Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..Well actually I didn't... Last night I dreamt I was walking along the beach with our ex-neighbour's dog. The dream was nice but my sleep pattern is becoming screwed up again.I've been troubled with back pain over the past week and that's kept me awake at times. But although that's much better now I'm still not doing my good old recent 2am-9am. Yesterday evening I felt a bit lethargic and went to bed at 7pm. Apparently I was snoring at 2 minutes past and slept until 10pm. I then slept another 8 hours overnight. Eleven hours is too much sleep for me. Why am I mentioning this? Sleep is generally an objective indicator of how I am. I sense a change coming. My thoughts are more muddied, my memory even worse than usual. I feel kinda befuddled, my...
It seems I’ve been included in some “Scottish Roundup” of late. But for why?
I’m not sure, actually. My posts focus on vulgarity, genitalia, and sometimes my amateur analysis of social interactions. I focussed in particular on Scotland during election season, but quickly gave that up once business had resumed as normal. I live in Scotland, as I have all my life.
I might be moving away from Scotland soon. Do I still qualify for this Scottish roundup? I suppose I could have a moan about the lack of jobs in the fields of IT/software development/computing science research, which would certainly bring the focus onto Scotland. What’s the government doing about this? Or is the current government whining about Westminster having control over much of the UK and...
I love it. Cursing, cussing, whatever you call it. I call it swearing.
There’s nothing quite like the simple pleasure of exclaiming “fuck!” when something goes wrong. Nothing quite like muttering “balls!” when you’ve forgotten something. Nothing quite like quietly whispering “bugger!” when you’re running late.
Fuck! Bugger!
Shit! Crap! Shite! Pish!
Bollocks! Arse! Balls! Tits!
Fucker! Bastard! Dick! Dickhead! Cunt!
Let’s analyse these. I realise that there are a lot more, but they seem to follow the same trend.
Category number 1 is often used in the “something has gone wrong” setting. So why do we associate “something bad happening” with sex (formerly) and anal sex (latterly)? Surely, perhaps based on...
I have become a voracious reader. So much so, that I’m shocked I didn’t finish a book in 2006, 2005, 2004 … probably going all the way back to High School.
Why did I neglect this simple, but fair, pleasure? I have read 16 books so far this year, and I don’t consider myself a speed-reader.
Reading is good.
Read......
I spotted this news story the other day, claiming that obesity is not the fault of the individual, rather the government must, to some extent, catch the blame.
“Blame” is too harsh a word. Perhaps the government is at fault for not helping enough. We’ve all heard enough about what food is bad for you. But where’s the justification? You tell me something’s bad, I want to know why, what it does to me, if eating less of it helps, if there’s a good alternative, or how I could cut it out of my diet altogether, or if it’s a sneaky little indulgence that I could get away with now and then but not on a daily/weekly basis.
In many cases, obesity probably is the individual’s fault, but only in so far as greed and sloth are irresistible and almost...
One minute, I’m in a room filled with students, and I’m teaching. I’m fielding difficult problem after difficult problem.
Next minute, I’m in a meeting room controlling today’s seminar.
Next I’m back in my office, trying to get on with my own work.
Later, I’m back at home relaxing with a beer and a beautiful woman. The beautiful woman is just a friend.
It’s interesting to weigh up the different interactions we each have with other people every day. Sometimes we’re in a position of power. Sometimes we’re absolutely not in a position of power. Sometimes we’re in total control of our time. Sometimes we’re unwinding with a close friend, one of those few with whom you feel equal.
And we shift between these modes of...
I’ve never been one for casual sex. I’ve never had a “fuck buddy” (friend with benefits) as such.
And yet, some time ago, when I split up with my last long-term girlfriend, I naturally missed the sex. I missed the excitement. I missed that tingly feeling you get in certain places. I missed the astounding experience of vaginal penetration, feeling myself slide slowly into place. I haven’t experienced that in some time. I didn’t miss the relationship; that had been dead in the water for quite some time, for reasons I shan’t divulge.
For a while, I was a member of an “adult” dating site. Not for the dating part, just the adult part. Of course, these sites are predominantly male, so the following rule seems to be as true as it is in other...
So the tories want a higher taxation on alcohol. Great! The reasoning, of course, is that if alcohol costs more, then they’ll have solved Britain’s alcohol dependency. Hmm, gee, I don’t think so.
Who is the taxation supposed to hit? If it’s supposed to hit the binge drinkers (allow me to label people so crassly into “binge drinker” and “non-binge drinker” for one moment), then it’s a lost cause. People enjoy drink. If you really fancy getting wasted on a Wednesday morning/afternoon/evening, then you’ll do it — the cost is not what matters, the alcohol is. With alcohol still available, albeit at higher cost, people will still drink to excess. All that might happen is that purchasing patterns may be affected.
They argue that...
Ok. So who’s the girl, I hear you ask. Well, I can’t tell you that. I shouldn’t tell you all that much, actually, just in case. I know the internet’s a big place, but I should really keep specifics out of this.
So what’s so special about her?
She’s astoundingly intelligent. She’s more intelligent than I, which is the most crazy turn on I could possibly have imagined.
