huh
I just logged on to msn to find only one person on. And he wasn't saying anything. I have about 200 contacts on msn. This NEVER happens.....
OK, going now. Lake district. See you. Well not NOW. Tomorrow.
Bye Bye (or, I am incredibly stupid)
You know, I've done it before. I've been warned, I know there are precautions I can take. But yet again I have lost a post, and a long one too.
Never mind, now you get a much shortened version. I am going to the the Lake District tomorrow, which should be good. I might even take photos to bore you with, although knowing my slightly lazy nature, you probably won't have to endure that particular evil. Anyways, its unlikley I will be updating any time in the next two weeks, unless I find my way to a cyber cafe.
Cyber cafes are always hopelessly disappointing. I want them to look futuristic and cool, with everyone dressed as if they came out of tron, while typically they're just... cafes... with computers. If you're gonna have a crazy name, you should live up to it really. 3D glasses should be involved. I'm not sure how, but they definitely should. I was deeply amused to hear about that 4D thing they had somewhere, where the fourth dimension came from people throwing water at you while you are in the cinema. Excellent.
Incidentally, string theory apparently needs extra dimensions to work. These are apparently really really small, and rolled up. What on earth can make use of a teeny tiny dimension? Nothing, apart from maybe bacteria. Its possible string theory should be renamed bacteria theory. It would be fun to do so, because it would confuse the hell out of a lot of people. Including the physists working on it, probably.
Ok. See you in two weeks.
....
Another attack on London. Hmph. Its doutbtful that its by the same people though- so far only one person has been injured. In fact, it looks like some kind of weird copy cat thing. Still, not good. The problem is of course is that if some freak is going to take a bomb on to a bus, and die with it, theres not THAT much we can do. We can try and avoid plots, obviously, and the police can watch out for people, but it is possible to construct bombs with just fertiliser (well, probably more than JUST fertiliser), so.. urgh.
On a lighter note,
Dominic Deegan is awesome. Although if you want to read it, do so from the beginning of the archives. It is just so readable right now.
On a theme of things I have already recommended, you should be reading
girls are pretty. Today's entry is great. All the entries are pretty damn great actually.
OK, having made some reduntant recommendations I have little more to say. I might have something deeper to say later. Possibly not. I'm crazy like that.
Summer lovin'
Happened so fast. Not that I'm getting any summer lovin', I just picked the title because I was trying to think about of a summer title, and thats the first that sprang to mind.
Summer of 69 is a deeply frustrating song. According to Bruce, those were the best days of "our" lives. "our". In other words, I didn't even exist during the best days of my life! Hmm, I sometimes wish people wouldn't tell it like it was.
A question I sometimes get asked is which period in history would I like to live in. To which I normally reply- now. Lets face it, the past was rubbish. The average person did not have a happy existence in the past. Admittedly the same is true in large portions of the world nowadays, but at least you can say that we have whole nations of affluence, which you really didn't have, even 100 years ago, when Britain was split into the very poor and the small, well off, middle classes. I like ruining games of fancy.
Paul, who has a
brand new spiffy blog, so he can fail to update on
two blogs (I am so going to pay for that joke later...), was pondering about what to do this summer. I must admit this question has occured to me. Perhaps I should do what Paul did, and open myself to suggestions, which I can then ignore and do what I was always planning to. I suppose I could write again. Fiction this is, clearly I am writing right now, much to your undulating joy. But for that I would need inspiration. 'Course, I could try to write a webcomic, but I hear that takes some kind of artistic talent, which I am not exactly possessing. Of course, this isn't always a halter on success, as the excellent
dinosaur comics and
irregular webcomic proves (although the time put into irregular webcomic must be reasonably impressive). But what they hey, 'll probably collapse in a slobbish heap for the whole time, as usual. Its what I do best!
Spoiling things
Sweet jesus the internet drama. You can't turn left from a comments thread without someone coating it in spoilers for Harry Potter number 6. Some people like to spoil everyones fun, I suppose.
Internet drama is fun, and if you are a fan of webcomics, you find quite a bit, thanks to certain authors,namely Scott Kurtz of
PvP and Gabe and Tycho (not their real names, but meh) of
Penny Arcade, who like to stir things up. In fact, there is even a weblog about it,
webcartoonist VS webcartoonist.
