a glittering prize

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The Boys Of Summer

It’s not that I hate Valentines — no, never. That’s absurd. What I do hate, however, is having to spend it this far away knowing full-well that it could be spent there, having a magical sunset beside a frozen lake in a field of snow eating hand-made chocolates and sipping the finest Champagne until the stars exploded from the sky, in your arms. Forgetting the world as the sky danced with fire and smoke and billowed all around us like a swelling sea. It’s not that I hate Valentines… it’s that I hate having it coupled this feeling that I hate every day of my life.

Love is a strange thing. Love, my friends, is the biggest, cruellest motherfucker out there. Contemptible and unwavering… but so very alluring. Like a Siren calling the weary sailor to his inevitable doom. And yet… for all the gloom and morbidity held within, it’s still the most beautiful conquest we can make while stuck on this rock.

Here’s to us fools that have no meaning – I tip my glass to you, let’s toast the night away to friends and forget about tomorrow.

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Cnidarians Gone Wild!

Cnidarians (Scleractinians of the class Anthozoa more accurately in this case) are some of the most fascinating creatures on the face of the planet. Unfortunately, they’re something that most people will never get to see up close and personal, get to see them in all their wonder. They’re beautiful from afar, but when you get up close they really start to get amazing, so here’s a selection from my personal reef…

Acropora sp. at 100%

Acropora sp. at 100%

Acropora sp. at 100%

Acropora sp. at 100%

Acropora sp. at 100%

Enjoy!

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The Whale Song

For the first time in nearly a decade of knowing about my falling into the Autistic Spectrum, I can genuinely say that it makes me feel absolutely fucking useless. In a pursuit of understanding of my brain and my life as a greater and easier concept, I’m discovering deeper and deeper just how much I’m actually regressing – both into madness, and into the old tendencies and habits that I fought so fucking hard to dispel. At the start of my teens, I was an incredibly angry person; everything I saw, I hated, every person I interacted with I despised, everything I did bored me, and everything around me in the world confused and bewildered me. Eventually I overcame that to some extent, but it wasn’t without fighting every single minute of my life to be more “normal” that came about. I managed to eventually overcome it to the point where people don’t notice much anymore — or at the very least, they don’t let on that they know anymore. Now, of course, as I’m growing older though, it seems I’m rolling backwards and falling back into the “old habits”, the things that make me feel like little more than a fucking ill-performed science experiment thrown into the deep end just for the amusement of some cruel old bastard looking for little more than a cheap laugh. Seriously, it makes me feel utterly useless, knowing that at the end of the day, everything I say or do can be marked down on a sheet of paper as fitting snugly into a defined set of criterion. Knowing that at the end of the day, what I am and what makes me different from the world around me that I’ve struggled tooth-and-nail to understand, is little more than just an expected response to stimuli.

The worst part about it, is that I can actually physically observe this and know that it’s going on – but no matter what I care to say or do, there’s nothing I can do to alter it. Watching on in both horror and bemusement as I slip back into the depths like a proverbial beast from the deep, just waiting below the surface in recluse, hiding from the world above. Sure, a lot has happened in the last 18 months to shatter who I am as a person and to push me back to the depths, I don’t pretend to deny that for a second (an act in both futility and degradation), but to physically watch myself turn back into a monster really fucks with my head. Really sets that feeling of worthlessness and desolation/isolation into the head pretty fucking solidly. The problems run deep too — the very nature of the person I wish to be is so far from my grasp, despite how well I know what it is, that the likelihood I’ll ever get there anytime soon is so ridiculously low it’s virtually laughable. I can see, looking back over the years since I’ve graduated from school, literally no achievements of any real note to stack up against a normal person – people I’m supposedly so much more talented and “gifted” than – except still even being here, sucking up all around me like a fucking human tornado, and just spitting it all back out again with an uncaring, apathetic expression. I can see that sure, I could’ve achieved something great, but, everybody else seems to actually be doing it where I can only dream of it. I can see that potential, and it makes me sick to my stomach to know that the likelihood I’ll get a chance to demonstrate it beyond even existing is dangerously low. It breaks my already fragile heart. And so, I sit here, tears welled up to the point my face feels alight with a numb searing that makes these irreconcilable feelings so much more apparent and devastating. To look at what I was – all I was, the person I once presented to the world that was the closest I’d ever been to the person I thought would be acceptable to society, and I see what I am now. I see the burned out husk left behind where the whirlwind of all that’s been and gone has left behind. I see that, and I cringe. The sad part? Nobody around me seems to even notice it going on. That’s ever so comforting, knowing that your personal torment isn’t imposing itself on anybody else. No point to it, really – it’s only in my head. It’s only in my head. I genuinely don’t know what the future is gonna throw at me, but judging by so much written in the sand, I’m not even sure if I want to anymore. Ashes to ashes, as dust turns dust, the solid dreams echoing of yesterday all swiftly turn to rust.

Round here, we talk just like lions, but we sacrifice like lambs. No dreams, no desire, no enjoyment, no point to even getting out of bed at the breath of a new day.

