Plastic Electric 'Blog

10:39 PM

A Short Story

I wrote a short story today. Perhaps it needs some work on it, but what do you think? Be brutal!

8:35 PM

New Week's Resolution

Still working on last week's new week resolution, but I am making progress. I'll blame last week's poor performance on nicotine issues.

This week, I resolve to, ummm... Haven't thought of something, yet.

I know! I'll resolve to not smoke any cigarettes at all. Once my current packet has run out.

But that's a bit pathetic, isn't it? I think I'll just resolve to get things done that I should've done by now. Well, some things, anyway.

Okay, I know, I'm being crap. I just don't feel very resolute right now.

I resolve to be more resolute by the end of the week.

8:22 PM

Reviewing Whether or Not to Review

Today, I thought I'd apply to become a reviewer for The Weblog Review. This was inspired by Monkey's rather naff review.

It seemed to me that the reviewer, beejaymckay wasn't really reviewing the blog. While she says for herself, content is of utmost importance, the says almost nothing about the content! Instead, she describes the impression she gets of Monkey as a blogger and a person, comments on other aspects of Monkey's site, praises sarcasm and wit in the archives (nothing wrong in that), and so on, and so on, but leaves the question of what Monkey's blog is actually about quite something of a mystery!

I can't help but get the impression that the reviewer (who doesn't seem to have reviewed any other blogs) rather fancies herself as a reviewer, but is more concerned about how her review comes across than actually telling the readers what Monkey's blog is like. While her review isn't badly written as such, it's just not a good review.

So, I thought I could do better, and went to The Weblog Review to see how to become one of their reviewers.

The application process involves reviewing the website of your choice. No problem, I thought, I'll just pick one from the list of recently updated blogs on Blogger.

The first one was dismal. It was mostly terribly badly written poetry with obscure, and hence 'clever', words. I had difficulty understanding it. Seemed the author had genuine emotional and psychological problems, though, which it was indicated stemmed from childhood neglect and physical abuse. I decided it would be better for me not to take that site as the target of my first review attempt.

There were two or three blogs which were in languages I did not understand (they weren't English, and I only speak that one language).

I came across another blog which looked like I could review it, but then read stuff about the author being ill, and being on medication and stuff. Again, I thought this would probably not be the best candidate for a first review. For all I knew, the author could be dying of a terminal condition, and I didn't want to pick on them just to become a blog reviewer.

Finally, I found a blog I could review. It was some teenage girl's online diary. It was pretty standard stuff, but pleasantly lacking font abuse, hoards of animated GIFs, and tons of bad poetry. Yes, that's right, I generally don't think much at all of online teenage diaries.

So, I wrote a review. I thought it was a good review. I made it clear it was the online diary of some teenage girl, was positive about the positive stuff, and didn't hold back from making a little constructive criticism. I focussed more on describing what it was like, than whether or not I was actually interested in it, and stuff like that. I was pleased with my efforts.

But then, as I checked back on a few things, I thought, no, I've overrated her blog. I've been overly positive. It's not really that interesting, not so well written really, not really worth visiting unless you particularly like reading such things, or already know the author.

But then I began to wonder if I might, possibly, be heading the same way as the sort of reviewers I dislike.

I read some more reviews at The Weblog Review, but just thought, 'these reviewers sound like they've read lots more blogs than I have'. Decided I'd rethink applying to become a reviewer.

Having now written this out, I think I will apply after all. I don't think I'd do a bad job. And I still think I'd do a better job than the reviewer who reviewed Monkey.

4:33 PM

We Know it's Old, but: What is a Blog?

Monkey raises the old question: what is a 'blog? (Alright, it was a few days ago, but I've been thinking about it since then.)

(And now, for a parenthetical. Do you, like me, feel that colons are rather like the first part of a sentence is introducing and presenting something or someone, and visibly standing back to let it or them take centre stage? When I use colons, it feels like that. Whether or not I'm using colons properly is another matter. What do you think?)

At first, I took it to mean a log of things found on the web. After all, that's how they started, and ''blog' is a contraction of 'web log'. What do you think?

But 'web log' could also mean a log that's published on the web, that the web is the medium. That would mean online journals, guestbooks, commenty things, etc, etc, etc, would also be web logs. What do you think?

It does seem, however, that the term 'blog' does mean something more specific. It doesn't seem to include guestbooks, etc. It seems to specifically mean something that includes online logs of things on the web, but also gets used to refer to journaly type things that aren't particularly diariesque. What do you think?

One thing that occurs to me is that the English language (which I'm using for this 'ere 'blog, and which is also the language I read other stuff in) is basically a language of corruption and bastardisation.

Look at the word 'karaoke'. Now, I don't mean the Japanese word, but the English word. The English word is pronounced a bit differently, sort of 'carry-oh-key'. What that shows is that it's been incorporated into the English language. What do you think?

Another indication that the English word 'karaoke' is not quite the same as the Japanese word is that it refers to something a little different. The difference between Anglo-Saxon karaoke and Japanese karaoke is that the Japanese take it quite seriously, but in the Anglo-Saxon world, it's primarily done for a laugh. What do you think?

Now, we've got this word 'blog', and it doesn't seem to just mean 'log of things on the web', or 'log published on the web'. It is, I believe, a new word (which means I should, perhaps, stop sticking the apostrophe in the front). While derived from the term 'web log', it has come to refer to online journals with certain characteristics. What do you think?

What I'd like to do is to try to find a definitive set of characteristics. There could be more than one, equivalent set of definitive characteristics, but I'll settle for a nice, concise one from which implies the rest of the characteristics. What do you think?

One obvious characteristic is that a blog is on the web. The web is the medium of a blog. But does it have to be published? Does it have to be a publicly accessible blog to count as a blog? Would a password protected blog still be a blog? My feeling is that blogs are publically accessible, even in cases where some sort of free registration is required. What do you think?

Another definitive thing about blogs is that a blog is it's own, chronological record of when the entries were made. It's not necessarily a record of when the things that the entries are about occurred. What do you think?

A blog, though, doesn't have to be a log of stuff on the web. There are plenty of people calling things 'blogs' that just aren't logs of web things. But what about online diaries? They're chronological in the sense of recording the dates the entries are made, as well as the dates of the things the entries are about. Could it be that online diaries are blogs? Or could one of the definitive characteristics of a blog be that it's not a diary? What do you think?

Well, that's where I've got to so far in my thinking about this issue. As I continue to mull it over, I'll see if the three characteristics which I'm suggesting may be definitive are enough.

What do you think?

8:50 PM

What an Astounding Display of Low Quality

Have you heard the one about the British plane spotters who were convicted of spying in Greece?

Now, I'm not the sort of 'blogger who 'blogs the news, but this time I'm making an exception. (And I certainly don't read the Mirror, except occasionally, to feel superior.) I'm just outraged at the hypocricy of this nation of mine.

