Blogs are boring

Fuck me it never ends with this shit.
Overly intellectual (usually British) guy
girl who writes too much fanfiction and thinks she's humanity's gift to literature--
religious person who won't shut the fuck up about little shit being baby Jesus--
furries (just kidding that's not even a thing anymore)
actually, yeah, let's talk about furries briefly.
Remember all those people who said in their soul they were actually a fox?
What happened to that?
Are they even still around anymore?
How long has it been since we've had a furry blog?
This wave of boring pseudo-intellectualism and Dr. Who fanfiction has just obliterated the furry.
Not that I'm complaining or anything but, I dunno, I need some variety. I think all the words and permutations of words I can use in regards to stultifying Dr. Who fanfiction story #58934741.3 I'm skipping have been exhausted.
Anyway pseudo-intellectual person.
Maybe a girl. Who can say?

I've spent a not inconsiderable part of the day coping with the inefficiencies of the current financial infrastructure. First I went to pay off a chunk of my mortgage. I went to my old C&G branch at Moorgate, walked in, gave my cheque to the cashier and told her what I wanted to happen. After some apologies that it was "her first day", I was passed along to the next guy, who told me that it was now a TSB branch, and although he could process it, it might be a better idea for me to go to the Lloyds branch around the corner.

Have you ever seen Reservoir Dogs?
Well that'd be a solution.
Just saying.

So, of I went to the Lloyds around the corner. That led to a 25 minute farce as they tried to work out what to do. The main problem is that most of the mortgage payments that they receive in branches are just that - payments on the mortgage. What I wanted to do was reduce the principle on an interest-only mortgage, a different transaction entirely. And they just could not find out what code they had to enter.

>reduce the principal
whoa easy there, Mr. Moneybanks. This is 2014.

When did the 1960s start? 

January 1, 1960.

The obvious answer is, January 1 1960. People took more notice of decades in those days. I do not remember the passing from the 1950s to the 1960s, but I do remember the passing from the 1960s to the 1970s. I went to a New Year's Eve Party at a council flat off the Wandsworth Road. A pop TV programme was on, of which I only really remember The Who.

January 1, 1960.
Unless we're talking metaphorically like when did the culture stop being 50s and start being 60s.
Because as we all know the 80s actually started in 1978.

But social movements and decades do not neatly coincide. And how one defines "the sixties" depends on your parameters. Politics? Economics? Fashion? Music? Literature? Film? 

Like 1964 or something.
I possess two well-known books on that decade - The Neophiliacs by Christopher Booker and The Pendulum Years by Bernard Levin.
Yes, truly those are the books of the 1960s.
Two books I haven't even heard of.
Not Dune?
Like of all the books of the 1960s surely Dune should be in the top 2.

It would be easy to write 200 pages on how the Age of Austerity morphed into the era of "You've Never Had It So Good" and then morphed again into the end of that Macmillian era -- so beautifully drawn by Timothy Birdsall in an early Private Eye, depicting Bacchanalian excess at the heart of the Conservative government.

That sounds like the least interesting thing ever.
Like holy shit that was the era of psychedelics and scifi and that's what you got?

But this is more of a personal memory, written down now because, I realize to my horror, far fewer people are alive who remember the early 1960s than those who do not.

Yeah that means you're too old to be blogging. My mom doesn't remember the early 60s.
She was a toddler then.
You gotta stop, dude.
Like come on man.

I was quite distinctly defined by pop music. And so my measure of the start of the 1960s is pop-related.

I was reminded of this while watching a compilation of 1960s hits. With the benefit of time, it's easier to see the flow from the 1950s through the 1960s to the 1970s. The "new music", so hated by my father, in terms of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, really consisted of nice middle-class white boys in sharp suits and ties, adapting the blues music of American blacks. If you wanted a real innovator in UK terms, you had to look to Lonnie Donegan.

No, it was not "She Loves You" that defined the beginning of the 1960s, not for me.

While watching that 1960s music compilation, I realized that the real groundbreaker was Sonny and Cher's performance in 1965 on Top Of The Pops of "I've Got You Babe". The tune was not radical, but the words represented the San Francisco ethos that would become famous three years later with Scott Mackenzie. 

YES, TRULY
SONNY AND CHER ARE THE 1960S.
THERE WERE NO BETTER ACTS.
Like I say 1960s music and what's the one answer you should give?
Oh I don't know, what about THE BEATLES YOU FUCKING RETARD

I had an interesting encounter early on in my holiday in Las Vegas. I was talking to a rather intelligent ultra-liberal (for the US) poker player, about 30 years of age. Somehow the conversation got round to living for nothing in London, and I mentioned the word "ligger".

