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

If you’re reading this, you’ll see nothing unusual (other than me posting, which is rare enough). That’s good. I switched hosts over the weekend, moving from an old, overpriced legacy account at Hosting365 to Blacknight. Blacknight seem to attract love and hate in equal measure but I want to keep my hosting in Ireland, and there’s no harm in trying them out for a bit. The other choice was Register365 which used to be part of Hosting365 but are now UK-owned, and big and bland.

Let’s see how this works out. If you came here from Facebook, hi, how are you, this is where the good stuff used to happen, have a good look around.

So, I’m writing again. I’ve spent a surprising amount of time thinking about how I’d open my next post, what I would write, would I just dive straight in as if it was routine, yet another post (perhaps even with some outrageous or provocative opening gambit) or would I labour the point (a little sheepishly maybe, a hint of shame at the many long weeks since I last wrote something here). Or something else. And instead here I am, meta-blogging or meta-writing, whatever they call this curiously introspective form of reflection on the act of writing whatever it is that I’m writing, and thinking about how to go about explaining what finally spurred me back into action. Maybe there is only one way.

I was shamed into it. Pure and simple. Now, you might, if you knew something about the nature of this site and it’s recent history, think that it might be the continued chiding of Tony and his enthusiasm for my posts. Or the mockery of Garret. Or my girlfriend, or one of various women that haunt and taunt me. Or by the blogging efforts of any one of my peers, and how they continually manage to post under adverse conditions, while I do not.

You’d be wrong. I was shamed into it, because I really do want to write, and exercise my ability for the written word, and if Michael McDowell – Michael McDowell! That’s right! Him!- can write a blog, then I damn well better be writing! He is the leader of one of the smaller (well, after the upcoming election, probably non-existent) political parties here in Ireland, the Progressive Democrats, and my feelings on the whole subject of the aforementioned Progressive Democrats, Irish politics, all the related issues that go with it… It’s a whole can of worms. I’ll admit that the post was probably written by one of his runners or aides, but the point is that there is a blog out there where he is in some form or fashion publishing material under his name.

The site (www.rockthevote.ie) claims to have a blog for the leader of each major political party; they all have one entry and of course those entries are setting out their stalls. The idea is to motivate young people to vote so I guess it’s a good thing. The Irish in recent years have been less than good about partaking in elections; I don’t know if it’s cynicism, apathy or distractions cause by money, but hopefully they’ll take an interest this year because it could turn out to be one of the more important elections in the last few decades. Or rather, the eventual outcome (Ireland has a very convoluted election process, which is intended to be democratic but is complex and has occasionally unintentionally undemocratic results) of the election will be very important.

Yes, the upcoming election has been an obsession of mine recently because I think it’s going to be a big deal, and because the processes, the manoeuvres, the strategies, these all interest me. I’ll be back with my views on where I think this will all end up.

Other stuff that happened recently was as you saw in the previous post from about seven years ago that I turned thirty-four or so (I can’t remember any more, it’s a big number at any rate), my back got hurt, I’ve been trying to buy a new car (that is truly a recent and huge obsession), I’ve been coping with work and apathy in my life, and Oana came over to visit, which was truly a very big deal for me, and for anyone who had to listen to me go on about it.

Annette and Oana at the 12th Lock Bar Restaurant Hotel and whatever else have you. It does a lot. Are they just ever so slightly like sisters? Which is for me slightly disturbing? But they got on great. 9th April 2007.. Click image to view larger version »

Oana checks out the beach! She sure does. 13th April 2007. Click image to view larger version »

Oana contemplates how the beach economy might be based on shells, and ponders the effects of inflation… Actually, maybe she just thought they were pretty. Maybe. 13th April 2007. Click image to view larger version »

When worlds in my head collide spectacularly, albeit unknown to anyone else; Oana and a suburban commuter train. She really is a good Bizian, you know. 17th April 2007. Click image to view larger version »

Damn, those Eastern Europeans always have the best fun, don’t they? Foarte krezi! Oana, Pavel and Poudek go wild after a Baby Guinness too many in Doheny and Nesbitts… Clyner hides, meanwhile. 17th April 2007. Click image to view larger version »

So, I’m going to work hard at this, because there’s no way Michael McDowell or Pat Rabbitte are going to play me off my game. Even if they looked this good. There’ll be more.

