Geeks Anonymous: Downward [-ly awesome] Spiral

Every time I saw one I told myself "No!" [You don't mean that, just give it a try]. I resisted [resistance is futile]. I told myself time and again I did not need it, that it would be bad for me [there is no need only want, it would be bad in such a very good way].

I broke. I caved. I got one.

I am, of course, talking about the Awesome Acer Aspire One (AAO), with solid state drive (8GB) and Linux Lite OS. External storage is so cheap now that I need just a few GB on the machine itself and I take what is needed as it is needed. The OS was fine until I got to Clare and realised I had forgotten my password. Clearly, installing Ubuntu 8.10 and starting from scratch the simplest thing to do [Adopts a demeanor that broaches no argument, also known as Fingers-in-Ears-Chorussing-La-La-La-Not-Listening].

Spent hours getting it to 90% functionality. Luckily Ubuntu's support website is amazing. All I had to do was follow instructions, they have a AAO section, even if I followed poorly. I spent most of the time using terminal and I found out some nifty things. Currently, my favourite is chmod. It can change privileges on hard drives, so I can write to restricted drives.

Coming down from my hit of "Golden Silicon" [texture like #FFFC17], I purchased the Seagate Barracude 7200.11 1.5TB and a 320GB Samsung internal hard drives for my PC. The latter, will boot my OS. This lay-out, means carte blanche installs & reinstalls without touching my data. I want to switch to Ubuntu server OS and use my AAO as an access point. I got an enclosure for the 320GB hard drive (cheap as 15euro of chips), this way I can bring it into college and boot it externally for its quickening [more in the Higlander sense of the word, than the biological sense] until it can see my 3G modem.

Not known for planning or organisation skills, I looked at product reviews after purchase. I found this one and was instantly on a heady-high/decadent-nadir. Good, rigourous experimental technique. Clear charts. Tests in triplicate. When I finished with that, I had to have more. I quickly ODed on this because of this. I do believe I have found my one stop shop for hardware reviews... I can handle it!

Numbers of my year

• Finally figured out how to make sense of days of the week and dates of the month
• Sleeping: 106 days
• Saw 70 movies in the cinema [for the price of 36 films, thank you, Cineworld Unlimited Card]
• Watched 650 episodes of tv shows (averaging 2 a night, with the exceptions of holidays)
• Drank 500 l of water, 100 l juice, 600 slices of bread
• Training: 45-50 days [The mode is ~1 day a week or so, but my diligence suffered while I was in China, Estonia and Australia]
• Read 22 books [serious drop from previous years; I blame the parents and tv for rotting my brain]
• 3 weeks typing
• Walked more than 350 hours [1050 miles, Dublin, Ireland to Pisa, Italy
• My heart has beaten ~27,288,000 times [My resting heart rate is some 45 bpm or so, 35 if I really concentrate. While training it probably averages 100 bpm, between the heavy cardio stuff and the more sedate breathing exercises]
• Were I a car I would have travelled 9,336 km [Based on oxygen intake...]:

1. ~6,221,000 breaths in a year {12 (breaths/min) x 60 (min/hour) x 24 (hour/day) x 360 (day/y)}
2. 12,442,000 l-air/y {5,200,000 (breath/y) x 2 (l/breath)}
3. Inhale 508,000 mole-air/y {12,442,000 (l-air/y) / 24.5 (l/mol)}... Ideal Gas Law*
4. Consumed 35,560 mole-oxygen/y {508,000 x (0.21 - o.14**) } [Assuming I am a fit person]
5. This burns 2845 mole-petrol/y {O₂ + C₈H₁₈+8CO₂ + 9H₂O... 12.5 x Oxygen:Petrol}
6. I would have driven 9,336 km {2845 (mole-petrol) / 114 (g-petrol/mole) = 324.3 g-petrol, 324.3 (g-petrol) / 0.74 (kg-petrol/l) = 438.3 l-petrol, 438.3 (l-petrol) x 21.3 (km/l, equivalent to 50 mpg) = 9,336 km}

I was going to do one for how much heat I radiated, but the numbers were provided better than I could have done them here, but their lung capacity calculations are not as good, I think, not that anything I did up here was original work.
Speaking of which, the above method just back-of-the-envelope stuff [the wiki on this fills me with shame for using it, considering the big wigs that first used it. And I want this pamphlet "Modern Physics from an Elementary Point of View"!]. In my travels on the interweb I came across this site, which goes through the process from cell respiration POV. The "distance" travelled is very sensitive to the mpg chosen, but nearly a quarter of the way around the earth is not bad. :)

*Obviously I assumed the fugacity of the gases in question are ~ 1, which is reasonable at 1 atm and the moderate temperatures involved i.e. an ideal situation:


**The url I got the oxygen composition from seems to be on a dry basis... which makes things simple. For every volume of oxygen consumed, 1 volume carbon dioxide and and 1 volume of water is produced. On a dry basis there is not change in volumes. On a wet basis things change, for x oxygen converted:
***More rigourous ways to get the data would be the either monitor oxygen consumption (tricky) or calorie intake (simple but exhaustive) and monitor change in body weight, taking into consideration percentage body fat change. We get a partial material/energy balance [a complete one would involve... guh... noting all ins and... outs]. From that we back out an equivalent intake of oxygen, and other such things.

Christmas thoughts

Fun with Siblings
Got home. Baby sister was in the car when we were collected from town. I asked her,"Who am I?" and she answered,"I'm Molly!" How adorable, the princess thinks that the first person pronoun is reserved for her. In vengeance, I reminded her at every opportunity that Deirdre was my mother first ["My Mammy"], at times clutching her leg when Molly could see. It got to her more than the it did to Carthach when he was that age :) [it is the simple pleasures in life]... she got wise and started talking about "My Daddy" - checkmate.

It shows I am special, just like everyone else [on the list]
I'm torn over how guilty I should feel at annoyance by en-masse-Christmas-well-wishing. With cards, my name would have been written, maybe a personalised message. [scrunches face as visual indication of internal conflict].
They did go to the effort of setting it up and sending it to a list of people they thought deserved it [depending on the fraction of total contacts on the list]. Can they be blamed for the favouring the popular medium of communication? As I said,"torn."

Not just for Christmas
My brother got a puppy. He is rather shocked at how much work and how needy it is... ads regarding continued existence of young canines post-yule need to be rerun.

Christmas cooking with Mairtin

I cooked dinner tonight for some friends of mine. Attemped the noodle soup again.

The menu was

1. M&S apple and pork sausages and red onion grilled in hoisin sauce
2. Roast potatoes
3. Prawn crackers
   
4. Potato stuffing
   
5. Duck noodle soup
   
6. Roast duck
7. M&S double chocolate cookies, Carte D'Or vanilla ice-cream and mince pies

1. The sausages were easy. I boiled them, added some sliced red onions and lathered them in hoisin sauce. Placed them under the grill for a few minutes to brown.
2. On TV last Friday, Jamie Oliver was preparing a Christmas dinner and He used the run-off from the foul to roast the potatoes. I oiled the oil from the duck skin. I left this cool and separate over night. I decanted the oily top layer and kept it to one side. I skinned and boiled the potatoes. Poured some of the oil over it and through them into the grill to give them a colour.
   
