Pink
Why oh why do men wear pink? Is there some kind of code that says pink is now allowable for the male of the gender? Because it isn't. Call me a sexist tool, but pink is a girls colour, and men do not look good in it. I have no real rational argument hidden behind this, but I think the point remains.
It could be merely a reaction to the depressing factor of when one puts coloured with whites I suppose, but its a rubbish fashion. Stop it. Now.
Anyway, lessons start on monday, which is very exciting, if by exciting you mean deeply depressing. I'm sitting in my living room playing on Advance wars DS, which is pretty damn cool. I don't own a DS, I am using Fred's. Bwa ha.
Fred is a great fellow to live with. As I sit in the living room, reading, watching tv, playing on the playstation (all at the same time), he will be on the pc in the other room (a position he rarely leaves, and then reluctantly). As he plays on various games, he decides to tell me "anecdotes".... of the game he's playing. For example he will mention how he has to kill FIVE whole units of chaos space marines, when he's only got ONE. Its... a unique experience, and while I do my best to encourage him... not...to tell me these things, he still feels the need to share. Still, hes a nice enough fellow really, and as Alice says, everyone needs a Fred.
Awesome
You're a dragon. You're smart and cunning, and
enjoy taking risks. Your need for independence
is an advantage, but sometimes it alienates you
from others. As far as *good* and *evil*,
you're pretty neutral--but you may have
something of a wicked streak.
What mythical beast are you? brought to you by QuizillaYou can't deny the quiz!
Classic Me
Sigh. So I couldn't find my maths folder before I left to university, and left my mother with the task of finding it. From top to bottom she searched my house, even braving my slightly horrific room. And yet it was nowhere to be found. Finally, she was looking at one of the boxes I had packed for university... it was in there. I packed it, and then forgot. I am a genius.
Eh, another day of doing pretty much nothing today, as I contemplate the idea of actually going and learning things, with a rather unpleasent timetable glaring at me downstairs. Oh well.
I must stop trying to write this at a late hour.
They are nerds
hear them
ROAR
Back in Bath
I AM BACK! Wooh. Sigh, back to work, I suppose. My room is full of boxes that have not been unpacked yet, and also duvet that isn't mine (its a long story). So yeah, I had an amazing weekend, in the mythical land of the north, where I got to see Ross Noble, and dine at the finest places in York. And run out of money.
Anyhoo, with typical genius I brought neither shaver or mobile charger with me, so excessive borrowing has commenced. In a slightly optimistic measure today I bought many fresh ingredients so I could cook exciting food. However it is now 20 past 7 and I am getting hungry so the most exciting its gonna be tonight will be stir fry. And it will probably be pasta and sauce. I suppose I could have some fahitas! Hmm, the choices.
Once again the internet proved difficult. Every single time I come back to university my computer decides to be a complete arse about my internet connection, until, after pointless fiddling I get it to work. This time I had to uninstall my wireless card and then reinstall it. I know, pointless no? I'm sure there is a perfectly good reason for this, possibly to do with the intensely evil nature of the fellows at microsoft.
Urgh, I am quite tired, inexplicably. All I have realy done today is play the excellent Farenheit, which I would reccomend (at least, from what I've seen so far anyways). Oh, incidentally, saw Final Fantasy Advent children last night. Freaking awesme. If you enjoyed FF7, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy this. Theres not much plot to it, but its a hell of a lot of fun. Check it out.
Best gig ever
Sigh, thanks to various rail problems we had to leave a gig in London early yesterday. And, thanks to there being an unexpected extra support band, we actually saw..... 2 and a half songs of Stephen Malkmus. And the first one we didn't know. Sigh.
So, I have to pack. I have avoided doing so for about 3 hours now, but time is coming close. Its weird, going back to uni... really weird. Still, its good too, and I shall undoubtedly enjoy myself. You shan't hear from me until monday, which I'm sure will hurt you dearly.
So I shall leave you with one query. Can one allow oneself to be violated? Necrophilia, is of course, illegal (at least, I should assume so), but if you were to specifically say so in your will, could philliacs have their way with you? Not that this is something I particularly intend to do, but its just curiosity.
