I thought I was a man, I only was a muffin

2006-12-25T03:50:00.000Z

It's just how much I know about the Guardian's complaint process (esp the role of reader's editor). Read his (there'll be a new 'him' soon) articles, theyre illuminating.
This revelation was brought by this and this becoming essential and entertaing reading at 'Manning Central'

Feliz Navidad! Prospero ano y Felicidad!
Festivus soon and I can't hardly wait, break out the oil and let the feats of strength begin.

Careful now! Gods save the Queen!
iel

Imagine there was a finite amount of information in the world

2006-11-27T01:01:00.000Z

and you're using it for thundercat slash fiction?

In case you were wondering A C Grayling is your new personal Jesus

Somedays I get the scary feeling Im an adult

2006-06-15T10:34:00.000Z

I have an ex-girlfriend who has a child, I know people who are married and I've just been offered stock options in the place I work. The world grows scarier.

In which Roy Orbison remains unclingfilmed

2006-03-03T18:43:00.000Z

In the intervening (sic) months, people have had birthdays; happy birthdays to them. A special Message to Salter: There are an increasing number of women in the world who I describe 'as if salter had been beaten in the face with a frying pan' among them...Starbuck and various BBC WORLD presenters, feel proud that you're not one of them.

In Manning news...have met a tall man who enforces 'best practices', great guy and genuine fun to work with. Also met pro-thatcher, near-hippy yoga, buisnessman/dreamer and interesting chap.
That manomahn (sic) singh is an amusing chap, I love to hear him on the telly; why do people treat him as though he were a kid?
Will I have a weekend? Who can tell
If anyone wants any websites/databases made, I'm very reasonable and increasingly standards compliant!

There were other greivances to be aired. Later....

iel
'God willing, weather permitting'

The continuing adventures of whitey

2005-11-23T14:35:00.000Z

Been meaning to post these ramblings for a while but Im never sure if my thoughts on whitey will settle. I've had actual encounters now, rather than refusing to acknowledge people on the street. Last Friday we went to the bbsc quiz, which as I had guessed were full of middle-aged white men plus wives. I liked the table I was put on, decent people just looking for a laugh between the 12 highly important meetings/lectures they have to give tomorrow. A couple of hitches in the evening, when the talk moved on to day to day life... the jokes were just 'arnt the names quite odd','don't they speak awfully fast'...just a little too patronising.
Places to find whitey: Just about anywhere, they suprise me sometimes...typical places are spencer plaza (metro centre crammed into 1/4 the area), mahabalapurham (the beach/stone carvings place where EVERYONE asked me if I liked the karma sutra then shoved tacky plastic carvings of various positions into my face)
There is a definite interest in skin colour though, a pretty victorian attitude. I've seen women walking down the street with umbrellas for the sun. Theres been this. National adverts tend to have extremely pale women on, eventually they turn up in some gold threaded sari and then they look indian. Near certain avoidance of the everyday man on the street, though south india seem very sunny, further research needed.
Cooking for myself is cool, I try not to hang around the spice shelves to long or the supermarket girls start giggling. Its tough when you have no clue what half of them are known as outside of india, the 1000 types of dhal for a start. I've mastered the masala omlette though and a few quick paneer dishes (paneer is the majority of my diet)
In other news it wont stop raining. Everytime matthew writes to someone and says it has stopped it starts again while Im walking home..he will pay. Still refuse to own a coat or umbrella, it has to stop sometime. TV continues to enrage me, though pat robertson has become my personal saviour. I defy you to watch his report on 'Intellegent design' and not be convinced. The evil 'SCIENCE' is brutally supressing people who just want to point out that darwin was wrong and evolution is a crime. This is also clearly persecution of christianity, a minorty group. Watch the 700 club its on some christian broadcasting channel in the uk. Theres enough on there to make you giggle every day.
Is that enough consciousness streamed into your thought space? I thought so, for now at least. Catch you soon! Keep safe. Have you lost weight?

Empire based fun

2005-10-07T19:30:00.000Z

The greatest headline that never was: "Chinamen fear savage beating by Longwang" BBC World told me that a typhoon called Longwang was moving through the pacific, I'm not proud to say that I hoped it eventually made the newspapers.

Overheard in the office the other day: "If you're going to wear poo in your hair, make sure it's fresh". Poo ofcourse mean flowers but you all knew that, I giggled like a little schoolgirl though. Its Onam at the moment, a harvest festival from Kerala. I'ld tell you more about it but I wrote that ages ago and will post it when I find it.