He reacted with horror, which puzzled me. Then he said that it would be difficult to use that word in the US, because it was too close to the "N Word". 

1. ligger isn't a word.
2. shut the fuck up.

Needless to say, this set me off on one. "So", I said, "the liberals are now so sensitive to the word nigger that you can't even use words that SOUND like it? Hasn't the fact that words which sound like each other don't necessarily mean similar things sunk in in liberal America?"

Subsequently I asked him if he had similar problems with the words rigour, figure, bigger and that character from the Jungle Book, Tigger.

I'm suddenly reminded of my buddy in EVE Online, Digger Nick.

Obviously, he hadn't. That was because the meanings of these words were in his brain. The transfer to meaning from sound was entrenched. However, with "ligger" (a word that he did not know) he had no meaning to fall back on -- only the sound of the word. It was this which caused him to think that there would be a problem with the word.

But does this not also say something damning about liberal America? The word "nigger" (even though he could not bring himself to say it) was so high in his consciousness; the fear of offending "African-Americans" was so great, that when I mentioned a word that even rhymed with nigger, then that was the first word he thought of. Not "figure", "rigour", "bigger", or "Tigger". No, his mind leapt immediately to a word that he could not bring himself to utter.

Remember when Fox news was debating if the word nigger was as bad as cracker?
But it wasn't "nigger vs cracker" it was "n-word vs cracker"
like when you won't even say one of the words
that's the worse word
Also I'm allowed to type the word nigger because I'm called it enough in a 24 hour period by teenagers I'm basically black at this point.
Like when a 6'7" kid comes in with his posse and addresses me "what up my nigga" and means it genuinely there's something wrong
like I'm a tie and a clipboard away from being middle management I don't think this is how this is supposed to work
but yeah good to see you too, Larry

This, I feel, indicates a far higher level of race consciousness amongst white liberals than the white working class. I've long maintained that part of my problem (as far as white liberals are concerned) is that I frequently forget the race and colour of people. To me, they are people.

I don't even give a shit about race
black, white
Indian
Asian
Hispanic
you're all dumbass teenagers who don't know the first thing about anything to me.

As such I do not have this white liberal (and, it must be admitted, black intelligentsia) hyper-sensitivity to the "travesties of history". I'm not perpetually carrying a guilt trip for the misdeeds of people in the 18th century who happened to have a skin similarly hued to mine. 

I just want to know why black people name their kids after Roman Emperors.
I mean by and large black American culture is very offended by their past enslavement (totally understandable) but naming your kids after the rulers of people who are so sold on the idea of slavery they owned white slaves too--
not sure that's what you're aiming for.
Maybe they just like the names.
I will agree they had some rad names.

It would be a lot easier if the white liberals and black intelligentsia could think the same way.

Most black people I meet are about as sick of the likes of Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson playing the race card incessantly as anyone else.
They're just people, Jesus. Most of them are just trying to make some money before they fucking die like the rest of us.
Here's a post about online poker--
but not like "here's my grand online poker strategy" it was just a discussion about point conversions.
Want to read four paragraphs about me discussing the merits of buying champions in League of Legends with Riot Points versus Influence Points?
NO?
Me neither.
Fuck it.

Third day in France, and not a whisper of a blog entry. 

Wow that's fucking incredible.
Not a whisper of a blog entry so what the fuck are all these words that follow this sentence?
It's the miracle entry.
It's the fucking virgin birth of blogs.
The entry that wasn't conceived.

Have Facebook and Twitter updates truly made the blog redundant?

Why are you asking this question on a blog?
Clearly the answer is no.

Certainly a significant number of the people whom I know who used to write blogs now confine themselves to FB or (increasingly) Twitter posts.

I'll admit that, when Twitter started, I was sceptical. Grubby (Pauly's brother) was the first blogger whom I saw mention it, 

Who you saw mention it.
You directly mentioned him. Grubby, Pauly's brother, who was the first blogger I saw mention it.
He is the subject of this sentence.
Whom is the direct object.

when he was working at a radio station, back in, I dunno, 2008 or something like that. First of all, I couldn't quite get the hang of what it was, and then I couldn't quite work out what the point was. I got the fact that it would be useful for real-time updates of chip counts and the like, but this was before the smartphone and 'always on' was ubiquitous, even in Europe, let alone the US, which was about 18 months behind the curve when it came to mobile telecommunications.