(In case you are wondering I got to this particular thread of thought by thinking about the scene in Kill bill in which the implication was that they rape comotase victims. Just a little peek into my mind for you, you lucky lucky people).
Vernon bloody Kay
Is
DJing one of the freshers week events at Bath.... Good lord.
Doing stuff.
On a random note, do you ever get a moment when you decide a correct word is mispelt (and yes, I know mispelt is probably misspellt but what the hey)? I had that with doing just now. Wierd, huh?
So yeah, today I am doing things. Wooh. Well i'm always doing things, but these are productive things. In particular, I am writing notes, sorting out dates, and wrapping presents. I suspect this will take no more than an hour, but it will be an hour more of actual work than I have done in a while.... thats the problem with going back to university again, they expect you to work for your degree, the poor misguided fools. The world would be a better place if no-one did anything. Actually, it'd be ok if other people worked. To support me....
Sigh, just got yet another email about expanding my penis. I'm not sure what particular website I signed up to has given me this lovely present of herbal viagra adverts (herbal viagra- translation: herbal products that do not produce an erection). Its a shame that I don't have erection problems, then at least I could pretend it was targeted advertising. Admittedly it was more of a stretch when I got an email asking me whether I would like to enlarge my breasts.
One has to wonder how many responses spam actually gets. Spammers put a lot of effort into pervading our time with their inanity, so surely there must be some kind of succesful results. I imagine most people would be a little too embarased to admit to having actually contacting spammers. I suppose I wouldn't if I was buying herbal viagra.
super power
If I had to pick just one super power, it would probably be the ability to make anyone you want break into choreographed song and dance. Think about it, wouldn't that be awesome?
You're bored, stuck in a lecture, or meeting, or whatever, and suddenly everyone just starts dancing and singing perfectly. Also, if anyone ever did try and fight you, they'd be forced to do it in the style of dance, and so the violence would be greatly reduced, while you could still calmly kick them in the nuts as they flounce round the room.
This is not the most original of ideas, I admit, it being borrowed from the best episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever made, but without the unfortunate burning people to death bit. Just joy and laughter for your entertainment. Of course this could sometimes be inappropriate, although the thought of a funeral wake suddenly turning into a musical number is making me chuckle right now.
Logic
People should apply a little logic in their life. I mean, hey, we all have our irrational beliefs, of course we do, but some people accept any new information said to them in a knowing matter.
For example, did you know the average person swallows 8 spiders during their sleep? Of course you do, because you have heard it somewhere. It could well be true, of course, but ask yourself, how exactly would someone measure this? To get a true average one would have to conduct a survey of at least a thousand people, for a year, and moniter them while they sleep to see if they swallow any spiders! Insane.
Intelligent design is like that, it says that life is so complex that it would, in fact, have to have been designed by intelligent life. Wait, but who designed THAT life? Honestly people and their ways.
And the moon landings? For god sake! I mean ignoring the fact that to pretend a project like that actually never happened you'd have to silence literally thousands of people, including people not even in the US, the brilliance of this conspiracy theory is thus: The entire reason for this conspiracy, was, apparently, to make the Russians think we had won the space race. And so all these Russian scientists looked at the photos, and watched the videos, and were completely fooled. But now, a couple of idiots in America have seen through the deception? I don't buy it.
Theres even a theory that the plane that crashed into the pentagon wasn't, in fact a plane, but a missile. Again, it does not seem to need to explain what actually happened to the plane then. Or, indeed, why on earth someone would be firing a missile into the pentagon on the same day as the world trade centres were attacked by planes (although there are a handful of crazies who think THAT didn't happen).
There are people who believe in a flat earth, a heliocentric universe, that the earth is only 6,000 years old, that aliens built the pyramids, that if you get a map and draw a line joining up sacred places you can find places of ancient power.... It beggars belief, it really does.
Thing is, there is normally barrels of evidence to actually contradict all these arguments- actual science showing that these theories are totally silly, but you can contradict them all with applying a bit of logic to it.
