Thought For The Day @ MindSay

I have listened to the realm of the Spirit. I have heard my own soul's voice, and I have remembered that love is the complete and unifying thread of existence.

Once again, I fell for the hype.  Once again I have lost a small part of my life that will never ever be replaced.  Once again, I curse the cinema for not allowing an intermission in long films for me to get up, stretch my legs and most importantly get some beautiful sweet nicotine, tar and assorted carcinogens into my lungs.  In fact, they should allow cinemas to be smoking ares again.  Screw you rabid anti-smokers and your hatred of my used tobacco fumes - I will smoke in front of you then piss on your grave after your body instantly explodes into a huge pulsating ball of cancer.  Fuck you.  But I'm not going to rant about smoking again, or at least any more than I have already.  I (as well you may have guessed from the title) have other things on my mind. 

The Book
Apparently The Da Vinci Code is the sixth best selling book ever, so it must be good.  I mean, everyone is talking about it - how deep and meaningful it is and how it's opened their eyes to blah blah and how the Church is blah and blah Opus Dei!  I have read more interesting stories of this style by typing "mason conspiracy jews" into google, clicking on page 8 then going to the first link that catches my eye.  (I just tried this and funnily enough the first thing that I saw was a Mindsay blog.  Just goes to show.)  In respect, I have to say it is readable and the storytelling is acceptable, but not quite up to the task of hiding the cliched and overwhelmingly dull story. 

"Dull?" I hear you say.  "But it's chock full of action and mystery and suspense!"  The dullness lies in the predictability - you guess what is coming from a mile off, the storytelling is just about good enough to keep you going, then you find out that you are right.  Repeat until you no longer give a shit about the characters.  This may be at the end of the book but you'll probably be bored silly by half way.  Continuing this line of thought, the re-readability will be none since you know what is going to happen, but don't care enough for the craft of the book to go through it all over again.

Summary:  Don't bother, but you probably know this already as every person on the planet owns seventeen copies.

The Film
I went to see the film for two reasons - firstly that my Dad fancied watching it and offered to pay for me, and secondly that less of my life would be wasted watching it than actually finishing the rest of the book - plot points shoved down your throat in typical hollywood blockbuster style.  In this sense, it really went for it - the smallest detail was thrown in your face for the minimum mental stimulation possible.  Other than that it was a lovely mix of shitty pop-theology, violence and appalling predictibility.  Oh yes, it stayed faithful to the book in this regard, but what storytelling there was has been removed to make way for, I don't know, the director's massive coke habit.

I'm tired, so I'll stop here, but I think you get the idea.  Avoid.

Thought for the Day:
"If there's one thing that annoys me more than things that waste my time, it's people who waste my time.  Whenever I meet one of them, I can't help but wish I was at home masturbating over pictures of my incredibly hot sister.  Then I remember I don't have a sister, and I don't masturbate since my sex organ is a dried up, loveless husk.  This only serves to make me more annoyed."

Today, for your pleasure(?), I have decided to prepare a brief review of the songs of that most noble and distinguished of competitions, the Eurovision Song Contest.  Why am I doing this?  I really don't know.  Why are you reading this?  Again, I cannot answer.  Why does this contest even exist?  It is as much a mystery to me as half of the countries on the list.  I would write more here, but that the longer I linger, the more I hear, the less I want to keep my ears screwdriver free.  So onwards!


Andorra
Performer: Jenny
Song: Sense Tu
Description: I've heard this song before.  In an 80's action film, just after the big explosion and the bit where the hero walks into the sunset hot love interest in tow.  That's right - the credits.  This is cheesy-action-film-credits-music.
Listened to: Whole thing.  Fancied some popcorn.
Points (semi-final used if not in final): 8

Albania
Performer: Luiz Ejlli
Song: Zjarr E Ftohte
Description:  I tried to say the name of the song and failed.  Albanian looks worse than Welsh.  Starts interestingly enough with the Albanian Elbow Horn being played, but that only lasts a few moments, then the song trails off like someone with ADD spotting a bee (presumably to allow the Elbowhornist's stretcher to arrive).  If you've ever heard generic eastern european pop, then you have heard this.
Listened to:  Whole thing.  Pretty inoffensive.
Points: 58

