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

I’m on a roll now.

Check this out:

Steorn website
Free energy! Energy that is free! Out of thin air! And how we love free stuff!
http://www.steorn.net/
I’m not going to repeat the basic claims being made, beyond that they claim to have invented a free energy generator. Energy from, basically, nothing. Read this on IrishEyes on what it’s about. It’s great, we’ll have energy without the problems of carbon in the atmosphere, pollution, nuclear waste, environmental damage on a large scale… It’s what we’ve all been waiting for. An answer to the energy crisis.

Bollocks. No free lunch. You know it, I know it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. You can’t make energy out of nothing, or suddenly come up with the answer to one of the biggest problems facing mankind today and it’s as easy as putting some magnets together. Someone suddenly comes out with an easy way to generate power out of nothing? Sure. Have a look at Cesky Sen to see where I think this one’s going to end up; and if that’s the case then I think fair play to them, we’ll all get laugh out of it. If they’ve done this and it’s bollocks, and they still honestly believe it, then they’re fools and they’ll get burnt, and we’ll still get a laugh out of it. It’s doing the rounds right now at any rate, gets loads of publicity for them and they might even beat ‘Snakes On A Plane‘ for the Summer number one hit.

Their site is nicely designed, by the way. I like it.

As Bernard Sumner of New Order might say; “Ooooooh ooooh, I like you, you run away, there’s a wall between us, the sun comes up, people everywhere, Oh, you’ve got hairy legs, you’ve got hairy legs, you’ve got hairyyyyy legs, and I’m too short, oooooh, oooooh, oh! Oh!”, and I think we all know what he meant by that. I’ve been listening far too much to the same 5 songs by New Order recently, but you’d probably guessed that already. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here and in fact the biggest contributors have been you, the people reading this site. Happily commenting away. You could sign up, and even write posts yourself! Why didn’t you do that? You could have added something meaningful, post some photos, maybe start a small community, or some pod-growing scheme to revitalise the economy of Longford, perhaps. But you didn’t. You waited.

You could have read back over some of the old posts, because I suspect you missed some of the more controversial statements altogether, buried within layers of articulate but verbose ruminations on this idea, that activity, the other place. And you can still go back and check, if you like. Why didn’t you do that? There were some great photos. Comment below, if you can find the controversial statements.

I have a set of notes on what I was going to write about, but… I don’t know where they are. I’ll have to find them. In the meantime, you might enjoy these:
Michael, Liam, Caroline and John just after we arrived at the church for Michelle and George’s wedding. Hellraising joyride against the clock to get there. But we survived. Click image to view larger version
Michelle and George exchange vows and agree to dedicate themselves to each other. This was after a fantastic stand-up routine by the priest, where he told the most inappropriate jokes possible. Comic genius. Click image to view larger version
Michelle and George signing the register, for what must have been the fifth time, for the cameras. That chap does a great wedding, I’ll have to remember him for mine. The priest was good too. Click image to view larger version
John, Caroline, Liam and Michael just after the main show, waiting for something to happen. There were in fact no major dramatics, which was good and yet slightly disappointing. Nicole! Click image to view larger version
Michelle and George, the happy couple, outside and telling everyone how happy they are. They even got the sun, which was an unexpected bonus. Click image to view larger version
The Conway entourage (Michelle’s family) after the main group photo. I have no idea where they were headed to. Click image to view larger version
Michelle and George cutting cake. It took them long enough, with all the theatrics and photography. Click image to view larger version
Michelle and Caroline, with Geesa in the background. Wedding dress aside, it’s just like good old days. Click image to view larger version
James, George and Michelle, wittily entertaining each other after dinner. Click image to view larger version
Me giving the camera-man the finger. I don’t know who the camera-man was, but shortly afterwards the tiredness got me and I went home, via some interesting shenanigans involving taxis. Click image to view larger version

Yes, my friend Michelle finally married George (it was his idea apparently, but I’m not so sure) and it was a great day, not least for them and we were all very, very happy for both of them. No-one hit anyone else, no-one tried to ‘nicole’ the proceedings, and even the weather which was predicted to be brutal, behaved itself when it was required to do so. A good day had by all, and we wish them all the best for the future.

