Friday 27 July 2012

The Olympic Opening Ceremony... As It Happened

Two days after the Games started, a bunch of people in the capital have decided to don some costumes, do some dances, make noises and maybe set off a firework or three. The whole thing is expected to last some fifteen hours, twelve-and-a-half of which will consist of athletes from every country on the planet and even parts beyond walking into a stadium in single file carrying flags. It seems long, drawn out and pointless, but it's tradition, and what is the point in anything without tradition? Nothing. That's what. Without traditions, our little ball of rock just tumbles relentlessly through space and nothing makes any sense. Very much like this preamble.

Anyway, London's most recent bash at hosting a few weeks worth of Modern Olympics kicked off at 9pm (that's in British time, obviously). I blabbered on about it here from that time. If anyone didn't follow any of it, fear not. I have an accurate portrayal of the entire event as seen through my eyes and according to my brain right here. And for your chronological reading convenience, you don't have to start at the bottom and work your way up.

18:30 I posted this. Now I'm going to do other things with my life for the next two-and-a-half hours. More words will appear here from about 20:55.

20:55 See. I told you I'd be back now. Anyway, the show's about to begin and I must stress that some bits of what I blather on about stem from the BBC's coverage of the ceremony in the UK. If you happen to be in another country watching the broadcast on another station... well... how did you find me? But never mind that, just bear with me and we'll all get along fine.

21:01 Isles of Wonder is the name of Danny Boyle's directorial stadium-based stage show type thing. Of course, in the recent future, it will be referred to as "that mound of grass with livestock and dancers on it".

21:03 A confused chopped up playlist of British music, a epileptic nightmare through a tunnel and people reciting decreasing numbers. It's what we do best.

21:05 As this sole choir boy sings, I can't help but get flashes back to Beijing.

21:07 Coming to you live from the eighteenth century, the 2012 Olympics, sponsored by Dickens.

21:10 Sorry, I just got schooled on literature by a Welsh newsreader. Ahem. Shakespeare sponsors these Olympics. As do druids bashing tin cans.

21:11 Oops. I feared this might happen. I was too busy typing stuff here that I missed the tree lifting off and the villagers pouring out of the hill's gaping wound.

21:14 Okay, I had a hunch there'd be interpretive dance at some point in tonight's proceedings. Little did I think such moves would be performed by blokes in bowler hats and mutton chops.

21:16 So basically, History classes in school are now going to just show this to pupils every year to explain Britain throughout the 20th Century.

21:18 Oh, those bails of corn are obviously plastic. God, you think they could've at least put some effort in!

21:19 I don't remember the Beatles being present during the Industrial Revolution. Then again, there's a lot of the Industrial Revolution I don't remember anyway.

21:23 Golden rings fly across the stadium to form the Olympic logo... people on the ground are still desperately trying to steal focus.

21:25 It's a very British thing for the cast to applaud the audience afterwards. And now, some stereotypical images of London and quaint poshness.

21:27 Fair play to them, they managed to get the Queen to play along. And here was me thinking Royalty and "sense of humour" didn't mix.

21:29 That helicopter's going at a snail's pace now compared to that little film.

21:31 Okay, a stunt Queen just launched from a helicopter. That made both myself and my dad audible chuckle. An utter rarity. But my my, she's recovered well after her little parachute jump.

21:34 Considering they're a signing choir, you'd expect they'd show them on the TV rather than a slowly ascending flag.

21:37 All of these patients are still in their beds on a day trip to the Olympic Stadium. They've been promised if they survive the night, they can have double pudding when they get back.

21:38 On the face of it, this may look like a swingdance routine as an ode to the NHS. It's really just us boasting to the US that we have free healthcare.

21:40 Here she is. This extract comes from the next Potter novel: Harry Potter and the Oh I Don't Care Any More, I'm F**king Loaded.

21:42 I don't recognise the voice of the BBC commentator woman so I can't name and shame her, but she's just called Voldemort "Voldemart" like he's a chain supermarket or something. Tsk. Muggles!

21:44 I miss the grassy mound and the rocket-ship tree.

21:46 As a side note, my dad keeps interjecting the show every 47 seconds with phrases akin to "God, this is boring", "What is this crap?", "What's going on here?", "Why are we watching this?" whilst still watching. Just wait 'til we get to the Parade of Nations.

21:47 It's always funny hearing English names in the middle of the French announcements.

21:50 It only took 48 minutes, but Rowan Atkinson's appearance has made me actively want to take notice of the TV rather than the computer screen. For that I apologise for any typos in this bit. I'm noit really looking at the keyboard right now.

