I can see the future!

Well... not really.

I recently watched the premiere of The Blacklist starring James Spader.

All in all, I enjoyed it. James Spader chews the scenery with decided abandon and a side of relish. We'll see how it goes, but it looks like it will be entertaining at least.

Any way, my predictions are:

• James Spader knew the main woman's criminal father (hence the family information)
• Father saved his life or some such - or they were BFFs
• He was actually super deep cover when he turned bad.
• Red turned himself in to catch someone that betrayed him.
• Her husband is a plant to watch her, something to do with her dad.

Let's see how close I am to being right.

Vakbondsactie

I'm going through the process of registering with the Antwerp municipality.

It begins with notifying the police that you are living in the area. They drop in to your place to make sure you live there. If, as in my case, you are in work at the time, they leave a note for you to come to the local police station.

Mired as I am in pop-culture, I found myself thinking of any instance in a film where going into/dealing with continental police ended well... In Kiss of the Dragon and Taken the cops were crooked; in the Bourne films they were patsies/cat's paws.⁰ I can't think of cases where they've come off well.

Needful to say¹, I was carried away with flights of fancy.² What actually happened was a cursory glance at my papers and I was asked to sit in the waiting area until I was brought to have a quick chat with a pleasant middle-aged woman.³

As it happens, on the same day, I had my internet connected. The technician that turned up was, I must admit, good looking and stylishly dressed – sporting a fashionable square-faced, silver-framed wristwatch. Coming from Ireland it was rather incongruous, where technicians generally have jeans or overalls with the company logo. As usual, I was thinking "spy."

It reminds me of the holiday I took in Iceland a couple of years back. Two of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen were selling hot dogs at a tourist trap called the Blue Lagoon. These, these blonde goddesses selling hot dogs... it made no sense. If they were doing this job in a film, there would have been complaints about suspension of disbelief or lack thereof. As usual, Shakespeare and Hamlet got to it a couple of years before hand:

Hamlet: Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end [...] is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature [...]⁴

Hamlet was cautioning against hamming⁵ it up, but I think my anecdote illustrates the "ham" line is farther away than we actually think. 

No doubt, everyone is having what amounts to the revelation at the end of The Usual Suspects with cup dropping and all when you pore back through your life and see these people that don't fit. But don't worry, it's normal.

In other news, I feel settled enough to focus on learning Dutch. I have started listening to vocab on the way to and from work. And I have a handy pocket dictionary, which I take out now and again for key words. It was really useful on Friday morning when I arrive to see that my bus wasn't at its stop....   vakbondsactie - or trade union action - means I wait 40 minutes for a bus in the morning and 60 minutes in the evening.

Anyway, I really think I am getting the hang of it...

Gellukig Kerstfeest!

*****

⁰Imagine those poor unsuspecting cops trying to get some vagrant off of a park bench; they were just doing their jobs, and they get their asses kicked.
¹I know that the phrase is needless, but that is an apparent contradiction, since I am writing and I have decided that it needed to be said. It's like that phrase - "it goes without saying." What is really being said is: "I do not trust you to figure this out on your own, so I am going to prelude the information with a lip service to my belief in your competence....  'no offence'ⁱ."

²"Sorry sir, your papers... they are no in order. I just have to make a call, if you will wait in this room." At which point two burley 6 footers in riot gear come in with tonfas/night sticks. But then I clean house, and someone walks by going,"are you a special forces guy or something?" And I am all like "I'm just the crystallization expert."

³One thing that has bothered me about English language films set in Europe is how native languages would be used intermittently for filler and minor developments. but plot-critical information is relayed in English, no matter what nationality the source is. A month living and working in Belgium has made this perfectly reasonable to me because I have yet to meet someone that could not tell me in clear English what I needed to know.

⁴Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 17–24 - granted my editing has ruined the iambic pentameter...

