andcurve.weblog - The weblog of Kevin Teljeur. Somewhere within all the noise, there is a note you need to hear.

Yes, I’ve been busy recently, and although I may have mistakenly given the impression that I quit my job in a particularly dramatic fashion, sticking it to The Man in all my bridge-burning glory (“To Hell with you and your Goddamned job, I’m leaving! And I’m taking Michaela with me!”) it really wasn’t like that, and I gave four entire week’s notice. I also didn’t get Michaela, which was even more disappointing. The next reaction I’ve been getting is generally “Whooo! Must be so awkward to be there after writing all that!” and that hasn’t been the case either. At least, not more awkward than usual, which is actually more than most people would tolerate is one of the reasons I called it a day anyway. So business as usual.

I have been taking notes for a big post about what comes next after the four weeks is up, which is next Friday (Parallel got a day for free there, I’m a generous soul at heart) and I think you’ll all enjoy that one no end, especially since it publicly commits me to a particular direction in my life and of course I’ll have to see it through. On the upside, it will hopefully involve a bit more writing and that can’t be a bad thing (assuming, of course, that I actually do the writing). It’s very, very exciting for me right now, and even if things don’t work out, I’ll painstakingly document it here in much the way I don’t get around to documenting anything else, and you’ll all get a kick out of reading about it.

So, in the words of Richard Ashcroft of ‘The Verve‘, “Baby, Oooooooooh ahh yeah, Oh no no no, In my head, My Lord! My Lord! I’m a lucky man, this ain’t no symphony, slip slide slip slide, no no no, yeahhhh.”. If things don’t work out in the coming months I could always find myself the next Verve and write songs for them, it seems like easy work. I’m close to finishing Keith’s site at long last which has proven to be hard work partly because I spent a week and a half which wasn’t otherwise very busy at all fighting spam on this site (automated systems which know how to post comments on sites like this, repeatedly posting comments which are links to insurance sales sites and Viagra) and on the LTD site (check it out to see the most deliciously edible girls in the world, having way more fun than you or I). I eventually got around it but it was hard work, and then of course I started being busy again, and I still don’t know where all this stuff comes from. So I’ll post a link here when it’s done, and hopefully I’ll talk Keith into actually writing on it too.

I’ve been looking at my self-discipline too; I really could be so much more productive but I just somehow am not. I like sleeping. I like taking a walk somewhere. I like taking a moment to sit and drool while making a low humming noise. Stuff like that, I think, which makes life more enjoyable than trying to follow a path in the manner of a whizz-head with an F-15 strapped to his (or her) back. Even so, I should be using the extra time to get some work done instead of surfing the same crap news sites, or trying to by cheap Tadafil, or even chatting relentlessly to Romanian women (although, if you can manage it, it is very entertaining and educational, and winding them up is about as much fun as you can have, short of getting your nads paddled by Oompa Loopas). Speaking of which, I met an actual person on the Internet. I mean, someone I haven’t previously been introduced to by someone I already know, and as a result my English has deteriorated drastically over the last week and a half. My englis, he is not more so good as the time from one day, and you are no understan me soo good as now tehn. I am make her mistak wit the word. Yo are gett this from womans ho speak no englis soo good. You can see where this is going, so maybe if I spend less time chatting, and more time finishing Keith’s site, we’ll all be better off, if not as amused as before. I’ll write some more about this intriguing development very shortly, and the mechanics of meeting people online and in real-life quite shortly, because it ties in with a number of interesting discussions I’ve had recently, and some ideas which developed independently about that and my writing (and for a dramatic change of pace from my previous writings these ideas aren’t about the enslavement of women, or being offensive just for the Hell of it). Yo like wan yo see waht I rite yo abot these thing.

Lastly, I got a webcam: k_parallel (at) hotmail.com – yes, you have to be smart enough to decipher the bit in the middle, because I will spammed otherwise.
Me at work, doing my thing; as viewed through my webcam.If you want to have a look at me, in my natural environment, add this address to your hotmail MSN contacts and watch away. I really don’t know why, but you’re welcome to. it only works on my office PC, but when I get my new laptop I’ll have it on most of the time, home or work. You’ll be able to see pretty quickly if the new career is working out or not.

