tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18401408948838229362024-03-13T12:02:57.733+00:00Maneuvering SoupInfo about the comic Exotic Soup as well as musings and ramblings on a variety of topics.Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-49610392583067764532008-06-23T09:10:00.005+00:002008-06-23T09:28:50.285+00:00<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So yeah, obviously last time I didn't end up getting a strip done. Life has been pretty hectic for me this last year one way or another, but it's now been 10 months since the last strip, give or take. I won't bore you with what's been going on, but I'm now in a great relationship and looking to get a place together with my girl (and her cat(s)).<br />However, I have been thinking about the strip and also ways to make it go a bit faster, so last night I decided to have a pop at drawing the characters again, only this time, drawing directly into the computer. This saves loads of time. Previously I'd rule out the page, ink the panels, do the rough sketch, tighten up the pencils, ink it, (the inking alone used to take an hour or more,) scan it in in two parts, (I draw on A3 but have an A4 scanner,) match it together in a new file, then write the dialogue onto the page, create the word balloons, and then finally clean up any mistakes, resize and save for web and post it.<br />That used to take me 4-6 hours.<br />So last night I created a new file from an old strip I had. First thing is I never have to rule out my panels any more - the most I'll have to do is alter the number, which will take me seconds instead of 20 minutes spent measuring, marking, ruling and inking.<br />Then I created a new layer in Photoshop, changed the opacity to 50% and sketched out the characters in grey. Once I'd got it into my head that I could be pretty loose and rough, I let go and didn't worry too much. After that I inked it. That went pretty well - I don't have the smoothest line, in part due to having a very small Wacom tablet, but it went ok.<br />One thing about using PS & a drawing tablet is the ability to change line width via pressure. Of course you can get that with a brush on paper, but brush inking takes forever, which is why I went with technical pens. The variable line width gives the art a slightly different look and I like it. I still need to get used to it and there's a lot of learning to do, but I think my art looks a little free-er than it did before and kind of more natural.<br />So, the silly comeback strip will be up tonight, and then I'll try to carry on weekly if I can.<br />The comic will still be hosted over at webcomicsnation.com, because exoticsoup.co.uk is down for the time being until I can afford to renew my hosting, but it will be back and better than ever because I've been learning some ASP coding at work, which might afford me some interesting opportunities with the site.</span></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-38966496298286985182008-02-12T21:53:00.000+00:002008-02-12T22:05:04.743+00:00Hello? Is this thing on?<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Well it was two months since my last strip in October. It's now February. That makes it six months. Yikes. Not exactly what you'd call regular huh? Well I've been doing even more socialising and hanging out with lots of new friends and I was talking to one of them tonight and mentioned that I used to do a webcomic. She read it and wanted to know what happened next, so I read through them again and I got all fired up about how much I loved doing the strip. They take so damn long to do, especially considering they're not even in colour but I had such a great time and I had loads of strips written.<br />So basically, consider this time apart as a hiatus, which to be honest, is what I did. I always wanted to continue the strip, so I'm going to start looking into it. I have a long weekend this weekend, although Friday I'm going off on an adventure with a friend and Saturday I'm meeting up with a load of friends in London. That leaves Sunday and Monday to get a new strip done and online. I think I'll start looking into doing prep sketches tomorrow. No promises, but I'll hopefully have something new to show Monday night.<br />Cheers Y'all<br /></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-11980078903310170342007-10-04T12:00:00.000+00:002007-10-04T12:09:58.205+00:00It's been HOW long?<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I know. It's been a while since I updated the comic. Well let's not beat around the bush, it's been over two months.<br />So, reasons. Reasons...<br />Well let's see, I had a bit of turmoil in my life, I went on holiday with an ex, I was lazy and lastly, I developed something that if you stand across the street and squint, could be mistaken for a social life. Seriously.<br />I made some new friends and have been hanging out a lot. We've been to an organic food festival, a kite festival, a carnival, a skateboarding fun day, each other's houses for meals and dvd's and out on the razz. It's all very exciting. I also joined a gym, so even on nights where friends are off doing other things, I have something to do on my own which is cool.<br />It does mean however, that instead of staying in my room alone and drawing, I'm doing the exact opposite, which is great for me but not so great for the comic.<br />So, by the end of next week I aim to have a new strip up. That doesn't sound like much, but if I can get back into doing one a week I'll be happy. They do take a fair bit of time to do, but I figure I can break them down into drawing, inking, scanning & corrections and finally lettering and balloons. I don't have to do them all at once, so I can do one section per night(ish) and get one done in a week.<br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-83331251826319450122007-08-21T15:26:00.000+00:002007-08-21T15:53:31.183+00:00When no one's watching<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I was sat at my desk at work today and I got irritated by tiny bits of grit on my mousemat. I'm not sure why my mousemat has the propensity for collecting these minute pieces of detritus, or indeed where they come from, but I dislike the feeling of them under my fingers as I run my mouse around the mat. I got so annoyed in fact, that I picked up the mat and proceeded to beat it against the corner of my desk in an attempt to get rid of them.<br /><br />Suddenly it occurred to me that if anyone had been passing by my window at that point I would have looked completely mad, like Basil Fawlty when he beat his car with a branch. Why would you beat up a mousemat? Looney.<br /><br />This got me thinking about other things I do when no one is watching, (no, not THAT!) and I realised I have a tendency to do all sorts of strange little things. I'm sure most people do, in fact I'm certain of it as I had a discussion with my housemates about this sort of thing a while back. I forget what their little idiosyncrasies were, but it was comforting to know that they had them.<br /><br />Some of mine are perfectly normal, like dancing in the kitchen while doing the washing up (I have my Ipod playing, so that's pretty normal,) but I do other stuff too, like practice martial arts moves, (again not too wierd, especially since I actually do martial arts,) but also just random things that amuse me or make me laugh... I can't think of any examples at the moment, but when I do I'll come back and edit them in. Oh - like making up silly songs on the spot, usually containing a large splash of profanity, (and sometimes only using swear words,) which makes me chuckle to myself. Other times I practice skateboard moves, without the board. (Again I do skateboard, so not entirely nuts.)<br /><br />One thing I like to do, (when circumstances permit,) is while driving alone, at night and when it's snowing. I imagine that the snow flakes coming toward the windscreen are really stars and that I'm in some sort of space fighter ship, travelling along at incredible speeds so the stars streak past.<br /><br />My point is, if everyone does this sort of stuff, why can't we do it in front of each other? With some close friends you can display some of this behaviour - a friend of mine is amazing at making up silly songs on the spot, about whatever is in front of him at the time, be it a drink, his cats or whatever but they are always funny and sometimes his wife joins in and they end up doing a duet - never fails to make me laugh.<br /><br />It seems to me that our fear of others' perceptions of us is a much bigger motivating factor in our behaviour than I had previously realised. On the whole I don't think of myself as a person who worries a lot about what other people think, but I keep these things to myself, so perhaps societal pressure exerts on me in more subtle ways than I realised. Like for example if I see a person walking down the street alone smiling to themselves, it makes me smile, but if that person is walking alone and talking out loud and there is no mobile or bluetooth headset present, then I tend to think they're a little strange but I have on many occasions verbalised my thoughts while alone. (My housemate does it a lot, to the point where I have stopped asking if she's talking to me and just wait to see if the conversation requires my input.)<br /><br />I think that if we could get past the embarrasment of the situation, it would help foster bonds between people. Imagine seeing someone doing something wierd or silly that you do in private and rather than ridiculing them for it, (we've all caught someone doing something and given them the, 'oookaaay' raised-eyebrow look, and also been on the other end of it,) instead we said, 'Oh I do that too!' or admit to doing something similar. Imagine the feeling of relief that person would feel and the instant bond it would create between you. It could be that the thing that ends up uniting humanity is our admission that we're all at least a bit wierd...<br /><br />So, what do you do when no one else is watching?<br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-72572656442850707572007-08-01T16:10:00.000+00:002007-08-02T10:56:11.448+00:00Majik and coincidence<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have a book on magic, or magik or majik, however you want to spell it. Most of the book is over my head to be honest, but it makes for interesting reading, if only to see how some people think about the subject.<br /><br />The first article in the book is written by Grant Morrison, who is a pretty famous writer if you're into comics. It's about how to be a 'pop' magician and talks about how to easily integrate majik into your everyday existence. It talks about things like sigils (majikal symbols,) and channelling spirits, but in a very different way to the 'usual' way of talking about these things - for example Grant mentions that if he wants to feel more confident in a situation, he prepares by channelling the spirit of James Bond. It's like majik lite and his main premise is 'use what works', which makes a lot of sense to me. He also talks about doing things like walking in a receptive state - being open to signs and messages from the universe.<br /><br />To me, majik is similar to a lot of things in life. I don't really believe that when spiritualists channel spirits, they are actually talking to the dead or that people can perform spells as such. I'd love to be wrong, but I see no evidence to support it.<br /><br />My belief is that majik, along with many other disciplines, like cold reading, fortune telling, apparently psychic abilities etc, work in a different way. I think what happens is that you make a direct connection with your subconscious. The subconscious is a wierd and wonderful place that we really don't understand. Your subconscious, so I am told, never develops past the age of 6. Kids of 6 are full of majik and wonder. I've read some bits about left and right brain theory too - the left controls language, mathematics and reason, the right controls creativity and abstract thought. The right brain works in patterns only and has no sense of time, so when you suddenly think of the answer to a problem three days later while sat in the bath, it's because your right brain has been working on pattern matching in the background while the rest of your brain has been busy with language and how much change you should get from a 20 after buying a round of drinks. (Left and right are terms and do not necessarily map to those sides of the brain in reality.) I think the left side of the brain corresponds to conscious thought and the right subconscious thought.<br /><br />So, we have a part of our brain, (perhaps 'mind' is a better term,) that has no sense of time, (hence why when many artists are working on a project, they kind of zone out, or go into a trance like state and could not tell you how long they've been working until they look at the time,) and is permenantly 6.<br /><br />Thing is, because the subconscious works on a pattern matching methodology, it's a very powerful problem solving tool - only the lack of a temporal sense counterbalances this. People under hypnosis have been able to remember events in astounding detail, say for example, the registration of a car that hit them thet they themselves didn't even think they'd seen.<br /><br />It seems to me that our perception filters are mainly, or possibly exclusively for use with our conscious mind, enabling us to live without getting bogged down in trivial detail, but the subconscious, unfettered by these filters, picks up on many more details and then assembles them into patterns based on previous matches.<br /><br />Hypnosis is a way of tapping into the subconscious via the conscious mind and I think things like affirmations, positive reinforcement, majik and the like offer a similar interface.<br /><br />Because we view our world through the conscious mind, which is in turn partly fed by the subconscious, we see patterns everywhere: for example, the two punctuation marks :) become a smily face. It's a colon and a bracket, but we transform that into the pattern of a rudimentary human face. If this is true, there can be no such thing as coincidence, only the value we attach to patterns we ourselves create. This is not to say these patterns are without value, but that they have no objective or intrinsic value in and of themselves, but only subjective value placed on them by the observer.<br /><br />So anyway, I was in my kitchen yesterday and I was thinking about my recent break up and the situation surrounding it and wondering what to do next. I was in a fairly receptive state obviously, due to being deep in thought. I found a sock of mine on the floor that had fallen there when I had taken my washing out of the machine. It was kind of balled up, so I shook it to even it out.<br /><br />At the time I was wearing a bracelet of beads that I had bought whilst on holiday in Greece with the girlfriend I had before the last one and it had come to symbolise certain things about that relationship. As I shook the sock, my bracelet flew off my arm and I watched as, seemingly in slow motion, it hit the floor, the elastic snapped and the beads sailed into the air in random directions before bouncing to a halt.<br /><br />This completely stopped my train of thought as I wasn't expecting it and I found myself just staring at all the beads for a second, thinking about how it had come to symbolise a previous break up and it broke while I was thinking about my current break up.<br />As I stood there I realised that I didn't know what to do. Should I carry on putting my sock up to dry or should I sort out my bracelet first?<br /><br />Suddenly I heard the answer in my head, (in my own voice I might add,) as clear as crystal. In fact the thought was so isolated from anything else, it was like hearing a church bell in the dead of night when everything else was quiet. My brain is usually a fairly noisy place, so the significance was not lost on me when it said,<br /><br />"I should pick up the pieces."<br /><br />and there was my answer. My subconscious was telling me what I should do, both about the bracelet and the current situation. Coincidence? Wierd? Not really. I think we all have our answers most of the time, locked away in our subconscious until such time as it's ready to let your conscious mind know and being in a receptive state, whether through majik, or excercise, or prayer or positive thought can help facilitate getting these answers.<br /><br />Just a thought.<br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-7158315153080330312007-07-30T13:51:00.000+00:002007-07-30T14:07:13.742+00:00And we're back...<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Ok, so it took me two weeks, (and one day,) but the latest issue is finally up. It's a double parter too and we finally get to find out what type of animal Alex is.<br />It would have gone up last night, but for the fact that it was the birthday of an old housemate of mine. I sent him a text to wish him happy birthday as he now lives up north, only to find out he was actually back for the weekend, so drinks were in order. After an evening of drinking, I got home after 1am, slightly worse for wear and decided it was probably best if I didn't work on the comic in that state.<br />My last post was one of my philosophical ones, albeit with a slightly negative slant, which was brought on by a bad case of the blues, which itself was brought on by my current situation.<br />Anyway, I'm feeling slightly better and doing the comic had a lot to do with that as I find it really satisfying to complete a strip and see it go up online.<br />I'm definitely going to carry on with the comic, because there are so many benefits to it: a sense of pride that I get from completing a strip as well as from being proud of sticking with it, the peace I get while drawing it and many others. Really the only downside to drawing the strip is that during inking, my elbows seize up and I have to take regular breaks to unlock them, but it's a small price to pay.<br />Otherwise, I'm still busy at work and trying to reassemble some form of social life in the wake of my returning to singledom. I'm going back to my martial arts class this week, (missed that for a couple of weeks too,) I've started to lose weight again and generally things are looking like they have an upward vector, even if the gradient isn't too taxing just yet.<br />Umm... I guess that's it for now. Enjoy the double issue (unless you're Sam, in which case you won't be reading it, but you will be reading this. Hi Sam.).<br />Bye.<br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-73759978439469876822007-07-27T10:40:00.000+00:002007-07-27T11:33:12.908+00:00Existence - the real Heaven and Hell?<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm feeling a bit philosophical today, as I often am and I got reading some articles about the Matrix and some of the philosophy and metaphorical elements to it.<br />Now say what you like about the Matrix trilogy, but when the first film came out it was a sensation - no question. The effects, the choreography of the fight scenes, the plot... it all added up to a blockbuster. Thing is, if you are a half way intelligent person, it really made you think. If you were a halfway intelligent person with a curious personality or an interest in philosophy, it not only made you think, it made you puzzle over it for some time. What a way to bring philosophy to the masses!<br /><br />I believe that subjective experience is all we have and that all of the subjective experiences and the associated emotional and rational responses we had to those experiences form our personalities to the greater extent. The word for this is Weltanschaaung, a German word that basically means the 'world view', or the summation of your life's experiences. This is distinctly different, but at the same time, intertwined with memory. Your Weltanschaaung is obviously held in your memory, but it's not just 'memories' in the traditional sense. It is your memories of everything that has happened to you and your responses to those incidents. It is the starting point for any new experience - your brain first refers to your Weltanschaaung to see if you have encountered something like this before and if so, how you responded as a point of reference.<br /><br />It has been said that the only constant is change. People tend to think of themselves as unchanging - that I am me, no matter what happens to me. If I were to lose an arm, I would still be me. Obviously this has to do with the seperation of body and mind, but there is an argument to be made that the two are intrinsically linked - if the body dies, so does the mind and vice versa.<br />However, people do change, both physically and in their personalities. Tastes change in food, clothes, friends etc. Every ten years you effectively grow a new skeletal system, due to cell replacement. Every month your topmost layer of skin in completely replaced. You form new opinions based on new information. You may have a discussion with someone and come to ally yourself with a point of view they have, in which case do you assimilate a part of their personality? If this is the case, and we are creatures of flux, how can we define ourselves as constant, individual personalities?<br /><br />The power of the mind is awesome, in the literal sense of the word and can affect a person's day to day experience of the world. People with cognitive disfunctions will experience the world in a much different way from someone without those disfunctions.<br />There is a culture, (and I'm sorry but I cannot remember which,) that believes that Heaven and Hell are real, but exist only in the minds of everyone. They believe that you pass through Heaven and Hell several times per day and that these concepts of Heaven and Hell are not places, but states of being - joy and misery. Everyone has the power to decide to be happy or unhappy - to let things get to you or to let things go, but it's not always easy to do so.