| I do so enjoy interlectual bebate on AIM... |
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| 11:24am 09/02/2004 |
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mood:  amused music: BBC News24
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Swift Pints: so how long is the mrs away for?
Conan The Librarian: just the week end
Conan The Librarian: while the cats away, the mouse will play...
Swift Pints: by play you mean sit about on the sofa in your skanky old pants watching TV don't you...
Conan The Librarian: lol, sadly, yeah
Conan The Librarian: its shark week on the Discovery channel
Swift Pints: It's always shark week on the discovery channel
Conan The Librarian: lol, true
Conan The Librarian: except when it's Nazi week
Swift Pints: that's also true
Swift Pints: so how long is the mrs away for?
Conan The Librarian: just the week end
Conan The Librarian: while the cats away, the mouse will play...
Swift Pints: by play you mean sit about on the sofa in your skanky old pants watching TV don't you...
Conan The Librarian: lol, sadly, yeah
Conan The Librarian: its shark week on the Discovery channel
Swift Pints: It's always shark week on the discovery channel
Conan The Librarian: lol, true
Conan The Librarian: except when it's Nazi week
Swift Pints: that's also true
Swift Pints: I hope you are learning something
Conan The Librarian: about Nazi's or sharks?
Swift Pints: either
Conan The Librarian: how about nazi-sharks?
Swift Pints: They were acquitted at the Nuremberg trials
Conan The Librarian: lmao
Conan The Librarian: well at least I am learning about sharks
Swift Pints: such as what?
Conan The Librarian: that they can detect the smallest movement or drop of blood in the water from miles away
Swift Pints: Probably best that sharks wern't Nazis then...
Swift Pints: they would have found Anne Franke in no time at all
Conan The Librarian: lol
Conan The Librarian: I respect Anne Frank
Conan The Librarian: she didnt sucome to the temptation for a money spinning sequel
Swift Pints: hahahaha
Swift Pints: To be fair, she didn’t even bother to finish the first one, so a sequel was always going to be a big ask
Conan The Librarian: I’m surprised the SS didnt hear the typewriter in the first place
Swift Pints: A shark would have heard it from miles away
Conan The Librarian: this is the sort of information the discovery channel should be giving us
Swift Pints: Typical media cover up
Swift Pints: Have you noticed that Steve Irwin is blonde haired and blue eyed?
Swift Pints: I think he is attempting to build a new Reich with the crocodiles, the sharks having failed
Conan The Librarian: lmao
Conan The Librarian: Nazi Crocodile Hunter tonight on Bravo
Swift Pints: Is Bravo still running?
Conan The Librarian: I think so
Swift Pints: It’s just Granada Men & Motors; without the tits
Conan The Librarian: but they show the A-team all the time
Swift Pints: Yeah, but GM&M still does topless darts every night at 7
Conan The Librarian: topless nazi darts with sharks, that’s the future
Swift Pints: I wouldn’t bet against it
Conan The Librarian: presented by Steve Irwin, I think it’s a winner
Swift Pints: I think we missed our vocations in life as TV producers
Conan The Librarian: I already found my vocation in life
Swift Pints: Which is?
Conan The Librarian: sitting here in my skanky pants watching the telly |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| The Tribute To David Brent Post... |
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| 01:38pm 23/12/2003 |
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mood: amused music: The Office - Series 2
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The word of Brent...
“You’re all looking at me, you’re going “well yeah, you’re a success, you’ve achieved you’re goals, you’re reaping the rewards, sure. But, OI, Brent! Is all you care about chasing the yankee dollar?” Let me show you something I always keep with me. Just a little book, Collective Meditations, and it’s a collection of philosophers, writers, thinkers, native American wisdom, which I, and it’s really showing you that, er, the spiritual side needs as much care and attention as the physical side. It’s about feeding the soul, yeah? Evolving spirituality. And a foreword by Duncan Goodhew, so...
