The university, it eats our brains

[hawkwing_lb]

Back at college as of yesterday, with the oh-so-wonderful oxygen-deprived hour-each-way commute (egads I hate all the people, so many people, all crammed in at once so you just can't breathe [and no I'm not claustrophobic - except with lots of people in a very small space]).

College. Yep. Expect limited coherence from me in the near future (not that I was all that coherent before).

Have broadband now, which is kind of cool.

Oh, and the seven quirks meme caught my eye. Can't remember where I saw it first (did warn you. University eats brains), but here goes:

Seven quirks (you really don't need to know) of mine:

1. Unless I have a very good reason to be dressy, I wear track trousers and t-shirt. Jeans and t-shirt if I'm feeling like a little bit more effort.

2. I do not wear skirts. Not ever. When I had to wear skirts as part of a school uniform, I dealt with it, but. Not. Ever. Voluntarily. Never.

3. I read books in the bathroom. While I'm cleaning my teeth, as well. In fact, that's where the majority of my not-for-college non-fiction gets read.

4. Books. Boooooks. I will go without food and sleep to finish reading a book I enjoy.

5. At home, I have a tendency to walk away from conversations and go do something (get a drink, whatever) in the next room without saying anything. When I come back in, I'll expect take up the conversation where it left off. Improperly socialised, who me?

6. I have to restrain the urge to correct the improper use of apostrophes in public media loudly and with diagrams.*

7. I am inclined to putting my metaphorical foot in my mouth in public converse.

*#6 also applies to homonyms. Which reminds me. In last weekend's Sunday Indo, one of our politicians, writing about the state of the hospital services outside Dublin, said that the depravation was unbelieveable. He used this word several times, speaking about depraved rural areas.

Now, if he was using it sarcastically, I wouldn't mind. But I think the bloke confused himself between deprave and deprive, and forgot that spellcheck is Evil. He's a deprived fellow, truly, to never have met anyone truly depraved.

Comments

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

number six

ME TOO!

Dude, I saw what woulda been a funny bumper sticker except it said:

"Who's computer never crashes? Jesus saves!"

(Well, and the obvious delusion that saving files would keep a computer from crashing, but whatever.)

I nearly tore out all the stickers and corrected each one, but the cashier was looking at me funny.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's bad, isn't it? Especially when you see them in the adds (I saw one at the cinema once, I think), on billboards, and in the newpapers. I mean, proofread, people!

Ahem. Yes. It's an urge that would get me had up for vandalism, if I ever let it loose.

And aparat from the obvious delusion... Um, Jesus has/had a computer? This is a new school of religious thought, for me (brought up half by a grandmother who alternates between thinking computers are just grand, and that they're a tool of the devil, and a mother who's still not sure that the people who wander the Net are real. You are real, right?).

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

I'm not aware that Jesus had a computer, no. In fact, I doubt he did. I guess they're speaking hypothetically. The whole idea is confubbled, though, really. *rolls eyes*

And am I real? I don't know. Are you?

For all I know, you might just be a line of code programmed to respond to my keywords. Darn. And I rather liked you, too.

;)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Am I real? I don't know. What value of real are we talking, here? Most days I'm pretty sure I exist, if only for Descartian values of exist. I think therefore I am. Well, I think I think, but it's not a proven (or consistent) phenomenon, so I'll take the scientist's route and say that I probably exist, based on experiential data to date...

:-)If my existence is disproven, I'll let you know. Somehow. :-)

About the Jesus+computer issue... you'd be a better authority than I would, but to me, it's an association that does weird things to my mind - deus ex machina being the first association that comes to mind, with godlike AIs close behind. There would probably be an utterly blasphemous story in that, if my Catholic upbringing didn't quail at the thought. (Probably a good thing it does)

My mind works like that, unfortunately :-)

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

ROFL..oh, yes. Oh, my. Bad grammar and spelling used to hurt me. I have since learned to ignore those things (my eyes pass over them in a self-defence mechanism), and move on. Otherwise I would be way too dangerous to be allowed in public: I am, after all, a panda*. I eats shoots and leaves. ;-)

*This is based on my avatar in Baen's Bar, of which I once was a dedicated denizen. Now I am merely a follower of Dr. Monkey. All hail the Monkey! (You would know him as Dave.)

