Season greetings

From Wondermark (highly recommended)



Merry Christmas!

The best short comic strip ever

From Dinosaur Comics

The people that we love

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I’ve been thinking lately about how we view the people that are dear to us. I don’t mean in terms of not seeing their flaws, or painting a pretty picture of them in our heads. Maybe women tend to do that more than men, I don’t know, but being male (not to mention being myself) it’s not easy to ignore what I see, therefore making for some rather sharp critique sometimes – though I am working on it, I’m glad to say.

No, I mean about how we actually perceive the people that we love, the people that we care for. What is the image of them that we form in our heads, what is our representation of them in our minds. I do not think we can ever see people that are close to us completely objectively, we cannot see them for what they are. I think we create an image of them in our head and this is what we see every time we see them, every time we talk to them. You do not talk to your girlfriend directly, what she says gets filtered through your perception of her in your mind. You might hear her say something, but the way you interpret that depends on the image that you’ve made for her in your mind.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it might help to reinforce the notion that love is blind, as (to paraphrase the Gorillaz), “we don’t see with our eyes, we perceive with our minds”, hence you usually have quite a different opinion of your friend’s girlfriend/boyfriend than what they have. We use that every day and with (practically) everyone, as it makes the whole task of processing information and reacting accordingly much easier and faster. Nothing new so far, and you could have picked all this up in any basic psychology book – well, I wouldn’t know, but it sounds reasonable.

The twist in what I want to discuss here with you is the apparent (or perceived) age of those around us that we feel some affection towards. That’s right, their age.

See, this “avatar” that we create in our heads seems to me to always be somewhat younger than the people in consideration. The best example is perhaps the way parents always think of their children as being twelve years old (or there about), even if that age has long gone and their children now have families of their own. It is the same way that you might view your siblings (the younger ones, anyway), as always being ten years old – that’s how I still view my brother, for example, even though he is in university and drives his own car. This perspective is always switched on, even if we are not aware of it. Ok, it’s easy to observe this when, for example, lovers are being “cute” with each other; you know what I mean, all that “my sweet honey bunny” and stuff, where the level of communication usually drops to pre-school ages. This is, perhaps, because the grown-up world of words and grammar cannot effectively contain and convey affection, but I think this extends to other situations as well. How do you think of your loved one when she is happy (I am talking to guys here, as things are maybe different for women, do feel free to enlighten me on this), when she is laughing? Do you have this image of a strong congruent adult smiling about something amusing, or do you see a young girl smiling with all her heart and shining eyes?

One of the easiest ways to test this is to give her a sparkler. You’re out in the garden/back yard/beach/desert, and you give her a sparkler and light it (assuming she doesn’t have a phobia of them, of course; that would be just cruel). How old does she see when she’s swinging that sparkler around, when she’s just happy with something simple and fun?

What about your very best and dear friends? Do you honestly view them as grown up, well-formed, well-rounded individuals? Are you butch and manly about them, or do you feel as these are the people that you could go on a childish adventure with, to roll around in the sand playing football on a sunny day at the beach, to share your toys/DVDs/PS3s/music with as you did with your Hotweels so many years ago?

It might be, of course, that I am simply immature, that I have missed out on an important part of my personal growth and evolution, and that is why I find this normal. But if not, is it a consequence of affection that we view some people to be so much younger than us, or is it simply our paternal/maternal instincts that surface under such circumstances? Is it that we are “programmed” by thousands of years of forming families in order to survive to perceive our loved ones as children in order to awaken those instincts and reactions that will be necessary when dealing with our own children when they come?

Questions, questions...

Appearances

...can make a difference, even if the essence is the same. Or, even better, can cause the essence to change due to more positive feelings, better vibes, happier moods and visual stimulation.
There we go then, a new, fresher and cooler look for this page. It reminds me of the Mac I'll never buy, so it's making me smile already.

Here's to new beginnings!

LOL

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying, "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in an accident."

"OH DEAR GOD NO," Bush exclaims. "That's terrible!!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the president sits, head in hands. Finally, the President, devastated, looks up and asks, "How many is a Brazillion??!"

(Picked it up at LOL)


By the way, if you're not easily offended, do spare a look at LOLTheist. It is teh funneh, after all...

It's official

You're Les Miserables!

by Victor Hugo

One of the best known people in your community, you have become something of a phenomenon. People have sung about you, danced in your honor, created all manner of art in your name. And yet your story is one of failure and despair, with a few brief exceptions. A hopeless romantic, you'll never stop hoping that more good will come from your failings than is ever possible. Beware detectives and prison guards bearing vendettas.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Mood-lifter

It doesn't happen often.

You feel down, you feel lonely, you feel terrible. The world is against you, and nothing goes your way. Out of money, out of people to talk to, out of touch with anything positive.

And then you here this one song. You've never heard it before, you only hearit for a few seconds in a TV add, on the radio, in a creperie, at the supermarket, from a car driving back.

This one song that somehow manages to magically lift your mood, makes everything seem ok, makes you want to hummmmmm, sing and whistle to it, dance to it even if you don't like dancing. A mood-lifter. A miracle.

It's happened to me twice. The first time it was Norah Jones, with "Don't know why". First time I was listening to Norah. I was on holiday, feeling ok but quite melancholic, waiting in a creperie. And then the song starts playing on the shop's CD player, and I ended up staying there until the CD was over.

This time, it's Feist's "1234". I have not the words to describe how good it makes me feel. Thank you Apple for using it in a TV add (new iPod Nano, by the way). Thank you Feist. Enjoy.

