Religion


UnScrooge

And a very Merry Christmas to one and all, even if it ain’t white.

Doom, gloom and ‘oh my God we’re going to war’ temporarily suspended. Instead-

The BBC’s silly news of the year, a scary vision of Christmas in 2050 and a heartwarming Chrimbo tale.

Sprouts! (My parents grow their own, so the alleged sprout drought wasn’t going to save me from having some for Christmas Dinner.)

A Quiz (Beat 42 out of 50)

Another quiz

And another


1988pw (pre web)

Ian God bless you are finally safe and home in the Lakes! I will see you on the other side.

So once more I will spout useless artifacts from the web. I have found the Lord and he is resting on emulation sites. Before all this hab-dashery of the web junk there was true dial-up!!!! No, I pledge, it was devoted to useless children of an ungodly age, read fifteen, a place online where all the hearts where content!

Anyone remember Telnet and it’s god-awful approach to BBS’ing and long distance phone calls. I need more RBBS-PC in my life without the price of phone calls. Beejeebus, get me some 1200bps modems and a x286 box running a 40meg drive and I will be happy. Things are much too complicated in the internet land.

On a serious note, before Blogger, geeks had the right to customise their gear and try to get the most hits via the old fashioned telephone.

Can anyone name me one of the best online games from the 1989 days? I thought not……..Just a quick challenge – Send me five and I will send you an Edinburgh Scotland Fringe Festival T-Shirt. No cheating over the old google, as a few of us old dogs remember our day.


Thank god for Stupidity

Although I realise that this is a serious web blog for the majority of persons trawling the web for pron or illegal MP3 downloads, I must say I am soooooo happy that the Senate Majority Leader. M Trent Lott, is gone. What a blessing! Even though my Norwegian roots forbid me from trumpeting doo-dah down the streets, man, it is so nice to see him go!!!!!!!!

Rest of the World = 1

USA = 9 squidgillion in tax cuts and counting

Fantastic!

In other news. Man figures out how to bore himself to death with web postings…..


Jack Frost

Edinburgh is coated with a deep white frost this morning and it feels marvelous! All the way to the office humming christmas carols and thinking about baking some cookies tonight. The office is nearly empty as all have bade farewell until January and the jovial spirit if those remaining makes it fun to be at work.

“My God, John O, you must have gone mad, far to happy for this time of year”, you say? No not really. After four years of living down south and the Northwest, this is the first time I feel as though its Christmas. People are far more festive in Scotland and to some degree it is infectous. I even have a cold, afresh with runny nose and sinus that makes my head feel like exploding. What else says cold weather and warm hot toddies, possibly some mulled wine sitting in front of an open fire?

It will all be over to quickly, and those New Year resolutions will be meaningless by Monday, 6th January, 2003, but for most people this holiday isn’t even about religion anymore. It is an opportunity to stop with busy lives and enjoy some downtime. Getting out of bed late for the next two weeks and not having to rush about will be the best thing ever. I have decided that me and Christmas Holidays are super-dooper-bestest friends. Oh and I forgot to mention, unlike you uncivlised people elsewhere, 2nd January is also a holiday! Take that London!


Go to work and don't work – Get promoted!

Ok. This is the strangest thing! I finally believe in management wisdom. I have been sitting in my office for the past month hardly working and living vicariously through non stop internet surfing, and lo and behold, I get a backdated raise and a new remit! Fantastic! Excerpt fromboss’s email this morning:

“In the meantime I have agreed with Steve to increase your rate and have contacted xxx. Hopefully I will have some feedback tomorrow and can let you know the score.

Please dont be demoralised. We wouldn’t have got where we are without your help and its not gone unnoticed by me. I think the project will gain momentum in the new year under xxx remit.”

God I love corporate some days. This undoubtly will provide Ian with enough ammo to revert to the Dilbert principle and his excellent book regarding corporate affairs.


