danieru in tokyo
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Disaster
Also, got that teenage girl feeling for a few seconds today, after a girl asked me out. Welcome to the 21st century. Well, I guess it's better than a guy asking me out.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Stag night
And with a woosh, the weekend has sped by.
Friday: PH & JB were up. AM's flatmate was having a birthday bash. Somehow managed to combine both into an evening in the Offal Lounge. PH shaken with the news that IT is engaged.
Saturday: Bloke about to get married. The usual routine of drinking and strippers.
We started out in Sportsters. Lucifer take note: I'm aware that the needle on my karma tank always seems to run a little closer to E than F, and Sportsters is waiting for me in the afterlife. Retribution for my deeds that were spoken, unspoken, actioned or otherwise. Scoot across the road to a strip joint. Walked in, sat about, feeling uncomfortable. Woman identifies me as a meek target, a darkie, lacking charisma, and with a self certainty far too diluted than is necessary to make women fall for him.
Woman: "Want a dance?" she says in a tone condescendingly appropriate to her assumptions of me.
DD: "I'm gay." slightly blazee.
Woman: "I do gay guys too".
DD: "Yeah, but i'm not gonna get turned on by it, am I?"
Woman, now stumped, turns and tries to walk away, as John desperately tries to convince her of my heterosexuality. Dammit John, what I am supposed to say? That I'm not turned on by agressive, self serving imbiciles, besides, I find you rather intimidating. Not to mention expensive.
GvW, scared of his wife, decides that if approached, his tactic will be to claim partnership with myself.
Then to the casino, which truth be told, I was looking forward to even less than the strip joint - I find them excessively boring. Until KY provided me with a simplistic mathematical conundrum. In roulette, betting on red, consistently, with eventually yield a positive result. So I took a pen and paper, and did some basic probabality calculations, and with the help of GvW concluded that I had a ridiculously high chance of winning. Still doing the math now, but i'm up 20quid anyway.
Then exit the show and head down to BM's flat for a gathering of randoms. And after a few whisky's, as much as I tried not to, I found one of those ever so complacently happy with life little sh*tes, that forced me to do my usual sociopath routine. Then there was Xaxier. A 29 year old guy dating 19 year old girl. Flatmate of BM feels sorry for the girl, as he believes that she will eventually be heartbroken.
a. I have no sympathy, largely because she will learn from this.
b. She could leave him.
c. I don't believe that you can ever really love someone else.
d. He keeps half a dozen of female friends to prop up an ailing ego, and she desperately flirts with plain looking men to get his attention. They both deserve each other.
Of course, flatmate of BM called me an unenlightened insensitive waste of space, and I considered him a narrow minded weak sheep.
BM had already drunk 15 shots of Absinth before I arrived, and heckled that he could outdrink anyone else. Vomit and humilitation a two or three hours later.
Walk all the way home, yapping to KM about social engineering, evolution of the psyche and all things pretentious, loudly and incoherently without any of the academic foundations necessary for a constructive debate.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Godfather
SD and VS made a baby on Saturday. They must be crazy. They've elected me to be the Christian Godparent of an ethnically Hindu kid. Huh? As undoubtedly flattering as it is, disconcertment remains my primary feeling towards this unvoluntary position. Many reasons were given, but VS managed to distill them to 7:
The ACTUAL reasons for asking you:
1. You are interesting.
2. You can climb trees, ledges, rocks, etc, therefore probably more fun than her own parents.
3. You will be able to impart some knowledge on finance since both her parents are poor.
4. If anything happens to both of us, you're the only one we trust that would provide financial support to our daughter without being calculating and mean.
5. You put promises before yourself.
6. Even though you act like a nut most of the time, you're actually quite responsible.
7. Since you are very likely to remain single, she may be in line to inherit the D'Souza estate.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Before I Sputter Out
Forced to go over to work in the monkey farm unit today. depressing as being forced to watch a football match. made me taste the air of years gone by - the whole reason i left Uncle Rupert, over a year ago. But desert islands don't solve a thing. So it's time to listen to Curt, and remember: Life is simple, and because we are idiots, we make it complicated.
