The Perfect Storm

A few weeks back, my Twitter account was successfully phished.

Since I have an image of myself as a person who does not enter passwords willy-nilly on spurious websites, cognitive-dissonance reduction has kicked in to assure me that I couldn't have not entered my password on that fateful day. I was at the mercy of the perfect storm.

Let me introduce all the moving parts in this sequence.

About a month ago, I moved to Toronto. Since I figured I'd need to stay connected to the internet, I sniffed out the cheapest smart-phone & plan possible to get me started. My friends were playing a music festival in town, so I let them crash with me for a few days. Since the place was small, sharing beds was inevitable. Since one of my guests is a total shutterbug, there were plenty of photographs taken at inappropriate times, and threats of ruined political-careers flying about.

A few nights into their trip, we were all dispersed within a single pub, mingling with the locals. My friends and I had been using Twitter to stay in touch while we were apart, so when I got a direct message alerting me to a 'funny picture' of me making its way online, I didn't suspect its veracity. I had seen some of the incriminating photos on his phone, so I clicked on the link to see what the damage was.

The phone I've been using is a piece of junk. It's an Acatel 980S, and it's plagued with a grotesque lack of memory, so it regularly flushes the browser-cache to keep things moving. It's not unusual to be logged out of a website I was just using, so when I clicked on the link from within my TweetDeck app and was presented with the Twitter login page, it didn't set off any alarm bells. I wasn't thinking too much about what I was doing, other than pretending to still be interested in the Canuck droning on about how cool Ireland was when he visited as a nipper.

I wasn't on the real Twitter site, and I didn't realize until I had entered my username and password (probably incorrectly, since the tiny screen makes the onscreen keyboard worthless) and hit submit. The error page wasn't quite right. Something was wrong. I went looking for my friend in the pub and asked him if he has sent me a picture. He had no idea what I was talking about. I had just done something incredibly stupid.

Serves me right for being such a rude prick.

From there on, it was actually quite tricky to change my password - I couldn't find the option on the Twitter mobile site, and the regular Twitter site kept redirecting me to the mobile version. Eventually I had to Google 'Twitter password change' to be brought to the page I wanted.

Lesson learned: pay more attention to links you click on. Fundamental of internet-security proven: having different passwords for different services is essential, and in this case I was quite relieved to think that the password I volunteered to the phishers wouldn't get them in anywhere other than my fairly unimportant Twitter profile.

Oh... Canada

Note: This is a personal post. If you’re interested in reading about a white dude making post-hoc rationalisations about why he left his homeland, you might get some enjoyment out of the following.

Dear reader, I have joined the growing number of recent Irish-graduates who have emigrated fled from the homeland in search of greener pastures abroad. Eleven days ago I arrived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with no job, no friends, and no idea of where I was going to live. The days that followed were a blitz of e-mails, phonecalls, apartment viewings, and disappointments. It was quite an adventure.

So when people ask me “Why Toronto?”, that’s the short, polite answer – it’s an adventure. I’ve been asked to elaborate a few times since I arrived, but my answer varies every time, so I’m sitting down now to try and tease out the motivations. Here are the first few to come to mind:

It’s closer to the USA 

This is such a stupid reason, but I’m awfully fond of that girlfriend of mine in the States.

I’d move there if I could, but for a dude with no ‘soft’ skills like mine, I’m not an attractive prospect for employers in the US of A, who must prove that the dirty foreigners they hire are so uniquely talented that they’re not stealing jobs from the natural-borns.

Taking time off to see the missus can be awkward when it requires a transatlantic flight, so hopefully moving to the same continent will facilitate some more face-time.

It’s not Ireland

That title might be needlessly broad. Specifically, it’s not Limerick, which is where I’ve been keeping busy for the past few years. Since my work didn’t feel like it was building towards something, I decided it was time to try something else.

With the ladyfriend committed to another 2 years of school and work in the States, it doesn’t seem like there’s a point in starting some new endeavour in Ireland, when the plan is to leave eventually anyhow.

Furthermore, living in Limerick feels post-apocalyptic. People are obsessed with the diminishing supply of jobs. Permanently angry inbred-tribes maraud around in horses and traps, pilfering as they wish from the remaining businesses while the local authorities shrug their shoulders in languid indifference.

Guilt for a privileged existence 

Life was too easy. I had plenty of disposable income (which I'll choose attribute to not-drinking, and not being grossly overpaid), good friends that were consistently great company, and a stereotypical Irish mother who would browbeat me into doing my laundry and cooking for me as often as possible, despite my efforts to live independently (paradoxically, she would then complain about how I never did these things for myself).

When I had settled into a routine of family, friends and work, the only things that would stand out from my day were the frustrations. It’s my hope that by scrapping the infrastructure I had in place, I’ll be happier with my lot in life. Allow me to elaborate on that one:

To be a Self-Made Man

I’m not terribly good at making friends. Not necessarily because of my odious personality, but because of a lack of willingness. The friends I had in college were the same friends I had in secondary school. As the social circle grew through the outreach of these childhood friends, I was along for the ride, but didn’t contribute to the friend-tally.

Part of this is because I’m not terribly sentimental (which is why it tears me up admitting to a fondness for another human being), and my self-esteem isn’t based on how many people come to my birthday parties. The friends I made on my college-course amounted to a mere handful of intellectually stimulating sons-a-bitches, and they were kept separate from my other group. When I went to Pittsburgh Billy-no-mates, I made a few dear friends that I still try to see as often as possible.

Of course, in college, there’s a structure in place that lends itself to meeting people. Wiping the slate clean and trying to build a support network in a foreign city is a whole new challenge, one that should get me excited about just one stranger asking me if I want to meet up again sometime.

On this note, I should note that I already felt a spike of elation when I secured a place to live starting in November, and the few successful social interactions I’ve had so far are all the more gratifying, since it feels like the foundations of a new support-network.

All the cool kids are doing it

It’s somewhat disingenuous of me to say that I’ve left all my friends behind, since they’ve been leaving me behind in growing numbers for the past few years; relocating to various parts of the world in gainful employment, or on a world-tour of the pubs and dives of planet Earth.

If they can do it, why can’t I? And if not now, when?


That’s all the introspection I’m going to allow for now. The tone of this is rather final, considering that I’m over here on a one-year work permit, but my current hope is that - whatever my relationship with Canada over the coming years - this is the beginning of the end of me calling Ireland home.

Don’t be surprised if this blog gets a little travelogue-y as I come to grips with my new city. I might also post some advice and resources for anyone about to follow in my footsteps, so that they can avoid all the social pitfalls I'll be hurling myself into over the coming weeks and months.

Right for the Wrong Reasons

In the past year or two, I've been referring to myself as a 'skeptic' on this blog with increasing frequency. So what's that all about then?

