2009: The Director's Cut: Scroll the First

This year "it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"

It was the birth of the Rice Advice:

It started with the one that made me an avid follower ¹ of his and it continues with elegant wisdoms. His most recent wisdom took to form of an action, he shook the hand and well-wished everyone that crossed his path leaving the bar last week. His farewells were so genuine that some asked the farewellees how they knew him. I am still mulling over what it means.
Someday, the Damian and I will compose gospels on it.

The Mairtin Moment of The Year goes to an occurrence a week ago:

For the past few years I've had an interest in reading people. It arose naturally from practicing Kung Fu, which fosters self-awareness- and self-defence is pretty useless without an inkling of what the other is about to do.
Earlier in the month I gave one of the lads a good description of his order in his family and how he was treated. I was pretty chuffed with it, but I did not feel a need to knock myself over back-patting.
Four of us went to a bar on Stephen's Green. I was chatting to the new girl [I'll leave her name out since I daren't mispell it]. To fill a lapse in conversation I asked her if she was going to join a sports club in UCD. Without giving her time to respond, I said,"You look like someone that likes playing.... badminton."² I was bang on the money, it turns out that she loves playing badminton.

Eat your heart out Derren Brown :D

I then followed up with telling her and Damian which sides they slept on. When I explained how I could tell, they were less impressed with that ditty.³

And thus ends Scroll the first of "2009: The Director's Cut"

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¹Follower in the spiritual sense, not the Twitter sense.
²It was all very logical. I considered the sports that were common and based on what I conisdered her temperment to be, I whittled my choices away until badminton seemed the most likely. It took a second or three from start to finish (that ellipsis in the quote covers it)
³ Most people sleep on their non-dominant side (right handed people on their left side and vice-versa), the ones to watch out for are those that sleep on their backs or fronts.

365.25 days of Media: Part 2

Now films.

I used the wiki site to remind me of releases during the year. It is possible I missed some [un]deserving flicks since the link is based on US release dates.¹ It was a pretty good year for films, I think. Avatar gets an honourable mention for visually stunning graphics, albeit with a somewhat dull story line.²

Up - I was concerned that Pixar had gone off of the reservation with Cars, it was lame enough to be something from Dreamworks³... [Máirtin takes a breath repeating that he promised to stay in '09 and not mention by-gones.]... A poignant and enjoyable piece that had me close to tears at times. Not the all-round package that was the Incredibles, but a worthy offering.

Inglorious Basterds - When I first heard about the film, I groaned in distaste. Tarrantino's past work has been good, however I don't think he warranted the praises he garnered. The first scene of the film put me in my place. it is probably one of my favourite slices of film this year . The typical hyper-violence of his other works and deliciously paced dialogues/script. In my opinion his magnum opus.

Where The Wild Things Are - A film about a kid. Not necessarily a kids' film. Gandolfini's character, Carol, is very similar to his iconic Tony Soprano. Well shot, few wasted words and well imagined characters, but a bit too long at times.

In The Loop - Gandolfini gets a second mention in the run-down, in this sharply written black comedy relating the maneuvering and under-handedness that takes place in government offices on both sides of the Atlantic. Keep an eye out for Steve Coogan's cameo.

District 9 - A tremendous sci-fi. It has taken a place beside the Fifth Element as my favourites of the genre. An engaging concept, excellent special effects and great action set pieces. It did fell like two films. First a high-concept science fiction. Halfway through it changes up to the classic science-fiction-action-romp. Both parts of the film are superbly done, but the transition marks an artistic compromise of sorts for me.

Watchmen - The most mature and well conceived film based on a comic book. End of story.

Moon - I'm a big Sam Rockwell fan, it is largely himself and the creepy disembodied voice of Kevin Spacey. The special effects are subtly done and very believable. As a whole. similar to the first half of District 9, in that science fiction is a context for the story as opposed the focus.

Honourable Mentions: Monsters Vs Aliens & Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - for being great non-Pixar computer animated features. A Serious Man - for the Coen brothers, producing a film that requires more thought that than even their usual fare. Gomorrah - for giving a stark look at life under-the-thumb of the Italian Mafia. Zombieland - For being a delightfully funny US answer to Shaun of The Dead, a good leading cast and a great cameo. Synecdoche, NY - the most abstract film I saw this year... although the Office Boy [Damian] has been raving about White Ribbon.

Now for the films that displeased me. They are by no means the worst films I have seen, except for maybe the first on the list, but films that disappointed me.

Year One - Jack Black and Michael Cera.On the whole, it wasn't funny.⁴ Jack Black is beginning to grate. Michael Cera should see about getting some range.

Wolverine - The first two X-Men films were about wolverine, I liked them. There were some good moments in this one, but it does not hold a candle to what had come before, but it could have.

Pirate Radio - A film about an illicit Rock 'n' Roll radio station, on a boat. It stars Bill Nighy, Philip Seymour Hoffman and the tall fella from the IT Crowd. It could have been a collection debauched mad-cap anti-establishmentarianism antics, it could have had the spirit of Animal House and its ilk. Unfortunately it was generally soppy and safe.
Edit: JC [What can I say, I have friends in high places.] pointed out that that was the American release name. To avoid it in Ireland and England, it is called "The Boat that Rocked."

The Men That Stared at Goats - George Clooney and Ewan MacGregor in a buddy movie about a journalist and an ex-Army Psychic. Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey co-starred. It had some decent moments, but my mate Neil and I agree that if it were not for Mr Clooney it would have been an obscure and beige.

Terminator Salvation - An adequate Summer flick. An adequate follow-up to Terminator 3. Grossly inadequate sequel to the first two films. Sam Worthington is pretty good in it, but I tire of Christian Bale's unnecessarily gravely voice and his typically intense and brooding character-type, I fear he could be getting type-cast.

So there is a run-down of TV and film according to Máirtín. In the next few days I'll take in Sherlock Holmes- I do like a bit of Robert Downey Jr, and Rachel MacAdams is as eye-catching as ever. In the coming months I wait in baited breath for the HBO pilot of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones TV series. Other than that, I am hoping that they don't make another season of Dexter- get out on top darn it.