Jesus and his lawyer.....are coming back
Dinner yesterday with the IRECA peoples. Strangley enough, they were straight as arrows. At least on the face of it. I really enjoyed it: AP stroking his beard, whilst I tried to convince him to make a violin out of ice - the 15 minute violin - a revolution in string acoustics awaiting it's inventor.
Sunday morning was meetup with RM and his 2 SE Asia travelling buddies. I exceeded even myself with a legendary social faux pas. Whatever you do, don't mention the pies, to the fat chick. I did, but I think I got away with it.
Today: a bottle of wine on my lonesome, and then a heart to heart with RA, who we have concluded is older than me, yet I am older than him. You want, you miss, and you notice what you havent got.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Reflections
It has been argued that people who cause you irritation are mere reflections of insecurities within yourself. Some guy annoys you by his arrogance, and subconsciously you worry about whether or not you come across as arrogant. Hence irritation.
RH was annoying me the other day, for no specific reason. This caused a cycle of grief from too many angles - why was she annoying me, why was I letting her annoy me, and what about her did I see in myself?
The Solution: Stop thinking.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Deity
There is an intrinsic belief that all deities should be ethically superior to the plebiscite foot soldier. Why? Historically, leaders have had a higher probability of stooping to corruption and bigotry to serve their own selfish needs, than any other category within the fabric of the social hierarchy.
BRING ON the naughty, deliquent, immature, selfish gods.
I am drunk. Once more, Uncle Rupert has decided to pay for my drinks. Free drinks = drunk enough to let RA play Salsa at full volume on the hifi whilst I whip out a quick blog entry.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Open Mouth; Insert Foot
RV's cousin (CV), over from Rome for a few days. Last night was his last night, so we head down to Medina. Luckily for me, he didn't do Salsa either, so we stood by the bar and passed time with a mutual friend, Beer. Conversation dwindled, and remembering my disappointment a few days prior upon realising that all Italian women didn't look like RV, I asked
DD: "So what do you think of Scottish women, they're not too hot, are they?"
CV: "Err, I don't know what to say"
DD: "Whatever man, no-one can hear you, and besides, the reason why most of the girls at this bar are good looking is because most of them are Spanish."
CV: "I don't really have an opinion"
DD: {dying to quote Pulp Fiction} "You must have an opinion, come on..."
CV: "No, I mean, I'm gay"
DD: "Well, Scottish men are even worse"
CV: "No, I think I like them"
DD: {determined to win a pointless argument} "They are uncouth, crude and pasty with sharp unattractive features"
Monday, March 14, 2005
Firenze III
Busy with tourists. Firenze maxes out with people as the holiday season gets busy, and we had a quite taster of what this was when the queue to the Uffizi got long. Football stadium size. The bridges were quickly deluged with people wandering aimlessly, and I started to dislike it. So we jumped on the bus and headed out to Fiesole. Fiesole is a smaller, older village that is up on the hills 4 miles outside Florence. A welcome break from the bustle of the main town, with some excellent, although fogged over views of the city.
Curious tales:
Walking through the streets at night, between bars, some random guy tapped HP on the shoulder, articulated a sexual position by means of a charade, and then raised his hands questioning whether or not she was interested. Sadly, she chose to pass on exploring this aspect of Florentine culture.
We managed to find a man selling kebabs at 4am, which were reasonably tasty, especially since they embedded the chips within the kebab. Some grease with your lard, sir?
I ran into some chick on the 3rd day who said "I REMEMBER YOU!!! - you were the guy who was talking to me 2 days ago about the death of post-modern style in contemporary British fiction"
Embarrassing stuff. Especially given how the fact that I had no recollection of the conversation, and only remembered her as some woman that hung out with Alaskan dude.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Firenze II
Wake up just after they stopped serving breakfast, wander around to Duomo - Check this:
Then onto wander around trying to find Dante's house, without luck. Give up, and go see some cathedrals instead. Magnificent stuff. Especially since this woman in the cathedral had a castle on her head.
Boboli gardens. This guy started building a big house. Big, like so big it would humble the Medini aristocrats. His family was bankrupted and forced to sell out to them. The Medini boys finished the job, and now the gardens are a visitor attraction.
