Much ado about fadas

Part of the problem with being a pretentious prick is when technology obstinately reminds you that you’re a knob, and punishes you for it:

'Seÿffffffffffe1n' over e-mail, but 'Sully' to my friends

My name is Seán. Not Shaun, or Shawn, and certainly not Sean. It's Seán.

I’m not sure when exactly I decided that rendering my name “Seán” without the fada over the “a” was wrong, but I suspect that I became more insistent about it during the time I spent in the States, as I tried to impress upon the local ladies of Pittsburgh that I was interesting and exotic (“You have an accent? That’s hot. We should make out”).

It’s likely that I’m a stickler for the fada because Seán is such a common name on the Emerald Isle (in both senses of the word). I figure being one of the breed who is fussy about having it included separates me somewhat from those who don’t care (and those who insist on its omission).

It's not an unreasonable insistence – it's only people from Ireland that are expected to know about the sanctity of the fada. If I’m asked to spell my name by a person who sounds like a paddy, I’ll tell them “S, E, A, fada N”, and listen for the derisive light scoff. I don’t expect non-nationals to ‘get’ the fada, so I don’t subject them to it unless they bring up how wrong my name looks written down (a Polish colleague refers to me as ‘Soen’ in all e-mail correspondence, and it’s starting to grow on me.)

While I'm keenly aware that not everybody should know what to do with the fada, I've yet to get it through my thick skull that websites will often freak out when I spell my name the "right" way. When flying from New York to Pittsburgh, I suffered unnecessary delays because my boarding pass said "Se n". Being exceptionally slow to learn, a month later I got a boarding pass that said "Sen". Rather than fixing the root cause of the problem, I just got better at giving bitesize explanations for the fada and how computers don't like it. (I mentioned the 'Sen' thing back in February 2007)

As my garbled name in the screenshot above attests, putting a fada into an online form is a bit of a gamble, as there's no telling what will come out on the other side. A messy e-mail header is harmless enough, but when the bouquet of roses I sent my ladyfriend from Flowers.com came with a lovely note signed by somebody called "Se??????n", I felt it spoiled the sentiment somewhat.

After giving my (US-based) girlfriend some casual abuse over her 'inability' to spell my name correctly online, she jumped on the fada bandwagon. Including the fada is a cinch on Irish / UK keyboards [just hold down the Alt-Gr key when pressing a vowel], but US keyboards lack this functionality. It turned out that every time she wanted to casually mention my name in an e-mail that I would never see, she would have to go to my Facebook profile and copy/paste the troublesome character, or use the 'insert symbol' feature on Word.

Until I had to send an e-mail to a lecturer with a US-keyboard, I never truly appreciated what a pain in the arse this was, and despite my repeated insistences that I'm reformed and no longer demand to see the 'a' in my name wearing its proper headdress, she and a few of my close friends go to the bother anyway, in a uniquely touching display of my monomania taking precedence over their convenience.

I'm a little torn on this whole 'fada' business. As a pedant, I want things to be done right, but I appreciate that something of such little import should scarcely warrant a moment's thought, let alone an anguished blog entry. I know that more often than not, using a fada online is throwing a spanner in the works, but shouldn't web developers have adapted to their world-wide-userbase by now? It's tough enough for us Irish folk on the Internet ("Come on now Seœ∂fµn", the websites condescend to me, "every developed nation in the world has a postal code, just fill yours in and we can both get on with our day"). Shouldn't we Irish be able to enjoy the small dignity of being able to spell one's name as it's intended?

Clogged Razors and Crying Girlfriends: A Memoir

My grandfather died last month. I tried blogging about it, but couldn't quite find the right angle that fits my style, and instead of finding a way to address it, I just put off blogging altogether. When I've got writer's block, I open up my folder of stupid little posts that I started writing but never bothered to finish, and today I figured I'd post one. It's a little goofy, but I enjoyed reading it, so please enjoy this bizarre piece of writing from two years ago:

********

Apologies are in due for the lack of updates lately, but you see, I’ve been doing some soul-searching these past two weeks or so. The source of all my neuroses, anger and aggression has been located and diffused. I’m a changed man.

On Saturday, the seventh of June 2008, something amazing happened. But first; some context.

I’m a hairy man. Always have been. My mother had the first inklings, as she reported “a strange tickling sensation” as she brought be into the world. Growing up as a child, the school bully would exclude me from the pink-belly sessions that the other children dreaded, as the thick coating over my abdomen made dealing out the punishment more of a chore than it was worth.

For years, my mother brought me to specialists in order to curb the rampant growth of hair on my body. The local priest would show up once a week to bless the bathtub so I could immerse myself in holy water, but it was to no avail. The parish bishop pulled some springs and arranged an exorcism, which succeeded only in making me wet the bed. Prayer vigils were held across the nation by good-natured nuns who spread the word of the hairy-lad in Limerick who was relying on the grace of God to remould him in His image, as per the scriptures.

Finally, my mother found solace from a kindly biologist who proffered that my condition was part of the evolutionary process – I was a prototype for extreme-cold enduring homo sapiens, and I had been honoured by my creator. I myself found this to be a huge comfort, and it enabled me to experience a normal childhood, one no longer marred by my mother’s constant appeals to higher powers to heal my accursed flesh.

