#77 Diplopia

I have 5 days to get 15 questions done. Time to get going. It's a 100% exam assessed subject this time so every mark counts.

Turns out I have something called diplopia. I reckon a new pair of specs should fix it, but I'll have to fix what's causing it first. Shame really. I've got a lot of expensive plasting on the end of my nose at the moment. Hopefully I can just get new lenses, although these specs are rimless, so I'm thinking wishfully. St. Lucy is busy helping with cases of trichoma in sub saharan Africa for the rest of the year. Should stop it getting much worse though for which I'm grateful.

Dad jokes are bad, but worth remembering.

Online Christmas shopping seems to be just as stressful as actual real life outdoorsy shopping. I'll just have to get a 3V voucher. Proxying off someone elses credit card isn't going to do it. I just hope I don't suddenly realise it's a way of financing an MMO habit. That would be most certainly counterproductive.

1. Fix eyes
2. Study for exams
3. Work
4. Visit friends (likely you, the reader)
5. Christmas shopping and christmas cards.
6. Write a program to find my USB key (yes, it's still stinging me from time to time. The sooner I accept it's gone the better)
7. What was 7 again? I think I only had 6. Usually can't remember past 6 anyway. Oh yeah, find SNES. It's probably right behind me.

Ok, now I'll start writing. With a pen. That's how learning works.

#76 Double vision

My eyes are askew. This is upsetting.

I really haven nothing to be worried or upset about. I think I'm bugging myself about my lost USB key because it hasn't completely left my area of personal affect. It can wait.
It can wait. If only I could hasten and forget until its appointed time. Greater matters to attend to. Like exams.

My first exam is on Thursday. Data mining. Not looking forward to it. I have 1 good day left to study. I might have timed that visit a bit better, but I figure I can always repeat an exam. I can't repeat a good day out. The greater sceme of things records the better times spent.

Ha, now I'm upset because I've nothing to worry about. Irony. Aint it grand?

#75 Life's nothing like the movies

It was a good evening. I got a Christmas dinner for €6.50. Good deal. Happy Birthday Claire. Eyes are still a little skewey, but wearing my spectacles at a jaunty angle seems to alleviate the problem.

Efficiency seems to leave scan room for joy.

Lazy is worth 42 points in scrabble if you can get it on a triple word score.

The worst way to do something is not to do it at all, but that's not true.

My first exam is next week. Time to study!

#74 Ascending

Click,
click,
click,

Higher. Higher we go. 

Click,
click,
tick.

Now we're ready. We know.

#73 Blather

Time is getting cold. An am ciuin. Quiet time is now.

Eyes are out of focus. Almost time for sleep. Puns are never a good idea. Seems harder not to say anything.

I can forget and it'll be easy. One less thing. I'd learn a lot if I tried to solve it, but the odds are so slim I'm probably better off spending my time studying instead. 2 presumptions and a lot of variables. Second and third and fourth opinions. Scepticism.

I guess it's worth doing, but not right now. There are more important things to do right now. Time to go right now.

Blogging is dangerous. Uninformed opinion is dangerous.
Blogging is dangerous.

#72 Orion

Some crazy scientists in the 50s could have blown us all to pieces. I'm glad they didn't.

I'm totally falling asleep right now. I'm typing like a drunk. Whoa, are these my hands!? Far out!

Either way it'll be fine. Either way, I've nothing much to worry about.

My list has a few things on it. I have to give up on finding my USB key. It's a situation largely beyond my control and I'm presuming wayyy too much about the variables involved. Man, it's going to itch for another 2 weeks though. I've more important things to attend to. Exams are about to land. My psych project team need my writing skills. They'll get by fine without me but I want to help. They'd never even heard of a Flesch Kincaid before.

Google could stand to be a little faster.

I don't think I actually need my USB key. I suppose it's eating my liver because I'm worried about data misuse and identity theft, but that's under control.

Yoko Kanno's ELM sounds quite a bit like Seals Kiss from a Rose. Not too far apart chronologically either.

I wonder what'll happen to this blog in 100 years?

#71 Things lost, things sought, things found

Data mining. Not sure why I bothered. Forensics is much more practical. 2 hours until the exam and I'm procrastinating. I'm surprised though, since there's really nothing else to worry about.

Hornet stung me last week. I'd rather not remember, but if you have seen my shiny silver USB key, I'd appriciate getting it back. Such a small trifle, but felt as such a great loss.