Down the road from me is a "Gujarat handicraft cum-sale" yet more giggling.

Too tired now, next time: A guide to whitey and whitey spotting. Bring your eye-spy book of whitey, you'll need it!

Hello again

2005-10-02T09:40:00.000Z

I'ld tell you hello in Tamil but it's not used outside Tamil Nadu. There is no official language of India, everytime Hindi is suggested the tamils block it. I know yes and no, which helps for negotiating all the autorickshaws.
A little about my situation. Work is developing the website out here. Small company, very nice people and work wouldve had a very nice beginning if it wernt for the NYTimes. Thomas Friedman, NYTimes columnist and author wrote a piece about American kids being left behind in education, mentions us and our server fell over for a while. After about 2 weeks we've replied to almost all enquiries and people have got evaluation accounts if we think they'ld like to sign up. Incidently, this is my first Sunday off and I cant think of much to do that isnt ramble here.
India is great but I don't know how to describe it. There are many, many shops but theyre not very big. It seems like everyone has some kind of stall be it fruit or tea or the girls making strings of flowers. Just down one street you'll find maybe 5 or 10 of the same sort of shop, I have no idea how they keep in buisness. There are so many autorickshaws buzzing around the city (or atleast the parts Ive explored). Autos are small 2 seaters that'll take you around the city, you negotiate the price before or after but its significantly easier beforehand. There are so many of them that they'll pull up to block you crossing the road, if you catch their eye they'll try and stop for you to get in. Cars honk their horns merely to show that they're driving, there are less lights and travel tends to be quite slow because of the number of cars on the road.
Food varies from mediocre to amazing. TN is predominantly Hindu so restraunts are 50/50 veg based, which makes for some good eating. A good meal with juice too comes to maybe 80rps which is a quid. The nice thing about Chennai is you can go into a hotel with the money in your pocket have a good meal and a beer. Local beer is water and is sold in wine shops or Hotels and comes with a good warning: Alcohol ruins Country, Family, Life. Seems alcohol is one of the most serious things here and can lead to being disowned. Its just TN though and doesnt spread into Kerala, just to the west of here.
I'll leave with that and add more soon. Daljit dhaliwal.

There may follow a glitch in service, life

2005-09-08T22:00:00.000Z

Hey up Gov, How're things? Really? Well, worse things happen at sea. Manning-Mooching plc is setting up shop and outsourcing itself to Ind-yah. My arms are full of expensive juice which have magic anti-death powers (+1 vs Dog). Even though people have kept asking when I'm off I still havent realised Im going. The case remains unweighed (I still have to find 23 packs of sugar to balance the pole) so massive surcharges for books are on the way.

When I regain access to the internets I'll post again. This is dependent on laptops not dying and me having taken everything I need, oh and them letting me into the country. I dont have a look that lends to easy international travel.

If sections of the plane snap off and Im stranded on an Island remember only this,
"he'ld come round unannounced and steal your biscuits, but atleast he kept his trousers on". I wont miss any of you but I'll mainly miss the tea.

All the best St D Manning pHd (deceased)

"If you're going to make any romantic gestures always use a barrier"

Fox news replaces my dreams

2005-08-18T04:40:00.000Z

I can't sleep so I'm sitting watching Fox news; I like it. I particularly like that Bill O'Reily, his views are simple and easy to swallow unlike those damn liberals. If I were to stop thinking and not read he'ld be a good one to copy. He said something I agreed with the other day, along the lines that a proposed registry for ex-sex-offenders would do nothing. The most fascinating thing about their news is the new expressions they cling onto, border disorder and sex-predator; the last one made me think of arnie/predator slash-fiction. ( I just googled predator slash fiction for you people and found a man complaining he was #1, more worrying the blog is called "owlish mutterings") Anyway, it's compulsive viewing. For a good game guess the time for first mention of "world war II" or "fascist" or "far-left radicals".
Regardless of your view on the war in Iraq, most were silenced by the "support our troops" movement. As with all things its bigger in America, I chuckled at this.
I had more things to say....
Desperate Housewives is lazy writing
Lost is pretty good, YAY Daniel dae Kim!
Found out there is a Manning famiy motto: "To be, rather than to seem to be"
Makes me think I could do better.

I'll leave you with a small thought, what if P K Dick was right?

The revolution...

