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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Well, tickle my bollocks do...

So, i've just completed an online IQ test at Tickle�. I know, but it seemed like it might be a laugh... You can get straight to the test from the title link, if you're interested: it's 5 pages but it doesn't take long.

Apparently i'm a "visionary philosopher," with an IQ of 140 and "significantly above average": which was nice. I'm not all that about it however as, although i've not completed an IQ test for ages, twice in my earlier life psychological profiling has predicted a score significantly higher than that, once when i was very young and again, despite being both traumatised and very confused, as a result of my drug intake. There were 3 questions i had to actually think about and 2 of those i had to guess; i feel sure i'd have pissed the lot of it even 5 years ago. At 38 now, i'm getting old, there's just no denying it. Fucking BASTARD!

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22 Comments:

Anonymous some_maineiac said...

hello, mr.jog...i read all of your comments at "nobody knows it" and wanted to say that you put it well, IMO...and i also did not want to sully that delightful place as others have in comments past...i am intrigued by this blogging community's ability to gather together people of similiar spirit...an antidote to our modern, mundane, suburban lives and a throwback to the time when extended families played the part of trusted counselors and advisors...and now i'm off to find my IQ...

11/1/06 00:59  
Blogger edjog said...

Oh much better than anything we've had before i suspect, some_maineiac. It's not that easy to tell one's grandparents that they're talking out of their arse after all: rather than stimulating debate, we'd be likely to get a few words about respect from our parents. Families can be great for wisdom certainly, but when it comes to a full and frank exchange of ideas, moving a debate forward, thinking the previously unthinkable: anonymity seems best.

A community is forged of its links though, so we need to insert http links to those we respect in our posts and permenent links to their websites on our own. It's more than "an antidote to our modern, mundane, suburban lives," it's the antidote to corporate/government propaganda, or as i characterise it in the subtitle of this blog "Right Thinking."

So, is that maine-iac as in the State of Maine? If so, what's it like? I've heard you have trees... Huge, amazing swathes of them: wish we did. Thanx for the compliment and good luck with the IQ test, come back and tell us how you got on?

11/1/06 02:11  
Anonymous some_maineiac said...

i am a PC idiot, without a blog of his own (yet), so no links to me or my writings...i consider myself more of a correspondent right now...i suppose i can figure out how to link to the blogs i reference, given my IQ of 129 and description as "facts curator"...i thought that test was easy and only agonized over 3 or 4 and did not guess...obviously, i'm not as smart as i thought...

yes, i'm an american in maine and i live in the woods in a log cabin with lots of trees that i can call my own...i have a healthy respect for the buggers everywhere, their wood keeps me warm in the winter and their leaves shade my house in the summer...

you are one smart mo'fo' yourself and i am still peeling back the layers of meaning in your "charles kennedy" post...

"respect for one's parents", indeed...

11/1/06 12:21  
Blogger nameis said...

Thanks for the link (mine was 127)(and I had to think hard for some of them). Thanks too for the acknowledgement (re previous comment) too. I thin I feel respectful of you edkjog - I like the the way you speak about stuff, and what seems to be your wish to value things in others.
(umm think man from maine might be right about these dark blogs, though as it is for you edjog, so it seems for me, in that it's easier on my eyes... but it's not for people with difficulties in seeing, I think).
Kindest regards
Nameis

11/1/06 13:41  
Blogger edjog said...

Wow! Log cabin! I've just had to face up to the fact that i'm not going to get away with ignoring my utility bills much longer. I feel resentful though, paying anything to live in a place which is frankly insalubrious. For sure, it's not the worst place in Britain, and i've lived in far worse circumstances, but nonetheless it's not good. Large, but scruffy, old, draughty, the facilities are pre-war and the neighbours are engaged in a watered down version of the kind of lunacy which characterised my former life as a drug-addled nutter. Plus i regularly get woken at 6am by street cleaning activities outside.