A 'skeptic', in the sense that the online community around it intends, refers to a person who arrives at their beliefs and conclusions via the scientific method. Listen to any of the myriad podcasts, or browse the countless blogs and you'll see again and again that the skeptical community will not tell you what to think, but how to think (and not in the scary, cultish way). [Primateus advises you to be be wary of self-proclaimed skeptics]

I discovered the skeptical community in April 2008, by way of Richard Dawkins - his website linked to a interview on the Skepticality podcast discussing a creationist PR debacle. I kept listening to the show after the interview ended, and have been listening ever since, emboldened to by the knowledge that a quasi-organised community of freethinkers were sinking their teeth into much more than just endorsing a humanist agenda.

However, before I had developed a robust framework for evaluating claims, I was a bit of a jackass. Still sceptical, and sometimes right, but often for the wrong reasons.

I've always enjoyed being a pot-stirrer, and I learned early on that subjecting religion to criticism and exposing its logical fallacies is a surefire way to upset most of the population. Religion was my favorite class as a young 'un, because it was an introduction to rhetoric, and the grown-ups would get flustered when presented with questions that undermined any of its framework.

I recall not being terribly interested in rituals as a child - and I can vividly recall that I spent my confirmation mass muttering to the classmate next to me about how disgusting it was to have to pray about 'not being worthy', and other statements my narcissism couldn't reconcile. Rather than just conclude that all religion was a pile of nonsense, I spent the next few years wasting brain power by living through a different religious prism (albeit hugely watered down). I'd precociously chide my friends about 'bad karma', and catalogue their past transgressions as evidence of why the universe was being mean to them lately. Similarly, I'd attribute good fortune to acts of kindness. Even though I presented it to my friends as a thought experiment, my efforts were motivated by a desire to make them doubt their own beliefs, and not to push towards a more valuable set of humanist beliefs.

Similarly, and most shamefully, when the twin towers fell, I peddled the worst information I could get my (fifteen-year old) hands on. One example is the e-mail forwards that told users that the flight number (or plane number, in varying stories) of the vessel that first struck the Word Trade Center was Q33-NY, then implored readers to view those characters in the Wingdings font, which revealed the following:

Spooky coincidence, or proof of Microsoft's involvement? It wasn't until a schoolmate showed up to class with the same printout that I bothered to actually investigate the claim so that I could expose his blind belief as the gullibility it was. [Snopes link for the curious]

My next 9/11 related nonsense was fuelled in part by the 'documentary' Zeitgeist. Split into three acts, the first was a takedown of Christianity by highlighting its many plagiarisms from older belief systems, the second examined the possibility that the Bush Administration orchestrated the attacks, and the third went off the deep end in conspiracy nonsense about one-world governments that would only titillate those with extensive tinfoil collections.

Since I was more interested in seeing people react to uncomfortable information rather than propagating good information, I mined whatever probable 'factoids' I could from the video and similar sources and presented them to my friends, not necessarily as my beliefs, but as 'compelling' information.

So why have I shared these disparate examples of my peddling of nonsense? As much as I feel as it's repentance, I hope it will serve to illustrate that there are intelligent people out there who will be excited by information that purports to be clandestine, or contradicts the boring reality, even if it's out of sheer boredom.

If you find yourself in a conversation with someone who is defending the indefensible, take a step back. Ask them if they really believe what they're saying, because some conversations aren't worth having. A friend of mine once got quite worked up trying to refute the infinite monkey theorem. We're talking a good fifteen minutes of flushed red cheeks. Arguing against infinity. That's pretty intense. Try to keep your mental masturbation in check when you're in public.

Getting people to stop engaging in harmful practices motivated by stupid beliefs that impair the human race's progress is a Sisyphean task, but it's one that intelligent, free-thinking people can and should rally behind, particularly if they know that their one voice is part of a worldwide chorus. Those who get in your way with naive notions may be your future allies who just haven't perfected their critical thinking skills yet, so help them along. Rabid allegiance to established beliefs safeguarded by emotional arguments and illogical rhetoric is the ultimate enemy, and open, intellectually-honest debate is the goal.

Gosh, my brain lights up with implausibly utopian notions every time I consider such a thing!

How I do it - Part 2

Picking up where we left off yesterday, today I’m elucidating on what I consider the important bits of keeping my long-distance relationship alive:

#5 Technology on your side

As far as I'm concerned, communication is everything in a relationship, so getting that all important conversation in each day can be a logistical and financial burden.

Skype is essential, but it's not the only option. (If your technology aligns, FaceTime is also a great viable service). We use free webtexts and Google Voice to pepper one another's day with sweet-nothings at no price. Google Voice (available from within Gmail) has been offering free voice-calls to the States from the end of 2010 through to the beginning of 2011, effectively making it cheaper to talk to my girlfriend 6000km away than my friend in the same city.

For the past year, I’ve been using a smart phone, which has made everything even easier. Skype over 3G (or even 2G) is a great service, but having essentially free access to Google Voice and webtexting services mean that keeping in touch doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Not having to justify spending €0.35 to brighten up my lady’s day with a cute message from the road is a luxury that I might not be able to live without, and the exchange of e-mailed photos of curiosities and encounters of our days does wonders to close that gap.

#6 Some basic character traits

Patience is important for a number of reasons that should be obvious.

There's no point getting pissy if the conversation is cut short, for whatever reason. There have been times when I've been excited to share my day with the person I hold most dear, but she can't talk for longer than a second. After staying up hours past bedtime for what is essentially an exchange of pleasantries, it would be easy to dwell in the disappointment, so occasionally I will have to remind myself of the choices I've made and why to keep perspective.

I don't fret when I hear that she's been spending time with guys more attractive and accessible than me, despite the cross-examination by my friends ("she's at the cinema with another guy? You know what that guy is after, deep down"), despite my misanthropic nature (particularly towards fellow males), I have absolute trust in my girlfriend. Anything less and the relationship would surely crumble.

I will admit that I could keep my cool much better when the technology lets me down. A choppy connection with missing and distorted sound irritates me - a monomania that often rankles my ladyfriend, and decays the conversation into one about our connection trouble. When the lifeblood of my relationship is being blocked by some glutton sharing my Internet connection, it's not uncommon that I find myself suppressing the urge to rain blows upon friends and family.

#7 An unwavering commitment

Yes, this is #1 again, but it's worth repeating. I've been in relationships before with commitment and mutual affection, and I had no intention of settling down anytime soon when Kate came along, but it just seemed like it was worth a shot.

Over the four and a half years, the relationship has gone from strength-to-strength, but an uncomfortable thought has continued to lurk in the back of my thoughts - 'what if I feel so strongly about this because it's difficult?' What if the moments we share are so special because of their scarcity? And what if I'm not seeing the true relationship dynamic, as we're both holding back on our petty gripes to not spoil the limited time we have together?

It seems to me that the only way to eradicate these fears is to close the gap, so that's what I'm doing.