I have bigger, more important things to post about than this, but… It is funny and seems to have amused a few people so far. Particularly girls! It’s the kind of thing which demonstrates the cultural divide between the skirted boob-carriers and the trousered cock-wielders; interestingly, and largely by pure co-incidence, I got pulled (or forced my way, it’s a moot point at any rate) into a conversation in Kilkenny on Saturday night, at a party, we were all slightly drunk, I’m setting the scene here, bear with me, about gender being a cultural construct. This interesting topic came up because Lise (it’s short for Elisabeth, very important to know that)Lise (who is called Elisabeth in real life; it’s a cultural thing) and Mark (who calls me Chris for some reason) in the cab. Madness ensued shortly afterwards. Click image to view larger version is doing a thesis on this area and had some opinions on the subject to share with group. As usual, so did I, and got stuck in with some opinions of my own, and I’ve actually been thinking about it since. I’ve formed some forceful and no doubt controversial ideas which I’ll happily throw the way of anyone who’ll care to listen, and they’ll get me beaten too. About time, some will say.This single heated conversation had an interesting effect on me in that since then I’ve been thinking more clearly, articulating myself much better and generally been using my mind a bit more. I had, I think, been getting a little complacent. Aren’t young people fantastic?
Props to Lise! I’ll sum up my view as this; I have a cock. It is not the biggest cock there is, it isn’t always the most reliable of cocks, and certainly not the most beautiful, but it is and always has been there, and I’ve always known what it is there for. Now, I’ll admit that use of it wasn’t something that came naturally to me, but that’s just some technical stuff. I’ve always known what I’ve wanted to do with it, and with girls. I wasn’t taught that. I wasn’t taught to have a cock, and cute pair of nuts to go with it. This is because I am male, and it’s part of the package; I know some males realise early on that the skirted boob-carriers are not for them, but that’s not a cultural thing either, they just know from day one that they are benders and that’s the way it is (I’m not a bender, by the way, in case that wasn’t clear. But each to their own. I’m sure Brokeback Mountain is a great movie.). And the same goes for girls who don’t like the the trousered cock-wielders. Mind you, many a time you can’t blame them really. But being facetious and deliberately offensive aside, my point is that these are not learned things. I am what I am, you are what you are, and these things are decided in a large part by your genes.This whole area of discussion is not unrelated to the very politically incorrect and sensitive discussion about race; suffice to say, some human population groups are genetically predisposed to be better at certain things (by and large) than others. These ‘things’ can be a little nebulous, but sport is a good example of what I’m talking about here, and I won’t go into it any further because it’s a tricky one which I can’t tackle lightly without a little research.

So, all that said, there are certain things which while in theory they are cultural issues, I think that evolution and the biology of gender means that there are things which women can’t understand. At all. If you went back in time (or to New Zealand) and explained the offside rule to Maximus Decimus Meridias then I think you’ll find that he would find the time (in between defeating the Germanic hordes) to say “Ah yes, of course, that’s entirely reasonable. Good idea, too!” and he’d be right. It’s a man thing. Girls… Well, you know, the offside rule. That’s the way it is.

This came up when having to explain ‘cock-blocking’ to a finite but seemingly endless number of Romanian women after some of the frenzied commenting on my previous post regarding my going to teach Engleza in Romania, where I had to use the term (in jest, of course) about the women who teach in… It’s a long story. Read the post and the comments to see what I mean. Anyway, here’s my explanation, if you don’t like the semi-official version.

If a guy has an interest in a girl and is trying to chat her up then the cock-block is an attempt to foil the chat up, usually by a friend of the girl (male or female). Sometimes it’s a friend of the guy, who himself has an interest in the girl, or is just very socially inept. If the guy doing the cock-blocking is a friend of the girl, then he is probably cock-blocking in order to keep the girl to himself. On the other hand, if it’s a girl, then she is misguidedly trying to protect her friend from having a good time (or she wants the guy to herself).

