5thPercentile.com

June 13, 2008

New Job

I've got a new job! My first real job in 10 years!

It's been a blast and a drag working as a freelancer - mostly a drag though. The stress of looking for work, getting the work sorted out, doing the work and then chasing for money will be mine no more. Plus I get the added bonus of human interaction on a daily basis - I will even be working with women! (My developer friends claim it can't be a serious development house if there are pretty ladies there - they're just jealous...)

However, I will miss being my own boss - taking an extended lunch break if I want, working a month of 12+ hour days so I can take off three weeks for holidays.

Posted by dottie at 3:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 29, 2007

Zombies!

There was a zombie attack on Smithfield Market, there were many casualties.

Alas, here I sit, putrefying slowly and consumed by the hunger for BRAINZ!

(note: what appears to be a bottle of beer is actually fermented brain juice - honest! )

A quick joke:

What do Vegetarian zombies eat?

GRAAAIINNNS!

Posted by dottie at 11:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 28, 2007

Cheque? check!

Finally, I have been paid by one of my clients (to be fair, he was only invoiced a few weeks ago), now all I have to do is get the other 6 cheques I'm owed for a grand total exceeding 10 grand.

The joke is - I'm still broke!

Posted by dottie at 7:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 27, 2007

Number of the beast

The prefix to the latest images I am capturing on my digital camera : 666
The number of email messages in my inbox this morning : 666
The middle three numbers in the phone number of someone I talked to recently : 666
The shape of a birthmark just along my hairline : 666*

Weird huh?

I'm not superstitious, the fact that I am noticing what the christian bible calls 'the mark of the beast' is probably akin to the when you hear an unusual word and then suddenly read and hear it everywhere.

It's not that the word has suddenly sprang to prominence, its just that you have been made aware of it. Humans used to be hunter-gatherers which required a well-developed pattern matching ability. A hunter that couldn't spot the disguised outline of a predator or of some game would either be dinner or have none.

This pattern matching can get in the way and create some confusion, especially if taken at face value. The feeble minded tend to go overboard with this - take for example the cheese sandwich with the face of mother Theresa, or the freshly lopped tree limb that has an image of 'their lord'**.

The 'images' are usually so crude and ambiguous that you might as well say its osama bin laden as Jesus - the image depicts a long faced man with a beard - whats your fancy?

Anyway, 666 is not the number of the beast. Early christians used numerology to 'encrypt' their writings, which were in places as much news as scripture. The 'beast' they talked about was not the anthropomorphic evil encapsulated in the mythic figure of Beelzebub.

In the early days Nero was a great persecutor of the christian sect. It was useful for him to take attention away from his malfeasance and misdeeds. He was the Roman emperor responsible for the most christian deaths, hence his moniker 'the beast'. Instead of mentioning him by name the early christians encoded his name using numerology and only referred to him in that tangential manner.

However, his number is not 666. A few years ago some early christian writing were discovered in an ancient midden heap. Only recently with the help of x-ray and great patience were the scrolls unrolled. It was discovered that the number of the beast was actually 616.

So there.

* Note: I'm kidding about this one :)
** their lord, not mine

Posted by dottie at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 13, 2007

PVP Online - homage to the real Superman

Sniff, I miss you Chris Reeves!

...in case you are wondering what the hell I am talking about - rent this movie

Posted by dottie at 8:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 12, 2007

For the longest time...

... I have wanted to write.

Not be ABLE to write, but just to do.

Specifically, in this context, I always thought it would be great to write about someone's life - someone fictional.

At first it would be easy to invent little escapades and picaresque asides, but gradually, the characters would take on a life of their own.

Some day I know I would find myself chattering away on the keyboard, trying to fashion another adventure for my little invisible friends. I might be ored, or the sun might slant a certain way through the curtains, catch some dust and reveal a sunbeam to me - a vision that would bring me back to a happy moment sitting on a bus on a late summer afternoon, making my way home from a girlfriends house, thinking how things don't get much better.

Memory, being a powerful thing, might kidnap my imagination for a spell, my thoughts might jump rail and the once predictable character that I had come to know and love would start to act as if he had been possessed.

It might be interesting to see if some humanities major could fathom the reasons behind the change of heart - if only humanities hadn't been gutted by post-modernism (where every opinion has boarded the yellow bus and is now considered 'special', worthy and unique, just like every other opinion...) that might be the case.

More likely - you, gentle reader, would knit your brow and ejaculate (in the non-sexual sense) with the phrase 'huh?'

And that would be that - readership null and void, again.

No more late night supper clubs in attendance with nubile young ladies, no moonlight drives with exotic. married women toting unlabeled bottles of alcohol of foreign and unknown providence.

No. That way - the way of the author - lies madness.

I'll just drink cheap wine and surf for porn like the rest of the world.

Good night!

Posted by dottie at 12:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 30, 2006

Marks & spencers

I have no dominion over you
but every time I think I own you
you should know you own me

Every soft step I take
as I think back through the days
wets my feet in some stream filled with memories

If you know there is a key
if you have it, turn it, set me free

or feed me

Posted by dottie at 2:25 AM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2006

Tattoo you?

Tattoo's are something that always appealed to me - mostly on other people.

I'm not too worried about people seeing ink peeking from under my sleeves but I can be a bit fickle at times so I'm worried about having something so obvious and permanent.

Mates of mine have tattoos and they look great, even if one of them had 'crazy man' accidentally tattooed in Hebrew instead of 'good guy' (meshugena instead of mensch, I think..). I would like someday to have a tattoo done, and I'm sure it is like getting your first kiss or losing your virginity - it becomes less of an issue after you have the first one :)

For now my sleeves hide bare arms, nary a tattoo in sight.

One thing I was considering since I first saw some of the best examples of it - scarification.

I'm not talking about the big keloids you see on African tribesmen  (although they do look cool) I'm talking about amazing work that looks like someone left impressions on your skin with a fine nibbed pen.

I'll dig up some examples that I have seen - beautiful stuff.

Its tactile too, not jut flat like a tattoo. I would say it is damn painful but what the hey, you gotta suffer for beauty sometimes!

Posted by dottie at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2006

New Office

Now that I have finally started working in earnest from my new office space, it is beginning to dawn on me that I am in a situation that I havent had for years!

I have a separate working and living space and no-one at my work space will be bothering me to do stuff for them or spell something or ask me for the hundreth fucking time what the conversion ratio is from Irish pount to Euro.

I work in my office and when I am home I relax.

Fuck yeah!

Plus the folks who share the space are very nice.

I can feel the knot (that I never know existed) in my stomach beginning to untie itself...

Posted by dottie at 10:20 PM | Comments (1)

July 31, 2006

Sony Ericsson mobile phones suck donkeys (donkey's?)

There.

I said it.

(exhale)

I feel SO much better now.

Even though I still have my (P.O.S.) Sony Ericsson phone in my possession I am technically an ex-Sony Ericsson user.

This is because the only detachable part of the phone has 'suffered' what Sony Ericsson would deem to be water damage and therefore the phone will be deemed to be out of warranty.

There is a little indicator on the battery (yes, the battery that easily detatches and is covered only by a flimsy cover that has HUGE reveals) that turns pink when it is hit by water, How much water? I dont know. Mild humidity could do it - the helpful chap in the O2 store claimed that it could be from walking in the rain while using the phone.

Yes, Really.

The phone itself has been a source of great frustration and misery since I got it. The menu system is bewildering, confusing and maddening and seems to have been designed ON PURPOSE just to cause frustration to the user.

There is really no stand -out feature that acts as a saving grace for this phone. It has functions and they deliver the functionality they are supposed to, as long as you can get them to function.

What was it that renedered my phone unusable in the end? The center of ALL the functionality of the phone - the joystick.

The joystick stopped working, after working only intermittently for months.

Goodbye Sony Ericsson, goodbye and good riddance to bad rubbish. You won't have me as a customer again and hopefully someone who is considering buying your phone will read this and think again.

Posted by dottie at 6:14 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2006

I am proud of RTÉ

I know it doesnt happen often, but I am actually proud of our state supported television broadcasting (almost) monopoly.

In all the coverage of the current Isreali-Palestinian strife they have never once used the word kidnapped to refer to captured Isreali soldiers.

Good for RTÉ.

If they could now go the whole hog and present a more balanced view of the palestinian press conferences then I would be a happy man.

