My year in revue. But it's quicker for me to say it than type it.

Listen : Bombs - Faithless ... When We Were Young - The Killers ... Vermillion Archer - The Sw!ms.

Christmas is nearly here. You can tell because bloggers like me decide to come out of hibernation for a few seconds to tell you that Christmas is nearly here. And the telly has all those animated reindeer things on. Hooray! Off to buy the tree today.

I like this time of year. Mainly for the food, I think.

This is a pretty random post, so I may as well end with a random web page recommendation. Married To The Sea is the work of husband-and-wife team Drew and Natalie Dee. They take old lithographic images and add stupid modern words to it. Some of the time, it's just out-right offensive stuff, so don't say you haven't been warned. This is one of the tamer ones.

If the text is a bit small, it's because I shrunk it to fit on the page. Stupid blog. You can see the original one here.

Listen - I Believe In Father Christmas - Greg Lake ... Santa Baby - Kylie Minogue.

I feel ill. It started with a sore lip and moved onto my gums. It made one of my teeth hurt so much, I thought I'd have to have the thing pulled.

Then it moved to my nose. Rhinoviruses are not a fun thing to have over the Thanksgiving break. Oh well, at least I got four days off work, which was nice. Downloading mash-up remixes and relaxing.

One small pleasure over the weekend was filling the bird-feeder and squirrel-feeder in the back garden. As far as the birds go, we have titmice, chickadees, cardinals, finches, juncos, woodpeckers. A few pigeons and they're all scared by the crows. It's great to watch how quickly they come and go.

Here. Look for yourself!

Listen - I Feel Crazy (Gnarles Barkley and Donna Summer) - Party Ben ... Don't Bring Me Down (Audiodile's Breakdown) - ELO & Audiodile ... Man I Hate Your Band - Little Man Tate.

The Democratic Party did win a majority in the House and the Senate, and Bob Casey did win. So I'm happy, because that means maybe we'll be able to hold someone accountable for this mess in Iraq, this mess in New Orleans, this mess with the environment...

...and now we look towards Christmas. I wouldnt mind an iPod Nano, and maybe one of those Rabbit corkscrew thingies, and a US footie shirt (or 'jersey' as they call them here). If someone wants to get me the Thom Yorke CD, or the one by Beck, or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or maybe even She Wants Revenge, or The Killers new album? A Kurt Vonnegut book would be nice. Or something funny, something like "The Areas Of My Expertise" by John Hodgman.

Or just world peace. I'd go for world peace. That would be nice, for a change.

Listen : Harrowdown Hill - Thom Yorke ... Nausea - Beck ... These Things - She Wants Revenge.

War is profit. Here's the proof.

I was going to blog about the lovely autumn leaves and how beautiful it looks. Just like this.

...and that's quite nice, but maybe later.

I was going to post about local politics in Pennsylvania. How we met Bob Casey, how I used to live half a block away from him. How he's going to be the new Senator.

...and that's quite nice, but maybe later.

What I want to talk about is the war in Iraq. Now; you may argue against the viewpoint of Generals that are actually in Iraq and say "it's all going swimmingly". One Conservative spokesperson here in the US really said it was going "swimmingly". Ann Coulter. Sheesh, talk about a disconnect from reality. But I want to address one core idea about the war. It's an idea that was first voiced by people you might consider hippies.

And guess what? It turns out that, just like with Vietnam, the hippies were right!

I decided to see if the war was really all about the cold hard cash. Halliburton, a company that Dick Cheney used to be on the Board of Directors for (and a company that 'won' no-bid contracts in Iraq) will make or break the theory. War is profit.

This took just a few seconds of searching online. And it's not from a Liberal or Conservative political site. It's not a political site at all.

It's the Financial website of Yahoo! in the UK.

They have a graph function on their pages. Compare any share price's rise and fall to the Dow Jones Industrial in the US (_DJI) or the Financial Times Stock Exchange in England (_FTSE). Let's see how Halliburton (HAL) did against the US and UK average of 130 companies, over the last 20 years or so.

