Niall’s virtual diary archives – May 1998

13th May 1998: This is a new section. I felt it was time there were more frequent updates now the site has grown to the size it is. We are now getting an average of 4000 hits a day - not bad for being up for only two months and not selling warez or porn!

Anyway, the updates for today have been in the hardware section and the women section. Neither have any new content, just comments from me about the relevent sections. They are the two most popular areas on the site, so I thought I'd might as well do an update section in each from now on.

Now I'm not sure whether or not to do this - I am very much led my Anand's pages though, so I might as well. Sorry, I'm on about telling you lot about my personal events. A few of you I have had email conversations with about all sorts, including my inability to find someone to employ me this summer. All the companies I approached said my CV was excellent, it was the time was the problem (or more the lack of it). So as a result, I've had to add a lot more adverts here to make up for the fact I won't be paying my overdraft off this summer. It stands at 1200 pounds now (not good).

Hmm, more personal stuff. This feels very forced. But I think it's a good idea, so why not? Anyway, recently personal stuff hasn't been going too well. Me and my roommate didn't get on too well before Easter so I moved into a new block, this one I'm typing in right now. It's an okay set of people, but they're a bit too insular for my liking. I for example keep my door open onto the landing most of the time to try and be friendly, but it's rare to get visitors. Pity. People just don't seem arsed to bother getting to know someone new here.

Also, recently me and my most recent girlfriend had a "misunderstanding". She ended up filing a complaint with the university over me harassing her or something which was complete bollocks as she was most definately leading me on to get back with her. However, she's a strange girl, and while I can't really say here why I think she's behaved this way (ie; trying her best to hurt me), I do have a good idea and while I can understand, it's much harder to forgive.

So ho hum, that's about all that's happening with me. It's 5.30am now, been up all night playing with JavaScript and doing the stuff here. Suppose it's time for bed. I'm supposed to have a meeting tonight over changing the makeup of students where I'm living in order to lessen insularity and encourage socialising. Most people just get bollocksed all the time and never get to know anyone properly or even have a half decent chat on a regular basis. Hence, there can be a certain lack of support available when you need it (eg; when your ex-girlfriend is busy pushing all the buttons that hurt), and hence a number of people can start sliding on a slippery slope (drugs, alcoholism, counselling - whatever). So I thought one night, stop whinging and go out and change it, so I did!

We'll see what happens. If anyone's reading this (less than likely), then feel free to respond here! Meanwhile, I'm going to have a smoke and then I'm going to sleep. Night night! ;)

14th May 1998: During the writing and testing of an ActiveX control for these pages, FrontPage deleted the local copy of the website. Also, it refused to take a copy of the server copy, so I had to ftp down all the files and reembed them.

Because of this there may be some broken or missing links in the site, and also all the hit counter and last updated figures have been reset. I'll get around to updating the date correctly with time

Meanwhile, let's see if this ActiveX control will work. You may notice a slight slow-down of the page load. At the moment, it is just to keep records of activity for me but we'll see what happens.

15th May 1998: Unfortunately I didn't realise that my ActiveX control won't load in under default IE4 settings. Let no one be too worried - it's just to monitor how many users I get in a day (instead of hits which I already know). I'll arrange getting an Authenticode thingy for it so it does load in properly

17th May 1998: As you may have noticed, I didn't get my ActiveX control authenticated. It costs $400 to get a security licence outside the US for just one year, and I can't afford it.

So instead, I have added a large distracting banner to appear if the ActiveX control is not loaded. This continues to appear every time you visit the time until you do let it download.

Sorry for forcing the issue, it's just for my book-keeping. It's also only 13k (hardly uses loads of disc space) and once downloaded, it never needs downloading again. It will run automatically every time you visit the site and it notifies me of the fact you visited.

Might I also add here that as it is marked safe for initialisation and safe for scripting, it means that my control does not access the registry, file system or other processes ie; it does not meddle with your machine in the slightest. It is perfectly safe to download.

Anyway, on to other stuff. I found out two days ago I have an exam tomorrow and another on Tuesday. Big shock. Do you know what I did? I went out last night and got drunk. Now I am here typing this when I really should be studying for tomorrow. Will I do this? Not on yer frigging life! I'm planning a nice big smoking session tonight so I should still be kinda floaty when I walk into the exam hall tomorrow. Hehehe, it's nice risking life and limb!

It's a beautiful day here in Hull. Sun's shining on me, I'm sitting here topless, smoking a cigarette with sweat dripping off me. I hope you realise the pain I have to endure to bring you this site!!! ;)

Anyway, there's a big change afoot. I've decided on a new addition to my woman page - Sophie Marceau. You can read all about it on the page itself, so I'm not going to repeat myself.

Finally, have a good week. Next update should be soon - there's a problem with the ActiveX control which needs fixing. When I get time after the next two days of exams I'll do it. Also, if I get time, I'm going to write a long article about something I've begun to realise increasingly - the irrelevency of the vast majority of people existing in the world - essentially they're a waste of space. Dilbert, for now, probably explains this much better than I can in a few sentences, so go have a look at him.

