I’ve been wearing a cap all day. Not because I’m annoyed about my new hairstyle but rather because I couldn’t be bothered explaining myself to the parents. Well, while in the hospital with them both today my dad asked the question… You didn’t do it did you?
Well, daddy, I did.
It’s not that I didn’t really want him to know, it was that I wanted him to understand why I did it. He has no concept of my beliefs or I doubt, even my personality. He hasn’t known me for over a year, and I’ve changed. I’m not afraid of taking risks anymore.
I do agree that my current hairstyle is a little short, and in future I’ll keep to a #1 or #2. That’s not important. What I find quite… disgusting… is that I don’t think he even cares why I did it.
He said I looked like an inmate, like a soldier or who knows what else. I simply told him I was doing it for good, and money was raised to further good.
I have knowledge, I have beleifs that far outweigh yours. I know about other religions from around the world and while I may not practice them entirely, I understand their significance and hold some meaning towards them.
Hair grows back, and while I don’t care what you think – I’d love if you actually thought about why I did it.
Sheesh, if I expected this much contraversy I would have asked for an interview with BBC News. So, I thought I’d start September with a little extra for you to understand why I’m doing this thing.
Firstly, just because it’s called ‘the big shave’ doesn’t mean I’m getting out the shaving oil and placing a blade to my scalp. It’s going to be something akin to a buzz cut, but it will be nonetheless what I need, mentally, to get myself out of this rut.
I respect many cultures and their practices, especially what such religious acts mean for themselves or their family. I, as an agnostic, don’t exactly beleive that any of this matters – but it does to the person who is doing the act. Some Eastern cultures, like i’ve talked about before, sacrifice something in the hope of change. That’s exactly what I’m going through tonight.
Sure I’m nervous about it. Sure I’ve got second thoughts, but there’s meaning and a drive behind it. My first video when I talked about it may have been just a spur-of-the-moment thing, but I haven’t spent the time up to this just thinking of doing it for the hell of it. I researched it, wondered why others did it to and there was always a significant meaning behind an act.
My mother has been in an out of hospital for more than half of this year. It’s scary, and there’s been times I’ve been literally in tears when something has happened. I’ve been angry, I’ve been worried, and most of all I’ve been wanting it to change. When my mum was having problems with some aspects of her personality I started growing a beard, telling myself that I’d shave it off when my mother came back. My mother is still in hospital, and while I haven’t told you one percent of the stories that have happened concerning her (because they’re just TOO shocking to tell) it doesn’t mean the symbolism of my actions should be disapproved.
In thirteen days there is a change that will affect not only myself, but the rest of my family. It’s the time where all of my mother’s children are moving out of the city. Already my mum is taking it a little to the heart, and it’s scary to realise that this could be such a heart-felt problem for her, when she’s already lost so many connections. I wanted to symbolise this and sacrifice something to show what it meant to me.
Some may ask why I want to make this a fundraiser for Cancer Research UK as well. Too many people in my family have had problems with Cancer, and while my mother isn’t one of them my family has had major changes due to this. My dear Uncle Alan died from Cancer just last year, my Aunt has had to have life changing surgery and my mother has had preventive measures taken. Half of the reason my mother is in hospital today is because of this, not because she has had it herself but because of how it has affected the family.
Now, I’d talk to you more about it but while I’m someone who normally contains his emotions in tightly sealed boxes I’m finding it hard to stop them rushing to the surface. I just hope you can understand that I’m not just doing this because I’ve got nothing better to do - there’s true reason behind it, and all I need is a little bit of support though this dark time.
There’s something wrong with the embedding of the video right now, so if you could make your way to this page to watch it, that’d be great…
I seem to get this notion into my head every two or so months after my hair starts getting a little long and I have to consider what the hell I want to do about it. This time I haven’t even managed to reach a month.
