Sdtrk: ‘My name is Nobody’ by Ennio Morricone

SATURDEEEE
Panic and Adventure were the Order of the Day that day, as I had arrived at Jeff’s house, and found him repairing the babygate, as the latch had self-destructed. Fascinating device, the babygate, as it happens to be constructed entirely from the bones of recently deceased infants. Also, it’s really haunted. As implied by the name, it keeps out babies, and pretty much everyone else, really, by apearance alone. But it was busted, and Jeff’s wife Kari was stressing out about it. She took off in search of a new one, at which point, Derek materialised, and the three of us headed to the basement to ostensibly began our evening. We managed to watch the first episode of ‘Nighty night‘, which is a riotously dark Britcom, and well worth viewing, when midway through that, Kari returned home, and asked if Jeff could go looking for a better babygate. So after the Nighty night ep was over, we scrambled upstairs, piled into Derek’s car, and sped off to the nearest Meijer.

We wandered round probably for a sum total of ninety minutes. Jeff, cos he walks so damn fast, lost Derek and I, and then my phone rang and I lost Derek. Mari rang me, as she was just getting off work, and said she’d meet us up at our Meijer location. As I was on the phone with her, my eyes were drawn to a rather nice-looking watch that I figured would finally be my current watch‘s successor (more later).
Eventually, I reconvened with Derek, who’d found Jeff, and we ran into Mari down the front of the store. Jeff couldn’t locate a babygate that wasn’t up to his standards of material — when you’re used to your gate built of femurs and the like, you’re gonna be rather hard to please, let’s face it — so he’d picked up a hook-and-eyelet pack, so he could jerry-rig a new latch. Materials and participants duly gathered, we then headed back to Jeff’s. I went with Mari to make sure she didn’t get lost, so I got to drive her car, which was fun. To me, it’s always fun driving other peoples’ vehicles, as it’s like a wee holiday from my own automobile. Like a little rolling Ibiza.

We returned to find that Tim and his new friend Mikki were already there. They needed to meet up with Derek, as Tim had left his phone betwixt Derek’s sofa cushions on Friday night. That sounds rather pervy, but we’ll let it pass. The lot of us kinda milled round the kitchen, Jeff and Derek having a go at the babygate repair, and twenty minutes later, anti-infant security was restored! Then Derek took off, cos he needed some sleep, as he’d been up since 7am playing World of Warcrack.

Back downstairs, the main thing we watched were highlights of a fillum that Jeff chose to review for his digitallyObsessed.com gig; a real piece of work called ‘Let me die a Woman‘. It. Was. HORRIBLE. Apart from the esteemed Dr Leo Wollman speaking to the camera and obviously reading from cue cards, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film with so many random sex scenes that were utterly devoid of any vestiges of eroticism. And there was this excruciatingly close-up sequence of Dr Wollman examining a post-op shoddily-assembled male-to-female transsexual that will give me nightmares for the rest of my days. I will never look at roast beef sandwiches the same way ever again. Yes, we were all laughing, but I think it was mostly due to shock.
Eventually, Tim and Mikki ran away screaming took off, and we viewed the first four eps of ‘Black books‘, as I had raved about it to Mari on several occasions. Then Jeff kicked us out round three. A fine, if partially repulsive, evening!

SUNDEY
Met up with Mari late in the evening, for the purposes of ‘hangin’ out’. It was a bit unusual, as I hardly ever go out-of-doors on Sunday, as that’s my ‘catch up on stuff that I neglected over the course of the week’ day, which could also be read as my ‘get out of bed at 1pm’ day. Anyway, I got round to Mari’s digs round 7pm, and since everything was pretty much closed, we hit Meijer, and wandered round there for almost four hours. Yeah, that astonished me as well, when I got home and realised how much time we spent there. That’s a whole lot of Meijer. However, I did manage to buy that watch I’d mentioned spotting.

I’m having some difficulty getting the fecker set though. Also, there’s no light-up function for it, the lack of which I would’ve overlooked, were I not having difficulty setting the fecker. So I might well return it later this week and try again. Looks nice though, doesn’t it?
Our evening came to an exciting conclusion, as we stopped round to Blockbuster video, so Mari could rent some fillums. She grabbed four: Oldboy, The Football factory, Immortal, and something else. I’d suggested the first three, as The Football factory was ace, Oldboy is worth seeing cos the first half of the film is fantastic (but the ending’s shite), and I’ve been wanting to see Immortal, so I’m having her be my guinea pig for that one. And then I dropped her off home, and then went home myself. A fine, if mostly Meijer, evening!

