Sunday, May 13, 2012
Robot week - day 3
On Sunday's we relax and dream dreams. Thoughts of robot week are frankly absent, other things taking precedence as our robot consciousness slept. Everywhere there was football as the season ended, there were open days and closed days and muddy football matches on common ground in Dunfermline, the home of disappointment.
At times my head is full of clever things that seem to get edged out by weighty and powerful stupid things. That's very frustrating but a situation I've come to expect, possibly even thrive on. Sooner or later the good stuff returns and is captured (and then sunk by an obscurity torpedo). But it's nice when you walk into the kitchen and Warren Zevron is on the radio or you can reel off parts of Steve Millar's "Recall the beginning; a journey from Eden", life makes some sense in these moments. I console myself with thoughts of successful breakfast assembly, Jeep and Subaru dealerships visited, great swathes of Fife captured, late night meals and conversations, family employment success, building up unbuildable toys with grand kids and the inevitable headaches and digestive upsets that good food and drink might just bring and driving, driving driving. If only the weather was conducive to and supportive of cycling.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Robot week - day 2
Robot in a tricky situation along with a plastic cup. |
Debased wordage: Those lovely people who use words like definitely
and absolutely a lot in everyday speech worry me, I look upon that
kind of language use as a red traffic light kind of warning. Where
exactly do they get that degree of certainty? I've spent ages with my
feet on the desk, looking out of windows, supping cheap coffee and
generally putting an appearance of doing some hard and purposeful
thinking trying to find that elusive certainty. All that comes out
however are dull thuds, thickets and the creation of fictional weeks
in which all things robotic are to be celebrated by nobody. These
processes are clearly corrupt but remain mildly amusing and ever so
addictive. Now then, what direction is life headed in at the moment? (Post that's nothing really to do with robots, maybe the robot theme can just be pictorial).
Friday, May 11, 2012
Let's celebrate the robot
Robots are smart. |
Robots work hard. |
Robots occasionally fail. |
OK: It's robot week, I didn't invent
it, it just happened so be prepared for a wonderful week full of all
things, images, thoughts, foodstuffs, sexual positions, politics,
illnesses and psychological problems to do with robots. I can't
promise you anything more and I can't promise you anything less in
fact I can't really promise you anything at all but it's a special
week anyway and all the more special because it starts today which is
a Friday and also because it probably wont last for anything like a
week knowing my notorious span of attention problems.
Problems: Do you have a friend who thinks that
her deep fat fryer is a robot? If so there is help available, I'm
just not sure whereabouts. Don't just pick any random number, call it
and expect to get well constructed, intelligent and helpful
conversation. Of course that never happens. Try finding a bloke who knows a
thing or two about robots.
Recreation: Robots and parachute jumping and rock
climbing. What is the problem with scaredy cat robots and the simple
world of dangerous sports? I've no idea. If you require an answer
then look no further than someplace else, preferably a place where
these type of things are fully explored in a sensible fashion.
Speaking of fashion what is the top trending trend for the up to date
robot? What books are they reading and where exactly are they hanging
out? Asimo Knows.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Elements of a new religion
3. Religions require ritual. Why not have one based around finding the image of E.T. in French Toast and Brown Sauce. There's a prize worthy of a lifetime's pursuit that's also nourishing. |
Actually religions are pretty useless things really and they cause a lot of trouble and commotion, best not to bother in my view. Get on with your life.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Diageo Screw Brewdog
Diageo makes a rather unfortunate error at beer awards night. The trouble is it's pretty tough avoiding the big boy's products in an organised boycott...or is it?
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
The truth about Iron Man
The proof |
Monday, May 07, 2012
Tony Stark's Black Sabbath T Shirt
We went out to see the Avengers movie last night, great fun (four stars I'd say), great product placement (Accura doesn't mean much in Scotland however) and the usual cameo bit from Stan Lee. Of course I came away wanting the "Never Say Die" T shirt that Tony Stark wears under his Iron Man suit. His character steals all the best lines in the film, has the techy edge and the flimsy brown 1978 tour T shirt survives a whole lot of action under his metal chest without a tear or wrinkle. Every red blooded shredder will want one now. Trouble is you cant quite get the brown one, there's some well researched information here. Forget Amazon UK also, they've very little to offer apart from the usual rock tat. The web is buzzing, buzz buzz buzz.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
From Jon Snow
Slow news morning, that's just how things are this Sunday, still nice to see Jon Snow score with a valid point. Now to cook up a breakfast storm.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Ghost trees
Carrying on the ghost sighting/footsteps thing I spotted this fine example of a ghost tree over in Fife. Of course it's more of the dead shell or remnant rather than the ghost. The actual ghost is way across the fields looking out for some unsuspecting sapling, I'm not sure why. Come the next strong wind it'll be over and blocking the road.