The lab I'm in now sounds like the forlorn plains of Valhalla, mostly because I'm sitting beside an air duct and it's raining buckets outside. Noisy buckets. Noisy wind.

What I imagine will console me in the end is knowning I did all I could with the knowledge and resources at my disposal. It is a setback to lost such a thing, most of all because I cannot remember what it conatined. To lose a trinket is but a minor annoyance. To lose an important memory is an agrievance.

Time will pass and we we lean more and more on magnetic signals and digital memory. Fo all our wants of ability to forget that which we'd rather not keep, there may well come a time when we can simply move our failings onto a small plastic chip and bury them for posterity. Would we learn? Maybe. If it is a memory of an old mistake that can prevent its reoccurance, then we might prefer to know the memories and mistakes of others. Worysome is the thought that experience might be bought.

The email server was down when I logged in earlier. Clemency, and my gratitude for it. This does not mean I'll stop trying to find my lost USB key. If a priest can be found in the jungle (I knew they'd get him back), then a key can be found on a campus.

#70 Upswing

The body commands the mind at times. It would be nicer if it were the other way around.

Jack asked me to climb 8 walls today. So I did. My sinuses are packed like the Clearys sale but it's nice not to complain. It was wall 'O' that got me. Those footholds are tiny. 'A' is nice. The harness kept cutting into my back like a rusty butterknife, but I got there in the end.

We all get there in the end.

I'm tired now. The right kind of tired. I think it's time for sleep.

#69 What, me? Worry?

I eh. Yeah.

That's a pretty good way to start. Getting well into the swing of college. Trampolining has its ups and downs (I'm really sorry about that). Got to the top of the K wall too. Maybe I'll beat the overhang next week. Thankfully, none of my exams clash this semester.

I tried Chrome the other day. It's quite nice. The skin was a bit fischer price but it worked nippily enough. A lot of the shortcuts were consistent with what I already know from Firefox. Groovy.

Maybe I'd be happier never knowing what I want to do. Sort of leaves a nothing to lose situation. Life's a bit more complicated than a zero sum game. It's just a shame it gets boiled down that way so often. Folks worry about folks who aren't sure where they're going. I figure everything is pretty awesome as it is, so why would I want to change it?

Anyways, that's a fine hornets nest right there. It's best not to kick it around. Going back to quiet is taking a little longer than I thought. Something's different? That's dynamism for you!

#68 Plenty to choose from

Flaming Tit fell off a trampoline today. I've really no idea how it happened. Then in another incident, Flaming Tit tore a scab off his knee and started bleeding all over the trampoline. Flaming Tit is beginning to suspect the trampoline doesn't like him for some reason.

Of course after I'd whanged my head, I got dizzy. This made further progress... challenging. A fine story all the same. Rock climbing tomorrow. Certainly safer. Gravity is much more predictable with fewer physics involved.

The hornet nests have been a bit noisier than usual. Time to go back to being quiet. No reason to give them ammo. No reason at all.

#67 Forward's the way

I successfully failing at something my 10 year old self could do. I imagine he wouldn't be pleased. A fine tale could be contrived with my past selves of 5 year intervals.

Now, on the one hand, I could go back to doing nothing. This would mean folks on the phone would have nothing promising to tell people. I would be tacitly omitted (ooh, very nice) from the Christmas Newsletter. Existensialism would demand that I eventually disappear.

On the other hand, I could do something. It should be widely known at this stage that I am the luckiest and the most spoilt. Yet, I still complain. So, much easier then, than doing something would be not doing something, namely complaining. I can be confident when I say it betters no one and nothing. Misery without company soon disappears. Existensialism demands it.

Thankfully, very few people bother to read this drivel. I suppose it makes me feel a bit better, much like the man hanging the rags on the tree to stop worries getting over the threshold.

My stock might soon fetch a better price. I went rock climbing despite 2 man-sprained ankles, grazed elbows and gammy knees from trampolining. I even went trampolining again after rock climbing. Don't look up too quick or the sun will blind you.

Time to get back to my data mining homework.

#66 We all fall down

And all things fail eventually. Even failure.

Oh what a merry mood I find myself in. My hard drives (or at least one of them) have decided to start making that nasty tick noise again. Be ye loreful, then thanks for the sympathy. Be ye not, then thanks for the understanding.

Only one other cause for upset I can rather put my hand to now. Assassins is a game running in college, and today I missed a rather golden opportunity. Thankfully, it is a game. I need only remind myself of this and begin to feel better.

