| Thursday, September 30, 2004 |
 | This visit to the US is clearly going to be too brief to get much of anything done, except what I'm being paid for, and that barely. It's a shame: New England's not exactly showing its best side here - a hotel by the side of the road, a pub that, although clean and friendly, feels in its accumulation of neon and low ceilings like a bug zapper. Along the road (which has no kerb or pavement) is a dying mall - more precisely, a plaza, which is to say a flat mall without as many walls. And that's it.
So, early waking, The Cartoon Network and a sense of wonder - first that my left ear is no longer pressure-blocked, second at the sheer volume of food being made available to me, physically and conceptually: Toaster Strudels, earnest ad voices enjoing me to "reward myself" (for what is not made clear) by dipping everything I eat in melted chocolates. Where are the Trix? The trix are all over.
Mind you, if I had to deal with Care Bears singing "Let's Get Physical", I think I'd probably want to reward myself as well.
Ah well. On the plus side, the fact that I'm here means I didn't expire in a blazing fireball. It's not that I dislike flying - actually, I very much like flying, because it provides an environment in which there is nothing much to do but read (although I pretty much finished Kavalier and Clay, which I was hoping would last a little longer), especially when one of your entertainment choices is a weapon with an Olsen at each end. I did end up watching Prisoner of Azkaban, though, which confirmed my desire to be Remus Lupin when I grow up. I think it's the lovely comfy cardigans. And the luggage. What more could one ask for? Anyway, flying is great. Also, flying is unambiguous. If everything goes tissup, you are alive, 37,000 feet in the air, and then very shortly thereafter much lower down and dead, JJ Abrams notwithstanding. That's an oddly reassuring thought. Taking off and landing - those I dislike, due to the messy possibilities between everything being fine and everyone being flame-grilled deadburgers
Oh, quick questions:
Is this the first instance of flicktion?
Why do I always step over the red line at Logan airport?
What the Hell is this Transformers: Energon bollocks?
(1) comments
| |
| Sunday, September 26, 2004 |
| The lovely xxxlibris sent me the best card ever.
Baby hedgehog! Tiny mutant baby hedgehog!
(2) comments
| |
|
| This all began with an attempt to compare Anne Rice to Jean Teasdale, after the lengthy defence of her works originally referenced here, which appears now to have been deleted. A word of warning: avoid putting "Teasdale" into Google image search at work. It is also apparently the name of a glamour model.
However, even if its costs my job, I never let futility, nor being hopelessly behind the pace stop me.
=
I do feel for Rice, really I do, but to be honest I'm not sure that "I don't allow editors to look at my work" is a badge of pride. An editor might have suggested some work on a sentence like:
I asked this due to my highly critical relationship with my work and my intense evolutionary work on every sentence in the work, my feeling for the rhythm of the phrase and the unfolding of the plot and the character development.
Gah. Ultimately, however, the last word must go to our voice of sanity, Fantastica Junebug.
There's no reason for all the bad vibe around here, Anne Rice is a great author.
I have readother great authors, among which is Mercedes Lackey,Piers Anthony, Dean Koontz....and Anne Rice.
Preach. The. Word
(0) comments
| |
| Saturday, September 25, 2004 |
| A further question. Sith lords. There are only ever two of them, the junior partner of which has to be voiced by another actor. Presumably when one Sith lord is killed, another takes his place. That is, there is a junior Sith society, or a feeder club, or possibly Sith middle management. So, Darth Maul gets cut in half, Count Dooku takes the stage. This might also help to explain why the vast numerical superiority of the Jedi has never been exploited by killing the shit out of the only living Sith lords in New York - there'll be another one along in a minute.
Still. It must have been terribly frustrating for poor Count Dooku, getting older and older in his position in middle management as young Sith turks are fast-tracked into being deputy Sith lord. I mean, the guy is ancient. All the other young Sith must have wondered why, after his long years of service, he was still stuck on the fourth floor, corner office or no. Rumours of some scandal, perhaps involving Darth Sidious' wife. Or could he just not handle the pressure?
And as Darth Maul zigged and zagged simultaneously, Count Dooku was straightening his tie in the non-executive's bathroom and staring at himself in the mirror. The lines on his face, the crinkles around his eyes from smiling (at the pain of innocents), the liver spots on his evil, evil strangly hands. Another day. Another day of mislaying his reading glasses, of idly wondering what Darth Sidioue is doing now, of thinking how he was once as young as Darth Maul, a young Sith with a head full of dreams. Suddenly, he realises that he has been staring, staring into the mirror for ten minutes. Time to get a coffee. Time to get through the day again.
