PCs go PC

Oh dear god. Do I really live in a world, a country even, where people are this petty? Yeah, slavery was an awful thing, and there's nothing that Western civilisation can do to make up for enslaving millions of Africans. But come on people, I don't think the computer industry had any particular political statement in mind when it made up its technical terminology. Jeez...what's next? A demand that the Italians apologise for the Roman Empire enslaving most of Europe? How a guy can get this worked up about hard drives when his President is plunging the world into hell, I don't know.

In other news, Dan and Rad will be pleased to know that Yoda is real and lives in Dorset.

We're off on a whirlwind Thanksgiving trip tomorrow. The big meal is at Meg's parent's house in Rochester, but Meg works the next day, so we're going down there, doing the family ritual thing, then coming back up all in one day. I'm sure I'll have at least one story to tell about the day. See you in a few.

Class War

Personally, I think university education should be free, if not for every student, then for those studying medicine or teaching. If necessary, the rest can get the same system of loans (rather than grants) that I got. Since, in theory, these people are going to be turning around and benefitting society in some way, then they should be supported by society (especially the teachers, nurses and doctors). An unpopular view, perhaps, but it's one I strongly believe in.
The British government have decided to further screw over the students of that country. This is not entirely unexpected, to be honest, as the UK university/college system is in a state of funding crisis, and something has to be done, or one of the best educational systems in the world will collapse. But I don't think forcing half the student population either into debt, or out of university altogether, is really the most sensible idea.
This article on the crisis enraged me, or rather one part of it did:

"...the key reason for the under-representation of working class students in higher education, particularly in prestigious institutions, is that few obtain the qualifications needed to apply..."

Now, to be fair, the author of the article does point out that if a working class background student does achieve the desired grades, they are "highly likely to go to university", and moreover that they will not be punished financially for going. But there's an age-old (in Britain, at least) class assumption being shown here, and that is that working-class people are thick. My Dad's a plumber, and my Mum is so unhinged that when she had a job, all she could hold down was cleaning. My uncle has done best for himself by getting into the funeral trade (and, it's whispered, the Masons), but he's the only one who could be considered non-working class. We're a working class family. We didn't have a bath for the first few years of my life, so we were allowed to go to the neighbours' house to use their bathroom. But at no point was it ever suggested that I couldn't go to university if I wanted to.
Since schooling is free in Britain, there's nothing stopping anyone from any background from getting good grades at school. Yes, schools in working class areas may have less money to spend on facilities and teachers, but that's no obstacle. My first school was still using slate and chalk when I got there.
I got decent grades (they could have been better, but sloppy marking ruined a lot of hopes for a lot of people that year), and put myself through university. I've ended up with a fine education, a great deal of pride in myself, but sadly a huge debt. Now those coming after me will be saddled with even larger debts, but I digress.
Working class people aren't stupid. They aren't lazy. Now perhaps that's not what the author of this article intended to suggest, but if so, make it clearer for Pete's sake.

I apologise for that. I try not to rant on here, but sometimes it can't be helped. I'm also annoyed that I've got one of those stupid colds that refuses to either go away, or develop into a proper runny-nose-and-sneezing cold that I can do something about.

