Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘meme’ Category

(Warning: acerbic)

Do you believe in God? What religion are you?
I'm God. I don't mind if anyone else is too, but I don't believe in them.

Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Interesting bioelectrical functions cease. You cease to be amusing*. You decompose. Intellectual and emotional infants around you comfort each other by pretending you're in a better place.
*well, depending on the method of death…

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Part of a comment I posted to Platitude of the Day.

As someone who 'creates' by writing fantasy/scifi as a hobby, I was struck by the Bish's statement "that it is of the nature of love, whether human or divine, to be creative". (What does that say about high-fantasy authors who make up planets and then make them fight for our entertainment? Eh, Tolkien? Looking at you, Feist!)

I've had a creative urge all my life – not to pass on my genes, but to pass on my memes… you could say, to have brainchildren!

This dichotomyduality has found its way into various bits of my writing – but not as the either/or thing it is for me personally. I just like memes. And to have a culture where your ideas are your pseudo-children and are imagined to breed with other people's ideas… much more exciting than terrestrial intellectual property law, right?

(The concept of "murder your babies" takes on an interesting additional angle when it comes to a magoscientist announcing that hir theory is wrong.)

Who sleeps in bed next to you?
Other than an occasional visiting cat, just my current book/s.

What kind of magazines do you read?
I don't. I hate magazines; the physicality of them, the periodical-ness, the dumbed-down-ness (especially that)… I've just learned somewhere along the line to file myself as Not a Magazine Person. I barely even read RSS feeds. :P I'd actually read New Scientist if I could get over it being a magazine.

What was the last book you read? What are you currently reading?
Last were a few children's books pertaining to ghost dogs, for my collection. Currently, Winterbirth by some British writer. It's really… Scottish. Includes a map, but also needs an index of clan names…

What's really creepy?
Nightmares involving violence or sex. Humans being naked for non-sensible reasons. Animal abuse of any sort – well, that's more ENRAGING than icky. Infantilism. Hurting people for fun. Especially those last two.

Who is your celebrity crush?
I tend not to crush on real people. In terms of "I know I don't actually know them, but they seem terribly enticing from what I have seen, so I hope I never meet them or I'll probably despise them as I do with all real human beings": Jennifer Saunders and Stephen Fry. (Someone who is worth meeting, in my experience, is Terry Pratchett. He's witty and not a prick in real life, even at an exhausting signing.)

Quote some lyrics that you love:

• Lycanthropy by Patrick Wolf doesn't just speak to me, it sings to me.
• "Rise another day across the distant skies / Where the dawn above the winter moonlight shines upon the fall of our lives" –DragonForce (I find themes of winter/snow/ice and moonlight quite often exhilerating)
• "All the pay I need comes shining through his eyes / I dont need no cold water to make me realise that / I love my dog as much as I love you / But you may fade, my dog will always come through." –Cat Stevens (I think explaining this might be to belabour a point…)
• "Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light; / Did it take long to find me? And are you gonna stay the night? / I'm being followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow / Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow" –Cat Stevens (Makes me think of a playful cat, probably because a cat I once owned was called Moonshadow. She had a cameo in Mews.)
• I suppose also Sad Lisa, also by Cat Stevens (lyrics) is another pretty one. (Some people think it's about a dog. I thought it was a ghost. Maybe she's a ghost dog!)
• Oh, and Morning Has Broken can be a great suitheist anthem with minimal tweaking. Anyway, enough Cat Stevens (what is it with me and him today?). Have a Bird Dog!!!

I could go on, but I suppose I'll stop…

What are you listening to right now?
One of Ian F's mixes.

What are you most excited for?
My moderate excitement currently has no focus.

What websites do you always visit when you go online?
profusion.hellhound.net, webmails, often LJ, and at home, a couple of game-type sites.

What was the last thing you bought?
Books, not counting mangetout and houmous for the week's lunch. (I'm getting SO BORED of that. Going to have to find something else easy to munch.)