I don’t really understand why it’s so socially unacceptable. I mean I know it’s been connected to the whole idea of neo-nazism and biker gangs and the rest, and I’ll have nothing to do with those kinda things. I like the idea for it’s religious connotations. Ok, some of the people reading will know I’m not religious but it makes a good point. In some eastern religions people do this in time of need as a sacrifice. But it’s not only that, it’s also sacrificing parts of your identity for a greater cause.
Yes - I have thoughts, yet again, to shave my very large head (and I mean… large… meh, we’ll get into that another day).
I have a few reasons that I’m thinking of doing this:-
It’s cheap.
It’s convinent.
It’s a time saver.
It’s a change from the hairstyle I’ve had for over 10 years.
It’s a lesson.
I’ve always wanted to know what it would look like.
It’ll stop this gorram dandruff I’ve got right now that no dandruff shampoo seems to be able to fix.
It saves me feeling uncomfortable in a barbers trying to make small talk.
It’ll save me feeling uncomfortable when, each time I visit the barbers, they repeat how thick my hair is.
It’ll stop me doing this really annyoing habit of picking out my hair when I’m bored.
I’m moving back to Dundee in September. If I do it then, my parents won’t know for over a month - in which I can decide if I like it… or not (and by then I’ll have an excuse made up if I don’t.)
I want to wear a baseball cap without thinking about the hair underneath.
I love the feel of short hair when I get my hair cut, especially the ultra-short bits at the back of the neck.
I bet some people will think it’s hot to be so different and have the nerve to do it.
Since I won’t have hair to express my personality, it’ll help me reach out more and show people what I’m really like.
So. A few reasons.
But I wasn’t going to jump in the pool without doing the research - and my research involves photoshop… maybe…
I don’t think I look too bad in this pic - it’s not perfect, but it works and is definitely better than the garish hair I’m suffering right now…
Normally summer is thought of for it’s wonderful heat, sunny skies and times where you can just chill and relax. However, I don’t live in fantasy land, and I know how bad Scottish weather can get. So it’s a little cold and a little rainy.
This is a problem. Our boiler doesn’t work right.
The boiler situation is the most annoying of things in our house. While it’s capable of offering water throughout the house when required, it’s ability to heat up the house can be questionable at times. Not only does the timer not work, forcing us to have to manually turn it on and off ourselves, but with my mother taking temporary residence in our office (and therefore having the radiator on) means there is not enough pressure in the heating in order for my room to get any form of heat.
So in any given cold day, irregardless of our boilers current status or temperature in our house, it’s bloody freezing in my room.
This may explain why, when I moved to Dundee, my radiator was on FULL BLAST for the first week. I didn’t care that an entire Sunday roast could have easily been cooked in my room but the feeling of heat blasting from the wall definitely beats having to put on a sweater.
So, I guess this is an apology for taking out half of the ice cap this year, and now you lot making me pay for it this summer by freezing my a** off. Right, where’s those mittens?
…which is a good thing because our normal outfit of deep-fried foods can only keep up interested for so long. My first meal may have been a McDonalds (my Dad seemed to think a 1 year, 1 month & 1 day old baby could take a small portion of fries) but my heart has always been in a good curry and the spicier the better.
Maybe it’s just a male thing but we’ve always had this idea that you’re more ‘macho’ if you can eat a hot curry. This goes on for quite a few years as your friends buy hotter and hotter curries, and until someone orders the ‘Vindaloo’.
Probably not very surprisingly, I really enjoy my Vindaloo. It’s something that keeps you on your toes and sipping a Cobra all night long and trying to suppress the hiccups.
Although I can withstand the heat of a good curry (I also like to eat whole jalapenos just to annoy my friends [and not complain]) I know people who, when faced with the heat, have trouble understanding or even eating it:-
My Uncle Chris - who sweats incredibly from his forehead whenever he has any spicy food.
My Norwegian Uncle and Aunt, Frasier & Irene - who thought a Chicken Korma (one of the mild, creamy, curries on the menu) was a little to hot for their taste buds.
