Rage against the machines (personalised)

Although some scientists are still sceptical about it, I do believe in existence of electromagnetic fields that surround technological equipment and affect humans. I also started to believe in a biological equivalent of such, that affects technology. It definitely surrounds me.

Just yesterday I had an argument with a hospital elevator. For a good five minutes (and five minutes is a long time when you're stuck in a 4m by 4m by 6m box, that's clearly considering dropping you to the ground from 6th floor) I would press 'G' button and the elevator would happily go up and announce '6th floor, ward 13', no, 'G', '5th floor, ward 12' nooo, 'G'! '5th floor...' It only got bored after some other people got in but I'm not going back to that hospital unless I have to.

Automatic checkouts. A few times after feeding them with two handfuls of penny change (as it is a fun thing to do when there's a line of people waiting behind you hehe) I got a full handful of the same coins back as my change... and the amount of times they sulk and require assistance for no reason is unreal. I even got asked for ID to buy glue! Not Superglue, that you apparently need ID to buy these days, just normal paper-gluing glue. Spiteful little things.

Computers, mobiles, printers develop a nasty personality after being around me for too long and throw tantrums over nothing. Especially computers. They crash, blue screen and stroll slowly through brain check routine on startup them even though you switched everything off properly and refuse to perform certain operations for no reason. Yes, a real life computer says no. Awesome.

My mobile only allows me to open certain websites and even that after extensive negotiations. When it gets cranky it will 'forget' to let me know about new emails and eat through the battery like a starving hamster even though it's not doing much apart from lying in my pocket and, hopefully, monitoring emails. Voicemail just switches itself off the moment I'm finished with its setup. I'm clearly not allowed too much human interaction at all.

Oh ay, a lightbulb exploded a couple of times after I walked into a room and switched the light on. Literally, in shards.

So, should I go on a plane next week or maybe getting a horse drawn carriage would be a better idea?

Fear the nobodies, wanna be somebodies.

It's becoming a strange experience to turn on telly on Sunday afternoon and realise, that half of the programmes are fly-on-the-bedroom-wall documentaries about people. Not conventionally famous people, people who have done something out of ordinary, inspiring people. Just...

--- we are the nobodies ---

Oh, right, celebrities. Seems like an awful waste of language to create a word especially for people, whose only contribution to society is supporting economy by buying lots of stuff to be shown wearing on a telly. And in magazines. Seriously, when I pick up a gossip magazine, I have no idea who most of these people are. So, you have appeared in episode 3425 of some soap or other, slept with used to be famous footballer three years ago, released a single that never made it into top 20? Why, oh why should I care about you more than about my landlord, kid in a supermarket who picked up my Nectar card I almost lost or a call centre woman who efficiently dealt with my complaint? At least these three random people have some influence on my life. They...

---wanna be Somebodies---

Or the newspapers. Some celebrity woman miscarried last week. Probably, a thousand woman miscarried in the UK on the same day. Maybe a million or more around the globe. Sympathy, nevertheless, do explain, o newspaper editor, how is this story front page news...? Oh, and then there's the spouses, celebrities-by-attachment, how sad is it to be known and recognised by other sad people on a street or in cyberspace, just because your wife/husband/partner of undetermined sex is known for being known? The worst case of passive, not even life, existence...

---we're dead, we know just who we are---

Happy thought to end with. To a celebrity - so, if you are known for being known and you exist for being recognised and I don't recognise you, does it mean you do not exist after all? I hope I made someone cry.

We are all discriminated in the bonny land of equality

In the name of all hard working, tax paying, healthy, childless, young people, who feel discriminated on every day basis, I propose:

- fresh air breaks at work in a special designated area

- special seats on the bus for young and not disabled people with no prams

- introduction of tax directing - if you worked and paid taxes for three years straight you can choose what your taxes go towards and if it's not benefit scrounging eight kids running riot so called families, oh well...

- designated no kids flights to destinations overseas

- a right to punch anyone who starts a sentence with "These bloody immigrants, stealing our jobs..." in the jaw

Any more ideas, o fellow sufferers of so called equality?

So, if Fb is shite, why are you reading this?

I have been subjected to unusually high rates of social networking related moaning recently. Facebook is shite, Twitter is pointless and who needs them manky social networking accounts anyway? Well. Here's a simple test of whether you need one.

Delete your Facebook account and see how long you can go without getting a twitch to check it. Ha!

If there's no twitch, congratulations, carry on with your life, have fun, take pictures. Getting this uneasy feeling about not having anywhere to share them online? Ha!

No? Ok, chill out, go for a pint, be the last one to know that someone got pregnant/married/dumped because it's been announced online only. Feeling excluded yet? Ha!

If still no, than you clearly don't need a social networking account and, for the love of gods of logic and healthy insanity, just delete your account and stop MOANING ABOUT NETWORKING SITES ON THESE NETWORKING SITES! Please.

I keep a number of friends on Fb at 69. It amuses me. Culling from now on will be based on the moanie points allocated for comments such as "Fb is shite." You have been warned peoples.

That is all.

So, how does it feel to be immortal?

More and more often I emerge back into so called real world to realise that it's already happened, when we were not paying attention, fascinated by the shiny lights and new horizons. Humans went digital.

Who needs some complicated nanotechnology to map your brain and reconstruct it in hypothetical cyberspace? There's Second Life and World of Warcraft and OGame. There's virtual casinoes, cafes and dating rooms. There's blogs, foras and chat rooms on any topic any mind can think of. There's Facebook , Twitter and YouTube. You can talk and shop and lead a life you always wanted. It's all in your pocket, all accessible 24/7, evolving tired, disillusioned us into shiny, happy people.