What was the cutest thing you've seen today?
A West Highland White outside the newsagent. It was shy and I scritched its head briefly. Distinctly saw a passer-by smile at my talking gently to it. Westies aren't very cute; I prefer proper dogs, but y'know, a drowning person doesn't insist on teak.

Does the weather affect your mood?
I can't honestly say I've noticed… I think I'm too self-contained. I could be wrong, though: I am an Earth animal, and we're more natural than we think we are.

What is your zodiac sign?
Water Dog. Gemini.

Do you want to learn another language?
I'd actually like to get back into the ones I know a little of: German, Latin, French. And maybe learn more Finnish songs. Songs are easy. ANKAT, OO-OH, UUTA JUONTA AINA SAHAA

5 things you can't live without:
Internet connection, retreating into my own head, dogs, dogs, creating things

Do you have any siblings?
One blood, one miscellaneous.

Do you have to pee?
This is an evil question. I approve. Hey, everyone reading, whatever you do, don't think of waterfalls! *raps* Dripping tap, drowned rat, Reichenbach, neap! / splashing frog, shaking dog, soggy noggy moggy fog / tut tut, water butt, looks like waiting drops of rain upon my windowpaaane (speed up at this point…) / surface tension, water retention, plippy skippy crashy splashy blidder bladder downpour BURST!

Say something to the person who tagged you:
Safari park sounds good! Let's take your stash and let the baboons steal it.

1. Can you cook?

I can follow instructions competently, until something calls for manual skill (for example, anything beyond "fold X into Y"). I do not improvise with anything dangerous, e.g. hot ovens or bladed machinery. Generally I confine myself to grilling false meats and boiling chlorophyll to eat therewith, or stir frys.

2. What was your dream growing up?

Odd question. I suppose a growing-up with a bunch of komodo dragons and red pandas would've been quite dreamy, actually. Or a growing-up as a space pirate chieftain. I'd add "being raised by dogs", but I sort of was. Grew up with two.

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Slen and I played Arkham Horror round at someone's house last night. It's great fun! We had eight players plus the host, who GMed (doesn't need a GM, but it was very helpful because some of us hadn't played before). In fact we stayed so on top of things that it was really easy to win, despite the GM doing his best to, erm, 'liven things up' for us. Also, I got some odd looks from cooing in delight over the Hound of Tindalos.

During the game I went and talked to the Black Man for a laugh, seeing as my character had a sanity bonus so couldn't die during that encounter. I failed the roll but couldn't be devoured, found it much funny and didn't think much more of it.

So later last night, erm, I had some dreams.

Very, very whacked-out dreams. And I woke up with a non-existent and horrendous pop song in my head, a song that IMO could have come from nowhere but R'lyeh. It seriously took me about ten minutes to stop being very very confused. I was glad of that sanity bonus.

Am now in perfect frame of mind to have a go at fixing mum's Inspiron.

EDIT:

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Meme ganked from Narcissima and tweaked:

If you had to liken me to one or two characters (of whatever sex, species and so on) from any comic, movie, TV show, book and so on – who would it be, and why?

Finland's Euroviz entry has me wanting to go on another E-Type binge. <3 E-Type.

If Sweden could sing properly in her normal voice, I would've wanted her to win, but she sounded very weak (worse in the final performance, not the one linked; I'd say her operatic voice sounded better in the final, though). <3 Sweden anyway; always guaranteed for a great show.

Full marks to the BBC for their subtitle and red button coverage, as you'd expect from a compulsive viewer of subtitles. Although I did spot a few errors… ;)

And Norton, well, I'm happy to be proved wrong. He was good! Maybe it was knowing that most of his audience are gay or gay-friendly, so he doesn't try so hard with the "lol camp dicks omg p00fz0rs" stuff, or maybe he was trying to emulate Wogan, but he gave a great commentary, funny and biting while maintaining a semblance of dignity. Until the voting, because he actually seemed to care if we won. lol.

