October 20, 2006

PopTech vs. Rodgab: FIGHT

Confusing event of the week: Rodrigo y Gabriela playing at PopTech. I would have loved to have been there for the talks but then to have seen them play (outside of an Irish pub, which is where I’ve seen them play three times previously) would have hurt my head with the unlikeliness of it all.

They’re completely worth seeing if you get the chance.

Posted by Oliver at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2006

Not the reason why I slowed on the blogging front

“no one — including adults — should have a blog or personal website”

It’s true, I am constantly OMG-ing my way through life. Mental note: put off filthy communication!

Posted by Oliver at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2006

Things to read when you've nothing to read

These are the webcomics I read while waiting for the kettle to boil, or my boss to get off the phone, or for a response to some idle text message… I’ve set up the links to start at the first page of the webcomic.

That’ll do for now.

Posted by Oliver at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2006

Unstructured thoughts on the eternal quandary

On foot of my last but one post, no, I wasn’t promoted - but no surprise there, I’ve only been in my current position six months. What was surprising was the feedback received on my performance after the interview; I was weak in the areas I thought I’d be weak in, but far stronger than I thought I’d ever be in others. Encouraging stuff overall.

On the other hand, I’m turning 30 soon. It’s been five years (yes Oliver, five years) since I last made a serious go of being self-employed, and while that’s still the ultimate ambition I know now there’s far more to consider than the desire to be creatively & financially independent.

As I write, Graham and Myra are touring the world on a two-year journey. At one stage I made a half-conscious decision not to do something similar. I know travel broadens the mind but in a funny way I want to narrow mine - I want to become very good at one thing in particular, which is what I’ve spent a fair amount of my spare time over the last few years doing. Haskell is the latest piece of that puzzle but a large part of me is thinking that if I had a little more discipline and a little less inclination to find some magical means of making programming easier, then I’d have some actual software to show for the past half-decade.

Three thoughts arising:

  1. Graham and Myra seem to be having the time of their lives
  2. Working for myself would be creatively rewarding, and maybe even financially rewarding, but the job I do now is one of those jobs that it feels great to do right - there’s a dull but morally satisfying core to it that being self-employed definitely wouldn’t provide
  3. The past five years have been the best of my life, but that’s all my fiancée’s fault!

Posted by Oliver at 01:29 AM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2006

Before I forget

Once upon a time I could be reached by email via the quite wonderful oddpost email client - using oliverm@oddpost.com. Then yahoo bought them. While the oddpost goodness seems to have been adopted wholesale by yahoo, I’m still not happy, so the gmail address available via my email link on the top right there is now my permanent one.

Thanks for emailing, oddposters.

Posted by Oliver at 05:53 PM | Comments (2)

30 days in 30 seconds

Since my last post I have:

That last one was this morning, actually. Apparently I’ll know in two days. Buddies of mine also applying said it was their worst interview ever too, so I guess it’s not just me. Still, the mental fantasies about getting promoted again were fun while they lasted.

Posted by Oliver at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2006

Another wilfully obscure post

Last Thursday week I stood in a boardroom of the German Department of Education in Berlin, and delivered a presentation - my first - to a room full of largely non-native English speakers. I didn’t do too badly (at least, my boss was kind enough to say I did quite well). More than anything it was a relief to get something done that I’d been dreading all week.

I have this odd memory of when I was being inculcated as an altar boy. Myself and the other inculcatees (I’m happy making up words now) were laughing non-stop at one particular guy who loved the attention and couldn’t keep his mouth shut no matter how patiently the priest hushed him. That said, there were two or three of us who pointedly wouldn’t laugh at anything he said, instead acting all grown-up and un-amused. I was laughing along most of the time, though I’d keep seeing them not laughing and wanting to be serious like they were. I wanted to be like the altar boy geeks!

Now the demands of this job that I sort of wandered into are changing me into the ideal required for this job. In the meantime whatever it is in me that I’d like to think would resist such gerry-mandering currently seems okay with both the gerrying and the mandering, let alone the combination. I don’t think this is quite what I thought I’d be like when I was all done growing up. Then again, blow slightly too much air into a balloon and it pops, right? So my hope that I’ll stay true to some core of myself seems largely based on a metaphor I stole from House. Hmmm.

After the presentation I got to go back to Berlin’s Jewish Museum. Fallen Leaves is still great.

Posted by Oliver at 01:22 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

Isn't there a rule about not blogging drunk?

Has anybody else noticed how in Magnolia the music is a near-constant distraction from what’s on the screen? It’s on RTE at the moment, and I’m a little drunk, but I didn’t notice it the first time I saw it, in the fancy cinema with it’s fancy intermission for peoples of the weak bladders - okay, wait, I’ve sidelined myself.

Right. The manly way of asking somebody to marry you, right, is to have the ring in advance. Right? Right. The risk is, when your sweetie doesn’t wear rings, that you have no handy template for the ring size, and so the only solution is to measure her finger. But the only way to measure her finger surreptitiously is to get her comatose via the magic of alcohol, at least when you’re a man of limited imagination like myself. The trouble with that, see, is that alcohol works both ways. I measured her finger size, but not very well.

Back to the diamond merchant we went, to have her finger measured by a pro, and then to have the ring whisked back to Antwerp for some resizing action. It’s back now, as sparkly as ever, and much more snugly fitting. And now my sweetie has to wear it all her life! Score!

Darn. The music’s started up again. Poor Stanley…

Posted by Oliver at 11:15 PM | Comments (3)

January 12, 2006

Beating spam with MT-Keystrokes

MT-SCode proved a no-go, so I’ve tried something else which seems to be working. You’ll need to have Javascript enabled to leave a comment (but the old captcha would have required that anyway). More details for the internet to follow when I get the chance (as I may as well explain what I’ve done to others in the same pickle).

Posted by Oliver at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

Speaking too soon

Ahahaha. No, the captcha image isn’t showing. No, I don’t know why. It was working last night guv’nor, I swear!

Still, at least the spam machines can’t get through either! I’ll keep at it.

Posted by Oliver at 02:17 PM | Comments (2)

January 11, 2006

ARSING BLOG

Clearly I don’t know as much about stuff as I like to think I do.

Late last year I updated AWVC’s blog software, thinking that it’d help, even though it was working just fine already. This was fine and super, until I realised that the new, improved blog software was about fifteen times as crap as the old, reliable software at blocking spam.

This really rankles because of my recent engagement announcement. I’d thought people hadn’t said ‘Huzzah!’ on the blog because they were all congratulating me in person; instead, it was because any genuine person leaving a comment was told that their comment was in moderation and that I’d be reviewing it shortly. Except, of course, I wouldn’t be, because I had no idea that was how it was set up. Or that, if I didn’t look at it before ten days passed, it’d be deleted. TEN DAYS. I was away from the internet for far longer than that over Christmas, it turned out.

So, internet, I’m sorry. If you left a comment recently and got a promise that I’d look at the comment soon, that was my blog lying to you on my behalf. It has been chastised. Please, please don’t think your comment didn’t appear because I thought it wasn’t worthy. I love all my (human) commenters dearly. I did manage to save two of the comments by pure luck, and not because they passed some imaginary stringent criteria I’d newly laid down.

I’ve installed one of those captcha doohickeys that ask you to type a number from a picture before your comment will be accepted - hopefully that’ll stop the spam robots and let the real people in. Please excuse the extra aggravation.

Posted by Oliver at 10:25 PM | Comments (5)

January 05, 2006

The best thing the internet ever wrote

Mind the pop-ups: http://www.newyorker.com/shouts/content/articles/060109sh_shouts

Posted by Oliver at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2005

Holding my breath for over a month

Really, there was only one thing I wanted to blog about, but keeping schtum was the order of the day until respective friends and families had been informed… but the embargo has been lifted, huzzah! Back-dated entries below.