Anyways, I'm going to the lake district on saturday, but I feel by now I have developed enough archives for you to get by on, if you have become hooked on reading about my fascinating existence. In fact, I am approaching the anniversary for this weblog, which I shall probably celebrate in some fashion. Well, actually, to be fully honest I suspect I will forget it, and completely fail to celebrate it. But never mind. You can remind me in comments if you wish, but as I'm fairly sure this blog started with exactly zero readership (seeing as I didn't start advertising it until a month in or so), I doubt anyone will remember when it started. I suppose you could find out quite easily, but that would take effort, and I have faith in your laziness.
Hmm
Just a random little story on
Echaston. Some women fired her nanny for a
ridiculous reason.
Here is the response.
I don't have much to say as its been covered by all these lovely blog articles, other than the New York times women really showed her prejudices in that article....
I reckon I deserve a time machine, on theory that we only get what we deserve. See, some people would use a time machine dangerously, and create paradoxes. Instead, I would use it to dodge train fares. It irritates me how many times I have ridden a train, and not actually needed my ticket. That is money wasted, and that is not good at all. So I would go back in time whenever I bought a ticket and didn't get checked, and not buy it! Ha ha! Are you listening, people of the future? Send me a time machine, I would use it wisely.
My dog is pissing me off so badly. Not only does he have a tendency to wonder in and out of the room, knocking out my LAN connection each time, he also keeps on licking my feet. This can become tiresome after the fourtieth time.... the problem is that he is obssessed with food, and craves attention for it. Meh. He's 9 years old now. Perhaps a picture is in order... Actually, as I don't appear to have one, it isn.t
sigh
Apparently, the opression suffered by the Palestinian people has no connection at all to the bombers doing it according to Mr Blair. In a really quite ridiculous speech, he seems to be implying that bombers pop into air magically, fully formed, and that there is no cause at all for their existence....
He makes his argument using logic, which is a bizzare thing to apply to anyone who thinks strapping a bomb to their body and blowing up people is a sensible thing to do. Oh, and just after I had built up a little bit of respect for him too....
Incidentally, to those of you who are too "cool" to read Harry Potter... well fuck you too. Congratulations, you can be smarmy about people being excited about something. I suspect the majority of you have not tried the books, and even if you have, you not enjoying something doesn't mean no-one else should. You know, I'm a cynical bastard, certainly, and I try not to display my enthusiasm too openly about anything, but when theres something this good, that this many people enjoy.. let them. At least people are reading, which is more than you can say for Big Brother. Unless, I suppose, you include the little text message scroller at the bottom.
Oh, and people who go out of their way to spoil books/films/television programs are scum and should be hunted down and made to live in the big brother house forever.
Harry Potter Number 6
Just read it. Don't worry, I shan't say anything. I possibly shouldn't have read it in one day straight, but what can I say- I'm obsessed. It was only 600 pages after all, I could hardly help myself.
Oh well, will have to wait... some time for the next one. Hopefully a year, probably two. Shit, if that happens, I'll have finished university when it is done. Thats a scary thought..
harry potter and the half blood prince
Tomorrow. I might not be posting tomorrow, as a result, or the day after that, depening on how long it takes me to read it. I didn't post yesterday because I went to cambridge, and when I got back I was drunk and tired, so couldn't post very coherently.
But yes. I almost watched an American film in Italian with subtitles a few days back. The film in question was the marvelous Station Agent, which I would reccomend. See, I always watch films in their original language if possible, and not knowing much about this film, it being recommended by my mother, I did not know what nationality it was produced by. The DVD screen asked me whether I wanted the film in english or italian, and I assumed. I noticed something was wrong when all the lips were out of sync and all the writing in English, of course, but it did take me 5 minutes....
On the train home from Cambrdidge yesterday several girls boarded and sat in the seats in front of me. Then they took off their tops, leaving just bras. This was... a slight surprise, and left me at a bit of a loss as to where to look.... They were talking about snorting coke too... Sounded like lovely girls. Also got this great bit of dialogue
"You know, I'm right handed but I use my left hand for everything."
Brilliant.
A life of watching television
And films. Of course films. I've been watching loads recently- they include Garden State, Princess Mononoke, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Elephant. I've see two of them before... up to you to guess which ones.
But yes, TV. During lunch today I was watching the Daily Politics. Not out of a particular fondness of the program, I might add, but mainly because there was nothing else worth watching on. Unsurprisingly, they were focusing on the bombings, with people arrested for it. Something I'd like to point out, the way the BBC were talking, they were already guilty. There is a reasonable possibility that they are guilty, but I'm not sure if they've even been charged yet.