Can I read one-which I think- “If all men were to bring their miseries together in one place, most would be glad to take each, his own, home again, rather than take a portion out of the common stock.” It’s saying, for the first time, you know, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, don’t look over your neighbour’s fence and go “ooh he’s got a better car than me, ooh, he’s got a more attractive wife.” We all wake up and we go “oh, I ache, I’m not 18 any more, you know, I’m thirty ni- you know, I’m in my thirties, I’m not-”, but so what, at least I’ve got my health. And if you haven’t got your health-if you’ve got one leg, at least I haven’t got two legs missing. And if you have lost both legs and both arms, just go “at least I’m not dead!”
I’d rather be dead in that situation, to be honest. I’m not saying people like that should be...you know, put down. I’m saying that, in my life, I’d rather not live without arms and legs because...I’m just getting into yoga, for one thing. So....”
Brent Dances
Brent Sings |
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| An appeal for information... |
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| 04:31pm 21/12/2003 |
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mood: hungover music: The Sex Pistols - anarchy in the UK
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To anyone I spoke to on Saturday/Sunday.
I have no recollection of anything. I think I remember leaving the pub at about 6am, I remember because the sun was coming up when I left. I woke up infront of the computer, a half eaten kebab in one hand and a half drunk pint of lager in the other around 11am, and no memory of any of the events after around 2a, the previous night.
If I communicated with you in this time, could you please fill in the gaps.
Many thanks in advance. |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| All our journals are shite... |
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| 09:46am 16/12/2003 |
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mood:  thoughtful music: BBC News24
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Well maybe they arn't, after all, who am I to judge.
But the diary, to me, is a uniquely fascinating literary form, there are several million online blogs, journals and diaries, and from the random sample I look at (present company accepted, of course), the vast majority are published by illiterates, weirdos or whining teenagers. But a few, are works of genius. Salam Pax, whose Baghdad Blog was published in a book this year is a shining example. His witty and intuitive look at Iraq as the bombs decended around him, while he was worrying about what the new Cold Play album was going to be like, was both moving and hysterical.
There are good reasons why children being introduced to the holocaust are first directed to Anne Frank. Few writings about the rise of Nazism are as chilling as Victor Kemplerer’s simple observation on March 30th 1933; “In a toy shop, a children’s ball with a swastika”.
A middle aged Jewish languages professor and a Iraqi computer enthusiast, recorded the incremental absurdities of a situation descending inexorably into madness around them, and took great personal risk to do so, and have produced two of the most memorable journals I have ever read.
Their diaries resonate because both insisted on living their lives as normally as possible, despite the lunacy surrounding them. Pax fretting about the new Cold Play album’s release, 45 minutes after the house 2 doors away was flattened by a US laser guided bomb is one of the most amusing things I have read in a long time. Klemperer talking at length in erudite and articulate terms about the new film he had just seen, then just a cursory mention at the end of the entry that he was attacked by members of Hitler’s SA upon him leaving the theatre holds the same grim gallows humour and moving poignancy.
So basically, if you want your journal to become more interesting, it’s simple, you need to relocate to Mogadishu or Grozny as soon as possible, because at the end of the day, if you live in Milton Keynes, you are going to have to do something pretty special to make it interesting.
Self-delusional journals can be both as funny and equally interesting, probably my favourite example of this is the diary of Louis XVI, whose entry for July 14th 1789 (the day of the storming of the Bastille in revolutionary France) was simply one word - ‘rain’. Something even he must have found amusing as he walked up the steps to the guillotine. Just as amusing is a journal I read of an accountant in Birmingham, who accepts his life is dull, boring and lifeless, and his bitter rantings about just how boring and dull it is makes it a joy to read.
12.17pm “Jesus may have been able to feed the five thousand, but could he have finished a data analysis on product development of kitchen bleach within a 4.2 time agenda? Me thinks not. I am now going to drink bleach to quell the pain of my sorry fucking existence.”
17.22pm “Drank bleach. Tastier than imagined. This may effect my data analysis. Death just doesn’t come to those who need it.”