Progressiveness quiz (Flash, 40 questions)

"Your ideological score is 319/400. This makes you extremely progressive. The average score for Americans is 209.5."

Holy grief, I'm way above the Lib Dems there. I guess that makes me everything that's wrong with this country today.

(Screw the rabid Republican religious right, though, seriously. May they all be hoist with their own petard.)

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given. (If you've done it before, feel free to add a link so I can avoid duplication.)

Altivo gave me the following five:

Doggerel [heh heh, make of it what you will]
The dictionary definition of doggerel is comic verse of irregular measure. I am not quite sure what this means, and my working definition of doggerel is "rhyming poetry written in little time, not (necessarily) any good".

The reason I wouldn't ever mind my poems being described as such is quite simple: it has the word "dog" in it.

I do enjoy poetry, reading and writing it, but it has to rhyme and scan impeccably and not be what I consider 'up itself' or 'pretentious'. It helps also if something happens in it and it's funny. Poetry written for children tends to be good for these qualities.

I've been criticised, within a small writing feedback group I've frequented, for my overadherence to rhyme scheme and meter. I don't particularly want to move away from it, though. Those are what I like about the stuff in the first place.
Otherwise it
tends to feel
like prose
with
unnecessary
line breaks.

Doggerel! Doggerel is when people rhyme fire with desire (or, worse, higher), love with above (or, well, love with anything that rhymes with love; it's all over-done) or alone with [on my] own. When I hear these, I want to smite things. A good one I heard once, from Shania Twain I believe, was optimistic rhymed with pessimistic.

A doggerel might also be a cross between a dog and a cockerel. It could comb its own fur, but it might give you some rather sharp pecks on the cheek.

English
I am, I suppose, what one might call very English. I am not talking about being born in Chester, but more about such things as dry and ironic humour, honesty, fair play, dislike of making a fuss, excess of reserve and not doing sex. Oh, and liking dogs. A lot. However, I never drink tea, don't think all that much of the Royal Family or the Church of England, loathe cricket and football and am chronically disinterested in the weather.

I like the English language, though am aware that it's a pig for non-native speakers to learn. (Something about a Great Vowel Shift, which always sounds vaguely scatological to me.) I have no ear for accents and sometimes have trouble telling what people with thick accents (of any sort) are saying. Perhaps for this reason, Received Pronunciation accents — posh English, also called BBC or Queen's English — are the most pleasant on my ears. My own accent might be described as modern RP or BBC English with the edges knocked off, or… well, perhaps I'll record it someday and let others judge. I've lived in the North all my life, but don't have much of a local accent, if any at all.

I find the Heroes character Mohinder Suresh's Indian-tinged (or… less) accent extremely attractive, and was most peeved to find it was fake. Still good, though! The actor talks about it here.

I'm extremely weak to wordplay, too. Puns aren't the lowest form of wit. They are de rigeur, even obligatory, at least when one is handed the perfect set-up.

I'm also a pedant when it comes to those parts of English grammar that I fully grasp, which aren't necessarily all of it. I do have the reputation as go-to guy within the office for matters of spelling, punctuation or usage. What surprises me is that people are so nervous and unsure of some really very basic conventions. What might surprise people is that I didn't study English beyond the mandatory level (GCSE; 14–15 years of age) at school. And I learned nothing from those lessons beyond parroting someone else's interpretation of a poem. (This is what I think of the analysis of poetry by classes of 14–15-year-olds.) My secret? Genetics and upbringing, sad to say. I came into the world hard-wired to read; the usual autistic difficulties with language passed me by quite. I learned to read when I was about two years old (apparently it wasn't a question of being taught by a pushy parent; Small Me decreed that I jolly well would be taught) and didn't stop for many years.

There, I used the phrase "jolly well" as an intensifier. What more proof of Englishness do you need?

Sang-froid
The dictionary definition of sangfroid is "coolness of mind; calmness; composure". A quality I much wish I had. On the other claw, a less neutral and more negative definition — 'cold-bloodedness' in the sense of not caring about people — might easily be applied to me. I wish mankind no specific ill. Let's leave it there.