Armenia
Performer: Andre
Song: Without Your Love
Description: As above, so below.  Only with the Armenian Pubic Banjo, which crops up again now and then throughout the song.
Listened to:  Whole thing.  Twice.  I kept forgetting I was listening to anything.
Points:  150

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Performer: Hari Mata Hari
Song: Lejla
Description:  What happened to Yugoslavia?  I could pronounce that.  Anyway, this again starts off some folky bits, but this time continues with them throughout.  I would eat slightly stale food in a quaint native restaurant to this music, while the owners glare at me and plot my doom in their crazy moon language.  Also, the band name sounds like a section in the Karma Sutra.
Listened to:  Whole thing.
Points: 229!  Christ.

Belgium
Performer: Kate Ryan
Song: Je t'Adore
Description:  What is this?  Crashing minor chords?  Frantic synthesizer?  Could this be... interesting?  Oh, no, wait, Belgium comes through once more.  Hahahaha, you nearly had me for a moment Belgium, you card.
Listened to: 8 seconds.  Then I fell asleep.
Points: 69

Bulgaria
Performer: Marianne Popova
Song: Let me Cry
Description:  No, let ME cry.  Interestingly enough, the little squeaking sounds at the beginning are made by getting a small, endangered vole, drying its intestines, stringing them out over a board and then plucking at them with the vole's front teeth, still attached to its dismembered head.  This instrument is Bulgaria's chief export.
Listened to: 3 seconds, about five times.  I really couldn't go any further.
Points: 36

Belarus
Performer: Polina Smolova
Song: Mum
Description: I really didn't know what to expect from a song called 'Mum'.  I wasn't expecting distorted guitar, 80's rock chords and occasional Michael Jacksonesque whoops.  Also against my expectations of 'Mum' meaning something Deep and Meaningful in Belariun, it really did turn out to be a song about the artist's mother.  Bless.
Listened to: About a minute.
Points: 10.  For shame.

Switzerland
Performer: Six4one
Song: If We All Give a Little
Description:  Six4one, named after a special offer in the supermarket they work in.  The start sounds like the first few bars of a medical drama, then BAM!  Preachy show tune.  There are also about fifty members in this band, each of which sings one line, presumably to diminish the embarassment per member.   It fails.  I really REALLY hate this song.  I want to kill every one of them and build a toilet out of their bodies, while trapping their souls in the bowl so they spend eternity staring at my spotty arsehole.  Hate hate hate.
Listened to:  All of it.  Aargh.
Points: 30 too many.

Cyprus
Performer: Annet Artani
Song: Why Angels Cry
Description: Disney.
Listened to: 2 seconds.  Then came the sparkley bits, and I knew what I was in for.
Points: 57

Germany
Performer: Texas Lightning
Song: No No Never
Description: Maybe I've been listening to far too much crap music, but I didn't hate this too much.  It's light, catchy and devoid of any feeling or soul, in the true spirit of Eurovision.  It really sounds like a cover of something better, though.
Listened to: Whole thing.  I might even have tapped my foot!
Points: 36.  Robbed.

Denmark
Performer: Sidsel Ben Semmane
Song: Twist of Love
Description: The fifties are back in style!  Oh wait, no they're not.
Listened to: As much of it as I could stand, or about a minute.
Points: 170 wtf?

Estonia
Performer: Sandra Oxenryd
Song: Through My Window
Description:  This song filled me with apathy and depression.  I don't know why, as it's a fairly cheery upbeat pop song.  But it has spoiled my day now and will not be forgiven.  I need a drink.
Listened to:  Don't know, don't care.
Points: Fuck off. 28.

