You will experience the urge to pass on
the tale
of your lifetime.
You may tell your story
to those most likely
to remember it
Or you may transmit it
in some other
artistic form.

You will become comfortable with the diversity
among other beings.
You will experience accepting
other beings
exactly as they are,
in their own unique perfection,
exactly as you would like them
to accept you
as you are.

You will do things your tribe decided
was forbidden
or others told you
is wrong.
You may do some things
that something within
you
says
you should not do.
You will test some of the limits
by lying,
cheating,
stealing,
or doing other things
that may cause pain.
You may get caught by
those in power
and you may have to pay
a penalty.

You will express yourself
or create something
existing independently
of yourself.
What you form may last
for generations
or for only a moment.
The content of your expression
may take physical form
or it may reach out
through other media.

You will be drawn to certain individuals
with whom you will share
some of your experiences
more closely.
You will experience strong connections
with some of the friends
you find.
Some will remain friends
for a short time,
while others may remain
close to you
for long periods.

You will find a group of individuals
to which you feel connected,
either by birth
or by affinity.
You will experience a bond
with the other members
of this tribe
or with the tribal entity itself.
You will be subject to the rules your tribe makes.
You will have a position within the tribe
based on your birth
or your talents.
Your position will affect your activities
within the tribe
and throughout your life.
You may find you are a part of more than one tribe
or that your tribe is part
of a tribal confederation.

You will experience a process of
change
in yourself.
One moment you may be paralyzed with fear
of what lies ahead;
the next moment you will feel
confident and knowledgeable
having walked through the fear.
The change may come gradually
with no clear moment
or division.
Whether the outcome you receive is
what you were hoping for
or very different,
you will grow
through each experience.

ou will be born
with a powerful
innate desire
to remain alive.
You will do almost anything
to continue living.
At some point
you may discover
some limits,
and allow your life
to end.

Relationships

Relationships

Are a bit like sharks you know, they gotta keep moving forward or they die.
Yep thats what we got on our hands here, a dead shark

.

The Embrace
____Vampires are created through a process called the Embrace. The Embrace is similar to normal vampiric feeding - the vampire drains her chosen prey of blood. However, upon complete exsanguination, the vampire returns a bit of her own immortal blood to the drained mortal. Only a tiny bit - a drop or two - is necessary to turn the mortal into an undead. This process can even be performed on a dead human, provided the body is still warm.
____Once the blood is returned, the mortal "awakens" and begins drinking of his own accord. But, though animate, the mortal is still dead; his heart does not beat, nor does he breathe. Over the next week or two, the mortal's body undergoes a series of subtle transformations; he learns to use the Blood in his body, and he is taught the special powers of his clan. He is now a vampire.
____Some vampire clans Embrace more casually than others, but the Embrace is almost never given lightly. After all, any new vampire is a potential competitor for food and power. A potential childe is often stalked for weeks or even years by a watchful sire, who greedily evaluates whether the mortal would indeed make a good addition to the clan and the line.

History
____Vampires - or Kindred, as they call themselves - exist for centuries and often seem unchanging to mortal eyes. Even Kindred society, however, has undergone evolution, upheaval and strife. Let us look at history as the Kindred view it, that we might better understand their actions tonight.

Caine and the First Nights
____According to Kindred myth, the first of their kind was Caine, the first murderer. For his crime, Caine was cursed by God and thereby transformed into a vampire. Exiled from his people, Caine was forced to stalk the fringes of civilization, fearful of the sun and ravenous for blood.
____In his loneliness, Caine came upon a mighty witch named Lilith, who had been Adam's first wife. Lilith taught Caine how to use his blood for mighty magic (indeed, a few heretics claim that Lilith, not Caine, was the First Vampire). Lilith taught Caine many things, including how to use his blood to evoke mystic powers - and how to create others of his kind.