Later jerkwads.
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¹As it happens, it included Taken in the '09 release... I was so very tempted to include it, I mean, people, it's freaking awesome.^i
2Possibly the best special effects ever stunningly applied. However, the "Dances-with-Wolves-in-Space"ⁱⁱ storlyline typically hung off of them like a sleepy toddler being carried to bed.
³Other than the first Shrek and Kung-Fu Panda, Dreamworks hasn't delivered as far as I am concerned.
⁴I ended up missing a salsa lesson for it. >:(
^{___________________________________________________________________________________
i}... well, after the first 30 minutes or so.
ⁱⁱI heard that description from Bob first.

365.25 Days of Media Part 1

Shakespeare's whiny lay-about Hamlet said,"There is nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it so."

I say,"Shut your mouth, boy, and listen to what I tell you is good and bad."

Instead of a follow-up to last year's "All About Me" special, I decided on listing things things that have come to my attention.

We'll bang-out TV, first

Some things that have raised my ire, in ascending order:

Hank- Kelsey Grammer's abortive/aborted sitcom.
Heroes- it gets [I would like ever so much to say "got". Soon. Maybe] worse and worse.
MTV- it has spawned/is spawning a generation of vacuous creatures that believe in fame for no good reason and unbridled materialism- Pimp my Hills Crib Makeover.

Things that gave me an upside-down-frown, in ascending order:

Supernatural - It started out as pulp horror-fantasy. It is still tongue-in-cheek, geeky and violent, lately it has gotten all Apocalypse and the storytelling has improved as well.
It's not Whedon, but it has pretty entertaining episodes and dark ideas. Throughout the series, my favourite touch has been that most of those possessed by the same demons ape the mannerisms and ticks of previously possessed.

Glee - 'Tis a musical-drama based in a high school.¹ Some of the cast were recruited from Broadway. The music alternates between pop and broadway numbers.² The show, she opened with a quirky pilot that finished with a, like, OMG [Mairtin places hands on his cheeks and stares, agape]. Since then, it has generally improved and fleshed out the supporting cast for the better. Nonetheless, the leading ladies (Lea Michelle and Jane Lynch) are hands down the best things about it.

Breaking Bad - Bryan Cranston is back on screen in the form of a shockingly over-qualified high school chemistry teacher who gets diagnosed with lung cancer. It is a straight-up Greek tragedy and Cranston's Mr White becomes more glaringly tragic by the moment. It has solid acting (Cranston is a scary mo' fo'), storytelling and cinematography.

Dexter - And now, the best closer of '09.³ The show about the serial killer next door has been consistent. Albeit, somewhat on the safe side: That thing with Doakes in season 2 was the closest it came to Dexter's life/way of life being at risk, but it wasn't suspenseful enough.
Who you gonna call to turn it all the way up to 11?
Ladies and Gentlemen, our challenger, in the other red corner, weighing in at 250lbs and standing a looming 6 feet 4 inches... Jonathan f*ckin' Lithgow.⁴
An amazing season, the best one. The last few episodes gave me goosebumps!

Honourable mentions - Dollhouse, a slow (and now cancelled [4 episodes into its sophomore season]) burner that got better and better in season 1, culminating with a bad-ass 13th episode that wasn't even released in the States (WTF). True Blood, its cheesy and Eric Northman is so cool. Life, got 2 seasons out of it, poetic-murder solving to the sound of one hand.

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¹Not to be confused with A High School Musical, which is just lame and unlikely to comment on a girls lack of a gag reflex.
²My favourite is in the season finalé: "Don't Rain on my Parade" by Rachel (Lea Michelle)
³Not to be confused with The Closer TV show, which is pretty "meh."
⁴I'd give a link but I don't want to spoil things. For the curious search "hello dexter morgan" on yout Like Vietnam, "you don't know what it was like, [if] you weren't there!"

Railroaded

I went back to Clare last week. I booked the tickets on-line, an 0700 Thursday train down. The perfect plan.

In other news:

We had a fantastic Christmas Party on Wednesday night. I dominated in the inaugural Daniela Baum Bake-Off .ⁱ I made a marbled, cocoa and plain, madera cake replete with raspberries and blackberries.ⁱⁱ I partially covered it in chocolate. My reason being that some berries were still visible on the surface- albeit sunken like... um... like a pock marks on a plague survivor- and it seemed wasteful to hide the Technicolor delights under a bushel-not an actual bushel- of chocolate. After our dinner, we scampered/swayed to Whelan's. It was a good laugh, better than last year's party by far.ⁱⁱⁱ It was after 0430 when I got to sleep.

Already, I can hear you saying: "Hmmm. Going to bed at that time is not very responsible, given your early start, Mairtin." I can even see you peering over your horn rimmed glasses at me to complement^iv that disapproving tone of yours.^v

I awoke with me alarm clock in plenty of time for the train.

A couple of hours later, I awoke of my own accord, in negative plenty of time for the train.

In hopes of clemency, I rang Irish Rail. Bluntly was I informed "No Mercy" was the order of the day.^vi I got over it and acquired one of the nifty 10Euro train tickets - plus credit card charges.

Cue Rant:

The online bookers must choose a train time and get designated a seat. For everything to work out hunky dory, fewer casual users- commuters, people without internet/credit card, otherwise disadvantaged or disorganised bums- can alight than there are unbooked seats.

This could be ensured: if there was a bouncer that stopped the commoners coming on before VIPs,"Sorry folks, regulars only today." Or the computerised turnstiles could be programmed to prevent more casuals than there are free seats getting on the train at the beginning of its route (It could beep something rude like R2-D2 at them, Morgan Freeman could tell them,"Now just isn't your time, son/girl [please select gender]"^vii, or Kanye could interrupt their scheduled promenade to the train with,"People that book on-line are the best train users ever. You should leave.").

This reminds me that most of the stations I have gone through don't even have these turnstiles, which brings us back to the labour intensive bouncer option. For interim stations, does the train only stop for people that booked tickets? Do the bouncers travel with the train. We could have a scanner on the door and it could trigger countermeasures against the casuals that try to get on the train- that would do great for the flagging Funniest Home Movie franchise.

I smell a calculus/algebra problem brewing at this point, no longer are we interested in when Train A will meet Train B, but whether Sally can get on the train in Athlone if there is a football match in Naas that has a connection on Ballina.

Alternatively, they could just stop looking for seats and train times. Otherwise it just sounds like they want to get everyone to use automated methods and reduce the number of positions required in the running of Irish Rail Services.

End Rant.