Anyway, they had someone from the Muslim council for the UK (and thats an odd thing. What exact powers does the Muslim council have? Or does it just exist as a voice for Muslims, in which case, do they vote for them?) on. First of all, the guy interviewing made the slight fallacy of seeming to imply that terrorists only came from islamic backgounds. This is clearly nonsense. Groups like ETA, the IRA, and many freedom fighters across the world give the lie fo this.
Second, his last question was something along the lines (this is not a direct quote) "If you had someone come to you, who said he wanted to take extreme measures, what would you say?"
WHAT? What kind of inane question is that. I flicked over in disgust, so I missed the answer, I half hope he answered sarcastically "Oh I'd say go for it mate!" Sorry, but obviously he wouldn't reccomend extremism, so would tell him it was a bad idea. Fer crying out loud. Maybe reccomend he takes out inane interviewers...
Heat
Urgh, its al hot outside. Honestly, thats not on, my excuses for sitting inside and doing nothing are disappearing. I suppose one could claim its too hot to do anything. See, what I need is our wireless connection to work so I can sit outside and browse the internet. That'd be hip.
Saw a couple of guys with a laptop in the pub last night. Surely that is just asking for it. Drunken people are surely famed for their ability to spill things. At least, I am. Actually, I'm quite clumsy when sober, which makes for hilarious jokes on pub crawls "we haven't even reached the pub yet Kieran!" Oh ho ho. But yeah, I'm not sure how much water a laptop can survive. I think they are quite hardy, my laptop is a living testemant to that (if one can claim a laptop as living) , although I have never poured water on to it. I'm fairly sure I spilt beer on
Ben's laptop last year, while very, very drunk, but it seems to have survived. Its quite an expensive thing to experiment on really, I'd have to ask one of those guys whos job it is to test things to destruction.
What a job. Coming up with new ways to hurt products, and then taking random samples and smashing them. Oh, its probably done by machines to make the tests identical(or close to), but someone has to watch them, don't they? Fun! I wonder what qualifications one needs for that job? A penchant for destruction....
Creepy
Just a small, late night note. If you switch on paramount comedy during an intermission, all there is is a spinning ball saying paramount, while people laugh. If you leave it on too long, it WILL freak you out.
cleaning and spiders
How do the two relate? Well actually there are many ways you can link them (cobwebs have spiders, you have to clean cobwebs. Vacuming spiders (surely one of the most hideous fates) and so on), but in this particular situation, none at all, they just relate to exciting developments in my life. I say exciting, actually not at all, but you have to take waht you can get when you spend a large proportion of your daily time playing video games....
So yeah, I was gonna apply for two cleaning jobs in town. They would have been perfect too, but unfortunately they were permenant positions. Irritatingly not many places really want to hire you for just a couple of months... I suppose I could sign up fraudelently and then quit early, and just never write it down as experience. But that'd be lying, and I've
never do that....
And, and, today I dealt with a spider all by myself. You know in my head that sounded more masculine. It was really big though, and it was in the shower, and I got a box and escorted it outsdie (without touching it). I'm a
real boy now.
Sorry
I feel we should have more words for sorry. Consider all the situations in which you say sorry.
-After you almost collide with someone
-After you accidentally collide with someone
-After you accidentally hurt someone
-A while after you deliberately hurt someone
-For breaking a rule, or the law
-For betraying someones trust
-when someone tells you that someone close to them has passed away.
Frankly, this one word is too stretched out to cover all these varied situations. We need a committee right now to come up with new words, all more appropriate to the situation. NOW!
we are not afraid
check it out
The G8-sort of great
Well the G8 has spoken... and
they've sort of done well. So, the big news is doubling of aid, and cancelling of debt. Which are good things, of course, especially debt. Thing is about aid, it is essential, but when you get down to its charity, and thats not what it means. Africa isn't this stereotype of corrupt or helpless individuals, they are people, just like us, and if we give them a chance, I fully believe they will be able to make poverty history. So really the important parts are stopping debt, which we are doing, but not as much as we might have hoped. Basically,
this is a summary of achievments and failures.
To be honest, its kind of what I expected. Getting countries to drop trade barriers is hard, because it is not a popular move. I mean, the thing is, while it may well be good for the economy in the long run, you have places like France which has a huge agricultural industry. An artificially large one, actually, boosted by wasteful subsidies. But if you drop these, people will lose their jobs. There will be hardship. This is the reality of what campaigners are calling for. No decision is easy, and its hardly in any French leaders interest to call for this. But when you weight this against the thousands who die unecessarily every day... its nothing.