This week really took off, and it taken a lot out of me, as mundane as it has all been. It’s also shown me the importance of having supportive people around. Well, perhaps supportive women. Guys are silently supportive, particularly with other guys; after all, who can deny the universal language of mockery, farting and grunting? For example, I had a trying day on Tuesday, with all sorts of stuff not going right at work (which I take seriously, so when things aren’t hitting the right notes for me, I get stressed over it. And can I ever do stress, as we know well) and these things being somewhat outside of my control. But to top it off, a man phoned up, an annoyed man. Not just any man, mind, but a man who had contacted me previously about doing some web design and development work for him, and I had promised to discuss a quote with him, after having consulted with my trusty web designer.

Three weeks ago.

So, obviously, he was annoyed that I hadn’t gotten back to him, and that was bad, not least because although I’m contracting (I’m a third of the size I used to be), I’m also technically freelancing, and extremely fearful of not knowing where my next pay check is going to come from, or if I’ll be eating food or sleeping rough next week. It was also bad because of my inherent insecurity and need to please people, even complete strangers, and because of a recent episode involving what I still refer to for some reason as ‘my’ car mechanic.

My car, a ’98 Mazda 121 1.3 litre 5 door go-busters machine which I bought from my mother during the summer. It is slightly ill, and needs a good car doctor. The whole story of me driving, well… You’ll have to sit through it soon. Lollers. 8th February 2007.. Click image to view larger version »

After an initial consultation with Ultan Potts, ace mechanic, about several things that needed fixing on my car, and several weeks of fruitless phonecalls, I realised that this man had no intention of fixing anything on my car at any price. He was just going to ignore me until I went away. I was pretty annoyed because I could have had these things fixed many weeks ago by someone who could both fix cars and operate a mobile phone, and that the state of the economy was such that tradespeople could do this to you in this day and age, and wouldn’t it be better if it was like in the eighties where no-one had any money and people climbed over each other to do things for you, and how dare he. Yes, it was all very frustrating, and a little new to me since I rarely need car mechanics or builders or plumbers, I can usually fix any small thing I break with sellotape (to be fair, I fixed the broken wing mirrors on my car with Duck tape, so you can see that I’m moving up in the world) or blue-tack. Now, I’ve since managed to find a big and relatively expensive garage to fix the issue with a no-nonsense approach and at four times the price, so I’m only bothered now about the principle of the thing.

Which of course, is why I was more than a little bothered about having unintentionally inflicted a very similar situation on someone who won’t forget this in a hurry, and I’ll have his irate words floating through my mind as I eat scavenged three-day-old french, sorry, freedom fries to eat in my cardboard box near Camden street. The supportive remarks came from the ever-pragmatic Oana, who (more delicately than that) more or less told me to get over it. Here’s a gratuitous picture of her, since many people have asked about it:

This is Oana Bizian, my girlfriend. She’s sort of looking very… Russian or something. And not being as sarcastic as she can be. She’s Romanian, and this was taken near Oradea where we stayed for a few days here and there to get the salty water there around New Year’s. 31st December 2006.. Click image to view larger version »

The ‘pleasing complete strangers’ issue is something I should look into, really. Before I know it I’ll be featuring in a Ken Loach movie.

What a response on that last post! I didn’t think anyone actually read this any more, but they do. More accurately, you do. That actually does mean a lot to me, which is part of the reason for the redesign and some of the new features; time to see if I can add something new to help you use the site, enjoy the pictures and all the rest of it. And those little user icons on the comments; send me a picture or get your own on Gravatar.com. I’m trying to change my daily and weekly schedule a bit to fit writing into it, to avoid what Anthony calls ‘boo-urns’. Boo-urns is a technical blogging term for a fairly serious state of affairs, and you should check out his site for a more detailed explanation, since he once nearly lost not only his job, but in fact his left leg over it. He was lucky, but I might not be if the situation gets out of hand. Anthony’s site is entertaining, and also unique since he has more links to individual Youtube content than actually exists on Youtube; there are now people in San Francisco who have a cult based on him, and his Youtube linking ability.