Che Guevara was a largely useless revolutionary, who would have been forgotten had Alberto Korda’s camera not caught his handsome face gazing into the distance. However his journal is something that should have earned him fame. His tales of motorcycling through south America as a young man are great fun. Those entries written as a guerrilla fighter in the Congo and Bolivia are as an engaging depiction of futility as you could ever hope to read.
But Guevara, one month before his eventual capture and execution left us the best journal sign off of all time. September 14th 1967 – “Run out of ink”.
Sadly, people don’t seem to graciously run out of keys... |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| Some numbers to think about... |
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| 08:46am 08/12/2003 |
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mood:  pessimistic music: Madness - one step beyond
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The amount of money contributed by the worlds 10 largest economies to provide education in for the worlds poorest $1.47 billion
The amount extra needed to ensure every child recieves a basic primary education $5.7 billion
The amount of money spent on the Iraq War by the UK government $5.7 billion
The amount of money required to provide drugs for all those in Africa suffering from AIDS and who currently have no access to treatment $6.8 billion
The amount of money spent by Americans on Barbie dolls per year $6.9 billion
The total estimated cost to provide primary and secondary education to those who currently do not have access to it globaly AND provide drugs and treatment to AIDS sufferers globaly $24 billion
The amount of money spent by Americans on pizza last year $28.6 billion
The amount of money spent by Europeans on icecream last year $17.3 billion
Speak for themslevs don't they... |
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Read 11 - Post |
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| Klench Mychiques and the best of my 419.... |
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| 08:48pm 04/12/2003 |
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mood: amused music: Happy Mondays - tell me twice
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As I had not updated in a few days, and have little of worth to say, what follows is longest 419 scam bait I have ever been involved in, over 2 months of fun and frolics at the expense of everyones favourite Nigerian scamsters...
I warn you now its pretty long but, I think, very funny....
( Read on and enjoy ) |
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Read 15 - Post |
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| Champions Of The World |
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| 05:06pm 22/11/2003 |
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mood: Smug & Patriotic music: England vs Australia
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England - Rugby World Cup Winners 2003
Australia 17 England 20
Somebody will always have already said it better than me, so I will leave this post to a quote from a man who sums it up better than I ever could...
"Let us pause to consider the English. Who when they pause to consider themselves, they get all reticently thrilled and tinglish, because every Englishman is convinced of one thing; that to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is". - Ogden Nash |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| Scamming the scamsters - The world of 419 |
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| 10:55am 21/11/2003 |
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mood:  accomplished music: The Clash - I fought the law
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While enjoying my self-imposed exile in Wales for a few days (in an attempt ot get better away from the hectic life of business in Amsterdam), I have been indulging heavily in my favoured passtime of 419 scamming, probably the equivilent of an internet blood sport.
Essentialy for a while now, a scam run from Nigeria, involving them promising you a share of huge fortunes in exchange for you looking after their money for a few weeks, has been going on for months now. They send emails to people in the UK and Europe and I am sure more increasingly in the future the USA, and offer vast wealth in exchange for your bank account details, so they can deposit the money, whereupon they clean you out of every penny you have. (This is a simplification of the scam, it can be quite complex, and many people nieve people have been taken in by it).
419 is the section of the Nigerian penal code it contraviens. However, some individuals (myself included) took upon the idea of '419 baiting'.
Of actualy going along with the scam, but trying to make them look as stupid as possible, such as making them send you photos (after you insist upon it to make them prove they exist) with your name on it.
The point being, you have to use the most ridiculous name possible, so far we have acheived signs saying 'Semen Stains', 'Ben Dover', 'Iama Dildo', 'Princess Chicken Tika Masala' and my personel favoutite 'Darth Vader'. (After the LJ cut will be some of the best of these photos)
But then the idea came, rather than justb taking the piss out of them, what if we actualy tried to scam them back, and infact get money out of them. Months of protracted emailings back and forth had done little for me, some of them were proving not to be as stupid as they look. People I know had been sucessful, but it had taken time, but today I am happy to say, I have my first scalp.