OK, not too well. Halliburton has done about as well as the 100 companies in the FTSE in London, but the 30 companies in the DJI completely trounced it. Mathematics don't lie. The benchmark of American companies was twice as good as Halliburton, an American company.

But now we're going to change the search parameters a little bit. Let's get rid of everything but the last five years. The Dow rose over 250% under Reagan (Republican) and over 300% under Clinton (Democratic), but let's keep this totally Cheney and G.W.Bush.

How did a company that barely keeps up with the FTSE do with friends in high places?

This is not some trick of mathematics. This is not 'spin'. We took the value of the DJI, the FTSE, and HAL. Rated them all at their 2001 (October 20th) closing price, and said "let's see how much you make for investors now..."

Those low points in the red line was when Halliburton was at $10 a share or so. Its 2006 high was $41.99.

A share that kind-of kept up with the market but underperformed it for decades suddenly shot off like a bottle rocket. A company that usually gave 50% suddenly went and gave canny investors eight times that in a few years. And it all seems to be concentrated just before that yellow line.

That yellow line in March, 2003. The start of the American invasion of Iraq. War is profit, if your ex-chairman is now Vice President of the invading country. Not spin, not bullshit. Fact. Mathematical, easy to see, no doubts at all.

Fact. War is profit. And there's the proof.

Listen: Don't Believe The Hype - Public Enemy.

We still don't have internet at the house, so I'm using the miracle of modern technology of a DSL connection and a MMC/SD card reader at my in-laws' house!

Want to see the house with some furniture in it?

We still don't have cable TV. The people came on Friday, and they couldn't get a signal at the post outside. They promised someone would be out yesterday (nobody came out). There's a new episode of House on Tuesday ...I don't watch much telly, but I don't want to miss the new 'House' in the new house. Although I have to admit, I get a lot more done without the distractions of technology...

Listen : Kill Your Television - Ned's Atomic Dustbin ... Television, The Drug Of The Nation - Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy ... Television, Television - OK Go.

Well, we took our sweet time about it, but tomorrow is the day. We move house. This is the twelfth place I have ever lived in; four counties in two countries. We could have moved right at the end of August, but we couldn't get a moving company so we decided to do it nice and easy. Which it isn't, it's a bucket of stress. One of these days I might actually manage to stay put for a decade!

Listen: Moving - Supergrass ... The Old Apartment - Barenaked Ladies ... Movers and Shakers - The Clash.

This, like most ideas, came to me after waking up. If the Universe, black holes and theoretical physics is just the sort of thing that makes you fall asleep at your keyboard ...well, you might want to look elsewhere on the web. Or be happy with this picture of a kitten. It's extremely cute and furry and purry.

Aw, the cuteness!

OK, what do we know about the Universe we're in? Here are a few things we're pretty sure of.

1 - Universe's boundary is accelerating away from us at the speed of light, to our observations (and we're inside of it) so nothing can escape the Universe. Not even light.

2 - Because of this, we have no way of telling what is outside the Universe. We can hypothesize that there's either nothing of any form outside the Universe or that if there IS something beyond the boundary, it can't see in.

3 - There's a lot of debate about what happens to the matter in our Universe with all this expansion. Will gravity eventually get the better of it all and pull us back into a big crunch or will the matter fly off, eventually expanding to the point where all there exists is a cold nothingness? One molecule every light-year or more, or all the molecules back in a single point? No light or discernable energy because the Universe is spread so thin, or the ingredients for another Big Bang? That kind of thing.

OK, that's part one of three. Part two is: what do we know about black holes.

1 - because of the nature of a black hole, nothing pulled inside (beyond the point of no return called the 'event horizon') can escape. For us outside, it seems that time slows infinitely for the thing or person pulled in. To the observer getting pulled in, time dilates so the stars are born and die in an instant. If anyone survives, it would appear, we can speculate, that even going at the speed of light will not get them out of the black hole. The event horizon is accelerating away from their point-of-view at the speed of light. Like the Universe, light can't escape it.

2 - Because of this, we have no way of telling what is inside the black hole. We can hypothesize that there's either nothing of any form inside the black hole or that if there IS something beyond the boundary, it can't see out.

