danieru in tokyo
Saturday, October 30, 2004
The fascination with the class system continues - is there a derogatory slang term for the middle class? (apart from bourgeois, which doesn't count, as it says more about the accuser than the accused) Chavs (genus of the species Schemie and Ned) at one end of the spectrum, and then Chinless Bucktoothed Yahs (genus of the species Sloan and Rar) at the opposite end. Note that both wear Burberry. And so do Americans.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Dreadlocks won't live in no tenament block.
An awful, awful, film. You leave the cinema feeling as if an hour of your life has just been stolen. Perhaps the name "The Scuffles of Aliens with Predators" is better suited. More violence next time please. Or plot.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Question:
I want to know what phrase to use when referring to the kind of people who dedicate vast proportions of their life efforts to downloading, hoarding and gazing fondly upon eternal amounts of uselessly downloaded media content from the 'net.
By now, someone must have coined a term for these bandwidth hogs. They exist, so what are they?
Born a Dust Junkie To Live In Sin.
I seem to remember stumbling upon a bar in Nottingham a few months back, that was, in a previous designated usage, a Temple Of God - monothesistic flavour. Which made me realise, that bars today offer similar functions to that of Churches years back. Just another community gathering hall, blasting the rants of Pop stars idolised and followed like prophets with Patrons dying to get to the front to be fulfilled by the Spirit.
//This thought is brought to you whilst listening to The Organ Donor
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
I am so terminally bored, that I am losing the will to live. It has occured to me that I lost the will to live sometime ago, but keep forgetting about it when I am occupied. A self perpetuating problem of existence for the sole reason of having stuff to sort out.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Brum
The North remains a filthy industrial pit. At 3am, I felt there was no reason to stop drinking. Dave proved me wrong by illustration of one empty whisky and one empty fizzy wine. Felt scabby the next day.
My attempt to force social discomfort upon (white) Dave by turning up at the pub by bringing 6 Indian Doctors with me failed. Afterall, in Brum Indians are everywhere. Even pubs.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Religion & Conflict.
Synonymous, sure. Interjection - religion is a hierarchical methodology to organise society. Orwell used intelligence to organise The Farm. Today it could be argued that country of birth, finance and beauty are all significant factors in positioning. These positionings, and the discordances that inevitably result, are the cause of the conflict. You can look back at Monarchies, feudal systems and fertile land to witness conflict over time. So don't blame religion - blame the government. Especially since we can now look at their expenses.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Handing Over.
I have spent most of this week being shadowed by a J2EE developer. The man is aghast at the simplicity and extraordinary amount of nothingness there is to my job. He remains convinced that there is a whole bunch of complicated processes hiding somewhere that I refuse to handover, in the interests of job protection.
ME: And that's how you backup a database.
HIM: What do we do now?
ME: British food is a failure because of religion. Did you know that Henry VIII cut off from mainland Europe, causing greater diveristy in English and continental cultures? You can see this in the food - although the Puritans are also to blame.
HIM: WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY????
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Vic has intimated that I have ADD. So, I have spent some time (perhaps 3 minutes) looking up details of why I don't. The guidlines give these among their watchlist:
Depressive and Bipolar disorders ?Anxiety Disorders ?Chemical and
Behavioral Addictions- Drugs, alcohol, disordered eating, gambling,
sexual addictions, etc. ?Oppositional Defiant and Conduct Disorders ?
Learning Disorders, including receptive and expressive language
problems, reading and written language ?Psychotic Disorders and
Pervasive Developmental Disorders ?Obsessive/Compulsive Disorders ?
Personality Disorders ?Tic Disorders ?Hypo and Hyperthyroidism ?Sleep
Disturbances ?Chromosomal anomalies and other Developmental Syndromes ?
Brain Trauma
I believe that he is referring to Tic Disorders. As the above list contrains 12 items, I can dismiss his claims. If, whilst reading this list you are compelled to believe that you suffer from ADD or ADHD, it is likely that you are a hypochondriac.
If the newscasters showed emotion when reading stories of carnage and woe, would we have greater empathy for the victims?
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
The Internet: Date of Social Acceptance.....1997
Internet Chatrooms: Date of Social Acceptance....Pending
The current stereotype is that of a socially retarded spotty semiclad male sitting in a darkened room fervorously tapping messages to people he will never meet.
In reality, I am in a corporate office, avoiding work. And the lights are on.
Back in the day when I started using SMS, part of the geeky appeal was that nobody else knew what the hell SMS was. And then girls starting using SMS, and it became cool.
Whatever women do, fastracks the event to becoming both mainstream and therefore accepted. Take engineering. An overwhelming proportion of women do not want to become engineers, and Engineers are about as socially desirable as a GW Bush banner in a mosque.
This has got to change. Girls use chatrooms now (or so i'm led to believe by this blonde Swedish 19 year old), so what's holding it up from going mainstream? Is is this girl really a balding, pot bellied, yellow toothed, badly dressed, MAN? Probably. And until women start using IRC by the droves, the stereotype is going to stick.