And then the email.
Dear Dooku,
Due to the unfortunate bisection of Darth Maul, the position of junior Darth has become available. We would like to offer you this position, with the concomitant benefits and evil. Please respond immediately.
Yours sincerely,
Sidious,
Senior Darth,
The Sith
P.S This was not my idea - HR forced my hand. Come near my wife and I fuck you up oldschool.
Do you think the other Sith got him a leaving gift? I hope so.
(3) comments
| |
| Thursday, September 23, 2004 |
| I've got that quiet buzz of achievement thing going down. Actually, it's a buzz of exhaustion and a compelling need to get out of this office. But the day began in a blaze of competence.
My laptop refused to recognise its own hard drive and sat, unhappily attempting to boot from optical. Since this contained the DVD of Shaun of the Dead, I didn't fancy its chances. Although an OS derived from a boot from a zomromcom would almost certainly be mighty. I mean, what would an operating system designed by zombies look like?
Yeah, you got it. Well done. Gold star.
Anyway. After a brief fiddle with the BIOS, I decided that a more systematic analysis was required, so I picked the little bugger up and gave it a good shake. From the rattling, I deduced that the securing screw had come out of the hard drive caddie, and it had unplugged itself. Borrowed screwdriver from IT department, bish bosh, pop it back in, make good, bit of lacing round the edges and the cocking <i>arsebastard</i> still didn't work. Which meant it was time for the curative fallback: turning it off and back on again while calling it a shitter. Worked first time.
PH34R my skills.
(1) comments
| |
| Sunday, September 19, 2004 |
| On the way home from shopping, on the way over to Duckie, I and my ravening horde passed a sign, left in a dusbin but still displaying its message to the good folk of Charing Cross Road. That message was:
Bring Back Clause 28: The "Protect Little Boys" Law
I may have unconsciously improved the grammar. I always thought protecting little boys was covered by a fair few laws, not to mention a lot of mores. Still, it's a valid point, which is why I and the horde had great pleasure in snapping the placard in two and dumping it upside down in the same bin. Rarely are acts so easily accomplished and so unambiguously enjoyable.
Duckie was lovely, although an early departure for the joys of pipe and slippers followed. Earlier than some, at least, who have filed back into consciousness today nursing various hangovers, missing limbs and unexpected prostheses. Rosie Lugosi turned in a quality performance. Why did my careers officer never suggest that I might want to appear at a gay nightclub and sing songs about zombies to the tune of I Love you Baby?
You're just too good to be true,
Can't take my eyes back off you...
Incidentally, is it me or has it been intrusion week? Open House, which I ended up not exploiting due to exhaustion, started a bit early for Parliament and Buckingham Palace. And wasn't it refreshing to see riot police beating the crap out of right-wingers for a change?
On Buck House - in general I'd be in favour of shooting anyone who comes near to Buckingham Palace. This is not from any virulent strain of royalism - in fact, were an intruder to burst in while I was receiving my knighthood, I suspect I would probably use the nearest claimant to divine right as a shield. However, on the balance of probabilities, anyone trying to break into Buck House is likely to be either a terrorist or just a bit of a tool - Michael Fagan being the honourable exception.
Meanwhile, barring the terrible crime of an Adam West Batman going into action with a Joel Schumacher Robin, I have to ask - how did they decide the costumes? Robin was older than Batman and, having no hair, more in need of a cowl. Clearly Hatch's skill as a protestor outweighed the respect demanded by age. Then again, perhaps they were the only ones in the shop that fit. Why fathers seeking justice are so prone to dressing as superheroes I am unsure, especially as they tend to have dubious pedigrees as parents. Given the whole Wertham thing, Batman and Robin seem an unusual and potentially placard-inspiring choice.
Speaking of heroes, take a look at this image.
