The Purple Dragon Blog

Will add more.

How Water Helped Rome Kick Ass (okay, not the real title)

Moved from somewhere else. Written November 1, 2005

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Ten Possible Ways to Die

Mood:

Uninspired

The idea for this meme came to me when I was reflecting that I’d probably end up dying from eczema if I kept eating chocolate.
Thus, this bizzarre …thing.  Marvel at the weirdness. Ten Possible Ways to Die
(in no particular order):

1. I could run into a wall really fast. (Don’t laugh. I ran into a pole last week, quite forcefully …the inside of my mouth got beat up and it now ulcerated, and my nose is still sore when I touch it. The optometrist says all the study I’ve done has temporarily messed up my eyes.)

2. The computer could electrocute me.

3. My knee could jam while I’m walking down the stairs. (It’s been doing that lately… I have to hook my fingers under the edge of the kneecap and wiggle it. Ugh.)

4. I could strangle myself in the night by falling asleep before turning off my walkman and taking off my headphones.

5. I could catch that incredibly deadly-painful-etcetera-parasite that lives in water that the optometrist told me about when he explained why I shouldn’t rinse my eyes out with tap water.

6. My father could spontaneously do the Darth Vader telekinetic-throttling-thing because I drove him to the edge.

7. I could fail my exams and commit hara-kiri.

8. I could bleed to death from severe eczema. That’ll teach me to eat things that give me that particular allergic reaction. *stares at red hands balefully* Huh. I refuse to stop eating chocolate.

9. Two words: sleep deprivation. I hate school term. And insomnia.

10. Random axe-murderer.

Moved from somewhere else.

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When I was fourteen, I was very lax about doing homework, particularly in Religion classes, which I was failing out of sheer boredom. (They consisted entirely of very boring Catholic history.) Therefore my irritated teacher told me to write a page entitled, “why it is important to hand in homework.” Believe it or not, I actually had the breath-taking stupidity to hand the following piece in. Thank God my teacher had a sense of humor. The next year instead of continuing to take Religion classes I was able to switch to Religion & Philosophy, the advanced class, where I got top marks.

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO HAND IN HOMEWORK

Ninth September, 2002
It is important to hand in homework for many reasons. One that many people appreciate is so that you do not have to write about why it is important to hand in homework and about writing why it is important to hand in homework…
Another reason is that by handing in homework you can show you absorbed some information in class and didn’t go into a coma or read romance novels under the desk, or even draw moustaches on photographs of nuns in booklets about the Catholic Church.*

You may also stir your mind into thinking vaguely,
“Hey… what’s a Catholic?” which is a very good start, and even get onto more complicated questions like “why do priests have beards?” so that you can write a completely illegible and bewildering essay for some poor teacher who fantasises about being an accountant. This illogical piece of work will convince them to quit their job and make a lot more money than they do now, doing them a good turn.

You also do not have to write about homework when you would much rather be shoplifting or jumping off balconies dressed as Superman.** At such times you find the subject of homework very irritating.

However, the most important reason is so that teachers do not ask your parents about why you have to nurse your mother back to health every afternoon (leaving no time for homework) and that way you won’t be grounded for an entire year and have your pocket money cut off.

These are the best reasons I can think of as to why it is important to hand in homework.
* Two of my classmates did this last thing. Since we had to hand the booklets back in, they were kind of risking trouble.
** One of my friends elder brothers did this at one stage. He nearly broke both legs. I found this act sufficiently inspiring that I put it in here.

(Well, kinda… ;) )

Kieran is the author of site Websinthe, which, before anyone of touching innocence swans off there, is probably M15+ at a minimum. It’s mostly his blog ,as far as I can tell, and while it’s littered with indecent references it is also quite funny in parts. Kieran is one of the inhabitants of the Green Room like myself, BTW. The following are the ‘references’ he included on his resume web site for his ‘Professional Studies’ assignment:

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References

Eric Meyer

Kieran was fantastic to work with, his professionalism and creativity were matched only by his friendliness and animation. If I ever get the opportunity to work with him again I’m going to hit him up for the $100 he owes me from a bet involving a car, baseball bat and a chicken.

