Fearman's definitions

fungus farm

Accommodation typically offered by cowboy landlords and especially to students, shot through with a fungal growth. The fungal infestation is often temporarily retarded at point of sale by gas or electric heaters which the landlord has removed shortly thereafter. Even if the hyphae have ramified all the way into or up from the foundations, in popular mythology it is always the tenant's fault.

Shane and myself got a cheap ground floor apartment ostensibly for a year on coming to Cork, but it turned out to be a fungus farm and we had to move out after a month for the good of our health.

by Fearman January 7, 2008

stiletto in the ghetto

Popular expression in Dublin, Ireland for the piece of commemorative art set up to mark the passing of the second millennium CE: a steel spike approximately 400 feet high, rising out of a traffic island in the centre of the dual thoroughfare of O'Connell Street on the north bank of the Liffey. It is circular in cross section, ten feet across at the base and decorated near street level with wavy frosted/reflective shapes, tapering to about ten inches at the tip, lit with a ring of red lights halfway up and a stream of white ones at the top. It takes the place of a removed statue of the figure of Anna Livia (female symbol of the River Liffey) in a fountain, previously known as the "floozie in the jacuzzi." The Spike is also known as the Spike on the Dike and/or the Stiffey on the Liffey. It is popularly supposed to be a monument to the street's night-time heroin addicts, although an alternative explanation would be that it is a symbolic memo spike for Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Aherne's hotel bills. In case anyone tries flying a jetliner into it a la 9/11, it is purely a metal spike, not an inhabited building; there isn't even a public elevator and observation deck like there is on the Eiffel Tower, or anything. Still, in a certain summer evening light it can have a certain surreal charm.

The stiletto in the ghetto isn't bad, but I think the crane they used to haul it up looked waaay better.

by Fearman December 10, 2007

Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

JOKER:
Tell me, my friend, have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Line habitually used by the Joker (Jack Nicholson) in Tim Burton's Batman. Best movie in the franchise, pre-Christian Bale.

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? I ask that of all my prey. I just like the sound of it.

by Fearman May 28, 2008

Hal

1. The HAL-9000 computer, guardian of the spacecraft Discovery in the novels and films of 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel, 2010. First activated at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois on January 12, 1997 (or 1992 in the film version). HAL is short for Heuristic ALgorithmic, and not derived by moving one letter back from the initials of IBM, as some have suggested. HAL's apparently psychotic behaviour in 2001 is revealed in the novel, and in either version of 2010, to have been a result of a neurosis arising from conflicts between his programming to accurately input, analyse and output information, and the demands of national security mandated by the Pentagon.

2. Any troublesome, wary or otherwise bloody-mindedly unhelpful computer.

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

by Fearman February 25, 2008

neuron-free zone

A complete idiot. Someone without a brain cell to their name.

It's only to be expected that Dicky let Leo crash out in his pad after Leo had stolen stuff from everyone else he'd stayed with. So what if Dicky was warned about it in advance? He's a neuron-free zone.

by Fearman August 10, 2007

Homopyronecrorapaedophobotaurophiliac

Someone who likes to fuck bulls who fear or hate people who like to make love to dead young burning spiders of the same sex.

If you're a homopyronecrorapaedophobotaurophiliac, you're cool.

by Fearman October 25, 2007

Venetian blinds

Venetian blinds; window covering consisting of an array of narrow rigid slats that can be rendered effectively translucent or opaque by using threads slotted through them to tilt them. One of the most essential inventions ever.

If it wasn't for Venetian blinds, it would be curtains for all of us.

by Fearman May 30, 2008