The Second Generation and the First City
____At first Caine refused to beget, believing it wrong to curse the world with others of his kind. But eventually he grew lonely and brought three others into the vampiric fold. These three in turn begat 13 more, and these voracious monsters went among the early peoples of the world, carelessly feeding and using mortals as puppets in their sibling feuds. Caine, outraged by this behavior, forbade the creation of any more progeny. Gathering his childer and grandchilder to him, Caine built a great city - the First City in the world - and here vampires and mortals coexisted in peace.

The Antediluvians and the Clans
____It could not last. Caine's childer squabbled for their sire's affections, and once again the mortals were used as pawns in the feud. Finally the city was thrown down - some say a natural disaster was the cause; others, that a spurned childe's vengeful sorcery precipitated the cataclysm. Caine vanished into the wastes, never to be heard from again. The three vampires of the Second Generation likewise disappeared into the mists of legend. But Caine's 13 grandchilder, free from restraint, began breeding new vampires with abandon. The 13 vampires became known as Antediluvians, and their childer, created in their images, inherited the Antediluvians' magical gifts and curses. Thus were the clans formed.

The Dark Ages
____The clans spread across the world, sowing discord and misery. Though each successive generation of vampires proved weaker than the last, they made up for it with greater numbers. In the ziggurats of Babylon, in the palaces of Crete, in the tribunals of Rome, vampires ruled as shadowy tyrants, forever using mortals as food and unwitting soldiers. Vampire warred with vampire, clan with clan, and thus - from the ancient rivalries of the First City - was born the great Jyhad, which is still fought today.
____The Kindred reached their worst excesses during the early Middle Ages. During this period, many vampires ruled openly, smothering peasant and lord alike beneath their nocturnal grip. The vampiric population reached unhealthy numbers, and it seemed that the Earth would belong to the Kindred forever.

The Anarch Revolt
____Again, it could not last. The Children of Caine, in their hubris, began to flaunt their power flagrantly. Terrified peasants whispered of the monsters in their midst - and the Church began to listen. The reports of a few horrified priests spawned a frenzied Inquisition, and vengeful mortals rose up in a tide of fire and blood. Though individually much more powerful than mortals, even the mightiest vampires could not stand against the humans' sheer numbers; vampire after vampire was dragged from its lair and hurled into fire or sunlight.
____In the throes of the Inquisition, a current of revolt gripped the Children of Caine. Younger vampires, who were being deployed as sacrificial lambs by terrified elders, began to rise up against their sires and masters. In Eastern Europe, a group of vampires learned how to sever the mystic bonds through which sires controlled their childer. Soon all of Europe seethed beneath a nocturnal revolt, as rebellious childer threw off the yoke of their masters. Between the Inquisition and the revolt of the vampire "anarchs," it seemed as though the Kindred would not survive.
____And so, in the 15th century, a council was called. Seven of the 13 clans united in an organization called the Camarilla. With its advantage of numbers, the Camarilla suppressed the anarchs and agreed to exist behind a great Masquerade.

____Never more shall vampires rule openly, the lords of the Camarilla decreed. We shall hide among the mortals, and conceal our natures from our prey, and in a few decades the mortals will know vampires only as myths.
Thus, the Masquerade was born, and the Inquisition gradually forgot its original target. Those anarchs who would not join the Camarilla were driven into the wastes, from which they would later emerge as the dread Sabbat cult. With the discovery of the New World and the dawn of science, humanity gradually forgot about the Kindred, relegating them to the status of childhood legends.
____But, though hidden, vampires were still quite real. The wars of the Jyhad raged on, though the nights of open battle were replaced by sudden ambushes and maneuvering of human pawns. Weaving their webs throughout the ever-expanding cities, the Kindred eschewed their previous games for more methodical but no less deadly ones.

