Sunday, December 31, 2006
The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part Four.
By the time the Boy Who Cried had arrived the party was in full swing. He didn't know that the Pixie Princess and the Golden Dragon were stuck in the kitchen trying to organise a late delivery of goblin testicles, which needed to be freshly picked before being added to the ice cream. Outside in the party room all the waiters and waitresses for the feast were dressed in Conan and Barbarella outfits respectively. The music was handled by my sister Alice, a band of 80's minstrels, Fi and the Flatulonian choir group, who were lead by Windy Pop and Ludicrousity. God and Darwin were having a heated argument in the corner with the Mormons, Rev. Qelqoth, Santa and Dboy eagerly watching on. An effeminate poet and librarian, having just finished on the twee porno set, were kicking back having a few milk drinks at the milk bar with Cassandra, Inigo Montoya, Goldmourn, Cass and Ben. The Internet Pixies, Wire, Donald Duck, Dave, Kenneth Branagh and the workers of the panty vending machine sweatshop were running around without any pants on, having a pillow fight. Daniel Kitson, Adam, the Pixie Prince and Leighton were having an involved, graphic, conversation about masturbation. There was a crazy constipated person waving a dildo-cam at Meg, L.S.T. and Jasper (or whatever his name may be). The Gyppopotamus, who was a little shy after the golden sock incident, decided it would be best if she hid in shadows with Frankie and all the readers who hadn't yet identified themselves in comments. Jodi, Gypsy and I were also there. In fact, Jodi and I were also celebrating the third anniversary of our meeting and not quite getting together. I was very excited about the prospect of having a deep philosophical conversation with my character creations, but Jodi pointed out to me that it was the Boy Who Cried's special day and that it would be unfair to cause him an existential crisis.
When the Boy Who Cried's arrival was announced everybody went to meet the hero and to give him a hug and congratulate him on the golden sock quest. The King, who was very excited, asked the Boy Who Cried if he would re-enact his adventures in the Gyppopotamus lair for everyone. The King even agreed to play the part of the Gyppopotamus, who still didn't want to come out from hiding in the shadows. Everyone agreed that a re-enactment would be spiffing and they all cajoled the Boy Who Cried onto the stage, took a seat and were quiet. But the Boy Who Cried was overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. He worried that he might start crying again. The King lay on the stage with the golden sock in his mouth and pretended to be the Gyppopotamus monster, asleep. But the Gyppopotamus decided that the King was doing it all wrong and pushed the King off the stage and stole the golden sock back. The Boy Who Cried and the Gyppopotamus then staged an epic battle, tooing and froing across the stage and around the room, clambering over the audience, who divided into those who were supporting the Boy Who Cried and those who were supporting the Gyppopotamus, cheering them on. Eventually the Boy Who Cried disarmed the Gyppopotamus of her magic sharp stick and retrieved the golden sock. The audience were so impressed by the performance that they all stood up and applauded, calling for an encore. The Boy Who Cried and Gyppopotamus both bowed, and the Gyppopotamus was so happy and excited that she couldn't help but wee a little on the stage. The Gyppopotamus' bravery inspired the readers who hadn't yet identified themselves in comments, to at least say Happy New Year at the next opportunity.
Everybody was so happy eating ice cream and dancing that they almost missed the countdown to the New Year. They all paused, charged their ice cream bowls and got ready to start the count down. TEN ... The Pixie Princess quickly came out of the kitchen to join the party for the countdown ... NINE ... and the Boy Who Cried saw the Pixie Princess ... EIGHT ... for the first time ... SEVEN ... and this made the Boy Who Cried for No Reason start to cry ... SIX ... but it didn't feel like the normal crying for no reason ... FIVE ... it was as if every time he'd cried for no reason ... FOUR ... was because he was crying in anticipation of this moment ... THREE ... and the pixie princess saw the Boy Who Cried crying ... TWO ... and she wanted to ... ONE ... give him a big hug ... HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Christmas Wrap-Up, Unwrapped
My Christmas present from Jodi was a book called 'Treehouses of the World'. It is filled with wonderful pictures of treehouses, some of which would cause a structural engineer to flip out, along with tips for would-be treehouse designers... and treehouse dreamers. I love treehouses. Jodi prefers holes in the ground, something dwarf- (sorry, hobbit-) friendly. Perhaps a good equivalent book for Jodi would be 'Holes of the World'. I imagine our future abode might be a tree with a house up in the branches for me and a hole in the root system for Jodi. Jodi's cave would be filled with shelves of books and have a round green door with a brass knocker. My treehouse would be a pirate ship, caught in the tree in the distant past, before the oceans receded. We would have picnics together on the grass, eating bread and drinking eggnog, saying Merry Christmas to those who pass by.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Frankie
Although it may be useful for metaphorical purposes to leave the agent nameless, I feel that it will avoid much confusion if I give it a name. I imagine that if I rely on others to refer to it as my monster (i.e. Owen's monster) this will inevitably lead to people confusing the monster with the creator and calling the monster Owen (although, perhaps, it is really me who is the monster). Instead I'll call my monster Frankie.
Now, Frankie had a penchant for copulating with the dead. I couldn't allow such an abomination to continue in my simulation, so I quickly made to hit the reset button... but Frankie slipped through. So it was that Frankie ended up wandering aimlessly, and pantsless, though the wilderness knowing nothing other than the instincts instilled in him to graze on the AFood and to mate with the ADead. Eventually Frankie came upon a kind old blind hermit, who didn't judge him, and took Frankie into his home and taught him to speak English and to read. Frankie even learned how to play the recorder. For a while Frankie was truly happy. Once he became proficient enough with his reading to decipher my bad grammar he attempted to read my online publications. He became troubled by questions - why had I deserted him and left him for dead?