Be happy!

20th May 1998: I've finally mounted the old tornado website (which you can now find in the left navbar). If you know nothing about tornado, it's worth a read.

The article about the irrelevency of people will have to be held. While I was looking through the old tornado website, I found the records of email conversations I had had with people out of TCD and I was shocked to realise that I know of quite a number of people at Hull which are similar to the same people that I feel killed Derek and made countless other people's lives an absolutely misery, never mind my own. The mass dropout from Trinity proved how unhappy a lot of people were, and it wouldn't surprise me that a lot of the very same persecuters were also unhappy too. It will never excuse what they did (I feel murder), but because they will never contemplate their actions as ever having such a reaction, they will unfortunately never truly realise what evil they perpetrated. I am sad and worried to know this. The Third Reich, Cambodia and all such like them are created this way.

Anyway, given that this article would have been sharply critical of the people I have to interact with, I this time am not going to stick my head up to have it cut off. Of course there's nothing like the scale of happenings in Trinity happening here, but I see the potential so clearly. The same stereotyping, the same exclusion and isolationising of those who are different, the same whispering, commenting and shit-slinging behind backs. The same loneliness, depression and lack of life in the atmosphere. It's all so similar. Hull is becoming Trinity, but it doesn't know it yet.

And that's all I'm going to say. I'm going to try to work within the system to change this for the better, but I fear my task is mammoth. After all, society in this university merely reflects society at large, and it will be very hard to change people sheep-like following of conventionalism. That's really the problem. The wrong people are being put in this university and they are creating an increasingly unhealthy atmosphere. This atmosphere breeds onto itself and the result is as I describe above.

Hmm, I think I've been reading too much Marx again. The above sounds like The Communist Manifesto - as in "people of the world unite" and such. Hehe. Never know, I might just write something good-intentioned that will cause as much death and misery as Marx's work. Hehe - thinking of tornado ... ;)

21st May 1998: The Sophie Marceau section is mounted along with a few more Cindy pics. It's now nearly 6am and I've been going since 10am this morning ... (and went to bed 5.30am before that).

It occurred to me that I didn't tell you how well I did on my exams. Well, I reckon I got two firsts, but since I haven't done any coursework that'll bring it down to a third each. Not bad for a revision night spent getting drunk and then stoned, but ah well - what's the point of living if you don't do really stupid things once or more in a while!

Anyway, today flew something rotten. I finished the update and rant below, mounted it with extreme difficulty due to packet loss, and then went to call round to a few mates for a smoke. Two hours later, I was seeing double and having great difficulty getting the roach in as I couldn't coordinate. Hehe, fun.

I then got stopped for a chat just outside while leaving, and then got grabbed by another mate walking along, which with whom I met another mate with which relations were a bit frostly. One six hour smoking session later, all ice was broken and I had explained various shit which had happened and how people had pointed the blame at me but in fact I was merely guilty of having been misinterpreted, nowt else (a far too common occurance may I add). I left there at 3am, and then started replying to the ton of email that had accumulated. Cool.

So I'll just go off, update some Cindy pics with some slightly more revelation than ones currently present, and then I'm going to bed. Tomorrow will thankfully be reasonably quiet - I might get my book on Freud read maybe at last. We'll see.

Oh - I'll just put in a mention for The Ultimate Isla Fisher site run by a mate of mine called Ben. He's a good bloke (got an email off him tonight) so I thought the least I could do was illuminate his site here for you. Go have a look!

22nd May 1998: I've upped some new pics of Isla (thanks to Ben for pointing them out) and Sophie which I found on the web yesterday. They're as usual in the women section.

Earlier today ... Well, today's been okay. I meant to get out of bed around 10am and go into uni to see the SU president but unfortunately I just stayed in bed!

I got out of bed eventually at around 1pm and went into Cottingham to get some money. I'm now at -950, which isn't good as I still owe 170 pounds in rent.

Anyway, on the way back I bumped into a mate of mine who had an uncharacteristically fit bird with him ;). Anyway, we went back to mine and had a few smokes which took us from around 3pm to 5pm and it weren't bad. She were awfully fit though. It's also rare to meet female cainers, as in like most women within the UK fall into catagory B of cainers.

Let me explain. There are two types of cainers, A and B. Type A are almost entirely male (unfortunately), and essentially the vibe with them is well laid back, lots of interesting and intelligent discussion. Type B are more those of a certain shallow and meaningless disposition. They smoke to get stoned, like they drink to get drunk, ie; it's not as a social tool, which kinda misses the whole point of smoking (or indeed social drinking too). However, they are evenly split between male and female and occasionly, so you may meet a decent girl through type B's.

