Over the past few weeks I've done quite a few things but not written about them here.
I went to hear Senator John McCain speak at Trinity College Dublin as a guest of the University Philosophical Society. I rejoined the University Trampolining Club. I met beautiful people and made friends with strangers. I went ice-skating. I watched the Duellists, the Wraith, and probably a few other films I cannot recall right now. I'm also helping choose the Splash screen for version 2.2 of the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
Grand Old Party
Last year Republican and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich came and spoke to the University Philosophical Society (the Phil for short). Mr. Gingrich was a consumate politician, well spoken and very slick and able to quickly respond to any comments off the cuff.
The crowd was much bigger for Senator John Mc. Cain easily filling the Ed Burke lecture theatre (the largest in Trinity) but unfortunately his prewritten introductory speech was fairly dry, I don't imagine he had the opportunity to rehearse it much. Although not entirely his fault I admit I was falling asleep during this part of his address (I had run straight from a Trampolining session and hadn't eaten in hours) but things got much better when it came to questions and answers from an interviewer and the audience. I'd have to say I think Newt Gingrich was a slightly better speaker but what struck me as remarkable about John Mc Cain was that unlike most politicians he was hardly evasive at all and actually answered the questions asked (wherease Mr Gingrich was very evasive).
This was particulary note-worthy because just the previous week our own Taoiseach Bertie Ahern* had spoken at the Phil but shamefully absconded without allowing any opportunity for questions and answers. Protests had been considered but the more pragmatic approach of actively engaging in dicussion was chosen instead so quite a few people were furious to be so rudely ignored and the event exploited as a photo opportunity.
While most guests are in a hurry to dodge questions McCain actually requested that the questions and answer session continue and go over time.
Aside from being refreshingly forthright about his opinions Senator McCain also managed to be funny and although I believe he was reusing an old joke (from the Tonight Show with Jay Leno I was told) they were at least new to us.
As a prisoner of war I was kept in the dark and fed on scraps. Why would I want to do that again?Mr. Colm Green listed some of the slanders that the Bush campaign team had thrown at Senator McCain during the 2000 presidentail race and asked which of these insults was it that convinced him to help campaign for Bush in 2004? Always the pragmatic polician Senator McCain didn't provide the Bush baiting the audience had been hoping for. He replied that he thought the candidates were very similar and that his voting record shows he agrees with Bush more often than he agrees with Kerry and that he considered Bush was the better candidate. He also made it clear that despite his disagreements that he did agree with Bush on many issues and that he would be doing his constituents a disservice if he were to still hold a grudge about the 2000 presidential campaign.
the response of Senator John McCain when asked if he would ever consider becoming Vice President.
Trampolining
Trampolining is a lot of fun and harder than it looks. It also happens to be one of the few activities that fits in with my timetable. When I'm not feeling sore and a little overstreched in muscles I hardly knew I had, I am feeling a lot healthier as a result of the extra exercise and I have gotten to know a good crowd of new people (although some of them worry me, like Karl the Christmas Decoration Kleptomaniac). As the group now has three Alans there is a threat of my getting a dubious nickname.
The group went ice skating last night, as the temporary ice rink was nearby to where I live I went along to watch. As I had thought the tickets were all prebooked I didn't expect to get the chance to go skating (and I'm permanently penniless at the moment anyway). In a wonderful gesture of Christmas spirit a women who had hurt her back and was unable to go skating with the rest of her office party very generously gave me her ticket and I was out in the ice like a flash.
Thursday was the Phil Christmas party and Kathleen twisted my arm and convinced me to enjoy the free booze and chocolate biscuits. There were lots of young and beautiful people there, with all the new fresh faces I was momentarily reminded of my age and the realisation how Trinity was in many ways completely different from when I started but in others still very much the same.
This Slashdot discussion about literacy in coporate America furthers the point that time saved by sloppy writing is far outweighed by the how it wastes other peoples time.
Odds are I've made many grammar, spelling and punctuation errors in this message. That's Moens Law of Corrections for you.
Five of the Best Christmas Songs
Five of the Worst Christmas Songs
(Okay, so the list doesn't currently include Five of each but as the Christmas season is only just started I am sure I'll hear a few more soon and finish the list. Feel free to send suggestions of the worst Christmas songs to horkana at tcd dot ie).
Not Hot
Some joker put a picture of Bertie Ahern (our Taoiseach, the Irish equivalent to Prime Minister) on Hot or Not. For a change he is not wearing an anorak and doesn't look all that bad but bizarrely he managed to get rated 7.2 out 10. Please help give him the really low score he richly deserves.
New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.
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