Paul Boag

I first met Kieran online, he was an avid listener to my Podcast at the time and was eager to further his craft. Even though he was still at university at the time, he still had the forethought to write a resume including this quote roughly 7 years before I ever said it. It’s the little things like that which set Kieran apart from the rest.

God

Kieran’s work ethic has always pleased me. I first met him just after the fall of Rome sniggering to himself about ‘all that lead’ or something. I’ve never had any problems with him except for early on in his career where he attempted to write up the garden of Eden using CSS. I hadn’t built standards support into the universe at that point so we had to go with something Java based to create the world. I think that still Irks him somewhat.

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So, head on over there if you don’t mind swearing and sexual references.

Websinthe

‘Where nobody smokes weed’

 I’m in the common room again. I’m wearing one of my new shirts, a long, skin-tight black one. It’s got a version of the intel inside logo on it. How does it differ? Well, it’s bright red, the bubble has little devil-horns on each side and it says evil inside rather than intel inside. I picked it up at Supre when I went on one of my periodic shopping spree last week.

Have I done any other pointless shopping? Yes. I got a keyring which has the 2005 Doctor Who logo in pewter, and a small nifty book on Latin phrases for today. It’s called X-treme Latin: All the Latin you need to know for surviving the 21st century.

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COUNTRY SONGS:

Si Dies Hodiernus Esset Piscis, Reicerem

If today was a fish I’d throw it back

Mater Cape Malleum, Musca Sedet in Capite Patris

Mother get the hammer, there’s a fly on Papa’s head

***** 

MESSAGES FOR YOUR PC:

Si denuo congeles, confestim ibis in fossam purgamentorum

If you freeze one more time, you’re going straight to the landfill

Assume plicam damnatam, o tu moles muscaria muscerdarum

Download the goddamn file, you bug-ridden piece of s***

***** 

MISCELLANY:

Has epistulas debitorum solutionem pscentes aperirem, sed metuo ne bacilli anthracis insint

I’d open these bills, but I’m afraid they may contain anthrax

Tritis nuntio Martios descendisse et, eheu, truculentos esse, sed laetus nuntio illos odisse Arabes oleumque octanum meiere

The bad new is, the martians have landed and boy, are they mean;

the good news is they hate Arabs and piss gasoline!

Basia basiliscum meum

Kiss my basilisk

*****

ONE FOR THE TREKKIE OR STARGEEK:

Scutorum notstrorum potestatis remanet solummodo quarta pars, et istae scintillae ridiculae ex omnibus claviaturis gubernatoriis evolant!

Our shield are down to 25 percent and those stupid sparks are coming out of all the control panels!

***** 

AND FINALLY , MY FAVORITE:

Sicine? Nunc age, tibi nuntium erroris habeo, stuprator- mox improprie sopieris malleolo

Yeah? Well I’ve got a message for you, f***head - you’re about to be shut down improperly with a sledgehammer.

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My second favorite is Si Dies Hodiernus Esset Piscis, Reicerem - in fact, I think I’ll use it as the tagline for this blog, replacing my personal motto of Furtif si possible, fort si nécessaire.

I found the blog of a young writer trying to get her books published. Adventures in Writing is here. Once I get a book completely written and published and I know the material can’t be stolen, then I will start blogging about my writing. But my mum is paranoid about my stuff being stolen. So yeah, no websites or blogs about it.

Oh, for those of you who heard about the novel at the Sith Lord blog: it’s very nearly finished, I only have about a chapter and a half more to go, I just need to write the final battle and the ending. Then the editing phase starts, although I’ve already done heaps of editing on the earlier parts (whenever I had writers block I’d sit down and edit what I’d already written). I tell you what, boy will I be glad when I’ve finished this. This is the 6th year I’ve been working on this thing. It’s not the best book - I’m writing far better stuff now - but it is reasonably interesting, if somewhat rambling, and I’ve put so much time and effort into hammering it out that I’m really quite fond of it now.