21:51 Ooh, only one typo in that bit. Clearly I'm better at typing than I previously thought.

21:52 In hindsight, they really should've got Boris Johnson doing that.

21:55 Now our history lesson has reached the modern day, and we've got TV programmes, status updates and a kid with a Nintendo DS to prove it.

21:58 Every audience member has a radio controlled LED pad assigned to their individual seats, meaning that we can get a living video wall throughout the show. Looks mighty stunning, but I can't help but blame Coldplay for this.

22:00 This representation of the 70s in music is starting to look a bit like the Rocky Horror Picture Show after a mild stroke.

22:01 Why are there people in the crowd wearing 3D glasses? It's real life. Real life IS 3D!

22:02 This is probably the only point in life you'll ever see Punk transform into a neon rave.

22:04 Well, the Chinese might've had synchronised drummers, but we have people raving to Firestarter.

22:07 Dizzee Rascal not actually singing Bonkers there. But it's okay, having him sing live would've probably just been a complete migraine for all the techies involved.

22:11 Now a compilation of flames running around the world. Obviously the flames themselves aren't running. Fire isn't anthropomorphic enough to own legs capable of doing so. But people run whilst holding beacons of fire. That's close enough, right?

22:13 David Beckham driving a speedboat? Now I've seen everything. Well, not everything, but I've certainly seen one more thing than I had previously.

22:15 And to commemorate the dearly departed, a giant yellow ball (for some reason).

22:18 With all the young musicians taking part in the ceremony tonight, I bet Heather Small's sat at home stifling herself with a pillow and softly humming Proud to herself.

22:19 Some mad interpretive ball dancing... for some reason.

22:21 Aha, here we go. The Parade!

22:22 As per tradition, Greece march out first. And what is life without tradition?

22:24 From here on in, with the exception of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, all of the competing nations enter in alphabetical order according to English name. Ooh, look at me getting all informative. I feel like I need to say something mean to compensate. Ahem. What's American Samoa?!

22:25 With the repetition of each country in French and English, I'm finding myself to resist the urge to follow them up with douze points.

22:27 Australia enter looking like a Sixth Form college from Dorset.

22:28 Mr. Greece has finally made his way around the stadium. He can go home to bed now.

22:30 And that's the A's out of the way. Rest of the alphabet to follow.

22:31 The Bangladeshi flagbearer nearly knocked out the bowl-carrying girl there. By the way, why are there kids carrying bowls?

22:33 At this rate, by the time we get to Venezuela you'll be begging for the sweet release of death.

22:34 Bolivia's flagbearer straight out of Dora the Explorer there.

22:38 The grassy mound plays host to the flags once they've done the rounds. I'm guessing the athletes themselves jump into the crater left by the rocket tree.

22:39 Team Cameroon have come dressed as carpets. Still... tradition.

22:41 Without wanting to sound geographically retarded or at all xenophobic, I swear they're just making up countries now.

22:42 Judging by the number of Chinese athletes who just entered, I can't help but think: "Well, they've won".

22:45 I'm informed that the bowls the kids are carrying are, in fact, copper kettles. Their purpose is still unknown.

22:49 In North Korea, the entire broadcast of the of the Opening Ceremony consisted of those 25 seconds.

22:51 On a personal note, dad has left the room. He made it all the way up to the D's, falling just short of Ecuador.

22:53 The techie's iPod shuffle plugged into the speaker system has finally stumbled across Adele. It was only a matter of time.

22:55 They have to be called Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because there's a region of Greece called Macedonia and the Greeks don't like FYROM using the name on its own. See, don't say you don't learn things here.

22:57 And Georgia's flag is similar to the flag of England because of connections to the patrol saint of both countries, Saint George. I'm just brimming with education now.

23:02 Haiti and Liechtenstein have similar flags which now bear ensigns after the two countries appeared at a previous Olympics with exactly the same flag. Okay, I learned that from The Big Bang Theory, but still, it's educational.

23:04 Independent athletes compete without a flag. Mostly these are athletes from the recently dissolved Netherlands Antilles and Kuwait, which is banned from its own Olympic representation. On another note, I'm bored of facts now. I'm going to start making some up.

23:07 Usain Bolt is statistically faster than seven cheetahs combined and is taller than God.

23:08 The Jordanians have come dressed as witches.

23:10 The South Koreans are off to go boating after this.

23:11 Lebanon's flag has a tree on it. Yes, I'm back to facts, but they're a bit thin on the ground.

23:12 Libya have entered with their new flag, adopted after the fall of Gaddafi. Before it, their flag was green. Literally, just green.

