Individual Eleven – The World's Cyberbrain

As sub zero temperatures grip our nation, we sit on the brink of annihilation by Mother Nature herself. Or I’m just freezing my tits off and slightly grumpy. I could go on about the 9 hour ordeal I had to endure as we move 1 yard an hour in the car, while other motorists are frantically wheel spinning. Or the front row seat entertainment from my window as my neighbour repeatedly does donuts on his driveway. But a picture says a thousand words.

I took quite a few snowy pictures but that is just too passé to post, and none of them can show the extent of our plight more so than the one taken by Nasa’s Terra satellite. Coupled with the power of the Motivator creator, I came up with this.

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While I was at work one day, I peered over at Tweetdeck and saw a tweet from @mseckington about a Secret Santa for bloggers. I immediately thought it would be interesting for me, as I struggle to find presents for people I know let alone strangers! But the concept seemed fun; initially it was open to London bloggers only but was later opened to a wider audience across the UK.

Lo and behold, Royal Mail came through and delivered my present on Christmas Eve, I was quite amazed it arrived so promptly. And even more amazed when I opened it… as it was a Manga DVD of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Those of you who are aquainted with me personally will know that I have a bucketload of anime DVDs. But do I have this one? The answer is a resounding no, I triple checked my collection just in case but nope I definitely don’t have it. I can tell you now, people have tried to buy me anime in the past and failed. Because it’s sitting in my cupboard already.

To top it off, the anime itself is delightful. A collaboration between the EVA designer in Neon Genesis Evangelion and the immediately recognisable artwork by Studio Ghibli, creates this lovely story. My hat goes off to my secret blogger, a very good choice indeed! You have just made my Christmas, thank you!

HAVE A HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR!

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Do you want to proclaim undying love to that special someone, but never had the guts to say? Or perhaps you hate someone so much you want to stab them repeatedly with a fork, but never did because of an eternal jail sentence with rats.

Well have no fear, because you can write all your feelings down virtually with a handy web template. From dangerous romantic liaisons, heartfelt apologies to grievances… you can say what you need to say with ease.

http://bureauofcommunication.com/

A friend of mine gave me this a long time ago, but I rediscovered its genius when I was trawling through my bookmarks. There are no boundaries on how ridiculous you can go with this, have fun!

Here’s one I made earlier.

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Since all the kids are back to school now, I was browsing through the several articles on The Beeb and noticed this. It brings back a flood of memories of my school years; I kept my head down and tried to concentrate on getting good grades. After all, as one teacher kept drumming into my head, school is the foundation for any future endeavours.

However, keeping one’s head down doesn’t always work. Ultimately, to fit in you need to conform, whether you want to or not. It’s part of the ever growing social pressures of school life; I can only imagine what it’s like now. I always thought that school uniforms were a bit old fashioned, it doesn’t leave much room for individualism when they try to make everyone look the same.

There is something you can change to rebel against such an idea, hence the introduction of the dishevelled school tie. At first I wore my tie normally, done up quite nicely and in the “proper” way. Most of the first year students did it, being newbies you didn’t know. Later though, if you didn’t have the cool looking tie setup then you were considered an outcast.

Of course, I had a helping hand when one of the girls showed me how to tie one. You have the thin part of the tie out (and done up short) and the fat part tucked inside your shirt. It was all the rage at the time. Teachers made the odd comment but never really made any real fuss over it. I was more likely to get detention after school for chewing gum in class. One and only time, I did have a gum moment. The teacher was unhappy and funnily quite perplexed; I never chewed gum in class before. I should feel slightly ashamed about this, but damn it felt so good to dissent for once!

Fast forward a decade, and the same thing applies. I wear a suit to work every day, and if you didn’t dress up appropriately management called you out. I saw it happen the person finally relented. If we fast-forward another few decades from now, I wonder if uniformity will go beyond clothing; will we see more constraints on our lives. Such as what we eat, what career paths to take forcing us to fill skill gaps and so on and so forth. There are already shackles in place within our society, perhaps we are too self-absorbed to notice.

A note to teachers, if you think clip-on ties is going to prevent a mutiny then think again. The Guardian has kindly listed ways schoolchildren are using their clip-on ties. My favourite is: Clip-on earring tie. Get two ties, clip one to each ear. Await suspension.

The normal tie - This is too boring for rebellious teenagers.

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Before I start with part 2 of my Chicago coverage, I’m going to quickly mention about credit card fraud, again. Except this time, it happened to me and Mastercard called while I was snoozing in my room at Hotel Felix. The clock for Central Time was 4am and GMT time was 10am. Of course, Mastercard weren’t to know but still, I picked up my phone and was amazed to find that someone decided to buy some online fitness packages, a mobile phone from Vodafone for £150 and a donation to UNICEF for around £100. There were other small purchases amounting to a fraud count of roughly £500 in total, all online transactions. The UNICEF donation did make me laugh though.