2005-08-14T02:01:00.000Z

I was going to title it "The revolution will not be rss feeded" but went in search of what else the revolution wouldnt be. Stumbled across this. I'd read it before but something about hardcore Asexuals, and republican hatred for them, warms the cockles. It's an interesting issue though, through developments in psychiatry and most of tv we'ld think a lack of interest or a repulsion to sex would stem from abuse or was a chemical thing. Its entirely possible the whole rediculous hurly burly could just not appeal, we've always been very odd monkeys especially where sex is involved.

Onto the actual title. I've been reading about RSS feeds and hence XML too, something just doesnt sit right with me. The odd feeling explained itself a few days ago though, it's racist and in the most casual way possible. The reason the internet exploded was partly due to HTTP being a Human-parseable language in plain text. Any kid with a text editor could tap away a few tags, fill the body and have his page. Ok, the tags were English but there wernt many. It's a similar idea to a tourist, have a few phrases under you're belt and you can get along. XML has user specified tags and the reason for XML is structuring your site/feed as you'ld like it parsed. Though it supports unicode tagging(international charcter sets) it breeds seperation between nations and more people learning English to get by in buisness.
It's similar to legislation considered in America last year, all buisness documentation internal and external must be in English. America, as with England has large non-english trade buisnesses. A few members will speak english and be able to explain documents, but why should everyone? 10 years of multiculti rubbish it maybe but why should every member of a family be forced to learn a second/third language if they dont want/have to.
What brought this on? The not-in-front-of-the-children brigade shocked their children may see a gun or a breast. Well that was the first skim read until I hit this:
"With the few dollars that they have to spend, they would choose to spend it on that garbage, rather than spending it on something uplifting and, by the way, in English," Tancredo said. "They choose to use materials of such little redeeming social value, like a trashy comic book."
This is a race issue, the group involved were an anti-immigration pressure group. Where the minute-men failed to hold public support and broke up in 2-3 days, they'll make uncomfortabel instead. First the spanish language section, then no chillies for a thousand miles, damn wogs.

A rant? Not really, mild uneasy feelings. There may only be one rant left in me with actual feeling but people have shut-up about tv.
Turns out Ursula Andress emerging from the sea is the sexiest moment in history, what rubbish. Didn't catch the first half but Bacall and Bogie in To have and have not had better have been there, for all its stupidity. Plus, watching Kristen cloke makes me need a cold shower. I'm glad they didnt make me pick, it'ld just be all of B5, S:AAB and Janeane Garofalo footage from my surveilance tapes.
Still walking free!

Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

2005-08-10T08:58:00.000Z

Sometimes you dont know you've been reviewing kids books for too long until it's too late "Riding Tycho by Jan Mark (MACMILLAN £9.99)
What it looks like is another hyped-up dolphin adventure..." (Independent)

Thanks to Mr Dev I've been reading Webcest and thanks to clicking one of the links I fear I'll be arrested soon. Its been nice knowing you all...Who am I kidding? It's been awful.

I was going to link you to several different Vera Brosgol sites but its all been gathered together. Go, go now...

A post a month? If I have anything interesting to say maybe I'll break this trend.
The only thing I can think of is that XML is teh racist and I never want to see a naughty drawing of Gadget from Rescue rangers EVER AGAIN!

Kicking it oldish school...

2005-07-11T07:10:00.000Z

This post reaches most of you far too late (scarily late) but I hope future generations may yet be saved.
Much as you may think otherwise: sex is for fags..
And laydeez.... Iron hymen
The greatest part of the site? Why, that would beMuffy P.: "OHMIGOD, like, Iron Hymen taught me to respect myself way too much to ever let some hairy creep hock man-lugies on my Godly cervix like it's some gross subway platform!"

Thats all!