3. Got Prawn crackers from the asian market, shallowed fried them in a frying pan, until they became big and white but not until the became brown (3-8s)
4. Boiled the potatoes separately. Mashed them up. Added sliced spring & red onions, carrot, baby corn and braeburn apples. Left some butter on top of the mixture and put in the oven to roast.
   
5. The soup was easy but time consuming. Again the night before I made my stock. this time I used duck (10.00Euro from Tesco!). I boiled the water, added some veg (spring onions, red onions, baby corn, red chilli peppers, bak choi, carrot plus garlic and ginger for some substance), skinned and boned the duck. Threw the bones in with the vegtables, left it boil for an hour or so. Turned of the heat, let it cure. Before dinner, I fished out the bones. Boiled the stock, 30 minutes before serving I added fresh vegtables (as previously listed). Prepared the noodles in separate pot and combined them when it was time to eat.
6. I wondered most of the day what to do with the duck meat. I decided to slice it up into bite size chunks with pinenuts, garlic, diced apple and red onion. Wrapped it all in foil and threw it into the oven until it was edible looking.
   
7. The desserts were graciously supplied by two of my dinner guests, Gleb and Barbara

The food was very tasty. The first time I took the roast duck out, it was still a bit too pink, the juice still a bit red, so I popped it back in to the oven. My favourite dish was the roast duck, because resulting gravey was so delicious I had to drink down the dregs of it once all the meat was gone. - I figure the mixture of apple, garlic, ginger and duck juice was what defined it. [said with poker faced eaernestness] In future I will put the gravey to one side and use it with the potato stuffing or generally all over the meal. The roast potatoes had a very decadent smack to it, I wished I had made more of them :(

That is all. I think Easter will be my next culinary excursion, I have not decided for certain though...

It's been a long time coming...

Woke up with symptoms of a cold, I'd avoided one since I was in China in August :(

Yummy Science

On Thursday (4th Dec) we had our Post Grad Christmas Party. Twas a fine event, much fun was to be had.

Julia and Gleb organised the festivities. It kicked off with a pool tournament. Strangely, probably an extension of the American belief in "everyone is a winner", there were prizes for anyone able who got into the second round [not to sound bitter or anything]. Britte and I were teamed together against Danielle and Sanket for the covetted Ms Germany. We lost :(
- The crowns bestowed on the winners had a Wurst on a fork.

Some guys played for a girl's heart. No names necessary.- The winners got crowns with hearts on them.

Other prizes:

• The True Blonde (the winner was not a true blonde, proving the system a sham)
• Mr Indian (the crown had the meme of the texting Indian on a motor bike)
• Mr & Mrs Cell Culture

... The other prizes escape me at the moment.

I take a quantum of solace [cue groans from reader at this point] in the fact that the tournament winners beat us in the first round, Britte and I could potentially be second place.

We dined on thai food, I had a tender, saucey duck and lovely upmarket spicey prawn crackers.

As is our Christmas tradition Rice and I got ourselves ice-cream to help boost our metabolism after our meal. As usual, when we invited others to come, our generous request was declined :'(

Jess wished for yoghurt to make all frozen. Here comes the science. Pay attention.

We got a six pack of yoghurt, raspberry yoghurt that is. Next we got some liquid nitrogen.

T_yog = 269K
T_N2 = 77 Kelvin^N₂

(No contest)

T₁ = 285 Kelvin
C_p,yog = XX J/kg/K
M_yog = XX kg
F_yog = XX J/kg

Q= M_yog [(C_p,yog (T₁-T_yog))+F]

L_N2=(5.56kJ/mol)/(28g/mol)=199J/g
M_N2=Q/L_N2

[Unfortunately the internet lacks reliable if any data on the properties of yoghurt, hopefully a would be young scientist will stumble on to this and do me a solid by finding these things out for me. Lacking the data I decided to put this baby to be before it became 2009, I've been unusually busy of late :(]

The yogurt was served using my spoon, which as yet has not been returned to me. Hopefully when I have the chance I can give some eyeball values for the heat capacity of yoghurt over christmas- I'll get my baby brothers to help because science is cool.

Excuse my failure to deliver for the time being

Tick tock, Clarice...

[Note: this is from last week]

I sit in my office [eating dinner without the aid of cutlery].¹

Little bit tired. Little bit wired.

I was in Brussels last weekend.

Friday : Got to sleep at about 0400. Woke up at 1200ish.

Saturday : Went of to the land of Nod at 0400ish. Got up 1300ish.

Sunday : Took the 0430ish slumber train to snoozeville. Got taxi from house at 0800.

Monday : My brain waves [presumably] dropped to the theta bandwidth at 2030. Woke up 1000ish.

Dé Mhairt [I did something to my keyboard, it won't let me use fadas now...]: Thit mé i mo choladh timpeall leathuair tar eis a ceathar. D'éirigh mé timpeall a haon déag.

Wednesday : I drifted off to Lalaland in the ephemeral moments between 2330ish and 0000ish. Ascended from the murky depths of lake Slumber at 0630.

Thursday : [At a loss for further descriptions of falling to sleep] at 0430ish. Gave a waking stretch at 1330.

I have been consistently going to sleep around 0000 and wake up at 0630 for training... Clearly my sleeping patterns were all over the place this week. I blame Brussels. 3 days of late/early sleep times. I am pretty sure I have given myself artificial jet lag.

My Circadian Rhythm (CR) has taken a gory beating. Hopefully I can set things back to normal over the weekend.²

If one peruses the link for CR, one will note one of the methods for monitoring the aforementioned process [I think it is a process as opposed to a phenomenon] is logging the core body temperature. Rectally.

"people must remain awake but calm and semi-reclined in near darkness while their rectal temperatures are taken continuously"

2 of 3 requirements isn't bad.

I feel sorry for the people who were test subjects for this technique seeing as Benloucif et al in Chicago found strong evidence that melatonin metabolite concentrations are more reliable for characterising CR.

¹See Yummy Science
²Got up this morning no problem!

You Win This Round! [shakes fist]

Went to Brussels the weekend past. So Gleb and I could reacquaint ourselves with with the common man, we took the airport bus instead of the aircoach.

Some adorable scamps, just out from school, got on the bus. They surrounded us, down the back. One of the scamps [hence forward known as "Punk Kid"] was making farting noises behind a woman's back. I got tired of this rather quickly. I told him to cop on. He turned around, eyeballed me and then Gleb, who was smiling, an image of Glasnost. I repeated myself and his stony glare jack-knifed back to me. [one of us was over his head]. He asked me what the problem was, and I told him he was annoying people. Nettled, he demanded to know who he was annoying. I told him that it was me. The riposte scored, the Punk Kid turned around without further comment.¹

He and his cronies sat before us in silence. Embarrassed? Maybe. Seething? Possibly. The y quietly gathered their bags and exitted in an orderly fashion. A few moments passed. The tannoy crackled: "Would the two men sitting at the back of the bus stop smoking and drinking!". We shrugged the announcement off, bewildered. Shortly thereafter, the bus driver ascended the the stairwell, stared directly at Gleb and I, and repeated his warning about drinking and smoking on the bus.