Anyway, after accidentally killing the hermit and throwing Kenneth Branagh into a lake, it became clear that, although Frankie had many similarities to humans (i.e. he was a self replicating, survival machine), he didn't have a soul. Enraged and all alone, Frankie sought me out so that he could demand that I create him another, a partner, a bride...
And so it was that I discovered the existence of my creation. Initially I just wanted him to leave me alone, so that I could hide from my past mistakes. I outright refused to further my sins by creating another, as he demanded. But Frankie tricked me by destroying my computer, and thus my results, so that I had to rerun my experiments in a desperate attempt to submit my PhD before my scholarship money ran out. But both Frankie and I were denied, as the inbuilt evolving expiry age caused the newly born agent to terminate itself before reproduction could occur.
After that there was some windmill burning incident, with farmers with torches and pitchforks angry about the death of the kind old blind hermit. Or maybe it was something to do with the north pole. Or perhaps it was just the high rate of accidental deaths in my simulation. Regardless, whatever happened to Frankie remains a mystery, leaving open the possibility of a come back in one of my future posts or in a horrid Hollywood film, such as Van Helsing, milking and destroying popular fictional characters.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Santa Spoiler Warning
The internet must be like prospecting for gold for most fathers. My father subscribes to a number of mailing lists, which run hot with Santa jokes in the weeks preceding Christmas. This leads to the eternal conflict every father must continuously face: to protect the sacred innocence of the childhood myth of Santa, or to tell the Dad Joke? As an aside, I'm a little confused about the whole Santa thing. A phenomenon I've noticed for myself, which I can only presume extends to others, is a reverse in the direction of the Santa myth. Originally intended as a story parents will tell their children, it seems to me that Santa is a pretence that children will hold for their parents sake. I remember feeling very embarrassed for my parents whenever I became aware of a transparency in the Santa myth. For example, when I noticed that my parents were becoming careless in the hiding of the Santa presents, I'd attempt to hide them better, by putting something over them. Perhaps this is something particular to being an eldest child, (i.e. protecting the younger siblings). I asked my 11 year old brother the other day what he thought about the whole Santa thing. He answered that it depended on who was asking, because if it was our parents the answer would be that he was a believer. His logic was that as long as he continued the pretence of naivety then he'd continue to cash in on the extra presents (talk about mixed messages). I recall the Christmas that my father had the Santa discussion with me. The motive behind this advent was a little confused, as not only did I stop receiving presents from Santa, my father started sharing his internet Santa jokes with me (actually, they were probably BBS jokes, as this was before the internet). I recall the joke that my father shared with me on this occasion, probably because of it's aptness, as it was about the scientific impossibilities of Santa. I was unable to find the original publication (which, to the best of my knowledge, was, the now defunct, Spy Magazine), but found numerous reproductions across the internet. Here it is reproduced, yet again:
Is there a Santa Claus?
Consider the following:
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
Anybody else have any Dad Jokes they care to share?
Saturday, December 09, 2006
The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part Three.
The Golden Dragon was looking into all the caves in the neighbourhood trying to find a deserted one to live in. He was a refugee from the woods of the kingdom of Batmania, where he lived next door to the Gyppopotamus monster. The Gyppopotamus often wanted to play with the Golden Dragon, but the Golden Dragon knew that the Gyppopotamus could be a bit rough. The Golden Dragon tried flying up into trees where the Gyppopotamus couldn't reach him, but the Gyppopotamus would sit and wait, staring at the Golden Dragon, wondering when she'd be able to feast on the goo within. When the Golden Dragon realised that the Pixie Princess was already living in the cave, he was sad and apologised profusely. But the Pixie Princess, who understood what it felt like to have no home, told the Golden Dragon to stay for a while, until he felt ready to start looking again. The Golden Dragon stayed for a day. And then another day. And then another...
Before they knew it the Golden Dragon and the Pixie Princess had lived together for many, many years and had become fast friends. The two of them were business partners in a joint entrepreneurial venture. After discovering the Pixie Princess's talents for designing stink bomb recipes, the Golden Dragon told the Pixie Princess about the Batmanian's passion for different types of ice cream. The Pixie Princess got a whole load of really cool ideas for ice cream flavours, some of the Golden Dragon's favourite flavours were Toe Jam Crunch, Snot-o-Rama and Ice Cream Number Twos. Apparently, there was quite a market for gourmet ice creams among the Batmanian social elite, who would often hold ice cream tasting parties where the participants would smell, taste and then spit out the ice cream, before making various wanky remarks on the vintage and taste. Sometimes, a Batmanian would accidentally swallow a bit of the ice cream and get sick, and sometimes, if it was one of the Pixie Princess's finest, they would get a little sick after taking a good whiff.
The Golden Dragon's part in the ice cream venture was to transport the ice cream across the sea to the Batmanians. It was on one such trip that the Golden Dragon received a personal correspondence from the King addressed to the Pixie Princess. The letter told them that the King, who was quite a gourmand and often frequented ice cream tasting parties, was very impressed with the Pixie Princess's ice creams and wanted her to present them at a feast to be held in honour of a hero who had retrieved his golden sock. The Pixie Princess was very shy around people and was unsure if she wanted to go. But the Golden Dragon saw that it was a real honour for the Pixie Princess to be invited to the feast, and told her that she had to go or she'd regret it for the rest of her life. So, they found a nice outfit for her to wear to the party (one with long pants) and the Golden Dragon got the Pixie Princess to sit on his back and they flew to the ice cream feast together.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Intelleckual Wank, ah Reckon
Ah said in an earlier post thet th' focus of mah PhD was evolushunary ethics, in particular biological altruism, namely th' evolushun of agin'. When ah say agin' ah mean - death by internal cuzs. Thar is argoomnts which pursue th' line thet agin' is a by-produck, i.e., an inevitable part of livin'. E.g, acco'din' t' th' code o' th' heells! like a car, o' enny other mechanical device, which is created an' inevitably deterio'ates wif age. But o'ganisms, unlike cars, is subjeck t'continuous flux of material, cells is continuously dyin' an' bein' replaced, like a starfish which will grow back a sevahed arm, we is livin'! Fry mah hide! Thar is menny examples of o'ganisms fo' which agin' death is like programmed se'f destruckshun (i.e. an adappashun, by which ah mean, a chareeckeristic which sarves an evolushunary benefit). It is mah projeck t'attempp t'explain whut postible benefit thar c'd be t'agin' an' how it'd manifess itse'f.