>need a mathematical count for a mathematical game
>uses Twitter and not a spreadsheet
come on dude what the fuck there's a reason the stock market is a ticker and a candle graph and not twitter.com most valuable stock on the NYSE

And, speaking of mediums, I'm writing this on a laptop which is on my lap. That doesn't happen very often. Laptops in the main these days are more portable desktops than laptops, aren't they?

... No?
I know we're getting cute with our words but a desktop just means there is a cabinet for the computer and the other bits are separate and a laptop is integrated.
And I swear to God if anyone posts about Macs being integrated I will kill myself and haunt you.

In the office a few years ago you would see people moving between floors carrying their notebooks (paper). Now they are carrying their laptops.

Do you want to pick a thought and stick to it?
What I got from this:
Twitter replaced blogs because laptops replaced paper.

People moan about the depersonalization of air travel these days, and never stop criticizing the hassle off fflights in the modern world.

Did you guys see the Korea Airlines commercial during the Olympics?
Prove to me that isn't a country that has its fucking act together.
Hot women in skirts.
Have you seen American airline commercials?
I feel like I'm being sold a line of credit.
Fuck off, everyone.
Here just compare.
Am I going crazy
Like I dunno which would you rather do?
Go on Korean Air where hot women will serve you drinks with umbrellas and this P.F. Chang looking motherfucker will cook you chicken or do you want to hear bloated William Shatner and that unfunny cunt from Big Bang Theory cackle?
Excuse my while I load this 9MM and put it to my fucking temple.

One of the things investors are always careful of when looking at balance sheets is spotting how "optimistic" a company is when it comes to booking revenue. 

I don't know why companies are ever optimistic in predicting their earnings. If you meet expectations your stock goes down because it didn't exceed them and if you don't meet them it really goes down
so just assume the fucking worst.

If you see marriage as a religious institution rather than a legal institution, one "sanctified by god and by god alone", then you could be a strong supporter of gay rights and yet still feel unable to vote in favour of gay "marriage", because (their argument would go) they simply cannot do so because they believe the institution of marriage to be something unique to a man and a woman. 

To which I'd remind you that not everyone believes in your hateful desert god.

That isn't homophobia (the most common accusation) or bigotry (the second-most common accusation). It's a deeply held belief (no matter how misguided from some people's point of view) based on an interpretation of the Bible. 

Wrong is wrong.
Well intentioned or not.
Some day people will learn the only thing that actually matters is results.

In the early days, advertising and marketing was effective because it was new. If advertisers and marketers had been shrewd, they would have rationed it – kept it rare and thus maintained its level of impact. It could, in other words, have become a sustainable ecology.

There you go. Better to sell one of something at 300 dollars than 10 of something at 40 dollars.
You heard it here first, people.

It was nice to come back from Las Vegas in profit. I still haven't achieved the dream of paying for everything, but I came pretty close. I won $1,350. The holiday cost $880 (flight), $400 (spent), and $630 (hotel, including added gym and internet fees). So that's $560 spent for the entire two weeks. However, included in that is about $100 that I spent on clothes and stuff (I bought another $200-worth on my card). So that brings it down to $460. And if I had stayed at home I would have spent about $160 at Tesco and maybe $200 elsewhere. So the net cost of the fortnight, in a hotel, in Las Vegas, and most definitely not here, was $100. I'd take that deal.

>profit
>lost 560 dollars
uhhhh
maybe I'm don't know what profit actually is but what?
Also you "won" 1350 after two weeks. What's that in dollars per hour?
Because I'm guessing it's about minimum wage.

I also won about $1,350 online this year -- pathetic compared to the $25,000-odd that I chalked up in 2009, but rather better than the $10 or thereabouts that I achieved in 2011.

I can tell you precisely when the wheels started to came off -- it was in October 2009 in France. My monitor blew up, so I started playing cascading rather than tiled.

>tool failure
>instead of replacing the tool you change the fundamentals of what you do to make money
>wonder where you started going wrong
do people think about shit ever?

Dell announced a 47% drop in profits this morning. That's a neat indication to anyone who supports buying "growth companies" as an investment strategy that the important part of that strategy is to know when to get out.

>Dell is also looking to go private
>implying
Fuck blogs Jesus Christ.
But do you know what shouldn't even be badmouthed ever?
Playing Fallout: New Vegas and then this is on the radio in the game.