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A night in Kingsbarns

You leave your house on a clear, starry night



You leave behind the burning lights of the cities of men



You let the starlight bathe you, washing the day clean off



You find the horizon by looking at the moonrise



You lie down, amongst the blades of high grass



You choose you favourite constellation, your mind follows its patterns



And you blast off into space



It's only you now, and the thoughts you choose to carry with you.

I'm back

I've been away on holiday for the past couple of weeks. Spent a very relaxing, refreshing and much-needed holiday in Malta - Gozo, actually. Fun times.
However, I am now back in St A and, let me tell you folks, it is not good here.

(You can say that again)

I will. It is not good here.
Given that I'm still holiday-lagged, I'll talk about, er, stuff in a future post.

Until then, try to keep one thing in mind:

DO NOT, under any circumstances, believe the Braveheart propaganda about Scotland. Take my word for it, ok?

Ye've been warned, arr...


PS: This has got to be, by far, the most boring post I've ever published in my (blogging) life.

The King of Dust

I, the small lamb of God
forgotten in the South, born elsewhere
I know Troy will always be miles away
and beautiful Helen will now be old
I come out into the street sworn to enter
in Sun’s palaces, to be able to speak
the song of the goat with a murderous voice
and to cry afterwards, to disappear in silence

The King of Dust

Years will go by, the wheel will turn
everything will be like it began, everything will be different
I’ll be looking for you in the roads that you roamed but you
will have become a shadow, everything will have been lost
On one night, the Moon will shine crazy
your shadow will spread onto a narrow road
the travels, the friends, the hugs, the kisses
in a world I will enter far away, far away

The King of Dust

From the Year of the Dragon years have gone by
you might not remember anything
but the wheel of life turns eternally
and once the snow melts
you’ll come find me

The King of Dust

Ksylina Spathia - O Vasilias tis Skonis
(Wooden Swords - The King of Dust)

No last orders

Inside my heart, or maybe it's inside my brain, there is a big room. Come on in, take a look around, see if there's anything you like.
It's a big room, with wood on the walls, with big french windows and a view that's completely irrelevant; for what it's worth, it's a sea view, from high up on a cliff, looking out into the ocean. There's a big fireplace in the room, and some old photos up on the walls. All of the photos are of my friends of old, of people I came close to, if only for a while. The room is for my friends. There's a nice armchair for every one of them, worn out but still comfortable. There are sofas and pool tables, there's a bar in one corner with all the drinks we might ever need, there's a phone to order something to eat. There's cheap ashtrays on low tables, there's a deck of cards, there's a backgammon board with heavy chipped counters, there's an old CD player with only one speaker.
There's dust everywhere, and some of the chairs are now as if of marble with the dust of years masking their true colours. The room no longer looks inviting, but I'm still sitting there, saying hello to those that come in and go out. Chairs come in, but they don't go out. Even if the people are gone, there's always a chair left behind for them, there's still a photo of them on the wall. And their favourite drink is still available in the bar. And there's no last orders.

Thinking...

For some reason, I just can't seem to produce something positive/worth reading in this blog anymore. My negative, depressed side seems to come out when writing in English. And although this is very interesting in psychological terms, as it probably points towards the general frame of being in the UK as the reason for my bad moods, that is not the point.

The point is, I'm a bit bored of this blog. I can't think of anything interesting to write in it. I've even thought about turning it into a photoblog, but somehow... not. (Samuel Jackson becomes Shaft as I'm writing this, how bizarre. Here I am, talking about the need to re-invent this blog, and an actor puts up a mean, exciting look on the TV).

Why don't I just shut it down? Well, besdides the millions of loyal fans that will be disapointed, I still feel the need to write in it, as I'm doing now. Even if I have nothing to write about, I still feel the need to write about having nothing to write about. Perhaps this blog will have a place one day on a research piece about the art of writing for prolonged periods of time without actually writing anything.


But hey, not all is lost. As I found out today, even shit can look nice.

How about that... Well, I think so.

Surreal

There is a Nicholas Cage film in which he doesn't actually ruin the movie just by being in it (has happened, in The Family Man); he's actually really good in it.

There are palm trees outside my department in Scotland, and they last throughout the winter.

Flying across different climates. You get in a plane and it's freezing cold, you get off it an hour later and it's boiling.

Arguing with people close to you. It just doesn't seem real.

Another song

Sometimes it doesn't matter where you are, what you've done, what brought you there or what you might think you've achieved. Life has a way of hitiing you hard and reminding you who's the boss, and you're left with a memory of times gone by, of better things, a bump on your head and blurry vision.

Did someone call my name?
like a distant drum is beating
or is it just another dream along of long ago?
I dance again I am spinning
In the light I am living
and I can feel the power rushing through my veins
once upon a time I could do no wrong
for the candle flickers, the flame is never gone

to my brilliant feat
they all pay heed
I hear the crowds roar oh so loudly

is it a game of chance
or merely circumstances
a jack to a king and back
then you have to pay to play
the world it won't wait for you
its got its own things to do
the sun's gotta rise and drive another night away
and as i listen to the silence
i can hear thunder in the distance

to my brilliant feat
they all pay heed
I hear the crowds roar oh so loudly

to my brilliant feat
i make grown men weep
and still my eyes grow oh so cloudy

Colin Hay - My Brilliant Feat

It's probably that phrase, "once upon a time I could do no wrong", that lingers in my head. Things seemed right, what you did was never wrong, it was simply a choice, a vessel to travel you down another river. It seems to be getting more and more complicating; no decision is simple, no choice is clear, and no one can advise you anymore. You no longer ride upon vessels, you swim yourself, sometimes against the currents that want to take you where you don't really want to go. And you always have to think about wether or not you 
should swim this time, or if it's better to just stand on the shore, watching other people go by. 
I've become sadly very good at standing idle and watching, or hitching rides on other people's backs. And that's when life just kicks me in the back and sends me swimming, only I'm no longer prepared for it. I've always gone with the flow, but now it seems I cannot afford to do so.
It remains to be seen just how much water I'll end up with in my lungs this time.