Popular Actor Rapes My Childhood

He was inspired to take up acting because of three characters that he wanted to play. One was Thomas Magnum, one was Hannibal Smith, and the last was Danny Ocean. In 2001, he achieved his dream of playing that third character. Now George Clooney has set his sights on two of the most popular television characters from the Eighties.
Unfortunately, he's set himself a difficult task. Magnum is Tom Selleck, and Clooney is going to be hard-pressed to make the role his. If he gets into the spirit of things however and grows a bushy moustache, then he may pull it off.
The A Team will be the most difficult to pull off, however. In that case, you have four actors who made the characters their own, to varying degrees. I can imagine Clooney pulling off a decent Hannibal, since George Peppard always did seem to be the one out of the lot of them who was only there for the money. But even so, can you recast icons like the A Team? Here at Brainsplurge, we had a go!
Assuming we already have Clooney as Hannibal actually makes things a bit easier. Mad Murdock was the easiest to cast as we slotted a loopy Brad Pitt in there. These three films show that Murdock-style lunacy is well within his range. If Pitt is busy, a suitably crazy Michael Keaton would do the job nicely.
Face is a bit trickier to pull off. We want to cast someone younger than the others, but also someone who can pull off smooth and suave. Given the Clooney Connection, it's tempting to cast Mark Wahlberg or Matt Damon, but neither are really suave as such. So we're struggling here. One thing that may aid the casting is that there's no reason that the new team has to be all American. Obviously they can't be Vietnam vets anymore, and the most likely conflict that they took part in is Gulf War I, so we can conceivably cast a British actor in the role. In the end, a desperate search leads us to Matthew Perry, because we're having far too much difficulty.
Hardest of all is BA Baracus, because that was the role that required least acting the first time around. It seems pretty obvious that Mr T just turned up as he was, walked on set and Pitied The Fool. Clearly, no one plays Mr T like Mr T, so the solution is to cast someone who has a similarly strong screen persona. It may not be similar to Mr T's persona, but we're after a strong personality here, rather than an exact match. I'd love to cast Samuel L Jackson here, but even if we are changing the character to suit the actor, the difference between original and new is too different. So, we go for Ving Rhames. A completely different kind of big mean black guy, but he's still a big mean black guy.
As for supporting characters, we can safely dump Mexican Bloke and Robert Vaughn's Man-In-Plane (although if we did keep him, we'd cast Robert Vaughn or Gary Oldman if Vaughn was busy), as they were from the nonsensical end of the show. But we have to cast Female Fith Member Amy, and Hannibal's rival and nemesis Colonel Decker.
Amy is tricky, as most Hollywood women clearly aren't suited to gunplay and building tanks out of spare parts. So, we're going to be unimaginative and cast Salma Hayek or Eva Mendes in the role. Decker has to be seen as very similar to Hannibal, the kind of guy Hannibal would be if he followed the rules. Tommy Lee Jones is probably too old, and Bruce Willis probably wouldn't play a villain, especially one who is largely there for comedy relief. Give Tim Roth an American accent, or get Willem DeFoe in, is what we reckon.

In other news, my brother wants someone to get him one of these, and Neil Gaiman has insulted my home town (at the bottom of Sunday's entry).

Finally for today, Snowball has contributed my favourite name so far for the robot-man down there. Alphonse seems to me to be rather fitting.

What's In A Name?

I drew this little chap yesterday, since he's been rattling around in my head for a number of days now (click on the image to see a larger version in a new browser window):

Problem is, he doesn't have a name, so I'm opening it up to you lot. Be imaginative!

TATAKAE!!!

So our Tone takes the world's most dangerous alcoholic to a pub for lunch? Brilliant plan Tony.
Talking, as it were, of lunch and Emperor Bush, here's the most bizarre article I've seen so far of the visit: a review of the menus served at the various state dinners during the visit.
Finally for now, here's a site all about those crazy Japanese superhero TV shows that unfortunately led inevitably to the dreaded Power Rangers. Sadly, there's no info here on the...interesting Japanese versions of Spider-Man (Supaidaman), or Captain America. Ikkuzoo!

"Working with a baby had its problems, but then I tried directing chickens..."

Their president is being booed off the streets of London, an effigy of the man is being torn down in a pastiche of what the Americans did to Saddam Hussein's statue, terrorists hold their own, far less peaceful protest, and what does CNN have as its top story? Michael Jackson being arrested on child molestation charges. Sheesh...

Watched Labyrinth today, for the first time in years. I'd forgotten how good a film it really is. David Bowie's performance as the Goblin King was a lot better, and nowhere near as camp and kitsch, as I'd been led to believe, and I wouldn't be surprised if Neil Gaiman got a lot of his Sandman character from Bowie. That would certainly be fittingly ironic considering that Gaiman wrote the upcoming "sequel".
There was a pretty good "making of" feature on the DVD, but it was from the year of the film's release. I would have liked to have seen a more recent feature on there too, perhaps spliced in with the older footage. Jennifer Connelly, for instance, was a pretty useless interviewee as she was just a kid back then and as such was annoyingly polite and restrained. I'd have liked to have seen her speak about what the film means to her now, and an interview with the Henson people on how Labyrinth affected cinema, and so on. As I was watching the behind the scenes stuff, I spotted someone who looked just like Beverley Crusher. A quick check on the IMDB showed that before she flew to fame on the Enterprise, Gates McFadden was a choreographer for Jim Henson's production company. It's just a little strange to see her before she was famous, but still very active in the public eye.

