I am not dead, but I am a little closer.

A quick note to say I am not dead.

Though not blogging (at all), I always have a few in mind (a very boring essay on superman for one, and more of me naked for two).

As for getting older, I was in the IT room bending over replacing a hard disk.
When I stood up, without warning, a stream of vomit came out of my nose.

Most unpleasant.

I had a meme

Meme (pron:(/mi:m/) [meem]) n. [Origin: 1976; < Gk mīmeǐsthai to imitate, copy; coined by R.Dawkins, Brit. biologist, boring twit]

1.   A mechanism for socially retarded fuckwits to disseminate half-baked crap to their moronic friends

2.   A way for Internet monkeys to plagiarise other peoples ideas and claim them as their own

3.   All your base are belong to us

What we did for the weekend !

A couple of the lads came to my house for the weekend and here's what happened:

• We got wet in the rain


• Like 4 big kids we based our way around on the Bumpers


• I survived the longest in a 4 way shooting game in the arcade

Alan had the fasest Camel (twice) he won a deck of cards and some really plastic poker chips

• Conor & Al hammered myself and Michael in table football


• Michael got some exercise beating some really old arcade game that involved him punching alot of pads


• Myself & Michael remained unbeated in Doubles playing both Virtual Tennis & Top Spin 2 on the Xbox 360


• Conor played football !!! (OK he played PES 6 on the xbox360)


• I won the Poker session


• Conor & Michael had an epic encounter on Top Spin 2 to see who was the best, after the first set ending 6-6 they decided not to play anymore. I captured a small clip of the boys in action, see video below.


• Conor won Rock Paper Sissors for the Double Bed, his greatest victory all night he reckons...

Metro Sense

My letter in the Metro today:



It makes sense if you read the Metro letters page on a semi-regular basis. People are accusing me of making it too highbrow. Keep your peepers peeled for the follow up: "Screw them single mothers."

Conor loves cock.

I got sent this today. Thanks Gerry.

Holidaying in Ireland

I'm currently on Holidays in Killarney and man the weather sucks!
Nothing but fecking rain all week, what the hell is going on for Gods sake it's July you know.

Ooooh! New shoes?

Bought some runners: Asics Gel-Foundation 7's.



"A versatile motion control shoe that provides the overpronators with a flexible, yet supportive base"

Features include:
AHAR
spEVA lasted
Air Mesh
Compression Molded EVA sockliner
spEVA
3M Scotchlite
Personal Heel Fit

Maaaan! Wearing these puppies the other triathletes don't stand a chance.

And they cost less then my bike.

Triathlon

A couple of chaps in work are running in the Dublin City Triathlon. I half-heartedly said I'd give it a go.

There are a couple of issues around this (always with the excuses)

I am a fat fuck

I have young children

I have no runners

I have a shit bike

I have no wetsuit

I have taken no serious exercise in 15 years

So, if I am going to take this seriously here's the plan:

Buy runners. Make sure that they cost more than the bike.

Ride the bike I have

Buy a wetsuit

Run small distances at night

Cycle to work

Swim

Swim in a river

That's it eh? Willpower required. Lots and lots and lots. We'll see, I'm not very hopeful.

Information is a super-weird substance

Couple of things.



I bought "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" on DVD. I am promised a psychedelic journey into one of the world's most powerful minds. You can see the trailer here. The only thing that puts me off a little is the way the director calls himself "DeZ VYLENZ" (sic.)

Promises to be good. Sinead is not very enthusiastic about watching it, so the review may have to wait a while. The three hours of extras will definitely involve me finding some time to myself.

Talking about Sinead and Alan Moore, I bought Lost Girls a while back which I must finish reading. Sin read it and enjoyed it, I think. I'll ask her to post her comments.

Maybe after watching and reading the above, I'll buy Robert Anton Wilson's Maybe Logic. You can watch the trailer here.

If you go to Pope Bob's (RIP) site he is selling a DVD called "Wilhiem Reich in Hell." Due to previous cloudbusting efforts, I'd consider purchasing this, but even I have limits. An Am-Dram courtroom-punk drama that I didn't make myself is probably that limit.

Apologies if this looks a bit like a wikipedia entry

Word 2007, Cyber Nations, Jane Eyre and more

I am using word 2k7 to post this blog. It enables me (heh! Is that English?) to do all sorts of things like this

Which I won't be doing ever again, of course.

Anyways.