Now then. Since you have grown up in the urban areas (based on your description of living in/around Dublin), how do you know the rural areas in question aren't depraved? You might need to do some fact-checking on scene. Road-trip!

Ahem.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

You eats shoots and leaves? ::raises grammatical eyebrow::

Where it comes to the abuse of the apostrophe (it seems to be much rarer in these parts with the comma), I'd like to eat, shoot, and leave (shoot, eat, and leave would be cannibalism, no?). This is bad for cardiac health, I have been told.

I do indeed know of the Monkey, and have long wondered where that particular sobriquet came from...

I lived in rural Dublin, until it became dormitory-town Dublin with lots and lots of prison architecture (Mountjoy Jail has bigger windows than some of the houses they've built in the last two-three years, even if Mountjoy's have bars on them). Now I live in sub-urban Dublin, the same place that was rural Dublin three years ago.

And depraved rural areas... let's see, the bloke (a former medical doctor and current TD) was from Mayo, and you know what Mayo lads are like - No? Mayo and Kerry (and Cork, too) get slagged off something terrible, all the time.

There's a joke for when people are talking about good oul' days or whatever in rural areas. You may have heard of it...

"Back in the day - "
"When men were men and the sheep were afraid?"

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

I eats, shoots, and leaves, yes'm. No, I haven't read the book yet, but it's on my ever-growing list of books to buy (some Irish lass keeps adding books to my list).

The term "Doctor Monkey" is shrouded in the dim mists of the Bar. IOW, it predates me. I seem to recall a story about that, but I haven't a clue where it might be stored, if I even saved it. The odd thing is, I'm a doctor of monkeys. That may be why Dave was so well-behaved when we met up last year. ;-)

Yes, I have heard of Mayo lads. Luckily no one in my family is from Mayo. ;-) After visiting Mayo, I can safely say that it's not nearly as nice as the midlands or even Dublin.

Too bad about rural Dublin though. My hometown (where I grew up, as opposed to where I was actually born) is getting more suburban, and that's too bad. It was a quiet sleepy small town. Now it's a bit less sleepy and less quiet. Ah, I'll spare you the rant; I'm sure you have one much like it.

No sheep in this area though. It was mainly crops and cattle, then it became industrial and residential. We can see the old stone walls through the trees, as the forests reclaimed the land that isn't lawns. My dad wanted goats, to clear the brush from the hillside, but his mother (born in Ireland) said she'd never come back if he did. Turned out one of her brothers collected billy goats and raised them for market, and she hated the smell of them. Nanny goats don't smell like the billys, but we never did get any goats. :-)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

The one and only time I was in Mayo was with school. Five days in September at Delphi adventure centre, a hundred or so girls and eight teachers (also other people from other places, bringing the total up to about 150 or so), and three toilets.

I fell in love with the scenery. Sleeping eight or more to a room in really horrible bunks, I'd wake up when it was still dark, 0530 or so, to clean my teeth and use the bathrooms. The air would be icy, so cold you could see your breath, and the stars were still really clear in the sky. When it started to get light, the mist would cling around the mountains our window faced; and swirls of cloud would rise off a background of damp, lush green. It looked like a volcano with steam rising from its vents, but it was only a hill.

And the rocks, and the bay, and the hills and the lake - it's actually one of the places in this country where I dream about living (thanks to the possibilty of internet book buying).

I always found the midlands sort of boring, scenery-wise. Comes of living on a hill by the sea for the better part of a dozen years, I suppose. I guess I think landscape should have ups and downs to it, not be all sort of flat and boggy :-).

Yes, I think I do have a rant very much like that one. Also another one about the increase in persons of wealth who are deficient in manners in perfectly good areas... But that one sounds rather like my grandmother on a bad day, so I keep it on a very tight leash :-).

