Green

About This

You've arrived at the homepage of Stephen Stewart. The archive is available here for those who want it. This site is happily hosted by Dreamhost. Click for more?

Recent Comments

• Cybez on One's too many an' a hundred's not enough
• Nelly on One's too many an' a hundred's not enough
• adele on And the sky was made black with unescaped entities
• adele on And the sky was made black with unescaped entities
• sharon on Fifteens
• Nelly on Mother is it just a waste of time?
• Stephen on Mother is it just a waste of time?

links to other people's sites

Recommended Viewing

• 300†
  Does exactly what it says on the (comic book) tin. Loved it.
• Little Miss Sunshine†
  Very funny, disturbing (the beauty pageant) and completely messed up -- but in a good way.
• Laputa: Castle in the Sky†
  Story great, characterization a little on the weak side -- though the big robots are cool.
• Porco Rosso†
  Stylish, funny, exciting.
• Grave of the Fireflies†
  Very sad, which was a little unexpected since I didn't know much about it before watching it. Can be a little too slow in places though, otherwise it's very good.
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind†
  The story can get a little dense at times what with the various factions, but still really enjoyable, inventive and engaging.
• X-Men: The Last Stand†
  Opportunity, talent, money - all blown. Over 3 films X-Men has hinted of something great that could have been, this last one says "No, sorry - not going to happen". Bah.

flickr.com

Evil grays

Checker Shadow Illusion: The squares marked A and B are the same shade of grey. It nearly drove me insane. I'm staring at my monitor, covering parts of the image with my hands... I had to take it into photoshop and snip out a section of each and put them side by side. I didn't believe the dropper.

I bet this is like The Ring - 7 days later I'll be found dead. There's certainly divilry a foot. Yes, divilry.

Found at insert better name here

0 CommentsNovember 30, 2002

Geology From Space

Pretty pictures taken from space of some of the more famous geological features of this blue planet.
A much smaller version of this circular anticline exists about ½ a mile from me, in the Silurian shale & greywackes.

Link found on MetaFilter

0 CommentsNovember 28, 2002

A collection of collections

• A collection of  CSS Filters
• A collection of  Photoshop short cuts
• A collection of  character entities
• A collection of  colours
• A collection of  DOCTYPES (and here's one more)
• A collection of  HTTP Header parts

Via Tony Bowden, Zeldman, and just knowing things.

0 CommentsNovember 26, 2002

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W B Yeats (1865 - 1939)

0 CommentsNovember 19, 2002

Canis Major

The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.

He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.

I'm a poor underdog,
But tonight I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

0 CommentsNovember 19, 2002

Cum grano salis

I got into a fight last night. In your mind fighting is always movie style, with precision blows and dramatic sprays of blood and such. Never in real life. I made one swing that was from so far away the guy had time to order another drink whilst waiting for it, though he made better use of the time and ducked. My fist crashed into a stone wall, removing a great deal of skin from my knuckle.

We'd always been told to make straight punches, you're more likely to hit something - but when I'm 'in the moment' that sort of thinking is a few floors above where my brain is currently shopping. It's barbaric, it's not big and it's not clever, but I was just trying to stop him. Permanently or temporarily, either would do.

I have bruising all over my chest, and I think the ribs I broke during the summer are gone again - though it's hard to tell, what with the general all over pain thing going on. A nice bruise/cut on my jaw which is going to look great in coming weeks and will make me extra-employable I think.

The other guy, who shall remain nameless, is fine. He spent the night in hospital with a major concussion and mild shock. But today he's fine. His mother is very dissapointed in us both, and is refusing to cook my lunch.

0 CommentsNovember 16, 2002

Nothing gold can stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

0 CommentsNovember 14, 2002

Of Thingol and Melian

She spoke no word; but being filled with love Elwë came to her and took her hand, and straightway a spell was laid on him, so that they stood thus while long years were measured by the wheeling stars above them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark before they spoke any word.

The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien

The special extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring will be mine tomorrow (after some 'no money in account' related delays) - I can't hardly contain my excitement.

0 CommentsNovember 12, 2002

In Flanders' fields...

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below,

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' fields.

John McCrea, 1915

1 CommentsNovember 10, 2002

The Coming of Grendel

Now from the marshlands under the mist-mountains
Came Grendel prowling; branded with God's ire.
This murderous monster was minded to entrap
Some hapless human in that high hall.
On he came under the clouds, until clearly
He could see the great golden feasting place,
Glimmering wine-hall of men. Not his first
Raid was this on the homeplace of Hrothgar.
Never before though and never afterward
Did he encounter hardier defenders of the hall.

from Beowulf (10th Century)

1 CommentsNovember 7, 2002