Anyway, first impression's wise, this girl seemed to be of type A. She certainly knew enough about the Northern Ireland political situation, which is very rare for anyone based wholly in the UK. She said she knew it through history, but I've met many who have done history and yet while knowing it, they didn't learn it. However, as it turns out, she was only visiting my mate from another university so it looks like that's an unopen avenue. Pity.

After 5pm, I called round to a few more mates who were unfortunately out of smokes (as was I). This was not good. First time without them in quite a while. I stayed and chatted for a while, and then left for the pub. Had a few there, weren't bad as I chatted to lots of different social groups I know. A mate of mine was leaving tomorrow for summer break, so I said goodbye to him also. I also saw ex-girlfriend Kathryn, I think she's getting over the revenge thing more now judging by her demeanour. As for me, it will take some time for me to get over her fully, and it certainly still hurts seeing her with her new other half. But in some ways, me breaking up with her has been a cloud with a silver lining in that since I've moved far more into social circles I wanted to spend more time on but didn't have any to spend. These are people I want to spend time with instead of having to, and in that it reflects an improvement in orders of magnitude over the previous situation when I was drinking so heavily and/or were in counselling. I still think a lot of the people not as fortunate as me socially speaking and are still in the trap I used to be in (described below in the 20th entry).

Oh - tonight I did have an important chat with the Lawns' head warden, John Martin. It would seem a number of ideas I have had have been proposed before by Mr. Martin but were not adopted through student apathy. This means that if I can get the SU on the side of my proposals then there should be nothing standing in between its adoption. I suppose you're wondering what my proposals might be?

Well, in essence, Hull university is not a happy place (again see the entry for the 20th for more). It's full of loneliness and depression and this is very much shown through the promiscuity and alcoholism shown by the students. I feel this situation would be somewhat improved through the increasing of second and third year students because fundamentally first year students are immature and form an unhealthy atmosphere which causes themselves unhappiness. I'm not going to go into much more detail as it isn't relevent here, but you can be sure it's going to be hard to persuade the powers that be that I'm right - or indeed, that anything's wrong in the first place.

One more thing before I go - I've discovered a whole pile more of Sophie pics, so I'll mount those tomorrow. I need to sort through the existing ones still to remove less attractive ones and save myself some server space. Also, Ben (of The Ultimate Isla Fisher site fame - see below) has told me of Isla pics that I didn't know about - so I'm off ASAP to find them and mount them!

Talk to you tomorrow. BTW, a site update may be late as I may get arrested during an illegal demonstration I'll be taking part in tomorrow. I can't give you any details at present (as it would kinda scupper the surprise for the authorities), but I can tell you it's a march for the legalisation of cannabis and the prevention of the huge increase in car numbers we've seen over the last few years. It's called Reclaim the Streets and I did both the London and Cambridge gigs a few years back, so I guess at least I know what to expect if you can say that about any event such as this.

Hopefully see you tomorrow. In the meantime, be happy!

23rd May 1998: Today's been a great day. Went to Reclaim the Streets in Hull which started in Queen's gardens at 1pm. It eventually got going at 2pm, which was handy as I couldn't find it (misinformed of its location) and had to follow the helicopters and police vans to the right spot.

At 2pm we started off, went towards the centre of Hull but mounted police blocked off our path through the city centre. Seeing as there was only four hundred or so of us we couldn't really force the issue, so we were about to go back in the opposite direction when the music systems arrived and within minutes the street was pumping to a deep reggae bass. Most sat down, some danced around the speakers, and bright florescent balls were seen bouncing around the crowd. Needless to say through the presence of some serious hashish smokers it wasn't long before the entire street was in a haze of smoke as two hundred people simultaneously lit up.

The police maintained a strong but restrained presence. After the looting last week in Birmingham, they were anxious to avoid it in Hull. Pretty much everyone got on with their party and that was pretty much that. One thing I certainly questioned was the choice of street - it was very minor and very little traffic was disrupted.

While there I met two people I haven't seen since before Christmas whom I met through Kathryn. Needless to say through her they had recently acquired a rather poor view of me, but I'm glad to say my winning ways came through and by the end I was shaking them by the hand and they wishing me good fortune. Also, a stroke of luck occurred when I bumped into our esteemed Hull university president elect, Sarah. I spotted her peering into the crowd from the outside and seeing as I've spent the last two weeks trying to get hold of her I took my chance and got over there.

One quick chat later (informing her of John Martin's views), and again I gave her my telephone number, and theroretically she will ring me in the next few days to have me express my views at some meeting. We'll see. I don't trust politicians mainly as I'm very good at making someone think wonderful things of me when in fact I give sod all about them. If I were a politician, I wouldn't trust me as far as you could throw me. That's why I'm not a politician ;)

I left the carnivaled atmosphere at around 3.30pm and when I got back to the Lawns I found to my amazement that there were a whole pile of soaking wet women in combats chasing each other round with super soakers (I'd imagine you can see my faint smile already ;) ). And might I add, they were fairly skimpy combats :)))))

As it turned out, my hall had decided to have a kind of garden party, replete with barbecue, bouncy castle and outside bar, and no one bothered telling me. One pint of extremely nasty but cheap beer and an amount of barbecued meat product later, I retired to my room, exhausted after only five hours of sleep last night and lots of walking today.