$2500 (US) was deposited into a bank account in Switzerland from a Nigerian 'business collective' who were under the impression that Kieron McCarthy was going to give them access to all his personel details in exchange for a 20% cut of a $80 million dimaond mine. (they provided some very convinsing documentation to support this claim, but then again, so did I). I wont give the exact details of how I did it here, for obvious reasons, but if you want to know how, ask me privately, and I will let you know.
Basic information about 419 scamming, and our collective can be found HERE
( Some of the photos ) |
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Read 14 - Post |
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| And now, the results from the Dutch judges... |
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| 11:26am 15/11/2003 |
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mood:  determined music: Travis - driftwood
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It seems that I have a small 'rip' in the surface of my left lung, probably caused by some form of 'trauma' with in the last few months. They seem to think it was caused by a sliver bone from of a broken rib, but as my medical notes show, I have broken ribs so often, it could apparently have happened anytime... *suitably confussed expression*
I am informed it may lead to 'Pneumothorax' (a collapsed lung) and infact it may have already in the past. Thus I have to have some kind of corrective surgey by the looks of it, or the other option being concidered is an injection of 'chemicals' (I was not told what sort, so your guess is as good as mine) to weld my lung to my chest cavity.
The biggest problem however has been my conversational Dutch is pretty good now, but my understanding of quickly jabbered medical Dutch seems to leave alot to be desired.
But the good news is, it wasnt any of the truely disturbing and nasty things it might have been. I have to go back this afternoon to discover just which kind of barbaric proceedure they have selected for me to endure... |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| My boyhood hero.... |
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| 07:12pm 14/11/2003 |
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mood: nostalgic music: Killing In The Name Of - Rage Against The Machine
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Today I was asked who my boyhood hero was, and after about 0.000000001 seconds thought, I said "Robin Friday".
Why?
He drunk shedloads, he smoked liked an industrial chimney, he dropped acid the night before matches, he swore like a Irish navey and had more fights than Mike Tyson. What more can you ask for in a footballer?
( My hero ) |
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Read 4 - Post |
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| Musical Medicine... |
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| 01:20pm 14/11/2003 |
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mood: optimistic music: Madness - Victoria Gardens
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I have put some songs on a mini-disc to keep me occupied while I am waiting around in hospital corrodors being jabbered at in Dutch:
1. The Clash - London calling
2. The Jam - going underground
3. The Specials - too much too young
4. Radiohead creep (acoustic)
5. The Cure - love cats
6. 10 CC - dreadlock holiday
7. Blur - end of a centuary
8. Oasis - she's electric
9. The Lighteningseeds - pure and simple
10. Sham 69 - going down the pub
11. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - make me smile
12. The Sex Pistols - pretty vacant
13. These Animal Men - empire building
14. The Clash - the guns of brixton
15. The Beatles - hey jude
16. The Kinks - sunny afternoon
17. The Animals - house of the rising sun
18. The Verve - the drugs don't work
19. The Stranglers - golden brown
20. Madness - night boat to cairo
21. Bad Manners - lip-up fatty
22. ASH - girl from mars
23. The Darkness I believe in a thing
24. Pulp - year 2000
25. The Levellers - a people under the dollar
Hopefully should keep my sanity intact for a while. |
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Read 6 - Post |
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| Sinister Shadow... |
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| 10:08am 14/11/2003 |
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mood:  anxious music: D-Ream - Things Can Only Get Better
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Having spent all day yesterday being poked about by various people in white coats (that I hope were members of the medical proffesion), I will have the delight to spend the rest of this afternoon back at the hospital.
An x-ray of my chest revealing a tiny, strange, and sinister 'shadow', which apparently could be 'nothing at all', yet I was informed of all the frankly alarming things this could be, things I intend to bury my head in the sand about until I forced to think otherwise.
I contend that I have nothing more than a bad case of the flu, a belief my GP is in agreement with, but this does not change the 'brown pants' moment I am currently experiencing. |
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Read 12 - Post |
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swiftpint's journal
cynical
apathetic