I'm one week into my extended stay in the US of A. The plan is to stay for as long as I can via the tourist visa-waiver program, before heading off to Canada on a one-year work permit.

If you asked me five years ago if I'd ever inconvenience myself in such a fashion for the sake of a woman, I'm pretty sure that I'd have the hubris to scoff at such an irrational course of action. The trouble is, leaving behind my friends, family, and a quarter-century worth of accumulated material-possessions for the sake of narrowing (not closing!) the gap seems like the only sensible thing to do.

Here's how I do it

I've been in a long-distance relationship for four and a half years. Some people are impressed by this, others react as if I'm admitting a severe mental instability. Regardless of how this information reflects on my psychological profile, I'm invariably asked 'how do you do it?'.

For those who wish to know, read on.

Three things I envy about religious people

Despite how much effort idiots put into tainting the word, 'Atheist' is one of the few labels I'm comfortable applying to myself. Trying to pinpoint how long I've been on the agnostic/atheist continuum is difficult, but I do recall an event when I was seventeen or so that has stayed with me.

There was a school outing to the shrine at Knock, and the itinerary called for a gruelling day of prayer and gawping at sacred trinkets. Attendance was optional. But all of my friends were going. Nobody seemed motivated by my suggestion to spend the day off doing what we wanted, rather than enduring a long day of ritual observance [more likely, my friends' parents weren't giving them a choice], and eventually I was goaded into attending. I felt like an outsider, so to avoid looking like an outsider, I bit my tongue for most of the day, only breaking my dishonest silence to a priest when I was forced into confession like the rest of the sheep.

The point is, I've been an outsider for years now, and I've gradually become more comfortable in openly not attending religious services, but there are a few things that I occasionally find myself envying about religious people. This is a quick (and unplanned) blog entry that is as respectful of religion as I feel it's appropriate to be, so if you take offense or have insight on what  I've said as a believer or non-believer, leave a comment and let me know.

#3: Meditation
Alone, in private, Christians pray for all sorts of reasons. I don't think prayer itself is particularly valuable, and intercessory prayer has been proven in clinical trials to not have any effect in the healing of the sick (I'm trying not to launch into a tangent on the absurdity of billions actively trying to alter God's infallible plan). That said, the act of prayer is a form of meditation, where people take time out from their day to organise their thoughts and focus on the needs of others, or their own hopes and dreams. While believers may be parsing their urgent needs in the form of an appeal only heard by themselves, I would consider this a more fruitful labour than merely distracting oneself from troubling situations by engaging in brainless activities.

Taking moments to collect one's thoughts seems to me a great way to 'defrag' the brain, and my abstaining from this activity is consoled by the fact that sometimes prayer does lead to dangerous levels of inaction, and if you pay attention to yourself, you can keep your thoughts in check without having to invoke the supernatural.

While I'm on the subject, I might as well confess that I miss being 'able' to pray to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost articles, who would be petitioned by my family every couple of minutes when I was a boy. Regardless of his spotty success rate, I can still remember how comforting it was in the moments after soliciting the assistance of an all-seeing entity whose sole responsibility was to help me find my Ghostbusters proton-pack.

#2: Immunity from offense
Yes, I'm mostly taking the piss, but consider for a moment how much privilege is afforded to religion in society. Even after thousands of years of effrontery against science and reason, countless real innocents murdered in the name of expunging imaginary spirits, and countless bad PR days resulting from angry muslims and pedophile priests, gently tutting at the peculiarities of religion is terribly bad manners.

I try to muster as much self-righteous indignation as possible when somebody is trying to peddle misinformation about the world, but my protests don't hold as much weight as the poor victimized Christian, who may defend his religion by dismissing dissenters as ignorant pricks.

This is immense power. Don't want to come up with solid logic for vilifying abortion? Hide behind religion. Someone doesn't agree with your assertion that your wife is your property? Invoke religion and call them a vulgar scoundrel. This bleeds over into political rhetoric, bringing the conversation to a halt before any ground is broken. Equal rights for gays? How dare you betray the inerrant word of the Bible!


Being able to effectively shut-down discourse whenever the cognitive-dissonance gets too taxing is naturally a bad thing, but I envy the power. As an experiment, I once tried to take offense to the phrase 'my brother from another mother', as I have a brother who was born of another mother, but this did not wield the same conversation killing power as religious ire.


#1: Community
This is the big one. The human species owes a great deal to reciprocal altruism, and while I don't entertain the notion that altruistic acts exist because of divine instruction, I do think that in the modern day, having a focal point to build communities around is great for expanding and enriching social circles. My girlfriend attends a [presbyterian] church for community purposes, and on the few times I've attended services, I've heard people asking for 'prayers' for loved ones who are sick or jobless. Worthless though the prayers may be, these people are able to put up a distress beacon for emotional support or job-networking that may well lead to genuine benefits.

