What's the weather like on the North Island this time of year?

So slow, what a bitch.

Forgive me for treating this place like Yahoo Answers or something when there's probably better forums out there, but I know some of you are tech-savvy. Particularly maddingo, maybe if you could bump this if you see him around that would be cool, even if you can't help yourself. I don't know how much access I'll have to the internet. Google isn't being nice, or at least I'm probably googling completely the wrong thing.

I don't know what's wrong. Probably the world's most half-arsed virus. But basically they've taken away the Start menu, task bar, tray etc, all the standard sort of Windows icons like My Computer, Internet Explorer etc and all the icons I've previously added to the desktop myself are there but unclickable.

I've been pretty good with backing stuff up actually but there's a bit of recently purchased music and stuff I'd like to salvage before I restore it.

I can get into Safe Mode with the command prompt window so I have to use old DOS commands to copy them to a flash drive.

But how do I copy an entire directory and all its subdirectories?

I know the copy command, but that only works on individual files, or *.* for all the files if you're in that directory. Like I looked it up here even and it only seems to work on files. If I could copy the whole "Documents and Settings" directory, I could get all my stuff off in a single step. If I have to go file by file it's going to take me forever.

If not, we can just reminisce about some of the music I might lose.

All my blogs posted on Twenty_Seven are GONE!

All my comments posted on Twenty_Seven are GONE!

When I tried to log in on Twenty_Seven, it said I had not activated my account.

I went back to the email and reclicked the activation link, and now it says that username/password is not in the system.

WTF? WTF? WTF?

How can a single user just get deleted like this?

You people know stuff about good comics right? I was at the bookshop and they had 20% off, so I bought a heap of them. But they're all series.

Fables:



I got this ages ago and din't really get into it, but now I am. There's always a desperate-sounding quote on the front comparing it to Sandman. It's not Sandman, it's very different, but in a good way. And it is about stories and I like that. I read up to Arabian Nights but want to read something else for a while. I don't want it to be over too fast.

Scott Pilgrim:



I like this one. It is clever but it's very quick to read. I finished the first one on the train home. It will be over very quickly which kind of sucks.

Y The Last Man:



I haven't read it yet. I'm not sure if I want to start another series right now. I only have the one volume just now. I hope it's good.

What I'd really like is to read just a standalone book rather than another series. Something like Ghost World. Not necessarily in terms of style or subject matter, just something with original characters in a beginning, middle and end story entirely self-contained in that book. Are there any must reads you'd recommend?

Preferably not autobiographies or Alan Moore.

So my sister got me Lonely Planet's Europe on a Shoestring guide for Christmas. I have no idea when I could afford it and when I could go but I'm starting to plan.

I really want to go to London for the 2012 Olympics so if I did I probably would remain in England and maybe just do Paris and the Low countries from there. There's lots to do in England, just in London even, and I'd be confident driving there unlike on the continent where they drive backwards. So I want to go to Germany before then.

However, it is easy to get a direct flight to London. I figure the other easy cities to get to direct are Amsterdam and Frankfurt but I haven't investigated other options like South-east Asian airlines which may be able to get me other places. But I may end up flying into London anyway even if it's not 2012.

Or I may not be able to afford it before 2012, or not be able to afford two trips so I may need to combine them. I want to keep it to northern Europe as I have already been to Italy and surrounding countries.

I'd go by train generally.

Anyway, what should I do and see?

Here's what I'm thinking, hopefully you can click and make it bigger. This would be flying into Amsterdam:

Is it good? Should I buy it? It's the album of the week on iTunes so it's only $10.49 and that's with 7 bonus live tracks. That means I need another $2.08 in iTunes credit but.

So looks like I didn't get into my Library course, which means back to Uni instead. Which is fine really, because I'd rather have a degree than some shitty diploma but it does mean I'll be studying more esoteric bullshit.

So I have to get an idea for a thesis together. It'll be something to do with culture and globalisation and stuff. I'm just testing the waters now, but I'd like your help with something that happened today-ish.

If you please, could you watch this video then answer four simple questions for me?



Please try to have your answers before reading other peoples'.

1. Is this racist? Yes/No

2. Where are you from?

3. Where do you think the characters in the advertisement are from?

4. What gives you the impression that they are from there?

Sorry if this seems "serious" or anything but it'd be a big help if you do this for me, thanks!!

*Pash*



*Boom boom pow!*



Hope this year/decade (although when I went to the newspaper's website looking for a picture they said 2010 is the last year of the first decade of blah blah blah because they're pedantic about stupid shit. The number CHANGED! New decade begins I say!) is a good one for you. It's going to be very good for me.

I'm so two thousand and zen, no more two thousand and whine. That's the best dumb Black Eyed Peas rhyme I could come up with.

It was always one of my favourites when I was little.

They've just released an authorised sequel, 80 years after it was published.

And they've introduced a brand new character, Lottie the Otter!