When it comes to people from foreign lands entering this country, the United Kingdom, there's this general expectation that they should abide by our laws. This expectation often seems to be expressed in the form of some kind of whingeful ranting, mixed with stuff about asylum seekers and illegal immigrants (terms which seem to be treated synonymously, which I think is quite appalling, really), involving stuff about how they shouldn't come to our country unless they're prepared to abide by our laws. After all, so the ranting continues, if they don't like our laws, and want to continue living according to their own culture, they can stay where they are. They shouldn't come to our country in the first place.

Okay, the bit about accepting our laws is fair enough, and the stuff about accepting our culture is not unreasonable, either. But the lack of distinction between legitimate immigration, illegal entry into the UK, and asylum seeking, is just no good. And that's just the basic stuff.

But now there's this outrage about British plane spotters being convicted of illegally gathering information.

If, as seems to be the case, the plane spotters voluntarily went to Greece, and committed criminal offences, regardless of whether or not they knew they were criminal offences, then that's their own fault, isn't it?

Here in the UK, we have this principle that ignorance of the law is not a defence. If, as seems to be the case, we want to impose our own principles onto other nations, then we shouldn't leave that one out!

Perhaps Greek law is daft in this case. But, just as we seem to have this expectation that foreigners here should obey our laws, despite cultural differences, we should respect Greek laws when in Greece, shouldn't we?

It's this sort of hypocricy which gives weight to the claim that we have a racist society. One minute we're ranting about illegal immigrants, etc, and the next we're expecting Greek law to submit to our peculiar, British hobbies! The sort of people committing such hypocricies qualify for the status of Low Quality People in my book.

If the plane spotters didn't agree with Greek law, they didn't have to go there. If, as seems might well be the case, they didn't sufficiently check legal stuff, then they were choosing to take the risk that they might have been committing crimes without realising. It's the same principle of ignorance of the law not being a defence that we have here in good ol' Blighty.

My fellow Brits can be so, so stupid.

2:57 PM

I Paid Attention in the Lesson at School about Tolerance

Yesterday, I was thinking back on stuff to do with educating the masses about HIV and AIDS, and stuff to do with homophobia, bigotry, human rights, and so on.

Back in the late eighties, there was a lot of stuff about HIV and AIDS. There were TV ad campaigns, leaflets, lessons at school, and so on, and so on. (It even got to the point where, in school, when some of the teachers decided to tell us all about it again, someone made an ad-hoc poster saying, AIDS: Don't die of boredom. One of the teachers was particularly unimpressed. I don't think the condoms blown up as balloons went down particularly well, either.)

One of the key themes I remember from back then was that we shouldn't let ignorance and prejudice mislead us about HIV and AIDS. It kept being repeated, over and over and over again.

The thing was that there were these ideas floating about that AIDS was a gay disease, and that straight people, therefore, weren't going to be affected by it. That was mixed up with widespread beliefs that homosexuality was somehow wrong, and there were plenty of people taking AIDS as being confirmation of such beliefs.

At the time, I was nominally Christian, and, on the basis of what was written in the Bible, I believed homosexuality to be sinful. Not that I was particularly bothering to actually practice being a Christian at that time.

Some of the ignorance, prejudice and homophobia regarding homosexuality, bisexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, and so on, that I learned about at that time, really struck me as stupid.

Some people would assert things like, 'It's disgusting! They're disgusting!' But, duh, of course homosexual sex is disgusting to some people! I find the idea of someone sticking their penis into my anus particularly revolting. But that's an aspect of my own sexuality. Likewise, I thought, homosexual men and women may find the thought of heterosexual sex disgusting. Just like one person finding coffee disgusting and someone else enjoying it. It doesn't work as a basis on which to draw moral conclusions!

Then there'd be the 'it just ain't natural' argument, which always seems to be followed by a demonstration of the proponent of the argument's inability to really say what they mean by that without going round in useless little circles. Rhetorical questions that came to my mind concerned things like the wearing of clothes, technology, and that kind of thing.

One way some would try to justify the 'it just ain't natural' argument was to refer to anatomy and reproduction and stuff. The idea was that our naughty bits aren't designed for homosexual sex. But that would suggest a designer, and, yet, many of these people were less religious than I was! Of course, when it came to the issue of contraception, they tended to start having difficulties getting their beliefs on homosexual sex and heterosexual sex to be consistent.

It just seemed to me that people just weren't even thinking about what they believed.

But I still, at the time, believed homosexual sex to be wrong. Not because of my own feelings of revultion at the idea of having sex with another man, and not because of empty arguments which relied on unthought out notions of naturalness, but because it seemed pretty clear to me that God had said, in the Bible, that it was wrong. Even though I did not know why God decided it was wrong. It was a matter of taking God's word for it, on the basis that God's in a much better position to know such things than me!

It also seemed clear that it would be absurd for me to try to persuade nonChristians that homosexuality was wrong. I'd be putting the cart way before the horse. My basis for holding what had become a very uncomfortable belief was that the Bible was the word of God. Without that, I had no reason at all to believe there was anything wrong with homosexuality.

So, if I were to try to persuade someone that homosexuality was wrong, I'd first have to persuade them that Christianity was the truth. The stuff about sex being sinful outside of heterosexual marriage would then just follow anyway, and there'd be no need for me to try to win an argument about sexuality. Not that I was bothering to do the ol' Christian witness thing.

As I said, my belief that homosexual sex was wrong had become a pretty uncomfortable one. I did not want to be asked what I believed on such matters, and if I was, I would hastily explain that my beliefs were based on the Bible. This was somewhat hypocritical of me, as I wasn't really living my claimed religion anyway.

The way I understood the stuff about not letting ignorance, prejudice, etc, get in the way of the truth about HIV and AIDS was pretty much this: it doesn't matter what religious, political, ideological, moral, etc, beliefs you have, AIDS is not a gay disease!. The HIV virus doesn't know about religion, or other beliefs. It's just a virus, and a nasty one at that. It doesn't play fair (whatever that would be), it just infects people, regardless of who they are, what they believe, what their sexual orientations are, etc, etc, etc.

That message seemed pretty clear to me. It seemed to be a very healthy distinction between the facts of HIV and AIDS, and beliefs about sexual morality, etc.

A few years later, having become a practicing Christian, and still believing that sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage was wrong, I was proud - yes, PROUD - to be given the opportunity to go along to Wembley Stadium for the Freddie Mercury concert. (I was also into Queen, but that's beside the point.) I was proud to be one of the many thousands of people there waving the big, red ribbons. (If I remember correctly, that's how the red ribbon campaign was launched.) I was proud to be supporting, albeit in a very small way, the fight against AIDS and HIV.

