Facebook has got to have the least helpful 'Help' facility in existence. Gone are the days you could buck them a brief email, get an automated reply and then be talked patiently through your problem by a nice chap or chapette...or did I dream that?
I love Facebook, my favourite waste of time it is, but it seems to have a growing hatred for me. I'm going to speak completely from my own tangled subjective point of view here but I reckon it lacks a certain etiquette-I see little general courtesy there. It's easy to forget a) how public it is and b) that these are real people, supposedly your friends who, like you are lurking behind screens and monitors and feeling just as paranoid and in need of validation as you are. It does breed paranoia. The more I use it the more isolated and cut off I somehow come to feel. How does that work? It's a bummer because I crave social interaction and lots of it. I love all the people in my life, and people I've known before and I hate loosing touch with people - but unfortunately I am crap at staying in touch despite how much I want to or mean to. I guess most of us are the same, aren't we? or am I wrongly buffing everyone with my metaphorical chamois?
All these methods of communication and us human beings - enigmas to ourselves that we are - still manage to make it more difficult than ever.
Sometimes I think that we all expect everyone else to make the effort, and we don't none of us take the initiative to try to meet anyone in the middle, so nobody connects with anyone; and the universal paranoia pandemic disembles too - someone reaches out to us and what do we do? We gasp and wring our hands and wonder what their (ulterior) motive might be. We hide, and in so doing we reject that outstretched hand. Talk yourself out of it by convincing yourself it's not really there to start with. Maybe it's the same psychology that makes us assume every car hooter being honked is directed at us or makes us nervous at the sight of a policecar in our rear view mirrors or crushes us with self conciousness whenever we are faced with airport security. Maybe it's feelings of inadequacy, conscience, guilt - I don't know. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore...
I guess that's the appeal for me though - having that point of contact because I am genuinely interested in you and although I don't expess it very well and I often get distracted and I'm often very busy, I do care and I will check in on you from time to time because I would like you to be in my life - even if 'virtually' is all we can muster at this time. Is it that people like that don't believe that people like that really exist? Well, relax and enjoy the fact because it's true. Bakebook, Disgracebook - call it whatever - I love because (and I hope this doesn't sound cold) it centralises people. I don't mind being centralised myself, not if it keeps us all together in a seamless circle.
I'm obsessed aren't I?
A lot of people are getting frustrated with it at the moment and deleting themselves. That's fair enough - their choice. You'll probably think I'm mental, but see when somebody comes off my friends list I can't settle until I know who it was. Yep, and what's more I usually have the prodigal identified pretty quick. I also further accept this may be another manifestation of my ever escalating OCD problem and I should maybe discuss it with a professional. I know how nutty it sounds, I remember discussing it with my friend Erica a while ago and she reckoned I should just learn to chill out about it. This is exactly like the coffee mug incident (I have this bright yellow flourescant mug -you can't miss it- and it suddenly occured to me at 3 am one night that I hadn't seen it for a while and so to the kitchen I went to hoke out all the cupboards until I found it. See, this is why it's better I live alone, that and the snoring and the bursts of violent emotion I'm prone to when I'm trying to concentrate) .
You know what this is really all about? What's squatting on my happiness today? I've just got so many issues going on with 'the man' at the moment. I'm locked in mortal combat with 'Amalgamated Breadheads' in many of his infinite guises - NIE, former employers, Phoenix gas, management comittees, citizens advice - the list goes on. It seems that everywhere I turn there's another fight standing there waiting for me and I'm tired and I don't want to have to deal with it all any more.
...and I still haven't really brought you up to speed, I'm bad; and even though I'm lying on the sofa to write this I still feel like my feet are slipping over the ice from when I had to go out for a slide up and down Ormeau Road earlier. Miracle I didn't end up on my ear in that weather.
Apologies for what I'm sure is atrocious spelling and grammar tonight.