No Baywatch for me. No prayers for me. No waiting for me. Time to swim.

It's been a while...

...but here I am again, stomach clenched, heart pounding, exhausted, shivering, and yet sleep will not have mercy on me.
I vaguely recall the time when stress wasn't a problem for me, when I could sleep whenever and wherever I wanted to, when I woulnd't wake up in the middle of the night with a feeling of terror, when I could just switch myself off and get some rest.
I feel like crying. The sound of glass grinding against glass fills my head. 

Aaaargh!

I've been writing a new post for the past 15 minutes and Blogger just deleted everything. 
Now you will never know what I wanted to say.

I'm so sad for you...

Ah, yes...

Finally, my broadband is now working! Not too bad, only took 3 weeks or so... This doesn't necessarily mean I'll be posting more often here, but my photo site will probably benefit.
In other news, I find myself completely deprived of any sirt of philosophical, metaphysical or artistic thoughts, I'm feeling so much down-to-the-ground I could be Earthworm Jim (anyone remember that, or am I the only person that actually enjoyed that game?).
To balance that out though, my dreams have been going bananas - again. I dream of floods, swimming wild boars, old acquaintances, bridges miles high into the sky over ominous waters, flying, people trapped in cars underwater, leadership decisions, tribal customs... I suppose my mind needs this far-flung aspect of life to balance itself out, hence the dreams. But overall, I think a large part of my imagination is gone - temporarily, I hope, but you can never be certain about such things.

Anyway, time to leave the internet at work and head for the internet at home.

Yay. The excitement. Not.

Today

Well, today is a typical Coldplay day. It's rather cold, the clouds are low, the harr (local type of fog) is in, it's drizzling and I'm sleepy. The only way of feeling any better and coping with the day is to stay in, keep yourself warm and cosy, and listen to Coldplay until you fall asleep (shouldn't take more than 10 minutes). Another day dealt with successfully.

Except I'm in work.

Oh, and just a random comment, but I really need to get this one out there. It's about Spanish films.

Spanish films can be split into two categories, which include practically 99% of all spanish movies:
a) About the time when Franko was about, and the civil war, or
b) About drug addicts/prostitutes/homosexuals/any combination of those.

There you have it.

I read the news today, oh boy

From the BBC website:

"US military pondered love not war
The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say. (…) The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale."

...?

First of all (to get it out of the way):
Hahahahahahahahahaaaaa! Haaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha!!! Hahaha! Ha… Haha. Ehm… Ha! Haha!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Moving on… Not sure if I should be laughing or not. There are other suggestions in that article that are not so funny and it makes you wonder what else might be hiding in a drawer somewhere in the world.

But seriously: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!

And as the Beatles have sang in the past...

I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, i just had to laugh...

"A day in the life"

Consumer power

Some times I cannot help but stand in awe of the amazing power of the stupidity of people...

For those of you that cannot be bothered to follow the link: The company that makes Mars bars (yes this is the kind of level of news I'll be dealing with today) came up some days ago and said that their Mars bars would no longer be suitable for vegetarians because one of their minor ingredients (which doesn't sound as anything naturally found in a chocolate bar anyway) would be substituted by something that once bore a fleeing resemblance to an animal by-product; as a consequence, the strict vegetarians might want to avoid it, but we trust that blah blah blah.

Keep in mind that we are talking about a Mars bar. A product so unhealthy that the Scottish people deep-fry it in fat and eat it when drunk - we're talking bad here. About 6000 calories per bar, fats, sugar, preservatives, you name it, it's in it. And vegetarians won't be able to eat it anymore. Cheers all around, another one bites the dust, right?

No. Not really. The Vegetarian Society organised a campaign against the change of ingredient, and the company's spokesperson said "It became very clear, very quickly that we had made a mistake, for which I am sorry". Anyone else feel like screaming?

What the hell? Correct me if I'm wrong, but in an age that we're banning smoking, trying to fight drug abuse and Tesco makes 625 TV ads about minding how much salt is in every slice of Tesco Italian Pizza Pappa Paolo Puccini, the vegetarians complain because they cannot stuff their arteries with cholesterol and their bodies with fat? And sure, it's their choice, but at the same time these 6000 people that signed the petition about the Mars bar will also talk about how healthier a vegetarian diet is, how meat is bad (uhm-kay?), and at the same time devour their vegetarian Mars bars and feeling good about themselves! Great! Mars is giving you a valid reason to eat less crap every day, and you just connect your feeding tube to the sewer! Well done!

How many people have signed a petition against poverty in UK cities? How many people have signed petitions against having your whole life spied upon in this country? How many people have signed a petition to pull out of conflicts this country doesn't belong in? How many people have signed petitions against being so incredibly stupid? Bet it's not bloody 6000...

Seriously (and I claim the rights to this idea), I'd like to see guns companies coming out and saying that their fire arms are not suitable for vegetarians (because they'll switch over to using animal fat to oil them or something), and the vegetarians society organising a petition against that.

Probably in the States, right? Don't be so sure...

Moving again

Well, it's that time of the year again when, for no apparent reason, I have to move to a new flat. If I had a penny for every time I've moved since I first came to Scotland, I'd have precisely 12 pennies. Which isn't a lot, but it comes up to about 3.5 pennies per year, which is quite respectable.