During my primary-school years, my condition may have worked to my advantage, as it only took a few shears, some glue, and a willing 12 year old to create a rather convincing looking bearded-dwarf who could buy booze without much hassle.

On holidays, I would enjoy massive popularity, as young children would cling to my body-hair in the swimming pool, and have me ferry them into the deep end. I still remember the magical Summer of 2000, when I learned the only phrase I’ve ever needed in Spanish: “Por favor, sea amable en mis pezones” [“Please, be gentle on my nipples”].

Of course, once I became of age and decided I’d enjoy the company of a girlfriend, things got difficult yet again. Teenage discos were a particularly unhappy time for me. To compound the aesthetic problems that quiffs of hair clamouring around my shirt buttons caused, the insulation provided by the body hair also caused me to sweat profusely when dancing. As an evolutionary experiment, it seemed I was doomed to fail, as my genes would never be propagated.

I soldiered on valiantly, but the fears amplified as I became more clued in as to what exactly one is expected to do with a girlfriend – would I ever find one willing to put up with full-body beard-rash?

I developed a rather sophisticated strategy to get on in life, and I took to preying on drunken girls who majored in social-work, knowing that their charitable streak would likely compel them to put up with me for weeks after the first awkward, inebriated encounter. My relationships would stumble along in a begrudging fashion, where my girlfriends would speak plenty about how ‘looks aren’t important to me’ in an attempt to convince themselves, until the inevitable night that I’d be roused from my slumber by the familiar sounds of a sobbing girl and the spluttering of an electric razor bested by my dense locks.

In October 2006, when I was living in Pittsburgh, the cycle began anew with a social-work major from Wisconsin. Over the following weeks, I waited for the signs that her tolerance was cracking so I could begin building a new casefile and moving on, but curiously, she seemed to find my vulgar personality a more pressing matter than my overly follicled torso. In an attempt to distract her away from my hideousness, I let her invest her efforts into correcting the errors of my ways, knowing that the strenuousness of this impossible task would irreparably subvert one’s ability to relate to into mainstream conventions.

With some brilliant maneuvering, I spent almost two years hiding what I was from my girlfriend, by conspiring never to be seen with my shirt off in a well lit room, and convincing her that I was wearing a coarse woolly jumper whenever she brushed up against me in the dark. These efforts kept her from fully appreciating the dearth of bare skin on my body as she continued her project of rewiring my brain.

While this dastardly ‘relationship hack’ would work within our little bubble, I lived in fear of the day when her eyes would be opened to the monster she was consorting with.

That day finally came without warning.

I had agreed to go on a double date to Six Flags Great America, figuring that a loud theme park would be a great opportunity to hide in plain sight. The morning we were due to leave, I observed her packing a bag.

“What do you need your swimsuit for?” I asked nervously.

“We’re going to Six Flags!” she replied in her chipper fashion.

“Six Flags, where we go to ride rollercoasters and consume over-priced snacks?”

“Yeah. But there’s a great water park there too”.

I swallowed hard. There was a water park? The gig was up. There was no point trying to hide it now. I could imagine the horrified looks on her friends’ faces. The suppressed titters in the queues. The teasing chants of the kids. And the Mexicans. Oh God those Mexicans. “¡Dios mío! ¡El pelo diablo!”

Hours later, as we plodded through the amusement park, lining up for hours in the obscene heat to experience 60-second thrills, the banter kept coming back to the water park, and what a treat it would be when we finally got to go for a dip.

After hours of enduring the cruel heat, the time came to go for a swim. I gave my girlfriend a quick goodbye hug and walked towards the changing room. Just before disappearing into the doorway, I looked over my shoulder at her. She was looking at me, wearing a big, dumb, oblivious smile that was still directed at me.

I had been getting on quite well with my male counterpart over the course of our couples-date, right up to the point we walked into the changing area and went into our respective stalls. Little did I know it, but that would be the last time he would be able to look me in the eye. Once I came out the other side of that door, his gaze was constantly distracted, and his warmth and ease of conversation evaporated, and we continued with stilted spurts of small-talk for the rest of the evening. Offending the eyes of this new acquaintance was a mere dress rehearsal for what was to come: it was time to throw away another relationship and enjoy the awkward two hour drive home.

The colour drained out of my world with each step I took towards the meeting point, as my new-friend flanked me by a good six feet to avoid association. I trudged along, looking at the shadow that stretched out in front of me, observing the outlines of my fur rustling in the breeze. I could sense that my girlfriend was nearby, but I hesitated until I was a few paces away before I looked up at her. And there she was, still wearing that big, dumb, oblivious smile.

As it turns out, she doesn’t swim with her contact lenses in.

I pay my Apple-taxes, damnit!

Just two weeks ago, I documented the untimely demise of my Xbox 360, and here I am again blogging about another moribund piece of cherished consumer electronics.

When I tried to wake my MacBook Pro from sleep this morning, the screen remained black. The harddrive spun up, the fans kicked in, and the backlit keyboard responded as it should, but the screen showed nothing.

