Better Living Through Cleanliness

Q. How many Ewan McGregors does it take to Ewan McGregor a Ewan McGregor?

A. Ewan McGregor!

posted by Adrian @ 6:33 PM 9 comments

I am a clerical officer, or if you will, a grunt. I have much in common with those characters from the classic video game Quake. You could call me cannon fodder, either. BUT... this job actually stresses me out a great deal, in my first three weeks I don't seem to have learnt anything at all. I still make stupid mistakes and I still find it virtually impossible to talk to immigrants over the phone. I'm still to shy to talk to most of my co-workers. Getting up at 6am is killing me. I hate commuting, and I keep falling asleep on the train. Last Thursday the only reason I even realised that I had done it was the fact that the tall Asian guy who had sat beside me since Leixlip Louisa Bridge had become a petite Irish girl at some point which I hadn't noticed. Over the last few weeks I've played Solitaire and Hearts enough for several lifetimes.

And this stupid interactive composition is no closer to being done than it was three weeks ago. I should probably take this opportunity to big up Miller Puckette, inventor of PD. Much of the software that I've been using this past year has been free, in particular PD, which is a kind of graphic-based programming language for audio and midi applications. It can do really nifty things, but I don't seem to be having much luck in thinking of interesting applications, though.

Still, if my paycheques ever clear I'll be able to buy crack, and all of my problems will be over. As we all know, crack is considerably less harmful than coffee or diet coke. And at this point probably cheaper than either. I can bring myself to drink coffee, despite it being a staple for most of my fellow commuter grunts. It makes many people want to poo, but in my case I'm struck by the urge to vomit. It's dis-GUST-ing!

Oh, and those London bombings, which everybody on the entire fucking internet seems to feel the need to comment on. Okay, here goes: I think that blowing up people is wrong. In particular I wouldn't want to die in a subway carraige, but then again I wouldn't want to step on a landmine either. My point is that given the amount of people starving to death right now fifty-two people isn't a particularly huge number. I can remember when I first started college as a fresh faced eighteen year old I told people that I was a pacifist. Which is silly. While I absolutely admire Buddhists and their commitment to pacifism, I just don't believe that it works. Look at Tibet. Pacifism would only work if everybody else was a pacifist too. In this spirit I offer the following solution to the Western/Middle Eastern conflict: we blow up America AND the Middle East. Then we go out for pizza and ice-cream.

In other news, on my second day I got on the wrong train and ended up in Howth. However, Howth is excellent, and I took a six km walk along the beach. I bought my first Rush album. The excellent, and beautifully shot Carnivàle came to and end with a surprising anti-climax, so I no longer have an reason to watch tv. Since walking to and from the train station is only half the distance to the college, I've had to make up for it in other ways. I've been taking the stairs to the fourth floor.

So, that's all of MY news... Now where did I put that crack pipe?

posted by Adrian @ 5:39 PM 6 comments