still here

Greetings - particularly to the 500 or so unique visitors in the past 30 days, despite there not being an update published since mid-April. I hope you were able to find the vitriolic diatribe, rambling self-importance, or video of a surprised gerbil for which you were seeking.

Besides posting (just about) weekly on our Niger blog, I'll admit online musings have been at an unusual low of late. The sheer oppression of one's current technical workload (weep, weep) does leave one wishing to flee the machines in one's downtime. (Mrs H will say this is lies, as I'm currently nursing a crippling addiction to the free, Lord of the Rings-aping turn based strategy game Battle For Wesnoth. Download now, geeks. Thank me later.)

Mind you, away from blogging I estimate that I've written and edited somewhere in the region of 40-50 thousands words in the last month or so. (And still no book deal.) Truth be told, this was mostly digesting and condensing the work of others, so I can't claim much credit. Still, add to that coding said words for the new SIM Niger website, and one can feel a headache coming on.

Speaking of coding, a tip of the hat to the creators of HTML Dog, the winner of a close-fought battle to be current reference-guide-of-salvation. I suppose it mostly because the HTML and CSS guides sit nicely alongside each other, and accessibility is pretty good on our dial-up-esque connection. The code I am writing is a mess of trial-and-error learning, but having quick reminders saves heaps of time.

Anyway, back to the premise. Since converting to the cult of Kindle at the start of the year, it seems that  I've been able to come back to reading at a rate which had previously dwindled away, probably since university. (It helps to be somewhere with no TV!) So, I'm planning to start publishing some short book reviews here on the blog, to share some of the fiction and non-fiction texts that have sparked the mind - and there are some crackers. Watch this space.