23:13 Madagascar, unfortunately, is not represented by penguins, nor a hypochondriac giraffe voiced by David Schwimmer.

23:16 Am I the only one imagining a man and woman locked in a booth with a microphone and a list of countries, competing with each other to be loud in what is essentially a game of "Bogies"?

23:19 Also, in the middle of all the French translation, it's struck me that I don't think I've seen France yet. And we're at M.

23:21 Nepal has the only national flag in the world which isn't a standard rectangle.

23:22 No eagles were harmed in the making of the New Zealand flagbearing cape. Except for the one that was harmed in the making of that cape.

23:25 It's official, there's no room left on that hill for any more flags. Everyone else'll have to go home, come back and try again tomorrow.

23:26 In the interest of irony, they're playing ELO's Mr. Blue Sky at half eleven at night.

23:28 Oo-er missus. Someone at the IOC's been at the champagne a bit early there.

23:29 Well, I say early, but I've had a drink too by this point so I can't criticise. Somehow I'm still typing coherently.

23:30 Russia's come dressed as Canada.

23:31 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines sounds like the name of a Christian pop band formed in Devon circa 1983.

23:36 According to the schedules, there's only an hour of this left to go. I'm not sure if that serves as a blessing or a damning harsh reminder.

23:38 The folks in the Royal Box have given up and have resorted to idle gossip.

23:40 Swaziland is Switzerland for mildly dyslexic people.

23:41 Switzerland is Swaziland for people who like skiing.

23:43 Chinese Taipei is really Taiwan, but because of some political dispute in China over its many territories, Taiwan has to compete under a modified name in the Olympics.

23:46 It's just struck me that quite a lot of athletes have entered dressed as airline attendants. But now I should stop talking about what people are wearing. I'm positively sounding like a woman. I'm really just jealous that they've come wearing the same thing as me.

23:47 We're up to the U's. Expect a lot of United countries to show up shortly.

23:52 Sleep deprivation has different effects on people. For example, the American team have descended into psychotic madness whilst the British Prime Minister stares gormlessly out into the crowd.

23:53 Venezuela. You begging to be smacked over the head with a brick yet? No? Well you made it. Stick around. Just a handful of teams left, then a bunch of hoo-hah over what to do with the flame.

23:54 If that girl's to be believed, Zambia, in French, is "Zombie".

23:56 Team GB appear dressed in their freshly Daz'd linens, while Her Majesty seems to miserably Tweet about it.

23:59 Only half of Team GB is actually at the stadium. Many are preparing for early morning events or competing in venues outside of London.

00:01 204 nations have somehow made it, and so far we're yet to face a technical hitch, act of fundamental extremism or thunderstorm. We do, however, have to put up with the Arctic Monkeys for a bit. I thought they split up years ago anyway.

00:04 Looking at the sheer scale of the stadium, the fireworks, the lights, the audience screen things and the big farm in the middle, I can't help but think: "what would the French've done for this?" Either way, IN YOUR FACE, PARIS!

00:05 Cycling neon angels now, yet still no sign of fire.

00:07 *ting, ting, ting* Speech! Speech!!!

00:09 With all those international athletes mingling in the centre, this looks like the world's biggest Fresher's party.

00:13 Every sentence ends with a ripple of applause and cheer. At this rate, these speeches'll go on 'til next Tuesday.

00:16 Someone in there should start a "we want Boris" chant.

00:18 I wonder if the Queen'll flash a smile.

00:19 Blimey that was quick! She wasn't messing about was she?

00:22 Ali, boom-ai-ay. At least, that's what I think the chant is.

00:25 Steve Redgrave gets ready to run the Olympic torch into the stadium.

00:28 Getting all the legalities and declarations out of the way, i.e. stalling for time while the flame gets power-walked into the stadium.

00:35 So, that's what the kettles were for. They make up the cauldron.

00:39 I find it really sweet that in the spirit of the "Inspire A Generation" motto, the cauldron was entrusted to the next generation of young athletes rather than one famous Olympian. Still, after tonight, fans of Doctor Who canon are going to be thoroughly pissed; the crowd didn't disappear, David Tennant hasn't lit the cauldron. I bet there isn't even a street called Dame Kelly Holmes Close.

00:40 Now Macca'll be on for seven hours, six-and-a-half of which will consist of "na-na-na-na, Hey Jude" ad infinitum.