I am Optimus Prime

2005-06-23T09:47:00.000Z

Dearest blog, Lets string this merry tale out, it's not as though we have anywhere to go!
" Introduced in 1747, the Mathematical Tripos eventually became the course for all serious students. Indeed, until 1850 no student could obtain an honours degree without first qualifying in the Maths Tripos, and those of a non-mathematical disposition either "ploughed it", like Macaulay, or entirely refused to graduate, like Gray."[www.phy.cam.ac.uk] The original degree and some would say the only true degree, these are the same people who cry when latin was removed from the tripos papers. It is steeped in tradition, though usually over the summer when the students are away. Rumours of the quaint and curious laws abound, suits of armour guarantee a first, that you can order a glass of port brought to your desk at finals. These are ofcourse all lies, every last one of them -shame. A few things will remain forever, Procters and 3hr long exams. Proctors are old men, they get paid to walk around in gowns and hats much to big for their heads, as though they borrowed their father's. Exams this year were stupid, a new system with altered courses; I'ld have been less nervous if I'ld known how the marking worked this year. Odd things this year were the jokes told by envigilators at the start ("'Do you have an active sex life?', 'Oh no, I just lie there'") and that one question I was working on was corrected 3 times.
One tradition I engaged in this morning (well, after I let the goat go home) was walking to the senate house for results. At 9am all the mathmos gather inside a hall and stare at a balcony until a lady and two men (all hatted) come out and one starts to read the results by grade then by name. They missed out one row of Wranglers much to the relief of the people who thought they'ld missed even a 2.1. I am a Senior Optime Division 1 (a 2.1 in new money) and my friends did as they expected, which is all jolly really. Those with hats took them off to us and proceeded chucking paper from the balcony at us...the sheer cheek of it.
I've spent three wonderful years here learning something I find eternally fascinating. I'm not sure I could've asked for better company (don't tell them that) and expect them all to join my benevolent council of world leaders come the revolution. If you EVER find yourself at a loose end go to Cambridge, its flatness is a sure sign that God abandoned it but it still remains charming and really pretty on good days. Visit the CMS - noone will stop you, go up onto the roof and have a picnic just dont make an arse of yourself, Tweedy.
Right now is a bit odd, people not graduating are going home, people who are graduating are going away for a few days and right now Im about to watch a qunatum computing lecture I just downloaded. Its odd, I want nothing more than to know just a bit more about very viscous flows or how strange quantum field theories are but I hate the tripos. Why yes...it is just sinking in, shit.

Vote early, vote often!

2005-05-04T15:03:00.000Z

"It's thats man again!" they screamed in chorus. The crowd unaware their candidate as a teenager, awkard but curious would 'practice' on the local pig farm. His rival, the current incumbent, enjoys throttling streetkids with his shiny red tie; he's tough on spongers and malingerers but then who isnt? 'Its not racist to talk about imagination. I just can't talk to you without imagining you have giant lips and thick black hair'
Yes kids its time to choose who will not listen to you for the next 4 years. This is not to say its not important, register your vote but know who you're voting for. Politics is a lifetime profession and loyalty to ones party is more important than voting against them for your constituents. Take heart in the fact that regardless of who wins parts of your life WILL be screwed with and you wont like it.
Now providing 'Value for money' I direct you to a hilarious article by the rev. Jen: Balloon fetishes I just like the hint at tension within the community between poppers and non-poppers. As moral Guardian I must point out: Down with this sort of thing!
Now with projects handed in I get to serious revision.
Cheery-bye
ps Vote Broadcasting house: Not drowning, waving.

I liked you better before you sold out

2005-04-15T11:38:00.000Z

Never say "never say never"!
Yes, that IS an order.
Prizes go to Becky for ActualResponse(tm). 'What prizes?', I hear you say. Salter wins the 1980s, she may now claim this 15yrs or more ago. Future prizes include Happiness, Quality and Sminge (Subject to status and availability, your home is at risk if you do not keepup repayments, Sminge can go up as well as down. Full terms and conditions available on written request)
Until next time muffketeers!
Dan

That's right, I went there!

Some news and things

2005-03-30T05:45:00.000Z

Hello blog (and luke), it's been a while hasnt it?
Time for Manning news in action:
Don't drink water from a lake where you know theres a dead man floating in it. Stupid teenagers, stupid, stupid teenagers!
Sutherland buttocks are forever engraved in living memory. Jonathon Lethem has written a love letter to them and the greatest sex scene in modern movies(I just tried to get you a link to the essay but its now PREMIUM content-crumbs!)
All of my contemporay art knowledge comes from CatandGirl.com, thus proving I am both whore and nerd. I couldnt convince anyone to come with me to see a depressive misogynist's landscapes or fat and felt wrapped together in London. Dont fret, contempory art can also be beamed straight to your computer (zap! pow! TEH FUTURE!)
That's right, Jenny Holzer. I defy you not to think of it as potential tshirt slogans, which is part of the point. Fear my modernism! t-shirts adorned with tautologies [x or ¬x]. She's also done installations for the Baltic before it even opened. As if that wasnt enough....this which made me find this woman so many years ago. I'm so good you you people(well...luke).
Watchman movies and 'v for vendetta' movies abound life can be tough for those who like comics. Never fear, I like movies and I've become very adept at not recognising things officially (such as the nationhood of belgium) so films not recognised this week...Constantine, though I'm told its good by people who aint read the comics.
STOP PRESS!!!
DO you have a yen for a short scifi story about kittens? A story by Fritz Lieber?
You do?
Those who want to know whats annoyed me at any particular time should ring me or just ask when they see me!
Till next time blog (and luke) keep watching the skies!
Dan

Inflaytioon!

