Mental DIY Failure #1

I know that I haven't posted here in a while. Well I've been very busy. "Doing what?" nobody asks. "Improving myself" comes my ridiculous reply. That's right I have recently embarked on a mission of self-improvement. To better myself and somehow forge an improved version of me, from the weathered scrap metal I am currently composed of. So. How has that gone?

Not great.


My main problem is just that I am a walking catastrophe of a human being. That's all. So, in the spirit of sharing, here is the first part of a list of my failures:

1. First Impressions

Have you ever met somebody and just instantly felt like they were a great person? Even though you've only known them for 4 and a half seconds you already want to go out for a beer with them, tell them your secrets and become the best of friends. Maybe even BFFs? Unsurprisingly I do not make a great first impression. That may have something to do with my intimidating intellect or it could be my cripplingly awful social skills. We'll never know.

Pictured: me asking a stranger for the time.

I always thought that poor social skills was something all nerds just have to put up with. It comes with the territory - we can hack into the Pentagon but we can't order a drink at a bar without stumbling over our words like we are trying to describe quantum mechanics to a girl with a distractingly low-cut top. But when I started on my first contract 5 months I saw something that blew my mind.

(No, it wasn't Christina Hendricks naked.)

Real live nerds, who can talk to normal people. Normally! At first I thought there was some kind of magic at play but I soon realised that these people had adapted to their environment and learned to communicate effectively with ordinary people. I didn't even know that was possible. At first it seemed a little creepy to see guys and gals who should be communicating entirely over IRC having actual conversations. But then I realised we could be seeing the beginnings of... the super nerd.

"Sure, I'd love to take you for a drink. Just as soon as I've finished compiling the latest kernel update."


The most noticeable thing they had picked up was creating a good first impression. I wanted to know how they managed this, so I did the nerdy thing. I analysed them. I brought the scientific method to good social interaction, which is either brilliant or indicative of my problem. I eventually realised it was the simplest thing. Smiling.

Pictured: one of the foundations of good social interaction (that I somehow managed not to learn).

Perhaps I need to explain. I only smile when something that makes me happy is occuring. I laugh at things that are funny. I don't smile for no reason. I certainly noticed that whenever these people greeted anyone, they always smiled. This is something I almost never do.

"Oh hey. It's great to meet you."

And the thing is, if you aren't used to it, forcing yourself to smile when you talk to people is incredibly difficult. It feels forced (because it is), insincere (because it is) and weird (because it... could be). But other people do this all the time, and when they do it to me I like it! We all like to be around happy people, so it makes sense for us to be happy around each other - or at least act it. Don't get me wrong, people who smile too much will look strange. But the right amount is extremely pleasant.

Even the most cold-hearted, pessimistic, cynical, negative and angry of people would still want to buy a cup cake from her.

So I tried it. Every time I greeted someone, from a co-worker to a shop assistant, I tried to force a smile. And it was tough. It was tough in the same way forcing youself to sing every greeting would be tough. It was embarassing and it felt unnatural. Sometimes I forgot to do it. Sometimes I remembered and the person on the receiving end of the greeting was so miserable it barely seemed worth it. Sometimes it felt like I was beginning a job interview. But I was definitely seeing results.

People are nicer to you if they think you are a nice person. If you start a conversation with a smile they will be more inclined to continue it. It was a magic wand to conjure up pleasant social interaction. How the fuck did I miss this?!

"It looks like Dan isn't in today, but I guess he can catch up on today's lesson "how to interact like a human being" at some later point."


This might sound like a success story. And it would be, if I had used what I had learnt all of the time, correcting a flaw that I found in myself to become a better person. But... I just can't do it. This is something I have simply learnt too late to integrate into my social interactions. Oh sure, I'll occasionally remember. But a lot of the time I won't and a lot of the time I am too embarassed to do it. This lesson has passed me by, like tying my laces using the "one loop" method (I am a "bunny ears" guy).

I am irrecovably broken.