00:49 By the sounds of it, that's it. Eccentric, innovative, sweet and touching, a spectacle and undoubtedly British. Chinese synchronicity can bugger off. Rio can do a carnival if they want. But this presentation well and truly presents us well. I'm off to bed, but not before a pee break, which I've been holding in since Papua New Guinea.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

Fifty Bales Of Hay

She had just finished filling the pigs' trough when Farmer Billy-Bob entered the barn. He stood sturdy and straight with his three-pronged pitchfork across his shoulders, resting behind his neck and he watched silently as Elsie-May dumped the entrails of the latest of the diseased sheep to have fallen. The snorting and gobbling noises of the swine drowned out his heavy breathing. It wasn't until she turned to flick back a lock of her dirty, straw-coloured hair that she noticed the light from the doorway was blocked by the bulking figure of the landowner.
       'You're doin' a good job Elsie-May,' Farmer Billy-Bob cocked his head up as he spoke through the strand of wheat clenched in his teeth.
       'I'm-a sorry about all the sheep a-dyin',' she responded in her mousey tones.
       Farmer Billy-Bob began to stride forwards into the barn, all the while keeping an expression of pride and awe fixed on his face; his eyes never left the sight of the young stable-girl.
       'It sure is a powerful shame that whatever's ailin' 'em can spread amongst 'em so quickly.'
       ' 'T ain't nothin' to worry your perdy li'l self about, young'un,' he stopped before her and began to swivel his body in place, making sure not to go so far as to accidentally touch the girl with his pitchfork, 'besides, as long as the horses are okay. They be my pride and joy. Anyways, 't ain't down to you what infected the herd anyway so you've nothin' to be apologisin' for.'
       She looked down toward the pigs, trying to cover her flushing face by her veil of hair. Farmer Billy-Bob raised an eyebrow and brought his face around to get a closer look at Elsie-May's.
       'You didn't have nothin' to do with the sheep a-dyin', did ye?'
       Elsie-May peered at him once again through a thin glaze of watery eyes, 'oh, Farmer Billy-Bob, I sure hope not. But I been workin' a-with all the critters on the land every day for the last two weeks and I was just last night made aware of my own condition.'
       'What condition be that, Elsie?'
       'Why don't ye take a closer look at me?' she replied and she stood defiantly face to face with Farmer Billy-Bob as if telling him to inspect her appearance.
       Billy-Bob had always cared a great deal for his fresh-faced stable-girl. Often he didn't allow himself to look her directly in the eye for fears he'd lose himself in them; after all, she was such a sweet young lady and he didn't want to be the one to spoil that about her. He'd even considered letting her go once or twice before now but he didn't feel it was right to put a girl out of a job just because he couldn't control himself around her. There was no way out of it right now though; Elsie-May was pretty much forcing him to regard her looks. All he could do was oblige.
       Her long, golden hair was stained with occasional flecks of horse manure. It cascaded over her shoulders like loose bundles of straw scattered across the floor of this very barn. Her eyes glowed a deep, marine blue, reminding him of how the lake across the field once looked when he first bought the land. She actually looked a bit like Joy off My Name Is Earl except with a smile made of uneven, slightly yellowing teeth hidden behind lips ridden with specks. Upon closer inspection, those specks around her mouth were not just specks.
       'You see it now, right?' she said when she saw the farmer's eyes widen, 'I got the sores around my mouth. First I thought nothin' of it, but then I went to take a lookie on that there internet highway down the ol' library...'
       'Ol' library?' Farmer Billy-Bob interrupted, 'What be that?'
       'Well really it's the new library what used to be the ol' children's playhouse, then before that the ol' whore house, then before that the ol' ol' children's playhouse, then before that the den'ist.'
       'O' course,' Farmer Billy-Bob nodded, 'since when did folks need a library anyways? I thought the whore house was a big hit with the local folk.'
       Realising a tangental narrative was forming and not wanting to stray too far from what he'd originally intended, the narrator decided to stop Billy-Bob's dialogue right there and got him to say something else to bring things back to the story he first had in mind.
       'So what business had ye in the book house, Elsie? Why d'ye wanna go ruinin' yourself readin' books for anyways?'