To have a justifiably irate Palestinian barking in rapid fire arabic doesn't create as favourable an impression as a stoic Israeli calmly laying out their plan of 'retaliation'.

It's a classic case of public relations. A sustained image makeover for the Palestinian authority, a charismatic spokesperson and some sympathetic members of the 'liberal' U.S. media would see a sudden turn-around in the fortunes of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian people should be waging against the ignorance of the general public and especially the public in the U.S.

And let's boil the sea while we are at it....

Posted by dottie at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

July 8, 2006

Early Morning Wakey wakey rise and shine

The one problem that tends to crop up when you are living in town is that from time to time there are necessary repairs and upkeep around the area. Drills, cars, workmen clanging tools, revving generators and diesel engines. These things are natural.

But outside my window at eight o'clock on a saturday morning? It's not natural I tells ya.

And when I say outside my window, I dont mean down in the square - I mean OUTSIDE MY FUCKING WINDOW!!!

Check it out

They were just doing their job I guess.

I thought about asking them to clean my windows in the living room (unreachable normally) but seeing as I glared at them and took their photo I didnt think they would be amenable.

I still have no idea what they were doing - something to do with a wire brush and dettol....

Posted by dottie at 1:45 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2006

It's art, stupid

Jill Greenspun, an exploitave photographer - sorry 'artist', is threatening the livelihood of photographer Thomas Hawk who criticised her through his own private blog

In short Thomas Hawk sees Jill Greenbergs work as abusive to children.

From what I can gather Jill photographs kids in order to highlight her own (and presumably our) feelings about George Bush and the second Iraq war.

The kids she photographs go through a little bit of attitude adjustment before Jill starts snapping. Apparently she first strips them of clothing* and then offers them a lollipop only to snatch it away from them when they become sufficiently attached. This of course starts anything from immediate tears to a full-on temper tantrum.

The removal of the lollipop is marginal - what makes this, for me, so abhorrent is the fact that she then continues to goad the child by not allowing his parents to comfort the child, parent who, by the way, are standing by 'monitoring' all of this...

Of course the child gets very distressed and this is the moment that Jill chooses to strike.

In the legitamate criticism that has followed, Jill and her cronies attempt to shield themselves from reproach by explaining that all this is done in the name of art. Further, Jill's husband claims that this 'technique' is used to upset children all the time for films, photo shoots in the advertising industry etc. Which kind of undermines the whole 'its just art, stupid' claims - they are just a bunch of money grubbing cynics after all.

This is wrong on so many levels. For a start, anything that is classed as art is open to criticism, good, bad, constructive, dammning or otherwise - art is a two-edged blade. Second, what about the children? They have no choice in all of this. Who knows what kind of freak gets his kicks from seeing upset children - you could just as easily argue that they are facilitating niche pornography as you could argue that the images are 'art'. NOt that I think for a minute that there is an iota of an intention to objectify these children - sexually that is...

The bottom line is that exploiting children is just plain wrong - portraits are one thing, but what Jill is doing is fundamentally different.

Even worse is that fact that Jill and her husband, and presumably any supporters she has, have started contacting Thomas' employers in an attempt to get him sacked, claiming he is mentally unbalanced, with severe emotional problems and that he doesnt know anything about children (Thomas has four children).

They have even threatened libel proceedings and thrown in reference to U.S. first amendment rights, conveniently overlooking the fact that their attack on response to Thomas is an attempt to infringe his First amendment rights.

Think about that for a minute - because these people don't like the criticism levelled at them, they want the critic to shut up and are apparently stopping at nothing to make that happen.

To try and throw some light relief (or maybe heavy sarcasm) on the whole affair I have some suggestions for some 'art' that can be photographed and hung on walls

• punch old people - to highlight the helplessness and lonliness of old people in our society


• burn homeless peoples cardboard box shelters - to highlight the division between the rich and the poor


• loot, pillage and rape an entire rural village - to highlight the co-opting of rural communities by commuting urbanites

Best of all, its all worth it no matter what the cost because someone, somewhere will be touched by what you do and understand the world a little bit better - just like you do.

* note: the images are not sexual in any way

Posted by dottie at 1:52 PM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2006

U.S. soldiers in the wild

What to do when you encounter a group of uniformed soldiers wandering down a country lane

The report describes a young man putting a group of six U.S. soldiers under citizens arrest.

The reason? They were walking down the road.

Sounds innocuous doesn't it? Yet he was completely right.

We are a neutral nation. Our neutrality is compromised if we allow soldiers of a belligerent nation to wander our streets. All these soldiers were in uniform - they may or may not have been armed, that is not the point.

It may seem that the reporter was being pedantic and overeacting  but we have to put the foot down somewhere. If we allowed U.S. troops to desport themselves whenever and wherever they wished in Ireland then we will have completely undermined out position as a neutral nation.

Already we have the situation where prisoners are being transported through Shannon airport - rendition - from law-abiding nations to nations where torture is common place. The Irish Government has let us down on this front, accepting the word of the most mendacious U.S. Government ever - even Nixon looks good compared to Bush and his cronies.

The end of the report mentioned above puts a lovely little Irish spin onto it all. The person who had lawfully placed the U.S. soldiers under arrest had been ridiculed by the Gardai.

When he finally got them to take him seriously he was confronted by a belligerent female Gardai who had removed her identification numbers (a crime...) only to be joined by a second, unidentifiable Gardai and two plain clothes officers.

That showed him - those poor, defencless U.S. troops are now safe from concerened Irish citizens hell-bent on preserving what little claim we still have on neutrality.

Posted by dottie at 12:55 PM | Comments (4)

June 17, 2006

Art

This has to be one of my favourite pieces of art

It was completed by my very good friend Emmet in his second year I believe? Leave a comment Emmet and tell the story!

Posted by dottie at 9:50 PM | Comments (2)

May 29, 2006

Sleeping (beauty?)

The last few weeks finally caught up with me this weekend.

I have been working my ass off for weeks on end - up to 20 hours a day sometimes!

Its all paying off - well, after I chase those invoices a little more.... - and all the bills will get paid this month and part of next month, plus the added benefit of having expanded my network of potential business a little bit, which is always a good thing.

It was a little odd to languish in bed for a whole day - felt good though! Still foggy headed today (didnt get out of bed until after midday!) but I can really feel the difference of the sleep from the last few days.

Its amazing that you forget how much sleep deprivation affects you and how much you can get done when sleep-deprived. I find I have to go through these patches from time to time to keep up to date with work - mostly because I am learning new techniques all the time, and that takes time!

It always feels a bit like the last few weeks was a dream whenever I catch up on the sleep though...

Posted by dottie at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2006

Redux Redux

I've noticed that I use the word 'redux' a lot, so I thought that I should look it up to be sure of its meaning and not garner a Princess Bride type slagging 'I do not think it means what you think it means'.

The first definition I found was - 'Brought back; returned. Used postpositively.'

Postpositively sounds positively delightful! Tea and Tiffin!

The second definition I found was - ' A trademark used for the drug dexfenfluramine hydrochloride'

And after some googling I found that dexfenfluramine hydrochloride is a drug they give to fatties to help them lose weight in order to get healthy. The only snag is that the drug causes heart valves to malfunction in addition to raising your blood pressure.

So not eating that thrid bag of doughnuts is probably a safer option.

Posted by dottie at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2006

Cool bags

The lovely Naoimh just sent me a link to a cool online shop for bags.

eh?

NOT man bags. These are MANLY bags.

They are all made from USED truck tarpaulins (washed obviously...) and the straps are made form seatbelt webbing!

Iv'e been looking for a decent bag for ages and I think my search is done.

Freitag

Thanks doll!

Posted by dottie at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2006

Maudlin Interlude number umpteen

I keep realising that I am the world's plaything.

Someday I'll remember and stop being surprised.

Posted by dottie at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2006

There is no i in terrorism

err..wait a minute.....

Posted by dottie at 8:20 AM | Comments (0)

There is no me in team

... hang on...

Posted by dottie at 8:19 AM | Comments (0)

March 21, 2006

La mes de los muertos

This last 30 or so days has been a bit morbid for me. First Adam's mum passes suddenly. Then a friend, and great guy, Herb Dade passes after a short illness (as a result of being HIV positive for many years..). Then my sister-in-laws father passes - although that was in a way a relief as he had severe demetia for years and was all but dead to his family, now they have some closure and can begin the grieving process.

