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

Somewhere on the thefreedictionary.com entry for this word ‘normative’, under piles of advertising for buying normative stuff and italian things for some reason, is the explanation for what this word means. Check it out. Alternatively, you could look it up on Wikipedia. I really should do a post about what I think of wikipedia, but in a nutshell, it’s a sort of mix between encyclopedia and general knowledge free-for-all where anybody can be an expert on anything at all. Unless someone even more determined decides that they know more about it than the previous person, rewrites the previous entry and dedicates their lives to ‘correcting’ any changes; and yes, there are people who do this and get fulfillment from it, and while I believe in personal freedoms I do think there are people who need to get a good hiding every once in a while in order to give them a bit of perspective on the world.

Anyway, I got ‘normative’ from reading the draft of a paper from Connor Upton, who is exceedingly clever but needed some perspective (without the hiding) from me on how much sense his paper is making (which is in fact a lot of sense, but don’t tell him that). It’s now my word of the moment, which I’m going to find new, creative uses for which are to a greater or lesser degree completely inappropriate: “Oh honey, you are have with me the great sexes, I have so much the enjoy from it. Are you also like with it?”

“Yes, yes I think it was quite a normative experience”

Me in a somewhat normative state. I’m also in the kitchen, which I’m going to rename ‘Office 2.0′ which is cool-sounding and helps me forget about food which can’t be a bad thing. This photo is about a month old now.
As you can see, I haven’t been getting about too much recently, and the incredible, voluptuous Eastern women in my head are becoming increasingly easier to please (while I’m getting more and more bored of them, in turn). I probably shouldn’t have shared that, but then again I made that up, I lied to you, my faithful reader. Yes, it’s becoming an abusive relationship already, and we should seek help.

I’m on a roll now.

Check this out:

Steorn website
Free energy! Energy that is free! Out of thin air! And how we love free stuff!
http://www.steorn.net/
I’m not going to repeat the basic claims being made, beyond that they claim to have invented a free energy generator. Energy from, basically, nothing. Read this on IrishEyes on what it’s about. It’s great, we’ll have energy without the problems of carbon in the atmosphere, pollution, nuclear waste, environmental damage on a large scale… It’s what we’ve all been waiting for. An answer to the energy crisis.

Bollocks. No free lunch. You know it, I know it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. You can’t make energy out of nothing, or suddenly come up with the answer to one of the biggest problems facing mankind today and it’s as easy as putting some magnets together. Someone suddenly comes out with an easy way to generate power out of nothing? Sure. Have a look at Cesky Sen to see where I think this one’s going to end up; and if that’s the case then I think fair play to them, we’ll all get laugh out of it. If they’ve done this and it’s bollocks, and they still honestly believe it, then they’re fools and they’ll get burnt, and we’ll still get a laugh out of it. It’s doing the rounds right now at any rate, gets loads of publicity for them and they might even beat ‘Snakes On A Plane‘ for the Summer number one hit.

Their site is nicely designed, by the way. I like it.

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, I’ve been busy recently, and although I may have mistakenly given the impression that I quit my job in a particularly dramatic fashion, sticking it to The Man in all my bridge-burning glory (”To Hell with you and your Goddamned job, I’m leaving! And I’m taking Michaela with me!”) it really wasn’t like that, and I gave four entire week’s notice. I also didn’t get Michaela, which was even more disappointing. The next reaction I’ve been getting is generally “Whooo! Must be so awkward to be there after writing all that!” and that hasn’t been the case either. At least, not more awkward than usual, which is actually more than most people would tolerate is one of the reasons I called it a day anyway. So business as usual.

I have been taking notes for a big post about what comes next after the four weeks is up, which is next Friday (Parallel got a day for free there, I’m a generous soul at heart) and I think you’ll all enjoy that one no end, especially since it publicly commits me to a particular direction in my life and of course I’ll have to see it through. On the upside, it will hopefully involve a bit more writing and that can’t be a bad thing (assuming, of course, that I actually do the writing). It’s very, very exciting for me right now, and even if things don’t work out, I’ll painstakingly document it here in much the way I don’t get around to documenting anything else, and you’ll all get a kick out of reading about it.

So, in the words of Richard Ashcroft of ‘The Verve‘, “Baby, Oooooooooh ahh yeah, Oh no no no, In my head, My Lord! My Lord! I’m a lucky man, this ain’t no symphony, slip slide slip slide, no no no, yeahhhh.”. If things don’t work out in the coming months I could always find myself the next Verve and write songs for them, it seems like easy work. I’m close to finishing Keith’s site at long last which has proven to be hard work partly because I spent a week and a half which wasn’t otherwise very busy at all fighting spam on this site (automated systems which know how to post comments on sites like this, repeatedly posting comments which are links to insurance sales sites and Viagra) and on the LTD site (check it out to see the most deliciously edible girls in the world, having way more fun than you or I). I eventually got around it but it was hard work, and then of course I started being busy again, and I still don’t know where all this stuff comes from. So I’ll post a link here when it’s done, and hopefully I’ll talk Keith into actually writing on it too.