#65 Procrastination as an art form

Time well spent. What is that exactly? I think it was W H Auden who reckoned we're here to help other people. No idea what everyone else is here for mind. Not to worry. I just hope everyone can get along without fighting.

Right now I'm supposed to be thinking about what I'm going to say tomorrow morning as part of my presentation for my cognitive psychology class. 1 LED in a galaxy of supernovae. How different would the world be if we could all clone ourselves and have a good chat. Cup of tea wouldn't do any harm here either.

Got a good book about the hindenburg (terrible mess that) today. Dad should be pleased.

This blog never really had a point. Merely as a series of breadcrumbs on the wayside that might help me look back some day. I hope it'll do some good. I know I will.

#64 Forge new ties

I'm like everyone else. Wonderfully mundane. Able to turn a smile from a stone, a mile on a throne, a dancce from a gnome. Whatever that all means.

UCD is treating me well. My legs are the kind of happy tired you get after a well spent day. I might do better considering the long run, but I won't be there for very long. Personal definitions of a long time vary immensly. Young children figure 10 minutes is an epoch. I imagine I'm a bit more patient.

Everything is new, everyone is a stranger. Plenty of time to practise first impressions. This is good I suppose. I'm doing well most of the time. All I have to do is identify and avoid a certain number of hornets nests. Do not kick the hornets nest. Do not kick the hornets nest. I won't even mention what they are. It's too dangerous.

#63 Uniqueness

Your mind is not that special. You are not that shining star in the bright night sky. Your own uniqueness is merely expressable as what only you can do for everyone else.

Now whether that's what you can do, are able to do or want to do is the question. Having a 15 bedroom mansion lifestyle is useless if you've got a broomcupboard comfort zone. To become old might be preferable to becoming old and regretful. I hope it will be easier to regret what I have done, rather than what I never do.

#62 Free freedom

I'm in IT. We put chips in chips. Hedgehogs. Can't they share? Who's that man there having the identity crisis.

In in college. This is good. Not physically right now of course, but I'm in college again. Gives me plenty of opportunities to work on first impressions. I'm still not quite sure why I'm going. Bound to be plenty of good reasons. It's a good measure improved from mooching about the house all the time.

I'm supervising incoming orders right now. It's pretty quiet though. Regards college, I'm supposed to do some data mining homework right about now, but I can't find it. I'll check again tomorrow. Bike needs a service too, but that can wait. How I get home from the shop is often a trouble. It's not a very social job, but I like it. Fits well with what I'm doing.

Other than this wretched cold, I'm doing pretty good.

#61 Raining Opportunity

The going just got good. Too good almost. I feel like a man with a net in the rain. It's raining awesomeness. Problem is, nets aren't much use for catching rain.

What I need is a bucket.

That reminds me of a financial product idea I had a while back. Well now, time to get to work. I'll have to rejig the whole timetable. Fill in the blanks.

#60 Autumn Storms

Maybe I'll come up with something even lazy people can do. Something as simple as scratching your arse nose.

I'm the luckiest man on earth. I just haven't realised it yet. I'm still thinking that annoying I know thought. I don't know squat from jack. The only reason I'm upset has been been resolved. I'd go to bed now if I could. I just set the world record for longest audible sigh so that's something for the day.

I'll feel better after tea.

#59 Catch myself

I want to say I know, but I know I don't.

Roll that one around the floor for a while. I've been hearing myself think 'I know' a lot lately. Rather annoying. Now it could mean a few things, but I don't think there's much point trying to work it all out. The other thing I've been thinking irksomley is 'I want to say' suchandsuch.

I've got 1 simple fact of importance to maintain tomorrow. Elligability. Must be careful not to over-complicate or over-simplify matters of concern. I love rambling. This is known. I could talk about a penny for at least 10 minutes, maybe even an hour.

'Abort, Retry, Fail?' was the phrase some wormdog scrawled next to the door of the Edit Universe project room. And when the new dataspinners started working, fabricating their worlds on the huge organic comp systems, we'd remind them: if you see this message, {always} choose 'Retry.'

So I retry.

#58 Any day now

When did I intend to meet new people? Was it today or tomorrow? Neither? Gosh, that'll need to be done some time, surely. Definitely some time inside the next 10 years. I hope. I'll do it this afternooooon! Yep. Can't live on the diving board forever!