I also write a character known for both sides, coolness and coldness. (He means well. The problem may stem from the fact that he means well in an entirely theoretical and abstract sense.) However, in my writerly universe, your Captain Kirks and your headstrong princesses tend to get themselves killed out of clear incompetence and what we might call excessively glandularly-oriented decision-making, to the benefit of chaps like him; in other words, I deeply distrust people who claim to be led by their 'hearts' or 'gut feelings', which generally means "prejudices and guesses I don't want to bother to substantiate", and so I do not do things like setting up such rather reptilian sorts of fellows as cheap fall guys to 'prove' emotional humans are superior to thinking ones. Calculating people tend to succeed. At least ones who know how to play the socio-political game.

I actually have a character called Sangfroid, too; she is the great-grandmother of the character I've been talking about. She was a military general. It's said her legendary composure only cracked once, when her infant twins were in danger of death. (I bet whoever said that wasn't present at the birth. "More morphine, darling?" "Only half a glass, thank you; I'm driving.")

Twine [not string]
There was once a little installation of UseModWiki, hacked a little bit to include a 'boilerplate' text functionality, which was rather an achievement considering its owner didn't actually know any Perl. Its name was Twine Encyclopaedia and it was and is is the main publically-accessible repository of information regarding the HellMutt's writing characters, not to mention those of des co-writers at Profusion.

The little UseMod that could is named Twine because Twine is a word associated with Profusion's shared universe — though in exactly what manner remains to be seen. That's the nature of shared universes. The idea advanced so far is that it is the name of an interplanetary organisation that sets itself up as some breed of self-declared police force, tasking itself with applying and upholding interplanetary treaties and laws.

According to current plans, The Twine Encyclopaedia shall eventually apotheose and become some manner of wiki add-on in an installation of Drupal, which shall be database-driven and PHPish and Chaotic Good. Its owner does not currently know any PHP, except phpinfo(). You may be sensing a pattern here.

Kitties
As aforementioned, I like dogs. In actual fact I grew up with two exceptionally good-natured and well-trained Golden Retrievers. The stupider one knew upwards of 100 words in three languages plus sign language. This is why I don't believe in stupid dogs, only unambitious (one might even say inhibiting) owners.

I do not, however, currently enjoy the necessary honour of living with a dog, instead being drooled and occasionally sat upon by a fat, eleven-year-old, somewhat toothless cat.

They say write what you know, and so far I have a character, and to a lesser extent an entire species, based on or influenced by my inept observations of the feline nature. According to my fair and unbiased assessment of catkind, the character is murderous, spiteful, graceful, hateful, extremely fast, distractible, equal parts cynical and naïf, excessively interested in moving objects, rather dim, insecure, almost impossible to keep hold of if he wants to escape, utterly convinced of his own species' superiority to all other forms of life, and obsessed with balls of yarn. (In addition, he loves high places, can't bear to have his tummy touched and really hates getting wet.)

The character fiercely denies being kittyish in the least. He does not have fur, pointy ears or a tail and never wears bells around his neck, so we will have to believe him.

New meme! Test your gender as indicated by your self-confessed sins!

Gluttony, wrath, sloth — I'm 66% male, 33% female. Must work on Pride for that all-important equilibrium.

Make a list of 5 things you can see without getting up:

• Quiver trees (Aloe dichotoma) in Richtersveld National Park, South Africa (this picture), because I finally got bored of the ice floes and turned the calendar page over.
• Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots, printed out and stuck to the divider thingy at the back of my desk.
• Ten unmatched jigsaw pieces that I collected one day by the railway level crossing out of joy that such things would be unexplainedly scattered there.
• A little bright green plastic windmill (like a cocktail toy or party favour), which is a Super Secret Symbol of Freedom. It stands up because I cunningly pushed the the wooden stick through the bottom of an inverted plastic cup and then fixed the bottom with some Blu-Tack. The spirit of Blue Peter permeates this organisation, I tell you.
• An article about an ex-Nasa scientist who does origami, cut out from a newspaper. I have yet to make the origami snail from the directions in there, but I will.

