deviantART: by:kingping

deviantART: by:kingping http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:kingping&section=today deviantART RSS for by:kingping en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:25:37 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png Thank you! http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/26540285/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/26540285/ Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:43:55 PDT
But it's a joy to see that people are still visiting the page and still posting nice comments, as DA continues to grow. Thanks!

]]> ~kingping Merriweather Post Pavilion http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/23588217/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/23588217/ Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:07:56 PDT
]]> ~kingping Bjork appreciation http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/20775121/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/20775121/ Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:13:06 PDT Homogenic? Had the CD for ages. Only listened to it seriously today. I'm awestruck. It's aged well I think. Outside any normal genre, it demands to be judged on its own terms.

I quite liked Vespertine and Volta, but I had no idea how good Bjork could get.

]]> ~kingping Hello. http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/20203901/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/20203901/ Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:11:41 PDT
5 years on this place. On and off. Mainly off.

]]> ~kingping Down Is The New Up http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/11136259/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/11136259/ Thu, 21 Dec 2006 09:00:54 PST
Happy Christmas 2007 if I don't update my journal in the next twelve months. I have been less than reliable of late. I have been a busy bunny.

I think I will be uploading some fiction pieces. This is what I'm best at, but I've never been convinced that dA is the right place. My work doesn't sit very comfortably alongside thinly disguised porn. But I have some things lying around that desperately need an airing before I send them off to various places, and some things that are so old that it can't do any harm to release them on the smelly public.

I have a website:

[link]

This is a kind of blog for all my creative writing, incorporating all kinds and lengths.

Thanks for reading. Happy New Year as well by the way.

Jonathan.

]]> ~kingping How odd. http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/9779833/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/9779833/ Sat, 19 Aug 2006 07:18:19 PDT
I'm impressed.

What next? A "Daily Deviation" featuring someone with clothes on? ]]> ~kingping Out of Touch http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/8373279/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/8373279/ Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:56:22 PDT
Happy New Year.

______

[link]

Here is the website of the dubiously pun-named magazine which, from April 28th, will be edited by me.

]]> ~kingping Welcome to Me. http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/7293656/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/7293656/ Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:45:20 PST This is where I put stuff, whenever I bother to charge my camera batteries.

It would be a shame to just wipe the memory card and put the photos nowhere. It's like fishing. If you don't eat the fish, there's no point. No one may benefit from your eating of the fish, but at least you feel like your strenuous exertion at the riverside had a purpose. So it is with this page.

I also write. The writing that makes it to this page is usually
incomplete and/or immature so it is a relief to me that no one reads it.

sometimes i write LiKE thIs & forget the cpital letters and the fuLL stopses.
i am
ONLY PRETENDING
it is fun
and in some situations
pOetIc.

I feel sorry for the people who write like idiots for their entire lives.

]]> ~kingping Be my friend. http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6591959/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6591959/ Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:58:51 PDT
What you have to do is send me off to visit one of your friends. Post a link to a gallery.

But then, there's also the rest of you. Like most people on dA, I don't really know why people keep viewing my page. I guess sometimes people like a photo or something, so look and then quickly move on.

So, if I don't know you, say hi!

Don't forget to link to your gallery.

I easily have time to respond to someone saying hi... it's one of the great things about being crap and unknown. But people on dA never say hi at all.

]]> ~kingping i am not looking at pageviews. http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6402742/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6402742/ Sat, 03 Sep 2005 05:51:10 PDT IMAGE!!!

]]> ~kingping questions/answers http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6324370/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6324370/ Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:41:14 PDT eLfa who craves your love.

If you were an element, what element would you be? manganese.

If you were a number... 0.

If you were a color... what is color?

If you were an emotion... the feeling you get when your cat's died and you wonder when you could be in its place and are sickly happy you're not.

If you were a sound... one hand clapping.

If you were a body function... a sneeze.

If you were a song... a song passed from generation to generation and then forgotten.

If you were a virtue... sadism.