We were gobsmacked.
Wheels turned.

Clearly someone had made the baseless accusation...

In hindsight, the Punk Kid had taken the sleight rather well, particularly for a punk kid. Gleb and I marvelled at the vengeance served slightly chilled. I had always been of the opinion that the kids immature enough to make fart noises lacked the capacity for foresight and cool reasoning. Instead of F-ing and blinding his rage away at the first instance, he waited. The boy waited until he could get away Scot free, honour satisfied.

The boy will rule Dublin some day...

¹It was like something out of a thriller, except it revolved around fart noises, a skinny little kid and a man probably twice his body weight :/

A year in numbers

• Finally figured out how to make sense of days of the week and dates of the month
• Slept: 106 days
• Saw 70 movies in the cinema [for the price of 36 films, thank you Cineworld Unlimited Card]
• Watched 650 episodes of TV shows (averaging 2 a night, with the exceptions of holidays)
• Drank 500 l of water, 100 l juice, and ate 600 slices of bread
• Trained: 45-50 days [The mode is ~1 day a week or so, but my diligence suffered while I was in China, Estonia and Australia]
• Read 22 books [A serious drop from previous years, I blame the parents and TV for rotting my brain]
• 3 weeks typing
• Walked more than 350 hours [1050 miles, Dublin, Ireland to Pisa, Italy
• My heart has beaten ~27,288,000 times [My resting heart rate is some 45 bpm or so, 35 if I really concentrate. While training it probably averages 100 bpm, between the heavy stuff and the more sedate breathing exercises]
• Were I a car I would have travelled 9,336 km:

~6,221,000 breaths in a year {12 (breaths/min) x 60 (min/hour) x 24 (hour/day) x 360 (day/y)}
12,442,000 l-air/y {5,200,000 (breath/y) x 2 (l/breath)}
Inhale 508,000 mole-air/y {12,442,000 (l-air/y) / 24.5 (l/mol)}... Ideal Gas Law*
Consumed 35,560 mole-oxygen/y {508,000 x (0.21 - o.14**) } [Assuming I am a fit person]
This burns 2,845 mole-petrol/y {12.5O₂ + C₈H₁₈ > 8CO₂ + 9H₂O... 12.5 x Oxygen:Petrol}
I would have driven 9,336 km {2,845 (mole-petrol) / 114 (g-petrol/mole) = 324.3 g-petrol, 324.3 (g-petrol) / 0.74 (kg-petrol/l) = 438.3 l-petrol, 438.3 (l-petrol) x 21.3 (km/l, equivalent to 50 mpg) = 9,336 km}

I was going to do how much heat I radiated, but the numbers were provided better than I could have done here. Their lung capacity calculations are not as good, I think, not that anything I did up here was original work.
Speaking of which, the above method is just back-of-the-envelope stuff [the wiki on this phrase fills me with shame, considering the big wigs that first used it, plus I want this pamphlet "Modern Physics from an Elementary Point of View"!]. In my travels on the interweb I came across this site, which goes through the process from cell respiration POV.
The "distance" travelled is very sensitive to the mpg chosen, but nearly a quarter of the way around the earth is not bad :)

*Obviously I assumed the fugacity of the gases in question are ~ 1, which is reasonable at 1 atm and the moderate temperatures involved i.e. an ideal situation:


**The url I got the oxygen composition from seems to be on a dry basis, which makes things simple. For every volume of oxygen consumed, 1 volume carbon dioxide and and 1 volume of water is produced. On a dry basis there is no change in volumes. On a wet basis things change, for x oxygen converted:
***More rigourous ways to get the data would be the either: monitor oxygen consumption (tricky); or calorie intake (simple but exhaustive) and monitor change in body weight, taking into consideration percentage body fat change. We get a partial of a material/energy balance [a complete one would involve... guh... noting all ins and outs]. From that we back out an equivalent intake of oxygen, and other such things.

The kids are all right, everthing thing is too difficult

In my perusal of the internet I came across the above picture. It reminded me of an article I read recently. The gist of it: kids today are more are sheltered from stress and strife growing-up, and are more likely to be messes once torn from their mothers' apron strings than they were in the past.

I agree. Some feedback that I have heard for labs in the engineering was that the lab should be done out completely for the benefit of the students before they have to do it. Heaven forbid they would have to interpret the written instructions for themselves, and make some kind of error.

Then of course there is the standard of education...
The leaving certificate, Irish national exams for college entry, have become steadily easier over the years. When I began 5th year, it was to courses in English, Physics and Chemistry. The curricula became smaller, and easier.
As I understand it, before I began secondary school, English grammar was specifically examined, that is no longer the case. Imagine how easy picking up a language would be if one knew how your own language was put together, instead, the Irish (I can't speak for other native English speakers) treat the genitive case as something that happens to other languages. Of course in the short term teaching and examining grammar was deemed too daunting.

Both Physics and Chemistry saw the simplification and omission of sections and the more difficult material. I am galled that I was not tested to the same standards as my predecessors.

There is a mentality in place that if the kids are finding something too difficult, make it disappear, which is all well and good, if they were going to remain kids forever. But someday they are going to get kicked out of the house, and there is the rub. They have to take arms against a sea of troubles, and with what? Certainly not the intestinal fortitude mastering difficult ditties would garner. Reality gets them from them, without so much as a reach around.

Unfortunately I am just paraphrasing stuff better composed in the article I cited at the top :(
But dammit, I felt like ranting.

Space...

I tried, I really tried, not to get excited by the second Star Trek trailer... I failed.

Salsa and miscelleny

Went to Salsa last night. It was not in the usual place, as it was taken for a Christmas party. The new place was a town hall of sorts. High, open ceiling, stage up front. Our warm-up was stepping to a rather poppy salsa track, with a rather 80s air to it. It made me think that we were in "Fame!", any minute someone in leg warmers and a leotard would come jumping from the stage.

Complicated stuff for my improver's brain last night... Started with a hand switch, ladies turn, cross body lead, lead around turn with us side to side facing the same direction. I step back on to the line and turn girl with arms crossed. I do a turn on 1, without letting go of the hands,so my right hand is against my left shoulder bladed with the girls right, I flick with her hand with my elbow and catch it in my right the right way round. hair comb, cross body lead onto turn and I turn clockwise leading her hand to my shoulder and I complete the turn finishing closed. At least I think it is what it was supposed to be..

On my way to salsa, I was walking over Leeson St Bridge and there was a restaurant barge in the lock. A group of girls were walking by:

Girl 1: "Aw that is so cool. We have to go on that some night."
Girl 2: "Yeah so we can freeze our balls off."

Classic stuff...

If you're feeling or you're kinda...

