LeSinge.org

Duuuude! - 02/02/2001 - 19:09 GMT - [Link]

Duuuude!
Total snowboarding radness may be taking place sooner than I thought - ie next Sunday, just a few miles south of here down't Schwarzwald. It's gonna be very ugly but at least I won't be along in my ignominy; three out of the four of us have little/no experience. Broken wrists ahoy!

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Fame and fortune - 03/02/2001 - 17:10 GMT - [Link]

Fame and fortune
Whee, I got linked! That young fella Cosgrave has gone and added me to his Irish blogs list. Tom actually gets regular hits from people he doesn't even know in real life, so I'm only too happy to hang onto his coattails and pick up a few fans (ahem). Sooner or later I'm also going to have to submit this steaming pile of crap to Doras for review. That might conflict with the disclaimer I just had to put on the jokes page though. Hi Rob - Booyakasha etc. No, actually I enjoy hitting n(ext message), e(xport file), public_html/lesinge/jokes/anotherfingjoke, y(es), return - for half an hour every day! I'm going to organise some sort showdown between Rob and my other big contributor, Dara. What, I don't know, but it'll be ugly.

You saw it here first, ladies and gentlemen! Spam Wars, only at LeSinge.org! Put that in your Doras and, er, slam it.

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Ye Sunday Pilgrimage - 04/02/2001 - 17:22 GMT - [Link]

Ye Sunday Pilgrimage
So, I'm not black and blue in the Black Forest yet - "Nein, nein - das machen wir am nächsten Sonntag!". Ach so...

Because of this, the hour of the pilgrimage draws near. I refer, of course, to my weekly trip to the train station here to get a Sunday Times for a whopping 10 Marks (about IRP 4). Worth every pfennig, even if it's the English version (natch) and it doesn't have the magazine. As long as I get News Review, Sport, Culture and Doors I'm happy. I can see all the tabloid readers wrinkling their noses at the mention of "culture" but don't worry, it's just a glorified TV Guide.

Usually my next destination on leaving the newsagent is to walk around the corner to McDonalds and partake of some junk but not today! (audience gasps). Today I'm being fed by same non-boarders with whom I thought I'd be on the slopes today; it's just their way of apologising for my stupidity, I'm sure. I'm sure it'll be lovely and I know it'll have lots and lots of salad and I really like salad and I hope in fact that there's nothing else but salad 'cos that'd be delicious. Yes indeed. Another lettuce leaf? Oh thank you. Oh no, I normally nibble like this; don't have much of an appetite, you know. If you'll excuse me, I just have to nip down the street to McD's to, er, check something...

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Lamer than Jesus Christ - 08/02/2001 - 03:43 GMT - [Link]

Lamer than "Jesus Christ"
From --------Thu Feb 8 01:30:28 2001
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 15:23:11 -0600 (CST)
From: --------
Reply-To: groupies@memepool.com
To: groupies@memepool.com
Subject: Re: MY FINAL WORD

On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, Dave Michael Denis Whyte Esq. wrote:
>Ya reckon? I just registered lamerthanjesuschrist.org with namezero; you
>can even have ------@lamerthanjesuschrist.org if you ask nicely.

Dave, you are not only the most surpassingly intelligent person I have seen in my life of stints at Sorbonne, Trieste, Oxford and Harvard, not just the most courageously initiative among any I have read about from Alexander the Great to Field Marshall Rommel, not merely the saintliest I have encountered in my long line of spiritual communions from Cyprian of Carthage to Pope John Paul, but also a surprisingly interesting guy for a memepool groupie and an exemplar to us all. It is perhaps the only combination of virtues which would ever lead me to ask, courteously and with the utmost humiliity--will you please fucking give me that lame address?

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I don't need no steenkin' body clock - 10/02/2001 - 05:19 GMT - [Link]

I don't need no steenkin' body clock
So it's 3:17am CET and I've just got out of bed. We leave for Feldberg at 6:30; that's where the snow is (or isn't, as the case may be, seeing as how it's been so warm all this week). By the way, a solemn resolution: I'm never staying out after pub closing during the week again. Hopefully someone I know will read this and hold me to it...

Here's something pretty. Oh look, I can see my house!

4:22 - time to get dressed/packed. No gloves, no waterproof clothes, no sunglasses, no idea if I should bring a sleeping bag or not...

