Venusberg | That's not your heart, it's a piece of helicopter casing

Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Tom has so far best encapsulated the idea of three facts of no interest whatsoever, one of potential interest and one slightly disturbing fact involving trousers with:

1) Whilst I have red hair, neither of my parents does.
2) I'm currently meant to be writing an essay.
3) I'm about to put the kettle on.
4) All my scars are self-inflicted.
5) My youthful trousers have an inordinate number of useful zips in a
variety of places, seven to be precise, not all of which are closed at the
moment.

Brrrr.

Monday, February 25, 2002

Speaking of a thrill of apprehension, is it utterly beyond the pale to suggest that the film Iris would be much improved by having Dwight Schultz playing opposite Jim Broadbent?

Five interesting facts about coal.

Five interesting facts about Kev's PC.

Five interesting facts about Lee Coddrington-Marshall.

Five interesting facts abou- now hang on a second.

I have no wish to be a curmudgeon, but none of these sets of facts is really very interesting. OK, I concede that there may be people out there for whom coal or Kev's computer may be far more interesting than they are to little me, but that's really a very personal thing.

And, furthermore, I will quite readily concede that there is an air of mystery about the extension of Lee and Ed's networks. Why is there a client in the flat of somebody else in Lee's building? Why does Ed have four workstations, but only use one? Does he have workstation parties? But at best these are tantalising facts - facts which suggest that they may - may - lead under interrogation to an interesting fact. Not facts that in themselves seduce.

So, the only real standard-bearer for interest is the "trouser fact". I will concede that, although not interesting in the strictest sense, the fact that somebody has often considered investing in a men's skirt, that someone being Ed, is at least enough to elicit a sort of non-verbal "oh" response, combined perhaps with a cold thrill of apprehension running up the base of one's spine.

So, can you think of five facts about you, three of which are simply not interesting, one of which incites you to believe that it may or may not be the entance to a tunnel complex leading to an interesting fact or anecdote, and one of which is at the same time mildly interesting, slightly disquieting and about your trousers? Tell Me.

Yesterday, while recovering from Luke's birthday party, I found myself eerily dragged into "Young Indiana Jones". First by its almost impossibly glacial pacing and astonishingly leaden dialogue, and subsequently by perhaps the best piece of hysterical historical placement ever.

Well, to be exact the second best. For an ex-partner once related to me the experience of having seen a film which established its 19th-Century context by having two people pass in the street and say to each other:

Evening, Dickens.

Evening, Thackeray.

before the camera pans to where the action is. This is probably matchless, but the bit where Indy is asked by two hilariously camp Brits to critique the poetry of Sassoon, only to find that he is in the company both of that worthy and of Robert Graves, fresh from his nervous breakdown, is a damn close second. It turns out that this celebrity of the hour approach is a feature of the series - later in 1916 he busts out of a German PoW camp disconcertingly located in World War 2 in the company of Charles de Gaulle. Niiice.

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It had to happen. Matt has spammed the UpsideClown.

Friday, February 22, 2002

OK, mutant boy who has audiotaped all his videogaming experiences for the last 12 years. Thank God I was busy in my youth torturing animals and making plasticine models of my f...f...f....family.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of Alyson Hannigan wearing spectacles.

Yeah, I know. You may as well go home now, really.

Waiting for the elevator, I noticed I could see my reflection in the directional buttons. Clever?

Reflection. Polished metal. No apparent irony.

Quoting myself elsewhere, because I can:

On reflection, I realised on the tube last night that monogamy is a lot like 4-4-2 (for those of us in the United States, 4-4-2 is a system for the playing of "Soccer", or football as the rest of the Universe calls it, in which 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and two attackers make up the formation).

4-4-2 is used by many lower division football teams, because it can through organisation compensate for an absence of individual ability. In essence, two big central defenders of limited technical ability can police the area directly in front of goal, two full backs can police the touchlines and move forward when it is entirely safe to do so, two wide midfielders can apply pressure to the opposition full-backs, two central midfielders can cut out balls through the middle and pass out to the wings, and two strikers can run on to balls and head down crosses for each other. According to the particular abilities of the players available, the system is tweaked, but generally one looks for 2 big centre-backs, 2 small, nippy full-backs, two competent dribblers and crossers, a hardman midfielder and a passing midfielder, a big strong forward and a small nippy forward, with the system compensating for the weaknesses of the players. At lower levels, 4-4-2 is safe and reliable way to use players without the perception, technique or footballing intelligence to make more complex systems like 3-5-2 or the sweeper acheivable.