Heh
I know this is old news, but I was using
googlism to check out what
Mr K was, and I got this excellent quote
"mr k is the ruthless head of the kemgeno organisation he knows of the existence of vampires and is trying to catch one"
"mr k is one more example of what is becoming all too common here in costa rica and in central america in general"
Hehe.
Oooh
A webcomic I used to read way back when, Cup of Suffering,
appears to be back... at least a little. The archives are pretty funny anyhow.
wow
Heh, I was browsing through my blog archive in a moment of boredom earlier only to discover
Julie Klausner, creator of the awesome
cat news commented on my blog! Heh, perhaps I am a little over excited by the prospect, but its always a tiny bit surprising when anyone who I don't know comments on my blog (even when people I DO know do so), so when someone who created cat news comments... heh, awesome.
Childish fun
A recent discovery by my sister, this is a recipe for some childish fun. For UK phones, if you send a text to them, they will actually read out the message, but in a silly robotic voice. It is deeply fun to send immature messages to people via this, especially as the phone gives a little fanfare first. This might not work for phones outside ntl- I don't know, although I imagine Fred might find out soon....
I've been doing... well not much today, spending my time recovering from my trip from York, and generally avoiding doing anything productive. Tomorow I will have to go birthday shopping for three people, my sister father and girlfriend who all managed to inconviniently have their birthdays incredibly close together, with my sister also managing to be 18 this year. This is going to present me with a dilemma soon enough. I refuse to find anyone my sister's age attractive, on the rather bizzare philosiphy that if I don't, no-one else will. However, while this was easy when she was younger, she is reaching the age when girls are becoming attractive. Indeed, I dated a 17 year old, although I was 17 myself at the time, so it clearly does not count. Still, something will have to be done, if I am to imagine her as the sweet innocent thing she clearly is (boyfriends sleeping round non withstanding).
So yes, present shopping and a trip to York yet again next week (then to Bath, performing one of the least logical routes back to university ever) mean I will be poorer than ever, digging into my student loan as ever before. Still, can't complain, even though I appear to be. I imagine I will still go out, but I will at least make some kind of feeble protest before buying any drink...
Yorkie bars. Not for girls apparently
So yeah, York, lovely sunny York, home (well, at least during university terms) to the lovely Alice. The station is quite remarkable as it manages to look quite pretty, as stations go- perhapps its just the fact that I'm used to the dinginess of London stations. Up north its al glamour you know.
Intriguingly at the station there is a sign pointing down some stairs which say "subway". Which is all well and good, but is about as useful as putting a sign in front of some stairs saying "stairs"- informative, but not particularly useful.
While waiting at the station in Cambridge I sat next to a fellow in a wheelchair. For reasons unkown except to him he was sitting in it in FRONT of an empty chair, denying someone the chance to sit. He then blew ash in my face. Not on purpose, but he gets a thumbs down in my big book of people, which I am labouriously compiling for the day that I become world leader and all lives are in my hands.
But yeah, a rather excellent few days, of which amusing anecdotes are limited to the personal, and the mundane, the transport portions going rather well, so I shan't go into too much detail. Unfortunately I don't have any photos to show you, seeing as I did not bring my camera.
I haven't got much else to say other than
good riddance
paper
paper is excellent. Originally it was called papyrus, but it wasn't really paper then, being made from the skin of ancient egyptian kings. Or reeds or something, I was never clear on that. But mummification was probably involved. Nowadays you can get many kinds of paper, from sugar paper to rice paper, to, you know, normal paper. Or the really shiny paper that you can print your photos on. Recycled paper is a must for the modern person, as less trees die that way. The most exciting thing about paper is it can come in very big sizes. Ben, as he is doing a degree in architecture, gets access to these gigantic sizes, such as A2, A1, and even, the ultimate, A0. The architecture department is far more fun than the maths department, as there are lots of models and stuff, while in the mathematics department there are lots of... well... offices.