ⁱThere were just two entries :/ "Though we try, we can never match her"

ⁱⁱSimilar to the "berry" special cake I made for some young lad's 21st a while back, but this time I got to eat it :)

ⁱⁱⁱSorry, Gleb and Julia, the truth/subjectivity can be a cruel mistress

^ivAn easy way to remember the difference between complement- to complete a pairing or group, e.g. "that tie complements that shirt" and compliment- to praise, etc.- is the first "e" in complement matches with complete [no booing!]

^vYou know who you are!¹

^viAdmittedly, I am lemon-coating the response to my request. That is right, I lack the emotional maturity to accept the consequences of actions, despite having clearly ticked the box that says I accept the T&Cs.² Do you have a problem with that?

^viiI'm sure the budget could stretch to getting him in, it would certainly take the sting out of being treated like second class citizen

¹At least I hope so, since I don't

²link

Mairtin McNamara- Zombie Scientist

Apologies for the looooooooonng delay, folks; I decided on [does quotation gesture with index and middle fingers] me time (in an American accent) over blogging time.

So. Halloween.

Again.

This year I are mostly went as a zombie. Somehow, the idea came to me after a weekend of watching Zombieland and a zombie-themed episode of Smallville.

As some must recall, I used an LED in last year's costume. I latched onto the trope once more, since it was such an easy way to impress.
Long did I ponder on the to shoe-horning of the LEDs into the costume.* Luckily, we have the waxing zombie sub-genre: "Zombie _______."** Can I get a drum-roll please?

...

Two words: Zombie, Scientist, & Awesome.*** I did some sketches of before and after, to get details ironed out (right). While doing the drawrings,**** I developed a backstory for my costume (check it out here).

Initially, I was thinking of putting together LEDs from scratch with a circuit so that it could flash or something. Alas, time ran short. I had to skip out on that and decided on using LED christmas lights.

I found a link that went through modding christmas lights from mains to battery operation. I bought a set of flashing lights in Arnotts. Unfortunately, the circuit arrangement for the LED lights did not allow for a simple cut and splice in to a battery source. This was unusual, as most circuits use a rectifier to convert the A/C to DC and then do all that magical elecltronic stuff. In this case, the A/C must be used in the timing for the whole thing. It being the Friday before Halloween, I did not have the time to it open and see what's what.*****

So, as a hail Mary pass, I went in to town that evening. Some frantic strolling around later, I found what I needed in Debenhams, two 25 red LEDs sets run directly off of battery ["w00t!"]. I used a piece of cardboard to hold the lights in the lettered arrangement. I gathered my lab coat, some thick framed 3-D glasses- polarised type, not red/blue- and I was golden.

Hours to minutes before the kick-off of the Halloween party, Sarah sorted me out with liquid latex****** and oodles of blood for fake wounds . I think it worked out well.

I think next year I will stock up on liquid latex, maybe embed LEDs in it.
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*A zombie better have a damn good reason for having a doneup shirt let alone, working Light Emiting Diodes.
**The list is exhaustive, briefly: Uncle Sam, Nazi, Stripper, bunny, comic book heroes, and other fictional characters. Last week, I heard that Neil Patrick Harris went as an Zombie English Fop and one of the girls in the kung fu club went as a zombie Bavarian maiden.
***Much like water from hydrogen and water, awesome is produced spontaneously when zombies and science are set on fire- so it is a freeby and highly exothermic.
****I also say "liberary" and "nuculear"
*****That and I lack any qualification in looking at circuits beyond putting together PCs, soldering stuff under direction and knowing how a peltier works.
******The latex is dissolved in ammonia xP

Zombie: a backstory to a costume- The Musical Comedy Satire, the off-broadway hit

Here comes the backstory for my costume, my raison d'être, if I may.

[Fade in]

No. Wait, I have changed my mind:
[Flashback] The corners of the scene are fuzzy dark. the camera shots are off kilter.

Shot 1. super-near foreground: A mug on a desk saying "World's best dad undead", focus shifts to background: white coated figure under a bright light standing in front of desk.¹
Dr John Nerdman [PhD]: "[inaudible]...I'm telling you, they are making zombies in there! I have the proof! They are convinced that they can keep it under control and nothing can go wrong with their containment."

Shot 2. Cut to man² behind the desk, we don't see his face, quick shots of his expensive watch,³ his lapel, his shoelace, his healthy cuticles and his hand as he writes something- with an audible scratching sound- oooo! I have an idea: we can cut the writing hand really tightly and make it look like violent strokes, timed with the listing of meeting topics; that could be symbolic for something.⁴
Shot 3. As he concludes his speech, A super close-up of a fly buzzing around and landing on a rotten apple in the basket beside the desk. - More awesome symbologisms!
Nerdman continues: "They say,'...the amount of time we spent in meetings proactively focused on planning, implementation, optimisation, cost-cutting, logo-design, affirmative action initiatives and colour-coordinating means absolutely nothing can go wrong. Nothing. We are invincible.'"

Shot 4. foreground (right half of shot): the back of a high-backed office chair in shadow; mid-ground (middle third of shot): a large obsidian desk bedecked in the most modern of post-modern minimalist junior-executive toys;⁵ Background (carry the tw- rest of shot): our protagonist stands puny in a white lab coat a single light overhead,- kinda like the spotlight that Mr Bean came down in- making his glasses and lab coat all shiny... and stuff.
Initially: silence, except for the strokes of the pen. The man behind the desk sighs; have a close up of his finger tips steepling together.
Mr. F.⁶ Lessman: "...Dr Nerdman [PhD], you can't be serious. This isn't some horror/sci-fi, where you, an unlikely hero, stands alone against a faceless corrupt system and an amoral Multi-National Corporation, that controls governments at the highest levels like puppets. [sotto voce] Well it is, but mainly it is about our protagonist getting the moral victory in the middle of the film, while everything else goes to shit for him [/sotto voce]. Now if you wouldn't mind being thrown out by my henc-uh security staff."