Still, i have to wonder if there isn't a purpose to my being here at the moment, because i am able to offer sanctuary to the neighbours' 12 year old daughter when things get scary next door. It's not an ideal situation and i'm sure that Social Services would have something to say about the propriety of it, and in fairness, i'm hardly a good role model myself. But at least i'm not frightened witless by chaotic behaviour, nor judgemental: i've done far worse myself; my presence seems to calm situations. Of course, when people are very irrational, there's always the looming! I go to great lengths to try to let the good sense of what i say prevail these days, but there are times when a spot of loomage is worth far more words even than a picture. I can't think that the daughter being taken into care would do her any favours, the damage is already done, that outcome would just alienate her from society even more and it's not as if she's getting physically assaulted or sexually molested or anything, just getting some rough lessons about human nature. It's a shame, but what can you do? Be there is all i can do, i think.

My own repect for my parents was hindered to a great extent by their insistance in demanding it in the face of what were patently poor parenting skills. Not that i could have framed it in those terms at the time, you understand: it was more a general sense that almost everything just wasn't right and manifested as far reaching rebelliousness which culminated in the baby going the way of the bathwater. It's only now i realise that they are just people, flawed like all of us, that i forgive them and respect their efforts, if not their methodology.

Re: http links.
I can't demonstrate it for you here some_maineiac because this comments interface would attempt to convert any partial html tags into actual live links, but it's done with the 'a' tag: if you find "View Source" from your browser's top of the page menus you'll be able to see how they are formed or go here for a tutorial which can be as simple or in depth as one wishes.

Thanks for the compliments. Yeah, nameistaken, valuing others: it's a toughie! There's the fact that now my thinking is generally stripped of false attempts to defend my self esteem, i do value even those i perceive as the worst of us. Then there's the fact that some people's words/deeds seem unconscionable and cannot go unchallenged. Then there's the fact that when speaking to a mass audience, one has to get to the point in terms that will be understood, before they get bored. It's no good pre-ambling invective with my thoughts about the basic value of a person's humanity and then detailing the illogicality and moral deficiencies of their behaviour, when what i mean in common parlance is that they are a fucking bastard. Then there's the catharsis in railing against what i think is wrong.

In as much as i think about it, that's where "layers of meaning" come in. I think what i'm aiming for is a sort of applied bombast: to tell you all what i think/feel but leave enough space for you to connect the dots; it's more useful ultimately (if i want you to form your own informed opinion, and i do) and more respectful than trying to cover all the angles, or tell you what i think you should think.

Anyhoo, it's a long one, so i'll say bye and i hope you're all well, e

11/1/06 17:22  
Blogger pocketpunk said...

127...facts curator or something...maybe you had some lucky guesses ;-)

13/1/06 18:49  
Blogger edjog said...

Yeah maybe pocketpunk. I wasn't going to go on, but since you've given me the opportunity to peddle my own penisness: i have to tell you that i didn't realise what Tickle� was about, that the default setting was to have the results available for general viewing, or even that it was a proper IQ test; i just thought it was a bit of a laugh that i'd blindly followed from somebody's blog ads.

I was actually on the phone at the time to a sometime fuckbuddy lending emotional support to her because her parents are about to divorce (it's messy, not as bad as many, but obviously dysfunctional) whilst also discussing the artistic factors and technical requirements of a proposed combined production including elements of prerecorded film, live theatre and music, which takes religion and feminist politics from WW1 upto a speculative near future as it's scope, whilst simultaneously surfing around looking at the costs and tech specs of various digital cameras.

Of course this lends veracity to the actual result however, because the truth is my performance at any given task is often hindered by my propensity for thinking about/doing several, often unrelated, things at once.

Except shagging. Actually, i'm lying. I can't help thinking about all sorts of things whilst bonking and have been known to smoke, drink, watch television or even eat, especially if it's one of those long sessions, you know? Once my partners have got over the initial surprise and realised that it's not about them, that there's nothing on earth that could guarantee my undivided attention for more than 5mins and certainy not for hours, things usually seem to go well though.

13/1/06 20:11  
Anonymous some_maineiac said...

your description of what goes on in your mind while shagging reminded me of this old film

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080360/quotes

blast my idiocy!

