Hunter S. Thompson is inteviewed over at Salon. Anyone can now get into Salon Premium by watching a 15 second ad. I like this. It’s a good interview and you can read it here. Side note I’m almost finished the Laura Hamilton’s and I am eager to get cracking on Fear and Loathing ’72. Anyway back to the interview and touching on a topic I’ve read stuff from him about before, he says that the truth is ‘weired than any fiction’. I don’t think I can say I would out and out agree with him but I can appreciate the sentiment. Another thing he says about the truth kinda brings me nicely into a topic which has been on my mind for the day and will reverberate with a short recent posting; ‘Telling the truth is the easiest way; it saves a lot of time’

The V is of course made up of geniuses. It’s an accepted fact. There was a new thread yesterday in an attempt to balance this whereby you would declare three subjects in which you thought it would be good to know more about or have skill in which you were basically crap at, or had no knowledge.
This got me thinking and I entered my three:
– I cannot speak Irish fluently.
– I have very poor communication skills
– I have very little non proprietary technical know-how

The second one there was kinda replaced by something Jason listed. It’s word for word but I did localise the spelling, I just had to but it applies very much to me: “I’m utterly lost when needing to mix/socialise with a group of strangers. So very, very lost.”

The replies in the thread by others got me thinking about stuff too, so here is a longer list of things I am basically crap at.
– financial planning (also known as budgeting). I’m shit at it, it never works out.
– My handwriting is illegible.
– I am largely ignorant about politics anywhere in the world (past or present)
– I have less musical ability than a plank of wood. Well, that’s not quite true; I can play piano and the tin whistle and the flute. I have not in many many years and doubt I have any of it left. I use to be able to read very very basic sheet music. Now it all looks like gibberish. Put me in front of a piano for a few minutes I can probably play the theme tune from Indiana Jones but that’s it.
– Releated to this, I don’t know anything about the art of music. I don’t understand the stuff behind the songs or even in the songs. I don’t know if I really want to. Also I don’t know enough music, I can never know enough music.
– I know nothing about art. I know what I like when I see it, but that’s about it.
– Ditto for Architecture
– I cannot draw a straight line to save my life.
– I cannot cook to save my life.
– I do know my left from my right, but I have to think about it.
– My grammar is appalling.
– I dislike all vegetables
– I cannot sew or anything along those lines.
– Design skills. As you can see, I have none.
– I cannot drive. Although I intend to change this and the sooner the better.
– I find it almost impossible to ask for help and I hate doing it. For work stuff if it is something I know I can do or figure out I won’t ask till I have to. This can be fun for me around deadline times, but I prefer to just fucking do it and know I did it. For other stuff I just hate having to do it and will often delay what can be inevitable.
– I’ll put down that I’m shit at talking to girls I like, seen as that’s a given for the hetro guys posting in the thread.
– My willpower appears to have completely faded away
– I don’t always (often) think things fully through.
– I am often very reluctant to try new things. New food being notable in this category.
– Sometimes I just don’t know when to stop.
– I’m not exactly full of confidence. Sometimes I am but I have to be 100% sure I know what I’m doing (which I rarely am) or pretty sure I have a way to get whatever it is done.
– I never ever know what to say when someone passes away. Anything that runs through my head sounds so lame and insincere that I just can’t say it. Fuck, I hate the fact I had to just add this to the list.

And yes I’m sure you can add more to this list, thank you very much. It is not a comprehensive list and it of course leaves off the stuff I don’t want to admit to you or indeed to myself.
– – –
On whole other notes, I lost a game of chess today that should have been locked up by a very silly mistake. I won the later game leaving the score this week so far being 5 1/2 to me and 2 1/2 to Dave. I’m enjoying this a hell of a lot. I have some nice code stolen from Iain to add to the site at some stage.

This is so very pointless and a waste of time and money and effort but at the same time so very cool and inspiring and awesome:
The first notes in the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years, are being played on a German church organ on Wednesday. The three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, are just the start of the piece, called As Slow As Possible.
First notes for 639-year composition.

And now as I’ve just ended up nice and depressed I am going to bed.