2005-03-09T20:50:00.000Z

Hello dearest blog,
What have I done for me lately? Being Ill mostly and laying in bed feeling like a rhino has shat in my head. Reading too, gosh I know! 'Fear and loathing in las vegas'and 'Better than Sex' both by HSThompson. I liked Fear and loathing, part rant part drunken ramble but after a while it just starts to grate; I began to wish he'ld be arrested jus so he couldnt spend the rest of the book doing 50 unrelated things. The reason its still quite fun for the most part? He just doesnt believe a word he's writing..the freaks aren't trying to kill us, no-one still alive is as fucked up as the stories you hear. 'Better than sex' is him following the '92 election campaign Bush v Clin-Ton. It's had to read a page and not see spider jerusalem staring back at you, thing about spider is he's consistent. The good doctor outlines why Bush must be forced out of office but also why Clinton is a dull degenerate potential sex-offender. A very easy read, that is if you can deal with the way he writes his letters, disconnected sentences and an extremely high opinion of himself but it's hard not to admire the guy as he does it. More manning vague book reviews as of when I read something else of 100 pages.
Time to gibber about mathsyphyswics. It's nice every now and again to be taught the 'ultra-new' theories and inflation is one of them, barely 20yrs old its already passing out drunk and buying pornography. In cosmology theres a term called the cosmological constant which dictates how the universe will end depending on its value, smaller than 1 we get a bigcrunch and greater than 1 we expand forever and can eventually see no-one. This value of 1 is interesting and sexy, a repelling line: If you start close you'll end up far away and let me tell you kids we're close to it today which means a VERY long time ago we were VERY close to 1...mon dieu! Proof for a God if you really want it, surely? Thankfully inflation kicks that in the bollocks and sends it home, if the universe started by inflation then no matter what value of
the constant you have it gets squashed to 1 p.d.q and we get our happy matter filled universe. Wait...so whats inflation? Well if we think about a field similar to a mexican hat and a ball rolling down it then voila we have energy forcing this rapid expansion. If the universe expands rapidly then the universe will look the same in all directions *looks outside* WOW it does.. Still not convinced? As the ball rolls it wobbles in a qunatum way which leads to smallscale perturbations in the way the universe looks *has a better look outside* wow thats also true...thats TUROK baby!
But...aparantly this just doesnt hold water anymore and my supervisor is skeptical about the cosmological constant let alone inflation. The branes the thing but the maths of that would asplode my head.
This post is long...*waves goodbye*

All things must pass

2005-02-22T22:33:00.000Z

I started reading 'Fear and loathing in las vegas' on Saturday, found out that he shot himself on Monday. I'm not going to start reading Dylan anytime soon...
I make no claim to have read much by the man, the stories I hear are fantastic though. He ran for a county police post on a legalising pot agenda, when he found out his opponent had a crewcut he had his hair shaved off completely. He then refered to him as 'my long-haired opponent'. Fear and loathing in las vegas doesnt strike me as anything amazing, its hard to tell when its so influentual..most journalists cite it/him as their reason for taking up writing.

On to happier things :
I have a passport. It makes me look like a miserable git but then there wasn't much I could do about that. A UK trapped Manning seeks foreign adventure, don't be suprised if the news reports find I've run away to Belgium.

I am 21! Slightly less exciting than Stav but a jolly time down the castle. Am now the proud owner of 'nice cup of tea and a sitdown' and 'scooby dance vol.1'.

Hooray! Laura Veirs will enrich my life with beautiful 'deadpan folk and eclectic musings', saw her in Newcastle years ago(2). I really like her music and she's even better live. To educate yourself click, I recommend bedroom eyes (but then don't I always?) If you're still excited, if not moist, then free your sun 6th march and make haste to Newcastle and find the place known as Allsaints church (I think it used to be st thomas').