Happy Christmas to you all, particularly those of you who stop by here regularly but whom I won’t be able to meet before Christmas. Have a great break! And I’ll try to be that bit more sociable in the new year, now that I’m not conducting surreptitious meetings with diamond brokers…

Posted by Oliver at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2005

New forms

December the 5th saw myself and my sweetheart in Barcelona’s Park Guell, on a sunnier day than the one in this photo. Sufficiently sunny, in fact, to make a diamond ring sparkle like it was made entirely of light, especially when held in front of you by a kneeling and nervous boy.

Sufficiently blinded by the ring, she said yes. You hear that, internet? I’M ENGAGED!

Posted by Oliver at 12:56 PM | Comments (6)

November 20, 2005

Oliver 2, Fantastic Mr Mouse 0

Our original mouse, a tiny black yoke, was found dead on the stairs a couple of weeks after we stopped putting food waste into bins that hadn’t lids on them. I don’t know why he refused the tasty M&M & pistachio bait I’d left in the humane trap for him - okay, I’m not gone on M&Ms myself, but I’d choose eating them over death. RIP little buddy! Of course, I’m only calling you that now you’re not running around my attic at night.

Maybe it’s the chilly winter nights or something, but we had another mouse find it’s way in over the last few weeks. I don’t think it was part of the same family, being much bigger and a completely different colour, but I’m not exactly an expert on mouse genealogy either. He was a lot less circumspect than the first mouse, leaping gaily out of our cutlery drawer every so often, and treating the attic conversion like his own personal playroom. A cousin of ours was sleeping in there on Friday night - or trying to, at least. She was woken up by the mouse skittering about the desk. She turned on the light, and spent the next hour watching the mouse throwing itself merrily at the wall trying to climb up a door jamb. And then she fled downstairs to sleep on the couch.

But there’s a happy ending for all concerned! Yesterday when I went up to the attic I heard Mouse #2 rustling around one of the bins in the attic. I grabbed a spare pair of plastic bags and sealed off the top of the bin, then myself and my two cousins (we’re an Irish family) listened breathlessly for five minutes trying to reassure the mouse that we were gone and ourselves that he’d actually been trapped in the bin. He had!

Then, we dithered. What to do? Somehow flip the bin upside-down, catching the mouse in the bag, then smushing it to death? Not quite in keeping with my touchy-feely side, but then I wasn’t the one it had kept awake all night. We started by carrying the bin outside to the back garden - but that wasn’t far enough to set it free, it’d just saunter back into the house thanking us for carrying it downstairs. Bloody sarky mouse.

Eventually we persuaded one of my cousins to drive us to the local park. The mouse was desperately trying to convince us he wasn’t there by staying absolutely still, which was good, as balancing a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica (bought by my parents, looked at about twice a year) over the mouth of the bin while balancing the bin in the other hand isn’t the easiest thing to do in a car driven by a girl reduced to panicky giggles by us cracking jokes about setting the mouse free in her car.

Hmmm. The driver probably not the best person to joke to about mice running up trouser legs, in retrospect.

We made it as far as the park, and I carefully unpacked the bin, emptying the bits of crap into another plastic bag I brought with me. I’m making a point of recording that, as apparently going through a bin you bring with you to a park is enough to get the neighbourhood curtains twitching. WE CAN SEE YOU WATCHING US YOU KNOW. Anyway, about half-way through the bin I realised the mouse was actually between the bin and the bin lining, so I took that out entirely. There was a moment of actual relief when I saw the mouse and so hadn’t been leading my cousins on an absurd adventure for nothing. Then he leapt out and scurried off through the grass. Free! And not killed by back-breaking traps or poison! Ha! (Sorry, I’ve been getting lots of free advice).

He wasn’t waiting at the door to be let back into the house on our return, either. Whew. You never know with these buggers. The only question now is was it a family of mice, or not? I’ll keep you informed.

Posted by Oliver at 01:20 PM | Comments (4)

November 08, 2005

Look, mum! Hair!

I’m told I don’t actually look like this. At least, not more than once a year.

Smirk!

I’ve been playing about with my weblog like a fool, and it didn’t work for a bit. It seems okay now, but if you’ve any problems please email to let me know!

Posted by Oliver at 04:37 PM | Comments (3)

October 28, 2005

Hmf, I say

… on discovering that my girlfriend’s pet name for Kenneth Branagh is The Blonde Babe. She hastened to reassure me that her pet name for me was Babe with a Brain, but I’m not sure that’s a long-standing term of endearment.

I cannot wait for this long weekend, though my only plans so far are to attend a fancy dress party in some borrowed 70s gear. And hopefully to make good on some of those dark mutterings about ‘Projects’ and the like that never actually go anywhere.

Posted by Oliver at 03:22 PM | Comments (4)

October 21, 2005

Zuzz-zuzz

Sleeplessness has many costs, not least of which is forgetting to bring trousers when heading off to spend the weekend with your girlfriend and her parents. I’ll be wearing my work pants all weekend. The same trousers a nice man splashed with mud as he drove past me at speed this morning. Super!

Three hours sleep a night = zombie boyfriend. I should put that on a label and attach it to myself.

Posted by Oliver at 03:49 PM | Comments (1)

October 14, 2005

Spoiler-free Serenity review: GO SEE

My brother loves his DVD collections, and he’s something of a Joss Whedon fan to boot, owning all of the Buffy, Angel and Firefly DVD collections. I’m not so good at either watching TV programmes regularly or buying DVDs (I don’t own a single one) but I did watch all of the Firefly episodes a few months ago.

They were great, and I’m sure ardent Whedon fans grit their teeth whenever they hear this, but I did spend 15 minutes going “There’s the Giles character! And the Cordelia character! And the demon equivalents!” But it’s not actually true, and every episode of the series was great fun.

They set me up nicely to go see Serenity last night, and it was excellent. Really, really good. I was a bit worried as a friend of mine at work, dragged to see it by her boyfriend, claimed it was so dull she fell asleep mid-film. I am relieved to report she is either wrong or perhaps narcoleptic.

It was heart-warming to see all the characters from the TV series again, and one of the best bits (as a viewer of the TV series) was seeing how the rich back-stories of each character develop. The person I saw it with hadn’t seen any of the Firefly episodes at all and still really enjoyed it, but I thought it was stuffed full of little treats for the long-term fans.

Now, I wonder when my brother will buy the DVD…

Posted by Oliver at 03:01 PM | Comments (3)

October 13, 2005

Fallen Leaves

In the Jewish Museum Berlin there’s an exhibition by Menashe Kadishman called “Shalechet (Fallen Leaves).” It’s a collection of over ten thousand metal faces roughly cut from sheet metal, of varying sizes and thicknesses. The idea is that you walk directly on these metal faces. As you do so the noise of the faces grinding and banging against each other and echoing off the walls creates a folorn, unsettling sound that stays with you long after you leave. Looking down at your feet as you walk on the faces is also disturbing.

We saw many memorials to the victims of the Holocaust while we were in Germany but for me this was far more affecting than the more abstract memorials like constructions of vast empty rooms, deserted exhibition spaces or arrangements of irregular concrete blocks.

Posted by Oliver at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Short update to indicate I'm still alive

Being promoted has meant a fortnight-long headache (since coming back to work). But I seem to be adjusting.

