William James Ewins

William James Ewins

Welcome to the world, my wonderful boy.

Photo taken yesterday morning by his equally wonderful mother when he was a mere thirteen hours old. I’m running back and forth between home and hospital at the moment, but will try to write a longer account of the past few days when I get home tonight. Life’s a blur, as you can imagine.

28 March 2007 · · Journal

Black Mirrors

They reckon that babies respond to music heard in the womb, and that therefore it’s a good idea to play lots of soothing Bach during pregnancy if you want a gentle and intelligent infant.

Considering what I’ve been listening to these past few months, our child will be an alt-rock addict who swears like a bent Queensland copper in the dock. After all, it’s been my last chance to listen to all those Parental Advisory albums on the lounge-room stereo until the kid is past the angelic stage. After this it’s iPods on the bus until puberty, unless we want our cherub to turn into Chucky. God knows what I’ll do when he or she discovers this site and types everyone’s favourite four letters into that search box.

Read More · 22 March 2007 · · Music

Due Date

Only six minutes left for this baby to make a break for it, or it officially takes after its father in being fashionably late...

21 March 2007 · · Journal

Rebel, He Inks

Douglas Coupland on blogs and MySpace: “At the moment I think after a certain age—I tag it arbitrarily at 22—everyone's more withdrawn in fear.”

James Lovelock: “Life will become a little more interesting than it was before.”

If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop? I go to hundreds of miles southeast of where I grew up. If I start from where I was born, I go to the mid-Atlantic ridge. Note to self: stop digging hole through Earth in backyard until Project Nautilus is complete.

Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) vs Silent Star Wars (not).

It’s almost heartbreaking (via Boing Boing): “We closed up and moved back into a bedroom at home with my wife and her sister operating the burners, something they hadn’t done in years. They weren’t happy.”

19 March 2007 · Weblog

Waiting for Godot

No, that isn’t the baby’s official name, but it’s what it feels like when you’re at 39 and a half weeks with 0 to 2 to go. Not that I’m the one feeling it the most, obviously. But it’s been hard to concentrate on much else...

Read More · 18 March 2007 · Site News

The Best-Laid Schemes

One of the many things I’ve been thinking I should finish before a small person starts demanding my attention is the political theory area I launched three years ago. At that time I thought it was worth waiting in case I wanted to try and publish some of the later essays in actual journals. Three years on, two of the possible candidates are now seventeen years old instead of fourteen, and I have to admit to myself that it just isn’t going to happen. Not just because I have more important stuff to try and publish right now, but because these, although also important (at least in terms of my own intellectual development), would need serious time and effort to find out what others have said about their subjects in the intervening seventeen years. I don’t have that time; given competing demands, I may never have that time—and what use is waiting until I’m sixty-five before publishing the thoughts of a 22-year-old?

Read More · 18 March 2007 · Politics

Be His Kernel

I sense a great disturbance in the Verse, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced... get well soon, OEDILF.

Read More · 11 March 2007 · · Weblog

The Greatest Show On At 3 A.M.

Given my longstanding fondness for hacking movie titles, I couldn’t resist this concept when I heard it: changing titles to make them “humorously bathetic” (a.k.a. Honey, I Shrunk the Impact). Already mine span the decades...

Read More · 6 March 2007 · · Whatever

Tikegami II: Flying High

By a complete lack of demand, we proudly present this sequel to the Ancient Art of Tikegami: the Modern Art of Ticket Aeroplanes!

Read More · 4 March 2007 · Whatever

Bilker Sheen

It’s been a while, but I’ve finally put up a new YouTube video. Who are these birds, and just what do they want?

Read More · 4 March 2007 · Weblog

The Best You Can Be

I signed up to Vox last year, just to see what it was like. Haven’t actually done anything with it, but it means I keep getting their “Vox Talks” emails. Last week’s was an eyeful. After a bit about a Vox blogger whose post had hit number one on Digg and Reddit, they wrote:

We talk a lot about how Vox was created with personal blogging at the top of our minds, and that it’s your friends, family and neighbors who you most often want to write about and write to. But Vox is a community full of incredible stories and storytellers, and this is another example that a personal story can be gripping for thousands of people all over the world. So, Voxers, don’t be afraid to write the occasional story that warms the heart of tens or thousands.

Read More · 1 March 2007 · Net Culture

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