I’ve been looking at my self-discipline too; I really could be so much more productive but I just somehow am not. I like sleeping. I like taking a walk somewhere. I like taking a moment to sit and drool while making a low humming noise. Stuff like that, I think, which makes life more enjoyable than trying to follow a path in the manner of a whizz-head with an F-15 strapped to his (or her) back. Even so, I should be using the extra time to get some work done instead of surfing the same crap news sites, or trying to by cheap Tadafil, or even chatting relentlessly to Romanian women (although, if you can manage it, it is very entertaining and educational, and winding them up is about as much fun as you can have, short of getting your nads paddled by Oompa Loopas). Speaking of which, I met an actual person on the Internet. I mean, someone I haven’t previously been introduced to by someone I already know, and as a result my English has deteriorated drastically over the last week and a half. My englis, he is not more so good as the time from one day, and you are no understan me soo good as now tehn. I am make her mistak wit the word. Yo are gett this from womans ho speak no englis soo good. You can see where this is going, so maybe if I spend less time chatting, and more time finishing Keith’s site, we’ll all be better off, if not as amused as before. I’ll write some more about this intriguing development very shortly, and the mechanics of meeting people online and in real-life quite shortly, because it ties in with a number of interesting discussions I’ve had recently, and some ideas which developed independently about that and my writing (and for a dramatic change of pace from my previous writings these ideas aren’t about the enslavement of women, or being offensive just for the Hell of it). Yo like wan yo see waht I rite yo abot these thing.

Lastly, I got a webcam: k_parallel (at) hotmail.com - yes, you have to be smart enough to decipher the bit in the middle, because I will spammed otherwise.
Me at work, doing my thing; as viewed through my webcam.If you want to have a look at me, in my natural environment, add this address to your hotmail MSN contacts and watch away. I really don’t know why, but you’re welcome to. it only works on my office PC, but when I get my new laptop I’ll have it on most of the time, home or work. You’ll be able to see pretty quickly if the new career is working out or not.

First off, shouts out to Maddy, who is one of my multitude of housemates and who has promised to have a look at my blog tonight, in between managing a restaurant and whatnot, so that was sort of an impetus to actually write some stuff which I’ve been meaning to put up for… weeks, months possibly. I’ve been provoking Maddy probably a little bit too much for my own good recently, and while normally I’d expect to get back as good as I give, I’m starting to worry a little that I’ll wake up one morning and find the head of a Kakapo in my bed. Maddy, with me taking a real risk with my life. That was at my birthday lunch in Castleknock. Click image to view larger versionIt could happen.

You got the vote
Women have been asking me for advice about stuff recently for some reason, generally stuff to do with men, and what’s up with them anyway, why is he doing this or that, that kind of stuff; given the content of my previous post here (which was all about completely misinterpreting the thesis of young Elizabeth from Kilkenny and also trying to be as offensive about the whole sex versus gender roles debate as possible, which provoked a lengthy and thoughtful email from Elizabeth and also a heated comment from Tadhg. Heh heh.) I thought that was a very interesting co-incidence, and of course I’ve been gleefully taking shots at the whole gender equality debate. Ireland has come a long way in a short space of time, from being a country that would be frowned upon as being a bit hardcore by conservative Muslim states - we all know they used to lock up women here in what were known as the Magdalene Laundries (and they were still locked up until the early to mid eighties) for such indiscretions as having a child out of wedlock, or perhaps being molested by someone with authority - to being a country where men and women are reaching a state of equality, and becoming more and more equal all the time. I’ve heard this from women who go abroad with the ingrained view that Ireland is sexist, and come back seeing that, in fact, Ireland is quite advanced in that aspect of society. So, when women start to complain (I’d love to use the word ‘moan’ or perhaps ‘whinge’, maybe ‘whine’, but… Ah, it’s all politically incorrect now.) about how they want some guy to do something for them, such as ask them out, fix the car or whatever, I think ‘Hey, what is this shit I am hearing now, because you know, first you were asking for the voting so you could participate meaningfully in society, so you have it (and we are having the Mary Harney, so personally I am thinking, maybe is not so good idea), then you are asking to play golf which is like stupid but you are having the golf now and this is your own fault, and then you are wanting the same money to earn as men, so you are having this now also, and hey, what I am hearing, you still are wanting the guy to do all the hard stuff, because you know, at the end of the day women are not having the balls and you know it. It is true.‘. I don’t actually say it quite like that, but close enough. You wanted the vote, you got the vote. You wanted the ‘glass ceiling’ to go, and… It’s higher. Probably not gone yet, but getting there. And you still want guys to fulfill the traditional roles! Come on! This isn’t about equality, it’s about having your cake and eating it! So, ladies, now you have your legislation to level the playing field everywhere else, you’ll have to start doing some of the shitty stuff that men have to do too. You like him, you bloody well ask him out yourself.

Heh. I love a good venting like that. And women too, they’re cute when they try to grasp complex issues.