I ran through the usual steps I go through when something goes amiss, but to no avail. I went poking through some forums, and after a joyless half hour of troubleshooting, I came to the conclusion that the graphics card had gone tits up.

Apple customer care were fantastic, and told me to bring it to my local reseller for a free replacement of the defective parts, and [after assuring me that I'd be looked after if the local repair guys royally cocked up this job the same way they did the last] I brought the computer in for a test. Sure enough, it failed, and I was told they'd have the computer back to me in full working order by Wednesday at the latest.

I bought my computer in January 2008, and paid just under €2,000 for it. A non-Apple notebook with the same specs would have cost €500 less. Since getting the computer, I've had issues with dead pixels on the display (graciously fixed by Apple even though my computer was one month out of warranty), intermittent difficulties with the LCD backlight not wanting to turn on, and a kernel panic caused by something as banal as installing outdated printer drivers on the (self-proclaimed) "world's best operating system". No more than 18 months after first getting the computer, I noticed that the body of the machine seemed to be expanding in the heat, resulting in a number of unsightly bulges and protrusions around the seams, and when I lay my palms down to use the keyboard, I hear the housing click underneath my hand.

At times I wondered how Apple could justify the premium they charge for their computers, but really, my MacBook Pro is the best computer I've ever owned, and likely the best money I've ever spent. It's amazing to think that all my grievances about a computer that's 30 months old can be cataloged in a single blog entry. I have a far less sophisticated understanding of the Mac's operating system than I did any of my Windows-based PCs, but I feel as though I don't need to really understand it in order to get the performance I expect. I can recall the handful of times my Mac crashed, and I can remember specifically what caused these issues, which I consider 'progress' for operating system stability.

I love my MacBook, but I'm not an Apple fan. I'm going to try and get another 30 months of use out of this computer (5 years is a lofty goal for any piece of tech), and once it's time for a new computer, I'm going to buy whatever offers the least hassle for the user.

In other news, it's my birthday tomorrow, so I'm taking the recent self-destruction of my prized possessions a little more personally than usual.

RTÉ - not credulous nitwits?

I watched a few snippets of TV3's "The Truth About Travellers" the other night, and this episode focused on the superstitious nature of everybody's favourite gate-selling, farmer-intimidating, bare-knuckle-boxing Irish vagabonds.

When they discussed the Knock shrine, (one of Ireland's finest tourist spots for the reality-impaired) they say that "it was 1879 when our lady last appeared here" [8:10 into the programme]. That claim is restated a few seconds later, without any hedging. 


While I understand that TV3 is Ireland's tabloid network, and most of their viewers won't understand what "allegedly" means, I was still a little annoyed with the credulity with which they presented this claim - particularly as it implicitly validated the travellers' religious devotion.

I know I'm comparing apples to oranges here, but RTÉ's coverage of the Pope's excursion to Fatima today eased the pain somewhat, merely because they put the word 'reportedly' before "appeared to a group of kids" when discussing a similar alleged religious apparition. Sure, this is the same TV network that still shows the Angelus, but the reporters are doing the best they can to sound impartial.


Such a small tweak makes a huge difference to an organisation's credibility, but I fear that there are hardly enough discerning viewers left to care.

The Shrug-Shuffle

Note: This be a video-heavy post. It’s probably not worth your while continuing if you’re not able to view videos right now.

Back in the Napster days, and just before Eminem had released his second (mainstream) album, I was online looking for any additional Slim Shady material available, and I encountered a recording of the Insane Clown Posse’s piss-take of ‘My Name is’ called ‘Slim Anus’.


Fun as that was, it didn’t particularly interest me in the group, but for some reason the name stuck with me for quite some time.

Turns out that Insane Clown Posse, over ten years after their attempt to gain attention by piggybacking Eminem’s success*, are still around, and still making music. Their latest music video has made them something of an online phenomenon, and, well, it’s too mind boggling for me to really describe, so give it a whirl yourself:




I'm sorry, I should have warned you that the preceding video features middle-aged wiggers self-consciously boogieing to third-rate music with third-rate special effects whilst spitting despicably hateful lyrics. Hateful for the past few hundred years of human scientific progression, I mean.

There is no hope for these people. It's hard to reconcile their doe-eyed enthusiasm for all the wonderful things in everyday life with their sense of inquiry that extends as far as "I don't wanna talk to a scientist / Y'all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed."

Domestication of animals, sound waves, heredity, the light spectrum, and large meeting places are all ascribed to some 'magical' or 'miraculous force in this video, by a pair of irony-deprived twerps who swear profusely in a pathetic attempt to elicit an emotional response in the listener. Granted, the juxtaposition between lyrics that may have been written by a six year old assigned poetry homework with the usual chest-beating of gangsta-rap is certainly hilarious, but when it's so patently unintentional, it just makes these face-paint-wearing, middle-aged white rappers look a little silly.