Consider this: it is obvious thet thar kin be no benefit t'th' indivijool who dies of old age, as they will no longer be aroun' t'see, an' receive, th' consequences. Thus, an adappive agin''d seem t'be th' ultimate negashun of thet fine known adage "survival of th' fittest", thet is, until we reviset whut is meant by th' fittess - in particular cornsider th' quesshun "th' fittess whut?". Th' obvious interpretashun of "survival of th' fittest" is t'reckon in terms of th' indivijool - th' strongest, most ruthless, se'fish indivijool - "nature, red in tooth an' claw". Although, this hyar is an undeniably strong facko' in evolushun, sech a simplistic view leads t'th' abho'rent politics an' ethics of th' Social Darwinites. ah hark on th' title of a popular book by Richard Dawkins called "Th' Se'fish June", which I'd highly recommend eff'n yo' haf even th' slightess interess in th' topic. Th' concepp of th' se'fish june points out thet th' units of seleckshun is not th' indivijool o'ganisms, which is merely tempo'ary vessels, but th' junes themselves, which is eternal, ah reckon. Dawkins insists on th' inclushun of th' wo'd "se'fish" in his title, holdin' thet evolushun still, essentially, favours th' se'fish, jest at a diffrunt level. Th' concepp of th' june transcends th' indivijool an' spills into, obviously, close relatives who share a common ancesto' (an' hence th' same junes) an', less obviously, by extenshun, th' group/species. Thus, our agin' june, which c'd haf no benefit t'th' indivijool, kin still benefit th' replicashuns of itse'f in neighbours.
Th' challenge now is t'dexcribe a benefit which c'd outweigh th' costs - sumpin I've got a few answers to. In all cases, agin' benefits th' populashun by makin' room fo' th' yo'ng, which c'd be useful fo' various reasons which ah won't hoof it into at th' moment.
Eff'n one wanted t'a take a particularly pervahse view on this, one c'd argue fo' th' ethical killin' of old varmints (Soylent Green is PEOPLE! Fry mah hide!), in th' name of progress. ah varmintally'd rather use it t'find peace in mah mo'tality. Regardless, ah reckon it is interestin' t'note th' amount of attenshun our society gives t'agin'. Consider th' market fo' anti-agin' producks - cornsider th' promise of eternal life, common t'th' majo'ity of religions.
Monday, November 20, 2006
My Recent Adventures on Flatulon-Nine
I thought I might tell you a story about one of my many adventures during my journey though the blogosphere, about this place I visited, called Flatulon-Nine. I told Jodi about it this morning, and she said that it was surely a dream. This might make sense considering that Jodi has been very gassy of late. Although, she insists that it's actually Gypsy who is the gassy one, but she's been really good since we got her off the canned food (no such luck with Jodi). Anyway, it's a special type of gas which helps me to sleep and induces interesting dreams...
The occupants of Flatulon-Nine are the Flatulonians. The Flatulonians are very similar the people of Earth, except their heads are located where their bottoms should be, and their bottoms are located where their heads should be. They also walk around on their hands, so nobody bothers washing their hands after they've been to the toilet. The Flatulonians communicate by farting at each other. It is considered rude if you fart whilst you are facing someone, because that would mean you're talking in the opposite direction. Sometimes the Flatulonians get confused about who is talking to who, because they often can't see who they are talking to. Sometimes, conversations simply tail off, if they get distracted by marauding air fresheners, and forget about the Flatulonian they are talking to behind them. This is mostly OK, because the Flatulonians are a very understanding people. In fact, one of their favourite things to do is to say "I love you" to each other. Flatulonians say "I love you" by farting (the louder the better) directly in the recipient's face (small cute pop farts translate as a small cute "I wuv you"). This requires a certain amount of co-ordination if they want to surprise each other during marriage proposals (in fact, many Flatulonians accidentally propose to the wrong person, but are happy regardless). When Mummy and Daddy Flatulonians love each other very much, they sometimes make fart love, which looks a bit like 69 rimming, and this is how baby Flatulonians are created.
Whilst I was staying at Flatulon-Nine I made a friend called Windy Pop. Windy Pop was considered very attractive to the Flatulonian girls (who thought his fart smells were very rock n' roll). In spite of this, he was very lonely. The problem was that he thought about things too much. He'd met a girl that he liked very much, but every time he tried to say that he loved the girl, he'd hesitate, worrying that he might be too hasty, or not able to perform, or that a bit of pooh might accidentally come out. As it was, by the time he'd farted out his declaration of love and turned around to see if it would be reciprocated, the girl Flatulonian had already left.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Owen's Pixie Wet Dream
First I'll let you in on a little secret: all the wires and junk you see when you open up your computer is just a decoy. The real work is done by the pixies (often confused with pixels). This fact is obvious when you consider the temperamental nature of computers. Unpredictable behaviour is especially a problem with Microsnot computers, which use al-Qaeda-esque training camps to train their pixies. Anyway, these pixies need to talk to each other to get the job done (be it for good or evil purposes). When the pixies are corresponding over the internet, they use special mailing addresses called IP (Internet Pixie) addresses. The pixies are also very good (perhaps, evilly so) at remembering all this information. Many a person has got into trouble over the information relinquished by a pixie under torture (the Microsnot pixies, regardless of all their special training - or perhaps because of it - are particularly vulnerable to this type of attack). This is why there is a high demand for "clear history" buttons in workplace browers, which causes the pixies in your computer to undergo electro-shock therapy (this is why you need to plug your computer into a power point). Anyway, I digress. So, I get the pixies who maintain my blog page (a special pant-less variety of pixies) to remember the last 100 visitors. This is something very common on the internet, and you can bet your favourite pair of undies that a lot of the commercial sites (and, ahem, other types of sites) will keep this information also. There are also data mining pixies (who get to wear those cool hard hats) which specialise in "mining" the interesting information out of this data - information such as: where people are coming from (i.e. what link, if any, did they click to get there); what countries they are from; and what terms people use in search engines to find your site (hence, Meg's awareness of the usage of her full name). This is useful for sites who want to get first place on the Google search page listing, for Meg to get paranoid over, and for me to get a bit of a giggle.