For now dear muffketeers so long!
Careful now

Manning log-supplimental

2005-02-16T23:47:00.000Z

Sorry about the previous post, sometimes a poorly thought out and structureless rant is needed.
Exciting and entirely important decisions of my life are needed in the next week, can't seem to gain the enthusiasm to give a decisive answer. Similarly for mr JMS, who ranted the other day about the demise of startrek and pleading to be given a go at making a proper trek, next day he retracted it claiming he agreed to do something else instead.
I hope you're excited by Alan Moore porn! That's right a reworking of peter pan but highly sexual, I'm intrigued if not a little moist. The rest of the article is probably worth reading...I only managed halfway before I had to swear at him (see if you can guess which bit!).

Other news in brief:
Stavros is 21! (You've never met him, pictures as I get them
There is no set of ordinals!
ODEs make very pretty pictures but are ultimately very dull!
3 is very close of infinity (official!)
If you don't listen to broadcasting house on R4 then you will never know true love or happiness (sorry, thats just how it is)

If things go well the next post will include muffins and scones!
Until next time, don't give me the weasseww!

Sideways

2005-02-16T23:45:00.000Z

The chances are if you've been reading/listening to reviews then you've been assaulted by the waves of warm-and-fuzzies created by 'Sideways'. Two middle-aged men go on a weeklong tour of a wine region in America before one characters wedding. Yep loser comedy meets roadmovie (but not in space), both are failed something -actor and author. The author has a failed marriage and the actor is going to be married but wont give up picking up women. Our stooges set up, it's time to take them on the road. What follows is the moping of our writer and an introduction to wine-tasting, the jokes at this point establish why its so popular. The entire movie is a criticism of those who taste wine but don't know anything about wine and those who've never been to a wine tasting. Its almost an exclusive club and hands you the key to becoming a member, all you need to do is just say 'pinot noir' and nod sagely; try it at your next cocktail party. Our stooges strike upon a pair of ladies, our author has known one lady for years but she has been unachievable...until now! Alot more moping and we hit the extremely mediocre middle, entirely predictable plots occur for our charcters and our symapathies are manipulated. We're left wondering who the real loser is...well we would be if we hadn't already wondered this at the start. Who would have guessed that our dear author is like a wine before and the wines he owns serve as a metaphor for his life...*groan*
The truth of the film is that the entire piece is a cry for attention, middle league sitcom actors (yep, I recognised them!) acting in a low-budget film which has the potential to be big. This potential is the dinner party effect, people will recommend it as the must see lowbudget film. The thing is that although theres very little to endear it I actually enjoyed it. A mid-80s woody allen film, the jokes are good but he tries too hard to make a point, a point we don;t need and have heard before. The point is confused though, these arnt loveable losers, they're very annoying losers and Im not sure I could stand living around them as they continually go through these phases of self-discovery and relapse.
Worth watching for the comedy and a naked man chasing a car (always good)
Anyway see what you think but don't pay £6, I felt had.

chinese new year!