The night pretty much tailed off with calling round to a few mates for a smoke and a chat, then the bar and a few games of pool, and then a few smokes whilst watching Psycho II on telly. I'd say it was pretty much an average day ;)

Tomorrow I should be going to a party hopefully - we'll see. Might I add that if you have the opportunity to download IE4 SP1, then don't as it isn't very stable. I've learned this the hard way.

And umm, that's that for today. It's 3am now. I've been lacking in rants over the last few days as I've been seriously low on smokes. That I hopefully will remedy over the next few days, and then we'll get back to some more stirring stuff. All the rants below were written while I were barely functioning cos I was so cained, and recently these updates have become really boring because I haven't been. This I shall fix, so please bear with me and I'll get things sorted. I want to write something about evolution beyond Sartre, so depending on how stoned I get I will!

Be happy!

Earlier today ... Added meta tags to try and get the search engines finding me more. Updated Winamp to v1.91 (available on the Useful stuff page). Rest of updates come tonight.

24th May 1998: I was examing this site using Website garage (http://www.websitegarage.com) and was shocked to learn it requires 88k of downloading for this page alone! That on a 28.8k modem would require around 30 seconds to pull in fully.

Now the upshot of this is reducing the size of the adverts. Unfortunately, I have no control over the size of some of them as they are fetched from another server, but the casino one above takes 28k on its own. However through some clever twigging it's now down to 13k, which shaves five seconds off a page load to put it better. The other gifs on this page are already as small as they're going to get without losing detail, so there's not much I can do there.

Of course, the main problem really is the size of the html. This page currently weighs in at a massive 23k for the main content, 2k for the navigation bar and 3k for the adverts. This comes to some 26-28k (not sure as some html gets stripped out on the server end as the html gets joined into one page). Either way, it's nine seconds to pull the textual content in, which is unfortunate but I can't really see much I can do. Frontpage already compresses the html quite a bit - quite simply, all the writing is what swells the data.

Anyway, you'll be glad to know that website garage feels this site is good to brilliant in every other area - except one. That being of popularity. While a lot of you reading this will have found it through search engines, no one is creating links to here. I'm planning to change this, but it'll take a while and if certain things in the pipeline work out, this site should be seeing a lot more than the 150 hits a month it's been getting so far. We'll see yet.

As for the day, it's been a boring and painful one. There's been sod all to do all day (that's sunday for you I suppose), and if that weren't bad enough, I've been having terrible lower back pain all day too. The complete lack of smokes due to supply problems hasn't helped either. There's nothing I'd like to do more tonight than to get absolutely stoned off my face, go to sleep and have pleasant dreams. Not that that's going to happen tonight, but I can hope I suppose.

Tomorrow is unlikely to be much different. The fun and games of the last few days have to be countered with a period of boredom, and this will be it. Oooo, my back's just twinged. I'll have to go lie down soon.

As for site changes, I'm getting close to contemplating moving the pictures to somewhere else as I'm nearly out of disc space on the server. This will probably happen after the summer, so until then grab as many pictures as you can! Also, I've finally pretty much finished the useful stuff section with more links.

I wish I had some interesting thought for you tonight, but the lack of smokes and the pain are making it difficult. If I can procure something by tomorrow, you can be certain it'll be here first! Meantime, I have to go find some painkillers, so I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Be happy!

26th May 1998: I've updated the ActiveX control which means you should see it downloading again next time you visit here. Sorry about the inconvenience - it was to fix a bug (my Visual Basic abilities aren't great and it's a shitty language).

Earlier today ... I've spent the last two days working on Basic2C on my Acorn, so my PC wasn't turned on much. My copartner in the project seems to have done a runner, leaving me with a partially finished IDE which isn't much good without the sources. Hence I've had to start a new one from scratch. It's going to be a bit of a hacky affair, but it'll do the job. Should be very flexible at least. I like flexible tools ;)

I still have no smokes - haven't had any for days now - not good. The back pain is a small bit better - more nagging than anything else. And as for anything else that's happened to me, there's been nothing. Zip all. And with one and a half weeks to go before the end of term.

I decided today to be at Strawberry Fair at Cambridge on the 13th June. I might as well, it's only an extra week here in the UK before I trip on back to Ireland. If you don't know what Strawberry Fair is, essentially it's a bit like a traditional English country fair except that it's on acid. And I do mean literally. You get a heady collection of people best described as "new age" in demeanour who are all spaced out off their trees. It's not a bad day.

If everything goes like last year, we should spend the day at the fair and then go clubbing at the Junction in Cambridge, usually on some suitable mind-altering drug. Shouldn't be a bad night, but we'll see yet. Last year was sufficiently brilliant that I can't see it being much better this year, but as I said, we'll see.