Shot 5. When the guards drag our protagonist out, we'll only show shots of hands grabbing the arms of the white lab coat, close-ups of scared eyes, gritted teeth and dragging feet, in fact, we can intercut this with the hand writing. Ultimately the protagonist is pulled from the light by the shadowed henchmen.
Dr Nerdman PhD: "Heh, I didn't hear what you said there when you got really quiet- get your hands off of me! You'll regret this, you know? I warned youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-"

[Flashforward to present, to make that clear, well have changing digital cyphers that resolve into "present day" and we'll use that sound effect that always goes with that kind of thing, you know, not to alienate the audience]

Having been fired from his job with the company at the heart of the debacle,⁷ and painted a quack by the media,⁸ our non-hero holds himself up in his studio apartment with lots of cans of beans [not a pleasant smell], waiting for things to go to Dawn of the Shaun.

It does. The corporate execs and other people that called him mad or laughed at his non-conformative declarations die of brain-eaten related injuries.⁹ Everything was going fine for our non-hero, riding high on a sense of self-satisfaction. Until... while out on his weekly chamber-pot emptying trip,¹⁰ he gets bitten by a zombie [Mairtin pauses to think of something funny] clown. [Mairtin pauses again, to attempt to pat himself on the back]

Dr Nerdman [PhD] realises he is infected. He goes through stages of grief.¹¹ He thinks back to the time he read I am Legend:¹²

"Oh, well," he nudges his thick framed glasses back-up his nose and stares resolutely into the distance," I might as well make the best of a bad situation."

He's sure that some people will happily give-up their brains, when asked. Unfortunately, requests for "Brains. Braaaaaaains. Brainsssss." are oft misunderstood. Our nerd cobbles together a chest sign in LED lights reading "BRAinS", in hopes of encouraging donations.

The back story ends with our non-hero shambling [step, step, step, drag, step, step, step drag]¹³ towards a horizon with an impossibly big full moon, cleaver in hand and LEDs flashing dolefully. The opening notes of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" play overhead, except instead of McFerrin's patented whistles and body sounds, we'll use grunts, moans and wheezes. Maybe an acapella cover.

[Fade out/Roll credits]

I'm in an all singing, all dancing kind of mood and I might push for a something like like this or this
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¹Everyone knows it is a prerequisite that scenes in screenplays are written in this fashion, the more pompous delivery and dubious the grammar, the better.

²I'm sure there are evil women sitting behind fancy desks somewhere, but they probably have the sense to not lord it over their supplicants enough to warrant a part in a movie.
Besides, more than likely the protagonist would end up seducing/being seduced her/by her, they fall in love despite their original ulterior motives, she betrays him, but only to gain her way to the inner circle of evil people to further his disestablishmentarianism, it transpires that it was her only way to bust through the glass ceiling and this time she really stabs him in the back- maybe even actually, as opposed to figuratively, I mean, like, literally.
She most likely has the protagonist killed without the theatrics characteristic of male evil overlords, she might even shed a tear, but her career is her first priority at the moment and she has no time for a relationship... But he could have been the one...
Obviously, this segue had no room in my "vision" and ended up on the cutting room floor.

³time: 04:10 into the link. - A! B! C!

⁴What I intend it to be a symbol of, some would consider trivial- The feckers, just because they are afraid to create.

⁵As featured in the Spring issue of MQ [Megalomaniac Quarterly]

⁶F. is for Face [pronounced with a "ch" because he is Italian], I kill me. Figuratively, speaking.

⁷Initially, the company spokesperson stated that they have numerous reports that "...indicate our involvement in the 'incident' is at least not very likely, maybe even impossible."
When a YouTube video of the earliest recorded zombie raging in a cage in the penthouse office of Mr Eibmoz, founder and CEO of Eibmoz Ltd., hit a million views, the spokesperson conceded that their initial claim of non-involvement was "somewhat of an exaggeration".
Their was much awkward silences, hand-wringing and goldfish impersonations when it was pointed out that the CEO's name is an unimaginative anagram for Zombie.
And, in retrospect, the company slogan: "With us, your brain can be put to delicious use" was unlikely to be a harmless mistranslation from Mr Eibmoz's native Guilder tongue.

⁸Newscaster #1: "today on 'Scientists say the dumbest things': One man goes against convention and spits in the face of corporate America, saying that one company is using people in zombie research to cut-back their employee expenditure...[chuckles and shuffles papers]... I tell you one thing, June: we don't need a brain to know this guy is full of phooey."
Newscaster #2: "Boy howdee, Tom. I heard he was escorted out of his place of work, doesn't sound like a very good 'scientist' to me. If you ask me- um - ate his own brain [and my name is Tiffani, you idiot]"
Newscaster #1: "[Whatever, I can have you replaced with some other ethnic minority/woman, everyone knows that the white male is the real anchor], coming up after the break: studies by pastor Dave conclusively show soilent green is super tasty"<sup>13

9</sup>I imagine the ubiquity of these storylines in sci-fi and horror films is an expression of the feelings of isolation/lack of understanding that writers of the genre felt as teenagers. - Stay tuned for more pop psychology :)

¹⁰The first thing to go when zombies move into the neighbourhood is the plumbing. True Story.

¹¹It is going to be a montage to a mash-up of Roisin Murphy's "Ruby Blue" and Eric Carmen's "All by myself":
Denial- he'll shake his head a few times (Ruby Blue); Pain- he'll do some crying, eye rubbing, while sitting against a wall in the fetal position (All by myself); Anger- start throwing poorly-aimed cans of beans at carefree zombies outside (Some more Ruby Blue);
Bargaining- he'll do some praying, say he'll build many churches in whichever God answer is prayer; Depression- he'll sit under the bucket full of water with holes in it that he uses as a shower, another cut of all by myself;¹⁴ Acceptance- he'll look outside and see how carefree the zombies are: they can get up when they like, eat what they want without worrying about body image, etc. His frown will turn upside down. (Finish on Ruby Blue)

¹²The film and it share little.

¹³A bachatta zombie

¹⁴No dystopian film or depiction is incomplete without that reference.

¹⁵"A guy has gotta stay clean and fresh; she might have been joking when she said,'not even if you were the last man on Earth.'"

Oh Obee Doo, I wanna Be like you-oooo

This morning, I reminiscing about childhood games. And how mammals and birds at the least if not all animals have their own forms of childhood games. Before I go any farther, I'm going to send some references your way [swings both hands with point index fingers in your direction].