13/1/06 21:41  
Blogger edjog said...

Altered States? Was that the one where the guy has vivid flashbacks that cross over into reality? Something to do with sensory deprivation also?

You'll wonder about my sanity after this next, but hey, it was a long time ago, at about the same time referred to in this post actually. I've recovered now. Honest (aaaaahahaHA!).

So, some lads and i, Mentla: the official opposition to the high IQ club Mensa built a sensory deprivation tank out of 2 massive old cast iron bathtubs padded with fibreglass lagging and filled with very concentrated salt water which could be kept at body temperature (or thereabouts) to float in inside it. Silent. Dark. No sense of touch. We used to drop a lot of acid, often in combination with other drugs, and get in it. It was fucking bizarre.

I can't remember my motivations sufficiently to give anyone a clue to what i thought i was upto really, but it was along the lines of attempting to deprogram myself from my upbringing and society in general. All it actually achieved was a deepening of my prejudices and self destructive tendencies, i think. I think there was probably a nascent quest for some kind of non-conformist spirituality involved also.

NEVER AGAIN!

re: links
You're using Microsoft Internet Explorer� (ptuh, he spits) as a browser right? If you go to your view menu at the top of your screen, at or near the bottom of it there is the option "Source". If you select that, it will show you a page of text which is the HTML code for this page. If you scroll around to find this bit of text (***** asterisks like these on either side will help you locate it) you will be able to see how the 'a' tag and 'end a' or /a tag are formed around it: *****link text***** the bit between quotes is where you paste the url and the href= tells the browser it's a live link. Or just follow the link to get a tutorial on HTML. Don't be put off by the seeming technicality of it, it's just like learning punctuation and grammar.

13/1/06 23:54  
Blogger edjog said...

OK some_maineiac, i've just checked the source code of this page and it's the bottom line. You'll have to use the bottom scrollbar to go about 2/3 of the way accross to fnd my last post. Just ignore the REL="no_follow" bit, that's just something this Blogger interface sticks in there, you don't need it.

14/1/06 00:00  
Anonymous some_maineiac said...

edjog, yes, you have the gist of it...the specific scene i was thinking of (i cannot recall the exact dialogue) involves a strenuous lovemaking session between the main characters after which the character played by Ms. Brown compares the experience to (i paraphrase) "being penetrated by a hair-shirted monk who is trying to get it on with the universe" and while enjoying it very much wonders "who is really being made love to?"

i applaud the insights you achieved into self-destructive tendencies and such while pursuing similiar experiences yourself and would agree that the nascent quest for spirituality was at the root of it...

"all my life, my heart has sought a thing it cannot name", eh?

regarding the PC idiocy, i just need to pay more attention to what i read...i am gainfully employed as a computer programmer (albeit on large, IBM mainframes, and no, i have not been institutionalized by the stodgy thought processes inherent in those beasts and exhibited by so many other programmers)and it should not be that difficult for me...

14/1/06 04:16  
Anonymous some_maineiac said...

HA! I am not "cooked" yet... i checked out your "fish people" post and immediately pulled down a slim volume of short stories by one Norman Spinrad (SF writer from the late 60's, when SF was NOT "fantasy" and "sword and sorcery") called "The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde" and the specific story "The Entropic Gang Bang Caper" (quotes follow)

"Scenario nine: war is any means of breaking the will of the enemy. Chaos is a means of waging war. A chaos-war breaks the will of the enemy through entropy. In a chaos-war, the enemy is defeated when further action on his part becomes the consequences of defeat"

not that i advocate chaos, y'unnerstan...there are 8 other scenarios...

14/1/06 04:39  
Blogger pocketpunk said...

Now thats what i call multi-tasking!....

14/1/06 10:13  
Anonymous some_maineiac said...

haha Pp, you will sometimes hear me describe multi-tasking as the ability to fart and blow one's nose at the same time!

this is often said when dealing with my "masters" at work, who think they are multi-tasking, but in reality are only delegating their work to others

14/1/06 13:48  
Blogger edjog said...