Referring to this tree and some other examples I sensed quite a few ghost footsteps on this short trip, overcast rainy memories and long oily coats, there were two people taking a walk, inland from the coast, one was foreign, the other claimed to be a religious man but I have my doubts (as did he). They were traveling in a huge circle (a woman was also involved but I couldn't quite get the detail), 22 degrees of which were in Fife, the rest spread across a far wider area. Sometimes all the things, books, Steampunk, careers, mud and heritage all collide and inform if you just turn over a few stones. Amazing what you can pick up if you just look and listen.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Thursday, May 03, 2012
In the footsteps of ghosts
Jules Verne on tour in the Central Belt. |
Today the swifts returned to their nests in our coal cellar. I was alerted to this when one of the cats came running out of there, looking a bit guilty. Seconds later and very much to my relief two swifts flew out at high speed and headed away across the fields. I suspect that there will soon be some deadly games taking place, a lot of watching and waiting and at the very last moment some springing into action and jumping. None of this is for me, I've learned that when you try to intervene in nature and fix things or try to improve the chances of what might be considered a favourable outcome you get an unexpected and usually worse result. Let it be.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Victoria Hospital
I visited here today, Fife's new hospital. No car parking space, joking choking smoking Fifers outside in their track suits, faces wrinkled by the stress of confusion, tobacco and benefits. Buses crush past, full of the freeloading pensioners hoping for a bun and cuppa and a visit, a day out to health care excellence. Inside the lifts work smoothly but there's no furniture, no TVs, no shaver sockets in the wards, no towels or extra bed linen. The staff are pleasant and smiling. The staff try hard to cope with a system that doesn't know quite how to communicate, left hands fail to meet up with right hands, people are confused, jaws drop open. The staff are working hard, working their asses off to keep things right but somewhere in the project a failure has occurred, oh and there's no more money to put things right either. Local MP Gordon Brown planned this, the Tories implemented it. Now the NHS reforms and the clumsy NHS 24 will morph into uncontrolled monsters and finish it, any day, any year now.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Jump start
When you inadvertently leave the light on in your car then you drain the battery, then you need a jump start, with jump leads. Just remember to always follow the electrical safety code: Black to black, red to red and blue to Smithereens. Works every time.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Hair of an old man
I woke up this morning with old man's
hair. It was mostly on my head and none of it was running the right
way, it was old, badly behaved and cantankerous, it had lost it's
elasticity and it's memory. It was like fake hair. Like straw or
thread or some lifeless grey thing that had knitted it's way across
the top of my head and was now travelling on it's, of it's own accord
in some direction I couldn't quite fathom. Bitter and peppered with
too much sunlight, car exhaust fumes, sugar and not enough hormones.
Then the awful question, “does it have a funny smell, like old
people do?” That's all you need first thing in a day destined to
full of maps, computers, electric mirrors, biscuit fibres and packet
soups, tales of time travel and desperation and remote examples of
unproven food poisoning – none of it to do with me. On days like
this, when you are thinking the thoughts of a young man or of a man
at least a half of your age you don't want to be bogged down with the
frizzled frustration of your old hair. At least the experience has
given me a strategy, a way forward, a plan, a bit of revenge. I'll be
there at the barbers on Friday afternoon, looking across the sunlit
Firth of Forth and watching that old man's hair fall onto my
shoulders and onto the floor as it's snipped away and swept up in a
dustpan, punished like the regular and persistent offender it truly
is and then stuffed into an imaginary cushion that's gifted to some
care home or bit of imagined sheltered housing, there to hold a
sleepy head, a tumbler of false teeth, a saucer of digestive biscuits
and a rolled up copy of the Daily Express. I will go down of course
but I will be fighting and I'll ignore, inhibit and ethnically
cleanse the aspirations and false claims of this rebel hair. “£8?
Keep the change!”
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Curved dog on green grass
It was nice that whilst I was in Aberdeen yesterday wrestling with the young 'uns, eating birthday cake and walking dogs the Aberdeen football team were down in Dunfermline. There they were soundly beaten by the mighty Pars in what might be described as an upset or more accurately our first home win of the season. On the road home I celebrated the event with a double cheeseburger at the traveller's haven that is Forfar MacDonald's. Sitting in there with small children we were subjected to some more of the master strategy of Olympic marketing. Each happy meal now contains a stylish pedometer with which you can measure your fitness (or "rainbow points creation" according to the instructions). If you shake it rapidly above your head whilst sitting eating you also get a very good score. So cooped up then in a MacD's in Angus at nine o'clock on a Saturday night we can't escape the long bony finger of long bony fingerland promotion, a finger that, if sucked, would no doubt taste like chicken nuggets. At least we're all in this together, perhaps even willingly.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Big A marks the spot
Big A says "here's D&G Autocare's Inverkeithing branch!". |
Thursday, April 26, 2012
My Dull Gothic Refuge
Interior brain shot - detail. |
And what's more: Ah yes (as above), it's that lamentable Ewan McGregor / Tom Kitchin / Dennis Lawson Scottish pretentious twerp accent and brogue. These guys live their lives in a perpetual mist of "amazing" and "wonderful" experiences, they must be knackered by it all really. You can just imagine them exiting the privy and sharing the truth about their "incredible" daily bowel movement and "marvellous" bog roll wipe with their "gorgeous" wives and "brilliant" children...still a wet Thursday then.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Flying Saucer for sale etc.
For Sale. Flying Saucer, 1 careful owner, currently parked on a Bulgarian mountain top, $1,000,000 ono. Not in use at present but has potential, possible restoration project. No time wasters please. Use comments box if interested.
Still on the theme of flying:
Monday, April 23, 2012
Down on the windfarm
Industrial monstrosities. I don’t
much care for wind farms and I don’t much care for Donald Trump.
Renewable energy needs a bit more work and less of a Heath Robinson
approach, too much of it seems like bad science and awkward political
desperation – so any idea is better than no idea. Let's (in Scotland)
try and be good at something, let's recover a little national pride
now that we produce hew-haw in the way of manufacturing so let's
catch the wind via Chinese engineering and Korean investment. That'll
restore our stubborn tartan pride all right. So we'll just get behind
the first thing to come along that looks like a free lunch (no
respectable Fifer would miss out on that), so it has to be renewables
but we'll invest in them before they are actually proven or fully
understood, we'll either be at the cutting edge or the cliff edge. It's not a great modus operandi and it's an impulsive
ploy that panders to the assumed will of a baffled and to some extent
absent electorate and a hungry for green anything media. I'm not saying we should play it safe but what are
we really good at? What's significant in our history? We need to capitalise on three things in this geologically stable, wet and tsunami proof little land; Steam (burn our crap), hydro (seize the rain) and atomic (have a fallback).
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