My Cat. Oh, the fun times.
However, this love of curry only seems to be at it’s best in either India (cheap) or in the UK (tasty). I’ve been taken to the greatest curry houses in Bradford, Edinburgh, Glasgow and the rest of the freakin’ country and there’s never the greatest taste from your favourite Indian restaurant. But when I travel around the world, and sometimes drop into several indian restaurants around the place, it’s never as good.
It seems we’re the only country that decided to make curry a national dish worthy of it’s place on our plates - every other country seems to consider it a ‘freaky food’ which little consideration is taken of it, which sucks.
I think it’s fairly obvious that I’m a geek who, for various reasons at a young age, never really enjoyed the whole ‘exercise’ thing. I’ve never enjoyed sport (rather hated it) and preferred rather to tinker with equipment or sit down in front of the tv watching Star Trek and Stargate.
After all that time, eh, not really well spent I have to consider that my life requires me to change my habits. So, I spent a decent amount on an unlimited gym membership. Today was my inauguration.
Maybe it’s all that sitting down and working on code the past year, but I’m sure that I’m a little out of shape. My usual heart rate of 58 was up at 71 (nerves?) and my blood pressure was a little high (supposedly thanks to the fact of large amounts of caffeine, walking to the gym and stress). They even took my height and weight so they could figure out my Body Mass Index. My 1.72m body was a little high in the charts, but hasn’t really changed since the last time I went to the gym a few years ago. Still, it was high and needs to be taken down.
Here’s where the interesting stuff happened.
Of course, the best way to get your weight down is cardio. So I was taken to treadmills, cross trainers, rowing machines and cycling machines. That was an stimulating experience - especially thanks to the fact I didn’t know my body could produce that much sweat!
When I’m swimming, I feel the heat build up in my face quite a bit. It’s understood and doesn’t effect me much. However, since the gym isn’t underwater every last minute of the machine was hard work. My face felt like it was going to melt and with the amount of sweat, seemed like it was. I got my heart rate up to a decent 180bpm (which is supposedly 20 beats higher than the ‘fat burning zone’ and 3x higher than my resting rate) and when I finally came out I could definitely feel the warmth and pull in the legs, and the fact I had to re-hydrate myself every 20 minutes showed how much it was taking out of me.
There were some other exercises too - not too much hard, but the weights were included too. I don’t much like weights.
By the time I left the gym my clothes seemed like I’d been swimming in them, my body felt good (but capable of rest) an I was still sweating buckets on the way home.
Yar! Hopefully this quadruple espresso will kick me out of the blogging downfall I’ve been in the past month or two. It’s been pretty hard to do anything let alone think, thanks to some family problems. I’ll get into it sometime or another… but not right now.
I did try to talk about it though…
Damn, I look crap in this video.
Now, let’s get onto something a lot more interesting.
19th Birthday
Yes! I’ve finally passed the terrible age of eighteen, and I’m able to see the future with crystal clarity. Ok, not exactly, but I had a great time.
I’ve been growing a little facial hair ever since my mother went into hospital a month ago. It was a symbol. I’d shave it off after I got my mother back and became herself again. But by my birthday it was getting too annoying, and with the need for a haircut too I treated myself to a ‘Groom’s Special’ at The Player’s Lounge, Edinburgh.
It was a shave and a haircut, something I’ve never spent this much on… but I’ve been trying to get a straight shave ever since I watched Sweeny Todd.
The Player’s Lounge was amazing. While you wait they include a complimentary beer and let you read magazines and their PSP. When they’re ready for you the treatment starts… The shave lasts 45 minutes. Since I had a full beard on at the time it took an entire hour, but I have to say it was the best shave I’ve ever had. Steaming hot towels to soften the hairs, about 5 different types of facial scrubs and moisterisers even before she started to shave with the straight razor.
