More practice.
Archive for November, 2005
A feeling I find myself greatly disliking, is stagnation. I require the sensation of progress and the constant furtherance of myself toward new goals. If I feel there is more I can do, things that I’m not doing, I get frustrated with myself. Without my self-created goals and projects I become lost. Consequently, I don’t relax easily.
These feelings play on my mind this evening as I gaze into the eyes of the walrus mounted on the wall to my left. He seems content merely strumming away without looking for where this is taking him. Why am I worried about where I’m going? If I diagnose myself correctly then wherever I’m at with my life I’ll always be looking to go further. If you asked, I wouldn’t say I was ambitious, but it seems I must be. Ambition reconfigured from the usual wealth hoarding, to the aesthetic. I want to be doing great things, and then greater things.
I am not the walrus.
Now I’m put in mind of Schopenhauer’s Cycle of Life. Desire leading to brief satisfaction, leading to boredom, leading to the generation of new desires. I’d like to get off the grand cycle for a while and hang around in some smaller ones. Small desires, small satisfactions, small worries - a great thirst for learning.
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Here in the fort we were pondering what happens to the pleasure and velocity no longer enjoyed when a sneeze is lost?
Did a bit more art practice.
This is the sound of me blowing my own trumpet!
PARP.
Why you may ask? An excellent question my curious reader. I shall tell you right now, what I heard this very morning from my comrade in arms Mat. Nothing short of a towering triumph has been achieved! At last the odds have been beaten and the sweet taste of victory is ours - by a whisker!
Two weeks ago I engaged in an activity which can only be described as me, sitting in a room with 30 other men at computers tapping away at keyboards to produce madness. Pretty much like my new job actually, but thats besides the point - for it turns out that some of this madness was in fact close to genius and that madness was ours.
I run ahead of myself. We were three! Three warriors with the keys to glory and quick to draw with our mice:
- The Man King Mannion - Thumping algorithmic bullets from his massively mighty code launching cannon
- The Four Fisted Force Forrington - Nicely dicing problems thrice, like the nifty Nick based ninja he is, he covered our stealth bases in a cloth of shadow!
- And myself - Modest, manful, melchior, munchies, musty smell in the fridge - I really should clean that out…
We strove, struggled, stripped, stroked, swore, slid and slode through 48 hours of punishing endurance. Much was sacrificed, tales were heard of one man who didn’t sleep for a whole night! He was never seen again… until the next day! We molded, deliberated, argued, fought, trapped and killed a bear with our bear… I mean bare hands and then we were ready. And ready we did!
A game was made, prisons was its setting, freedom the goal - its aims noble and putting one in mind of Nelson Mandela - that famous prison escapee. And we looked upon it and it was good. There a few ways it could have been better. Due to limited time, the hunt the monkey mode had to be cut, which is a great loss. Never will the general public know the true meaning of fear… is actually monkey. Well now they know because I’ve told them, but they won’t know. You know?
In short we finished it, we uploaded it A guy at IBM judged it and we scraped into victory. Thanks to the opposition you all did good, and in a way you all won. In a way.
Seriously I love you all. It was gooderer than good things like a morning mint. Never again, and same time next year?
No, obviously the correct phrase is “I couldn’t care less”. Because it’s an expression of how little I care, and so my level of caring is so low that it couldn’t be any lower; hence, I couldn’t care less. It is never “I could care less” as I hear on TV, because what would that even mean? You could care less? So you do care a little bit? It sounds like a middle-of-the-road statement. I sort of care. Lame!
Jeff from Coventry writes in with another one: “It’s cheap at half the price!” Of course it fucking would be at half the price! Most things are cheap at half the price. The saying is “It’s cheap at twice the price!”, meaning that it’s so cheap that even if the price were doubled it could still be considered good value.
Get it right!
Well not really.
I generally try and stay clear of ridiculing people’s beliefs. The whole ‘free-speech’ thing applies to everyone no matter how insane I may find them to be. I also try to steer clear of mocking the American establishment (read: Christian Right) because, well, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But unfortunately I feel compelled now because of an article in this week’s Boar that I’ve just read. A Warwick academic is going to testify in the US defending creationism Intelligent Design.
Now before I continue let me just say that even though I am not a religious person (in fact I would go so far as to say that I believe organised religion has caused more problems for the human race than anything else ever), I am not having a pop at God. I don’t know if God exists. No-one does. Even Bush, although of course God does speak to him and tell him to blow the crap out of another country. But Intelligent Design is just a fancy spin on creationism. And therefore should not be taught in schools.
But lets for a moment pretend that it is a genuine scientific theory. Now I said scientific theory. That does not mean a guess. A scientific theory is based on observation and testing, such that the theory stands up to existing knowledge and can predict the state of a system at a given time. Just because something is a theory does not mean it is improvable. It is just the best guess based on the evidence. It is very difficult to prove evolution because of the time scale involved. However it seems to fit what we can observe from fossil records and in nature. Now take intelligent design. This is a ‘theory’ based on what evidence? It is a guess. It might be true that God is controlling every minute mutation in every cell to produce different creatures, but there is no evidence for it. Therefore by definition of what a scientific theory is, it is not one.
Theories come and go. Some are proved inconsistent (steady-state universe theory), some are adapted to fit more observations (Newtonian to Quantum physics), but these things are done based on evidence. Until Intelligent Design can be shown to stand up to testing it should not be taught as part of a science class.
The whole point of this post is that a Warwick academic is going to defend ID. I really really hope that the court does not cite his workplace as evidence of his experience and knowledge. Otherwise Warwick will turn in to more of an international laughing stock then the whole Singapore debacle.