I've started collecting some of the more interesting Google searches by which people have found my blog site. It occurred to me that these might make for a kind of reflective posting (now that I've reached the exciting grand total of 14 posts). I've had a few obvious searches, such as "Pants Optional" and "Philosophical Steakhouse", which would probably be people actually looking for my site. A bit of a strange one was "My boyfriend - I wear the pants", which may have been Jodi, linked to my first posting Pants Optional. I had a moment sharing the spotlight with a celebrity when a couple of people Googled "Daniel Kitson", whom I briefly referred to in the Table for One at the Philosophical Steak House posting, although, there was a conspicuous absence of "Hanson" searches for my MMMBop and Safety Head Gear posting. My favourites were linked to my The Gay Thing post. Apparently, I'd managed to tap into the more fetish-related aspects of the internet with search terms of "People think that I'm gay", "How I lost my virginity story" and "Gay peeing" linking to my site. I even had a totally bizarre "Twee Porn" search, which linked to my Tweemo posting. All this gives an interesting insight into how people use the internet. I could only imagine the types of searches people use to end up at Meg's blog, for example, check out this "horror porn" I found on Meg's site, affectionately dubbed "The Dildo-Cam":
Here's a fun activity for you all (and a way of getting revenge for all those click-throughs I got to my site after Meg linked me to the "blue balls" conspiracy) - try to figure out some interesting search terms that will get you to Meg's blog, e.g., "Meg the Petulant Teacher", "Meg's Lucky Dildo-Cam" or "Meg's Crazy Constipation" (Yes, these all got Meg first page listing on Google, at time of writing). Note that this only works if you actually visit the site (otherwise she won't know!), so click on through to her site and the pixies will be sure to get a bit of kick out of sharing your fun search terms with her.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Undergarment Thievery
Awww, cute puppy pictures (sorry, I just couldn't resist). Perhaps this would make a good advertisement for bonds underwear. With the caption "Who hasn't felt like doing this on those especially lonely nights?" I know I have... Whilst in Japan I heard about these vending machines (which are everywhere, you couldn't imagine) which dispensed packages containing used underwear, along with a picture of the previous owner. I searched for these vending machines, for a souvenir (perverted, who me?), but to no avail.
So, what do people think about vending machines being used in this manner?
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Outlets of Artistic By-products
When I was 13, I was involved with an amateur theatre group (Ok, Ok, it was a Scout Gangshow). During the initial get-to-know-each-other phase we had a introductory exercise, you know the one where you go around the circle and introduce yourself by saying your name and something about yourself. I hate these games, as I imagine everybody does. It was the usual mundane stuff "Hello, my name is blah, I like Scouts", "Hello, my name is also blah, I really, really like horses" or "'Ello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die". Even though that Inigo guy was a hard act to follow, when it came to my turn I thought I might spice it up, and said "My name is Owen, my balls have dropped and I've had my first wet dream". My God, the fall out! Shock waves were felt across the city. The next day, in the totally unrelated arena of school, I had people come up and ask if it was true. Had I uttered these words which must surely amount to social suicide? Unfortunately for me this type of weirdness wasn't to be considered cool for another couple of years (when everybody would presume that I was continuously on drugs, which, apparently, is cool when you're 15 years old). As it was, I didn't make many friends at the time, and the ones I already had started to avoid me.
Nowadays, with all this virtual blogging, people can observe me without any direct interaction (just to be safe). Yes, I know that you're there. So, at the risk of making a fool out of myself when nobody does, I'll ask you to please leave a comment. If only to say hello and how you think my blog is shit (to which I'll respond "Yes! You get it!") and, if applicable, leave a link, so that I may tie you in to my page and start stalking you on your own virtual space.
Monday, October 23, 2006
The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part Two.
At the end of the last episode the Boy Who Cried had just been born. And he cried. He didn't cry for any reason, which was why he was called the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. His mother and father were fearsome pirates (who were quite nice, really), and it was expected that he would follow in their footsteps. The Boy Who Cried very much loved growing up on the sea and he became very good at talking like a pirate, saying things like "shiver my timbers!" and calling the various people he met "scurvy bilge rats" or "land lubbers" depending on the circumstances. When he was old enough, his parents wanted him to join the boarding parties when they invaded other ships (which was really just a bit of fun to give the others a bit of a scare). But the problem was that Boy Who Cried for No Reason also could have been known as the Boy Who Cried at Inopportune Moments, and all his sooking during the boardings had the effect of ruining the game. His mother started to worry that he might be gay, even though he claimed he was just a little bit poofy. And so it was that once he had turned 11, he left the pirate life to seek his fortunes in the kingdom of Batmania.
