The Ex-Tiny IT rundown
Neil was the first out of the blocks, and is enjoying his new job, if not the commute.

Mark & Barry C. are doing well with their own new business.

Emma has entered the hallowed world of Academia.

Attila is moving to Leeds to take up an exciting new position.

Paul has apparently left his new job and is now looking elsewhere.

I'm certain someone told me that Eoin has a nice job.

Still Looking: Ron, Chris, Dave, Brian, Steve, Les and Me

Unknown (not there last night and, if anyone told me what they're doing, I was too drunk to remember): Barrie, Rob, Ian, Nick, Julian, The Matts and, last but not least, The Twins (Chana and Yacob).

Oooph! Is it morning already?
I feel just the oophiest. Fuzzy mouth. Jackhammer in head. The whole ball of wax.

So drunk last night. What was I thinking?

Well, hello world. Again. I greet you this on grey-skied morn from under the self-induced haze of an almighty whopper of a hangover. Was it not John Donne who said...

Hangover, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Hangover, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From drunken rambling and obnoxious passes, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of thumping head, and awful regrets.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, mixed drinks, and closing hours,
And dost with indigestion, barmen, and wine stains dwell;
And stubbed toes or thrown bricks can make us howl as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, with two ibuprofin,
And hangover shall be no more; Hangover, thou shalt die.


Another thing I've learned about being dunk is that you shouldn't try to post blog entries when you get home, as I did with the Verisign thing below. I've fixed the links now, so feel free to click and learn the whole sorry story. Verisign really has behaved most abominably, and the least I can do to help poor Leslie is to post more Verisign links.

Remember, every link you post to that page brings it closer to the top of Google's pile for Verisign related searches. This is because Google works on the number of links pointing to the same place for a given keyword. So if there are 1000 links pointing to Verisign's home page on the web and 1001 pointing to the Textism article detailing Leslie's plight, then that artcile will move above the home page on the next Google search. Cool, huh?

Google Bombing
This is part of a Verisign Google bomb. If you want to help Google bomb Verisign, please link your blog or website, to Verisign.

Friday Five
Sorry, Friday Five fans, but there is no official 5 this week. Gasp!

According to the site:

Friday Five is taking a break for the next week!

We're revamping, moving to a different host and will hopefully be back on friday, may 10.

Feel free to look through past friday fives and do whichever ones you haven't had a chance to do in the past.

Well, who am I to argue? Since I've only done two so far, that pretty well leaves the table open. At random, I have chosen to do The Five from Friday, March 7th, 2002.

1. What makes you homesick?
Almost anything. I'm an Australian who hasn't been home since November 1995. That's a heck of a long time. There's really no telling what will set me off. One of the first Blog entries I wrote, way back when, was about my nostalgia for the sound of Cicadas in the Summer. Who would have thought you could get misty-eyed over a bug that sings?

The only summer insect of any note in the UK is the ubiquitous Midge (kind of a mosquito). The problem is that houses in the UK do not have fly screens on their windows, so on those all too rare warm summer evenings, you have to keep your windows closed.

Or turn off all the lights and hope for the best..

Or die of swamp fever.

So yes, the poor quality of British insectoidal life makes me homesick.

Actually, come to think of it, there's wider issue at stake here: The state of the UK Window Industry. Did you know that windows in the UK don't even slide, they open inwards! That's just wrong!

2. Where is "home" for you? Is it where you are living now, or somewhere else (ie: Mom & Dad's house, particular state/city)?
I've lived all over; England, Ireland, Canada, the USA and, of course, Australia. Home may be where my hat is but, in my heart, my real home is Sydney. Home was our old family house in Grays Point (a Sydney suburb), until my dad sold it, without bothering to inform me.

I want to go back to Sydney, but maybe just to visit. There are a lot of sad memories. My mother; her not being there. I think when I go back to live, I might try somewhere different. Maybe Melbourne. I like Melbourne.

