Author: Purple Wyrm

Well, now I’m done with embarrasing personal revelations for a while, I thought I’d relax with some stupid online tests…

You are Neo, from “The Matrix.” You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Perfect fusion of heroism and compassion? OK, if they say so. Mind you, I did it again, changed a few answers where I could have gone either way and came up as Cypher, so I think I’ll stick with Neo 🙂

You are Professor X!

You are a very effective teacher, and you are very
committed to those who learn from you. You put
your all into everything you do, to some extent
because you fear failure more than anything
else. You are always seeking self-improvement,
even in areas where there is nothing you can do
to improve.

Which X-Men character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

Cool, I’m Patrick Stewart! 🙂

I came out the same as Helen and Ali on the shipper test, so if you’re that interested, visit their blogs.

I did the Talk Like A Pirate Personality test too, but I came up as a Pirate 2nd Class. In the process it alleged some rather uncomplimentary things (Long walks on ta beach and cuddlin’? Arrrr!!! What ye be alledgin’ thar matey?!) so I’m not going to post it *g*.

Oh, and my pirate name is apparently “Dirty James Flint” which means I’m hard and sharp like the rock flint, but I’m also easily chipped and sparky. The other pirates also want to throw me into the ocean, not to get rid of me, just my smell.

Hmmm, somehow I don’t think I’m cut out to be a pirate 😉

I have an admission to make. An admission of a kind that I’d never make under normal circumstances. In fact virtually every instinct in my Geek brain is screaming at me to stop, but I’m sufficiently fed up to ignore them and press on. So, what is this shocking and potentially scarring confession that will horrify and alienate my small yet loyal band of readers? Well, nothing much really.

It is simply this. I have a crush on a friend of my brother’s, and in fact have had a crush on her pretty much for the last eight years. Specifically, Lyndah.

So, why this admission? I’ll cover that a bit later.

Now Lyndah. Lyndah is without a doubt the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. I formed that opinion the moment I met her and am yet to encounter circumstances that would cause me to alter it. She is simply stunning. I’ve never known her to look less than fantastic. I was totally blown away the first time Andrew brought her back from uni and continue to be every time we happen to meet (which these days is maybe twice a year or so at some function of his or other).

So, fairly predictably I developed a mad crush on her, and now – eight years on – despite the fact that I hardly ever see her anymore, I still have a mad crush on her. And, well, frankly, I’m sick of it.

You see the particularly dumb thing about this is that really I hardly know Lyndah. We’ve had a few brief conversations over the years at various get togethers and openings, but that’s about it. My attraction to her is pretty much just physical (although I prefer the term “aesthetic” – “physical” makes me sound like I turn into a slavering neandertal every time she walks into the room*I actually turn into a stuttering idiot. In fact it’s annoying. As a Geek I pride myself on my “substance over style” ethic. To have a crush on a girl for eight years based on little more than the fact that she’s astonishingly beautiful is frankly embarrasing.

And what’s worse it’s a cliche. I mean c’mon, the dorky older brother having a secret crush on one of the cool brother’s female friends? It’s the stuff of countless unimaginative teen dramas. I have way too many cliches in my life – some days it seems like there’s little else – so I’m doing away with this one. No more secrecy.

Of course I’m under no illusions of anything coming of this admission. I can’t imagine Lyndah seeing anything much in an overweight, socially inept geek with bad hair such as myself. But that’s not what this is about. This isn’t an attempt to spark some kind of interest from her, or some kind of round-about geeky way of asking her out on a date. It’s simply a case of being sick to death with the status quo, and doing something to change it. Call it empowerment if you’re so inclined (I’m not).

Naturally coming out with all this publicly will make things insanely awkward the next time we happen to run into each other. But hey, talking to her is already pretty awkward for me, this is just a way of sharing the awkwardness around *g*.

So, yes. I find Lyndah insanely attractive and have done for the last eight years. Like woo-hoo, big deal. Now, if no one minds, I’ll get on with my life.

Over and out.

Hmmm, Helen seems to be under the impression that I was confused by The Matrix Reloaded. I suppose that’s one way of interpreting what I wrote, but it’s not actually what I meant *g*. I understood it all fine, in fact I think I was one of the few people in the cinema to actually get most of what the Architect said (uses lots of big words does that particular program :). What I meant was that I was totally blown away by… OK, I suppose I’d better do the traditional “hide the text against the background” trick here so as not to spoil people (if you’re reading this on my homepage it probably won’t be hidden, so be warned)…

OK, I was totally blown away by the concept that everything we learned in the first movie is a lie. The prophecy, the truth about Zion, the purpose of the One – even the Oracle turns out to be a program! And what’s more it’s all a lie created by the machines! It totally blew my mind (probbaly due in fact to my incipient bout of the flu), and that’s what I meant by my comments.

