gb2: Popular Observations

2005-12-02T19:11:00.000Z

Like a petulant child I have returned home

2005-12-01T20:29:00.000Z

Interesting news from what once described as the "ontological frontline" but which has recently made a move into folk psychology due to the fact that what has been traditionally studied "just isn't philosophy". The University in question has appointed it's new V.C. Keeping in mind who wanted the position, those of you interested might find it worth looking at the publications of our new leader.

2005-11-19T20:54:00.000Z

Spot the moron

2005-10-18T22:03:00.000Z

I am worried....

Has anyone else noticed the similarities between the names of "ghd" (the expensive hair straighteners currently advertised on TV) and "ghb" (the date rape drug)? I'm not sure why anyone would want to give hair straighteners a name that is so closely attached to attacks on women who have had their drinks spiked in nightclubs; especially since I would imagine that approximately 95% of women using ghds would be those going to said places.

I have some sort of shaky conspiracy theory forming in my mind.....

2005-09-15T12:49:00.000Z

Observed by popbitch:

Is George Bush's negligence at all to blame
for the Hurricane Katrina debacle? Not if
you ask one of Bush's richest religious
conservative backers, the Rev Pat Robertson.
According to Robertson, it's all the fault
of... lesbians.

"This is the second time in a row that God has
invoked a disaster shortly before lesbian
Ellen Degeneres hosted the Emmy Awards," said
Pat. "Is it any surprise that the Almighty
chose to strike at Miss Degeneres' hometown?
... God already allows one awards show to
promote the homosexual agenda. But clearly
He will not tolerate such sinful behavior to
spread beyond the Tonys."

The loon also claims that it's no coincidence
that the Iraq insurgency started in September
2003. It's because Ellen's TV talk show
started that month.

Robertson tried to get elected President
in 1988. He said he'd only stand against
George Bush Snr if three million people
signed up to back his bid. Rather
disturbingly, they did.

Of course it's quite rational to blame anyone except those with whom the blame lies.

2005-09-08T00:10:00.000Z

A brief and unusual deviance into the the world of sport:

Northern Ireland 1 - England 0

Brilliant.

2005-09-02T10:22:00.000Z

Does anyone know where to get a full translation of Deleuze's Abecedaire (with Claire Parnet)? I know that there's a transcript on the Pli Deleuze website but it's not a full translation. If anyone knows where I can get it then I can turn it into a subtitle file and attach it to the avi which I can rip from my DVD.

Also some shameless advertising.

Pli (Volume 16) Deleuze and Aesthetics is available. It has been for a while but I didn't think to advertise it on here.

2005-08-31T22:48:00.000Z

Things to look forward to:

(nb: these are US release dates)

8th September The O.C. - Season 3 Premiere

21st September Lost - Season 2 Premiere

25th September Desperate Housewives - Season 2 Premiere

Say what you want about American but they are making the best TV series right now; I can't see anything like these being made in England.

Also to look forward to: I've got the first three seasons of the Sopranos and Season 4 of 24 to keep me occupied when I get home. Someone won't be reading as much Levinas as they should be :-)

2005-08-31T09:28:00.000Z

MMORPG Update: China's new laws imposing time restrictions on games.

Everyone is calling online gaming an addiction, which I guess in a sense it is; this is why I tend to avoid most computer games as I could quite happily play for hours and never get any work done. The only time I'm allowed to play a game is when I've finished a major piece of work. Then I get the Gamecube out and, if I'm very very lucky, I can play the latest Zelda (next one postponed until April :-( ) or I go to Game and buy a game and bring it back within the 10 day moneyback guarantee period; within that period I play for a week solid, saving the world from whatever danger threatens it. These games, though, are not MMORPGs, so when its over its over and I can return to reality.

Anyhow, I'm concerned about the necessity to place restrictions on games while not imposing restrictions on other legal and addictive substances, i.e. alcohol (although maybe there are restrictions in China, I don't know much about it). Surely the world is much safer with a lot of people sat in a cafe battling eachother than with a lot of drunkards smashing things to bits. I say safer though in a physical sense; not that the apathy of millions of teenagers when it comes to (so-called) reality isn't itself a problem. But then isn't the reality of the game a reality in itself? That is something I need to think about more....

I have no doubt that playing such games is fun; I'm sure it's more fun to have to battle lots of monsters to get money and items than doing my job and going to Tescos. But rather than play them now I'm waiting for my retirement. At least it's something to look forward to. By the time I'm 70 I hope we'll have suits that we can wear and plug into mass player systems. We can, as gods, run about our virtual worlds; a better option, I think, than drinking tea with the ungrateful kids who visit every so often and going to the local bingo club once a week.