Posted by Oliver at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2005

My most recent embarrassment

Yesterday, my last day off before returning to work, my sweetheart and I went to the cinema. We’d originally planned to spend an entire day over-indulging on films, seeing at least three in one single day (something we’ve done only once before but it was great fun). The UGC on Parnell St. is perfect for this - you can spend the entire day in a building dedicated purely to the display of films.

The first one we saw, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, has a scene where Willy Wonka remembers going trick-or-treating as a child. He and his friends line up at the front door of a house, which opens to reveal a cheery housewife with a bag of sweets. It’s important to note that there is nothing remarkable about this. It’s a fairly common scene that I’m sure has been shot any number of times.

Maybe I was hyper from excessive hand-holding with my partner, or maybe it was the glass of wine I had with lunch, but my reaction to this particular scene was to delightedly call out Hellooo! at the screen. And then to try and stifle a fit of giggles as I realise that I’m in a cinema, not at home. I AM TURNING INTO A SENILE OLD LADY. Where are my inhibitions when I need them?!

I loved the film though. And Pride and Prejudice was great too. Posts on Munich & Berlin to follow.

Posted by Oliver at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2005

Ich bin ein Bavarian

In Munich, even the potato soup has meat in it.

I’m a little drunk, not to mention addled from lack of sleep, but I thought I should take this moment (during a spare hour before my sleeper train to Berlin) to let you all know that I’m having a wonderful time. If anybody wants a postcard, email your address.

Posted by Oliver at 08:39 PM | Comments (4)

September 14, 2005

Bulletin from the sleep-deprived

Some day, some day soon, I will work out why it is I can never sleep before traveling or interviews. Or anything I need to set an alarm for. My subconscious immediately starts fretting, waking me up at 4 am to check it’s not 7.15. And 6 am, to double-check. My (not-so) secret weakness is how I turn into a bundle of nerves at the drop of a hat. Careful breathing helps, but I’ve yet to master the art of controlling my breathing and falling back asleep at the same time.

But who cares! I’m at the airport, on my way to Germany! Munich, then Berlin. Apparently it’s raining over there, but IT’S NOT WORK, so it’s all good.

And in other news, I’ve been promoted! My parents are delighted as this is the kind of steady permanent position all our parents want us to get. I’m in two minds (as always) but at least my sweetheart can’t legitimately give me orders any more. On paper.

Munich ahoy!

Posted by Oliver at 12:45 PM | Comments (1)

September 08, 2005

Status bulletin

Over the last week I’ve been running around, trying to accomplish the following:

The interview went quite well, I think, but I won’t find out how I did until after next Monday (after they interview the remaining candidates). My main concern is that I didn’t mumble. I’m a chronic mumbler. My boss even told me that however else I did, the one thing he wanted to hear was that I didn’t mumble.

I don’t think I mumbled. However, I did talk a lot with my hands. I should’ve sat on them. When I came out of the interview my hands were tingling, either from stress or from waving them around so much. Still, fingers crossed.

Posted by Oliver at 05:45 PM | Comments (8)

August 29, 2005

Let's play internet tag!

Yay! Excuses to talk about myself are always welcome, thank you Caoimhe!

Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die

  1. Finish something I’m proud of. Anything! I’m forever starting stuff. Actually…

  2. Start something! I’m forever planning to start stuff.

  3. Solve this career thing if it kills me.

  4. Live in a house that has a library in it.

  5. Write a novel (though that’s more of an ambition than a plan).

  6. Do something completely different to what I’ve done before. Start a political party, maybe. But less silly. Does anyone have a handy list of stunts to pull?

  7. Get more sleep.

Seven things I can do

  1. Procrastinate to the point of self-deprivation.

  2. Listen well. I like to think this is one thing I can do.

  3. Program in whatever language you’d care to mention (to varying degrees).

  4. Make websites.

  5. Be nice to people I don’t especially like.

  6. Do one thousand jumps on a pogo stick (I’ve only done this once, years ago, but once was enough).

  7. Tie a cherry stalk into a knot with my tongue.

Seven things I can not do

  1. Talk about myself to other people. Regular readers of my blog might raise an eyebrow at this, since it sometimes feels like that’s all I ever do here, but it’s true. There are very few people I will talk about myself in person with.

  2. Fly a helicopter. I once said I’d learn how to do this by the time I was thirty (though I think I was just trying to be interesting). Not much time left…

  3. Be brief. I mean, I should just leave this point at those two words, but I can’t, it could just stand to be embellished a bit, see? … okay, you get it.

  4. Do yoga on my own. I really should. But I don’t.

  5. Let go of the past easily, though I don’t know who can.

  6. Be objective about those I care about. Because they’re the best, see, and if you think otherwise smacks and loud annoying shouting will be administered.

  7. Telepathy, which I know nobody can do, but I still want to. Plus, it would explain the voices.

Seven things that I find really attractive about the opposite sex

  1. Brains. Delicious brains!

  2. A sense of humour. Which is a very bland thing to say, but of course what I mean is that rare person with a sense of humour that has what it takes to make me grin, and whom I can make grin in return. Not everybody finds delicious brain jokes funny.

  3. Self-confidence.

  4. Self-expression. It’s kind of hard to explain what I mean here, but I mean how a person describes and talks about herself.

  5. Gorgeous lips. Oh yes.

  6. The patience to put up with my tendency to make stuff up.

  7. A willingness to to tell me where to stick my made-up stuff when it gets dull (which is all the time).

I basically started describing my sweetheart very early on here.

Seven things I say the most

  1. “Really?” I say this so often that one of my friends has started saying “And truly!” after me each time I say it. And I still keep saying it.

  2. “Good work!” said in response to somebody accomplishing just about anything.

  3. “I dunno.” said in a manner that doesn’t involve actually opening my mouth, and not readily presentable as text. Something like “Mmm-mmm-mmm.” Copied from a Mr. Homer Simpson.

  4. “Cock monkey!” The phrases I say in frustration tend to vary, but monkeys and cocks often feature.

  5. “Ow!” I tend to say this whenever I think of an embarrassing memory, of which there are many.

  6. “Yay!” said in a slightly surprised tone, usually.

  7. It’s not a saying, but I have this really annoying habit of interrupting people to finish their sentences for them (and usually getting their point completely wrong).

Seven books I love

  1. Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami. Anything by Murakami is great.

  2. Picture This, by Joseph Heller. I actually enjoyed this more than Catch-22; I had to read it in small doses though.

  3. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

  4. Mean Time, by Carol Anne Duffy. My favourite poetry collection, but very hard to find, at least on the internet (that’s a link to an ebay auction, it’ll be over in six days). I don’t even own this, I gave it away as a present and haven’t been able to find another copy! Maybe I’ll place a bid or two…

  5. Eva Luna, by Isabella Allende. None of her other books really match this one.

  6. Visual Explanations, by Edward Tufte. The guy can come across as priggish, but the book is undeniably beautiful.

  7. Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis Borges. The best short stories I’ve ever read.

Seven people I would like to see take this quiz

Most everybody I’d like to see answer has already answered. But I’ll nominate Siobhan, in the hope she’ll start posting again, and Audrey, and leave it at that. Especially as I seem to have written more than is ordinarily done for these things…

Posted by Oliver at 03:08 PM | Comments (8)

August 26, 2005

Love, honour AND OBEY

… so said the groom’s tshirt the morning after the wedding (the capitals were implicit on the original). A fine choice of tshirt on such an occasion. For her part, the bride made no secret of the next step: babies.

Kilkea Castle was wonderful. The wedding dinner had four types of potato, all delicious, and a residents’ bar open until 5 am. Of course, we all wound up in there singing rebel songs. It must have been the four kinds of potato combining with some latent Irish gene. The bride’s grandfather, a man of 82, put us all to shame by standing up and belting out a perfect rendition of some Australian song about an Irish convict. None of us knew the words and it was actually quite moving to sit there and listen and not be able to ruin it by roaring out the chorus. Though the alcohol helped some of us in trying.