If you were land... Lake land.

If you were water... LAKE WATER.

If you were air... air festering behind closed windows for year on year on year, polluted with the perfume of an old woman.

If you were fire... the fire at the centre of the milky way.

If you were a stone... kidney stone.

If you were a metal... MANGANESE

If you were a wood... veneer.

If you were a sense... common. ho ho ho.

If you were a temperature... the temperature of mortuaries.

If you were a word... hesitation.

If you were a facial expression... blank

If you were a weather condition... hot air.

___________________________

short message.

i feel as though im getting more CAMFIDENCE than before. ive had so many things this year that ive taken and then never submitted. i like so little of what i create. when im surrounded by so much GENUINEly good art ALL THE TIME, looking at my own makes me feel like sand in a dessert.
but its ok now. photos to come.

___________________________

LIGHT BULB

quote of the day.

"what do people write in blogs normally?" - Thom Yorke's blog.

]]> ~kingping Firefox Woes / Exam Happiness http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6295079/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6295079/ Mon, 22 Aug 2005 07:54:44 PDT
I would've said something on Thursday or Friday, except that I haven't been able to get on here for 7 days. I've been looking at a blank page with "Website found... waiting for reply" on the screen, even though all other pages have been working normally.

Without having any clue as to why this happened, I'm going to be irrational and blame my web browser, Firefox, which has caused me nothing but trouble this week.

Honestly, choosing between Internet Explorer and Firefox is like choosing between gonorrhoea and syphilis. All I want is for the Internet to be like that old BT ad, where it's actually an airport and everything you want is flown to you in person. HOW DIFFICULT COULD THAT BE?

]]> ~kingping Jarking Off http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6226729/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6226729/ Sun, 14 Aug 2005 16:40:05 PDT jark from dA has resulted (so far) in 14 follow-up resignations, 1202 supportive journals and 1 obstinate CEO. It has become obvious that dA influence follows a pyramid structure, with those regular, tilde-bearing people who have put together 14 million deviations left right at the bottom.

With this journal my only aim is to state modestly my own opinion. I'm not even going to attempt an inflammatory journal, or an inflammatory deviation for people to spread around.

Nor am I hiding my gallery in disgust. There is no practical reason for this: it would be a gesture, just like an inflammatory comment. `justthorne has suggested that the submission agreement jeopardises our legal rights and that we cannot trust the dA management not to attempt mass copyright infringement. Believing this takes a certain amount of gullibility. I am happy with the submission agreement and won't mix up legal arguments with moral or sentimental ones.

But still, it's obvious to anyone that there are some critical issues:

1. We have a right to information. The deviantART "subscription" is not a subscription in the everyday sense - that is, it's not like a magazine or newspaper subscription. Such subscriptions grant the essential right that, if you don't like the product, you can cancel and claim a partial refund. A deviantART "subscription" is subtly different - we are effectively donors. We cannot opt out once our money is spent, and 95-100% of us do it not for the slight perks we get but because we want to help fund the deviantART community.

Our relationship to dA is akin to a donor/benificiary relationship or a client/service relationship, depending on how you see it. You could even say we are unofficial shareholders. In any case, our money buys the moral right to know who is running this website - and how they are running it.

The loss of many vital staff members - not just °jark - will directly affect all of us, therefore we deserve to be involved.

$spyed 's refusal to explain transparently his management decisions is immoral.

2. This will end in a legal battle. Though morality seems to have been thrown out the window during this scandal, it's still possible that time may show that Mr. Sotira acted justifiably towards Mr. Jarkoff. If Jarkoff misunderstood his role within the company and acted in an dangerously irresponsible and rebellious manner, I willl have to reconsider my opinion of him. If, on the other hand, Jarkoff's assertions in his journal all prove to be accurate, Sotira will find himself out of pocket and maybe even facing serious charges. We just don't know. But we do know that the courts will ascertain the facts more clearly than any of us can.