Batman, Superman, Spider-Man... all pretty obvious. But who the arse is the fellow on the right. Is that a really awful Robin? The colour scheme seems to be redolent of Dr.Mid-Nite. A connoisseur's choice, certainly, but I would suggest that having even an inkling of Dr. Mid-Nite's identity must count againt one's suitability as a father. To make a Dr. Mid-Nite costume, since I am prepared to bet my family that such a thing is not available in any fancy dress shop less perfectly equipped than that patronised by Mr. Benn, must be seen as a further black mark. To remain fixed in the decision to persevere with the Mid-Nite look, no doubt in the face of strenuous protests from associates advancing the claims of more well-known superheroes, that is pretty well everyone except possibly the Crimson Fox (precisely), once again raises questions. Having gone through all that and emerged triumphantly caparisoned, but without the goggles that were the good doctor's only real distinguishing feature as a superhero... that's just shit.
(4) comments
| |
| Thursday, September 16, 2004 |
| Out with the lads last week, we conceived a new diet, inspired by the Maker's Diet but less mad. This diet allows you to eat whatever you want. Carbohydrate-rich foods, finger foods, sexy foods, foodly mcfood. However, after each meal, they then have to down a pint glass filled with a scientifically-balanced (about 1:1) blend of water and sea monkeys. Yes, these tiny monarchs of the deep, along with their fibre-rich crowns, thrones and bikinis, will set up a new home in the gut of the drinker, carefully rinsing fat and undesirable properties out of the belly, bile ducts and intestines, leaving all foods intrinsically macrobiotic and organic, with the added bonus of being virtually calorie-free.
Alas, the acid-ridden pits of your gastric caverns is not the friendliest of environments for a colony of brine shrimp, and these industrious little sea-primates will shortly die, dissolving into a calorie-neutral pinkish substance not unlike Olestra. This will be harvested and provide a brief but adequate source of sustenance for your next half-pint of sea monkeys.
The sea monkey diet. Because people are credulous.
Diets are, in general, problematic. I found myself around the table at work, explaining to an incredulous audience of my peers that, no, I had never made bolognese sauce. Why would I? Bolognese source is, in its pre-made state, somewhat more available than blackberries, and considerably less hassle to harvest. Their mouths got bigger and bigger as they quizzed me about all the foods I had never prepared. I didn't see the issue. I may not have cooked these things, but I've eaten them. What's the big? Apparently never having cooked anything apart from soup (open, pour, stir), noodles (pour, boil, open, pour, stir) and pasta (pour, boil, open, pour, stir) is somehow weird. What they fail to see is that this is a complex operation. Two of those involve boiling, the other involves avoiding boiling if at all possible, unless there is something good on TV or similar.
Do you see?
Anyway, I may one day learn to cook. But don't tell me that anyone who can read can cook, as my mother so often does. I can read, and right now the only way to get me to cook would be to leave me in a hot car with the windows shut.
Meanwhile, what's been going on inside and out? Saturday I have to admit that I forgot entirely that it was the anniversary of 9/11. Perhaps there was something in the way I was struck by incredible, gut-piercing sadness on Charlotte Street, but maybe that was just low blood sugar. Weird: I just didn't make the connection. So, instead I went shopping, returning with plunder and possibly pelf. Sat in Borders reading, took a call from , who couldn't be there with us that day, and home.
And then Potemkin. Man, that's a fantastic film, and the way it was tied in to the British tradition of protest, and the role of Trafalgar Square in those protests (the various Stop the War marches being ticked off with increasingly pissed-off clarity by the guy introducing the show) was very apposite. I don't know, though - do people need to be told these things to make it comprehensible? How much do the public know about Russia in 1905? Enough, surely. Oddly, the Odessa steps/baby interface I found a bit clunky (when you think something was done better in the Untouchables, you know you're in trouble), but the cinematography in general was just breathtaking - there are so many scenes where you just think "how the bollocks did that work". The dozens of small boats spilling out of Odessa harbour and taking sail is wonderful.
Interesting to see it in such a packed but open and public environment, also - the reverence of the cinema screening was removed - people could boo the officers, applaud the sailors... in fact, it reminded me a lot of a previous experience of the same series - Ladytron providing a live score for Tron at the ICA. When the triumphant electro chords rang out and Bruce Boxleitner absolutely killed some ass, the spontaneous whops of excitement rose up. Ah, top quality.
The score, in some ways reminded me of that also; although orchestral, the dominant force was Chris Lowe's keyboarding, with Tennant's voice wisely used only rarely. There are apparently plans to release an album. I'm not sure how it wil work on its own, but since its only immediate competition is the score for the Giorgio Moroder Metropolis, how bad can it be?