March is a month with two large milestones - the anniversary of Cormac and my fathers anniversary, which is today.

My mind has been full of thoughts and morbid dread, regret, sadness and a small amount of panic at the future and my own mortality. This melange of thoughts combined with the pressure of servicing a mortgage has in some weird way helped to keep me fairly focussed these last few weeks.

I would prefer to be focussed without all the drama however...

Posted by dottie at 11:20 AM | Comments (1)

February 14, 2006

R.I.P. 'Auntie' Anne

My best friends mum, Anne, passed away yesterday.

We will miss you Anne, you and your stories, and your love, understanding and love of life. You were far more than just our best friends mum, you were our best friend too.

Posted by dottie at 9:09 AM | Comments (0)

February 8, 2006

House Partay!

Since my house warming (which one you ask!) was such a success, I have decided that every two months I'll be having a party on the last Friday of the month.

The next one is this month, last friday of the month, so the 24th of February.

As usual - wine, women and song is the order of the night.

And as some have suggested its not a housewarming - think of it as a reheat!

Posted by dottie at 3:05 PM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2006

More squeam?

I was back in the hospital again today getting xrays and checks.

The bone is still straight - no slippage, as you can see:

I'm just a bit worried about the pin that is close to my knuckle though, it seems awfully close to the joint. I want to be able to play the guitar for many years to come, if the joint gets damaged by this I'll have to learn left hand guitar.

Hopefully, it should be fine - fingers crossed ;)

Plus the wound around the pin nearest the knuckle is a little bit infected (apparently there is 100% 'complications' with external fixators {learnt a new term today..} so nothing to worry about.

They gave me a perscription for MAJOR antibiotics adn told me it would only be another four weeks before I could get the blasted things out.

I'm going to ask them for the hardware when its done - I want to frame it and hang it on the wall as a reminder!

Posted by dottie at 2:30 PM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2006

My bionic hand (sort of)

I always remember the scene in Star Wars (which I saw in the cinema for my birthday thanks to my mum) where Luke has had his hand cut off by Vader and the ship robot patched him up with a robotic arm.

I learned later of Lugh Ildana, a celtic warrior that had had his hand cut off and replaced by a magical silver hand. He even had a sword of light. Read some of his legend here

Coincidence? I let you decide

Anyway, I had my dressings changed on my hand the other day and X-rays taken (healing nicely thank you). I will have the metal in my hand for a few weeks more, just to ensure that my finger sets straight and true.

I managed to get some shots of the hardware in place.

Posted by dottie at 3:03 PM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2006

New couch new life?

Did I tell you it was great having a couch and all?

I totally watch TV until dawn and develop curvature of the spine through bad posture now.

And the best part is, I brought it on myself!

Yay to being a home owner!

Posted by dottie at 2:56 AM | Comments (0)

Same old same old

I was evicted (well, actually treated like a dog that had found its way in from the street) from my office this monday. This means that I havent been able to work for te last week. Bad news, quiet January and pending contracts - clients questioning deadlines, possible loss of earnings.. NOT a good start to 2006.

Relative to the actions of the person who did it, it is the cherry on the pie. The insane cherry on the curdled cream pie of intelligence.

I would love to posture and threaten right now but I havent got the heart. The motivation and the energy certainly, but I know where that particular road follows thank you...

I will be working from my apartment for the time being. Which is my idea of hell.

The best I can do to alleviate the stress of never leaving home and rarely talking to another human being is to get up early each morning and walk at least half an hour before 'arriving into work'.

I hope this will last long enough to get fit before the badness sets in...

If anyone has a line on cheap office space in Dublin please let me know.

Ta, luv yiz all.

Posted by dottie at 2:45 AM | Comments (0)

Broadband again...

Finally got broadband switched on in my apartment today.

Yay.

Try to remain seated everyone, this may be a roiugh ride. You may see some things you are not accustomed to, please cover the childrens eyes....

Cue the broadband blues.... ;)

Posted by dottie at 2:27 AM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2006

Housewarming

Thanks to everyone who came along and made Friday night such fun.

Everyone had a great time - there was lots of beer drank, some dancing, chatting and even complaints from the neighbours (they declined my invitation to join the party).

The usual before and after shots - before:

and after

Here's to many more!

Posted by dottie at 5:55 PM | Comments (0)

Sticks and stones

Through my own stupidity I managed to break the little finger on my left hand. When I say broken, I mean more than a fracture, the bone of the proximal phalange (that is the bone closest to your hand) was completely broken through.

Of course I only found this out after sitting in A+E in the Mater from 5 in the morning until 1:30pm the next day.

Eventually the doctors told me to 'present myself' at the St Peters day ward at 7:30am the next morning and to ensure that I had fasted for at least 12 hours.

Fasting is fine, often I would not have breakfast until late in the day. The problem isn't food, the problem is liquids. When they say fasting they mean nothing past your lips. No water. Nothing.

So thirsty and hungry I made my way on foot up to the Mater - I had to take my left arm out of the jacket sleeve and hold it in my jacket as I couldnt put my injured hand into my pocket to keep it warm. With no food in my belly it was damn cold - all the puddles were frozen.

I eventually got a bed in the ward (after some confusion - I was a pencil in candidate for a cancelled bed) and was almost immediately told to don the robe of shame (just managed to keep my nether regions from prying eyes - those hospital bed curtains NEVER close properly...).

The worst part of the experience was waiting in the anaesthesia room. The anaesthesiologist was hovering around with big needles. I have no problem with needles per se, its sticking the needles into the crook of my arm that I have a problem with - makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. Stupid I know but that's phobia for you.

They finally gave me the sedatives through the drip line and then proceeded to stick big nasty needles into my left hand twisting them this way and that to deliver some serious pain killers. Ouch, but not skin crawl inducing so OK.

All I remember is someone coming in and saying 'maybe we will give him a general anaesthetic'. After that I woke up in a different place with my hand all bandaged.

I now have two metal pins sticking out of my hand secured by a metal bar holding the bone steady so that it will set straight.

I am cyborg! Bow before me puny humans!

Anyway, I'll be getting the pins out on the 17th and I'll make sure I post some photos of the extraction - maybe even some video!

Posted by dottie at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 7, 2006

When it comes to money...

Trust nobody.

My good mate Stephen who was running the pub Soul28 just got severly fucked over by his business partner and uncle.

So he is no longer running the pub. Downstairs from me now where there would normally be decent bands and dance DJ's playing we have in their place a very poor wedding DJ playing all the hits from the eighties and nineties.

Fucking hell. Its like a bad dream. Someone wake me up.

Posted by dottie at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

January 6, 2006

The King of New York

Mick Kelly finally got to New York, living the dream. Well, living in the basement of an old church in a semi-heated workshop in Brooklyn. Myself and Adam bought him a notebook as a present - I'm thinking now we should have bought him four pairs of gloves and a few jumpers!

I thought this photo was apt as the bottles remind me of skyscrapers.

Fuggedaboudit! He's the King of NooYawk!

Posted by dottie at 2:52 PM | Comments (0)

Official Housewarming

The Official official housewarming for my new flat is tonight.

Should be good - hopefully there will be more than a couple of people showing their faces this time!

Its great to start off on a high note with a big session (or another big session as the case may be!).

I have to admit to being worried about paying the mortgage every month. I should be OK though as in a way this is the second home I have helped purchase...

Posted by dottie at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2005

My new gaff

I have finally strapped on the proverbial Albatross, put my nose to the grindstone, plunged myself into the treacherous waters of home ownership.

Yep, bought a new place. Not bad either, down in Smithfield Square, nestled between the Juvenile Court, the probation services, Four Courts and Queen Street!

Before -

and after!

View from our shared garden (which will be home to many summer barbeques let me tell you!)

and lastly, Adam standing on the balcony enjoying the view with the screaming kids and funfair in the background - Smithfield on ice will be here until mid January - no worries!

FTB!

Posted by dottie at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)

December 3, 2005

Home of the brave, land of the free

A woman in the States was trying to get to work. Her bus passed through a no-security zone federal center. The bus is stopped at the gates and a guard checks the ID of everyone on board. This is not to check any exclusion list or to check for our of date ID or anything of that sort, it is a simple compliance test.