"MAGIC EVERYWHERE IN THIS BITCH"

What worries me is contemplating the people who pay money to listen to music like this - or the fact that these chuckleheads make enough money from talking about "shit that'll shock ya eyelids" that it has become their full time jobs. After some cursory investigation, it seems that these cretins have amassed a loyal following by incorporating lyrics that reach out to every downtrodden nitwit misfit imaginable, creating a nice community in the process. Twenty years into the process, just after their ebullient "fuck you" to scientific inquiry, the ulterior motivation behind the previous two decades of violent posturing are revealed:

According to Bruce, the group used profanity and references to violence and sex in their lyrics because "to get attention, you have to speak their language. You have to interest them, gain their trust, talk to them and show you're one of them. You're a person from the street and speak of your experiences. Then at the end you can tell them God has helped me out like this and it might transfer over instead of just come straight out and just speak straight out of religion."^[90] Bruce also states that "The ending of the Joker Cards, the way we looked at it, was death. Heaven and hell. That's up to each and every juggalo [to decide]. We're not an ultra religious group. I don't go to church or anything. I like to believe in God."^[54] - Via Wikipedia

Truly, to be so arrogantly stupid, you most be of the religious persuasion.

"FUCKIN' rainbows, after it rains / There's enough miracles to blow ya' brains"

If you're this ignorant, you owe it to humankind to blow your brains out

If four minutes of watching these morons doing the shrug-shuffle in front of crappy backgrounds (some stolen wholesale from Google Earth) wasn't enough to get you vexed, then feel free to watch this spoof from Saturday Night Live, which succeeds in being less absurd than the source material.


*Ironically, the ICP/Eminem ‘beef’ allegedly started because of the then-unknown Eminem trying to piggyback off of ICP’s success. (Just want to cover myself in case any juggalos come in here)

How my girlfriend broke my Xbox 360

At a glance, my girlfriend seems to be your typical attractive girl with crippling self-esteem issues who’s happy to settle for less, but don’t let that fool you. My girlfriend is in fact a lizard-person. My proof? She’s cold blooded. She devours heat, complaining incessantly about the temperature, and wraps herself in multiple blankets whilst poking me with her icy extremeties to coopt my body warmth.

If we’ve got an hour to kill before going somewhere, she’ll likely engross herself in a book, whereas I’ll pick up my Xbox 360 controller.

I love my Xbox 360, but I’m aware of its foibles. Every console has its idiosyncrasies, like my PS2’s penchant for chewing up 20% of the discs I put into it, or my NES’s occasional hissy-fits in which it refused to play the cartridge in the slot until I blew into it, even though Dad told me not to. In the case of the Xbox 360, it’s the constant threat that it will succumb to sudden-console-death syndrome. The lingering dread of those flashing red lights make you truly appreciate the precious time you have with your console, and all the more willing to make concessions to ensure its reliable operation.

In my case, this ‘concession’ meant setting a room aside for the 360 in which there was no heating. This past January, there was snow literally piled up to the window, and yet the heating remained off. I sat in front of the TV, teeth chattering, deriving great enjoyment from Borderlands, all the while holding my breath lest the resulting exhalation-fog upset my accuracy.

Of course, when lizard-girl spent two weeks at my place, and I wanted to play games, and she wanted to read, it made sense that we could do both activities on the same couch, and ignore one another in a way that felt like quality time (I acknowledged her during loading screens). After about twenty minutes of struggling to turn pages with her quavering, frozen digits, she made known her objection to my lifestyle choices. I told her that turning on the heat would kill my Xbox. She told me that she’d be in bed, bundled up with her book until I turned the heat on.

I relented. The heat was turned on. Lizard girl resumed her position on the couch, and we had a pleasant evening. I began to enjoy combining the modern conveniences of central heating and electrical appliances, and continued to warm the room in the temptress's absence. Gradually, my concerns about the console's health ebbed away, and all was well in the kingdom.

Until four months later:



One "I can't live like this" conversation is all it took for her to destroy the only thing I truly loved.

A matter of self-Ctrl

Since getting her new Dell Inspiron 1545 in December, I’ve been listening to a steady trickle of complaints from my girlfriend about how it seems to have a life of its own. Browser tabs opening and closing, text randomly being cut and pasted, and most upsettingly: windows closing without warning, eviscerating filled text boxes.

I give my girlfriend more credit than most (as she generally deserves it more than most) but experience has shown that whenever anyone starts complaining about a “stupid computer”, a stupid user is most likely to be the culprit. Since the problem only occurred intermittently during typing, and as every one of the seemingly autonomous actions the computer was taking could be prompted by holding Ctrl and pressing a certain key, I quickly arrived at the conclusion that she was accidentally hitting the ctrl key during her furious typing sessions.

When I tried typing on her computer, I had no difficulties, and while I was never thrashing out long essays or blog posts, it galvanised the notion that user-error was to blame, not a malevolent computer exercising its free will. I explained to her about all the Ctrl-key related shortcuts, and told her to be more careful with how she rested her hands on the keyboard, and congratulated myself on another mystery solved.