3 - There's a lot of debate about what happens to the matter in a black hole with all this expansion. Will tidal forces eventually get the better of it all and pull it all into a big crunch or will the matter expand as the hole does, eventually expanding to the point where the black hole slowly evaporates its mass as energy (and yes, black holes do this, as Hawking proved as described here)? And the bigger the black hole gets, Hawking said the hole radiates less radiation.

That's where the final part occurred to me this morning. Nothing inside can get out, no way of telling what's happening either side of the boundary, no idea yet if the end result is all or nothing. When we're describing what happens to a theoretical Universe, it's the same as a black hole. Are they both the same thing, just observed from different locations?

Professor Stephen Hawkin once said that "this would imply that the area of a horizon of a black hole could only increase in time, never shrink". But he also says that, because of Hawking Radiation, energy density can sometimes be negative on the quantum level and (true enough) that's why black holes can radiate.

But that applies more as the black hole is small. The larger the hole, the less it radiates. So; as the black hole (or the Universe) gets bigger, can we say it can only radiate less into the domain beyond its boundary? And also, that the Universe and the black holes inside it continue to grow?

In effect, is our visible Universe nothing more than just a black hole devouring up matter from beyond its Universal Event Horizon, and are the black holes in our Universe merely doing the same? Could there be an infinite number of steps, getting sucked into an infinite number of Universes within Universes? Is the idea of other Universes a valid one, but wrong in the respect that the Universes aren't like bubbles in a bath but more like an infinite number of Russian dolls?

I want to be the first to say yes. Seabrook's Layered Dimensional Theory, until someone else comes up with a better name for it.

You are here. In one of these layers. Anything further in from your layer appears to be a singularity, anything further out appears to be expanding away from us at the maximum speed possible. Not so much an explosion in a black hole as postulated here but the contents of an outer level's singularity in and of itself. This means that there would not need to be a white hole because the entire outer horizon of the Universe you're in IS the point where matter seems to be created.

I hope it's an infinite thing, otherwise one Universe will end up with all the matter. Like having one room in the world having all the furniture, it would make it a lot harder to sort out the space!

Listen : Out There In The Universe - Spacetribe ... Supermassive Black Hole - Muse ... The Emptiness Of Nothingness - Amorphous Androgynous (FSOL).

Over a month, eh? Time I put in another blog entry, otherwise people might think I was too busy.

Which I still am. Building a house is a stressful thing, but this video shows you why it's all worth it. It's 90 seconds long, and is me running through the house (front room, dining room, kitchen, hall, half bathroom, up the stairs, main bathroom, two spare rooms and the master suite).

Ooooh, first streaming video on my blog. Might use that function in future. If you can't hear anything, that's because my little digital camera has no microphone.

So, apart from the house, what else do I have to report? Well, I had my first eye exam since 1998. That one was in the medical for work after my car crash. Since then, my eyesight has 'mellowed' from 20/15 to 20/30. I 'm very slightly near-sighted in both eyes and so I have decided to wear glasses. I'll be buying a pair or two this weekend.

Look at me, I'm old!

Listen : Eyesight To The Blind - The Who ... Glass - Joy Division ... Visible Noise - Hybrid. I might be taking the whole 'glasses' thing a bit seriously!

I didn't have time to talk about dad's funeral, and the trip there and back. To tell the truth, I have been busy. I know that people say "I'm busy" as an excuse for one thing or another, but I have really been busy. Painting a house takes a lot of time and uses muscles I never knew I had. I know I have them now because they ache.

The plan for dad's funeral was this: fly overnight on Wednesday, arriving at Gatwick on Thursday morning after five or six hours of sleep. Train to Victoria, tube to either Euston or Kings Cross and then the train to Northampton (near my sister Wendy's house) or Arlesey (nearest station to the village the funeral is to take place). Spend the night at my sister's house, up early for the return trip to Gatwick and get the flight to Philadelphia, then the connecting flight home.

Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men...