The multitudes of ways this can misfire are obvious: in-groups can be hostile towards out-groups, particularly when religious fervour is involved, assuring the aggressor of his divinely-granted inerrancy. Think Christian versus Muslim, Shias versus Sunnis, Protestant versus Catholic, creationists versus sensible people, and you'll get the picture. These conflicts may not necessarily stem from religious affiliation, but it's a convenient way of 'othering' fellow human beings.

~~~

What I've discussed here isn't really the most important stuff, it's just what came to mind to me recently as a result of contemplating my future. I've a few notes scrawled down that I might explore at a later date but in the meantime, leave me a comment and weigh in yourself.

The Best Bits of my last Week or so

Busy few weeks! Little time to blog, but here are a few bits and pieces that I found along the way.

Within days of endorsing some sceptical podcasts, I find a toilet that empties into a sceptic tank:

"I'm sceptical that this is natural waste, so I'm going to back up into the sinks now"

While out in Limerick City (for the first time in a long time) I found something oddly reminiscent of the religious graffiti I tracked for a few months years over the country a few years ago. Has the intrepid vandal moved onto a new uplifting message with less? Forensic analysis to follow at a later date:

Accidentally cut off a bit - it reads: "Hope - The unconscious mind works it out - Sleep on it"

Limerick Band Fox Jaw Bounty Hunters released a fantastic new album last week, and I finally got to listen to it uninterrupted. Well worth a purchase, if you're into solid rock with a menacing vibe [Amazon Link].

Here's the latest single, Hatch Sixteen, which I've yet to decide is a paean or condemnation of Limerick City.

5 Podcasts to make you a better person*

I listen to a lot of podcasts - I often use them to ease the monotony of whatever errands I may be attending to, or to distract me away from the fact that my circle of real-life friends is rapidly dwindling and I'm not doing a good job replenishing the ranks.

In years to come, psychologists will point to listening-habits like mine as a trait indicating mental illness, as my obsessive need to stave off tedium leaves me deprived of any time for introspection, genuine human interaction, or the will to make new friends, since the people in my head are smarter than most people I'd meet in my daily life anyhow.

Today, dear reader, I've decided to share this burden with you, in internet-friendly list form! I'm going to give you five podcasts that I consider essential listening to see if I can't rob you of your thought-organising time too.

What to expect when you're expectorating

Warning! This blog entry features talk of bodily functions. Ye be warned.

"Leanaí cúthail agus milseáin"

Last week, I shared a story about getting a pizza with erroneous cooking instructions and the ensuing consequences.

When my compensatory pizza carried the same typographical error on the packaging, it seems that I forgot everything that I had learnt from my first experience, leading to another ruined evening.

I immediately whinged to customer care. The gist of my e-mail was as follows:

Dear Professor Oetker,

My pizza told me to cook it at ninety degrees. My oven only goes as low as 110. Undeterred, I set the oven to where 90 degrees looked to be and left the pizza for 25 minutes.

I'm not even sure if the oven turned on, but either way, the pizza was ruined, and my girlfriend was so pissed at me that she wouldn't put out.

Understandably, this has ruined my life, and I demand compensation for my lack of intelligence.

Kind regards, 

Sully

Things didn't quite go the same as last time. There was no immediate reply. Four business days was all it took for the hoard of vouchers to arrive last time, and that time had already passed. I had given up hope until the fifth day, when the good Doctor had returned my letter.

It was pretty standard fare, but the gist of it was:

Dear Sully, 

Thank you for your vaguely plausible story about a simple packaging error causing your entire life to crumble around you and forcing you into celibacy. Please accept this voucher for free pizza as a reward for successfully typing our e-mail address into the To field of your bullshit e-mail.

We hope it will be the first step towards you turning your life around, a life that surely revolves around eating junk-food and finding things to complain about. 

Your specious complaint will be kept on file, and any further specious complaints will be checked against your name and address to dissuade you from bullshitting us again.

Wishing you'd get off the couch and go fuck yourself,

Alphonus P. Oetker, PHD. 

My experiences of dealing with customer service has reminded me of that old Irish saying: "The shy baby gets no sweets, but the aggravating son of a bitch gets free pizza". (It loses something in the translation).

I'm four pizzas up from two e-mails (only one of which I sent myself). Do any readers have any experiences of whinging at customer service over minor infractions in the hopes of scoring free stuff?

"What're you waitin' for, Christmas?"

During my childhood, my lack of athletic prowess wasn't as debilitating as it was to the other kids' social lives. When my feet touched a football during lunchbreak, it generally resulted in disaster. Countless break-times were lost to searching in ditches for elusive balls, or spent apologizing to the girl on the adjoining basketball court who took the brunt of my toepeg to the face.

These things mattered little, for I had a secret weapon. For you see, dear reader, I had Duke Nukem 3D, a game that stood out from the crowd by offering a protagonist was a pastiche of swear-happy action stars, spitting out countless hilarious (and context-sensitive!) one-liners as the bloodbath ensued on screen.

Classmates would call over to the house, demanding to see in person this wondrous game featuring scenes of ultra-violence, swearing, and nudity. I'd fire up Episode 1, Level 2, turn on the weapon cheats, and walk them through a well-rehearsed romp through the 'Red Light District', blowing up the enemies to prompt Duke's taunt of "Blow it out yer ass!", showing off the amount of in-game objects that could be fiddled with (flush toilets! flick light switches! play snooker!), and of course, spending plenty of time in the strip-club using up Duke's endless supply of scrunched up hundred-dollar bills.

It probably sounds a lot lewder than it was - the tone of the game was goofy - the graphics were cartoony, the violence was comically exaggerated, and the fidelity of the nudity would only titillate the type of person aroused by wood-grain patterns. The 'adult content' was the hook, but I played and replayed this game because it's a phenomenal one. When I revisited the game two years ago, it passed the test of time - a feat few other games and movies from my childhood have managed.

The wait for the sequel has been painful - for over 12 years a trickle of magazine articles and screenshots have kept me updated on the game I've waited half a lifetime for, and finally, the end of the wait is in sight.

When I consider the game from a rational point of view, I know that nothing could be worth that long of a wait, but emotionally, I'm preposterously excited to play this game. The trailer came out a week ago, and I've watched it at least a dozen times - this is the same obsessive behaviour I engaged in back in the day with promotional VHS cassettes that came with gaming magazines. Looking at the trailer critically, I don't find it entirely compelling, but then I feel those old irrational feelings of excitement stirring up:



Hail to the king, baby.

How many men does it take to get a free pizza?

Last week, I got a Chicago Town BBQ Meat Madness Pizza. [This is going somewhere - my blog hasn't quite stooped to that level yet..]

I noticed that there was a problem with the cooking instructions on the packaging, so I showed it to my housemate - let's call him Mega.

Fans of Celsius will notice that the listed temperature is about 100 degrees less than it ought to be 

Mega was aghast. "That's despicable, unfathomable, improbable, outrageous! You have to complain."

Not really bothered, I told him he could do it on my behalf, and thought nothing of it.

He had sent the e-mail alright, but his sense of outrage and self-entitlement was clearly not evident. He opened by describing himself as a "huge fan", mentioned that "the pizza was great", and concluded by saying that he "just wanted to highlight this error to prevent a mix up and ensure everyone can enjoy this high quality product".

