Logarithmic Witchcraft!!!!!!

Logarithms!!!!!!! I bet that very word has struck fear into your very hearts!!!!!! Horrible images of sitting in a classroom with a slide-rule and/or abacus when you were a whippersnapper!!!!!!! Well, actually, I used one of those new fangled pocket calculating machines!!!!!!! Mind you, it was in the olden days when calculators were the size of cash registers, and I had very big pockets!!!!!!!!

Erm, well, anyway!!!!!!! If you ever want to know who's name to curse for this, the name is John Napier, a dude from 16th century Scotland!!!!!! And apparently, he wasn't just into maths!!!!!! Apparently he was regarded by the locals as a bit of a "warlock" as well!!!!!! Mind you, this was probably after they tried to solve some tough logarithmic equations!!!!!!!!!!

Senior Citizen- on a Billy Joel song!!!!!!

Blimey!!!!!!! SC has got a mention on a popular music gramophone!!!!!! Well, actually, it's a "remake" of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", which of course was a remake of REM's "The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", which of course was a rremake of Bob Dylan's "Subterranian Homesick Blues", which of course was a remake of Tommy Steele's "Half a Sixpence"!!!!!!! Actually, I just made that last bit up, believe it or not!!!!!!!

Er, where was I!?!??!?! Anyway!!! Some enterprising peeps have remade the Billy Joel song calling it "We Didn't Start the Weblog"!!!!!! And guess wot!!!! It's all about weblogs!!!! And it gives us a mention!!!!! Which is nice!!!!!

You can even get an mp3 of the "platter" in question here!!!!! Tho I have to say I feel sorry for the poor guy who had to sing it all!!!!! He sounds like he's got the same cold as I had this week!!!!!

Welcome to the (slightly) new-look SENIOR CITIZEN!!!!!

Aha!!!! I expect you notice the difference now!!!!! Welcome to the revamp of SC, with more space for text, and an better layout!!!! And watch out for some more additions in the next few weeks!!!!

Now we're coming up for Chrimbo, (!!!!) I'll be starting to get ready for the Senior Citizen 2000 NetBest Awards!!!!!! In it, I plan to award the:

• Best Headline!!!!!!
  
• Best Story!!!!!!
  
• Best Rant!!!!!!
  
• Best Website!!!!!!
  
• Best Software!!!!!!
  
• Best Prediction!!!!!!
  

And maybe others!!!!!!!! If you have any suggestions, mail us!!!!!!!

Fridays brilliant quote!!!!

Old age is preferable to the alternative. [Damn right, old chap!!!!!!]

Time for the "tele-village"!!!!!!!!

Teleworkers will be based either in their own homes or in office suites at the centre of the settlement where they can share expensive hardware including scanners, laser printers, photocopiers and video-conferencing facilities. All the homes and facilities will be linked up by computer networks so they can communicate with each other.

Yet residents will enter this wired-up village through a tree-lined and cobbled main street designed for pedestrians and bicycles where children will be safe to play in front of their homes.

Sounds like some dreadful US "suburb" somewhere, doesn't it?!?!?!? And if you think so, you'd be completely wrong!!!!!!!! It's actually Scotland's first "tele-village", which is somewhere in the Borders, apparently!!!!!!!!!

BTW "Tele-village".... Doesn't that sound like a more urban form of Teletubbyland!??!?!??!

Watch out Bert and Nappy- here comes a Spy!!!!!!!!

Blimey!!!!!!! Here comes yet another "home-brew" Napster clone!!!!!!! This one's called Songspy, which is jolly ironic as I expect certain Record Industry peeps will be doing a lot of "spying" on this lot!!!!!!!!!

This years best album- is connected to your compute with a ribbon cable!!!!!!!

Hmmmm, I'm not too sure how to react to this one!!!!!!! Apparently ultra-cool-and-hip US music mag Spin, which is usually the sort of rag I would avoid even if I had procured a suitably large barge-pole (!!!!!!), has announced the "Album of the Year" as "Your Hard Drive", in recognition of the vast amounts of MP3s that people have on them these days!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I would certainly agree in my case!!!!!!! But having seen some peoples music collections on Napster/Gnutella/Freenet/PloppyTrader, I wouldn't say this is universally true!!!!!!!

A rather basic way- to do BASIC!!!!!!! (Doh!!!!!!!)

U-no, one of my friends has got one of those new-fangled Playstation 2 thingies!!!!!!!!! And the thing that's been most played on it so far has not been any game, but this version of ye olde computing language BASIC, called YABASIC!!!!!!!! You can download it for Windows and *nix, but it's much more entertaining watching someone programming it using just an analogue controller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today's rather downbeat quote!!!!!!

Ask yourself whether you're happy- and you cease to be so. [Excuse me while I go and slit my wrists!!!!!! Actually, I won't!!!!!!! I'm only joking, really!!!!!!!!!]