Now, I had a look for my notes while you were marvelling at the wonderfully turgid wedding photos (I’m a turgid photographer, by and large), but I’ve lost them along with my driving licence so not only do you not get to read the great things which I had sketched out laboriously one morning while feeling particularly bitter about the way my life is going at the moment (in a nutshell, professionally things are great; I’m at the top of my game there. But personally it’s starting to become a bit of a shambles, and I’m considering pharmacutical assistance to get that extra eighth day out of the week), I also can’t drive in the car I don’t own. The purchase of a car is planned, because now I have enough money to buy anything I damn well want, but if the licence really is gone then I’m sort of fucked on that front too. Since I’m working up to ten or twelve hours a day I’m not really thinking about anything else these days.

It’s not looking good. Other people keep it together under far tougher circumstances, and I’m really just being weak and self-indulgent here; take a look at what’s happening in Lebanon for example. One day you’re minding your own business, the next day the shitheads next door come over and try to wipe you off the face of the Earth. If you’re passing an Isreali embassy any time soon, throw stones at it. You’d have been right to do it to German embassies in the 1940′s and Isreal is cut from the same cloth (it’s not even ironic). One of these days that state will get what’s coming to it, and I will shed no tears for it’s supporters.

So I’ll keep looking for those notes, and then I’ll get the 60 or so turgid photos I have here on my hard drive up as a post. If I have time. I don’t have much of that any more. I’m going to get back on the cross now, and get back down later when there’s more to say.

(Edit 3rd August ’06: You’re in trouble now, whoever you are. I have the bitter notes. And the turgid photos. The all-whinging, all-moaning spectacular is in production right now. Corrected some bad grammar too.)

First off, shouts out to Maddy, who is one of my multitude of housemates and who has promised to have a look at my blog tonight, in between managing a restaurant and whatnot, so that was sort of an impetus to actually write some stuff which I’ve been meaning to put up for… weeks, months possibly. I’ve been provoking Maddy probably a little bit too much for my own good recently, and while normally I’d expect to get back as good as I give, I’m starting to worry a little that I’ll wake up one morning and find the head of a Kakapo in my bed. Maddy, with me taking a real risk with my life. That was at my birthday lunch in Castleknock. Click image to view larger versionIt could happen.

You got the vote
Women have been asking me for advice about stuff recently for some reason, generally stuff to do with men, and what’s up with them anyway, why is he doing this or that, that kind of stuff; given the content of my previous post here (which was all about completely misinterpreting the thesis of young Elizabeth from Kilkenny and also trying to be as offensive about the whole sex versus gender roles debate as possible, which provoked a lengthy and thoughtful email from Elizabeth and also a heated comment from Tadhg. Heh heh.) I thought that was a very interesting co-incidence, and of course I’ve been gleefully taking shots at the whole gender equality debate. Ireland has come a long way in a short space of time, from being a country that would be frowned upon as being a bit hardcore by conservative Muslim states – we all know they used to lock up women here in what were known as the Magdalene Laundries (and they were still locked up until the early to mid eighties) for such indiscretions as having a child out of wedlock, or perhaps being molested by someone with authority – to being a country where men and women are reaching a state of equality, and becoming more and more equal all the time. I’ve heard this from women who go abroad with the ingrained view that Ireland is sexist, and come back seeing that, in fact, Ireland is quite advanced in that aspect of society. So, when women start to complain (I’d love to use the word ‘moan’ or perhaps ‘whinge’, maybe ‘whine’, but… Ah, it’s all politically incorrect now.) about how they want some guy to do something for them, such as ask them out, fix the car or whatever, I think ‘Hey, what is this shit I am hearing now, because you know, first you were asking for the voting so you could participate meaningfully in society, so you have it (and we are having the Mary Harney, so personally I am thinking, maybe is not so good idea), then you are asking to play golf which is like stupid but you are having the golf now and this is your own fault, and then you are wanting the same money to earn as men, so you are having this now also, and hey, what I am hearing, you still are wanting the guy to do all the hard stuff, because you know, at the end of the day women are not having the balls and you know it. It is true.‘. I don’t actually say it quite like that, but close enough. You wanted the vote, you got the vote. You wanted the ‘glass ceiling’ to go, and… It’s higher. Probably not gone yet, but getting there. And you still want guys to fulfill the traditional roles! Come on! This isn’t about equality, it’s about having your cake and eating it! So, ladies, now you have your legislation to level the playing field everywhere else, you’ll have to start doing some of the shitty stuff that men have to do too. You like him, you bloody well ask him out yourself.