Deborah refused to show her ID stating correctly that she was not required to comply with the demands of a police officer or even federal officer unless there was an emergency situation or that she was suspected of criminal behaviour - neither of these situations were applicable. The guard summoned a federal officer, she refused again and a second federal officer was summoned, she refused his demands also and then she was physically manhandled, brutally handcuffed and brought to a station to be charged - the officers took a long time deciding what she was to be charged with.

Deborah Davis official site

The US is becoming a police state. This will happen in England too, they are trying to force an ID card system there and where England goes Ireland's lawmakers are seldom far behind.

Posted by dottie at 7:42 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2005

I don't live in the UK

I dont kno about you, but it really bothers me that I have to select the UK when visiting pan-global, mega corporation sites such as Canon, Epson etc.

British and US citizens seem to have no idea that anyone would have an issue with being included in the United Kingdom. Europeans generally dont seem to have a problem with national identity and are usually aware that blood was spilled to confirm a differing national identity.

Its easy for this line of thinking to veer off into Nationalistic pride and all that implies. I dont sit around singing rebel songs and talking of overthrowing the yoke of English oppression. I just like people to know that I am Irish and that I live in Ireland. I would even go so far as to accept living in the 'UK and Ireland' if necessary!

Eire abu!

The reason I write this is that I saw the following on my favourite blog BoingBoing:

Guinness Evolution Ad

You will see that the description says that it's a UK ad. The combination of the fact that I feel at home when reading BoingBoing coupled with the dropping of Ireland into the soup pot of the UK (possibly stands for Undetermined Kountries?) and the fact that Guinness is as Irish as Saint Patrick (yeah, I know he was from Wales - how Irish is Diageo?) prompted me to write a note to David Pescovitz explaining that Ireland was not in the UK.

I chuckled when I read the addition (seen in red on BoingBoing).

Elsewhere abu!

Posted by dottie at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2005

Little Blue Circles

Went to see David McWilliams interviewing Robert Fisk last night.

Fascinating stuff. Bob Fisk has a huge knowledge of the events leading up to the current situation in the Middle East and a great understanding of the different dynamics at work in the region today.

There was a lot to chew over. He (and the very well informed audience) highlighted things that I had either forgotten about (few) or never knew about (many).

This knowledge coupled with his great humanitarianism, bravery, intelligence and talent for reporting from the perspective of the people in the street rather than the more usual national (and ultimately skewed) perspective makes Robert Fisk's writing an essential read.

When pressed by David McWilliams as to what would be the best way to ensure peace and 'freedom' in the Middle East, Mr. Fisk said there were two things that needed to be done - enforcement of all aspects of Resolution 242 and second of all, and most importantly, get Western powers out of the Middle East.

I'll be ordering his books as soon as I start making a bit of money!

And the little blue circles? These were what was given to us instead of printed tickets to allow entry to the venue. They were U.N. blue - not sure why...

Posted by dottie at 4:56 PM | Comments (0)

God squad

I was in a shop today and I saw their inspirational, happy-clappy quote for the day was this:

If a parent only loves and prays for their child, God will more than make up for the rest

I would have thought clothes and food would be essential too?

Posted by dottie at 4:40 PM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2005

Suckerpunch

Lonely as I am, I was drawn in by the charms of a woman yet again. The fact that the woman is beautiful, and sexy only adds to the allure.

Played for an idiot, she only wanted someone (anyone) to kiss her and make her feel fulfilled, pay attention to her - god knows she has enough admirers anyway. I knew this and still fell for the line only for her to end up with someone else by the end of the night. I didnt even realise that it mattered to me until she was kissing someone else. Then I stormed off and fumed and all that shit that teenagers get up to.

What a fucking shmuck I am.

Just goes to show that age means nothing. Pre warning means nothing. When you convince yourself that you are on to a good thing you will ignore hints, allegations and god damn it you will ignore reality.

I am a fucking idiot and I have made myself a bigger idiot by not only falling for a line but getting upset by it, punching the sign from a taxi roof and sitting dejectedly in various back streets around Dublin until I could sort out my head.

Repeat after me - I am an eejit.

But then again, in my defence, I love good looking women....

Posted by dottie at 4:23 AM | Comments (1)

October 8, 2005

Tall is crap (sometimes)

How shit is it to be tall?

crap basically.

Bang your head. Can't buy clothes. Butt of jokes. Centre of attention when you dont want it.

Pretty much not too good all round.

I'm not saying its a disaster but its not good.

Picture yourself not hearing or misunderstanding 80% of your conversations over a 10 year period.

Imagine banging your head off every so called 'normal' piece of street furniture and domestic building addition or even standard fittings.

Imagine ill fitting clothes, years of lack of coordination and poor social skills.

Imagine a bowl of chips flavoured with spicy barbeque sauce with a chicken burger on the side. Send me one.

Posted by dottie at 11:06 AM | Comments (1)

September 29, 2005

Draft of a letter to supporters of Intelligent Design

I am serious about trying to open a dialogue with supporters of Intelligent Design to try and get help in overcoming the problems I am having with some of the logic of their theories.

To that end I have drafted a letter which I will be sending to supporters of ID.

To whom it may concern,

I have heard much in the press lately about Intelligent Design. I am myself a scientist, or at least a science graduate - I hold an honours degree in Applied Physics. I am always interested in new scientific theories, being an avid reader of New Scientist, back issues of Nature, Physics Today, and any other writing that comes to my attention.

I have heard arguments both for and against the concept of Intelligent Design. My interest was piqued in particular by the argument that the eye is far too complex an organism to have come about as a result of evolution. It is compelling and seems logical to theorise that the eye and other organs, perhaps even all life itself was brought about by an outside party.

While it appears logical on the face of it, there are some issues that arise. I understand that the theory of Intelligent design posits that evolution, as it is currently taught, is not only implausible but actually not grounded in good science and is in essence an incomplete notion rather than a hard scientific fact.

I stated before that I am a physicist by training and as such my grasp of the theory of evolution is pedestrian, never having studied it in any detail. I have read the voyage of the Beagle and the origin of the species but I understand that modern evolutionary theory has as much in common with Darwin's original theory as does modern physics with Gallileo's 'natural philosophy'.

As I stated before, it is my understanding that Intelligent Design is grounded on the fact that life did not evolve but was created by a designer of some unknown origin. This is fine and sensible - Intelligent Design, as a young science, does not attempt to set bounds on the nature of such a designer and as such focus the scope of its studies.

The main problem I have with this notion is when I take the notion and extrapolate, as is the nature of my training. If it is true that evolution has no part in the rise of life on our planet then for the same reasons it should have no part in the rise of life in any part of the Universe. This leads to a problem as you can see. If there was no evolution at any time or place anywhere in the universe then there could never have been a designer to initiate life on any planet, let alone our own. To be more to the point - where did the original designer come from?

I would love to know more about Intelligent Design, but I have come up against what is to me an insurmountable problem. I have stated already that I have only come lately to idea of Intelligent Design and as such I am sure that I have overlooked some aspect. I would be most indebted if you could either point me to some resources for further study or if you could take a little time to put me right in my no doubt confused notions.

I look forward to hearing from you.

sincerely

Mark Lennox

Posted by dottie at 10:37 PM | Comments (2)

Intelligent design

I'm going to go on an open minded fact finding mission about Intelligent Design.

My goal is to find out the tenets of their science and attempt to unravel some apparent logical fallacies inherent in their argument.

I'm prepared to be swayed by any argument they care to proffer and I will willingly enter into debate with any person who professes support for Intelligent Design.

To this end I will send letters to a range of high-profile supporters and print the letters and their replies here with commentary.

I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by dottie at 12:59 AM | Comments (1)

Xelector

Tomorrow is my last day in Xelector, where I was working for the last year.

Its been tough working for myself and for them. I missed out on a lot of sleep and socialising. But on the plus side I paid a lot of debts, upgraded my computers and most of all made some good new friends and got to know a good friend a lot better.

Good times.

I have been so busy lately that I havent had time to sit down and think about the fact that I will be in a new office, fending for myself (money may be an issue...) and not seeing the same faces again in the same context.

I'll miss them all.

But next week we go for beers!

Posted by dottie at 12:53 AM | Comments (1)

September 8, 2005

Science and Magic

All complex tasks need to be explained, illuminated, opened for discussion.

