Subtitles for the Real World

There were two of us on The Shunt's couch the other night, myself and a girl from Manchester. She had much to say, to which I could only offer smiles, nods and the occasional "I see" in return, using the old improviser's trick of acknowledging everything said with the sole aim of moving the interaction forwards. I had no choice in this matter, for the background noise camouflaged her Mancunian accent flawlessly.

Luckily, we were there as part of a group and all I had to do was maintain the illusion of comprehension until the others returned and we all departed for quieter surroundings, where we were able to converse more fluently. But had I been there in pursuit of personal pleasure, things would have been trickier. After all, just what is a deaf guy with a taste for hearing women supposed to do in the noisy bars and crowded pubs of the London social scene?

Sometimes, my cell phone comes to the rescue and we end up typing our conversations across its keypad and handing it back and forth, the modern equivalent of passing notes in class. Other times, it is the perfect excuse to suggest going someplace quieter. But more often than not, it makes the initial introductions just a bit tricky.

Then, there are some women who I can't even take out to restaurants because their voices get drowned out by the orchestra of clinking cutlery and distant conversation. Most frustratingly, lipreading is hardest with the soft-spoken, which means that the practicalities forbid dating certain women, as much as aesthetic and intellectual preferrences would have it otherwise.

Seriously, when is some bright spark going to invent subtitles for the real world?

I shall be watching Engadget very closely.

The Quotable Mr Johnson

“I was going to follow a policy of openness, transparency and individual freedom. No disrespect, it’s just that there are times when you have to take a stand”
-Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, on leaving his suit unbuttoned at the Olympic closing ceremony, much to the chagrin of his Chinese hosts.
(Source: The London Paper)

What a noble cause to make a stand for! And such sacrifice! He truly speaks out against sartorial oppression around the world, and gives us all the courage to stand up to the fascist dictates of fashion.

We all know that the Fashion Police have been getting more aggressive of late, but till now, no-one has dared challenge them. Boris, I salute you.

Return to the Blogosphere

About a year ago I began this grand project. I had noble intentions of writing something every single week, and channeling my hordes of stray thoughts into one unified purpose, away from their sporadic migrations to random scraps of paper. It was going to be a great blog, one of the best in the Whole Wide World™. There were going to be comments on everything, from current news to developments in the field of Weapons Grade Literary Theory and my very own plans for World Domination.

Alas, this did not come to pass. A great shadow of quietness fell upon my blog. This was not a first: countless online forums and email correspondences have fallen prey to my spontaneous silences over the years.

But I have decided that this year will be different. What with my upcoming temporary migration to London and the adventures that will follow, there will be ample material for my Explorer’s Journal and consequences aplenty if I don’t update my family on my doings.

In other words, it is time to return to the grand literary tradition begun with the Exciting Episodes of My Amazing Australian Adventure. So first, before I (re)turn to regular updates, here is a quick recap on the Year That Was.

In the last year I have, in no particular order: Organized my fourth and last Wits Pillow Fight, talked my way out of a speeding ticket armed with only a Granola bar, succumbed to the cult of Literary Theory and fought my way free again, traveled to England and discovered half my matric class lurking there, sailed down France’s Saône River with the family, invaded Japan with my younger brother, fended off many ninja (but not turtle) attacks, convinced several unsuspecting innocents that I was a professional porcupine tamer for the Canadian special forces, procrastinated many important things, contemplated going commando for a week (an endeavour subsequently deterred by countless zipper horror stories), met a passionate Australia-denialist who to this day remains unconvinced by my subjective experiences of that antipodean nation’s geography, done battle with the university’s notorious Oracle System and its administrative ninjas, written many fragments of blogposts that never made it past the barrier between the Offline Realms and Great Interweb let alone cohered into an unified whole, finished my English Literature Honours degree, escaped student politics alive if not unscarred, went to the LeChaims (engagements) of two good friends in the space of a single fortnight, gone to the first wedding in my immediate circle of friends and seen many of my contemporaries taken “under new management”, taken up the Brazillian martial art of Capoeira and passed my first grading, interned at Pan Macmillan, gone to the inaugural Johannesburg Art Fair and been suitably impressed, eaten a sandwich, met certain little cousins for the first time, done many things which hid from my attempts to remember them, played reverse strip Uno and written one massive sentence, extended by shady and unethical applications of comma use.

Amazing what can be squeezed into a single paragraph, isn’t it?

In the year to come, I shall venture forth to the great Sunless Northlands, wellspring of the English language, for over a year in my quest for adventure before circumnavigating the entire planet to see for myself whether The Rest Of The World™ actually exists. Rest assured, I shall inform you all of my findings.

For now, I leave you, my loyal readers (yes, all three of you) with no promises of writing every single week regardless of whether I have anything worthwhile to say, but only an almost-promise that I will be more prolific this year.

May you all be blessed with an adventurous 2008, or what's left of it!

I momentarily emerge for air (read: a few minutes of internet surfing and a quick peek at facebook) after almost ten days of hardcore essaying. Just a pity about the exam tomorrow.

Not to mention these lonely last few nights that my faithful pillow has spent in solitude.

My Dramatic Entrance

Hello World!

I, myself, otherwise known as yours truly, hereby declare my new blog open for business! Partly inspired by Experiments in Telling, the title of an English Literature Honours course I’m taking later this year, I will be conducting my own Experiment in Telling about the life, thoughts and misadventures of one Warren [], once known as The Guy With The Hat! (Or Comrade Pillowfighter, in more anarchic circles)

In the great literary tradition of Wezza, Herman, Rebecca (who, as I am obliged to mention, I have never met) and others too numerous to mention, I too have mustered the courage to take my first tentative steps into the murky waters of the blogosphere.

This blog is in a sense the long-awaited literary successor to the Exciting Episodes of My Amazing Australian Adventure*, which were received with excessively critically acclaim by my Aussie schoolmates. As one rave reviewer frequently put it, “you're tripping, [...r...]!” He even added an “R” to my surname, how generous of him.

The title comes from my known obsession with the humble yet versatile pillow. This is arguably the most important of my possessions, yet I am seriously negligent when it comes to maintaining our relationship.

But, enough on the theoretical underpinnings of this blog. There is a “submit” button waiting to be prodded and my mouse-finger is itchy. The Genuine Blog Content will have to wait for another post.

*click*

TO BE CONTINUED

* http://aussieadventure.tripod.com/, if you must.