Doop-Dee-Doop-Dee-Doo

Aaaaaaaaand I'm back. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote a post on this blasted thing I call a blog. I got a job. I moved to Cambridge. Wait actually... that's it. Because of that last point I have a bicycle now! 'ark at me - saving the planet with my legs and a couple of wheels. Although I'm not cycling to work for any political or moral reason - it's cheaper than the bus and a heck of a lot faster than walking. Another change worth mentioning is that I bought a second-hand laptop, on which I am typing this message. Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM and CentOS. It was a steal as well (as in it was very reasonably priced and quite possibly stolen).

So: this job of mine. I am an IT consultant / Linux Sysadmin for ARM (those of the 95% market share on smart phone microchip design). It's a pretty big deal and now I have to learn the ropes and get up to speed as quickly as possible. To that end, on the advice of a co-worker, I bought an RHCE study guide, so I can start thinking about taking the RHCE exam and get myself a well-recognised industry qualification. But that is quite boring for most people to read about so maybe some other things that have been playing on my mind.

I encountered a view a while ago that I had never heard before. There was a discussion on abortion and I was surprised to hear two rational, intelligent people saying that they disagreed with it (not in all cases, such as rape or incest - only the truly mad believe that). This surprised me but I was more surprised to their reason why. I had heard people argue that it was "murder" but they assured me this was not a concern of theirs. Their position was that if you have sex you should be ready for the responsibility of a baby - and if you get pregnant your "punishment" is to give birth and raise the child. I'm not saying that is a plainly wrong belief (although it is), but I had never heard that position before. It is something I must consider in future discussions.

I bought a Beach Boys compilation the other day. There is something quite funny about a group who's sexiest aspiration with a woman is "to meet her parents" but something charming and lovely about that. I suppose that was back in the day that pop groups had to appeal to young girls and their parents. I wonder if pop groups like that exist any more but they do, in a sense. The difference is that the Beach Boys were "proper" musicians where what we see today are musicians forged in record company pop factories. But that is probably just my inner moany old man speaking.

"Your mum!" "Your face!" "Your mum's face!"

The key to an interesting blog are twofold: quality of content and frequency of updates. I am sorely lacking in both departments.

These are two anecdotes I recalled recently. I hope they will suffice. They're both about shitting in public.

First, a few thoughts. I am not one of those people who refuses to defecate in a public toilet. If I need to drop a stool, I'll drop one. I don't care where I am. Okay maybe that is not 100% correct - I would not go to the toilet in the frozen aisle of my local Asda, or off the side of a fishing boat but generally speaking most public toilets will suffice. I don't like toilets on trains or planes because they are too cramped, and generally speaking there is one door between you and everyone else you need to share the rest of your journey with. I don't want the woman sitting next to me on the train to hear my turds splash into bowl. In summary, I have no problem with shitting in public toilets.

"Having to lay a log in a lavatory I have never seen before? This is a nightmare!" "No, no it isn't."

One day, many moons ago, I was in a public toilet, sitting in a cubicle. I feel I don't need to describe exactly what I was doing - and if you feel I should then maybe you should re-read the above paragraph. There. Got it? I was having a dump. As I'm sitting there, I hear the door open and two people run in. I hear them laughing and shouting to each other, and it is clear that they are quite young children. The noise subsides and I can concentrate on the business to hand (so to speak). Then I hear something. Something strange. Something... slightly worrying.

"Tee hee hee!"

I'll be honest - it made me somewhat curious and slightly troubled.

And then I hear it again.

"Tee hee hee!"

By now I am starting to become more than slightly worried. And then I heard it.

"Tee hee hee! I can see your bum-bum!"

My face went exactly. Like. This.

By this point I was, naturally pretty freaked out. But it continued:

"Tee hee hee! I can see your bum-bum!"

By this point I was... shall we say "indignant". And, at the very least, furious.

This perverted child is going DOWN. Okay maybe not Malcolm-X-fighting-black-oppression levels of indignation and fury but, you know. Pretty miffed.

I pull my trousers up as quickly as I possibly can and practically kick the cubicle door open. Someone is going to pay. That was an obvious exaggeration - I couldn't kick down the door to a doll's house - but you get the idea. I survey the restroom with anger rushing through my veins and my brain already planning a suitably bile-filled verbal tirade. And then I see it. A kid, maybe seven years old, at the urinal pointing at his younger brother, also at the urinal, who has his trousers and pants around his ankles and his shirt lifted above his stomach.