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Rad - 12/02/2001 - 16:06 GMT - [Link]

Rad
So, yeah, I can snowboard now, sort of. It's theoretically possible for me to get all the way down a piste without falling, and not falling became a very major issue on Sunday (second day) when I woke up and realised I couldn't move. Anything. At all. Mind you, this morning was as bad, as will be the next few, most likely; such a sudden transition from couch potato to Alpen-trash is bound to be a little traumatic. Still, I have an assortment of colourful bruises in improbable places to show off not to mention a nice colour after being out in the sun for two full days. I just wish I could do anything other than blink without wincing.

Fuck it - chicks dig it, bruises heal, pain is temporary, glory is forever!*
(Who am I kidding? I want my Mammy...)

*with apologies to No Fear.

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IndirectX - 13/02/2001 - 16:16 GMT - [Link]

IndirectX
Check this out: a magazine goes to great lengths to promote a big demo on its coverdisc, but fails to supply necessary driver to run said game. I must have been asleep when Microsoft bought Mechwarrior from Activision, but they're sure going to town with MW4, especially since it requires that blessing/curse of all PC games: DirectX, version 8 being the latest incarnation. PC Player included DX7 on the disc, of course, 'cos that's useful...

...which is why I've to spend nearly an hour downloading 8...not impressed.

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Whoah... - 13/02/2001 - 21:30 GMT - [Link]

Whoah...
I am overwhelmed by the weirdness that is Bowie. Perhaps someone could explain? (I don't like mailtos either...)

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Why do we never - ever - hääh? - 14/02/2001 - 00:15 GMT - [Link]

Why do we never - ever - hääh?
Buying tomorrow, single or whole album I dunno yet. Probably just the single. Aye.

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15:42 - 14/02/2001 - 16:42 GMT - [Link]

[00:13 14/02][styx.uwa.edu.au] Hi Jules!
[08:40 14/02][trac.ba-karlsruhe.de] Hi Andrea!
[14:21 14/02][iaipc117.iai.fzk.de] Hi Max/Rob/Nick!

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Look look! - 14/02/2001 - 17:13 GMT - [Link]

Look look!
As a result of the previous post + idleness, I threw in a new link. Bottom left, between "feedback" and "uptime"...oh alright: here. Satisfy your stalking cravings even more and laugh at my pitifully low hit count (not bad since January 5th, really).

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A spoonful of sugar... - 15/02/2001 - 01:59 GMT - [Link]

A spoonful of sugar...
...helps the medicine go in!. Thanks to her royal bounciness Jules for this.

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Ireland? Oh, you mean England... - 15/02/2001 - 17:21 GMT - [Link]

Ireland? Oh, you mean England...
It's 40 times the size of Ireland and 7.5 times the size of Germany; population of 16.7m; more natural resources than you can shake a stick at; capital Astana (moved from Almaty in 1998). Its president is one Nursultan A. Nazarbayev and its prime minister is Kazymzhomart Tokayev. And I bet you haven't a clue where it is.

I find the Irish in particular are always a little surprised when they're abroad and meet a foreigner who knows absolutely nothing about our little country, bar maybe having a vague (and generally wrong) notion about Northern Ireland. I've had this a few times until it occurred to me: why should they? Especially when I meet a Kazakhstani (re)immigrant who knows more about the Irish/Celts in general than I do. My mission in life is now to read up on Kazakhstan (link above) and every other country, er, in the world; then I'll be entitled to be outraged at some Johnny Foreigner's ignorance of the Emerald Isle :-)

Also, history of the Irish republic in a nutshell, courtesy of the CIA World Factbook:
"A failed 1916 Easter Monday Rebellion touched off several years of guerrilla warfare that in 1921 resulted in independence from the UK for the 26 southern counties; the six northern counties (Ulster) remained part of Great Britain. In 1948 Ireland withdrew from the British Commonwealth; it joined the European Community in 1973. Irish governments have sought the peaceful unification of Ireland and have cooperated with Britain against terrorist groups. A peace settlement for Northern Ireland, approved in 1998, has not yet been implemented."

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All your memes are belong to us - 20/02/2001 - 02:51 GMT - [Link]

All your memes are belong to us
So, you have this game waaayyy back in the 80s called Zero-Wing, with the most dazzling intro sequence ever seen in 16-bit computing. So dazzling, in fact, that they ran out of money to pay for a decent interpreter/script writer. Then, just recently, some lads over at a computer gaming clan site started doctoring some images. This was drawn to the attention of Memepool, so it wasn't long before someone threw together a little Shockwave movie*.