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Outlaw Man

It’s a strange feeling – one of polar discord – to have a sort of sense of relief, but at the time, to have a sense of loss becoming essentially confirmed. To have a feeling of reprieve but tinged with ever-lingering melancholy. I guess one can only expect it though, going from everything to nothing so swiftly and then maintaining that nothing for so long, always looking in and hoping for an opportunity for introspective or the ability to intervene. Never knowing when the moment is to come, if at all – always hoping but mostly just wondering if you’re secretly marked for failure. I guess today sort of confirmed what I already knew, let me knew that the boundary was a very real and ever-present one, but at the same time gave me a feeling I’ve not had for a long time. Civility. Discourse. A feeling of almost being cared for. Fleeting, yes, but still, existing. I guess we’ll see if the feeling lasts. See if it was just a one-off, or if it holds water. Only time will tell.

C’est la vie.

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Engel

Still much to do around here. Actually, starting would be a good thing. Maybe I will sometime. Chances are not though. At this present point I’m focusing my energy on developing another blog on my other domain called “fragments” which essentially focuses on fragments of songs that are at that point in time important or somehow otherwise relevant to me. I’ve got the groundwork laid so far, I still need to do a bit of tweakwork on it though to bring on its full functionality. So far I know the layout works in pretty much every modern browser (I’ve not tested in anything IE below 7.0) and can’t be bothered to do more on that yet… either way, that’s where your attention should be directed at this point.

Until then, I guess I’m just gonna be a shadow…

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10 Interesting Facts About Windows 7

With information coming to light that Microsoft’s latest flagship OS, Windows 7, will be released sometime next month, there has been a lot of mistruths and misquotes flying around. However, knowing people associated with the project I have 10 interesting facts which will help the software reclaim its place at the top of the food chain as far as operating systems go.

1. While many have said that based on betas available from Microsoft themselves appears to be identical to the current Windows Vista core, this is not the case. All similarities are merely there as a cloaking of the truth – which is that the kernel is composed entirely of signal received via SETI from just inside the boundaries of a Quasar roughly 11.3 billion light years away. This makes Windows 7, by a long shot, the first fully functioning operating system, and as such actually a predecessor to Windows Vista which it serves to replace.
2. As well as DVD installations, Microsoft have added two unique installation methods – Semaphore and Guitar Hero. Both of these would rely on the user inputting programmatic code via their chosen medium – the first being waving a pair of NATO-compliant flags towards the computer based on strings given by the included compiling booklet – and the latter relying on the user inputting the codebase using a Guitar Hero-like UID. When using this second version, if users are capable of playing “Burning On Fire (From Redmond To Hell And Back)” (a track composed by Herman Li and Ted Nugent specifically for the operating system) at at least 95% on Expert, they will unlock a special god mode for the operating system which makes it completely impervious to virus attacks and improves its mana by +4.
3. It is set to include its very own flying saucer. For what purpose it is not yet clear, however, this is meant to be one of its biggest selling points with key demographics – trendy hipsters who have migrated to the Macintosh platform because they like to conform to not conforming; the too stoned to care about much; and the elderly. This last demographic is particularly important as it is one which has long been held by TurboGrafx.
4. Upon rollout, for a limited time Microsoft intends to offer a special introductory price of $49.95 with the purchase of a set of steak knives. This rollout will also see a limited-time version, dubbed “Super Mega Ultra Awesome Fucking Great GT/R Manx TT +1″, a heavily modified version of Windows 7 Ultimate which will see the user going from 0-100km/h in just under 1.3s, a world record for a closed-source hybrid kernel.
5. Every time a new Windows Update needs to restart your system, instead of offering an alert window to inform you – your system will begin to chant “DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!” incessantly and jumping around like it was having an epileptic fit.
6. It will include the ability to run applications which have not yet even been created. This feature is one which is sure to anger many fanboys around the world, as it even allows the user to input abstract concepts and come out with functional applications – and in some rare circumstances, a freshly made tuna sandwich.
7. It will include a free, limited edition leather jacket for improved charisma when online gaming/chatting up 13 year old girls.
8. For the first time in the history of computing, an operating system will have a height requirement. The folks in the R&D department decided that certain groups should be unable to use this system, namely the excessively short. As such, anybody under the height of 150cm will need special platforms to ensure their comfort and safety.
9. There is the ability to run various unique languages natively to the system – Bork, Klingon, Muggle, Izzle, Hyphy, Source Hip-Hop Awards – these are just some of the included languages designed to make users feel more at home.
10. For every baby seal you club, your Windows Experience Index will level up by 0.1, to a maximum of 10. Once you reach 10, you will be capable of compiling and running The Moon amongst other celestial bodies. What does this mean for the end-user? Not only can you have a shitload of fur coats, but you can feel good knowing you are doing your part in the quest for a sustainable universe seeings we’ve fucked up this planet so badly already.