3. What makes it home for you? People? Things?
Home is about memories of love.

4. Where is the furthest you've been from home, miles-wise?
Jeeze, I've been everywhere. I'm not actually sure where the furthest place is. Maybe it's where I live now. I guess Surrey is about as far from Sydney as you can get.

5. What are your plans for this weekend?
See post below. Catch up with Tiny types at the Harvester tonight. Tomorrow, have hangover. Sunday? Maybe see a movie.

Last day of Garden Leave
Today is the last day of Garden Leave for all of us former Tiny Computers employees. Those of us that haven't found jobs yet (ie ME!) are now officially un-employed. We'll all be getting drunk and commiserating with each other tonight at The Harvester in Salfords. It looks grim for most of us. Most, but not all, because there is some good news. Very good news, in fact...

Emma has a job! And what a job! She just started today at Chichester College as a TA, and will graduate to Lecturer status next year! How cool is that? I'm so happy for her. Talk about having to hit the ground running, she had her first class today, helping students in a tutorial build their own Access databases.

Congrats Emma! You've done us all proud.

Pssst! Pass it on
Good ideas, like good curries, keep repeating themselves. Courtesy of friend Ron, there's a certain email doing the rounds at the moment...

When Mark Shuttleworth, (very rich space tourist in the papers last week) returns from space, everybody dress in Ape Suits.

Pass it on.

OK, I know you've heard it before. Yes, I remember the John Glenn gag, but what if we actually did it this time? What if, when the $20m pay-per-orbit South African returns, there really were people walking about, looking like refugees from the Planet of the Apes. I'm serious! Come on people, this could unite the human race. A practical joke on an international scale. Start sewing today!

Blog rolling in our time
Have I told you before I much I like Claire Robertson's LoobyLu blog? She doesn't post often, but it's worth checking back on a regular basis, because everything she does is just so terrific. Claire is a professional illustrator, and each article is accompanied by an beautiful drawing. Be sure to check out her portfolio for more examples of her wonderful art.

Yowsers!
It has been remarked upon that Australia has more types of games called Football than some countries have religions. There's Australian Rules, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Soccer. Even American Football and Gaelic Football get a look in. The big two codes are, of course, Australian Rules (AFL) and Rugby League (NRL).

Traditionally, your love of one game over another was determined by where you were brought up. Largely raised in the great state of New South Wales, I know with my heart and soul that God's own game, the game they play in Heaven, is Rugby League. These days, this regional preference is no longer quite so absolute. I'm told, for instance, that many otherwise rational Sydney-siders will go to watch an AFL game, but I've yet to come to grips with this worrying notion.

I'm old enough now to have my irrational prejudices set, and this is one I plan on running with. Rugby League is the rougest, toughest most exciting game yet devised. Aussie Rules isn't. If you're hoping on entering the after-life, you can be sure that there will be a question on the quiz.

So get studying.

As a kid, I never gave much credit to Australian Rules Football or, as we called it, Aerial Ping-Pong. No one ever got tackled; no one ever got hit. What kind of sport was it supposed to be? Well, it looks like I may have to re-evaluate my opinion of Aussie Rules. It might be a tougher game than I thought. By way of evidence, I send you to the ball tearing terror of this article. Yikes!

If you are of a nervous disposition, it's probably not a bad idea for you cross your legs before clicking.

Thought I'd destoryed my blog!
Damn Syndie tags. All I can say is thank god for blogger safe mode. As a quick aside to any fellow Blogger users, if you think you've done something awful with a post, so awful that you've lost the edit button, just click on enter safe mode and you can fix just about anything. Hurrah!

Admin note: I'm cutting the number of blog entries which appear as current from 20 to 10. The load time was just getting silly. Anything you want to read will remain in the archives.

Why my vision is blurry and I don't care
I began serious blogging about three months ago. Since that time I've noticed something a little scary. I can't spell. This was a bit of a surprise to me, because I had thought that spelling was one skill I could rely upon. I have always known my handwriting was pretty bad. Bad enough that people might think that I couldn't spell. Or that I was illiterate. Or that their 3 month old daughter had somehow acquired a pen. But my typing has always been fine. Acceptable.

