This week, I started working at my placement. I’m working two buildings on the same site, the smaller being cheaper scale flats, the other being a 7 floor jobby with a penthouse at the top. At present we’re only onto the second floor and I’ve been given the glorious job of marking out the columns making sure everything is in alignment and so on. The work is easy and mightly cold.

I felt I had to write something as it has been a while and still nothing really that informative has been jotted down. I’ve been in touch with rob via SMS (ever thought how oxymoronic “text message” sounds? as opposed to… finger puppet signalling?) Seems as though he isn’t doing as much as I am, but then again I don’t think that that is such a bad thing, given the weather being dire.

I’ll post images later on in the week when I’ve taken some that signify anything remotely interesting with regards to the work I have done. For example a column or something I dictacted the position to (with a few millimetres).

I have been some time trying to get my point across about this regression concept to people and finally I find a film that illustrates it. Now, I don’t know how you feel about Anthony Hopkins, whether or not you think he is a good actor or not. He is to me one of the best actors if not “the” best actor I have ever known, therefore my judgement of this film is somewhat biased.

To break the story down into an understandable plot, all I’d really need to say is: Anthony Hopkins plays the role of a man who finds himself regressed to a state where he is accepted by a family of gorillas. Though, through an incident with some poachers he finds himself being held for murder in which the whole of the film is set through psychoanalysis. The story was as predictable as the title. Danny Elfman doing the audio was irritating and furthermore you could see the end from a mile away. However, this film was great, filled with flaws and could of been done a million times better, but who cares? I loved it.

It isn’t really a film for everyone; I’m sure a film about a man who acts like an ape isn’t to everyone’s palette.

On a side note: I used to think Danny Elfman as a great film music composer but I’m beginning to find him irritating. His music always sounds the same, I’m certain you could make a “Danny Elfman film music maker” plug-in for home video editing in the future since it is so simple to put together. I wont take this bit back though, his music for Batman and all other dark films of the like (e.g. Edward Scissorhands) are wonderful, they just get boring when the film tempo changes and the music stays exactly the same.

I am so fed up with all my clothes. Everything in the shops/stores are the same. They are designed for apes: Arms too long, trouser legs too narrow, awkward cuts to make you look like a cretin.

Therefore:
“I AM SICK OF BADLY FITTING CLOTHES.”

Someone learn to measure the human form and you may find that one body is not the same as the next!

There are three defined body shapes: Ectomorph, Mesomorph and Endomorph. So, go figure you incompetent inconsiderate money grabbing idiots in the clothing industry. How can you generalize three vastly different anatomical structures into a standard of small, medium and large? That is just preposterous!

I’m going to get my clothes made for me… end of rant.

…am I the only person who finds this?

*updatey bit*
3 defined body shapes, which does not take into consideration age, or ethnicity. You cannot expect to find people from an Asian background to have the same anatomical structure as an American; an African bushman as a western European or anything else. So why bother trying to generalize?… why not have size sets … e.g. Ectomorph 20+ short, endomorph 40s average, etc. Sure it would imply that the shelves in the stores would be vast and confusing and hard to stock and an utter nightmare for the stock replenishment teams to put out at nights (a job I’ve done in the past). It would create employment if people had clothes made for them.

This article is utterly crap! I intend to rewrite this.

I have been a few days conjuring up this article. Before I indulge you with it I’d like to remind all those who read that everything written here is based upon my opinion, it is therefore impossible that I am wrong for it is only my opinion, therefore whether you morally disagree or see otherwise is not the point. Does that make any sense? I hope so.

So telepathy, to my understanding until recently, it has been that of being able to read another person’s mind. The problem with this misperception is the fact that one understands the word “read” as a factual based form of understanding. This would imply that factually, someone with such a gift could peer inside another person’s mind and grab the thoughts in a coherent, first tongue language. For example:

We associate a mind read to be able to decipher a thought you are currently holding… “I’m thinking red”… and the mind reader will say “you’re thinking red”

The problem is, I don’t think that telepathy is what we perceive it to be. I believe it has nothing to do with facts. To further this point I think that most animals work by telepathy, only us idiots (humans) walk around trying to guess what the other idiot is cogitating. Our conscious minds annul all native savage instincts (our impulses) and those that do creep in we suppress in embarrassment. So let me tell you about myself:

Throughout my life I’ve been able to sense people’s emotion and feelings; I wouldn’t say that this is a phenomenon of nature. I am not a freak. I merely am intuitive to people’s feelings. It would seem that I inherited this from my father’s side, which if I was to explain that if they were any lower down the evolutionary chain they’d be marauding in packs with clubs on their shoulders. I sometimes hold contempt for my father’s family; at times I also think that what they are is a good thing. The point I am trying to make is that telepathy is nothing special and in fact I think we all can be quite telepathic if we shut down the conscious mind and listened to our instincts.