Bookshelf

Just started- King Solomon’s Mines, H. Rider Haggard

Just finished- Brightness Reef, David Brin This is a well written piece of sci fi, with interesting aliens and a strange but logically ordered culture and neat shifts in emphasis to show which story thread you’re in. But I have some pretty major problems with it. For one thing, it’s part one of a trilogy. I’m not one of life’s trilogy readers , and by half way through the book, it wasobvious that everyone was settling in for the long run.

The other big problem is the whole premise of ‘Uplift’, the phenomenon that links all the races in the book. Uplift is the process whereby super intelligent, glory motivated aliens take a race on the verge of sentience and nudge it along until it can form societies and reach for the stars. They have to do this, you see, because evolution alone cannot possibly result in such intelligence. This looks to me like nothing more than dressed up Intelligent Design, itself a dubious attempt to wrap Creationism up in pseudoscience so that it can be taught in schools.


“You know you’re in a bad state when Take That songs start to mean something”

Another Education

The Where Are They Now Files

John, who said he was off to Dublin to work and then disappeared for three weeks, phoned me on Friday to say that his brother was due to give birth and he would e-mail me with all the gory details. I can’t wait.

Mike, meanwhile, has returned from Africa “reasonably unscathed (apart from a from a couple of small head wounds and a scar on my shin)” and is studying in Bristol. Given that his e-mail address prominently included the word pimp, I would have deleted it immediately if not for the subject line- At Least There’s No Dooley.

Dooley, for the record, is the person who inspired this and this.

And the person I shouldn’t have found, or even gone looking for. After she figured, tangentially, in my Beerfest memories and was brought up conversation last Saturday, and I downloaded a pop song that means far more than it should, and because Daz suggested the power of the internet, I went searching for a particular ex-girlfriend. I eventually found her on FriendsReunited, happily married to the guy she dumped me for. Which is exactly what I expected to find, and the reason I knew I shouldn’t be looking. It’s pathetic that, eight years after the fact, reading about her can still get the self pity going.

God I’m an idiot. Must get therapy………


Today’s Seeds

They weren�t being closely guarded. After Leein had recounted the events in the rail yard it had been deemed too dangerous to hold them against their will. Instead, they were guests and potential allies. They accepted the situation, they were strangers in the city and did not yet know enough to comfortably make their way.

The larger man, Aurile, had picked up the language rapidly and now spoke it with the precision of a highly schooled lord. The other two weren�t learning so fast, but had their own idiosyncracies. The small man, Fynn, studied everything, seeing the smallest detail. The woman, Shara, was poised and dangerous even when, as now, she lounged in the bay window watching the city go by.

�We are explorers.� Aurile explained.

�From the South?� Gerryl had taken upon himself the task of questioning the strangers.

�No, not from the South.� Aurile smiled.

�We have heard of travellers from the Silver Tower.� Shara understood some of the sentence. She turned and gave the conversation her full attention. In all his years, Gerryl had rarely felt as nervous as when he had Shara�s attention.

�I believe it is possible we are seeking the Silver Tower. We know exactly what we are trying to find, but cannot be sure how your culture refers to it.�

�You make it sound as if we are primitives.�

�Hardly. You are no more a primitive than we are the gods a primitive would worship us as. We are somewhat nervous, however, that you may have trouble comprehending our story.�

Fynn, who had been listening intently, stood and walked to the door. He said something to Aurile. �There appears to be a commotion in the building. You are about to have a visitor.� There was the sound of feet almost running down the corridor then the door opened just as Fynn stepped aside.

�Aylo! What are you�.� Gerryl cut himself off. Aylo was a good troop and would not come to the headquarters without fair reason. The younger man slapped a piece of paper on the table and stood back. Only then did he take in the room�s other occupants. For a moment he thought Shara�s stare was something other than dangerous.

�I do not understand the language that well, but�. This is an order to liquidate a whole neighbourhood.�

�Yes, and I believe they are serious. Boran will give his life when the discover he leaked it.�

Aurile had taken the sheet and was reading it. He turned to confer with his companions.

�It seems your assessment of him was correct.� Gerryl conceded, for what little comfort that afforded Aylo.

