Candy ranks high among my staple food. Tonight, after a tiring ordeal involving the capture, torture and eventual murder of three "jumbo" flies which had harassed me and my food after managing entry into my apartment, I went out and got myself some candy along with a Red Bull and some chilli.

Eating chilli with "minicable" candy (and a bit of dried fish) reminds me of times long gone when I heartily ate scraped "kaashi" mixed with sugar and "valhoa mas". The mixture was made and eaten inside the "kaashi falhi". It was just so yummy! It's a taste I loved and miss. (Anyone ate it? It's supposed to be a traditional snack!)

I am still laughing hours after watching the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" at the cinema tonight. It definitely tops as the funniest movie I've seen. Borat, I like!

The movie "Borat" is based on the character by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who also created the comedy character "Ali G". Borat used to feature as a minor segment called "Borat's Guide to UK/US" in the Ali G series. Borat Sagdiyev is a Kazakhstani TV reporter exploring the western world. The movie shows him tasked by the Kazakhstani government to make a documentary on the culture of the "US of A". The movie is a mix of documentary/candid-camera sort of film making. As usual, Sacha manages to provoke and piss off people with Borat's sexist, homophobic attitude and anti-Jew, anti-Christian, anti-gypsy comments. Check out the movie trailers at http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/borat/trailer/. You can view the clips of Borat appearances from Ali G episodes at http://www.boratonline.co.uk/

Ali G is an absolute favourite of mine, especially the Ali G UK series - if you haven't seen it then I highly recommend watching it. Watch this Ali G interview where he talks to Posh Spice and David Beckham for a little introduction to the Ali G series.

The sun is becoming scarce here in Reading, thanks to the onset of the cold dreary seasons of autumn and winter. The nights are getting cold and fog presents a challenge to travel on the road, even on foot. Getting up in the morning is hard work, especially when I end up going to bed around dawn as per my quite insanely erratic sleep/wake cycle.

This is a tribute to the one thing that helps me keep going, on my half an hour walk to university. Laced with enough sugar to have a kid running faster and longer than a bunny on Duracell and enough caffeine to wake up the parts of the brain still deep in REM sleep, energy/sports drinks serve me well. Even though it peps me up just that little bit, it is usually enough to keep my body upright and brain functioning! I am in a seriously lazy and lethargic state these days after all. Sigh.

I love electronics. I love it because it is a thrill to actually build something and see it work. The act of creation is overwhelming, especially when younger.

Electronics was my greatest obsession since the time I got introduced to the field by a book given to me by a beloved uncle. I had the habit of being fascinated by electrical/mechanical gear while I was even younger but this book series (Funway into Electronics by Dick Smith) lay the foundations to the real awakening to the subject. I was 11 years old then and I was totally engrossed in it. I spent day and night meddling with ready-made products, scrounging for components in broken stuff and doing further reading, albeit with little real understanding But, the knowledge I gained was enough to understand how this and that worked. It was enough to let me repair and build on my own.

However, it was the thrill of building, of constructing various circuits that really had me on a high. It was by far one of the most enjoyable things I remember from my childhood. I built everything from silly LED light shows to neat "spy" gadgets. Directional listening devices that can pickup what the two gossipers at the end of the road are whispering to each other are a personal favourite. I built radio/tv transmitters and receivers. I had fun tuning into the world with self-built receivers and self-built antennae. Mind you, this was the time before encrypted communications began cropping up in Male'. I could listen into the police, cordless phones and even had the pleasure of listening in on the communications that took place when the First Lady got into some trouble in the sea (oops. classified?). I had fun building interfaces to the computer. Attempting to decode the then common 'pager' signals was an exciting undertaking. I had fun building high voltage gear. Voltage multipliers to get nice long sparks in attempts to build a decent Jacob's Ladder or a Plasma ball. Coil guns were amusing things too. I got jolted by electric shocks enough times but it was worth it - maybe except for the time I had a 400 or so volts DC, fully charged capacitor discharge thru my hands. I was careless and didn't realize the capacitor was charged. It had enough juice running through me to get me zonked out with birdies still flying around my head when I woke up... (Check out this image at How It Works to see how 'spectacular' it is when such a capacitor discharges)

Anyway, today, I fixed the TV that came with my apartment. I had so many (free!) channels piped down but with the 24inch TV refusing to utter a whisper of a sound, it was getting real dreary in here - just me, the laptop and food. It has been a looong time since I broke into one of these things and it felt good. The encounter inspired this blog rambling and I've just dug out all my electronics gear gathering cobwebs in the dark... Time to wield a soldering iron and do some serious damage!

Toodles.

Well, my holidays are officially over today. It is back to the university and the year is more crammed than last year with 9 modules to go. There is the usual amount of classes to fill up most of the week and enough lab work to tire out the day. I am really curious about the "Neurocomputation" module. It is not something that is part of the usual computer/electronics line up and it is a subject area that probably will take me beyond my comfort zone. I am very hungry for neural networks and neural everything though. By the way, I am a firm believer that with the use of artificial neural networks, we may one day, be able to gain the level of "consciousness" that we deem its sentience as comparable to humans.

Anyway, I hope everything goes all "bubbles, flowers and candy" this year. Wish me luck! 2006-2007 academic year, here I come

It was raining much of today and in between a momentary dry spell, there showed up a brilliant rainbow - two of them infact - spanning all the way across the sky! It was a sight that is much more elusive than shooting stars in the night sky...