So that’s what I meant. I could talk some more about the film, but Helen’s pretty much said all I would have, so go read her blog 🙂

I’m going now. Have to cook dinner.

Ack. Not well. I don’t know if it’s the flu, or overwork or lack of sleep or trying to comprehend The Matrix Reloaded which I saw last night (what the…?!) but I’m just really really out of it. I’ve taken today off work thinking I’d get over it, but I don’t feel a whole lot better, even though I’ve slept most of the day. Arrgh.

My sink is still clogged. I made a mistake last week, it had only been three weeks, but now it’s a full month. Thanks to Rebecca’s many irate phone calls *g* we now know the reason why – Josie couldn’t remember if I said it was the kitchen sink or the bathroom sink. So obviously she couldn’t do anything more about the problem could she? Once again, I honestly wonder how that woman can even feed herself unassisted.

Hmmmm I had some other stuff to blog about I’m sure. Oh yeah I happened to catch some of an episode of Gilmore Girls last week. This is not the kind of show I would normally touch with a ten foot clown pole (even if Lauren Grahame is almost as cute as Alisen Down *g*) but I was impressed that within the single half hour I saw while waiting for CSI there were references to no less that three of my favourite bands. Namely the Pixies, the KLF (well, the JAMs actually, but they’re the same people) and They Might be Giants. There was also a somewhat amusing scene involving a giant horse, but I don’t think I’ll make a habit of watching it nonetheless 🙂

OK, going to go now. I’ll try and email people soon, but I want to be a bit more together first.

Ooh! M*A*S*H!! 🙂

Ouchy the Green Nosed Reindeer,
likes to play in people’s hair!
He lives inside the attic,
he bites people who go there!

Is it wrong that I find that so funny? 🙂

I’m listening to the JJJ Hottest Box, and my bathroom sink is still clogged.

If my calculations are correct it’s been clogged for a month come this Sunday morning. The following Tuesday morning it’ll be a month since I phoned the property manager (a certain Josie) to get someone to come and look at it. As far as I can tell no-one has so far, unless they literally did just come, look at it, then leave – which given Josie’s performance to date wouldn’t surprise me at all. I considered calling her up to do some screaming this week, but decided to leave it. “I haven’t been able to use my bathroom sink for a month!!” sounds so much more impressive that “I haven’t been able to use my bathroom sink for three weeks!!”.

Rebecca suggested that under the terms of my lease a completely clogged bathroom sink should be a hygine issue and count as an urgent repair requiring action within 24 hours. I had a look for my copy of the lease but seem to have misplaced it (oh yeah, I’m organised me) so I can unfortunately neither confirm nor deny on that point. But it’s not so bad really. I can use the kitchen sink for washing my hands and brushing my teeth, and as for shaving I just use a jug of hot water in front of the bathroom mirror. So I’ve adapted OK. And the longer it sits un-dealt with the more ammunition we have to take Josie down on the eventual day-of-reckoning (which is so coming, she’s the most useless property manager in the history of Western civilisation)

Of course it’s entirely possible that my pipe problem is some kind of ploy in the on-going war between the floors, as I like to call the dispute between the various residents groups here at the Gables. There’s some kind of long-running fued going on you see, something to do with drains and pipes and rates and things, and the entire building (or at least those residents with lives sufficiently devoid of meaning to take any notice) is split between two factions, the individual ideologies of which completely escape me. This dispute has lead to a number of ridiculous incidents, including sending two plumbers and two lawyers around to each apartment to inspect the pipes, and a remarkably fast turnover in caretakers.

My theory is the entire conflict has been engineered by the residents of Floor 10 – wealthy, bored pensioners manipulating the rest of the residents like pawns in a complicated power play aimed at giving their fading lives some kind of meaning. There’s probably a common room up there holding a large, 3D model of the building complete with little counters and flags that they move around to represent the units and floors they control while gloating at each other like deranged monopoly players. The plumbers and lawyers incident was obviously a major coup by one of them, presumably inconveniencing their faction slightly less than the rest of us. Or at least that’s what I like to think. Blaming inconviniences on sinister conspiracies as opposed to ordinary human incompetance makes life far more exciting 🙂

(They were flashing signal lights from floor to floor last night. Or at least one of the Floor 10s changed their balcony light to a red bulb, while a Floor 8 changed theirs to yellow. You can’t tell me that doesn’t signify something! 😉

Anyway, yes I’m listening to the JJJ Hottest Box at the moment, which I blew $175 odd on yesterday. A nine CD box set of some of the best music from the last ten years of the Triple J Hottest 100. Round about 130 songs all up almost all of which I like, so I’m pretty happy. It’s actually a limited edition individually numbered collectors item too, which sounds great except my one is numbered 03821, suggesting there are 10,000 of them which is hardly limited edition in my opinion. Oh well, it means I have less stuff to download of Kaazaa anyway 😉