]]> ~kingping So, where have I been? http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6010614/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/6010614/ Sat, 23 Jul 2005 06:03:42 PDT
"Lost."

would answer it, maybe.

I've had some flat batteries (in every sense) and have missed some good photos. I get the feeling that the best of our short British summer has already gone. But fog, rain and cloud tends to suit me better anyway. I've been doing other things: some writing, some reading, some gaming, and a lot of nothing.

Next week I'm going to Croatia, so this is a very brief dA comeback.

But I will be on here for as much of August as I can manage.

]]> ~kingping Rock & Politics, without Irishmen http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/5686611/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/5686611/ Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:46:30 PDT "Ooh R.E.M. are bigger, bigger than you."

If you've ever picked up an R.E.M. CD in your life and thought "meh", it's time to forget all that. They're the best live band in the world, and they're (finally) back in the UK. And their Manchester show was incredible. Huge rock anthems, blue eye makeup, vague left-wing politics: everything the band has always done - except better than ever.

In fact, I got so into the gig that I'm actually feeling a subconscious urge to liberate Burma. So while I'm off doing that, enjoy some serious and relevant links that don't involve Bob Geldof:

Monbiot.com
[One of the most interesting and controversial journalists out there]

Amnesty.org
[2005 Report is finished - and already called "absurd" by President Bush]

]]> ~kingping Me & My Twitchy Eyelid http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/5566418/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/5566418/ Mon, 06 Jun 2005 02:42:55 PDT
Exam time again, and that means one of two things. Either I'll forget all about dA and about cameras in general, or I will be on here a lot more often as some kind of displacement activity. And I do need a displacement activity. I have two empty weeks of leave in which to worry about essentially four important exams. So, lots of worrying. My eyelid is actually twitching, which is unnerving. Relaxation techniques welcome...

The Good

Good news is that I've bought a * for a year. This is a reward for saving lots of money by reading cheap-ass second-hand books. The Outsider by Albert Camus, Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner are all uniquely weird and wonderful novels and well worth 50p.

The Bad

Africa. I could say "Africa," leave it at that and save myself some time. But obviously I don't want to save time (displacement activity). Bob Geldof thinks the G8 will create a "Marshall Plan" to transform Africa into "the richest continent in the world" and so will "make poverty history." No.

Africa has already received the equivalent of three Marshall Plans in aid. Targeted aid could yield some improvement, but nothing significant can happen while the G8 stick within their little cabal and refuse to renegotiate the trade agreements that dump our surplus on Africa while importing little of their produce. It's not necessarily "free trade" or "fair trade" that's required, just genuine compassion and common sense. Flashy £50m talking shops and rock concerts are all a smokescreen.

The Ugly (almost)

Talking of international crises, don't me get started on Natalie Portman's hair.

But anyway, scrapping the CAP farming subsidies and importing food from the Third World wouldn't be the end of the world. We would benefit from scaling down farming in the UK. I've been in the Galloway countryside this last week. Our countryside (especially Scotland's) is beautiful - as everyone knows. But the heavily farmed areas are almost ugly, while the amount of ancient woodland has dwindled to next to nothing.

There's no comparison. Ranks of sheep lined up in a field are cute to us city folk but, compared to deer roaming freely in their natural environment, ordered farms are like an Orwellian nightmare.

I mention this because I did manage to find myself a deer - the photo was blurry but I will submit it as a scrap or devID or something.

Cereal of the Month [June 05]

The coveted award goes to Crunchy Nut Nutty. What's nuttier than a crunchy nut? Why, a nutty crunchy nut of course. Disclaimer: I do not recommend this cereal to people with nut allergies.

]]> ~kingping "But Jabe, you're made of wood!" http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4985613/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4985613/ Sun, 03 Apr 2005 07:25:48 PDT
Good thing
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez - tragic, unique, brutal, as stylish as The Godfather, and all in 120 pages. Short and sweet, like this review.