The Modern Nights and Gehenna
____And the wars continued down the centuries, and continue still. The Jyhad rages as it always has - though skyscrapers take the place of castles, machine-guns and missiles replace swords and torches, and stock portfolios substitute for vaults of gold, the game remains the same. Kindred battles Kindred, clan battles clan, Camarilla battles Sabbat, as they have for eons. Vampiric feuds begun during the nights of Charlemagne play themselves out on the streets of New York City; an insult whispered in the court of the Sun King may find itself answered by a corporate takeover in Sao Paolo. The ever-swelling cities provide countless opportunities for feeding, powermongering - and war.
____Increasingly, vampires speak of Gehenna - the long-prophesied night of apocalypse when the most ancient vampires, the mythical Antediluvians, will rise from their hidden lairs to devour all the younger vampires. This Gehenna, so the Kindred say, will presage the end of the world, as vampires and mortals alike are consumed in an inexorable tide of blood. Some vampires strive to prevent Gehenna, some fatalistically await it, and still others consider it a myth. Those who believe in Gehenna, however, say that the end time comes very soon - perhaps in a matter of years.

The Six Traditions

Camarilla vampires swear to uphold the legendary Six Traditions of Caine, the laws which Caine supposedly passed to his progeny. Like any other laws, the Traditions are commonly ignored, bent or violated outright.

The First Tradition:
The Masquerade
Thou shall not reveal thy nature to those not of the Blood. Doing so shall renounce thy claims of Blood.

The Second Tradition:
The Domain|
Thy domain is thine own concern. All others owe thee respect while in it. None may challenge thy word while in thy domain.

The Third Tradition:
The Progeny
Thou shall sire another only with the permission of thine elder. If thou createst another without thine elder's leave, both thee and thy progeny shall be slain.

The Fourth Tradition:
The Accounting
Those thou create are thine own childer. Until thy progeny shall be released, thou shall command them in all things. Their sins are thine to endure.

The Fifth Tradition:
Hospitality
Honor one another's domain. When thou comest to a foreign city, thou shall present thyself to the one who ruleth there. Without the word of acceptance, thou art nothing.

The Sixth Tradition:
Destruction
Thou art forbidden to destroy another of thy kind. The right of destruction belongeth only to thine elder. Only the eldest among thee shall call the blood hunt.

random inspiration for song titles or words that could lead onto something random infront of a microphone

Shark surfing

Yogi and Bubu

facemelting fandango fascism

probably wont remember

everybody is wearing odd socks again

the blaze the blah zeh and the lack of memory

substitute prostitute

envy my green pyjamas

breaking in only to realise you broke out

letting go of the concept of letting go

an unlikely song title

very very dry humour

wake an bake give it a little shake in the morning

hallelujah brothers got no arms

they skate they date they piss it up the wall

you put the pout in dropout

hells hairdryers

dettol is not a deoderant

the view is fantastic but my ass still smells

gravy is a nonutonian liquid too

i don trust microwaves

Major changes have recently occured in my life, both personally and professionally. We're approaching five years since the inception of this blog, and going back to read the posts from May '04 is quite the experience. I suppose its what diaries and journals are for, the chance to go back and read out your thoughts and ideas from another time. Kind of like mental time travel.

One thing is for sure, I am not who I was then. In fact, I am not who I was last year or the year before that. I may have some (we shed and create a lot of cells frequently) of the bodily composition of that person but we are definitely on different wavelengths.

This whole blogging business started off as a documentation of odd and quirky ideas I might have. I had a lot of time on my hands back then, hence the frequency of the posts. With time, the posts have decreased in number but have also slightly sharpened in focus. They may still be random and don't generally adhere to one unified theme, but this thing was meant to be disjointed and arbitrary anyway.

I know blogging has pretty much gone out of style these days, but I never meant for this to be stylish. The more I read my old posts, the more I believe that continuing to write here if only to be able to re-read it later is worthwhile. These next few lines (in no particular order) are for future perusing:

See whats funny is when asked 'what was the happiest moment in your life?' I was speechless. Now I really really really dont know what I want at all. I think I've had it all. Oh well heres some quotes.

''Age is a question of mind over matter, if you dont mind then it doesnt matter''

''I'd kill for a nobel peace prize''

''impossible is a word found in the dictionary of fools''

Who would claim advantage to such a lie? Certainly not I.

Everybody my age should be issued with a 2lb salmon. If you see someone young, beautiful and happy, you should slap them as hard as you can with it.

Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

True maturity is only reached when a man realises he has become a father figure to his girlfriend's boyfriend's - and he accepts it.

Love being spooked out

my life is serene and peaceful, but i remember the demon days.

Its halloween tomorrow and im all scared up n shit. Talking about scary dreams with demonic growls and breathing. talk of lauighter in big empty houses

woooo love it.

Dogs that bark dont bite.

I couldnt sleep because my mind was going at a million miles an hour. It was peoples lives i was playing with here, my own included. Were other people nodding and agreeing with what I just said? Probably not, since they all had a vested interest in our success and they were outspoken individuals. Was there anything else id left out or forgotten? You reach the point where you have to press on regardless. You could spend the rest of your life thinking about the different options.
I wondered if he was thinking of home, he was a family man with a second child that was just 5 months old. My mind drifted. I hope she wasnt getting affected by anything in the media.
I put on my walkman and listened to madness. I wasnt really listening because my mind was screaming in so many directions, but i must have nodded off about 3, because at 6, when i woke, the lead singer had dropped 2 octaves and they were just about grinding to a halt.
It was quite a frenzy that morning.

stationery thoughts

The world beneath your feet: underneath the hurry of well-polished brogues, battered trainers, Ugg boots and vertiginous hoof-manglers; underneath the joyful swirls of discarded Subway wrappers; underneath the geological layers of chewing gum and cigarette butts…what worlds upon worlds lie beneath your feet?

The underground railway. That marvel of the industrial age – the railway, urging its path across the fields of England, cutting swiftly through hill and dale. The railway, a paean to the ambitions and achievements of the noblest of creatures: man. The railway, with bridges grandly thrown ‘twixt land and land. The railway, delving deep into the earth, and terminating in the hollering yokel-pit that is your average underground station at 10pm on a Friday night.

Basics Gin stared irately at the timetable. Its regimented numbers meant nothing to him. Even his own name was a mystery. This was clearly the annotated version of the timetable, for somebody had attempted to amend the details for the greater benefit of the travelling public. ‘Sha ‘01′; ‘Titch, Pat-o, Chig ‘03′, read these legends, and who knew what that meant? These were marks for more highly evolved minds to interpret.

Teens gathered surreptitiously at the edge of the platform. Basics Gin shuffled towards them. ‘Gorraligh’?', he articulated. The teens stared at Basics Gin with unseeing, dead eyes, their minds ploughed and driven by the subliminal messages fed at deafening volume through their iPods. Basics Gin shuffled away from them. With shaking hands he pulled a tobacco pouch and Rizla papers from the pocket of his stained denim jacket.

‘Hey, mate, you can’t smoke here’, spake a righteous voice in the wilderness. Basics Gin was confused. The wind rushed down the tunnel, seeming to carry with it words of no import. It carried something else, rushing at speed, an orchestra of metallic rhythms. Basics Gin stared blankly in the direction of the impending object. Could he smoke it? The train arrived at the platform. Was it stationary, or stationery? The ill-educated masses awaiting to embark could not determine. The train became acutely embarrassed, and began to wonder if it ought to be a Rexel file and a set of highlighter pens.

In the upper level of the station, the annual Pigeon Olympiad had begun, with its aerial displays. It’s a little-known fact that a pigeon will make a serviceable aerial, but don’t expect to receive a good signal. If you have one, tune in next time.

pigeons

Pigeon (n.): One of the lesser-known unstable gases in the Periodical Table of Elements. Pigeon is unpredictable particularly when exposed to such organic compounds as kebab, chip, and Trill, which may trigger a rapid decomposition reaction leading to explosive detonation.

Pigeon (v.): The act of seizing another’s grain; in extended use, the unauthorised taking of another’s lunch, esp. sandwiches. ‘I were only gone five minutes, and when I came back some bugger had pigeoned me roll’ (E. Grimes, ‘The Working Lunch’ (1942), 4). ‘Bazza, I could see ‘im eyein’ me, right, but I ‘ad nuffin’ to pigeon, innit, so ‘e pisses off’ (K. Sharpe, ‘The Minto Close Gang’ (2004), 87).