Batmania was a wonderful place where nobody ate animals or vegetables. The favourite meal of the Batmanians was ice-cream, which they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The King of Batmania, who was very fat, had recently lost one of his favourite golden socks, which had been taken by a formidable monster who lived in the woods. Everybody was scared of the monster and would run away when they knew it was coming. They could tell it was about to leave its lair because it would always ring a bell when it wanted to go outside. The King, who was upset about his golden sock, had put up reward posters all over the kingdom, seeking a hero who could retrieve his sock. The reward was an invitation to a feast at the King's castle, where the hero would eat as much ice-cream with chocolate topping as he could.
The Boy Who Cried had never had ice-cream. According to his parents, pirates didn't eat ice-cream. But he was curious and set upon the quest to retrieve the golden sock. The Boy Who Cried was searching in the woods when he came upon a cave which had a sign over the entrance which read:
And so the Boy Who Cried crept into the cave. Inside, the floor was strewn with the remnants of slain Kleenex tissues. In the middle of this tissue carnage was the sleeping form of the Gyppopotamus monster and in her jaws was the King's golden sock. The Boy Who Cried very carefully retrieved the golden sock without waking the Gyppopotamus and was about to get away when he started crying again. He tried his hardest to be quiet, but he wasn't able to stop himself from waking the Gyppopotamus. When the Gyppopotamus stirred and got up, the Boy Who Cried shut his eyes, waiting... But the Gyppopotamus was actually a friendly monster and she just wanted to play with the Boy Who Cried because she was lonely. The Boy Who Cried liked the Gyppopotamus and they decided to be friends. So the two of them went to return the golden sock to the King so they could attend the ice-cream feast together...
On the way there they camped out under the stars, and the Boy Who Cried told the Gyppopotamus all the things he knew about them from his seafaring days. Little did they know that they were looking at exactly the same stars as the Pixie Princess who had just got a good idea for an infinity stink bomb.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
MMMBop and Safety Head Gear
Dearest Cassie recently rummaged through her memorabilia of those good old days, mostly looking for pictures of yours truly in drag, and posted them on her blog. And so it was that one of these photos has come to adorn my blog profile. A little background: to the best of our knowledge, this photo was taken at Cass' 18th Birthday. The head apparel I'm sporting was designed and assembled by the incredibly talented James, as a gift for Cass. The T-shirt, with the caption "Call Me Burroughs", (below which was a picture of good old Willy Burroughs), was one of my favourites, which I wore continuously until it fell apart. I remember Nicole finding it for me at a flee market. Happy days.
The photo reminds me of my desire to get a Vespa and ride it resplendent in a bright orange helmet, with antennae, making Meep Meep noises at passing motorists (something like Beaker from the Muppets). I read recently about a study which found that people sans helmets were less likely to be involved in car accidents (very scientific, I imagine). (Apparently, the guy also dressed up in drag to discover that drivers gave him even more room). Probably, this is likely to do with driver psychology, that is, drivers will give more room to people not wearing helmets because they might perceive them as less experienced, less predictable and more likely to die if there is an accident. Helmet or no, I don't really like my chances in an accident. By this logic I should be very safe on the road in this fashionable contraption.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
And Now For Something Completely Different
Here's the comic's web page Pearls Before Swine
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Who Am I? And Who Is This Big Hanson Guy Anyway?
There is nothing more important to me than the friends that have contributed to my life, even those that I've encountered for but a day. The impressions they have left on my psyche, and, I hope, the impressions I've left on their's are what defines me. I am continuously astounded by descriptive power of the symbol/concepts of evolution and the yin/yang of Taoism. The yin/yang is a constant reminder to me that wonderful things in life are balanced by not so wonderful things. In my case the weight of importance that I put on others is counterbalanced by a crippling self-analytical streak. In my understanding of Taoism, which is likely to be flawed, an important principle is the concept of wu wei, i.e. nonaction, or rather, just going with the flow. I feel that my analytical steak is part of my Tao, i.e., my way, and thus it is not worth resisting, even though it leads me, I believe naturally, to inquire about my Tao, which would be very non-Tao. This idea gives me some satisfaction in its nonsensicalness. It defies explanation, which fits nicely with the opening line of the Dao De Jing: "The way which can be uttered, is not the eternal Way." Will continue to muse on the idea though:
My academic investigations into the mysteries of life, coupled with a tendency to reclusion, make me cynical. That's what this blog is supposed to be about - I'm dying to reach out and express myself. I hope others will be inspired, as I am, by this new media, to express themselves thus, so that this virtual representation of our social network may be drawn tight through inter-linking. Just like the individual neurons sending electrical impulses in our brains make up the amazing thing that is our mind, I'd like to be able to stand back and marvel at our emergent identity from the expressions of all these people. In this light my self identity, choices and love (things which are the subject of ardent deconstruction in my studies) doesn't bear critical analysis, and remain, as they should, truly magical.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Gay Thing
I've been surprised on a number of occasions, at how I've inadvertently been drawn into gay environments. Once, during a family get-together in Brisbane (actually the funeral of my grandmother), I, along with a group of cousins decided to find a bar to have a drink and shoot some pool. We settled on the bar called the Sportsman Hotel, completely unaware that it was, in fact, a gay bar. Not that I was completely oblivious to some same-sex "hand holding", I just didn't think anything of it (gay people are everywhere, apparently). I should have twigged after a couple of guys in the toilets invited me to a party where the theme was "blue hard-yakka shirts", like the one I just happened to be sporting. A compliment's a compliment, and gay boys sure know how to spin my dials, although I had to decline, returning to my table giddy as a school girl. I started to get suspicious, but it wasn't until, whilst attempting to find the source of someone singing "The Power of Love", I stumbled upon an adjoining room set up for "Pricilla, Queen of Desert" style karaoke. Another time I went to see a friend performing her poetry during a female poets reading at a gay bar called Salon Kitty. I swear there was some sort of conspiracy with the toilets, which were positioned just so that the seats wouldn't stay up, so that one hand was required to hold the seat up whilst peeing.
