» Housemates

Fun but scary housemate
When I was living in Greece, I met this bloke in an ex-pat bar I used to drink (To excess) in. Huge guy, bodybuilder, 17 stone of muscle, 6ft8 or so. Tatoos everywhere, up his neck, back of his hands and so on. And some pretty serious scars on his neck. We got pissed, and got on like a house on fire. I promptly offered him a place in my flat. Oh my God, the guy was such a liability, but hilarious at the same time. He crashed my motorbike, when riding it home from the pub. Hit a skip, straight on. I wasn't upset, as I was on the back, and landed on him. We used to go drinking in the roughest bars down in the harbour, and get into fights, winding up the locals. He had gotten his tattoos in prison, and he explained to me how they made their own tattoo-pens. I thought I'd try to make one, but BETTER, and one day, I came home from work and found him, tattooing the local, heavily medicated, nutcase. He wanted to try the tattoo-pen out, and he said he was impressed with it. He had tattooed a huge swastica, quite wonkily, on this guys shoulder. We used to go to the gym together, and with his help, I put on a fair bit of muscle. He got in to fights, and once his hand swelled up like a baloon. He got the doctor that came for a couple of pints every lunchtime in our pub to have a look at it. The doctor pulled a tooth out of his hand.
He knocked his elbow in another scuffle, and for weeks afterwards, I had to syringe fluid out of it. He used to make me dinner, allways pasta, with tuna and sweetcorn. Good, but a bit monotonous. He claimed it was good for building muscle. He would come back late at night, with large lumps of compressed cheap Albanian grass, and we'd smoke as much as we could, just to see how stoned it was possible to get. And we'd try to drink the various bars dry. With some success. Fun days. I miss him.
(Thu 26th Feb 2009, 17:20, More)

» Pointless Experiments

To sense a force-field
A long time ago, when I was young and stupid, I got a large plastic tub (About 2 ft/60 cm from end to end), and taped exposed copper wires to the inside. Two wires, taped to the inside, one in each end of the tub. Then I filled it up with water from the tap, connected the wires up to the house mains, and stuck my hand in. With my hand in the water, I could regulate the ammount of current going through my hand, by turning it between 0 and 90 degrees. Didn't get painful until the hand was nearly in line between the two electrodes. Putting just two fingers in the water, the little piece of skin between the fingers, up near the hand (I'm describing that quite carefully, I think I may have some kind of hang-up about people thinking I have webbed hands or something?)... Anyway, that flap of skin would hurt quite a bit. The more of my hand or arm I stuck in the water, the more my muscles would tremble and twitch. 50Hz does that. One of my mates stuck his head in the tub, but only once, he was unwilling to repeat the experiment. Said it "Really hurt". Anyway, it all went well, but only because we were quite lucky, in hindsight...
(Thu 24th Jul 2008, 12:39, More)

» God

It's easy to make fun....
...of people that believe in God. Because it is based on belief, there isn't any proof, christians can't go: "There, see, that proves God exists!" So believing must be hard. I wouldn't know, I don't, but I have met people that do. And I have been bashing my head against their steadfast refusal to see sense ie: MY point of view. As I grew older, I started to tone the rethoric down a bit. I still didn't believe, but on the other hand, I didn't want to offend, or be seen as rude, often to people I was working with. And now, I'm thinking: Perhaps religion is good for some people. Some people, that need that mental crutch, could do a lot worse, than believing in christian principles, 10 comandments, love thy neighbour, and that. Live and let live I say. It's not for me, I prefer to see reality as clearly as I can, that is not to everybodys taste, and to get worked up about it, is counter-productive.
(Tue 24th Mar 2009, 16:50, More)

» How nerdy are you?

Not a nerd...
...although I nearly managed to rip my own arm off, trying to make a powered exoskeleton.
Also, in an attempt to make one of those muscle-stimulating machines (Why pay good money for something you can make yourself?) I hurt myself quite badly. Turns out you need a lot less power than my calculations suggested. Unfortunately, turning the power off again was hindered by having decided to connect BOTH arms up to the prototype. So; Not a nerd, just thick.
(Thu 6th Mar 2008, 15:38, More)

» Eccentrics

Is this normal?
My great-grandad and my grandad were communists. They both worked at the paper-mill, and the communist-party was well represented, particularly amongst the union-members. So they worked in the factory, and were both members of the communist party. Not all that unusual. But the communist party was never going to be a force on a national level, it was too small and insignificant for that. After a while, my grandad thought his vote would be better used to vote Labour, rather than vote communist party. So being a decent sort, he left the communist-party, and joined the Labour party (I'm not talking about the UK here, by the way, different country all together. Labour, back home, was actually relatively far left, particularly back then)
Anyways, a few days after my grandad had joined Labour, his dad came on a little visit. He came three steps into the living-room, sniffed the air, and said "Something stinks in here!", turned around and walked out. They didn't exchange a single word for a little over ten years after that.
Reading a bit between the lines, I think my Great-grandad could be hard work. I knew him as a very tall, skinny and kind old man, but apparently he used to be the local hard-nut in his youth. He also had a great time fighting the Germans during Second World War, well, untill they caught him anyway. He was packed off to a prisoncamp, and basically just "disappeared" A short while after the was was over, he kicked the front door open, and, shaking with rage, demanded to know "What the FU** is going on here!?!?!" Turns out they (Wife and family) had painted the house in a colour he didn't like. He calmed down after they had fed him.
(Mon 3rd Nov 2008, 13:07, More)