A word of warning: if you see a pigeon, you’d better watch it. Look at the pigeons, as they strut about the concourse of railways up and down the land with their nauseating gait. Why are they there? Pigeons are notorious confidence tricksters. The pigeon will often don a pinstripe suit and bowler, tuck a copy of The Financial Times under its wing, and pose as a commuter on the 8.10 to London Euston. The pigeon gives every impression of having ‘business in the Capital’. It will peruse the Financial Times with the air of one whose eye is keenly on fluctuations in the bird-seed market. This is not the case. The pigeon opposite you is, in fact, intent on stealing your identity.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Pigeons are predominantly found in three places: railway stations, shopping precincts, and civic monuments. This is not a coincidence. Following a day’s work of credit-card-cloning and identity theft, the pigeon will spend the fruits of his labour at the earliest opportunity. The pigeon’s Achilles’ heel is his delusions of grandeur, manifest in the ambition to replace all commemorative structures with his likeness, and his weakness for the take-away meal. If any solution to the problem exists, it lies in this fact. The only alternative is to convince the pigeon to assume his own identity, thereby causing confusion and, almost certainly, spontaneous combustion. These are dangerous and indeed potentially messy times

Modern art

Modern Art is an anagram of Shit.

This is by virtue of the fact that if you take a lot of shit, and rearrange it, then with very little effort you have Modern Art. Yet whilst the creation of Modern Art lies within the reach of any cretin with a paintbrush and a pair of safety scissors, the interpretation of this particular aesthetic is a skill requiring many years of study to perfect. For the benefit of our readers who haven’t the patience to learn how to tie their shoelaces, let alone embark upon a lifetime of scholarship, here we present a basic introduction to the major schools of Modern Art.

i) The Square School

Squares. Basically, squares, and then some more squares, possibly enclosed within a square. The Square School takes the geometric simplicity of the four-sided shape and hammers the crap out of it. The Square represents the closed-off sections of the human psyche; in its echo of the frame in which it is contained, it enacts the inevitable conformity to one’s surroundings; in its regimented form and hollowness, it depicts the duplicitous nature of modern society. Or, as the great art critic Walter T. Shovepenny so succinctly put it, ‘Gee, that’s a whole bunch of squares’.

ii) The School of Lines

The School of Lines is much like the Square School, only slightly more pointless. These are squares that can’t be bothered making the effort. In vertical form, lines encode the sickening exploitation of the paper-clip in office culture. In the horizontal trend, lines urge the viewer to consider the way in which the pages of a magazine stick together, only to reveal a double-leaf advert for the Honda Civic when finally separated some hours later.

iii) The Primary School

This School employs paint like it’s going out of fashion. In an accurate representation of the behaviour of five-year-olds everywhere, the aim of the Primary School is to arrive at an end product that appears to be the brainchild of a chimpanzee on acid.

iv) The Heap of Metal

This is a heap of metal, skilfully rearranged to look like a heap of metal.

v) The Functional School

The ethos behind this school is that form is function, and therefore nothing should exist that does not in some way answer a purpose. Though if you’ve ever actually sat on one of the chairs designed by a student of Modern Art, you will quickly realise that this is not the case, as you hurriedly collect what remains of your teeth following their sharp and often painful contact with your knees.

vi) FITD

This School is currently experiencing a rapid upsurge in popularity. F**k It, That’ll Do, commonly abbreviated FITD, has produced such great masterpieces as ‘Unfinished Breakfast #3′, ‘Yesterday’s Bus Ticket’ and the seminal ‘Curry Stains’, which has recently been praised by the leading art publication ‘The Chin-Stroker’s Weekly’ as ‘following in the footsteps of Turner’.

This Guide has introduced you to the basic categories and schools of Modern Art. It is now in your hands, and we advise you to rip it up before any further damage ensues.

jazz

Having outlined the basic concepts responsible for the eyeball-insulting phenomenon that is Modern Art, here we turn our attentions to its aural equivalent: Jazz.