I've been promising a rant for a while, so I thought I'd give you two mini-rants instead ;). The first is about cannabis. I feel, as you know, that cannabis should be legalised across the world. Why? It's much better for you than tobacco, it encourages socialisation in this increasingly isolationist society and it promotes deeper thought about key issues which too few people think about nowadays. In addition, there are very few negative aspects to it - it's very easy to grow, it's much better than cotton at making clothes, and crime and hard drug use rates decrease when a population is using it widespreadly. The only negative aspects I can think of is that some people will abuse it (like all other things, even chocolate), and that not smoking anything is better for you than smoking cannabis. It is my belief that cannabis will be legalised within the UK by the year 2010 - however, I fear that the US will not see legalisation for decades yet due to its different culture and way of thought. If you want more information on cannabis and its related products, see the alt.drugs FAQ on the matter here. A very comprehensive drugs information site also is The Lycaeum.

My other mini-rant is about people. Now as you know from rants I have done here before, I don't think much of 75% of people. They are shallow, selfish, irrelevent and meaningless just as a start. Indeed, people on the whole can be expressed pretty much as a measure of relative irrelevency, but I have a gut feeling that this is being simplistic. Surely it must be the case that some people are irrelevent and others are not. I'm going to take a slant towards most people being indeed irrelevent, and I base this decision on this:

Have you ever noticed how many people are just like sheep? If you throw a set of thirty people or so into a shared accomodation block and leave them to it, you will notice that the block pretty much do everything together - but more importantly, they have the same habits and opinions. This results through certain people coming to dominate the others. I call these social pivots. Every group has them, and the best way of summing them up is that they fundamentally set the mood of a group ie; the atmosphere. However, the social pivots themselves are also sheep. They are only social pivots because the people around make them so and what's more, they often have difficulty acting outside the group on their own.

Now I'm being vague here, mainly as I'm saving myself typing. The best way of catagorising people into irrelevents or relevents is to use what I've just presented. Do they fundamentally act on their own or as part of a group? If they normally and fundamentally as a part of their being do things on their own initiative, then they are relevent. Otherwise they are not.

Why do I say this? Well, look at all the people who have done things which have affected others? Napoleon, Hitler, Caesar, Luther, Marx - are these not people which have all changed the lives of others? And how did they do this? Why through being relevent, and if you use my defintion above, they fit into it, and so they are classed as relevents. Look at the converse - since when did anyone not fitting into my definition of relevency do anything to change the lives of others? I can't think of any, and if you can, email me to tell me!

Now I'm going to tie all this up. I believe that as society matures ie; becomes more and more influenced by the centuries of past relevents, a slight increase of the proportion of relevents within society occurs. This is why there are slightly more serial killers now than there was, and these people are relevents, but I don't just mean those who directly affect the lives of others. I mean all relevents, directly or indirectly affecting others. And what's more, many of the proportion of society which are relevents fall within catagory A of cainers (see below in the 22nd entry). So as the proportion of relevents increases, the proportion of cainers increases - this is already being observed in civilised society around the world - another indicator of the truth of this idea.

Eventually, I see society evolving into a majority of relevents, and human-kind will change considerably for doing so. For relevents think, as they realise that cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am). And as more within society think, society will increasingly achieve more as it makes more use of its collective brain-power. And as and when this happens, human-kind will progress at an ever-increasing rate as evidenced even now, through the development of technology and the other achievements of humanity. Eventually we shall no longer be human as it is held today. We shall have evolved into something quite different - probably that usually considered as that within the realm of gods.

I can see something of neanderthal and chromagnon man occurring. Some of society will become extinct, or worse, slave labour to the more evolved. It is said that no civilisation which has based itself on the subjugation of others has survived, but if you for a moment consider animals as a less evolved species, you can see that they have been dominated by our species in all recent civilisations. I see much the same happening between the relevents and irrelevents. In many ways, irrelevents as defined above are of a much baser substance - they are fundamentally more primitive. They have more primitive mental processes, just like animals.

I'd imagine this view will cause concern to many reading it. It concerns me too. Just because I've said it here doesn't mean I agree with it - what I've said here is how I see things, and it worries me as I fear I am pretty much correct. Most irrelevents would not understand what I mean here, and that's why I fear what I speak of above will come about as through their non-understanding of it, they automatically class themselves as an irrelevent. They are on a path to extinction, like it or not.

I don't know exactly how to expand further on this really. It's kind of just stopping - probably because I haven't got further myself yet. However, as more comes to me, I may expand on it, or its relevence to other areas of thought I have at some later date. In the meantime, be happy!