It is of course a core component of a key avenue leading to the completion of many objectives. The good weather will only last another month at best so I'll do my best to make the most of it while I still can. I'm not going to come over and say hi. That's abundantly clear. I won't meet anyone in a bar or nightclub. I don't like those places. Only place I half like is the park really. Or maybe a documentary bar. I wish those were real.
I wish a lot of things.

Time for sleeps to make the best of things. No good use of dark night time was ever spent typing a blog. Come to think of it, I can almost always come up with a more valuable alternative to spending time online. Hopefully you can too.

#57 Hits and misses

I'm glad I go out hurling. It's doing. Whether I hit the ball or not doesn't matter. When the ball sails half way down the field, I smile. When it drops to the ground followed by a swish, I wind up and try again. Brush, brush, toss, grip, swing, hit, follow through. That's all there is to it really. Toss height to a point between shoulder and chin seems to give good results. Two months ago I'dve been happy with 2 or 3 hits an hour.

I hope I'm stretching and warming up right. That's important. All days are valuable, but those days when you wake up early and go to bed tired are more valuable than others. How peculiar will it be to look back on all I've written after several short years? Yeah, it'll take longer than I thought. That's part of the deal.

I have googled 'hope is cruel'. The results appear to have timed out. How wonderfully ironic! I will go from this place and keep my words for myself. Smiles and nods. Don't say too much.

Don't say too much.

I have a great many people to thank for the progress I've been able to make.

#56 Setbacks

All the fineries of this world ultimatley cost time. Some more than others. This monitor is very nice, but it will soon be useless. It goes against the new way of thinking. Reality offers more, so spending money undermining reality makes no sense. It would be nice to have, yes, but I can get by without it.

I wish I could guarantee at least partial completion of the grand objective. Sadly, it's a chip away per day affair. Some parts will hopefully be simpler than others. Maybe I didn't expect myself to go out walking every day, but I had hoped to lose a few pounds. Any day now. The problem now is keeping things interesting. The same old route has become tiresome. I'll need something fun with incidental weight loss.

Time for sleep now. There's nothing on the Internet really worth 4am. Not really.

#55 Quiet self loathing

The Internet says I am dissatisfied. I found this comforting due to its succintness. Not depressed, or angry, or vastly upset in any way. Just dissatisfied.

With the objective in mind of improvment in generalities, I think I need to write more helpful, practical posts. Things like mowing a lawn covered in weed killer or powerhosing brick walls as a way to prepare surfaces for fresh paint. That sort of thing. Short words work too you know.

Turns out my hurley is heavy because it has dried out. Might leave it out this winter. I never did check to see if the metal bandings are still legal.

#54 A Quarter twice and a third of a dozen

So I'm 25 now. And indeed I will be for a long time. Its nice being able to forget what age I am. I'm really wishing life was more like Oblivion. Man, I'd be sooo good at life if it were. I guess I'll just have to get the hang of this reality style interface. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Rationalisation of life as a system derived from a simulation of life isn't such a smart move. But I think it has its merits. A simulation allows for consequence free mistakes. Then again, games are fun. Games become less fun the closer they get to real life. Second Life I find appaling. The graphics are just broken. I have no other word for it. That in-your-face interface is failsauced and licenced to the ballistic chicken company. Oh what a shame.

Jewel cases just can't encompass the artwork of the old prog rock records. Some of those were awesome. The old vinyl record sleeve for Thick as a Brick came with a sodding newspaper! That's awesome! I mean I know Spinal Tap are doing a lot with their new CD, but what are you supposed to play with while you listen to your new record you went to the shops to buy. If you even got that far. The pictures were brilliant. Am I supposed to pass on my old hard drives full of digital pictures to my kin? That aint the same.

And it's my birthday. I'm watching the sun rise as I do on most days, looking out the window as I type. I'm so glad I learned how to type. The hills look lovely. I do wish they'd turn out the streetlamps a little earlier though. Surely we could save a heap of carbon if there was a better way of going about municipal lighting.

That stabbing pain I had in my right lung went away. I can still feel the spot where I got it. Not swine flu of course. Probably just a nasty strain. How I did it is anyone's guess. The new raincoat works a treat. It's not so good at keeping my legs dry but it should keep the rain off if I get caught out.

I'll figure out how to wire this TV for audio pretty soon. I got my 7.1 calibrated quite nicely. The t7700s I use from creative aren't true 7.1 per se since they upmix from 5.1 and clone the side and rear channels, so I use an RCA splitter from the side channel to distribute the sounds from the card straight to those 2 speakers. Only downside it that I can't adjust them with my volume dial. I did manage to list out my channels though. That'll save me time later. Maybe I should swap the RCA over to handle front left and right? Might make more sense. the side speakers are tucked in a wardrobe and behind the curtains. I have to turn them right up with the equaliser. It's reasonably well balanced but you know how I love to meddle.