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Tuesday 5 January 2010
too many freaks, not enough circuses
I've just been reading through the treatments Bill's sent me for the teasers for Scifi 2010 (we've got to work on a proper title for this thing too - we had a half hearted attempt at a brain storm today so we could get past using that working title but it produced nothing worth repeating) and rather than put my thoughts in a private email back to him I'm blogging about it instead. The drafts are annoyingly good. I hate it when people display greater talent than I will ever be capable of. Naturally as always I've got a tuppence worth to throw in of course; and obviously I will tell Bill his offering was barely acceptable and my trusty red pen will still have plenty to do - I'll talk to him tomorrow about that - but I'm really looking forward to when we get going on this.
Exciting times!
Straight to Youtube my bum, McCullough!
I'm pretty tired tonight, so I was thinking of just writing 'Dave McCullough is a douchebag - he knows why' and then writing up this blog properly tomorrow and hopefully remembering to explain the nature of McCullough's doucheness (as soon as I get my contribution for Ikon binary finished (it's this Sunday you know) I'm still going to have to bring you up to speed later because I'm knackered and not my usual coquettish, death or glory, slightly Bridget Jonesy self and need sleep so bad I feel giddy and therefore won't be getting through the half of it tonight.
Needless to say I was in the company of the aforementioned Dave tonight. Round at Claire's (whose house is considerably nicer than mine).
He made it pretty clear he's both threatened by and in awe of me. Me and my blog. So there.
Tell you what though, I made his missus Ruth really nostalgic for supermousse. Ruth and I agree to differ on the point of whether the strawberry or the minty choc chip was nicer, but we had a good long reminisce about the intricate presentation of the supermousse, pride was clearly taken in the creation of each individual s/mousse, the satisfyingly hard chocolate separating each little flourishy turret of cream and the way you could scoop out the ice cream from between each chocolatey bit. Epic! Pale contemporary imitations simply do not meet this high standard.
Ruth has theories about the way you choose to demolish your s/mousse. It reveals much about your character.
Then we talked about the good old days of when all we had to deal with was the bankruptcy and armed robbery we were unwilling passengers of (remind me to tell you those stories sometime) - but hey! at least we can cackle about it over bowls of finger food now...
Okay, I'm winding this up for tonight, but one thing I must do before I turn in is mention Robbie Render because I promised him an honourable mention tonight and he'll be cross and not let me into the wrestling next time if I don't, so wotcha Robbie!
ffs....
...now you and Bill are equal...
...If McCullough wants an arch-nemesis he's got one...
Exciting times!
Straight to Youtube my bum, McCullough!
I'm pretty tired tonight, so I was thinking of just writing 'Dave McCullough is a douchebag - he knows why' and then writing up this blog properly tomorrow and hopefully remembering to explain the nature of McCullough's doucheness (as soon as I get my contribution for Ikon binary finished (it's this Sunday you know) I'm still going to have to bring you up to speed later because I'm knackered and not my usual coquettish, death or glory, slightly Bridget Jonesy self and need sleep so bad I feel giddy and therefore won't be getting through the half of it tonight.
Needless to say I was in the company of the aforementioned Dave tonight. Round at Claire's (whose house is considerably nicer than mine).
He made it pretty clear he's both threatened by and in awe of me. Me and my blog. So there.
Tell you what though, I made his missus Ruth really nostalgic for supermousse. Ruth and I agree to differ on the point of whether the strawberry or the minty choc chip was nicer, but we had a good long reminisce about the intricate presentation of the supermousse, pride was clearly taken in the creation of each individual s/mousse, the satisfyingly hard chocolate separating each little flourishy turret of cream and the way you could scoop out the ice cream from between each chocolatey bit. Epic! Pale contemporary imitations simply do not meet this high standard.
Ruth has theories about the way you choose to demolish your s/mousse. It reveals much about your character.
Then we talked about the good old days of when all we had to deal with was the bankruptcy and armed robbery we were unwilling passengers of (remind me to tell you those stories sometime) - but hey! at least we can cackle about it over bowls of finger food now...
Okay, I'm winding this up for tonight, but one thing I must do before I turn in is mention Robbie Render because I promised him an honourable mention tonight and he'll be cross and not let me into the wrestling next time if I don't, so wotcha Robbie!
ffs....
...now you and Bill are equal...
...If McCullough wants an arch-nemesis he's got one...
