me and my mate steve jobs

Could I possibly be more of a non-mac-using-mac-head? It's verging on tragic really. I am immersed in IBM compatibility. I use windows and have done since I owned my second computer (The first was an Amstrad CPC so it doesn't count)

Despite this I consider myself a Mac person. Just look at my laptop wallpaper - its a longing for something enabled by something else. It's a digital oxymoron - it's sad.

I used to use Apple Macs all the time. Back when I was the unofficial editor of the official school newspaper. We had a suit of 12 Apple Mac IIs and Classics - there were only two of us using them. I thought they were the business. I defended them to the hilt against my PC loving fellow geeks.

Then I went to university - we bought a compaq. A few years later I started building my own - all windows based of course. I did all my university work in the Windows 98ed Computer labs and then went to the empty Apple Mac lab for solace and mutual respect. Just me and my half eaten apple buddies. Man and machine. I didn't use them for actual work - I didn't trust them. I loved them but I didn't trust them.

And so now I haven't used a mac in any serious capacity for eight years. Ironically one of my PC loving fellow geek friends from those heady school days now has an ibook. Where did it all go wrong?

I'm glad it's not like this all the time

A week or two ago I wrote a post all about watching Derry City play in a chip shop in Ballymena - that's me watching it in a chip shop, not them playing in a chip shop. It was a post of joy and optimism. A post proclaiming love and peace in a country thought of as a recovering war zone. I was uplifted writing it.

Now I am crestfallen.Coming from Northern Ireland it is hard to avoid topics of religion and politics. If you see a film in NI it generally mentions the "situation" Plays set in Ulster tend to have a group of loyalists and a group of republicans playing montagues and capulets, stand up comedy routines tend to have at least one Big Ian reference - they're not funny otherwise. It's hard to avoid these topics, but not impossible. A group of us make short films in this country and I can't remember one reference to "the troubles" - unless you count a prank involving an Irishman in Camp David wearing a balaclava.

I had intended this blog to be sectarian free but thinking back over the past couple of months I can point to at least six posts with something to do with political religion in Northern Ireland. and here I am about to write number seven - I guess I failed.

You see it's like this. Derry were playing the return leg of that football tie in Paris last night. I went back to Ballymena to stand outside that chip shop waving my rangeltic scarf (creating it involved mutilating two separate football scarves to make one but I think it was worth it) If I thought I would witness a similiar show of bon ami I was sadly mistaken. Two drunks paying no attention to the football and a rather angry looking youth who called me jaffa scum because I was wearing a hearts shirt. I left despondent.

A friend of mine lives in a loyalist area of Derry, or should we say Londonderry. Her nephew is the result of a mixed marriage and is being brought up a a Protestant in a Catholic area. She told me today how she had picked him up from Boys' Brigade last night. They had gone to buy stickers in a shop near her house and as they were leaving the shop he looked up at her and said, "It's just as well we went to your shop and not ours. Cause if we went to ours they would have see me in this uniform and known I was Protestant." He's four. So young, so cynical. She said it nearly brought tears to her eyes - it very nearly brought tears to mine.

Things have improved. Things are improving. I just wish they'd hurry up a bit.

Humour - Radio 4 style

What's the difference between an entamologist and an etymologist?

An etymologist knows.

those poor welsh

There are stirrings among the people, unrest in the streets, the people are dividing into two, and conflict seems inevitable. We have until November 20th to sort this mess out or all hell will break loose. It appears that some people are no longer happy with the mythology-ridden George as the patron saint of England.

They say he wasn’t even English, that he gained his considerable wealth through fraud, that he was as mean as a mean thing, and that as Archbishop of Alexandria he was so hated by his people that when he fell from grace and was incarcerated they stormed the prison, dragged him out, murdered him and threw his remains into the sea. And not a single mention of a dragon anywhere the Welsh will be relieved to know.)

These Anglo-Saxon rebels want St Edmund put in the place of George. They claim the whole George thing was nothing more than Normandic propaganda (those damned French are usually to blame)

St Edmund (the Martyr) was an Anglo-Saxon king round the middle of the century – the ninth century that is. He battled hard against the Danes (those damned Danes are usually to blame) but lost. Legend has it that he actually threw away his weapons wanting to imitate Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was arrested, tortured, tied up and used as a target for javelin throwing practice. Legend has it that the whole time, as he became a human porcupine, he refused to deny Christ. They had to behead him in the end.