The best man’s speech was very well received (I helped a little, as his “beautiful assistant” with a slideshow; we were both intensely relieved when it was all over), as were the heartfelt speeches by the proud-as-punch fathers of the newlyweds.

The band were excellent, being friends of half of us in attendance that evening. My sweetheart (heart-stoppingly beautiful in a dress she took care to hide from me until that evening) and I had great fun running around on the dance floor dodging questions about when we were going to follow the example of the bride and groom. Understanding looks were exchanged with other couples sharing the same fate. The last song played by the DJ was AC/DC’s Thunder which is still in my head almost a week later.

As I type the happy couple are in Peru, on the way to where they first met. They’ll be traveling around South America for four weeks before coming home to the (cue ominous undertone) rest of their lives. Although, knowing this couple, they’ll have as much fun as they had at the wedding.

Posted by Oliver at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2005

Too tired for pronouns

Shattered. Best wedding ever. Congratulations to bride and groom. Didn’t embarrass self in front of congregation. Should’ve taken today off work!

Posted by Oliver at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2005

Foster-father stand-in

At the wedding rehearsal I take the place of one of the bride’s two fathers, and am complimented on my youthful yet fatherly appearance. I am now expert at handing the bride over to the groom and stepping neatly back, which will be no help at all to the real father, when he gets here.

When discussing with the groom which prayer of the faithful I’ll read at the actual ceremony, I suggest slipping in a Rock on, Motherfuckers! to, y’know, get their marriage off on the right footing. He promises to pay me €20 if I do. The temptation!

Posted by Oliver at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)

August 03, 2005

Obscure link of interest to only one particular reader

And not just because I have zero interest in this object’s supposed function.

I’ve gotten very consumer-happy recently. It’s my way of avoiding doing some work that’s been staring me in the face for the past month. How rude!

Actually. For a supposedly creative person I have been doing minimal amounts of creative stuff this year. My ‘Background reading’ page says I started the blog in part to practise writing, but that pretty wilfully ignores something I’ve realised many times: writing magazine articles will only make you better at writing magazine articles. Writing blog entries will only make you better at writing blog entries. And so on. If I was really focused on becoming good at writing, I’d practice writing in the form I wanted to become good at. Random blog entries are no substitute for actual creative discipline.

But I am glad I started AWVC, if only so that future entries of this nature can be handily paraphrased with a link to this one.

Posted by Oliver at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2005

Just in case you needed one

Q: Where can one find a selection of videos of people hiccuping, handily divided by gender?

A: Here.

Posted by Oliver at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2005

Buff and shine to impress friends

Ah, the internet. Before the internet, I loved tea, but couldn’t take that love past the ability to tell Lyons from Barrys. But now, I can occupy my idle time learning far too much about various tea varieties and how they should be enjoyed, with only three brief mouse-clicks. Latest tea-drinking implement that I had no idea I wanted until I saw it on the internet: the teastick. Finally I can enjoy that loose-leaf green mint tea I bought two years ago but was too lazy to actually drink!

No interest in tea-drinking? Own an iPod? The iPod accessory with the best title I have ever seen has to be the Muff Dock. New euphenism ahoy!

Posted by Oliver at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)

July 14, 2005

The new housemate, continued

Trust me to get invaded by an adroitly skilled mouse with brains.

My brother (who apparently knew about the mouse for over a week before telling me) laid down a couple of the traditional back-breaker traps, baited with chocolate. The mouse lifted the chocolate off one without setting off the trap. My brother stuck another piece of chocolate down as firmly as he could. The mouse dutifully ignored this bait. Hmmm, we thought to ourselves. Smart mouse.

My humane mousetrap, of which I had such high hopes, has failed me. I think the mouse is small enough to sneak between the bars of the cage, eat the bait, and leave as it suits him. Damn! Foiled again! He must have just lived off the bait for a week; I think in retrospect I crushed too many M&Ms and pistachio nuts. I thought I was awful smart, using that bait. I couldn’t stop nibbling at it myself, it was that good.

So. The bait was taken with the mouse untrapped. I’ve wrapped wire mesh around the cage part of the trap, and hopefully if he goes in this time he won’t get out. I put in another pile of my delicious bait but he’s not gone near it yet, that I can tell.

I hope I catch him soon. I’m starting to feel like an evil farmer facing off against Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Posted by Oliver at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2005

Kissing: the favoured act of hardened criminals

This morning I chastely pecked my girlfriend on the lips before saying goodbye for the weekend. This was at the top of her road. A non-descript woman walked behind us at precisely that moment.

We went our separate ways. 15 seconds later my girlfriend was accosted by the woman who said to her: “You are aware that kissing on a public street is illegal?”

She was not aware of this, largely because it’s inane crazy-person bullshit. But it was very considerate of the lady to share it with my sweetheart.

Best comeback invented by random internet person to date: “Oh yeah? Well, minding your own business is completely legal!”

Other suggestions gratefully received.

Posted by Oliver at 01:50 PM | Comments (2)

July 06, 2005

A new housemate

Last night around 3.20 am I was woken by a strange rustling sound. I thought it was coming from either my bin or the wall behind my bin, so I carefully got up and went over to have a closer look.

It was definitely coming from my bin, a small wastepaper basket. I nudged the side of it tentatively, and a small black mouse jumped out and scurried off into a corner.

I would like it noted that I am sufficiently manly to have only yelped ‘Aaah!’ for about half a second before remembering my manliness.

My mission for this evening is to pick up some sort of humane trap in town, in the hope of catching the mouse and setting it free in a park somewhere… where hopefully an owl will eat it.

Posted by Oliver at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2005

A Series of Ginormous Thanks

I’m 29! Hurrah! This momentous occasion was made momentous by many lovely people, whom I would like to thank:

Posted by Oliver at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 24, 2005

Birthday boy

Tomorrow I turn 29. I am officially ripe! After this I start to lose my youthful sheen.

I will be in the Market Bar from 4 pm on Sunday having afternoon drinks to celebrate, if you’re about.

Posted by Oliver at 02:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Amsterdam: Day One

This has taken me forever to put up. There was so much to tell, I had to leave it for nearly week just to forget enough stuff to make writing the rest down seem doable.

Six of us attended the stag weekend. Code-named for handy reference, they are: the Admiral (whom we’ve discussed before), and (named for passing physical similarities to RTE ‘personalities’): Joe Duffy (the stag), Charlie Bird, Derek Mooney and Marian Finucane1 (this should be fun).

We arranged to meet in Dublin airport almost three hours before the flight, in the hope of getting a drink in; whatever else we’ve heard about Amsterdam, getting good Guinness doesn’t seem to feature. But it doesn’t work out and I find myself stuck in traffic in Donaghmede, already a half hour late, with Marian Finucane’s ticket in my pocket. I can picture her quietly fretting despite Derek Mooney’s reassurings. Sorry Marian! But I arrive and we check in fantastically quickly using the shiny automatic check-in machines. Best invention ever.

I’m not the last to arrive either: the Admiral gets there twenty minutes later. Perched on his back is what appears to be a giant red rucksack, stuffed to the gills with God knows what. He’s also brought along a quite impressive digital camera and I realise that I may have taken the stag part of stag weekend slightly more seriously than everyone else. All I’ve got with me is a shoulder bag, some spare t-shirts and some sunblock. I even refused to bring my mobile phone, explaining to my bemused sweetheart that it wouldn’t survive a fall into the canal. She agreed with this analysis but wondered aloud if maybe I was taking this ‘cutting the cord’ idea a bit too far. Not being able to text her, she explained to me, was not a licence to sleep with hookers. Damn!