It seems my desk is more personalised than I realised. And more untidy.

How do you style your hair?
"Short back and sides, please". If you mean what do I do with it when I get up in the morning, I brush it. If you mean how do I dry it, I towel what I can and let mother nature do the rest.

What are you wearing now?
A buff-coloured collarless shirt with mud (see below) on the left sleeve. Black slacks and my black ankle boots, a little muddy for unrelated reasons. A black baseball cap with a C and two Bs on it, a solar-charged watch of which I'm rather fond, contact lenses and underwear. A neutral expression.

Who was the last person you said 'I Love You' to?
I don't think I've said that outside childhood.

Do you nap a lot?
Only in meetings. Er. I'm trying to cut back on that.

Who was the last person you hugged?
What constitutes a hug? Held in my arms, whispered endearments to and rubbed heads with? That was this morning. The somewhat violent endearments ("You stink and I'm going to kill you" – these pass for endearments in my case) were followed by "On reflection, this may have been a bad idea". The reason for this was that I'd just realised about the muddy pawprints all up my sleeve. I have to work in this shirt, damn you.

I don't think this qualifies as a hug, but I did get a lot of kisses and (cleaner) paws up my arm from a dog outside the pharmacy on the way to work. I don't know what it was – like a very large Staffie. I want one. Those blunt, flat-topped HEADS and that bad waggy TAIL.

What TV character would you most like to meet in real life?
IMDb lists nine television adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles, hey?

Other choices, hmm. Lassie. I'd like to buy Irene Adler a drink. Oh, and meeting either first-season Mohinder Suresh or Hiro Nakamura from Heroes would be likely to be fun. I could quiz Suresh on how he talks so much bollocks about genetics given that he's supposed to be a geneticist, and hear him splutter about it in that rather gorgeous voice of his (which I will steal some day, oh yes). And Nakamura, well, we both like waffles. Oh, I know! A couple of Pratchett novels have been adapted for TV, so: Death. And Gaspode.

What was the last thing you ate today?
Low fat houmous. Shut up.

What was the last text message you received?
No mobile phone, but I did get an AQA texted to my brother for a laugh, just in case Charly got the question. The answer claimed Hazz is the most handsome member of Miniluv and that he makes the ladies go wild, which – no offence to drummers anywhere – I find myself reluctant to believe without photographic evidence.

What websites do you always visit when you go online?
At home, obviously: Profusion, home of fantasy and scifi collaborative writing and roleplay, email (if I don't have Thunderbird open), Gmail (nicer interface than Thunderbird anyway), two LJ friends filters, pholph.com (because it's one of the few comics I read that doesn't have a feed, curse you Tet), usually Neopets, usually check Twine. I almost always use Google for something, too, and often Wikipedia, Darklyrics and reference.com. I have a few news feeds set up in Google Reader, but am never arsed checking them.

What was the last thing you bought?
Just been to Sainsbury to break my fast with carrot batons (they didn't have any mangetout. Pout), low fat houmous and Diet Coke with Citrus Flavour Aspartame. Yes, all right, extremely girly, no need to rub it in.

What are you listening to right now?
Office ambience. Drone of one male voice to my left-left-front, cackling female to my front right, tictac of my keyboard.

What's the last song that got stuck in your head?
Don't Fear the Reaper, Blue Öyster Cult, is playing right now. I don't know why, but it's guaranteed to be a hideous pun. My brain does that all the time. (And if I wasn't filling in this meme backwards as is my habit, it'd be Meat Loaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light.)

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Teke, obviously. It's the granddaddy of all superpowers. For recreational purposes, shapeshifting, and teleporting would be useful too.

What is your favourite weather, and why?
For beauty's sake, light snow that doesn't settle (given that, beauty aside, I still have to walk to and from the station each day). To be out and about in, I'll settle for anything dry with moderate temperature. I love the wind in my face.

