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!)

Some more random photos from my past.

March ’04. Lucinda Westerman and that woman I replaced – what was her name? – in the Department of Human Services, Melbourne, Australia

February ’03. Myself and Caroline at my mother’s exhibition launch

I know, I know, it’s been a while, and worse still after my deciding to try extra hard to post stuff to this site regularly, several times a week. The last post sort of made up for it by being a three-day read, but that’s not the same as posting frequently, is it?

Well, for what it’s worth, I have a notebook full of stuff to write about:

• Living with the girls
• Work and having a blog
• David Donohoe’s new website
• Web browsers and what I do for a living
• Having a blog
• Where’s my software at
• Idea for a marriage
• Foundations 06
• My 2005 (with photos)
• More about Romanians
• Travel plans
• Panda fucking (no, really!)
• Heaps of assorted rubbish

That’s akin to telling the teacher I wrote loads and loads and loads of stuff but… I left it all at home. Not good, and not very helpful at all, because you can’t read the incoherent scribbles in my notebook which are in any case usually there to prompt memories of the witty nonsense I come up with in my head.

Incidentally, the manatee story (where I tell the unsuspecting that I own a manatee) is really getting coverage. It’s a winner.

(edited for extras three entire hours later)
Forgot these, earlier:

• CockPoint Initiative! Cock for communities
• Core – the 2005-2006 Hot Word!
• Capitalists understanding Open Source – an exercise in outright comedy

I should just start writing, and not stop until someone prises my cold, lifeless hands from the keyboard of my dead laptop. Or, I should start running in a North-Westerly direction until I hit the ocean. After that, I’ll start improvising.

You know the way ‘They’ say, on food packaging, ‘serve while piping hot’? It’s too hot to eat then! They’re morons! It’s not relevent to anything, I know this, but I had to get it off my chest. It was bothering me.

It’s time for linkage! That’s right, after not posting for weeks on end, I return from the darkness only to irritate everyone with links to stuff they’ve already seen elsewhere three weeks ago, and it was a lot funnier then too! Oddly enough, people actually started asking me what was up, which suggests I may have more than two and a half readers out there. I’ve been beavering away (You like that, huh? Beavering away? Beaver? Makes you think of something else, right? You dirty scumbag!) and up to all sorts of things, which I surely promise I will explain with tedious attention to detail in a follow-on post for my long suffering, moderately loyal readers (Really, if it’s bothering you then check out Dave’s blog. His RSS feed seems to be broken but he makes jokes and seems to do some cool stuff. Just ask Tony.) Yes, I’ve been pretty busy, and some big, interesting things are afoot in my life, but we shall speak of them no more at this time. There are dark forces at work, and we must be wary of them…

Incidentally, this is my second time writing this post. It’s bigger and improved. I lost that last one due to some silly modifications I made to my Firefox browser which I use at work. I still recommend Firefox as the way you view the internet (instead of, for example, Internet Explorer), and some of the extensions are great but be careful. You can really fuck things up with them too.

Many of this weeks links have been filched from Memepool, which is a great place to find weird shit.

Life and nightlife (working and going out) in Harbin, China.
Exactly what it says on the tin, all delivered in pithy prose learnt in Celbridge!
http://haharbin.wordpress.com/
Dylan used to work in Parallel IT, where I work now, but during the rough and tumble of the post-dotcom boom when it all went pear-shaped for a while he founf himself doing a bit of this, a bit of that and made the fateful decision to go and teach English in China. We’ve always kept in touch though, and traded stories (and I still can’t get over his story about him walking in to his local Chinese store on a visit back to Celbridge not so long ago). I discovered a while ago that he actually reads my blog; in fact, I might have inadvertently planted the seeds of an idea, to write about his experiences, when I asked him to write something on this site; instead he went off and set up his own site! So go check it out, it is well written, entertaining and informative.

The best blonde joke on the Internet
The funniest, bestest blonde joke on the Internet, ever!
http://weblog.burningbird.net/2006/01/12/the-joke-is/
Follow the link to get to the best blonde joke on the internet ever.

Random Garfield cartoon generator
Garfield as zen philosophy!
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/natetrue/gar.html
Remember Garfield? Of course you do, Garfield is the poster-child of inane drivel, publisher as a syndicated cartoon the world over; it’s a bit slower these days but there was a time when is was practically a cult. The thing is, Garfield was actually funny once, when the cartoon started (I still have the first three books in the series, before Jim Davis got into a tedious formula) but there’s only so much you can do with a cat before it all gets repetitive. I checked out the website; they’re a real money-making machine with this drivel.

Anyway, the point of this link is that you can, with a random generator, create your own Garfield cartoons. Since it is repetitive, meaningless drivel, it actually works quite well.

Google video selection
The craziest, insanest video collection ever!
http://homepage.mac.com/pockyrevolution/Personal25.html
As some of you are aware, Google recently started putting up videos, and within a short space of time a vast amount of… stuff… was uploaded to their servers, converted to Flash video, and you can go and browse it, such as here. Some of it is, in some people’s eyes, pure gold and the link above is a ‘best of’ compilation by some guy of stuff that really did it for him. Saves you the trouble of having to browse it all yourself.

Incidentally, this whole video venture is Google getting into the ring with Apple and their iTunes Store to see if they can do a better job of selling videos. By all accounts, so far it’s not going very well. Time will tell.

Car Stuck Girls
Scantily dressed girls with cars that are stuck in stuff!
http://www.carstuckgirls.com/
Let’s not mince words here. It is porn. Sick, evil porn! Bad! Evil! But fun.

Right, I better start writing meaningful stuff soon, or people will get irritated.

(edited 21.12.05)
That didn’t work very well, did it? This is a re-edit of an accidental posting I made using the Flock browser which is based on Firefox but has some fancy features for working with blogs. However, it’s apparent that it doesn’t do it very well despite seeming to be able to, and so I ended up putting live a test post. It just goes to show that I shouldn’t try to muck about with pre-release software, as exciting as it all seems.

I’d have taken it down, only now people have commented so it’s too late. Poo.

More adventures to be written about later, we had the company Christmas party on Friday and today I was in the UK on a business trip, all very exciting, and Friday (my first day of Christmas holiday) I’ll be in hospital for some sort of examination. Nothing too serious, but doubtless I’ll be walking funny for a few days. Let your feeble imaginations run riot with that one. Also, there have been many more entertaining posts over on www.ideasforcheapstuff.com with the ever-delightful Tee and her girleens so get over there and check it out.

If any of you, my loyal and ever diminishing readership, want to come over to Los Blancheles for a drink over Christmas, or to meet up for a pint in Dublin, let me know; you’re not only welcome, I invite it.

(edited 21.12.05)
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