At this time, I was hearing occasional stuff about homosexual and bisexual men and women being discriminated against when it came to employment. That just made me angry it was so absurd! I found it difficult to believe that employers could be so stupid, such that it seemed it just had to be willful, wrongful discrimination.

Back in school, we'd been taught about how there were different sexual orientations. The teachers tended to assert that there was nothing morally wrong with homosexuality and bisexuality, which I'd always felt was implicitly discriminatory against people who's religious beliefs didn't agree with that. But I did not confuse this with the issue of tolerance, which I had no problem with.

Tolerance, as I understood it, was a matter of allowing other people to follow their beliefs, etc, despite disagreeing with those beliefs, or whatever. When it came to sexuality, it seemed pretty clear to me that it was a matter of respecting people as people, regardless of their sexual orientations, lifestyles, etc. Someone doesn't fail to have the same human rights that everyone else has, just because they're not heterosexual. And anyway, if I was to have the freedom to be a Christian (albeit nominally), then everyone else had to have the freedom not to be Christian, or whatever.

I just didn't feel that my teachers were being entirely consistent when it came to practicing tolerance both ways.

Move on a few years from the Freddie Mercury concert, and I was at university. I was a member of the Christian Union, and still believed sex outside of heterosexual marriage to be sinful. But I was even more uncomfortable having that belief than ever before!

I found that other Christians in the CU were also uncomfortable with having the belief, or admitting to having the belief, that homosexuality was wrong. We generally really didn't like being asked where we stood on such issues, because we really didn't like saying, 'you're lifestyle is sinful, and, while we don't believe it's a sin to be homosexual, we do believe it's a sin to live according to your sexual orientation'.

For starters, it sounded pretty stupid of us at first. We would cringe and writhe and squirm, and would much rather be somewhere else. And explaining that it was all to do with trusting God on moral matters rather than ourselves, and all the stuff to do with us humans having a sinful nature that manifests itself in various ways, etc, etc, didn't make it any easier.

Generally, from what I recall, we were quite keen to get it right when it came to things like HIV and AIDS. That wasn't really much of an issue for us ourselves, generally, as we believed in life long monogamy ('until death do us part'), which happens to greatly reduce the risk of infection through sexual mechanisms.

Those who suggested that AIDS was a punishment from God for homosexuality tended to get pretty swiftly pounced upon by those of us who knew better. (After all, how does it work as a punishment for homosexuality if heterosexual haemophiliacs had been getting infected by contaminated blood products?)

Then it came to World AIDS Day (the Freddie Mercury concert having been the first), and I really got thinking again.

There were lots of red ribbons all over the place. But something was wrong.

Everywhere I looked, there were posters from the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Society. It was all about how there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, bisexuality, etc, and how people all have the same, human rights regardless of such things. But that's not what was wrong.

To look around campus, and see all those red ribbons and LGB Society posters, anyone would think that World AIDS Day was a specifically lesbian, gay and bisexual affair, and that AIDS was a gay disease. That's what was wrong with it.

I could see the original message being lost, and the hard work that had been done to educate people being undone. The ignorant and prejudiced weren't going to learn about the dangers that way. If anything, they'd have their ignorance and prejudices reinforced!

It bothered me. It worried me. It annoyed me. It increasingly felt like anyone who believed that homosexuality was wrong, no matter what the reason, what religious beliefs they had, was to be considered a homophobe and a bigot. That just wasn't what I'd learned several years earlier.

A homophobe, I had understood, was not specifically someone who disliked homosexuality or bisexuality (which would make an awful lot (but certainly not all) of heterosexuals homophobes, simply because of the nature of their heterosexualities). Rather, I understood a homophobe to be someone with an irrational dislike of the people themselves who were homosexual or bisexual.

And when it came to what constituted bigotry, it seemed that much the same thing was happening. There seemed to be precious little mention of the supposedly much cherished right of freedom of religious belief. I was becoming aware of religious beliefs coming under attack, without bigotry being discriminated from religious honesty.

I identified with other Christians who felt uncomfortable with the belief that sex outside of heterosexual marriage was wrong. I did not identify with Tory MPs who angrily ranted about homosexuality being 'disgusting', and how children should be protected from it, blah blah blah. But I felt I was being prejudged.

I could see that the way the LGB society were using World AIDS Day to promote their own position on sex and sexuality was going to come up as an issue in the Christian Union. I was concerned that things would go pear-shaped.

When it came to things to pray about, in a prayer meeting, I decided to raise the issue myself. I wanted to get things nice and clear from the start. So, I explained about how the original AIDS awareness message was very much about distinguishing between the facts of HIV and AIDS, and beliefs about sexual morality, and that I was concerned about that being lost in the current campaign on campus.

One of the other members of the CU was a qualified nurse, who was able to add some weight to what I was saying, and some others added their wisdom, too.

It seemed that any confusion there had been was cleared up. We still believed homosexual sex to be wrong, and still believed homosexuality to be a manifestation of the human sinful nature (which we believed all humans inherited, regardless of sexual orientation). But, in our prayers, we did seem to be doing a pretty good job of distinguishing between our beliefs as Christians, the facts about HIV and AIDS, the importance of the original AIDS awareness message, and the importance of recognising such distinctions and keeping them distinct.

These days, I am not a Christian. I no longer have that basis on which to believe there's anything wrong with homosexuality, bisexuality, being transexual, being a transvestite, polyamoury, swinging, sex outside of marriage, BDSM, etc, etc, etc. I don't actually know one way or the other, but that's in the same, philosophical sense in which I don't actually know if it's right or wrong to eat brussel sprouts or ice-cream.

But I'm still opposed to the idea that anyone and everyone who believes homosexuality to be wrong is therefore a homophobic bigot.

Many Christians, Muslims, and others, will continue to believe that sex outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong, and there will always be those who believe that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality, bisexuality, etc.

We can either fight each other, regardless of each other's reasons for believing what we believe, or we can tolerate each other's properly founded beliefs (in other words, not bigotry and the like), and fight on the same side in opposing bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, etc.

8:33 PM

Knock the door!

In the style of a mother encouraging a very small child to put the block in the right hole, my mother's saying, Knock the door, knock the door!

In nineteen years, Tigger the cat has just not got hold of this idea of letting the person in the room she wishes to enter actually know that she's waiting outside. She just sits there, patiently, hoping the door will be opened.

Yet, at other times, when she wants company, she'll yowl so much you'd think there was something wrong with her.

Ben used to scratch at doors, and it worked a treat. And Tigger must've known this, 'cause she used to follow Ben around. But she's never done it.

Knock the door!

So, after nearly two decades, why has my mother not cottoned onto the fact that Tigger will never learn to knock the door? I'll have to ask her...

Ahh, I see. My mother says, Knock the door, so that my brother will know that Tigger's waiting outside.