Heh. I love a good venting like that. And women too, they’re cute when they try to grasp complex issues.

I meant to write a piece about something else too which relates to the gender equality issue, and this is that as a woman if you want to start a family and actually have kids yourself then you’re going to have to start before you are thirty five. That’s it. You can’t come back later on and change your mind about it. I think that the culture of equality now means that women can easily forget about this (since independence from a relationship is now socially acceptable for women) and only really start considering it as a possible problem when they’re too old to actually start a family themselves; I suppose a potential solution is to have the babies with some man, regardless of whether or not they’re in a relationship together. So, girls, if you need to pop one out soon let me know because I’ve got great genetic material, very gifted with… stuff, I’ll get back to you about that, and I’m very sexually frustrated so we’ll all be a winner here.

New layout sign in the Phoenix park, early one morning quite recently. Click image to view larger versionThere’s a rule for that.
Something else I’ve realised recently is that along with that sort of change in culture and society in Ireland is the rise of regulation; Ireland is now seemingly more heavily regulated than anywhere else I can think of. Here in Ireland people tend to subscribe to the idea that it’s a bit of an easy-going free-for-all, by which I mean that you have a lot of freedom to do as you please provided you’re not harming anyone else. This is clearly a myth. I complain about the Irish, collectively, but they are individually smart people with a good understanding of the mechanics of organisation, if not the actual collective implementation of it. The thing is (some might argue, and I’m still sort of on the fence about this point), for a society to move forward and to start being productive as a whole, then the people in the society need to start working together, and collectively understanding and applying rules; if that doesn’t come naturally to them, then the State needs to start making rules and enforcing them across the board. We have tended here to blame the European Union and it’s love of bureaucracy for the avalanche of rules but I see now that the Irish State is coming up with new and innovative directions to take with legislation, all sorts of stuff has rules applied to it here which you’re not likely to see in other Western European countries. During the last month I’ve been in England and Austria, and they don’t have as many rules for stuff as we do here, or perhaps they’re not as worried about breaking them as we are here. If I had more time I’d do some research, but I think it boils down to the fact that in many Germanic countries you can lay down some guidelines for society and people will follow them, by and large (in other words, they do what they’re told because it’s in the interest of the Greater Good). Ireland is not a Germanic country but would like some of that discipline in order to build up the economy, so they’ve applied a rule-making blitz and some sort of infrastructure for punishing those who break the rules. This doesn’t make people here law-abiding, but it gives them ‘training wheels’ until they follow rules and work together for the greater good out of force of habit.

As a contradiction to that, you’ll find that in Ireland there is actually effectively two countries, or indeed three of them. There is Dublin, there is beyond Dublin, and there is Donegal. Beyond Dublin is subject to the same rules as Dublin, but they don’t really adhere to, or enforce, rules like they do in Greater Dublin, and probably wait to see if people in Cork are paying any attention before they do. There is also the county of Donegal, which is not unlike Somalia, in that it is very far away and has no effective government of any sort. Things are looking up however, because next year U.N. peacekeepers are moving in to restore order and soverise them. Really, it’s pretty simple.

I’m not into hitting Ch1xx0rz, but if they’re bad ones then…
Right, one last return to ramblings about women. I had a peculiar dream last weekend which as far as I can tell was inspired by looking at some sites which had stuff about comics. More specifically, comics with superheroes, of varying degrees of quality, or just very bizarre. The upshot was that I was a superhero, one of a group, and we were battling to save humanity or something along those lines, and we had to fight some bad guys which we were afraid of because they were going to give us a pasting. Yeah, we were in trouble and pretty desperate. In fact, I was fighting girls, who looked suspiciously like girls I know personally! But humanity had to be saved and we had to escape or climb into a hole or something like that, so I had punch, slap and throw those girls around like paperweights to save out lives. They didn’t seem overly bothered or fight back too much, and there was someone else I know there, a guy, who was a little taken aback by the beating of the girls, but he wasn’t really getting with the program of beating the evil women and saving the world so I didn’t feel too bad about it. I woke up as things were getting messy, so I don’t know if we won of not, which is unfortunate.

