Should have but didn't.

Just so you know, we aren't okay.

The Olympic Torch xx

Disappointment.

Shit and there I was thinking that I'm self absorbed.
You just dont give a damn, do you?
Would it kill you to be slightly interested in whats going on in my life? At least ask the questions and pretend to listen to the answers.

This kind of made my day :)

Ahahahaaa. Get it?

The Olympic Torch xxx

Computers. Fucking computers.

Brace yourself Readers, this is going to be a doozy.

I often wonder if plumbers reach a point in their career, after cleaning clogged drain after clogged drain, that they begin to hate plumbing. They hate pipes. They hate plumber’s putty. They hate all the tricks they’ve learned over the years, and they hate the need to have to learn tricks. It’s plumbing, for goodness sake: pipes fitting together and substances flowing through them. How complicated can it be?

I hate computers. No, really, I hate them. I love the communications they facilitate, I love the conveniences they provide to my life, and I love the escapism they sometimes afford; but I actually hate the computers themselves. Computers are fragile, unintuitive things — a hodge-podge of brittle, hardware and opaque, restrictive software. Why?! WHAT IS THE POINT?!

I’m the same with with cars: I don’t want to know how an internal combustion engine works or know how to change my oil or in any other way become an automotive expert — I just want to drive to the damned nearest coffee shop so that I can top up the caffeinated hydraulic system I call my veins and arteries! Is that too much to ask?!

But the damned computers get in the way of all the things the computers help us do. There’s this whole artificial faffing about with administrator accounts, and security, and permissions, and all other manner of things that, to be quite blunt with you, I don't give a flying fuck about. A host of techy-fecky software is required just to keep your computer running, but that software introduces more complexity and more points of failure, and ends up causing as much grief as it’s intended to resolve! Electric windows in cars are exactly the same! Just another potential problem waiting to happen!

What sparked this current round of ire was my friends in ability to load music onto my iPod. We spent, quite literally, an hour trying to load some music off his computer onto my iFuck all to no avail.  It got me thinking about the time when, in the too distant past I tried to check for any Windows Updates on my laptop. Windows Update, the program, starts up just fine. But clicking on “Check for Updates” results in an unhelpful message that Windows Update could not check for updates. A meaningless error code was presented to me as if I, a lowly cave dweller would know what to do with that! There’s even a helpful link that says “Learn more about common Windows Update problems”. The list of suggested problems includes a variety of other meaningless error codes that closely resemble a sheet of interpretive jazz music, but not the one that this user received. WHYYY!! For me this was a dead-end with one of two options: ignore the problem and hope nothing bad happens in consequence; or try to repair the operating system using some half-baked recovery method provided by the computer manufacturer or the Windows install disk (what ever the hell that is).

Does anyone actually find Google’s Chrome browser cute when it says “Aw snap!”? No, nobody does. do you know why? I'll tell you anyway: We. Are. not. Complete. Morons. But that leans the other way in terms of uselessness: it doesn’t give the user any better idea of what might be wrong, and users are left to feel helpless, powerless, and stupid.

Even when things go right I'm left feeling stupid and powerless! Talk about Catch 22!. Installing almost any program on a Windows based system involves an inordinate number of clicks, all of them just saying “Okay” “Okay” “Okay”. No one reads the click-through pop-up thingys! No one changes the default installation location, and no one selects specific installation options. They just keep clicking “Okay” because that’s what we have been trained to do. And then! Then! We end up with four extra toolbars in our browser and a bunch of “helper” programs that don’t actually help the us in any way, shape or form and which we dont do actually want. Oh, and we don’t actually know how to get rid of them. Fantastic!

Computers don’t make sense. End of.

Computers are too complex to use.

So umm...What do those little pictures mean again?

By looking at the the pace of change in the computer industry I am wholly convinced that the entire industry is out to get me, to sabotage any hope I might have of finally being able to switch on or off a computer tower without getting the cold sweats.

Computers fail spectacularly, taking all our data with them so they can evolve themselves into an army to take over the world.


Hardware and software companies know that we use our computers to store information that is important to us. And yet backing up data to keep it safe is still a gigantic pain in the arse. Lots of “enterprise” backup software apparently exists to try to protect us from computer failures (hardware, software, and user errors(oops, my bad)), but frankly they all suck. Why do we need third-party software to protect the investment we’ve made in our computers? Users such as myself don’t buy backup software because we don’t expect their computers to fail.

It’s so easy to amass a huge amount of data today — Y'know, like photo archives MP3 collections, and videos — that it’s a real pain to reliably back up. Not only is it a pain, it’s expensive. You shell out a couple hundred quid for a fancy new camera, and you’ll need to shell out a couple hundred more to get an external hard drive onto which you can duplicate all your photos for safekeeping. And then, of course, it takes a long time to actually copy your data from your computer to your external hard drive, and you just don’t have the time or patience to commit to that regularly, so you start to neglect it and them BAM!Your computer blows up — hard drive failure, malware infection, whatever — and you lose weeks and months worth of irreplaceable data and just an itty-bitty bit of your soul too.

My worst nightmare.

Computers are overwhelming.