The trip from the US to the UK wasn't too bad, apart from the 150 middle-schoolers off on the same flight to London. All wearing Union Flag t-shirts, making them conspicuous targets for any and all London pick-pocketers and scam artists. Three young lads sat across the aisle from my seat, playing with each others' lights ("you stop it!" "no, YOU stop it!"). And thirty minutes after dinner was served, one of the young fellas threw up over the other two.

This wasn't just a little bit of sick. It was like The Exorcist. If there was a Projectile Chunder event at the Olympics, this kid would have won gold for the USA. The stench was unavoidable, and people were fussing over the boys for hours. Changing clothes, wiping things down, being loud.

I got two hours sleep on the flight, tops.

By the time I got through passport control, I knew that Northampton was out of the equation. I called my sister and told her to pick me up at Arlesey. There was a Thameslink train, the company I used to work for, so I went via Kings Cross Thameslink (the station I worked in for over fiver years). It hasn't changed a bit. It certainly brought back a lot of memories of the late eighties and early nineties.

I missed one Arlesey train by two minutes, so I called Wendy on her mobile and gave her the new ETA. I changed and freshened up at dad's house when I got there.

The funeral was in a small church just a short drive from the house. The funeral company were great, very professional and sombre. I had prepared a eulogy just in case, but Margaret (my eldest sister) had too and she read hers. Then we went outside and buried my dad. We put roses on the coffin, threw dirt in. Dad would have been proud at the turnout. Family, friends, villagers. There was a function in a village pub afterwards, where I showed Margaret my version of the eulogy and we were amazed at the similarities. After everything, I eventually got to bed at midnight for six hours sleep.

Then the trip back. For reasons of clarity, I'm now going to give all times at East Coast USA times (even though a lot of this happens in England) because I haven't been in Britain long enough to switch time-zones. My body is still on East Coast Daylight Saving Time. I just want you to count the hours like I did. So; 6am wake-up time in Northamptonshire is 1am to my body. Get it? Got it? Good.

Wake up at 1am. Driven to Northampton to get the train to London Euston just after 2am. Into Euston at 3am, height of the rush-hour. Tube to Victoria station, train to Gatwick. My flight is at 6.45am, and I arrive with plenty of time to spare. The flight will leave late because it arrived late; there'a a storm moving over the Eastern US. The flight takes 7 hours, so I should land in Philly at 3pm. Plenty of time because my connecting flight leaves at 6.55pm.

Coming over New Jersey, we see the thunderheads on the clouds. That storm is still over the Northeastern States. We circle for over an hour but can't land because of the severity of the storm. We have to divert to Baltimore to refuel on the tarmac because the plane will run out otherwise. It's only 20 minutes or so away, but it takes another 45 minutes to refuel. Then we get back in the air, circle some more, and eventually land in what looks like a monsoon.

I'm still OK, because it's not 6pm yet and the connection is at 6.55pm.

Connection cancelled, couldn't make it through the storm so it turned back. Next flight is at 10.45pm, and hopefully the storm will be well over the Atlantic.

Ha!

I change my ticket for the later flight and call Beth to let her know I'll be arriving around 11.45pm. The incoming flight lands late because the storm decides that Philadelphia is a great place to spend a Friday night and just kept on raining. Then all personnel are pulled from baggage duty because the lightning starts up again.

Think about lightning for a second. It goes for the path of least resistance, so it usually strikes the tallest conductor around. An airport needs to be as flat as a billiard table, so the tallest things near an airport departure gate would be the tails of all the wet aircraft outside. If one of them gets struck when someone's pulling luggage out in the wet, they can pretty-much kiss themselves goodbye. It was another 50 minutes before they got the luggage from the previous flight and got the new stuff on.

Now we're waiting for the new first officer. The co-pilot from the incoming flight has left for his next job, and our man is on a flight from Chicago. A flight currently circling PHL, waiting for another break in the storm.

He arrives after midnight. Fortunately, this flight is a Canadair Jet (not one of those Dash turbo-prop things that goes half the speed) so we're up and down in less than half an hour. The storm was passed after five minutes. It stuck like glue to Philly for hours. I eventually got home at 2am Saturday, quickly got ready for bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

That's 25 consecutive hours awake. After two days with a combined eight hours of sleep.