27th May 1998: I was reading Mein Kampf last night by, of course, Adolf Hitler. And one of his passages (I, ch. 11) made me think about last night's rant (below). I quote:

"... The Germanic of the North American continent, who has remained pure and less intermixed, has become the master of that continent; he will remain so until he, too, falls victim to the shame of blood-mixing.
      The result of any crossing, in brief, is always the following:
(a) Lowering of the standard of the higher race.
(b) Physical and mental regression, and, with it, the beginning of a slowly but steadily progressive lingering illness
...
Everything that today we admire on this earth - science and art, technique and inventions - is only the creative product of a few people and perhaps originally of one race. On them depends also the existence of this entire culture. If they perish, then the beauty of this earth sinks into the grave with them ..."

Now this is interesting. Adolf clearly has a very existentialist-reactionary frame of thought in that the rise of existentialism had caused a huge unsettlement within western society as the thought of being completely alone and godless made itself felt. Strangely, in a way, Hitler went on to prove the existentialist way of thinking far more than his own ideology in that in a world with a divine power, what he did would not have been allowed. His extermination of the Jews proved the existentialist view of all power residing within the individual, and indeed the reaction of the German population to Hitler's actions proved somewhat how uncomfortable they were with just that thought.

Anyway, I digress. What I want to talk about is that Hitler clearly felt that only through racial purity does civilisation reach its fuÿÿÿÿ
from what I have seen in life, many relevents are created through the trauma of culture inconsistency created by their parents being of different cultural backgrounds. Taking myself as an example, my mother is of protestant-catholic Northern Irish descent, my father of scots-belgian English descent, and the lot of us lived in Southern Ireland. Thus you have my mother, herself of an a particularly nasty cultural clash, and my father in the same but less marked, and all of us live in place also culturally alien to us. Hence you get me, the product of all these philosophies ;)

Also, most other relevents I have encountered in life are products of conflict in the early childhood environment, whether that conflict be culturally or socially based ie; through the joining of culturally and racially differents you create relevents through the culture and social shock and conflict the children of such unions must endure. Therefore, the advancement of society would be best achieved through the greater intermarriage of races. Blacks should marry whites, whites hispanics, hispanics asians, and so on. Only through this genetic and cultural diversity will a preponderance of relevents come about, and thus the resultant evolution of society.

Now, in reality, I need not propose this as a course of action as it is happening naturally anyway. Within Europe, an ever increasing number of previously diverse social and racial groups are intermixing and I predict this will result in Europe emerging as the premier scientific, artistic and cultural area of the planet. The United States, unfortunately, is still too racially encumbered to allow the intermixing I have proposed above, but even there the amount of interracial mixing is on the increase. Eventually they shall follow too

Now that that's over, I think I'll continue on from last night's entry too: When homo sapiens first came into being, they were fundamentally all irrelevents. Then as the first men came out of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, as the ancient mesopotamians (sp?) built buildings and wrote stories and sung music, as the Greeks and their progeny Socrates, Plato and Aristotle philosophised, in those first 8,000 years we saw a gradual increase of relevents through the increasing output of science, art and culture. Despite the name, the Dark Ages did not see a particular decrease in this trend but it was less marked through the influence of the new Christian church. Moving on to the Renaissance we see a massive blooming of relevent output, mainly through the profiteering off more primitive peoples. And so on, right up to the present day. We are currently in a glut of science, art and cultural output, and it's still increasing. This is because of the increase of relevents. As Hitler points out above, most of what society gives thanks for has been due to a very small number of individuals ie; relevents. And as the number of these increases, society evolves quicker.

I believe that the relative evolution of a civilisation can be gauged by its proportion of relevents vs. irrelevents. And although the proportion of such is still small in today's western society, it is still set to increase and thus fufil my predictions below ie; the evolution of a superior species over homo sapien which will come to subjugate the lesser species.

Well, that's pretty much all I thought about. I'm a boring sod sometimes. I blame it on boredom ;)

Be happy!

28th May 1998: Just been to a brilliant site. Really excellent if heavy-going. It's called Ophelia's diary or something (look, it's nearly 10am and I still haven't been to bed yet!), and it's here. Read it. Yes, you, you go read it now!

Earlier today ... I see the recent halving of visits has been finally reversed. I broke the 3000 access a day barrier yesterday again for the first time in two weeks. Looks like things are coming back on track.

Well, it's 6.22am now. I'm tired. And the last two days have been interesting - I finally got some gear, but not of a normal form ;). As in, this stuff was majorly strong. First thing I did when I got it the day before yesterday was roll a spliff (obviously) - however, it was completely pure grass. Smoked it, fair enough, however I didn't realise quite how strong it was. Soon I was tripping away and I needed to lie down. I watched Inspector Morse but couldn't make head nor tail of it, so I eventually passed out.

Anyway, that night I had intended to call round to some mates. This obviously didn't happen, but once I had sobered up enough I did eventually call round at only 1am ;). They were in, and we watched movies and smoked until around 5am when I staggered back home. Strong grass - no doubt about it.

Today I finally rose at only 5pm - hehe - and guess what? Yup, I was still stoned! Took two hours to clear my head, but by then I was in the bar. Had a few pints, got chatted up (rare), talked to loads of people. Good night.