Went to a Halloween house party in Limerick again. I dressed up as a terminator- there is only one "The Terminator" [technically redundant, but I'm going to stick with it]. I can't remember when I decided on the costume. The main thing were the eyes, I need to have red eyes, somehow. Initially I was thinking of contacts, but Kevin provided me with a starting point for an cheaper and nerdier option [Thanks to Jack Loftus for upping the picture and doing the work].

Some of the comments indicated that the resistors were unnecessary. Now obviously one cannot see very well with two LEDs in front of the eyes. I had an idea for how that would be remedied.

1. Went to Maplin off Henry St, collected a watch battery (3V), Resistors (0.1-10kOhm), and LEDs (30 piece party pack, Red, Yellow, Blue and IR).
   
2. My idea for the "blinding" problem, was using a bottle cap for housing one LED and the battery. I put a hole on the top, near the edge.
3. I trimmed the LED's prongs and placed the negative line flat along the underside of the cap and the positive wire went along the curved surface.
4. The watch battery was placed negative side down into the cap. Luckily, the negative face of the watch battery is recessed in the positive side. The positive wire is pinched between the cap's side and the positive rim of the battery. The negative wire pressed against the negative face of the battery. The threading of the cap fixed it all into place. Let there be light!

The mask

1. Bought light black cardboard
2. Placed it against my face
3. Glued the creased parts in place.
4. Made a hole in the mask for the LED.
5. Placed the LED housing into the mask [Pah I could not be bothered to continue hot linking, just look at the album...]
6. Strung some ribbon through it to fix it in place
7. Glued tin foil on it
8. Put it on.

Unfortunately I broke my camera and used my webcam, hence the poor quality pictures.

Fun times.

For No Mere Mortal Can Resist The Evil of The Thriller

In honour of the forthcoming holiest of holy nights, I list my favourite scares:

3 'Twas a dark, misty autumn evening. The year: 2006 Anno Domini. I was quitting the Engineering building in UCD, and a lab partner of old catches mine eye. I sped towards her, bellowing "Boooooo!", my arms aflailing. She jumped mightily high and raised her hands to ward off this man cloaked in night. When she came to her senses, she called me bad names and hit me about the arms.

[Shortly after we parted ways, she banged on the windows of a car, in which her boyfriend reposed, oblivious to her approach. The dastardly act elicited a satisfying shock from him. The next day, she excitedly told me about the incident; A convert.]

2 One would think there is nothing to fear in the stark light of day. Wrong.

'Twas a chilly afternoon. I was strolling along the mall in UCD, when I spied friends in the distance. Without a thought to how stupid it looked, I hid behind a pillar of the shelter stretched from restaurant to library. When I heard their approach, I jumped in front of them bellowing "Boooooo!". Anne Marie was so startled she shrieked, and hopped backwards, not once, but twice! Oh, how I laughed and fell about the place [sighs and looks to the middle distance watery-eyed]. The rest certainly enjoyed the experience, but Anne-Marie cast aspersions on my mother and the circumstances of my birth.

1 Granted, scaring Anne-Marie had many qualities of a good scare [A shriek, public area, hiding and spontaneous], but scaring an acquaintance rarely, if ever, matches giving a family member a fright...

My brother Eimhin and I had our rooms in a part of the house separate to Cillian, Diorraing and our parents. I needed T.P. for my ensuite so I went down to the other side of the house to procure some.

'Twas late at night, nary a mouse was stirring. I stole my way through the house like, like... something scary. I crept up the stairs, raised my fist to the bathroom door, and stopped. I could hear the distinct noises of Cillian brushing his teeth. I took stock of my surroundings... the lights were off in the landing and everyone else was asleep; it was unlikely Cillian would be expecting someone to be waiting on the otherside of the door. I rubbed my hands malevolently,a cunning plan came to mind.^A

I did not have much time. He was finished brushing his teeth and spitting.
I opted for the silent method. He had turned on the tap and was rinsing his mouth.
Standing in front of the door, I raised my hands, fingers curled and contorted my face into a grimace, and froze. He opened the door.
I could see his shoulder. He turned back to switch off the light.
I saw his eyes spring wide in shock. He leaped backwards.
I laughed. He threw a punch at my face.

Luckily he had jumped backwards and our protagonist^B [i.e. me] was just out of range. Curses and body punches followed shortly, my laughter was unabated. The curses woke-up our mother, and she asked,"What the f*ck is going on out there?!" Cillian replied,"Mairtin scared me!" Her final words on the matter were: "Shut the f*ck up and go to bed!"

As I write down this august portion of my memoir, other scares come to mind, but my top three still stand. If it is called for, my defense for scaring people is that it is lots and lots of fun. It is my advice that someone should take a moment in their day to give a friend a fright.

^AI don't recall rubbing my hands in this manner, but if there was ever a moment for it to do so, that was it.
^BI am willing to concede that the phrase "our hero" would be somewhat off the mark...

Brevity is the soul of wit, isn't it?

I stumbled upon Neil Gaiman's website this evening.

Specifically, the short story: I Cthulu: or What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?

Neil [is it OK to call you Neil, Mr Gaiman?] wrote Stardust, a recent movie release, American Gods and a few other novels. Wonderful reads, well composed hilarious, poignant and witty things.

He has a some anthologies, Smoke and Mirrors is my favourite [because of the ineffable quality of We Can Get Them For You Wholesale, Murder Myesteries and Nicholas Was...], Fragile Things is great too.

I usually prefer short stories to novels; the writer can give the story both barrels of the "imagery gun", unlikely to fatigue the reader. If a novel is treated so, one is [read: "I am"] left too addled to digest what was read.

My best example: Grapes of Wrath.^# The novel reminded me of⁺ a huge, rich, cream-laden black forest gateaux, either eat it in one go or not at all... I chose the latter. [Ducks head in anticipation of attacks from literati]. But short stories? Ha! Do. Your. Worst.

I wonder... Is my limited capacity for absorbing intricately detailed works of literature rooted in being part of a world where "instant gratification takes too long" [Carrie Fisher]? Sure, I easily read novels with soft-core prose, but I give a website scant sentences to win me over.^*

Tragic. Doubly so, since the aforementioned "tragic" rings hollow. Tut. Tut. Tut. Feigning despair at my cultural decadence... Huh, still no reaction. It is too late for me. Quick! Go read a classic piece of literature. And enjoy it.

^#No arguing, Steinbeck deserves every literary accolade he garnered and may be awarded posthumously
⁺[I abandoned the following analogy, don't know why] a 1m³ steel cube covered in μm scale etchings on its surface; a work of patient mastery, but my appreciation suffers from the law of diminishing returns. It becomes less leisurely , more a pilgrimage-like
^*Anyone who read this far is eligible to collect a sweet from me, the next time they are in University College Dublin :)

It's f*ckin' Alive!!

In the past few weeks much time has been spent with the PC project... going nowhere.

On Sunday, all that changed [Cue heavy atmospherics]. Got a 32bit XP disk ,installed it over the failed 64bit XP. Bye-bye half-assed install with the incorrect product key attached to it. [Damn tech shafted me].

