At least we can dream of a normal society. Cartoon by Barry Deutsch

Here’s a problem I never thought existed… our address is 48 London Street in Edinburgh. Seems like a normal enough address, right? Please tell that to every single delivery person since we moved in here 3 months ago. Here’s the situation: for some reason we are on the odd numbered side of the street, despite the fact that we have an even numbered address. To compound the problem, we are located on the roundabout (London St, East London St, and Broughton St) and delivery people apparently assume that doorways on the roundabout are considered to be on Broughton St. and not London St.

So if you send us a package via anything but Royal Mail (or USPS) then don’t bother giving it a priority status because it will take us a week to get in touch with the delivery company who fails to notice that our home actually exists.

It’s not that difficult to find!

I just read this journal entry by Gruff Rhys from the Super Furry Animals and am horrified, as he was, by the terror inflicted on the people of Colombia by corporations such as Coca-Cola as well as the US government. It makes me sick to think that my tax dollars are being used to displace, maim and murder innocent people in the name of preventing suburban kids in the US from getting their hands on a recreational drug. As with the “war on terror” the “war on drugs” is killing more innocent people than the original problem.

Mr. Rhys mentions that his band turned down a seven figure offer to allow their song “Hello Sunshine” to be used in a Coca-Cola ad because they didn’t want to have anything to do with the company. I think it would have been a much better idea to let them use the song and use the money to help the terrorized employees fight back. Then both the advertisement and the song would have a much sweeter meaning. In the end the Coca-Cola company probably just paid a less ethical (and surely less talented) artist the same amount and the situation continues.

…in his latest article for wired news: Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show’s viewership.

I read tuaw.com (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) just about every day, so imagine my surprise when a friend of mine congratulated me for getting an article on Moneydance on their front page. Apparently I was one of the last people I know (who read rss/blogs anyway) to find out!

I’m glad they got the capitalization right (it’s Moneydance, not MoneyDance or Money-Dance!) and that they accurately reflected what MD is all about. For some reason a lot of reviewers seem to criticize MD for not having feature X when in fact that feature is usually one of the most prominent.

Edinburgh is such a great place to live. This evening I took Indy for a walk up Arthur’s Seat, the remnants of a volcano (and now a park) near the centre of Edinburgh. She started getting fussy about 3/4′s the way up so we turned around.

I just finished Robert Kennedy’s article Was the 2004 Election Stolen? which should be read by anyone interested in politics (and that should be all of us) regardless of party. It is amazing what Kenneth Blackwell and his cohorts have gotten away with. It is even more amazing that this issue is being completely ignored by the media.

Another article by Tony Long at WIRED News. If you haven’t already guessed, I really like this guy’s view of life. Quote: America is the unending hamster wheel to oblivion, where apparently you win if you die while in possession of a plasma TV, the fattest mortgage or the bitchinest Beemer ever. I don’t mean to be too negative towards the USA, but this is absolutely true and one of the reasons we moved to Edinburgh.

Here is a great article by Tony Long on WIRED.com. I really connect with this guy’s view of modern life. Do you really need a giant screen TV and huge SUV to be happy? I have a hard time believing that those things really make anyone happy, but the marketing industry seems to be more persuasive than common sense these days.