⁵The words are unrelated - hamming comes from the first syllable of amateur. [ORIGIN late 19th cent. : perhaps from the first syllable of amateur ; compare with the slang term hamfatter [inexpert performer.] Sense 2 dates from the early 20th cent. - from my Mac Dictionary]

*****

ⁱWhich happens to be another doozy, for carte blanche insulting. I think the best outrage against these veiled maneuverings is Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) on Alias: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0qaIvb3bGA^a

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

^aMy former "study buddy [one lab removed]", John, pointed out that I forgot about the gold standard in thinly veiled condescending insult: "With all due respect." 

3 degrees of footnotes

The tail-end of my previous post reminded me of a quote, which led to layers of footnotes.

After a reluctant, but necessary review of the sprawl, I decided that they were more asymptotically than tangentially relevant and I dumped them here:

^[...]

One of my favourite shows in the last couple of years, Life, had beautiful koan-like story-lines^1,2 and lilt to its dialogue...  One that sticks in my mind at the moment is:

                  (In reference to uncooperative witness)

                  Crews: We have to use his strength against him.

                  Reese: Whats his strength?

                  Crews: His weakness.

                  Reese: His strength is his weakness?

                  Crews: Yeah, its like the one hand clap.

                  Reese: Are you really Zen?

                  Crews: Zen-"ish"

****

¹Farthingale and Hit Me Baby are probably my favorite stand-alone pieces; the primary arc has some really great moments, but I'm ambivalent as to how reasonable the course of events are that led to his initial incarceration.ⁱ

²It has many things going for it:

•  Damien Lewis plays damaged goods like no body's business
• The gorgeous Sarah Shahi and her flawed detective Reese
• A recurring guest spot by the voluptuous Christina Hendricks
• ... Who generally shared scenes with the excellent second-fiddle Adam Arkin.ⁱⁱ 
• ... and these scenes [sterling examples of the direction, cinematography and pacing of the series] had a very dreamy/floaty-light feel to them ripe with subtext and humour.
• An evil Garret Dillahunt,^iii,iv with an unfortunately ropey Russian accent :/
• The much under-appreciated Donal Logue (season 2) from Grounded for Life and Terriers.^v

****

^{iI could defend that clunky sentence as an analogue of the overarcing plot in Life, being all "meta", but I won't.
ii}FYI, Mr Arkin cut his directing teeth on this show, and now features prominently as a director in Sons of Anarchy^α

ⁱⁱⁱHe's currently in a combo-breaking role as a dim-witted, but well-intentioned recent-grandfather in Raising Hope. Up until now, I had only seen him as some flavour of psycho, but to his credit and ability, they are different characters; he's not doing-a-John-Cusack on us.^β 

^ivSpeaking of Deadwood, Life also has Calamity Jane as the Chief in season 1, and a guess spot by the guy that played E.B. Farnum-  maybe one or two others in it that I can't recall at the moment. And while I am talking about Deadwood, there are a couple of actors from it that appear in Sons of Anarchy.^γ

^vThat show is another good one to watch, Logue is the lead in it. A combination of critics liking it, poor viewing numbers and not being on AMC meant it got axed after one season [colon dash open-bracket].

++++

^αSons of Anarchy is one one of the best shows on television at the moment,^δ a well-written, intricate series. Kurt Sutter is the creator, it is his follow up to the Shield. It has a strong tragic element [with a phenomenal Katey Sagal as Lady Macbeth stand-in] and Ron Pearlman. The lead actor (Charlie Hunnan) improves steadily over the three seasons- and what starts off as histrionics and heavy handed deliveries and expressions become some great, great moments on his part.
If I was to put a tag-line to it:

There are always consequences [boom]

^βCome on people! Look at him... Could you tell the difference between him in Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity?

^γOne of the persistent themes in Life is that everything is connected, how meta is this sh*t!?

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

This is the last one, I swear.... [at least partly because I am tapped out of sequential symbols after two numeric layers and the Greek alphabet.]

^δMad Men and Breaking Bad being my other picks for top quality production values. Boardwalk Empire had its moments, it wasn't what I was expecting, which left me disappointed. I'd have to have another look of it to decide what I think of it. Dexter is another one that aims high - beautiful cinematography and Michael C Hall is a good actor- but the storyline/premise and generally 1-D supporting cast gives it a whiff of cheese as far as I am concerned.
There are other shows I adore for their campiness, and entertainment value, but listing them here is like bringing a gun to a fight where the other guy brings a Pontiac Aztec [Breaking Bad Spoiler Alert for that link].