The man at the bridge had an excellent scam going. You buy a lock from his stall, and use a permanent marker to write the names of you and your beloved on brass of the lock, and then seal your fate together by securing the lock to the fence, and throwing away the key as demonstrated:
If that man doesn't have the spare key, and a tin of paint stripper, I'm lodging a complaint for stupidity.
Dinner at a decent restaurant by overlooking the bridge, which gave HP the chance to watch lovers succumb to each others charms as the sun set over the Tuscan landscape. Enough to put me off my wild boar pasta.
The another night of wandering from bar to bar and running into Alaskan bloke then onto series of dire pubs. Italy is now a smoke zone. If the guy next to you wants to choke his lungs he must walk outside the bar, saving your clothes and hair from stinking worse than infamous Camel. A less glamorous side effect includes the lowering of cancer risk
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Firenze
Wake up at an 4am to begin a journey under camouflage of 10m visibility fog to Prestwick. HP cautiously drops to 85mph. The commute to Firenze was dull, zero visibility out of the plane, lots of hanging about, and no overzealous customs officers with rubber gloves. But then arrival, and check-in. Prepare for tourist stomping of streets in no particular direction, seeking to get bearings. I never bother with bearings unless on my own, so this was an opportunity to follow, photo and feed. Florence is a small city that still smells of renaissance. Reeks even. Check this:
I had been told by many that Italy is an expensive place to visit - these people were either stupid, or travelling with partners who wouldn't be seen dead anywhere remotely proletarian. Fast food in Italy is easily available in the form of snack shops selling pizza slices, paninis and the rest. It's cheap, (less than 3 euro a pop) fuss free and of reasonable quality. Coffee and wine are everywhere. You see these guys pull into a coffee shop, order an expresso, stand at the bar, shoot it, and continue on their journey. A 45 second detour for a hit of caffeine. The first day was simple. Wander around, IT studiously noting every street with an Irish bar. Climbed some large hill:
Followed by dinner, then drinks in Irish bars. The drinking continued until about 2am, by which time we had gotten invited to a house party by some white rasta. Run off to another bar, and hang out with some American college kid called Joe Cameron, referred to as Camy. Not the abbreviation I would have chosen, but the guy was chilled enough to endure the drunken rants of two late twenty-something hobos and repeatedly use phrases such as "Solid" and "Fucking-A". Perhaps it was the Alaskan accent that allowed him to quote these phrases without turning his baseball cap sideways, yet still sound authentic.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Gorillas
One who percieves himself with the humblest of hearts will truly appreciate himself as a worthy human when surrounded by apes.
Thank God I work in IT.
GW gets back from a meeting that he walked out on, slightly more confused than he was prior to entering the Conference Room.
The Others: "We're part of a new group which wants to examine process within the department"
GW: "What is your remit?"
The Others: "We'll get back to you on that"
GW: "Who do you report to?"
The Others: "We'll get back to you on that"
GW: "What level of buy-in, and from whom, do you have with the business for this?"
The Others: "We'll get back to you on that"
GW: {tries not to let door slam behind him on the way out}
Animal Testing. Arguments For (+) & Against (-)
- What gives you the right?
+ Nothing. Sometimes the end does justify the means. I can't see another to learn
- We dont need to learn.
+ Smoking? Most people didn't realise that it was bad for you. Until they learnt.
This is where it falls to pieces. Normally because I stop listening, as my arrogance fails to find a reason to listen anymore. ;-)
Monday, March 07, 2005
Snow
The snow may have gone, but this is probably my only shred of evidence that it ever existed. But without perspective, Arthur's Seat, late at night, could be a close up of and old man's forearm.
Managed to score a point for annoying people today, as i cruised into the lounge, catching the tail end of TV movie that RH was watching. Jocularly stating "Was the film as bad as it looked?" No response. Glance over to see that she had actually been moved to tears by that soppy waste of Kodachrome.... Oops.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Hi Mom!!!
I'm on TV. RV and RA dropped all for the chance of fame and success in the sunny hills of Wigi-town. The BBC is running a series of interviews for Come Dancing, and they're through to the 2nd round. So back to Glasgow today, hoping to get into the 3rd round. Wishing them all the best.