About two months later, she brought up the issue again. I stood over her, dictating an absurd narrative that spoke highly of me, and she hammered away at the keys at a frenetic pace that left me little time to ponder synonyms for ‘magnanimous’. Eventually, the font on the screen flashed blue then disappeared. She screamed a triumphant “A-HA!” and pointed at the screen. I told her that she had hit ‘Ctrl-A’ to ‘select all’, then kept typing, and that she should ‘Ctrl-Z’ to get her work back. Her 'proof' debunked, I saw fit to reiterate the ‘hotkey’ lesson from before, blaming her woes on a misplaced pinkie. She glumly accepted my diagnosis.

Two more months passed by, and after a busy semester and a half of typing on this laptop, she told me again that she was still having trouble. She had been filling in some schoolwork into an online form and the window closed on her, setting her back a few minutes. After she provided a swift rebuttal to my light scolding for not doing her work on Word then copying/pasting, I decided I should humour her with some troubleshooting over the phone.

Even though it had been the first thing I did when I was setting up her computer, I talked her through the steps of disabling Stickykeys. She got to the appropriate screen, and sure enough, all the relevant boxes were unchecked, except one, which related to ‘Function keys’. I told her to disable it to see if it made a difference. She quickly rattled off some text, and observed no issues. She seemed enthused, optimistic, and above all, grateful that I stopped trying to convince her that her sloppy typing style was causing the trouble.

It was nice to see her so happy.

I got a text message from her the following day – her text messages are generally characterised by tongue-in-cheek petnames and frenzied over-punctuation – the message I got that day did not match her trademark style:

Had no troubles today, but I did trigger a load of shortcuts right after we talked yesterday. It’s my right pinky finger hitting control. I’ll have to change my typing habits

“It’s my right pinky finger”. “I did trigger a load of shortcuts”. She was finally taking responsibility for her typing quirks – I should have felt relieved, and yet, this crestfallen text message broke my little heart.

Realizing I had broke my girlfriend flipped a switch in my head, surely there’s some problem with the laptop – nobody could have these kind of issues five months later, especially not a good typist like her. My girlfriend's too smart for this kind of stuff.

For the first time ever, I googled the problem.

Son of a bitch! I hadn’t even finished typing and the problem was popping up at me. Within fourteen seconds of beginning the investigation, I had found a sure-fire solution.

Dozens of people were crying bloody murder about the problem, many of whom had resorted to sending the computer back to Dell up to four times for repair / replacement. In the end, what solved it for them was disabling a setting on the touchpad that makes the computer act as though the Ctrl key has been pressed.

Bugger. All the vitriol and anguish thrown around on the Dell support forums, and I treated my girlfriend’s gently raised-issues as an opportunity to pontificate on ‘hotkeys’ used by ‘powerusers’.

I don’t know what the lesson is to be learnt here. Maybe it’s that I’m capable of being a good boyfriend to my girlfriend, but it only kicks in after I’ve broken her spirit, leaving me to remould her as I see fit.

As seen on TV: Part Deux

Laugh all you want, but my mother still loves her Snuggie, and her continued enjoyment of this fine as-seen-on-TV product has piqued my curiosity about their other offerings, so today I’m going to regale you with yet another item I picked up in a US pharmacy that prompted an intrigued “hrrrmmmmmnn”.

ACTUAL PROMOTIONAL IMAGE

The Product: HD Vision Wrap Arounds

The contraption: Sunglasses. Sunglasses that apparently offer ‘clarity that you have never experienced’, ‘enhance your vision’, act ‘just like High Definition TV’, while being ‘lightweight and durable’ and offering a ‘Modern European Style.’ Sounds too good to be true!

The pitch: You’ve heard of high-definition television, right? It’s new and cutting edge, just like you want to be. Sadly, your new television is outputting images at 720p, but your old-fogey eyes are only capable of handling 480i. Wouldn’t it be great if you could wear something on your face that would make your eyes capable of high-definition? Instead of doing crazy sci-fi stuff involving bending light and focusing images for your retina, how about you wear a pair of sunglasses with an amber hue? This way, when you go outside wearing sunglasses, it won’t seem as dark! It’s high definition!

The target market: Impressionable cretins with such a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘High-Definition’ means that they will pay $20 for a crap pair of shades off the telly-box.

The video:



Why I opted out: I'm not one for jumping the gun. HD? Pshaw! I've had HD on my computer monitor since before Y2K. Early adopters always get burned - I'm holding out for the revolutionary new product seen in these leaked photos from the As-Seen-On-TV warehouse:




And of course, the phrase that all this brought to mind:

Entry Redacted: Post-hoc quality control

It's time for some more meta-blogging, dear reader!

I write about some pretty mundane stuff on this website, but I'd like to think that most of it is packaged in a way that makes it worthwhile. When considering an entry, I first ask myself if I'd be interested in reading about it if it was written by someone I don't know.

I try to avoid blogging about work, or my personal life in general, but I find myself revisiting my long-term, long-distance relationship regularly. When I'm writing about idly passing a day on the couch watching movies and TV shows with my lady, what I'm interested in is the deconstruction of this act, and finding the value that's devoid of sentiment. More recently, when discussing the logical-absurdity of sentimental value, I shared a vignette that illustrated the shared cognitive dissonance between two otherwise-rational adults who struggled to part with an item of legal tender, because of an emotional attachment that had formed for odd reasons. That's a direct juxtaposition between sentimental and monetary value! That's compelling stuff! Well, it is to me anyhow.