There is so much we can “read” from one another that nulls out much of what we speak about. “How are you today?” in person is as redundant as prefixing the person’s name before every sentence you address to them. To reflect on what I am speaking about, we can just look at how people get when they loose their inhibitions. For example:

Drunk people!… they loose all sense of inhibition and whilst running around causing a ruckus and the like, you do get to a point of paranoia. This stage of paranoia is a conflict of your conscious mind and your instincts; you can see instinctively things that your conscious mind denies. To further this example, in an; oh so generic way:
Meet Tracey and Dave, they are drunk on a Saturday night at the local pub. Tracey gets drunk slightly faster than Dave. She notices while Dave is still quite merry that he eyes other women as they enter the room. Of course this is a natural instinctive reaction by males of all species, we have to assure ourselves that we’re breeding with the best potential partner. Tracey however, senses this lack of fidelity, becomes paranoid and walks out the pub and round the corner of the pub where she cries and Dave has to spend 3 hours outside the pub trying to cheer her up. The fact that in 3 hours her alcohol content subsides and the conscious mind takes over again doesn’t really figure to them, he figures she forgave him and she just sees how stupid her reaction was and they walk back into the pub for the last orders.

The point of that example is that a lot of conflicts internally are going on and we ignore them like idiots on a daily basis. Remember ladies it isn’t in our nature to be monogamous; guys it’s not what you say, its when you say it if the first time didn’t do the desired effect then maybe you should wait… try “reading” her and then you’ll know.

Though what I am most upset about is that how people treat you for it; I try and use this so-called telepathy to to the best of my ability, to understand what the person I am speaking to is feeling with regards to what I am saying. Using a little probability it isn’t too hard to guess what someone is going to do next, at times you can see something negative happen as an effect what is being said and if you saw this coming then what would be the point in no avoiding this situation, especially when it is not your intention for any negativity to occur, the problem lies in the fact that you have to compromise the intuition of having second guessed the other person. This in turn is considered “rude” and this still leads to negativity… sort of defying fate where fate catches up on you in the end.

What a load of twaddle! Forgive me for if this last example (or the whole article) made no sense at all to you.

Having read nothing about this film, I sat down to watch with Alison (my sister) and enjoyed it. The storyline is amazingly credible, the filming, the depth of the characters and the direction really does stand out, I guess being patriotic one could just say “what do you expect from an English film?” but really this was a very good film.

I guess speaking about this film is sort of silly without comparing to others, for it is unlike others in such a way that comparrison is the only fair way to share a view about it. While other films will automatically send you off into that fictional wonderland that you can disconnect later and go “its just a film!” to. Enduring Love makes you feel like you’re part of the film, you can relate to the roles and the personalities, it makes you enjoy it more by making it so personal. Having said all that, it isn’t a revolution that will open your mind and make you see oranges in a new shade of pink… it just is a good film that I highly recommend.

Go and watch it!

P.S. I hear the book is marvelous too, not that I read.

I finally started on a-bl0g hehe… taken plenty of thinking about to get the whole ball rolling. Give it 5 years and there might be a working draft.

The driving motivation behind this is the utter craptitude of WordPress, I am angry at myself everytime I have to see this crappy webapp, it was congealed with crappy code. *shudders*

I went with Rob to watch this flick in Leceister Square, been years since I’ve been to the cinema, and what a waste of time it was. It was clear from the overall picture that the writer/director had no idea what the plot was about and was poorly blagging their way through it. Michael Keaton did the best he could of a bad job and I still think he is a good actor, although the whole storyline was abysmal.

Basically the film is about an architect (woohooo) whose wife dies and he is desperate to see her again and through white noise through his tv/radio he gets messages from her to help other people. Most of the film include Michael Keaton shouting at his television and flicking video tapes in and out of recorders.

The generic: silence followed by a surprising scream and a screen flash of someone in pain was predictable throughout the film. It was so predictable you wouldn’t struggle too much in believing that the film was directed by a computer. Alas, it wasn’t.

It is a film you would want to watch in a group, throwing popcorn at the screen whenever something annoys you.

Ever wonder what or how the people you’ve lost contact with or those you no longer speak to, remember you? I doubt there is a single person who goes: “that Neil guy, he was something really special… “, because lets face it, if we’re no longer speaking or no longer in touch they more than likely were not that impressed to hang around.

Funny to think that you set out to be remembered well and that is the last thing you get. Might aswell be the bastard people remember me as and then I wont have to feel so down when I stop to think of those who no longer care to think of me.