So XP was bright and shiney and I figured I'd install the X64 over that. Put in the appropriate disc... Nothing happened. Well that is not accurate, XP 32bit booted up. I figured, "meh,I'll do it tomorrow."

Since then, I have decided XP is not needed. I set the BIOS in AHCI mode [XP will not boot without a F6 install to add the driver], kubuntu was ready in shortly after. One hiccup: the ethernet card is not recognised. But in a week's time the next version of Ubuntu coming out all will be well.
============================================================================

Recently, I overheard two guys:
Guy1:"Blah, blah, blah [I have lots of time, you are in a hurry]. You f*ck on ahead to the house"

"F*ck on ahead"... I would like to say that I am outraged, but I am more amazed. Casual replacement of a verb with a curse word. Not used in a heated moment, but with as much inflection as "go".

It reminded me of a date I was on with an American girl, where I f-ed and blinded my way through part of our conversation. I was apologetic when she pointed this out, but she said it did not sound like cursing.

People like to talk about how gifted the Irish are in poetry and prose, it is often neglected to mention how much we enjoy using taboo words mundanely.

Sweet dreams are made of these...

Last night I had a cinematic dream. So to avoid forgetting it completely, I am going to commit it to record...
====================================================================
The dream was all about The Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles (I probably had it because there was no episode this week).

The gang [sans Cameron] are on the run from an established Skynet's army, and are briefly holed-up in a militia base. But shock and horror, an AI Fiend, with wave after wave of terminators in tow, tracks them down. Things were looking bad, so John Connor's mother makes a dramatic last stand, while he and his uncle escape.
[Scene missing]
Years go by and JC has set up a utopian society. The mother turns up, apparently escaping death at the hands of the AI Fiend. There are some cliché tear filled reunions, whoops of joy, etc. But that does not last for long...
By killing a minor character, Sarah Connor shows herself to be a terminator all skinned up, bent on killing JC & Co. The uncle tries to destroy the Sarah Connor-bot (SCb) with a badass laser bazooka. In that frustrating way that fast and tough-as-nails evil robots do things, SCb dodges the puny human's shots and smashes the bazooka. Getting ready to tear Mr. Reese to pieces, Cameron finally shows up, beats the crap out of SCb and dismantles her lickity-split.

Then I woke up.

...Talk about Deus Ex Machina, my subconscious is such a hack :(
====================================================================
It is worth noting that this is not a fan fiction- it occurs to me the similarities between this and such a deplorable writing genre are shocking- because it was a dream, not something I came up with by design. Despite my clarification, I feel a bit unclean having written the above paragraphs.
====================================================================
A fun dream to have, no doubt, but not my favourite one.
At number 2 [that voice used in countdowns]:

I teamed up with a recently one-armed Crocodile Dundee, Don Cheadle [as himself] and the Rock made a rag-tag team to get the missing "x" from my material balance in an Aztec temple. Lesley Nielsen and a gang of cockney thugs are the villains doggedly thwarting us, in a bumbling and amusing fashion.

At number 1:

Armed with nothing more than a katana, I stormed a flying fortress manned by an army of ninjas. Words fail to describe its awesomeness. [It reminds me a lot of the xkcd strip starring Janeane Garofalo]


[Edit: Kevin pointed me to the relevant meme depicting the hierarchy of nerds and geeks and why treading near fan fiction scares me so:
http://www.brunching.com/images/geekchartbig.gif

...I am relieved that at least I don't feature in my dream...]

The Inner Workings of an Engineer: How It Ticks

In Terry Pratchett's The Thief of Time, a gifted and proportionately medicated clockmaker is contracted to build a clock timed to the tick of the universe; the minimum difference between two moments in real time. The narrator observes this is equivalent to using a crowbar within a box to open said box from the outside.^a Inconceivable!^b

And thus ends my preamble, and if you will bear with me it will be a preamble and not a non-sequitur.

Previously, I put together the PC hardware and found I did not have the video output, that is no longer an issue.

Next stop OS installation... Our computer Tech gave me a Windows X64. The product key was not valid. When questioned, he told me that he had given me the product key for a 32 bit XP... two randomly generated 16 digit alphanumeric, there is [If my logic is correct] 1 in 36^16 (10^-25) chance that they are the same. Not impressed.

Since Microsoft/Computer Tech shafted me, I went to see how Linux would treat me. Originally I was getting a Intel P35 Chipset motherboard, but I picked the newer P45 version of the motherboard instead. The 64 bit version of Ubuntu did not boot. I thought it was Windows rocking the boat again... As it happens, current Ubuntu dislikes the P45 chipset. But no fear I have discovered a solution, apparently Kubuntu with BIOS in RAID mode will play ball.

After training, I related my progess to Bob. He chuckled for a time. When he settled down, he asked: "Has the PC actually worked yet?" Clearly the answer was no. I uttered the word blithely, as a break from telling him what I was planning to do next. Bob chuckled a bit more. He pointed out to me that I am an engineer; with as much if not more interest in how things work as having them work.
Shortly after, I realised [in a "Oh my God!"/facepalm way] that goal of the Project PC-building was finding out about PCs. Anything that I have at the end of it is a happy bonus. It brings to mind a Dilbert Cartoon, with the appropriate amount of Schadenfreude...

Referring to my preamble: the problem becomes trivial if someone else has a crowbar handy and pops open the box for you.


^a The idea is reminiscent of a Zen Koan... it makes me cringe.
^b I do think that that word means what I think it means.

The Heathen Natives had the right idea...

Early one morning 18 months ago...

I was in the Sports Centre, minding my own business, meditating in one of the main halls. A bespectacled woman in her 40s sticks her head through the door.

Christian:"Do you know what you are doing?"

Mairtin: [Nods]

Christian:"God loves you. You should not be doing this stuff."

Mairtin: [Returns to staring at a wall. After a minute or so, she leaves]

Early one morning 6 months ago...

Once again I was in the Sports Centre, minding my own business, doing a form in one of the main halls. This time the bespectacled woman walked across the hall and stood near by until I looked at her.

Christian:"I see you here often..."

Mairtin:[Having completely forgotten about the prior incident with her, prepares to explain which martial art he practices and who to talk to about joining the club]

But back in reality...

Christian:"...trying to find comfort." Pardon? "But you cannot find comfort in yourself. Only God can comfort you. I have some pamphlets I would like to read you-"

Mairtin: "I will have to stop you here. I do not believe in God. I do not think that promise of heaven or the existence of a higher being is needed to lead a good life. My father died 2 years ago and I do not think he went to heaven or any where else. He ceased to be. This is how I know I don't believe in God."

Christian:"Well... If you have any questions..."

Since the conversation was over I walked away from her and continued training. Once more she walked away after a few more minutes of watching.

Early this morning...

A third time I am in the Sports Centre, minding my own business. The Christian approaches me...

Christian: "I am here to tell you that Jesus loves you."

She begins to leave. I call her back.