The mind-numbing number of computers available for purchase at any retail establishment right now is enough to force a person such as myself into creating a very messy puddle. How is the average person supposed to proceed in the face of row after row of meaningless statistics? Will that extra 0.2 GHz make a demonstrable difference in my use of the computer? Will it give me an extra six months, or even a year, of useful life? Am I supposed to even care about the number of bits in the operating system?!

I. Hate. Computers.

I know my little rant here is like shouting at the storm: there’s a huge, lethargic industry making gobs of cash on the complexity of the computer era, and there’s little capitalistic incentive to change the 'status quo' but these complaints aren’t new! They're not earth shattering! Many of them have been made for the past quarter century...According to my parents. We try, in our own meager little way, to highlight some of the deficiencies we perceive in the industry as a whole, but that’s about all we can do from here. Where do we go from here?


On second thoughts, maybe I'll become a plumber....


And that, Dear Reader, is the end of my bluster. Have a nice day.


The Olympic Torch xxx

Just a quick update for those of you who haven't seen me since 6 o'clock yesterday evening!

Just a quick update for those of you who haven't seen me since 6 o'clock yesterday evening!

I'm no longer attending Collyers in the September, instead I have been accepted at Brinsbury for a place in their Horticulture Level 3 course. Having said that, I'm off for a butchers around Sparsholt in Hampshire in about...33 minutes :) When I get back I'll put up a more explanatory blog explaining situations, preparations and plans.

Right, I need to go and practice my snobby farmer accent in the hopes that it will help me get accepted into the best agri/horticulture college in the country!

Ciao!

The Olympic Torch xx

Oh my..

So I um..find you very attractive :$


The Olympic Torch xxx

B-Bom. B-bom. B-bom. B-b-bom-B-Bom-B-bom-B-B-B-B-B-bom-bom-B

Dear Readers

For those who may not be completely in the loop, the Procedure II will be happening in the 18th July. There will, however, be a slight difference this time around. Instead of using electric heat to break the 'circuit' they plan on using a freezing technique which in a absurdly morbid and macabre way I find hilarious because, as a ginger, I supposedly have no soul and for a brief moment I'll have an ice-heart too! Haha. Mmm. This is plan ''B'. Plan 'C' will come into effect in the event of the aforementioned mission fails. Plan 'C' is to install a pacemaker, which of course I share the same inappropriate humour for due to the realisation that'll be the new Iron Maiden. Haha. Mmm.
 The location for this mindboggling event that will change the rythm of time and space as well as the attitude of philosiphers forever is St Georges Hospitol, London. This is THE best hospitol in the country in regards to its cardiology unit. My Godmother also just happens to be Head of Dept there. Just saying.

Time for some lighter-brighter stuff me thinks.
Ber-Dam next week :D:D
I'm already half packed, just the clothes I'll be wearing over the next few days will need to be packed. Oh, and my Twister mat, can't forget that! This trip should be hilarious in a different way to the adventures on Millais. Fuck I miss those. I wonder if there'll be a Jesus above our door in Harlem :S

IT'S GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!

The Olympic Torch xxx

Driving Down the One Way Street.

If by some absurd reason you read this, I just want you to know that I really really like you.

Well my dear Reader, it would appear that I have a lot of thinking to be done.

The Olympic Torch xxx

The Angels Game

Oh Carlos, your fingers work magic upon my soul :')

"Do you want to live, Martin?"

I wanted to rely but I couldn't find the words. I realised that I had a lump in my throat and my eyes were filling with tears. Until then I had not understood how much I long to keep on breathing, to keep on opening my eyes every morning and be able to go out into the street, to step on stones and look at the sky, and, above all, to keep on remembering.

Page 124, The Angels Game. RRP £18.99, hardback. Bought in The British Heart foundation for a heart warming £2.75.


The Olympic Torch xxx

and deliver us from evil..

I've just read this in a  Memoirs of a Geisha and have a sneaky suspicion that it may be true

''Nothing is as bleak as the future, except for the past."



The Olypmic Torchxxx

Sitting on a shelf

and then Sleeping Beauty said to the three fairies, "Who would want me anyway?"




The Olympic Torch xxx

Doppamine, Eostrogen and Endorphins

Wires - Athlete

White coats, greens and ECGs

Cunts.

Dun Dun DUNNN

So its a week tomorrow that the Procedure will take place.
I won't lie, I'm scared. But not as much as I thought I'd be -good thing? Bad thing? Thingy like. It's weird because its no longer 5-6 months away but 7 days away and I can't seem to fathom that out.


Forget what I just said about the not being scared.


The half term should be a wail of a time with just me, my books, the laptop and the Times Crossword. won't I be in a shiny mood?


That's all I really have to say right now...exciting huh?


The Olympic Torch xx

The Woman

In a world where she falls like rain
And breaks in puddles
She takes the stars
In her eye
And casts them into the water

The woman breathes, and
Her voice and soul are silent
And her silence speaks in tears.
Nothing illuminates this heart
And her body made in silver.

Sheltered in her breast
Is a thirst or a word
A question and a bruise
A flame and many wings.

The woman is the sea
That speaks with her eyes
Submerging forgotten cities in your mind
She listens and overflows and speaks in waves.
Birthed into form by storm, sky and heat
Of the sun
She washes and summons
Your ear to the wind
To watch, to nurse your trembling fire
From where words will begin.


The Olympic Torch xx