

Before today, I had never encountered this word, and I may never get to use it, but saying it is seven shades of delicious.

Maybe one day I shall get onto the topic of why I like words, language and languages so much.

"People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded, conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people."

From Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

On Facebook I posted:

"[He] wonders whether it is possible to get "Belief in the veracity of the Daily Mail" classified as a recognised mental illness. If we could then perhaps the people suffering from it might be able to get the help they so obviously need.... I read their "coverage" of Mr Fry's latest adventure 30 minutes ago... I am STILL laughing. Heaven love those noxious little souls, because I am pretty sure nobody else is likely to ;)."

But having spoken to a friend recently who convinced me thar my LJ may be worth resurrecting, I thought it could come here too, as the first post in a new tide of cerebral rubbish!

August 2008 to March 2009... what the heck?

I have been wholly subsumed by my thesis until now... why now? because I am back in japan!

I just came back today after a long abscence. There has been one mildly amusing moment from within the suffering of intercotinental plane travel...

The Japanese Customs Inspector...

My dear lady and I came to the desk, not a little frazzled after the long (and sadly turbulent flight).

Customs guy to me: Have you got anything to declare?
Me: No, nothing?
Customs: What? Nothing? No Scotch?

(Because all westerners should be carrying a bottle of single malt at all times dammit!)

Now not only was I sure that I didn`t have any scotch but I tend not to drink it these days as it makes me even grumpier. Yet as soon as this nice smiling policeman asked me, I had to reassess! "Am I indeed carrying whiskey, even though I wasn`t 5 minutes ago and try not to ever?" Spontaneous scotch generation must be prevalent in these area, obviously!

What have I been waiting for since January. The Olympics.

What has the collapse of our TV signal and a sudden black hole in internet connection prevented me from enjoying? The opening ceremony of the Olmypics.

It is a official. The Heavens hate me.

Brave sir robin, brave sir robin ran awa...

Anyway, um.

Bought a new PSU, installed. All drives currently functional. No loss of data. No overheating problems after 2.5 hours of UpTime... WOOHOO!

Back to the thesis. :(

You know those times you have been away for a weekend, you reach down to your PC's "on" button and you think "I do hope nothing bad happens now."

... yeah.

Pika's PSU is now doing a good paperweight impression...

...I just hope that her MoBo and HD aren't too...

...%$^#@£!!

Today we had a titanic battle... Me vs. The Leaky Washing Machine of Dewm.

Yep, you heard me.

Yesterday, the housemates and I spent a delightful hour or so mopping up after (we thought) our washing machine sprang a leak. After checking the seals and so on we couldn't find the blasted thing, so cautiously delcared it off-bounds.

Being the sensible soul that I am, I decided to ignore this and run a load through... but just keep a really close eye.

So I did... and all went well until I heard the suspicious pattering sound from under the sink...

...turning the machine off at the Speed of Terror (tm) I peer beneath the fixture in question and found water fountaining out of the outflow pipe. It was obviously blocked at the water was being forced back up.

Desperate measures were needed, to save the world, the country, the house, its floor... and quite possibly my sanity I concocted a Cunning Plan...

...I ran a bypass with parts from the Vaccum Cleaner.

No. Really.

No, really. I am not having a good time at the moment. Jon is not happy...

...and so you can imagine how my warm feelings towards humanity increase when I am dragged through a goddamn downpour into an 11am meeting because another PhD student is claiming that the software I gave him, that he hasn't had to learn about and write for himself, doesn't work...

...Why is there this mysterious error?

Because he didn't bother to check the filenames that he was feeding into it in the first fsking place.

Of course it can't find the files you want to load! You haven't #$%^ing told it how!

...of course the best part was when he tried to suggest it was MY fault.

No, really