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Scenery-wise, I wouldn't mind Achill Island, or some of the area in Kerry. For some reason, hills and rocks and waves are very tempting to me. Killashandra is pretty hilly and has lots of lakes about, so that's two out of the three. ;-)

[davefreer.livejournal.com]

I want a trout-stream, a sea-cliff and a backyard mountain :-) All for me and mine. Selfish beggar. I like space and not 3 'loos between 150. (and they were girls... the mind boggles. It must have been interesting times)

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

You'd love Achill Island, Dave. It's mostly abandoned now, with high sea cliffs in one area, a gentle cove in another, and hills all in between. I'll have to go home and upload photos from the trip to the LJ. I'll be happy to share the place with you, as long as there's enough room for us all...;-) :-P

There was even a decent little pub in the middle of the island. Had a good cuppa tea and a bowl of soup.

I know! You can have the abandoned castle on the western side of Achill. Just the thing for a writer who needs a bit of privacy sometimes. ;-)

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

I think 150 people using 3 loos must have reinvented time travel or tesseracts. There's no earthly way they could have all shared otherwise. ;-)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It was... though there was a lads' as well, and the crowd was so bad that the girls used that as well :-).

[davefreer.livejournal.com]

Monkey philosophy tends to be a bit cart-desian (or plainly Cartesian) I am, therefore I think, except when I don't. The name comes from the early Baen's bar days... when if I recall correctly someone told me to stop aping my betters. To which the reply "But I'm a monkey, aping my betters comes naturally to me." The bar had at that time a severe rash of very pretentious screen-names, you know "High Lady Deliciosa (immediate mental image, 250 pound damsel from London... Ohio, USA, checkout clerk at a dry-cleaning place) or Giant Crystal gryphon (mental image delicately built violet-rinse old duck, with glasses and crochet) or YoungAdonis Lion (55 year old would-be Lothario with BO and body like a tubercular chicken, perma-leer, and overused inflatable date) or Over-Admiral Lord Blood-and-Steel (Private, second class, catering corps, Fort Bragg) and overabundance of dragons etc. (Chuckle) While I guess it is fairly harmless, and these depraved... deprived folk enjoyed their little bit of fantasy, it was getting to the point where they took it and themselves entirely too seriously. I was raised very in a egalitarian household (which is funny, considering how proud m'great grand was of his royal blood), especially on the Boer side where my maternal grandfather tried to shoot as many poncy gits with gold birdshit making them easy targets as possible, and the Scots side, who were unreformed covenanters. Titles tend to raise my hackles and have me muttering "A man's a man for a' that". So in reaction I decided the name 'monkey' was nicely derogatory and self-depreciating. Besides it is a derogatory racial epithet in some parts. It seemed to upset the far right-wing bigots who were already unsure what shade my skin was (I came from Africa, right? I had to be black). It did seem to have a ripple-effect with names like bananaslug and vorpalbunny and the various bear incarnations coming into play.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes they did. There were a few names which weren't so high-and-mighty (like brownkitty, and the were-mouse. Then the bears began to make themselves known, and they recruited me into their grumpy ranks. It was hard to resist. Root Bear asked me to be Ginger Bear, and I've always had a fondness for puns. In fact, I'm the only invertebrate bear: I am spinelessly unable to resist puns.

Red Bear, Kodiak, Drop Bear, Green Bear, Gummi Bear, Other Bear...ah, those were the days.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

gold birdshit making them easy targets

Yes, officers and gentlemen did seem to set themselves up as sniper-fodder in the old British army, didn't they? :-)

I'm all in favour of equality (at least equality of opportunity). Equal is good. Nobility and such are good for a few things (headlines, paraparazzi feeding, charity), but are fortunately a declining breed in the real world.

Interesting choice, Sir Monkey. Is that doctorship a PhD or MD? :-) :-)

(Lack of coherency tonight should be blamed on lack of sleep)

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

He must be a Pile it Higher and Deeper. ;-)