Another eddytorial!!!!!

Cough!!! Cough!!!! Sniffle!!!! etc. Yes, I've still got the cold!!!!! In fact, I was in bed yesterday!!!!!!!! But I managed to drag myself out for long enough to finish off the new look for Senior Citizen!!!!!! It's not really that different to the old look, but it's much clearer, and has more space for text!!!!! It should go live this weekend!!!!!! Bet you can't wait, huh!!!!!!!

BTW I'll be taking part in this Day Without Weblogs tomorrow, so there'll be no SC on 1st Dec. But we'll return the next day in our new look!!!!

Yesterday's not-very-good slogan!!!!!!

Custom is the great guide of human life. [Yeah, like flippin' Witch Trials- wot a great guide to life that must be!!!!!!]

Sharon Stone: scarred for life?!?!??!

Here's one "Scarface" that's generating heaps of interest: the one on Sharon Stone's neck!!!!!!! Never mind the face on Mars, some peeps are constructing conspiracy theories around a strange mark on some movie star who's more known for a certain other part of her anatomy!!!!!! Mind you, having seen that "Basic Instinct" on tha tellybox the other day, I can inform you that it's nothing to write home about.

ICANN: no you can't!!!!!!

Reporting on this story is apparently a little muted!!!!!!!!! There's a bit of a major stushie between the bods wot make the top level domain names, ICANN, and ... well, everyone else!!!!!!! In fact, there's even talk of outside agencies using their own root servers!!!!!!!!

There's some other bloke reporting on the story here, but he uses funny words, and I don't understand them!!!!!!! Bah!!!!!!!

Designers: Acne!!!!!

Hey!!!! There's some groovy Swedish design "collective" called "Acne"!!!!!!! Bet they have quite a few "spots" on tha NetWeb!!!!!! (Doh!!!!!!)

PS!!! We've just found out that they've got some connection with our old friend, the C64 sound-a-like SidStation!!!!!

If you're a housewife- you're dead!!!!!!

Crikey!!!!! These are changing times!!!! Not only is Deputy PM John Prescott getting a right earful off the French Minister Dominique Voynet for having a "standard macho attitude", but there's also a new survey out which proclaims the idea of the "traditional" stay-at-home housewife to be "all but extinct"!!!!!! Also, there appears to be a more "permissive" amongst young people as compared to older folks!!!!!!

Come on, you senior citizens!!!! Time to catch up with the young folk!!!!!! There are even classes for it these days!!!!!

Old folk: we're not Victor Meldrew!!!!!

Well, at least some of us oldies aren't all stick-in-the-muds!!!!!!!!!! According to yet another new survey, the more mature adults are getting steadily cheesed off with being assumptions that they either watch "Songs of Praise", or act like Victor Meldrew!!!!!!!

A viewer in her 60s said of her movie preferences: "I like a good violent American thriller - the type of thing with Al Pacino."

Another, in his 70s, said: "People our age like the same range of things as anybody else. We don't suddenly find that all we want to watch is Songs of Praise. We like the same things we liked when we were younger. I like The Royle Family and Have I Got News For You, just like my grandson."

Oldies watching "Scarface"?!?!?! About flipping time, I say!!!!!!!!

Stop death on air flights- by wearing elasticated stockings!!!!!!!

Well, here's an old man who certainly knows where it's at!!!!!!!! Wot with all this talk about seats in cramped cheapo air flights causing deadly blood clots and whatnot, here's an old 85 year old bloke called JC Mustarde, with some sage advice on how to beat the problem!!!!!!!!! Apparently it involves certain "exercises" and wearing elasticated stockings!!!!!!!

In the years to come I made many long-haul flights, always wearing my stockings and doing my unobtrusive pumping exercises, with no recurrence of my problem. And now, in my 85th year, I am coming to the end of a commitment which in the past nine years has involved making some 40 trips to Ghana and back (the International Reconstructive Plastic Surgery Project)

Crikey!!!! Plastic surgery as well!??!?!?! I think Master Mustarde has a lot to teach other old (and even young) folks!!!!!

Yesterday's tautologist slogan!!!!!

Yes, I was busy yesterday!!!!!!!!

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle. [Unfortunately, on Planet Earth, one usually follows from the other!!!!!!]

Old Fart has got the cold!!!!!!!

Cough!!!! Cough!!!! Sniffle!!!! Atchoo!!!!!!! This is one of the more annoying disadvantages regarding the more mature man having a hectic lovelife!!!!!!!! You might get a lot of funny bugs!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW Talking of "Planet Earth", I might soon be going to a concert held by ancient electro-fogies Duran Duran!!!!!!! If so, expect a "unique" review by yours truly soon afterwards!!!!!!

Todays old chesnut!!!!!

"Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country."