Time to sleep. Last time for my 24 year old self. I think I'm 25 years and 44 minutes old right now. Gladly recording this for some other day.

Below is my car ear (carear), heading off into the dawn.

#53 The waiting game sucks, let's play hungry hungry hippos

The continuing cycles of mania and depression take their toll. I helped cut grass. I'll have to make up for lost miles tomorrow. An intention might be all that's required. Something to turn the taps. I'd like to thank everyone for stopping by. Apologies to myself of 6 months later. It's a fine illusion that's plausible and possible.

I can never quite remember what it was I had intended to do at about this time. Actuality will occur in a manner entirely unexpected. Zombie Paintball. Interesting idea. Maybe I'll need help.

If life were a game of Oblivion, I'd have won by now.

#52 Still smiling, still walking

Whenever you're ready there, life. Any time now. Free will. A choice you'd rather make knowing what you'll know in ten years.

Oh yeah, charge the batteries. Better do that now. Bah, no sign of the charger.

I couldn't guess how far away the objective is, but I am taking pictures. Phase 2 is always full of unanswerable questions. Any direction could be the right one at this stage. Can't seem to get a clear shot of that heron though. Always blurry. Couldn't hit half a ball today either. Not too sure what was wrong, might've been my grip. It was pretty windy too. Took me a good half hour to adjust. Got a few yards in the end. My ground swing needed the work. The view is usually nice enough on the field, but I rarely have the place to myself. I doubt tomorrow will be any different. It's going to be a long weekend.

Not much to look forward to. Walks and pictures is pretty much it. Should have a good collection by the end of the year. Autumn will be important. Time for rest again. Some routines get boring, but the whole point is not having to think so much.

#51 How am I supposed to know?

Life means life experience. This is something I've deftly managed to avoid for one reason or another. As for what I have, am, thinking, or might quietly become, I can safely say I have no idea. When you spend close to 300 hours playing Oblivion, it becomes clear that you've finished videogames. I've got Eve Online running in the background. Amazingly, I can play the game without playing the game. Handy.

Half my readership has departed on a well deserved holiday. I found an old fippeny bit in the car park. That means 5p. There it is there. A throwback perhaps to a more bullish economic era. In truth though, the early 90s weren't easy for a lot of people.

The next paragraph is depressing. For this reason, we would like to advise readers of a plum alert.

There's not a lot I can think to do really. Keep applying for jobs, keeping getting no reply or the odd rejection letter. Not even Ikea will hire me. So I'm here going around saying things like "can't even get a job in Ikea". Cheery? Me? Apparently, I'm supposed to have a career by now, or at least a plan. I'd much rather go out for a walk. At least that's something I know I can do. Hopefully the weather will hold out too.

#50 Long time coming

It took a while. Stop reading now if you wish, the rest here follows my maudlin mode, of which I'm sure you're all familiar.

Folks have been asking why I'm on a health kick of late. They don't get it. I have asked at least half my readership to keep this latest wheeze under wraps, but it's so banal and unremarkable that I can't see any consequence of telling my other reader about it. You of course know who you are.

I walk 3 miles every day.

That's it. Nothing remarkable or interesting about it. There is an elephant in the room named 'Why'. I could come up with a dozen reasons. Gosh, I'm starting to sound like Pirsig now. Not that it makes that big a difference. I might come up with a reason to answer the question for you but it might not be the same answer for the next person, or the next. It'll be whatever I think you'll find personally acceptable.

Bit of pain in my left leg. Probably strained it but I only notice going down stairs. So this 'personally acceptable' existance. What's it all about? If you're happy with what you've got, what would you change, because the answer isn't going to be 'nothing'. Time for some realist positivism I think. And sleep of course. Free will? It's the freedom to change.

#49 Life's lumpy, make more

Yep, that's about it in 4 words. Rather glad it's been squared away in good order. Chris was kind enough to feature my email. Who knows, I might even get actual readers now! Incidentally, if this is your first visit, you don't really need to bother with any of the previous 48 missives. They're maudlin to a degree of inexplicable extremes.