And as we live in a culture terrified by death, no wonder we dodge grey reality to search for immortality. Because for the first time in the history of human race, it is within our reach. Kind of. Everything you type, all the photos you are on and all these silly mobile camera clips will stay on the internet forever.

And who knows? Maybe in 5-10 years your flesh and blood social status will be equal to your status in a MMORPG. Maybe it will be more important to score 10 000 000 000th Facebook comment, create the most impressive 30second movie clip and design the most popular backgrounds for Photobucket than have a family, career, good holidays. You will be as important as your digital portfolio of comments, smileys and likes.

And maybe it has already happened, too...

Bloodsuckers and dogs.

Just finished third book of the famous Twilight tetralogy.

Spoilers ahead. And a heavy dose of disgruntle.

The story is not bad, could be an interesting take on the old theme, but...

Main character - a whiny, weak, needy teenager, constantly grumpy with people and with serious social issues thanks to her whiny, weak, needy mother - gets in trouble faster than an rpg character with drastically lowered 'luck' stat and requires to be rescued over and over again, which results in many soppy scenes of fear (unnecessary as the object of her so called love is quickly defined as indestructible)/tearful love declarations/cuddles.Yaaurgh (sound of a prolonged yawn combined with teeth grinding). So called love is dubious at best, as in the very first book it is explained that vampires secret some sort of pheromones to make hunting prey easier so it can all be interpreted as a bit of fun with a drugged girl for the bored vampire. And, why consciously choose a cold, hard, corpse like thing (issues again of more seriously deviant nature..?) over a hot (literally), muscly guy that can also turn into a pony sized wolf that you can ride? So, funnily enough, main character kills the book, just like the actress playing main character killed the movies :D.

And the urge to have sex with something that has no blood circulation..? Well, good luck with that...

Overload

2011

Welcome to our shiny brave new world, connect to internet and disappear in a digital multiverse of multiple personalities, talk to people on the other side of the world just getting ready to fall asleep as you are drinking your morning coffee, wave to them via internet camera, take a picture of your toes and put it in a Photobucket and watch someone use it in an ad campaign, rant on a social networking sites, get a blog, two blogs, three, find any information you need in a flash without having to dig through dusty books in a forgotten corner of a library, play poker, send emails, earn money, lose money.

And when it's this inevitable time to leave the house, take it all with you in your pocket as a smartphone, that's as cheap as a monthly cost of broadband in our shiny brave new world, as an iSomething, as an eBook and once again, complain to anyone who listens, how bored you are and how dull your life is, .

It's like we are all turning into spoiled children throwing a tantrum after getting too many toys.

They can't take away our freedom, right?

After reading a couple of books, one set in 16th century England another in 21st century USA.

So back then. Such a limited life! Men were supposed to fight for their country and provide for their family. Women were supposed to marry and provide the family until premature death in eleventh labour. A lucky man had a career to pursue and some time to spend with his wife before she died. A lucky woman had family and friends around to help out while her man was pursuing career.

So now. Such freedom.! Men are supposed to provide for family. Or stay home and raise children. Or not. Or both. Or earn lots of money and burn out before 30. Or stay on a dole and burn out their digital enemy tanks on xbox360. Or stay with their parents forever. Or marry. Or not. Or both. Children are not compulsory either. Or career. Or anything really. Women? Still supposed to have children. Or at least like children. Or hate children. Have some opinion about sprogs at least. Or pursue career. Or both. Or not. Or stay home and help parents of their new boyfriend take care of his children from first and second marriage. Or go out and have fun. Or not be a slut. There's also gay/lesbian option, respectively.

So, confused an feeling like we're failing ourselves constantly, we turn to the last bastion of hierarchy and structure - internet. Admins, moderators, deserved users, paying members, members, guests, dial-in users, modem users, fibreoptic users, bloggers with readers, bloggers hunting for readers, trolls. Choose your category. Submit a request to maybe do this. You can do this. You can not do that. Post any of these and you will be banned. Disappear back to the confusion. Shoo, go away now, the freedom awaits...

Fantastic!

After plodding through a 2000+ pages long fantasy trilogy.

If anyone ever decides to write a fantasy novel, not very long, not a part of a cycle, not filled with heroes walking and talking about walking for so long, just a standalone purebred 300 pages long fantasy with a good story not diluted in pages and pages of nothing happening and real characters that bleed and feel pain when crashing through the window and a definite 'this is it' ending, well if anyone writes such book than let me know cause I'll miss it, buried under a pile of well established fantasy cycle writers populating Waterstone's shelves.

Yes, I still read fantasy trilogies, but I get weary sometimes halfway through.

A theory about hardcore fantasy readers - the genre suggests a well developed need for escapism, so probably they are so shy that when they eventually sneak out to top up on books, they are more than happy to get a brick-like cycle that will allow them not to leave the house for another month. And some authors happily provide more and more of such cycles.

Just to remind all the offended shy fantasy reades - I like to read it too, it's just that I got to the point when I treat any book with 'dragon ', 'mage', 'staff' or 'quest' in their title with suspicion. I don't want another ramblers guide through a land with
unpronouncable name with a group of stereotypical characters engaged in confusing sope-ish personal revelations pn a quest seeking magical staff guarded by a dragon, a 666 pages long book that will end in a cliffhanger, next part available in 2012...

If noone else is going to write a standalone purebred fantasy book soon - I will have to. Just to have something to read.

Shades of Scottishness

Four years in Scotland today and I'm quite settled:

- I can read 'Trainspotting' without an English - Scots dictionary
- I don't expect rain to last long but I also don't expect a week without rain.
- I no longer expect instant hot water in a tap.
- I no longer expect just one tap.
- I don’t even turn my head if I hear Polish on the street.
- I can drink neat whisky.
- I rant, skive, get grumpy, get pished and have a blether.

Wonder what the next four years will bring...