Wow, s_m hope you dont mind the abbrev. ~ im eating) Big Blue! you'll have no problem with html mate. i didn't realise that main frames were still used, i thought networked parallel processing was generally accepted as the way forward? if for no other reason than that they can start small and be expanded/contracted to suit needs/budget? Weta used racks of Apple X-Servers to do Lord of the rings and i'm guessing king kong too. Obviously Pixar is partly Steve Jobs of Apple fame so im guessing they do too. Are they legacy machines? Or am i misinformed?

same abbrev. pp: which example?

actually it gets worse!
for those of you who dont know: "hot knives" is a way of smoking small peices of canabis resin, where 2 knife tips are heated until they glow, a blim of hash is dropped onto 1 and squashed with the other. the resulting cloud of smoke is inhaled, generally using a bottle with the bottom knocked of as an aid to this, however if you put the knives close to your mouth and inhale very sharply, this is not strictly necessary.

so 2 mates and i were driving around the backroads of a rural area with a significant quantity of drugs in the car, stoned and somewhat lost...

you know this tale's gonna end in tears right now eh? stay tuned, it gets better/worse. [Chinese style Quorn™ with green peppers in blackbean sauce and noodles finished! Mmm. Heartily recommend. More protein than steak: no bad Karma/clogged arteries and tastes great!]

So yeah, i was in the front passenger seat [right hand drive car] overseeing the heating of the knives on a small camping gas stove which was wedged on top of the handbrake between the 2 front seats right... and building a joint, more by way of confectionary to the main meal of hot knives if you follow, whilst periodically consulting a large paper map which had to be kept away from the gas flame for obvious reasons...

Chris was driving, quite quickly, considering we had little idea where we were, the roads were far from straight or level and he was insisting on administering the hot knives to himself, by using 1 elbow jammed into the steering wheel, to keep the car heading vaguely in the right direction, and turning in his seat to take them from me in either hand before i dropped the hash on for him: because he didn't want anyone else waving bits of glowing metal anywhere near his face whilst we bumped along this country road...

Why didn't we just stop if we wanted to get wrecked? What you have to know is that the car we were travelling in was far from the most road-legal looking of vehicles, we were far from the most blameless looking of characters and the stash we were carrying could, at the time, have seen us behind bars for between 5-8 years apiece. It was imperative therefore, that we get back to our base of operations with maximum alacrity, before the forces of law and order took it upon themselves to take an interest in our activities (it was a common state of affairs at the time). The thought of just not getting wrecked for a change just never entered our heads...

To facilitate the easy manipulation of the blims of hash, we had a small chessboard jammed between the upright backs of the 2 front seats, as a makeshift table, and since it was there, Dave (who was a proper pain in the arse, but essential to the mission, and tolerable when so stoned he could hardly speak: a state we kept him in, regardless of the fact that it rendered him incapable of helping with the intermediary tasks at hand) in the back and i were also having a game... plus [and here it gets a bit bizarre, but stick with me] i was constucting a balsa and polystyrene glider, the 4 foot wingspan of which, i have to confess, was starting to impede proceedings and driving somewhat...

I'd bought it from amongst a pile of stuff UK petrol stations keep handy for weekend dads, overcome by guilt, to purchase whilst travelling to visit their estranged family. For some unknown reason many of them also sell gardening equipment, of all things, and i'd noticed a ball of twine. Aha! Thought i, if i make this glider and tie the string to it, i can fling it out of the moving car and tow it along like a kite... it'll be great!

Now, i'll ask you to understand that i was about 19-20 at the time and doing things which i hadn't fully thought through was my default mode of operation, as it is for many young adults. My problem was that many of the things i did as par for the course were already quite extreme by most peoples' standards and so the things which i did that were just a tad more stupid, by comparison, the little risks, were in objective reality absolutely mental, but subjectively, i couldn't see that.