Aurile turned back from his conference. �We would like to help you.�

�You would?�

�Yes. It is not entirely altruistic. Perhaps, if we all see this through, you can help us.�




As I’ve just spent the last three days buried in Fatal Terrain and with the film version of The Sum Of All Fears coming out here this week, I was reminded of a little something I wrote a while ago. I’ve added a couple of extra comments, in bold, and links to some of the books on amazon (because no matter how much I mock them, they are addictive).-

The World According To Clancy

I first became addicted to techno-thrillers when I was unemployed. Needing something to keep me in the house without resorting to daytime TV I scoured charity shops and second hand bookshops for anything to read. The only things which were less than a decade old were the free romance booklets given away with copies of More and the works of Clancy, Brown and their imitators.

I didn’t expect to like the politics and wasn’t surprised by the flat characterisation. But I was hooked and have now waded through a dozen or so of these bricks. It has become obvious to me that the genre adheres to a few simple formulae, as follows-

1. The military is always right.

Politicians have rarely been able to make sensible military decisions- influenced as they are by paranoia about backstabbing or spin- and there seems no reason why soldiers should be any better at making decisions about the economy. However, in the techno-thriller, the only people whose decisions are for the good of the country come from one of the armed services.

1a. Some parts of the military are more right than others

Depending upon the favoured service of the author, their branch of the services gets more of the action. Stephen Coonts’ guys are usually naval fliers, Dale Brown favours the boys and girls of the bomber wings and Area 51’s toys. Clancy himself, who didn’t serve, is most balanced, even bringing in the Feebs and Spooks. Write about what you know, and all that, but sometimes there’s a bit of childish name calling.

2. America, America Uber Alles.

Even the rare Brit writing techno-thrillers centres upon the US of A. Other countries are only good for occasional specialists, who are still in awe of the Yanks’ military system.

3. Muslims are a bad lot.

With the Soviets no longer a plausible threat, most plots now revolve around the towelheads running rampant. (Though Clancy did take a little time out to show those uppity Nipponese who was still boss. [Debt of Honour]) Occasionally someone will comment that most Muslims are honourable people before proceeding to send hordes of them to meet Allah, but usually the only followers of Islam encountered are about to be used as target practice by the Marines. [Executive Orders, Shadows of Steel]

3a. China’s a bit dodgy too.

Pre September 11th, ragging on the ragheads had worn thin with everyone, and they turned their attentions to Mao’s boys [Hong Kong, Fatal Terrain, Sky Masters, The Bear and The Dragon] (though Clancy took time out again to slap ecologist about and defend GM and Ford’s right to build cars that need their own oilwells [Rainbow Six]). I guess that’ll be over with now.

4. Women must always be protected.

And wait at home and worry. And be prepared to give up their career to go where their husband’s job takes them.

Vaguely related-

4a. Jack Ryan is the most fertile man in the world.

In all of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels that I have read, the character has only had sex with his wife twice. And she got pregnant each time. This reminds me more of The Meaning of Life than a mature relationship.

5. ‘It was the sort of thing that only happened in bad movies/ novels/ TV programmes.’

An observation made by characters each time some horrendously contrived plot twist, suitable only for a bad movie, novel or TV programme, happens. As characters turn into franchises the twists are getting ever more convoluted.

And, finally, the award for being most out of touch with reality. In Task Force 61, the task force has landed, ready to kill a few Arabs. The commander is strolling along the beach. He marvels at how all his troops, black, white, hispanic, have rallied together to listen to the hard, raw, gritty music of the streets. The song- ‘You can’t touch this’ by MC Hammer.

Break out the baggy trousers men, we’re going to war!

I still have a hankering to do a satirical/ spoof techno thriller, but have a feeling too many people would take it seriously………….

Platters that matter- Good Morning Vietnam (5 disc compilation, not the movie soundtrack.)