2005-02-12T03:20:00.000Z

Hello dear blog and to a lesser extent my readers(luke and possibly now andrew).
Life has been dull of late but Friday night has been one of the best nights I've had in a while. Having been convinced to join the chinese-newyear-trust mailing list by a lady (rather an attractive one now I come to think about it), I twiddled my thumbs and waited for the emails to come...Who would have thought I'ld wait until January but wait I did.
When the aforementioned email arrived I lept at the chance of being a waiter ah the power over refills of water jugs and seconds of springrolls. As seems to be a running theme through my life it was a voluntary position but with all the spare noodles I could eat. Still waiting as I did many purchasings were had to make myself RESPECTABLE (and inadvertantly into a jewish tailor). My new highly stylish self was tried out today to great affect, people talked to me and no-one accused me of being odd -record?
The thing I don;t understand about the chinese, as lovely as they are, is why they need to have quite so many courses. I enjoy walking back and forth between the kitchen as much as the nextman but near enough 10-15 dishes is more than any man can take. Some of the plates almost burnt my hands to a crisp and I succeeded in dripping hot chicken juice down my trouser-leg (how I wish that was the first time I've ever said that). All this fun was had whilst trying to watch young girl tie herself in knots and then tie herself in knots whilst being held up in the air by older girl.
When did people become such bastards for charity? We had a number of bottles of wine for sale for £5 but try and explain this to people and you think you'ld just knife raped their only daughter! Its for chinese schools (thats what the whole sodding things about) but still they try to haggle with me, maybe £3 go on I've got a lovely smile..special discount. People then tried to steal wine after the meal was over... All of the wine had to be moved to the bar and be put under constant supervision. I was supposed to be able to eat any unclaimed meals but by the time the meal ended people screamed at us that we wernt immediately cleaning up whilst people were finishing off their tea. The tea whilst it was supposed to be green, whoever was in charge of buying industrial quantities hadn't turned up so someone ran to tescos to get 2 big bags of red label (I enjoy watching people shout at each other about who was responsible).
Dinner scraped off plates and put into three giant boxes the evening was ours to do with as we please. It seems our pleasure is defined as collapsing chairs then rolling giant tables into a fire escape, then stacking chairs into giant racks of chairs, then attempting to move these things without breaking our backs inorder to block another fire-escape. It was actually a lot of fun, far too much really. I was told to have a break but I was working at the bar instead with a list of cocktails I'd never heard of before, luckily they all seemed to involve pinapple juice in a cup...
I met a good number of people most of whom I'ld like to talk to again and even got offered a place on next years committee if I wanted it. I still think Nicks on to a winning plan by getting on the good side of the chinese now.
Evening wrapped up with excellent Jazz played and sung well, dancing whilst serving singing along to in the mood. An hour of tidyingup and shifting far, far to many boxes and watching a giant blackman come into the room every so often and grumble something about health and safety.
Cometh the 1am, cometh the thanks-slut's departure as we were all kicked out. It gets kind of embarrasing for everyone after the 4th time they've told you "you've been amazing, thanks ever so much". I admitted to them that quite frankly I'ld rather be tidying than listening to a bunch of besuited churchillians getting drunk and playing on dodgems at £40 a pop, they didn't seem to care.
Walking back from town I was dancing to the Bobby Darin in my head and everything was right with the world. I was eating 'pocket orange'-its been in my coat pocket for atleast 4 days with the intention of being breakfast. I passed a man whilst eating said Orange and wondered what the most suspicious fruit is, I don;t think its likely to be an Orange, a banana maybe but that could be used as a false nose for a disguise. Answers, muffenites, in comments plskthnx
News in brief:
Arthur Millar dead -yep, once married to Marilyn Monroe
Hans Christian Anderson, gay and virgin - OFFICIAL!
Catandgirl good - Cat's christian rock song :
'If you want to destroy my saviour
just pull this thread as I walk away
watch it unravel, I'll soon be naked
Dying on the cross! Dying on the cross!
God's only son!'
Lounge Nirvana : !!

Right, maybe its time to stop and stroke the weasel of sleep behind the ears, coax the oneiric badger out of the set of dormancy.
Until next time take your shoes off and THROW THEM IN THE LAAAYYKE!

Giant Robots!

2005-02-06T02:28:00.000Z

Just got back from giant robot RPG, good laugh really. Games would be alot faster if people stopped trying to remember what anime/game the background music came from and general offtopic. Its a good bunch from CUCAS and I enjoy games evening; tonight after defeating lucifer, bear-mech and 2 other super characters last session we scavagened from their broken mechs and tried to infiltrate the base. The 'amnesiac angel princess', 'fairy knight vampire' and the 'pirate viking were-kitten' took crew uniforms and poked around the base; there was not much to be found but Zeng (evil overlord) had been testing alien tissue samples with mech parts! (cue dramatic music). At the same time the 'ghost pirate thief samurai' and the 'viking drunkard maniac' were looting the otherside of the base and smashing up important consoles and disguising themselves as a carpet monster.
There were not many clues to follow as to the whereabouts of zeng, so leaving his northpole base we travelled to Luxemburg only to find Tokyo tower had blasted off into space. How could this not lead to more mech confrontation at the sight of the tower? DE (the pogo-ing viking drunkard) leaped straight into the fray demolishing central Tokyo - much sadness and regret filled our angsty bodies. Continued fighting led to DE being ripped and his torso thrown into tokyo bay by a gold machine mounted elephant of justice. Talking gelephant (self styled captain of justice) down, explaining we were no threat and that Zeng had tricked him about his justice I thought it might be time for rest and investigation. No sooner had I thought that then cartheron had challenged him to a duel for the honour of his beloved mech-parrot cancarys. After acting out the duel we were called upon to mime the elephants legs trampling cartheron; never fear dear readers his ghostly status left him unharmed but his ancient samurai armour will probably be lost for all time. Sometimes for honour to be satisfied we must lose that which we hold precious to us, this is known to the Tao but it is not the true Tao.
If anyones that interested here is the place to go.
The rest of my life goes on as normal, if anyone really wants to hear about lyapunov stability or quasiasymptotic stability they can poke me on MSN. Until then dear muffinites keep watching the skies!