She’s independent. There’s no feeling that she’s waiting to fall into Mr. Right’s arms directly before rushing off to the chapel to get married, thereafter producing or rearing children. I’m so far from being an emotional crutch with her that to go out with her is a compliment.
She’s older than me. While not a requirement in itself, with age comes...
You know a country has a, shall we say, irreverent sense of humour when a potentially deadly terrorist attack on that country results in a joke email, and a general feeling of “Fuck ye!”
I copy here for your benefit.
If this had happened in a US airport, compared to Glasgow: Eyewitness accounts
USA: “Oh my God! There was a man on fire, he was running about. I just ran for my life. I thought i was gonna die, he got so close to me.”
Glasgow: “Cunt wis running aboot on fire, so a ran up n gave him a good boot, then decked him”
USA: “I just wanna get home, away from here. I just wanna get home, I thought I was gonna die.”
Glasgow: “Here, Tam, ahm no leaving here till ahm oan a fuckin’ plane!”
USA: “There was pandemonium,...
Ok. I have a couple more weeks of stuff, then I think I should be back for good. If I can’t maintain this blog properly, then I might do the reasonable thing and put it quietly to bed. I’ll say so if that’s my choice.
It’s been interesting times of late. I have quite a bit to mull over with regards to the love life before I post any of it.
Ever found the person you think you want to marry? Ever come to that conclusion within 24 hours of meeting them?
Spins the fucking mind around, does it......
How old am I? It’s difficult to figure out.
Mentally, I’m sharp as a fucking needle. I learn fast. I read fast. I absorb information fast. I have a brain which fits right into an academic environment, though fortunately I’ll never be entirely satisfied with the purely cerebral activities academic traditionally promotes — I need to actually have hands-on, relevant experience with my subject matter.
That all said and done, I’ll appreciate any fart or dick joke you happen to throw my way. Mental age of a 30 year old and a 10 year old combined.
At which point do we realise that physical age should not matter as much as mental age. But when I can get on with a 50 year old truck driver than a 20 year old student, what does that say about my mental age?
I often mull...
I step onto the train, and subconsciously scanned the occupants. I spy one intensely attractive women sitting, coincidentally, across from the seat I had earmarked the moment I stepped aboard. She looked Norwegian. Something about the face, the hat, and the flowing knee-length skirt.
When sitting, the blue-green skirt sat just above her knees. My day had been long. I’d been asked to do a few more weeks work on a project I really don’t value at all. I wasn’t in the mood to chat.
I wish I had been. This girl spotted me as I sat down across from her, and she was continually glancing back at me. She moved to get a little more comfortable on the train seat, in the process shifting her legs slightly to point in my direction, and also nudging them ever so slightly apart.
The...
I spotted, a few mornings ago, in the Metro a brief item on cheating on your partner which included short interviews with perhaps five ordinary people. The item, which I skimmed quickly, seemed in particular to be focussed on business dinners with the opposite sex, whether that constitutes cheating, and if not, what does?
I was astounded by the responses. Most stated that they had never cheated. One, perhaps two, stated that they had cheated (but not with a married man, only a man who was otherwise in a relationship). That it was only the women who admitted to cheating is an aside, as it’s quite likely that men will enjoy the risk of cheating, but won’t enjoy the risk opening up about it.
Of course, having arrived at my station and put the paper down, I found myself thinking...
I just watched the hyped Panorama report on Scientology on youtube (linkage: part 1, 2, and 3). Wow.
I was previously aware in passing terms of Scientology, in the sense that Tom Cruise (nutto extraordinaire) is a member and he’s not exactly known as a balanced person when it comes to, well, anything really. I also knew it is all based on the writings of sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard (credible, eh?). But that was the extent of my knowledge.
I didn’t previously know anything about the lengths they go to to protect their name (presumably they’re not aware of how useful the internet is for passing knowledge…). I didn’t realise that they “disconnected” their members from disbelievers. I’d forgotten that they consider psychiatry to be evil and...
The internet is a constantly evolving picture of life as we understand it. There are various groups and communities within its sphere of influence. Memes, abbreviations, and porn move through the internet at alarming rates. Who remembers the Hamster dance? Or the demented car engine noise which eventually became the detestable Crazy Frog?
There is an interesting subculture related to all these memes, and that is the commentators. Those who choose to analyse, rationalise, and dissect human behaviour in these situations. I’m going to take one post in particular as example, namely this one.
I’m familiar with lolcats. The “phenomenon” of subtitling an image with a funny caption is certainly nothing new. What warrants the continued discussion is the repeated patterns,...
This should be my final election post, unless something really surprising happens in the next few days. My thoughts on the whole afair:
The voting mechanism was too complex. 3 votes, one election. It’s no wonder people didn’t know the difference between a constituency and a region. It’s not a surprise that people didn’t understand where to put the numbers for the local council election. With regards to the numbers, how are they counted? Is only one number used? How are the numbers weighted? Does 1 mean ‘1′, and 2 mean ‘0.5′, etc? The instructions telling me what to do with my numbers were fair enough, but if people don’t understand why they have to follow these instructions, then of course things are going to go wrong.
The smaller...