So, of course, what have I been up to. Not a terrible lot. I’ve been up at Fabian’s a bit preparing for a new AD&D campaign he’s setting up with the third edition rules. We rolled up characters the other week, I went a cleric (‘even though I don’t know what that is!’ sorry, private joke 🙂 as I usually do – since no-one else ever wants to play them – but was unfortunate enough to roll a 6 for one of my stats. After a lot of heming and hawing I did the traditional thing and stuck it into charisma. There’s room for a character portrait on the third edition character sheets, so I then amused myself by sketching up a suitiably unpleasant picture – my cleric (‘Mithras the Pallid’ as I decided to call him 🙂 apparently bears a remarkable similarity to Max Schreck in Nosferatu 🙂

Apart from that I haven’t been up to much. Apart from checking my referer logs. The lastest amusing searches include…

sexually ambiguous terminology football – Because I seldom write about anything else!

Inbred Myths about West Virginia – Well I did hear about a bat winged, horse faced child being born just outside of Charleston in 1823, but I don’t beleive it personally.

spray painting robotics video clip – I cannot imagine why I would come up for this!

“cliffords tower” opening hours price – 11:35 PM to 12:00 PM every Candlemass. Admission: Any silver coin from the reign of James II of Scotland.

“frank sanatra” – Ah! The Japanese Karaoke singer!

particle board wanted – But real wood sadly remains alone.

antihistime for running nose – Easy fixed! Just place your nose against the screen here and sniff!

“Sodom and gomorrah” artwork – Because a tasteful painting of God wrathfully smiting the evil Sodomites with fire and brimstone is just the thing to complete the den!

effects inbreeding “pitcairn island” – I seem to be getting a reputation for this kind of thing…

the importance of mardi gra masks – The what!?!

It just gets stranger and stranger doesn’t it? 🙂

Well I’m going now. Expect updates a bit more regularly for, oh say the next week or so. Then I’ll go back to intermittant rants like the lazy recidivist I am 🙂

Woo! Cows with Guns! #We will fight for Bovine freedom! And hold our large heads high!..

It’s Easter! Hooray!

Four days off work, and chocolate, what more could one ask for? Well OK, riches, world peace and love, but hey, four days off work and chocolate are almost as good. As is the new, adjustable showerhead just installed by Dom, who’s down here with Rebecca for a few days. So, chocolate, four days off work, a new showerhead and good company, pretty sweet all round.

(It’s SWEEEET moit!!)

Rebecca claims that replacing the ancient and corroded showerhead is part of her general plan to improve the place and feel like less of a ‘slum landlord’. Frankly I think it’s just so she can have decent showers and wash her hair properly while she’s down here. Proof? Well she’s taking a long shower and washing her hair as I type. Co-incidence? I think not! 🙂

Anyway, what’s been going on with me? As usual nothing much. The Matrix Metals project is dragging out with further inane changes, but at least they’re paying for them as new work which is nice. The latest “improvement” is to change the background of the site to a horrible “cream” colour, which looks about as much like cream as Robitussin tastes like cherries*. And they want to replace one of the photos because it shows a collapsed mine and that’s not the kind of image they want to present to investors. Fair enough I suppose, except they supplied the picture along with a bunch of others and said to just use whichever ones look good. Idiots!

This week also featured Prosh day. I’ve mentioned Prosh before, it’s a ‘satirical’ newspaper put out by UWA students and sold on the streets once a year to raise money for Princess Margaret Hospital. I say ‘satirical’ because most years it’s just a mess of badly written articles about various public figures getting caught in perverse (and often biologically impossible) sex acts with other public figures or occasionaly barnyard animals. This year however they’ve actually managed to lift the tone a little. There’s still plenty of perverted sex, but there are three or so decent articles hidden in there, mostly about the war. I guess satire is always best when it’s got some serious injustice to push against.

One for instance (not one about the war but still pretty good though) is entitled “Mugabe Blamed for Australian Olympic Team Shirt”. This features such lines as…

…and a captioned illustration that almost had me breaking into hysterics on the train, which I have taken the liberty of reproducing below…

Angry and Confused: Mugabe accuses a microphone of ‘racial treachery’

The best article though has to be “Iraqi Information Minister confident Victory is Nigh”. It’s about Mohammed Said al Sahhaf who sadly it seems may have committed suicide, a great loss to furious political invective and satire everywhere. In tribute to his bizzare dis-connection to reality I think I’ll transcribe the entire thing…

And a Douglas Adams reference too! Classic! 🙂

OK I’m out of here. Got to try and unclog the bathroom sink. Gah!

Does this*[Woo-hoo! Decent footnotes here we come! 🙂 ] work?