One more thing. If creationists really wanted to try and prove the existence of God, they might want to think about this, and show that they are not just guessing and know their own religion.
According to the book of genesis: 1st day: Light, 3rd day: plant life, 5th day: marine life and birds, 6th day: land animals, people.
According to present science: Big bang, plants, fish, reptiles, mammals, people.
X-thousand years ago some book predicted the order of evolution. Now there’s a coincidence to think about.
Last week, for the first time in my life I booked a table in a restaurant; something that most would find an inconsequential act. For me, however, it marks a milestone step forward down the path of adulthood.
There is something in the fore planning required to book a restaurant that smacks of life experience and the super sensible. It’s a discernable shift from the turn up and hang about paradigm of the student or the let someone older deal with it carelessness of childhood.
For me, though, the restaurant is more sacrilegious still. The truth I sometimes tell people is that I often prefer to prepare my own food due to the often-woeful vegetarian options available in the eateries of England. There is another truth though and that is that I’ve never really enjoyed eating out all that much; I’m picky about the things I put in my mouth, always have been. If I haven’t hand prepared it with my own delicate mandibles then it is to be treated with the utmost suspicion.
So booking a table should have the approximate joyfulness level of a naked acid bath with a troupe of racist squirrels. Yet instead I feel satisfaction of a well planned evening ahead and the lazy joy that someone else will be doing the washing up. I’m definitely getting old.
In fact I’ve spent a lot of time recently conversing with people down the phone, mostly without the sinking feeling of dread that used to accompany the thought of such activities. I’ve pleasantly realised that getting over this fear allows me to do business in my pants, an agreeable situation to all who can’t see me doing so. Maybe getting over this feeling is partly wisdom and experience but it’s probably also realising that most of the people on the other end are just folks like my good blogging compadre Moses.
The alien has become the familiar. Not the kind that follows you round in D&D though. Though, thinking about it, that would be awesome; can I get an alien familiar for christmas please?
It has come to my attention that I haven’t been driving properly. Apparently I had the foolish assumption that the Highway Code was an authoritative set of rules when it comes to operating an automobile on public highways, and that others would follow these rules. But it turns out I’m in the minority. I have compiled this list of rules which the majority of drivers abide by, and which I can only assume are the real rules of the road.
This here be Englande; if you drive on the crazy side of the road just swap right and left.
Main rules
- Indicators were invented by the Victorians before they developed mind-reading. You have no use for these. Anyway, if you can’t see them, what’s the point?
- If the car in front of you is not speeding, the best way to gently signal to them is to drive no more than 2 metres away from his bumper. This will speed up the car ahead, even when the other car is behind more traffic. Conventional logic does not apply on tarmac.
Motorways
- Don’t worry about ever indicating on motorways. In fact it is illegal to indicate on motorways. Because all the cars are going extremely fast, it’s safe to simply swerve out to another lane; flashing lights would serve only to confuse fellow drivers.
- When you wish to overtake another car on a motorway, make sure you get right up to the back of the car in front. This lets them know in a courteous fashion that you wish to overtake them. Flashing your lights is also polite. Then swerve to the outer lane (remember not to indicate), then cut back in front of the other vehicle as close as possible. This ensures efficient lane usage.
Roundabouts aka The Circlebitch
- The Highway code suggests that you should indicate left before your exit. The Highway Code is wrong. There are a number of different ways you can go about it:
- Not at all.
- Indicate right before your exit.
- Indicate right all the way round, until well after you’ve left the roundabout. Common sense might indicate that this is even less helpful than not indicating at all, but that is one example where common sense will get you in trouble.
Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.
I work in a call centre. At the start of every working day, I sit down and think to myself: “What I’d really like right now is to be verbally abused by some retards”. So, of course, I put on my headset, take my phone off wrap, and mentally prepare to deal with the British public. In case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, or already are in a similar situation, I’ve put together a brief guide to a few of the types of customer you’ll be dealing with in your stupid job.
Type 1: The Senile OAP
The senile OAP has no idea why he just called you. Hell, he’s not even sure what day it is, or where his trousers are. If you mention the kind of service you offer to him, he’ll probably decide that he needs it, but be prepared for a lot of teeth gnashing frustration should you try to drag any details from him - this guy has never heard of a post code, and in his day telephone numbers were three digits long and made of wood.
Type 2: The Twat
Lots of people get upset about things, and are quite justified in doing so. What separates the twat from these people is that whatever the twat is pissed off about, be it someone from your company who was late for an appointment, or just simply the fact that you didn’t answer the phone with “Hail to thee your worshipful magnificence, how can I serve thee and thine kin today in your righteous dominion, my lord and commander?”, the twat is going to hold you, and you alone personally responsible for every last petty grievance he holds against your company. Expect this self-important waste of life to address you as if you just finished raping his, her, or its mother.
Type 3: The Scottish Twat
This type of customer is basically everything the twat is, with the added merriment of being Scottish. What this essentially means is that you’ll get an even bigger earful of stupid problems, since the Scottish twat is buggered if William Wallace had his guts ripped out in the name of freedom back in 1305 just so that your company could mess Scottish people about. Avoid at all costs.
Type 4: The Telephobe
Maybe this individual’s family were once viciously attacked by a gang of telephones. Maybe he once saw his favourite pet eaten by a telephone. Whatever the reason is, he now hates and fears them, and when he rings you, he wants the receiver to be as far away from his head as humanly possible. Crouched in a bunker on the other side of the room, he whispers his request in a quiet, shaky voice that leaves you trying to ram your earpiece through the side of your skull in a desperate attempt to hear what he has to say.
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