Now, Brazil also often played 4-4-2 during the period of their eminence. There you had a pair of ball-playing central defenders who were able to play intelligent passes across the pitch to set up new attacks, full-backs able to overlap the midfield and provide highly accurate passes infield or dribble past opponents, wingers with incredible ball skills who could cut out entire defences with skilful passing and running, one central midfielder acted as a playmaking "stopper", combining positional sense with a broad range of passing, the other played in a more advanced role with the responsibility of doing something utterly magical, and the forward were, generally, fast and small with almost prescient awareness of the ball to be able to make perfectly timed runs into unpredictable spaces. A bewildering, enchanting set of interlocking patterns of movement and passing, the Brazillian 4-4-2 resembled its counterpart on the playing fields of England in name only, and yet the basic structure of the system is the same.

So, the point. Done well and skilfully between two emotionally competent people, monogamy is a fantastic and beautiful thing, able to offer different but equally valid arguments for its existence in comparison to all the other intricate and equally beautiful dances available.

On the other hand, if you are a pair of needy, disturbed, childish or just plain dim people, monogamy is probably the way forward because it attempts to minimise the number of situations in which your own resources are pitted against the complexities of the world by imposing an easy-to-follow system.

I am Georg Bush.

Wednesday, February 20, 2002

Still, on the bright side, MSN is offering the George Foreman fat-free griller for a mere $14.99.

George Foreman is, for my money, the more interesting of the Ali/Foreman diptych. Whereas the Rumble in the Jungle was effectively the capstone on Ali's career, a career characterised by principle as well as performance, and the lead-in to his evocative decline, Foreman's response to what might not at first seem such a terrible thing - losing to Muhammad fuckin' Ali - was the catalyst for a breakdown, depression, clawing his way back to the edge of a title shot, cocking it, finding Jesus, reclaiming a world title at the age of four thousand in a frnakly unequal match against Michael Moore, and finally the George Foreman Lean and Mean Fat Grilling Machine. You cannot argue with moves like that.

My God, I am such a special boy right now. I feel like my brain is very slowly unspooling.

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Speaking of Upsideclones and clowns, at the risk of sounding very swollen-headed what's your favourite clown(s) of mine? Matt, the evil ringmaster, has asked us to pick out our favourites from our own work, and I was wondering what other people thought....Tell me.

There are times when I sincerely regret the fact that at present I am commited to fencing every Wednesday evening. This is definitely one of them.

I always forget to mention Upsideclone, because I have already read them once while casting my charn upon them (long story). As such, I never follow when they are published. If you have one out there, guys, drop me a line and tell me, OK? Because more people should read quality stuff like Litter:

They're not good in thunderstorms. They can't see as far, can't react as quickly. There was a time when they'd hide in the hedges, sitting it out, but they've become more reckless these days, more careless. A front-right tyre clips heavily against this particular wanderer, sending it spinning and buckling beneath the car, rattling out into the road behind. It rolls over and over three or four times before stopping dead in the rain.

It's amazing what you miss when you fall out of touch with the wacky world of weblogging. For example, it appears that this year's Graybo - for most heartwrenching piece of public suffering - goes to the boy Nick, whose girl done him wrong. Arguably.

Said girl is very sensibly on hiatus. Problem with the Internet being that it is extraordinarily difficult to cover over the traces. As I found to my cost recently, when I had to go to great lengths to remove an unintentionally offensive (yes, it does happen sometimes) comment from Venusberg. The Internet has a memory almost as encyclopaedic and as dangerous as - well, as your ex.

Monday, February 18, 2002

And on the subject of webloggers trying to make sure that I never leave my home again, let's say a big Jesus Fucking Christ to Luke.

Included in the cost of entry, all players will receive a limited edition commemorative event jersey. These jerseys will be made by a well known and respected Paintball jersey manufacturer. Each jersey will feature an image of William Shatner and will not be available other than to event participants. Teams will be identified by the distinctive jersey worn.