Bad thing
Doctor Who. Another dumbed-down remake - why do TV channels keep doing this? It's not suspenseful, it's not funny, it's not well-acted, it's just a way to evaporate 45 minutes of your valuable Saturday evening.

Cereal of the Month
Crunchy Nut Clusters... unbelievable. It's as though all the honey in Britain has been packed so tightly into such a small space that it has miraculously become crunchy. I've never eaten anything so irresistibly, mindblowingly sweet. It's somehow deeply satisfying to know that in one mouthful I am eating the product of several years' hard work for a hive of bees out there somewhere. ]]> ~kingping Happy February http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4555286/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4555286/ Fri, 11 Feb 2005 15:21:53 PST
I will try to be a little bit more active and comment a little bit more often

Have a great month/year/life.

____

Book for this month: Heart of Darkness
DVD for this month: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
TV for this month: Nathan Barley
Game for this month: Counter-Strike Source

Long-term aim: Buy sodding dA subscription. ]]> ~kingping Dreams http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4370345/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4370345/ Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:03:40 PST then you think you've woken up only to find yourself in another weird dream then you think you've woken up again but it goes on and on until about 8.30am at which point you discover that you're late and everything feels a bit shit and weird in real life too.

Whenever this happens I get a really lucid memory of what the dreams were, and it scares me. I don't want to know about all the things I must dream of and then never remember. There must be some insane stuff in there.

Suffice to say it had sex, guns, crying, humiliation, emasculation - all the typical themes.

___

Time to talk about a book. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky is very, very short and I can't think of any reason not to give it a go. The author is (at least in my opinion) the best writer in the history of writing. Not slightly, but by some way. N.f.U. isn't his best thing ever, since its first part is a long philosophical rant that has been somewhat left behind by the times. It's a stinging attack on 1860s radicals but I, not being an 1860s radical myself, was not particularly interested.

However, the rest is pure Dostoevsky. A sad, dark anti-romantic tale of a man messing everything up in a brilliantly understated, brilliantly understandable way. Dostoevsky's main strength is his dialogue, and there's hardly any in N.f.U., but even so his incredible skill for effortlessly developing complex and troubled characters is clear. ]]> ~kingping Mechanics http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4239036/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4239036/ Tue, 04 Jan 2005 15:56:40 PST Happy new year to you
Happy new year dear...

Etc.

I hope you have a great 2005.

So, it's January again, and that can only mean one thing: January exams. If I read the timetable properly my first is on the 12th, and it's a fun one. It's Mechanics (M1), which I'm doing to contribute to a Further Maths AS. Except I haven't been taught any of it, so I've set out a plan of action:

Wednesday 5th - Catch up on history work.
Thursday 6th - Lessons & catching up on new history work.
Friday 7th - As above.
Saturday 8th - Saturday.
Sunday 9th - Day of rest.
Monday 10th - Lessons & other work.
Tuesday 11th - Revise for some other exam.
Wednesday 12th - Take exam.

Excellent, so that's all worked out then. ]]> ~kingping Happy Christmas http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4117104/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4117104/ Tue, 21 Dec 2004 06:30:40 PST Happy Christmas to you,
Happy Christmas dear everyone,
Happy Christmas to you. ]]> ~kingping 50 / 4 = 12.25 http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4074604/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/4074604/ Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:45:44 PST
I call them stress slips, and they're very funny because you can never guess what might slip. I'd prefer to lose my mental arithmetic than the power of speech, to be honest. And it was 50-50.

So anyway, I'll hear from them in January and then maybe the entire UCAS saga can come to an end. Only the small matter of A Levels to worry about after that then. Woohoo.

___

The reason it's been all quiet on the DA front for me is that I've got nowhere to go with my camera, no time to go anywhere in, and no sunlight anyway. That will change - eventually. In the meantime I may make some random prose submissions. You have been warned.