Oh thank God. It wasn't voyeurism, just strange urinal technique.

Of course it wasn't some kid spying on me. He was laughing at his brother. With a sigh of relief that should have come immediately after me pushing out that food baby, rather than outside the cubicle looking at some children having a piss, I washed my hands and left.




Another time I was in a cubicle, this time have a wee. It was one of those filthy public toilets that appear to never be cleaned, with piss all over the floor and graffiti all over the cubicle walls. Out of curiosity I started to read the graffiti. Most of it was the usual moronic rubbish, but one piece of scrawled text in particular caught my eye:

"Be in here at 7pm on a Saturday to get fucked hard by a big hairy bear cock."

I knew for sure it was a Saturday. I nervously raise my watch to my eye-line to check the time. The dial reads... 19:00.

Once again, my face went exactly. Like. This.

Suffice to say I got out of there pretty quickly, pushing past a tall, bearded fellow in biker gear as I made my exit.

So there we have it, my adventures with public toilets. Coincidentally the latter half of the previous sentence will be the title of my autobiography. Working title.

Facial Kerplunk

So I thought I might as well post another part from my "diary of crazy". This one isn't at all political, but is still something I am passionate about.

"People Who Shouldn't Be Allowed to Enjoy Music Concerts

• Anyone who throws drinks around.

• Anyone who takes their top off.

• Anyone who arrives in any kind of costume.

• Anyone who brings props.

• Anyone who crowd surfs.

• Anyone who starts a mosh pit and then gets offended when people push back.

• Anyone who starts a mosh pit just so they can have a fight.

• Anyone who starts a mosh pit.

• Anyone who heckles the performers.

• Anyone who demands huge amount of space for their dancing/dreadlocks (usually its both).

• Anyone who bring their kids (except festivals) or their parents (ever).

• Anyone who the surrounding people decides are too old/hairy/much of a dick head.

• Anyone who is too drunk to stand up.

• Anyone who is too drunk to actually enjoy the concert.

• Anyone who is too drunk.

• Anyone who takes about six full pints of beer right to the front of the crowd just before the main act comes on stage - you will be jostled.

• Any couples who decide to have a sloppy snog-a-thon right in the middle of the crowd. Your love is great and all but it is currently dribbling down my shoulder.

• All those people who go without saying.

"

The piece ends abruptly with the following quote on the next page:

"I'm not trying to ban fun. Just tightly regulate it."

Well it made me laugh at any rate.

Old Political Ramblings #1

I recently found a bunch of writing that I did whilst on my placement year. A lot of it was written on the train, it is mostly incoherent and unfocused. It is also very socialist. All of them were written when the recession was at its hardest, when bankers' bonuses were a top news story. Still, I have decided to type up some of the writings, because it is the kind of nonsensical pap you people are used to hearing from me.

The first is about banks, naturally.

"I am convinced nobody knows everything about economy and finance. How could they? There are too many variables. Representing economy and finance in terms of figures and graphs is like trying to represent the universe in felt.

It is ridiculously complicated to even open a bank account: which kind of account, which bank, what kind of card, etc. And there is no transparency at all. You have no idea where your money actually is. Can't someone make banking open source?

Surely all most people use bank accounts for are convenient transfer of funds, cash withdrawals and somewhere secure to store their money. But we appear to be paying a very high price for convenience."

This is a piece about religion. It probably reads a little more controversially than I intended.

"I do not like to believe religion deliberately oppresses its followers. Religion was a mechanism used in the past to assert authority or enforce morality. Now we have government, education, prisons, courts, etc. Religion no longer seems relevant. But alas, it prevails. As does its nonsensical beliefs. `Don't eat pork` made sense when food could not be safely stored and cooked, and medicine was in its infancy. This is no longer an issue.

However, as it should be obvious to anyone, that is the most minor of issues. Abortion is the issue that most accurately displays the disparity between religious edicts and modern wisdom. The woman's right to choose to have an abortion is fundamental for any civilised society. And yet religion calls it murder. This kind of backwards-thinking can only hold a progressive society back."