Now, entirely hypothetically, let’s say I express an interest in Angela, who is a friend of my friend Jen. However, Jen isn’t happy about this, because she doesn’t want me to get lucky with Angela (perhaps, because it would be awkward, especially if I was only interested in Angela for casual sex), so Jen has to do something to prevent me from getting Angela’s attention. For example, she might loudly ask me in front of Angela if my syphillis has cleared up yet, or if my wife is coming over to join us. Of course, there is the bungled cock-block, whereby for example, Jen may try to block me by saying to Angela “Dude! He’s so not clever, he just lost €9,000 in a stupid investment in some company!”. But Angela might think that there must be more where that came from and be encouraged rather than discouraged… Thus a bungled cock-block. Dude! This would make it very hard for me to ‘get lucky’ with Angela, hence the term ‘cock-block’, because my cock has almost literally been blocked.

Well, I thought I should share these thoughts with group. I’ve been beavering away on posts to finish the Vienna trip write-up (with some truly scandalous and epic stuff in there), the Devon trip write-up (complete with pillow-heads) and Kenny’s birthday. And now also the epic Kilkenny trip, as well as a million other things I’ve seen, done and farted in the general direction of over the last few weeks. I have to finish Keith’s site too, for then I will have a third site out there which I’ve built on top of WordPress, the same fantastic free software which makes this site possible…

(edited on 19th April 2006 to add the bungled scenario. Pretty important possibility, I believe.)

Yes, it is true. Like the tide inevitably rolling in and dumping used tampons on the beach, I became a year older today. I am thirty three today. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I can’t possibly be that old. This means I am in my mid-thirties, I’m starting to weigh up my pension options, buy sweaters and generally hang around the house with DIY tools looking for something to fix. Because then I won’t have to change the nappies on my fourth and most recent offspring.

Some interesting arbitrary and disturbingly vague statistics: The vast majority of this year’s well-wishers were (as usual) women – utilising that vaunted multi-tasking ability to simultaneously remember 358 birthdays while failing to buy the correct type of lightbulb – and I’m not sure if I should include Neil in that – at least a third were Romanian, a lot of them were Jennifer (spread over several days, at that, though she got it right eventually) and it all involved a lot of beer. Which actually isn’t a statistic at all, but it was certainly true.

More on this when I get my head around it. Right now though, age has caught up with me, and I need another nap.

Well, it’s been a good Christmas. Uneventful, too much tv, a lot of sleeping and some time with family. what more could I ask of a Christmas? Conor (my ‘little’ brother) picked me up on Christmas morning and brought me back to his and Deirdre’s house, and just after we arrived our mother arrived too. So it was a slow easy day. I got a phone message from Tee (she obviously wasn’t able to get through because of the shit reception), so I was a little sad that I’d missed that, but basically I had little contact with anyone. I’m pretty particular about keeping Christmas day for family.

I’m not big into the presents (I’d prefer a gift-free Christmas, personally), but I got some nice books. I got some books for them too.

Our father didn’t make it out; when my mother stopped in on her way from her new home in County Wexford to collect him from Bray it seemed that his legs didn’t work so he couldn’t come (he’s an alcoholic, and every now and again it causes malnutrition, because he doesn’t eat which makes him lame. That, and because he’s too drunk to eat.). By the end of the day, I’d decided that he was actually putting it on. Every Christmas it’s a bit of a tradition that he makes a play for getting everyone’s attention by whatever means neccessary, so this year he put on the ‘failing health’ routine so we’d still be thinking of him, in spite of him not being arsed to make it out. I’ve really had enough of it at this stage, so I have no sympathy. He needs a good hiding, not a doctor.