Sure, I type slowly, but then I think slowly too. It semed a good match. It's true, capitalization has been a bit of a bugbear, but so long as the letters were correct and the words in the right order, I've felt it would be churlish to question my good luck. Not, of course, that I was ever the Scrabble champion of my... errr... local Scrabble district, assuming I have one, but I was good enough. I was content.

What I have discovered is that I have a kind of partiality to certain mis-spellings. There are certain words, everyday words that I know well, which I always mis-spell the first time around. I am about to type a classic. I am even going to try to type it correctly, but, as you will see, it will come out wrong. Here we go...

I beleive the children are our future...

I swear to you that I did not intentionally mis-type that. I know the old adage well, even if I can't always spell adage correctly. I before E except after C. I ought to know it. Over the years, I've repeated it often enough to people who insist my name is spelled KEIRAN.

These days it's become fashionable to blame others for our failings. So I blame Bill Gates. I have become so used to built-in spell-checkers that, when I have to do without one, I simply cannot cope. Microsoft word provides a crutch. I see a red wavy line and almost automatically I fix the spelling. I don't even think about it.

With Blogger, there is no spell-check. It's hard to spot errors in my little blogger window. I catch some of the little buggers, but usually the first I know of a mistake is after posting, as I read it online. Hardly seems fair. Once or twice I have pasted my entry into Word before posting, but we all know that would be far too sensible for the likes of me. And besides, I'm keen to get it right myself. First time.

Old One-Take McCabe, that's what they'll call me.

But none of this really explains why my vision is blurry, does it? Except that it isn't, anymore. Not blurry. It's cleared up.

Staying up all night to finish a book is never a good idea.

Another test thingie
I just took another one of those online "What kind of blurgle-blurgle are you?" tests. This one was unusual in that it was actually a serious personality test. I've always been pretty skeptical of this kind of psychometric mumbo-jumbo. Only once have I wavered from that view, but it didn't take much to do it.

I used to work for a company that made everyone take the Myers-Briggs test when they joined. They then had to post their results on their desk. For all the time I was in that office, I had a little card emboldened with the words "Hi, I'm Kieran and I'm an ENTJ," sitting on my monitor.

As I recall, the middle two letters tell you which of the classic Jungian personality types you fall in to. The outer letters add a little bit of shading to the result. According to the booklet, what it boiled down to was that I was a Rational Thinker. Actually, I've always liked to think of myself as just that, so I felt pretty good about the result. I was converted!

Can you say Ego Stroking?

I took the test with a Italian woman called Marilissa, or something like that. I don't remember what her letters were, but they were something touchy-feely. I may have sneered. Afterwards, when we were comparing scores, we looked up a list of famous people who shared our personality types. She got Ghandi. I was impressed. Ghandi, huh? Wow! OK, so who are the famous ENTJs of this world?

Bill Gates and Margaret Thatcher.

What?!?

Bill "Prince of Darkness" Gates and Margaret "Bloody Maggie" Thatcher! I simply couldn't believe it. How was it possible? It was all so very unfair.

You want more detail? OK, according to this site an ENTJ is as follows:

Outgoing, logical and decisive, the ENTJ leads by providing conceptual structure and setting goals, rather than by detailing and enforcing procedures, codes and regulations. This "big picture" type rises naturally to conspicuous positions of power and responsiblity in all organizational settings (business, military, educational, governmental.)

Disorganization, confusion, emotion, inefficiency and illogic drive ENTJs to take charge of situations and institutions. Their intuition fuels their vision and defines their goals. They deal with the world boldly, in an assertive, analytical, objective and organized way which inspires others to salute them and do whatever the ENTJ needs done--including all the detail work! ENTJs certainly do get things done, both at home and at work, but often at substantial cost in terms of wear and tear on the human spirit, for they may neglect the importance of the personal element in accomplishing their purpose.

