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

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.

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.)

I am tired. I need sleep. In a few minutes, after entertaining some pretty dubious ideas and getting stressed about any number of things, I’m going to do just that thing.

Yes, I’ve been busy, and that’s why I haven’t put anything up here recently, although as always I’ve been eagerly taking notes about all sorts of interesting events and ideas from my life recently, where I’m at, where I’m going, and how exactly it feels to waste three weeks wrestling with something called a ‘mysql.sock’ file while finding new ways to explain to people why this prevents me from making their website as quickly as I had originally planned. Yes, the life of the freelance web developer isn’t quite the rose-tinted week-long party I’d conned myself into believing it was, but the contract work is going well, even if everything else feels like it’s coming apart at the seams…

Since you’ve all been asking, the new trading name is ‘andAgile’, and one of these days I’ll have a full site up, and I’ll discuss the products and services of this entity in more detail. The reason for calling it andAgile? It follows the ‘andSomething’ theme, and in many ways agility is going to be the name of the game. I hadn’t really made that clear, about the general idea; I’ve gone freelance, and now I’m contracting, I’m free to be a success or a disaster or anywhere inbetween all by myself. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do and now I have it.

The abusive and esoteric comments are great, guys; I’m going to put up profiles of the regulars very soon, so we all know who we’re dealing with Look forward to more soon about mysql.sock, Robin Askwith and how to not buy coke from your local Tesco. It’s all good!

Just a quick post tonight; I’ve been busy again, partly taking some time out to relax, with getting back to work and getting stuck into some freelance jobs, and with setting up my new laptop (which I bought along with some other stuff as part of getting myself set up as a mercenary. Sorry, freelance web developer. I did say I’d post about my next few moves, didn’t I? And I didn’t, did I? I even have my company/trading name, the URL has been bought and the hosting paid for… And it’s not Kraton, Defeater of Meat Slugs, it’s a lot less exciting but more useful.

Now, I hadn’t posted this before, and I partly was waiting a little bit, but here it is. Tee, who you’ll either know personally, or know of because you read this site and you know I go on about her from time to time, has put up a moving and honest post dealing with a serious issue on her site, ideasforcheapstuff.com (the site of the three deliciously lickable girls) and it’s something that I think people should read; I should warn you now that it’s serious stuff, and you should approach it with an open mind. I think everyone could learn something from it. The events Tee writes of happened barely a week and half after I met her for the first time, so I got caught up in it all, and it’s touched me too in that sense. Just read it, and think about it, maybe follow the links she gives and hopefully if it helps even one person who reads it then that can only be a good thing.

http://www.ideasforcheapstuff.com/wordpress/2006/06/15/confronting-suicide/

So I’m glad I’ve put that up; please don’t comment on it here, just read it and think about it.

In other news, today was my first day as a contractor for a company I’ll be doing work for over the next while (it’s ‘web stuff’, that’s all you need to know, and it is very exciting stuff to be working on for someone like me.) which was great, although I had to take a lot of technical stuff in and now my brain is full, which when added to what I’ve had to deal with in setting up my laptop (I’d rather punch myself repeatedly in the nuts than install a PC or a Mac for my own use again.) is almost too much to deal with and I’m toying with the idea of turning into a fully-fledged psychopath tomorrow, perhaps murdering some innocent bystanders on my to attacking my colleagues in the office with a chainsaw. Well, I might have considered it, but this evening I saw a Czech movie in the Czech embassy (Thanks for organising tickets to that Michaela!) and it was so remarkably miserable (And believe you me, the Czechs know how to do misery better than anyone, even people from Longford.) that you’d be incapable of harming anyone after watching it. You’d just think about it, and then break down in tears, while nearby children laugh and frolic, unaware of the sheer meaningless misery of life. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it just seems that the point of view there is that everyone is either a bastard, or a weak fool, and everyone gets what they deserve, or gets betrayed, or things just go pear-shaped for everyone generally. Also try to see a movie called ‘Czech Dream’ (‘Cesky Sen’), where some students get a grant and then set out to make everyone very miserable, even though they were all perfectly happy to start with, just to make a point that they weren’t really all that happy to begin with. I’m being fairly facetious about it, but it’s not far off the mark, and bloody typical too.

I’m going to be a ‘Sole Trader’. I’m going to do work for people, charge them for it, and then with that give them an invoice with a silly name on it which is the name I will be trading under. Sort of like a company name, which allow me to justifiably get a URL based on that (even an Irish one, in fact, although it’s generally a tedious and vastly over-priced process) and to design an identity for it. So, in a nutshell, I need to come up with a name for my professional endeavours, something which is reasonably simple, reflective of what I’m about as a Freelance operator (I promised to write more about that, and I will) and will be something that in years to come will be synonymous with the work I’ve done and the quality of that work. A brand name.

