A publisher, articles and ancient history

[tcpip]

Well, it looks like I've found a publisher for my Jim Cairns study. Otford Press seem to be enthusiastic and - best of all appropriate. Meanwhile, New Politics have accepted my review of Strangio's biography of Cairns.

This Wednesday between 6pm and 7pm I'm being interviews on a RMIT student radio session (90.7fm) as the founder of Labor for Refugees. Be prepared to pitch me some difficult questions ;-)

Have been html-ising some ancient history, including an article on Magic in Roleplaying and Reality, which I wrote in 1996 for Mimesis and Reflection on the Death of Superman, which was published in Green Left Weekly in 1993. As I said, ancient history. Hopefully I'll manage to collate most of the things I've written this year in a single place!

Greylock alerted me to
this BBC article on luxuries versus necessities. The following table says it all really.

Luxuries
Make-up: $18bn
Perfumes: $15bn
Ocean cruises: $14bn
Ice-cream in Europe: $11 bn
Needs
Eliminate hunger: $19bn
Reproductive health care for all women: $12bn
Clean water for all: $10bn
Universal literacy: $5bn

The rest of the week has consisted of plodding away on my Data Security subchapter of my thesis and coding for the Tetum-Bahasa-Portuguese-English translation programme. Coding for Sesami.org is finished and ConnectIE are happy with the result. If anyone else needs a very motivated and skilled IT generalist for the short or long term you know where to find me.

Spent the weekend being quite sociable - dinner on Friday night with some friends of severina_242, some senior East Timor and military people on Saturday and Sunday all-singing and all-dancing Iranians. Whilst each event was individually very pleasant, it has also reminded me how much I really enjoy my own company - and how little of that I get.

My diet starts today. No, I'm serious. I returned from East Timor slightly thinner than usual - probably clocking in at 84kg. Now, three months back and with the festive season, I'm about 95kg. With a height of around 181 cm, this does put me in the "overweight" range and with a BMI of about 28-29 - which is far too high. Fortunately I'm one of those people who loses/gains weight quite quickly. A few weeks on a diet of complex carbohydrates, pure protein, skim milk, vitamin supplements and cycling should see me return to the more healthly level.

Je-sus. I just checked the BBC BMI site. It reckons that I should go down to about 76kg... I haven't weighed that much since, ummm, 1988... Oh well, here goes...

Update

An interesting experiment. Friend_Whoring. Join.

Comments

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Can't say that I agree with this one at all... my pets don't cost me very much at all and they are what keep me just on the "right"side of sane. How about the money spent on things like chocolate and smoking instead? :)

[monkeygirldiva.livejournal.com]

i think i got the idea when a woman living in an 'ex-pat bubble' next to a sudanese refugee ghetto told me that she only gives her dogs bottle water and gets her driver to pick up beef for them every second day. i then noticed that cat and dog food here is one of the more expensive items in the supermarket as it's all imported... very knee-jerk of me, i admit :)

in theory i (and my lungs) like the idea of redirecting cigarette money. in practice however *coughcough*... :)

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Well a situation like that could give you those ideas! :) I admit that I spoil my pet rats but I don't think I would even go as far as to have "special" food delivered to them :)

As for the cigarettes, for me its the chocolate that would be hard to give up (at least permanently) LOL