Listen: Insomnia - Faithless ... Asleep From Day - Chemical Brothers feat. Mazzy Star ... I'm WIde Awake, It's Morning - Bright Eyes.

This is not the post I thought I would be making on my return from England.

First off, the sundry stuff. It rained every day (we missed the good weather by a week). Still, you can't visit The North unless it's grim, I suppose. The Lake District is lovely, even in a downpour. Thanks to Matt and Helen for taking us. And I have every faith in Wayne Rooney's metatarsel so I bought a number 9 England shirt, c'mon England.

Here's the bit where I explain the first sentence. We went to see the family in the South on the Saturday. Tram from Bury to Manchester, then a train to Milton Keynes (arriving just before noon). Wendy, my sister, picked us up.

And we went straight to Stevenage because my dad had been taken to hospital. He was rushed in because he had a pain in his side, and the aneurysm he knew he had was leaking blood. Being 73 years old, and with a heart condition, the doctors didn't want to operate on the heart because of the aneurysm and didn't want to touch the aneurysm because of his heart.

This page says it's estimated "...that less than half of all patients suffering a ruptured aortic aneurysm will reach hospital alive and, of those that do, less than half will survive emergency surgery to repair the aneurysm. The overall risk of death if an aneurysm ruptures is therefore in the region of 80%."

Gilbert Seabrook, my dad, was not in the 20%. He passed away. I'll miss him more than dry words can ever express the loss. Only one song today ...dad's favourite song.

Love you, dad.

Listen : Blueberry Hill - Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Jimmy Sturr, Ray Coniff, The Beach Boys, Yellowman, ...and the way dad sang it.

OK, quick inventory check.

Three hundred quid. Check.
Passports. Check.
eTickets for the flight. Check.
Called to get a taxi from the airport to the B&B. Check.

Get ready, Manchester. In just over four days, I'll be back in England for the first time in four years. So you better have a World Cup 2006 mug for sale, plenty of Cadbury's chocolate and bags of Smoky Bacon Crisps at the ready, and steak and kidney pie when I want it. Because I'm back, if only for a week, and by the GODS I've missed that steak and kidney pie.

COME ON!!!

Listen : This Is England - The Clash ... British Colonialism And The BBC - Chumbawumba ... World In Motion - NewOrder & The England 1990 World Cup Squad.

Ever see the film 'The Terminator'? Yeah, I know. 100% highbrow, well done Shawn. The bit where John Connor's dad from the future explains what a terminator T-800 is...

Listen and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and it absolutely will not stop. Until you are dead.

Now imagine that, but as a plant.

This is Japanese Knotweed. Otherwise known as Japanese Rhubarb, or (in my own words) That Bastard Plant I Refuse To Let Overgrow My Garden. Bastard, Bastard, Bastard. It was introduced as a lovely little plant from Asia because of its lovely little flowers ...and now it's such a problem everywhere except Asia that many countries have deemed it illegal if you deliberately plant the stuff. It grows from the root, so spraying it with weedkiller just annoys it. If you build a house on top of a small piece of root, it may not be the last you see of it. Just 0.7 grams of root is enough. It will grow up to seven metres underground and can be buried 3 metres down and still eventually get to the surface. Can't be bargained with, can't be reasoned with, and it absolutely will not stop. Until it destroys your foundations.

Here's the bit that will blow your mind. According to this page, the plant is naturally dioecious, which means that you need male and female plants for sexual reproduction to take place. But only a female was introduced in Europe and America. One female plant, with cuttings from that one plant and breakoffs from that one plant, has spread out across the world. Which means all the Japanese Knotweed I'm digging out is just looking for a boyfriend. In pure total biomass terms, it is probably the biggest female in the world. The infestation in Swansea in the south of Wales ALONE has been estimated to weigh 62,000 tonnes, the same as 40 blue whales!

It's not all bad. it's called Japanese Rhubarb for a reason. It's edible. The link takes you to Wild Man Steve Brill's site where he has recipes for Apple and Knotweed Pie, Knot Soup, Steamed Knotweed Sesame... so if society fails tomorrow, I'll be digging up the stuff and boiling a pot of water.