This, boys and girls, is what we call propagating a meme.

* local copy hosted at CDU

Update!!
allyourbasearebelongtous.com - registered Dec. 6th, 2000
allyourbasearebelongtous.net - registered Jan 30th, 2001
allyourbasearebelongtous.org - registered Feb 14th, 2001

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Okay, my turn - 20/02/2001 - 19:53 GMT - [Link]

Okay, my turn
Another meme to be propagated (see next post down). I'm just hanging on the coat-tails of these two as per usual.

1. What was the first record you owned (bought for you)?
The Mini-Pops LP

2. What was the first record you ever bought?
Went halves with my sister on Now (That's What I Call Music) 12

3. If you had someone of the opposite sex coming over and you wanted to impress them, which cds would you hide?
Too many to list all of them: highlights include D:Ream On Vol. 1, Best of Jimmy Somerville and Best of Huey Lewis & The News

4. Is there a song that reminds you most of your childhood?
More than any other, Karma Chameleon by Culture Club might have been the first song I noticed on TV/radio and where I knew the band's name, not to mention a fair few of the lyrics. I was 5; Sr. Theresa didn't appreciate my singing either.

5. If you could spend a night with five musical artists - three for their minds and two for their bodies - who would they be?
Minds:
Liam Howlett
George Michael
Tom Morello

Bodies:
Nelly Furtado (saw her vid on MTV today - OH was that the sun...)
Uh...Salma Hayek sang on the Desperado OST! Woohoo!

6. If your life was a movie, what song would play over the following:
Opening Credits: Prodigy, Climbatize
Love Scene: George Michael, Cowboys and Angels
Closing Credits: Massive Attack, (Exchange)

7. If applicable, name a song or concert that moved you to tears.
No one particular song has done this, but lots of songs hit the mark on a particular day and I sometimes find my eyes watering and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. It's not an emotional thing as such; it could be Limp Bizkit (opening chords/build-up from Take A Look Around, anyone?) or RATM or even Britney Spears, but it'll do something on the day. *shrug*

8. What do you listen to when you are...
Fucking: It was the Smashing Pumpkins last time, if I recall...
Waking up: Currently: Doedel Up by Guano Apes
Bored: Er...I play UT :-)
Excited: Propellerheads, The Crystal Method, random progressive house if it's around

9. Name one musical artist you would like to see banished:
Only one? Who remembers Roy "Chubby" Brown's hilarious rendition of (Who The F*** Is) Alice?

10. Name one musical genre you would like to see banished:
There is a particular style of music unique to Germany, listened to by the over 50s. It's not traditional, necessarily; its only prerequisite is that it be easy to sing along to, usually whilst drinking (and preferably clapped to on the 1-3 instead of the 2-4). It will be warbled by someone for whose hairpiece an entire colony of yaks was put to the sword and it is far, FAR worse than ANYTHING Susan McCann or Daniel O'Donnell and their hell-minions could throw at you in Ireland. It's called Schlagermusik and, for the record, this is the category both Johnny Logan and David Hasselhof fall into.

11. Name a song you would rather hear never again:
Bryan Adams, Everything I do (I do it for you) - I second Cliph.

12. What now-defunct band would you most like to see reunite (living or dead)?
The Doors

13. Name an album that is perfect all the way through.
Radiohead, OK Computer

14. Music you like that could be considered a guilty pleasure:
A surprising amount of Lou Perlman's progeny, not to mention Limp Bizkit (I hate Durst too, but the band play well, OK???)

15. If your music collection was about to go up in flames, which five cds would you save?
Chemical Bros - Surrender
Asian Dub Foundation - Community Music
Radiohead - OK Computer
Jimi Hendrix - Blues (as soon as I buy it!)
Leftfield - Rhythm and Stealth

16. Is there a song that describes you or a situation you've been in so well that you could have written it?
George Michael, Cowboys and Angels

17. Which underrated artist deserves more attention?
Hybrid

18. Has a song or artist changed your life in any way? If so, how?
There have been artists that have caused huge changes in my taste in music, but nothing that has really spilled over into my life. 'Cept maybe for Jimi :-)

19. What is your favorite soundtrack?
Pulp Fiction

20. Best music-related movie:
The Commitments

21. What would your dream band be?
The Dewaele brothers + Liam Howlett + Thom Yorke + Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

22. Do you miss the days when MTV used to, like, show videos and stuff?
I've not had access to MTV for as long as others might have, but even I've noticed a decline in standards.