That’s Anthony ‘Boo-urns’ McGuinness in the middle there. Ironically he’s drinking some piss of some sort which isn’t Guinness at all. From left to right, Martin, Paul, Paul and Kenny. We had a vote to see if we could call them all Paul but ended up with Clive instead. 20th October 2006.. Click image to view larger version »

The other thing that interested me about the last post was that although there were many comments (for which I thank you all very much) there were no comments from Garret. At all. None. I was wondering about this, but there is an answer; Garret just hasn’t checked back recently. He’s been relentless surfing Youtube for months now, discovered some hilarious videos of kittens trapped in toilets while their owners film them drowning, and so hasn’t checked back to see if I had written any more. Garret is entertaining, and also unique since he has viewed more individual Youtube content than actually exists on Youtube; there are now people in San Francisco who have a cult based on him, and his Youtube viewing ability.

G—– S—– and N— A—–, and explosive combination! Chortle chortle, a bit of an in-joke there. Man, you can sympathise with N—, huh? G—–’s very nice, really. 18th October 2006.

However, one of the things that made me pause and re-evaluate what I was doing here on the site was in fact Garret’s comments to my second-last post, which started at severe mockery and ended up quite rapidly with severely abusive, which was less than entertaining. Offensive, actually. You’ll see it on that post, and you’ll see that I sanitised several of them. Censorship? Well, yes, basically it is, and I don’t have a problem with it, because those comments are sitting on my site where anyone can see what were, let’s be honest here, incoherent rants. I mean, really inarticulate, badly-spelt, nuggets of abusive rage which I haven’t fully understood but in the interests of not getting shouted down on my own web site I decided to clean them up. I know many of you (indeed, most of you) find Garret’s comments amusing and of course so do I, but… For me this crossed a line.

I guess, that it would be akin to playing a gig, performing your music somewhere, and someone you know just screaming abuse at you, for no reason whatsoever. Is Garret secretly my jilted lover? Is it because I eloped with his dog? But in a situation like that, I think most people would ask themselves why they should bother producing something, which I did, and the answer was because I enjoy it, whether or not anyone else wants to read it. And if anyone doesn’t like it, then they can choose to not read this. I’ll have to thank Tee for a bit of solid perspective on that, and of course the inspiration of Tadhg for his relentless writing, which would surely inspire anyone, regardless of how they felt about messing up someone else’s pages with Oily Orang-Utang, or whatever it’s called.

Therese O’Reilly and Some Girl. Man, I should remember these things. It was a crazy night out and there was… stuff. And things happened. And later that day, I had alcohol poisoning, which just goes to show what an eejit I am. 28th December 2006.. Click image to view larger version »

Oh, and before I forget, I got treated to the Slovak perspective on European history last week by Maddy’s (One of my housemates) boyfriend Rado. Apart from the fact that it was highly entertaining, I never realised that their empire lasted for so long, and was so powerful; they ruled over the Czechs, the Poles, the Hungarians, and even gave some of their territory to the Russians, because they were so generous. And those other guys, the Slovaks fok them, and the other guys get fok too. But they got fok by some guys from there. Eventually of course, they had to let the Hungarians and the Czechs get independence, and rather generously the Slovaks let the EU join them.

Of course, if you ask the Czechs, then they’ll tell you that they had the most powerful country in Europe, and they fok these other guys, and I’ve heard similar tales in Romania too, where they ruled this that and the other, and fok a whole bunch of other people. At least they all agreed one one thing; they all fok the Turks. I just never knew that European history involved so many people get fok by other people.

(edited 28.06.2007)
Obliterated the photo of Garret and Nora, by request.

Well, the title says it all, really. It also sort of gives away my reading of too much news and ‘current affairs’; a world inhabited by teens, where people urge one another to do things, where things are boosted, a world where anonymous people make claims about issues, and where inevitably, Pat Rabbitte will claim that Fianna Fail and the rising tide of immigrants are to blame. I should stop, and in fact, I have a new hobby now.