This is just what I could think of off the top of my head; if I made a real run of it, I would really bore you to tears.

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.

____________________________________________________________________
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!"

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
_______________________________________________________

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.'"

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"].

beige alert - 1

A question long asked....

I'm off the Switzerland tomorrow. Maybe I will be able to answer it.

Seeing as I won't know where I stand with them the trip could be as eventful as the Moroccan Saga... or not.

Stay tuned, same chem time, same chem channel [maybe]...

- I think it is safe to say that there is no new content up there, so much for production values.

How do I sleep at night? ["on top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies"]

There I go again... I wonder can I blame the recession.

Even better: I can claim that it is a challenge to find the quotes and whatnot.

[originally the few lines above were laden, overloaded even, with links: Soundbites and video clips.]

Another nice mess

Things are not remarkable these days. I must resort to filler. :| [don't look at me!]

At of turn of the century, I went on a car trip from Dublin to Clare with my pals Neil and Ruth. To pass some time, Neil told a joke. He asked me if I had heard the one with the three Irish brothers and the three pints in three different bars. I told him I didn't remember it.*

So...

Neil:"A man walks into a pub in Dublin. He sets himself down at the bar and asks for three pints of Guinness. The three pints were put out in front of him and he drank them one by one. Every week he did the same thing, pint after pint after pint of black stuff.
"Eventually, overcome by curiosity the bartender says to him,'You've been drinking the pints like that for ages. They'd be better if I poured them one at a time, you know?' Your man says,'Myself and me two brothers were very close growing-up. So, when they left Ireland for work, we swore we'd go to our locals and drink 3 pints each, pretending the other two were there.' And so the tradition continued. Until one day, your man comes in and only orders two pints. The bartender was shocked-"

Mairtin: "-He gave up drinking!"

Judging by Ruth's laughter, the spontaneous punch-line was likely better the intended ending.
See, I'm all about changing things up, it is how I roll. Or is it [changing things up, that is]?

In short, no...

At length: It was hardly original. It is a classic comic duo piece- e.g. Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Fred and Barney, and The Mighty Boosh.

Neil lined it up all good and proper, while I ruined it for him.** [It still makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside].

In the dim-distant past, I imagine a group of neanderthals hanging around a fire, you know, just chillin' in their cave... mrs Neanderthal in the back flailing the mastadon shank.** Fat Neanderthal is centre...uh cave... telling the tale of "How He killed An Antelope With One Flint Spear [it is much shorter in Cavish: Gru-ooo-duk].

FN: "Uggg ah-uh waaaaaaah!" [FN Gesticulates wildly]

Of course the skinny neanderthal contradicts him continuously.

SN: "ahhh ooooo uh...." [SN unibrow crinkles dubiously]
FG: "... drrrrg grrr..." [FG glares warningly, some grinning around the fire]

The fat guy gets worked up more and more.

FN: "guh oh aaaa-"
SN: "-mrm maah..."
FN: "..." [FG Seethes, audience chuckles]

Finally the skinny guy remembers that he was thinking of another hunt.
FN: "Bggg baaaada boo-"
SN: "-aaaaaaaah! ooooooo bugger" [SN contrite]
FN: "arrrrrrrrghhhhgghghghghghg!" [FN Strangles SN, laughter rolls over the tableau]
FN & SN: "huh?"

Next thing you know the two are bringing their show to every fire place in warren of caves.

Shakespeare wrote: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players"

Sometimes, I think he got it wrong. In some cases it would make more sense to say:

"All the world is a stage of the world of the stage of the world... and all the men and women merely players of all the men and women that are players of all the men and women that are players of all the men and women..."

I was worried that I would be butchering the grammer of that phrase by making it recursive... I guess the grammer police will let me know shortly... Which reminds me!

I am a big fan of www.fmylife.com because of the unfortunate but hilarious stories it presents. My current favourite highlights that grammatical decadence and moral decadence do not go hand in hand- http://www.fmylife.com/sex/869850.