So yeah, change will be hard, and yesterday was a step forward, just not as big as it could be. Keep giving your support, there will be work to do for a long time.
OK, yes
This is what I would say if I was more literate.
On a lighter note, sort of, you have to love 24 hour news. When there is a tragedy like this one, they feel the need to cover it all the time. Which is fine, but of course there really isn't 24 hours worth of news. Occasional updates will occur, of course, but they are frequently reduced to getting talking heads to say things like "I offer my condolences to the victims families and friends" which need to be said, although the 4th time is probably enough. Bizzarely, when interviewing Micheal Howard, after he had basically said above, they kept asking him the same questions, to which he gave basically the same answer... I mean right after an attack its all about condolences and condemnation... so you hardly need to ask anyone more than one question. Oh well.
But yeah, its time to start really dealing with terrorism. It will be with us for a long time yet, but if we really want to reduce it in the long term then we need to open communications, we ned to listen, we need to reduce the support terrorists have to get to be able to operate. And yes, we should keep with the more millitant anti-terrorism actions. We should try and capture them, but not at the expense of causing an international incident. And above all, we should get the hell out of Iraq. We are really helping no-one there anymore, and all we are generating is hate. i'm not saying leave tomorrow, but it is time for a genuine plan of withdrawal rather than vague words about leaving "when its stable". And what we must not do is curtail civil liberties. We KNOW it doesn't work- it didn't work against the IRA, why SHOULD it work now?
And, importantly, we should not forget about the make poverty history campaign. Its still vital.
surviving a terrorist attack
Read it
London
So its finally happened. London has been subjected to a
terrorist attack (by international terrorists, not Irish ones).... I have nothing much to say, other than condolences to the families of those killed in the blast. It really does hurt to make you think as to why anyone would want to kill people who are unconnected with any grudges you might have... I suppose we all suspected this day might come, but we all hoped it wouldn't.
Kudos to the emergency services, and the plans put in place in case of an attack, as they seem to be doing an excellent job....
Otherwise, not much to say. I hope they bring the people who did this to justice.
Olympics
Damn. I was really hoping we wouldn't win it.... London is gonna be hell to navigate that year, but then as its 7 years in the future I could be living anywhere. I'll just have to engineer a plan to end up in... Japan I suppose if I want the furthest away I can go, although its probably not the best location in the world to avoid overcrowding. I'll probably end up in a job involved in organiing it...
Jack Chirac probably won us this bid, of course, the political genius, insulting Finland a few days before the decision. Hmm, hes probably going to be childish about this now...
I suppose this sould probably stir my patriotism, but I'm not sure it should. Patriotism is a little odd. I am meant to be proud of something that I had nothing to do with it? I should be proud of my nation because I was born here? Its weird. Thats not to say I don't love Britain, 'cause I do. But I don't claim its acheivments to be my own.
no shit, sherlock
From
today's Guardian:
Mr Hoon will argue that "international experience points to compulsory voting being the most effective way to increase turnout".What an incredible surprise....
Support for the current prime minister?
Tony Blair is quite the man. Honestly, as politicians go, say what you like, Mr Blair is a tenacious one. After the elections everyone was calling for his blood, and now (partially thanks to Michea Howard getting all the headlines... the idiot), he is at the top of his games. Thanks to Mr Chirac acting like the highest order of idiot (in a recent story,
he insulted British cuisine. Wow, the art of diplomacy truly isn't dead... and he had a go at the US for a lack of it....), Mr Blair has almost all the papers on his side, and his, at least verbal support of the make poverty history campaign and stopping global warming has really made him the good guy.
Still... people die every day in Iraq (ok, that should be, more than usual die every day. Obviously people die every day everywhere...), and apparently being the only nation that supported the US in that war has granted us
practically no benefits. And we shall see which parts of the make povery history campaign Blair actually sticks with... its so much easier to just give to charity than actually work to defeat poverty.
The big question is of course, who will the new conservative leader be? I have to say they all seem pretty damn uninspiring, the rhetoric is quite as tired as it was last election. They have run two election on essentially the same anti-immigration campaign now... perhaps the conservative party should seek popularity in something other than the semi-racist circles? Or have they just given up? 4 years is a long time, so we shall wait and see who will take on mr Brown next election.