Monday 4 January 2010
Finally...it begins
A couple of days before Christmas I was idly bipping to the fragrant Shirley on Facebook livechat and in the course of the exchange of hot air I mentioned that one of my fondest childhood memories was the weekend Supermousse treat. Shirley is my friend and she empathised and she understood how I yearned and panged for it to be 1985 again so I could get down to Crazy Prices and avail myself of a mint choc chip. Well, what do you know? I don't know how Mumsy did it but it was the best Christmas present ever - six Supermousses! Epic! ... So, I've made myself all comfy to write this and I've got me a supermousse to blog by and I've even artisically decorated it with some Munchies.
Mumsy has probably had them Supermousses in the freezer for the past 25 years...
Anyway, I must apologise for the tardiness of my blogging and I promise faithfully to do it so much better in this bright and shiny new year - that and so many other things...
I only had one resolution and that was just to try to approach everything with a slightly better attitude, which is part of the reason why I'm doing this blog at long last after banging on and on to anyone who'd listen about going to do it since pussy was a kitten...
So, what's my craic? I could shriek actually. This is the second time I've written this - hopefully it'll be slightly more coherant second time around - but I doubt it. I accidentally deleted it just as I was about to post it. Nightmare! I nearly cracked up. I could've sobbed till my throat hurt, but that's not gonna get this done so I'm just doing a 'heads down, bums up' and getting on with it. Maybe have another supermousse to cheer myself up when I've finished.
I've spent a lot of time lately in online conversation with the charming Bill Taylor from Craic Addict Films. Purely on business matters - obviously, with maybe a teensy weensy bit of setting the world to rights and a tiny dash of bitching about the industry...
I've done a few filmy things with Bill over the past few months and I must say his methods and his 'devil may care' attitude appealed to me; and somehow I appear to have talked my way into an involvement in the production of Craic Addict's forthcoming feature - Scifi 2010 - which is awesome! Bill foolishly let me think up my own job title - what was it again? 'Executive Production Consultant' - something like that. I can call it what I like, I'll still probably be the one sticking the kettle on.
I've also got an itty bitty part in the film, but to be honest I'm more excited about getting an opportunity to be bossy and yell at people through the megaphone again.
I told Bill about a few of my own ideas for scripts today. Just a few things that have been slow cooking in my head over the past while as I haven't been writing so much lately, and to cut a short story even shorter he was keen to work on other people's scripts and he seemed to like my ideas and it looks like he's pretty much agreed to make at least the one script we discussed today and see how it goes. Sweet! I know Craic Addicts has a bit of a back log work wise at the moment, so I'll have to take my ticket and get to the end of the queue, but that's absolutely fine and dandy - it'll give me time to re draft the script again, which I want to do more than ever now after today's chat with Bill who somehow made me see the whole thing in a completely different topsy turvy way - for the better I hasten to add.
I tried texting my occasional writing buddy Glenn after this. I say try because my dopey phone hasn't worked properly since Halloween night when it got drenched in a downpour in the middle of the night whilst I was miserably trying to locate a taxi. Anyway - Glenn - yes! Now I've told him to his face many times that he would be brilliant if he wasn't so chuffing lazy and apathetic. Really - in conversation he's incredible, his ad lib would make most stand up comedians weep and sell their souls for just a night with that kinda talent...but see trying to make him actually DO something? That's mostly where I come in. Glenn and I have had this script idea we've been bouncing around for years now - literally years -and it's so sweet, and it won't go away but we just haven't had a chance to do anything with it until now, because I pitched it today and I know that if we had a half decent draft of the script it would happen. I feel the time is right and we have arrived at the natural time of fruition for this thing. Bill would love it. I know he would. It would appeal to his adolescant sense of humour. Watch this space.
So that's the next thing on the list - Glenn doesn't seem to have resurfaced from his Christmas/New year jaunt to the family homestead in Templepatrick yet, but as soon as he's back I'm going to catch up with him, we're going to hoke out the reams of dusty copious notes we made for this project, drink too much coffee and lock ourselves in a room while I stand over him with a big stick until we get this thing pulled together properly once and for all.
Hmph!
I've got so much stuff to do at the moment, so many projects. I expect I'll be using this blog as a platform to whinge about it all in due course.