And I also learned that she does yowl outside his room late at night.

I knew she yowled late at night. We all, in this house, know that she yowls at night. I just didn't know it was specifically outside my brother's door.

But she still spends quite a lot of the time sitting there, silently, waiting for the door to be opened.

She must think we're psychic.

7:21 PM

I'm tired even earlier tonight.

7:20 PM

Cigarettes, Snow Flakes, and Henrietta the Tortoise

Today, my recent cash-flow situation came to an end. Well, it's been somewhat alleviated, for the time being. I hope!

One of the first things I did was to buy a pack of twenty cigarettes. This was not a good move, but I was weak. What I should've done was to buy a pack of nicotine patches. I'll do that tomorrow.

I also bought two Cadbury's Snow Flakes (which are Flakes with white chocolate inside), and chicken'n'chips.

Also today, I watched our tortoise, Henrietta, walk relatively quickly round the livingroom floor. She walked on the carpet, past her puddle of wee, and collided with the side of her bed (a cardboard box). Her aim can't have been too good.

Then she reoriented herself and marched into her bed, and tried to climb out the back.

We don't know why she does this, though she hasn't done it nearly as much this year as in previous years. She just tries to climb over the back, even when she starts off facing the front. It just seems daft.

Maybe she just wants to know what's beyond the back, and is just too familiar with what's out the front. Or fancies a challenge.

She does have some variety in her life. She roams around the lounge and the living room (though is strangely uninterested in the kitchen, though does have baths in the sink), and sometimes gets taken up to my mother's room. And she has her very own tortoise pen, with a nice, high fence to keep her from jumping out. (Actually, the fence is left over from when we had rabbits. We're not really stupid.)

The pen has a sort of raised bit, with lots of planty type stuff that she can crawl under. It's also where her bed is put when she's put out on good days (tortoises like to sleep on high ground, apparently, 'cause they're less likely to drown that way). There are some rocky type bits, too, but they're mostly chunks of cold concrete, and broken paving stones, and the like. And there's the decaying trunk of an apple tree which we cut down, oh, twenty years ago or so (and which crashed through the fence into our back alley, giving us an excuse to put a gate there instead).

We know she's a content tortoise (that's 'content', not 'content'). If she wasn't, she would not have lived for the past thirty years or so in England. And she doesn't hide away inside her shell from us, either. She'll even march towards you eagerly if you show her a piece of banana.

She loves banana. She likes tomatoes, too.

She used to have a dish for drinking out of, which had roses painted on it. She was caught trying to eat the roses once. This has lead us to the conclusion that tortoises see colour. We think she thought the painted roses were tomato slices, you see.

I wonder if tortoises would be classified as dinosaurs if they'd become extinct 65 million years ago. They have been around for something like 150 million years, so have spent more of their time on this planet with dinosaurs around than since that extinction. I wonder, also, if crocodiles would be considered dinosaurs if they'd become extinct back then. They do seem pretty convincing as dinosaurs!

But anyway, dinosaur or not, it's nice to have a content tortoise.

6:34 PM

Concision

I am really no good at concision.

9:09 PM

Ahhh, Sleep

Gee I'm tired.

Today, I have been tired. Well, not for all of it. I was quite happily awake for most of it. But, come late afternoon, I just had to have a nap. And I did. And it was good.

Sleeping can be such a lovely thing. Cosily drifting into sleep is most delightful! Especially, I find, with a nice, thick, but not particularly heavy, duvet.

As I snoozed, I sweated. I was quite impressed with the amount of sweating I was doing. And it didn't feel horrible. It wasn't a sticky, humidity induced kind of sweating. It was a nice, getting my pores clean kind of sweating. The sort of sweat that made me feel somehow refreshed. Or maybe that was the sleep.

But I'm tired again, so I'll go to bed soon, and enjoy some more sleep. With the light out this time.

Sometimes I sleep with the light on, and with some piles of items cluttering one side of the bed (it's a single bed). This, often combined with a nicotine patch, is a pretty damned good way for me to have lots of vivid dreams. Not a very good way for getting a good night's sleep, though.

But tonight, I just want to sleep. I want the luxury of darkness, of nothing cluttering my bed, and of no nicotine interference.

I'm sure I enjoy solid, deep sleeping when I'm asleep. I just can't remember it, though.

Good night!

8:56 PM

Blagh, I think I'm going to have to rewrite that last entry, sometime.

8:34 PM

How Should We Behave?

There is very little that I actually know. Very little indeed. So little, that I only really know just a handful of things.

I know that I exist, but I don't know what the context of my existance is. I don't know what existance fundamentally is. But I do know that I exist. Which pretty much means I'm just using the word 'exist' as a label for the phenomenon of, um, being in existance. You know, like Descartes said, I experience myself thinking about whether or not I exist, so therefore it must be that I do exist. I draw that conclusion because, well, I wouldn't be able to think about it if I didn't exist!

But then there's always the 'butterfly's dream' issue. Could it be that I don't exist, and am just part of a butterfly's dream? Could it be that my own existance is just some kind of illusion?

Well, I don't buy that, 'cause when I say 'exist', I don't actually, specifically mean physical existance. I mean existance in whatever sense it is in which I'm experiencing the phenomenon of me existing. Even if it's just as part of a butterfly's dream.

It's a bit like Johnson's Kick. Sort of.

Bishop Berkeley had this idea that nothing existed as such, except as stuff that God was imagining. His thinking was that basically only God exists, and the whole world, and everything in it, was all in the mind of God. Nothing existed outside of God.

The apparent reality of stuff that we seem to experience was, he thought, what God was imagining us to experience. We experience a table seeming to exist, seeming to be solid and sturdy, seeming to have surface texture, etc, because God imagines it that way. Or so Berkeley was thinking.

(I should, perhaps, at this point, say that this is what I understand was Bishop Berkeley's thinking. I could well be wrong, as I've never actually studied this stuff as such. But you get the gist of what I'm saying anyway, I hope!)

Dr Johnson, as I understand it, was asked one day what he made of Berkeley's ideas. Johnson pointed at a rock on the ground, kicked it, and said, Thus, I refute!.

I don't know any more of the story than that, but it does sound to me that Dr Johnson was fundamentally missing the point.

Or perhaps he had another point? The point being that it made no practical difference whether God was imagining the rock to be solid, or the rock was solid in some other sense?

After all, Bishop Berkeley's idea was supposed to fit with what we experience. It was, after all, supposed to explain how things end up seeming to be real, seeming to have real properties, like solidity, hardness, etc.

It seems to me that it's pretty much a matter of how we define our words. Berkeley took 'real' to mean 'existing outside of God, continuing to exist independently of God' (except in the case of God, of course), or, to return to the dreaming butterfly, 'existing without being part of anyone's or anything's dream'. And, taking the words 'real' and 'existence' in that sense, then yeah, maybe we don't exist. But it still hurts my toes when I kick rocks without any shoes on.