Mairtin:"This is the third time that you have disturbed me!"

Christian:"I know that. But I have to tell you that Jesus loves you because you don't believe and no one in this world cares enough to tell you so."

Mairtin:"I have many people that care for me-"

Christian:"None of them care enough to tell you that Jesus loves you."

Mairtin:"Maybe someday I will realise that Jesus loves me, but I am not going to realise that by you saying so."

Christian:"That is what I mean. You cannot know it here [Points at head], you have to believe it here [Points at centre of chest]. That is why I am telling you that Jesus loves you, belief can only come from hearing"

Left aghast at her incoherent statements I resorted to a form of begging of a sort...

Mairtin:"This is the third time that you have disturbed me. Do not come near me again."

Christian:"In the next year or so you will be finished studying and you will not see me again."

She said other stuff to the effect of she has things to do herself, but I cannot remember them clearly enough to type them down.

Again, I return to training and she leaves shortly afterwards.

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

The first time she approached me I was annoyed. The second time she approached me I was not in a mood to hear her. The third time I was very angry. I was angry at the presumption that she knew what was best for me, despite not knowing me. I was angry at the presumption that what I was practicing was some kind of pseudo-religion that should not be practiced.

Even writing this I am very wound up about the whole thing. The fact that she avoided saying she would not approach me again means I am likely to see her in the future.

Yesterday I came across a webcomic that made some valid observations about how atheists are arguably better Christians than Christians are... aside from not believing in God that is. I think that is a moot point anyway... If you are the Big Cheese capable of creating the universe in 6 days and having a rest on the 7th, that one person not believing in you would bothers you is rather disappointing and petty. Were God like a a loving, but estranged father that likes to keep tabs on his children- as the story goes- then surely he would be happy that his kids were good people irrespective of what they thought of him as opposed to deciding they should burn for their disrespect...

Recently deceased comedian George Carlin had this to say about religion:

"Religion is like a lift in the shoe, and I say just don't ask me to wear your shoes. And let's not go down and nail lifts onto the natives' feet."

Racemates and Robots

Some quick points:

• Stereochemistry is about pairs of molecules that are almost identical, but the molecules cannot be interposed on each other and the mirror image of one is identical to the other. This is essentially analogous to one's left and right hands. Stereochemistry is immensely important in biological systems, see: Thalidomide debacle.
  

• 1849 Louis Pasteur painstakingly isolated a racemic mixture using a tweezers

Recent work done by a Dutch crystallization group discovered something rather shocking. If a crystal racemic mixture was left in a liquid with glass beads to mix for long enough [days to weeks] only one form of the molecule would be left as a crystal, i.e. the left handed ones were converted to the right handed ones or vice-versa (Noorduin, Crystal Growth & Design 2008, Vol 8, No 5, pp 1675).
It may sound like I have stolen a moment of your life telling you this stuff but it is significant: Firstly our man Pastuer needn't have picked out crystals by hand he could have left it alone and it would have sorted itself out.
Secondly in nature almost only one enantiomer of many naturally produced molecules exist. Using normal synthesis chemistry both enantiomers form. Since all it takes is time for a mixture to become enantiopure, it takes time. So start off at year dot with a primordial soup. [Times passes]. We get a enantiopure set of molecules, ripe for life... At least that is where the idea goes.

Another thing I saw at the conference was a paper on the process control of a crystallization using a neural network. When I heard this I immediately thought this. But of course, Skynet it isn't...

Conferences and Calamaties

Got to the airport 100 minutes before the scheduled departure time. A forlorn looking Barbara greets me with "Mairtin, you are going to kill me...".
It turned out she had forgotten her passport.
The wayward article was in the engineering building. We took a shockingly slow taxi trip to UCD.
Barbara's mother does not use a mobile phone. She had to collect Barbara's office key from her [Barbara's] boyfriend, Daniel. Daniel was supposed to be in work- he wasn't.
She rushed in to a nearby Starbucks roaring: "someone please help me! My daughter is going to Holland this morning and has forgotten her passport. I need to use a phone!" Someone was kind enough to provide one and the twain met successfully, and all was well.
Got the passport [and a camera] and made it back to the airport in 20 minutes from UCD, there was a shakey moment when Barbara's mother drove down the wrong way on a road, I calmly told her this was the case and once more all was well.
5 hours later...
We got to the conference centre to register. Last week I was asked if I had sorted out the accommodation for the ISIC conference, I glibly retorted that it was included in the registration fees. The closer we got to that desk, the more I doubted that this was so. Nonetheless I hoped that the receptionist would finish her piece with "...and here are your accommodation details". [Hands us keys to suites].Despite staring at her expectantly after she had given us our bags and coupons, she did not say the magic words.
"Bugger..."
[Time passed]
We were in the StayOkay Hostel by the river, and all was well.

Had a waffle and whipped ice-cream in town. Maastricht is a pretty buildinged, old and institutionally sedate town- very reminiscent of Bruges, of In Bruges fame.

Computer building and Clichés (Continued)

Due to some hiccups regarding conference registration, I was in college much later than expected. It followed that I started building the PC later, of course in my typically blind optimism I expected I could put it together and still make training. 80 minutes later, having put in the motherboard, 600W PSU, CPU and RAM chips, there was no chance I was going to make it..

Have to stop writing- fire alarm in the engineering block...

Fire alarm stopped... Either it was a drill , false alarm or the fire finally got to the alarm system circuitry.

Where was I....

Another hour of head scratching, manual rereading all the pieces I had for my PC were in it...
The next step was to hook up the monitor to its appropriate port. Some more head scratching and manual rereading and visual inspection showed I was lacking such a port. Next stop is procuring a video card- I am such a n00b :(

Regarding clichés
Sci-Fi

Were I in a space ship meeting or facing of against people in another space ship I would orientate my ship to 7 Degrees off of their verticle, I bet it would really irritate them!

The flavour of the week group of helpless people/under dog rebels etc that encountered our heroes in the tv series would not be led by a a strong yet attractive women who cannot but help fall for our main hero. Maybe it would be some kind of eunich to avoid the lead heroine falling for him, or any kind of kindred spirit for the supporting characters who may be the momentary spotlight of the episode.

When X gets a message about Y from their past being dead- Y better be dead.

Salsa and Friday

Salsa was lots of fun last night. Learned the cross body lead last night. It gave me some difficulty initially but it all worked out in the end. It occurred to me that the one in a million chance of having excess men in a Salsa class last week was something to do with the Fates hedging there bets regarding the LHC's start-up earlier this week, just in case the tall odds against something happening were beaten. Last night there were more women than men- All is right with the world once more...

Going to go home early and build my PC. Have to think of a name for it. I'm reticent to name it a girl's name; at least two of my friends have called their sets of computers girls names (Kevin and Steve). If I had 3 internal hard disks in RAID array I would call it the 6 harmonies, they could be the external harmonies, the CPU could be Yi¹, the motherboard Qi and the RAM Li².