I went to hospital for a medical issue of my own last Friday, a colonoscopy or somesuch proceedure. I had previously been pretty cagey about it, and here and there in previous postings you might have found some references to some vague, undefined medical worry. I’ve been to the doctor a few months ago and then to the hospital for a preliminary examination a few weeks ago, and this was the final part: I’ll be blunt about it, they knocked me out and took a guided tour of my colon with a camera. It wasn’t much fun, I can tell you. Actually, I woke up somewhere in the middle of it all and was able to watch it happen on the screen they used, but I could have imagined it and either way they knocked me out again and I woke up a couple of hours later off my head and oddly enough with a pretty hefty erection (Normally welcome, but not under those circumstances. Must have been the tranquilisers.). I think the biscuits and water they gave me put paid to that. It usually does. And that was that. They gave me tea and toast too (I didn’t want it but they gave it too me anyway, probably because my refusal came out as something along the lines of “Mmwehhh hrrr vvvwuhg”) and then Garret and Nora collected me, for a day of Kev-sitting and adventure. Jesus, I really was out of it earlier that day, and I’m glad I had someone keep an eye on me, there’s no knowing what I might have gotten up to without someone keeping an eye on me.

Christmas Eve was… Well, here’s the thing. Every year up until now, without fail, and Christmas in Australia excepted because I was in the middle of nowhere with no money to spend, and no-one to spend it on (aww), I’ve left my Christmas shopping until the last possible minute and then done it all generally on Christmas Eve or the day before that. Bedlam. However, this year I did it last week which is new. I had nothing to worry about this weekend apart from some grocery shopping, and maybe wrapping the presents (which I abandoned anyway as being pointless). Is it because I’ve finally grown up? I’ve finally gotten laid and had an adult relationship? Or is it the influence of living out in Los Blancheles as a Yuppie, and sharing with the hyperkinetic organised Annette? Time will tell, but it was very nice to have nothing to worry about the day before Christmas.

That was good because the week before was pretty hectic, what with the hospital visit on Friday, having flown to England and back on Tuesday (which took it out of Ciaran and myself, it’s lot to fit into a day), and a generally hard week in the office. Was there other stuff? Oh yes, some socialising too, I met up with Caroline, Michelle, Clare, Liam and Michael on Monday night for our annual Kris Kindle, which was great, not least because it sometimes seems like I haven’t seen them in many, many long months. Too many, and I can’t believe I’m too busy to see them more often.

The weekend before is something I’ll cover in a separate post, because it includes the big Company Christmas Party, and a visit to Garret and Nora, all big adventurous events with photos attached.

Here’s something I’ve noticed; Paramount Comedy 1, on NTL Cable here in Dublin, is basically showing cheap lousey porn after a certain hour and dressing it up as comedy. It’s pretty weird, actually. They show porn with a ‘comedy’ soundtrack and it’s not too hardcore, but still… To offset it, RTE showed ‘Evelyn’, where Pierce ’007′ Brosnan tries to play a Dublin man,trying to rescue his kids from adoption. It’s really a waste of space.

‘Minority Report’ is still a beautiful-looking piece of film-making, by the way. Even if he’s inclined to making feel-good pap every once in a while, Spielberg is still a damn fine director. And indeed, maker of movies generally. It’s a good time of the year for movies on the tellybox.

Either of my regulars notice the style changes on the site? No? I’ll have to wrap a lot of posting loose ends this week (I have heaps of leftovers, unfinished posts, etc), do my yearly round-up and maybe do something clever with photos, like I did at the end of 2002… Anyone remember that?

Photos to follow.

Right, a quick little post about some h0t chixx0rs! That’s right, hot women, and from abroad at that. Now, I know loads and loads of hot women, I’ve dated and had relationships with some of them, and I tell myself this a lot in order to stave off the relentless waves of insecurity and self-loathing. Anyway, as many of you are aware, I was in Romania in Summer of 2003, in Timisoara, and it was one of the more interesting episodes of the last couple of years. I made a few friends there and on Monday night I managed at some point to chat to all of them.