23. What is your favorite all-time video?
Pearl Jam, Do The Evolution

24. Current favorite radio hit:
Guano Apes, Doedel Up

25. What's your favorite artist/band(s) of all time?
Sergey Rachmaninoff
P. I. Tschaikovsky
Chemical Brothers
Massive Attack
George Michael

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Spring cleaning - 23/02/2001 - 17:31 GMT - [Link]

Spring cleaning
As you can see, I've done some pruning of the layout. For a start I need a decently composed CSS file and maybe a simple little DHTML drop-down menu, which would give me a lot more space. And then a few applets and lots and lots of Flash...but nothing too complicated :-P

And there still won't be graphics! Or Slashdot headlines! Deal with it!

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Of course, I could just be lazy... - 25/02/2001 - 03:54 GMT - [Link]

Of course, I could just be lazy...
...and leave the layout like this. We'll have to see how good/bad it looks in Netscape first.

Rod over at The Editing Room has two new abridged scripts. But before you read Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, I recommend you look at the Phantom Menace script first, so as to fully appreciate lines such as:

(Alec Guiness) "Mark. Go to Yoda. He will be quirky and entertaining. He will also teach you how to use your high number of Midichlorians.. oops, Lucas didn't shit that idea out yet. I meant he will show you the ways of camera tricks and wire stunts."

In other news, it's been snowing like a bastard in Karlsruhe for the last 24 hours. Fasching (German equivalent of Mardi Gras) is reaching its pulsating, throbbing climax - expecting much craziness on Tuesday. I have a nice big cold. Played Liam "The Hustler" Tyers at pool today: I won the first game and the last game and he won the seven in between. Oh, and Karlsruhe's most glam couple is once again on hiatus.

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A Pome for James - 27/02/2001 - 18:25 GMT - [Link]

A Pome for James
*ahem*
Oh James of the shitting-the-pants pool stance
And more gel than a garage floor
Oh how we'll miss your Chandler dance
Though it won't stop us showing you the door

So, that's one less person I have to beat in pool/darts... Seriously though, he will be missed; Scruffy's loss is the Darby's gain. Plus, now I have a further reason to go home for a week or two during the holidays. Amsterdam, snowboarding, home, job: if I pull all this off I'll be some sort of genius :-)

Some things I never want to hear ever again, ever:

• "Ich bin so schoen, ich bin so toll, ich bin der Anton aus Tirol!"
• "Heeeeeyyyyy baby! (ooh! ah!) I wanna knooowwww, if you'll be my girl!"
• "Halloooooooooo!"

Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!

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5104 - 28/02/2001 - 02:40 GMT - [Link]

5104
5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104 5104

Got my credit card PIN. Happy.

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About

This is LeSinge.org v3.0. It's on its sixth* server since I registered the domain name in November of 2000 and it has gone through several drastic facelifts in that time, usually prompted by some cataclysmic event like someone deleting a load of files they shouldn't, or a server being shut down. This is the maddest layout yet; I'm trying to fit the entire weblog (apart from diary archives and the gallery) into a single loading page using all sorts of PHP-generated DHTML jiggery-pokery. The idea is to make it more inviting to look around since there's no loading between "pages". It's still a work in progress (more a proof of concept than anything), so be patient!

I'm Dave Whyte, an Irish CS graduate, German speaker, linguist and incredibly talented web developer. I'm originally from Fermoy but I now live in Newbridge with my wife Beth and our son. I'm currently working for these fine folks and enjoying it greatly.

"The Monkey"? Eh?

My nom de guerre comes from an old Eddie Izzard comedy sketch. I also like Calvin & Hobbes. I've cobbled together a searchable archive of the strips.

Contact me!

• Email - me @ this domain name (I had the catch-all disabled, with instant results)
• Gmail - dwhyte
• MSN - lamerthanjesuschrist at hotmail.com
• ICQ - 230670372
• AIM - lamerthanjchrist
• Yahoo! - jenesuispasunepoutaine
• Skype - daveandbeth2004

Or: Meebo me!

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* I've been around: csd.dot-ie.com, matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie, ns1.ayntk.net, ns4.nestdesign.com, cotopaxi.33eels.com, chimborazo.33eels.com