Defending Democracy.

You know you've arrived as a photographic presence in the scene when women see you with the camera and LOUDLY DEMAND that you take photos of their breasts IMMEDIATELY. (cyberpunkgrrl and faerierhona. Who have a lot to be proud of, of course.)

Spitfire on tap. DRINKABLE BEER AT B-MOVIE AT LAST!

Saw everyone in the fucking world. Missed a lot too - e.g. daneel_olivaw, who was apparently standing next to me. I plead, er, stupid. marnameow and atommickbrane had a wild time even without the Pixies. sushidog MUST WEAR THAT OUTFIT OUT A LOT MORE.

zoo_music_girl brought her brother Kevin. He spoke with worrying (though endearing) enthusiasm about kitesurfing. This is like windsurfing, but with a kite instead of a sail. Much like Australians, Scots have too much damn time on their hands.

Dunno what's up with the Compact Flash card. Cross fingers - I did get some GREAT shots.

Getting smashed at B-Movie is not conducive to being bright, early or on time to save the world for democracy. So cyberneph and I dragged our sorry hungover arses out a while after one. Emerged from Leicester Square station just before 2pm and went down to Trafalgar Square to meet the march. It was lovely to walk down London streets that weren't full of cars. We got as far as Hyde Park Corner by four and decided that was enough democracy for one day.

I was so wishing I'd thought of taking a sign saying 'MAKE PUB NOT WAR'.

Made it to the Dev at last and hung out waiting for a nonexistent greap. Gave up, went to Resurrection and bought X-Mal Deutschland Fetisch (after only twenty years) and 7" singles by Portion Control ("Raise The Pulse") and Thomas Leer ("Heartbeat"), and never mind that I have nothing to play vinyl records on. Swung back by the Dev, saw moomintroll and Nicky, went to Super Bowl Noodle Bar for luvverly food (and the service wasn't crap this time either), waved at alixandrea through the window and nicked off to Soho to meet mr_flay at the Intrepid Fox. On a Saturday night, this place needs nuking at least as much as the rest of Soho. Ed says it's much better by day.

Using today's protest shots as a test set for netpbm. Which seems to be Da Bomb.

fun@diva:~/photos/030215 $ for i in *.JPG; do jpegtopnm $i -dct float | pnmscale 0.25 | pnmtopng > `basename $i .JPG`.png; done

This is Unix! I know this!

Scored my second Slashdot contribution. w00t.

cyberneph and I will be hitting Camden tomorrow, including the Dev at some point. See you there?

Beware of the Scorpion.

Into Camden with cyberneph. She wanted to investigate poi, you see. Went to the juggling shop, priced them, Neph pined a bit. Went across to Scorpion, where I got mugged by a pair of size 47 New Rocks. (Style 591, silver and black Reactors, zip-up side. With that stupid lace-through-the-heel thing. As if the laces will stay for more than ten seconds after I put them on.) Possibly the only size 47 New Rocks on Camden High Street. And they fit me like Cinderella's furry slipper. Dammit, I don't NEED another pair of boots! What am I, some sort of GOTH?

(Scorpion are at the corner of Chalk Farm Road and Castlehaven Road - east side of the road, just across the lights from the Camden Lock Markets. They're very nice and not obnoxiously pushy. You'll feel good about having been mugged by some Nice Boots.)

Having bought those, I figured I could spring for poi for Neph. Happy birthday, four months late!

To the Dev for a few pints with gashinryu and blaadyblah and their many friends (hello in particular to iravyn and cerne). Paul got mugged by some New Rocks too. Flick apparently spent about six and a half thousand pounds in her head, if not in cash. It was a fine Sunday afternoon out, and there should be more of them.

Paul has a new camera phone. It is a very silly device.

p.s.: SNOW!!!