Nothing more to mention, except that today I got a letter from a friend I haven't seen since Year 7, 5 years ago. We just kind of forgot each other. Hmm, isn't that an awkward one? And I can't figure out a way of replying that wouldn't seem awkward. Any advice would be great...

Have a happy December, and I'll post again before Christmas.

]]> ~kingping Happy November http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3725427/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3725427/ Mon, 01 Nov 2004 14:23:51 PST
Some good things: firstly, for the first time I have a deviation with over 100 full views. Sure, it took two months to get there, but it's still something. [link]

Click if you want, I get more views that way.

*caresses views*

Secondly, I'm back from Crete since 3am today (it's been a long day). This means I have a few things to submit. My gallery does have 2 (yes, two) photos taken in Manchester... but there's no comparison. I only get into photography when I'm somewhere else. The rest of the world is beautiful, sparsely populated, and isn't full of people who will nick my camera at knifepoint.

I'm pleased with some of the newer photos in terms of image quality - maybe I'm finally getting the hang of all this exposure/aperture bullshit

.

I think I'm in a good mood as well, for the first time in a few months. Which is also A Good Thing.

]]> ~kingping Greece Lightning http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3609699/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3609699/ Sun, 17 Oct 2004 09:52:39 PDT
But hey, at least the school didn't lose my form and cause me to miss the early deadline... which is what they did with one guy.

Heh.

What's good is that I'm in Crete after next week. Yes, finally there is a possibility of me taking some decent new photos.

Have a nice week (or two).

]]> ~kingping Chronic Laziness... http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3421656/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3421656/ Wed, 22 Sep 2004 13:25:05 PDT Sitting: on the dock of a bay.
Watching: the tide roll away.
Sitting: on the dock of a bay.
Wasting: time.

... would be a pretty harsh way of describing my level of DA activity at the moment. This is mainly because schoolwork has hit me like a ton of very thin paper bricks. The only reason I'm posting a journal entry right now is because it provides a convenient reason not to write a UCAS personal statement.

I've also found it quite hard to get any new material I'm especially keen to submit. The one problem with DA is that it's clear that the popularity of a photo is directly proportional to the amount of a) infra-red, and b) souped-up contrast in it. Throw in some fake blood and you're practically set for life, though that's not really my style.

I look at a) and b) every day, and I've tried both myself, but I don't really like either. I know I need to improve my work and my technique, but I'm not inspired to try hard enough.

Anyway... bye bye for now now.

]]> ~kingping Happy September http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3293481/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3293481/ Sun, 05 Sep 2004 14:47:54 PDT
Good Review: Modders are amazing people - they make great, complete, self-contained games, then give them away for absolutely nothing. The brilliant thing about playing obscure mods is that not only do you get that unbeatable feeling of getting something for nothing, there's also a good sense of community. People who play mods tend to take their gaming seriously. Red Orchestra is not an obscure mod, it's a fairly popular mod - because it's a great mod. I feel like I've been given the whole of World War II, without even asking for it. I feel like Hitler.

If you have Unreal Tournament 2004, go get Red Orchestra. It's realistic but playable, and fun without being tasteless. And it's free. Oh yes.

Bad Review: I have an love/hate relationship with sci-fi. I hate nearly all of it, and love the rest. The State of the Art, by Iain M Banks, falls into the hate category. It's a collection of short stories - but it's not really, it's one half decent story surrounded by stupid padding. Iain M Banks loves nothing more than to try and be smart, and that shows in this anthology. They're all quirky, they're all playful, but they're all utterly unsatisfying. Not funny, not gripping, not moving.

Iain M Banks's Culture is a fantastic creation, and I'll keep going back to it over and over again (in literature, not literally. ... now I'm confused.), but this is not a worthy addition to the series and was a complete waste of money.

If you like the sound of the author, read The Player of Games.

Deviant to view right now:

~taramara

What a guy. Tirelessly commenting, accumulating friends, submitting deviations, and doing everything else a good deviant should do.