<br />Strangely, I've never really done much thinking on the concept of Heaven, but I have thought a lot about Hell - again in more abstract terms than thinking of it as an actual place to be transported to after death.<br />My thinking is along the same lines as above - that it is a state of being that can be influenced by outside events but ultimately exists only in the mind of the individual.<br />However, I did think about what I would do if I were given the task of creating a human Hell. For me, Hell would not be about fire and brimstone or sulpherous boiling lakes. It would not contain demons engaging in painful tortures.<br />My Hell would be about frustration. To me, frustration is a far more insidious feeling than pain. Pain can be ignored or treated and is always transient at best. Pain will break people, but frustration is what sends them mad.<br />My Hell would be a place whereby the average person would be set upon by desirable enticements, (which could be a range of things, from money and possesions, to small amounts of power, to love...) designed to foster longing, only to be thwarted by other societal issues. My Hell would be a place where there was a great disparity between those in power and those without, but that those in power would knowingly foster hope in those without, whilst being safe and comfortable in the knowledge that 99% of people would never achieve what they hope for. This would be achieved by allowing people certain, small rewards which are completely negligable, token gestures to those in power, but which to those without represent the possibility of becoming one of the elite and therefore fosters hope.<br />Hope is the key to my Hell because without it, people would give up. If there is truly no hope left in a situation then people have no choice but to give up, but if even the tiniest glimmer of hope exists, they will work and fight and die in order to achieve the unachievable.<br /><br />So, in short, my Hell would be somewhere where you work for things that are either ultimately trivial, or at best, transient whilst being constantly frustrated by your lack of any real power to change things, but being spurred on by the hope that one day you will be able to. Sound like anywhere you know?<br /><br />Taking all that into consideration, I can honestly say that the last month of my life has been Hell.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-16908287469591088052007-07-24T08:40:00.000+00:002007-07-24T09:38:23.400+00:00Where's the damn strip?<span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Sorry there hasn't been a new episode of Exotic Soup for a couple of weeks - I've been ridiculously busy at work. We've been moving premises and I've been responsible for setting up all the IT for the new site. We've bought all new servers so I've had to plan and set up an IT infrastructure from scratch, which is something I've never done before.<br /><br />The weekend just gone was my first day off in 3 weeks and I've been working long hours, so it's been difficult to find time. In fact the only reason I got a strip online a couple of weeks ago is because I already had it drawn and scanned so I just needed to upload it. I should've done a strip last weekend but I needed the time just to relax and catch up on some sleep!<br /><br />In addition to this, my girlfriend and I sadly called it a day last week. She has a new job in a different city and between the distance and both our busy schedules it became apparent that we would not be able to spend much time together - if any, for the next 6 months or so, so we decided to just be friends. As far as break ups go, it was all very amicable and we're still good friends so you could call it easy, but break ups are never easy so this last week has been hard.<br /><br /> I promise I'll have one up for this week and we will finally find out what type of animal Alex is! Stay tuned.<br /></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-23693260859060695462007-07-01T10:39:00.000+00:002007-07-01T10:59:32.665+00:00A little dinosaur!<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;">As always there are things I'm happy with about this week's strip and things I think I could have done better. For example, I've just remembered that I ruled one of the panel borders too long and didn't fix it in Photoshop. That's going to bug me now but I'm going to leave it as a reminder to tidy up my work for future.<br />Drawing a strip is a weird kind of process. I start out with the pencils and sometimes leave things a bit rough if I know what I want to do and sometimes tighten the pencils up so I have a definite line to follow while inking. Then you ink it and almost always it comes out a little different than you expected. Sometimes better, sometimes worse and sometimes just different.<br />Usually the dialogue will change right up to the point where I write it onto the finished panels. If I think something can be said more succinctly or if a line is the slightest bit ambiguous, I'll reword it.<br />It's a very organic process, much as I hate to use that amazingly pretentious term, but it fits.<br />Anyway, I have to thank my Mum for the 'little dinosaur' quote regarding Alex, which if you've read the strip over at <a href="http://www.webcomicsnation.com/">web comics nation</a> you'll see I have done.<br />I was going to do a double issue this week, to celebrate getting to double figures, but time was a factor and also because I already have next week's strip drawn, (actually it was the first strip I drew, but more on that next week,) and it looks like I'm going to be working thte next couple of weekends, (I'll be going to work today for a few hours shortly,) so I can just post the strip without having to worry about it this weekend.<br />I think that's about it for now, time is against me this week.<br />Enjoy this week's strip - Ka-spoot!<br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-5290329605918442312007-06-25T09:05:00.000+00:002007-07-30T14:07:58.112+00:00Exotic Soup - the blog...<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">(For some reason this post refuses to appear in bold, no matter how I edit it...)<br /><br />Ok, so it's been a while since I posted. Obviously I've been a bit busy - at work, at home and just generally. Mostly I've been working on my webcomic and the accompanying website, listed above.<br /><br />Previously this blog was just a place to vent my metaphysical spleen, but it was a bit aimless and that's no way to run a blog, dammit!<br /><br />So, what with the comic being a serious ongoing project of mine, I've decided to post an accompanying blog to the comic, so from now on I'll post once a week, as I do with the comic, although maybe not at the same time, but probably pretty close.<br />I did get part of the name for the strip from the blog - the 'soup' part sounded great with the word 'Exotic', which at one time was all I could think of for the name of the strip.<br />So this blog will be mostly about the comic, which is good because I'm keeping to my once a week updates schedule on the comic, (a fact that I am proud of,) so I think I can manage a once a week blog post too, and having the comic as a main topic will give me something to write about if I get stuck.<br /><br />I may still wander off into topics of personal interest and debate, kind of like Scott Adams, (of Dilbert fame,) does with his, of which I am a regular reader.<br />By the way, I remember that Scott had a thing set up whereby if anyone mentions his name and the word Dilbert on a blog, it sent a message to his blackberry telling him, so if you're reading this Scott - Hi! I'm a big fan of the blog and cartoons. Please check out my webcomic if you have a couple of minutes spare. There's only 9 strips so far, so it's still in it's infancy and won't take long to read. Thanks.<br /><br />For anyone else reading this - Hi! Check out the strip! Leave comments on the strip or blog or email me: mike at exotic soup dot co dot uk - I'd love to hear your feedback.<br /><br />Until next week: Ka-spoot! (If you've read the strips, you'll understand...)</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-50625972821991436642007-05-14T00:21:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:43:26.878+00:00Comics!!!<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">When I was a kid and adults asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, my answer varied from week to week and depending on who was asking. I guess that's like a lot, if not most kids - one week I wanted to be a policeman, the next an astronaut. At one stage I even wanted to be a footballer!<br /><br />As I got a bit older I found myself completely bemused by the whole job thing. I remember thinking that there were certain jobs I could see a clear path to - like doctor, lawyer, pharmacist etc. For these types of jobs, you kind of had to have decided by the time you were 10, (or your parents decided for you,) and you had your life mapped out for the next 10 or so years.<br /><br />That thought scared the hell out of me. I've always been a bit of a 'live in the now' type of person. Planning for the future does not come easy to me, so planning the next 10 years just seemed like lunacy. What if I decide I don't like it half way through? Is all that training and planning wasted? Of course this exact thing happens to many people; they have their career decided for them by their parents at an early age and then half way through they quit and their parents are disappointed and angry because their child has a mind and tastes of its own. Some even finish the training before deciding it's not for them, others still work at it for years before quitting to do something that makes them happy. The most unlucky ones wait for retirement.<br /><br />Anyway, there seemed to me to be an awful lot of jobs that I'd maybe heard of but didn't know much about, like quantity surveyor, radio DJ, event organiser etc, that I had no idea how you would get into a job like that and these jobs were probably in the majority when you looked at it.<br /><br />I now believe that a great proportion of people are in the jobs they are in by accident, or if not accident, then one thing led to another and one day they woke up and they were a wedding planner or someone that fixes LED's in aeroplane cockpits or something.<br /><br />So I was overwhelmed by the possibilities as a child, worried that in all these weird and wonderful sounding professions, there might be one that was perfect for me, but how would I know what it was or how to get into it?<br /><br />Of course people first ask what you are interested in. "Well, what do you like to do?" they say, "do you like Maths? Be an accountant! Do you like English? Be a teacher? Do you like problem solving? Be an IT technician or engineer!" and so on.<br /><br />It's funny, but although most young boys profess to want to be a fireman or policeman at some stage, no one ever asks, "Do you like dealing with violent offenders and being abused? Do you like incredibly hot plasma and extinguishing it?"<br /><br />So by the time it came to do my GCSE's, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had sat in front of the careers teacher a year or so before and told him I was interested in art. He smiled, quite genuinely and told me he liked art too, and had I ever thought about joining the army?<br /><br />Even at 10 I was resolutely unimpressed with him. I think that the army leaflets were close to hand, or perhaps every boy got an army leaflet that day, (maybe he was on commission,) or maybe he was just a realist and knew that the likelihood of a young boy from the North of England ever making a living from art were somewhat akin to the chances of a hedgehog crossing a 50 lane autobahn filled only with fast lanes containing turbo charged steam rollers.<br /><br />I once told my stepdad that I wanted to be a cartoonist and got a similar response. Don't get me wrong, I love my stepdad to bits, but he again is a realist and told me I should think about getting a proper job. I'm all for pragmatism, but I'm also for nuturing the hopes of the young, unless they want to get famous from one of those god-awful reality talent shows, in which case, you're on your own.<br /><br />The two don't have to be mutually exclusive though - many writers and creative people hold down day jobs to be able to afford to live and work on their passions in their spare time.<br /><br />I did this myself for quite some time when I wanted to be a 3d artist, working in the day, then experimenting with 3d art in the evenings.<br /><br />So a little while back I remembered my cartooning dreams. Along with my writing and 3d art dreams, they've been going for quite some time. I dug out some old ideas I'd written down for a comic series, and also went through some material I'd written for a sitcom and long story short, I started my comic. After reading 4 books of Liberty Meadows by Frank Cho, (if you are the slightest bit interested in the funnies, pick them up,) I decided on simple, 4 panel strips. I could tell a short gag, or else have a running story over several strips, but most of all I could handle drawing 4 panels. Not a whole graphic novel that sounds like a great idea but you get bored of after only roughing out the first page, but just 4 little panels.<br />I liked the snappy pacing - obviously I can have more than 4 panels or less or whatever, but 4 works well for most things and it forces you into the realms of brevity, which of course, is the soul of wit.<br />So, I get to write, (I think I've got about 20 or more strips written so far,) and draw, and try to be funny, which is something else I enjoy.<br /><br />The web has allowed me a home for my new opus, called Exotic Soup, (keeping the soup element of this blog,) on webcomicsnation.com, which is a great little site that has everything in place, including RSS feeds, email lists... blah blah. </span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm proud to say that despite my tendency to not follow ideas through to completion, I now have 3 episodes online! Hit the link to see them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Who knows, I may end up earning my living as a cartoonist yet.</span></span><br /></span></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-56305455514052418192007-04-15T20:58:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:43:05.168+00:00IBS<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >So I went to the Doctor who, despite my concerns that he was a locum, was very helpful, as well as very nice. He had me diagnosed inside of five minutes - I definitely have IBS. I've been having problems with this for around ten years and as with a lot of people, I never really went to the Doctor because I put it down to other things.<br /> However, it's really good to finally know what I have as it now means I can manage it and help to alleviate the symptoms. there is no cure as such, but learning what will and won't cause a reaction can help lessen the symptoms.<br /> A while back I suddenly started eating differently. I'm not totally sure what triggered it, but it was in part due to problems I was having at the time. I stopped eating about half the amount of food I would normally eat and would sometimes only eat an apple for lunch, (no breakfast,) and maybe some peanuts and cheese for my evening meal or a can of macaroni cheese or something like that.<br /> I learned to only eat when my stomach actually rumbled, because that way I would know I was definitely hungry. Most people in western societies eat for all the wrong reasons. We eat because we are thirsty - seriously, apparently research shows that around 30% of the time we think we are hungry, we actually are thirsty, so next time you feel peckish, instead of having a bar of chocolate or something, have a drink of fruit juice instead and see how you feel 5-10 minutes later. Often you will find the hunger subsides.<br /> Worse than that is when we eat out of boredom or because we are down. This is totally unnecessary and can be prevented, (at least I found in my case,) by taking your mind off whatever it is you're doing and finding something else to occupy you.<br /> I found that if I listened to my body, it would tell me when I was hungry and when I was thirsty or even when I had had enough to eat and was full. Once I'd learned to listen properly, I found I actually didn't need to eat as much as I was doing and could easily get by on a lot less food with no adverse effects. If you start eating less, your stomach shrinks. Presumably this is an evolutionary effect - if food is scarce, your body reacts by needing less food. I know - go tell that to the starving thousands in Africa and all around the world right? Little comfort for people with no food.<br /> I lost a fair bit of weight during this period, dropping from about 13-14 stones to 11 and a half. I cut out lots of things I had previously eaten and drunk. I drank almost no coffee, (big change for me,) I ate only small portions of bread, (when I was at my heaviest I was 15 stones and would have at least 3 slices of bread with pretty much every meal - one while I was waiting for the food to cook, one with the meal and the last one to mop up with,) and cut out a lot of other stuff. As I said, I'm not sure why I did this - I didn't consciously go on a diet or plan to lose weight. I didn't consciously drop specific things from my diet, it just kind of happened.<br /> Strangely, I'd never felt better. At the time I put this down to feeling happy about being able to fit into any pair of jeans, my now flat stomach, (I never quite got a six-pack, but it was flat for possibly the first time ever,) and the confidence these things brought me. I've pretty much always been a little overweight - nothing chronic, not obese, not really even what you would call 'fat' but overweight. It came as a bit of a shock to notice how much being overweight affected my self image, but in a good way because I felt so much better. As well as my stomach, my face got thinner. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it no longer looked like a potato with a beard, but I had cheekbones and a stong jawline. OK, so I was never so overweight that I couldn't see these things, but now they had that extra gleam of definition!<br /> What I didn't realise however, was that one of the big reasons I was so happy was that my symptoms had gone into remission. I was happy because I felt so much better health wise - not having the stomach cramps, the bloating etc. Sometimes I used to eat only a small meal but my stomach looked like I'd eaten a Viking feast to myself.<br /> That's the problem with IBS, it's very easy to overlook the symptoms, or put them down to something else. In my case, it had been going on for so long, that it just became part of everyday life. Some days were worse than others, that was all. The other problem is that the symptoms vary from person to person. Some are affected in the throat, some in the stomach, some in the bowels or anus. See the link for a list of symptoms. If you have more than one, see a Doctor. My symptoms span the stomach and the small and large bowels, although I do sometimes get a funny reaction in my throat - not like a golf ball like the list says, but it gets irritated, so maybe I span all four categories.<br /> Anyway, I slipped back into somewhere between being my thinnest and my biggest and back into some old bad habits, like eating probably a little too much again, starting to eat bread more often, drinking too much coffee, (maybe up to 10 cups a day,) and so on. I went back up to 13 stone, where I now sit. The symptoms returned and it was only then that I realised that they had dissapeared at all.<br /> I thought back and decided to cut out wheat to see if I had an intolerance. I did that for a week and it's a little tough, because there are more things out there with wheat in them than you realise, even if it's only wheat flour. I felt better, but not totally, so the next week I cut out dairy too. Again, I felt better but not totally. Then I shared a bottle of red wine with my girlfriend and had a large bar of dark chocolate, thinking it would be ok because there was no milk in it. The next day I spent an hour or so curled up on my GF's bed clutching my guts. Apparently, chocolate and alchohol are two common irritants.<br /> So this last week I had no wheat, dairy, coffee, chocolate or alcohol and felt better for the most part. My bloating after meals reduced somewhat but some of the other symptoms were still present, such as excessive burping. Apparently that may be caused by legumes, so I think a week without those may help. The Doctor told me to avoid wheat and dairy, spicy or greasy foods and also try to avoid stress (he recommended listening to classical music, which I do sometimes anyway).<br /> Anyway I urge anyone with symptoms to see a Doctor. even now I'm thinking of things that I've been suffering with for years and finding out that it can be attributed to IBS, just another symptom.<br /> Also check out Wikipedia's page on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irritable_bowel_syndrome<br />for more info and especially Sophie's IBS tales blog: http://www.ibstales.com/blog/ and website: http://www.irritable-bowel-syndrome.ws/<br /> Lastly, I'm also a vegetarian (that topic is for another post however,) so it means cutting out things from an already reduced diet, which would worry me apart from the fact that I did it before and felt great - not like I was lacking anything at all. At least now when people ask, "You're a vegetarian? What do you eat?" I'll be able to list the entire catalogue of what I eat inside of two minutes!