Anyway, I'm still going through the Hell that is to move your accounts and contact details to the new address. And, as anticipated by Murphy's law, the simplest one should take the longest. Therefore, the deceptively simple-looking task of moving my current broadband account to my new address (we're talking about 5 miles away here, not across the solar system) had developed to a complete and utter mess.

You'd think that all you have to do is call the provider, ask them to move it, and they either can (great) or cannot (sucks) do it. Binary systems are clear cut and easy to deal with (anyone who's ever dealt with them is hissing and spitting at me right now, maybe there is a point in that). However, my provider has a more complicated process.

You call them to have your account moved, but they don't technically move your account; rather, they cancel your existing contract, charge you cancellation fees, give you a new contract for the new address and then refund you the cancellation fees. Oh, and it takes 7 working day to cancel, 7-10 working days to connect the new account, so the whole process might actually equate a move of account, if you're lucky and you time everything with the precision of a military operation.

Only it doesn't really, because once you get through to the call centre, you speak to
a) a general advisor, who then puts you through to
b) a cancellation advisor, who then forwards you to
c) a new account advisor, who then asks you to call
d) BT because there is a problem with the line (mostly non-existent).

Each of the four steps includes a 10-minute waiting period, and given that you're in the process of moving your landline as well, Murphy will make sure that you're making those calls on your mobille and getting charged dearly for that.

                                                                          JUST MOVE THE BLOODY ACCOUNT!

But then again, where's the fun (for them) in that, eh? For crying out loud, I got to the point where I, em, disfigured my laptop's keyboard (forgetting that, unlike desktops, there are vital components living under it, oops) while talking to them and trying to understand why this ridiculous procedure is not, in fact, ridiculous, but effective and reasonable. A joke of a process, it's still not done, despite me having spent 2 hours on the phone today.

And I still have to contact the electricity company to terminate my current contract, the bank to change my details (I'll tell you about the joys of dealin with a certain bank, let's name it SBR for now, in a future post), my mobile provider, my magazine subscription... Maybe I should just get a P.O. box address and be over with it. Or stop moving.

Pictures from a conference

A research future conference, to be exact. Oh, and they're verbal pictures. Here we go...

"It's all about how to survive your own future". That was 5' into the first talk, sets the pace nicely. Just like in the Old West, the signs at the entrance of towns: "Stranger, leave all hope behind". Or so it says in Lucky Luke.

"There will be no day like this again". They meant it as a positive, about how this is a unique opportunity etc, but think about it. Technically right, potentially scary.

"Multinationalism is dead". And something else has replaced it, can't remember what though. Something fancy.

"You can go in a forest, dance around naked, and good ideas and innovations just come to you. I don't think so." Seriously, I can't add anything to that.

"Trust falls with distance". A valid point, which I think the guy used to hint why Nokia in Finland/Denmark won't really hire any of the pople attending the conference.

"I have a very nice Russian book". So, a student asks the speaker if his company hire fresh PhD students, and that phrase was included in the answer. Go figure.

The last four points were made by the same speaker. Who, by the way, was very good. In a country and age of political corectness, he was a shining beacon of honesty and, erm, sarcasm.

In other news, if you have a PhD, you'll get a job anywhere you want. Especially if you also "fit in the culture of the company" that you want to fit in, and have taken a couple of courses on time-management, you can substitute any of the leading companies' executives within 3 months from finishing your PhD - which, incidentally, can be in any area you want it to be, as it's the general menatllity, way of thinking and experience that companies want; besides a deep understanding of hyperfine multiprocessing load distribution in biologically-modified supercomputer clusters.

Gotta love these conferences...

Oh, and here's Jonny. I drew him during the most boring of the presentations.

Ghosts appear

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I'll be alright
Perhaps it's just imagination

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away

Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation
It's time to walk the streets
Smell the desperation

At least there's pretty lights
And though there's little variation
It nullifies the night from overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Come back another day

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I'll be alright
It's just overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away

Colin Hay, "Overkill"

On a day like this

Today is one of those days. You wake up, and it's all good. You don't feel too tired, nothing aches, nothing has upset your sleep in those sensitive early morning hours, even the alarm clock doesn't seem to be possessed by the Antichrist. You're thinking "hey, this day might actually be ok for a change".

 

HA!

 

You'd like that, wouldn't you? Tough. This is a day that will make sure every single ounce of patience, understanding and kindness is squeezed out of your body, that you will not enjoy the sunshine, that every single person will approach you with one goal, and one goal alone: to irritate and infuriate you, to test your limits, to get on your nerves. They won't do it on purpose, and they will not do it out of spite, malice or character flaws. Nevertheless, nothing will go right today, and Murphy's law scores an amazing victory over you.

 

Why?

 

Because TOUGH SHIT, that's why! Today is one of those days. Clench your fists, grind your teeth, try not to snap at anyone, and hope that the earth will decide to rotate a bit faster than usual to put an early end to the day. But it won't. Not on a day like this.

 

Have a nice day.

Liam Lynch - My United States of Whatever

Friday night, at last!

“Independence Day” is on tonight. It’s one of those movies that are just SO great. I’m not joking. It’s absolutely brilliant; all the elements of the perfect film are there. Will Smith is at his best, and so is that Jurassic Park scientist guy (Jeff Goldblum? Is that right?). And in between, during the commercial brakes, there’s all these happy people drinking, eating, enjoying Spain, buying stuff, saving money on car insurance and taking care of various aspects of their appearance. Ironically, a successful advert about a product that helps people improve themselves is (statistically) viewed more people that can’t be bothered doing anything else than sit on the sofa and watch adds on the TV, instead of doing anything more constructive, even if that is to stop watching adds.