__

Bye for now. ]]> ~kingping Electrical Storm http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3155425/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/3155425/ Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:53:29 PDT ~kingping The Story With Animals Is The Better Story http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2993330/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2993330/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 03:51:24 PDT __

If, for whatever reason, you want and entertaining summer book, you can't do much better than Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. He's an exuberant, experimental and greatly talented writer, who just about pulls off this ambitious tale, which could perhaps also be known as "The Curious Incident of the Tiger in the Lifeboat". The first 100 pages are fairly frustrating - very well crafted, going absolutely nowhere - but by the end it's a book that's impossible not to like. It's a thought-provoking, intelligent and complex novel about belief, at the same time as being an exotic and gripping survival thriller. *****

Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island is arguably the most pointless book I've ever read, in the sense that it's all about Bryson (an American living, at that time, in Britain) touring a lot of places I've already been to. Nonetheless, it's a book worth reading for his brilliant comic style alone. There's also a lot of interesting insight in here, and you're guaranteed to learn something. This is a must for any non-Briton wanting to learn about this country. ****

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - not just one of the best titles ever, but also one of the best novels. It follows three lives over a fifty year period, capturing the flow of lives and the passage of time in the masterful way only Marquez possesses. There's also a great love story in there too. Marquez explores all aspects of love and acknowledges, unlike most books and films, that it's not just a case of young people jumping on top of each other. The author is a legend, and this is surely his best work. *****

__

Now for some photos... ]]> ~kingping Be Right Back... http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2897800/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2897800/ Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:57:16 PDT

]]> ~kingping A Year and a Bit http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2808050/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2808050/ Mon, 05 Jul 2004 09:29:57 PDT

I completely failed to notice that I actually joined DA on June 23rd 2003, so this is now my 378th day here. I didn't really start submitting anything until around November - I spent the first few months just browsing, which was nice. Since November I've looked at more great submissions than I can possibly remember, and devWatched enough friends to flood my inbox. I've submitted a few things at a decent rate, but still have more Favourites than Deviations, which is how I like it. It's been great being a small part of this vibrant community, and hopefully I'll be around for a few more years yet.

This isn't too far off coinciding with 1000 pageviews too... hmm. 2000 pageviews by June 23rd 2005? I hope so. ]]> ~kingping Back In Action http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2691447/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2691447/ Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:07:05 PDT
Who will win Wimbledon?

Andy Roddick

Who will win Euro 2004?

Czech Republic

Come back in two weeks.

]]> ~kingping Where Eagles Dare http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2580797/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2580797/ Fri, 04 Jun 2004 09:17:52 PDT Vernon God Little is something you really should read. Funny in places, clever and entertaining everywhere else, it's a warped and horrific portrayal of Western culture. It attacks fast food, fast news and fast justice with a style that's satirical, farcical and yet somehow almost plausible.

__

Six hours of exams on Thursday could be interesting. To forget all about that (and revise, possibly) I've been on holiday in a quiet bit of Galloway all week. Go to the right areas and it's like the Lake District, except completely empty. Eagles and buzzards circle over every wood, hares and goats dart and wander around respectively, and the moon and stars are so incredibly bright in the clear air that it's never dark enough to lose sight of your shadow.

I have a few photos to put up, which is my way of saying "thanks for not being there". ]]> ~kingping Art is Like Golf http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2393263/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2393263/ Sun, 09 May 2004 15:41:10 PDT [link] and for no-one to criticise.

And now for something completely different. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is what I've just finished with. An interesting book certainly, and I might go so far as to call it essential. It's a beginners' guide to Asperger's Syndrome, wrapped up in an absorbing though simplistic story. It's not 100% reliable medically speaking, and it had lasted longer the silly and predictable plot would have worn thin, but as it stands it's a unique book from a talented writer who gets into the head of his character in an impressive way, and a book which challenges you to think about your whole awareness of the world.