Everybody else had their mobiles with them, so clearly my images of pushing each other into canals were from my school trips, and not what a bunch of almost-thirty-year-olds do to each other, no matter how much they’ve had to drink. Ah well.

We get on the plane after hurriedly gulping down a pint in the airport bar. Joe Duffy decides to continue his campaign against sobriety by buying us all cans of Grolsch on the flight. This is the first drink I have ever had on an airplane, reader, and I am twenty-nine tomorrow. I have been doing something wrong.

Bonerjam
When we arrive I am slightly confused. When I left Dublin I had been too warm in just a tshirt. Surely Amsterdam should be baking? Instead, Amsterdam and Dublin appear to have exchanged weather conditions for the weekend, and it is overcast, cold and occasionally drizzly. I make it all the way from Schipol Airport without complaint but when we finally reach the streets of Amsterdam I plead with Marian to lend me her spare jumper. This causes some difficulty. Marian’s spare jumper is emblazoned with the Bohemians FC logo. I’d made the mistake (at Marian’s birthday, in fact) of pointing out how on the Bohemians official scarf, the lettering could be read as ‘Bonerjam’. If, y’know, you squinted and tilted your head slightly. I thought I was so clever with this observation that I’d happily repeated it to Marian several times since, she being a devout Bohemians follower and owner of the scarf. And now here I was, shivering, pleading for the Bohemians jumper to cover my goose-pimples.

I’d just like to make it a matter of record that Marian Finucane is the kindest, most generous, most forgiving person in the world ever, and that I managed to not say Bonerjam more than two or three times while wearing the jumper.

We arrive at our hostel. Our hostel turns out to be an Irish pub, Nelly’s Inn. It possesses the most fearsome staircase I’ve ever seen. It looks almost designed to make drunk people fall over. But Nelly’s is also one of the latest-opening pubs in Amsterdam, so we are very happy. We dump our bags and go exploring.

Pop-up advertising
You know when you’re in work, and you’ve tons to do, but all you’re actually doing is messing about on the internet? And how sometimes the internet betrays you by popping up windows advertising crap you don’t want, usually when your boss is passing by as you hastily minimise the browser window? And how the worst pop-up windows, which only ever appear when your boss is actually standing at your desk, are the unpleasant ones with unlikely sex scenes on them? Amsterdam’s like that. You’re pointing out some interesting wildlife to Derek Mooney, he starts laughing, and you turn back to see you’re pointing at a shop selling sex toys. Or a gay porn cinema. Or a club featuring live sex shows, or a shop specialising in love dolls, or, well, I think I’ve given Google (NSFW, I’m guessing) enough to go on for now. You get the idea.

After getting used to that we discover we’re in something of a Chinese quarter. We find a Dim Sung restaurant warning that we will eat as much as we like in an hour, for a mere six euro fifty. On Charlie Bird’s initiative, we accept the challenge.

We pay the restaurant owner, who uses her wallet as the cash register. We completely fail to follow the advice pasted up on the board about having dumplings as a starter, then rice and meat as the main course, but no-one seems to mind. The food is excellent. While we eat a cat wanders in and out, receiving pettings from the patrons.

After eating we cross the road to enter our first pub of the evening. The beer arrives in half-glasses (not pint glasses) and is much nicer than we’re used to. We’ve deliberately sought out a pub full of Dutch people, to satisfy ourselves that we’re getting the ‘authentic’ Amsterdam experience, which is a priority for the Admiral and Joe Duffy. As it’s their first time here I’m not sure how they can tell what’s authentic and what’s not, but I’m easily led.

I dare you
Then the Admiral plays his trump card. On the flight he’s been very busy: while the rest of us were having our beers, he’s been sketching out dares for us all to perform, one per round. We are getting merry enough to be okay with this idea, and we all submit one dare of our own as per his directions. I try to be kind with mine (“Start a rebel singsong in Irish, or, if you don’t know the words of any rebel songs in Irish, perform the complete ‘Tie my Kangaroo Down, Mate’ in the style of Rolf Harris”) but, as it turns out, not everyone is quite as inoffensive.

Joe Duffy, Stag, has to go first. His dare asks that he ask a Dutch person to translate the numbers 1 to 10 into Dutch, and that he then returns to our table and recites them as if it were a real live NASA countdown. This is quite handily accomplished by virtue of buying three very friendly Dutch lads some beer. One comes over and recites the countdown with him, for moral support, and we wonder if perhaps this perfect stranger is a better friend to our stag than we are.

Next is Derek Mooney, who has to stand outside the pub and invite Dutch nationals in to see the live sex show. He thinks about this and uses his single refusal, which he is entitled to do, but that obliges him to do the next dare, which is to… order a round wearing no socks or shoes. Well played, Derek! We go to our next pub and he dutifully buys beer barefoot. He then starts enjoying himself and forgets to put his footwear on until we leave, and we kick ourselves for not doing cruel things to his un-guarded socks and shoes.

My dare comes up. I have to haul my top over the my head and recite some Beavis and Butthead line about cornholes. It is very easy and I thank Marian Finucane profusely for it. But then the Admiral captures it on film for all eternity and I realise I will never enter politics.

Then Marian gets my dare, which he finds nicely easy, and we all sing along. Charlie Bird goes to the funny tobacco bar to buy some funny tobacco which I try but don’t get very far with, except for a coughing fit or two. According to the cognoscenti it’s quite poor in any regard. I am having none of this and buy some substantially more expensive funny tobacco and they all approve, saying it’s much better. The coughing is not noticeably different on my part.

It’s Charlie Bird’s turn on the dare front. His dare is… weird. It seems to involve going to the bathroom then returning, wearing your underpants on your head. Instead, he buys a round and we get sufficiently drunk to forget the whole thing.

After that, things get very interesting for drunken people (i.e. very dull for sober people). We traipse around, going into more pubs for occasional drinks, buying waffles from streetside vendors to munch on (why aren’t these delicacies available so readily in Dublin on a Friday evening?) being startled by yet more sex shops, and, annoyingly, being constantly offered cocaine. I appreciate that, as a group of young drunken tourists, dealers must think we’re a ready market for cocaine. But at one stage we are offered cocaine five times in ten minutes. Fortunately refusals or outright ignorings don’t seem to offend.

Your insistence on dancing on the bar is restricting our beer intake
It gets very late and we wind up in a hideous bar called Teasers, with the slogan ‘Beers and Babes’. They have no beer beyond Heineken, which we’ve had previously in other pubs. But even in our drunken state we don’t appreciate the strange chemical aftertaste of this particular Heineken; that and the fact that there are no other women in the bar (other than the waitresses, whom we wish would dance on the bar less and serve beer more) leaves us cold. The only bar we didn’t like during the whole weekend, of what must have been about twenty.

Then it’s back to Nelly’s for a final drink. At this stage we’re comatose, basically, but we only stumble up the intimidating staircase at 4 am when they close the bar, delighted with ourselves.


Footnote
1: I’m trying to be funny here; we were all male.

Posted by Oliver at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 16, 2005

Alive & sniffing

In-depth de-briefing on Amsterdam to follow. Over-indulgence has resulted in a vicious head-cold, turning all thoughts to mush. Hope to recover soon.

In the mean-time, everything old is new again.

Posted by Oliver at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 07, 2005

Bank holiday hangovers

Work ended on Friday like any other day before a bank holiday weekend: extremely well. I had planned to have a quiet few days in, given that I’m supposed to be saving money for a stag weekend in Amsterdam, beginning this Friday. Instead, I spent three happy days in with my girlfriend in Ranelagh, including shopping trips to buy such necessaries as chocolate biscuits and new clothes to wear instead of having to go home to get clean ones.