       'Well, I only had a gander at this one book while I was in there. I couldn't make half a sense of it anyways, Farmer Billy-Bob. It was mostly full o' fancy rich-people words that no real body can't half understand. But it were on the first shelf as I went in and it just sounded like a colouring chart anyways so I figured it'd be easy to look at. But it ended up being a story of high fancy business-types doing things with neck ties and I got lost, so I figured I'd just look up what was wrong with my mouth sores instead.'
       The farmer didn't care for a word Elsie-May had just said; he was too busy swimming in her eyes and he knew he wouldn't be able to stand much longer. He turned around and paced the barn, all the while silently chewing the wheat stalk in his mouth.
       'Anyways, the professors in the internet highway told me that the spots on my mouth were cold sores and that they're a form of...' Elsie-May broke off. Farmer Billy-Bob stopped pacing and looked up at her with a concerned expression on his face.
       'It's okay Elsie, ye call tell me anything.'
       Elsie-May sniffed, blinked large tears out of her eyes and continued; 'They're a form of herpes.'
       Farmer Billy-Bob blinked.
       'Herpes?'
       'Yep,' Elsie-May continued to sob.
       'But,' Farmer Billy-Bob began, confused, 'ain't Herpes the name o' one of the dames down the ol' whore house? I remember hearing tales of folks complaining whenever they got her down there.'
       'No. It's fancy doctor-speak for one of them contageous sex diseases.'
       Farmer Billy-Bob slowly approached Elsie-May with conflicting feelings brewing inside of him.
       Meanwhile, the narrator suddenly realised this whole thing was getting a bit dialogue-heavy and decided to wrap things up ASAP.
       'Elsie,' the farmer began, 'are you not as pure as the day born?'
       Silence, but for the snorting of the pigs, filled the barn. It took the young stable girl a while to reply. Once she did, it was apparent she needed the time to collect herself and the words she wanted to say.
       'Farmer Billy-Bob, I have a confession.'
       The farmer drew ever closer. If Elsie-May wasn't unspoiled as he first thought she was, he'd feel no regret in ploughing her the way she'd ploughed his land many times before now.
       'It was earlier last month when I was in the stables with the horses. Young Clip-Clop was givin' me the fancy eye as I groomed him and when I stroked his underneath belly, I noticed his underparts were growing tenser.'
       Farmer Billy-Bob looked on as Elsie-May told him about taking advantage of his horses, how they must've given her her mouth herpes and how she must've spread her sex disease from the horses to the rest of his livestock.
       'Why, I had no idea you were that into the other critters around these parts, Elsie,' he said when she was finished.
       'Well, in all fainess, Farmer Billy-Bob, they were the literally ones that were into me.'
       'Oh please, Elsie, call me Billy.'
       She nodded to oblige and she knew that from this moment their relationship had changed forever. Despite being a randy stable-girl, she still hesistated from moving. Farmer Billy-Bob broke the mutual silence between them and asked her something she had longer to hear since he hired her to work on her farm.
       'So, is it just the critters you want into you or do you happen to enjoy the company of landowners too?'
       Elsie-May responded with a small smile and, as she took a few steps backwards towards the haystacks, began to unbutton her plaid blouse. As Farmer Billy-Bob followed her with his toothless grin, Elsie-May fell and landed on her back in the middle of some forty or fifty bales of hay arranged in a form similar to a child's fort. She let out a giggle as Farmer Billy-Bob advanced on her, kicking over a haystack so that it landed trapping one of her arms. He lifted the pitchfork from his shoulders and plunged it into the ground where her other arm lay, trapping her wrist in one of the gaps between the prongs, pinning it to the ground.
       Farmer Billy-Bob, proceeded to unbutton the straps of his dungarees and let them drop the floor before her. As he lowered his face to hers, Elsie-May felt his bushy beard tickling her face, reminding her of the last night she spent licking certain parts of the sheep before they perished.
       A lot of giggling and groaning competed with the squealing and snorting of the pigs across the barn. Farmer Billy-Bob didn't seem to care that he too would end up with Elsie-May sex diseases, he was just glad to be rolling around in straw, unable to identify her hair from the mess of the floor around them.
       Then it got really grotesque and graphic and, out of a sense of morality and basic decency, the narrator decided not to write any more physical description of the events that transpired in the barn. But it just so happened that he was able to write a piece of spin-off fiction based on an already bafflingly popular piece of literature. Very soon he can expect critical acclaim and a whole hoard of massive cheques to come through his door any day now.