Sounds great – lets change now. Except I can’t really see it happening. People just couldn’t be bothered. It seems a lot of hassle to change after we’d got used to the old guy. The English don’t really do much to celebrate their Saints anyway. And is Edmund really that much better than George?

His history, too, relies on legend and mythology (even if it is slightly more realistic that fighting dragons.) He, it appears, isn’t actually English either – He’s German (Like our current Monarchs), born in Nuremberg (which explains his love of motor racing). And, unfortunately, the Welsh don’t come out any better. Edmund’s flag is a white dragon on a red background (which, let’s face it, would really mess up the Union Jack) symbolising the English Dragon which did battle with the Celtic Dragon (The red dragon – seen on the Welsh flag) fairly constantly.

So, let battle commence – but please have it sorted by November 20th (St Edmund’s day) so the English know which days they are supposed to do nothing to celebrate their Patron Saint as usual.

Meeting minutes

Ecco shoes and a cheap suit £170

Teacher Planner and Pen £7

An hour and a half of drama dept meetings instead of relaxing with a skinny latte in starbucks -£2.40

Making notes so sparse and confusing that I've forgotten what they mean 10 minutes later

-Priceless

anyone know who these guys are?

Is it possible? Can it be true? Is it conceivable that I have already forgotten who won Big Brother this year? How insignificant must it be that I can forget so quickly? And I'm usually good at the insignificant stuff. Every year they leave my mind more quickly than the previous. Some time around Big Brother 9 I'll have forgotten who won before the show begins.

oh, and just in case you're interested the people in the photo are Lee and Sophie from Big Brother 3 apparently.

inanimate conversations

I had an interesting conversation last night. It was a conversation between two people – it was going strong before I joined, it was going strong while I was a part of it, it was going strong after I left, and all the time it was a duologue.

Confused?

I had popped down to the Co-op in Ballycastle to pick up a gift for the school caretakers and the rain was bucketing down. The car park was empty except for myself and a cyclist in a bright yellow waterproof cape thing. He was deep in conversation with someone but that person wasn’t immediately apparent. As I approached he looked up from his bike lock and directed his conversation to me:

“…coming over, no more than five miles. I mean what kind of a situation is that? Who do you think is to blame? I couldn’t believe it but it doesn’t matter. I got soaked. Would you look at this rain. I’m completely soaked. And this thing doesn’t do much to keep the rain out. It’s a terrible day. They say it’s some weather system from the other side of the Atlantic that causing it. Some hurricane or other.”

“Hurricane Gordon?”

“Aye, something like that.” Well at least I knew I was playing a part in the conversation. “It’s been like this all day. I didn’t know whether to do my shopping or not but I had to take the chance eventually. I mean it may never stop, may it?”

“Well, I doubt…”

“Imagine that, huh? Rain forever. I wouldn’t mind so much if that were the case, you’d expect to get wet then. I think they should invent some kind of covered bike. Perhaps even one with…”

“Four wheels and an engine? They have, it’s called a…”

“I’ll have to get changed as soon as I get home you know. Soaked through. It’s a lot easier getting wet than it is getting dry you know. This jacket is ringing. I’ll leave it by the radiator and maybe it’ll be dry by the morning. I’ll need it in the morning. There’s a change in the weather you know. You can’t be going out without a coat like you could a week or two ago…”

As I walked off the conversation continued without a break. He chatted to his bike lock, he chatted to the loaves of bread, he chatted to fair trade chocolate, he chatted to the stella artois (though these Belgian beers don’t speak much English – they probably didn’t understand a word he said.) He chatted to the checkout assistant. And as I walked back past his bike towards my car he chatted with me again:

“…getting darker. I don’t think it’s going to let up anytime soon. It’ll rain right through the night you know. Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow but I can’t see this rain stopping any time soon. I’m soaked you know, this thing hasn’t…”

“Do you know you have made my day? I have had a blast chatting with you. Don’t ever change you ability to talk to anyone. It’s people like you who make this area one of the friendliest parts of the world. Safe home.”

“Oh”

There was silence. I loaded up my car and drove off. As I looked in my rear view mirror I could see him in the distance as an advertising hoarding started up a conversation with him.