Hello. Check out the statistics page . . . numbers that change as you click refresh, over and over again, averages given to 20 DECIMAL PLACES, spammy text based graphs (hey, you try getting software installed under Linux . . . I'm talking about the Perl module GD::Graph here, of course). I've written the queries to exclude IP addresses from within my network . . . kinda makes sense. I'm constantly reloading to check content/layout, after all. We had thunderstorms last night, and then the rain started really falling in the hours of the morning. It woke me up, as these huge blobs of rain pounded away at my dormer roof (I'm at the top of the house, see). Breakfast time.

Later that day . . .

Okay. Now, I don't really have the time or inclination to pursue this matter much further, but I think 207.46.98.84 deserves some kind of round of applause. Today, a machine behind this IP address, through thick and thin, has made no less than 338 requests to my web server (at time of writing, naturally . . . In fact, it was 335 when I began writing this paragraph). Each of these requests was unique. That is, no request was made twice, and none of these requests was for index.php without any parameters. All very odd. This relentless onslaught began today at 16:02:07 and the requests are coming in at the rate of 52.8333 every hour, or 0.88 requests every minute. Naturally, this is completely skewing the figures (August has just begun, and already machines like 207.46.98.84 have made close to a thousand requests to my web server). Grrrrrr. I have firewalls for machines like you . . . hmmmmm. Oh . . . that's an idea. Ah, I see. Right. Fine. My firewall's like that, is it? Maybe I need another one then, and we'll forward port 80 to there. Yes.

How odd . . . the requests from 207.46.98.84 stopped at 09:05:48 today and not a peep since. Maybe they have everything they need.

Well, that was odd too . . . I had sat down to finish my university assignment when Liz rang, sounding a bit panicked, telling me that some 'strange man' was stood outside their house . . . he had followed Tania there from my house to Liz's. He had been just stood there, by the gate, but now he was knocking at the door and they didn't know what to do. So this makes me angry . . . what the hell is this man playing at, disturbing me like this? I put my shoes on, put my jacket on and march over to Liz's place. And there he is, knocking on the door, Liz and Tania visible in the window, looking freaked out. And the guy has very dark skin . . . Afro-Carribean, he's wearing plain blue jeans, some kind of jumper, he's got both of his hands in his pockets . . . doesn't look like there's anything in his pockets, except for his hands . . . "Hello? Can I help you? Looking for someone?" no answer . . . just a grunt. The guy looks at me . . . he looks somehow lost . . . a bit . . . gone. His face is pocked and scarred . . . acne scars . . . he looks like in his mid to late twenties, I guess. His hands remain in his pockets. "This is Sowood Street. Are you after someone?" (I'm used to people getting these streets mixed up . . . they all look the same) The guy kind of grunts and ambles away from the front door, down the steps, and I move aside, so that he can get past. "So Wood?" he says. "Yes. This is Sowood Street. Sowood. Look . . . come here, there's a sign," and I walk away, hoping the guy will follow and he does, but very slowly . . . with spastic speed, hands still in pockets. "Look. See the sign? Sowood Street. This is Sowood Street, yeah?" "So Wood," he says and I nod and point at the sign once more, pointing away from Liz's house. I went back to Liz's house, and the guy kind of ambled up and down the street for a while before disappearing. All very, very strange. What is wrong with these people? That was a rhetorical question.

Pictures, here's the pictures . . .

And why did they demolish the building so soon after the, erm, explosion(s)? And what happened to all that seismic data? I remember before he was executed, Timothy McVeigh said, "You will remember my name," and everyone kind of went, "Yeah, whatever. NEXT!" but here we are (well, here I am) going, "A bomb in a van did THAT?" And now we hear that those two planes in Russia . . . erm . . . I was listening to the BBC news and I heard that the black boxes in both planes stopped recording moments before radar contact was lost. Odd. I sometimes wonder if Russia, Japan and the USA are testing strange scalar electromagnetic weapons on each other.

Ah well, better to have something than nothing at all. Bike is fixed now. Was it broken? Well, not really, but the brakes weren't working very well . . . the front brake cable had snapped, see. So, erm . . . I ordered a whole set, some of these v-brake things. It's quite scary now - I pull on my brake levers sharply and the wheels stop moving. Me and my bike have inertia, but as there's loads of friction between the rubber of my tires and the tarmac/paving of the stuff I cycle on, this usually means I too stop moving shortly after the wheels. Crazy.

But this is my favourite from tonight . . . Liz took this picture:

It was 19:28 and, whilst other people were getting ready to go out (see above), Simon decided it would be a good idea to drape (sp.?) his economy two-ply toilet roll all over the, er, lounge?! Is it a lounge? Anyway, I kind of helped out a bit, and took a few pictures, hoping to capture bemused expressions, but failed miserably. I suppose I never really explained the pictures above . . . do I need to? We had a meal at Est Est Est then went to, erm . . . looks like Mononi (the gents toilets has a, er . . . what would you call it? An assistant? A guy who sits there, putting the hot tap on when you go to wash your hands, then hands you paper towels, chats to you whilst you're, erm, abluting . . . that kinda thing . . . you're meant to tip this guy . . . I gave him a pound coin, said I want 50p change . . . thought that was generous) and then the Lounge and, finally, the Hi-Fi Club. The last picture's me, probably updating my web-site. That t-shirt I'm wearing, yeah? Well, that must be at least seven years old. I bought it when I was first in Australia, so it may have even been bought towards the end of 1996 . . . I just don't know. I bought it at some kind of indoor market, near Brunswick Street station, Fortitude Valley. Or the Valley, as the locals call it. The collar started detaching itself from the main body of the t-shirt long, long ago.

So, yeah . . . Tania popped up from, erm, Paul's, I guess . . . to see people, get her mail and stuff. We all gathered at the Cardigan Arms and some went on to Viva Cuba and others . . . didn't. Here's some pictures . . .