If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?
Electric bass is most likely. I don't really have a strong urge to play any instrument. Sing, perhaps, if only I had a deep enough voice.

How are you?
How? I just am; I don't have to try or anything! Epic!

What's something you'd like to say to someone right now?
I'd like to burst into a cheesy song from a musical at someone.

Your dream career?
I basically already have it, I think: something I do for money and leave at the office when I go home, ready to do my own thing with the rest of my time.

What's your favourite flavour of ice cream?
A few different Ben & Jerry's kinds – Cookie Dough, occasionally Phish Food (it's a bit rich), Caramel Chew Chew and Cherry Garcia (I think? cherry and dark chocolate bits)… well, I think I've liked all of theirs that I've tried. To avoid sounding like a B&J advert, I also like pistachio ice cream, and mint choc chip, and once had this very nummy melon flavour (yes, ice cream, not sorbet, quite weird). If anyone makes me this, I will immediately make you my wife.

Large graphic in this entry…. if it's working. If there's a broken image, that's rather annoying.

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SPOILERS FOR: Christmas, Eragon/Eldest by Christopher Paolini, Resident Evil 4, The Sally Lockhart Mysteries by Philip Pullman.

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters whose names begin with that letter and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

Anke, possibly foolishly, gave me the letter S. However, because I'm not feeling contentious enough to follow either my obvious first impulse to mention Satan, or a fleeting idea of mentioning Susan Pevensie because frankly she has no character beyond an Enid Blyton caricature of The Worried One Who Tries To Be Grown Up, so we're safe on the atheist score.

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Art for Vinchers on the Jack forum art exchange.

It's an attempt at her style with a little bit more realism, which I don't think was very successful. You still can't tell he's a raccoon, but if I'd been much more realistic you wouldn't be able to tell it was Vinci. So much for characters with very defined styles. I considered pulling back and showing the tail too, but went for a closeup on the breath instead. The idea for the fog and nose smears comes courtesy of Piper. (That cat is surprisingly helpful with ideas. I just recently used his typical eating habits as a model for Yavu, a starved street boy.)

I've already lost a decent chunk of weight (around 4.75kg, depending whose scales you use), which I'd expect in the first week. It helps being an old hand at this. I can tell myself from experience that the hunger (on Saturday I informed my bro I could dismember and eat a cow) disappears rapidly. And I'm detecting the bad breath, which means the hunger has indeed gone. *pops Listerine Active breath strip things*

An unwelcome return of the random discomfort down my right side that shows up whenever I'm walking, which I'd forgotten about. And I do want something to chew. They make flapjacks as well as the shakes. I may get some next week.

Been craving fruit in particular and other sorts of food, but I am maintaining a pretty philosophical outlook: "there'll always be quiche, there'll always be onion rings, there'll always be grapes marked down on special offer and there'll presumably always be stalls full of pomegranates and custard apples and figs oh my gods I am going to kill all humans". I'm taking B12 this time, as well as keeping up with vitamin tablets and some oil capsules, so I think I'll be fine nutrition wise.

Also enjoying informing certain parts of my body that they are to be "mass vanquished". Whatever gets you through the day.

Self-googling meme:

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I and three of my characters did a "Which famous leader are you?" test for fun and profit boredom.

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Loving WordPress's scheduled posts. Here's one I did way back halfway through the month, but it seemed too sad to post it then.

Vespers, Charly, Snog, *shotgunpump* we will have words. I like erasers, so Charlie is off the hook.

Today, probably vaguely spurred on by having read a few reports of people getting ink, at which I generally roll my eyes, I asked myself what I'd get as a tattoo if I absolutely had to get one. Rolling my eyes at myself, I proceeded to apply logic.

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Eyeballing angles game. Fun! I was expecting to be rubbish but got 3.89 (the lower the better). And I was hopeless at the triangles. I'm much worse in real life, though.