Dropped by the Sports bar yesterday to say Hi to JM since he's just back from NYC. He was plenty relaxed and still in holiday mode, so i'm looking forward to see how Monday morning mauls his face off tomorrow. But oh my, the Sports bar. Exclusively patronised by what is likely to be a large cross section of the public, yet I have rarely felt so completely at ease with my differences. It was not my crowd, not even vaguely, and there was no need for me to try and fit in. Surrounded by painted ladies with short skirts, mouldy peanuts as brain substitute and boyfriends obsessing over football - merley a subterfuge for ogling sweaty men in tight short shorts.
But the most amazing thing was that I felt no anger, no requirement to grade and rate the crowd against myself, consider good from bad and right from wrong. Traded conversation, then jumped back in the Smart with RA and headed home via Shell for munchies. Mmmm.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Flared nostrils and beating eardrums
Zip home, still relatively angry about nothing. Mope. Tea with RV. Then Clarity. It's like a pill. Head to Cuba Norte to meet two geeks called AM. Then onto enormous flat in the cleaner part of town, where the BMW's are shiny. AB sought to dilute the pain of the clock pointing North. Music (loud), Chemicals (aplenty), Company (partay). AB points to the stencil on the wall. "It's a genuine Banksy" he says without actually realizing the irony in his statement. (hint: think anti-establishment, anti-capitalism).
A mindfield of social awkwardness that could have been. Yet wasn't. Getting home at 6am means I had a good time. I remember a few things:
The only true love that can exist is the love which you can have for yourself. The survival instinct shot altruism clean out of an azure blue sky before it was ever born.
Taboos, dwindling in numbers now, with a hardcore of sociopaths vying to break them. Always intriguing. Consider a parent feeling ice cold contempt for their child. Can this be?
The tag working class ceases to exist beyond the ghetto. You can educate out the schemy-ness in the schemy. And when you're comfortably numbing to the realities of life in your 15th floor corner office, you will not, and cannot, possibly understand the roots of your ambitions. The child has died, the dream (not nightmare) defeated, and you are all that you once abhorred.
What caused the schism leading to 3 distinct flavours of homo sapien. Are there intrinsic differences in the natural abilities of these three (african, caucasian, asian). I would add Dravidian and Polynesian to these, leading to 5 groups, AM was having none of it. My argument - not a control experiment. No means to compare. Check back in 50 years. But even if Chinese becomes the national language for most African countries, I can pin it on the headstart. Void discussion.
Can you really feel nothing? AM states that there is nothing in his life that he wouldn't give up. I believe him. What really struck me was his complete ambivalence to simply being. Passion: Nada. Is it time to go live in the Andes, and discover what makes him happy, or is he happy now?
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Cold blooded socialising
So I'm in Ryan's bar, not because it's The Place To Be, but because it's a half way point between people, and it isn't a rip-off. Unlike most of the places in the West End. I'm sitting at the table with my back to the wall, bloke to my right, bloke opposite. Kinda boxed in, and out of the way of the general public.
Indian guy wanders into the bar, scans, turns, and directs his focus squarely at me. Wanders over and starts a conversation. The inquisition begins:
"where are you from?"
"what do you do?"
and continues as I politely respond and reciprocate. Looking for an invite to sit down on the table with us, he shows disappointment after a couple minutes of my company, shakes hands and leaves.
AND THEN I was guilt ridden. A guy, with no malice had come up to the group for the pure reason of company, and I cruelly denied him this for no particular reason.
The drinking habit is set to get worse, as JM and RM are set to move to Edinburgh.
Hercules could not have stayed awake in the meeting that I am in the process of recovering from. With thick black coffee, I will once more feel alive. Restraining sleep in an office meeting will forever be a considered a gift I was not born with.
In life - What do you acquire, and what do you learn?
Language
Social behaviour
Sexual selectivity
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Briefcase blues
For once, it ain't me singing along to Muddy Waters. It's RA. He visited the office enroute home the other day, swung by for a coffee (what else?) and declares, with an utter seriousness never felt before: "Offices are dull". Yes indeed. And they're crammed to the max with people that promulgate this with their dull personalities. Thoughts swirling between my ears - Opposites don't attract - A means to an end. - My co-w&*kers are degenerates.
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