Thanks for these nightmares, Ben.

I particularly like the incredibly steep shelf after the not particularly stellar celebrity of the Captain...

The first turn was mine.

As with all good ideas, this one began in the pub. The idea was simple: I would leave a message in a Dead Letter Box, somewhere in London, and then provide clues to the other two until they found it. The turn would then move on. All very simple and innocent and more or less straight out of the Usbourne Spy's Guidebook. The only thing I had to do was to find a suitable Dead Letter Box, and compose the message to be hidden. Easy Peasy, lemon squeezy.

And so the game began.

On the UpsideClown, letters on letters. Drop Dead Letters.

Friday, February 15, 2002

Now that you've acquired the enriched uranium, all that's left is to assemble your A-bomb. Go find a couple of stainless steel salad bowls.

Quote of the week, I think....

Nice sideburns.

Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Have you ever needed the sweet sound of William Gibson reading the entirety of Neuromancer? Or a terrible, terrible proposed film treatment for the same? Then praise Ben and hit this.

Let's get one thing straight before we go anywhere - I am not fat.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not one of those people who's obsessed with their size, 'you calling me fat?', all that crap - I just don't want you to get the wrong picture of me in your head. I don't want you to have this image of a fat guy sat on a chair with a gun to his head, flab spilling out over where his hands are tied tight behind his back. It's kind of like that, only diet. Just let the vision in your head lose a few stone and you've got it. I should sell the before-and-after pictures to Slimfast.

Jamie's got his head screwed on and his priorities straight on the UpsideClown

I don't want this temporary madness on your part to jeopardize our friendship, Douglas. Now, after all, is a critical time for GL fandom. The runaway success of Lord Of The Rings makes a Lantern movie a genuine possibility, given the heightened general interest in movies about rings that possess great power. But while such a prospect is exciting, it will take a unified fan base to bring about the kind of feature film Green Lantern has so richly deserved for so long. Together, the world's GL fans can make their voices heard and help create what could and should be the greatest superhero film of all time. As long as it's based on the Silver Age comics. And Tim Burton isn't involved.

Beautifully observed, as per. When you are ready to have a serious conversation about Green Lantern, you have my email address.

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

'I'd just like to thank Ewan McGregor for being here. I've always fancied him.'
- Sharon Maguire pulls no punches

I'm Ian McKellen and I fancy Ewan McGregor as well.'
- Ian McKellen

'I've never worked with a more encouraging, helpful and agreeable actor, he was absolutely wonderful. Even if he does fancy Ewan McGregor.'
- Christopher Lee on co-star Ian McKellen

This from the Livejournal of Devon, who in a blog twinning project probably snuggles somewhere between Joe and Rosa. Eenteresting stuff.

This is so fucking cool - more on it later.

Monday, February 11, 2002

Regarding the Royal Family, an update: Princess Margaret has died... oh well, it's not as if I've ever heard of her before, so she can't be that important.

If anyone else has any ideas about other ostensibly important people whose relevance is made dust and shadow by er33t's innocence of them, bowl 'em in. I'm plumping for the Emperor Constantine, Alexander Fleming and O. Henry. How about you? Tell me.

Lordy. This appears to be an utterly serious magazine for people who don't think the news they receive is right-wing enough. It's astonishing, and a reminder that there is no idea out there so fuckwitted that somebody will not set up a web site catering to it...

They are particularly good on Europe, which is lily-livered and cowardly and, incidentally, rolled over for Hitler in World War 2.

This in response to a speech by Chris Patten, a citizen of the United Kingdom, which if anything won the girl-out foot-race by a mile, surrendering in 1937 and immediately installed Oswald Mosley as Prime Minister of a puppet government.

We really should be ashamed of ourselves. We pussied out then, and we're pussying out now.

Friday, February 08, 2002

Saw "When We Were Kings" yesterday. Damn, Muhammad Ali is pretty much the coolest human being in the history of creation.

We're gonna get it on, because we don't get along!"

So, yeah, text-only adventures. Did you ever write any of those things? Playing around with Quill, wrapping new flesh and hair around the same superstructure over and over again. You are lost in space. You are Agent X. You are the Marquis de Sade.