I try to keep the 'dear diary' stuff to a minimum, and I know it does occasionally creep in when I'm failing to hit my (laughably small) 5-posts a month target as I try to explain myself to the hypothetical slighted-reader, but I'm trying to get out of that habit. A week ago, I posted a screengrab taken from Facebook of something that pissed me off. I made no attempt to make the post worthwhile, I just put it up there to vent my anger.

It's since been taken down, the first post I've ever deleted from this blog since I started almost four years ago. If I were to go back and critically examine every post I've done with today's criteria of 'worthwhileness', I'm sure I could excise an awful lot more, but that's all for the time being.

I'm curious to hear from the other bloggers who read this: how do you self-govern? Do you have a hypothetical reader in mind when writing?

Annoying habits my girlfriend is beating out of me: Episode 1

My girlfriend is pretty spectacular. Smart, sociable, conscientious. Me? Not so much. I like to think that this makes us a well-balanced, fully funtional unit, but she's decided that my inability to negotiate through the most mundane of human-interactions without incident is a character flaw, rather than the endearing quirk I keep telling her it is.

I've noticed lately that she's taken a more proactive approach to eliminating my autistic proclivities, which I can only ascribe to the sudden realisation that she's already invested three years in me, and will forever be regarded as sullied in the eyes of all other men.

Today, I'll tell you about one such quirk, starting with the background:

During the academic year of 2006/2007 I racked up an impressive tally of air-miles, and often found myself rushing through busy airport terminals to catch connecting flights. It was always a pain that most time was spent at the security checkpoints, and I'd often find myself running towards my gate whilst fastening my belt.

It makes sense, right? Everybody in the airport has jumped through the same hoops you did, so anyone looking at the man walking through the terminal dressing himself should be able to deduct that he just came through security and is rushing to his gate.

Well, eventually I made it a policy to save time in all my belt-buckling endeavours when leaving security checkpoints; regardless of whether I was in a panicked dash to the gate, or leisurely browsing through duty-free shops, I'd be seen adjusting my pants.

I realised that I had hit the nadir of this slippery slope when walking out of a cinema water-closet towards my patiently waiting ladyfriend. She had her shoulders agressively hunched in puzzlement and asked me "what the hell" I was doing.

I wondered if I had left something hanging out as I tightened my belt, then realised that the kerfuffle was over the habit I paid little attention to. A time-saving habit from my 'airport' programming had permeated every occurrence of my belt refastening.

The trouble with these behavioural abnormalities is that since I only get to see my ladyfriend for a few days every few months, the inevitable relapses mean that we often retread the same territory, only with increasing exasperation on her part.

Most guys I know love saving time, and we often share little tips to shave a few seconds off daily routines (like flushing the toilet during the final 15% of urination so you can just zip up and walk away), and it seems to me that the problem lies with society, not me, so finding the right motivational angle proves difficult for my stalwart woman-friend.

To wean off breaking the unwritten law of society pertaining to correct belt-usage, she's tried vocal indignation, silent disgruntlement, and attempted to shame me in front of her friends, all to no avail.

A few months ago, we were visiting her friends who had just got married, moved in together, and were generally getting well into the 'grown up' phase of their lives. After returning to the living room, where all eyes were fixed on the TV, my beloved spun around with a big smile on her face. Her eyes met mine, then flicked down to see that I was still getting dressed. She turned back towards the TV, visibly disappointed, and for the first time, I felt a pang of shame.


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As seen on TV. Which makes it good, right?

After months of derisive snorts at the Snuggie and its purveyors, I bought one for my mother last Christmas. It turned out to be one of the few gifts that's resonated with her, and I still find myself showered with gratitude for this thoughtful gift well into the new year. The Snuggie far exceeded my expectations, and now I'm investigating what other as-seen-on-TV products I should consider purchasing with an open mind.

The product: Bottle Top, which I encountered during my last trip to the States in late March: The premise: ‘Turn your your drink can into a bottle!’ The contraption: A plastic doodad that looks like the top of a bottle which clasps on to a soda can, imbuing it with it all the conveniences associated with drinking from a resealable bottle. The pitch: Are you too stupid and uncoordinated to drink from a soda can? Is your lack of intellect so overpowering that you continue to buy soda cans, knowing that your handicap prevents you from drinking out of anything other than a bottle? Do you make a habit of drinking from soda cans that have been left out, only to find yourself repulsed by the lack of carbonation left within? Do you regularly place your open cans in the door of your refrigerator with nothing to hold them steady, then complain about the mess it caused all by itself? Well suffer no more, thanks to Bottle Top! The video: Why I opted out: If I purchased directly from the website, I get a free soda-can-pull-tab-opener. I'm not making this shit up (and yes, the video makes it appear really difficult to open a soda can with just your bare hands).

"But wait! There's more!"

"THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY!"

Part of the website that makes me think they don't take it seriously either: "just snap on Bottle Top™ and your done."

How long have I been gone?

