Hello 29th of February, you devious bastard.

Would a day that happens only once every four years not be the best one to host the 2012 end of the world?

There could be a big economic crisis and all the people would be swept in the rising tide of debt and dependency.

Or an outbreak of wide spread infertility and common cancers which would see the numbers of humans dwindling to nothing by the next leap year extra day.

There could be a general lack of interest in the catastrophic news about more and more frequent volcano eruptions, tidal waves and hurricanes tearing the planet apart.

Or a meteorite could crash into Earth surprising everyone feeling safe because someone should be monitoring them flying rocks.

There could be a breakthrough in technology leading to heavy implantation of tiny modems under peoples skin and subsequent complete withdrawal from this reality.

Oh wait...

We're almost there, aren't we?

Saturday quest for the bottle of milk

Living on the edge of a sprawling council housing village can be such an adventure at times.

To get a bottle of milk from the local shop you will have to dodge groups of vacant eyed neddetes in war paint erasing the last remnants of individuality, packs of feral children, already banned from the shop for shoplifting and craving their 10 a day nicotine fix, ballistic buggies pushed by bitter girls turning too quickly into their own mothers, flying fag butts thrown with certain knowledge that no one will dare to press for financial penalty, swaggering junkies freshly filled with their favourite drugs loudly honking at one another in geese-speech, burn out alkies temporarily soothing last night hangovers with a chippie and a bottle of face wash and bare-feet tussle-haired obese beings of no immediately recognisable sex gathering armfuls of fat-full sugary goodies.

Just to find out on return home that the milk you so bravely acquired has an expiration date of today...

Books of 2011

The Best 20 Books of 2011

A very subjective choice, fellow geeks who still like to waste their time wonderfully with printed words - keep an eye out for these.

1. Fiona McIntosh - The Quickening trilogy: Myrren's Gift, Blood and Memory, Bridge of Souls

2.Philip K. Dick - The Zap Gun

3. Angela Carter - Nights at the Circus

4. John M. Ford - The Dragon Waiting

5. China Meville - Kraken

6. William Heaney - Memoirs of a Master Forger

7. Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake

8. Neal Asher - Orbus

9. Jack Vance - Lyonesse - Suldrun's Garden

10. Robert J. Sawyer - The WWW Trilogy: Wake, Watch, Wonder

11. Alan Campbell - Sea of Ghosts

12. Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace

13. Iain M. Banks - Excession

14. Jack Vance - Tales of the Dying Earth : The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, Rhialto the Marvellous)

15. Charles Stross - The Fuller Memorandum

16. Iain M. Banks - Surface Detail

17. Sophie Hannah - Lasting Damage

18. Naomi Novik - Empire of Ivory

19. G. W. Dahlquist - The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

20. Robin Hobb - The Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool's Errand, The Golden Fool, Fool's Fate

Overall, a nice mixture of sf, fantasy and weird. Enjoy.

Tomorrow is a ride that goes nowhere...

Another week, another story in the papers about how so many children are born to disadvantaged (alcoholic, poor, junkie) parents/how many people fall through the net of social services/how many 16-17 year olds have been excluded from new government employment scheme. And the answer to all these problems seems to be - give them more money. Bah!

Is there yet not enough people in this country who feel like they should be getting something for nothing all their lives? Has not enough helplessness been already created by giving and giving and giving, money, houses and child benefit? How many more children will be taught it is all right to expect someone else to sort out your life?

This nanny state is going way too far right now, turning healthy young people with ambition into helpless and crippled creatures. Provide basic shelter, food and healthcare, yes. Give people a chance to live the life they want to live, yes. Give people opportunities to learn the skills they will need to do so, yes. Invest in people who will then start companies, create workplaces, pay taxes and give back what they received, yes. Take this money and redirect it into the void made of these who will never, ever work and be a full member of the society, no. Waste what someone else worked for on ambitionless with no idea what to do with their lives, no. Teach people that it will be ok, you will always have enough for Sky package, iPod and two bedroom flat, no!

There was another story in the paper not that long ago. Apparently, in the age of global village, lightning speed communication, open borders, accessible education and free exchange of ideas there is still as little upward mobility between social classes as there was two-three hundred years ago.

Way to go, nanny state.

Hello? Can you hear my thoughts?

~~Hello, I'm your mind giving you someone to talk to, hello...~~

Have you noticed how much time we all spend inside our heads these days? Facebook in the morning, mp3 player on the bus, writing emails at the same time, then there's a blog to update, some texts to answer, a discussion on a forum you have neglected, so it's time to say hello to everybody and catch up with the topics of interest, Twit some twitterish, tweak your profile here and there, Kindle on a train and MSN - like communication after dinner.

For the first time in history you don't have to speak to talk to people, we all turned into bloody telepaths and nobody even noticed!

It is the age of silence (I don't mean artificial noise we make to drown out the loneliness of our monkey genes). I'm sitting here and the only thing I hear is the click clack of the keyboard and the rain outside and I didn't say a word for at least two hours and I don't feel like speaking. Is this what the future holds? Cubicles of people with atrophied tongues and vocal cords furiously typing with multijointed fingers on more than one keyboard to feel alive in the world of digital words. Oh, no, of course not, we are heading towards a brilliant future of space travel and global village and lots and lots of closeness and monkey chatter, right?

~~Hello I'm the lie living for you so you can hide, hello...

The philosophies of 2011

In Scotland 2011 the following seem to have an increasing numbers of followers:

Permanent douschbagism - offloading responsibility for one's life on government, parents, church, school, neighbours, society, a selection of deities, GP, social work, family and if pressed, making all decisions by flipping a coin.