In other news, the weather is quite nice so I've been trying to make the most of it. This week's philosophy question is "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

Back to work :)

#48 Thing in the sky, thing on the earth, thing underground

Normally, I write exquisitely depressing drivel about how miserable I am and how I never do anything to fix my problems other than talk and write and write and talk and talk. Mostly though, I write. It becomes painfully apparent that I'm starved for attention when I talk. It's just such a shame lamp posts aren't educated in subjects like Russian novelists. They'd make great conversationalists.

No, instead I think I'll say something nice about how happy I am.

Feelin' fine.

Free Will is about exploring possibility. Even highly unlikely possibilities are vastly intriguing. In fact from about as far back as I can remember, I liked thinking the what if. Fancy folk might call this Astral Projection. Most folk call it wondering. I consider every possible outcome to the best my of folly. It passes the time most agreeably. To consider the past and how I might have done so differently can be liked to a watering can at the inferno. Considering the future and what I might say or do in different situations is maybe how everyone gets by. Everything is easier when you've something nice to look forward to.

The journey was far from wasted. I got to see many parts of London such as Westminster, the Tate, London Bridge, the Golden Hind (they can't have gotten all the way around the world in that, surely) and the Globe Theatre. Dear readers, you were quite correct about the sale of time and money. It buys worthwhile experience. St. Paul's is magnificent. Truly, a shared ideal can achieve greatness. I also went to the Tate where I saw a Magritte I'd never seen before. I'll have to go back and try the slide though. That looked like fun :) London is not a walking city by any means. The real trick is learning the bus routes.

For now then, I'll work on learning about digital cameras, fixing the USB 2.0 card in the old computer, losing 10lbs while the weather is still nice, breaking in my new shoes (pinstripe converse ones with insoles) and generally enjoying the summer.

#47 Rambunctuous Guffaw and the mood swing meter

Voting Day tomorrow. From what I can tell, democracy seems visibly effective directly prior to change. All the candidates are making commitments, promises and doing the hard graft to get a few votes. I have to wonder whether there will be any change in the established order of things. I'd trade the spire in Dublin for a hospital any day. Maybe we could sell off all those eVoting machines with eBay, build a few schools.

It struck me that I've never seen a goverment which satisfied its people. Someone was always critical. It's like trying to please most of the people some of the time or some of the people most of the time. The fine thing about democracy of course is that you only need to keep 51% of the people happy all the time.

Then there's the leaving cert English brouhaha. Should blow over by the end of the month. Had it been me, I don't think it would have made a difference. I recall very little, other than thinking like a robot. In one eye, out one hand. That's all there was to it. It's the grey bit in the middle that can cause problems.

I am of course grateful for the fine weather we've been having. For the first time in almost a decade, there's a prospect of tanning. Bon voyage to my only regular subscribed reader who might be reading this at a dreary desk somewhere. Hope the trip was good fun.

Well, time to get back to work. For you though:

#46 Not so merry go around

I just saw a CV online of a guy who won a medal in mathematics - he can't get a job either. Looked for my old Snes in the loft there. I found some old school notebooks. They suggest the rut is at least 11 years long and growing.

I wonder when I gave up on myself? Some time during the 90s I think?

Hmph, that'll pop up on wefeelfine.com and grand if it does. My namesakes have take top spot on google so anonymity is assured. At the very least, whining and moaning appears to be an amicable way to pass the time. Thankfully, cheering me up is remarkably easy.

#45 Summer

I've made a new chart, really MS Painty. The idea behind it is one of these chunks of pie will eventually eat the other 2. When that happens, we'll all have peace. I'm not sure an entirely homogenous culture would be so good. Still, it's worth a try. I'm hoping science will be able to fix the biggest problems.

Been watching talks over on Ted.com. Rather good that. I feel perhaps I have established a rut for a few years hench.

Knowing without doing - could I be happy? I reckon I'll just keep whining about myself for a while but deftly avoid changing in any way.

We sit and wait,
The mountain and I,
Until only the mountain remains

#44 Good idea, Bad idea

Good idea - Internet
Bad idea - Diseases
Good idea - Doctors
Bad idea - Internet Doctors
Good idea - Chimps
Bad idea - Chimp in a space suit
Good idea - Seesaw
Bad idea - Chainsaw
Good idea - Watching films
Bad idea - Watching films where there are chimps in space suits
Good idea - Blogging
Bad idea - Blogging about watching films where there are chimps in space suits

Yeah, these are better. Those old blog posts just weren't getting to my target market.

ROFL HARRSI!