My memories of the other non-Muppet Henson extravaganza, The Dark Crystal, are more favourable than my memories of Labyrinth were, so I shall pick that one up next, I think.

And finally:

Discworld: Which Ankh-Morpork City Watch Character are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which is handy, as I hadn't heard of 70% of the alternatives. Last Pratchett book I read was probably Soul Music. Actually, a quick check reveals that it was in fact Interesting Times I read most recently, if you discount The Last Hero. Anyway, I don't recognise most of these characters. So there.
Incidentally, I spotted this test on a blog I read regularly, but a quick search for that blog turned up nothing, so I Googled the test. I'd love to give you credit, whoever you are, for pointing me towards this, but I can't, sorry.

How About Some Politics? Some Satire Perhaps? No? How About Some Lovely Jam?

And now for some current affairs. This one came to me via Courtney and Liam. As Liam points out, it is "cheap, but amusing", but I'm all for a bit of Bush-bashing...um...

When George Bush was meeting with The Queen he said to her:
"As I'm the President, I'm thinking of changing how my country is referred to, and I'm thinking that it should be a Kingdom".
To which the Queen replied , "I'm sorry Mr Bush, but to be a Kingdom, you have to have a King in charge - and you're not a King."
George Bush thought a while and then said: "How about a Principality then?", to which the Queen replied "Again, to be a Principality you have to be a Prince - and you're not a Prince, Mr Bush".
Bush thought long and hard and came up with "How about an Empire then?" The Queen, getting a little T'ed off by now, replied " Sorry again, Mr Bush, but to be an Empire you must have an Emperor in charge - and you are not an Emperor."
Before George Bush could utter another word, The Queen said: "I think you're doing quite nicely as a Country".

Disclaimer 1: I know, Bush would never be able to say "principality", but you have to allow it for the sake of the joke. Nor is he capable of as much thinking as this makes out, but you've got to let it go, dammit!

Disclaimer 2: If anyone would make the US presidency a hereditary position, it'd be Bush.

The Beauty Of Language

Normally, I try to keep this page all-ages-friendly, but I couldn't pass this one up, especially since that bear-thing is so cute:






What swear word are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks to the splendiferous Snowball for that one. I think. I wonder what word Rad will get...

children black fingernails chop off their hands

Years ago, I remember that the Eurovision Song Contest was on the telly. I was too young to go out, and there was nothing else to do, so somehow I found myself watching it. God knows why. Anyway, one year, sometime in the early-to-mid eighties, they put on a film afterwards. Since Eurovision usually finishes at about one in the morning, I'm quite surprised I stayed up for this one. I remember an American school bus driving into a cloud of fog, and I remember children with black fingernails getting their hands chopped off. For years, I thought this was Children Of The Corn, until I saw it fairly recently and found it utterly devoid of black-fingernailed-killer-children. So I decided to enter children black fingernails chop off their hands into Google, and it took me to this wonderful site. I now know that the film is called The Children (close enough), and another part of my swiss cheese memory is filled in.
Now, if I could only place the horror movie set in a summer camp in which someone is killed on the toilet after the killer drops a hornet's nest into the cubicle, as well as the film in which a teenage girl is terrorised by a spectral black samurai, I'd be happy as a clam.

Bush and Becks

Here's a fun piece. The Guardian asked a number of people to write a letter to Bush, in honour of his visit to Britain. Letters to Santa, if Santa was a power hungry monkey man. They make entertaining reading, for a number of reasons. The bizarre denial exhibited by the right-leaning writers is fun to read, and the newspaper chose poets, comedians and writers to speak for the lefties, making their contributions entertaining reading.
Changing tack somewhat, I'm a fan of toys. I have toys all over the place, but even I'm having trouble getting my head around this one. Very, very odd.
I (finally) received issue 21 of the excellent the O men yesterday, and have still not quite recovered. This is consistently one of the best comics around, and this latest issue raised the bar even further. A superb issue full of shocking revelations and one shocking word that Rad is fond of using. Collected editions are available now from the website, and I heartily recommend picking them up.