Trees in general are pretty cool actually. They look nice, they help us keep breathing oxygen (although of course we actually have plankton to thank for that), and, as mentioned, they can be turned into paper. Oh, and you can climb them, and hide behind them, and build tree houses in them. Endless fun, endless fun. Not that I have ever done any of that. Well, I have hidden behind trees, which is less effective than one might hope, as I normally pick trees that are less thick than I am. I once cowered behind a tree in a game of paintball, and, upon leaping out to fire on the enemy, discovered that my gun had an effective range of a meter. I then resumed hiding behind the tree until shot. I used to climb trees a little when I was younger, but physical ineptitude combined with a fear of heights meant I rarely got very far in this process. As for building tree houses, I never did that, although I have been in a friends tree house. It was much less fun than I had imagined- like being in a house, but with much less stuff.
Egyptians survived an insane amount of time as a people considering most of their economy must have been devoted to building those pyramids- the man power and amount of stone needed to get one into place must have been immense, clearly the pharohs needed something to amuse themselves with. It would be fun to be an Egyptian as long as you were the Pharoh. Otherwise your life would consist of heavy lifting, and heavy lifting is rarely fun, unless you are lifting a large quantity of money to take it to the bank. Even if you have back problems, you can afford to get them fixed.
Mmmm.... Going away for a few days, to lovely York, so you shall probably not hear from me during that period, much to your chagrin. Meh.
Dr Who
"However, with every great news there is heartbreak. The BBC has also officially refuted the rumor that Head will play The Master in the next season. I have no clue why they wouldn't do this, save for the fact that if they actually went ahead and did it the sheer awesomeness would collapse the entire universe and reform itself into a matrix of cosmic perfection. Accredited studies at Oxford conclusivly indicate that if you thought about how awesome that actually would have been for more than ten minutes your brain would explode. It is believed such a casting would have actually created a form of fusion providing eighty-seven times greater the energy output of nuclear power. Entire colonies could have been created on distant worlds after starships were created able to run purely on the awesomeness of it.
But that won't happen now. I hope you're all happy, BBC."
From xoverboard
A treasury of ESSENTIAL PROVERBS
A friend bought me this fine book the other day. Apparently these proverbs will help you through your day. They include many quotes from the bible, and Shakespeare, so clearly its good.
Thing is, there seems to have been no effort to edit them. Proverbs range from the inexplicable, the pointless, the contradictory, and the plain sexist. For your pleasure, here are some of the best.
"Win your lawsuit and lose your money" (I like this because it feels like something Claims Direct should have as a slogan)
"Promises are either broken or kept" (an adept summary)
"Women in state affairs are like monkeys in glass shops"
"Forbid a thing, and that women will do."
"A bad woman is worse than a bad man."
(on the same page are the following two)
"A man of courage never wants weapons"
"Weapons breed peace"
And I'll end this with the wisest advice ever given.
"Hang a thief when he's young and he'll not steal when he's old."
London
Ah, London, the home of free sandwiches. Well, for us anyway. Adam and I went to a gig in London, which was free, designed to entice the media folk, but the nice people at the David Ford forum said fans could get in too. And so we did, and ate the free sandwiches, and drink the free drinks. This makes me feel that I am wasting my life doing a maths degree, as realistically that will not lead to a career in the media, and thus, no free sandwiches, which should be anyone's goal in life.
We managed to go the wrong way the maximum amount of times to this place, thanks to a map which appeared to have been printed south at the top, north at the bottom. Or, just, you know, a crappy sense of direction. As said event was in Oxford Circus it was necessary to visit Hamleys. I was disturbed to discover that many of my acquaintances have not been to that wonderful place (Adam included). For those of you who have never heard of it, Hamleys is a huge toy store, like that place I have completely forgotten the name of in the US.
Its brilliant. 6 stories of toys! All children (well, ok, all UK kids) should visit there in their lives. And its also awesome to kill time in, as while many of the things are a lot of fun to look at, theres no real urge to buy the things, unless your inner child is really strong.
I went to another gig in the evening. Now, it was a small enough venue, 8 pounds entry at the door, for a small band, the Broken Family Band. It was completely packed, and really hot. And yet a small proportion of the audience TALKED THROUGH THE WHOLE DAMN THING! WHY? WHY? If you pay to get into a gig, which is hot, and the drinks aren't that cheap (and available at the other bar downstairs), why talk? If you're not enjoying themselves the door is completely available. I just don't get it all.