The haircut was very good too! I’m normally used to getting a barber who, while he can cut hair, doesn’t truly know how ones hair works. I told my hairdresser (repeadly) about how thick my hair is. ‘Real’ hairdressers have noticed, and she definitely did. Thankfully, she did my hair perfectly… taking out all the extra volume and managing to make it really suit me!
Thanks player’s lounge!
The night was awesome too. I went out to Gulliano’s on the Shore and had some wonderful Italian food, followed by Wall-E (for the second time :D). Everyone was super nice and got me everything I desired. Money, Coffee, Espresso machines and computer games. So, awesome. Thank you everyone. I’m still waiting for a super-awesome present from a super-awesome person (Corinne), but can’t wait to get it.
Survey
If you remember, about 2 weeks ago I asked you to take a survey so I can go forward. Thanks for all who took part and I hope to implement a few of the requests. Right now, I’m going to share them…
83% of you are happy with the blog as a whole.
Only 17% of you visit the blog via an RSS reader.
Everyone was either happy or not bothered that I made money off of this blog by displaying advertising.
People wanted to read more (by popularity)…
Things that happen in my life.
Photography
Stories and Ideas
Videos
Reviews
Tutorials
Documentaries on Socks
Podcasts
Some people want…
“Boobs?” [Although this was anonymous... I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!]
What are the things you like to do? What about your family life? [So, actually talk about what the title seems to suggest. Ok.]
Most people want new content 3+ times a week. I might freak out some of you when I say there’s going to be new content every single day next month thanks to the fact I’m participating in NaBloPoMo [National Blog Posting Month].
82.3% would purchase limited edition prints so I could afford a over-the-atlantic trip.
People want more…
“Boobs”. [Scott... seriously... [it's in the pipes ;)]]
Tutorials on web design, photography, etc.
More pictures… (of the blogger)
More topics that entertain a wider audience… e.g. “Try things out of our element and blog about them. What did you like or not about the experience?”.
More lists.
When asked if there was anything not discussed here that you’d like changed or discussed about… They said…
“Boobs?” [*headdesk*]
Talk about your friends more… aka…ME! (and you know who this is) [Yes, I do...]
So, back to normal from now on. You’ll see a lot of things change (more than you’d think) in the next week so I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Now, before I leave you… one last word for the wise. DON’T EAT YELLOW SNOW!
It’s been a long few hours around the world as people everywhere attempt to sign into MobileMe, sign up for their new iPhones or getting their current iPhones and iPods updated to the latest firmware… and I’m stuck there with them.
Thankfully, I’m not waiting in line anywhere as I don’t have the money to update to an iPhone. I’m one of those iPod Touch owners who have already got and PURCHASED applications for their iPod and each time I click ‘Update’ I can’t get the current firmware.
As you can see, I’ve been having problems getting my firmware updated all day.
The past twenty four hours have been hell for Apple as their MobileMe service was released–now operating in both mac and windows–the Apple servers were bombarded with requests, and hours wasted for people trying to use the service for their work around the world.
It’s been worse for the people who have the money to afford iPhone 3Gs as registration servers around the world have been broken down until 3.35pm UTC, causing people the frustration of having to sort it out at home later on.
As someone thinking of making a new Apple purchase for his birthday, I’m having a little bit of a problem with the idea that they’re such good people to go to. The idea of Apple as a brilliant company who cannot do wrong has been seriously broken the past two days as mostly all of their services have been crushed to rubble. That’s sad… because I love them so very much.
The sad thing is that I know one thing about Apple fanatics, just like I–are very forgiving. While it will be in the news all next week, we’ll forget about the fiasco. Not many people realise there were bad problems of people trying to activate their original iPhones last year.
After all the things that happened today, I’m happy that I’m no longer thinking of getting an iPhone 3G. When MacWorld came along I was calculating costs and thoughts on purchasing, how much I’d have to sell and work in order to afford the phone and contract. However, I see no problem when the new firmware finally becomes available for the original iPhone to purchase a second-hand model for use with a current (and cheaper) contract that I have.