*I didn't at the time, I'm not that sadistic
**In this case I was the funny guy, whereas in another instance I was the titular "straight man"
***Equal rights being a few eons off

I had a dream... rant

Saw the inauguration speech. Amazing stuff, I was overcome by positive feelings for the future. He has a rich voice. He evoked powerful imagery. He said all the right things with jaw-dropping eloquence and smoothness. Fantastic stuff.

He has my sympathy.

Anyone else coming after Bush would have a cakewalk, but he carries a messianic burden. Nothing but perfection will be lauded. Considering the hand dealt, perfection will have to be more perfect than usual.

Good luck Obama!

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[EDIT: after sleeping on it. This little ditty really does not paint me in a nice light at all. So I changed bits and pieces to seem nicer]

Went to my first room-viewing. On the walk over it struck me that a viewing is like a date. After a pause, I pffffed derisively at myself. Any social interaction is like any other. One illustrates by action, word and appearance the values one wishes to represent and provoke or evoke in others. [EDIT: We do like to be liked]

The viewing went well, it is the kind of place I would like to live- lots of space, friendly housemates and a choice of white walls to shine the projector on. 8D

I believe: "If you can't be rude to your friends, you can't be rude to anyone"

At Salsa last week, I bumped into one of the lads I know by name. To be friendly, I offered an opinion about the current meteorological state of Dublin, with which he agreed.

Three years ago an American exchange student and I spent a lot of time together. We were in Dublin for the summer away from our families and our classmates had more groups than us vying for their time. Once, walking down Henry st, Courtney commented on the weather. I met this with stony silence. She knew my stance on idle banter.

The word bastard has been used in reference to me, and I will admit that the above anecdote supports the malediction. I have a reason.

Idle banter is far from idle. When idle banter is brandished, somebody is probing, testing, either consciously or unconsciously, obliquely checking for common ground and appeal. It is amazing how much we give away by word choice and mannerisms.

I think conversation serves a purpose- it teaches, entertains, informs or instructs.* I think idle banter is proto-conversation, a precursor, a prelude and other things pre-.

I was affronted when Courtney brought idle-banter to bear on me. Since that summer, I am less irked by idle banter amongst friends. Some have trouble with silence. Depending on how entertaining- some people babble**- and sensitive- my mother doesn't care for it-they are about being met with silence, I'll accommodate them [and we dip back into the bastard region]. But I feel justified in loosing a bolt of it at a stranger. So I ain't a hypocrite, but maybe a sophist. :|

I concede that appearances can be misleading. Apparently idle banter can be pregnant with subtext, be it flirting or some kind of verbal fencing, which of course is not idle at all and lots of fun.

I dealt Gleb a bout of silence today, I've seen brooks that babbled less :P

*It is an idea my junior certificate English teacher mentioned with regard to written compositions. I figure it holds for all media, except maybe the internet.

**In the Discworld books based in Ankh-Morpork (Guards, Guards, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Truth, Going Postal, etc.), the Patrician's favoured interrogation technique is silently letting babble run rampant

What is the "411"?

I freely admit that I have little if any discernment when it comes to the TV shows I watch. My current shame is Gossip Girl.

• Finally a TV show about the idle rich and the trials they suffer
• Typical class-wars, middle class family in it for a good education, rich families just in it
  
• It is easy to forget that these people are supposed to be 14-17 years of age, they drink like fish and no one, not even their parents say a thing
• The leading lady (Blake Lively) is incredibly irritating, a moaning-Mavis of a magnitude once reserved for that one from Grey's Anatomy
• People have horrible falling-outs: making public who died because of who presence, etc and then talk about their feelings and how the "squabbling" was nothing more than transference of some other stress in their lives

But it is not all bad.

• The people are petty, shallow, materialistic & melodramatic
• There is Chuck Bass & Blair Waldorf- manipulative, abusive, self-centred- and- and manipulative

Were this an unweighed pro-con additive-subtractive decision... I would stop watching now, but really to borrow a fabulous in the tone of Kevin, the horrible people in it are- well you know- fabulous.

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 :(
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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...]

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 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)