A quick googling of "animal play"⁰ indicates that it is very difficult to defineⁱ, however there is agreement that it gets you ready for the big bad world in almost all ways.ⁱⁱ

So, then. What is the purpose of games like:

red-light/green-light ["i'm going to get really good at sneaking up behind people before they turn to face me and then scaringⁱⁱⁱ/killing them"]

Lion's Cub ["Watch how I stealthily take the one thing you care about"]

blindman's bluff

I'll tell you what the purpose is. Ninjas. No wait. Even better. Liam Neeson in Taken (54s in)

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

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⁰ Be careful what links you click on when you put that into Google.

ⁱ"No behavior has proved more ill-defined, elusive, controversial and even unfashionable than play" Wilson, E. O. (1975) Sociobiology: The New Synthesis Cambridge, M.A. Harvard University Press. By way of the Wikipidea article

ⁱⁱ"When individuals play they typically use action patterns that are also used in other contexts, such as predatory behaviour, antipredatory behaviour, and mating." pp83- It is an interesting review. A sub-species of wallaby have been shown to take it easy on younger partners (bottom of pp 84) There is another interesting anecodote in it about coyote cubs and no one wanting to play with the cheaters (top of pp85). And [the last one. I promise] - cranial electrodes measured that primates have an area in their brain that lights up when they do something or when they watch someone do the same thing. It has the titular name: "mirror neurons".*

ⁱⁱⁱI'm all for the idea of scaring people... in fact it is that time of year again. This year, I'm going all out nerd. I'm even going as far as to do up before and after sketches of the thing I am going as and giving it a back story. That will appear... here exclusively!**

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*The observations regarding "mirror neurons" reminded me that babies learn to smile from watching us smiling, which prompted some googling... Eric Jaffe quotes that some consider their discovery on a level with "DNA in the realm of scientific discovery". It is an accessible review of the subject... as he says: "technical enough to impress at dinner parties; simple enough to explain to Grandma; sweeter sounding than, say, the Bose-Einstein condensate"***

**I was the first person I went to and I could not refuse my offer. I really got screw/came out on top with this deal.

***FYI- if you see me at a dinner party, you better not use mirror neurons or so help me, you'll learn to wince at others' pain if you don't already :)****

****That one is wheels within wheels, baby

I'm sorry, I was lost in my eyes

Recently, I was chatting to my housemate Rani about what we think of the journey from our house to college. Rani finds it is so very boring. I'm largely indifferent to it. I've got a theory [... it could be bunnies]: it does not bother me because I am easily entertained. I have proof!

In order of ascending frequency, the things that occupy me as I walk about the place minding my own business:

1. How many paces I can walk in a straight line with my eyes closed.^a
2. I count the change in my wallet without looking.^b
3. While doing number 4, I go through the salsa dance pieces I can remember.^c
4. I recall a few bars^d from a salsa song that I like.^e
5. I think how I would answer someone asking me what I think about while I am walking.^f

Stop! Segue time

Bob and Z were kind enough to bring me back a pair of Buddhist prayer beads (12 beads, ~12mm in diameter. They fit snuggly around my wrists). Within the club we use them as a training aid.^g

It has become a habit to hang one of the bracelets around the knuckles on one of my hands and rotate them with my thumb.

Stop! Segue over

Recently, my strolling habits have become stranger... I have taken to hanging a bracelet on my hand and purposefully not fidgeting with it. It reminded me of: not thinking about pink elephants; not scratching an infuriating itch; and nodding politely as an idiot shares his thoughts with me.^h The first time I lasted about 15 minutes before my mind drifted and I gave the bracelet a twitch. As soon as I did it, I cursed out loud. Luckily there was no one on the road to glance queerly at me. On Saturday morning, I didn't fidget for a whole walk, 30 minutes. :)

Anyway, that is how I pass my time... well other than miscellaneous pondering. For example:

________________________________________________________________________________

^aObviously, this depends on a few things: the path is not about to suddenly end and no one else is nearby.* It was much easier to do it when I got to walk across the football pitch to get home.

^bThe first few times I did this, it was rather demanding, like speaking in an unfamiliar language. It's not a problem anymore.

^cThis is still rather draining to do. Even in my mind I am inclined to skip the first half bar doing the middle part of a piece, so I have to be rather particular about my steps on the upside, I remember about 20 7-bar dance pieces and various single moves from other ones- there is a large gap from june-september where I didn't memorise them. :(

^dI just put that in there to make it sound like I know stuff. I only figured out what it was over the Summer.

^eThese days it is Via which I understand is a salsa cover of the MASH theme song. I am uncertain whether or not that is the case.

^fGenerally the voice is the stereotypical American announcer/host, sometimes there is even a microphone being pointed at me.

^gIf one is wearing the beads and does certain strikes- punches, chops, palm strikes- well, the bracelets fly off or jam on the widest part of the hand. A fine example of uninterrupted flow of momentum all the way out to the hand followed by sudden deceleration/concussive/decisive conclusion.

^hI saw a great Ted talk recently. An ex-conductor presents and explains the conducting styles of 6 of the 20th Century's greatest conductors. He had a funny anecdote about once conductor. He uses flowing strokes of his.... um... wand, which are very indisitinct. A flutist once asked him,"When do I know to start playing?" The conductor replied,"When you can't bear it any more!" My favourite part is the video of the last conductor, who uses his eyebrows and shoulders to conduct.

________________________________________________________________________________

*Don't want anyone thinking I'm some kind of weirdo.

Episode IV: The Church Strikes Back

Previously on The Trouble with Máirtín: I was approached and incensed thrice by the Christian.

[Fade to black and cue theme musicⁱ over montage of Máirtín being clumsy, looking innocent beside kitchen mishaps and getting thrown to the ground over and over again by Fergal]

Currently on The Trouble with Máirtín... [Fade in]

I was nearing the end of my morning meditation. Nice. And. Relaxed.

The door nearest to me opens. A bespectacled smiling head appears. Armed with a pamphlet, her opening words were: "Hi. I have not seen you in a while... I'm sorry I should introduce myself my name is XXXXXX.ⁱⁱ What is your name?"

My thoughts in order:

"Ah. Another archerⁱⁱⁱ"

"Why the hell is she talking to-"

"Oh, it's her."

"......"

Within scant seconds of the Christian's appearance I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. By the time she had asked my name I had settled on inexpressible annoyance.

"I don't want to talk to you."

Still smiling she said,"OK", turned tail and left. I was very surprised by how easily that went.

Nonetheless, I was rather agitated after she left. My meditation buzz had been wrecked, so I still have a ways to go before I am unperturbable.