I think our conclusion today is that free sandwiches are awesome.
Cyborg name
Apparently all the hip kids have finally found out about
cyborg name, something that was on
Brunching a very, very long time ago. Well meh, not having done it for a while, heres me...
Requests
"ok ok blog about something you really enjoy that you dont get to do much/at all. Cos I dont know and we could do it... depending on what it is."
Hmm, I'm sure there are things like this, although I can't honestly think of many. Ok, any. I'd like to pretend I have some hidden guilty pleasures, and while I probably do, they're things I can do by myself. Ooh, that sounds worse than I meant it.
OK. I'll think on this one and get back to it.
Americans. Hmm. I have no particular problem with Americans, although I do despair that apparently Bush got 40% approval ratings for the way he handled the New Orleans thing. Who can honestly believe that he has done well recently? A national disaster, and his response was an unprecedented press conference. To be honest, I'm not particularly sure why people voted for him either, clearly economic times can't be too bad- as long as the economy is good, the incumbent has a huge advantage. Apparently hes running up huge deficits.
But americans can be fun. I have chatted drunkenly to many a random american, one of which berated me for not having seen Blues Brothers, which is apparently the best film ever. I have since corrected this, but I don't really think its the best film ever. But yeah, in general americans are ok. I hate to characterise all people at once, but americans are certainly far more forthright with their opinions, and very, very confident that the US is the best place to live. Even the most patriotic brit can be embarrased by our noble nation now and then. Hah, I'm evening laughing at the word noble applied to our nation. The British empire being a shining example throughout the ages...
Some kind of wonderful
I like that song because it implies there are many kinds of wonderful, which is probably true, but the singer seems to not know which particular kind of wonderful his object of desire is. Crazy, huh?
So, nano technology. Futuristic technology is always less exciting than it seems in films. When one thinks of robots, one thinks of Asmovian, intelligent robots, performing tasks and mingling, not a gigantic arm assembling car parts. When one thinks of cloning one thinks of big labs, and humans being grown, not animals that don't even necessarily look the same as their clone (DNA not being the be all and end all of how one looks). When one thinks of genetic modification, one imagines people with ten arms and two hears, not carrots that are really orange. And when one thinks of nano technology, one imagines tiny little robots that are super cool and make things, rather than things that might fight some disease.
I'm not going anywhere with this, merely making the point that our world is less exciting than it should be. Something science fiction seems not to predict is that we rather like the old- 11th century houses are nice to look at, so we are unlikely to demolish them all to replace them with an ultra cool plastic house, as almost all films set far in the future imply. Blade Runner's view is probably the best, supposedly being a dystopia because, you know, some of the houses are a little messy (everything is remarkably clean in the future).
If you took a science fiction writer from the 50s I think they would be kind of disappointed. Oh sure, they might find the televisions quite exciting, and all the stuff I can do with this computer is cool- but the problem is nothing LOOKS cool enough. I'm not sure I would change it if I could, I just think maybe its time for science fiction to start acknowleding this.
Air conditioning is a guilty pleasure of many of us. We all- well most of us- know that it contributes to global warming.... but I don't think many of us are going t give it up any time soon. It is really rather an awesome invention, when its actually working properly (my mother's workplace is often incredibly cold due to over active fans).
Hmm... keep commenting guys, and if you request something to blog about, I probably will blog about it. Becuase 'm like that.
Two days
No posts. I know, you must be shuddering with withdrawal... or something. I was away this weekend, in sunny Birmingham, discovering the joys of ineffectual air conditioning in a cramped train. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I am capable of producing more sweat in a minute than the average person can manage if given an hour.
So there was a wedding anniversary, and I was invited. I ate their food, I drank their beer and punch, and I breathed their helium. Is there anything more childish, and yet fun, than grabbing baloons and talking in squeaky voices? If there is, I must do it. Bubble wrap is of course up there.