What I believe Berkeley was thinking about was the nature of existence itself, not whether or not we really exist. Johnson's Kick could be taken as something of an I think, therefore, I am.

So, I know that I exist, but I don't know what the nature of existence really is. That's the first thing that I know.

But what has all this got to do with the question in the title of this entry? Well, if I don't exist, then there's really no question for me to answer there, for myself. I mean, how can it matter how a nonexistent entity behaves?

But there is still that question of how I should behave. It's a question of what I should do, what I shouldn't do, and that sort of thing. And the truth is that I don't really know!

I do have this notion in my mind that there are things I ought to do, and are things I ought not to do. But is that notion correct?

What I don't mean is whether or not the individual things I feel I should or shouldn't do are things that I should or shouldn't do. I'm not getting onto those actual details right now. I'm just dealing with the question of whether or not there are any such things at all, regardless of what they actually are.

The word I could use for this concept is 'morality', but the trouble with that is that it can often be taken to mean a specific moral system. The term, 'the moral majority', for example, means something quite specific by the word 'moral'. I don't mean any particular moral system, though, just yet.

So, is this notion I have in my head, that there are things I ought to do and things I ought not to do, correct? Or is it some kind of illusion?

I just don't know.

It seems that I have some kind of free will. It seems I get to choose, to decide, some of what I do and don't do. But that could be an illusion.

If it is an illusion, then there isn't anything I can do about it. There's not much use in me worrying about that possibility. So, I won't.

Or, at least, I won't worry about it philosophically, right now. I could worry about it, but I wouldn't be able to help it. I wouldn't have any choice in the matter. It would be something that just happens. And I do dislike the idea that I might not actually have any choice in anything. I'd much rather actually have a say! But, well, that's not going to help me right now.

So, I'll assume that I do have free will, and get to choose, to some extent, what I do and don't do.

But I don't mean that I'm assuming I have the right to choose any way I want. That's something I'm yet to get onto. I just mean that I can choose, and, perhaps, am capable of choosing wrongly.

Now, should I even be trying to find out if there are things I ought to do and ought not to do? Well, if there are things that I should do and shouldn't do, then it would seem that I need to know what those things are. Or, perhaps, I should just automatically behave in the right way. Perhaps it's that I should always do the right thing, and never do the wrong thing, without even having to think about it. And maybe there are all sorts of other possibilities, too.

It gets complicated, and uncertainty seems to be everywhere.

What I do is I assume that there are things I ought to do and ought not to do. I'm still not at the point of assuming specific things, just the general principle of there being such things, whatever they are.

This seems like a sensible assumption, though there are those issues of whether or not the right things should be done on the basis of such philosophical considerations.

If my assumption here is wrong, then there isn't anything I ought not to do. I can be sure, then, that I'm not making an assumption I ought not to make, if it's incorrect.

If, however, my assumption is correct, then, well, it's a correct assumption for me to make. That's why it seems sensible, though I am aware of belief systems, and the like, in which this kind of thinking is a wrong path, or whatever.

Perhaps we automatically always do the right thing, and never do the wrong thing? It doesn't seem like that! There are plenty of examples of things that we humans do that really don't seem to be right! And I know of things in my own life that seem to be things I ought not to have done, or ought to have done but haven't done. But, again, if we are somehow infallible in this way, then that's a possibility I don't really need to consider. I won't be doing the wrong thing by ignoring that idea.

But that kind of thinking doesn't seem to work when it comes to the idea that we should do the right thing, and not do the wrong thing, but shouldn't go about it in the way that I am now. That's a problem that I don't know how to resolve, or make to go away. At least, not yet.

So, to summarize, I'm assuming that there are things, whatever they may be, that I ought to do and ought not to do. I don't really know what those things are, though, and I don't really know if this philosophical approach to such issues is how I should be dealing with them.

Next time, (though probably not in my next 'blog entry,) I'll consider the existence of God.

5:16 PM

Oh, for a Commenty Thing!

Yes, I do need a proper commenty thing. And I also need to say on the guestbook page that HTML mark-up is allowed. (At least, I think it's allowed, but I can't quite remember.)

The reason I don't have a proper commenty thing is because I don't have the prerequisite server functionality. I can't do CGI scripts, and the like. (Well, I can, at Tripod, but they have their own, different way of doing things, and I haven't got round to bothering with it.) I need some proper web space.

Well, I could use a remotely hosted commenty thing, but it does seem that people have kept finding that it's not really viable. It's 'cause of bandwidth costs, and stuff like that. And I'd rather not add to the problem.

So, in the mean time, it's the guestbook, though that's far from adequate.

7:49 PM

They Do Say Nicotine's One Of The Most Addictive Narcotics

Due to a bit of a cash flow situation, I've ran out of nicotine. No patches, no cigarettes. Just flat out of nicotine.

However, I managed to go for over six hours today without any nicotine, and without really feeling any craving. That's got to be good news. Very good news.

But, alas, within the last hour the craving struck. And it really struck!

Nicotine, nicotine, I just had to get some nicotine.

But there wasn't any.

No patches, no cigarettes.

But there is, however, a pile of butts sitting on my desk which I keep meaning to throw away, but am always too lazy to deal with. They've just accumulated in a suitable container (well, on a plate, but I didn't want to show just how slobby I can be sometimes). And, in what's left of each one, there's a little bit of unburnt tobacco.

I found a few, slightly longish ones, and proceeded to crumble off the burnt bits at the end with my fingers. Crumbling out the unburnt tobacco onto a little pile, I was pleased to see that it wasn't going to take too many such butts for me to get enough tobacco for an attempt at a roll-up. Found a few more butts, and harvested what they had to offer.

Much to my satisfaction, I soon had enough to make a whole roll-up. I made a roll-up. And it rolled up quite nicely.

Then came the moment of truth: lighting up and taking a drag.

Was it going to be disgusting? Well, what I was doing was already somewhat disgusting, but that wasn't my concern. I just needed the nicotine. But was I going to retch from smoking dry, smoke contaminated tobacco? Would it taste like cigarette butts and ash?

I took a drag, and it was heaven. A false heaven, of course, but still, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was better than using roll-up tobacco. (But perhaps I just always chose the wrong brands.)

The roll-up didn't last long, but during the second half I started to experience the much appreciated nicotine rush. It was wonderful! And with so many butts left for harvesting, I know I'll be able to make it through this week.

I know it's revolting, but it could be worse. I could be shooting shit into my veins. Or making cigarette butt soup.

12:42 PM

Testing, Testing...