I don't mind that people think that I'm gay, in fact I've incorporated into my self identity, (although, some "hardcore" gays might feel that my "little bit poofy" doesn't qualify me for the positive entitlements of the label). I must admit that I get a bit of kick out of winding people up, especially my mother, who takes a diplomatic approach to my "may be gay" situation, i.e. "I'd be supportive of you, but it's a hard life..." What, harder than being sexually repressed and marrying a someone you have no sexual interest in?
Another story, (on how I lost my virginity) - I once spent a summer fruit picking with a friend, Dan. We lived together in a caravan, which my parents had kindly lent us, so that we could more easily commute to the orchard. It was during this summer (the tail end of that seemingly endless summer that follows the finish of year 12) that I decided to give up my virginity to my then girlfriend. And so it was that many a condom wrapper was lost to the countless nooks and crannies that are found in a pop-up caravan. My 18th birthday party signalled the end of our adventures. I'd struck a deal with my parents, who were to tow the caravan back, allowing me to commandeer the family home for my party, whilst they spent the night in the country. I shudder to imagine the sight as they packed up the caravan and discovered the evidence of my conquests.
Meanwhile, at the party, my friends and I had whiled away the night, and were well into the morning (occupied, as we were, by the Jehovah's Witness' we'd cornered on the front porch for a good "questioning") when my parents returned. Dan was the first to encounter them, and my mother sinisterly whispered to him "We found the French letters..." Dan managed to circumvent them to warn me of the impending doom, before making off. Resigned to the situation, I went to seek out my parents and face the music. My mother demanded an explanation so I told her of the recent progressions in my relationship with my then girlfriend. Her anger was immediately replaced with relief when she realised that her "obvious" conclusion, that I'd been bonking Dan, was proved false.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason. Part One.
The Pixie Princess and the Boy Who Cried for No Reason.
Part One.
In this first part of the story there is only the pixie princess. The boy who cried for no reason wasn't born yet. In fact, the boy who cries is only born at the very end of this first part of the saga, so don't hold your breath waiting for him. The set up is fairly typical for a pixie princess: you know - an evil pixie stepmother queen and a boorish pixie prince to whom the evil pixie queen was forcing the pixie princess to be married. But the problem was that the pixie princess was not too much into the pixie prince. The pixie princess felt that the pixie prince's kisses could be likened to having a bucket of warm saliva thrown in her face. (Although, in the years to come, the pixie princess realised that the pixie prince wasn't all that bad and regretted describing him thus).
The pixie princess' real passion was in the research and development of increasingly technologically advanced stink bombs (to be used in the war efforts against the mandarin trees, which the pixies hated with a passion). Here is the ingredients of one of the recipes she won the prestigious "stinky logie" (pronounced 'loo-gee') award for:
4 brussel sprouts
3 blow flies (deceased)
1 1/2 goblin testicles
1 jar of pickled leeches
1 pint of pixie wee
2 pieces of Gypsy pooh
5 slices of devon sausage
The pixie princess lived in a tree-house built in a beautiful oak tree called Roger. The tree, Roger, was decorated with hundreds of bells and every time a strong wind blew, the bells rang with a sound like that of a school orchestra where everybody wants to play the triangle.
One day, after a particularly unsuccessful (or rather, overly successful) stink bomb experiment, the pixie princess heard sounds coming from the ground below her tree-house. She peered out of the tree-house to see a band of '80s minstrels - boys wearing eyeliner, and girls in colourful ra-ra skirts. The sounds of electronic keyboards, synthesisers and saxophone solos mixed with the sound of Roger's bells.
After witnessing this magical display, the pixie princess became convinced that her calling was amongst the big people that inhabited the ground. But the evil pixie stepmother queen had expected that the whimsical princess might try to leave the pixie kingdom and had put a curse on her. And so it was, that when she reached the ground, the pixie princess realised that the evil pixie stepmother queen had cursed her with the hairy, hooved legs of a goat and that she could never return to the pixie kingdom...
It was at this time that the boy who cried for no reason was born, and he cried for no reason.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Table for One at the Philosophical Steak House
I probably didn't make it clear in my previous blog, I'm not actually an atheist, even though I think evolution is a pretty powerful explaining tool. The truth is I'm all tangled up in the concept of "Truth". I was brought up a Christian, and although I have found it important to question such things, I still regard the pursuit of things spiritual as most important. I'm Agnostic, that is to say, I believe that nothing can be known of the existence of God. I believe that people who are blindly atheistic are, in many ways, as bad as religious fundamentalists. I'd like to share a satiric cartoon of the atheist by Jack Hamm. I'll let it speak for itself (Although, I will say that I think it makes my blog look smarter and also notice the absence of pants):
A story I'd like to relate: there was this one time I was reading a book about artificial intelligence on the train and these two girls asked me what I was reading. Happy to oblige, I recounted the entirety of the subject matter of PHIL101, "Mind and Machine", which I did during my first year, to them. Strutting my intellectual prowess, I talked of Searle's Chinese Room, The Turing Test and Descartes' Demon. After I'd finished bombarding them with this crap, I asked them if they thought it would ever be possible for a machine to think? One of the girls looked at me and said "Well, I think, there's so much space up there there is bound to be life somewhere out there..." Apparently, we'd started talking about extra-terrestrials. Now, I say that philosophising is like having a good tug. So, here I am, trying to strut my stuff, doing some weird philosopher mating ritual, and in actual fact all I'm doing is just jacking all over myself. I note that these rambling sessions are followed by a great feeling of elation, having got all this stuff off my chest, closely followed by a sharp pathetic feeling. A friend of mine recounted a joke by Daniel Kitson where he reflected on the elation of masturbation being followed by an awkward moment of clarity, where you realise that standing over the toilet bowl, pants around your ankles, is rather depressing.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
A bit of a Heavy One (Beware)
***
comment 1
First, I think it's good to question these things, so thumbs up for that. It's tricky, when I started my studies I had this idea that we were devolving (actually I can't believe my spell checker accepts the word), because the technologies we had were allowing more and more of us to survive, hence cheating nature and natural selection. The direction of evolution is not determined by some ultimate goal, but rather by the environmental niche the organism is filling. For example, imagine that all the parasites that lived in/on us evolved into people. All of a sudden there would be an energy source which no one is taking advantage of, so something else would evolve to fill the empty niche. So in fact, we'd expect the diversity and delicate equilibrium that we actually do see in the environment. That said, it's a common misconception. The idea of evolution toward some perfect goal is, in my opinion, a hangover of creationism. The idea that God created us in his own image, and therefore we must be as close to perfection as possible. I agree that the idea of evolution from primordial slime to humans is mind boggling, but then so are the time scales involved. It's like imagining the Grand Canyon being cut by single drops of water. But what is also mind boggling to me is egotism involved in inferring that God is like us. Without saying whether God exists or doesn't, God is at best a concept to us. There is no proof, because there can't be proof. God didn't make us in his image, we made him in ours.