(2) comments
| |
|
| Out with the lads last week, we conceived a new diet, inspired by the Maker's Diet but less mad. This diet allows you to eat whatever you want. Carbohydrate-rich foods, finger foods, sexy foods, foodly mcfood. However, after each meal, they then have to down a pint glass filled with a scientifically-balanced (about 1:1) blend of water and sea monkeys. Yes, these tiny monarchs of the deep, along with their fibre-rich crowns, thrones and bikinis, will set up a new home in the gut of the drinker, carefully rinsing fat and undesirable properties out of the belly, bile ducts and intestines, leaving all foods intrinsically macrobiotic and organic, with the added bonus of being virtually calorie-free.
Alas, the acid-ridden pits of your gastric caverns is not the friendliest of environments for a colony of brine shrimp, and these industrious little sea-primates will shortly die, dissolving into a calorie-neutral pinkish substance not unlike Olestra. This will be harvested and provide a brief but adequate source of sustenance for your next half-pint of sea monkeys.
The sea monkey diet. Because people are credulous.
Diets are, in general, problematic. I found myself around the table at work, explaining to an incredulous audience of my peers that, no, I had never made bolognese sauce. Why would I? Bolognese source is, in its pre-made state, somewhat more available than blackberries, and considerably less hassle to harvest. Their mouths got bigger and bigger as they quizzed me about all the foods I had never prepared. I didn't see the issue. I may not have cooked these things, but I've eaten them. What's the big? Apparently never having cooked anything apart from soup (open, pour, stir), noodles (pour, boil, open, pour, stir) and pasta (pour, boil, open, pour, stir) is somehow weird. What they fail to see is that this is a complex operation. Two of those involve boiling, the other involves avoiding boiling if at all possible, unless there is something good on TV or similar.
Do you see?
Anyway, I may one day learn to cook. But don't tell me that anyone who can read can cook, as my mother so often does. I can read, and right now the only way to get me to cook would be to leave me in a hot car with the windows shut.
Meanwhile, what's been going on inside and out? Saturday I have to admit that I forgot entirely that it was the anniversary of 9/11. Perhaps there was something in the way I was struck by incredible, gut-piercing sadness on Charlotte Street, but maybe that was just low blood sugar. Weird: I just didn't make the connection. So, instead I went shopping, returning with plunder and possibly pelf. Sat in Borders reading, took a call from , who couldn't be there with us that day, and home.
And then Potemkin. Man, that's a fantastic film, and the way it was tied in to the British tradition of protest, and the role of Trafalgar Square in those protests (the various Stop the War marches being ticked off with increasingly pissed-off clarity by the guy introducing the show) was very apposite. I don't know, though - do people need to be told these things to make it comprehensible? How much do the public know about Russia in 1905? Enough, surely. Oddly, the Odessa steps/baby interface I found a bit clunky (when you think something was done better in the Untouchables, you know you're in trouble), but the cinematography in general was just breathtaking - there are so many scenes where you just think "how the bollocks did that work". The dozens of small boats spilling out of Odessa harbour and taking sail is wonderful.
Interesting to see it in such a packed but open and public environment, also - the reverence of the cinema screening was removed - people could boo the officers, applaud the sailors... in fact, it reminded me a lot of a previous experience of the same series - Ladytron providing a live score for Tron at the ICA. When the triumphant electro chords rang out and Bruce Boxleitner absolutely killed some ass, the spontaneous whops of excitement rose up. Ah, top quality.
The score, in some ways reminded me of that also; although orchestral, the dominant force was Chris Lowe's keyboarding, with Tennant's voice wisely used only rarely. There are apparently plans to release an album. I'm not sure how it wil work on its own, but since its only immediate competition is the score for the Giorgio Moroder Metropolis, how bad can it be?
(0) comments
| |
|
| Lieminator.
Regrettably, it seems that the GOP has indeed twigged that there are a lot more parking spaces outside the hunting lodge than the coffee shop, and as such have set to lying about pretty much anything they can with gleeful abandon (quo vide poor, mad Zell Miller). I look forward to the Dems raising the stakes with a "Cheney eats children" campaign. Come on, with no other evidence either way, would you reject it out of hand?