Those are the two least crazy-sounding one's. I will post more when I get the chance.

"Close Enough"

I don't know whether it is the rapture-that-didn't-happen, or something else, but I have recently been thinking about something that happened to me a while ago.

So one day I was at home, no doubt doing something incredibly important and time consuming, something during which I could not be interrupted - for fear of my concentration being broken and all of my effort would be wasted. Whatever it was, it must have been urgent, and time consuming. Probably.

Just imagine those are a pair of male hands. And the hand cream is completely organic - and yet somehow man-made.

Unfortunately there was an interruption to my incredibly significant work - the doorbell. As I am sure you can appreciate by now - I did not want to be disturbed. However I had no choice but to run downstairs and answer the door. There I was greeted by two middle-aged women, one standing about a foot in front of the other. The woman closest to me then asked me the question that they had clearly said many times before: "have you discovered the glory of our Lord, Jesus Christ?"

"Well this may take a while."

At first I was tempted to say: "who?" Why is it that Christians seem to recruit people by asking about Jesus, as if there are some people in the Western world who legitimately would have no idea what a Jesus is? Don't get me wrong - I am not bashing Christianity. I have met Christians whose lives are better because of their religion. But the problem is that, when they come door-to-door, they do tend to... go on a bit. I stood there, trying to think of the quickest way to get them off the doorstep. You see if you just say you're an atheist they take that as an opportunity to convert you. It gives them a target to hit. I was racking by brain, desperately trying to come up with something when I had... an epiphany of sorts. It was so simple. Why had I never thought of it before? A pleasant smile spread across my face as I said the lie that would ensure they would quickly leave:

"I am Jewish."

It really would have helped if I had looked like this at the time.

I really thought this was a stroke of genius on my part. Jewish people do not embrace Jesus as the messiah - surely these Jehovah's Witnesses could not believe that they could reverse the beliefs handed down over thousands of years? Surely nobody is that insensitive? That misguided? The reactions to my statement from the two women were interesting. The woman furthest from me looked at me as if I had just said: "sorry, would you mind coming back a bit later? I'm feasting on the innards of infants at the moment."

Maybe I shouldn't have answered the door like this.

The woman closest to me took longer to formulate a response. She seemed to be turning things over in her mind, trying to decide if she should persist or just walk away. "Oh. Erm. Well... I suppose there are some similarities..." What?! I could not believe she was seriously going to try to convince me a (for all she knew) devoutly Jewish young man to get off the Jew train and ride on the Jesus Express. It is actually deeply offensive. Perhaps not as offensive as pretending to be Jewish just so you don't have to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, but still pretty bad. I was about now that I realised how misguided my lie may have been. Not only am I not Jewish, I know very little about the religion - despite what I had seen on TV and in films. I was stuck. She then started to outline the Christian beliefs to me, and my sense of politeness forced me to just nod along and pretend to be interested. "You see, we believe that Jesus is the son of God and died for our sins." "Oh, sure."

"I'm sorry, could you please go over who exactly killed Christ? Thanks."

After a while she stopped and said to me: "You know it is so great to see a young man with faith. Can I ask you what you call God?" I still don't know what word Jewish people use for God. I had to cover. "Oh, I just say 'God', to make things easier for my non-Jewish friends." "Do you usually where a skull cap? It's just I notice you aren't wearing one now." "Err, well mine's in the wash. But I always where it to temple. I don't wear it all the time. It keeps slipping off." You might be able to tell by this time I was getting a bit desperate.

I guess I must have lost the clip? Or something like that.

"So are your whole family Jewish?" Now I started to think if they talk to anyone else in my family, and they figure out that they aren't Jewish they will know I was lying. "Um, no. It's just me. My family are not practising. Just me. We're all Jewish but I am the only one who visits the synagogue." "Which synagogue do you go to?" My answer requires a little explaining. For reasons too convoluted to get into, a friend of mine had pretended to be Jewish (so there is something of a track record when it comes to falsifying faith) and had also been asked to which he went synagogue. He just replied "the one in Romford" - having no idea if there was one. Apparently there is, not that I have ever seen it. So I just copied his answer. "Oh yes, I know the one." Good job she did, because I didn't. "There's a Jewish festival coming up soon, isn't there?" "Oh, yeah I think you're right. I'd completely forgotten about that, I had better start getting ready for... it." As unconvincing as my blagging seems now apparently she completely bought it.