</span><br /></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-91947184620722319012007-04-12T11:42:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:42:41.356+00:00Dietry requirements<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, too long has passed since I posted again, but I wonder if that's such a big problem as currently my readership seems to extend to , uh... me.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Oh well. If you are reading this, say Hi in the comments and make my day.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So despite not solving the mystery of dark matter, what else have I been up to? Well spending a lot of time with my wonderful GF for one thing, which is always nice. recently we had a couple of trips out to Winchester and Bath, which reminds me, if you ever happen to find yourself in Bath, go have a meal at a place called De Muth's. My housemate took me there last week, (to thank me for driving out to Bath to give her her purse, which she had left at home, meaning she couldn't pay to get out of the car park. Normally this would just be an oversight, but she went to Bath to do some shopping! Heh.) and it was just amazing. It's a veggie restaurant, but don't let that put the non veggies of you off. They cater for all sorts of dietry requirements and it was the tastiest meal I've had in as long as I can remember.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Speaking of dietry requirements, I've been struggling off and on with stomach problems over the last 10 years or so and after my GF did some research, I think I may have IBS. I've just chalked it up to different things over the years, such as just eating too much, but I've decided to do something about it. For the last couple of weeks I've given up wheat and the last week I've also given up dairy, coffee, alcohol and chocolate. so far I have been a little better and have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow to see about getting tested.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I felt better after giving up wheat, so wondered if it was just an intolerance to that but then drank a few glasses of red wine and ate some dark chocolate, (no dairy,) and the next morning I had to lay curled up on the bed for a while I was in so much discomfort. Apparently chocolate and alcohol are two of the worst things to trigger an attack. Bah.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So now I have to watch my GF buy a bottle of red wine and then go home to a cup of tea with soya milk. Not so much fun.</span></span><br /></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-73173191606943077432007-03-14T14:27:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:42:12.099+00:00Dark matter - a solution?<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"> So this week I've been off work - yipee! I figure I should post something because, well, I'd be just too much of a slacker if I didn't. I'm not sure where this post will go just yet, as I started it with no particular topic in mind again.<br /> I had another week off a couple of weeks ago, and although I did get around to doing some writing, it wasn't on here and I felt bad for not getting around to it. The thing is I usually like to write about a particular topic but to be honest, I think if I just realise that if I dive in and start writing, something always comes out.<br /> The writing I did do was for my book, which I've mentioned previously. I'm happy that I'm actually getting some stuff done with it now - I'm about 4 or 5 chapters in so far, so I am *actually* writing it.<br /><br />OK, so the big news is I *may* have come up with a solution for the missing weight in the universe problem. I'm not kidding.<br />For those of you not acquainted with the problem or who don't take a passing interest in science, the problem is thus:<br />'They' (meaning scientists,) weighed the universe. Yup, weighed it. I'm not sure of the specifics of how, but basically they looked at all the stuff we can see - stars, planets, galaxies etc and calculated how much mass is should all contain. Then they calculated how much the universe actually weighs, using how much gravity there is. The assumption being that certain astrophysical phenomena, such as spiral galaxies being bound together instead of the stars and planets flinging off into space, would require a certain amount of gravity. Makes sense. However, knowing how much gravity is exerted by a body of baryonic matter, (i.e. normal, tangeable 'stuff' like planets or stars or you or a chicken salad sandwich,) they totted it all up and fell short. Way short. The stuff we can see does not account for the gravity in the universe. It's about one sixth of the density required, or some people put it at 10% of the weight that it should be in order to match up.<br /> That left people scratching their heads as you might expect. It's like stepping on the scales and finding out you now weigh 100 </span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">stones, </span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">(1,400 pounds for you American types or 635 kilos for you Europeans out there,) instead of 10 stones, (140 pounds or 63.5 kilos,) and yet physically, you don't look any different.<br /><br />...<br /><br />Well, I left writing this blog to come back to it and during my time away I checked into it and it appears my theory is bunk.<br />Basically I had been walking around the science museum a few weeks back and I saw a quote from Einstein saying that even photons have mass when they approach the speed of light. (I'm starting to womder if I remembered it wrong.) Since photons normally travel at the speed of light, it occurred to me that the universe is filled with light. Even if the average photon had an incredibly small mass, the abundance of these particles would mean their sum could end up weighing a fair bit. Since light is invisible - it's only the things it interacts with that we can see and since the scientists who weighed the universe were weighing what they can see, it seemed to me that light would be an obvious candidate for being overlooked.<br />According to several websites, photons have no mass under the modern definition - from USA Today's website:<br /></span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">A: No, photons do not have mass according the present definition of mass. The modern definition assigns every object just one mass, an invariant quantity that does not depend on velocity, says Dr. Matt Austern a computer scientist at AT&T Labs Research. Under this definition, mass is proportional to the total energy, </span><em style="font-family: arial;">Eo</em><span style="font-family: arial;">, of the object at rest.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">"A particle like a photon is never at rest and always moves at the speed of light; thus it is massless," says Dr. Michael S. Turner, chair of the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">(http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/basics/wonderquest/photonmass.htm)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But hang on, there are two issues there:</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">One is that as you approach the speed of light, mass increases doesn't it?</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, apparently not. This is the old terminology of 'relativistic mass', which is no longer used. Obviously under that description, the faster you go, the more mass you have, but light (photons,) would have to be massless, otherwise it's mass would be infinite and the universe would go squish.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Secondly, the good Doctor mentions that photons are never at rest - except now they are. A recent experiment brought a photon to complete rest by firing it through a Bose-Einstein condensate of Rubidium. The previous slowest speed for light was 38mph, which is still unbelievably slow.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, it might be an idea to weigh the little bugger while it's in there, as we might yet find out that the missing weight of the universe is not due to dark matter, but the sum of the weight of all normal, invisible light.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">If so, you can contact me through this blog to give me my Nobel prize.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Further reading on photonic mass can be found here:</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">http://www.desy.de/user/projects/Physics/ParticleAndNuclear/photon_mass.html</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">for those of you who are interested.</span></span><br /></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-59246762689114596792007-02-23T12:23:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:41:33.515+00:00The problem with the pace of technology<p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">I needed some support with a router that we are having problems with at work. I looked on the website and found technical notes – FAQ’s troubleshooting etc, but under the model I am looking for, there were only PDF’s available proclaiming the European compliance. Not especially helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">I couldn’t seem to find a basic user manual either, so I rang the number listed on the site for </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="">UK</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style=""> support.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">The first time I rang I was given a premium rate number to call for support, which the line announced itself as (a different model router) support upon connection. The advisor I spoke to could not find any documentation on my model of router but wished me luck in finding help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">I rang the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="">UK</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style=""> number again and explained the situation for a second time. The lady I spoke to was very helpful but was looking on their website for help, which I'd already explained that I'd checked. She was unable to find anything relating to the router on the website that I hadn’t already found myself, which came as no great surprise. She then offered me a number for support for home products that was in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="">America</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="">. I explained that for one thing this was a business product, or at least being used by a business and secondly that it seemed ludicrous that there was no European number to call, let alone a </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="">UK</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style=""> based number. She offered me a second number, which started with the code for </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="">America</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="">. I pointed this out only to be told, “I don’t know if it’s an American number or not.” I confirmed that it was definitely an American number from the code. She read it out anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:Tahoma;font-size:100%;color:maroon;" ><span style="">She then Exclaimed that yes, she had found a UK number, but then realised it was the number I was already speaking to her on, which she ironically commented was ‘helpful’ before saying, “I don’t know why they put our number, it’s not really any use to you.” I had to agree.</span></span><b><span style=";font-family:Tahoma;font-size:9;color:maroon;" ><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-75911419042512063982007-02-20T16:17:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:40:49.056+00:00I take it all back...<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span>Firstly, an update: I haven't smoked a cigarette in over four weeks. Not bad huh? A guy at work commented on it just a few moments ago by saying, "You haven't smoked in, like... ages man!" only to be a bit <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">disappointed</span> when I told him it was four weeks. He thought it was about three months, which at times it has felt like that to me too, but I think a month is doing pretty well, so with all due respect, fuck him.<br /><br />So, the next part may be extremely old news to some, if not most, but it's new to me so hell with it. You know how sometimes you find something cool out and you're all buzzed about it and you tell someone and they say, "Oh THAT? We've known about that for ages..." and then you get that feeling that confirms that you're just outside the clique, on the fringes of madness, riding a scooter powered by squirrel spit on the teetering edge of the abyss and the munch pebbles are getting bigger... (If you don't know what munch pebbles are, you've either never skated or at least didn't own a skateboard during it's golden age between say, 1980 and 1990,)<br /><br />Anyway, a little while ago I discovered the 'personalise this page' thing on Google. (If you're thinking, "big whoop", skip this bit. There is a discussion on Geeks vs Nerds further down and some funny quotes and stuff at the end.) First of all I was none too impressed. OK, so it gave you a little clock and I could <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">RSS</span> feed a couple of blogs I like, which was kind of cool but nothing amazing. Then today for some reason I remembered when I saw a demo of Vista, the sidebar to which you could attach gadgets <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">and</span> then I hazily remembered some comparison to Google. So I started tinkering with the add stuff part - how cool is it? There's EVERYTHING on there! I have an IT tab to help with work with feeds from Slashdot and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">GRC</span>, as well as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">IP</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">DNS</span> tools, a fun page with games and comics, and a main homepage with blogs, quotes and the news and weather. I'm all <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">geeked</span> out about it. (I am a self confessed geek and have bought products by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">thinkgeek</span>.com to prove it - actually I'd love to get a feed from there...) So anything bad I said about Google, (not on here,) I take back - mainly because as well as the gadgets thing being really cool, there is one that rates how evil Google is on that day based on a user poll. I figure any company that doesn't take itself too seriously and allows that kind of thing can't be all bad. Besides, people have a go at Google because they are getting too big and are trying to take over the whole net. Well, being pragmatic, that's what companies in a capitalist society do isn't it? They grow and earn more money and offer more products and services and basically try to take over. It's only the monopolies commission that stops one company trying to buy everyone else and in reality most stuff is owned by about 5 or 6 massive <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">corporations</span> anyway and I doubt most people know the names of any of them.<br /><br />Whilst I was impressed by Vista when I saw it, it basically does what other versions of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Windoze</span> did, which seems to be rip good ideas off other people, (mostly Apple and also Google for this one,) and implement it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Window$ boy myself - all but 3 of the computers I look after at work are Micro$oft machines, (the others being 2 Macs for the graphics crew and one Free BSD based server with a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">proprietary</span> OS that acts as firewall and net monitor type of thing,) but the ideas in Vista blatantly aren't new. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Aero</span> flipping screens thing is similar to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">OSX's</span> interface and the sidebar gadgets are like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Google's</span>, as mentioned. I still want to upgrade though, as the benefits will still be worth it and it looks damn sexy.<br /><br />On another note, I had a drunken pub discussion with someone once on the differences between Nerds and Geeks. Some people will think that it's a different term for the same thing, but this guy described himself as a Nerd and I think of myself as a Geek, so we got talking about why. I asked him if he had any toys on top of his monitor. He said no, which definitely puts him in the Nerd camp, but is a symptom rather than a cause.<br />After about an hour of discussion, we decided that Nerds have a need to make things neat - whether it's cabling or code or whatever. They like things to be in order. It makes sense to them and they feel more comfortable when things are in their proper place and correctly labelled or referenced or commented or whatever.<br />Geeks, by contrast, just like things to work. It doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to get the job done. Sometimes this is by necessity, like a lack of time to pretty things up, sometimes it's by design because, hey, that's just who we are. We admire Heath Robinson and are more likely to be impressed by a bodge job that works despite looking unbelievably dangerous and/or unlikely to work, over a job that looks very pretty and orderly.<br />You don't have to do a particular job to be a geek or a nerd, you can find both schools of thought in programming, network administration - even (gasp,) non IT jobs, (see under [L]users,) it's a lifestyle thing.<br /><br />Right, finish on some random cack:</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><br /></span> <p style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Word of the day that doesn’t exist but probably should:</span> Grebulon (noun): A name for those small, unexpected crunchy things you often find inside other things – usually foodstuffs, but not exclusively.</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Usage: “I was eating a Kinder Surprise yesterday and there was a grebulon inside, as well as the toy. I may sue the company for psychological damage and whiplash.”</span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Random me quote:</span> “Don’t let the bastards get you down, shut you up, or fob you off.”</span></p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Random me quote 2:</span> “Life is what happens. Everything else is just stuff.”</span></p>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-13106574229106144262007-02-09T00:39:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:38:00.395+00:00Clever answers to stupid questions<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >I have a myspace page - I know, I know... anyway someone posted a list of "things to think about" which were mostly stupid semantic questions, with a few genuinely interesting questions. As I started reading them I was answering them in my head, so I decided to have a go at them. Most of the answers are from my own head, but a few I needed to research further. A coupleI am not 100% sure on, but are ok as far as I know. I ended up answering 68 out of about 85 questions. Most of the ones I missed were either boring or incredibly stupid, but if I can find the original bullitin on myspace, (bulletins are offline at the moment for some reason,) I'll post the rest.<br /><br />For those I had to research: </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style=";font-size:10;" >thanks goes to wikipedia, dictionary.com, howstuffworks.com, google, and several random sites, as well as the book Anatomy for the artist by Sarah Simblet.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >Here are my answers:<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><span><br /></span><span>1. Are people who are allergic to nuts allergic to coconuts too?</span><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style=""><br />No, coconuts are a fruit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">2. Are Zebras white with black stripes or black with white stripes?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It is generally believed that zebras are dark animals, with white stripes where the pigmentation is inhibited. The pigment of the hair is found solely in the hair and not in the skin. The reasons for thinking that they were originally pigmented animals are that (1) white horses would not survive well in the African plains or forests; (2) there used to be a fourth species of zebra, the quagga (which was overeaten to extinction in the eighteen hundreds). The quagga had the zebra striping pattern in the front of the animal, but had a dark rump; (3) when the region between the pigmented bands becomes too wide, secondary stripes emerge, as if suppression was weakening.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">3. Aren't all rooms room temperature?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Yes, semantically but 'room temperature' is a measuring point at which the temperature is deemed comfortable <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">4. Can bald men get lice?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">In theory, yes but lice use the hair to climb, cling to and attach their eggs to, so it would be unlikely.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>5. Can crop circles be square?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Crop circles is an overall term, due to the original formations seen, but crop patterns have been created in all<span style=""> </span>manner of shapes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">6. Can someone give up lent for lent?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No. This is a logical contradiction. You can’t give up giving up, it’s a double negative.