More than any other, this type seems to struggle between an inner drive toward creative spontaneity and the desire for order in the universe.

Anyone who knows me, knows that some of that may be true, but it's really not a very accurate portrait. But when I first read it, my natural skepticisim was held at bay for a moment. It seems hard to believe, but at the time I thought they had really hit the nail on the head. I recognized some of the profile in myself, and was flattered by the rest.

But then, of course, I realised the truth. These tests are not a reflection of how your personality actually operates. Rather, they reflect how you would like to believe it operates; How you want to be perceived.

It's like lifestyle magazines. People buy these magazines because of a lifestyle they aspire to, not one they actually have.

I, Kieran Peter McCabe, believe in truth, logic, reason and honesty. I believe, above all things, in rationality. But am I always logical, reasonable, truthful and honest? Am I always strictly rational?

Like fun I am.

Not even old big ears himself, Mr Spock, could claim that he was always logical. I recognize in myself a truth that many people deny about themselves, but which I see evidence of everyday. People reach decisions for less than strictly logical reasons. They then use logic to justify those decisions, after the fact. I do it, and so do you. Not always, ideally not ever, but sometimes. And more often than you would like to admit.

It may be easier for you to admit than it was for me. Some people don't prize reason as highly as I do. But that's a preference, not a function of the way my mind works. (although, that's another issue altogether, isn't it?) And it was my preferences and prejudices that shaped my ENTJ rating.

When I took the enneagram test below, I answered my questions just as honestly, but the personality described is certainly very different from my valued ENTJ. A different test and a different way to evaluate answers, produces different results. What a shock! Maybe it just highlights a different part of the rainbow that is Kieran. Maybe it's just bunk.

I going to run with bunk.



take free enneagram test

Alas, alak and like that
ITV digital terrestrial broadcasting will cease transmission of its pay content at 7am tomorrow. As recently discussed in some depth on this blog, the network paid too much for soccer broadcasting rights, and found itself unable to keep up payments to the Football League.

They're out there...
The freaks are out there! And I'm not just talking about the charmers at tomorrow's May Day festivities in London. No, today I want to concentrate on some very specific imbeciles.

Everyone knows about those poor deluded souls, the UFOlogists. These self-proclaimed experts study the claims of paranoid-schitzophrenics that they see lights in the sky. Less well known are the Cerialologists, who study trampled stalks of wheat. Now you can add another, admittedly much smaller, group of experts to the list: The Cryptozoologists of the Reptoids Research Centre. Or, to be more precise, the Cryptozoologist (singular) of the Reptoids Research Centre, one John Rhodes.

According to Rhodes, "what we have been calling 'Extraterrestrials' are, for the majority, Inner-Terrestrial reptilian beings that evolved here on Earth long ago and who continue to live to this very day in deep underground caverns and caves around the world."

Re-read that sentence. Go on, I dare you.

Many Paleontologists believe that some of the dinosaurs evolved into the birds we know today. Rhodes wants to take that one step further, believing that some other dinosaurs "escaped into the Earth's underworld of caves and caverns and gradually [evolved] into self aware, hyper-intelligent Reptilian-Humanoid beings called REPTOIDS!" Aaaaarrrggghh!!!! I always supected that the special effects in that old TV series V were just too good for early eighties television. It's clear now that it was nothing but Reptoid dis-information!

For the past 10 years, Rhodes has been travelling the world, searching "deep into the wilderness where the Reptoids and Sauroids are thought to have concentrated populations underground." Occasionally he even allows people to pay him to lecture on his Evolved Reptoid-Sauroid Hypothesis. What a peach.

So, if you want to report sighting a reptilian, humanoid "Reptoid" or any other unrecognizable bipedal reptilian life form, visit the Reptoids Research Centre. They're there to help!