The response came through first thing the next morning, and would certainly be disappointing for anybody hoping for a truckload of compensatory pizzas to show up outside the house:

Hello,

Thank you for highlighting the error with the cooking instructions, feedback and comments are always appreciated, we are aware of this error and it has now been corrected by our printers.

Thank you for sending the packaging details so we are able to track this error.

[In case you're wondering, I didn't censor Mega's name there - the customer service rep didn't even bother to copy/paste his name into the boilerplate message]

Crestfallen, Mega expressed his disappointment to his work colleague, who tutted at his lack of savvy, and lectured him on the rules of engagement with companies, repeating the mantra "the shy baby gets no sweets".

The promulgator of peculiar idioms sat down in front of Mega's computer, and fired off a quick e-mail under Mega's identity:

Thank you very much for your swift reply. However this error was found too late. Unfortunatly, being unaware of this issue. We cooked the pizza at 90 degrees and were very ill afterwards. Please let me know what you plan on doing to rectify this situation?

Continuity be damned! He didn't care that Mega had earlier said that the pizza that made him "very ill" was "great" - he wanted to see what kind of stuff was there for the taking!

That e-mail was sent on Friday afternoon, but no reply came. The spectacular response time only seemed to apply to customers who where spinally-challenged. No word came on Monday or Tuesday, but then, on Wednesday, a letter arrived at our house from the Chicago Town Pizza overlords:

The letter said many things, mostly assuring Mega that he couldn't have gotten sick from eating a badly cooked pizza:

All our pizzas are produced from high quality microbial tested raw materials. In addition this this, all products produced within the factory are tested on a daily basis. This testing is carried out and recorded for both pathogenic, i.e. food poisoning bacteria, and nonpathogenic bacteria and all of the test results were fine […] even if the product was undercooked there would be no reason that this would cause sickness. [...] Illness caused from eating unwholesome food can take varying times to occur, up to a period of 72 hours after eating the product, this does make it difficult to identify the cause.

The letter was clearly from a template to deal with the loons and goons who claimed to have been poisoned by Dr Oetker products, but it did include one voucher for a free Chicago Town pizza (worth €4.50!) and two Ristorante pizzas (worth €2.00!).

Look! The voucher even includes life advice! [Underline added]

€9.50 worth of free pizza? Well worth being a total sphincter in an e-mail, if you ask me.

It just goes to show me that if you want anything in life, you have to bitch and moan and be an insufferable asshole until somebody decides they can't take it anymore and does whatever it takes to get you to shut the fuck up. Or, as the old saying goes: "The shy baby gets no sweets".

It's all about packaging...

My girlfriend does not abide juvenile humour.

As part of her project to break me down and rebuild me as a decent human being, she goes out of her way to admonish scatological jokes with scoffs and eye-rolls devoid of any kind-hearted irony.

Well, dear reader, it seems that I've found a loophole. My girlfriend enjoys Irish culture, and keeps a death-grip on every hiberno meme I bring to her attention. Her retention is quite phenomenal - sometimes she'll impress me by stringing together various Irish words and verbs into an almost coherent sentence ["Dún an madra, Taoiseach!"] - sometimes she'll triumphantly scream "WELCOME!" and point at the doormat adorned with the word "Fáilte" outside my grandmother's house, clapping her hands together in glee until I praise her for being such a clever girl.

The day after Thanksgiving, we were in a crowded mall in Wisconsin, and as a treat for my good behaviour, she let me go to Gamestop for a quick look at games that I had no interest in buying.

One of the more prominently displayed Wii games was on display:

I noticed her hesitate in front of the promotional artwork - she was intrigued. As she pored over the somewhat dark artwork, pondering what it meant, I leant in to disrupt her mental process.

"Hey Kate, y'know what that game's title means where I'm from?"

She fixated on the title, cogs turning furiously in her brain, trying to recall what I was getting at. Once I spotted the glimmer of recognition, I leant into her ear to affirm her inkling.

"MASSIVE PENIS!"

The resulting release wasn't really a laugh - it sounded more like braying - she was clearly finding mirth in something that would make an Irish schoolchild chuckle.

When I pointed this out to her, I got a stony faced reprimand to "Grow up", but it mattered not. The lesson had been learned - if I parse unsophisticated humour in this idiosyncratic fashion, I will hit paydirt.

Operation dick joke is a go.

Socializing with Sully: Moistening those dry-balls [Part 2]

In my last post, I modestly put forward that most young people in Ireland engage in an activity that is selfish and dull, and suggested that without intoxication, standing around in a loud room not talking to  your friends isn't a particularly good time.

I'm not quite sure how to start a post following up on such assertions, especially when I've never partaken in these activities myself. As a teetotaller, I feel some trepidation in dumping on the preferred Irish pastime, but I'm hoping that rather than a mere dismissal that I'm 'missing the point', someone will elucidate why I'm missing the point. Anyhow, on with the show.

I lived in Pittsburgh for a glorious, eye-opening year. My friends and I were under the legal drinking age (21 years of age still seems nutty), but that didn't stop them from consuming alcohol - it just meant that it typically wasn't in public.

"This penis-straw may be zany, but I assure you, I'm dreadfully boring"

Most evenings involving alcohol were spent hanging out in the nicest apartment available, swapping stories, playing board games, or maybe having a game of charades. On a few occasions, the cash-strapped lot of us would go out to dinner. Talking about it now is reminding me of the reaction I had at the time after years of Irish programming: "That all sounds so lame".

It probably is lame, but I had never played charades before, and my experience of board games to date lead me to believe that they were merely a tool to lubricate interactions between distant-cousins at family-holidays while the parents drank themselves silly. How wrong I was.

Anyone waiting with bated breath (hah!) for this post to see what the 'silver bullet' to a more 'worthy' night of socializing is entitled to scoff at the suggestion, but there's more to it than "board games are a laugh" - I experienced a different approach to the consumption of alcohol: it was a complement to the evening's proceedings, and not the focus of the entire endeavour.

When you're playing board games, you generally have no choice but to talk to people - whether shouting frenzied guesses or going off topic with personal interjections, it's all 'quality time', particularly since the most exciting or embarrassing moments get brought up (in somewhat embellished form) at a future get-together. It's certainly a superior method to building a rapport with someone than getting drunk next to them.

As the token Irish member of the group, it stands to reason that yanks would be more interested in what I had to say than my fellow paddies, particularly when myriad cultural differences mean you'll never need to endure a pause in conversation ["In my country, we call what you call 'sweaters', 'jumpers'"], so maybe the difficulties I've had with enjoying the Irish way of fun are just a reflection of my lack of anything interesting to say to somebody from a similar background.

Don't think that I've mistaken the part for the whole - I've been invited to 'game nights' at various households in the States, often with people I've just met, and by the end of the night I'm joking and laughing with them as if I was what their group of friends was missing all along and they didn't realize it. Genuinely fun evenings like this drive home the point that if you're looking to loosen tongues, alcohol pales in comparison to the might of forced-human interaction.

Some general Facebook begrudgery

I begrudge Facebook for all the usual reasons that people waaah about it - "privacy waaah", "annoying apps waaah", but I have a few pet peeves that I've heard few others voicing, so I'm going to get them off my chest.

Irrelevant ads