I’ve been bringing the compiled copy of Eliza Effect up to date and by popular demand (well, Jenny asked, and she’s been visiting longer than anyone else) I’ll be posting some more snippets soon. In the mean time, more Seeds

Nil Garran was paying tithe to the hidden army. It was his way of resisting, and it was easier and safer than taking up a weapon. It was resistance by omission He went about his business as usual, letting the occupying armies take his products at their starvation level prices and demand the occasional tribute.
They didn�t know just how fertile the land was, so could not tell that the fields never yielded all the soil fruit they should. Some of the trees in the wild orchard were half bare before harvest began. The land fowl were free to roam, so he could not know how many nested where he did not look, and the water fowl were not his to worry about.
Somewhere in the forests the soldiers had their hidden communities. They guarded the tracks, guns, bomb lobbers and stonks that the Southerners could not account for despite the supposed rout of the Northern armies. They all waited, biding their time, ready to rise up when the time was right. Just like the god king sleeping in his silver tower in the far North. But Gorran didn�t believe in the god king. The god king didn�t steal his tubers.

Today’s muzack- The Buzzcocks- Sigles Going Steady, Death In Vegas- The Contino Sessions. I have an excuse, I went out to see Nine Queens. It’s every bit as good as the reviews promised. Exactly who is conning who isn’t revealed until the last minute or so. It’s not as if you won’t have guessed who the biggest con is, because you’ll have been suspicious of everyone at some point in the film. The only drawback, and I’m not making an excuse for the inevitable Hollywood re-make, was that reading the captions drew my attention away from watching the action and acting.


Friendly_Bombs:
�I can see what he meant.�
�Sorry?�
Mike pointed down the street, filled with Saturday shoppers. �The guy who wrote that poem. �Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough.� Who was he?�
�Don�t know.� Owen was trying to concentrate on driving. He still got trapped in pointless circuits of the town centre when trying to escape from Slough.
�I�ll text my sister. She knows this sort of thing.� Paul had a new phone, though he had been complaining that the flip action wasn�t what he really wanted. If his head stayed down too long, he was going to get car sick from the round about route out of town.
�God, I was expecting it to be y�know�. I don�t know. Better. Down here.� Mike wasn�t impressed. They were on a road which promised to take them somewhere nicer. On the left were out of town shopping boxes, to the right identikit corporate buildings. They went past The Company�s headquarters.
�You�re not going to come over all Northern on me are you.� Owen averted his gaze from the office.
�What, and you haven�t been trading on it for the last six months. It has to have some redeeming features, doesn�t it?�
�There�s a BMX track. And I get to ride in through Windsor every day.�
�That may redeem it for you. What about me? Comic shop?�
�I think there�s one in Richmond.�
�It�s a start, I guess.�
�There. Sent it.�
�What was the answer?�
�Give her a chance, she won�t even have received it yet.�

They�d wound up in Staines, on the look out for Ali G, and gravitated to The Swan. Mike had found his redeeming feature. He loved rivers, and the Thames was better than most because it was alive with boats and the eponymous birds. He watched a cruiser going up stream. Maybe, one day, he could do that.
The beer wasn�t so bad, either. More expensive than in Manchester, but not as bad as he had expected. Owen, as designated driver, nursed his half pint of Speckled Hen. �The car has to go back on Tuesday.�
�What you got it for?�
�I�ve got to go down to Southampton and have a look at one of the offices. Dull as fuck, but someone�s got to.� He turned to Paul, �So tell us about this mystery woman.�
�There�s no mystery. I�m just not telling you anything.�
�Nothing.�
�She�s someone I know.�
�I should fuckin� well hope so.�
�What�s her name?�
Paul�s pocket beeped. He pulled out his phone and flipped it open as nonchalantly as possible, read the TXT and nodded. �John Betjeman.�
�Your girlfriend?�
�The guy who wrote the poem you were on about.�


Picture of the day.

Slightly drunk (and on a school night too!)

I�m_Sorry_Dave:

Paul�s new CD writer had arrived. Sarah had hardly put down the phone after telling him, and he was already at her desk. �Where is it? Where is it?�

�Jesus. Are you like this at Christmas.�

�I only get socks at Christmas. It�s no fun any more.�

�Here. It�s there.�

Paul examined the beige box he had coveted for so long. He frowned.

