I have to admit to being racist though, I wanted the african-american candidate to win, not because he is the better candidate but because of the symbolic meaning it has. Saying that he certainly seems to be a more than suitable man for the job. I wish him all the best in what are difficult and telling times for our planet and it’s inhabitants.

The presenter, Michael Wesch, also created this great video discussing Web 2.0 ideals which is compulsory viewing – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&feature=user

The logic of bureaucracy is to grow, mycelia-like, through life’s fabric, stifling free impulse, bringing everything and everyone under it’s control. It often appears to act in the interest of ‘the public good’. Or ‘for the community’. But at the root of the bureaucratic mindset is a hatred of the individual. And it is now inescapable. Our actions leave traces in the great fungal mat – in computers, on film – so that, should it be necessary, the bureaucracy can send out a tentacle and haul us in.

We pride ourselves on being ‘free’ – free democracies in which all are allowed to choose. But really, we can only choose between a few kinds of sameness. We cannot choose to reject, to live outside of, the gargantuan administration that is modern life.

When I mentioned I was going to buy a new radio to my wife it reminded her of an old Sony world radio she had buried away in the cupboard which she dug out for me. It fitted the bill perfectly so I popped some new batteries in and sat about trying to tune it in, unfortunately to no avail. Something was not quite right but I had no idea what.

In a bid to find the problem I turned to the Sony website and searched for a user manual, but the radio was too old to have any electronic manuals online for it. So I did a general search for the model number through Yahoo! and stumbled upon some really detailed instructions on how to fix the exact problem I was having. The instructions were put together by some small repair shop in Germany and included detailed photos of how to open the radio and replace the faulty capacitors to fix the problem. Fantastic, but I didn’t have a soldering iron or know where to source new capacitors from so I did another search, this time for electronic repairers in my area. In the results I happened to find a guy who lives literally 3 streets away from me and who does small scales repairs like this. I emailed him the instructions I had found and asked him to quote on doing the repair. He said he would do it for $60 and I dropped it over to him just the other day.

You’ve gotta love the web!

The band and music was just amazing, the lighting was clever and the singing and acting was just superb. We couldn’t fault it and had such a wonderful night out.