Sdtrk: none

Short and sweet: Both of the computers here are having difficulties getting a decent internet connection. Everything is moving very very slowly. I was online with a so-called SBC technical assistant for an hour last night, whereupon he had me go to their test page to assess how fast my connection was (or wasn’t). According to the test, my current speed is slower than dial-up.

Back later. Angry now. So there you have it

Sdtrk: ‘A watery death’ by Michael Nyman

Felt the need to post, for better or for worse. Instead of typing this lot out, I could be replying to Emails, or even getting back to the Doll Forum, which I’ve not been in for the past two weeks. What the hell am I doing??

+ Nice new interview with Scary go round‘s John Allison o’er at Thunder Chunky (Wasn’t Thunder Chunky a female wrestler from the 70s?)

+ Anyone who buys me a Nixie clock, or builds one to spec for me, will have me as a sex slave for a year. I recently learned what a Nixie clock is — they’re vacuum-tube-based clocks that were created before LEDs got a technological foothold — and after having seen some pictures, all I can say is that they’re beyond ace. I’m certain you’ll agree!
Hrrm. Should’ve saved that for a ‘This was the Future’ article..

+ Right, bollocks to the Nixie clock. Someone get one of those Actroid Gynoids from the Robot Expo curently taking place in Aichi, Japan. She’s so damn cute!

+ Jeff & I caught the Korean thriller ‘Oldboy‘ down at the Main art theatre this Friday past, as the two reviews I’d read showed it in an appealing light, but I’ll tell ya; the first hour, I was like, ‘I’m totally buying this on DVD when I get home,’ whereas the second hour I was like, ‘Errr — what??’
A drunken womanising salaryman spends his daughter’s birthday in jail overnight. When he gets released, he’s kidnapped and locked into a hotel room for 15 years. Then, he’s released from there, having been told that he’s been framed for his wife’s murder, and he has five days to find out who did it and why. I can’t really get into detail why the film let me down in the end, cos my explanation would be spoilerrific, but I’ll just say that if you can see it for free, do so. It looks beautiful, the couple of action sequences were feckin’ fantastic, and the story was compelling, but the resolution was really frustrating, plus it ran a bit too long towards the end. Like I said, see it for free. Then go out and buy a claw hammer and a squid

+ Go read the best thread ever: this is from some poker players’ forum, in the off-topic section, and it asks, ‘How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once?‘ Not only is it the Textbook Definition of Funny, but it’s an entirely valid question

School is winding down, and I have to do one rather involved final thing for each class, which possibly explains my lack of focussed writing. Or focussed anything, really, as far as these past two weeks have been. Have I mentioned that I’ll be ridiculously ecstatic once I finish school? Not in the past five minutes, you say? Well then.
Right, I’m off to answer some Emails. Or hop back on the Forum. I’ll just flip a fecking coin

Sdtrk: ‘The garden is becoming a robe room’ by Michael Nyman

(yes, the timestamps have been swapped out with the above post..)
How many five year olds could I personally take on at once? I’d have to say, adhering to the rules established in the first post, that if I were thrown into that gym with only the clothes on my back and a protective cup, I could take out probably fifty of them before I became too exhausted..
If I was allowed the use of a single offensive article, I’d go for a seven-foot length of chain. Not like a heavy chain, but something like a dog lead, with that clip thing at the end — light, but damaging. Even if I couldn’t take them out on the first attack, it’d be more than enough to immobilise them, whereupon I’d just go back and finish them off later. Another post stipulated that if you were allowed a weapon, that the five year olds would be allowed that weapon as well. Since I doubt these kids would have enough coordination to use a whip properly, despite their one day of ‘training’, I went with the dog chain, as it’d be useful to me, but rather useless for them. Plus, when not in use, I figured I could wrap it around a fist for DOUBLE DAMAGE!!, or quickly wrap it around my waist and secure it with the clip.
So yeah, I’d say fifty, and with the whipchain, seventy. I’d better start training now!

Do feel free to give your own personal estimations of how many five-year olds you could take out! Anyone responding with anything disparaging will be openly mocked, by the way, just so you know.

And YES, I’m Emailing people. Don’t give me that look

Sdtrk: ‘Mother Nature’s rump’ by dj BC presents the Beastles

Blame Monti for this mania. 🙂 I’m letting you know right now; my answers are going to be really unimpressive, cos most of the books I own are either reference/non-fiction, art books, or graphic novels. Hrrm.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
The Bible. No-one burns bibles! Plus, the Irony Factor would go off the scale

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I always thought Mina Harker was a bit of nice. Rowr.

The last book you bought is:
World soccer yearbook 2002 – 2003

The last book you read:
Party of one: A loner’s manifesto, by Anneli Rufus. It’s a fine book, highly recommened for those of us who don’t want to be surrounded by our so-called ‘peers’ 24/7. I’d say it’s also recommended reading for people who think ‘loner = sociopath’, but the kind of individuals who think that would never read such a book

What are you currently reading?
Jeff lent me his copy of The Discontinuity guide, by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping. It attempts to string together some sort of continuity to the majority of episodes in Doctor Who, as well as pointing out gaffes, flubbed lines, and heh, fashion mistakes. It’s especially ace, cos it brings back memories of episodes and aspects of the show that I haven’t seen in years (‘Holy crap, I had forgotten all about the Ice Warriors and the Draconians’)

Five books you would take to a desert island.
The Works of Wilde, the Complete stories of Lewis Carroll, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Catcher in the rye, and Sex life of the foot and shoe

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Veach, cos I hear tell he likes the reading; Patrick, cos he should read more to unwind after assembling food; and Tomas, cos he really needs to do something constructive with his time

Sdtrk: ‘Me and my ding dong’ by Pankow

Good going, Blogger. Down for almost an entire day. Refuckingmarkable.