Our only social engagement was attending a party on Sunday night, held in a friend’s honour, given her departure to sunnier shores at the end of the week. She routinely goes abroad to save turtles, something I can only approve of, though I hear spending a month on a sunny beach in Greece has its own compensations.

This upcoming stag will be my first. Up to now my male friends just haven’t been inclined towards marriage. Or my female friends, for that matter, though I hear their modes of celebration involve somewhat higher counts of drinking straws in the shape of male genitalia (that one’s not safe for work, in case you can’t guess). This kind of thing is how castration neuroses start, you know.

Posted by Oliver at 04:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 02, 2005

Withering on the vine

For some time now I’ve been considering a career break of a year or longer. Not to travel, though it might be nice to do a bit of that, but to strike out on my own, trying to get some paying work in games development (even if it means trying the self-employment route once more). I’m nearly 29; this is probably the last part of my working life where I’m not paying a mortgage and won’t have to support anybody else, so I may as well take the time to do it now.

Plus, I’m getting very frustrated at how little demands are made on me at work. Finishing my part-time masters last year was hugely demanding but it really pushed me to accomplish something, and all I’m doing now is clocking in my hours, doing a competent enough job and watch my savings slowly increase.

I’m starting to think that not being pushed (or not pushing myself) is actively bad for me, just as being pushed was good for me.

So today, I went in to my boss and told him I was thinking of a career break.

Ooops! What if I completely fail to motivate myself and get stuff done when I’m working on my own? It happened the last time to an extent. And I really like working here if only because I get on well with the people I work with. That’s something I’ll definitely not have. And I’m sure my dreams of becoming financially independent are hilariously naive.

But I have to get out of here. And it’s hard to think of a safer way to do it than taking a career break and knowing you’ve enough savings to live on for a year, no matter what else happens.

Posted by Oliver at 05:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 24, 2005

Being Susceptible to Requests of a Certain Nature

I had another removal to attend yesterday evening. I walked to the church from work along the banks of the canal, taking a good forty-five minutes to get there. The weather had the meteorological equivalent of ADD, by fits soaking the place with fierce showers or towelling us off with a stiff breeze and steady sunshine. I stopped for shelter at one stage under some form of archway, which lead to an open yard of the type seen on television ads warning children of the dangers of slurry pits.

With my headphones in my ears I couldn’t hear the blustering conversation of a man on crutches, very slowly crossing the road behind me. I had turned so he was just visible out of the corner of my eye, hoping that I wasn’t the target of whatever it was he was saying. This isn’t because I’m generally mean to strangers talking to me on the street. It’s because I’m generally lovely to strangers on the street. I don’t mean to be, I just seem to default to extreme niceness when caught in situations where I’d rather be anywhere else. Why not try asking me for money some time?

Eventually he got close enough to where I had to take off my headphones and respond. His first question was, “Are you Irish?” which I suppose was reasonable given I’d been playing obliviousness up until that point, and being foreign is apparently a ready explanation for deliberately ignoring something.

He wanted me to carry his bag around the corner, as it had a two-litre carton of milk in it, which was hard to manage with the crutches. Especially in the wet; the crutches tended to slip very easily. He’d had a very bad fall last week, getting off the bus. His foot was the problem, it had an ulcer on the heel which was finally starting to heal now he had a home help to look after him two days a week. The diabetes was the other problem; he’d gotten it from eating too much fried food, just like Brendan Grace.

We made very slow progress along a route which I was acutely aware (in the sense of how impaired his movement was) would only have taken twenty seconds to cover on my own.

He thought I was about 17 or 18, which was nice. And then sympathised with my increasing baldiness. But he didn’t know how to get to the church I was headed for. So I deposited the bag in his porch as requested and set off again, guessing that a church in the distance was the right place to go to (it was), and arriving with a couple of minutes to spare.

Posted by Oliver at 04:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Insulting thousands of satisfied Brown readers

Shattered from sleep-deprivation and prolonged exposure to crazy airport people, my girlfriend stumbled off the aircoach and promptly headed straight for work. I think there should be some sort of award for that kind of dedication, even if work was a relief after Stansted.

It turns out that the Dan Brown novel was actually a good choice for someone in such a state of sleep-deprivation: the short chapters and focus on plot to the exclusion of pretty much anything else kept it easy to read. You heard it here first: Dan Brown’s a good read, for SLEEP-DEPRIVED ZOMBIES.

Posted by Oliver at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2005

Unfortunate ways to spend an evening

As you drift off to sleep tonight in your comfy bed, spare a thought for my stranded girlfriend, left to fend for herself in Stansted Airport owing to the Stansted Express not being quite as Express as they’d like you to believe. She missed her flight home, and was the first person to be told that the following (final) flight this evening was now full.

This means that she’s booked onto tomorrow morning’s 6.30 am flight, with a check-in time at the decidedly unpleasant time of 4.30 am.

We were somewhat relieved to discover that Stansted is actually the second-best airport in the world to spend the night in (after Heathrow). There are lots of sweet stories about strangers watching out for each other, and where to find the best places to sleep, over here. The internet to the rescue.

How will she spend the 8 hours before her flight leaves? Well, she managed to get a book, which would usually help; but the only one she could find was Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Because clearly, reading the WORST BOOK ON EARTH will make the time go by more quickly. I am seriously concerned that she will claw out her eyes.

(come home safe, miss, preferably with your eyes still in their sockets x)

Posted by Oliver at 10:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 12, 2005

Avoiding Dave Eggers

Is it slightly irrational of me to distrust an author many of my well-read friends adore? Dervala has her own reasons for avoiding Dave Eggers’ work, and they’re somewhat more developed than mine. As, on reflection, my quite insubstantial reason for not reading him is that it’s only my female well-read friends who’ve recommended him.

Hmmm… this is a game I can play! You should all read Philippe Petit’s To Reach the Clouds immediately. It’s a beautifully written account of how he strung a high wire between New York’s Twin Towers, then ran back and forth along it to the delight of the onlookers below.

Also. It would be nice there was some mechanism for getting new words discovered via poor typing accepted into the lexicon. I originally typed ‘irrantional’ earlier and I’m now wishing it was a real word.

Posted by Oliver at 11:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 10, 2005

At the wake for my

At the wake for my oldest friend’s father we are sitting around the family computer, watching as my friend displays scans of photos taken by her father 25 odd years ago. His photography was fantastic, with many of the images being so perfectly shot that you could easily imagine them in magazines of the time, advertising idyllic family holidays or the ideal white Christmas.

When we were done she closed each open image in rapid succession, each photo flickering past before concluding with a grey, featureless screen.

“Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.” Walker Evans

Posted by Oliver at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 29, 2005

Not so gnomic now

For some time now, I’ve been fond of the word ‘gnomic’. I had very romantic imaginings of what this word meant. I believed it meant dense, almost zen-like levels of meaning, myriad layers of such wonderful meaning that all possible interpretations could never be revealed, not even to the most penetrating of minds.

That’s all rubbish. What it actually means is “pertaining to or being like a gnome.” Cock.

The definition does seem to depend on the dictionary, but even so. I’m very disappointed.

Posted by Oliver at 05:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 26, 2005

When trapped, don't ring me

I turned on my phone this morning to get a text saying I had two new messages! somebody was ringing me in the middle of the night! Exciting! But the first one was one my girlfriend left on Saturday that they clearly thought I didn’t need until today, and the other was a very strange recording of lots of crackly sounds and running water and doors closing. I couldn’t be bothered listening to it for longer than a minute. I hope it wasn’t from somebody trapped in a basement somewhere.