More facts to come as they surface. Stay tuned.
- B

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Regrets

I thought about sitting on the floor in second grade
I couldn’t keep the pace
I thought I was the only one moving in slow motion
while the other kids knew something I did not
But if I acted like a clown
I thought it would get me through, it did
but that don’t work no more
You’re not a kid no more
I thought I’d do some travelling
never did

Regrets, regrets

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Crazy On You

It feels kinda strange to be back blogging on my own server – I’ve not had one since around October of last year. Before that point though it was essentially like I didn’t have one, because I just simply had nothing to write. Why? The reasons are varied, but the major reason was simply because I was thinking about one thing and one thing only – from the time I woke in the morning to the time I drifted off into a very, very absent slumber – and the more I thought about it, the less I particularly wanted to focus on it. Because of it I spent a lot of time being what the people in the know like to refer to as “chronically clinically depressed”, or, for the layperson, I spent my days in a daze of apathy and regret wishing for a time machine or a golden ticket to fix the problems that had arisen over the course of the last twelve months. Not to say I’m fully over it, because I really am not – but on a functional level I feel within myself I can actually get through a day without bursting into tears over really nothing at all to trigger.

My whole outlook has somewhat changed since last time I was blogging a lot. My priorities too. My objectives. Fundamentally, I’m a much different person to who I once was. Good thing? Who knows. Bad thing? Possibly. Only time will tell once it is all rinsed and repeated. I expect what I ruminate over to be of a much higher standard from now on, being surrounded by somewhat intelligent people on a regular basis helps keep the ol’ thinkerbox in a readily stimulated state. I guess it’s only fair to share it with the internet from time to time.

Still much to do around here, I really need to get to restoring some form of order to my server after starting from scratch.. that means a lot of mod_rewrite and .htaccess hacking, a bunch of PHP repairwork, fondling the httpd stack a lot, uploading and rebuilding directories, working on some designs and some concepts… all in all, I should be a busy little bee.

Until I tidy up around here, why not check out some links I’ve found pretty awesome recently? Promise they’re cool. Srsly. Aight. I’m out.

Adiós perras.

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Hotel California

Por el camino del desierto
El viento me despeina
Sube el aroma de colita
Luna, luna de nadie
Ella a lo lejos
Una luz centela
La idea de mi estar

Quedar por la noche
Alli estaba a la entrada
Y las campanas a sonar
Y me di con llamarme mismo
Que es puerta del cielo
Ella enciende una vela
En muestra del camino
Suenan voces en el corredor
Y lo que indican diciend

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place

Ella al lado que brillaba
Tenia una Mercedes
Rodeada de chicos guapos
Ella llamaba amigos

Cuando viene despacio
Del tumba de verano
Aquel era pa recordar
Y otro pa olvidar

Le pedi al capitan
Que sirve el vino
Y pedi con un amor
Tenido este alcohol
De este sesenta y nueve
Famosa y que llamando
Pues me va a despertar
La noche para decir

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place

El espejo en el techo
Champana en el hielo
Y ella dijo somos todos prisioneros
De propia voluntad
Y en los cuartos principales
Hacen sucias esta
Hasta aca a la bestia
Pero no la logra a matar

Mi ultimo recuerdo
Corria hacia la puerta
Ver una candela en el camino
Por donde habia llegado
“Relax” dijo el portero
Por mi es honor recibir
Puede salir cuando quiere
Pero nunca yo partir

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place

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Ghost

Ghost, ghost I know you live within me
Feel as you fly
In thunderclouds above the city
Into one that I
Loved with all that was left within me
Until we tore in two
Now wings and rings and there’s so many
Waiting here for you

And she was born in a bottle rocket, 1929
With wings that ring around a socket
Right between her spine
All drenched in milk and holy water
Pouring from the sky
I know that she will live for ever
She won’t ever die

She goes and now she knows she’ll never be afraid
To watch the morning paper blow
Into a hole where no one can escape
Dee, de de de de…

And one day in New York City baby
A girl fell from the sky
From the top of a burning apartment building
Fourteen stories high
And when her spirit left her body
How it split the sun
I know that she will live for ever
All goes on and on and on and
She goes and now she knows she’ll never be afraid
To watch the morning paper blow
Into a hole where no one can escape
Dee, de de de de…

///

Daddy please, hear this song that I sing.
In your heart there’s a spark that just screams,
For a lover to bring a child to your chest,
That could lay as you sleep and love all you have left,
Like your boy used to be, long ago,
Wrapped in sheets warm and wet.

Blister please, with those wings in your spine.
Love to be with a brother of mine.
How he’d love to find your tongue in his teeth,
In a struggle to find secret songs that you keep,
Wrapped in boxes so tight, sounding only at night as you sleep.

And in my dreams you’re alive and you’re crying,
As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet.
Rings of flowers round your eyes and I love you,
For the rest of your life (when you’re ready).

Brother see, we are one in the same.
And you left with your head filled with flames,
And you watched as your brains fell out through your teeth.
Push the pieces in place.
Make your smile sweet to see.
Don’t you take this away.
I’m still wanting my face on your cheek.

And when we break we’ll wait for our miracle.
God is a place where some holy spectacle lies.
And when we break we’ll wait for our miracle.
God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.

Two-headed boy, she is all you could need.
She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires,
And retire to sheets safe and clean,
But don’t hate her when she gets up to leave.