Anyway, here’s this thing:

My Mormon name is Darvell Friends Forsaken !
What’s yours?

Shi-chan’s is worse, if you can believe that. Hers is Andoorie Traudi Treasure Cocaine. *confused stare*
Thanx Veach, for Mormonising us! Now we must eschew all sinful things such as technology. Goody Andoorie will proceed to churn some butter, and I shall go raise a barn

Sdtrk: ‘There is nothing I can do’ by The Organ

Right, hands up those of you who coveted, whether openly or in secret, Malcolm McDowell’s gorgeous transparent-and-chrome turntable from ‘A clockwork orange’. Apparently they’ve always been available, as they’re manufactured by a company called Transcriptors Limited (love that name). How come no-one told me?

the Transcriptor Vestigial

[Engineer and designer David Gammon]’s design concept was inspired by old clocks and watches from the 17th and 18th century. David had often asked this question many times over, why put something of engineering elegance into a black case or even worst, into a wooden case, that looked as if it had been made down in somebody’s garden shed. In fact Transcriptors started the trend to expose all the components so that they could be viewed from all angles.

Pretty horrorshow, I’d say. Just do yourself a favour — don’t look at the price

Sdtrk: ‘Variation one’ by Stereolab

Okay, so the Pope is finally dead. I understand that he was engaged in a bitter struggle with Moriarty (aka, the ‘Napoleon of Crime’), and both plummeted to their deaths over Reichenbach Falls, Switzerland. Well, when you die, you should make it memorable, at the very least..

So! Friday’s Performance By A Couple Of Indie Bands wasn’t too bad. Tim, Mike, Jason and I got to the Magic stick in plenty of time, and unlike our experience with the faint, we didn’t have to wait in some interminable line stretching two miles in length. However, it was a good job that Tim picked up our tickets ahead of time, as a couple of signs hastily taped onto the entrance doors indicated that the show was sold out. We got inside, flashed our ID and tickets, went upstairs to the concert hall, and kinda stood around for a couple of minutes. The hipster kids must love their Bloc party, cos there was a pretty lengthy queue for the merchandise corner, which is something I’ve never seen for any group before. A small cluster round the table, yes, but never a line. Tim wanted to buy a shirt, but wasn’t too impressed with the designs on offer, and didn’t want to wait in line besides, so we stood round for a couple more minutes until we collectivey decided to go downstairs for some food, as we were all really hungry.

After waiting about 20min to both order and get our pizza — a large pepperoni, in case you’re curious — the first act, The Ponys, went on, so we shoveled the piping hot slices into our mouths (bad idea), and made our way upstairs. Despite missing the first two songs, we liked what we heard overall. They struck me as a cross between My bloody valentine circa ‘Ecstasy and wine’, and British sea power, minus the lyrics about peregrine falcons and WWI-era writers. Not a bad band, but nothing I’d really pursue further.

We were towards the back of the crowd when The Ponys were playing, and I’d noticed that at that point that the venue was 3/4ths filled. So as you suspect, it was proper packed when Bloc party went on about a half an hour later. Indie kids love their Bloc party. Jason had played a couple of tracks from their full-length Cd before we left Mike’s place, and they sounded alright; the operative term being ‘alright’. I mean, I wasn’t fully concentrating on the music, but I’d heard nothing that made me shout ‘BLOC PARTY FUCK YEAH!!1!’ or anything. Seeing them live, however, was pretty damn entertaining. I’ll give you this, the lads can play. The drummer was banging the skins like crazy, the guitarist looked like Vini Reilly, Kele (guitarist and vocalist) not only has a pretty good voice, but his playing skills were pretty remarkable, and the bassist really impressed me when, during the last encore song, he played with his back to the audience, whilst standing atop the bass drum. Very nice! SNAP COMPARISON: a less glossy, more politically-motivated (lots of rather cool time changes) and slightly more angular Franz Ferdinand. Not bad!

On the flipside, it was really great to see that Bloc party had apparently brought a couple of chavs with them on the tour, cos there were three or four really tall blokes directly in front of us, undoubtedly hopped up on goofballs, and attempting to form a mini-mosh pit. There wasn’t much room to back up, either, cos like I’d mentioned, the Magic stick was as full as it could be at that point. Heh. I love concerts, but I hate crowds. And I miss shows at St.Andrews, where there’s, y’know, a balcony for sitting. Still and all, a pretty good show..

And the highlight of getting round to Jeff’s Saturday eve? Watching ‘Knowing me, Knowing you with Alan Partridge‘. Ah haaah!

Finally, I’m shifting my godforsaken detritus selling articles on the Bay of e. Why not have a look?
Sweet baby James, I’ve had some of this stuff since the first Bush administration, and I’m bloody sick of looking at it