Here I am, sitting in a public library, typing this entry out for a second time. The library computer seemed to fail to post my first attempt. grrr

Anyway, the reason I came here was to try out these personal web pages of mine in Microsoft Internet Explorer, to see if I can figure out what the problem is that people keep experiencing when visiting these pages. They're coming up almost perfectly, so far.

I've never used these library computers before. I've used their older ones, for searching their catalogue of books and stuff, and that kind of thing, but never these new computers. They look sexy from a distance, with their dark grey, curvaceous casings. But up close, they just look like they're built to be robust, in cheap but very thick plastic. Not sexy at all.

They've got to be booked in advance, but that can be done on one of their older computers, which is nice. They seem to have various things on them, like something for email, and access to their library catalogue, as well as the browser I'm typing this on. Dunno quite how useful these machines are really, but it's not too bad so far.

One thing I don't like is how restricted the functionality of Internet Explorer is. Can't even do a copy'n'paste! And bringing up a second browser window seems to be another no-no (which is why I'm not finding the sort of links I'd like to, like a link to Essex libraries). But still, it is free.

Well, I s'pose I'd better get back to trying to find the problem with my pages. And playing, too.

8:19 AM

New Week's Resolution

So, how did last week's new week resolution turn out? Well, I was going to try to complete the core specification for this project I'm doing. Instead, I ended up setting up some web pages for it, and not actually doing what I was going to do.

While that means I didn't actually fulfill the resolution I'd made, I did do related work. So I do feel that I've some something. But I also feel that I haven't really succeeded in disciplining myself. I also feel I should've done more, generally.

But anyway, what resolution shall I set for myself this week? First, I think I should review where I've got to in my project. I can put that in the project log. That's what it's there for, after all.

But that's not really enough. I should also complete, if I can, the core specification for the language. Same as last week.

I've also got to get through this week with much less nicotine. This is due to a cash flow situation. Hopefully, the work will keep me sufficiently preoccupied to be able to do that. Not that I have much choice!

7:54 AM

I am in such a foul mood.

7:14 AM

Reflecting on Walks, Depression, and Happiness

Back in the last century, I spent some time being ill with depression. I was irritated, annoyed, angry and frustrated a lot of the time. It was grim. Sometimes, I'd get really wound up. My blood vessels in my forehead would stand out, and I'd be clenched all over.

People would occasionally suggest I go for a walk, and walk off the frustration, or whatever. But it was no good. If I tried that, I just got more and more wound up as I walked along. It just made things worse, because I was walking along not actually solving anything, and that just wound me up no end.

Recently, I've noticed how going for a walk when I get wound up actually results in me feeling somewhat better by the end of it. I don't go for a walk to walk off the bad mood, or whatever. I just go for a walk out of being fed up, or hacked off, or something.

So, now that I'm not depressed, I'm seeing, sort of, what people were getting at when advising me to go for walks. But, at the same time, I still know that it doesn't work during depression.

That's lead me to wonder what it is about walking that results in me feeling somewhat, if not completely, better.

I think, perhaps, it's because I get to think things over, and let my mind wander through and around the things that have got to me. I do make progress in sorting things out in my mind, and find my mind wandering away from the things that prompted me to go for a walk to begin with. I return feeling that I've made some progress, in my mind.

One thing that particularly strikes me is that I'm allowing myself to feel down, low, moody, annoyed, whatever, when I go for a walk. I'm not trying to walk myself out of those feelings. I just let myself feel those ways.

Allowing myself to feel down, or even depressive, came about because, from time to time, I have had bouts of depression.

When I notice a bout of depression possibly beginning, I just let it do its thing. I let myself get into the bout of depression. If I try to resist, or hold out against it somehow, or don't acknowledge that I'm becoming depressed, then it's just worse, and lasts somewhat longer. I can actually end up ill with depression again that way. So, allowing myself to just get depressed occasionally was actually something of a time-saver. I'd get into it, and come back out of it again, in much less time.

There have been other unenjoyable emotions that I've been allowing myself to feel and go through, though I'm not going to go into details. (The details aren't important here, anyway.) What I've found, though, is that it's much better, generally, for me to allow my feelings to tell me what they want to tell me. It's a matter of personal, internal honesty.

A few weeks ago, I was reflecting on how I was during my childhood, comparing how I felt back then with how I feel these days. And I couldn't help but notice something that made me long for those childhood days.

What I noticed was that I used to get upset as a child, and then, just hours later, I'd be better again. I'd feel down, and then up. My feelings seemed to change much more rapidly, and be somewhat stronger, like bright colours compared to dull ones.

I wanted that back. But I was already getting it back, gradually, over many, many months.

I'm beginning to wonder if, perhaps, allowing myself to feel down is also allowing myself to feel up. If I allow myself to feel sad, I also seem to allow myself to feel happy. Perhaps it's just a matter of allowing myself to feel the up-or-down feeling, the happy-or-sad feeling, the joy-or-pain feeling?

Now, I can imagine these sorts of thoughts manifesting themselves as cliches. I'm already reminded of the one about how you can't love and receive love without risking being hurt. Seems, perhaps, it might be the same with feeling happy, and joy, and so on? Perhaps.

I'm not one of those people who can decide to be happy. But I can decide to allow myself to be happy, if, it seems, I also allow myself to be sad.

12:29 PM

My Earliest Memory

Following on from IQ stuff, I thought I'd tell my earliest memory.

But first, let me briefly tell of the time in primary school when we had to write down our earliest memories.

My problem was that I couldn't remember what it was. But, even though I'm sure the teacher must've said that it wasn't a competition to see who had the earliest memory, I couldn't help but feel the desire to have the earliest memory possible. This, combined with my inability to remember what mine was, lead me to just invent one. I decided my earliest memory was the memory of being born.

Even though the teacher made it clear that I had not fooled her, I still felt somehow indignant that she should somehow know that I'd made it up. I actually felt that she was being unreasonable in assuming to know more about my earliest memory than I did!

But anyway, I do actually remember what my earliest memory is (which is sort of what you'd expect).

I was in my bed, which had these vertical railings around it, in my very small bedroom. In other words, I was in a cot in a cupboard (but I didn't think of it like that back then). And with me I had my cuddly toy rabbit Tinker (named after a cat that lived nearby and used to visit, and was reckoned to look like a rabbit).

I developed this tendency to throw Tinker rabbit up into the air, repeatedly. What I remember trying to do was to see the whole of Tinker rabbit, without my clutching hand obscuring any part of her. I ended up wanting to see Tinker rabbit completely detached from everything else. Throwing her into the air, and seeing her, momentarily, in the air, not in contact with anything else, seemed the way to go.

But it was difficult. Throwing Tinker up took concentration, and she was only in the air for a brief moment, and moving most of the time. I didn't even know if it was possible for something to be seen out of contact with everything else, or even if it was possible for something to be completely out of contact at all. Perhaps, I thought, it might just be something that can't happen, that everything's got to be touching something else.