If you’re reading this on the site, then you can see a difference, certainly. If you’re looking at this through an RSS vortex warp hyperfeed generator, then I’d like to know what you’re munching on, because I just made that up, and you should get yourself over here to the site proper and have a look. That’s right, it’s been redesigned, and overhauled, you’ll see new features here and there, and I think on the whole the site is better and easier to use than before. I even figured out how to deal with GarretSpam! I’m only getting started, too; I still have to deal with some technologies I got my hands on for displaying images, a site software upgrade (WordPress has gone up to version 2.1 while I’ve been sleeping; this site is at 1.5.1.1.1.1.1), and maybe some more bits and pieces.

This would all be pointless without regular content updates, and while I’ll never be able to reach the dizzying heights of Tadhg’s one-piece-every-fecking-day-come-rain-or-shine strategy, I’ll do my best.

Myself on Stephen’s Day (Boxing Day) with my family. Photo taken by my brother. 26th December 2006. Click image to view larger version

Incidentally, the site looks like shit in Internet Explorer. I’ll fix that as soon as possible, but let’s face it, you should be using Firefox to do your web browsing anyhow.

edited later that same day: Props to Tadhg for getting me onto the Thickbox JS code which I’m now using to display the images; go on, try it! I might switch to the more elegant Lightbox JS, which is more beautiful but requires some work, and is also a larger download for yourselves.

Also, please comment, at the moment the comment feed is only Garret’s feedback and variety might be nice.

Wow, it’s been a while. Since the twelth of October, no less, with apparently little for me to write much. This is true, more or less; I haven’t had too much to say about anything, but I haven’t had enough time to really make myself sit down and organise some writing, and to do what I need to do to get photos up on the site with my posts. Here’s the problem; I need to find a better way to organise my images, which works better than the way I’m doing it at the moment.
A view into the city, from the quays. The tall building is the soon-to-be-demolished Trade Union building; it may be ugly, but’s a landmark. Taken a couple of weeks ago. Click image to view larger version
In order to put up photos on this site, as part of my posts, I took an existing WordPress plug-in (WordPress being the piece of software that I use to run this site, which uses additional bits of code – plug-ins – to add extra functionality) and rewrote big chunks of it, as well as adding some image-enhancement routines pilfered from elsewhere. It’s crude but it works (just about). It’s also in use on www.ideasforcheapstuff.com, where Tee and the girls eventually got the hang of it’s arcane ways and started regularly putting up photos while writing about their adventures. Part of the problem (or problems, for there are many) with this plug-in is that the code is, quite simply, very, very bad. I fixed what I could, but… No, it’s not worth resuscitating. I actually set out (possibly on paper, I know I have it somewhere) the design for a newer, better image manager but that’ll take some doing. A lot of doing, in fact. And also, it solves one problem very well, which is the interface for how I select and manage images for putting into my posts, but doesn’t really deal with the bigger problem of how to deal with images generally. Should I manage the images myself, or should they be on a photo site somewhere?

So here are my options, and I’m curious to get some feedback (if anyone is actually still reading this site, fantastic!) on what people think I should do. It’s the number one issue holding me back on posting about my Romania story and other stuff besides, so let’s hear it!

• Go ahead and keep using the same, inefficient crap software.
  Not a great option, to be honest. This is using a lot of disk space, takes too much time and is going to cause me a lot of pain in the future. It’s just too much work, in so many ways, for dealing with photos.
• Write new software.
  Better. But, this will take time and again this is a problem. Also, it’s just a much better designed way of dealing with what is essentially the same problem as with the current problem; the photos are just getting dumped into my posts with no real life of their own. They’re not connected to anything. Just files.
• Use an image-management service
  Something like Flickr, or Zooomr. These are the hot new services/toys on the web for this kind of thing, the photos get shared with everyone, and if you pay money then you can put huge amounts of stuff up there. There are as many pros as cons to using a service like these, and if you are someone who uses these, then please tell me your opinion on those.
• Something else
  Is there another option? There must be, right? Or maybe you can think of one.

Anyway, share your opinions with me, I’m not sure what is the best way to deal with the avalanche of photos I see coming this way.

Boats at Howth Harbour. Real, actual fishing boats, which will no doubt be seeing a lot less action now that they can’t go and decimate the salmon population with drift-nets. Oh yes, I was there as part of getting out for a drive. With Tee. Taken on 29th October 2006. Click image to view larger version