Without having to consult any of the information I've given it, Facebook has a rough idea of where I am in the world, and what browser I'm using.

I use Google Chrome almost exclusively, and yet, for about a month, I got ads imploring me to try Google Chrome - while I was using that very browser! What a waste of a perfectly good slot that could have gone towards selling me irrelevant training-courses I have zero interest in.

That's not too bad, but I've also been enticed to try out the HTC Desire, which is exclusive to US Cellular in the US, seemingly - problems with this are that I don't live in the US (even if I do spend a lot of time there), and I already have the HTC Desire! I've posted on Facebook from my HTC Desire. Facebook knows this already. But it doesn't give a toss, it'll count my impressions anyhow when advertisers are checking their stats.

It bugs the hell out of me - it's like a waiter hovering over you insisting you try the fish when you've already got a mouthful of mackerel. [Also, in this analogy, the waiter reads your diary every day to sell you food more efficiently.]

Despite having access to the same geo-location software that lets IGN.com (for example) highlight Irish-relevant content, as well as a whole crazy stack of personal information both proffered and acquired through observation, the advertising on Facebook is worthless. As a person who is interested in the whole online-marketing game, this is a pity, but it's hardly the kind of thing that ought to put me off the service as a whole, so let's move on.

Coerced Evangelism


What does bug me is Facebook's 'Friend Finder' service, or rather, how I'm accosted every time I log in to Facebook to find more friends. My work e-mail is pounded every day from people I've e-mailed once or twice announcing that they've signed up for Facebook, and I should too, and it's because of this wretched service.

I haven't used it, but it's my understanding that it uses your e-mail credentials to scan your contacts, informs you of the ones that are already on Facebook, and pesters the ones who aren't (such as my work e-mail).

The last thing I need are more friends on Facebook. Horrible, needy things, friends. Crying out for advice, venting about bad days, and generally getting all histrionic in my news feed.

Speaking of generally misleading users...


There was a recent tizzy over the recent breaching of Gawker's user accounts, so when Facebook displayed a message advising me that my account wasn't as secure as it ought to be, I was interested. Here's what it looked like as I went down the rabbit hole:

Oh dear, it seems that my account protection could be a little better.

Okay, my e-mail addresses are accounted for, what else can I do?

Add my phone details so that they can use that as an extra layer of verification security, like Google does to verify business listings (among other things)? Sounds great, only they call it 'Facebook Mobile' for some reason. Oh well, better sign up for it - my every security is at stake.

Hang on a tick! Facebook mobile is only available to Meteor customers. Damn you Facebook! Almost fooled me into signing up for something again, but lucky for me I can't even complete the process you've duped me into since I'm on Vodafone.

A group of 10 or so of my friends are currently organizing our plans for New Year's Eve. We're using a big e-mail thread. It's quite elegant, there's no privacy concerns about somebody intruding on the conversation, and the conversation is fairly focused, 24 emails later. Not only that, but the ads Gmail displays are somewhat pertinent!

Now that I think about it, most of us aren't even friends on Facebook. 

I was excited about Facebook when it was a sandbox for US college students to display hilarious pictures of me drinking from various penis-shaped straws. Now it's a social obligation that I propagate because of my crowd-following proclivities. Even after painstaking efforts to set up privacy filters to funnel innocence-shattering content away from my younger and older relatives, there's little I wish to share on Facebook. [I can't wait until everybody moves to the next big thing and we enjoy a few months in 'the sweet spot' before it gets too popular and becomes a pain again.]

So to summarize: Facebook is an online service that has been tainted by its cynical and often misleading attempts to boost its userbase (not to mention its users' level of engagement with the platform), which continues to chagrin me with each iteration, unlike another online service I use every day, but that's a blog entry for another day.

The Yankification of Sully

As far back as I can recall, my sense of fashion has been outsourced to whatever woman is willing to take the job. Throughout my schooling, the process of acquiring new clothes involved opening the wardrobe and seeing what duds my mother had placed within.

When I moved out of home and started college, I suffered through a turbulent few months of fashion faux-pas as my loose-fitting fleece tops gave the impression that I was a middle-aged insurance salesman trying to hang out with college kids. I limped along until I moved to Belgium, where I acquired a girlfriend who set about making me fit in with my sexy European counterparts.

When I moved to Pittsburgh, I sufferred through a turbulent few months of fashion faux-pas as my tight-fitting European threads gave the impression that I was a hip, young homosexual. I acquired a girlfriend who set about making me fit in with my tubby Yankee doodle counterparts.

When I look back on pictures from these different eras, it seems to me that it's not just the clothes, the environments, and the attractiveness of those around me that change, but also my very essence. The fat, greedy, stupid Irish boy grows into a worldly, svelte European who wishes to share with his fellow man. That European then grows into a fat, stupid wannabe-yank man.

Think I'm being harsh? See for yourself:

Not to worry, despite my increasing grotesqueness, my narcissism is still powerful enough to create gifs of my evolving visage (not to mention the .jpg alternative for those not able to view the gif).

Genital arrangement & swearing: My TSA Abuse Story

The TSA agent stepped into my personal space, pushing his face against mine as I tried to undo my belt buckle, his seething voice raising into a roar:

"You're Irish, but you speak German? WHAT THE FUCK? EXPLAIN YOURSELF"

At 6"8 he towered above me, his red veiny face pulsating with rage as he looked down on me. 

"Get into the fucking scanner"

I gingerly took a few steps forward and --- y'know what, dear reader? I'm too close to this story, and I'm sick of reading blogs where the author's emotional bias creeps into the facts, so I'm going to defer to an omniscient narrator for this post and start over.

-------------------

Sully had always fancied himself as an excellent traveller. A terrible cook, a mediocre boyfriend, but an excellent traveller. A seasoned veteran of airports, delays, reschedules and lost baggage, he made a point of maintaining a cheerful disposition in the face of any adversity, because that's what excellent travellers do. He offerred chirpy pleasantries and generously broad smiles to all airport personnel, and was always quick on the draw with the passport stashed in his back-right pocket, or the boarding pass in his back-left.

Even when his spirits were low, as they were on this day, the ritual of navigating his way through an airport towards the plane was an exciting adventure, mostly because he got to condescend to all the bad travellers who weren't as capable as he was. He tutted under his breath at those who set off metal detectors with obviously metallic apparel, mentally chastised those who made a fuss of themselves for no good reason, and generally felt superior to those who found the rigors of security theatre stressful.

Being the good traveller that he was, Sully was four hours early for his afternoon flight out of O'Hare airport. After checking in his luggage, he was left with only three hours and fifty-four minutes to locate his gate, so he set off towards the security checkpoint to start on this endeavour.

The queuing lane up to passport control was long, but empty, causing the TSA operative manning the station some mirth as she watched Sully shuffle left-to-right through the ropes, doing a great deal of walking but only barely inching towards her, all the while peering at her self-consciously out of her peripheral vision. She was a middle-aged blonde who spoke with a drawl that Sully thought didn't belong in Chicago, and slumped in her chair in a fashion that reflected the sleepy atmosphere of the entire airport that morning.