There was for a time virtual bubble wrap, which was pointless as the sound was actually completely wrong (exactly how difficult it is to put a mike next to some bubble wrap I do not know, but apparently too difficult for this) so you got neither the feel or the noise, leaving only the appaerance, and it didn't look that good either. I will refrain from linking as I do not think it deserves it. And also I have forgotten the link.
Instead, I will link to the
llama song, for those of you have not seen it before, and the spoof/tribute/satire/whatever
dalek song.
On the train up I had every stereotypical annoying thing. Someone listening to dance music in front of me (why is it ALWAYS dance music?), a small child making irritating noises, a baby crying loudly, several people shouting into their phones (this was topped on a different train when three people decided to phone someone all at the same time, so I got three whole conversations at once!). Great, just great. Unfortunately there was no quiet carriage, which, but I couldn't have gone in it anyway, as someone might have phoned me, and then everyone would have looked at ME.
There was also a very odd lady who got on the train at peterborough, having bought some toilet paper, and got off at cambridge. Apparently there is a toilet paper shortage that I am unaware of.
Comment verification
I have copied
Fred (who has a shiny new blog, check it out)in adding comment verification to my posts- now to comment you must enter in the lovely word in that image file you should see. If you have any problems with this you can always email me... Or pm me on uff9. Meh. i do like the commenting, makes me feel loved.
I haven't mentioned it yet, but this New Orleans thing is horrific. Not so much that an entire city is flooded, that an entire city in America, the richest nation in the world is flooded, and nobody has got their acts together and done something. Seriously, I know people like to stick up for Mr Bush, pretend that he is secretly hiding some kind of ability of great statemanship, but when he is capable of making
JOKES while talking about this... it beggars belief. The man would not last ten minutes in British politics, and, also, I really don't think that if there was a major flooding of a city in Britain, things would be so... awful. Reports read like some kind of third world country, with the city being run by looters... what the hell? There seems to have been no organisation, and while the poor were told to leave the city, they were provided with no means to do so.
This is an awful, awful tragedy, and perhaps it will make certain members of the American public realise Mr Bush is a good for nothing pathetic excuse for the leader of what is supposedly titled the free world.
Another one
Excellent strip from
irregular webcomic today
sex lines and strippers
I might well have mentioned this before, but for the hell of it I shall repeat it all. I have never phoned up a sex line, or seen a stripper. Live, that is. Obviously through the magical medium of the television I have seen a stripper. To be honest, I wouldn't want to.
Sex lines are pretty bad. The idea of phoning a stranger and asking them what they're wearing seems so rude. I would probably ask them how they were first, what their day had been like.... I suppose there are people who actually do that- at least, if you believe Lost anyway, and of course that program is a true life story of people who do not know how to distill water. But seriously, I dunno, it seems so werid to me. I like to claim that I would never go to a prostitute because of moral concerns. And while that is true, I know that even if those concerns were there I wouldn't because I would be hopeleslly embarrased by the situation at hand, and probably quite concerned about my performance.
Strippers, thats even worse than sex lines because they are face to face with you. I'd just be siting there thinking that she should put some clothing on, for god sake. Also, I don't get this getting aroused in a group- something that I have been party to before, having watched some soft porn (a wondeful plot about some lesbian ghosts) in a group while very drunk. I mean, call me crazy, but this sort of thing... isn't it meant to be done when you're alone? Whats the point of frustrating yourself in front of people? Perhaps as some kind of exercise to prove your manliness to the others. "Yes, I am aroused by this beautiful lady! Now I shall beat my chest and roar about my sexual prowess!" I dunno, its just weird.
However, I suppose I won't knock people who do it, they provide much needed money to the economy in the sleaziest way one can get without being illegal. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all.
Amnesty
As I have mentioned a few times, I am going to be the chair of the Bath Amnesty international student group next year. The other day I got a phone call from the Amnesty guy telling me that the fresher's pack was very important, and maybe I didn't want to deliver it to the SU. Thinking fast, I decided that I would like to look at this pack, so I had it delivered to my home. Big mistake.
Yeah, three boxes (not the folder. Thats just my maths folder...). I was a little surprised too..... Ideally I want to take them all back to university. Not sure thats goin' to happen...