(Counts to ten. Slowly. Very slowly. Sighs)

In other news, I’m bored, and for some reason I’m also feeling angry. With everyone and anyone really, so nothing specific (I think). I’d like to be able to stick my brain in a bucket of ice, lime and something alcoholic – vaguely rum. I got wine, though. Hell yeah, I gots me some wine, partner, have a sip!
I’m not even funny anymore. I’m bored. Maybe I should spend some time with my miniature Zen garden….

(Edit: By far, the best part of the movie is when Will Smith and Jurassic Jeff are inside the alien mothership, have realised they're stuck and accepted that they'll die. 
Will Smith gets ready, shouts "Peace!" and shoots a nuclear bomb into the spaceship.
That's classic!
Oh, and I feel much better now. Never underestimate the power of a good film!)

By moonlight

"But there's no release, no peace
I toss and turn without cease
Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast"

 

Insomnia, by Faithless

 

Ok, so except for that last bit about the yeast (?), the rest sounds pretty accurate - but with a twist. Imagine being really really tired, going to sleep, entering the blessed state of sleeping and relaxing (Amen, Reverent!), and then waking up every 45' or so throughout the night. Aaaaaall night. For almost two months now.

Funny how the mind plays tricks on you under such conditions. You start off quite lightly, just feeling a bit tired, but "oh well, I'll sleep earlier tonight and make up for it". Then you start feeling a bit ill, just wondering if you're coming down with something, and as a result you feel you need to sleep. Which leads to you not sleeping, of course. And then you start having problems concentrating during the day, you just can't focus on things for too long, plus you get random events of extreme sleepiness. But you sort of expect all that.

The fun begins after all that. You find your concentration not completely gone, as before, but actually working at completely random instances, switching on and off in mid-sentence, leaving you wondering just what the hell you were talking/thinking about. You become uncertain of what people are saying to you, you think you understand what they say, only to find that they said something quite different which you forgot a few moments after they stopped speaking - "I'm sorry, what have you been saying for the past 3 hours?". Your grip on reality becomes less firm, and you're wondering what actually happened. Oh, and you start hearing/imagining things during the night, as you wake up again and again to noises that aren't really there (the rhythmic inexistent bass line is my all time favourite, followed close by the ultrahigh pitch).

The doctor has prescribed Valiums in the past, but these make me a nice person and, as such, upset my usual way of acting and thinking. So thanks, but no thanks. Also, usual remedies don't seem to work - let me be clear though, I absolutely refuse to go jogging after work, simply on principle.

On the same night theme, I've just finished reading a book entitled "Midnight's Children", by Salman Rushdie - highly recommended, if a bit difficult to follow at time.

I can't get no sleep...

 

(Rise like yeast... mmm?)

People come and people go

In the general scheme of things (life), that's what always happens from one's individual point of view. People enter one's life and, after some time, they leave. Even if that person is the one leaving, the same is true from the point of view of someone else. Also, things in life come in groups, never singled out. A friend of mine back in school developed this theory by which you either have no girls interested in you, or a multitude going after you, but rarely something in between (keep in mind that this was high school, ok?). By taking this thought a bit further, we can speculate that the same applies in most things, such as friends, jobs, money etc. People usually make a reference to things coming in pairs or threes, but the chain doesn't have to stop there. It's sort of like the tide, which either brings water and new things ashore, or takes water and old things and sends them travelling to wherever it is things that are adrift go, until they land somewhere else again.

Why am I saying all this? Well, the tide is changing again from my perspective. I came to St Andrews and left people behind, so in a sense they were taken by the tide further away from me. I met new people here, made friends while the tide was high. But it is the time now that people are leaving, and I'm just standing on the shore watching them ride the waves towards new destinations. It has been happening for a while now, but it will peak within the next few months. It's not all bad.

It saddens me to see people leave, especially since knowing how bad I am at holding on to people that are not in my immediate surroundings, I somehow know that keeping in touch with them will be only a possibility (and not a certainty). People that I've learnt to rely on (and by that I mean anything from just having them around me, therefore relying on them for a sense of belonging and familiarity, to literally me depending on them) have been going away one way or another for some time now, but I'm not used to it yet. I hope I never will or, rather, I hope I won't have to. But as I said, it's not all bad.

People leaving are usually doing so in order to achieve something, to make things better for themselves, or to get away from things that aggravate them. It is a good thing for people to move on, as such is the human nature, to always reach up for more, to always struggle for what's better. People have always waited (and relied on) the high tied to begin new voyages and journeys, and people being left behind have always been saddened by that; they have also always been happy that someone was able to leave, that another part of their family/community is now venturing towards a better world. Parting is such a sweet sorrow, no?

I shall watch another high tide come and go. With every tide that comes, I find myself looking less and less for new things that have drifted ashore, but I have always watched the high tide go. And when this cycle is over, I will not be sad. After all, I'm only waiting for one of those high tides myself...

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Anniversary

Well, it's been a month since I last posted anything here. In the meantime, the site meter claims I got 1,000 hits so far. A nice round number.
For the most observant of you, ever since I announced to the world that I'll stop being depressing in my posts, I hardly posted anything but a few random thoughts. For the keenest of the observers amongst you, this just verifies my older claim that I only post when I don't feel that good. Finally, for those of you that like to extrapolate facts based on your keen observational skills, that means I'm doing well.
In any case, I was thinking about shutting this blog down - I hardly ever post anything anymore. However, I'm not going to do such a thing, and that's because I know that, some time further down the way, I'll find myself wanting to post things, or just missing this opportunity to share some thoughts of mine with the, er, you people out there. Sort of. I guess.