<o:p></o:p></span><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">7. Can you breathe through your nose and mouth at the same time?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Yes due to the human descended larynx.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">8. Can you get cornered in a round room?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, another logical contradiction.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">9. Can you make a candle out of earwax?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, candle wax is flammable when melted - it's actually the gas that burns. Ear wax is a totally different substance and not flammable in that way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">10. Can you write in pencil on an eraser?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Yes. (You've never done that?)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">11. Do cows drink milk?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Obviously as calves, all cows suckle from their mother.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>12. Do cows have calf muscles?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, that is a nickname for the gastrocnemius muscle. Cow physiology is different to humans.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">13. Do ducks sneeze?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, sneezing is a product of the human olfactory and respiratory systems, usually in connection with the immune system.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">14. Do glow-in-the-dark objects stop glowing when somebody turns the lights on?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, but their apparent luminosity decreases relative to the luminosity of the brighter object - hence why you can't see the stars during the daytime. They are still there, but the much brighter light of the sun renders them impossible to see.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">15. Do octopuses have arms or legs?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Neither, they have tentacles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">16. Do people with big eyes see at a wider range than people with smaller eyes?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Human eyes vary between 20mm and 30mm in diameter on average, but the difference in the angle viewed would be imperceptible between the two extremes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">17. Do stairs go up or down?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Up and down are relative and mostly arbitrary terms until an object in motion can be given a relative vector, seen to be in accordance with one and in opposition to the other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">18. Does anyone actually kill two birds with one stone?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The statistical possibility that someone, somewhere throughout all of history has achieved this act is quite high, however the use of the word 'does', implies an ongoing or at least present tense usage and I would like to hope not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">19. How can someone 'draw a blank'?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The 'drawing' refers to drawing from memory rather than artistry, and probably shares an analogous linguistic form with drawing water from a well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">20. How can you hear yourself think?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The exact processes are unknown but the human mind is capable of replicating and inventing sounds, (and images,) within it's own confines.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">21. How can you tell when sour cream goes bad?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The same way you tell when 'normal' cream has gone bad - it smells and tastes different and eventually will develop mould.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">22. How do the "Keep off the grass" signs get there?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Someone puts them there. The idea being that if one person walks over the grass to put a sign up it will not cause much damage, but if everyone was to walk over the grass, it would. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">23. If 75% of all accidents happen within 5 miles of home, why not move 10 miles away?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Because 'home' is not a fixed location, but a relative one. So if you move 10 miles away, that is now where your home is and all the things that most people statistically have accidents with would still be within 5 miles of the new location.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">24. If a cat always lands on its feet and buttered bread always lands butter side down, what would happen if you tied buttered bread on top of a cat?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Firstly, neither of those statements are true. Cats try to ensure they land on their feet but don't always. buttered bread is subjected to the same laws of physics and probability as everything else and does not always fall butter side down, but people percieve this to be the case because they forget about the times it landed butter side up because there was less impact on them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">If you were to tie a piece of buttered bread to a cat and drop them so that they were both 90 degrees to the floor, the cat, being an animate, sentient life form concerned with its own safety, would try to right itself and would most likely land on it's feet. The bread, being an inanimate object, would be subjected to whatever moves the cat made, unless the string broke, in which case it would depend on its distance from the floor at the time, along with its rotational speed, if any, and other physical factors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">25. If a criminal turns himself in shouldn't he get the reward money?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No. Criminality is usually punished by society, not rewarded.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">26. If a word is spelled wrong in the dictionary, how would you know?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">If you thought this may be the case, you could check other dictionaries, including online ones and then contact the publisher in order to get them to check and rectify their mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>27. If an orange is orange, why isn't a lime called a green or a lemon called a yellow?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Presumably the colour was named after the fruit, not the other way around. The orange tree is called Citrus Aurantium in latin, the lemon tree <span style="">Citrus Limon.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">28. If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No. The words moron and morality share no linguistic roots.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">29. If heat rises then shouldn’t hell be cold?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No. As previously stated, up and down are relative terms. That's like saying </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="">Australia</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style=""> should be cold because it's down.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">30. If it is a 50mph wind and you drive your car at 50mph downwind, if you stick your head outside would you feel the wind?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">You would feel the air passing over you as you rushed through it, yes. Wind is usually defined as moving air, so you could argue that if you are moving through it, it is not wind, or else you define it as moving because you take yourself as the fixed point of interest as we are prone to do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">31. If it is zero degrees outside today and tomorrow it is supposed to be twice as cold, how cold will it be tomorrow?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Strictly mathematically speaking, this is a paradox as zero is the absence of anything. Pragmatically speaking, zero in temperature is defined as the point at which water freezes in celcius and colder than that goes into minus figures. It would then depend on how much the temperature dropped over the previous day, (assuming we are measuring in days due to the usage of 'today' and 'tomorrow',) therefore if it was 2C yesterday and zero today, we can effectively expect tomorrow to reach -2C.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">32. If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The word, as with many words in English, has multiple meanings, (the word with the most number of meanings in English is 'set',) but branches in this sense still keeps some of the original meaning of being offshoots from a main body.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">33. If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do they all have to drown?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, the routine would stop and if the person could not be revived, the appropriate authorities would be notified and the show cancelled.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">34. If quizzes are quizzical then what are tests?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Testing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">35. If someone can't see, they're blind and if someone can't hear, they're deaf, so what do you call people who can't smell?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Anosmic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">36. If someone told you they were a pathological liar, would you believe them?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It would depend on other, mainly non verbal clues. If their body language gave clues as to their assertation being false, then I would deduce that they were indeed lying, but that the condition was not classed as pathalogical. If their body language suggested they were being truthful I would deduce that yes, they were a pathalogical liar and they were telling me this honestly because their condition does not preclude them from ever telling the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">37. If swimming is such exercise, why are whales fat?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Swimming is good excercise for humans, who usually do it in warm and relatively shallow waters. Whales have a subcutenous layer of fat in order to keep warm while swimming at depths that would prove lethal to humans, where the water is extremely cold. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">38. If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The theory that the universe is expanding is exactly that - a theory, but one that seems to hold weight due to observations in red shifts from distant stars. You might as well ask, what was there before the universe, to which the most logical and obvious answer, applying Occam's razor, is - nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">39. If you are driving at near the speed of light and turn on your headlights, what will you see?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It is impossible to drive any craft at such a speed presently and scientists generally agree that ever being able to do so is extemely unlikely, however even if you are travelling at the speed of light, the light being emitted is accelerating away from you at the speed of light, so it would appear normal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">40. If you have x-ray vision, and you can see through anything, wouldn't you see through everything and actually see nothing?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No. Xrays are very good at penetrating things like fabric and soft tissues, but the more dense the object, the less x-rays penetrate, hence why bones show up on x-rays otherwise the sheet would be blank and they would be no use in medical imaging.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">41. If you stole a pen from a bank then would it still be considered a bank robbery?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">In theory taking any article from a bank could be considered a 'bank robbery', but the term is traditionally used to describe the theft of a large quantity of money or bonds. Crimes are judged on the value of what is taken and pens cost so little that a bank is unlikely to press charges for the theft of one from its premises, although many attatch them to counters with ball bearing chains to avoid them being taken.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">42. If you take a shower, where do you put it?</span><br /><span style="">If you are taking it from the shop you bought it in, the usual place to put it is in your bathroom. If you mean the act of having a shower, then it is a common lexicographical term and does not literally mean 'to take'<span style=""> </span>in this case.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">43. If you were born exactly on </span><st1:time minute="0" hour="0"><span style="">12:00</span></st1:time><span style=""> </span><st1:time minute="0" hour="0"><span style="">midnight</span></st1:time><span style=""> on December 31st –January 1st, which year would you say you were born in?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The year begginning Jan 1st, as it was only the previous year until the stroke of 12. If you had been born at </span><st1:time minute="59" hour="11"><span style="">11:59</span></st1:time><span style=""> and 59 seconds, you would have been born in the previous year, ending December 31st, however births are rarely so precise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">44. If you were on a plane going the speed of sound and walked from the back of the plane to the front, would you be walking faster than the speed of sound?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, due to the laws of motion and momentum, you would still be walking at roughly 4 miles per hour, (the average human walking rate,) relative to the surface you are walking on.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">45. Is French kissing in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="">France</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style=""> just called kissing?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, apparently they call it American kissing. - I'll check this with my half French girlfriend though. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">46. On the periodic table, why do some elements have symbols with letters that aren't even in the word?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">They come from the latin versions or similar. For example, PB, which stands for lead, comes from the latin plumbum, from which we derive the word plumbing, as the Romans used lead for their water pipes. Other examples include: Sn - Tin - Stannum (Latin) Ag - Silver - Argentum (Latin), Argunas (Sanskrit) Cu - Copper - Cuprum (Latin).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">47. Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">No, the word is a conjunction of 'mono', meaning one and syllabic, which is formed from the word syllable, meaning an uninterrupted segment of speech consisting of a center of relatively great sonority with or without one or more accompanying sounds of relatively less sonority. No other word, conjunction or otherwise, has been formed to represent the same meaning. Besides which the length of a word often bears no direct correlation to it's meaning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">48. What are those little things on the end of your shoelaces called?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Ferrules.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>49. What colour is a mirror?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">A mirror reflects light, so in general has no colour, but often mirrors may have a slightly blue cast. Other mirrors maybe heavily coloured, either the backing or the glass itself, in which case it could be argued that they are not mirrors in the strictest sense, but instead<span style=""> </span>just highly reflective surfaces.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">50. What did cured ham actually have?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Again this is a word with more than one meaning. Curing, in relation to meat is a preservative process dating back hundreds of years and does not connote disease in this sense.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">51. What does OK actually mean?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It is taken to mean everything is alright. Its exact origins are unknown, but it is believed to have come from a corruption of 'all correct', i.e. 'oll korrect', which was a popular way of speaking in the 1830's.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">52. What would happen if everyone was to flush their toilet at the same time?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Chances are that the water companies would struggle to cope with the demand and burst pipes, flooding and sewage strewn streets would ensue.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">53. What would happen if you were to feed a pig some bacon?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It would almost certainly eat it, digest it and eventually, defecate the remains out. Pigs are omnivorous but lack the mental capacity to distinguish between meat from one animal to another and so have no concept of cannibalism, which is an exclusively human idea.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">54. Where do they get the seeds to grow seedless grapes?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Seedless grapes are seedless because the seed aborts during development, termed stenspermocarpy. You can see the remnant of the aborted seed(s) in the grape. <o:p></o:p>Grape breeders have found a way to remove the developing embryo when it is very small to prevent it from aborting, termed embryo rescue. They can then raise seedless grapes from the rescued embryos to use in breeding new types of seedless grapes. For vineyards, seedless grapes are grafted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">55. Where does the white go when the snow melts?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The white colour is caused by the refraction of light due to the interactions of photons within the crystalline structure of ice. Because snow is a lot of ice crystals on top of each other, eventually all the different wavelengths of light are refracted back out equally, equalling a white colour. When it melts, it becomes water and the crystalline structure is lost.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">56. Where would we be without rhetorical questions?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Literally, exactly at the same point in time & space that we are now. Linguistically we would lose a mostly useless and often frustrating device.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">57. Which way does a compass point in space?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It would either float freely or point to the nearest magnetic field.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">58. Who was the first person to see a cow, and think what would happen if I pulled those dangling bits and drink the liquid that comes out?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It's unlikely that things happened that way. Someone will have seen a calf suckling, associated it with humans breast feeding and possibly tested it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style=""><o:p></o:p>59. Why do men have nipples?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Because all human fetuses start as female in the womb. After conception the developing embryo follows a female template. It's only after six to eight weeks that the effect of a gene on the Y chromosome kicks in for boy embryos. This gene stimulates the production and influence of hormones such as testosterone, which 'masculinise' the embryo by altering physical development to form male features. Nipples, however, are formed before this masculinisation process takes place, and nothing that goes on later reverses this.<o:p></o:p> So the story that God made Eve from Adam's rib got it the wrong way round. Males are an adaptation of females and the nipples are just one piece of evidence for this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>60. Why does a round pizza come in a square box?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Square boxes are easier to make, given the materials used and are also easier to store and carry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>61. Why doesn't superglue stick to the inside of the tube?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It is the glues interaction with the air that causes a chemical reaction, making it harden and useful as an adhesive. There is little or no air in the tube and the glue is kept in liquid form.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>62. Why is a square meal served on round plates?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">It is sometimes said that this phrase originated from the Royal Navy practise of serving meals on square wooden plates. Such plates did exist and so that sounds like a plausible story. However, there's no evidence to support it and in fact, the lateness of the first printed record (see below) pretty well rules this out as a reasonable theory. The Royal Navy's records and many thousands of ship's logs are still available and, if the phrase came from that source, it would surely have been recorded before the mid-19th century. The word square has many meanings, including 'proper, honest, straightforward', and that's the meaning here. This isn't a rectilinear meal on right-angled crockery or otherwise, but a good and satisfying meal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">63. Why is ice clear but snow white?