Wednesday 18 July 2012

The Modern Digital Age

After that last little condemnation of technology, it seems that - a recurring theme in the last month or so of my life - the machines have begun their uprising and have started to conspire against me. Since the machines don't have a consciousness of their own, however, they require human hosts to carry out their annoyance bidding; somehow, even though lacking innate intelligence, the machines are clever like that.

My father recently purchased a new laptop and for the weeks leading up to this event, as well as the weeks after it, I've been cast in the role of super-nerdy-genius-tech-expert-with-thick-black-rectangular-glasses-to-match. Dad's old laptop - i.e. my really old laptop - has fallen victim to one of humanities biggest downfalls: time. As it happens, even soulless technology can't escape the fact that it too has a predetermined lifespan on this Earth. Right now, the old laptop currently plods on akin to an 80-year-old human being: it takes its time getting up, moving around and generally doing things, you occasionally have to tell it the same thing seven times before the message sinks in and it's brain is full to capacity with things it can't forget which essentially clog up the memory so no more can be remembered.

The entire prospect of my father buying a new laptop essentially boils down to him having a multitude of perplexing questions about technology which stem from the fact that the world of technology is vast, ever-changing and new, whereas my father is neither of these. Now I'm not really one to speak ill of close relatives at the best of time, let alone in a public space such as this, so it is with only the greatest love and adoration that I make the following remark that while I wouldn't particularly call my father "old" as such, well... being my father, he is, in fact, older than myself. It eventually transpired that he wanted to transfer whatever pictures and whatever music files existed on the old laptop to the new one. Effectively this now makes the old laptop completely redundant that we might as well pop it in a padded box, switch on the electric oven, gather a small congregation of tablets, smartphones and handheld consoles to attend a small service led by an iPod, which will eventually close the proceedings by playing the X Factor's rendition of Hallelujah as sung by Alexandra Burke to fully epitomise it as an essential funeral song for the Modern Digital Age.

Dad also wanted to know how we could transfer his internet banking to the new laptop. I began to explain that this wouldn't particularly matter since this is achieved through the websites of whichever banking firm you happen to hold an account with. I tried to bring an explanation of the internet to a basic level using words along the lines of "the internet is everywhere in the whole world, not just on one computer" but this just served to worry him further that everyone on the planet was able to access his bank details.  In the light of the content of this particular paragraph, I'd just like to clarify that: Dad, if you've somehow managed to stumble across this bit of crap, no, I haven't just given out your bank details over the internet. Quite frankly, even if I did know what they were, I'm just about selfish enough and poor enough to keep them to myself.

Anyway, new laptop day came and with a new laptop comes a lot of new features. The laptop was manufactured by Dell, which still isn't enough information for people to hack into your stuff Dad. During setup and the laptop's first usage, extra toolbars and sidebars and weather reports and goodness knows what other extras appeared automatically. My father having adapted to basic Windows functions - and myself being something of a purist anyway - found this distracting, unnecessary and ultimately a pain in the ass. Somewhere in the teething problems, the barrage of questions and the disabling of annoying extra features which, quite frankly, hinder more than they help, relations between my father and Internet Service Provider (the cool kids call that the ISP, innit?) stumbled over an impromptu password reset.

Now the router's lost its password protection and my second technology gripe of the week lies within this unprotected mess. Signal, service, coverage, bandwidth... whatever you wanna call it; it's gone downhill since that day and my hunch is that people in the surrounding dwellings have clocked onto some free internet they can leech off of. YouTube videos now stop, begin to buffer and eventually crash some seventeen seconds in, and yes, I know I use the number 17 as a funny random number (along with the number 73 for reasons my brain still hasn't yet fathomed) but I'm not exaggerating here. Seventeen seconds is literally the point at which many video clips stop at now. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, they make it to eighteen, but that's about it.

More time-based dramas exist inside my iPod Touch. Now this is one machine which seems to have grown consciousness and a severe dislike for me becoming an entity which likes to systematically piss me off. Being unlike many of my fellow kind, I like to listen to entire albums in tracklisted order; I deal with life better when things are organised and I know what to expect. Sure, putting it on shuffle feels more like an adventure, but I couldn't live like that every day. Long story short, I need to maintain regularity. However, I recently discovered that the iPod has spontaneously begun to skip parts of tracks and even whole tracks altogether. Upon further examination, the damned thing's unpredictability isn't quite as unpredictable as I'd first thought. However, it is pretty odd so bear with me.

Firstly, tracks one and two of any playlist, whether an album or completely random, will play through just fine. The third track will begin fourteen seconds in thus completely disregarding a kick-ass intro if the third track in the list just so happened to have an intro worthy of note. The next four tracks play fine. The iPod then skips to the last second of track eight. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter how long it lasts, it'll play the last second and then buggar off to track nine. Tracks from then on play as according to schedule. This means that albums consisting of some 10-12 tracks now become pointless and the only way to truly enjoy uninterrupted walking around music is to put things on a random play all and skip the first eight tracks hoping that none of them are going to be any good. I expect such a First World problem to stick with me for at least the next two months as I await to be let back into my University home where my desktop computer is which has all the music on it, at which time I'll be able to reset the thing without fear of losing all the music from it. Apparently, the thought never occurred to me to keep a copy of it all on the notebook I bring with me when I'm banished from the learning place for several weeks at a time.