Temporary denial of ageing - dodging responsibility for one's life by almost 24/7 immersion in computer games, role playing games, online shooters, MMORPGs, racing games, poker and/or porn, often with a side order of weed.

Social parasitism - avoiding responsibility for one's life by being a third generation raised exclusively on a selection of benefits, expecting to be taken care of, always, and so claiming a lack of understanding of the word 'responsibility'.

Antisocial parasitism - as above, only with added criminal record.

Aggressive anti-everythingism - feeling overly responsible for something by vehemently opposing something else, to a casual observer, these two 'somethings' are not necessarily in opposition or even have anything in common.

All animals are persons, not all persons are animals.

A short quiz tonight fellow bloggers, how much of a monkey are you?

- Do you feel like throwing verbal shite on people you can't stand?

- Do you get an irresistible urge to go and meet up with your pack to sit in a circle and consume fermented fruit?

- Do you like to play with other people's hair?

- Do you stand taller and stare when threatened?

- Can you pick up items with your toes?

- Do you sometimes feel like you should have a tail?

And are you lucky enough to have some cat genes as well?

- Can you ignore people so well, they forget about you and leave you alone?

- Did you put 'sleeping' as one of your activities on Facebook?

- Can you go for a cat nap anywhere, anytime?

- Can you, during a said cat nap, answer questions or even hold a conversation?

- Do you play with dangly objects you encounter?

- Do you view other people mostly as a source of food and entertainment?

The more 'yes' answers you got fellow blogger, the closer you are to a perfect balance. Congratulations. Now go away, I need a nap before an outing to consume fermented fruit...

The benefit of hard work.

I see red when I read yet another moan about how unfair it is to reassess benefit claimants, and how dares the government touch the benefits, and what about the children??

--- Let me tell you 'bout hard work---

Well, here's the thing - even the nanny state government is unfortunately not made of money from outer space. It is made of taxpayers money and that means not your money, o benefit claimant and not your money exempt-from-tax-working-under-12-hours-a-week-to-keep-child-tax-credit parent and not your money o thirty year old living off parents loser who worked for a year in his/her/it life. It means my money, the money I put aside and throw at the above mentioned twice a year, knowing fully well that for that effort I will not get a thank you or a free dental care or a decent pension but a monotonous bunch of comments about immigrants stealing Scottish jobs.

--- You don't know nothing about hard work, hard work, hard work ---

The economy in this country collapsed a long time ago. You can't dish out money to individuals who never contributed and don't intend to contribute to the cash pool and expect it all to work. Bloody hell, even during the failed Soviet experiment of introducing equality for all under a red banner, everyone was getting (supposedly) equal amounts of goods, but everyone was also working equally hard! There was no unemployment during the communist times, because the government would find everyone a job. And now, for the first time in human history, who doesn't want to work has it easy... And I'm not ranting blind at you, who try and do something and try again and don't give up and work to make your lives what you want them to be and just claim what you need to survive in the meantime. This is about the lazy and the cunning and the pests.

--- How do you sleep at night? How do you walk with your head held high? ---

So, unless you're a true rasta, stop. Stop expecting that the government will always provide. Stop expecting me to give you what I worked to get. Stop pretending you have a right to receive all this. And if you are a rasta - "Jah will provide..", right?

Looting is the new eBay, man...

With all the analyses flying around trying to discern the cause of the riots I propose this addition to the flock: boredom. Tv coverage and photos show that most of the looters and window smashers were young. Out of 11 to 16 year olds who don't have much idea on what to do with themselves at the end of school holidays - who can resist a perspective of getting free stuff that's hard to buy from you're pocket money or benefits? Who could possibly resist adrenaline surge of running away from the police after smashing their cars with bricks? Who could say 'no' to their colleagues from some fancy named local gang without being called, oh my, 'a woos'?

In the words of one 15 year old female rioter asked why the riots started: "It's the government or something, right? Doing stuff. And the rich people too. But it was fun!"

Yes, most of these people will go back to school soon. Yes, most of them are too young to go to prison for looting, vandalism, arson, maiming, killing, terrorising and general mindless destruction. Yes, I would very much like for the parents to be able to discipline their kids if necessary without feearing that their 11 year old will take them to court. How long before the next school break and rising boredom and tension? Looks like 'Christmas shopping' and 'crowds in stores' might take a different meaning this year...

Pants rant! Also includes a suggestion of a new fabulous drinking game for the summer.

I'm seriously confused. Why the hell is every second woman on the street wearing flowery pyjama pants? I just have to ask - what happened to good old jeans?

Oh wait. I'm guessing this and that trendy, fashionable, cool magazine called flowery pyjama pants trendy, fashionable, cool and so it's a trendy, fashionable and cool thing to wear. Like the wellies in the winter. Like the leggins last summer.

It's like peoples can't choose what they want to wear any more, they go to the shop and buy full outfits based on what they seen in the trendy magazine, never mind it doesn't suit you at all, it's fashionable so it has to be cool, right?

Wroong!

Not only the street looks like it's filled with escapee H&M dummies, if you are wearing flowery pyjama pants you just seem to be prematurely senile, short denim jackets only look good if there's no rolls of fat flabbing just below them, harem pants are uglier than Ugg boots, gladiator sandals in Scotland? Oh such a great combination of golden leather and purple feet as the weather is Octoberish again and nobody, seriously, nobody looks good in leggins...

Fellow not-magazine-fashion-slaves females. Let's make it known again, that it's trendy to think for yourself, fashionable to wear what you like and cool to like denim and offensive tshirts. For now, how about a new drinking game - go out for an hour and for every pair of pyjama pants encountered on the street - have a shot when back home, being happy wasted - guaranteed.