Heard upon touching tarmac at the end of my flight home from the States:

"Good morning everyone, welcome to Shannon, on behalf of Continental Airlines and all the crew, welcome to the United Kingdom"

Damn Brits! Think they can just stick a flag in something when I'm not looking and claim it as their own?

Thanks a bunch, Bloodhound Gang

I feel as though the air-hostess on my most recent transatlantic flight judged me when she looked down at the iPod touch
on my tray table and saw the screen:




A few days later, when listening to music, my girlfriend spotted the same picture, and not realizing that it was the 'Now Playing' screen, assumed I had changed my background from the super-cute picture of us to 400lbs plus of man flesh shoved into a cardboard box. I decided it was more fun to let her believe this.

5 reasons my blog isn't bursting with content lately

5. I got sick, yo

I came down with a dose of labyrinthitis a few weeks ago - it gobbled up a few days where I did little more than stay in bed, which I then followed up by a week living as a total shut-in, scarcely venturing outside. It was pretty dull, and I still don't feel like I've regained full mental acuity (or as close to it as I generally get).

4. I'm keeping my options open

I'm studying for the GRE, a standardised test of basic maths and English skills I need to take to get into one of the United States' fine graduate schools. Realising how close the application deadlines were, I booked in for this coming Monday, leaving me with a grand total of two weeks to study. While I'm feeling good about the English stuff, my revision of 'basic maths' hasn't progressed much further than watching a purple dinosaur singing "two plus two is four" whilst rocking on the spot.


see more Funny Graphs

3. Andy Richter

After gushing about how fantastic 'Better Off Ted' is, I was pointed towards the creator's previous sitcom endeavour, the ill-fated 'Andy Richter Controls the Universe', and Any Richter's subsequent sit-com vehicle, 'Andy Barker, P.I.' Whilst suppurating at home, why try to eke productivity out of your weary body when you can chuckle at the misadventures of a rather funny chubbier-than-your-average everyman?



Okay, I can't find a decent one for 'Andy Barker, P.I.', so here's another one from 'Andy Richter Controls The Universe':


2. I take cold showers now

I generally take long showers, greedily standing under the hot water while my mind wanders. Despite how pleasant or comfortable my body-state is, my mind does wander to some odd places, and I'll often sit at computer whilst still dripping wet to vituperate something or someone that hadn't really crossed my mind before then.

For at least the last month, the boiler has been acting up, so the most enjoyable part of the bathing experience is the tepid water near the beginning of the shower. This turns what was once a relaxing experience into a race against the clock, that may or may not include the frenetic scrubbing of nether regions, depending on the heat levels.

1. ...............................................................................

Okay, I got nothing. How about this? Can I hit 'Publish' yet?


[Yeah, I was with Coco]

Jace Hall - Super Playa

After hearing a 20 second snippet of goofy paean to videogames, I decided it was worth my $0.99.

Please, enjoy (in as non-judgmental a fashion as you can):

All aboard the discipline ship

I like lent. I've told you this before.

I'll take a pass the dogma from the kiddy-fiddler-facilitators who promulgate the practice, but I quite like the seasonal imperative to impose a bit of self-restraint.

Not only that, but it always makes for a few fun conversations with friends and acquaintances: from the initial announcement of the overly-ambitious lenten vow, to the cognitive dissonance reduction that transpires once those few salvos of weakness cause significant structural damage to the discipline-ship, and the entire endeavour is scrapped.

This lent, like the last lent I blogged about (2 whole years ago), to celebrate the forty days and forty nights of rain that God used to begin his creation anew (I prefer the models that you shake to start again), I'm putting a stop to my habit of guzzling sweet, sweet carbonated beverages.

Since most significant events in my life are logged on this blog, I looked it up: I announced the last soda fast on March 6th 2008 - two weeks since my last Coke, and I caved in to temptation on May 11th when illness and exams got the better of me.

This duration is impressive in hindsight - especially considering I've gone three days without a Coke and I still feel the need to yammer about my abstinence to bolster my resolve.

Like the Lenten-teetotallers who perseverate over the proper course of action to take on a St Patrick's Day that will cruelly take place during the planned dry-spell, I too am wondering how my self-governance will cope during my upcoming trip to the States and its bountiful supplies of the elixir known as Mountain Dew.

Who else is joining in the forgoing fun of Lent? (Got any good special pleadings to share so I can score some 'Dew?)

A brief guide to dealing with The Irish

I stumbled across a website called eDiplomat today - a handy resource that offers primers on societal conventions to inoculate against culture shock. Naturally, I wanted to see what they had to say about the Irish:

The People

The Irish are interested in people and place great value on the individual. They are naturally courteous, quick-witted and will go out of their way to welcome visitors to their country. Don't rush the Irish. Although they work very hard, the Irish are dedicated to a less stressful lifestyle that allows time for friends and family, a visit to the pub, a cup of tea, or just a bit of a chat on the corner. Families are closely-knit and very important to the Irish.

There's not much there that I can grumble about, let's drill deeper:

Meeting and Greeting

• Shake hands with everyone present -- men, women and children -- at a business or social gathering. Shake hands again when leaving.
• A firm handshake with eye contact is expected.