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Ice isn’t clear, it’s translucent, which means most of the photons pass through it. They do refract, but few are actually reflected and it is the absorption and reflection of different wavelengths of light that give colour to an object. If all the light is reflected, it is white. If all light is absorbed, it is black and varying degrees in between. If most of the light is neither absorbed nor reflected, the object is translucent or transparent. For snow, see 55. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">64. Why is it called pineapple, when's there neither pine nor apple in it?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">The word "pineapple", first recorded in 1398, was originally used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now termed pine cones). When European explorers discovered this tropical fruit, they called them "pineapples" (term first recorded in that sense in 1664) because it resembled what we now know as pine cones. The term "pine cone" was first recorded in 1695 to replace the original meaning of "pineapple"<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span><span style="">65. Why is it so hard to remember how to spell 'mnemonic'?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Some people may find it difficult due to the odd arrangement of consonants at the beginning, however others may find it easy to remember for the same reason - the odd arrangement making it stand out.<o:p><br /><br /></o:p></span><span style="">66. Why is it, that the sun darkens the colour of your skin, but lightens the colour of your hair?<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Hair and skin are two different substances and their pigmentation changes in different ways.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">67. Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds? <o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="">Not all words are onomatopoeic. Just because the word has that meaning does not mean it should be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" >68. Would a fly without wings be called a walk?<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:Verdana;font-size:10;color:maroon;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">No, it would still be a fly, short for flying insect, in much the same way that a person with no arms is still a person.</span></span></span><b style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:10;color:maroon;" ><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-24637711469483324292007-01-29T02:07:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:34:28.780+00:00Thoughts on Thirties<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">No one ever tells you about your thirties. It's the decade of your life you are least prepared for. As a kid you have school, so you know what your life is going to be until you're 16 at which point you become old enough to have sex and you figure that having sex will keep you occupied for at least a year. Chances are it's more likely that trying to have sex </span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">as opposed to actually having the sex</span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"> will form the larger part of your year, at which point you'll be old enough to drive and cruise around looking for girls/boys to attempt to have sex with. Then you look forward to 18. You'll officially be an adult - old enough to vote and most importantly, old enough to drink and there's a good chance that you'll have met someone willing to have sex with you and actually done it by this point. 19 is pretty much just more of the same and then you hit 20. So you're no longer a teenager, but that's no problem; you're still young and cool, it just means that you're no longer a kid and are now a fully sophisticated adult who may have had sex on a number of occasions, possibly with several partners by now. 21 is a milestone birthday for some reason, even though it's more of the same and then the next big one after that is when life begins at 40.<br /><br />Only it's not. As you hit 25 and 26, something starts to creep in at the back of your mind. 27, 28... and then at 29 it hits you. The next big one isn't 40, it's 30 and no one has told you about it. You start to panic - you don't want to turn 30. What happens? You know at 40 you are out of touch with the kids and have to start wearing cardigans or jumpers or something, but what happens at 30? Do you start buying knitwear but not putting it on yet, stocking up in preparation? Do you wear it indoors but change into something cool to go out in? Do you still go out?<br /><br />There's no <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">guidance</span> for you anywhere. Music is aimed at either teens or if it's more serious stuff, your parents. T.V. is the same - programs-a-plenty for kids, teens, twenty-somethings and generations older than you, but what for thirty year-<span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">olds</span>? Even the programs with 30-something stars are trying to pass them off as 20-somethings. (Friends anyone?)<br /><br />One of the reasons no one has told you about being 30 is that it's very different for our generation to our parents'. By the time my father was 30, I was 3. By the time my mother was 30, I was 8. They had grown up and been adults for a while by then. They'd got married, had jobs - careers even, and had kids. By the time I was 30, I'd just got a job in the field I now work in - the first steps into my career.<br /><br />I didn't want to turn 30. I was enjoying my 20's nicely, thank you very much. I was getting to grips with a few things, growing up gradually but not rushing into anything in particular. True, by my mid 20's I had noticed a few grey hairs in my beard and my male pattern baldness was settled in, but I was still young and I had time. When 30 crept up onto the immediate horizon I got the fear pretty badly. I felt I should know what the hell was going on in my life. I should have achieved more by now. Shouldn't I be a fully fledged adult by this point? What do I do for fun now? Am I having a mid life crisis at 29? If so does that mean I'll only live to be 58? Did I leave the iron on?<br /><br />I'll break it down for you. I'm 32 now, so I can speak with a little experience about being a <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">thirtysomething</span>.<br />Here's the bad news:<br /></span></span><ul style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">There is nothing really that caters for your age group. No specific music, T.V., films, or <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">pastime's</span> of any sort.</span></span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"> As a <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">thirtysomething</span>, you may experience moments of, "why have I not got my life more sorted than this at my age?"</span></span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"> You may still live in a shared house, or even worse, with your parents - which you definitely didn't think you would be doing by now.</span></span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"> You may notice the first signs of aging: grey hairs, the <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">appearance</span> of wrinkles, baldness for men, slightly less perkiness in the breasts for women. Ironically you may also find that you still get greasy skin and spots from time to time, which you had previously thought would be long behind you.</span></span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">You are already starting to notice you are out of touch with the kids and may even find yourself complaining about them.</span></span></li></ul><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" >Here's the good news:<br /><br /></span><ul style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><li><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" > Although there's nothing specifically catered towards your age bracket, you are at a nice age where you can do pretty much anything and not look too out of place. You can go to pubs, clubs, bowling alleys, restaurants, parks... wherever and no one will bat an eyelid.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >Your musical and film tastes etc, won't so much change as just develop and branch out, but you'll still like most of the stuff you did when you were 20.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >You're at a good age, where you can hang out and talk to 20 somethings and have plenty to talk about without coming off as 'the creepy older person that hangs around with younger people', but also can hold your own in a room full of 40 or even 50 somethings. In a room full of 20 and 40 somethings, you can act as a bridge to the generation gap and talk to everyone.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">You may not think you have your life sorted, but actually it might be more sorted than you think when you look at it. Do you have a job? A career even? A car? A partner or in a serious relationship? A home? The fact is that even if you said 'no' to all of those, chances are you know what you want and where you are going better than ever before. You know your own mind better than ever before and are less afraid to speak your opinion than ever before. You are more yourself than you have ever previously been and if you think back, your probably more comfortable in your own skin now than ever before, so you are more confident too. That's huge.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">You are taken seriously as an adult by the world at large. Every now and again you get called 'young man' or 'young lady' by someone older, but it's usually someone over 60 at least and you actually take it as a compliment now. People of 50 and below talk to you like a person instead of a child and include you in conversations, even asking you your opinion on things, which you actually have to offer now.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">You have some really good friends that have been with you for a long time. You think of them differently to people that you hang out with, either from work or even socially. Your friends are the ones that have stuck by you throughout and you may or may not live close to them any more, but you keep in touch and you would jump in the car if they needed anything and you know they would do the same for you.<br /></span></span></li></ul><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> Basically you are more grounded, sorted and know your own mind more. You don't have to answer to as many people any more - maybe just your boss and your partner (but if your relationship is an adult one, then it's more equal give and take than previous ones.).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So far I've really enjoyed being a 30-something. I never really saw the </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" >American</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> series of that name in the late 80's, early 90's, whenever it was, but it looked like it applied to my parents' generation more than mine from what I saw. Most of them were married, some had kids and nearly all of them wore jumpers or Laura Ashley dresses. Me? I wear jeans, t-shirts, trainers and </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" >hoodies</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> with skateboarding logos on them, as well as beanies or caps to keep my bald head warm. My girlfriend says I dress like a teenager, but she's 29 and scared of turning 30, so what does she know? I've tried to tell her it will be cool, but she's going to have to find out for herself. Maybe going through the fear and coming out the other side with a feeling of, "Oh. Really? That was it?" is something we have to go through like a right of passage. To paraphrase the mighty Morpheus: "No one can tell you what being 30 is like, you have to experience it for yourself..."</span></span><br /></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-59382957214838132812007-01-21T21:14:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:33:44.299+00:00Smoking - am I a dumbass or what?<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">When I was a kid, I hated my mother's smoking habit. Back then, every once in a while she would ask me to go to the shop to get her some cigarettes & quite often I would refuse, even if she sweetened the deal with a little money in it for me to buy whatever I wanted to. Sometimes I'd buckle & go, not because of the money - I would usually buy comics with the money rather than sweets, as I've never had a particularly sweet tooth, but rather because she would cajole me into it by pleading & then whining and I would eventually go in order to have a quiet life.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I would lecture her on the dangers of smoking, what it would do to her and plead with her to stop. I think I even hid her pack once or twice and maybe put a pack in the bin once.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Then, at the age of 16 I crossed the line which made me into a hypocrite, I took up smoking. To this day I still don't know why. I was working in a chip shop and the owner used to say, "go have a fag break," to which I used to reply, "but I don't smoke!" and he'd reply, "yeah I know, just go have a break." in a slightly exasperated tone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">For some reason one day he said it & I though, "Hell with it! If I'm going to have a fag break, I might as well have a fag!" and asked one of the other girls who worked there for one. I expected to do the usual, light-inhale-hack-choke-never smoke again, type of thing but instead I lit it, inhaled without incident and proceeded to smoke up to 20 a day for the next five years. Then one day when I was 21, I was walking home smoking and I thought, "I'm really not enjoying this anymore. It tastes like shit." I put it out and decided to quit as suddenly as I decided to start.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I decided I needed a gimmick to help me quit as I had tried before without success. I decided to leave one cigarette in a packet on top of my T.V. and the thinking behind this was that I still had one left, so I didn't have an excuse to go buy another packet, avoiding the "I'll quit after I've finished this packet," problem. Secondly, I only had to resist one fag - not as hard as resisting lots of imagined cigarettes when you don't have any. I had the fallback of having one there at the ready if I wanted one and all I had to do was not smoke it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This worked for me and I quit smoking for the next 8 years. Then at 29, several events happened that turned my life as I knew it upside down, the main one being that I was dumped by my long term girlfriend who I'd spent the last 11 years with. After that happened I decided on a new start, so I moved cities. Between the move, trying to find a job, getting over the end of a long relationship and adapting to single life, I started smoking again. After 8 years without a cigarette I broke and have been smoking ever since. I did quit again for 6 weeks at one point but otherwise I've been smoking anything up to about 20 a day again.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I've been feeling pretty rough when I've been smoking the last few days and I got to thinking about my </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" >stepdad</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">, who started smoking at 15 and who at 60, has got a lung and breathing disorder and has now been told that if he doesn't quit smoking, he won't see 65.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So I've decided to quit again and I didn't smoke yesterday or today. It's been </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" >OK</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> but there have been some tough moments. Earlier I came as close to buckling as I have so far but held fast in the end.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I can foresee two problems: One is that I might put on weight. I've heard that smoking is an </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" >appetite</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> suppressant and also people eat when they stop smoking because it gives them something else to do with their hands & mouths. Strangely, when I quit about a year or so ago for 6 weeks, I actually lost weight, to the point that I got to my thinnest that I've been as an adult. My trick there was simply to recognise when I felt I wanted to eat and decide whether it was just because of the smoking or if I was genuinely hungry. I made a rule that I was only allowed to eat if I was genuinely hungry and that would be proven if my stomach growled. If my stomach didn't growl, I wasn't really hungry & couldn't have something to eat. I continued this rule for a while after I started smoking again & it served me well. I remember reading that most of the time when you think you want something to eat your body actually is thirsty, so you should drink instead. So whenever I felt like something to eat, I would have a glass of orange juice. If my stomach growled I would eat, but even then I would only eat small portions and stop eating when I still felt a little hungry. This way I would be full after 20 minutes but not overly full and bloated, which is how I used to feel after every meal because I ate until I was full without giving my food time to settle. I started measuring out my food when cooking - not with exact measurements or anything boring and long winded, but instead I got a plate, put some food on it and looked at it on the plate. If it looked like a lot, I took some off. If it looked about right, I cooked it. After a little while my stomach shrank and I was no longer able to even contemplate eating the sort of amounts I used to. I felt pretty good like this and dropped from 15 stone which I was at my heaviest, to 11 & 1/2 stone. I no longer had a round face that to me looked like a potato with a beard, I had a pretty flat stomach & I just generally felt better. Sadly I fell out of this habit a little while back and fell back into bad habits of eating when I wasn't properly hungry and also eating far too much food, which has always been my biggest problem.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The second problem is that it's Monday tomorrow. I've spent the weekend with my girlfriend, who is very supportive and despite really wanting me to stop, (she quit about 3 years ago,) she hasn't nagged me about it and has found many interesting diversions to take my mind off wanting to smoke. Tomorrow I go back to work where pretty much everyone smokes. There's a real community based around going outside for a fag break & there are even one or two of the type of people who sneer at you for wanting to quit. That doesn't bother me so much, as I can always go outside and stand and chat with people without smoking as it will get me used to being around people who do without doing it myself, plus if people want to sneer, that's fine with me. I know that comes from a place of insecurity - it's their way of doing the 'you're not one of us', playground crap. I like to be able to fit in with people, but I do it on my terms. I didn't start smoking because of peer pressure and I'm not going to keep smoking to fit in with other people either. If they don't like that, then that's their problem, not mine. Anyway, the biggest problem will be if I get stressed at work, my normal response is to have a cigarette - not straight away, otherwise I'd spend most of the day outside, smoking, but that release is there for me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I understand the science behind it, in that smoking doesn't really relax you, rather it increases your heart rate and bocks the production of </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" >serotonin</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> in the brain, (the brain's own 'happy drug',) making it harder to feel happy and relaxed when you smoke than when you don't, but to be honest I think you can understand all the scientific explanations in the world but they won't help because smoking is a response to emotional needs. The number of times I've stood smoking and been thinking, "This is essentially poison in a tube, by smoking this I am putting myself at risk of cancer, emphysema, bronchial problems, etc etc, and then taken another drag.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, I'm doing </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" >OK</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> so far, and I'll continue to try to resist temptation, not only of smoking but also of eating when I don't need to and I'll update you as to how I'm getting on.</span></span><br /></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-637018727069865772007-01-19T12:10:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:33:10.165+00:00Phrases and title changes<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">Two posts in one week! Easy, calm down. It might help to sit down and sip at some hot sweet tea. Yeah I know... well I missed last week so I thought I'd have another pop and thus the balance would be restored. Of course the balance isn't really restored. Now and forever last week will be devoid of posts. Barren. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" >Postless</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> in a post-filled world... but it makes me feel better.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Besides, I'm bored again. Seems like I only post here when I'm bored or else when I have something serious to say & I was so hoping that I'd be funnier on here. Ah well, there's still time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I've decided to change the name of the blog. I like "The path less worn", but let's be honest, it's a bit pretentious, no? I'm not sure if it would pique my interest or put me off. It may well depend on my mood at the time, along with how much </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" >caffeine</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> I'd ingested. (This is quite a variable and is a constant factor in my day.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, I heard three phrases yesterday that made me laugh. The first was, "Butt </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" >gusset</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">". Say that one out loud. Go on, let it roll around your </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" >palette</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> a while. The word </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" >gusset</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> amuses me in a fairly </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" >puerile</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> way anyway, but "Butt </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" >gusset</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">" is just taking things to another level. I kind of imagine someone (a guy predictably,) saying "</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" >Mmmm</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">... Butt </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" >gusset</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">..." kind of like the way he would say, "</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" >Mmmm</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">... pizza..." (Or insert another delicious foodstuff of your own choosing,) while staring into the middle distance with a silly grin on his face. I'm not sure why.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The second was, "broken holes". Firstly, How do you break a hole? Surely the only way would be to fill it in again, or in the case of clothing, mend it. Unfortunately the next thing that sprang to my mind was that it was the sort of name a porn site would have and then I started to imagine what sort of content www.brokenholes.com would offer if it existed, to the viewing public and then I felt a bit sick and had to look at my </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" >screen saver</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> of funny cat pictures for a couple of minutes to feel better. Not that I'm a prude - far from it, but the images that came to mind weren't pleasant which I'm sure you could argue says a fair bit about me, but I digress.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Now I should point out that both of these were discovered in the description of a pair of jeans on the </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" >Internet</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">. Yes, both these nuggets were in the same description. Those are some pretty funky jeans huh? You want a pair don't you? Well I'm not going to give the site any free advertising, mostly because they were a competitor to the company I work for. If you want to try and find them yourself, go ahead. I've given you enough information to start looking, but I would be very careful about the links you click on after googling those terms if I were you. Also I never actually checked if there is a www.brokenholes.com, so if you go-a-</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" >surfin</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">' for it, I accept no responsibility for what you may or may not find there. (I think that pretty much covers me either way.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But what, I hear you cry, what in the name of all that's good and pure and not displayed on www.brokenholes.com, (seriously I never checked,) was the third term? Well, calm down, stop eating foods with so many additives in them, or switch to decaf, (I'm a fine one to talk about decaf - at an old workplace we called it '</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" >laydeecaff</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">' because decaf was deemed unmanly - but it was all very tongue in cheek, so don't get offended,) and I'll tell you.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">But first a little background. I'll keep it very short, honestly. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" >OK</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">, so I like irrelevant humour - Monty Python, Vic & Bob, The Mighty </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" >Boosh</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">, that sort of thing. It tickles me. So I like coming up with nonsensical phrases and the like. Some of the best ones are by simply by taking two or more, usually unrelated words and finding an interesting juxtaposition. If the phrases instantly make you laugh, bring forth vivid and strange images, connote something, or have a pleasing cadence, then my work is done. If it fulfils two or more of these then I'm as happy as a pig in shit, or some more suitable </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" >simile</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">. For example, I once thought about registering www.collapsiblecheesecake.com and making it my personal site. It may still happen.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So I bumped into a girl at work yesterday - I mean literally bumped into, not the 'I met someone who I haven't seen in a while,'type of thing. Anyway, she was carrying a mug of soup and came out with the following line, which just slayed me: "Careful, I'm maneuvering soup here!"</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Well that had me. 'Maneuvering soup'. What an absolute gem! It even kind of rhymes! All credit goes to the young lady in question, but I think if questioned, she wouldn't remember saying it, or at least wouldn't remember the exact wording she used, so I think I'm probably safe from copyright </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" >litigation</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> if I nick it & use it here.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls as well as hermaphrodites or </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" >trans gender</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> persons and those of you still making those important lifestyle choices, we bid adieu to the blog whose name was "The path less worn" and raise our glasses with a hearty '</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" >wilkommen</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;">' to toast the entrance of a brand spanking new blog, called "Maneuvering soup."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">N.B. The so called 'new' blog will have all these posts in it, because it's not really new, it's just a change of title (and a change of template and colours but that may change again,). Ho hum.</span></span><br /></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-51787657934770997422007-01-17T14:59:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:32:32.736+00:00The premise<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Told you I was crap. I've been meaning to write another post for a while but haven't been inspired. Although, saying that, I have a draft post with topics that I'd like to write about, but most of those are rather lengthy and I've not had time to cover any of them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm writing this today with no real aim in mind, so I guess I'll just see where it goes. I have a problem with writing, which is to say I really enjoy it, but I think the part I really enjoy is thinking of ideas. Musing on topics, deciding where I stand, generally mulling things over. I love coming up with the premise for things, kind of "Hey! What if we had two characters like this and they did that and then THIS happened to them? That would be so cool!" That's the bit I like.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The actual act of writing kind of scares me, at least until I do it. Maybe 'scares' is the wrong word. I have this problem with doing things, in that I procrastinate wildly at the mere thought of getting things done and I'm not 100% sure why. It's like when I learned the piano as a kid - I loved playing the piano, but the thought of doing lessons or practising put me instantly into this wierd frame of mind that I get into and I would rather do anything but play the piano, even homework. Once I got there of course I loved it. (I later gave up after not very long for extremely stupid and childish reasons, but I was a kid after all.) It's like I get a kind of mental block. You know how some people rebel against any kind of authority? I'm kind of like that. I loathe being told what to do and will often do the exact opposite, even to my own detriment and just to spite the person, rather than comply. If someone ASKS me to do something, that's fine and 99.9% of the time I will be happy to do as they ask, but if they tell me - well my rebellion gland kicks in. It's incredibly stupid and something I'm working on changing about myself because I can see how self defeating it can be. I'm doing better, but I'm not quite 'there' yet.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">In my head I'm extremely prolific - at the moment alone I have 3 unfinished songs, several very short animation tests worked out, a short animated film of about 3 minutes, 2 short stories, one novel (a big novel too and pretty complicated plot-wise so I've been told,), a screenplay for a horror film, 2 comic strips and one graphic novel, a bunch of material for a stand up routine and a rough outline of a sitcom and possibly other stuff that I'm forgetting right at the moment.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The short stories have both been basically begun, the animation stuff has a 3d character just waiting to be completed in order to actually start animating, the comic strips have had a few ideas and sketches jotted down, the novel I actually worked on last night for the first time in months...</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">It's all been started but after a while I falter. I come up with (what I think is,) a great idea for something, get really excited about it, think about it a lot, work stuff out, talk to friends about it and start it, only to get bogged down or otherwise sidetracked and end up putting it to one side, to 'come back to it later.' John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens while you're making other plans." and it's my favourite quote because it's so true and well observed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I sometimes wonder if I had the time and money to sit down and complete these projects, would I? If I couldn't blame lack of time from having to go to work and I had enough money to do it would I actually sit down and get some of this stuff finished or would I just get bored again and end up watching DVD's and surfing the net?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">What would be just perfect would be if I could find a job where I just had to come up with ideas for things - books, films, comics, whatever. Just give them the premise of it - along with a rough plot, some character descriptions and maybe a few pages of dialogue, (I like writing dialogue,) so they could gain more of an insight into the characters and how they interact. Then they would pay me a large sum of money and I would act as a consultant on the project, watching over other artists, writers etc, going "no, see they have a bigger head than that," or "no, that's more a line for THIS character, see?" and other helpful comments. No one would mind because I was the guy who came up with the idea in the first place.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So if any film companies/animation studios/publishers need an 'ideas guy', then don't hesitate to get in touch. Really. Post a comment with contact details and I'll be in touch.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">*sigh*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">While I'm wishing, I'd like a better car too...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, at least I got a post written.</span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:verdana;" ><br /></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-53560142703425632392006-12-31T19:05:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:32:03.576+00:00Phone maladies and having "one of those faces."<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span> I got a few calls from my mobile phone provider recently, offering me an early upgrade. Each time I told them I'd have a think about it and call them back. About a week ago I finally called them back, only to be told that it wasn't them that had called me, it was some third party company(s) and had I taken them up on the offer they would have signed me up to an additional contract which would have taken me about a month to sort out! My advice is, if you get a call from anyone offering you anything, even if it is from a company that you already deal with, don't agree to anything, but instead call them back. OK, it means you foot the cost of the call, (if that's a real pain, ask for the name of the person you speak to and get them to call you back,) but it means you definitely know who you're dealing with.<br /> I was told that my provider don't usually offer early upgrades either, so I decided to go into the local store in town to have a look at handsets and ask about upgrade charges for the ones I was interested in. I'm usually pretty up on handsets but this last year there has been nothing out that's particularly interested me. There was however, the next model up from my current phone.<br /> I like my current phone. It does everything I want it to and it's small to boot. The only thing that slightly bugs me about it is that although you can have an MP3 as your ringtone, or several if you set groups of callers up - heck you could pretty much have a different MP3 for each person in your contact list, and you can also have an MP3 as your morning alarm, for some reason you can't set one as your text message tone. What? Why? All you get is a list of preset ones, that on the whole are pretty crappy.<br /> I asked the guy if he could check if you can set an MP3 as a text tone on the new model and also another, similar model by the same manufacturer. Nope.<br /> "Seriously?"<br /> "Yeah. I don't get it either, most phones you can do that on now, but I checked both of those and it doesn't allow you to do it."<br /> So we had a discussion about possible alternatives and the guy was very helpful. He told me that the next model up from mine had a shitty battery life too - a friend of his took it out and had to charge it before she got home. I eventually decided on a Sony Ericsson walkman phone for a number of reasons:<br /></span></span><ul style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >I know Sony phones are pretty decent. The only problems I've heard with them is that the joystick in the middle sometimes breaks. This one doesn't have a joystick.</span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >It's a walkman phone. Now, I have a 30GB video Ipod, so I can't really see me using it as a walkman, (I used to use my old phone as one before I got my Ipod,) but at least I know it'll handle MP3's OK and the sound quality should be good.</span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >It comes with a 1GB pro duo memory stick, which I can also use in my PSP. :)</span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >It's a slide phone, which I like. I'm not keen on the handsets where the keypads are always exposed and my last two phones have been slides. Also, despite first impressions, it's actually about the same size as my current phone.</span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >It has a 2 megapixel camera. My current phone is the same, but the screen on the Sony is apparently better. The next model up from my current phone had a 3MP camera, which was a big draw for me. I mean 3MP? That's the same as digital cameras used to be not that long ago! I like having cameras as part of my phone. A few years back who'd have imagined it, but now we have mobile phones with respectable quality digital cameras and MP3 players built in! I don't do much photography, but it's something I'd like to do more of and learn more about, but I definitelty like the idea that if I ever want to snap something, I've always got a camera on me.</span></li></ul> <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: arial;"> So I'd made my choice. Now we had to talk tarrifs. He suggested I change mine because my current tarrif was price matched to a competitor's and I couldn't get the phone for free unless I changed. There's always a catch. In this case however, it seems to have worked out pretty well because for an extra £5 a month, I get 500 any time, any network minutes and unlimited texts. Unlimited texts actually means up to 3000 a month, but that's still way more than I would use. At the moment, I pay £30 a month and my bill is usually between roughly £32 to £37 a month when the calls and texts are added on. This way, I can't really see me going over £35. It meant changing my number, but I figured, hell with it, it's not like I've never changed my number in the past, I'll send out an email and a text and people will update their contacts lists/books and get used to using the new number in about a year or so. Now because I was changing my number, this was effectively a new contract rather than a standard upgrade, (it still amazes me that I've been with this provider for two years and I'd still get a better deal if I just walked in off the street, but hey...) so there were forms to fill in and I needed to provide them with two forms of ID - one for signature, which my credit card sufficed for, and a second for proof of address, like a drivers licence or bill. I didn't have anything with me so I said I pop back the next day with it & the assistant kindly offered to charge the phone overnight for me so it would be ready when I came in. Now that's decent customer service.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> So I went back in today and I walked, like I usually do when I go into town as it's only about 30 minutes walk and saves me first finding somewhere to park and then paying for the priviledge. The weather was shite and I got pretty wet on the way in, but I was excited at getting my new phone and spending an hour or two playing with it, moving my contacts and photos across and that sort of thing. This is one area where I am a bit of a typical bloke - I get excited by new gadgets. Particularly phones and games consoles, but I used to want to work in the computer games industry, so that's my justification for that one. For the most part, I'm not really a typical bloke in a lot of ways, I don't like drinking until I'm sick and getting in fights, (OK, perhaps that's a little unfair, but although I like a drink I'm a self confessed lightwieght and I'm OK with it,) I don't like football at all and I don't mind going shopping.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> Anyway I got to the store, and I'd taken two bills, one from the phone company themselves, and my passport - just to be sure. The assistant duly informed me that they couldn't accept the bills as proof of address, despite both of them having my name and address emblazoned across the front and one of them having been sent by the company itself! After a minute or two or verbal wrangling, my mood rapidly deteriorating, I asked to speak to the manager. I don't usually like doing that, having worked in positions where people asked to speak to my manager, only to be told the exact thing by them. The manager came over and instantly made a huge mistake: He called me 'chap', as in, "Well, the problem we've got chap, is..."</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> He stopped short of concluding his sentence upon glancing up at my rather less than pleased countenance. I've had a fair few people tell me that I can look rather intimidating at times - even my current girlfriend thought I was something of a 'hard case' when she first met me and I occasionally have people cross the street to avoid me. I'm not that type of guy at all, as anyone that knows me, including my girlfriend now she knows me better, would tell you. In fact I'm a big softie, but if I'm annoyed, people can usually see it and this guy saw it now.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> He wasn't to know that this was one of my buttons, but I really, REALLY dislike being talked to by shop staff as if I was one of their friends. I think it's just unprofessional. I once went into a branch of popular high street electrical retailers to ask about MP3 players, just before I bought my Ipod. The young man that served me chatted to me as if we were talking about the subject in the pub, over a pint. He eventually got the message from looking at my expression too, after telling me that a particular model was, "the dog's bollocks." I have no problem with swearing at all - I have a mouth like a dock worker most of the time myself, (if you knew where I grew up, you'd know how apt that was,) and most days the air between my colleague and myself in the office we share is blue with the language, but when I go into a shop, I expect to be treated the same as every other customer, which is to say, professionally and with some respect. Needless to say, I bought my Ipod elsewhere.