Catch you later!

Five things you don't know about me

Apparently, this is a very cute-good (is that sarcasm dripping from my mouth?) idea, started by someone, continued by someone else (in my case, itelli), to be ended by someone like me. Initially someone wrote on their blog 5 things that people don't know about them, and also named 5 more bloggers to do the same, and so on. Unfortunately for the game, there aren't 5 bloggers that read me (not even if I include myself), so I suppose this will be the end. Anyway, here goes:

1) I absolutely, utterly and completely hate this type of "game". As if I wasn't bored/busy enough on my own, I have to deal with other people's crappy "ha ha, we are all so joyful, and also such a strong community" type of ideas.

2) In the above point, I nearly wrote down "mental vomiting" instead of "ha ha..". Bet you didn't know that.

3) When you ask yourself why, oh why, since I hate this type of thing I still participate in it, I suggest you take a look at yourself and try to find some piece of clothing/electronics/sports item/pen/candle/torture instrument that has not, in one way or another, made this planet a worse place environmentally, socially, humanitarianly. People in Bangladesh suffer so you can type your blogs. Children in idea have made your clothes. Coral reefs in Australia are disappearing so you can watch football on your TVs. More children will die so you can go on cheap holidays. Do you like that? Do you want to stare in the face of the destruction you caused? Do you hate poverty/global warming/destroying of the planet/social inequalities/x children dying every second? You do? And yet you still use laptops/clothes/lights/power etc. Why? You hate all this, why become part of it?

4) I am not included in the previous point, since I am perfect by any standards. I make my own clothes and shoes, have assembled my laptop out of old cardboard boxes and golf balls, never get on a plane (but I do fly), heck, I even breathe my own air. Why? Read on.

6) This should be number 5. It's not. Number 5 reveals to the world that I'm Superman, so I took it out. Number 6 is not allowed, however, so I'll include no useful information here.

Well, that's it. If there's any bloggers out there that read this and want to contribute, please feel free to. If not, I just might be the Omega of this game.
The end is nigh!

A quick comment...

I find that the spontaneous photos I take are usually much better than the pre-planned ones. By that I mean that, whenever I carry a camera around with me without a specific plan for taking photos that day and do end up taking some shots, I much prefer them to the ones I take after careful planning and consideration.

All this is not too important. Just take a look at my new gallery, where I'll put shotos I took on my mobile without really planning to.

Bye for now!

Religion as we know it will expire in...

I've been watching this very interesting documentary about the Secret Gospels and the whole history behind them. Don't worry, I won't go about analysing the fine theological points that rise from accepting that these documents are indeed what their name implies, and what could the reasons behind the Church not accepting them as genuine might be. I shall spare you that, and perhaps write about it in a future post. Or not.
What impressed me was a phrase by the narrator about the importance of something having to be old to have credibility. I'd better explain this.
Apparently, back in the 2nd (or maybe 1st) century A.D., a scholar/theologist started thinking about the apparent contradictions between the God in the Old testimony and that of the new testimony. His explanation was that, in fact, it was two different gods (or should I write "Gods"?), and the new one came to save the world from the old. His suggestion then to define the christian faith (as that was the argument back then, how to define a specific set of sources from which christians would get their common beliefs, a necessity in any religion and belief, I think) was to exclude the old testimony, with all the jewish influences and references to a vengeful God, and just keep bits and pieces of (what was to later on become) the new testimony. So far so good, a man's opinion is a man's opinion. The narrator then proceeds to say that, indeed, the God of the old testimony had posed certain problems for the early church in relation to how He appears through the words of Jesus Christ, so the thought of scrapping the old testimony altogether came about. He then proceeds to saying that this did not happen, as the link to the old testimony is necessary to create a link to the past (the very beginning of all, according to the old testimony in fact), which is necessary to give credibility, status and a sense of history to christianity, which would otherwise appear as a religion that started with Jesus. Which it is, really, but the point was that if it had all been foreseen and expected for thousands of years by prophets etc it would mean that people would treat it as a religion with a long past and, hence, quite worthy of respect, trust and, well, belief.
So my question is: why is that? I mean, why do old things appear to have a different gravity and importance? Why are, for example, old universities considered better than new ones? And I mean old, not just twenty years old. I do accept the fact that the more time a certain person or institution has been around for, the more experience they have, but certainly after 100 years, why should it matter? I am attending a university that is one of the oldest in the UK (oldest in Scotland, which doesn't necessarily mean that much, but there you have it), having been around for, oh, almost 600 years. Is it better than a university that's been around for 200 years?
Let's go back to the religious argument again. Old religions get more respect, yes? Well, actually not quite. The older a religion is, the more credibility it has, until it hits some limit, after which it becomes a thing of old and fades away. Did you say something? Let me refresh your memory. Christianity, old and all, right, but has been around really for a little more than 2000 years. What about the religions before that? What ever happened to the roman religion? The ancient greek religion? The celt gods? The viking gods? The aztech/inca gods? And I'm sure there's about a million and one different religions that escape my memory. Please also note that I am referring to western religions, as there lies my personal experience - although I'd be curious to see what's the story with eastern religions as well. Anyway, there seems to come a certain barrier previous to which things are not considered worthy of respect, but relics of the past.
So, old things are considered good up to a certain point, and then are discarded off. Think of a (rather) lame example, such is technology (before anyone points out to me that this is different to religion, as technology is a product of man, I'll quickly point out that religion - not necessarily the belief in the existence of divine beings, but definitely religion as a set of determined rules and practices- is exactly the same, a man-made construction), whereby things go from being new and swanky to old and better to antiques admired by some to heaps of worthless junk. Is that the fate of religions as well? Historically speaking, it would seem so. It seems possible that people in the future, believing in Llama Almighty or whatever will look back on christianity, budhism, hinduism etc and just wonder what all the fuss is about.
But is it really? Or has science covered mankind's need for change so effectively that the need for more steady pillars of continuity makes us turn to religion, thus leading to the prolonging of religion's life expectancy? And, if that is the case, what will the future hold for us? Has anyone ever thought that the reason why religions seem to sometimes struggle with the present times, or with the new conditions of the world, might just be because they weren't meant to last this long?
Is the end (of old religions) nigh indeed?