I have been playing this game cybernations on the internet. A limited enough creation, you set up a nation, trade for resources go to war etc. I got two of the worst resources in the game: Furs and Sugar. Michael tells me I should delete my nation and start again. I have an issue with this. Why can't I progress using the resources I've been given, rather than cave and have what everybody else has? I think exploiting the game mechanic in this way takes the game out of the game. I think I am just going to pick a fight I can't win and let my nation suffer.

What about Jane Eyre you say? Well, A few folk have come here looking for information on her. I hope you weren't disappointed.

No way to add labels either. Bah.

Release Day

Lucky us working late today with a software release.

Apophenia, Synchronicity or Succubus?

I have talked about apophenia before (seeing connections in random or meaningless data). I don’t think the following counts, it leans towards synchronicity.

Or she was a succubus.



Let me explain. Three timelines in play here:

Back when I was a kid, I used to say I’d be a botanist when I grew up. At the time, I was mildly obsessive about nature (I still am). Mum used to say we’d go down the Amazon. Paints a nice family picture, huh?

Hop forward to my mid-to-late teens. I am involved in a ‘biblical’ relationship with a German girl. She also has this type of relationship with a few other guys. Can’t really say it was an issue at the time, or now for that matter.

Hop forward to present day. I was visiting my folks yesterday, when a couple of their friends popped over. Turns out their daughter is working in the Amazon on a botany field trip, being led by said German girl.


A couple of answers to this:

It’s a coincidence (or incoincident)

She’s a Succubus, and stole my mojo.

She always wanted to be a Network Engineer/Sys Admin and we swapped destinies.

Jungian Synchronicity.


I’m leaning toward Succubus. It all makes sense to me. Either that or she was some sort of carnal Sylar. No more conclusions than that. Thoughts?

Did you help me expand my mind?

Did you?

Not really. I've read Cavalier and Klay and Zen and the Art already, so I went and read some Jack Reacher books. Enjoyed these, in a read in two days, root for the psychopath kind of way.

I am currently reading "I am Legend" also recommended by John, and then will start another Reacher book.

After that? "The Restraint of Beasts" by Magnus Mills as recommended by Nick. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for your feedback, feel free to leave more.

Iron Dick

Just finished reading Marvel's Civil War.

The gist of it is:

All (domestic) superheroes have to be registered and paid by the US government. Some see this as an erosion of their civil liberties and increasing security at the cost of freedom. The leader of this faction is Captain America. Leader of the pro-government faction is Iron Man. Obvious analogies to current affairs.

Mark Millar, who wrote it, said he tried to make both sides as balanced as possible. Clearly (if you read it) this is shit, everyone is rooting for Cap.

Anyway, the only reason I wrote this (AFASIK I am the only comic fan among us), is to tell you all Iron Man is a dick.

That is all.

Help me book

I'll throw this one open to the floor. What books should I read? Bearing in mind that I'll read almost anything. Currently I am reading "The Raw Shark Texts" by Steven Hall, which I am enjoying. I picked it up because I liked the cover and lack of blurb (the back of the book doesn't really tell you anything about what may be inside), and then googled the author. The fact that he sited Murakami as one of his favourite writers was a good sign. He cited City of Glass by Paul Auster as his all time favorite novel (he'd also mentioned "If on a winters night a traveller" so I was really warming to the guy), so I think I'll read it.

Anyway, back on topic. What books do think I should read? I'll go off and read them and let you know. No footballers biographies please.

London

Hey.

Here I am usinng the Iinternett onn the TV inn my hotel roomm. Iits a little roppey. IIN FACT ITS RUBBISH> WHEREE DID THESE CAPS COME FROM?/ huhh?/ theree they go.

It won't catch on.

Couurse is goiing well, the air conditioning is knacked thouugh makes it alittle uncomfortable however.

went out with Dave last niight, and due to a Londonn cabbies peculiar sense of Homouur ended up inn a gay bar. Moved on fromm theree to an irish bar, wherre my drink got nicked. odd niight.

Thatts it for noow. Going to poost a piic of my hotel room just to provee the poower of moodern teechnology.

Internet onn Hotel tvs sucks.

Class !!!

Rebirth

Not sure what I can say about this.
Sometimes life is strange.

Some Facts from todays Irish Star

Conor pay close attention to fact 4

Comments

It appears blogextra is screwed, so all your incise comments are consigned to history. Oh Well.

Blogger comments now enabled. Really, Really, Really must move to my own domain and start using wordpress. Soon my pretties.

I Respond

Michael,

Thanks for your reply. Apologies for my mail yesterday, it was unreasonably rude.