Finally went back with a mate and tried to get some more gear. No luck, so we smoked what we had. Got back at 4am, and since have been writing email. Phew, it's hard work being a student! ;)

Anyway, after yesterday's rather heavy-going update below, I've decided to chill a bit tonight with no heavy-going philosophy. Instead, I'm going to talk about the end of term, which for me comes in only a week now. As some of you know, I recently broke up with my girlfriend of some months, Kathryn and it's been causing me a lot of thought some of which you've seen here.

Well, let me fill you in with a bit more of the picture. Before coming to Hull to get this degree I'm doing, I was working in Cambridge doing research for a company and I turned up here at the end of last september (1997). Within the first four days, I met Kathryn, and we were going out a week later.

You may think this as being a bit hasty. Well yes, but despite my prior university experience, I didn't notice the atmosphere playing its effect on me. Everyone else was pairing off, and so I did too. It was a mistake being so hasty, but I didn't realise it at the time.

Anyway, we got on very well. We spent most of our time together - why bother going into lectures when you can lie in bed together? That wasn't of much bother for me either - my course is easy. However, I came to uni primarily to meet people, and through spending all my time with Kathryn I wasn't doing that to my fullest potential. I mean, while it's fine to spend all your time with one person, what do the people without someone to spend all their time with do?

Well, I found out. Following a spate of mental problems, I broke it off with Kathryn as a temporary measure (she knew this at the time). We pretty much continued to see each other however until just after Easter where she acquired a new boyfriend, which hit me somewhat hard. I understood I had no privy over her anymore, but what got me was the suddeness of it all. No warning really, and I had a number of problems getting over it, including her eventually filing a harrassment complaint with the university over my behaviour. Now while I had done nothing to warrent this, and I do feel she acted mostly to hurt me through all this out of revenge for breaking it off with her, it has left a rather nasty sour taste about. It's very unfortunate, but she's not been very concilatory, and admittedly I don't much want much to do with her after her treatment of me.

All this probably sounds very much like my fault all along and she's a poor innocent girl. That's kinda deliberate - if you knew her better you'd understand my feelings about all this and you'd see I'm very much more in the right. However, that would entail telling your her personal stuff, which I'm not going to do, so I'm risking it that I come across as some sort of stalker. I assure you I'm not. Anyway, I move on ... since Easter, I've begun to realise more and more how shit uni life is. It's only any good when you're with someone, and having got to know the scores of people not so fortunate in this regard I've begun to realise how unhappy so many people here are.

<just rolling and smoking a spliff ... ooh, it's strong!>

Gosh, it's 8.10am now. Not good. Must finish this ... Anyway, having realised how unhappy a lot of people were (I go into this in much more detail below), I started out into improving uni life (also see below) but what I'm more getting at I suppose is that I've increasingly begun to understand how few people I really know here. As a result I've begun to work much more and creating and maintaining relationships with people I get on with, and I'm beginning to (honestly) wish the term weren't ending in a week's time. I've had a shit time here, but it's beginning to look so much more rosier it's not funny. Indeed, as I spake in an email to Ben (of the Ultimate Isla Fisher site fame) recently:

> However, I have begun to find that as I get more used to life without
> Kathryn that I'll miss it all in a week's time when term ends. There's
> something here which could get a lot better given enough time. I'm back here
> again next year so assuming I don't get entrapped by some harlot again ;) I
> may be able to develop a decent smoking community. Part of that will be to
> XXXXX XXXXXXX, but that's already been arranged, so there's no reason why
> things should go much better next year. Spending all your time with one
> person is all well and good, and the regular sex is nice, but I somehow find
> it more of a challenge and therefore enjoyable to work with and on lots of
> different people who all bring a bit of themselves into your life.

Hope you don't mind me quoting that Ben! It was me merely blatently saving myself the bother of rephrasing it properly as I want to go to be now! (the X-ed out bits are to prevent me incriminating myself BTW). So what I'm saying essentially is that things are on the general up, and I hope they continue so. Now, if only I could land a high-paying job for the summer ...

Right, that's done, bed now. I'm going to sleep. Now. Be happy! ;)

29th May 1998: Christ I'm bored. I've read all of Ophelia's entries (url is below) and pissed around doing absolutely nothing.

Part of the problem is that I didn't get out of bed until 7pm. Well, I did go to bed at 10am! But now I'm not tired and I have nothing to do. Hmm, I'm also quite hungry too.

People are beginning to go home now. I suppose we're now into the last week, but it's a strange feeling to see all of these people you barely know leaving. You get a feeling that you should have got to know them better in a way. As though that were possible in this place, but nevertheless there's a feeling of wasted time and effort. I wonder if I will feel this way when I graduate?

Umm, other than that little thought, nothing's happened (at all). Tomorrow is the Lawns extravaganza where a whole pile of students and their families get drunk and eat food that's very bad for them. Fun. I, not having my parents in this country, will use the occasion to get drunk I think. 50p a pint and all that. And I think I'll get stoned too.