Posted by Oliver at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 21, 2005

A happy 30th

The weekend before last myself and herself took off for a friend’s belated 30th birthday celebration in Kilkenny. This did invite some anxiety, given that it was a best friend of my girlfriend’s, and all her other best friends would be there at the same time. Not to mention a bunch of other people she’s very fond of. And me. I was slightly concerned I would be sat in a circle and Judged. You shouldn’t Judge others, you know. Jesus said so.

Instead, I had a great time. It turned out that most of us had booked into the same B&B, lending something of a boarding school to the whole experience. We got to compare rooms too, something I’ve never played before. We got a slightly raw deal, but not as bad as some of the others!

There was the occasional moment when the boyfriends in attendance clumped together for protection, but they passed quickly. Looking back a fortnight later there’s mainly a sensation of being pleasantly full, drunk, and tired from laughing so much.

Three randomly chosen images:

That was the first of an upcoming legion of 30th birthdays. Expect me to grow less smug and more nervous as my own approaches.

Posted by Oliver at 04:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Mournfulness

A couple of nights ago, my iBook gracefully slid off my bed onto the floor. It landed fairly gently onto the carpet, so I was a bit lazy about picking it up - it was such a slight fall I just assumed it would be fine. But now, when I turn it on, there’s only a gray screen. It seems to start up properly behind the scenes and you can turn it off normally. It’s just the connection to the screen that seems to be buggered. Hopefully it won’t be too pricey to fix, but all the same: ouch.

On the other hand, I could now spend my evenings running around outside playing ball. I shall give that some serious thought.

Posted by Oliver at 01:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 15, 2005

So much to tell!

But no time to tell it in. Instead, I’m home to collapse before hauling my weary self to a dinner party.

While I’m gone, why not have a look at one of the many things I’ve been doing instead of blogging: Honky (I was only peripherally involved, beyond building the website from mock-ups and the occasional brain-storming session).

Warning— geek query: If anybody could tell me why Safari on OS X moves the mouse-over images around slightly on the menu, I’d be very, very interested. It would save my hand from the repeated slappings I’m administering to my computer.

Posted by Oliver at 05:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 07, 2005

Deadline addict

What have I been doing this past week?! Well, I’ll tell you. The Admiral (he of the Lough Gill extravaganza) and myself have had a notion bouncing around for the past year now: samizdat.ie (I didn’t pick the name! I didn’t!). It’s a new magazine/workshop. It’s mostly the Admiral’s baby, but it’s been fun helping out.

As that page says, the first meeting is tonight. I’m quite nervous about it. More than I thought I would be, in fact. I was quite heavily involved in very similar stuff at college, thought there the focus was on the weekly meetings, and the annual magazine we put out with the best stuff was almost a way to justify the pittance we were given by the college to pay for tea and biscuits.

I was quite regularly asked to submit bits and pieces of writing at college, and I’d be happy to oblige. Looking back, a part of me thinks What was I doing? What about quality control? How much shite am I willing to pump out?! And maybe I did submit a lot of stuff before it was technically finished. But those ideas and inspirations, while precious, shouldn’t be an end in themselves. I just wasn’t good enough to do them justice, and knowing this was paralysing: I could never capture the perfect expression for them.

Which is why I was so lucky to be made meet a deadline so often. Being made to write the ideas out frees you of paralysis, even if the expression is poor. Ideas generate ideas; you’ll never run out of them. Being forced to move on forces you past ideas, makes you practice writing, and makes you improve.

And that’s why I’m doing the whole thing all over again. Being made do it is apparently what I need, since doing it for the love of it isn’t enough. I hate letting my friends down.

I wonder if the Admiral knows this? And is using it for his own nefarious ends?

I hope so. Friends, eh?

PS: I wrote this for tonight.

Posted by Oliver at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 25, 2005

New internet game!

Random google searches:

If I were young enough to have my parents still look after me, one of them would be popping their head around the door to say: “Oliver, it’s three in the morning and you’re addled from painkillers. Turn this monologue off and go to bed!”

Posted by Oliver at 03:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

See the final paragraph for a quick summary AND MISS NOTHING

I’m on holidays! … or at least, that was the plan. The plan went: Take off the Friday after Paddy’s day, and the days before Easter, and you’ll get a pretty long holiday for much less annual leave!

It was a good plan, and I had a lovely day celebrating St. Patrick’s saintliness by staying late in bed with my girlfriend watching the parade on the telly. Wasn’t that phoenix float lovely? And that drama crowd who re-enacted the legend about the emperor’s new clothes, they were good. And all the Americans, they were loud and suitably shiny. Anyway, Thursday was super and relaxing, and so was Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday was particularly great, and then it was Monday. The girlfriend had to vanish off to work at that point, something I think it’s fair to say I was insufferably smug about, and I had a slight headache. But that was no bother and I went into town to meet my best friend from my college days who’d taken some time out of her glamorous life in Paris to say hello to us backward Irish folks.

We spent the day wandering around town having a (I’ve used a fair amount of superlatives so far, I know, please bear with me) fun-filled time of it, going for Japanese food and shopping and avoiding the rain where possible. It was fun-filled and my headache got worse, and worse, and worse, until by the time I got home it was quite literally as if my skull was about to pop open to allow the throbbing brains inside leap free, splatter wetly on my walls, then slide slowly to the floor. Which would have been a relief, it was that bad.

But the funny thing was, I didn’t notice this until I got home. Because as well as being excruciating, my headache was also making me stupid. You will not notice the pain, it whispered, as I am making you too stupid to notice it.

I noticed the pain by the evening, and noticed the stupidity shortly afterwards as I wondered how the hell had I missed being this fucking sore. I noticed it even more when all the weak-ass over-the-counter medications just pushed it around for a bit before sloping off home after doing precisely nothing, which I’m pretty sure is not what they mean when they say they’ll hit pain where it hurts. Tap pain on the shoulder and ask for the time, more like.

Tuesday morning, head much worse, off to the doctor I go. I’m not nearly so quick to go to the doctor when I’m working but when I’m on holidays it’s a completely different story, as while I resent paying doctors 45 euro to listen to me moan, I resent being sick on holidays even more.

The nice doctor, bless her and make her a saint and have parades in her honour, gave me absurdly strong tablets that were also incredibly cheap (my perfect date, bdum-tshhhh) and then talked me into accepting a sick leave cert so I wouldn’t lose my holidays. She had to talk me into it! Clearly the stupidity was strong. Of course, it’s probable that I didn’t like appearing wussy in front of a smart lady doctor. I think that counts as native stupidity though. But who cares! I’m not on holidays, I’m on sick leave!

While the tablets are terrifyingly effective, they don’t solve the stupidity problem. And they do leave me woozy and in constant need of affection. So, it comes down to a choice between being dizzy, stupid and prone to hugging people, or being not quite as stupid, with my face screwed into a constant wince of pain. I pick being Forrest Gump every time.

In summary, when I’m sore I like to whine about it. As I think I’ve just demonstrated. Lucky you, Mr. Internet.

Posted by Oliver at 02:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 19, 2005

Who you calling a psycho?!

So it turns out, I’m about ten times better at Zookeeper drunk than sober. Damn it! My conscious brain just gets in the way! My subconscious knows what to do and would appreciate it if my conscious mind would just sit this one out!

One (shared) bottle of wine later, and my conscious mind did sit this one out. Result: Name on the high score table, and a bonus sense of elation when it was discovered that my girlfriend had set the game level to ‘Hard.’ I’m hard, me. Oh yes.