As she glanced at Sully's passport, he looked ahead. There was a TSA agent about the same age and build as him strutting around, looking about to see if he could do anything. Despite the low traffic at the security checkpoint, the only open lane to go through the metal detector was backed up beyond the conveyor belt, and didn't seem to be moving at all. Just to the right, there was a longer queue of airport personnel who were going through the full-body scanners at a much quicker rate.

As he had yet to have any first-hand experience of the backscatter Xrays, Sully was disappointed to note the sign saying "Employees only" in front of it. The passport-controller must have been reading his mind, or his face:

"Okay, you're good to go. You can step to the right through the body-scanners if you want - it's an employee lane, but you'll be fine."

Sully offerred his thanks, but was cut off by the strutting, younger TSA agent who approached the desk, and slowly enunciated:

"Das ist sehr langweilig."

The passport-agent furrowed her brow at him.

"What?"

Her confusion was tangible. He bopped on the spot, thoroughly enjoying himself

"Oh yeah. Sie sprechen kein Deutsch"

The words hung in the air for a moment, then she turned towards Sully with a quizzical look.

Forgetting where he was, Sully volunteered his assistance.

"He said he's bored. In German. And he's teasing you for not speaking it".

After seeing how his face had dropped, she broke out into laughter, as did the passengers around Sully.

He had stopped bopping on the spot.

"That's true, this is boring, but I didn't want the passengers to hear it!"

He chewed on his words and glared at Sully, but then let out a hearty chuckle to show that there were no hard feelings, then bopped back over towards the full body scanner.

Sully felt a little ashamed as he made his way towards the scanner. Had he got so caught up in American gregariousness that he had overstepped its bounds? His hometown was a place where people wouldn't approach one another to ask the time, let alone discomfit a stranger tasked with keeping people safe.

As he emptied his pockets into the plastic tray, he paused at his passport. Once, when flying out of Pittsburgh, a TSA agent chastised him for carrying it through the metal detector. A month later, at the same checkpoint, a TSA agent asked him for his passport as he stepped through the metal-detector. To avoid doing the wrong thing, he held up his passport at the German-speaking agent and asked if he should put it in the machine.

The response was theatrical: "You're from Ireland, but you speak German?" He stepped in close and lowered his voice so no one else would hear. "What the fuck, man!"

The two strangers chuckled, and Sully was told to keep it with him at all times.

"So what part are you from?"

"Limerick," - Sully held off for any signs of recognition "the south-west."

"No way! I'm from Tipperary" he said, struggling to render the county's name with his American mouth. Possibly reading Sully's reaction, a big smile of knowing self-parody spread across his face.

"Well, kind of. You know what I mean!"

It was Sully's turn to use the scanner, the next TSA agent in the chain beckoned and cut short the chat.

Sully's new friend patted on the arm and wished him well: "Have a good one, man". It occurred to him that he meant it.

Sully assumed the position inside the scanner. Legs spread, arms overheard, it was a freeze-frame of a jumping jack, Sully thought, or at least, that's what his years-old memory of a jumping-jack told him. Sully straightened his back, sucked in his gut, and shook his genitals into a more presentable arrangement out of sympathy for the imagined agent whose morning coffee had surely been ruined by the wretched samples of humankind being delivered to his monitor.

The operator implored Sully to hold still. The machine made a slight whirring sound. Sully was conscious of his trembling hands so he held his breath. The whirring stopped and Sully was ushered out.

He stepped forward where a male and female TSA agent were blocking access to the collection end of the conveyor belt.

"Stand over there, keep an eye on your stuff" the male TSA agent said.

Sully walked into the V-shape that the filtering-ropes were arranged into, and placed his feet over the yellow outlines on the rubber mat, turning his back on the TSA agents. He braced himself for some feeling up. Thoughts raced through his head. What in or on my body could be mistaken for a weapon? Had my new friend set me up? How long does a full-cavity search take? I only have three hours and forty minutes to make this flight.

Thirty seconds later, Sully's train of thought was disrupted by the female TSA agent.

"Uh, sir, would you like to step through and collect your stuff?"

She had removed the barrier. Of course! The delay was just the xrays being processed, Sully realized.

Sully gathered his bits and went about his day, pleased with how breezy getting through security had been, and he made a note to blog about the TSA in a positive fashion to offset the torrents of abuse they receive online.

Little did Sully realize that nobody gives a shit about his blog.

Feeding the hungry for Jesus

Another great aspect of having a girlfriend is being able to plug into her social network, and one of the benefits of having a wider pool of people to interface with is that you may find yourself doing something you wouldn't engage in ordinarily.

A recent example of this was during a trip to Wisconsin, when Kate and I were offerred the chance to join her sister and brother-in-law in volunteering at their church-run soup kitchen. I should clarify - Kate was offerred the chance, and she volunteered my services. If I seem somewhat hesitant, I should make clear that the opportunity to do something selfless isn't one I'd agonize over, but this was a church-event, meaning I'd be helping the unfortunate in Jesus's name - as a rule, I don't donate money to charitable causes with a religious agenda, but I decided to make an exception in donating my afternoon to be a good Christian.

So after kitting myself out with a pretty sweet hat (mandatory) and a sweet fake name tag (also mandatory), I was ready for action. What kind of action? Well, to prepare for the onslaught of hungry homeless folk, I had to assist by wiping down tables and chairs with bleach-water, lugging large containers of gloppy foodstuffs around, folding cutlery and napkins together, and generally doing my best to make baby Jesus proud.

Sully is no more! Meet Gus, homeless-helper extraordinaire 

Once the preparations were done, it was time for the volunteers to get their breakfast. On the menu was stuffed pepper, pickled cucumber, day old bread, day old donuts, coffee, and fresh-baked cookies provided by Kate's sister. Before we could tackle the generous spread, it was time to say grace before meals. Damn Christians and their delayed gratification! The orator gave shout-outs to the bakeries and restaurants that donated the grub, presumably so God would know who to reward.

There were about a dozen volunteers, ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-eighties, and as I was the youngest, most able-bodied of the group, I got lumbered with the most arduous task. I was the dishwasher, cleaning every implement, every tray, and every piece of cooking apparatus with a high-powered hose that melted through more than a couple of my plastic aprons.

Through the spray of steam and food particulate I'd throw covetous looks towards my fellow volunteers. Thomas and his task of 'Greeting'. Oh look at me, I'm a World War II veteran. Then I'd glare at Kate as she cheerfully carried out her duty of 'Corn Ladling', my envious grimace turning into an appropriately cheery smile to reflect hers when she caught my glance.

With the exception of the bread, it tasted a lot better than it looked

When I found out that I'd be cooped up in the kitchen, I wondered if I'd find it satisfying toiling for the less-fortunate without getting to directly witness their enjoyment on the frontline. It was a foolish notion - I was immediately invested in the work I was doing, and I can safely reflect on it as the most earnest two hours of physical labour I've ever engaged in. My back was hurting, and I was getting splashed with food and scalding hot water, but I wanted to be the most efficient damn dishwasher that kitchen had ever seen. During moments when  I had cleared my station and had to wait on more ware to arrive, I'd start addressing things outside of my jurisdiction (including cleaning some obviously-neglected pieces of apparatus).

The way the room was set up meant that those coming to avail of the food were filing past the open kitchen door, and many of them took it upon themselves to shout in "God bless you". After shrugging off the first few seemed a little ignorant, I took to shouting back "same to yourself."