The alternative is money. The internet got accepted when people started making barrels of money from it, and quickly became attractive to the opposite sex. So, if someone figures a way to make reams of cashola outta chatrooms....
Outsourcing Sleep.
One of my oldest - but i gotta write it down. If you cast your mind back to GCSE biology, perhaps you'll remember adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This little number gives you the energy. Muscle contractions et al. ATP breaks down to Adenosine, and after sleep, the quantities of this chemical in your body decrease. When Adenosine binds to your cells, it can make you feel sleepy. One thing that caffeine does is inhibit this binding.
Adenosine is just one of the chemicals that is attributed to sleep, and scientists are only beginning to understand how it, and the others work. Soon, we're going to get a drug which keeps us awake all the time, without feeling extra tired later. But with the shift toward natural remedies, the expensive version of this drug will have to be naturally produced. Which means the drug companies are going to have to tap it from humans.
The Wealthy are going to pay people to sit around sleeping all day, so that they can stay awake, and get richer. Shobana points out that prisoners will be targeted for donations.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Don't cry - things have changed, it's not you, it's society. A low blow was had by spreading gloomy stories - despair mongery. But even I felt evil after laying down a convincing argument for the death of concept Life Partner, an Idea From Yesteryear to the two single-at-late-twenties girls who felt obligated to listen. They won't be making that mistake again.
The Lacerations of Reality. And there it is, 4 weeks notice starting today. The pain I feel is from knowing I should've taken the contract in the Dutch Antilles. Oh well, at least i'm out of Basingstoke.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Tommys and Krauts.
Germany, as always, was a dip into the world of kitch and bohemian decadence. It isn't the Germans in general, rather Hasilik and clan. I could talk about the madness of rumaging through 2nd hand shops to find pictures of pets, bringing them home and nailing them to the wall. Or early 80's video game collections, and the numerous cine film projectors around the house, playing back 70's family holidays of people nobody knows. But after a few beers, you quickly forget and, in my case, have a loud unnecessary argument with someone you've never met before over why Iran needs to go nuclear for world peace. (i still think they need nukes).
What I didn't know, is that the Huns call us Tommys. Quite why, none of them could really explain. There was also talk of "island apes", but this sounds more convincing in the native tongue. On a personal note, it appears that Asians are not blighted by the stereotype that this man has propagated for us in the US and UK. Thank God.
Friday, October 15, 2004
A slightly more immiment bullet.
So now i'm informed that Monday will be the "get my notice day". Which, after 4 weeks, translates into the beginning of the pre-Christmas shutdown. So no chance of further employment this year.
Pull out the map of Europe, and I reckon I can fly to Athens, and make my way up to Tallinn via 4+ eastern european countries in the time available then start looking for jobs in the New Quarter.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Did God buy equity in Lucifer PLC?
Even the most ardent supporters of an overseer will accept that Justice, in the eyes of a mortal, is skewed today. This fuels the atheist camp, and bolsters the Agnostic crowd. But to quote Woody Allen: "If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever".
On the other hand, perhaps God was smart. Perhaps he realised that Satan was gaining popularity, and moved with the times.
When the company sees it's marketshare shrinking, and a more dynamic competitor taking grip, there are two options. Fight back. Or accept defeat, asset strip, get out early with cash in hand, and stick the money into booming business (like your competitors).
Perhaps God bought shares in Lucifer PLC?
This goes a long way into explaining how a certain manager at a site I used to work at earns over �100 per hour for inane chuckling at meetings. And nothing else. Am I bitter? Only that I didn't go long on Lucifer.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Excellent. I have managed to scare my agent, and confuse my boss. I have not signed any contract for work, having been here 2 months already. :)
The victims and victors of Capitalism
//TABLOID VERSION OF STORY
the victim of capitalism is underpaid who's monthly payments on their lifestyle exceed that of their income. the victor will therefore be the freeloader who spends nothing of what he accrues. Hence, I believe the victor to be a Inuit tribesman who recieves a large state benefit from Denmark, and moonlights part time as a fund manager for JP Morgan, with an expense account.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Ice T quote that I can't find / confirm on the web. "if someone calls you articulate, what they really mean is 'he speaks pretty good for a black guy'".
An English Furita In Basingstoke.
A Japanese counter culture movement is going mainstream. They've not sold out, they're just getting noticed. In Japan, a ?????, pronounced Freeta or Furita, is not a fruit burrito - but perhaps it is the person who is serving you your taco. The Japanese lost the 1990's, it seems that Kiitchi Miyazawa was distracted when President George Bush Snr barfed on him in a 1992 state visit. The result of this distraction was an implosion of the markets and the beginning of the end of the Japanese work ethic. Company HR departments found the word redundancy in the dictionary, and workers skipped the pages on loyalty and slavery in their code of conduct. Thus began the revolution, as the People questioned the Old Thinking. Freelancing, the notion of non-permanent employment, and a break from traditional employment started rising in popularity.