But still I tried.

Tinker landed outside of my bed, on the floor, where I couldn't reach her. I called for my mum to return her to me, which she did. This happened a number of times.

But then she didn't come and return Tinker. I called, and called, and cried, and cried, but she didn't return, and I did not have Tinker.

Then, I was being put to bed (because my memory's edited out a whole day), but Tinker was tied to one of the railings. The reason for this, I was told, was because I kept throwing Tinker out of my cot. But I wanted to be able to hold Tinker. I was determined to. I tried and tried to undo the knot, but it was too tight, too small, and I couldn't get a good hold of the bits of it to try to pull it apart and make it undo.

My mother also remembers the time that I kept throwing Tinker rabbit out of my cot, and how she left me to cry myself to sleep one night, but decided not to do that again. She has told me that I must've been about eighteen months old at the time.

I'm still wondering if it's possible for something to be completely disconnected from everything else, but in a rather more philosophical sense, these days.

4:26 AM

Oooh my Brain Purrs like a Pussy

I just done one of 'em online IQ tests. I got a score of 165 (+/- 5). That, of course, makes me feel very pleased with myself.

But, of course, IQ is just one particular measure of one particular characteristic. A friend of mine once tried an IQ test and got an unusually average 100. He was very disappointed with it, 'cause he thought it was really low. (100 is, by definition, the mean (as in average) IQ of the general, human population.) But it doesn't really count, 'cause he's an arty musician type. Different rules apply.

And that's the thing with us humans generally. An IQ is just a measure of a thin slice of a person, and there's so much more to someone than just that thin slice. (Lenin's brain was sliced into very thin slices, 'cause Stalin had this idea of examining his brain to find out what made him such an incredible, special genius. Lenin's brain turned out to be exceptionally normal, apart from the stroke damage.)

Monkey reports that she's just done an IQ test, and done remarkably well (though she doesn't actually say what her IQ is). That's why I decided to stick "IQ Test" into Google to check what mine might be.

Now, there is, of course, the question: is that IQ test I did really as accurate as they say? There's always the issue of the 'Overestimate Your IQ' self test phenomenon. You know, you go into a bookshop, and see a book for testing your own IQ, so you buy it out of curiousity, score unusually well, and decide to follow the invitation in the book to 'find out more', by spending more money. So is my IQ really in the range of 160 to 170?

In past DIY IQ tests, I've scored from around 120 to 176, which was the maximum that that particular online IQ test went up to. In other words, there's a lot of crap out there.

The best measure of my intelligence so far is probably a psychology experiment I took part in while at university. (They sometimes paid some pounds for students to be guinea-pigs in their research, you see.)

It was basically a puzzle, which I found quite tricky at some points. I actually did it wrong, but realised my mistake before the end of the test, and explained this when writing down what my reasoning had been. The experimenter, though, said she just had to tell me that I'd done remarkably well.

Apparently, only 5% of people tested were able to correctly solve the puzzle, and I'd done that, even though I'd made a mistake at first. And, what's more, that was when all the people tested were university students or staff, supposedly the top 10% of the general population at that time. That meant, she told me, that I was in the top 0.5% of the population!

She also added that the puzzle I'd solved was the most difficult, single puzzle that psychologists had found. I was, of course, dead pleased with myself. And that was during a time in my life when I was not entirely in the best of states inside my head.

Now, the IQ test that I've just done says that a score of 150 is achieved by less than 0.5% of all test takers, which is not inconsistent with my university experience. But there's still the question of whether or not there's a correlation between someone's score, and how likely they are to take such a test. Statistics out of context are pretty much meaningless.

But I'm still happy with my result. It fits with my inner arrogance.

2:49 AM

The Plastic Electric Cromwell Project

This won't interest everyone. In fact, it'll interest very few people. But, for those who do happen to be interested, I have started putting up some pages about it.

What it is is a project to develop a language for use in describing the grammars of artificial languages (such as programming or mark-up languages), and for defining parsers to parse documents written using those grammars.

Anyway, the pages start here, if you're interested. Otherwise, just ignore it, as it'll just make you go to sleep.

11:04 AM

An Episode from The Dark Times

She laughed at me, and slapped me again. Not a real laugh, but a forced one. Perhaps it was supposed to seem forced, but I don't think that's important. It was certainly not supposed to be nice, or reasonable.

The reason for the slapping I still don't know. The wine she'd drank probably had something to do with it. And her general negativity about herself must have been somewhat fundamental to her less than friendly behaviour.

We were almost at her home, where she lived quite unhappily with her parents. Her father was a particularly miserable sod. Her father, indeed, was a particularly miserable sod. That's worth repeating, because he was a particularly miserable sod. And his daughter seemed to be somewhat following suit.

I told her to stop slapping me. She said something, I can't remember what it was, but it was something not entirely pleasant. Something, I think, about how I deserved it.

Perhaps she wished to push me away. Or, perhaps, she was testing my friendship, by seeing how I would respond to her unreasonable behaviour. Perhaps she just wished to express how she perceived herself to be. And it wasn't just a matter of body image. It was also a matter of what kind of person she was. She regarded herself as some kind of dismal failure, with that status being her default ranking in life.

I thought I ought to say how I felt about her slapping me after she'd quite happily joined us for the excessively expensive meal I'd paid for.

She objected. It was, according to her, some sort of attempt at emotional blackmail. I was supposed to accept her objection, as well as her slaps and laughs. I was, it seemed, in the wrong.

But she stopped slapping me.

7:51 AM

CGI, CGI, Rah-Rah-Rah

Well, I'd've never've thought it. It's quite a surprise! Is it really s'posed to be that way? How come? I hope it's true. I do hope I'm s'posed to be able to do that. It seems so. But can it really be that free web space at Tripod comes with free CGI functionality? Seems I can upload any Perl script I want, and it'll run! Woo, as Homer would say, Hoo!

2:23 AM

I've come back from my walk.

1:30 AM

I'm going to go for a walk.

12:25 AM

Murphy's Law

Ever wondered about the origins of Murphy's Law? Well, you can find out here.

7:48 PM

Can You See These Pages?

I'm deleting the xml-stylesheet processing instructions from these web pages, as there seems to be some sort of problem with some browsers.

(Come to think of it, they were probably rather redundant, as I am also using HTML link elements for stylesheet association, and also because I am using HTML a elements for hyperlinks, which pretty much meant that these pages would only really work on browsers that understand HTML anyway.)

6:18 AM

New Week's Resolution

Perhaps I should have a weekly target. It would be good for me to accomplish something each week. I can start on Monday, and finish on Friday. Yes, that's a good idea. Then I get to enjoy weekends as weekends. I like that idea. (Of course, I could just get a job, and enjoy weekends that way. But I'm lazy. I'm bad.)