World domination: Any day now
Those who know me well, know the simple truth: One day, I plan to take over the world. It's been my heart's desire for the longest time! But how to do it! Obviously the teeming masses are not simple going to hand over the keys; I'm going to need a plan. Fortunately, thanks to the good folks at So you've decided to be evil, developing your evil plans has never been easier. Simply visit their Evil Plan Generator, answer a few simple question, et voila! Your own bespoke Evil Plans!

Don't believe me! Ha! I'll show you! Here is a copy of my own recently generated evil plans for world domination. Told you so. I don't know why I'm showing you this, but it really doesn't matter; You'll never escape to alert the authorities. Those mutant sea bass will make quick work of you. I'll just lock door this behind me as you are lowered implausibly slowly into the tank... [evil cackle]

Your objective is simple: World Domination.

Your motive is a little bit more complex: To show them all.

Stage One
To begin your plan, you must first seduce a wealthy heiress. This will cause the world to sit up and take notice, stunned by your arrival. Who is this sadistic fiend? Where did they come from? And why do they look so good in classic black?

Stage Two
Next, you will sabotoge that Opera House in Sydney. This will cause countless hordes of cultists to flock to you, begging to do your every bidding. Your name will become synonymous with fuzzy bunnies, as lesser men whisper your name in terror.

Stage Three
Finally, you will unleash your needlessly big weather machine, bringing about rivers that run red with blood. This will all be done from a Obsidian Citadel, an excellent choice if we might say.

These three deeds will herald the end, and the citizens of this planet will have no choice but to elect you their new god.

Trust us, it'll all come together in the end

WHAT?!? THEY'VE ESCAPED!!!! BUT HOW?

Genius in the shadows
Many thanks to the good people at Memepool for pointing me towards semi-professional Amazon reviewer Henry Raddick. As of this moment, Raddick has posted a whopping 239 books reviews on Amazon, each and every one a gem. Unfortunately Raddick's personal profile at Amazon is a little spare, describing him, rather meanly I thought, as merely "Cheeriness personified."

Well, I'm sorry, but this will not do. Renaissance man Raddick deserves better. And so, using his own reviews as a guide, I have pieced together a sort of rough biography.



HENRY RADDICK, esq -- The man, the legend.

Henry Raddick is a morbidly obese 87% heterosexual Englishman. This sometime Family Therapist, sometime Radiographer, is nothing if not a family man. Married for 24 years to 45-year-old Marjorie, and inspite of her ill-advised tattoo and her troubling recurrent penchant for cuckolding him with professional keyboard players, the loving couple recently renewed their vows.

Together they have two strong-willed children in their teens and now two new born babies: Loud mouth, masturbating 16-year-old son Jonathan, perky 14-year-old daughter Stephanie plus the adorable twins Farouk and Kylie. Raddick is proud of his extraordinary parenting skills, largely gleaned from his wide-ranging reading.

Henry loves animals, especially dogs, of which he has two. There's his 14-year-old cocker spaniel Barry and 5-year-old pug Grendel. Grendel is a recent addition to the family, purchased under the mis-apprehension that he was a bulldog pup. Henry likes to keep spaniel Barry in line with the occasional mock execution.

Henry never fails to keep his loyal readers up to date with developments in his wider family. From homophobic Uncle Sandy to Jailbird brother George, Henry really cares about his near and dear.

So far Henry's valiant efforts to cure 74-year-old Uncle Sandy of his graphic public homophobic outbursts have failed:

"I told him not to judge a book from its cover, but that's hardly an argument to persuade a man who to this day refuses even to shake hands with a man if he is wearing corduroy."

Henry has also taken pains to improve communications with George, going out of his way to learn Jailhouse slang:

"It gives me no pleasure to see him there behind the glass with his botched tattoo, looking all forlorn and grovelling for phone-cards, but at least I can now ask him whether he's yet been hammed by any of his wing's gravy hounds; which is a start."

In his spare time Henry enjoys donning a cravat as he stalks the craps tables, prowling for spare. He also has an unhealthy interest Doll Millinery.