Different nouns, occasionally different verbs, same structure. Put a in b. Say y to z. Go North. Look. Examine c.

Over and over, same friends in different suits. Programmed responses to special words. You have free will, but only if you take little steps along the lines we painted. Happy little robots save the world again. North, South, East, West, Inventory does the rest.

Did you ever want to be text-only? Responding to basic commands but easily confused? Where a failure to adhere almost precisely to the single right route would see you stabbed or stalemated? Standing in the pressure chamber, trying to work out how to put on the spacesuit?

All of which got me to thinking, and ultimately took me to the UpsideClown:

What now? >

Look.

You are in a quandary. You can see no obvious exits.

What now? >

Now go Text-Only.

At last, an application with some use.

Oh, big fucking shock there. Which star-crossed Marvel superhero lover are you?

Thursday, February 07, 2002

So somebody mentioned Aristasia - which I was vaguely aware of as a misty-eyed lesbian nostalgia kick for a world that never existed, rather in the way that unimaginative het twistoids relate to Gor. It was in the context of whether or not they were ideologically dubious or just profoundly old-fashioned.

In the course of my researches, somebody mentioned that a group with possible Aristasian connections had set up a "school" in Ireland, where for a fee women could pretend to be schoolgirls. So far so fetish, until the same person mentioned also that they had written text-only adventures for the Spectrum.

And that, sweethearts, is fucked up.

It turned out that it was St Brides School, authors of, among other things, the Secret of St Brides. There's an article about them from Crash! magazine (ah, the technostalgia) here, which is comically innocent as to the psychology of its pupils. Bless.

There is a point to this. Later.

I want to be reminded in custody.

That's not his real dad. And you know what happens next.

There is so little that's original on the web these days. Everything seems a bit recycled, plagiarised, stolen, revisited, reworked, repackaged.

Especially in the personal publishing world.

In a column that devotes so much space to disturbing subjects like pain, excrement, and heterosexuals, this would be a welcome relief.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dan Savage wants your fantasies.

I ache all over. But mainly my left leg and left side, which received a buffeting in a fall from a train and then received combat physiotherapy here. Then drinks and a long night of the soul. Well, a long night spent putting off the long night of the soul by watching absurdly homoerotic US science fiction.

And speaking of which, after a fashion, experiments with new routes into work took me past Chariots, which looks from the outsdie like the bastard lovechild of a Greek restaurant and an auto repair shop. Bath houses always make me feel sad, for some reason - I think it's that whole "relics of a bygone age" thing. Odd thing to have an emotional reaction to, given the lack of emotional investment pretty much implicit in the whole setup, but there you go.

Tuesday, February 05, 2002

Bunny. Bunny. Bunny.

Octopus. Octopus. Octopus.

Monkey. Monkey. Monkey.

Monday, February 04, 2002

Matt has been disturbed lately by my regular claims to be evil Chris de Burgh. Now, thanks to Robyn, he can see why.

I remember playing Laser Squad late into the night on my old Spectrum +2. It was mighty - particular in the way its learning curve went from insultingly simple to WAY TOO FUCKING HARD. I submit as exhibit the scenario where your plucky gang of warriors must defend some starbase or moonbase or arsebase from an invading gang of robots. The "battle robots" of which force had armour actually too thick at the front to be penetrated by any attack known to man. So one was limited either to chucking grenades and praying, trying to sneak up behind them (niiiiice), or using the automatic fire option on your bazooka and hoping the bad guy was worn down by the errant blasts before you were.

Yes, actually, it was very upsetting.

Well now, apparently, you can enjoy that girlslap action online. Or if you are up for whistles and bells with your Shao Lin skills, go straight for the new dope.

And today my email contains an invitation to see hot, wet, bothered girls. "Bothered" is certainly a bit of a novelty. Bothered because they are so hot and wet?

Perhaps flustered and impatient is the way forward for erotic content providers....

Venusberg.org finds Blogger very attractive...

elsewhere:

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moreover:

Brainsluice
Mo Morgan
Mothninja
Tajmahal
Wherever y'are
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thereafter:

Toby Kay
McCargow
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LinkMachineGo
Methylsalicylate
Hammersley
Joeblog
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the Collective
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Moth
Mr. Thomas G

the author:

danATvenusberg.org

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