The whole thing comes down under vanity which really doesn’t fit in with today’s culture of “what do you care?” crap… my responce “a lot, actually!” seems to not fit in in the culture’s colloquialized set of fixed responces.

<cynicism>

When giving responces that aren’t made of colloqualism, I generally get a facial responce that has the NeilOS equivalent of:

 NeilOS Prompt - Error Debugger
   - Error 1: Can't compute: SpazAttack caused by syntax error line 23...
   -          Near clause: where (response != generic) { go->ape(); }
   -                                                          ^
   - Error 2: Function "ape" not found. 
   - Beep!
  

</cynicism>

The point being is, I do care what people think. My life and my enjoyment in life is balanced by what people think and feel with respect to me. If I was utterly hated throughout my life then I will have a damn miserable one, however if I am loved and praised for being a nice person then I shall live happily. Whilst abandoning my ego, there is an exception (as always), it would be ridiculous to be so cold as to not care what people think of me, there would be little point in thinking if there was no emotion or feeling.

In my daily and oh so usual; “waiting for a train ponder”, I found myself defining what we understand by personal space. What I realized in through trying to define where such a space or significance to that space could be generated, I came to the simple understanding that the space is not a space but a time or a space in time lets call it: “personal period”.

We all need this personal period to digest events in either the past, present or future. Granted, some need more than others, and those who do not have that space generally seem to be those who are nervous, temperamental or just damn right out-of-Zen with themselves. This thought lead me to wonder about those who are in a perpetual denial of PP. For example, say: my sister, she admits to the fact she fears being alone to deal with the thoughts she may think. She consequently spends every waking moment either on the phone, speaking to someone (even those she doesn’t enjoy the company of), or occupied with tasks that require 100% concentration. Those of you who may have heard a mention of her or have met her would know she is highly strung and relentlessly argumentative. So this whole “denying yourself time to digest your own thoughts” makes me wonder what if she was left in a different environment in which all she did have was time to digest, say a deserted island, beyond survival there is a whole load of nothing to do when you’re on your own, apart from thinking.

I guess saying that “I think we all should find a fair compromise between the two and indulge in neither, that would be a good thing”, would be just damn right obvious. Look at me for example, I am the complete inverse of my sister, I have more time on my hands than I have thoughts to occupy it with and eventually find and create problems for myself to linger on just to keep my sanity (should I still have it). There isn’t a conclusion to this article, I’m merely bringing forth the idea of personal space and wondering whether there is a fair compromise and how one could keep in that level.

I’ve just come back to add a little more to this as I have just remembered that there is another detail to personal period that is absolutely essential. Personal period comprises of undisturbed time, and I guess familiar surroundings that makes the individual comfortable, this is probably where the “space” part comes in to the “personal space” bit. Although, previously mentioning that I have excessive amounts of time on my hands, that would be a complete lie. Where I live, I’m perpetually distracted and caused grief by the external noises and disturbances that affect my humble abode; for example: recorded telephone calls catching you when you’re concentrating on something that would seem important at the time they sends me miles out of sync. Junk mail feeding through my door as if it were on a conveyor belt (I always chase the immigrants out of the stairwell with abuse), the washing machine from the people downstairs, screaming of children and lastly emergency service sirens piercing the silence 24 hours of the day.

My personal space of my room and the time on my hands does not mean I’m a settled or a well adjusted person, it just reflects on how frustrated I am, as all I wish to do is resolve my troubled mind.

This article is so inconclusive! hehe

London buses now claim in advertisements quite proudly how they have now; “4 in 5 buses now have CCTV” (cctv = camera surveillance for non-UK citizens). For those of you who know anything about London’s public transport history would know that buses until a while ago used to operate with a driver and a conductor, the conductor would sell tickets, give useful travel information to travellers and make sure that the bus was clean and that everything was in order. Alas, it was considered more efficient to get rid of the conductor as he plays a redundant part of the journey and costs too much to have. Nowadays we have a bus driver who sells the tickets which now takes on average 30 seconds more per stop. The problem with loosing the conductor has caused, a) people climbing on the bus in the exit, b) fake passes that the bus driver hardly has a chance to look at, c) unsavoury cretins causing allsorts of trouble to decent passengers and lastly, d) vandalism and graffiti. Hence the call for the surveillance cameras we now have.

The point that I’m trying to get at is the following: each of these new buses which now have about 8 cameras on-board must need someone to supervise the video feeds, and that isn’t including the cost of the installation and maintenance of the cameras. The cameras are not a preventative measure; they’re just tools for incriminating the guilty. So, why not just have a conductor on the buses giving useful information, cutting down travel times by selling (and checking valid passes) and making sure the bus is good order instead of paying for some useless equipment and some security company to supervise the video feeds.

It is so antisocial.