Must be that "inner" beauty
Politically correctly broadsheet The Independent running with a story on a Beauty Contest? Shome Mishtake, Shurely? Normally the closest the journalists at The Indie would get to a beauty conest would be an expose on the reptiles running them. This time, however, the reptiles are on the stage.

Don't worry, you haven't stepped into some alternate universe where up is down and Adam Sandler is funny.

Welcome to the wonderful world of "Reptilia". Three days of Peace, Love and Reptiles. And Amphibians. And Insects. And just about anything which crawls, squirms or generally scares the bejezus out of people. This beauty contest for the bizzare was held in a Rome hotel over the weekened. The Indie's report describes the winner Grisu, a scaly orange iguana, as follows:

No doubt the champion is dazzling, but from among several thousand exotic contestants, the winner has a mohican, a double chin, and, it has to be said, a slight pot belly. Nevertheless Grisu seemed to be taking the glory and attention serenely, rolling his eyes in their sockets and winding his foot-long stripy tail round his owner's waist.

Unfortunately The Indie's report did not include a picture of the winner, so I scoured the web for a suitable replacement. Pictures of Orange Iguana's prove to be as rare on the ground as the luminous critters are themseleves. The one above was the best I could find. Shame Grisu wasn't green; There's no shortage of fabulous Green Iguana pictures.

My brain hurts
Share the pain.

Official: Winona Ryder Pure as Driven Snow
Results of a recent Sporadic Poll conducted on the Kaymc Blog have proven conclusively that movie star Winona Ryder is Pure as the Driven Snow. Speaking through her Hollywood agent, Miss Ryder is reported "Delighted" by the result.

"It's a vindication," said Ryder. "I've always known that my fans had faith in me. Hopefully, once the formality of the court case is behind me, I can move on."


Winona Ryder thinking big thoughts.

Those Results in Full:

Respondants were asked to complete the following sentence in one of four ways: Winona Ryder is... Guilty as sin 13% Ethically challenged 23% Mis-understood 26% Pure as the driven snow 36%

Face of a Hero



By now everyone must have heard of the terrible massacre in a German school on Friday. What's only starting to come out now is that in the midst of all the terror, one man, teacher Rainer Heise, stood tall and faced the gunman down.

Heise was busy evacuating children from the school when he recognised his former pupil.

He said he challenged the student to look him in the eye and shoot him. Instead, the killer, Robert Steinhaeuser, lowered his pistol and said: "That's enough for today."

Heise then drew Steinhaeuser towards a classroom door, shoved him through and locked the door behind him. Former student Steinhauser shot himself soon after.

Read more on this story at the BBC.

Never again
I recall making some kind of rash promise last night that an in-depth report of the evening would be posted by midday. According to my clock that gives me just under 10 minutes...

Who was there?
Emma Chesmur, Mark Merrison, Chris Moore, Dave Corrie (aka GB2, Corriemonster & Bloody Dave) and myself.

Where were we?
The Railwayman in Crawley.

Did you have fun?
Yes.

Did you drink very much?
Maybe...

Did you make an arse of yourself?
I did say I was drinking, didn't I? Of course I made an arse of myself. I vaguely recall some woman playing pool... And how did we start singing the theme song to The Littlest Hobo?

Did you have a hangover?
And How! Wow. What a hangover! I honestly don't know how I managed to get so drunk. I had a couple of beers, that was all. A couple of teeny-weeny beers and the next thing I know I wake up with a jackhammer inside my skull. Just a couple of beers... And who's idea was it to move onto the Bloody Marys anyway? It was Dave's idea, wasn't it?

Bloody Dave!

Because the thing about drinking Bloody Marys, the truly terrible thing, is that people get into a kind of shoving match over who can handle more Tabasco Sauce. And I think I won. My bowels are telling me I won. Oh god, oh god.

Bloody Dave!

And how did all that Tabasco get in my Black Russian?

Bloody Chris!