So, Chris is doing a knife when a sudden bend in the road necessitates his violently jerking his elbow to turn the wheel and keep us on the road whereupon we come to a roundabout... [i don't know if you even have them in the US: its a circular road junction with an island in the centre and you can only drive around it 1 way, turning off at your desired exit. They have to be negotiated with some care because it's only by everyone obeying the rules that they work, because otherwise, they are in fact fucking deadly] We were very fortunate that nobody else was using the road because otherwise things would have no doubt been even worse than they transpired.

So one of the glowing tips taps Chris on the chin: he screams, flinging the hot knives wherever and grabbing his face whilst also trying to negotiate this sudden obstacle at about 40mph... i have no idea exactly what happened next because my view was obscured by a whirling mailstrom of joint makings, glowing metal, chess pieces, broken bottle, gas stove, burning map, smoke and sparks (from several sources) and glider, whilst my attention was firmly focussed [for a change] on trying to keep the more dangerous of these out of my long dreadlocks and lap, plus i was already so stoned that once the car was no longer on a relatively flat surface my sense of gravity was severely undermined...

The next thing i see is a large chunk of wood, with several jagged splintery bits nailed to it come through the driver's side window, missing Chris' face by an inch and passing over my left shoulder before disappearing just as suddenly... Obviously, we had crashed, but for a moment i just sat there completely stunned whilst my mind replayed these last events, in which time had seemed to slow right down Matrix stylee, before the stench of burning plastic and paper brought me zooming into full speed reality and pain in my thigh brought the full horror of the fact that we were sitting in a car which had just rolled down an embankment, over a fence, who knew the state of the petrol tank of which, and was on fire crashing home to me.

The swearing was heartfelt: the exit one of my sharpest. But it was alright. We put the map and seats out: had to drive through a field for a bit to get back on the road; never did find all the chess pieces but the glider worked a treat, except it had a tendency to fly in little hops above 48mph, no doubt due to some aerodynamic effect i wasn't aware of.

On balance, i'd not recommend it though.

15/1/06 01:05  
Blogger edjog said...

Actually some_maineiac, before i got into the long waffle above, i meant to say about that scene in Altered States (it comes back to me now: in fact it may well have been 1 of the inspirations for our own "experiment"): yeah, if you've read much of this blog you'll know, but you may have guessed anyway that i'm engaged in a 12 step recovery program. When it comes to steps 8 & 9, making a list of all those we have harmed and becoming entirely ready to make amends to all of them: there'll be a few former lovers on my list with whom i never did much more than was absolutely necessary to get them into bed to make them feel valued. It's not good. Still, i don't jump into bed with people at the drop of a pair of pants anymore, so they have got a fair idea what they're in for, before the event, these days.

Who said that heart seeking thingyo then? Sounds familiar, but it won't pop up! Dammit!

Mmmmmm. Chaos. It's not good for me or anyone else, but i can't help but have a soft spot for a bit of it. I think it's because i've been so used to it that when madness starts, i'm very much at home whilst others start freaking out. It makes me feel comfortably competant, by comparison.

That's at the heart of it though: comparison. It's low self-esteem that makes me compare myself unfavourably and thus seek such reverse psychological advantage in the first place.

15/1/06 01:25  
Anonymous some_maineiac said...

well, well, well, another fine story...don't your fingers ever get tired and sore after typing the volume of words that you do day in and day out??? for myself, after a lifetime spent at the keyboard, i can no longer write in a legible longhand...

re: networked parallel processing...most of my career was spent in such an environment, hence the remark about not being "institutionalized", but there is not much market for old geezers such as myself for such work here where i want to spend the rest of my days, so i take what employment i can find to pay the mortgage and get out from under this mountain of debt that divorce has left me with...the software is absolute crap written by lunkheads...

re:roundabouts, they are a popular sight in the place i lived previously (Massachusets) where they are known as traffic circles or rotarys...they are extremely dangerous to the uninitiated as there is no road courtesy in that place, just the road rage that results from a cutthroat sense of "me first", and much finger waving...

re: heart seeking thingyo quote...it is from a book by my favorite, alive-until-recently American writer, Hunter S. Thompson...i do not know the original author, and i cannot find the damned book where it was written...

re: 12 step, me too, mate, just recently into it and feeling better every day, many thanks to my new-found blogger community

now blogger comment interface, please don't eat my words of wisdom...please pardon any double-posts

15/1/06 02:52  
Anonymous some_maineiac said...