***
comment 2
I was thinking further on this topic and I wanted to add something. When I say proof of the existence of God, I mean scientific proof. This is far from the only important thing. I think it's BS when people say they believe in science and therefore not God. God is outside of science. What's important is what you believe, not what can be proven. In my opinion, all that matters is that you keep an open mind and you risk hypocrisy if you outright deny another's beliefs.
***
I also desired to talk about the supposed science of "Intelligent Design", but felt that I had already rambled on to much, hence shifting to here, where Owen rambling is the norm.
By the lord, these creationists can cause a lot of trouble. There was a big stink some years ago over in the USA (the moral lighthouse of the western world), when some creationists came up with this new science called "Intelligent Design" which sought to discover arguments against evolution to demonstrate that some kind of intelligence was required, i.e. a creator. I saw a good documentary on TV about it. The stink was caused because these jerks had managed to have the teaching of evolution stripped from the syllabus of some schools and replaced by the science of Intelligent Design. Now, an important value we have in our society is that education should be non-secular (at least in public schools). As an aside, consider John Howard arguing about holy (i.e. Christian) matrimony when deciding whether Australia (i.e. non-secular Australia) should recognise homosexual marriage. This makes my blood boil. I'm going to have a ramble about the intelligent design arguments which are difficult to explain so maybe skip over to the next ***
I can't remember exactly, all this is off the top of my head, so I might make mistakes in my arguments (be warned). I believe there are two main arguments the Intelligent Design people had against evolution. One was an example of some biological design so complex that "they" were unable to explain it by evolution. The second was a calculation of the improbability of the world as we know it under the evolution hypothesis. First argument (i.e. complexity of design) rebuttal: if you can't work out how to explain something you don't just attribute it to something supernatural. It's just not science. To attribute the complexity of the world to God is just putting off the issue, as now you have to explain how God came to be and what his intentions are. You can say that God "just is", but if you do this you've moved outside of science, (i.e. you can't convince me with evidence). You can conclude whatever you what in your own beliefs, but it is irresponsible to teach your own (strongly disputed) ideas to children as the "Truth". (By the way, I also think it is silly to conclude that science is the "Truth", although many do, hopefully not science teachers). Second argument (improbability) rebuttal: How much would you bet that I couldn't show you someone toss heads 10 times in a row? What is the probability that someone could toss a coin and get heads 10 times in a row? Well, it's quite small (in fact, 1 in 2^10 = 1024). What is the chance that I could show you someone who has tossed heads 10 times in a row? Well, give me 1024 people and we'll hold a tournament, pairing off people and eliminating the tail flippers each round (1024 -> 512 with one -> 256 with two -> 128 with three -> 64 with four -> 32 with five -> 16 with six -> 8 with seven -> 4 with eight -> 2 with nine -> 1 with ten). There is nothing special about this person (or organisation of the world) apart from the fact that they happened to get lucky in the tournament (were selected for by natural selection). The Intelligent Designers have been duped 1:1024 (much bigger odds for the world). Or maybe the children who are taught this crap have been duped.
***
There was this big court case and a whole lot of the evolution bigwig scientists/philospher were there and, thankfully, the replacement of evolution with intelligent design in schools was declared unconstitutional. And there was much rejoicing. By the way, the people in the church, to their credit, who have realised that evolution and religion aren't necessarily at odds, didn't like what the intelligent design dicks were doing, (which is, moving spirituality into the realm of science). They, like us, just wanted them to shut the hell up.
Now comrades, what are we going to do about John Howard's homophobia and argument of Holy Matrimony?
PS. Now this blog did get a bit too heavy, sorry about that. But no masturbation talk, yay for me!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
The Miracle of ALife
Most definitions of art require a liberal definition. My studies are concerned with emergence. That is, with my simple simulation rules (A sees B, C eats D, and E bonks F), the simple, mindless, rules of evolution, I see the emergence of complex, albeit mindless, social behaviour. I was working recently on the visualisation of my results on speciation, taking the lead of Darwin and his famous "Tree of Life" diagram. That is, at the root of the tree you have the oldest, most primitive organisms (e.g. Australian politicians) and over massive stretches of time, and countless reproductions, we see the great diversity of organisms today (obviously, there is, otherwise, no real progression, as we still have the politicians). Anyway, Jodi thought my upside down "Tree of ALife" looked pretty (not a prerequisite of art (c.f. expressionism), but still a good indication of it), like a weeping willow, and suggested that I post it here:
I'm excited by these results because they demonstrate the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium, which I'm not going to get into here (actually, I lie, the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium is that all biological change occurs in rapid bursts, during speciation events, and the rest of the time sweet FA happens. If you're interested, I recommend you see a shrink and a book by Daniel Dennett called "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" chapter 10, section 3 "Punctuated Equilibrium: A Hopeful Monster"). Anyway, it got all this special attention because the creationists thought it was a denial of evolution and therefore scientific proof of the existence of a creator (aka god). I'll spare you the suspense (all ye worried about going to hell for spanking the monkey last night): by the time everybody was clear on what they were saying (Gould, one of the originators, being notoriously unclear), it was clear that the controversy was all a bit premature on the behalf of the creationists (who should worry about spanking the monkey). Of course the idea of conserving semen serves the purpose of both god and genes, which both, in a sense, propagate themselves via their offspring (i.e.memetics).