So how are you this Monday? I have been a little surprised to arrive at work to find that the question "whatever happened to Corey Haim" has been dramatically answered in the form of our new post room guy. Unfortunately for the Thrills, questions such as this can be answered very easily and very quickly thanks to the magic of IMDB. Very little has happened to Corey Haim. In 2001 he was hoping to relaunch his career. Since then, not so much. The Internet is actually in danger of destroying the fine art of stalking by making it so easy to ascend the lower slopes that it seems suddenly discouraging to have to take it to the next level; the gentle learning curve has gone, replaced by a plain, then a wall.
Fortunately, technology can be a great enabler in the right hands at every tricky pass or ford. This man deserves credit for bringing stalking to a new level, minimising downtime and maximising the effective conversion of stalking energy into successful unwanted contact. On the other hand, no amount of "gosh, what a coincidence, I was just visiting your brother's grave as well" is going to offset being found trying to replace a battery underneath your instalkerata's car. Really, when the only credible excuse is that you were trying to drain her brake fluid, the jig is largely up.
Of course, what you call stalking, as OLC would tell you, may just be selective walking. Many years ago, when I and an ex-partner lived on opposite sides of a London borough, I would on occasion walk the length of the connecting road and have a wander around the eastern shore. I don't think my intention was to stalk - after all, that area did have the library and all the shops, proving if nothing else that there's more to this estate agency lark than meets the eye - but I can't rule out the idea that I was sort of hoping that we might bump into one another. Lord knows how that exchange might have gone.
Fancy meeting you here!
No.
However, just think how much more confident I could have been of avoiding this awkward situation if I had some form of tracking device, possibly secured with my special spidey-webbing. Alas, since many of my friends and loved ones are not in the habit either of using or carrying mobile phones, I fear the only efficient way to keep a running record of them sufficiently efficient to rely on avoiding unfortunate moments either of undesired meeting or unknowing avoidance is to have them all tagged.
So, darlings, who's first? It will only hurt for a minute...
(1) comments
| |
| Sunday, September 05, 2004 |
| I had thought that the best possible thing to do with the increasingly wheezy Aliens franchise was, as a friend suggested, to make Aliens vs the Thing.
Thousands of Aliens... but which ones can you trust?
However, out for birthday drinks with Robyn, a yet mightier plan emerged. Aliens vs Predator, in the style of Kramer vs Kramer.
"So, Mrs. Alien, how long has it been since you saw your son?"
hisssssssssss
"Mr. Predator, do you have anytihng to add?"
ki-ki-ki-ki-ki
"Hang on. Are you Skippy?"
(3) comments
| |
|
| Vindicated, but still depressed. To think just of the cars, the trains, the buses that transported the noncebait and their tragically unemployed adult co-stars, extras, key grips, clapper loaders to the filming, from the filming, to the filming, from the filming. The pulse of the road, the platform, the permanent way, the flexions of people in, out, in out. And for what? For this.....shit.
Just look at the fucking trailer. Look at it. There was no need for that to happen. Computers were not created to make this happen. Children were not born as actors or audience. One day, the stars of this film will pause from writing all the possibilities for changing their identities on the walls of secure cells in their own blood and weep as one. Probably when they see the trailer for Baby Geniuses 3. Not even Charles can take charge of this catastrophe. Incidentally, is it me or does Scott Baio look worryingly like Big from Sex and the the City? Just me, then? OK.
Speaking of Sony, it seems MirrorMask is still slated for a theatrical release - proof if proof were needed that the geek actually have inherited the Earth. I confess to a certain interest in this, having been (very briefly) an extra in it. Early signs are not promising. The heroine is a young girl running away from the circus. Running away from the circus. The circus.
Do you see?
As you may have noticed, the outside world is too depressing to engage with at present. I may open the curtains later. Consider this question honestly: do pictures of soldiers carrying the bodies of half-naked children affect you more when it's happening outside Iraq or the Sudan? Are you kind of used to pictures of mutilated Iraqi and Sudanese children?
(0) comments
| |
| |
|
Venusberg.org finds Blogger very attractive...
|
|
|
elsewhere:
Interconnected
Plasticbag
Oh Skylab
Barcablog
Orbyn
moreover:
Brainsluice
Mo Morgan
Mothninja
Tajmahal
Wherever y'are
Prandial Post
thereafter:
Toby Kay
McCargow
Blogadoon
LinkMachineGo
Methylsalicylate
Hammersley
Joeblog
Grayblog
the Collective
Nick Jordan
Kooky Mojo
Betty Woo
Moth
Mr. Thomas G
the author:
danATvenusberg.org
and finally...
the archives
|