What target shall I have for this week? Shall I:

1. Get a job?
2. Do myself a magnificent CV in order to get a job?
3. Do something amazing so that I can have a magnificent CV in the first place?
4. Finish learning XSLT?
5. Finish learning CSS Level 2?
6. Finish writing some short stories?
7. Finish developing and defining the grammar and meaning of a language that I've been working on, which is intended to be useful for describing and defining artificial grammars in?

Well, I think I'll do option number 7. It is, after all, something that would look swell on a CV.

But I could really do with a name for it. Just haven't been able to settle on a name. But I know it's going to be founded upon transformations of trees or directed graphs. What I need is a working title.

Trouble is, I can't settle on a working title. But that's just silly. I can't have a working title for a working title! I'll have to think of something...

'Washington'? After George Washington, 'cause he cut down a whole orchard of many trees with his little chopper (which may or may not have been made in Birmingham). Nah. Don't want Americans thinking my work's American.

'Cromwell'? After all, he was a revolutionary, but obviously wasn't American. Yeah, why not? After all, I do suffer from strong, perfectionist tendencies, and puritans are sort of perfectionists (though, perhaps, in a somewhat imperfect way). And I can be something of a puritan when it comes to artificial languages (as you may have noticed from the validation stickers in my feet).

So, that's decided, then. This week, I shall complete the core specification for 'Cromwell', my grammar description language project.

And maybe go for a walk in the countryside, too.

2:05 AM

If Email was Like Instant Messaging

If email was like instant messaging, we'd each have to have a few different email accounts, with a few different email service providers, and use a different piece of email software for each.

If you wanted to email someone who was only on a particular email network, you'd have to email them on the same network. If you didn't have access to that network, you'd never be able to email them! And they'd never be able to email you, either.

Some email service providers would be specific to certain operating systems, and some email networks would be tied to the ISPs providing them.

It would be terrible.

So why is Instant Messaging like that?

Firstly, it's because there's no single standard for instant messaging on the net. IM service providers have to develop their own systems, their own protocols, and the result is that they're incompatible.

Secondly, they didn't all club together to sort out a common, shared standard. Or did they?

Recently, it has come to my attention that the IETF has a working group that's working specifically on developing a standard for interoperable IM systems. This working group is the IMPP Working Group. (But most people will find that trying to read their stuff will just make them go to sleep.)

I don't know how much the main IM service providers are involved, though I did notice that there seems to be at least one person from Microsoft. But even so, it's a promising thing.

Hopefully, when their work is complete, people like Mirabilis and AOL will adopt the resulting standard (or standards), and we'll start to enjoy instant messaging, with the instant messager thingies we choose, without being stuck on separate, incompatible IM systerms.

Ain't that something to look forward to?

5:49 PM

I Could Entitle This, 'Go Fuck Yourself', But That Could Be Misconstrued

If you had a time machine, would you use it to have sex with yourself? Would you consider that to be just another form of masturbation? Or would it feel too much like incest? But would you do it anyway?

I'm not sure I would. It would feel all wrong. Firstly, I'm heterosexual, and secondly, it would just feel all wrong anyway.

I'm not even sure I'd want to meet myself generally, either privately or socially, anyway. I think I'd feel rather awkward. I'd get to see something of how other people perceive me. But I suppose I could just video myself for that.

Have you ever videoed yourself doing sexual things alone, and then watched it for masturbational purposes? I haven't. The thought doesn't appeal to me at all.

Is 'autophile' another word for 'wanker'?

3:15 AM

Revisiting Old Haunts

Just spent a while at The Chathouse. It's where I used to 'hang out' on the web when I was younger. Well, back in '96 or so.

Met some interesting people there back then (including a comedienne who was a film and TV star, and was world famous in the Philippines). Most of them, though, I'm not in contact with these days.

But, as the web became ever more popular in the late nineties, the quality of people found in such places just dropped and dropped. It was terrible. But some were of such low quality, that it actually became entertaining. For a while.

Having made a few recent visits back to the Chathouse, I find that there are High Quality People, and Low Quality People, and people in between. But the Low Quality People still seem more prominent, though that could well be because, you know, Low Quality People are like that.

The first room I went into this evening was just dismal. There was someone making a show of wanting to torture and kill someone else. There was someone, with silver black eyes, who fancied himself as a gothic writer, as his cold eyes surveyed the chatroom. I'm not surprised his dead like eyes were in such bad nick with the way he kept on and on about them.

(In the end, I told him that once he'd established the characteristics of his character's eyes, he didn't need to keep on re-establishing them, and that he should allow the reader's mind some room for imagination. He was somewhat quiet for a while after that, before leaving the room.)

That room was called something like 'The Insane Asylum', but it was such a disappointment.

So, I tried another room, and found quite a mixed bag of people. And the quality of some of the Low Quality People was truly staggering! Well, there was only one, really, but still, he was worth several.

He was threatening to find out where other chatters lived and visit them, to rape them or kill them, or whatever. And he was trying to do all this gansta shit, with lots of CAPITALS, and 'FUK U's and stuff. He was really trying so hard to be nasty, but it just doesn't work when it's coming from someone who says they're just fifteen in their chat handle.

There was also, of course, A White American Who Doesn't Realise That The Rest Of The World Doesn't Necessarily See Things The Same Way That White Americans Tend To (aka 'Bloody Americans').

For a while, I actually forgot to say anything there. I became a lurker. And I just don't normally become a lurker in chat rooms. I just found it so fascinating to see what people were saying, and how they were behaving, and wondering how they perceived themselves.

One particularly noteworthy individual had adopted the character of a cat. All she said most of the time was 'meow meow', in fetching shades of green and sort of cyan (the text generally was dull orange). It was just like having a real cat in the room, meowing for attention amidst the crowd. Well, I thought so, anyway.

I think I'll be revisiting the Chathouse a few times more. It's just so interesting to observe the people.

11:19 PM

Friday Failure

I was going to do the Friday Five, in lieu of being able to think of something to write in my shiny new 'blog. But the site's broken, at the moment. I suppose I could just copy the questions from another 'blog, but that feels not quite right.

10:06 PM

Hooray!

At last, I've got around to replacing my lost website. And I've done a more complete job this time. Not entirely complete, but I do feel much happier with the work I've done this time.

I don't know how it comes up in MS IE, as I haven't tested it with that particular browser. I do know that it comes up crap in Netscape 4.crap, but that's hardly a revelation (which could be a pun). Seems to come up consistently good, though perhaps with occasional rough edges, in most browsers I try. (By 'consistently good', I mean that it tends to come up the way I intend. I don't mean that the way I intend it to come up is necessarily good!)

Anyway, now that I've got this up'n'running, I'll, um, have to think of something interesting to write here.