Spain
Performer: Las Ketchup
Song: Bloody Mary
Description: Either porn music or elevator muzak, I can't decide.  But if you ever wanted to film a dirty flick in a lift, you know what to go for.
Listened to: 30 seconds, or until making porn sounds got boring.
Points: 18

Finland
Performer: Lordi
Song: Hard Rock Hallelujah
Description:  Power Metal!  Yeah!  Wins the prize for best use of the words 'Arockalypse' and 'Rockening' ever.
Listened to: it repeatedly.  While slaying grim necro-yetis with my sword of frost.
Points: 292 and teh win.  Metal!

France
Performer: Virgine Pouchin
Song: Il Est Temp
Description: Inoffensive and uninspired TV drama/soap-opera music, probably undeserving of the score it got, but fuck it, it's France.
Listened to: the lot.  God, why did Nancy have to split up with Jim?
Points: 5.  Hahahahah!

UK
Performer: Daz Sampson
Song: Teenage Life
Description:  Aargh.  Christ.  Words cannot express how ashamed I am to be even associated with the nation responsible for this travesty.  I thought Estonia had stopped me caring, but I was wrong.  There was still a little part of my soul waiting to be mauled.
Listened to: Far too much.
Points: 25

And here I leave it for the time being.  There's still a few more to do, including Latvia (which sends me into mad giggles whenever I hear it) and the wonderfully named Arsenium from Moldovia, but I can't do any more right now.  Perhaps later.

Thought for the Day (thanks to my Aunt Karen):
"Why does a crab have its liver in its head"?

Today I am happy, as I have finally achieved a new level in geekery.  I own a Sun.  An old one, mind, as I wasn't going to shell out several grand for a machine that is designed to make me scream in frustration - which is of course the point of any proprietry UNIX based computer.  Instead I paid the princely sum of £378.96+p&p for my soul to be taken away and raped with a cactus.

Anyway, I now have a Sun Ultra 60 sitting before me, resplendant in its beige and dirty-washed-out-blue glory.  Inside is one of the largest PSU's I've seen, masses of fans, two 450MHz SPARC CPUs and lots of assorted SCSI stuff.  Absolutely everything is surrounded layers of Sun branded plastic and metal, whose sole purpose seems to be to confuse, maim and stop you from putting anything useful into it.

So it's doing its job of irritating me fairly well, so far.  It also turns out that a CD drive was not included in the package, nor, for that matter was an operating system.  Luckily, it's a Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM drive that it needs, and those are cheap and plentiful, right?  Until I track down one of them and a copy of Solaris, it shall sit with its OpenBoot screen staring at me mockingly.  "You don't know what to do with me" it taunts.  And how right it is.  I mashed random keys at first in the hope of it suddenly work, but for some reason that didn't happen.  It questioned my command, but told me it was ok after, as if it were only to be expected.  Smug bastard.  Eventually I typed 'help' and below is a list of possible commands it gave me, along with my interpretation of what they do.

boot
This should make everything magically work.  It should transmit data from Sun's secret underground base in Llanelli via electro-magnetic waves that hit the hard drive in such a way that there is instantly a perfectly configured operating system that sings and dances and has unicorns.  It should not look for the ethernet port, find nothing connected to it and fall into a sulk.

nvramrc
DO NOT RUN THIS.  I nearly lost an eyeball and will probably have those scars for years.

system configuration variables
Might let you configure parts of the system or might execute nvramrc.  It's variable.

editor
Like ex but not as user friendly.  It might allow you to do something, but I doubt it.

resume execution
Brings about the end of the world.  I haven't typed this.  But I might.

devaliases
If you are valiased, it un-valiases you. I am glad I've never been valiased, as I've heard the process is somewhat uncomfortable.

diag
Draws a line from the top-left to the bottom-right of the screen.  Pretty, but rather useless.

ioredirect
Again, like nvramrc, but with more tentacles.

misc
Solves world hunger, puts an end to war, saves lost kittens and provides a free, legal high.  Sadly, any of those options will also trigger resume execution but with the -now switch.  Always read the documentation.  Took an ioredirect to make me learn that.

Anyway, I feel one of my sporadic update frenzies coming on, so keep an eye out.  T'will be another couple of months before the next one :P

Thought for the Day
"Confidence comes not from always being right but from being wrong and not realising"