So, I’ve had to start thinking about it, and it’s actually a bit difficult. I originally envisaged andCurve being that brand, but now here you are, reading some occasionally entertaining diatribes on a number of issues, and I have to actually keep that separate from my professional life. I still might release software under this name, but that’s a separate issue. It’s now a brand for my hobby, as it were (though that’s no bad thing, and I think everyone should have a brand for their hobby; if it’s a good hobby, get an office, get an identity, hire some people and incorporate. The thing is, when you run out of money it’ll all end in tears, and you’ll wish you’d taken up knitting instead.) and I’d like to keep them separate so as not to confuse people. Or indeed offend potential or existing customers.

Names: well, here go. A list. I used to come up with names for my ‘umbrella projects’ (my various ideas for things I wanted to do, encapsulated in big, sprawing concepts which never went anywhere) on a weekly basis, and I’ve started looking through the notebooks again to help me out. I was a lot more creative back then, which actually means I was churning out a lot more redundant and downright useless ideas back then.

Clever IT company-type names

• EnergyPoint
  We are a point of energy. At this point, you can find energy. With us. At the point. Where there is energy.
• Dynamik
  Dynamik reflects how we are energetic and forward-thinking. We are also different, which is why we misspelled the word.
• Vertex
  The top. We are the highest point of this game, because we are clever and used a mathematical-sounding name. We are better and should also be paid more, even though we have a cheap-sounding name.
• Gorkon
  Has potential. A name of power. Could be responsible for oil spills and eating shareholder’s babies. Respect us.

Dark, powerful meat-eater type names

• Shibboleth
  Suggests something summoned from the other world, come to steal souls and create fear, while building your website.
• Krull, Eater of Souls And DeFlowerer of Virgins!!!
  Could be handy for trading in Westmeath, where this kind of thing is generally respected. Might be a bit heavy on the dark conotations though.
• Karkass
  You know, dead stuff. Stuff that is dead. We killed it. We are dead. I don’t know, really. Ask a Goth (if you know how to communicate with one, you’ll probably go for this one anyway). Hrrrgh, as they say.
• Gorkon
  Has potential. A name of power. Could be responsible for oil spills and eating shareholder’s babies. Fear us.

Edgy, designer, new-media industry type names

• MuffCramp
  Edgy. Might offend women (and everyone else), but suggests being at the cutting edge of creativity. We have such a good time it hurts. When we’re done with you, you’ll be sore too.
• CockPoint
  We point to solutions, with our cocks. There’s a sort of homoerotic thing going on there, except there’s not because we’re not benders. We’re just very subversive and yet amazingly talented, which is why we can overtly base our identity around penis imagery.
• Jizz
  Simple, elegant. We spurt creative goodness at you, and we’re so clever and good at what we do that we can call ourselves something like this and believe that you’ll think we’re amazing too. And not full of shit.

Weird nonsense names

• Bxx5!
  Oh yes. My favourite word of the moment. Utterly meaningless, beyond being an exclamation which fascinates David Donohoe somewhat through my insistence on using it (that’s sort of an endorsement, so I’ll consider it). I should name my enterprises after it.
• YakNeep
  Yaks are big, and we will be too. Neep is… »
• Mr Squirrel
  Squirrels are cool and they do stuff. Just like us. We do stuff and are really cute too.
• GurnardHead
  Gurnards are the best fish going, because they have Gurnard Heads. Find one, stare into it’s big, wet eyes and you will see what I mean. We are like Gurnards, and have little fin feet too.

Names that I’m actually considering using

• andProcess
  Follows the andWhatever naming convention I’m into over the last few years. I’m a fan of process, so I’d like to communicate that in the name.
• andAgile
  Follows the andWhatever naming convention I’m into over the last few years. I think ‘agile’ reflects lightweight flexibilty, which is something I think is very important in what I’m setting out to do.
• adaptiveProcess
  I’m big into process, and I believe process should change and adapt to the needs of the situation.

If anyone has a better suggestion, not matter how bizarre or how many, comment below! And that means you too, Michaela.

Yeah, this whole freelance thing is tough. In the meantime, I’ve ordered my new notebook, an Apple MacBook Pro 2Ghz with vast amounts of… Everything, in fact. And books. Lots of books. And Windows XP which (believe it or not) I’ll install on my Mac when I get it; the new Macs all support Windows too, now and since I’ll have to support all the major systems (all two of them, and of those two, Windows is a good 94% plus of the the market) I might as well get one good notebook to do the job.

More on the way about my last week and last day on the job, a great game of footie, a hell of a weekend (some remarkable adventures kicked off recently), and what’s next. Oh, and for those of you who give a shit, the weather here has been fantastic. It really has. Started to break this evening but in Ireland all you need is that week and half of beaming ultraviolet and you know you’ve lived.
Myself, looking somewhat mean in the blazing sun a week ago after an interesting encounter in the phoenix park. And getting slightly burnt. Click image to view larger version