I wonder what Freud would have made of that.

The ‘Media Wall Project’
I’ve been making good progress on my ‘media wall’, by the way. Taken a month or two ago. My bed, in my room, with my little ray of sunshine coming through my window. Click image to view larger versionIf you’re reading this then you may very well be up there already, or there’s a photo of you waiting to go up. I’ve nominated one area as family, another as close friends and family, people I met while travelling, and ‘sexy chicks that bust my balls’. If anyone wants to nominated in that last category then please comment below.
My media wall, the side over the end of the bed Click image to view larger versionMy media wall, the side over the side of the bed Click image to view larger version
So, there are the nuggets for today. I’ve been working on a WordPress site for Keith, friend and former colleague, so that he’ll have a travelog and also been trying to find time to get up posts dealing with my trip to Devon, my trip to Vienna, Kenny’s thirtieth birthday, my trip to Kilkenny, my trip to Wexford, and a number of little events and what have you thrown in too. It’s all a lot of work, and I still don’t know a) where is my time going to and b) why am I doing this anyway? It is a conundrum, indeed.

(Edited on 4th May 2006 to point something out; that guy that was helping me fight the evil ch1xx0rz, was as far as I know none other than Ken Rooney! I’m not totally sure, but I think so. Gotta hesitate a bit less with hitting those chicks, Roonster!)

Yeah, whooo! He doesn’t post for what seems like forever and a day, and then comes back again with links to stuff! As if anyone cares! Still, if you’re going to check out these links then prepare to possibly be offended. Yes, I have been busy, having all sorts of adventures and if you, the long suffering reader, are foolish enough to stick with it then you shall read of these adventures and maybe even see some photos.

B3ta: Google Religion Search
Google Religion search – the best search idea ever!
http://www.b3ta.com/board/5792028
Really, it speaks for itself when you see this image. Make sure you check it out carefully because some of the touches are quite subtle and every bit as hilarious as the obvious ones. www.b3ta.com
This is a great site. It’s a bulletin board where people post images, either ones they’ve created or ones they’ve modified from photos or stills, animations even, and it kicks off from there. Pure genius sometimes, in the best of subversive British humour, and frequently offensive to someone, somewhere, which of course I applaud.

B3ta: Spack-Rabbit
A truly offensive cartoon with rabbits!
http://www.b3ta.com/board/5787584
I’ve been laughing since last Friday, intermittently howling with laughter just at the very idea, and all because of this offensive cartoon on www.b3ta.com. Is it ever in poor taste! I couldn’t do it myself, because I would do it, laugh about it, show it to my friends and then never sleep again, as I lie there in the dark thinking with imeasurable guilt about the sheer badness of it (and the fact that I won’t be able to show my face in The Odeon bar again, though in fairness that’ll be no great loss, especially after my ‘spaz-dancing’ episode). If you haven’t figured out what ‘spack’ means just by looking at the cartoon, then maybe a quick trip to www.urbandictionary.com might clear it up for you…

Yulia Tymoshenko
The website of face of the Orange Revolution!
http://www.tymoshenko.com.ua/eng/
Imagine if she was your Prime Minister. Imagine if she was your local elected representative. I know what I’d do. I’d go round to her clinic or office or whatever and complain about the roads, the bins, the weather, the size of the squirrels, anything I could think of, just to sit there and gaze at her while she rants about legitimate democracy, people power, privatising natural resources to her friends in the power industry. I’d even try and keep my hands on the table! Well, more out of fear than respect, I’d say for all her sexy looks she’s a real nut-puncher, and I wouldn’t want to hang around in her bedroom the morning after a ‘democratic consultation’. Can you imagine that? “Did you feel the revolution last night? Did you not feel the thousand fireworks above us? Let us now storm the corrupt halls of power, and destroy the enemy! Democracy will prevail!!” “Ah here, I’m going to have a shower and go home.” I think the closest we have here in Ireland is probably Liz O’Donnell for the Reactionary Fascist party, and her dental work is nothing to be proud of.