If a scientist (and I use the term loosely to describe any seeker after truth) declines to explain not only the intricacies of how something is done but also how they found the path that brought them to their discovery, how they felt slaving toward the discovery and how they changed their mind on the way, then that scientist becomes a magician.

Science benefits everybody, magic benefits one person, or one group, or one tribe to the detriment of others.

Hoarding, hiding or witholding discoveries lessens them, drains them of their power. It turns them into the knowledge equivalent of shruken heads strung around the shamans neck. They look impressive, but no-one knows what they are for, and the Shaman sure isnt going to tell you.

Posted by dottie at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2005

I am prepared to believe in Creationism

Creationists keep making claims that they will support evolution if independent scientists can prove with full scientific support that God did not create the universe some 600 odd (very odd) years ago.

Ignore for a minute that such a question is like telling someone that you will support apples if you explain oranges, I would make a corollary challenge to creationists.

I will believe in creationism if groups of biblical scholars working independently (this is a point I will have to insist on - please see my footnote for my definition of independently) can reach an agreement as to how long ago the Universe was created.

Since we are talking about a matter of 6000 years or so and the fact that the research matter comes from a book they claim to be the Holy word of God almighty and as such should be immune from alteration (altering God's Holy word would be blasphemy wouldnt it?), these independently produced dates would have to agree to within a decade.

If they can do that and give me their solemn word on the Bible (may God strike them down if they lie) that they adhered to my rules, then I would be willing to give credence to their beliefs.

It's only fair that we ask them to adhere to their own logic if they ask us (non-believers, scoffers, sniggerers etc...), using our own logic (and scientific method) to prove that Creationism is a load of bollox.

Note: 'independently' means:
1. that the Biblical 'scholar' will be cut off from contact from any peers outside the group that is compiling the information for an estimate on the exact day that said 'the word'.
2. Ideally the 'scolar(s)' will indulge in abstinence, fasting, prayer/meditation, within an isolated retreat (mountainous or not, their preference...)
3. In addition to finding the date that God spake his spoke, the 'scholars' should also pinpoint major milestones such as when fossils were placed in the mantle, the date that the last dinosaur died out (must be in the Bible somewhere eh?), what colour Jesus' eyes were, the exact location of the Ark (they must include proof in the form of wood, nails, dinosaur poo, or whatever...) and most importantly the exact date that the first Bible was written (old testament), because if its the word of God then it must have been created all of a piece, just like his other creations.
4. The 'scholars' must forward logically (their logic or ours, but must be internally consistent) sound alternative for all scientific 'theories/beliefs' currently 'en vogue'

Posted by dottie at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2005

Einstein

This year is the 100th anniversary of Einstein's big year. In 1905 Einstein produced four physics papers that were to change the face of modern science.

The paper's were at first ignored, due mostly to the fact that Einstein was a lowly patent clerk who had been refused a promotion as his superior felt he needed to gain a better grasp of basic mechanics.

I'm dissapointed that in my physics course in college we never studied Einsteins original papers. In fact, we never studied any original papers from any source. All our learning derived from the scientific equivalent of Cliff notes. All our test books were interpretations of the theories of the greats. We only used distillations of the work to manipulate mental / mathematical models of specific situations.

Einstein had no such help and yet managed to create great work. In fact most of the greatest scientists had very little in the way of interpreted material to help them along.

Maybe we should ban textbooks from science classes and go from first principles?

Anyway, happy birthday to E=mc²

Posted by dottie at 1:31 PM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2005

Are Turkeys viviparous?

Have you ever seen a dozen or even a single turkey's egg for sale?

I've eaten hens eggs (from all different classes of hens), quails eggs, ducks eggs and goose egs. I have heard of pheasants eggs, eagles eggs and even crocodile eggs. But nowhere in the common vernacular have I ever heard any one tell about a meal of poached, fried, scrambled, omletted or other wise cooked or raw turkeys eggs.

What gives?

I have a feeling it is something to do with secret government experiments. Or maybe they are super tasty and the farmers like to keep them all for themselves?

I want turkey egg omlette damn it!

Posted by dottie at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)

Sweet nothings

These late night entries are something special for me I am realising more and more. Almost like the whispered secrets you tell your lover in the middle of the night when you are both half-drunk and half-asleep - or in the hope of lightening your spirit by sharing a secret, or truth, or lie badly told.

So here I sit again typing my little sweet nothings. Throwing out a line and hoping I reel in some fish for my supper.

Its dark - I cant see who you are - and you cant know me. So we guess. And because of this we more than half invent the person we love and so will them to mould themselves into the shapes we have thrust at them.

And then we get angry when they wander off to talk to real human beings at parties.

Go figure :D pass the wine!

Posted by dottie at 1:50 AM | Comments (0)

Photo competition

I was asked today (well, I guess yesterday now, but I always count the awake periods of time as days...) to judge a photo competition.

I'm no Ansel Adams, but thankfully given the nature of this competition, landscape was the farthest thing from my mind.

I was asked to judge a discrete ass photography competition.

Two friends of mine would use their camera phones to take pictures of girls (girls asses).

The winner would be judged on beauty, general appeal / sexiness and proximity and whatever else criteria that occurred to me at the time (I was rushed, I based it all on a ugt reaction to the shots).

So here are the pictures, the commentary and the winners. Let me know what you think.

1:
Top marks for apparent age and the fact that the trackies look like they are about to fall off her. Losing points for proximity, lack of facial shot and the fact that she seems to be hanging out in the park with her dads mates

2:
Classic beauty. Like two puppy dogs rolling around in a silk sack. Nice figure and obviously affectionate. Fair points for proximity, good points for general bounciness, but losing points for the fact that she is hanging off her boyfriend and not her bikini clad lesbian lover.

3:
The lovely spectacle of tanned underage limbs and midriffs combined with a subtle panties adjustment is somewhat marred by the foreground. Top marks for variety and youthfullness, losing marks for foreground and proximity.

4:
Tis a pity the soft curve of her buttocks couldnt have been accentuated by the tightly drawn skirt that would have occured mid-stride. Behold the loveliness of her legs, the soft grey cashmere sweater and the pseudo tennis player skirt that thrills and teases us with memories of Anna Kournicova et al. Top marks for figure and proximity. Lost marks due to lack of 'definition'

5:
Tatoos. Pink velure. Midriff. Definition. This picture has it all. She is obviously a D4 girl trying to look like a bit of trash. She succeds and I for one am loving it. Extra points for the suggestion that her kacks might at any moment fall to her ankles. Sassy. Excellent marks for figure and proximity and definition. Extra marks for approaching soft porn territory. Well done that man.

6:
fabulous figure and lovely hair (what I can see of it). the teasing of the forbidden barely covered by the top adds to the depth and mystery of this moody picture. what is she thinking? Makes us want to know her more. While the last picture was a wham bam thank you mam sort - this ones for the long run. Good marks for proximity, fair marks for definition, top marks for figure and general attractiveness

7:
ooh. Denim skirt. Lovin it. The graceful line of th eleg draws the eye toward the distressed edges of the skirt teasing the imagination. Obviously loves the cock. Top marks for fine pair of pins, loses marks for lack of anything else. Fair marks for proximity.

8:
Not really much to see here. A second later and maybe a nice profile would have emerged. As it is the photograph (no comment on the subject) fails to titilate. Good marks for proximity low marks elsewhere

9:
WHo doesnt love the carnival? The question is will they keep that get up on in bed? Imaginings of what you might get up to with three lovely ladies who can flick their hips to a samba beat is marred by the appearance of Saint Bono in the foreground. Poor marks for proximity, good marks for figures an general allure

10:
Compared to her mates shes fantastic. The added spice of the fact that she is obviously foreign only adds to her appeal. She is obviouly into virile animals and might even be sensitive enough to make you feel like one. Good figure, fair points for proximity and added points for general appeal

Number 5 won it followed closely by number 6.

It was a pleasure to judge...

Posted by dottie at 1:33 AM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2005

Eircom are a bunch of c*nts

I've had it with Eircom.

Phoned them up today to try and ask about the cost of my broadband service (€50 per month + VAT!).

Three times I got lead down a voice menu tree (different numbers each time) to be lead to a dead end of a disconnected tone.