#43 Simplicity

I saw a sign on a car the other day. "For Sael"

That's what it said. The sign on the back was fine. I took a photo for myself to prove I didn't make it up.

This next trick is called simplicity. All you do is think happy thoughts. Slight problem though is that for me at least, happy thoughts is fully raytraced realtime overpumped dynamic range graphics.

I've been reading a little about human dynamic range. It's a bit like trying to thread a needle with a sausage. Salami would be more accurate. All the stuff that we could see is rather filtered out until we find ourselves left with a washy notion. It'd be nice to see gamma rays, but I'll still find reasons to complain.

So.

Simple it is. Think happy.

#42 Life in lines

I decided to do up a UML diagram of life thus far. It's helped put a few things into perspective. The only problem is that I'm finding it easier to put in a lot of downers, mishaps and failings as opposed to successes, cheer-ups and lucky days. To be without thought could perhaps be to be without unhappiness. Defaulting to glum seems to be a factory mental setting. That has to be a way of adjusting that. As it stands, perfection would fail to satisfy, especially given the imperfect mind perceiving it.

I'll keep at it, trying not to list any major depressing significant events (e.g sackings, heartbreak, financial loss etc.) It would appear that society has an important role in individual happiness. A society of one is unlikely to be happy.

#41 Time marching onwards

It's been 7 months since I checked GE. I dusted off the old posts and left a short update.

Thusfar I am the sum total of no achievement whatsoever of worth to mankind. Arrested development is mine face in the dictionary. Writing helps, albeit in an impractical way. Where it will end is hard to know.

Happy April Fools day. Conficker.c passed without incident. Within my faculties, day pass, and I estimate less and less ability. I simply do, be, and am. A cursor may blink a thousand times, but patience waits for godot. There is importance here - mark the passing of time in any way possible lest it seem like so much sand in a desert.

#40 Up and coming

Oh you know. Motorcycle test is all I'm doing right now. I won't might not get it, but that's not a problem. Real life might not have undo, but it does have redo.

I've learned. That's the important thing.

#39 All fail

Only plan D remains. A near complete relapse into contrived reality has occurred. It has become a near acceptable alternative to the commonplace goals of the mainstream. None are sought, none are asked for. Both await external change.

The simple thing could be just a kind word at the right time.

Why should I wonder or wish? What is desire but an end unto suffering? Could the ultimate end of technology be a way to stop desire? How different would the world be without need? Boring?

And so we resort to the simple. Try. Ask. Do. What could possibly go wrong?

#38 Smashing Dreams

Only plan B left now. We live for hope. We must hope the community is better with our membership. I wish perhaps that I was someone else, if only for a day. Gumption's rising, so soon I'll change. It's so much time, but so much better spent.

It has already been stated that life as our choice is a 4 to 1 shot or 2 to 1 with a form of faith. We can better these odds again by leaving behind a legacy of some kind, usually through writing or being written of.

Thus, we do not despair. We must work on the legacy. Action is the thing. When all the din and blizzard noises have been quelled, we are left with action, sometimes a choice of action. This is free will.

Less time spent is more time saved. If it's general enough it can apply to everyone, but making it general makes it less effective. We'll contrive a reality from our own minds and faculties so that our minds need not bear the burden of the unanswerable. It is life we deign not face. So a life of our own, by our own, on our own is the result. We spend no time together. This is not the acceptable norm. This is not the common tie that binds. Of one or many, our acceptable norms presented as culture ensure we can bridge the gap between the one and the many.

The cause of frustration is that the greater half cannot accept the humdrum or the routine. It bargains with the lesser half to try and at least obtain the most remarkable routine available. It is a war of attrition. The lesser half could be happy without existence. There are levels of existence it is ready to accept. It is realities and the greater is fine high ideals.

I would save time reading what is already written. It is however my principle recreation to discover that I have independently concurred with the giants beneath my feet. These discoveries are what bring a peaceful silence to my mind.

Practicality demands we consider only things applicable to social situations. The common, the banal, and the ordinary are all perfectly acceptable. It is time to change, in a world where change is the only thing that stays the same.

#37 Being who you are

And knowing who you are - That's more important. It is perhaps the quest of life.

I was watching a documentary about Muslim extremists there the other night. Twas a fair an equitable case, but Dad spotted a few Israeli jibes under the table as it were. No such thing as an unbiased opinion. Facts? Those are just commonly held mass accepted opinions. But at least they're something we can all agree on. The ideas I got from the documentary were that some people, when exposed to circumstances which preclude the establishment of healthy ties, will invariably establish ties that bring the individual no good. These ties spread, and society suffers for it.