Let there be no misapprehension: there is nothing pleasant about listening to Jazz. The term alone offends the ears. This is a word that takes the arse-end of the alphabet, and just for kicks, repeats it. Jazz. Note the extraneous ‘z’. For those new to the genre, this serves as some indication of the sort of nonsense one can expect from Jazz.

So what is Jazz? Picture to yourself the following scenarios: a piano keyboard being danced across by midgets in steel-capped boots. A walrus hiccuping into a trumpet. Corks being fired repeatedly at a double-bass. Corks with the bottles still attached being fired repeatedly at a double-bass. An over-excitable sugar addict burbling into a saxophone. A snare drum in a washing-machine. Now imagine, if you will, all of the above happening simultaneously, and you have some impression of the chronic flatulence that is Jazz.

Nor is Jazz confined to the aural plane. The 1950s saw experimental writers attempting to capture the spirit of Jazz in prose form, with variable results. This mode of writing gave Jazz its own language, which unfortunately - or perhaps, fortunately – did nothing to clarify the matter. The following extract from the novel ‘Be-bop!’ by Cal Rutz is typical of the genre.

‘Me and Fats Burger and crazy ol’ Gummy Ninepins, we were souls spilling and crashing like the flush on a broken-down toilet. Headed in the night with the sweet knives of the stars pricking and stabbing the sky. We knew cress! It was cress and the word was with the Big Ol’ God of Cress. Into the bars and clubs with the smokelight jazz noodlings of Slim Tinfoil, he was like wild and holy in the shroud of Jazz. ‘Skee-ba-bop! Skee-bop! Ska-ba-be-ska-bop!’ farted the trumpet. In all and above the cheeks of Slim Tinfoil bulged and puffed like watermelons in a parcel on a train bound for Now. We jumped.

Notice to our readers: Jazz may sometimes cause the following side-effects: numbness; loss of vision; hallucinations; renal failure; allergic skin reactions; death. We can accept no liability for any personal loss or injury incurred as a result of reading this account of Jazz, and advise our readers in the event of any of the above to consult their doctor or pharmacist.

Technology

Technology. Such a harmless word. But no. Technology wants you to die. Moreover, it wants you to die clutching a manual printed in Portuguese, a nest of cabling, three different but similarly useless sound cards, the number for Microsoft Helpline and what remains of your sanity.

Technology is integrated so completely into our day-to-day existence that it is hard to conceive of life without it. But what would technology look like to the uninitiated? Let us imagine.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete

A mystical incantation with the power of dispelling evil influences. Ctrl+Alt+Delete calls up the all-knowing Task Manager, who alone has the power to restore order by uttering the command ‘End Now!’ However, the Task Manager is on occasion a little forgetful, which leads him to ask ’Are You Sure You Want to End Now?’ Tradition dictates that the appropriate response to this question is to beat the keyboard repeatedly with your fists.

‘Internet Explorer has performed an illegal operation’

Who is the fabled Internet Explorer, and why is he such a shifty character? Theories abound that the Explorer is in league with pigeons (see Stationary Thoughts II: Pigeons) and their fraudulent activities. The Explorer is wont to hang around bars bumming free drinks, hence the expression ‘You’ve opened a new tab’. To be avoided at all costs.

Java Update

Technology makes life easier in myriad ways, and one of them is offering to refill your coffee. Two sugars, please. If you press the button on your PC tower, a small tray becomes available in which to rest your cup.

Command not found

The Task Manager, being forgetful, has temporarily mislaid his Book of Incantations.

Fixboot

Yet another of Technology’s many advantages; in this instance, repairing that hole in your shoe.

‘Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close’

Just occasionally, Technology goes wrong. But don’t worry! That 100-page document you were working on will be perfectly safe. Moreover, Word will take the heathenish language contained within your document and convert it into something infinitely more legible, like ‘&&££ulbd+&^£^*£(%£’, which roughly translates as ‘you’re screwed’. Hand this to your line manager. Promotion? Certainly.