Good enough Ali? 😉

(By the way, if you’re looking at this on the Wyrmworld homepage it won’t work – Go to Weblog if you’re that interested)

If I ruled the world (#Every day would be the first day of spring! Every heart would have a new song to sing!#) ahem, sorry, as I was saying – If I ruled the world I’d make it completely legal for bus drivers, pedestrians and indeed any passers by at all to smash in the windows of cars parked at bus stops. Barely a day goes by that the number 97 I catch from Subiaco to work and back doesn’t get held up by some goit who’s gone and shoved their vehicle into a bus bay. The worst place for it is outside the Commonwealth Bank on Rokeby Road, I suppose the lure of a nice wide parking space just next to the ATMs is too much for some people to resist. The risk of hundreds (if not thousands) of completely unclaimable dollars of damage to their pride and joy might make them think twice. Heck, I’d extend it to disabled parking spaces too, no ACROD sticker and it’s open season! Frankly I think it’d make the world a much better place 🙂

On a completely different subject I downloaded a copy of Shivaree’s John 2:14 last night. It’s the big* single off Rough Dreams and I was planning to wait until I could get a copy of the album to hear it (I have a general policy of not downloading music from artists I really respect – unless it’s particularly old music that’s too hard to track down). But, as my chances of finding a copy increasingly seem to be as likely as finding a thriving colony of Steller’s Sea Cows* in my bathroom cupboard, I finally gave into temptation. And? Well basically it rocks* 🙂

I’ll resist the urge to write an interminably long, adjective laden paragraph about how fantastic it is, and just say it’s kind of latin, kind of rock and appears to be an extremely cynical take on Valentines Day, which of course really appeals to me *g*. It’s particularly catchy too – the band said they were doing a party album and it sounds like they have, without losing their distinctive sound either (which was always a bit of a worry).

So, I’m definately redoubling my efforts to track down a copy. I should be able to find it on eBay easily enough. Probably.

OK, gonna go eat now. I’ve got some really horrible frozen fish to finish up. Pour enough sweet chilli Thai sauce on it and almost anything is edible 🙂

* As in almost totally unheard of – Shivaree don’t get anywhere near the airplay they deserve. Or indeed any airplay at all >:(

* Yeah, like I’d dislike anything they recorded. They’re only like my thrid favourite band of all time. Sheeze!

I love looking at my referrer logs. The advantage of a weblog is that Google indexes every single word, which can result in some truly deranged combinations. You can turn up the weirdest hits. For instance…

all roped men by mistress clip – I have no idea why the Wyrmlog came up for this! 🙂
CYO Connor-the evil side – Funnily enough Wyrmlog is the only site found for this query. A few word less and it’d be a Googlewhack.
enterance on earth’s poles – Because we all know the Earth is hollow with big openings at the poles so the wooly mamoths and Nazi UFOs can get out!
brachiosaurs – OK, nothing too special by itself but (yesterday anyway) the Wyrmlog was coming up as the number one brachiosaur resource on Google!! BOO-YA!!
“robin williams” “religious fundamentalist” – I don’t even pretend to understand why I come up for this 🙂
cthulhu carts – Someone actually searched for this?!? 🙂

Anyway, this is basically just a very quick entry to take up a few minutes before I have to go to work. To pad it out I thought I might as well include the lyrics for Sway by Anita Kelsey, since my referrer logs seem to show a lot of people coming here to look for them. So, Sway, at least as far as I can work it out…

SWAY – Anita Kelsey

When the rhumba rythms start to play,
Dance with me, make me sway,
Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore,
Hold me close, sway me more,

Like a flower bending in the breeze,
Bend with me, sway with ease,
When we dance you have a way with me,
Stay with me, sway with me,

Other dancers may be on the floor,
But my eyes will see only you,
Only you have that magic technique,
Where we sway I go weak,

I can hear the sound of violins,
Long before, it begins,
Make me thrill as only you know how,
Sway me smooth, sway me now,

Other dancers may be on the floor,
But my eyes will see only you,
Only you have that magic technique,
Where we sway I go weak,

I can hear the sound of violins,
Long before, it begins,
Make me thrill as only you know how,
Sway me smooth, sway me now,

Come on babe,
Sway me now,
Sway me smooth,
Sway me now,
Yeah,
Oh,
Come and sway me now,
Come on babe,
Come on babe,
Sway,
Sway,
Take me now,
Sway me,

(Update – Feb 5th 2004: Thanks to a really appalling remix of what sounds like Frank Sinatra – or maybe Dean Martin – I’ve managed to figure out all of the lyrics to this song. Or at least I have to my own satisfaction, so if you don’t agree with them, tough 🙂

Oh, and on a final note I’d like to say that I support the rosary bead hypothesis for the origin of the term “Pater Noster” and always have, no matter what Helen may say 😉

Going now 🙂