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I'm prepared to accept that it's because I'm getting older that I feel this way, but I do place a high value on politeness and respect. You'd never hear me swear in front of my Grandmother, for example. There's a time and place and it's about what's appropriate for the situation. Besides which, I must still look young enough that these teens-to-twenties twats feel I'm enough of 'one of them,' for them to be able to get away with it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I've become aware over the last ten or so years, that I have 'one of those faces', but the strange thing is it seems to be a different, 'one of those faces,' to different people.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> Some people think I'm intimidating, (which I have to confess, I occasionally use to my advantage,) and like I mentioned I still have people actually cross the street to avoid me. That face seems to be when I'm most relaxed, strangely. When I'm just feeling OK, content, but maybe thiking about something, my face relaxes and apparently turns into some kind of snarling scowl. I know this isn't exactly the case, but this is when people seem to think I look scary. I remember a guy I used to work with asked one of the managers to ask me something because he was too nervous to ask me himself. He actually referred to me as, "that scary guy," to which the manager replied, "Him? You couldn't meet a less scary guy!"</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> Sometimes that same face comes across as merely pissed off - this usually happens with people that know me already. the amount of times I've just been sitting, quite content and happily thinking about something when someone I know has asked me what's the matter. Sometimes this has even ended in an argument because the person hasn't believed I've been OK and for some reason feel I'm reluctant to talk to them about whatever is supposedly bothering me and we both end up getting exasperated with the other.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> For some reason, I get asked for directions a lot. I mean, I lot more than I think should be normal. I think sometimes this might be due to the fact that I walk pretty fast, so people look at me and think, "Oh, there's a guy who knows where he's going, let's ask him." which is true - I know where I'M going, but maybe not where they want to go. The wierd thing is that I get asked in towns and places I've never been to before, again, more than I think is probably normal. So I obviously have a face that looks like I belong wherever I am and maybe that's not such a bad thing.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" ><br /></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-3822380716671284992006-12-29T15:21:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:31:30.183+00:00Lack of stimulation<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> God I'm bored...</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I've been at work the last three days and I've had very little to do. I was only in to cover really and people haven't needed me much. I had a little project to do which I started just before leaving yesterday and I was looking forward to carrying on with it today and actually enjoying the challenges it would inevitably bring. Unfortunately, it went almost completely according to plan and everything worked first time.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> Normally this would probably be a good thing as I'm usually pretty busy but I wanted it to go a little wrong so I would have to sit and think about it and maybe puzzle things through, but it wasn't to be.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> So now I'm sat at work with little to do. Of course there are lots of things I could do if I wished to, but I'm tired, I'm not happy at being at work between Christmas and New year in the first place and my motivation, (which seems to peak at around 60% of an average person's on one of their bad days,) has slunk off outside to have a fag and is sulking.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> There are lots of topics to blog about, but again, I'm tired, my motivation has now decided we're not on speaking terms and I've lost the will to finish this se...</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> Every now and then I'll get the little envelope sign that means I've got a new email. This elicits a small wake up call in my brain and I get, for a short period, slightly more alert and just the tiniest bit excited. A new email! If I'm really lucky it will be from a friend and I'll relieve my boredom for a handful of minutes by reading it and then concocting a reply that probably far outweighs the necessary response. This is how my friends can tell if I'm busy or not, stressed or bored etc - by the length and verbosity of my emails. If I'm busy, it's short, sharp and to the point with no wasted words. Strunk and White would be proud of the brevity. If I'm bored, then I digress, I wax lyrical and generally write my prose in a flowery and rambling style. If I'm really busy, then they get no reply at all and if I'm really bored, then they get a draft of a manuscript for a story I'm working on and a request to proof read it and mark any salient points that require attention. Anyway all day so far it's been system administrator messages or bouncebacks from spam that I just have to delete. *Sigh*</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I do like to write. I pretty much always have. At age 5 on my first day of junior school we got given little excercise books, and I diligently wrote my name on the front without being asked because it said 'Name' with a little space next to it. My teacher came over and said I shouldn't have done it because he was going to write our names on our books for us, at which point I stared him straight in the eye and told him in no uncertain terms that I was quite capable of doing it myself, thank you very much.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I started this blog partly because it gives me a chance to write in my own voice, in my own style and without getting bogged down in things like character and plot. I have so many ideas for things and so many projects I've started, it's untrue. I have an idea for a short animation I'd like to do, (which has stalled during the creation of the main character like so many before it,) I have two short stories which I have jotted down a few ideas for, I've had ideas for at least three cartoon strips, one short-span comic and I have one main book that I have actually started writing, including a fair amount of background research and back story creation. Oh and I've also jotted down some ideas for material for stand up comedy, (which I'd still like to have a crack at cometime, just to attend an open mike night. Even if I bomb I'll only be doing it for the experience of doing it, so what the hell.) as well as ideas for a sitcom I'd like to write, with some crossover from the stand up stuff.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> There are a number of obstacles to my finishing these projects: My previously mentioned motivation, (I would state a lack of time, but I find plenty of time to spend doing other things like watching comedy dvds, going out to pubs and spending time with my other half.) my short attention span, (it's not like ADHD short, I just have lots of new ideas all the time and a new idea seems more shiny than a project I've worked on for a while,) and time is a little bit of a factor - I do work full time after all.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I often think if I won the lottery, I might spend a lot of time doing this stuff - finishing these projects so I can put them to bed. This would be after I'd done a hell of a lot of travelling of course. I also think about taking some time off work and just going for it - beavering away at some of them until they're done, but I pretty much know I'd end up just watching dvds and so on like usual and then I'd resent having taking the time off and not doing anything with it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I bought myself a laptop, justifying it to myself by saying I would be able to take it to cafes and pubs etc where they had WiFi points, (or even without internet access,) and do some writing. I used to take a paper into a local cafe bar at the weekend and sit and have a coffee or beer, read my paper and it would completely relax me for the duration of the weekend. There was just something about reading alone in a room full of other people that I liked, so I figured if I had a laptop, I could bring that and write and that might be even more wonderful still (I still think it sounds like it might well be,). Thing is, I've bought the laptop and two things have happened.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> One is that my original plan of getting rid of my desktop machine has faltered. I thought once I have the laptop I won't need the desktop any more, so I'll sell it. Thing is, I've found I've become rather attached to it. I did build it myself from parts I selected and then put together, but that's not it. I think part of it is the fact that it has 200GB of space over two hard drives, whereas my laptop has only 80GB and I have at least 15GB of just music. I'm still thinking of selling it and getting an external HDD for all my data.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> The second is that I've stopped going to the cafe bar at weekends. I do like my laptop a great deal - I love WiFi in a way I never thought I would and adore being able to sit in the lounge and surf the web when the router is upstairs, (One of my housemates keeps her laptop in the lounge and is very rarely off it, even if we put a dvd on,) but I haven't taken it with me anywhere, apart from to my friend's house when I visited them over Christmas (I took it in case I wanted to do some writing, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't be able to for the three days I was there as I would be spending time with them,). I even got a decent carry case for it so I had no excuse, (it fitted in my old rucksack perfectly well, but I wanted a carry case because it just looks cool. Well, it does if you're a bit of a geek like me. OK, a big geek...) but no, nada, nothing.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> I guess I'll just have to break it out and actually DO something on it. *Sigh*</span></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-75730040739663219372006-12-27T13:24:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:30:57.950+00:00Christmas - Pointless spending excercise?<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" > <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">OK</span>, Christmas has now come and gone for another year. I don't generally participate in Christmas and I thought I'd go into some of the reasons why.<br /> Firstly, it's a religious holiday and as previously mentioned, I am Agnostic. Agnostics do not, as far as I am aware have any holidays of their own, (If anyone knows different, I'd be happy to learn more - perhaps there is a national Agnosticism day somewhere?) and really shouldn't be celebrating other religions' holidays.<br /> The usual response I get to this goes something like: "Oh yeah, but it's not really THAT religious any more is it? It's about buying gifts and spending time with your family etc." Well you know what? There are lots of Christians that think it IS that religious and I think maybe it should be. I would guess that most of the population of my country if pressed would say they were Christian - partly from habit, although many of them probably don't attend church on a regular basis (weddings and funerals do not make you a Christian,). They are probably somewhere between the holy trinity of Christian, Atheist and Agnostic, but the bottom line is most people, it seems to me, just don't care. They will say they don't have time for religion in their lives or that they try to get to church as often as they can or whatever, but they are really mostly just apathetic. They don't care enough to think about it. I think this partly stems from the inevitable cognitive dissonance that arises when you try to teach people about a guy that walked on water and turned water into wine whilst also teaching them about scientific reasoning in the same socialising institution (School, in case you were unsure.).<br /> In any case, as an Agnostic I don't celebrate <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Yom</span> <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Kippur</span>, Ramadan or any other religious ceremonies because I don't share the beliefs of the people that do, so why Christmas.<br /> I think <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Dickins</span> has a lot to answer for. In my society it is NOT <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">OK</span> to dislike Christmas (Possible exceptions exist for people who have had family <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">tragedies</span> happen around this time, but even then other people seem to think by trying to include them in the festivities it will lessen the pain of what happened.). If you do not like Christmas for pretty much any reason, you are treated as some kind of pariah and virtually everyone you know will line up to <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">extol</span> the virtues of this wonderful holiday in order to try and convert you.<br /> Here's the kicker: ask any one of those virtue-extolling celebrants how they are doing in the weeks before Christmas. Invariably you will get an uncensored tirade about how they can't find the perfect gift for their partner, how they've set a spending limit this year, but they are worried their partner will buy them something extra, forcing them to go once more into the breach that is the local shopping centre at its height of Christmas frenzy, how they are sick of shopping, how they might not buy something for someone this year because the present they got from them last year was crap - and so on ad <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">nauseum</span>.<br /> Wander into your local shopping centre on a day when you aren't doing any shopping yourself. Once you have gotten over the dizzying high that the lack of personal stress gives you, take a moment to observe your fellow shoppers. Look at their expressions, their posture and body language and watch how they interact with each other. See much goodwill and cheer? I thought not. What you will see is stressed out people trying to find wish-list gifts, most of which will end them up getting into debt in order to buy and taking much of the next year to pay off before it all starts again.<br /> Fights have broken out over the last (x) in the shop. People beep their horns at each other in frustration because everyone and his mother have decided to drive in to the shops as well. It's just crazy.<br /> Another issue I have with Christmas is that it's just crass and vulgar. The thing is, conventional thinking has got to the point where even people that cover their houses in lights, tacky ornaments and all manner of crap, (including inflatable Homer Simpsons dressed as santa,) are seen as 'getting into the spirit'. I'm sorry, the spirit of what? When the wise men brought gifts for Jesus, it was gold, frankinscense and myrrh, not a snowman that flashes different colours while singing and dancing along to all your favourite Christmas hits (Don't even get me started on Christmas songs. The same fucking selection of maybe 10 songs played constantly for a period of approximately two to three months in every shop you go in, as well as T.V. and radio, all but maybe one of which I loathe and even that one by the time Christmas is over. Does no one else notice it's always the same songs every bloody year?). If those same people covered their houses with all manner of crap at any other time of year they would be viewed as garish and possibly unbalanced, but do it at Christmas and the worst you get is being seen as extroverted. I'm all for extroversion by the way, but I'm also all for taste. Even your average house has a tree full of tinsel, (Oh for the love of Pete do I dislike tinsel,) various shiny ornaments that rarely match and enough lights to illuminate the Gobi dessert at night. It's as if these people, even those whose houses are normally paragons of minimalism and style, temporarily give their interior decoration duties over to a crack team of magpies with kleptomania.<br /> The thing is, everyone buys into it, despite hating having to do it, despite some of them not following the religion it celebrates, even some of them despite knowing that historically, Christ was supposed to have been born in January and the 25<span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">th</span> December was chosen because it was the winter solstice and the Christians converted many pagan holidays into Christian ones in order to ease the transition and coerce pagans into adopting Christianity (See also 'Easter' or '<span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Oestre</span>' as it was originally known, which has the same root word as Oestrogen and was a festival of fertility - hence the eggs and bunnies which are symbols of fertility and have absolutely nothing to do with the resurrection of Christ.).<br /> Yes, despite all of this, most people I know fall for it every year, getting themselves into debt or at least blowing a large sum of money and hoping for some decent presents in return and that's partly the reason why.<br /> It is said to be better to give than receive and I know many people that really do enjoy giving presents, (I myself do find pleasure in getting something nice for someone I care about, I'd just rather do it on their birthday, or some random day just because I felt like it.) but honestly most people are looking for some kind of (preferably equivalent,) reciprocation. You give in order to <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">receive</span>.<br /> On a related note, it's interesting that a similar form of control is exerted over children at Christmas to the type I mentioned in my religiosity post - "If you're good Santa will bring you lots of presents, if you're bad, you won't get anything."<br /> The other, and far more compelling reason I think most people participate in this charade of excess is that they were brought up doing it, and everyone else does it. That's a pretty hard cycle to break. Add in the facts that they get to over consume, spend money, receive gifts and get time off work & you have a winner that's going to keep the economy chugging along for another year.<br /> But! (I hear you cry,) What's the alternative, considering that everyone does it? How can you possibly get out of it without your family disowning you? Well, yeah that can be a problem, especially for those of you who have families that don't like their members to think for themselves, (That's not a jibe, I know they exist & you have my sympathy,) but there is a simple way. What I did was to explain to my family that I didn't particularly like Christmas, that I thought the spirit of the holiday, (which I am totally in favour of by the way, it's just that it never actually happens,) had been lost, to have been replaced by crass and rampant commercialism which left me cold. I stated, in no uncertain terms that I would not be buying anyone any gifts and I asked that they buy me nothing in return.<br /> If people did buy me things, I would receive them thankfully, but state again that I would not be buying them anything, even whilst feeling guilty for not reciprocating, because it's the only way to get out of the cycle. Call me a bastard if you like, but if I say I'm not getting you anything & get me something just in case I do or in case I was kidding, that's your problem. If you want your gift back, (and I have to say that this has never happened,) I have no problem with that but it just illustrates the point that you were only doing it to receive something in return, not for the pleasure of giving.<br /> The way I view this problem is in the same way I view any problem; (I class anything anybody considers to be a problem for them to be a problem. I don't believe you should have levels of problem because then you get a friend talking to you about a problem they have & you give the reply, "You think you've got problems! Let me tell ya..." which helps no one.)<br /> </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >If you have a problem, you have exactly three options:<br /></span><ol style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Do something about the situation. Do anything about it, but at least try to make a change of some kind.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Accept it and try to integrate it into your life somehow. This is a fallback from (1.) and is used in three cases:</span></li><ol><li><span style="font-size:100%;">The problem is small enough to effectively ignore.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">The problem is going to be temporary.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;"> You adopt a zen like stance and adjust your plans accordingly, viewing it more as a challenge. (I like (3.))