Back to training tonight, it has been a couple of weeks since I did my 2000 punches in low stances, but on the upside I can do 5 minutes in low horse now :)

¹To the best of my knowledge Yi means intention or will to act- Unfortunately the internet is not forthcoming with direct links about it [at a cursory search]
²The chinese for strength apparently [I did not do a proper search for this one of laziness]<sup>3

3</sup>My next skill to learn is linking within a document- I'd prefer it much more to basic numerical references

-Mairtin at his nerdiest were it not for the salsa of course...
[EDIT: I have decided to go with calling my computer "Dhá Meabhair"; the Irish for "Two Minds"]

The Middlethon and the Conference

For Dinner:

Made Chicken noodle soup

1. Boiled water
2. Put shredded chicken carcass into soup to boil
3. Added some garlic, broccoli pieces, shredded carrots, salt and two chilli peppers
   
4. Left to boil for about 2 hours
5. Took out the chicken carcass and pulled the meat from the bones

Next day

1. Brought the broth to boil
2. Added the noodles, spring onions, monge touts and nice chunky carrots

Chicken and sweet pepper halves

1. Half lots of red peppers, put them into the grill
2. Boiled shredded chicken in chop suey with some ginger and spring onions
3. Mix chicken and sauce with some crunchy vegetables
4. Pour into the pepper halves and leave in oven at gas mark 5 for 30 minutes

[The mistake at this point was adding so many noodles, it turned into porridge :( ]

The dinner took about two hours to prepare and eat. So we only got to watch 4 episodes of the Middleman. Ali and Eva brought dessert (cookies and fruit salad) [and Kevin brought some too...].

Got 2 hours sleep and went to the airport for my flight to east midlands.
Conference was interesting- my PhD needs a lot of work. There was a guy that gave a presentation about crystals in food. He explained how stupid it was to "Ban trans fats" from products because trans fats allow crystallizations in butter, our jelly bellies, ice cream, etc. On top of that he had the actions and the appearance of Bill Nighy in Love Actually.
I chatted to a guy at dinner that uses light tweezers. The future is now :)

Got back to college- my RAM finally arrived. They have monster aluminium radiators sticking out of the chips.

Looking forward to building it. Going with 64Bit XP and Ubuntu.

Salsa and Middlethon

Went to Salsa last night in the Garda Club, for the first time in over a year- opted for beginner's class to avoid any embarrassment.

It was oodles of fun. The class reminded me a lot of kung fu class, phrases like "blocking" were used and there were many apparently complicated hand motions going around. My dancing was generally well received :)

I was somewhat horrified when there turned out to be more men than women at the class- it is the first time it has probably ever happened in the history of Salsa classes- it could be a portent of a coming apocalypse...

Preparing for my Middlethon tomorrow. Going to cook dinner for the "peeps" coming over. Looking up a recipe for noodle soup at the moment, it is kinda like I am Po from Kung Fu Panda.... Only in reverse and I am not a useless anthropomorphised cuddly evolutionary dead end (it is more I have a problem with Pandas as opposed to Pandas portrayed by Jack Black)

The Chinese Wedding

My brother got married in China at the beginning of August. Here's an account of the trip

Dramatis Personae

Mairtin: Me
Eimhin: The artist (His animated short has been selected for a film festival in LA), 195cm tall. at least 20cm greater than what is usually seen in China.
Diorraing: The kid. Does not really like chinese food...
Cillian: The Groom. A mathematician.
Jin Xi: The Bride. Generally our interpreter.
David: The Best Man. Astrophysicist. 199cm, 100Kg, can dead lift double body weight; a monster.
Jin Xi's Mother: Encourages Diorraing to eat, giving us a battery of medicines at the slightest indication of a cold, rumour has it prices drop by 20% when she walks into a shop.
Jin Xi's Grandmother: The family matriarch. The Hardy Old Lady. Master haggler.
Jin Xi's Grandfather: Happy man. Missing a middle finger. Delights in telling us stories when we won't understand (always). Looks like he he should be a movie star/celebrity, reminds me of Beat Takeshi.


T-minus 12 days
Went to zoo with younguns.
Molly was particularly taken with the apes and monkeys.

The flight leaving before us at our gate was full of annoying teenagers returning from a language course, I slept on the ground for a while..
In Amsterdam, Eimhin caused his usual delays going through security for our connecting flight to Chengdu, too many pockets and too many things in his bag don't you know...

T-minus 11 days
Arrived in Cheng Du without further incident.
Got a lift from a friend of Jin Xi's family from Cheng Du to Pengzhou not as hair raising as the car trips in Quanzhou in 2005.
Went for a walk around the town, were stared at and had people roar "Hello" at us- as it happens few tourists come by this part of China, well except to see the Panda Reserve... I'll get to that later.

T-minus 10 days
We went to the local park for a stroll.
The crickets/cicads were extremely loud, I'd wager pretty close to the threshold limits for exposure to sound in an industrial setting... Fed some coy/goldfish/carp, beasts of fish! Most were at least a foot long, dropping food into their pond led to the bubbling feeding frenzy generally reserved for piranhas in cartoons.
Jin Xi brought Diorraing skating on the outdoor Roller Disco, here we were subject to more staring, surreptitious camera phone snap shots, ultimately leading to posing for pictures like sideshow attractions... demeaning? Of course not! They were particularly awed when we told them that Eimhin's shoe size is Wŭ Shi (50 European).

T-minus 9 days
Got up early, went to see the Pandas (Xiun Mao). Giant ones and Red ones.
Giant Pandas give birth to twins 45% of the time in captivity. They are shockingly cute and useless, I mean really; Black and White, feed solely on Bamboo (only 27 of the 60 species that they could eat), kids are not independent of their mothers for the first 18 months, take another 3-4 years to reach sexual maturity, stacked odds...
The red ones look like foxes and actually move, I even saw a couple of them scrapping... "Skidoosh"
Continuing with a tradition of large-scale eating, Eimhin and I finished off ten courses at a family dinner, the locals were shocked.

T-minus 8 days
Made my first wantons and jaoza today, jaoza should look like fans or some such- of course mine looked like tied sacks. We made 100s of them though!
Stomach took a beating from the previous night, so I did not have much for lunch... I'm getting too old for this shit.
Learned how to play Mahjong, of the two variations they mentioned I'm not sure which one I know.
Bought 2 bottles of orange juice, 2 of grape drink, 1 of peach drink, 1 of pepsi, 2 of water [all 1.5L volumes], plus some snacks for less than 100RMB, less than a tenner... wow-wee

T-minus 7 days
Played Mahjong for a bit. Lost. Went to see a man about a suit. My disproportionately long arms were remarked upon. In the end, got a suit, shirt and tie for less than 60Euro... Hot diggity. Went shopping again, Eimhin bought imported raisins that cost a quarter of the total shopping bill, a shockingly high ratio considering it was such relatively small amount of it. The bitterest irony of it was that the raisins were shipped from Dublin 15. If he had gone domestic then the price would have been at the most a tenth of it.