[link]

On to Vernon God Little soon... ]]> ~kingping Caught in the Room Wide Web http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2191658/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/2191658/ Sat, 10 Apr 2004 09:45:33 PDT
I come back from a week away, wheel the PC out from its quiet hidey hole, and am now left with the speakers happily sitting around the desk and the big black woofer thingy (electronic, not canine) a few feet away. The problem? The former are in no way connected to the latter, and lying on the floor in between is a spectacular web of leads and the 'colour-coded' things you get on the end of leads - most if not all of which seem to be orange. The speakers have been mating: entangling and writhing all week so that I now seem to have a whole new generation of leads. And none have any intention of linking up with their parent again. Oh well. I'm keeping a safe distance and doing all computing in silence for the time being.

Happily what I lack in sound I can probably make up for in photos. I've spent a little bit of the past week wandering through the New Forest, and have been able to be slightly more patient in finding the best shots than I have been up to now. Expect a whole lot of trees from me in the coming days, among other things.

One more thing to mention: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a rather excellent book. I wanted to read it all this week but haven't quite had the time to, but so far it's one of the best pieces of storytelling I've ever come across. It can be serious and tragic, fantastical and humorous or anything in between. The many characters are plausible and likeable and the pace is absolutely incredible. It's starts off in a lively manner and never slows down for 400 pages. So at least start it:

[link]

*

I'm not sure why I have this 'trial subscription' going for a week, but it's not been too amazing yet. The extra information in the messages screen means I can't just casually delete most of the 50 or so notices I have there. This means that if I'm watching you I'll see your latest stuff eventually, but it may take a while...

[link]

]]> ~kingping Stargazing http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1878600/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1878600/ Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:32:28 PST
I go outside, and look straight up, with a pair of old binoculars (much in need of replacement). Standing in the middle of the street, my house becomes just another little irrelevant reference point against a huge backdrop of black and white.

They're good friends, stars. Sirius follows me everywhere - loyal, constant, completely trustworthy. Orion I've known since I was just starting primary school, and tonight he still plods slowly from East to West, completely failing to get tired of the whole laborious routine. Beyond that, I've never learnt the maps in any real detail. When I catch the brilliant pleiades in my vision it's always a total surprise to see them there, and most of the time I never have any idea what or where the shimmering spot of light (or pretty little nebula) I happen to be looking at actually is.

I like it that way - in a way I'm terrified of studying, for example, Physics & Astronomy at university, because I get the feeling if I let the mysteries of the night's sky become a major part of my life I'll forget their real value. They're escapism. Endless natural entertainment - a wondrous show made great by - as with any such show - the near infinite attention to detail behind the scenes, complexities only the product of which is visible.

It's not just the fact that these little bright spots are extraterrestrial, perhaps what really makes them special is how extrasensory they are. I'm probably wrong to worry about studying them in too much detail, because it's really immaterial how much you analyse what's going on - ultimately all we see is the very tip of the celestial iceberg. Entire galaxies reduced to pinpricks of light, unphased, disinterested, constant. All of human existence through all of time can be reduced to a single point: a single thread in a tapestry of incomprehensible size. Somehow when stars emerge from behind the light pollution the seal on our insular existence is broken. It hits you, suddenly. We can't watch everything, we can't know everything. Sit back. Relax. You're a human. ]]> ~kingping "Such a perfect day" http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1797325/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1797325/ Thu, 05 Feb 2004 08:32:01 PST
I'm 50 miles from the sea, and it's the beginning of February. Hmm.

Of course the greatest things in life happen with no camera in sight (unless you're a porn star), so to compensate I grabbed a couple of snaps of some nice clouds. Have a nice day. ]]> ~kingping It's [Finished] Snowing! http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1767969/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1767969/ Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:17:58 PST
Dying nude. An intriguing artistic concept, and one covered more times than is healthy by this very community. Well, that's what I've been doing this week, courtesy of Max Payne 2. People with the game will probably know what I'm talking about, those without can use their imaginations. There's something compelling about the opposite extremes that fuel all our animal desires coming together in dramatic and sudden fashion. Everything within us wants sex, everything within us wants to prevent death. Even in the toned down form of a computer game, the collision of such powerful emotions creates an odd feeling and a unique experience. A bullet piercing a naked body somehow creates ultimate revulsion.

