The Ephemeric

a new section here, the 'how to' section, where i share with you articles of my immense and unparalleled wisdom. the first such article is a classic, one that i have been called upon to assist people with countless times. nowadays many people download resource consuming, spyware carrying, generally painful and crappy (and some times pricey) software such as tweakxp to do things such as this; but for those in the know it is much much simpler and can be done without downloading a single thing.

The procedure is as follows:


METHOD 1:
1. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe
2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
3. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.
4. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\piffile
5. Delete the IsShortcut registry value.

You may need to restart Windows.

METHOD 2:
1. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe
2. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Shell Icons
3. In the right-pane, create a new String value named 29
4. Double-click 29 and set its Value data as: C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,50
(shell32.dll,50 is an empty icon)
5. Close Registry Editor.

To apply the changes instantly, follow this
6. Right-click Desktop, choose Properties
7. Click the Appearance Tab.
8. Click Advanced button
9. Choose Icon from the drop-down list
10. Set it's size to 31 and press OK, OK.
The changes will be applied now. Repeat the above steps and then set the Icon size back to 32 (defaults). The above steps are required to force Windows to redraw the icons. Even Tweak XP does this.

song of the day: "Alive" by "VHS or Beta"
pic of the day:


HOT:
spookalicious
portal
halloween bop

NOT:
spooktacular
halo 3
halloween blood trail

Well I have seen many productions in the theatre this summer, much to my enjoyment, most of which were of a very high quality and very recommendable, so here I will briefly go over a few of the highlights (hopefully with a little feeling). Maybe you can catch them if theyre still on.

Recently I saw moonlight and magnolias at the tricycle theatre, about a producer/director/writer team trying to write the movie 'gone with the wind', who lock themselves in a room for a week in order to hurry out a script to what they see as 'schlocky', money making rubbish, hence the rather starry-eyed title. Clearly this is a premise that suits theatre well, where scene changes are difficult, allowing the inclusion of very good detail in the set (i was keen eyed enough to notice american plug sockets on the walls on the set). The play itself is absolutely hilarious, well written and very well acted. To give a feel for the characters I would direct you towards the television show Seinfeld. The writer is jerry, the porducer is george, and the director is kramer. It is not like me at all to describe characters in a play using tv analogies but so fitting are those characters to this production, in appearance, mannerism and behaviour, that it is difficult to imagine the director of this play not having them in mind.

Next up is Parade at the Donmar, which as everyone knows is my favorite theatre; small, intimate, and bloody hard to get tickets for! This particular production was a musical, with what can only be described as an unusual choice for such a show: the persecution of an innocent jew for child rape and murder in the old south of america... right. Despite this you still get swept up in the emphatic and patriotic spirit of it all, in good humour, before getting sunk in the hippocrisy and injustice of it all, a good use of juxtaposition, though not as effective as in the production of the bacchae we saw at eton 2 years ago.

However saving the best for last is the Vanishing Number, at the barbican. Anyone who was with me to see the elephant vanishes will remember how masterfully done it was, with use of video and sound that was practically unparalleled anywhere else, leading to a surreal, almost dream-like experience. This production follows in a similar vein, also being a production by theatre complicité and comes off as highly impressive for doing so, as most of their productions are. The story revolves around the relationship of a mathematician and an american she meets at a lecture, who knows nothing about maths who, for reasons which dont become clear until the end, both become intensely fascinated with an historic indian mathematical progidy who went to oxford, coming up with the apparently revolutionary equation 1+2+3+4...+infinite= 1/12 (no i dont get it either, but was impressed i managed to follow the maths for at least a few minutes) and the two stories are told simultaneously, coming together at the bittersweet finale. Aside from containing extremely high production values, the writing and acting is very good, and consistently funny throughout right until the somewhat darker end, which you probably wont see coming until late on. A very high recommendation.

There were others I saw, but these three were probably the most notable that I can think of now.

song of the day: "Unglued" by "Jupiter One"
pic of the day:


HOT:
blog posters
magic
forgiveness

NOT:
'anonymous' posters ;)
devils and dust
pettiness




p.s. if you get the pic reference... youre as big a geek as i am :)
x

Well it seems to be the first thing people ask me these days when they see me, so let us get down the official 'debs approved' opinion on the departure of our beloved jose mourinho and the ensuing calamity for chelsea. it sucks. really does. mourinho was/is the best, and grant is just a patsy. Chelsea fans are used to seeing their team self destruct but i dont think anyone expected it to happen now during our golden age at the top of european football.
Abramovich is truly being ridiculous if he wants to run the club as he seems to. But that being said, I dont think its all doom and gloom like most people do. There is some form of logic behind the madness at stamford bridge, a desire for better football and a more positive image in the media. Even at our best times there were teams i feared playing against, barcelona in particular, and if Roman gets his way that will no longer be the case. The best way to combat these teams isnt to scrape 1-0 wins against them by having better stamina than them, it should be to out play them and run rings around them with passing movements. Avram Grant probably is not the man to deliver on this promise, but if, as is widely expected, he leaves us in the near future, I'm sure his replacement will be able to.

song of the day: "Window Bird" by "Stars"
pic of the day:


HOT:
Freshers
Reynolds
Reliable friends

NOT:
Getting home from Freshers
Student Union
Disloyal friends