Whatever happened to the 21st century? How am I still being ferried about in petrol driven road vehicles and not fusion engined flying cars? How come our cities aren't pollution ridden industrial dystopias run by a single faceless corporate government? Why do we not have replicants to perform for us the most basic of tasks? Where are the shattered nuclear wastelands left from World War III, the mutants, the off world mining stations, the fusion drive space super cruisers? Do androids dream of electric sheep? Who knows? They don't even exist!
When is the last time you had a retina scan? Have you ever been roughed up by over zealous secret police? Have sinister women wielding laser katanas flown past your window anytime lately? Have you ever purchased synthetic foodstuffs from replicants in streetside carts under the glow of a neon sign advertising the very latest in advanced bionic technology? Do you ever get the feeling that we don't exactly live in interesting times?
If the human race had any ambition Earth's Martian colony would at this moment be rebelling against it's corporate overlords and readying itself for a H Bomb strike against Earth. However, something has clearly gone wrong and we are still talking about the Middle East. Hell, I can't even watch a lion in a sidecar race around a wall of death anymore. Where did it all go wrong? Went to see the new Indiana Jones flick on Friday. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It was pretty awful. I was a huge fan of the first three and have seen them - oh I don't know - about 100 times each. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited to be seeing this new one. Everything about it stank. The lame dialogue, the terrible storyline, the annoying new characters...woeful. The story doesn't seem to develop naturally, it just hops from one scene to the next. The Russkies just aren't as sinister as the good old Nazis. Verdict? I'd give it 1 out of 5, and that 1 is because it's INDIANA JONES for God's sake. Wait for the DVD.
In other news, I am going to Cuba. 15 days in the land of cigars, amateur boxing and state socialism might be just the revitalising tonic I need to get over this current bout of disillusionment. Still, I wish I was typing this from my 170th floor apartment as I looked over a neon lit cityscape, watching as the latest passenger cruiser from the Outer Planets docks in Cork's newly redeveloped Spaceport. Oh well.
By the way, if anyone can get me a link for Paul Weller's latest album, I'd be much obliged. And here's a video to remind you that it would be more entertaining if England had qualified for the Euros...
Drink to excess. Consume vast quantities of illegal drugs. Fornicate with almost complete strangers. Eat bad food. Watch worthless television. Don't exercise. Treat people you dislike with utter contempt. Listen to music very loudly even if it irritates other people around you. Coast through your workload daily. In fact don't work at all. Don't pay taxes. Ignore laws. Abuse pensioners. Punch children. Laugh at the disabled.
In order to fully understand the nature of this curious beast we call the "weblogger" or ("blogger" for short) I decided to explore the World Wide Information Superweb for other blogs of note, hoping to garner or "steal" ideas from them. What follows is a report on my forays into enemy territory.
Blog 1 - The Vacationist
My first port of call was a blog called "The Vacationist" by a pleasant sounding individual called Adam Sachs. I thought to myself "Hey I like vacations....and I love sacks....this is the blog for me!" My initial enthusiasm was quickly dampened as the site immediately crashed Firefox when I opened it. So far, not so good. Terrified of invoking the fury of the internet gods by reopening the page, I decided to chalk it down to experience and move on. Picture me with two fingers crossed and a look of intense apprehension as I opened:
Blog 2 - Ashley Wood
"Hm", I thought as I viddied the title of this blog, "This sounds like it could be the random musings of an attractive American schoolgirl - perhaps with sexy pictures!" As you can imagine, I was quite excited (no not in my pantal region, you sick freak). Imagine then my disappointment when Ashley Wood turned out to be an aging comic book artist. With a wife no less, if he was single I could have perhaps drummed up some excitement in my loins. As it happened, however, the blog proved quite enjoyable mainly because of the art work Ash had on display - some very good stuff. His actual prose was disappointing as it just described the art. "Some art form the upcoming WWR History book due in July" he might say or "A painting of a dragon." I felt I wasn't getting to know the REAL Ashley Wood. The closest he came to revealing anything of his personality was his giddy exclamation that "...ID Software is gearing up for Doom 4, which to me is super cool". Super cool indeed. Unlike you, my geekoid friend. Just kidding Ash, you got moxy and the art was cool so overall I was quite pleased. I decided that putting up pictures and stuff would be my next step on my path to blog domination. Buoyed by the strength of this decision, I moved with some eagerness to blog numero 3.
Blog 3 - Boing Boing
I said to myself at this point "Joseph, you devilishly handsome fiend, you're approaching this in the wrong way - it's time to go straight to the top!" And straight to the top is where I did go, my friends. Boing Boing is, according to technorati.com (no idea), THE number one blog on the internet BAR NONE! This would surely give me some ideas to help my blog become super ultra popular with the kidz. And man oh man, did my foray into Boing Boing begin with promise. The first headline proclaimed dizzily "Two FBI agents just showed up at my door for taking photos of Los Angeles!" WOW, I thought! So many interesting avenues of bloggery that one could pursue! The devolution of the Land of the Free into a right wing police state, abuse of power by those meant to protect us, the persistent buzz of fear that surrounds us in this post 9/11 world - all fascinating areas of discussion. However, the blog entry ended thusly "The agents that showed up at my door were at first intimidating, but after they realized I wasn't a threat, we had an interesting conversation about the balance between me doing my job, and them being required to follow up on leads in their job." Hmph. Not quite the global conspiracy theory I was hoping for.