Finally I get through to some feckin knuckle dragger (apparentley a sales person...) who seems incapable of explaining what the difference is between different services, or of even being inetrested in the fact that a customer has phoned up with a query, so he transfers me to support. Only support is a disconnected dial tone.

Fuck you eircom. Fuck you very much.

I'm moving my broadband and my phone service elsewhere you thieving bastards.

Posted by dottie at 2:07 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2005

List of lists of list of lists....

It's not the time it takes to take the take that takes the time,
It's the time it takes between the takes that takes the time.
Roy Scheider in and interview on the set of "Jaws"

Not exactly succint but the idea is that you spend so much time mentally backing up and assessing the gap before putting yourself in gear and trying to drive your mental vehicle into a tiny parking space as quickly as possible before doing it all again.

My poor brain is confused - too much new stuff going on at the moment - learning .NET, producing a web service, using XSL transformations in .NET, writing business plans, design.... hoovering.....laundry

Somethings got to give and as I am still not being paid to do my on laundry (why! WHY!?) and sleep is a waste of four hours, I'll be slack jawed and smelly the next time you meet me.

What do you mean 'whats new?'

Posted by dottie at 12:05 AM | Comments (1)

July 17, 2005

Check the cabbage patch!

I was out on the town last night with my mate Emmet and he announced that his wife, the lovely Fionnulla, is having a baby!

Yay Emmet! Way to go man!

Posted by dottie at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2005

Call from a friend on high

I jut got a call from a mate of mine, Donagh. He was 150 feet in the air at the time, installing a screen in Croke Park. We were idly chatting away about this and that and the upcoming launch party for a rockumentary he had worked on (more on this later). In the background I started hearing someone calling his name, then more insistently, then many voices calling 'Donagh, Donagh, Donagh!' as quick as possible.

'Uh I guess I better go' says Donagh

I'll be reading tomorrow about how a 2 million euro screen was dropped and smashed in Croke Park :)

Posted by dottie at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

Comments open again

Thought I would experiment with allowing you lot (err...) add comments again.

Give it a shot

Posted by dottie at 2:26 AM | Comments (0)

w00t!

I finally switched to my new server.

There will be a new design soon - I promise.

what?! I did not have my fingers crossed behind my back!

I resemble that remark!

Posted by dottie at 1:15 AM | Comments (0)

July 7, 2005

Victims

Over 30 people were killed today by bomb blasts in the London tube system and an unconfirmed amount in a packed bus that was transporting the people who were turned away from the closed tube stations - may they rest in peace and whatever God they believe in guide them to their eternal rest, rebirth or reward.

Hundreds more more injured. Many of those maimed, their lives irrevocably changed due to missing limbs, severe burns, emotional trauma.

Enemies of democracy brought this down upon their heads - all our heads. People who would instill fear into the hearts and minds of people in their own countries and all over the world. Fear to control those people, make them weak, bend them to their will.

Bullies. Sadistic, evil, perverted, twisted fiends who's hearts know only blood and pain and suffering. Men who would twist anything to suit their designs. Men who have only their own interests at heart and would swim through a rising tide of blood and gore to reach their goal - total domination.

George Orwell gave us an image of totalitarianism - a jackboot stamping into our faces forever. We may yet all know the sting of it.

The pity of it is that these weak and fearful men who drive other weak men mad with fear and then to depravation and perversity are among us also.

Stop the madness, stop the deaths - don't give into the fear.

Posted by dottie at 8:57 PM

July 6, 2005

Pete's Birthday

Tomorrow is my brothers birthday. Happy birthday Petey!

We'll be having the usual dinner in town to mark the occassion, which is always a treat.

Another tradition we have (just kinda fell into it..) is to present each other with cards of an ironic nature. It was an accident as it is usually impossible to find decent cards so I always look for the cheesy ones like 'I am six' and scrawl in the 3 (yes really!) and write a funny message.

We all laugh. And we all love it. We are an informal family - mostly because we all have a great deal of respect and love for one another and like nothing better than to take the piss whenever the occassion arises.

So happy birthday Petey! I love you and your family, and my extended family, and I'm looking forward to another night of good humoured banter and fine food.

Also friday night will be great too - import Guinness and playstation - woo hoo!

Posted by dottie at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)

July 5, 2005

Special delivery : 400 GigaBytes of sheer storage power

Kneel before me!

I now have 0.96 Terabytes of storage in my bedroom. Yeah baby!

Now to lie to all the drunk Geek chicks and tell them I have a terabyte!

Posted by dottie at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Barring the obvious that I actually havent grown up yet (no height jokes please) I dont think I have actually found what I want to do with the rest of my life yet.

I cant remember exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. I dont think I ever had so much motivation, well beyond wheedling an extra bowl of ice cream and learning to lovethe taste of cooking chocolate (I was a fat kid). I remember reading lots.

My favourite books were the 'Tell me How' series. These books dedicated a page to an invention or idea and rapped about how it was discovered, who discovered it, when it was discovered and invariably how the inventor came to a grim end - usually at the hands of his demented lab assistant, wife or angry luddite mob (a lot of stuff was invented by the French aristos - the enlightenment dontcha know...)

I guess I wanted to be an inventor.

I know I am now adept at inventing new excuses for avoiding work - so I guess I fulfilled my ambition.

Life is so lonely at the top ;)

Posted by dottie at 2:08 AM | Comments (0)

July 4, 2005

Live 8 Girl

One of the gimmicks they had for LIve 8 was to have one of the survivors of the famine in Africa some up on stage and thank the world for refusing to let her die.

I just caught her picture (small) on the front page of some newspaper. Shes a looker.

I can picture the ultimate irony. The girl gets picked up by some modelling agency and is set to rocket to fame and fortune but not until she fulfills the ritual that ALL models have to undergo - lose some weight.

Posted by dottie at 4:54 PM | Comments (0)

July 3, 2005

Skiing

A group of us are going to go skiing for three weeks in January in the Meribel resort in France.

I'm really looking forward to it as my ski trips are usually the only extended break I get away from work all year - three weeks will be heaven!

Meribel has a lot of runs in its valley, good mix of blue, red and back. But, there is also another two valleys on either side of the Meribel resort - just get to the top of a run and drop off the other side of the mountain and there you are :)

I think it will take us three weeks just to ski down all the runs, never mind find a favourite or stop to admire the view - and then the apres ski!

Excellent.

Posted by dottie at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)

Where I've been part II

and yes I have had a couple of drinks. But i mean what I said. I'm back.

I'm done with letting anguish and loss, hate and fear rule my life.

Or at least that's the plan.

I have had a fat, bad little cunt ruling my life despite my best intentions. That will end, and peacefully. Much as I would like to ensure that this particular fucker does not pass his genetic code onto the next generation, I will keep in mind that what goes around comes around. And remember that the best revenge is to live well. And that I will do.

I'm ready for something new and hopefully that will be enough to encourage some seeds to flourish and bloom into something worth cultivating instead of running from.

So basically I'm saying if you should cal me and ask if I am heading out for the night I will at least try and say - call me tomorrow - instead of just saying no.

Love and peace

Posted by dottie at 4:24 AM | Comments (0)

Where I've been

I have been lost. Lost to myself. Lost to the world.

By degrees I have been finding my way back. Following tracks that were familiar many years before and now are mere memories.

Most of my wounds have healed, some still pain me and flare with infection from time to time. And then madness beckons.

Despite the downs, there are more ups. And I can find solace in objectivty.

The next obstacle is my own apathy. Ice and loose rocks...

and hey, life IS good. Thanks to my friends and especially my family.

Posted by dottie at 4:08 AM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2005

Trading vodka for sleep or should that be, ah whatever...

When I work late at night - and I was doing a LOT of that before and after Christmas (ruined my health too!) - I find it efficacious to quaff a dram of vodka at opportune moments in an effort to vanquish exhaustion.

The only problem is that drinking vodka late at night can lead to me reading the entire back catalogue of Penny Arcade or whatever web comix happens under my gaze (they are like popcorn, you cant stop once you start)

Late night vodka drinking can lead to other things also, best draw a veil over that though...

Posted by dottie at 11:48 PM | Comments (0)

Comments off/on

When I get this piece of shite onto its new server I will be able to allow my loyal readers to add comments to the blog entries again.

Huzzah! I hear you warble as you caper with glee in anticipation of defacing my site once more.