The outcome? Well, there isn’t one. Not yet, anyway. Lots of results aren’t in yet.
I was watching last night when McConnell won his extremely safe Motherwell & Wishaw constituency, and was highly amused as another candidate unrolled a banner to the effect of “No trident replacement” (exact wording lost in the mists of a headache); quite clearly over the microphone was one woman on stage who said “oh, don’t spoil it,” soon after which the banner was sheepishly removed.
It looks like the SNP have done pretty well out of things. It also looks like Labour have done pretty poorly out of things. It wasn’t the trouncing many of us enjoy seeing, but the numbers look much more balanced, and will hopefully make things interesting in the coming...
I’ve been watching the debate going on over at digg.com. The basic back story? Last year, a utility was written by somebody under the pseudonym “muslix64″ which would decode HD-DVDs and back them up, if provided with the decryption keys for the disc. The utility did not provide the codes to the user, so it’s not illegal as such. “Muslix64″, however, also later revealed the encryption keys to certain HD-DVD titles. Circulation of these is illegal, because the US doesn’t believe it can make money from allowing people to back up or otherwise freely copy freely their media (roll out standard acronyms of hate here: DCMA, MPAA, RIAA, etc). Later, links to HD-DVD encryption keys were posted on digg.com; Digg subsequently received a cease & desist...
In
bbc news,
free speech,
MPAA,
hd-dvd,
AACS,
decryption,
hddvd,
Disney,
RIAA,
digg,
encryption,
digg.com,
censorship,
thoughts
When saying in my previous post that no party aside from the SNP stands out from any other, I’d clearly forgotten about the Scottish Christian Party. I’d never heard of them before (my previous addresses in the derelict regions of Lanarkshire, which have struggled to be anything but commuter towns ever since the coal mining went away, were unsurprisingly devoutly SNP, Lib Dem, and Labour strongholds). The Scottish Christian Party looks to be a whole different sort of dangerous.
I’ve taken an extract from the wikipedia page on the party:
legislation to ban abortion
increased taxation on alcohol and tobacco
initiatives to bring personal responsibility to bear upon self-inflicted disease (such as alcoholism)
Zero Tolerance on drug possession
curfews for the under 11 year...
I’ve written a couple of times on the topic of the upcoming Scottish elections on May 3rd. My choices are still not pinned down, in part because no party makes any clear point ahead of any other. The standout is SNP, if only because of their radical aims to see Scotland as an independent nation again.
I do find it interesting, however, to see one of the other parties creaking under its own weight. Labour’s landslide win at Westminster in 1997 was long overdue, and I think Tony Blair has done a pretty good job. No prime minister can ever be perfect, but I do think Tony’s done well in his fairly long term. (The Iraq war is probably his biggest slip, but interviews with him I’ve read/listened to via the New Scientist and Newsweek make it quite clear that he was/is...
Hmm. It appears that the BBC’s finally spotted the UK’s woefully poor maths teaching. I’m not so sure we need a pre-entrance exam to University as tricky as the one suggested in the news article (which I could not answer off-hand, not without a good day of revision), but it would be nice if our educational system was given a bit of a push into the 21st century.
We can totally teach our kids better. There shouldn’t be shame in doing work, there’s too much of a bleeding heart mentality here (”that’s too hard,” “that’s too much work”… etc).
I’m not suggesting that we chain kids to their desks until they’re 18, but we can teach them harder and faster than we do in the latter primary and most secondary years...
As we men get older, we merely get fatter and balder. I’ve heard this off many people.
Today, I picked up a CD as I sat at the computer. The ego-plus-shiny-surface combo satisfied, I was singing along badly to some old-time rock when I noticed two things: One, that my hairline is definitely creeping slowly backward. Two, that I’m looking decidely chubbier than I ever have before. That I recently had to invest in a new pair of trousers with a waist size I’d never before considered myself filling comfortably, this might be minor cause for concern.
I could probably do with a shave, but that’s beside the point. I suspect I may have to partake in regular exercise to allow me to continue my otherwise balanced (ie, healthy & unhealthy)......
So, today Boris Yeltsin died from heart failure, aged 76. Unsurprisingly, his passing is bringing him both praise and criticism for his career.
I’ll offer up some praise. He made mistakes. His plans were not implemented in the short term, and possibly never could have been. But for his failings, he brought an end to Communism in Russia. That’s the one huge ‘pro’ that outweighs all the ‘cons’ I......
I’m sitting in the office and, as per my usual body rhythm, nature is calling me to partake in some sitting-down toilet-based action. I make my regular mid-morning trip to the toilet. It’s a convenient, healthy, time-efficient way of taking a pre-lunch break.
The toilet nearest to my office has not been decorated in over 20 years. I flick the light switch; the solitary light above buzzes and blinks into action. The bleak fluorescent light bounces off the stark gray wallpaper, gray linoleum floor, and gray ceiling. The wallpaper has cracked at points, exposing old wallpaper designed to look like tiles. Presumably the old wallpaper was put up in the mid 60’s when these buildings were taken over by the fast-expanding University. Sheets of toilet roll lie on the floor, and...
When work seems even more pointless than normal: when a relative......