Just a quick one...

"Van Helsing" is a crap movie. Says I. It's a Thursday night, and it's on the TV, and it's bad. Car crash bad. German reggae bad. Quite simply, one of the worse movies I've seen - and I've seen bad movies, trust me. And this coming from someone who used to play the "Vampire" RPG - pen and paper.
Anyway, how's it going? Y'all good? I'm good. Alfred's good, he says hello. Alfred is my butler, the one I'll have when I'm rich and I'm also Batman. I've said before that, if I were to wina lot of money in the lottery, I'd become Batman. In St Andrews. I'd buy a cheep grey Batman outfit (did anyone watch the old b&w TV series? The one where Batman had a beerbelly... No? Oh well), get the new MINI (version with a Union Jack on the hood - no reason), and go jumping from roof to roof, occasionally beating random people up - because they're worth it! Batman, ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra!
Oh, and 80% of TV adds are retarded. Hey, maybe this can be "George's Law": At any given time in (advertising) history, 80% of all adds are retarded.

Anyway, as I said, that was just a quick one. More later.

Marvin. Just call me Marvin...

Been looking through my older posts. Wait. I'll start this from the beginning.
So, I recently noticed that itelli's blog has massively increased in popularity and hits. I think that's great, as (slightly) in contrast to what most people believe, good things are usually recognised. NOT good people, but good things. Right.
Anyway, I noticed his blog is becoming more and more popular, which is a very good thing. And then I noticed that the counter on mine seems to have paused (indefinitely). And then I looked at my traffic reports, and realised what was happening.
On average, I get about three (3) hits per day. Of those, I know at least two (2) are mine, since I check in hope of a comment. That means that, on average, one (1) person every day checks my blog. In conclusion, thanks itelli!
Now some of you (can you define some of one? For people I mean. Could I claim that 3/17ths of itelli are doing something? Yes I can) may be saying "Oh, he's been through this before, and we ended up finding celebrity names in every post, what now, oh Gawd, can't stand this whole thing, what do I care, John bloody Travolta can go shave his head clean" etc etc. Which is fine, because you are right. Only this tie, things are different.
See, this time I decided to look into my previous posts and seek out a reason (or more) why this blog is only read by 4/19ths of one individual person each day. Which brings me to the beginning of this post (tempted to close the circle by writing "Wait". Oh well). Wait. I found it! The reason!
Here goes (clears throat). My posts reflect the state of mind that I'm in, ok? They reflect the negative side of my state of mind (see previous post, oh I don't know which one, ask itelli). Which is all cool and all, cause that's what I want to do. With me so far? So basically, all my posts so far give out these amazingly negative vibes and notions, with the only glimmer oh positive thinking consisting of the occasional miniature meditation garden. Which really isn't much. I've also mentioned that I've been reading the "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" (by Douglas Adams, make it one of the books you'll read in your lifetime; unless you can't read, in which case you're not reading this - your loss, really, go back to school). And that's when it hit me.
My blog, in its current form, feeling and shape, is exactly like being inside the mind of Marvin, the Paranoid Android (friends and fans or Radiohead, now you know where it came form). Exactly.
A bit of background, for the ones not familiar with the book. And no, I will not describe the entire book. Marvin is this robot, on board a spaceship, that has been designed (the robot, not the spaceship) to have his own personality. Only thing, the personality they gave him was that of a depressed person. Marvin can do anything, since he has "a brain the size of a planet", nevertheless he is permanently depressed, moaning, complaining, sees no joy in life around him, no task is ever interesting, and so on. Constantly like that. As are my posts, incidentally.
In the book, when Marvin speaks to the computer of another spaceship, it commits suicide. People avoid him, robots avoid him, fishponds avoid him. It makes sense then that people would tend to avoid reading my blog. People (myself included, and in general) may say that they are ok being depressed, may claim to be happy in their own misery, but that's because they do not fully comprehend misery and depression. When they come along something that literally oozes depression (Marvin, my blog, dead fish floating in the water), they first become interested (I'm depressed, this is depressed, yay), but when the sheer force of depressions these things give out hits them, they realise that they're actually quite ok, and they'll go home, thank you very much, and watch gardening programmes.
To summarise: My blog is depressing. Dead fish floating are depressing. Gardening is healing for the soul.
It might be that the time has come for a new turn in the context of this blog. It may be that I should not just deal with my inner negative side, but with other things as well. News. Movies. Things. Life. Gardening!

I'll have a little think about that. Until then, just call me Marvin...

TB (tired, bored)

So, I returned back to St A after three days of driving across the UK. St A to Cardiff to Bristol to Cardiff to Oxford to St A, a total of 1150 miles. Not bad at all, as driving is one of the things I enjoy doing most, although this experience has verified that I am not cut out to be a truck driver - too much of a good thing. Plus, crossing the Midlands is so utterly boring that would justify having an autopilot. But there you have it, and you can read all about it in my memoirs, in the chapter entitled "George's tale (or there and back again)".