The documentary highlighted a caveat of free will, and reminded me of a line I read in a Warhammer book 15 years earlier. 'An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and open'. True enough then that life will present us with individuals who have persuasive language and ideas.

Keep track of your ties that bind. In my case, reading books means I'm less likely to become an Islamic extremist. I'm kidding of course :p

What I mean is a good set of books that you can bolt opinions of your own to will do a better job than a few hours listening to misguided rhetoric. Someone who doesn't know who they are can be easily misled into being someone else for another persons use.

Identity has quantifyable value. It's the currency of the celebrity world.

It is my hope that with the Internet, world peace will become a possibility. There are still language barriers to overcome, but now at least, for the first time, a means of international open dialog exists. With a little know-how and a few button presses, I can get talking to just about anyone else on the planet.

#36 Personal struggles with the vaguries of reality

Now we all know children suffer horrific nightmares. It's been documented. That's just them trying to rationalise existence. Dangerous business altogether.

I've gone back to reading Plato. Nothing has really changed since his day and ours. I did realise something though. The reason you can never be happy where you are, in that happy medium is because your brains wants new stuff. It needs to learn in order to grow. Such is the same with people. We learn to grow, and grow to learn. This is hard, therefore it is worthwhile. It's the routine that really kills you. Like I said before, you are (or sometimes I am) the sum total of collected memories. The old tree falls in the forest again. Only now, there might be a camera in the sky to see it. The most noble of occupations then might be the development of technologies to ease the human burden. It certainly gives cause to the Luddites to complain. Think back to the yesterdays before mobile phones and the internet. Was it easier? Was it happier? Can you remember?

By this merit, the most useful exercise is the development of your memory. Paramount to this is a means of committing things to long term memory. Forgetting the past repeats mistakes in the future. Though because human memory is invariably fallible, we must instead rely on our technologies. Writing and its offshoots. How abhorrent would it be if we found something truly static?

We are living in a most interesting age,
when the word has been freed from it shackling page

#35 Time and Senessence

The worst part of it all is that we only get one go on the carousel in the fairground of life, and when that ends, all we have is what we've left behind for our descendants. Certainly, there is a large set of common human experiences such as health, sickness, love, depression, hunger, thirst, anxiety, bliss and joy, but if it's happening to you, it's different. Sons will forever watch their fathers striding forward less with each passing year. As their own strides stretch, their fathers' wane and shorten.

Seeking of course the beautiful uniqueness in every moment to find its grain of perfection. A fine way to live, since it means stopping to look at the sky and the unique clouds that will never be before or since. So similar though, that they are en masse unremarkable. Such is the nature of a place in time known as the 'present'.

When man first began roaming the earth, he had only 4 directions to choose from. Backwards, forwards, left and right. The same idea applies to early video games. Eventually, man learned how to soar like the birds. 2 more directions were put within his grasp.

The directions of time have yet to be conquered. If something can happen, no matter how unlikely it is, it will eventually happen somewhere. Man has crafted devices and machines to conquer the skies and see where eyes could not. So indeed it will be time, someday, for time to be but another direction. Like any of the other 4 directions however, it too will have its limits. How far can you run or walk before you fall over? How long do you have left to get as far as you can? Why bother if indeed the end will come and only your memories will persist to evidence your existence?

Simply perhaps, because the alternatives are unacceptable. We live for our ancestors for our children. All things said are intrinsically, intuitively known, though their mention is not perhaps a waste of time as many would see it. Technology and its advancement is our legacy. To what end we cannot know.

If I break my computer I can fix it using my spare. This is not the case with Planet Earth - our sum total of absolutely everything. We must be as who we best are for others, and they for us.

#34 Video Games

Hopefully, Warcraft will arrive on Monday. I like that game. Eve online though, it's not as much fun. I mean I play it and all but they've disabled inactive accounts from training skills. Can't blame them really.

The real trick will be getting through to the atheists on WoW. Those guys are nuts!

#33 2009. Start.

2009. Off we go then.

I have a DS now. It's really quite great. Tonight will be very cold. It is winter. Almost colder than Tipperary.

So it appears I write but do not change. Time will do its part. Musing thusfar has not best served me. Dating needs to begin. I'm falling behind.

Now what? Or more politely, what's next? 1 thing at a time. Sneak up on it. Prove me wrong. Enable undo.