Just warning all spammers that they can fuck right off if they think they will get away with adding comments.

I have some brand new technology called an address tracker, a hammer and an unquenchable blood lust.

Well, either that or some good blacklisting software.

Bring it!

P.S. THIS is the last entry on this blog on this server (maybe)

Posted by dottie at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

MP3's

I have noticed that a lot of bloggers are bragging about how big their MP3 colections are.

I just did a quick check (always keep a tape measure handy) and I have just shy of 30 Gigs of MP3'a. This is acceptably close to the actual figure of 28.7 Gigs that I feel justified in rounding it up to 30 Gigs.

It's a bit like the answer I give in a bar when a pretty girl asks me 'so....I presume you are in proportion?'

I would hate to break their little hearts. Time enough to see tears in their eyes when I get them home...

p.s. THIS is the last entry on this server

Posted by dottie at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

May 2, 2005

Sick at home...

...and its the weekend!

Since I've been asleep half the day I cant actually sleep now. Feck it.

I have managed to reinstall windows on my work machine, install IIS and Apache, get Ruby on Rails running and have just finished some necessary house cleaning on my blog software so it is running nice and smoothly (the admin side - you guys won't see any difference, dont even know why I mentioned it...)

Its amazing how little you have to say for yourself after spending most of the day in bed reading Robert Jordan (makes my head spin...)

Posted by dottie at 1:43 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

Ancient texts

The entire body of classic texts we have from then likes of Aristole, Plato etc. are only a tiny fragment of the total number that once existed in the flourishing society of the Greeks, Romans and others.

The fabled library of Alexandria that was put to torch was said to be the greatest repository of human knowledge of all time. All lost. That is only one incident that we know of. Despite arson and wilful destruction, texts can be lost, destroyed by earthquake, flood, natural conflagrations or simply forgotten about.

We routinely throw out copies of books that we no longer want. The same happened in ancient times.

A cache of text was found in an ancient rubbish dump in an egyptian-greek town. Unfortunately these texts were unreadable. Until now.

Scientists have discovered new techniques that allow them to read the scrolls and begin transcribing the ancient texts. They are prediciting that the known canon of ancient texts is likely to be increased by some 20%. With such a huge increase in our knowledge of the ancient world they are also predicting another Rennaisance.

Ancient texts deciphered

Not sure if there will be another Rennaisance, we are hardly in a Dark age at the moment - although it is questionable whether or not we are as open minded as we should be.

It will be interesting to see what is turned up. Many plays, poems and the like of course, but undoubtedly philisophical works, perhaps even ancient Christian texts.

Imagine what impact they could have, new texts shining light onto accepted Christian doctrine just as the new pope is being chosen? hmmm.

Also, I wonder will the texts be made freely available? I'll be keeping my eye on the Gutenberg Project!

Project Gutenberg - out of copyright works

Their site has been updated recently and now has an RSS feed of recently added books - woohoo!

Posted by dottie at 10:01 AM

April 12, 2005

mac mini me

Just bought one.

Should be here in eight working days!

(cue image of Vader enticing Luke to join the dark side...)

Watch this space for photos!

And probably much cursing, wailing and gnashing of teeth when I cant get the feckin thing integrated into my system properly!

Posted by dottie at 2:11 PM | Comments (0)

April 4, 2005

Pope in repose

There are pictures of the pope, dead, in repose (I presume in St Peters Basilica or somewhere like that).

Regardless of the church's views and rhetoric they never miss a media opportunity - they own the pope and will sell him until (and indeed after...) they put him in the ground.

I dont know why I expected that the man would have a dignified death, or that things would get better afterward.

R.I.P. JP. I didn't agree with everything you did and said but you did good.

Safe home.

Posted by dottie at 1:59 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2005

3d light graffitti

wow

the menu to select the graffitto's is the rotating bit at the bottom.

Nice work

Posted by dottie at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2005

Guilty admission

I know I promised last year that I would be getting my head shaved for charity this week.

Its not going to happen - this year.

I still stand by what I said - give to charity, especially cancer research. Give a lot - you can be guaranteed that someone you know will one day be diagnosed with cancer.

Think about how much it costs you to go out for the night - give up going out for one night and donate that money to cancer research.

Better again, start a direct debit to your favourite cancer research group and give a tenner a month. Everybody can manage that.

Make me feel less guilty for not getting my locks chopped off - you know you want to.

Posted by dottie at 3:13 AM | Comments (0)

No sleep 'til whenever...

Its feckin late, I still have loads of work to do - finish off an ecommerce site, finish off a site for a friend (sorry Naoimh!), write a business plan, pressurise clients for money (fun!) and most importantly, have my accounts up to date by Friday as an accountant (yes a real live accountant!) is coming to review them for me.

Throw into all this the fact that next week has Paddy's Day in it (the day before I see the accountant too!) and it looks like I'll be getting a grand total of no sleep again this week, although with another head cold doing its best to infiltrate my sinuses again, I think I'll be lucky not to see out the week in intensive care.

Plus, I have discovered that drinking eight pints of caffeine-free coffee still results in a buzz. Who'da thunk it?

Posted by dottie at 3:09 AM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2005

Anniversary Month

This month usually has a sombre undertone for me. There are two big anniveraries, mt father and a good friend.

My Father, Jim, died on the 21st March 1997. Lung cancer - he had always smoked.

My good friend Cormac Kinsella died on 11th of March 1996 on the evening of his 23rd birthday.

Its strange that even though it was so many years ago, it only seems like yesterday that we talked, shared a joke, discussed inconsequential things.

I miss them both and hope they are having a good laugh together wherever they are, they were friends too of course!

Posted by dottie at 4:01 PM

February 25, 2005

Rusty the bin

I love the way this bin has been entirely graffiti'd by kids scraping the paint off. It must have taken years to get to this state.

Posted by dottie at 2:07 AM

Snow? It's feckin polystyrene packing foam nibblets!

We had *snow* on Tuesday.

I've been skiing. I KNOW what snow looks like and you sir, were no snow.

Fucking brrr!

It amazes me that we live in a country that is routinely at least 15 to 20 degrees warmer than places I have been skiing and it feels fucking freezing in Ireland!

Pathetic! Its not even cold enough for the snow to last more than an hour. So why does it feel like someone is throwing buckets of cold water in your face when you are walking down the street?

Friends of mine were over from Moscow last year (average temperature during mid-winter: -10 degree C) and they couldnt get warm.

QED.

Posted by dottie at 2:01 AM | Comments (0)

February 11, 2005

I'm off to sunny, sunny Scotland, a Viva edin-burra!

I'm off to watch rugby in Scotland. Apparently.

All I remember from last time we went was beer, then sitting in the cold watching grown men molest each other on a muddy field, then more beer, a curry, some women, flashing lights, music, more beer and finally sleep.

I dont know which of those was the rugby.

Posted by dottie at 3:39 AM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2005

Einstein as a pin-up

Pirelli have started a competition. The prize is €25,000. They want a multimedia explanation of special relativity.

Pirelli Relativity Challenge

Cool.

I have a degree in Applied Physics and I have Flash on my computer*.

*Note: didn't mention how good (or bad...) I am with Flash....

Posted by dottie at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2005

Mountain Climbing

Funny sorts mountain climbers. They claim to want to climb because of the challenge.

Challenge them to climb the north face of the Eiger in the middle of winter. No problem.

Challenge them to climb Everest. No problem.

Challenge them to scale an ice climb with overhangs and crumbling ice using nothing but some crampons and a couple of ice axes. No problem.

Even challenge them to climb drainpipes while totally pissed and blindfolded. No problem.

Yet challenge them to climb the stairs with me on their back. Problemo!

Glory hounds, that's all they are.

As for me, when asked why I fall into bed drunk every night, I like to paraphrase Mallory - 'because it is there'

Posted by dottie at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)

Double Yoke-rs

I bought a carton of eggs the other day and every one of them had eggs with double yokes.

I've always thought they were lucky.

Although heart specialists might disagree...

Posted by dottie at 9:35 PM

January 25, 2005

Resolutions

You may have noticed that I haven't posted any new year resolutions.

The reason is simply this - I only have the one and I have only realised slowly exactly what that resolution was:

Live a little

Covers a lot of ground that one and it's easy to remember.

Seems to be working out so far...