T-minus 6 days
Got up early. Took train from Cheng Du to Cha ning, strangely the train is less comfortable and takes two hours longer than the 5 hour bus journey... Went for the first of many hosted 15 course meals.

T-minus 5 days
Went shopping in Chaning, well browsing at least. More open gawking and staring to be had by the locals. Another big fancy meal. Went to Karaoke, all the chinese people were shockingly good at it, at least three of them were classically trained in singing. I thought it best not to partake...

T-minus 4 days
David arrived. Had dinner. A snippet of the conversation during dinnger:
Jin Xi's Grandmother: [unintelligible Chinese]
Jin Xi: [Unintelligible reply]
Cillian: Did she just call me "that foreigner" again? Remind her my name is Cillian!

Oh! How we laughed and fell about the place, the offspring of "Meet the Parents" and "Lost in Translation"

T-minus 3 days
Got up early, went up... and up... to the Bamboo Forest. It was amazing... the first day going outdoors that I was not slick with sweat... I mean the sights were great. All along the cliff faces in the bamboo forest there are carvings from the Three Kingdoms era. People stared as much at Eimhin and David as they did the statues in the area... One asked for a photo with them [Eimhin and David, I mean. They weren't asking statues for photos]

T-minus 2 days
We found out that the locals have been calling us "Wei Go Ren" ["Foreigner" or some such]. Thought it fair to start saying "Zhong Gua Ren" in response.
Went to the local gym. Taekwando and Wushu is taught by a guy named Qibo. Cillian introduced me to him. We did a tiny amount of pushing hands, then light sparring. fast little bugger. He kept kicking me in the stomach, I have 20Kg and half a foot in height on him, so he kept bouncing off of me
I obliged Qibo in a gloved bout of fisticuffs. He got me with a delightful hook that made a good contact on my jaw, it clicked for the rest of the day. I kept stepping on his lead foot, by accident, I assure.
Went for another multi-course meal and then some more karaoke. There were no uber talented singers so I brought the thunder, did some renditions of Britney Spears [her golden age stuff of course].

T-minus 1 day
Went back to the gym again. Played around with a Jian this time, tried butterfly kicks, failed. Did sanzhan for Qibo, realises why he was so out of breath during sparring yesterday, while i was hale and hearty. Got to palm one of his round house kicks.

W-Day

Kidnapping and Making Away with a Brother's Prospective Bride

Aside: Context aside, the wedding day is representative of the The Siquan trip, flying blind with last minute instruction or miming.

Got up early, had a shave. Put on a my "Sunday Best", Spirit Level cuff-links are a must.
The wedding started at 0830Hrs. Irish contingent, with compulsory interpreter [xi-xi, the bridesmaid] were talked through the in-and-outs of chinese wedding traditions accrued over the course of centuries.

1. We have to push open the door of the Bride's home a crack.* 
2. Once opened, we throw in red packets of money, to buy admission for Cillian. 
3. He promised to wash the dishes and love her, etc.** 
4.  Jin Xi was won over by the promises and left the home, with red silken veils hiding her face.
5. Cillian piggy-backed her down the the four flights of stairs as far as her palanquin awaiting in the apartment block courtyard.
6. The groom's family and friends stand around the palanquin ensuring that Jin Xi does not pull a runner before we can get the wedding started.
7. Cillian mounts a mighty steed.***
8. We paraded a circuit of the town, a marching band in tow.

The only point of note was that the horse fell under Cillian's weight about halfway through the parade, david and I had been staring at its kinking rear right in fascination for quite a while.

*At a combined weight 350Kg we had to take care not splat the troupe of slight Chinese women against a wall.
**Well we assume so, since he was parroting phrases from Xi Xi
***a horse not that much heavier than he.

Receiving The Guests
Once we arrived at the hotel for the wedding actual, the palanquin was jigged for a while so that the palanquin bearers could get more money*. The impendingly happily married couple went up to their suite. The Irish milled around outside aimlessly, forgotten. Within, Cillian removed the silk veils** with his teeth. They were left to change from traditional Chinese red robes to a Western white ensemble. Only just remembered, Eimhin and I were left at the mercy of the Women Relatives, subjects of the size of our family, marital status, tastes in [Chinese] women and Eimhin's height were discussed.
The couple and their righthand-people stopped the guests at the hotel door, forcing sweets and cigarrettes onto them- seeing as they seemed to miss the 2m tall white guy with a tray.

*Probably a tradition based in mercenaries extorting additional money for the acquisition of a nubile woman
**Representing the Red Sack of Pillaging of yore, I reckon

Two Become One
After about 2 hours of stopping guests the ceremony began. They had a 9 tier wedding cake.* The two walked up the middle of the dinner hall, showered in sprays and streamers, Cillian's carefully styled hair was devastated. A cabaret singer was mistress of ceremonies. David gave a brief speech. The crowd went wild when he opened with "Ni Hao", like a rock concert. Some candles were lit and rings were exchanged. Jin Xi's grandmother [her father's mother] gave a lengthy speech. The richest women in town gave a speech too. JIn Xi's mother gave a speech. The two drank tea at her feet, presumably as an induction into her family. Next there was food. Here the Hardline Mrs Doylian Philosophies took a monstrous turn, Eimhin and I were forced at glass point my pushy Chinese person after pushy Chinese person to drink, one old chap made us have some kind of rice liqueur which burned my throat.

*"9 is forever!", Jin Xi informed us

T-Plus 1
Were woken up early for a trip to the "Siquan Karstic Geopark". Being from the "Gateway to the Burren" I thought I knew Karst regions, this was pretty cool though. There were some limestone structures that looked like pigs and bunnies. The cliff faces have holes in them where coffins were placed, sometimes they were hung on the cliff face. Then, the heavenly cavern. A gigantic cave that you can take a slide down to its lower level. Steps lead you to a very fancy looking stalactite/stalacmite area called the heavenly fairies [or some such]. Some more anthropomorphized rock formations, with a 2mx8m skylight 80m or so overhead. We went into a really really really dark cave, armed with flash-lights; no mole-men or morlocks to be found. The final stage in the heavenly cavern is traversed by a paddle boat across an under ground pond, I saw an eel in it. My local pride was injured by a little known attraction in China being orders of magnitude more entertaining than the tiny Burren equivalent, the Allwee Caves. Had one last dinner and did some shopping. Haggle master #1 stepped in and got us knock down prices, although I was worried that Cillian and her would come to blows over who was going to pay, Doylian to the core.

T-Plus 2
Got a surprisingly comfortable bus back to Cheng Du followed by a cramped van ride back to Peng Zou. On the bus, Jin Xi's Mother's Mother gave me a measuring look an eventually decided I was worth waving good bye to, Ice cold!

T-Plus 3
Got a comfortable trip into Cheng Du airport. Paid 10Euros for a banana split, with 3 standard sized ice-cream scoops, not even particularly tastey. Unimpressed.
On Plane: watched Kung Fu Panda [fantastic!] & Iron Man [Yay for Robert Downey Jr!] & Batman Begins [Ready for the dark knight]
Got back to Ireland. Tired.