Actually, inebriation is kind of like a persistent dizziness, isn’t it? Spin on, world, spin on.

(Prize of a GBA game of my choice to the first person who names the film and describes the scene I’ve referenced, and it’s not bloody hard to any viewers of Friday night’s Irish television).

Posted by Oliver at 12:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 15, 2005

125 words of self-pity

I’m coming down with a cold. Make that: I’ve come down with a cold. I don’t really mind the minor symptoms like a sore throat or tired eyes; it’s the stupidity that’s annoying. My brain has become a gloopy, sticky mass my thoughts are having real trouble pushing themselves through.

I caught my last cold before Christmas, which wormed its way into my chest and stayed there. That earned me a week’s sick leave. It was great! I was too dumb to do much else beyond play computer games and watch the occasional Studio Ghibli film. I started (and finished) Thief 3 that week. Bloody good fun. Must do a belated review and fire it off to Eurogamer.

Sigh. I wish I was in bed.

Posted by Oliver at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 09, 2005

The Retreat

I used to be a big newspaper buff, loving the Irish papers, reading at least one a day and two or three at the weekends. I used to watch the nine o’clock news any evening I was at home at the right time. Now I never watch the news and I haven’t bought a paper in years. My only real contact with newspapers is through work, which needs me to read articles on specific topics, and the occasional flick through ireland.com when I’ve got a spare few minutes at my desk.

I’m much more likely these days to read blogs and websites, especially those linked to in my sidebar. I only buy one print publication now, and that’s a games magazine. I think I’m joining the silent majority that tacitly gives the status quo (political or otherwise) its support. I still vote at every election, though mostly through recognising allegiances and not the individual candidates’ names.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so badly informed about anything of consequence my entire life. Everything I absorb is purely driven by self-interest: games news, gadget news, news of my friends.

Mental note: read a paper every day. That should have been my New Year’s resolution.

Posted by Oliver at 06:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 07, 2005

The Thirst

There’s a certain stage of, um, inverse sobriety, let’s call it, where I’ve had three or four drinks, and my short-term memory starts to not work so good. It’s at this point I usually slow right the hell down and consume water for the rest of the evening (I believe the term you’re looking for at this point is ‘Light-weight’). Or at least I presume that’s what I do; it’s a little hazy.

It all started with working late in work, then going out for a drink with the work crowd afterwards. I knew there was little chance at that point of my getting out to the dogs in Harold’s Cross for my friend’s birthday, but as they were going to be in town afterwards I knew it would all work out somehow.

Drinks with work people can be a bit tricky as, generally speaking, I don’t know who knows I’m going out with somebody in work (she was on a bus, heading home for the weekend), and who doesn’t. Most of my friends at work know at this stage (it has been over two years) but there’s always one person I assume knows who (deep breath) doesn’t know what it is I know they don’t know, you know?

I hope my boss doesn’t know.

Four pints later and the short-term memory failure is starting to occur. The rest of the night takes place in the style of one question leading on to several more, like the mythical head-spawning Hydra: How am I going to get into town? Why am I in the back of this car? Is that my workmate’s boyfriend driving? How did I get to the top of Camden Street? When did I buy these crisps? I hope I paid for them. Who ate all my crisps? How did I find this pub that has all my friends in it? Who bought me this drink? How did it get to be 2am? Is this my Nitelink, and how did I get on it, anyway? When did I put my headphones on? How did I get into bed? When did I send my girlfriend all those text messages?

Ah yes. Those text messages. The less said about those, the better.

Posted by Oliver at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 04, 2005

Perils of table-quiz attendance

When attending a table-quiz in aid of Mountain Rescue with your girlfriend (who works for the same company as you, but in a different building), keep in mind that your girlfriend’s boss, a keen hiker, might turn up when you least expect it. And sit at the table next to you and your girlfriend, and make witticisms, and be more than capable of observing any casual hand-on-girlfriend’s-leg/arm/shoulder positionings. Keep in mind too that drinking alcohol at said event will only encourage the positionings.

In fact, the above rule applies when attending a restaurant in Ranelagh, going to any Dublin cinema, walking hand-in-hand down Dublin city-centre streets, or engaging in pretty much any public display of affection within a five-mile radius either company building.

Sigh. At least I knew that James Joyce was buried in Zurich. But not that the Sandinista rebellion happened in Nicaragua.

Posted by Oliver at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 03, 2005

Making with the zuzz-zuzz

Even though February has ended the birthday march continues, with a trip to dogs tomorrow evening to celebrate a 29th, and a weekend in Kilkenny this month for another 30th (one of my girlfriend’s four best friends, even though you can only have one best friend, which she knows as she did English at college, but even so). And my mum’s birthday was this week, so there’s a birthday dinner on Sunday for that. She probably wouldn’t appreciate my telling you her age.

This would be great, and is great, but would be even greater still if I could just get a straight eight hour snooze, and not turn up at all these events in my trademark sleep-deprived zombie form. I have a pub quiz to attend later, one I cannot back out of, so I know I’ll be stumbling into bed at 1 am for a brief six hours before having to get up for yet another sleep-deprived day.

Hmmm. Who’s the patron saint of sleep, and what do I have to sacrifice to get some shut-eye around here?

Posted by Oliver at 04:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 01, 2005

Gambling on virtual horses

I spent last Saturday evening at a fundraiser in the Clonsilla RFC clubhouse. This was my first time in such an establishment, and my first time gambling, but it’s okay, mum, the gambling was in support of the rugby team’s upcoming tour of Hong Kong, see? As a good friend of mine and his brother are on the team, see?

They had a film segment showing the - pardon me, I’m new to this - ‘form’ of the horses, and then another segment showing the actual ‘race’. You’d place your bets, in my case based on what number I hadn’t bet on so far. I won four euro on the last race! I’m a winner!

Rugby clubs are full of very burly men. And their parents. I’ve never really played team sports, owing to a shy childhood, but I think I missed out.

Afterwards we went back to my friend’s house for more beer and the chance to emit disturbed laughter in front of the sex education scene from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. That’s as far as we got before falling into a drunken slumber. And the next morning I stumbled bleary-eyed into town to meet my girlfriend’s mum. Eeep!

Posted by Oliver at 02:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bookshopping

I seem to be a victim of a compelling desire to own large amounts of Stuff. Yesterday I rushed into town at lunchtime to spend a 50 euro book token, given to me by my parents gave me for Christmas. Why the rush? I was just in time to complete a ten-token voucher in the great Hodges Figgis money-off swindle! Er, after combining powers tokens with my girlfriend. We now have 15 euro credit at the store, after spending sixty euro.

So, new books to add to the shelves full of unread books I’ve got at home. Some for my long-term sci-fi addiction, two for my poetry fetish, and a G. B. Shaw biography:

I like those bulleted lists, don’t I?

I’ve already wolfed down half of the Paul Durcan book. It’s a great rendition of the classic Irish experience, both rural and urban. This was an experience I found unbearable growing up, to the point where I was forever fleeing into the fantasy worlds of games and novels. But now I’m nostalgic for something that I was inevitably part of, whether I liked it or not.

Posted by Oliver at 12:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 22, 2005

Extremely demanding hang-over cure

The morning after the Admiral’s boating adventure saw us waking up in ones and twos, comparing notes on head-aches and how badly we’d slept. I did quite well. Some poor unfortunates slept beside a world-championship snorer. We could feel his snores reverberate through the floor. It was quite impressive.

Then the Admiral had an Idea. You have to be quite wary of these Ideas; they often involve getting lost up mountains or starting up literary magazines. But we played along, to find ourselves tramping through woods, thr