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

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!)

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.)

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.

I visited my mother this weekend; and I have the Google Maps link to prove it! Well, the satellite images are clearly completely out of date because although they have recently added a lot of maps to their… maps, the images are thankfully lacking in all the new developments.

Incredibly long link here. Just click.

Ok, you can take a look, as long as there’s no stalking or attempts to sell vacuum cleaners or what have you. If you do that, I’ll kill you. Anyway, it was a brief but good visit, and the house is really coming on. It looks great. I’d have photos to post but I’m back to using the slr camera again so my photos are back on film. It’ll take a few days before I have them to scan in and post…

A special feature on a link which I think is well worthwhile checking out.

Ricky Gervais Podcast
Listen to the ramblings of the men behind ‘The Office’ and ‘Extras’, and their inspiration!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/rickygervais/
You may have heard of ‘The Office’, or perhaps the more recent series from the same team, ‘Extras’. Both series were created by Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant; Gervais does the screen time, while Merchant is the writing partner, and I believe both worked together on Gervais’ stand-up routine too. The ‘The Office’ which was a comedy series set in a paper merchant’s office and filmed in a documentary style (so much so, that whether or not you found it funny or too realistic was up to you, as the viewer), was close to comic genius, along the lines of ‘Spinal Tap’ with office workers. Some people found it’s comedy of awkwardness almost too much to take, and it’s shrewdness of observation was acute. Great stuff, and a shoe-in to join great British television comedy. Gervais’ character, David Brent, as the manager of the office, was fantastic, and the focus of much of the comedy, and many people felt they had worked with someone similar.

‘Extras’ is more of the same observational comedy, set in the world of television and movie extras, with Gervais playing an extra trying to break into acting, and with cameos from a number of well-known faces (who, after having seen or heard about ‘The Office’, were all too keen to get involved and parody themselves). Again, it’s sharp, and lacking in canned laughter, which leaves it to the viewer to form their own opinions.

What ‘s a Podcast? It’s an audio file (such as an MP3) published on the Internet with the specific intent of users downloading it to an MP3 player and listening to it at their own leisure. There is now a sort of agreed protocol for this, so that if you have iTunes from Apple for example, then you can subscribe to a so-called feed so that you automatically recieve each new installment to your PC, and then put that into your music player, if you have one.Just before Christmas, Gervais and Merchant were commisioned to create a ‘podcast’ for The Guardian Online, which is Gervais, Merchant and their long-suffering producer, Karl Pilkington, rambling on for half an hour about all sorts of stuff. I’ve been listening to this, and since found out that they used to do this for a living for XFM, an English radio station. In fact, I notice on the podcasts for The Guardian that they’re now really letting Pilkington make the shows with his rambling and often esoteric views on just about everything, and the other two (who are a lot less funny than he is) abuse him viciously. I think that some of Gervais’ material in particular (on the podcasts) is fairly contrived and he isn’t as funny as he seems, and a lot of his material is in fact based on the views and mannerisms of Karl Pilkington…

Anyway, check it all out, some of it is very, very funny, and the older XFM material is hysterical. If you have a music player, download it and get listening.