2005-08-30T20:02:00.000Z

A recent email informed me that I had applied to take part in a Channel 4 documentary about teenagers and sex. Normally one would think such a thing was spam but they did have my home telephone number and the email was from a proper production company. I think that someone may have thought it funny to fill in an application form with my name and phone number.... I even went so far as to phone the usual suspect and have a rant but he just laughed at me and said it wasn't him. He found it funny anyway.

So I emailled the guy back and said that I was not a teenager and that I did not have particularly strong opinions about teenagers and sex; which I don't. Teenagers can have all the sex they want as long as they do it away from me. Also I would prefer that they stay away from me for the entirety of their 8 year existence as teenagers; it's not that I have a problem with teenagers I just would rather not see any.

2005-08-28T00:29:00.000Z

I can't sleep because I'm thinking about hotel rooms. This is often a problem; not that thinking about hotel rooms is a problem but I often get something random into my head and then can't sleep so I thought that I'd best write it down. I've been trying to figure out why it is that I like staying in hotels so much. If I was rich I would live in a hotel but I'm not so I only get to stay in them very infrequently. I stayed in one in Paris recently which was not too bad; although it was a hostel I had my own room.

So I've been trying to come to some sort of concrete decision about why I like them and I think it may be because they're blank spaces. When you stay in a hotel you arrive and the space is completely impersonal; even if it's really fancy its still a hotel space with no mark of personality. It's as if one enters a transient and between-world, a white space of no fixity. You have no general stuff there, nothing to attach you to the world. Like when I was a kid and thought that if you walked to the edge of the universe you would walk into a white space with nothing there, just white. There's no belongings and nothing to note that any other person has stayed there (except if it's really scummy and you find something encrusted on the sheets but thankfully I've not stayed anywhere like that in my memory). You get up in the morning and go out to go about your business, when you return the room is back in its original position as if everything that has happened in the duration that you were there is entirely wiped away and you start with a blank space again. At around 12 noon every day everything that has happened in any hotel room vanishes and the room is empty... kind've like one of those etch-e-sketch toys where you make a mess and pull the slider across at the bottom and the slate is clean for you to make a mess again.

I think that that is possibly why I like hotel rooms so much. And maybe people trash hotel rooms because they can't stand the impersonality of it all and demand to make a stamp on it. Or maybe they're just bored.... who knows?

2005-08-25T00:07:00.000Z

Observed today:

1) I don't like titles

2) My fancy new java thingy for my blog has this order of preference

a) Bataille
b) Deleuze
c) Dostoevsky
d) Lawrence

This is a shame as my Lawrence quote is the best. One advantage of returning to the midlands in a few weeks is that I will be able to fill my description java program thingy with lots of quotes from my books. For now, the ones I have will have to do. Poor Lawrence though, it really is a good quote.

P.O.2

2005-08-22T21:54:00.000Z

Racial Stereotypes aplenty. It seems that in the lobby of a Paris youth hostel one can find a plenitude of racial stereotypes. After a pleasant evening spent in the center of Paris I return to my hostel in MontMartre to check my email and partake in one of my favourite pastimes, half-listening to other people's conversations as I read my book... and some of these people are loud!

On the phone a young American girl shouts down the phone to her parents and announces so everyone can hear that "Europe is the worst country I've ever been to! I hate it!" Indeed....

In the corner the occasional shout of "I'd like to have whatever she's smoking" echoes from the Australian contingent whilst two Japanese girls clutch together, giggling immensely as they go to the counter to try to explain to the sullen, chainsmoking Frenchman that they cannot unlock the door to their room.

In the other corner a Swede writes fastidiously in his notebook; the same Swede who decided that he wanted to join me for coffee in the morning and tell me about his practise of whittling wood. Also, bad shoes.

And then me, a few too many glasses of wine and red hair making up the stereotypical Irishwoman whilst simultaneously conforming to the stereotypical philosopher; a hefty tomb by Deleuze and a glower for any layman who want to engage with me on their own philosophical theories.

Oh la la.

P.O.1

2005-08-20T11:35:00.000Z

The most dangerous sport of all....