Listen : A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch - Dead Kennedys ... The Garden - Faithless ... Donkey Rhubarb - Aphex Twin. Nice selection of punk and electronica there.

Well, it took long enough but now I'm finally a film star --

I'd better explain this one. I know a young filmmaker by the name of Nick. He edited a film called "Spades", shown at the Cultural Center last year, and he called me out of the blue the other day and said "would you like to be in a film I'm doing?"

Hardly the sparkle of Hollywood, but it'll do for little old me!

"OK, so what do you want me to do?"

What he wanted me to do was dress like a homeless bum, stand outside an old bingo hall and pretend that I was slightly unhinged as the main actor walked by, noticed that I was a little odd, and he walked off camera. And how does a man pretend to be unhinged? Well, he has to pretend to be the doorman of the bingo hall. So I was wearing another pair of trousers over my pair, the laces of my Reeboks were untied, and I was given a waistcoat that would have fitted me perfectly (when I was twelve) to wear over my white t-shirt.

Oh, and I had to recite the alphabet backwards. Over and over again. Really loudly. As if I were holding a conversation with nobody in particular. As people walked and drove by.

So there I am, with two people working the sound equipment holding a microphone just to the side of me. There's a film camera rolling across the street. And people driving by slow to a crawl because there's some loon reciting the alphabet backwards with an English accent and he looks like a freak.

I loved it! Good luck with the film, Nick.

Listen : Silver Screen (Shower Scene) - Felix Da Housecat ... End Of The Movie - Cake ... Film Me & Finish Me Off - Apollo 440.

I should have posted this yesterday, because it was Earth Day. Seeing as it was, I just wanted to pay homage to the place I call home.

Ain't she something? Don't go messing her up, now.

Listen : Nature's Law - Embrace ... Sweet Harmony - Beloved ... Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) - Marvin Gaye.

Ah, spring. That time of year, as Alfred Lord Tennyson once so famously wrote, when "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."



Or, if you're an ice-hockey player in the AHL, it turns to thoughts of the post-season. Especially if you're playing for one of two teams that'll be facing each other next week in the Playoffs.

A 3-0 victory by the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins had the Bridgeport Sound Tigers a little miffed, especially when one of the goals was scored in one of the Tigers' power plays, which is why they stopped playing hockey and started playing up close and personal with the Baby Pens. Get a room, lads.

Big thanks to Mike and Dellyn for getting the tickets for the game.

Listen - Throw Your Arms Around Me - Hunters & Collectors ... Kiss - Prince ... Venus As A Boy - Bjork.

House. Electrical stuff. Lots Of Wires.

It's a small point to note, but all the wires for lights are in the ceilings. All the wires leading from outlets and switches run straight up, vertically straight up, the sides of the wood. All other wires that go through the house are all at knee level.

Memo to self: hanging pictures on the walls will not lead to anyone being electrocuted.

I'll be taking some pictures when the plumbing goes in, because you never know when you might want to know exactly where that f@#king leaking pipe is!

Listen : You're Beautiful - James Blunt ... Special Needs - Placebo ... Everything Is Under Control - Coldcut.

We went for a drink.

We went out to the Holiday Inn. A local firm has some sort of convention there tonight, so the place was packed. I didn't know if I wanted to go.

We got a few drinks in, sat around, talked about the usual. Lenny didn't know they were showing Doctor Who on the Sci-Fi channel. The two girls singing were a touch too loud. Maybe I was just in a contrary mood, maybe I didn't want to hear a Bonnie Tyler song followed by a Gwen Stefani song. Maybe I just wanted somewhere less smoke-filled.

We left and got home and they're playing Franz Ferdinand songs on the telly. I like Franz Ferdinand. Maybe if they were singing some of this instead of 'Total Eclipse...' or 'Hollaback Girl'. I don't know.

Listen : Walk Away - Franz Ferdinand ...anything, just not Bonnie Tyler.

Stupid thought for the day: how quickly your internet postings can go out-of-date.