Finally, a look forward to the future, where the Digital Age will no doubt kick my ass something rotten until I learn my lesson not to have fun with technology. Many events - more specifically, TV events - have occurred lately, during which I've discovered the medium of liveblogging. This seems to fuse three of the things I enjoy in life: writing, watching TV, and frequently updating a piece of text in which I comment on what I've just watched on the TV. Okay, that last one is really a fusion of the first two, but mainly the point is I've seen it happen with so many TV events this year including, but not limited to, the final of The Apprentice, the final of The Voice, Eurovision, The Diamond Jubilee Concert, the entirety of the Diamond Jubilee weekend for that matter, every England match during Euro 2012 and probably an episode of Deal Or No Deal or something. Wanting to get in on the action, but using a blog-hosting site (this one!) which doesn't offer liveblogging services, I'm going to have to improvise by constantly updating a single blog post every few minutes or so much to the annoyance of all who bother to be able to see it. And what better way to attempt this than at the next TV event; the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in ten days time.

Just thought I'd give some advance notice/warning that that's what I'll be spending my Friday night doing.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Compromising Technology

Technology was invented by nerds who needed something to lord over the popular kids. You see, as a sweeping generalisation, the popular kids were, by and large, a bit dim. They'd often get confused over how many times the letter 'O' appeared in the word "lose". During maths lessons they believed the square root of pi was pastry. And the most productive thing anyone could do with a computer was to murder time idly clicking at a blank screen on Microsoft Paint. Over time, technology became more commercially viable and socially acceptable. The popular kids closed in on the nerds' territory and claimed it as their own; that's why in twenty years or so, it'll be fairly common knowledge that iPads and such run on pure concentrated magic as opposed to processors and algorithms and other miscellaneous computery jargon.

Meanwhile, a whole new batch of super-nerds felt the need to assert their dominance, and used knowledge to confuse, aggravate and trick the masses by adding several thousand special features to their technology under the guise of easier use, unsolicited messages relating to penis enlargement products and the national lotteries of Central African nations, and automated scripts and macros and even more computery jargon to force technology to malfunction all by itself. As a bit of a floater between the stupids and the geniuses (genii? [genus? {who cares, really?}]), I often laugh heartily and snort derisively at the idiot-holes too moronic to understand technology's intricacies and passionately curse the super-nerds whenever I'm the one who's been duped by a bit of soulless hardware.

Not long after my last communiqué here, I was made to look a fool. And not just any fool. A foolish fool. The most foolish a foolish fool could foolishly look, eating a strawberry fool, like a foolish fool eating fool that was foolishly made by another foolish fool who somehow managed to suspend their foolishness to make a fool.

Anyway, I received an email message. Actually, I received many, but I always receive many. Unfortunately this doesn't make me feel at all as popular as I used to. Whenever I'd be greeted with "2 new messages", I'd wonder what could possibly have happened to make everyone I know want to get in touch with me at the same time. Now when I see "8 new message", I just know I'll be clicking the little checkbox next to each one of them before proceeding to the "THIS IS JUNK" button. (I don't actually have a "THIS IS JUNK" button, I just thought that might add a little drama to things.) To digress, one message I received came from the monstrosity of Twitter. Apparently, one of my University lecturers had something urgent to tell me and all I had to do was click this unlabelled link. The link led to nothing and I felt somewhat cheated before carrying on with my day in whatever fashion I wished, which mainly boiled down to scrolling through the YouTube videos of one Adam Buxton - for those unfamiliar with him, he's a funny-talky-musicy-comedian type fellow who shouts in ridiculous voices a lot of the time; this stuff amuses me so.

A short time later, more email messages arrived and I flocked to see how many r0lex's I was being offered and how much I could potentially get for them if I cashed them in for gold. This, however, was not the case. These messages were from people I knew, and they were being sent to me care of Twitter. Apparently I'd informed every single one of my followers that someone was spreading rumours about them and all they'd need to do to find the perpetrator was to follow the unlabelled link provided. In mere moments it had occurred to me that my account had been compromised. That's what Twitter called it anyway. Not sure that's the parlance I'd have used but ho-hum, it matters not what I have to say anymore... I've been compromised now.