I meant to write a piece about something else too which relates to the gender equality issue, and this is that as a woman if you want to start a family and actually have kids yourself then you’re going to have to start before you are thirty five. That’s it. You can’t come back later on and change your mind about it. I think that the culture of equality now means that women can easily forget about this (since independence from a relationship is now socially acceptable for women) and only really start considering it as a possible problem when they’re too old to actually start a family themselves; I suppose a potential solution is to have the babies with some man, regardless of whether or not they’re in a relationship together. So, girls, if you need to pop one out soon let me know because I’ve got great genetic material, very gifted with… stuff, I’ll get back to you about that, and I’m very sexually frustrated so we’ll all be a winner here.

New layout sign in the Phoenix park, early one morning quite recently. Click image to view larger versionThere’s a rule for that.
Something else I’ve realised recently is that along with that sort of change in culture and society in Ireland is the rise of regulation; Ireland is now seemingly more heavily regulated than anywhere else I can think of. Here in Ireland people tend to subscribe to the idea that it’s a bit of an easy-going free-for-all, by which I mean that you have a lot of freedom to do as you please provided you’re not harming anyone else. This is clearly a myth. I complain about the Irish, collectively, but they are individually smart people with a good understanding of the mechanics of organisation, if not the actual collective implementation of it. The thing is (some might argue, and I’m still sort of on the fence about this point), for a society to move forward and to start being productive as a whole, then the people in the society need to start working together, and collectively understanding and applying rules; if that doesn’t come naturally to them, then the State needs to start making rules and enforcing them across the board. We have tended here to blame the European Union and it’s love of bureaucracy for the avalanche of rules but I see now that the Irish State is coming up with new and innovative directions to take with legislation, all sorts of stuff has rules applied to it here which you’re not likely to see in other Western European countries. During the last month I’ve been in England and Austria, and they don’t have as many rules for stuff as we do here, or perhaps they’re not as worried about breaking them as we are here. If I had more time I’d do some research, but I think it boils down to the fact that in many Germanic countries you can lay down some guidelines for society and people will follow them, by and large (in other words, they do what they’re told because it’s in the interest of the Greater Good). Ireland is not a Germanic country but would like some of that discipline in order to build up the economy, so they’ve applied a rule-making blitz and some sort of infrastructure for punishing those who break the rules. This doesn’t make people here law-abiding, but it gives them ‘training wheels’ until they follow rules and work together for the greater good out of force of habit.

As a contradiction to that, you’ll find that in Ireland there is actually effectively two countries, or indeed three of them. There is Dublin, there is beyond Dublin, and there is Donegal. Beyond Dublin is subject to the same rules as Dublin, but they don’t really adhere to, or enforce, rules like they do in Greater Dublin, and probably wait to see if people in Cork are paying any attention before they do. There is also the county of Donegal, which is not unlike Somalia, in that it is very far away and has no effective government of any sort. Things are looking up however, because next year U.N. peacekeepers are moving in to restore order and soverise them. Really, it’s pretty simple.

I’m not into hitting Ch1xx0rz, but if they’re bad ones then…
Right, one last return to ramblings about women. I had a peculiar dream last weekend which as far as I can tell was inspired by looking at some sites which had stuff about comics. More specifically, comics with superheroes, of varying degrees of quality, or just very bizarre. The upshot was that I was a superhero, one of a group, and we were battling to save humanity or something along those lines, and we had to fight some bad guys which we were afraid of because they were going to give us a pasting. Yeah, we were in trouble and pretty desperate. In fact, I was fighting girls, who looked suspiciously like girls I know personally! But humanity had to be saved and we had to escape or climb into a hole or something like that, so I had punch, slap and throw those girls around like paperweights to save out lives. They didn’t seem overly bothered or fight back too much, and there was someone else I know there, a guy, who was a little taken aback by the beating of the girls, but he wasn’t really getting with the program of beating the evil women and saving the world so I didn’t feel too bad about it. I woke up as things were getting messy, so I don’t know if we won of not, which is unfortunate.

I wonder what Freud would have made of that.

The ‘Media Wall Project’
I’ve been making good progress on my ‘media wall’, by the way. Taken a month or two ago. My bed, in my room, with my little ray of sunshine coming through my window. Click image to view larger versionIf you’re reading this then you may very well be up there already, or there’s a photo of you waiting to go up. I’ve nominated one area as family, another as close friends and family, people I met while travelling, and ’sexy chicks that bust my balls’. If anyone wants to nominated in that last category then please comment below.
My media wall, the side over the end of the bed Click image to view larger versionMy media wall, the side over the side of the bed Click image to view larger version
So, there are the nuggets for today. I’ve been working on a Wordpress site for Keith, friend and former colleague, so that he’ll have a travelog and also been trying to find time to get up posts dealing with my trip to Devon, my trip to Vienna, Kenny’s thirtieth birthday, my trip to Kilkenny, my trip to Wexford, and a number of little events and what have you thrown in too. It’s all a lot of work, and I still don’t know a) where is my time going to and b) why am I doing this anyway? It is a conundrum, indeed.

(Edited on 4th May 2006 to point something out; that guy that was helping me fight the evil ch1xx0rz, was as far as I know none other than Ken Rooney! I’m not totally sure, but I think so. Gotta hesitate a bit less with hitting those chicks, Roonster!)