This has nothing to do with content. This is a diary, after all, so if I were to say "the winners of the last FIFA World Cup were Brazil", that's true for today. If someone reads the entry in forty years time and says "ah, but surely [enter country name here] are the last World Cup winners", they're right. but they're not saying it in the spring of 2006, are they.

I'm getting ahead of myself: it's not spring until tomorrow. But I digress. Out-of-datedness.

When I went over from dial-up to DSL (ah, the joys of broadband internet), I didn't update the picture links on the blog. Anything that pointed to the old AT&T site became broken links as soon as that contract ended.

I just updated images to display normally again. If only there was a way to get a blog to do that itself. Maybe if I just uploaded my images to Blogger directly, I wouldn't have these problems.

...and for the 99% of people that think it's a bit geeky to worry about such things: yeah, but I'm happier now I did it.

I also want to spend a few moments giving my brother John a few words of advice.

John, mate.

Clean up your act. You have no idea how lucky you are with Kris. What the Hell are you playing at? There's nothing wrong with going with the flow in life, taking the bad with the good, and not lying to people. Example: telling Kris I was just over here for 6 weeks? WTF?! Anyone that goes into any search engine (Yahoo, Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves etc.) and searches for my name gets this page. There are other people with my name, some hits are links to web forums I posted to with old email addresses or ISPs (ask.com still has my At&T website archived, I see), some hits link to other stuff entirely, but it's the information age ...and they can read I've been here for slightly longer than six weeks. Don't you think I would have posted anything like you had said if it were even remotely true? After all, I posted about the death of a 14-year-old dog!

This is it. Your chance. Ball's in your court, bro.

Listen - Body Movin' (Fatboy Slim Remix) - Beastie Boys ... Apply Some Pressure - Maximo Park ... Room 512 - Psychid (downloaded from clicking around a bit on http://psychid.co.uk/room512/ ).

First of all, I only just noticed Kris posted a comment. Heya Kris? How's my kid brother doing? I'll email you soon. Scout's honour.

Second thing is I just want to say hello to Mary. Hi Mary! Hope you've read through the blog a bit, and I hope you're doing exceptionally well!

The house is going well. They've started framing the second floor and the garage is coming on nicely. There's probably more that has been done since I took this yesterday. Oh, and people laugh when I say 'garage' because I pronounce it 'garridge'. Working in London will do that to you...



Listen : Longview - Green Day ... God is Going to Get Sick of Me (Lo Fidelity Allstars Remix) - Aberdeen City ... Somebody Rock Me - The Clash vs. The Killers (remix on www.PartyBen.com )

Back again!

Thanksgiving was as usual, Beth and I had a bit of a blue funk (spending too much time concentrating on what we were doing on computers) but we realised it wasn't healthy!

Christmas was busy. I was helping at work because they were getting ready for a major shake-up in the industry and I helped out by training over 60 staff in a 6 week period and had them helping with testing the systems. I received an online gift voucher that went a long way to buying a digital camera (Canon PowerShot A410, dirt cheap anyway but cheaper with the present). Lovely. I also received a bucketfull of tools, a tool belt and a rather nice leather coat.

Speaking of work, I've gone from training to documentation and have written two versions of the new work intranet site. My boss was so happy he actually danced a little jig. I never thought directors of companies showed such emotion!

Valentine's was lovely. Dinner at Sambuca's the weekend before, and flowers and cards on the day for Beth. We started watching Casablanca on DVD but it was getting late, so we're going to finish it tonight.

Oh, and the house?



Got a basement! We got a basement!

Listen : Bigger Boys & Stolen Sweethearts - Arctic Monkeys ... Metal Heart - Garbage ... Alma Matters - Morrissey.

Two months. I haven't posted in two months.

I'll post a full Xmas / New Year / Valentines summary in a day or two, maybe a week's time. I just wanted to be the first person in America to publish this equation. I calculated it some time ago, and I'll also publish it in a Usenet newsgroup (searchable in Google).

Seabrook's Break Even equation = 16p + d

where p = the cost of the monthly premium, and

where d = the deductible amount set by the company.