I just hope that Apple remember this fiasco, and the owners of these new products don’t take it lightly. It’s their fault, and although we like them so very much, you can still tell them off every once in a while…
If you thought that I, geek extraordinaire, would miss the WWDC you’d be greatly mistaken. I even fine tuned my computer setup for extreme visibility - IRC chats detailing the show and chats about it’s products were on one screen, social media sites on another and on my laptop stood Leo Laporte getting a live feed of the conference and discussing it on TWiT Live.
What can I say, I love Apple.
Before the conference I was thinking that I wouldn’t get an iPhone. My current phone works well, the only downside is the music player lacks any real help. That’s why I have an iPod Touch to keep me going… and I’ve loved it.
But when I got the text message through detailing the iPhone’s 8GB price through twitter I went speechless. £99! My iPod cost more than that! That’s when I thought… it’s time to upgrade.
While £99 is a extremely cheap price for anything as high quality as Apple tech, I see what they’re doing. Apple does get a lot of money from the contracts of the iPhone and a contract of £35 a month is fairly steep when somebody like myself spends only £3.63 a month on 600 minutes and 500 texts (cashback baby! [so technically I'm paying £30... what of it?])
Despite having no real connection to the Reality Distortion Field, I began making calculations… Ok.. o2 have a set contract of 18 months for £35 per month.. that’s… £630! For the same deal (but without internet) I have to only pay £65! It’s a shocking difference for a student life and made me consider how much owning another piece of Apple tech is really worth it and would a job over the summer fuel my habit.
However, o2 have been extremely smart in my opinion by offering a pay-as-you-go offering of the iPhone (but no pricing as of yet). Since I am already part of the great o2 network–I could still get my iPhone and yet have the good deals offered by e2save.com (The web browsing bolt on costs £7.50 a month - so I hope it’s still worth it).
Something tells me that on July 11 the iPhone (either the contract or pay-as-you-go version) is going to be extremely hard to come by in the UK. However, since my birthday is only 11 days afterwards I have to tell my family that if they all came together to buy this for me… I’d love ‘em. [hint hint]
The majority of us all have webcams. Most people’s are built into their laptops, while others remain discarded into the drawer next to the drawing pins and highlighters.
So many years ago I remember people’s desire for video chat in EVERYTHING. We even invented video phones to get our face-to-face chat — 3G phones as well as landline that enabled us to feel more connected to the person we were talking to. The Internet also gave us that fix–iChat, Skype, MSN, Yahoo, all the major chat clients offered the feature and once you went through all of the loops you managed to get a chat through.
In my entire life I have had a total of two video chats. One was in 2002, to relatives in Greece. Secondly, I had a small conversation with my aunt after I moved to Dundee. Any other time was either a massive failure (thank you, internet) or a one-way video conference.
However, I have voice chats all of the time. I talk to friends in Edinburgh weekly as well as using Skype to connect to family and friends across the globe. Why not video?
Well, there’s a few reasons:-
What’s the point?
It hogs my bandwidth!
I don’t have a webcam.
What’s the point? Well, it lets people see who you really are. You might have met your friends on the net, but it doesn’t mean you have to remain as an avatar. You can almost truly connect, as video chat gives a more natural experience as you’re able to relate to people’s body movements and actions. You can even show things off to each other–such as family items or miscellaneous geekery!
It hogs my bandwidth! Well, that makes sense. But it’s not as big as you might thing. Anyone with a 512Mb connection or higher should be ok with having an video conference.
I don’t have a webcam. Well, that didn’t stop me. If you want, you can use an ordinary DV Camcorder–but it doesn’t cost much for a new webcam these days. My webcam, that only cost me £5 ($10), offers high quality images and even night vision.
The majority of us all have webcams. Most people’s are built into their laptops, while others remain discarded into the drawer next to the drawing pins and highlighters.