I have been purchasing online for many years, so I was surprised that my card was compromised in this manner. Not to forego the mention that I have implemented safeguards to the hilt at home and I have never had problems before. My only inkling is that I made purchases at work and perhaps the details were intercepted there, the fact they use Internet Explorer version ancient and flimsy countermeasures seems to point me in that direction. Props to Mastercard though, their prompt action had blocked 90% of the fraudulent transactions and they had set the wheels in motion to cancel the remainder while I was on holiday. Still, a pain in the posterior in having to update my card details now.

So back to Chicago… if you want a fun learning experience then the museum campus by Lake Shore Drive is a must. In fact, even if you are not into natural history or art, it is still interesting nonetheless. I had a lot of fun there; there were plenty to see. The Art Institute is not part of the Museum Campus but not far from it. We shall start with this.

The Art Institute
The size and magnitude within the walls of The Art Institute is astounding. It held many treasures inside, we saw most of them but you can easily spend an entire day there if you felt that way inclined. Paintings include from the Renaissance and Impressionist period, I was always fond of Impressionism such as works from Monet. There are also other well-known artists such as Gauguin and Picasso, even old English favourites such as Turner and Constable. There were other interests such as many sculptures in bronze and marble from numerous periods in time, from many different cultures.

Shedd Aquarium
My favourites are the seahorses, sharks and the Clown fish. There was also a giant turtle, which my friend and I thought was deceased. We revisited the tank several times and it didn’t move an inch… until suddenly it decided it needed a stretch. There was plenty of wildlife to see, including colourful coral. I was slightly disappointed that the dolphin in the show area didn’t come out to play, and the Sea Lion looked extremely lethargic!

Adler Planetarium
The show at the planetarium had finished so unfortunately we did not get to gaze among the stars. However, there were a lot of interesting exhibits; in particular antique telescopes, sextons and NASA equipment. The history of the Milky Way was also interesting, with the different planets in our Solar System hanging from the ceiling as you walked through. This is quite a nice place for kids, as there were a lot of interactive items used as teaching tools.

The Field Museum
In my opinion, this was the best out of the lot. Mainly because they had a Pirate exhibit on show for a limited time, I was lucky to have arrived in Chicago while this was still there. The variety of exhibits inside the museum was quite amazing. It covered a wide spectrum of life, including plants as well as animals and dinosaurs. The Field Museum also house the largest preserved and most complete T-Rex skeleton in the world, named Sue. The skull is so heavy that the one on show is a lighter cast so that it could be supported sufficiently. She stands at 13 feet high and 42 feet long from head to tail. The skull is 5 feet in length.

The final part will be part 3 (trying to cram everything in this will be a challenge), and what a finale this will be! I will be covering the other two elements from the title, Sound and Taste. Included will be the beautiful parks and a stroll down Lake Shore Drive, the serenity and the view just takes your breath away. I also walked through a Jazz/Blues festival, the smell of weed was slightly overbearing. Oh the food, something I still miss terribly…

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I spent ten days in Chicago, and what fantastic ten days they were! What I will do here is break my experiences up into different blog posts because of volume, so here is the first one.

Chicago is busy metropolis with such diversity, ethnically and culturally, that it makes a very interesting city to visit. There is plenty to do and beautiful safe havens; such as Millennium Park, Grant Park and a tranquil stroll along Lake Shore Drive. Of course, there is the shopping aspect along the Magnificent Mile.

First, I will start with the main city itself and the wonderful skyline.

Architecture
As you flick through the pictures below, you will see the varying styles of architectural design. There’s a lot of European influence here, many buildings reflect the intricate towers that are almost gothic like. In amongst all these though, are modern skyscrapers as far as the eye can see. I particularly like the curvature on some of these buildings, which break away from the standard oblong tower blocks.

John Hancock Observatory and Sears Tower (now known as Willis Tower)
If I had to choose which one was the better to view this great city, it would have to be the John Hancock Observatory. You can see the skyline much better from here; included in the price is a pleasant audio commentary by David Schwimmer from Friends fame. The Skywalk lets you experience the scenery around you (very windy!) and the feeling of just how high up you really are. Don’t look down if you suffer from vertigo! Unfortunately, the glass Skywalk for Sears Tower was closed so we had to settle for the 99th floor. By the way, The Windy City moniker has nothing to do with wind at all; as Mr Schwimmer pointed out, Chicago was nicknamed The Windy City because of the famous long-winded speeches from politicians.

Chicago River boat tour
The buildings are seen up close on this Architecture Boat Tour, and it was worth every penny. There is live commentary on board and as we were sailing through, we went past the hospital that was spectacularly blown to pieces by the Joker in Batman: The Dark Knight. The movie was filmed mostly in Chicago. The boat tour starts at Navy Pier and goes through all branches of the Chicago River.

Chicago at night
Wow is all I can say. The entire cityscape transforms into something quite spectacular; every building is lit up with a warm amber glow from the lights within. It makes for a nice walk, because there aren’t so many people clambering to get from A to B. You almost feel that you have the entire city to yourself. Particularly beautiful is the Chicago River, as the light from surrounding buildings reflects off the watery surface.

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