Hmm, what a prospect. Life, just passing by, not much point in it ...

I've decided that it's about time I got over Kathryn and went and got a new girlfriend. Well, that is, that would be the thing to do except that (a) I'm not over her and (b) there's not much point with only a week to go. It's strange. Me and Kathryn haven't been speaking for around six weeks now and I'm still a bit strung up on her. Might take the whole summer to get her out of my system completely maybe. Except that I've promised myself not to get a girlfriend next semester as she'll just be the typical fucked up immature first year which will cause me loads of hurt and pain. My prior-decided philosophy was to only go out with those I couldn't resist eg; those like Joana. But that looks a bit hard at the moment. Testosterone I suppose. It'll pass. I need to have another staring match with Kathryn and that'll convince me my prior decision was 110% correct. She's handy to have around like that ;)

Oh - I suppose you wouldn't know who Joana is? Well, Joana is a wonderful girl who came to visit a friend of mine (Rachael) and that's how we met. Problem was, she was only fourteen. Unfortunately, deny it to myself or not, I was awfully attracted despite every rule I have in my book is against such thoughts.

Anyway, on her last night, she finally managed to make me succumb. She'd been strongly putting it on for about a day before that and I had done everything I could think of to prevent what I was increasingly seeing as inevitable, but alas eventually it was to no avail. We kissed for a while, and then started talking. So much so indeed, that anything sex related pretty quickly left our minds. We ended up just cuddling and whispering. It was nice, and rare with today's women.

I took her to the pub the next day (I know, I shouldn't have) for a quiet drink. Again we just chatted and cuddled which I had to admit I was uncomfortable about, and said so at the time. Had she only been even two years older, it would have been fine, but what kept popping into my head was that she was the same age as my little sister. Not a particularly pleasant thought :(

Anyway, she went home that day and that was the last time I saw her. I still write to her, but she doesn't reply. No doubt going through the shit I went through at that age. Pity I can't help.

Whoah! Eyes just cut out. Guess my hard life is catching up on me ... right, next update will be about my theory of women and why Joana is of the theroretical best type. But not now - I think bed is advised instead!

Sorry about the quick exit .. be happy!

31st May 1998: 6.05pm, updated the useful page with the bug fix patch for winamp v1.91. Also, if you didn't know, you can look at the stats for this site as generated by Analog here.

Earlier today ... 11.15am, just back in from last night! Now you may have already guessed why I was out so late, and indeed you'd be right. Yup, I spent the night with a woman!

She's very nice, I knew her before last night, but it's only a one night thing as it's nearly the end of term. And we didn't do much - just talked and ended up with two hours of sleep or so.

Anyway, that leads on from yesterday's Lawns extravaganza. It was okay - I turned up at 5pm, which was like four hours too late ;). Watched the end of the band playing, smoked and drank a few with friends there, talked to a fair number of people (less than I should have though I felt). Then I got some ostensibly barbecued meat for dinner, couldn't eat the chicken as it was still bloody and cold in the centre. Lucky I noticed it before I ate it.

After that simply went in the bar, talked to a few people but missed most of them because they were going to one of the worst nightclubs in Hull, Spiders (some like it, some like me definately do not!). After that I just talked to the same girl as mentioned above and another mate of mine until closing time. And that ultimately was that.

I saw quite a bit of Kathryn yesterday. She was sitting out on the grass during the band playing, and she was both in the bar and the club after. I think her and her new man aren't doing too well as they certainly don't seem to be talking much. In fact, it may have been a trick of the imagination, but I am fairly sure I saw her getting off with another bloke last night. I fear she is miserable. Her best friend, her only friend she told everything to, me, has been torn from her own life through her own doing and she knows it. If I were her I'd be miserable. I'm trying to get past the bitterness I have for her and somehow help her, but it's so easy to say to oneself "Fuck her. She brought this on herself so now she can deal with the consequences". It is so easy to let her suffer for what she did to me. But I know that I shouldn't do this, but yet I know that I won't do anything. And by the start of next term it all won't matter anyway really. I won't see her pretty much, so she'll be out of my mind, and she'll go off through life thinking whatever she thinks and that'll be that.

Life's shit. It's in my best interest not to get involved again, ever, but I know I will. But not now, not now. Later, when I'm more over her. But yes, sometime, yes, I will do something about this. And I'll get this whole situation fixed.

I've heard the university are planning to ban smoking on all university owned property. I'm going into uni tomorrow to get the student union to formally submit a protest against this idea on the grounds of student welfare, and hopefully get some other things done. Hmm, don't think there's any other news.

Anyway, I'm postponing my theory of women until the next update, mainly because I'm rather understandably tired. So until then, I'm going to have a spliff, watch Babylon 5, and have a shower and maybe some sleep. Oh - and food. But as for you, until then, be happy!