The only other thing I really want to say right now is look out for the online gathering of Ikon:binary on 10.01.10 at 10pm. I'll post the link up as soon as I find out what it is. It's going to be epic - and I'm not just saying that because I'm involved.
Hope I haven't scared you off....
Mumsy has probably had them Supermousses in the freezer for the past 25 years...
Anyway, I must apologise for the tardiness of my blogging and I promise faithfully to do it so much better in this bright and shiny new year - that and so many other things...
I only had one resolution and that was just to try to approach everything with a slightly better attitude, which is part of the reason why I'm doing this blog at long last after banging on and on to anyone who'd listen about going to do it since pussy was a kitten...
So, what's my craic? I could shriek actually. This is the second time I've written this - hopefully it'll be slightly more coherant second time around - but I doubt it. I accidentally deleted it just as I was about to post it. Nightmare! I nearly cracked up. I could've sobbed till my throat hurt, but that's not gonna get this done so I'm just doing a 'heads down, bums up' and getting on with it. Maybe have another supermousse to cheer myself up when I've finished.
I've spent a lot of time lately in online conversation with the charming Bill Taylor from Craic Addict Films. Purely on business matters - obviously, with maybe a teensy weensy bit of setting the world to rights and a tiny dash of bitching about the industry...
I've done a few filmy things with Bill over the past few months and I must say his methods and his 'devil may care' attitude appealed to me; and somehow I appear to have talked my way into an involvement in the production of Craic Addict's forthcoming feature - Scifi 2010 - which is awesome! Bill foolishly let me think up my own job title - what was it again? 'Executive Production Consultant' - something like that. I can call it what I like, I'll still probably be the one sticking the kettle on.
I've also got an itty bitty part in the film, but to be honest I'm more excited about getting an opportunity to be bossy and yell at people through the megaphone again.
I told Bill about a few of my own ideas for scripts today. Just a few things that have been slow cooking in my head over the past while as I haven't been writing so much lately, and to cut a short story even shorter he was keen to work on other people's scripts and he seemed to like my ideas and it looks like he's pretty much agreed to make at least the one script we discussed today and see how it goes. Sweet! I know Craic Addicts has a bit of a back log work wise at the moment, so I'll have to take my ticket and get to the end of the queue, but that's absolutely fine and dandy - it'll give me time to re draft the script again, which I want to do more than ever now after today's chat with Bill who somehow made me see the whole thing in a completely different topsy turvy way - for the better I hasten to add.
I tried texting my occasional writing buddy Glenn after this. I say try because my dopey phone hasn't worked properly since Halloween night when it got drenched in a downpour in the middle of the night whilst I was miserably trying to locate a taxi. Anyway - Glenn - yes! Now I've told him to his face many times that he would be brilliant if he wasn't so chuffing lazy and apathetic. Really - in conversation he's incredible, his ad lib would make most stand up comedians weep and sell their souls for just a night with that kinda talent...but see trying to make him actually DO something? That's mostly where I come in. Glenn and I have had this script idea we've been bouncing around for years now - literally years -and it's so sweet, and it won't go away but we just haven't had a chance to do anything with it until now, because I pitched it today and I know that if we had a half decent draft of the script it would happen. I feel the time is right and we have arrived at the natural time of fruition for this thing. Bill would love it. I know he would. It would appeal to his adolescant sense of humour. Watch this space.
So that's the next thing on the list - Glenn doesn't seem to have resurfaced from his Christmas/New year jaunt to the family homestead in Templepatrick yet, but as soon as he's back I'm going to catch up with him, we're going to hoke out the reams of dusty copious notes we made for this project, drink too much coffee and lock ourselves in a room while I stand over him with a big stick until we get this thing pulled together properly once and for all.
Hmph!
I've got so much stuff to do at the moment, so many projects. I expect I'll be using this blog as a platform to whinge about it all in due course.
The only other thing I really want to say right now is look out for the online gathering of Ikon:binary on 10.01.10 at 10pm. I'll post the link up as soon as I find out what it is. It's going to be epic - and I'm not just saying that because I'm involved.
Hope I haven't scared you off....
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