Mairtin's Monologue

It occurs to me, much like when classic movie trilogies get other films tacked on to them,^iv that the latest addition is lame; Anticlimactic. And just seems to cash in on the success of its predecessors.

*********

ⁱI'm going with Pure Imagination from the Gene Wilder version of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

ⁱⁱI am not protecting her identity, by the time she got to saying her name all I could hear was white noise, owing to how annoyed I felt seeing her again.

ⁱⁱⁱI was sharing the hall space with a guy from archery at the time

^ivIndiana Jones, Die Hard and Star Wars are the only ones that come to mind at the moment- In fairness, Die Hard 4 was not that bad, just not on par with what came before.

the swinging bag and the leg

Earlier this week, I was walking home from a particularly late night in the office.

I carry my lunch box in a reusable fabric bag of some sort (unfortunately I cannot be more particular because it lacks labels and my ability to identify fabrics is in its infancy at the very least, if it even nascent).

It was an almost chilly night, the epitome of an Autumn night.ⁱ As such I had my hands in my pockets, with my right wrist through the baggage handles. Gravity being what it is,ⁱⁱ the bag lay against my leg.

It is a 20-25 minute walk from campus to my house. It gives a man time to think. Time to notice things. On this occasion, what I first noticed and then thought on was how the lunch box in the bag bounced and pendulummed about my swinging leg.

Starting from closeⁱⁱⁱ to the same point- I paused in my walk to confirm this- the bag had two distinct periodic motions.

1. The centre of a long side of the box bag touched my advancing shin and the box-bag system was rotated clockwise and swung back to catch the shin as it was going back, so that it could be pushed out once more clockwise and repeat the motion.
2. A point near the front end of a long side of the box touched my shin imparting more angular velocity clockwise than observed in 1, such that the bag swung greater than 90 degrees in the time it took for my swinging leg to repeat its cycle. The rear most narrow face of the box-bag system touched my shin and was pushed outwards again, continuing the pattern.

I found that for any set of mode 1 or 2, it repeated anywhere from 1-30 times before switching to the other motion. Every now and again, the very corner of the box would catch instead of either side.^iv If that is included, then we have a scenario where three reasonably stable periods are possible. [I'll pause for those amongst my ones and ones of readers that has/have read books on Chaos theory, and are aware that period three means that any period is possible and the system can tend to unpredictable behaviour.]

I decided to see what happened when I walked faster. I kept to walked as a change in motion to trot, canter or gallop- heh! I can use the terminology, we all move the same [read section 2.2]- would have changed the basic dynamic of the system.

Of course the box-bag went nuts. For a finish, I had to unwind it.

I mused whether or not my mathematics was up to modelling the system, but the level of interplay between above the knee and below the ankle for locomotion distracted me.^v

My wonder at the chaotic nature of a bag and my leg was shortlived.^vi I recalled that technicians, scientists, engineers, farmers, and people across the world battle to make things predictable and regular- Buses, clocks, electricity supply, wireless data transmission, the pressure in a pocket filter [it took far too long to get sorted], our nap times, car engines, lunchtimes, meetings, women, crops and the stockmarket. Chaotic behaviour is the norm.

In the course of a stroll:

• I marvelled at a scientific principle (from similar initial conditions can come manifold different results), like unto Gary Oldman's Rosencrantz
• I suffered ennui for seeing the thing as trivial, akin Tim Roth's Rosencrantz.^vii

Now. It is well passed my bed time, I was close to nodding off for a while, but I powered through the get these thoughts out to my devoted reader(s) (called Martians).

ⁱUsually Ireland is too busy going from bad to worse to honour the seasons but as I always say: "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."¹

ⁱⁱMuch like the world existed only in grayscale before the advent of colour photography, we bobbed blithely along minding our own business until a certain I. Newto- that is too obvious... Let's call him Isaac N. invented gravity so that he could steal apples from Farmer Maggot's field with Frodo and Samwise without getting twigs in his eyes or leaves in his hair.

ⁱⁱⁱClose only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades

^ivSimilar to, but far more likely than a coin landing on its edge instead of heads or tails.

^vSome interesting links about walking: in a qualitative sense; why we walk and run as we do; Bishop et al talk of prowling Felis Catus; Usain Bolt's Froude Number has to be over 5; This guy really seems to know his stuff when it comes to 100m sprints

^viawwwwww :'(

^viiOr was it Guildenstern...<sup>2

1</sup>I hoped to link to a previous post where I said it for the first time, it seems I have not said it before. I am disappointed in my past self and am relieved for his and my sakes that there is an unfordable temporal gulf between us [shakes his fist in the direction of the past]

²I like to seem intelligent, well read and cultured, there's no telling who is watching; That is one thing Sir Digby Chicken Ceaser has taught me.

Some sons do have them

Here be Dragons*

Background (In which events are set into motion)

Some weeks ago friends visited from Estonia. Myself, Barry and Mike took them around a large portion of the Irish coast.** We stayed at my grandparents house in Waterford on the first night of our trip. Since the girls are quite the talented singers, I mentioned Jimmy would love to hear them sing. The girls were undecided. They claimed since they only really sing in their choir***, a duet wouldn't be up to scratch.

When mother-dearest heard these demurings, she immediately called to Jimmy that the girls were going to sing a song for him.

- That decided that.

So the song was sung and the song was recorded. Shortly thereafter my mother uploaded it to Facebook.

Maili, one of the Estonian girls, commented on the video how lovely Molly was in the video, wondering if she spelt the name correctly, which she had.

My brother noted how Molly had the most normal name among us [Máirtín, Eimhin, Cillian, Diorraing, Carthach being the others].

The Trialogue (through which said events move; our erstwhile hero suffers a defining slight)

Máirtín quiped: her uniqueness shines through her "normal" name, our name[s] try to drag us out mediocrity, at this rate I'll have to change my name to Joey-Joe Joe Shabadoo Cringing the ith (where i is a suitably large irrational number greater than pi)

Eimhin's rejoined: You're an unsuitably large irrational number greater than pi
QED

[...]

Deirdre 批评ed: when ye have your own children ye can call them what ye want we loved each of your names , which are special cos ye are so get over it.... molly called after a special molly too

[...]