It was a great experience, one that I'd happily repeat, but like I said, my quixotic notions about 'good' charity cause some dissonance (i.e: My moral compass takes issue with reaching out to the less fortunate so you can bolster the ranks of subscribers to your supernatural ideologies). I was able to rationalize the sweat exerted in Jesus's name as a purely selfish act arising out of biological imperatives. How so? Well, my girlfriend wanted me to help the homeless, and complying with her requests will assist in the fulfillment of my carnal urges to copulate with her, so really, I'm doing this to satisfy my evolutionary impulses, so at the end of the day, Darwin wins.

The Silver Lining

It doesn’t happen too often, but every now and again, I do something remarkable. The kinds of things that would be routine for over-achievers are novel for occasional-achievers like me, so I try to enjoy the satisfaction for as long as I can.

One of the fastest ways to spoil my enjoyment of an accomplishment is to get my mother to weigh in on it. Try it sometime. Next time you’re in the same room as my mother and me, ask me about something cool I’ve done and see what happens.

In every example from recent memory, the conversation goes something like this.

Well wisher: “I hear you graduated with a first class honours degree, how did you manage that?”

Sully: “Well...”

Mother: “I was down on bended knee!”

Well wisher: “Eh?”

Mother: “I was praying for him the whole time. His exams started at eleven, so I’d start praying at five to-”

Sully: “My exams started at 9am this year-“

Mother: “And I wouldn’t stop praying until I knew he was finished”

Sully: “Well, actually, there was a lot of project work in addition to--“

Mother:  “Our Lady of the Wayside, she hasn’t let you down yet”

Well wisher: “Our Lady of the Wayside? What’s that?”

Mother: “It’s a prayer for students and young people. It’s done wonders for all my lads--”

Sully: “But, younger Sully failed out of college.”

Mother: “Shush – that was the best thing that could have happened to him.”

Sully: “He also failed his driving test three times.”

Mother: “And he never gave up! Our Lady of the Wayside! It’s wonderful!”

Yes, my mother believes in intercessory prayer, and petitions me ceaselessly to integrate the pointless exercise – actively trying to distract me away from preparing for whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish.

At the last family gathering, one of the observers of this ritual was a priest. After pithily remarking that her favoured prayer “must be a traveller’s prayer”, he nodded sympathetically when I bemoaned her lack of recognition for all the hard work and preparation that brought about the spoils of victory.

Priests will admit what my mother won’t. Prayer doesn’t get work done. Work gets work done. If you pray for something (like my younger brother passing his exams and staying in college) and don’t get your way, you shouldn’t be able to rationalize it by saying that the actual outcome was better anyhow. If your prayers won’t change the outcome, why continue to waste your time? The system lacks a consistent inner-logic.

Last week, I interviewed for a (pretty cool) job. I poured countless hours of effort into preparing, and my mother insisted on ‘chipping in’ herself. She told everybody who’d listen about her efforts on my behalf, and how she “had a feeling” that I was going to get it. I didn’t get the job, but the disappointment was immediately allayed by the recognition that Our Lady of the Wayside had let me down. A-ha!

Of course, this was one of those rare instances where it sucks to be right.

At times, I wish I could live in her fantasy-world. My mother thinks that she has beaten the system. She has discovered a prayer that will make your wildest-dreams come true, and if they don’t, you didn’t really want them to come true anyhow.

No amount of reasonable prompts and suggestions will cause her to reflect critically on her little racket with the man upstairs, but I keep prodding, mostly because she makes for a fascinating case study.

A Pavlovian Response

While the efficacy to date has been questionable, my girlfriend's ongoing attempts to cultivate me into a fully-functional, socially-fluent human being show little signs of fatigue.

Over the past four years, we have logged a considerable amount of time watching films together, and yet, I'm still not sure what to do during those moments when her face crunches up and her eyes emit a salty discharge.

Derisive comments, for example, don't really work. We were watching Marley and Me at the cinema. The dog is the emotional vehicle in the film. The dog gets sick. It's sad. Then, (SPOILERS!) the dog dies. The characters on screen cry, and so do the estrogen-fuelled audience members. To make her feel better, I leaned into her ear and whispered "Well, there's a surprise!". To show that she appreciated my attempt to make her feel better, she punched my arm.

Now, if you're thinking "Sully my boy, you shouldn't be so confrontational", I'd say you're onto something. At least I would, had I not tried a gentler approach some months previous. We were watching I Am Legend at the cinema. It's a crap movie with crap CGI and a crap premise. Will Smith is craply moping around some strikingly empty metropolitan areas with his dog. The dog is his only friend, and the only semblance of his past life, before he lost (SPOILERS!) his wife and daughter. The dog becomes a zombie-dog and attacks the Fresh Prince, but doesn't survive the encounter. Will Smith has killed his only friend and reminder of a normal life, and is sad. He weeps in a manly fashion. I'm so busy scoffing that I don't realize my hot date is blubbering until a big ol' teardrop hits my hand. Thinking fast, I decide that drawing attention to a ludicrous emotional reaction to a terrible film is the best approach. I lean into her and ask her "What the hell are you doing?" She thumps me.

My problem isn't that I'm emotionally crippled, it's that I can't suspend my disbelief. Moments likely to cause her to choke up and remark "that's so sad" will make me think "that's an interesting technique to evoke emotion". More often than not, the techniques are hackneyed and convey little power, but my girlfriend, so filled is she with the milk o' human kindness will have a cry at them anyway.

I could keep you all day with examples of my emotional-callousness being rewarded with indolent bursts of violence, but not, dear reader, forever. I managed to break the cycle, and I owe it in part to Pixar.

We were watching Up (a quality film, by anyone's metric) on a tiny TV with fuzzy sound in her living room. Despite the technical limitations of the screening, it was a slice of heaven to be with her on the couch, watching a film we had put off watching until the other was around with our bodies arranged into that just-right comfort you don't want to disturb lest you can't recreate it.

During the opening montage in which we observe a young boy and girl become friends, fall in love, grow old together, and eventually part ways due to pesky mortality, it occurred to me that this family-friendly cartoon had put together a segment more engaging and profound than any film in recent memory. We both watched, rapt, and as it drew into the inevitable silent climax, my mind was processing what I had seen - the music, the lighting, the animation - was the flexibility of the medium a major advantage in this segment? My mind was buzzing with excitement. I looked down at her, as she clung onto my arm, and saw that she was, unsurprisingly, in bits.

She looked up to meet my gaze, bewitching me with those beautiful brown eyes, magnified by glassy tears. It was a beautiful moment.

I didn't want to fuck it up. But I had to give her some reaction! I pushed out my lower lip into a pout to register my sadness for the fake cartoon-people on the telly.

She pulled herself upright and gave me a little peck on the cheek. We settled back into our nook and enjoyed the rest of the film. It was pure heaven.

Since that moment many months ago, I've been repeating the habit of pouting during sad parts in films to win positive reenforcement for displaying my emotional intelligence. I didn't realize that I had made this a habit until my last plane journey. Whilst watching a heartstring-tugging scene in the (2010) Karate Kid on a 4" screen, I pushed my lower lip forward and held it there until the scene ended. Well I would have, if the air-hostess hadn't come along first, looked at me funny, and asked "Chicken or Pasta?"

*Artist's Impression