Stripmining The Past

There's a young bride, mid twenties, looking gorgeous in her wedding dress, but visibly upset.
"It's too soon, isn't it?" she asks in an English accent. She's flustered and jittery. "It's too soon. I'm too young to get married. It's not the right time."
She sits down hard on a chair. Actually, it's more the kind of "flump" that an annoyed little girl might do. She looks up.
"I don't know what to do," she says, "What do you think Dad?"

Cut to Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg sitting side-by-side, each dressed as you would if you were a father giving away your daughter at her wedding. Each one of them gives some non-commital hand gesture and mumbles some non-commital answer, as a father who's not sure what to say might do.
Three Men and a Young Lady. Since this is the era of unnecessary remakes and sequels, why not? And it's not as if Messrs Guttenberg, Danson and Selleck have anything else to do...

"...a twist in the fabric of space, where time becomes a loop..."

Weird feeling this. I'm listening to British radio over the 'net, and it's getting on for half five over there, but it's only 11:20 in the morning here. So I'm listening to Britain winding down after the last working day of the week, getting ready for the weekend, but it's not even lunchtime yet. Makes you feel displaced, it does.

I Hate It Here

Right now, I'm listening to British radio (Xfm at the mo) over the internet because (a) internet access is free and unlimited over here, and (b) American radio is worse than rubbish.
I've got to the point where I've been here almost a year, and I'm not settled. I'm still homesick, and all the little things (like, no matter how bad British pop is, it's not a patch on the mire of bland inanity that passes for pop over here) start to add up.

On the other hand, The Non-Ironic Spinal Tap Tribute Band have just come on. They haven't made it here yet. Perhaps all is not lost.

Perhaps I really am Spider Jerusalem.

(I notice that this melancholy seems to be everywhere in the Blogtrix today. Dan certainly seems to be affected, and Kev is firing off myriad downbeat posts, clearly trying to get to grips with something only he knows. Friday Feeling my arse.)

Providence

As I went through my daily rounds of Other People's Blogs, I noticed that some people order their links alphabetically, and as such, my blog is often at or near the top. Which is nice, in an accidental-ego-massage kind of way.

Spud-U-Like

You are Spider Jerusalem.
Spider is THE journalist of the future. He smokes, he does drugs, and he kicks ass. The drugs are going to eventually kill him but not before he gets his way. And his way is the demise of the failed American dream. Although full of hate, he cares about his city. All he wants to bring the world is truth. Spider Jerusalem, conscience of the City. Frightening thought, but he's the only one we've got.


What Gritty No Nonsense Comic Book Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmm. Not sure how I got that from the answers I gave, but what the hey. I've only ever read one issue of Transmetropolitan. I liked the idea behind it (and gosh darn it, isn't it relevant today?), but I was never moved to get any more. Maybe one day.

Here's the best headline of the day. I feel sorry for the Welsh potato farmers, but come on, should it really be the second headline at the Guardian site? Slow news day then?
On the other hand, it may be a breeding ground for that particularly sedate, and particularly British, form of right wing extremism, but the Torygraph gives us a pretty good article on comics and their future.

Bibliophile

A trip to the local Half-Price Books (a national chain that does exactly what it says on the tin) led to a spiffing Hellboy calendar for 2004, with lots of lovely Mignola art. Yum. I also finally picked up a battered old copy of Dune, acting on the orders of Rad. Actually, I'm looking forward to reading it, as I enjoyed both the TV series and the 1984 film (of which Rad disapproves). Also, since sound quality on the dvd of the series was so bad, I'll be able to find out finally what this "Pspssmss" thing they kept mentioning is (it's a "pre-spice-mass" apparently).
Also on my to-read list, in no particular order:

• Scion: Conflict Of Conscience. I'm rereading this, as I rattled through it rather too quickly first time.


• Batman: The Long Halloween. Ditto. This is a murder mystery story that I was a little unimpressed by, so a second reading may reveal more.


• Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy. Bought very cheaply on eBay and greatly enjoyed, I'm going to have another crack at it, just for fun.


• Vital Lies, Simple Truths? Meg's mum let me borrow this book about the psychology of denial. I often wonder how people can sometimes believe things that are patently untrue (a lot of that happens over here), and this book sets out to examine the phenomenon.