Eimhin declared: My children will all be named Eimhin 1 2 and 3, or alternatively Fem-Eimhin 1 2 and 3

Mairtin returned: if the kids torment me, they'll get [some] of this mwa ha ha ha[!] http://www.fmylife.com/kids/3837360

Deirdre mystified: fmyl? cad é?

Dúirt Máirtín: féach air. Tá an dad ar amhas.

D'inis sí dom: chonaic me é ....táim ag gáire an slí go léir go dtí mo leaba....not

Cheap Máirtín: bhainfeadh Ollie taithneamh as táim ag ceapadh

Deirdre theorised: you have memories of him going into your cot when you wouldn't get out of our bed still don't you? more therapy required.......

Mairtin despaired or denied: more? I never got any...

Deirdre surmised: you've supressed it

[...]

Quoth the Mairtin: Eimhin "Wait did we just troll our own mother? We iz 1337! "

Deirdre expleted: f**king riddles again

Eimhin mocked: What a n00b!

Mother commanded: go to bed both of you turn out the lights and go to sleep...and don't forget to wash your teeth

Mother emphasised: i'm f**king serious boys

She scried: and don't twitter about me either eimhin i will get you boy. now go to bed or i'll bate ya with a hurley a swear

Mairtin asided: I may have to moderate this for the profanity... this is [a] children friendly area

[...]

Deirdre decried: the urban dictionary definition of trolling is 'being a prick on the internet just because you can' i would sooner be trolled than be a troller any day of the week...:-P

Mairtin yielded: pwned by my own mother

Epilogue
There it is. Not only does she have the gall to be active on Facebookv in the first place;**** but she knows Twitter***** and is able to use essential online services such as Urbandictionary. [And she gave us a woeful trouncing in hitherto youth dominant Internet******]

No where is safe.

I am reminded of the matrix, except it is not the operatives we should 'ware.

I am not long for this world, for when she sees this my dignity will be forfeit. Nonetheless, I have a duty to spread word of this threat:

The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.*******

*Pronounced mater ex savvius ex nova-media in the faux Latin
**Well Barry drove them 700-800km, around. I mainly sat, failed at taking photos, read when I could and accepted blame where appropriate.
***A choir that tours all over Europe :/
**** She is stealing my friends!
*****My supervisor does not know what Twitter is.
******My grandmother has a gmail account now... this forward thinking has not skipped a generation anywhere.
******* Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955), The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings

Dun Laoghaire World Culture's Festival 2009 part 2

... and later on I did Lion vs Tiger with Kevin [I am the Lion :) ] full screen

Dun Laoghaire World Culture's Festival 2009 part 1

We were in a demo last weekend for the Dun Laoghaire World Culture's Festival, I did Louhan Sanzhan while Barry did something else [full screen]

Revenge is a dish...

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Joe Abercrombie... the dedication at the start of this novel says it all:

For Grace

One day you will read this

And be slightly worried

In his First Law Trilogy there was at most two decent people, everyone else was treacherous, deceitful, sadistic, egomaniacal and/or tragically deluded. As a friend of mine commented,"The most likable person in it was a torturer."

As the title would indicate, this is a story about ice-cream.

It is very similar in format to Kill Bill, although bloodier, with more psychopaths, far more collateral damage, a blacker morality and a less predictable series of events.

As usual for Mr Abercrombie, it is a fantasy without a hero in sight. It features likable side characters from his first books, who are fortunate enough to be fleshed out into generally even more despicable individuals, and some new lovable sociopaths.

It has copious amounts of dark humour and bad-ass fight scenes.

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

A Shakespearian or Greek tragedy has a protagonist in it that is a great person albeit it with a single and most likely fatal flaw. I think we need a technical term for the type of stuff this man puts out since it tends to be the complete opposite. I vote for anti-tragedy.

Watson, I deduce that he was right handed because....

I am rather hung-up on symmetry.

At some point in my misspent teenage age years, I noticed there was a not insignificant difference between the distance from my left shoulder to the centre of my collar bone and my right shoulder to the centre of my collar bone. I concluded that this could be remedied by sleeping on my right-side, which I spent the next few months trying.

I realised I was not alone in my lop-sidedness, as I watched people pass me by in the streets.* Almost everyone had an asymmetry in their upper-bodies. Typically, right handed people had a lower and broader right shoulder than left shoulder. Strangely, the left-handed people that I knew of were more symmetrical. I ascribed this to it being a righty's world.**

In college, I practiced writing and using the broadsword**** with my left hand. After a few montshs, my right hand gave up its impatient twitching while my left struggled through the alphabet over and over again.

I have come to terms with the unlikelihood of the left being as steady and consistent as the right in writing. It is legible and, when I really concentrate, passable :)

After I got bored of practising writing left handed [taking care to tip-toe through the double entendre minefield that is talking about using one's hands for anything]. I started writing letters with my right and left hand at the same time. At first the same letters and then different letters. The tricksiest of the pesky pairs to do were "s" and "t", as I recall, because in most other cases the two strokes could be coordinated smoothly [oo-er Vicker!], but keeping the line of the "t" straight while doing the curve of the "s" proved, as I said already, tricksy indeed.

The event that precipitated my fascination in handedness, as usual, was watching a TV show. I was watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

D'Onofrio's character was being Holmesian as usual. He had just deduced that a person was pushed down a stairs because their gums were worn down more on their right than their left, meaning they were right handed* and they were on the left side of the stairs, which is not the typical side for righties. Being practically minded, I zeroed in on the weak link in his chain of deductive reasoning.

The teeth brushing.

I gave a figurative, OK I may have actually said it at the time,"F*ck you" to D'Onofrio and started brushing my teeth with my left hand that night. Lets see him solve my murder now!*****

4 years on... I can brush my teeth equally well with both hands, as a result working with tweezers, tooth picks and other small objects [easy, gov'ner] comfortably enough that it takes me a few moments to realise that I have switched to left hand out of convenience of angle.

My latest little hobby on this note is tying my shoes single handedly, and then tying both shoes simultaneously. I can do the first part OK


*Walking in the streets of Dublin, as man, you are more likely to be passed out by lone women and couples [where the women drags her man ahead, of course] than other men. Try it out for yourself!

**In the book Right Hand, Left Hand by Chris McManus he said that the proportion of lefties (ciotóg in Irish, known as cunny handed in Scotland at some stage) to righties is about 3:17, generally less for third world countries.***

*** As an interesting aside, my chemical engineering class had an remarkably high number of left handed people in it, nearly 33% as I recall. With a group of n=45 that can be considered statistically significant, what it signifies, I dinnae know.