Ok, I’m making light of what has been (and still is) a very serious situation in a country which should be as economically powerful as any in Western Europe and yet, due to Communism and corruption, is very poor and probably dangerous place to be. But look at her! Yum.

Scobleizer
Microsoft’s one man PR army, fighting for truth and integrity!
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
I’ve remarked (actually, I’m not sure it’s possible to remark when there is froth dripping from your mouth, but I’ll let it pass) about the possible conflict of interest when I am writing about something on this site which is work-related. Think about it, if the problem isn’t obvious already; I’m broadcasting my thoughts publicly through this site, and these ramblings are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and a halfway decent web-browser. So, if I write on this site that my (hypothetical; bear with me) colleague Eric is a homocidal crack-smoking moron, and I suspect strongly that he has been molesting badgers every night, then although it may not directly slanderous, then it could at least be picked up by customers who are checking my site out. And they do exist, apparently, even if they are a rare and endangered breed. They’re certainly not going to make themselves known to me but on the other hand they’ve been known to use Google from time to time, so who knows. Either way, it will affect their relationship with the company, because they’re going to be thinking about it, and probably send their work elsewhere, unless they have a soft spot for homocidal crack-smoking, possible badger-molesting morons. This is what would be termed a ‘sackable offence’.

Incidentally, that sort of thing doesn’t discourage me, partly because this blog is a fine example of how it is that I’m one of the few native English speakers in the company.

Already, you are no doubt wondering where all this is going. That is where Robert Scoble and his blog come into this ramble. Robert is blogging away about the technology industry on his WordPress site (like me, but people actually read his blog) and is well known to be working in Microsoft. He writes about what he does there, what he thinks of what they’re doing, and the Internet at large. Personally, while it’s not always fantastically interesting, and he obviously is entirely sympathetic to Microsoft, it’s not a bad blog to read about life on the inside. Particularly when he loses the plot a bit, which is what happened very recently (and you’ll have to read his site to see what happened there, but in a nutshell he lost it over some criticisms of the Windows release date). It was a bit edgy, given his high profile as an unofficial but widely-read Microsoft blogger (which could have public relations implications; again, the phrase ‘sackable offence’ springs to mind) but on the whole it was a lot more entertaining than the fluffy stuff his colleagues come out with on the Microsoft blogs, which tend to be very bland. Good on Robert, I hope he does it again.

Today was my first day back at work in 2006, and I proudly joined the aggressive cunts going to work. In fact, I was one of them, cursing the slowness and inefficiency of the fools in front of me. Had one of them keeled over, dead from exhaustion, I would have gladly stepped over his or her cooling corpse in order to get ahead in the crowd, and get to the office that precious 3 minutes earlier.

Yeah, that’s my New Year’s sermon. It’s all about the benjamins, and fucking over some bastard that gets in my way as I climb to the top. I’m putting together my 2006 Plan, and I don’t look forward to the part where I have to think ahead to the next 5 years too, because that’s something I’ll have to do in the next month or two. I’m not getting any younger, and I need to start thinking about what’s next. You can tell I’ve been talking to thirty-something year-old women, can’t you? But it’s true, I have to. I have to think hard about my work situation, and where that’s going, and also about what I’m going to go and do later in the year. Japan and Romania both beckon this year, I’m going to have paid off all my debts quite shortly and be that rare thing in Ireland today, a thirty-something male with no debts (well, none to the bank; I’m sure I owe something to someone.) and in a number of ways free to do whatever the fuck I want.

On the bright side, I went for a run in the morning. I can start my 2006 plan by cutting a few inches off my tubby waistline. And pricing some language learning stuff for Japanese, Czech and Romanian.

More on all of this later, I have to tie up some loose ends, get some shit done and then I can do my 2005 round-up and my 2006 plan. And my thoughts on the first of the political parties here to try banking on xenophobia to win the next election. The Labour party as Brown Shirts? Oh no! There is much to be done and so little time…