Some might argue that it is hurley, the national game of the celts, with bands of hard metal wrapped around the bat and dangerously hard balls. Others might argue for Ice Hockey, notorious for its fights and the amount of blood spilt during a particularly vigorous game. Undoubtedly it would easy to argue for boxing, it's never pretty to look at a boxer who's been in the game for a few years. Or even rugby.... but that lends itself more to homoeroticism than violence, methinks.

No, the title of most dangerous sport must go to the previous underdogs; the MMORPG. Or, in the normal speak of you and I, the Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game.

One ruthless student in Japan has been virtually mugging other players and selling their swords, armour and other items useful for slaying your nemesis on ebay. Now it seems that the cheeky chappy has been arrested for his crimes.

Another gamer was recently sentenced to life in prison after murdering another player who stole his virtual Sword and sold it on e-bay.

But these dangers do not only stem from other people but the very act of engaging in such a dangerous and foolhardy sport can lead to one's demise. One man, in South Korea, died after playing Starcraft for 50 hours in an internet cafe. The stress and strength of will involved in playing such a game must have proved too much for this young warrior who collapsed due to lack of sleep and nourishment.

So we must no longer hail those who can throw a javelin, swim a few lengths or run a few miles as the paradigms of strength and stamina in our society. No, it is the denizens of Everquest, Warcraft and Baldur's Gate who we must look up to as those who laugh in the face of danger, who perform feats that no normal human can even imagine. All Hail the New Age of the Geeks!

To begin again..

2005-08-19T17:39:00.000Z

The question of ending my blog was not that I did not particularly want to write in it any more but rather that I felt that I should write in it. When I feel like I should be doing something on top of everything else that I do, I discover that I no longer want to do it. And not even that I should be writing in it, but that I should be writing about the important things like politics and philosophy. I shall deal with these one at a time;

Politics: The reason that I feel that I really should be writing about politics is because the world is pretty shit at the minute; it seems to me to be more shit than it usually is - trains blowing up, racism bubbling over, an innocent men being shot and police cover-ups, everyone determined that they must have an opinion (oh dreaded word) and that their opinion has a certain rightness to it. I am subjected to this opinionness when I am at work and have to spend hours reading the messages of right-wing racists, "left" wingers who support TB without question, and those who change "their" opinion depending on who is popular that week. As if opinion is ever anything more than culturally manufactured popular-speak. So anyhow, this has put me off writing on politics. Not that I don't think about it or feel that certain things need to be put into words but there are people who can say it far better than I can and I don't feel that I have much to add. When it comes to politics I do not yet feel knowledgable enough to say anything about it and I refuse to peddle opinion on such important matters.

(Actually, this shouldn't really be a problem for me as I am more concerned with philosophy (not that the two are mutually exclusive) but I once appeared on a list of political blogs at some university and then felt that I should write about it).

Onto the Big 'P'

Philosophy: This is perhaps more problematic; surely, as a student of philosophy I should want to write about it. Well I do. I spend approximately 80% of my waking time reading, writing and talking about philosophy. The rest is spent watching Neighbours, The O.C. and other trashy tv. So, what it comes down to is that I don't want to really spend my spare time writing about philosophy on my blog. Not only that but I'm about to oversee a phenomenological warfare between Levinas and Hegel which will undoubtedly keep me a little bit busy. If I look away for a moment from the battles that are about to commence then Hegel may have gouged out Levinas' eyes or Levinas might castrate G.W.F. Who knows what is possible when phenomenologists are at war?

So I have started this blog. The old one is gone, I was sick of it. I may even be sick of this one. But when I got rid of the old one I thought of things that I wanted to write about. Not philosophy, not politics, just things. Philosophy will not be written concisely on this blog. If you want it you can go elsewhere and if you're unsure of where to go then look at the linklist to your right and ake your pick. If you want to read something philosophical that I've written then you can send me an email and I will send you something if I feel so inclined. If philosophy does appear here it will only be by accident and probably quite flippantly.

Instead, this blog is what it says. I have given up the old name in favour of a new acronym gb2 - this can be gleebot, gleebok or gluebot or whatever you prefer, it's not important. And the blog is titled "Popular Observations." The title was not coined by myself but by the always charming sphaleatos. There may have been an element of sarcasm in the coining of the name but I think that it contains some elements of truth:

1. I will be making observations

2. They will be popular, if not with anyone else then at least with me and that's all I want.

this will not be opinion about any important matters but rather observations about things. Not things that have anything in common, just general stuff.

So that is my current Modus Operandi. I may post a lot or I may not post at all but it is nice to have a new house without all the crap cluttering it up.