Happy 23rd! The end

Sdtrk: ‘Brakhage’ by Stereolab

Yes, I’m selling more stuff, as I’m sick to death of looking at it. Note the flashing sale indicator in yonder sidebar! *points left*
I might be adding more items over the course of the week, so do keep an eye on that list. In fact, if you feel you’d like to bookmark that page, I’d support your decision wholeheartedly

Sdtrk: ‘Too late’ by New order

It’s a linkdump! Rinkudampu dessho! You may now commence your furious right-clicking.

+ This is so cute it gave me cavities: Snake ‘befriends’ snack hamster. Cue Bill Murray from ‘Ghostbusters’, shouting ‘Dogs and cats, living together..’

+ Transform your blog into a tree-killin’ print book, through BlogBinders. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yeah, you’re thinking this post alone wouldn’t translate to print well, either? Yeah. Hrrm

+ Polish film posters have always brought bold new meaning to the term ‘singularly unsettling‘. (Although I’d proudly display the ‘Rosemary’s Baby‘ one on my wall..) A casual observer seeing these would almost get the impression that Poland is a land that has never known joy. Still, they’re worth a look

+ A transcript of a radio interview from 2002 with Gaby Wood, the author of ‘Edison’s Eve’, a fab book about the history of automata. The interview is like a Cliffs Notes version of the book, somewhat

+ I want this feckin’ house so hard.

I would’ve written an instalment of ‘This was the Future’ around it, but there’s practically no facts on it, save that apparently it’s a house you can rent as a set if you’re shooting a film. Well, if that’s the case, then call me Kubrick

Most of these links, except for the snake / hamster one and the Gaby Wood interview, are courtesy of a lovely blog I’ve run across that’s densely packed with links, called ‘I like‘, which appeals to the esoteric in me, and quite frankly, is the worst timewaster since heroin.

And that appears to be it! Five consecutive days, five consecutive posts. I don’t see that sort of confluence happening again anytime soon, so this is truly a Christmas Miracle

Sdtrk: ‘Specialist’ by Interpol

(gleefully stolen from Penda’s Backroom)
Wow, I ended up doing a lot better than I thought. And I didn’t use any reference material at all! Thumbs up!
But I was hoping I’d rate a Brady or Sutcliffe. 😛

I do actually have several books and compendiums about serial killers currently gathering dust on my shelves — maybe it’s time to crack those spines again, for old-times’ sake. Ha, a pun!

Somewhat-yet-not-really related: Go read Tsugumi Ohba’s manga ‘Death note‘ — it’s completely mental

Sdtrk: ‘It’s not you’ by Le futur pompiste

I was in the midst of a micro-quandary a couple of days ago: I was sat there, thinking to myself, ‘y’know, “Shouting etc etc” is an incomplete but rather accurate reflection on the various things I’m interested in. However, it seems that most of the stuff that I love is stuff that most people either have no reference points for, or simply can’t get into.’ So I was thinking ‘what if, perhaps, I went less for obscurity, and instead tried to write about things that were more personal?’ I quickly realised that that would result in a blog that would be updated probably four or five times a year. I’ve really nothing worth noting going on in my life right at the moment — please select from either Dodgy, Hideous Job or Boring, Stultifying Academia, and I’m not keen on writing about either of those subjects. At length, anyway.
Then I remembered something that one of my heroes, Ian Curtis, once mentioned about his work — ‘We do it for ourselves, but we hope other people will still like it’. Writing the kinds of posts that you find here make me happy, for the most part. I love passing on factoids about long-since-closed exposition sites, or going on in obsessive detail about RealDoll developments, or delivering a series of links to various and sundry things. I figured that people reading ‘Shouting etc etc’ will walk away from it with varying levels of satisfaction — some may get quite a lot out of a post, whether it’s amusement, knowledge, or both, and some may not get as much out of it. But I’m certain that everyone will agree that at the very least, it’s interesting*, and ultimately, that’s not too disappointing of an assessment.

Between now and the next thrilling post, why not have a go at another Edward Gorey-related quiz?

You will swallow some tacks. You are a little
weird, maybe not so much in a good way. Buy a
yellow tie and wear it on your head.

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla

*keep in mind that I use the adjective ‘interesting’ to mean ‘not necessarily good or bad’

Sdtrk: ‘At amber’ by Morrissey

Mannequins? Wearing vintage air stewardess uniforms??

Left, Delta Air Lines, 1958; right, Allegheny Airlines Winter uniform 1969 – 1971

Not surprisingly, I’m all over it

Sdtrk: ‘Hey let loose your love’ by The focus group

COWORKER IN HIS LATE TWENTIES (addressing another coworker): This guy just blew me off and told me he couldn’t make a donation because he’s got jetlag.
What’s jetlag?
ME: *gritting teeth*

I swear to christ, stupidity should be painful