Not much going on in my world at the moment, although one ‘Madam Nenita Villaran’ proposes a mutually beneficial partnership that involves her gaining access to my bank account.
My sister has discovered, meanwhile, an automatic slogan generator where you type in a phrase and it puts it in a slogan for you.
Some of the things it came up with:

“The Smell of Dennis Rodman.” (Weird, I know. Why I put in ‘Dennis Rodman’, I don’t know…)
“Get the Door - It’s Purple Dragon.” (Yeah, people, get the door!)
“The Star Wars Goes Straight to Your Head.”
“Run for the Doctor Who.” (Gladly.)
“Better Ingedients, Better Doctor Who.” (Is this a description of the 2005 series?)
“Star Wars Just Feels Right.”

Hours of fun available there. The rest of the site, www.surrealist.co.uk, is pretty cool too. The Surrealist Dalek (http://thesurrealist.co.uk/dalek) is an example of this.

Also fun is http://www.anagramgenius.com/ an downloadable anagram generator for those that really, really like anagrams. (Good if you wanted to see what else Mr “Dirty Old Me” could have chosen for his title*…)

Anyway, got to go.

~Purple Dragon

*Tom Riddle

I was bored on the train the other day. Someone should have stopped me before I resorted to writing limericks.

“There was a delusional bullfrog,

Which believed that it was a Balrog.*

It tried to breathe flame,

But just looked real lame,

So now it just hides in the marsh fog.”

“There once was a wizard named Snape,

Who wore all his robes like a cape.

They billowed as he walked,

Impressed when he talked,

Left the frightened first-years all agape.”

“There once was a Sith Lord name Vader

Who was a confirmed Jedi-hater.^

He was really frightening

Thoguh he had no Force-lightning

 – Instead he just used his lightsaber.”

And now a couple of challenges, people:

A)        Write your own pop-culture-inclusive limerick

B)        Finish the limerick below:

“There once was a wonderful Time Lord

Who, now and then, just got so bored

He dropped into his memories

Of a young lady named Emrys

[INSERT LINE HERE]”

*A fictional creature from the Lord of the Rings universe.

^Vader doesn’t hate Jedi, he feels superior, but hell,  this rhymes better.

LISP: The Programming Language From Hell

The year is 1999. Current affair and news programs are running segments detailing a possible near-apocalypse, where there is no electricity or water, necessary services are down, and mobs are out looting. People are being advised to stock up on necessities, just in case the worst happens. (As it turns out, nothing very much will happen, very much disappointing a bored eleven year old girl who was looking forward to an exciting period of her life that she could one day bore her children and grandchildren with.) (Although, Sydney tested a new management program designed to automatically add a certain amount of flouride to the city’s water, and the program promptly dumped an entire year’s supply into everyone’s water. People had to drink bottled water for weeks.)

In the IT world, everyone is frantically rewriting and editing computer code to bring it into the new millenium. Some segments of this code is 30 years old or so, and though basic, are absolutely huge. Unfortunately, all this code happens to be written in a much older programming language - one that most people no longer use and therefore, no longer learn. Bugger. We have a problem.

Cut to 2006. After the Y2K Bug problem, people are once again being taught, at least to some degree, one of three of the older languages: Fortran, COBOL, and Lisp. The IT industry wants to make sure that everyone has at least some idea of how the older languages work, just in case there’s ever a case where they’re so idiotically short-sighted once more. (I don’t blame the people who wrote the original code. After all, they had some 30 years to go. I blame the stupid idiots who kept using the code without updating it. Honestly.)

Unfortunately, this means that I am now bewilderedly doing my best to program in the scheme dialect of Lisp, which is totally alien to everything I’ve ever done before, not to mention linguistically challenged. It consists of a few words and a whole heap of brackets that unfortunately make absolutely no sense to the untrained observer. Of course Lisp is, in its way, a very useful language - it’s dynamic and easy to use once you grasp it, and is experiencing a resurgence of interest among open-source programmers - but utterly frustrating to those used to, say, languages like visual basic where everything is a lot more specific and detailed, and half-English. I’m getting tutored my my neighbour for the moment, but damn I hate this stuff.