The people who, typically aged between 20 and 35, decide to temp instead of perm are dubbed furitas. We call them Arts Students, and you tend to find them working in bars having just dossed around SE Asia for a few months. They are a new, not entirely welcome, social group in Japan.
Scroll down to the heading "Currents" in this doc to read a more informed version.
Other excellent news today includes the unity of Europe, as Spain in favour of France for their National Day parade, and failed to invite the USA this time.
Friday, October 08, 2004
After running a red traffic light in London, you can be sure of only one thing - the bloke behind you will follow. The decision made by the guy behind him is less certain.
A Shift in Fiscal Philosophy
D Carlyle recently pointed out that the smart man dies in debt. He has to be smart, of course, to predict death accurately. The argument of whether this is true of not is moot, perhaps when you have children as quarelsome as the current Gen X'ers (moi?) you will change your mind.
Years ago, the status quo for everyone from pirates to the bourgeoisie was to leave a legacy. Perhaps the security that the wealth provided during life, and the notion of immortality and fame (however localised) through inheritance or stashed plunderings. Today soceity is shifting, leaving behind these ideas for debt. I am loathe to believe it is a selfish change, as pirates could hardly be heralded as an altruistic class.
So, predicting death. In the past acturists may have turned to the man with the guile - generally a Priest. Of course, the Scientist has displaced the Priest today, with much the same internal social structurings. Scientists have different cults, followers, leaders and sponsors, whose difference in views and opinions are aired in conferences which no doubt resemble the Middle Eastern Synagogues 2000 years ago. But they still can't predict death.
So we are left with the original problem - unsure of when to start turning black to red. Perhaps the Dutch have part of the answer with 50 year mortgages.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Tyson masquerading as a Maori.
UNDERwood.
He reads this blog, so my ego requires me to babble. Underwood is spending a few months in NZ, and occassionally sends out emails about life on the other side of the world. Excerpt:
"Saturday and Sunday the weather was fantastic - cool wind but clear skies and brilliant sunshine - so on Sunday I walked the Bridle Path over the hills from Christchurch to Lyttleton Harbour."
What? Where are the stories of nights of beer related disgrace / bungee jumping in brown trousers / eye witness of stories involving locals accosting sheep / scary Maoris with full face tatoos having drunken brawls. For God's sake man, think of the ratings.
//End rant begging for tabloid reading from NZ.
Losing this job is like spilling beer on your crotch. Irritating, and you just wish that the stain would go faster. And such a waste of good beer.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Today 4 red cars in a row went by - today was a good day.
Young has set me the task of evaluating the above sentence. It rings a bell, but I can't remember the context. Any help? Email me if you know the answer. Google, Altavista, Yahoo have all proved fruitless.
Campaigning For Apathy
Voter apathy has been increasing of late, and like any market trend, the smart man gets in early on the action. The Tories want to cash in on this calf. Check the headlines today:
Tories plan to cut tax but no firm promises.
Letwin is short on specifics over tax cuts.
You can trust me, says Tory leader.
Howard: We'll keep our promises.
They have announced that they won't break promises. Indeed, a scan of the papers proves that they have made no promises to break. A Political Party without an Agenda. This, I believe is groundbreaking. Appealing to the apathetic crowd by saying "A Vote for us won't mean a thing".
In order to maintain my status as a hypocrite beyond all proportions, I can now say that I have never voted, and never intend to.
//END RANT
The deck of death was procured yesterday. An impulse buy, and the novelty will wear off fast.
Friday, October 01, 2004
In what could be the only ever recorded case of developers outlasting SAs and DBAs on a project, Sony have decided to keep 2 java coders back and let the rest of us roam free. Strange atmosphere in a zombie company. I have sat here typing up my CV all day - just like everyone else. Permies are getting called out to talk about redunancies, personal phonecalls are being made constantly, and productivity has gone into reverse.
The greatest failure yesterday was forgetting my father's birthday. OOPS.
The big question. Should I stockpile iPod Mini's for Christmas?
It struck me yesterday that we are living in a era which beholds a huge gap between the lives of citizens of developed and undeveloped nations. What is different now, compared to 50 years ago, is that practically everyone is aware of each other. Which means that some kid is aware that I slack off all day surfing the internet, whilst he wrestles buffalo for dinner. Should I be distressed and riddled with guilt?
Spinning & Sacking
Attended a spinning class today. Furious cycling and getting sweaty. Followed by a team meeting with Steve informing us that Sony are pulling the plug on our useless selves, and all the permies are getting redundancy. The contractors get their months notice - except two. Curiously, he would not tell us who those TWO of EIGHT were in the meeting today, which has led to speculation, accusation and finally sweepstakes. I am 99% sure that I will be pulling the shrapnel outta my ass tomorrow, which means I have one month to find another job. Please let it be on the mainland.
CV rewriting begins tomorrow.
- July 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- October 2009
- July 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- October 2008
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- July 2008
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- April 2008
- March 2008
- December 2007
- October 2007
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- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
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- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
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- August 2004
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- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004