I became angered at the über-nerds for compromising technology in such a way that it punishes us foolish arseholes simply for being oh so foolish. Furthermore, I wished to act as soon as possible to end their reign of terror by telling all of my followers to ignore their fiendish schemes. Unfortunately, this had to be done individually to ensure that all users would immediately and effectively get the message, and it was at this time that I was glad my popularity in worldwide terms is struggling to match up to some of the more, dare I say it, popular kids. At the time of writing (and the time of spamming), I have 31 followers on Twitter. That meant individually going through the messaging procedure to rectify my moronic mistake and to tell people to ignore any obscurity I may have sent previously a total of 31 times; that's a whole twenty minutes wasted because of some angry nerdling who hates the masses for stealing his technology.

Still, it could've been worse. It could've happened to Bieber during his daily commute. Imagine sending eleventy-million-and-flumpteen messages of apology and warnings of spam on your Internet-enabled telephonic bit of technology whilst driving. Kid could've lost focus on the road and caused an accident or something.

Wednesday 4 July 2012

Sunrise On My Eyes

The morningmares have started again. Morningmares are my nightmares quite simply because I have them in the morning. I don't dream during the night; as I believe it, external forces of light impose upon the closed eyelids forming random patterns amongst the veins and skin bits in between the light source and the exposed eyes. The eyes and the brain then interpret the light randomness into absurd stories about flying, being friends with movie stars and living in medieval castles alongside an abundance of made-up cartoon characters.

My own personal theory, due to a lack of any prior scientific knowledge to back it up, is that I'm too heavy a sleeper to be affected by fairly light amounts of light - the kind of background light from outdoor street lamps that filters through the translucent vertical blinds, the wee crack of light that slips through the gap under the door to the landing and the ever-blinking standby LED on however many portable devices you happen to own and leave in sleep mode. I require a vast amount of heavy light in order to visualise a big ol' bit o' chaos. That's why I tend to dream a lot more on summer mornings just before groaning myself back into consciousness at 8am; sunlight's already been prevalent for a good three hours and the walls are of a startlingly bright hue of cream and the vertical blinds are a bit shit.

As previously divulged, I recently jumped into this year's summer stint at my prior, and - most likely once University's over and done with - future, store of employment. It's the thrid time I've "started" working at the place and, in accordance with the opening sentence of this prosaic mess, it's the third time over a vast extended period of time that I've actually been dealt with work-based dreams. The first time it happened was after I'd been working for some two or three weeks at the joint. My memory when reflecting upon dreams is sketchy at best, which doesn't really help when the dreams are little, vague and sketchy to begin with. Anyway, all that happened was that I was sat at a checkout, hearing the constant monotonous bleep of the secondly barcode-reading ceremony. After a short while, I'd read aloud a random currency-orientated number conjured up by my brain and wake up sleepily mumbling something along the lines of "that's four ninety-three, please..."

Over time, my familiarity with the store's environment has allowed my mindstuff to create more elaborately horrifying situations out of a midsummer's sunrise on my eyes. Most recently, I've visualised myself as being the sole worker left in the store by the time 6pm comes around (4pm on Sundays) when the store is due to close. In a bout of absurd dream-ism, I've been entrusted to hold the fort single-handedly and it's up to me to serve consumers on a checkout, keep the store generally tidy and lock the doors the very second closing time hits.

Unfortunately, real-life experience has proven to me that, even with a small party of staff members on board, the general populace tend not to adhere to opening times and approach the locked automatic doors and stand vacantly confused at why they're not opening, all the while ignoring the fact that the metal shutters are down and most of the lights inside are turned off. If those doors aren't locked, basic human psychology kicks in and informs a person that this place is obviously open and they may spend as long as they wish browsing, selecting and purchasing goods. Upon noticing the lack of other people doing the same thing, they proceed to ask the checkout operator "what time d'you close?", which is almost always answered monosyllabically: "six" ("four" on Sundays)... always a fun exchange if spoken after the time in question.

Back in Imagination Land, I can't keep up with the relentless queue of existing customers in-store as it is, let alone make my way to the doors to effectively stop it. More people keep flouting the closing-time rule and, therefore, the queue of customers never ends. What's more is that I become increasingly flustered that I am alone and have no back-up staff member to help me out, as well as becoming increasingly aggravated at the sight of every new potential customer merrily wandering through the door at a pace akin to that of an art museum visitor. Also, I want to go home. I never get to go home though. I remain in a fixed state of work whilst all alone and ultimately getting nowhere slowly until I wake up. Some kind of analytical dream psychologist might interpret that as a metaphor for my outlook on my professional life, my social life or, in the case of Freud-followers, my sex life or rather my lack thereof.

Either that or I'm just boring enough to dream about a real place instead of a flying castle made of candyfloss inhabited by Johnny Depp dressed as a cartoon frog or something.