Body Language

• The Irish are not very physically demonstrative and are not comfortable with public displays of affection.
• The Irish are uncomfortable with loud, aggressive, and arrogant behavior.
• A "Reverse V for victory" gesture is considered obscene.

Under the body language section, it states that the Irish people are "not very physically demonstrative and are not comfortable with public displays of affection", "uncomfortable with loud, agressive, and arrogant behaviour", and that a "'Reverse V for victory" gesture is considered obscene.

It recommends that one dress "modestly and conservatively", avoiding "flashy colours [...] white pants, nylon running jackets", and recommending "tweeds, wools and subdued colors". It also states that for "business meetings, men should wear suits or sportcoats and ties; women should wear suits or dresses and blazers (women wear pants less often than in America)."

Helpful Hints

• The Irish respect reserved behavior. Initial meetings should be low key.
• Assume that children will be included in family entertaining.
• Always be sincere. The Irish dislike pretentious behavior.
• Remember the Irish want to do things their way. You will not succeed if you insist on doing it "your way."

Especially for Women

• A foreign woman will be accepted easily in the Irish business community.
• It is considered more proper for a woman to order a glass of beer or stout rather than a pint.
• It is acceptable, but may be misconstrued for a foreign woman to invite an Irishman to dinner. It is best to stick with lunch.
• If a woman would like to pay for a meal, she should state so at the outset.

As far as guides to an entire race of people go, it's not too shabby. If I had to add an extra heading to the article, it would be the following:

Socialising

• The objective of a night out is to forget as much of it as possible, assisted by alcohol and occasionally, blunt-force trauma to the head.
• After a night out, the preferred ritual is to establish oneself as the participant with the least recollection of the previous evening.
• Alcohol absolves the imbiber of all personal-accountability.
  
• Mating rituals in Ireland start with the dancefloor. Men will approach women from behind and attempt to entice them into acts of fornication by grinding their pelvis against the female's backside.
• Interfering with the aforementioned dancefloor ritual will result in blunt-force trauma to the head.
• Any alcoholic beverages left unattended are complimentary.
• When leaving nightclubs, take care not to tread on drunken Irish females who have drank themselves into unconsciousness, and deposited themselves by the main exit to be located by their friends.

Teeth-whitening Mom, 7 months on

Back in April, I wrote a blog post bemoaning how advertisers, when pimping their healthcare products, would sooner tout their affiliation with some lone nutter making concoctions in a bathtub, than admit to the involvement of a team of elitist, educated, clipboart-toting, labcoat-wearing, science-doin' sons a bitches.

One of the examples used was an advertisement for teeth-whitening products:

"Read the trick" it exhorted, "discovered by a mom to turn yellow teeth white". Doesn't that sound like a splendid idea? Sadly, the only mothers I trust are single mothers, so I ignored this ad back in the day.

But lo, what's this I see in my browser window?

Not only is this person a mom (thus eliminating the possibility of her being part of the evil Big-Pharma conspiracy to poison us all), but she's single, and therefore much more deserving of my money and attention!

If only I didn't have a policy of only taking teeth-whitening advice from black single moms... With peg-legs.

Pedant's Corner

My internet connection is important to me - it's the main conduit to that girlfriend of mine whose position relative to the Atlantic ocean is more noticeable when the broadband is on the fritz. What ought to be the highlight of my day becomes a bit of a chore, as we unsuccessfully play games of "guess the missing words", or test the other's endurance by seeing how many times they're willing to repeat what they just said (it turns out that we're not really as interested in each other's day as you might think).

As the connection hasn't been reliable lately, I've taken to running a speed-test before we chat; this means that my expectations for the following conversation are already low. While my speed-test of choice is Blacknight's Irish ISP Test, tonight I thought it prudent to run the Imagine speedtest, as they're my service provider.


Sure enough, the download speed was just over half what it should be (jitter rates and QOS aren't reported by Imagine), but the red boxout over the speedtest drew my eye:

Not only are they shilling WiMax by denigrating "slow broadband down your phone line" (which is what they're currently providing me with), they've also packaged this bold proclamation with the authority and gravitas of a pre-pubescent secondary schooler who is hedging her bets through an English assignment.

To say "you are" do I use "your" or "you're"? I know! I'll stick one I think is right in the title, and use the other one later!

Hmmm... How do I say "It is"? Maybe an "Its" without an apostrophe will do. But what about "that is"? Better stick in an "apostrophe S" to be sure.

It's stupid, it's unnecessary, it's inconsistent. If you're going to be wrong, at least have a sense of style about it! Lazy efforts like this annoy me immensely - I'm sure you'll find plenty of stupid mistakes and oversights and nonsense on this very blog, but you can take solace in the knowledge that I didn't get paid for them!

Just look at my raaange!

It may shock you to read this, dear reader, but I'm not just a lazy blogger who struggles to upload 5 poorly-articulated, ill-conceived nonsensical rants a month. I'm a lazy blogger guilty of the aforementioned who once had to cobble together a song for his Introduction to Radio Production class!


SullydidthisforcollegeinAmereeka by ubersully

Yes, the song is utter dreck, and it consists entirely of loops from Garageband, but this still counts as one of my 5 for the month.