</span></li></ol><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >Sit on your ass and whine about it to anyone within earshot.</span></li></ol> <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >I think (3.) is used in most cases by most people. You can call me a misanthropist, but that's actually not the case. I love human being on an individual basis, but people en mass are generally all the things we dislike about ourselves - lazy, arrogant, stupid, etc, but then maybe that's not really true and I should stop listening to the media so much because the people I meet on an individual basis are usually really nice, with the odd exception. Of course, it could be argued that the people I meet are down to the sort of person I am and therefore associate with people that have qualities I admire. I'm less likely to meet people with qualities I disparage and those I do, I don't strike up friendships with, but now i'm starting to ramble.</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><br /></span> <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I really hate whining myself and I dislike whiners. Whining is like worrying - neither accomplish anything except making you and more than likely in the case of whining, the person you are whining to, feel worse.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> Your best bet if you have a problem is to get off your ass, stop whining and do something about it yourself and stop waiting for your mummy or the world to do it for you. Take responsibility, make choices, even if they're bad ones and then stand up and take your licks for the bad ones and learn your lessons. Apply Occam's razor indiscriminately. (If you don't know, look it up - that's how you learn, applying the do it for yourself principle.) Break things down into solvable problems instead of shitting yourself because you looked at the big picture.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> This is the way I approached my problem with Christmas. Here's a rough transcript of my thought process:</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">"I don't like Christmas, it's crass and over commercialised and the real meaning has been lost under a sea of needless spending."</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">"My family all celebrate Christmas. This could be a problem."</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">"My family are all reasonable, intelligent people for the most part, so I should just talk to them about it & make sure they understand that it's not anything against them but a choice I've decided to make for myself."</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">"Anyone who still has a problem with it can talk to me about it, but I'm still going to do this & they will have to accept that as a fact. After that, it's their problem."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> Basically, make the problem simple, then do what you have to do to solve it. Explain yourself to the people it affects but tell them that this is what you are going to do and provided you ensure they understand your reasons and that you're not doing it to upset them, you should be able to do it, but you do have to be prepared for some people to have an adverse reaction - some people don't like change or people that think for themselves but I have to say the view from the road less travelled is considerably better than the one populated by the throng of the masses. Sounds a little pompous, but when was the last time you made a decision that went against 99% of people you know?</span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840140894883822936.post-9492650998652435252006-12-20T16:27:00.000+00:002007-06-25T18:30:22.938+00:00Agnosticism & religiosity<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" > A while back I decided to change my religious beliefs. This might sounds like something you have to fill in a form for, or at least notify your local governmental representative, but no - you can just go right ahead and change your mind.<br /> I decided to change my beliefs from Atheist to Agnostic. Those among you that are believers of some kind may be thinking, "big deal", but I think it's an important distinction.<br /> To give you some background, I decided at around age 12 that organised religion was not for me. Any believers among you looking for a scapegoat at this point would do well to talk to my R.E. teacher from that time, as it was my R.E. lessons that started my line of thinking. Being a noble sort however, I think I have to own up to making a conscious choice based on the information available, combined with my own reasoning and experience.<br /> We were learning about different religions around the world - Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. and it occurred to me that most religions were practised by people according to two variables; geography and culture. If you look at a map of the world, there are areas of concentration of religion. The eastern areas like India, Japan etc are mostly Buddhist, the middle east, mostly Muslim, the west, mostly <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Judeo</span>-Christian. I realise this is a gross over-simplification, but pick up any decent <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">encyclopaedia</span> and you should find exactly the kind of map I'm talking about.<br /> So it occurred to me that I was the product of two parents, who happened to live in a certain country that was predominantly Christian. If I had been born to parents who lived a stones throw from Mecca, chances are I would have been raised as a Muslim, and so on. This to me seemed absurd, but this was not the only problem.<br /> A second problem lay with prior religions of the world, which is to say the religious beliefs of the Egyptians, the ancient Greeks, The Romans, (although they stole most of theirs from the Greeks before converting to Christianity,) The Vikings, The <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Sumarians</span> and so on. Because those societies are dead, we cannot talk to people who held those beliefs and try to understand them better. Who is to say that they were wrong? Why is it the Greek and Viking stories are now classed as 'myths'? (Read: pretty much <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">fairytales</span> so you don't have to give them any serious thought.)<br /> Religion is generally told to have arisen from humankind's desire to explain the world around them. Lacking the capacity for reason and scientific method at the time, they created stories that explain how the world came to be and how we came to be on it. If you tell the creation myths of any tribal culture to say, a Christian or someone from one of the world's larger faiths, they will view it as a quaint story, but not something to give any real attention to. So why do they believe some omnipotent entity created the world in six days? Why do people no longer believe that the head of the gods was called Odin who had two Ravens, but some people still believed Jesus walked on water and performed numerous other miracles - or feats of supposedly genuine magic? To me, no one ideology seemed any more believable than another.<br /> Another issue was that there was more than one religion at all. To my mind, most religions lay claim to be the true path to God, and all other religions are, in some way, wrong. Usually this seemed to be accompanied by some sort of caveat that inferred that if you were not a member of 'their' religion, you would suffer some sort of terrible fate once you passed on from this world. To put it simply, how was I at 12 years old, supposed to know which group were telling the truth? If the Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus were right, then I may well be going to some sort of Hell dimension after I died, </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >(Never mind what would happen to me if the Catholics were right,) </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >just because I happened to be born where I was. Talk about clerical error!<br /> After a little thought I realised that all the <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">claimants</span> had certain similarities to their claims:<br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:arial;">1. There is a God or Gods.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2. They created everything, including you, little man.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">3. They are omnipotent.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">4. They love you. (this one is a little iffy - some claim unconditionally, some claim God IS love... more later.)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">5. If you don't believe in them you're in big trouble after you die. (Even if you believe someone <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">else's</span> version of them.)</span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /> It's the last one I had the most problem with, especially coming after number 4. Why would any all-loving God want to punish me due to mix up of geography and/or culture? If it, (I really don't like ascribing gender to a deity, but if I was pushed to at gunpoint on a <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">monotheistic</span> basis I'd say it had to be female. On any other basis I'd say genderless; both genders at the same time - being of dualistic nature; hermaphroditic, or polytheistic, depending on both my mood and also how much <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">caffeine</span> I'd ingested that day,) created us all and loves us all, it must understand the cultural and geographical issues and make allowances surely?<br /> So, either God didn't love us all, (and I'm prepared to believe that an omnipotent entity would be very likely to be entirely indifferent to us,) or else the religious guys were wrong somewhere. If they were wrong about that, what else were they wrong about?<br />I started thinking about Hell. Hell is the place where wicked people go right? Now I realise morality is not an absolute, (I'm not getting into that here, that's for another post,) despite some religious guys claiming to have it literally written in stone, but for me any God presented with, for the sake of argument, an atheist who is generally a good person, a believer from another religion who is generally a good person and a baby eating, mass murdering rapist and says, "No entrance to Heaven for any of you guys, off to Hell!" is <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">definitely</span> one sandwich short of a picnic.<br /> Also, in some religions, provided you repent your sins, you will get into Heaven. God forgives you right? So now we have the good atheist and the good believer from a different religion being cast down while the baby eating, mass murdering rapist waltzes in through the pearly gates because he started attending mass a couple of weeks before being sent to the electric chair, probably chanting "<span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">nyah</span> <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">nyah</span> <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">nyah</span>" as he goes.<br /> So I started thinking, if God forgives you, it's doubtful it does so because of which religion you belong to, having understood the geographical issues, (actually, in theory having created the geographical issues...) therefore no matter what you are, you get forgiven because God loves all of us right? The only thing that most of the religions were in agreement on was that if you were an atheist, you are <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">definitely</span> buggered when the rapture comes. However, what sort of God would grant it's 'greatest creation', free will & then judge them on their actions? "Hey I'm really proud of these human beings I created! What can I do to show them how much I love them? I know! I'll give them free will! There you go guys, you can do whatever... <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">whatev</span>... HEY! What the hell are you doing? I mean yeah, free will sure, but I didn't mean you could do THAT! Oh man I need to set some rules around here..." Just doesn't sound right does it? That being the case, even atheists must get 'forgiven', (I prefer to think of any God that grants us free will would simply accept us and our actions, rather than forgive us for them,) so what purpose does Hell serve?<br /> I think it's all about control. Maybe religion has its place and maybe, just maybe there's some truth in there somewhere, but to me it just seems like a system of control put in place by some humans in order to get other humans to behave the way they want. Shamans used to be the the true power in a tribal society, because although the elder or leader made the decisions, it was the shaman they went to for council on how to make those decisions. So little has changed. As societies progressed, the priests took on a more powerful role and this can be seen in any number of societies until the separation of church and state. A society needs rules in order to operate effectively. (Point of interest, most people think a society without rules is anarchistic, but anarchy is actually self government by each individual, chaos is society without government.) Some of those rules are of a moralistic nature - the role of many, (I would say probably all,) religions in society is to provide a moral framework within which the society operates. Look at the ten commandments:<br /></span><ol style="font-family: arial; color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me..."</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Do not swear falsely by the name of the LORD..."</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy"</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Honor your father and your mother..."</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Do not kill"</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Do not commit adultery."</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Do not steal."</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Do not bear false witness against your neighbor"</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">"Do not covet your neighbor's house..."</span></li></ol> <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:arial;">Pretty moralistic right? Gives people a set of rules to live by. So what happens if people decide they don't like these rules? You need two things to make people adhere to your rules. Firstly, you need some kind of legal system - policing and subsequent punishment. Secondly, you need some kind of deterrent to make people not want to break the rules in the first place. What better deterrent than telling people they will be subjected to eternal torment when they die? Since no one knows what happens when humans die, you can make up any story and if enough people buy into it - you have a believable truth. As a sweetener, you say that if people do follow the rules, they will be taken to a perfect place after death, to enjoy eternal bliss instead.</span></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" > What it all seemed to boil down to for me was that there were still many things about the universe that we couldn't explain and people, as a rule don't like being in a state of confusion. Confusion is used as a tool in warfare for that very reason. What people like is to be able to have an explanation for things, no matter how <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">bizarre</span> or unlikely, so that they can consider it done and tick it off their list of things to think about. "Well I don't understand how the universe could possibly come to be here, but I've been told that God created all in six days, so that's good enough for me. What's on T.V.?"<br /> The moral framework removes confusion - questions like "Should I do this?" <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">disappear</span>. People know what is right and wrong because they have this framework as a point of reference. (It still doesn't stop people doing things they have been told is wrong, but they understand that it is wrong so they are more likely to accept punishment.)<br /> This leads me on to why I changed from being Atheist to Agnostic, but first I'd like to reiterate that I'm not trying to offend Christians or Muslims, Hindu's or anyone else who has faith of any kind. I'm not saying you shouldn't have the beliefs you have, I'm merely explaining why I don't share that belief. You have the right to believe whatever you wish and I wish you well with it. To each their own.<br /> So I had come to the conclusion that none of the world's religions were for me, which lead me to believe that I was an atheist. However, after some thought, I decided I wasn't an atheist, I was agnostic.<br /> Let me clear up a misconception: Agnostic does not mean you don't care if there is a God or not. It may mean that for some people, but that's more apathy than Agnosticism. Not caring infers that you haven't given it much thought. I have given the subject a great deal of thought, as have most Agnostics. Agnosticism isn't fence sitting either. A lot of Theists and Atheists see Agnosticism as a cop out - a kind of "Oh, I don't know," answer, again inferring that not a lot of thought has been put into it.<br /> Agnosticism is not knowing if a God exists or not and being <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">OK</span> with that. Weird huh? Agnosticism is about admitting there are limits to human knowledge and admitting being comfortable to admitting it. Personally I think that takes a lot of courage. When 99% of the planets population profess to either believing in some kind of deity or else <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">believing</span> that there is definitely no deity, then Agnostics walk the path less travelled and they do it because of an inherent function of the human mind - reason.<br /> Here are the facts</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >:<br /></span><ol style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There are believers and non believers.</span></li><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >These people are diametrically opposed.</span></li><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >Belief is not knowledge. (Dictionary.com describes belief thus: </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.</span><span style="font-size:100%;">)</span></li><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Therefore belief is not subject to reason. (Dictionary.com defines reason as: </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >1. The mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >2. Sound judgment; good sense.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >3. Normal or sound powers of mind; sanity.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >4. Logic. a premise of an argument.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >5. Philosophy.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >a. The faculty or power of acquiring intellectual knowledge, either by direct understanding of first principles or by argument.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >b. The power of intelligent and dispassionate thought, or of conduct influenced by such thought.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >6. To think or argue in a logical manner.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >7. To form conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" >8. To think through logically, as a problem (often fol. by out).</span></li><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Reason derives from logic and therefore it is not logical to believe or disbelieve in a God or Gods as no proof of existence can be made either way.</span></li><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Therefore it is impossible to know if there is a God or not, the only choices are:</span></li><ul><li style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >To believe that there is a God without proof.</span></li><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >To believe there is no God without proof.</span></li><li style="font-family:arial;"><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >To accept that since no proof can be given either way, there is no way to know if a God exists or not.</span></li></ul></ol> <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" ><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" > The Taoists of China believed that if there was a God, it was the universe itself, and because we were part of that universe, if we lived in harmony with it, instead of imposing our own agenda on the nature of things, we could lead happy lives. They also believed that there were limits to human knowledge and understanding and there were thing we simply could not understand and that trying to invent definitions was arrogant and against our own inner nature, which lead to conflict. That makes more sense to me than any religious doctrine and seems to be pretty true.<br /> By my definition, everyone in the world is Agnostic, regardless of what they believe because they cannot KNOW if God exists or not, only believe. The only difference is that some of us accept that fact. Personally I think it takes the kind of arrogance that only humans exhibit to profess to 'knowing' that a God exists, or that a simple human being could possibly fathom the complexities of an omnipotent mind and speak on behalf of it.<br /> But hey, I've just admitted that I don't know everything, so what do I know, right?</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:arial;" ><br /></span>Narshadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05008216982807870149noreply@blogger.com0