The main square in Timisoara. It’s somewhat Italian, with a hint of Dun Laoghaire

I got there enroute to Serbia (at that stage I still harboured some vague notions of hitting Albania, and maybe looting a few shops or starting a pyramid scheme or something) but I was determined to see where my friends Vlad and Diana were from. Let’s be honest here; in Ireland, until recently, Romania was seen as a very distant country, a grim, nuclear wasteland inhabited by ‘Big Issue’-wielding Gypsies and ruled by Communists. You weren’t likely to meet any ‘Romanians’ in Ireland other than those Gypsies. And then, one day, this guy starts working in the company. He’s dark, latin and somewhat brooding, in a conflicted way. He looks a little bit like Keanu Reeves after a hard night on the town and could do with a shave. He doesn’t say much. And then we find out he is Romanian! A real, live Romanian, who isn’t looking for small change for his poor baby, and in fact doesn’t look as if he’ll start stealing anything! He’s called – get this – Vlad! You know? Vlad the Impaler! From Transylvannia! Dracula! So, that was impressive, and instantly put paid to a lot of stereotypes caused by years of selling a lousy magazine by Roma Gypsies (whose roots are in India, originally). I didn’t know that Romanian was a latin language, or that the country is a very young one, while being a very old nation with it’s roots directly traceable to Roman times… It was every bit as eye-opening as when I first got to know Petr and then Pavel, and learnt about Czech history, lanuage and culture.

Vlad and Diana, Romanians at play. They play a lot, and then discuss it

So, I got there on the train from Budapest in Hungary, and immediately you could see that these were a different race of people altogether to the reserved and subdued Hungarians. They were like Italians, relaxed, animated at times… Latin. Now, I had a series of adventures there right from the outset but that’s not what I’m getting at here; it’s the connections between people. I had a set of numbers for contacts to call, a certain Ilca (I later discovered by trial and error that his first name is Marius and Ilca is his second name. That is Vlad for you.) and Roxana, a friend of Diana’s. Also, there was Horea, who knows both of them, more or less. Marius was off on holiday by the Black Sea, but organised a friend of his to go and meet me – a girl by the name of Oana – something which Horea, once I’d met him and explained the situation, found intriguing and mystifying (which made me wonder if she was a nutcase or something). Actually, I’d say that Marius was hedging his bets; on the off-chance I found Horea hard work, then I was very unlikely to find Oana hard work. I doubt anyone would. As it happened, Oana also brought her friend Michelle and I brought gaggle of Americans I’d met in the hotel I stayed in earlier that day. We all hit it off and I even got my head around Horea’s sharp sense of humour, and they all spoke fantastic Engleza. Something I noticed, in fact, was that by and large almost all younger people there spoke very good English; I don’t neccessarily see it as a good thing, or a cultural advantage, but it was very helpful. Romanians are generally good at language, possibly because Romanian has a Latin base but also has smatterings of Slavic, Germanic and Hungarian in it.

So, that is how I met Oana, who I was chatting to several nights this week. It seems she switched on Yahoo! Messenger for one reason or another last Monday, and lo and behold! I’m on all the time, myself, thanks to the miracle of broadband. We hadn’t talked in quite a while, but we’ll probably chat a lot more now, since we can waffle away online.
Oana (on the left) and Adina eating famous Tiramisu. They were the Popular Girls, and that was quite a night.

Anyway, I stayed in Horea’s (tiny) apartment that night, and caused all sorts of mayhem thanks to a devastating mix of alcohol and dehydration. He headed off on his holidays the next day, leaving me to fend for myself… I also had to catch up with Roxana who was just back from a Hungarian pop/rock festival, and Oana was going to put me in touch with someone who had a place to stay. Also, her friend was having a party that night, which I’d have to go to.

I met up with Roxana, and we hit it off and hung out, after I tried a MacDonalds. Athough I generally boycott the Mac, Vlad had assured me that they’re wayyyyy better in Timisoara. They’re not. They’re just as crap there as here, even though the service is marginally snappier. We went out on the town, rounded up Roxana’s friend Sorin, and went to Oana’s friend’s party…

Roxana at a recent concert, doing her thing. She does that a lot. Concerts, I mean.