You may have gathered, by this point, that this is in a journal entry because it's all too damn stupid to form into a coherent poem.

[link] | PCGamer forum
[link] | PCGF links

What's happening at the moment then? I have a little sci-fi short story here, exactly half completed. If I write the other half it will probably be very spontaneous - assuming that's not going to happen, keep on expecting little, and I'll deliver.

(No love, just chicken, lamb and beef)

If I walk into any nice photographable scenes you can expect them here too. ]]> ~kingping Have A Nice Winter http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1759972/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1759972/ Thu, 29 Jan 2004 00:47:36 PST [link]

Deviation ^

It would appear my userpage is currently a little bit screwed.

I may write a proper journal entry when I have time

. ]]> ~kingping So here it is, merry January http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1642140/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1642140/ Wed, 07 Jan 2004 07:49:42 PST [link] : PCG Forum member links.

Quiet month this. Thank God I'm not doing January modules is all I can say... ]]> ~kingping Merry Christmas, Happy New Year http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1573290/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1573290/ Sun, 28 Dec 2003 11:18:57 PST It was a muddled up year,
It was a very good year for picture phones
and Deviant Art,
The World grew more apart,
relied on violent means,
When I was seventeen.

Heh, now I have to wait four years before trying that again. Happy 2004. ]]> ~kingping Happy November http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1401244/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1401244/ Fri, 14 Nov 2003 16:28:46 PST
I'll continue to make my own small contribution and, as ever, I promise neither quality nor quantity... ]]> ~kingping Erk, a holiday... http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1327872/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1327872/ Mon, 27 Oct 2003 05:47:25 PST
I really should learn to type better (or indeed write better).

Apart from that, and apart from dentists, and twisted ankles (ouch), things are going fairly well at the moment. Sometimes I find myself wishing for some kind of disaster, or big blob of emotional turmoil, just so I might get some inspiration for a new poem. At present I have absolutely nothing to write about at all, bar a couple of short story ideas I have brewing, but stories always take a long time to develop fully - ~4 hours to write, which is huge when you have other things to do, and days or weeks to rumenate over the concepts in my head, until I reach a stage where it's remotely keyboard-worthy.

What I have been doing is voting furiously for Catch-22 on the BBC's website: [link] . Please do the same. Or vote for something else, if you really have to. ]]> ~kingping Happy October http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1297696/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1297696/ Sun, 19 Oct 2003 15:30:20 PDT
Not the actual concepts of course, else I'd have wasted hours and hours of my life doing something that I hate. I love poems and I love writing, but those damn words drive me up the wall.

All over the place, but especially in schools, 'poetry' is taught, and taught under that name, defining it as a craft to be learned. Like carpentry, or embroidery. Or basket weaving. When we write poems, are we really engaging in a craft; something to accomplish? To put on our CV or boast about? "I can play the clarinet and write poetry". The wording simply encourages and allows people to lay down the law about what is and isn't poetry. But poetry is your creation. The truth is it doesn't matter in the slightest if it doesn't rhyme, doesn't have a clear structure, or talks about love in 15 lines instead of 14.

Every craft has a set goal and a set route to take. When we write, we have no route and no goals. Poetry isn't poetry, it's art. I don't go into a gallery to see paintry, or pencillery. I look at some of the amazing, unique creations in anthologies and here on DA, and I'm damned if I'm going to group the lot under a single, feeble noun.

Don't learn poetry, make a work of art. Rant over. ]]> ~kingping Good evening.... http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1123942/ http://kingping.deviantart.com/journal/1123942/ Wed, 03 Sep 2003 06:46:52 PDT ~kingping