HA! my "facts curator" need a bit of a rest before coming up with the reference to that heart-seeking thingyo quote...


it is here

as an inspirational quote at the beginning of the chapter which serves as the nut of the book...the author himself calls it "a remembered linefrom a long-forgotten poem"

re:HTML Now I know the experiential meaning of "couldn't be arsed"

15/1/06 11:00  
Blogger edjog said...

Ah, Hunter S Thompson! No wonder it seemed familiar. A friend and i used excerpts from a recorded interview with him on a track of our album. A brilliant, even if he was deranged, confused and possibly dangerous, man!

So i was thinking about his influences, couldn't find the quote, but came up with these:

"Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure."
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night US novelist (1896 - 1940)

"There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice."
~ Mark Twain Following the Equator (1897) US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

"Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such."
~ Henry Miller US author (1891-1980)

"Having had to encounter single-handed during his period of eclipse many physical dangers, he was well aware of the most dangerous element common to them all: of the crushing, paralysing sense of human littleness, which is what really defeats a human struggling with natural forces, alone, far from the eyes of his fellows."
~ Joseph Conrad English (Polish-Ukrainian-born) novelist (1857 - 1924)

Fellowship's a great thing innit?

Yes traffic: I see you're familiar with the concept of "driving oneself mad!"

Yeah, i can hardly write with a pen, but no i don't get tired/sore: it's not the only thing i'm doing (true to form): i'm reading "No Logo" by Naomi Klein @mo and also writing a novel myself, plus jotting musical ideas for future work on another computer. Actually, there is a lot of typing involved, but i've got this thingyo in front of my keyboards and mousemats that lets my fingers drop down onto them so i don't get RSI anymore.

So legacy machines then? Is it true that all the apps. are tailor made to each environment/machine? That must be very frustrating if so, e.g. "just why on earth did some prior programmer decide that was the best way of implementing such-and-such! When experience has shown that this is the most practical solution, but now they've done it, i'll have to stick with it, or rewrite the entire fucking thing!"

re: debts & divorce
Mate, i identify. I was never married but all of the relationships i've been in broke down, even 1 in recovery after 3years. When i went to uni, i got into huge debt. Ho hum. At least they can't jail me for that anymore!

Re: being "arsed"
In fairness, i'm probably one of the worst ones to talk but, in NA literature it says:

"There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery; this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance towards spiritual principles."

I think it should add that procrastination is equally as bad myself, but hey, "small steps a journey doth make" (i just cannot be arsed to attribute that, but Lao Tzu said something along those lines i think). Trying to do too much, and not keep up with my program of recovery, was what led to my relapse.

Just for today, i'll wish you all well, e

15/1/06 17:40  
Blogger pocketpunk said...

The above post about driving about in a car rings a very distant bell in my memories of driving around cardiff sat on a piece of resin the size of the yellow pages.....completely fucked on shrooms and pot.....made me laugh and laugh until i cried...thanks for some good nostalgia

17/1/06 20:05  
Blogger pocketpunk said...

oh and the earlier earlier post about multi-tasking...was referring to the smoking drinking eating and building model trains whilst shagging

17/1/06 20:07  
Blogger edjog said...

Ah the good old days, eh pocketpunk? For me, certainly: it was all still fun then; good times with good people. Even the disasters, which were common. I'd always get myself out from under the worst of it without hurting anybody, deserving or no. Or just be lucky. Things didn't stay that way, sadly. I used to run some business into Cardiff around '94-ish, i don't remember any of the people's names now, except 1 guy who had a dog called "Chickenfish". Don't suppose...

Model trains whilst shagging? pp, that's your stuff! But do tell! I've occaisionally dipped into the more playful sides of fetishisms, but never quite so outré: is it a uniform thing?

Actually, i'm going to put a link to this thread on the main page, since it's been popular.

18/1/06 01:31  

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