�What?�

�I don�t have a normal CD drive. What am I going to put the installation disks in?�

�The software�s on the network. In the PC Build drive. Here.� Sarah started down a tree of folders and directories at a speed which would lose most others.

Something beeped. Paul checked his phone. No. �You�ve got mail.�

�HAL�ll deal with it.�

�HAL?�

Sarah glanced over at her PC. �Honest Answers Language. I couldn�t think of a better way to get the name.�

�Huh?�

�I built a program which takes e-mails and answers them. It checks the sender�s name against a database of outstanding work and tells them what�s going on with their request.�

�You can do that? I haven�t even got beyond auto-reply.�

�I�m sure some people don�t even know they�re not getting it from me. I check the mails, but mostly HAL�s answered the question for them. Saves so much work.�

�Can I steal it?� Paul was hugging the CD writer to his chest like a long-lost teddy bear.

�Maybe. If you�re nice to me.�


Not a lot to say tonight. I mean to get off line and do some work on Bulletproof Poets. Here’s today’s pic an a bit more of The Eliza Effect. Be warned, the links go exactly where they say.

Cache:
Paul had sat down and swiped his mouse across its mat three times before he realised the problem. “Some bugger’s stolen me computer.”
“Who would want to steal your PC? Wandering bands of Pentium thieving Gypsys? Tech Support of course.”
“What the fuck would Tech Support want with a computer?”
“But it does give you a chance to go see Sarah.”
“I’m out of here.”
“Hey!”
“What?”
“What did you mean, ‘Maybe she wasn’t a lesbian before the Christmas party.�'”

Sarah had been segregated from the rest of Tech Support, because she worked for Sales and they were different. It had worked out quite well, because the partition gave her more room. There were four desktop cases and two monitors on one table and a naked case on the other. Sarah was hooking yet another case up to a monitor. “Oh, hi.”
“Hello. Did you, er�.. Do you have my PC?”
“That one there�” She indicated the topless box. “You requested a memory upgrade and CD drive.”
“That was three months ago.”
“There was a pile of work orders on the desk. I guess no-one had bothered to deal with them.” Sarah indicated her out pile, weighted with a coffee cup.
“Oh, I’m not complaining, I’m more sort of surprised. It took me five months to get a bin I could call my own.”
“Oh, well. George told to do them all ASAP. There’s another for a printer upgrade. It’s something to do with a project your working on.”
“A project we’ve almost finished. Oh well.” He spotted the PC she had been plugging in. “That’s not a company build.”
“George has got me working on his home PC.”
“He had one of that lot,” Paul thumbed in the direction of the rest of Tech Support, “doing that as well. Installed a hard drive.”
“They didn’t do too good a job. Formatted it wrong, and now I have to run off a backup to CD so I can reformat. Except�..”
“Except?” Paul leaned in close so he could look at the screen over Sarah’s shoulder.
She had opened Windows Explorer, and selected the properties of the hard drive. The piechart was all pink. Sarah tapped it. “George has only gone and filled the bloody thing right up hasn’t he. I need to find something to delete so I can make room for the drivers.”
“Try the temporary Internet files. That folder can get quite big.”
“Good idea. There. Hey, it lists all the places he’s been. Let’s see. Amazon. Amazon, Amazon, Amazon, Amazon.”
“What dull surfing.”
“Amazon, Amazon, Amazon�” Ann Summers?”
“I didn’t even know he was married.”
“Let’s see where else he’s been.”

Nastyschoolgirl dot com?” Mike asked. “Nasty. Schoolgirl. Dot. Com?”
“Indeed. But that was just one visit. He’d been to must have been every single page of the Ann Summers site. I’ll never be able to look at him again with out seeing the words ‘Realistic jelly feel’. And to top it all off, then we got to the photo personals.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t see�.?”
“Don’t know. They blank out the faces.”
“That does it. I’m wiping my Internet cache. Where is the King of the swingers anyway?”
“‘Taking a meeting’ with someone from head office.”
“Oh God, that means he’s claiming the system was all his idea.”