****I am getting ready for this day:
Character A:"I admit it, you are better than me"
Character B: "Then why are you smiling?"

*****Assuming I have an "accident" involving juxtaposition of various commonalities associated with a using a particular side for something or other: decapitation with a left handed cleaver ["judging by his teeth this could have been suicide"]; strangulation with a left handed knot ["judging by his teeth this could have been suicide"]; falling from a height where there was only left-handed access ["judging by his teeth over here, some of his gums here and here, this could have been suicide"].

HLMV (Hear Little Master's Voice)

On Sunday, I left my phone in the sports centre studio - clearly, remembering to put it in my pocket after 2 hours of copas, shines, single, double and even quadruple turns* was expecting a bit much. Always one to cling to superficial simulacrum of zen, I accepted its absence.

I went into town and did my grocery shopping.

While man-about-towning, I'd find myself worrying my pocket. Checking for that yoke that was not there [the phone... obviously]. Phantom-phone syndrome. An unconscious tick. Nothing more. I'm telling you.

Half a day without the ball-and-chain, I felt liberated and naughty, like pulling a sicky. Forsooth, all good things come to an end. The sports centre staff found the phone and reunited me with it.

My Stockholme syndrom begins anew.

It beeps. It buzzes. It looms.

My musings of enslavement to a hand held device are not novel. In Gulliver's Travels, Swift pokes fun at the pocket watch. His Lilliputians hypothesize that it is either "an unknown animal or a God that he worships". They felt the latter more likely since "he seldom did anything without consulting it".

P.S. If this has evoked an dormant feelings of confinement by and resentment towards this impossibly handy piece of kit we call a phone, then, by golly, you are ready for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08
Brian Rice [read with the gravitas of the Times]** describes it as "...the best rant ever..." And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to shout out a window.
*I did the doubles myself, but I made the girls do the quadruples :)
** He is my guru after all

That's not a hand, THIS is a hand

Back when I meet the family, I got my grandfather to compare hands with me.

For my height, I have unusually long arms (a complaint I have heard in training) and... clownish - scary! :( - is a word used to describe my hands and feet.

So I wanted to show-off my grandfather's hands, pictured left.

His wrist is waaaay thicker than mine (mine are 18.5 cm in circumference) and his pinky is the same thickness as my thumb (mine is 2.1 cm in diameter).

I remember a little story my Uncle Niall told me. He introduced Jimmy (grandfather) to mercy. The then teenage Niall was best in his class at it. He felt rather cocky going up against Jimmy, while explaining the rules to him. Without fanfair, Jimmy squeezed his hands until Niall said,"Mercy!"

I suppose that is what a life of farm work and labouring gifts one with though.

I have found a guru

Walking to college this morning I was thinking about the Zen koan dealing with non-attachment. I started thinking that being attached to something strongly [maybe solely] related to how much one worries about said thing. I mentioned it to Brian when I got into the office:

Mairtin: it occured to me this morning

zen preaches the idea of non-attachment

Brian: ...naturally

Mairtin: and I had not thought of it before but worrying about something is nearly the definition of attachment

..

it sounded more profound in my head

Brian: LOL

{...}

Brian: [nods sagely, and looks on peacefully]

Mairtin: the corrollory is you never hear of zen millionaire hermits or CEOs...

Brian: true, but a zen man cares not for these things, i am content with a sunset or the sound of the wind

The man blew my mind with his response. Worthy words indeed

I wonder did this ever happen to Indie...

Myself and Brian arrived in Zurich without ado. In short order, we were settled into our seats on the train, gazing out the window at sun-kissed locals frolicking in Zurich lake.

To pass the time, I opened my laptop to work on my hitherto incomplete presentation ["very little left to do," he promised].

I plug in my portable hard-drive. Said hard-drive whined like the little buzz-saw that couldn't, ultimately rattling to a halt. My Mac kindly supplied that the drive could not be mounted... even after turning it off and back on again.

In college, I heard many, many, many people emphasise the importance of back-ups of back-ups of back-ups. I am certain, I have pontificated about it too. For reasons unknown,* I neglected to create even the first back-up in the redundancy chain.

I took stock of what I had to work with, since I imagine myself a "cool customer" not given to panic.

Problem Statement

1. I had no presentation or presentation content on my person
   
2. It was Sunday, my presentation due 10am on Wednesday

Solution

1. Mark had a week-old draft
   
2. Unprocessed data were in Ireland and Barbara was a call away
3. The software I needed for processing the data was available at the conference
   

I gave Mark a text to check if he still had it. I called Barbara to apprise her of the situation and her impending role in it. Bless their cotton socks, they came through for me. Particularly Barbara since she had to follow my directions to find files scattered across 4 computers in various folders.

In my free time I was able to complete the presentation. The nicest nuts-and-bolts thing I learned was that Quicktime Pro. can convert a set of images to a movie. I finished the presentation with about 6 hours to spare.** I grabbed some shut-eye. Before going down to breakfast, I did a bit of meditation to ravel my frayed mind.



All in all, I was very pleased with my performance. I consider it my best work since the end of the Fas Science Challenge.

In the past few years, I did not give enough thought to presenting my work, it suffered for my dalliance, I think. But Brian said this one was the first time he understood what was going on in a crystallization slideshow. Boo Yeah!

In summary

1. It is good practice to make back-ups of back-ups of back-ups
2. It is good practice to check if a external hard-drive works after being dropped
3. It is good practice to solve problems instead of worrying about them
   

_______________________________________________________________

*I have no idea whatsoever as to why I did not have copies scattered all over the place. I would idly think,"I better copy that onto my laptop since I will be using it to present" - "yeah, you really should do that." Without result. If the incident were a film, there would have been a dramatic flashback to Saturday night. To the moment the hard-drive fumbled from my grasp after I unplugged it from my computer with the latest slides. At the time I stared at it for a moment, prehaps to allow the audience of the Mairtin Show to appreciate its significance. - Admittedly my cognitive biase weighs heavily on the recollection, and it always sounds good to say,"Deep-down-inside, some part of me knew things were going to get hairy."

**My memory of anything beyond the slides is very fuzzy for closing moments of completing the presentation