I could make a joke about how Christians are quite easy to fool but that would just be mean.

Finally she gave me some pamphlets and left. Now let's follow this thought process through. Either she really did respect the fact that I was(n't) Jewish, and decided to have an earnest discussion about the differences about our faiths - or she thought that by explaining how great Christianity is she might be able to convert a young Jewish man to Christianity. Does that seem likely? I mean really, how many Jewish people are going to go back on everything they believe and suddenly say "actually, yeah, Christ is the messiah"?

To be fair that group is in the US. The parameters for 'crazy' are way more strictly defined over there.

So that's what happened to me. In the end it could have gone a lot worse - or possibly better - if I had gone with my original idea. To tell them I was a Satanist.

Only Short

This won't be a long image-heavy post. I just thought I could write a little about what's been going on.

I have finally updated the boxes on the left - finally you can judge me again! There is a disappointingly small amount of albums I have bought - considering how many I want I'll have to wait until I have some money before I can do that. My recent posts have included images. I like blog posts with images. It breaks up the text, making it easier to read and helps the posts flow. I am still getting to grips with how I incorporate them into the content. It will probably be a long time before you see me attempt to put some of my own work in there - I am a terrible artist and not the "bad-in-a-funny-way" Allie Brosh can get away with. Just plain awful. Bear with me while I try to find the best way to combine images and text into a post that is somehow good to read.

You will also notice some AdSense stuff around the page - just ignore it for now - I am trying to get some stats about how many people read the blog, how many of those would click on the adverts. I am not the kind of person who actually clicks on the ads on webpages, so I would be interested to see who is.

Even though it has been requested that I don't review entertainment - I feel I have to comment on a few films I have seen. First of all: 12 Angry Men has just become one of my favourite films. The dialogue is engrossing, the characters are played to perfection and the plot plays out in such a well balanced way - you never feel patronised. Overall just a very, very good film which I would urge anyone to see. Apparently there are remakes of this film, I am talking about the 1957 original.

Also I am apparently surrounded by people who do not like Inception. So far their reasons have been flimsy to baseless. To me it is a great film, intelligent, moving and action-packed - I really couldn't see how anyone could dislike it. One reason was "it seemed a bit full of itself". To me it didn't seem at all pretentious. I can withstand a certain amount of pretension in a film if it is a good feature, but Inception never struck me as pretentious in the slightest. Another reason I have heard is "basically, the film is all about a man getting over the death of his wife. That is a girls' film." (I should point out that the person who said this is a male.) There is so much I don't understand about that statement it is breathtaking. First the is the "girls' film" bit - I think something is either good or bad, despite what demographic it is aimed at. Inception doesn't appear to be marketed to any one demographic - it's just a great film. There appears to be an assumption that a film's merit can be judged solely from the groups it will most appeal to. There also appears to be an assumption that any film that deals with feeling of love and loss is somehow a bad film. I really don't understand the argument, but I think that is just because it is a faulty argument rather than a review.

I also recently watched the film "Reel Injun", which is a history and analysis of portrayals of Native Americans in US cinema. It is an interesting piece, which has given me a few films to watch - such as "The Fast Runner", which can be obtained on a "pay-what-you-want" basis from the studio. How cool is that? I have also recently seen "Coraline". Coraline is a strange watch, it seems like a family-friendly film but it really is very creepy and scary (for an animated feature, anyway). You wouldn't want to show young children the images of people with buttons for eyes and a story about an evil being abducting a child and her parents. That said, a thoroughly enjoyable film.

At some point I must watch Kes - it is on the BFI's top 10 British films list - as it is widely acclaimed and appeals to me hugely from the synopsis. Yet more ways in which I can procrastinate before the big assignment hand-in on Friday. Sigh.

This short post has ended up being rather long, apologies. Maybe I'll post something halfway-decent soon. Or ever. Bye.