Another thing I'd like to share, a common bug in my simulations, is the evolution of necrophilia. A consequence of my mate-finding algorithm: when an agent is sexually mature it looks for a mate in its local neighbourhood (they are genderless, so everybody's fair game). If it is unable to find one, it puts up its hand, which is more like a flag that says yes or no, and waits for the next agent to come a knocking (on their abstract door). As an aside, this hand waving puts me in mind of "traffic light" parties, where red means "stop", green means "go", and amber presumably means "if you're good looking enough", perhaps this is where that all illusive "free will" demonstration can be found (calling all philosophers). When two agents eventually find each other, the loving begins, resulting in the production of an offspring. (There isn't much room for romance, perhaps a consequence of the lack of necessity of pants removal or record players to play some of Marvin Gaye's "lets get it on"). Anyway, occasionally an agent would put its hand up, requesting a mate, and then promptly kick the bucket, leaving an erect extremity to indicate an insatiable undead virility, (hellooo, mills & boon!) unbeknownst to any would-be lover, who proceeds regardless with the "getting dirty".
PS - After looking over my last two posts, which seem to suggest an inability to stop sexualising things, I started this blog entry with a clean break in mind. What could be less sexual than science research? Therefore it pains me to note that there is no less than two references to sexually deviant acts in this entry. Now, I like to be romantic about the whole sex thing, but I worry, given the common criticisms leveled at my gender of killing the romance of love.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tweemo
A large part of the weekend involved the invention of twee porn titles (e.g. barely eightween). The story line, repeated across the genre, with minor variation by unimaginative twee porno directors, goes: a boy and girl, both wearing cardigans, meet (perhaps he's an effeminate poet and she's a librarian). They sit, mostly turned away from the camera, looking over a beautiful dandelion meadow (Belle & Sebastian is playing). The girl's cardigan slides, ever so slightly, down her shoulder. The boy reaches out to take the girls hand in his own. They turn to face each other, and stare into each others eyes as the sun sinks below the horizon between them and they slowly get old together. THE END.
I like twee music. Although, I have to admit the origin of the term is a bit off putting. It figures though, because I'm slightly effeminate and my girlfriend's a librarian. I made her a twee CD, here is the track list:
Music Is My Boyfriend - The Hidden Cameras
I Don't Know Why I Love You - The House Of Love
Bachelor Kisses - The Go-Betweens
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get - Morrissey
Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby - Islands
The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side - The Magnetic Fields
Lovefool - The Cardigans
Let's Get Out Of This Country - Camera Obscura
Sort Of Mine - Heavenly
Build - The Housemartins
Our Lady In Havana - Essex Green
Sleep Tonight - Stars
The Leanover - Life Without Buildings
Wishbone - Architecture in Helsinki
My British Tour Diary - Of Montreal
Just Like Fred Astaire - James
Camera-Shy - The Lucksmiths
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Beautiful - Belle & Sebastian
On The Bus Mall - The Decemberists
Listen To My Heart - Steinbecks
Of course, a close inspection of this list will lead some to exclaim "but that's not twee..." when questioned further their main reason will be because they like it. I think that this is, probably, a problem with the original definition, which being negative, implies that all twee must be negative, but if it was then no one would like it.
I don't know about emo. I researched to try and find out which bands constitute emo music. But, I haven't heard of any of them, apart from more recent, post emo (i.e. post decrease in popularity), bands like death cab, which I imagine wouldn't call themselves emo. People seem a little crazy on the whole emo hate thing. I suspect that many of them wouldn't actually be able to list many emo bands. And why does JB have an emo section? Well, what I know is that James Blunt isn't in the emo section so someone else is to blame for his music (which sounds like a cat being tortured). Lets regain our focus, rally the troops and work on the real evil here.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Pants Optional
Here is a picture of Gypsy and Me. Gypsy is a dog. Gypsy doesn't wear pants. (My partner Jodi wanted to dress her up a bit, but I drew the line at pants). I like to think that Gypsy is happier for it (she looks it, doesn't she?). I wear the pants in our relationship. This is not to say that I'm the dominant person. It is just that Jodi gave me a bit of a scare with her "bite the sausage" call to Gypsy as I was entering the shower one time.
I started this blog with grandiose ideas of posting pictures of people, liberated of pants, grinning at the camera, for your vicarious pleasure. Apparently this is also known as going Donald Duck. That is, sailor about the town, a promising bachelor with only his three troublesome nephews, a debilitating speech impediment and conspicuous lack of trousers to hold him back. Perhaps he lost them during some navy initiation ceremony. Of course, ducks don't wear trousers in the first place, so this is just silly. I imagine there would be an imbalance of males in my "pants off" photo series. Not that girls don't lose their pants occasionally (a quick search on the internet shows this to be the case, see www.police.vic.gov.au/hornygirlswithoutpants.html, www.feministpantsliberationfront.edu.uk and www.pantsonpets.com/noway/). It is just that I don't get invited to those types of parties.