Not molesting children!

2005-02-01T23:39:00.000Z

Ah web-presence, hear the story of my day. Today, unlike most days, has been filled with much running around. The waking (8:00), then the groan and going back to sleep then 'waking 2: the wakening' (8:50) led briliantly to going to lectures in time for lecture start (oscar nomination for myself with the lecturer gaining well-earned best supporting actor nomination). I love living 5 mins from the lecture theatre, I've only missed 2 lectures due to being away.
Later after lunch of market orange and a handful of dried apricots. I rush like a bitch to the citi-4 bus. I need to get to long road, not knowing where this was did not hinder me - oh no, or not knowing the stop to get off at. Here follows an afternoon of not molesting children (well sixth form students) and ultra-mathsing. I impress myself with my ability to do step papers and help with classroom teaching, not that they cared!
Imagine if you will 4:20 - the citi-4 bus back! The bus of jolly worker types humming their jolly worker tunes as every fucker in Cambridge blocks the one way system and we can't move. This doubles the journey to 30-40 mins and a snubbing by mr kelby, I would prefer very-loud-compsci-girl company too. Don't read irony into this, I mean what I say plus I gained a shiny 5p from bus seat!
Sitting in my room for an hour I get my daily LOL. Internet has the amazing power to both sooth and enrage! Re: enrage.....DOOM!! why the living-fuck would you make a doom movie? It doesnt have hell in it...why call it doom? RAGE! stan lee levels of shirt ripping rage!
Then dojo noodle eating...oh the tasty! pad phak thai (37A) mighty! How could you round off such an evening? why watching people play 'Gitaroo man' and reading baron munchausen. That is ofcourse until i spotted a DVD. 'A crazy man with super kung-fu' this movie had to be seen. It can only be described as a carry on film mixed with scenes of kill bill. AN origianl cantonese film is dubbed over by a cast of presumably 3 actors one one being a woman with very indeterminate accent. The kung-fu starting very well but descending to the down right insane as 1 in 20 moves actually connects and they seem to have 2 sound effects. A loose plot gives way to insanity and in the end the secret is to think like bean curd, true wisdom we should live our lives by. If we're all lucky I might have a copy to show by the end of term.
What more is there? A news in brief:
G K Chesterton - amusing author
Michael Howard - Jewish (I didn't know)
Look around you (not bad but with the same britcom faces)
Kate Bush - Fantastic
Fi Glover - Good thing

Till next post, take care!

A second post?

2005-01-26T22:46:00.000Z

My lord its true! If you'll kindly look to your right theres a links section.. Go, I command you visit them, give them your hits and mad props. Using these you will replicate my lunchtime, you too could have a cheese+cucumber sandwich and read these sites - I'll leave being pleasured by a goat upto to you, I personally favour it just before scarygoround.
If this site is going up and down like a cheap hooker at the weekend then Im playing with the XML. Why? because I want to, it may look better afterward!
I leave you with something from 'the oys of yiddish':
hok a tchynik
pronounced TCHY-nik to rhyme with 'Guy Nick'. Hok - strike, tchynik- teapot from tchay (tea)
1.To talk a great deal; to yammer
2.To talk nonsene or 'bushwa'

eg 'Please, hok nit kain tchynik!' stop talking rubbish
Try using it more in conversation
Careful now!

First post and sitcom!

2005-01-26T07:34:00.000Z

Hello children! It's me your friendly neighbourhood manning.
To usher in a new year, take your pick which one (chinese one soon) I present the only Jew in Afghanistan:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4206909.stm
I couldn't help but laugh, they both seemed to hate each other but neither would leave. I suppose they preffered a whispering campaign against the other man and alleged plots to kill each other; all this and more should feature in a sitcom of their life together, commission it now! My imagination was stirred by his comment, I could see him throwing a plate of unleavened bread against the wall shouting 'I'm the Jew here now, Im the boss' Im the daddy! It's not as though anyone really cares in Afghanistan anymore but all the goats are his, and his alone, to convert.
Other exciting Manning news:
Andromeda to swallow us all in 1 billion years, start packing now.
Ultimately rabbits will beat sheep.
Scarygoround has become actually scary.
Fi Glover, good thing (Her book was good too).

Carefull Now!