In all honesty though, this was a very good blog. It had a good mixture of entries on a wide variety of subjects. Indeed, Boing Boing calls itself "A Directory of Wonderful Things" and it's not far wrong. Amusing video clips, funny pictures and interesting articles on any number of subjects make this a blog worth checking out. However, it's mainly based around other people's work - the author(s) of the blog seem to contribute very little of their own thoughts. 99% of the independent thought on the blog is from the commenters at the end of each article. As I started this blog solely as a vehicle for my idiotic ramblings, I left Boing Boing having garnered relatively few useful ideas - beyond stealing video clips from Youtube in an effort to make my blog more popular. Nothing wrong with that, onwards on upwards!
Blog 4 - Kahlee's Blog: Never Give a Cheerleader a Keyboard
After my last entertaining but largely fruitless venture into blogland I decided I needed to find a blog that was popular but that also had a more personal touch. And so I stumbled upon Kahlee's blog. I will not lie to you; the word cheerleader leaped from my computer screen with the intensity of a lonely farmer on a warm sheep - and with similar levels of excitement. Could this atone for the disappointment felt on entering Blog 2? However, my interest was also piqued by the blurb which stated: "Observations and commentary by a modern libertarian cyberpunk on society, culture, politics and whatever." Hm, could she be beautiful AND intelligent? A dangerous combination in any woman. The first entry visible on her blog was a poem. A very poor poem at that. However, it was a tongue in cheek affair and not meant to be taken seriously so I glossed over it in search of some delicious morsels of fascimation (fascinating information, that's copyrighted).
Honest opinion: it blew hot and cold. Her approach to bloggery was generally the same as I intended mine to be (random musings on a variety of topics) but, dagnabit, I just didn't find it very INTERESTING. This in turn raised a number of fears in my gulliver, namely that no one would find me interesting. I quickly realised that this certainly would not be the case as I am such a great and wonderful character (I'm only joking, I'm not arrogant, I'm actually humourously self-effacing ALL the time). It was comments like: "Last thing I’ve noticed…. Everyone’s a hipocrit. Everyone’s a judge. Everyone hates. Everyone hates a hipocrit. Eveyone hates a judge. Everyone hates themself. They just don’t realize it." ...that put me off a little. A) Because I'm a pedant and it's HYPOCRITE YOU IDIOT and b) because I don't fancy that kind of self conscious analysis of other people. Overall though, it was pretty good. She talks a bit about music, she talks about politics, she talks a bit about sport and is, in fairness, for the most part reasonably interesting. And, perhaps most importantly, she says what she feels without worrying that anyone can read it. But the icing on the proverbial cake is that not only does she post hot pictures of herself she posts hot pictures of naked female celebrities. My friends, we have a winner.
So ends my research for today at least. I think some of the ingredients required for a successful blog are as follows:
A) Steal other people's funny jokes and videos B) Be diverse in your selection of topics C) Try not to think about people actually reading your WEBLOG D) Post pictures of hot celebrities E) Be a hot teenage American cheerleader
Achieving E might be difficult but I'm willing to learn. Anyway, time to implement these commandments. It's Adam and Joe with their insanely catchy Tokyo song - I recommend everyone download their BBC 6 Music podcasts! It's all good stuff.
I have finally succumbed to the masses and become an internet superhighway BLOG MANIAC. As with all new ventures, I approach this with a degree of trepidation. What shall I say? How shall I appear interesting and wonderful to the outside world? Should I rail against the system via my pathetic ramblings? Let's see. They say you should write about what you know, right? Very well. I am currently listening to the wonderful Super Furry Animals album Radiator. I find it tough to decide whether I prefer it or Guerrilla. SFA always seem to be doing something interesting, quite an achievement. I am reading Charles Bukowski's Selected Letters 1958-1965. As with any kind of compilation it blows hot and cold but there are moments of profound genius. Let me quote from it for a second: "...give me men of apparent evil, for they are the forerunners of a future good - much of what was evil at 5.30pm yesterday is something else today." I like that.
What else is there to talk about? I should never talk about politics as I rant but let me say this vis a vis the recent retirement of our Lord Bertie Ahern. There has never in the history of politics been a man who brought his country backwards under his tenure and was subsequently praised to high heaven until this idiot fool. That is a poorly constructed sentence but never mind. It sickens me to think of the money wasted, the opportunities missed. Every system - health, education, justice, economy etc etc - is in a worse state than it was 10 years ago at his accession. And he is looked upon as the greatest Taoiseach we ever had. There is of course no objectivity amidst the Irish public. He's a "sound man" and "a bit of a chancer" so the people love him. It pains me.
I try to write music from time to time and sometimes wonder what the best method is. Should I randomly pluck chords and words? Or should I sit and think deeply about what I want to write about? The initial method seems to work better as regards the quality of the material but it results in me forgetting a) the lyrics b) the chord structure and c) the song entirely. Unless I write it down immediately but I rarely have a pen. Oh well.
I was going to rant about a few more public figures but why bother. The devil might a turn out to be a pretty good guy if you could learn his language, drink beer with him and pinch his girlfriend when he goes to the bathroom.