My diary
I have kept a diary since I was about 17, maybe 16, so 4 years or so now. This year and the last I have been using the WHsmith diary. Now on these they have little quotes at the bottom, which range from the amusing to the inspirational buisness quotes (apparently a lot of buisness men keep smith diaries...) But recently these quotes have bordered on the insane. They include
"Jam today, and men aren't at their most exciting: jam tomorrow, and one often sees them at their noblest." C.P. Snow
WHAT? According to my mother this is from alice in wonderland, so this out of context... as it stands this is insane
"Save your breath to cool your porridge."
Apparently this is quite a well known saying, although its meaning.. well it doesn't totally escape me, but it strikes me as a rather ridiculous one. Shut up and eat your porridge is more succint, but whatever.
"fine words butter no parsnips."
You butter parsnips?
Anyways.... I believe lucas arts are conspiring against me. Consider. Grim Fandago... missing. Monkey Island 4..... missing. Monkey Island treasure pack (1,2 and 3).... missing. ARGH! To the best of my knowledge none of my other games are missing. This is insane and deeply unfair. I really wanted to play though the islands again....
I'm no superman
Scrubs shouldn't be allowed to be this good. I have just finished watching the most recent series, my parents kindly taping it while I was off living it up at university. Its brilliant. No, it really is. Its funny, and yet its humour is rather mature. There are problems with relationships that drive the story forward and also make you laugh. And while most are resolved by the end of the episode for a little lesson learnt, some carry on far further.
Honestly. Watch it.
I get daily bbc emails, which is how I keep in touch with the news when I am too lazy. Its good though, you should subscribe if, like me, you forget to buy the paper... or can't be bothered to leave the house in time to be able to purchase the paper. Anyway, I was reading
this article. Hmm. Its interesting isn't it, how we actually forget about these things. Ten years on we can talk about rwanda with real regret, but Sudan is ignored, in almost exactly the same way we did rwanda. Now I have no great understanding of the politics of the region, but there was genocide happening, and we did.. well nothing. In my defence I did actually write a letter about it, but then... well I did nothing else. Urgh....
I think I'm going to a pub quiz tonight. I can normally answer about 1 in 10 questions in any pub quiz, although I find myself frequently paired with people with all my expertise. The accursed Ella is one such individual. She isn't home yet, so maybe tonight is my chance to shine!
Rocking the Boat
Went to London today, to see Guys and Dolls. Very boregious, I know, but it was awesome, with Ewan Macgregor as Sky Masterson. Chose a great day to do it, gay pride and live 8, but traffic was remarkably low- we missed the gay pride march.
So yeah, live 8. I think its cool, although how effective it will be, who can tell. There is a concensus, in the UK at least, that the make poverty history goals are just and proper. But then its not the leaders of the UK we have to persuade, its the leaders of every rich nation in the world.... I hope real good comes out of this, but I suspect it will boil down to compromise measures which actually will not help, in fact some "compromises" can end up leading to more problems (aid tied to conditions of privatisation which end up costing the country more than the aid...). I hope everyone realises that make poverty history is not a campaign for a day. It is a campaign that has to last the next 10 years, that has to build up momentum that it becomes accepted wisdom that the extreme poverty of Africa is simply unacceptable. I hope, I really do, that this is what happens. We do have the power to change things.....
My worry is of course is that a lot of people might well think that this it. That this summit will happen and poverty will be gone. And thats just not the case, and when people find that out they might lose interest in the campaign. But whatever, I will keep supporting this.
I'm considering changing the name of this blog. I'm not particularly lonely... I just liked the name 'cause it illiterates, and it was also a concept I came up with while dating Amanda, that it is harder to be cynical about everything when you are so.. well... happy. Damnit. But no, I'm pretty sure I've always been cynical, I just might have smiled more while doing it.
Really I just want to change it so everyone who still uses yahoo will find it and come here, and I will acheive global fame. Mwa ha ha.
Early get up
Good lord, we have to leave at 9:30 tomorrow. Holidays are a time of sleep! Not... reverse sleep. i'm not convinced I'll be able to go to bed before 4... but I shall just have to try. I can give myself a healthy dose of alchohol to aid me on my way.
A
random blog for you, this is just rather funny. So yeah, nothing much to say, I might do later.
Emerald Weapon
I so killed Emerald weapon. Again, apologies to those of you who have never even heard of FF7, but I have now pretty much completed it. Go me!