In general I have an issue with additional charges for public services. I think that this will become a headache for Irish Rail, and people will go back to local estates/roadside to park. Perhaps you have been working with local councils on this, because disc parking/double yellows will be the only way to stop it. People are cheap.

Allowing for 48 working weeks at €5, €240 a year is a lot of money to add on to the €980 that I pay for my annual ticket. Perhaps the parking charges can be added to your taxsaver.ie program?

Still, it's coming in to summer and I have a bike. Maybe I should get off my fat ass and use it.

Regards,
Conor

Irish Rail Responds

Dear Conor,

I refer to you comment logged with on our website yesterday in relation to our new car park in Leixlip (Louisa Bridge). Our intention is to charge €5 per week for or €2 per day as you mention. This means that daily commuter will have to pay €1 per day for parking.

We have discussed this proposal with local representative groups and they agree that it is a reasonable charge for parking beside the station. As I am sure you will appreciate we need to generate some revenue from such a facility to cover the costs of its ongoing management and maintenance.

I believe that most customers will agree that this car park will make public transport more attractive to them and suspect that it won’t be long before it becomes very popular.

Yours sincerely,


Service Planning Manager
Northern & Eastern

We Sixty

+++
Well chaps, the Wii wasn’t enough. [STOP]
+++
No games you see. [STOP]
+++
And I am an impatient man. [STOP]
+++
The red mist of consumerism came down and I was forced to buy an x360. [STOP]
+++
Gosh it’s heavy. [STOP]
+++
Gosh it’s loud. [STOP]
+++
Come join me online. ConRehn is my name. [STOP]
+++
Raw V Smackdown, Top Spin 2, Gears of War and (especially) Table Tennis are my games. [STOP]
+++
Fellow Wii owners will have to wait, no online games available yet you see. [STOP]
+++
PS3 can suck my balls. [STOP]
+++
Communication ends

Letter to Irish Rail

Sent this off to Irish Rail today:

Hi,

A new car park has been built in Leixlip Louisa Bridge. You are going to charge €2 a day to use it and have converted your existing free car park to pay-per-use also.
Presumably the car park was built to stop people parking on the road and neighbouring housing estates. A straw-poll on the platform this morning revealed that’s where people will continue to park because of an effective doubling of their train fare.

Making public transport that little bit less usable, you short-sighted monkeys.

I am not a crank,
Your etc.,
Conor

Phychic pyschic

Sinéad and I went a psychic fair in the Westgrove Hotel in Clane. It is not the first time we’ve been, I doubt it will be the last.

It was chock full of women (chick full?), with the odd (and I mean odd) guy hanging about. Taffeta-clad behemoths and beardos everywhere. Like last time, I avoided the scientologists who all looked like child molesters. I did like the look of their stress tester though, retro in a 1950’s science fiction kind of way. Sin got her fortune told. Her neural APIs either have their ports closed or her psychic is not hooking into them with the right psychic code, so all she got was the normal garbage. The psychic did say I was “a good man” so at least she got something right. I went off to leaf through a book on Tantric sex and put it back without buying it.

I picked up this card and will give Madam Moira a plug here. Visit her, she’s the phychic’s pyschic.

A bleak sestina about work

Haven't been blogging for a while, but here is a sestina. A highly stylised form of 12th century poetry. Not only am I blogging again, but a poem as well! Feel free to send me a sestina and I'll post it. I have foregone Iambic pentameter, because it's hard and I'm lazy.

Going to Work?

Today I arrived at the train station
And cursed the right-handed ticket machine
One of life's less subtle jokes
A sinister cross to bear
I can't allow a feeling of persecution
Because that way leads madness

Maybe I should give way to madness?
Reject my place in life's station
Embrace a state of persecution
Should you be talking to me, Machine?
I find it hard to bear
Your overly technical jokes.

Kidnap victims make jokes
To keep out the madness
Like a sanity Teddy Bear
I have found my station
In front of my tired machine
My own lesser persecution

It's a phantom persecution
Like bad Scooby-Doo jokes
010000010110110100100000010010010010000001100001 Machine?
Roll on, roll on everyday madness
Last stop crazy station
I ate your porridge, bear.

Little dipper you are a bear
Free from any earthly persecution
Shining in your heavenly station
The butt of big dipper's jokes
Do you reflect my madness
Stuck in my corporeal machine?

Being used like a machine
Is a situation I can bear
It leads to a bland madness
With little or no persecution
No more bad jokes
Numbly, I accept my station

Do I station myself to act like a machine?
Relating to life like bad jokes that I cannot bear.
Do I prefer boredom to persecution and madness?