Posted by dottie at 9:35 PM | Comments (0)

d'Interwebs is a great place to be sure

I was just talking with a friend of mine in Moscow using Skype, while instant messaging a work colleague about a problem and browsing the net.

Yes. The internet gives us many and varied ways to avoid work, concentrate on anything BUT our conversations, put our mortal souls at risk by looking at pictures of ladies with no clothes on (allegedly - the soul thing that is. The pictures definitely exist!), and fulfil the potential we all have to become dilletantes.

And still, I keep thinking that the internet is still not living up to its potential. It is now the equivalent of a magazine insert. There's so much more it can be. What that is I dont know otherwise I'd be eating cheese and drinking wine at my IPO offering.

The current level of the internet is not engaging. I find my level of concentration waning very quickly - I have had to read a lot more (and throw away my TV) to fight this insidious decline.

Everything is SO compelling (like a train wreck...) on the internet - well for three seconds anyway. I would be surprised if anyone got this far down the page actually.

Just as a testament to how powerful the new media experience can be check out this John Perry Barlow post:

The intimate planet

Maybe it is the next big thing - getting skyped by hot young asians looking for a husband.

I could think of worse things...

It does seem strange that two young asian girls would call an aging US citizen on the same evening, but there you go. It shows the power that is at our fingertips now that allows us contact a perfect stranger in another country essentially for free. All they need is to be running the same software we do. In essence they are part of our tribe.

Just as tatoos or clothing, or music (think of the mixolydians, lydian and phrygian tribes of aincient greece - now names of musical scales that once defined the identity of the tribes) define who we are and who we trust. Now our software and how we use it will define who we are and who we trust.

AIM or ICQ? Skype or Vonage? Outlook Express or GMail? It's not exactly what you might think would inspire wars, but then what inspires wars never seems like it should have.

There have been many efforts recently to try and 'discover' what it is that will kick the net up a notch. People (clever people) are trying hard to cobble together systems that will allow people communicate through the medium of the net. Its a free for all at the moment because thats the way it has to be. Its not that people will stumble across the 'next insanely great thing' as Steve Jobs puts it. Its that people will begin communicating, interacting, sharing media, and generally learning new ways to connect with others with a myriad of devices that will begin to make it abvious that there are new and subtle ways that are similar through all these modes of interaction.

At that point an imperceptible level will be gained, people will optimise and re-release software, combining modes of communication. Users will find new ways to enhance, degrade and generally bleed through and blur the lines. Another level will be gained, another release. Rinse. Repeat.

The big thing is always affordance. Eventually you will reach the point of no return where the communities will be so large that the intricate knowledge, mores and social interaction needed to be part of these intricate societies will become just plain old common sense. The boundaries will break and in will rush all the newbies. Exponential growth will follow as they discover the coolness of al lthe toys that the bleeding edgers have created for them.

Then their minds will blow when they discover the intricacies and subtleties of what has been handed to them and they will bleed the edges a little further, making the pristine world of the original digital frontiersmen a little dirty and commonplace and they will jump to something new.

A many headed hydra, constantly evolving and growing new heads, eating all in its path and leaving nothing unchanged in its wake.

Or maybe not.

Posted by dottie at 5:58 PM

Flats are Fun!

I'm looking for a new flatmate at the moment.

I have been living in my flat for two months now paying all the rent myself. It hurts. I could have had a foreign holiday on the extra rent! In the snow! With my own gear! And change!

I was showing the room to prospective flatmates last night and all of them commented on how big it was and how it would be great if it was clean. Yes, I'm still talking about the room (filthy little minds...).

So hopefully I should have a new flatmate and I can once again buy expensive bottles of wine at a moments notice without suffering the guilt and worry of double rent looming over me.

Well, the wine usually helps to dissolve most of those feelings anyway, but MORE wine would be better!

Friend: woud you like more wine Mark?
Me (and six glasses): NO. I'm fine.
Friend: you'll be finer
Bottle: gurgle gurgle

a little later...

Me: NO, no. I'm grand.
Friend: you'll be grander

a little later...

Me: I bet you I can climb from the mantlepiece around the room without touching the floor...

And there, friends, gentle reader, kind patroniser of these, my arts - lies another story. Especially considering that I dont even HAVE a mantlepiece.

Posted by dottie at 5:12 PM

January 23, 2005

Experts

An expert is someone who has graduated from answering questions correctly to starting to ask them.

Posted by dottie at 7:46 PM | Comments (0)

January 17, 2005

Ah mondays...

First entry of 2005.

Just back from skiing, drinking, relaxing. Relaxing. Now there's a thing.

If I have one resolution for the new year it will be to find more time to kick back and chill.

And women. Women will definitely figure in there somewhere.

Your first monday after holidays is always the worst. It almost makes you look forward to normal mondays.

Almost.

Now back to my chocolate...err... work.

Posted by dottie at 2:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2004

Dancing / Partner

I have to admit that sometimes I get lonely for a woman (but only if she asks nicely - ha ha).

If I was forced to choose, my choice would have to be a good dancer. The reason being that to be a good dancer requires enough discipline to learn the movements and enough of a carefree nature to throw all the lessons to the wind, go with it and end up clearing the dance floor.

I like to dance, and sometimes I'm even good at it - when I get my shit together. I have cleared many a dance floor in my time - one time I was actually dancing!

Hey, it's not like I'm blowing my own trumpet, I only have one afternoon of shit-togetherness planned for this year. Hopefully I will be near a dance floor and in easy reach of a woman at the time. Who knows, I might even get her phone number :)

Posted by dottie at 1:51 AM

November 7, 2004

Damn...

Only early yet and I'm running out of wine - I'm already onto the bottle of WHITE* Piat d'Or at the back of the cupboard.

Fuck it - its not like I have to get up for anything tomorrow (mass, girlfriend, fill in the blank...)

* Red wine is the drink of poets, gods and champions. White wine is the main ingredient in spritzers - enough said...

Posted by dottie at 1:00 AM

November 6, 2004

Brands

Brands arent dead, but they do smell funny...

The tide IS turning against them though. Brand loyalty, at least for electronic goods, is going the way of the dinosaurs. Who in their right mind would buy a Sony DVD player that costs a smal lfortune and STILL doesnt do multi-region. needing a 'chipping' at additional cost. The alternative is to buy a sub pony priced unit that plugs in ready to go with multi-region. OK so you might not have full 9.3 dolby super surround sound with chair shakers, but who has a living room that could accomodate a proper Dolby system (and the time and energy to tweak such a beast).

We are entering the age of mini-brands, where local producers provide the best bang for buck and make a killing usually only for the trend-life of the product before closing down or retooling for the next profit-fat trend.

The term 'local' is a little misleading, perhaps I should have siad 'cottage industry' as these producers could be across the globe and still ship their goods to you and me with a profit margin to make it worthwhile - when real 'local' suppliers learnt the tricks and musceled in with prices that didnt have to reflect transport across continents, the originator could rethink, retool and catch the crest of the next wave, to repeat the process.

'quality control!' you cry. This is the digital age my friends. Each manufacturer would need to have a digital signature tied into a trusted database of suppliers that would rate their quality compliance and trustworthiness. To do business you would have to follow the google imperative and appear in the top ten or effectively not exist.

Current brands push the market whichever way they want (think Coca-cola, Disney, Nike, democracy...) - future 'local' brands will automatically appeal to the market - if they dont they will have no power.

Posted by dottie at 11:35 PM

November 3, 2004

A poisoners tale

The USA sprays millions of tonnes of a deadly chemical over Parts of South America. This chemical hangs in the air for hours afterward forcing the locals to breathe it in, causing pnemonia, headaches, lesions of the bronchial tubes, erosion of the intestinal tract, disturbing womens fertility cycles, causing tumours in glands and resulting in birth defects.

Much the same hapens to insects and animals that come into contact with the chemical. The ground is made barren as the chemical interferes with nitrogen fixing in the soil resulting in poor crop growth and increased disease. What crops do grow show significant traces of the chemicaland act as another vector for ingestion of the dangerous substance.

This has been going on for years with the full knowledge and even backing by the international community.

Why is this done?

Cocaine.

The USA is 'waging a war' against drugs. In its usual cack-fisted manner it decided that spraying herbicides over large tracts of sub-rain forest area in Bolivia and elsewehre would destroy the drug bar