As it turned out, Oana knew Sorin too! Whoa. Small world. She’d never met Roxana before though. Great night was had there, it was a lot of fun, Sorin jumped into the pool, some people drank a lot of tequila, and there was a lot of crazy dancing and great music. I used to chat to Roxana a lot online, since we were both at work at more or less the same time, and both somewhat bored. However, I have removed such things from my PC now, and Roxana roams Romania doing French-Romanian interpreting for some people studying factories or something.

Like I said, Oana put me in touch with a guy who had a place to stay. I really didn’t want to stay in the hotel again because although it wasn’t too expensive for me, it’s not what I wanted to experience as part of the travel, and Timisoara’s only hostel had been closed for the summer for some reason. That guy was Faust, who Oana knew somehow (I heard more about that from Faust later, but I’ll keep that to myself for now). Faust talked in a Chicago accent; I initially figured that he’d learnt his English and indeed his manner from watching too much MTV, but as I got to know him better, I realised that he was actually over for a holiday from Chicago, where he was hanging out with the locals. I’d go so far as to say that he was a black guy in a white body… He rented me his grandparent’s apartment for €10 a night (which didn’t go down very well with anyone else, but he needed the money for his holiday in the Black Sea so he could bang some chick his girlfriend didn’t know about) which was fine for me.

Anyway, after variously hanging out with Roxana or Oana, I went for drinks with Faust one afternoon, and while we were sitting in the cafe (Papillon, for anyone who’s been there) some girls were trying to get Faust’s attention. Fabulous, beautiful girls… Faust ignored them. Then, after about 20 minutes of us talking, Faust decided we’d go and sit with them for a bit, which is how I met Ramona.

Ramona, demonstrating the art of Romanian glamour. She has a small cat, too.

After a few minutes (where Ramona’s friend flirted with me; I have beautiful eyes!) Ramona decided I needed a tour of Timisoara, and to explain some of the local history and culture. This is, of course, how I got to know Ramona. We didn’t have too much contact until earlier this year, when she finished college (the same course that Vlad did, I believe) and got broadband at home, so we’ve been chatting a lot since then.

It goes to show the whole ’6 degrees of separation’ principle, and how close people are to each other without realising it… Neither Oana nor Ramona know Vlad or Diana, and Ramona’s connection to them is through Oana via Faust, even though Ramona doesn’t know Oana. So, when all three of them were online within an hour, well, it was a strange but good feeling which inspired me to relate the story about Kevin in Timisoara, and was a fantastic excuse to post photos of stunning h0t chixx0rs.

And thanks again to Oana, Roxana and Ramona for helping me out, showing me around and generally making sure I had a good time (and thanks also to Horea, Marius, Faust and last but definitely not least, Vlad and Diana). This is the short, five minute version, but it’ll do

(footnote: added 16.12.05)
Romania: in case I wasn’t clear about it, Romania is a fantastic place. Yes, it is poor, it needs work but it’s also changing rapidly. It’s like Ireland was only a few decades ago, but people really seem to be trying to move things forward. I know I wasn’t there long but it left a good impression on me.
Engleza: Yes, I’m labouring the point. But I haven’t gotten my head around that fact that Roxana (for example) speaks English better than I do. Oana looks like coming a close second, my jaw was flapping loosely at some of her constructions the other day. And Diana, well, you can tell that she’s not a native speaker because her English is far too good, it’s technically flawless, which always a give-away. Vlad and Ramona are good too, but Vlad is more interested in body language and words for peculiar and probably illegal sex acts; I’d say his collection of words is pretty good now. He speaks buna engleza when he needs to.
h0t chixx0rs: I came across this phrase while looking some article on the web. It’s cool. I made the Romanian adventure before I lost my cherry, so I wasn’t actively trying to chase women, I just (as I explained above) met lots of them. What a waste you may think, but I made good friends and that’s what matters at the end of the day.

Help yourself to questions and if anyone wants to add or correct any part of that, please do…