Problem is: I'm tired and bored, bored and tired, bired or tored. Coming back to this bubble of idyllic tranquillity that St A is (for those of you unfamiliar with the place, it can only be compared to a padded cell - with rain) has just reminded me how boring it is. It's so.... boring. So boring I can't even find another word for "boring". So boring that things stop being enjoyable anymore. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy isn't funny anymore. Southpark isn't funny anymore. People jumping off moving vehicles and braking all the bones in their bodies (plus a few more that don't belong to them) isn't funny anymore. Driving isn't that enjoyable around these parts. Taking photographs becomes a burden. Shooting seagulls doesn't seem like a good idea. I'll spare you at this point, but you get the idea.

I was down in Oxford and found this great little shop which sells miniature Japanese meditation gardens, bonsai trees and crystal growing kits (this is interesting, actually. You get this kit, with chemicals and, er, stuff, and you grow your own crystal. If you're a 3-year-old like me mentally, it's kinda cool), along with plasma balls, Galileo thermometers and Chinese tea pots. The idea of having a 20cmx10cm meditation garden (complete with rocks, a small pond and a thingy to make patterns) seemed to me to be by far the most interesting thing I could be doing in St A. Or even staring at a Feng-Shui indoor fountain. Or compiling a 10,000-piece puzzle of a white wall, for that matter.

In other news, itelli has (fortunately only partly and very vaguely) revealed my plan to be the King of Fife (echo...), but I'll talk about this in the next post. Sort of.

 

Oh, the piece and tranquillity of a padded cell, a miniature meditation garden and a Feng-Shui fountain...

Back to the future

It is interesting to see how my feelings about the future and what it holds for me are shared by a lot of people in exactly the same way. All of them (us) have used the exact same phrasing, "living in the future". My first reaction was "hey, that describes precisely how I feel", but then it started to sink inside me. Living in the future.

First of all, I shall briefly describe what it is that I mean by that, for those of you that are curious and/or are lucky enough not to share similar feelings of anxiety. "Living in the future" refers to a state (of mind, primarily) where one feels that they have to bear through all the problems that appear in present time for the sake of future prosperity. Now, you might think this sounds perfectly reasonable, which it does, therefore I feel I need to differentiate between planning/dreaming about the future and actually living in it.

It is perfectly normal to plan ahead, and indeed some people that don't so that (that's right, point that finger towards me) often find themselves watching opportunities go past them, or panic trying to make things work at the very last moment. It is also a normal thing to dream about the future, or hope/dream/wish for certain things to happen. It is also fine to acknowledge that the pursuit of finer things in the future might mean that you have to go through rough and troublesome periods in the present. That is all good.

What's not good is when you choose to disassociate yourself from the present time, not paying any attention to whether or not you are enjoying yourself, not trying to improve things for yourself in the present, not enjoying, experiencing and, in practice, not living your life in present time. Instead, time goes by and you're just left thinking about what the future will bring, the possibility of a good life in the future, where you'll end up when you're 30/40/50/60 and have children/grandchildren/no children. It is sad because, in reality, all we have for sure is the present, and even if it not present perfect, that's what we have to go by. It is our wishes, hopes and ambitions that drive us through life, but we do have to live it in order to fulfil them.

Ironically, when I was asked back when I was 17 (in school, during essay writing) what is my definition of happiness, I answered "to be able to be 80 years old and look back on my life and say: that was a good life". Doomed to live in the future until I'm too old for that and have to live in the past. Yep, that's me!

Cars (not!)

Originally, this was going to be a post about cars. How I really like (some of) them, why I like them, what I think about the future of cars; in short, George’s “Complete view of automobiles”, Special Edition.
But it won’t be, and that’s for two reasons, namely a) nobody gives a damn and b) I don’t feel like it right now. Maybe in the near future, if I feel like it. For now, a few thoughts on, erm, now. The present. And the near future.
Let me start by saying that I do feel very positive about 2007. Not sure why, but I do. Maybe because of how 2006 was, or maybe because I could really do with a good year. Not necessarily extremely good, but a nice, calm, normal year. No evictions, no illnesses, no lawyers, no money problems, no work problems (I’d written “no friends problems” here, but I’ll leave it out). I know this is a bit utopic, as all of these problems are bound to come up, I’d just like them to be a bit more low-key than they have been in the past year.
Because I’ve really had it. There were times in 2006 that I felt really desperate, that nothing seemed to be going well, that I wasn’t doing anything right, or even if I did, I just couldn’t make things work. I hereby give 2006 the title of “The Worst Year So Far”, can we have a big round of applause (not!). On the other hand though, “may you live in interesting times” (cannot remember who was that said that, sorry for not referencing), and 2006 has certainly been interesting. In the same way perhaps that the Black Plague was interesting, but there you have it.
I am exaggerating a bit, of course. I’ve also had good times in 2006, I’ve had fun, and some things have definitely been great about it. But overall, it sucked big time.
On a different note, I’ve realised that most of my recent (well, last few months worth of) posts have been completely pointless, utterly meaningless, and did not make that much sense whatsoever. I’ve managed to right posts upon posts in which I’m not really saying anything, and though that is a certain achievement, it’s not so to the point that I could go into politics, and therefore useless. I’ll try to make up for that.

Quote of the day:
"I am not a dawdler, I just have many interests"
By me, of course!

New Year is here...

...at last! Jappy New Year veryone, happy 2007!
May everyone take one more step towards a better tomorrow, and one step away from all the bad things in their lives. I think the entire world could use a good year.
Most importantly, let us all wish that 2006 will burn in Hell as a very small way of making up for everything it brought. And, just because I know that some of you have had a good year, you can at least wish that for my 2006. Please.

Please be nice 2007. Please please please.