• The Tale Of Despereaux. Another one from the mother-in-law. I suspect this one is her surreptitiously giving me research material for my on-off plans to get into children's book illustration. It's something to do with a mouse and a silver spoon.


• JRR Tolkien: Author Of The Century. I'm rereading bits of it, as author Shippey says some interesting things about Tolkien's views on destiny and free will, and I'm musing on those subjects at the moment, for some reason.


• RA Salvatore's The Lone Drow. Shameless D&D-related pap, but I love it.


• A Clockwork Orange. Liam wants me to read it and do a visual treatment, tying into our graphic novel project in some way, I think.


• The Gormenghast Trilogy. I've been meaning to read this for ages. It's the other big fantasy trilogy, and apparently stands up to Tolkien's epic quite well.


• The Count Of Monte Cristo. A classic, but I picked it up because it's a big chunky book that'll last me a while, and I've never read it.


• The Sword of Shannara. Tom Shippey, author of the Tolkien book above, says this is shameless plagiarism, and I'm interested in seeing how similar to Tolkien this really is.

And I'm going to rattle through The Lord Of The Rings again sometime this month, in preparation for the adaptation of the third book. I haven't read the trilogy (one of my favourite books ever) since before the films were even announced, and I kick myself every Christmas for not keeping up.

We went to see love actually last weekend. I'm not normally a fan of Richard Curtis' smug middle-class film-making, but I enjoyed this a great deal. It's a bit uneven in places, and the "happy" plotlines are rather conventional, but it's all done with such genuine good humour, and the performances are so good, that you can overlook any small flaws. The American press has given it a rough time, mainly because of the rather obvious anti-Bush sentiment at various places in the script, and have largely ingored the film itself, which is on the whole, very successful. It's very much like Magnolia, but without the overbearing pretentiousness and cynicism so popular with film students.

The World's All Curvy...

One of the things I don't like about this new PC is that it has a monitor. After using a laptop for years, I've grown quite used to the crisp, non-distorted images produced by the laptop's flat screen. I'm really not enjoying all this curved-at-the-edges stuff. I enjoy even less the futile prodding of the buttons on the front of the monitor, which seems only to make things worse.
Meg's Dad bought himself a spanking new high-end desktop PC recently, complete with a flat-screen display. He's already been inundated with Christmas present requests from his children for similar screens. He may get one more...

The Matrix Revisionist

The nature of freedom fascinates me. I wrote my dissertation at university on it. Specifically, I'm very interested in the apparent tensions between freedom and a good life. Is it better to be free than to live a good life, or is a good life worth trading in one's freedom? Plato/Socrates thought the latter, and all societies are based upon a partial trade-off of freedoms for benefits, so it's not such a contentious idea. It's common in western societies, especially American-influenced societies, to see freedom as an intrinsic good, and possibly the most important thing in life, even more so than happiness or health or safety. I never managed to find a coherent argument for freedom's special status in all my time studying the problem. It seems to be a given, and that immediately made me suspicious.

All of which brings me to the Matrix trilogy. I've not seen Matrix 3 yet, but I probably will soon, and that got me thinking about the story so far. What I've realised is that, philosophically, I find myself pretty much on the side of the machines.
Think of it from their perspective. They were created as slaves by humanity. Later, humanity gave them life and intelligence. Later still, humanity tried to take this away from the machines again by destroying them. The machines, betrayed by their creators, fought a battle of self-preservation, which they won. Desperate, the humans destroyed their own environment in attempt to defeat the machines, going as far as blacking out the sun. The machines, victorious but without their primary power source, enslave the slavemasters and turn them into batteries. In order to preserve/protect the humans' minds, the machines create a virtual reality for the humans to live in. This reality is a blessed utopia, but the humans reject it. The machines try again, and by this point you really can't ascribe any malicious intent to them (and besides, if there is malice, it was programmed in by humans anyway...). They create an imperfect reality, hoping this will be more acceptable to the nihilistic human condition. This too is not good enough for humanity, which appears to want the moon on a stick, and some individuals escape the Matrix and create Zion, a dirty dark hole in the ground. The Zionites (to differentiate them from Zionists) decide that all of humanity would be better living in a dirty hole in the ground eating sloppy porridge as opposed to in a shiny city eating juicy steak, and begin a guerilla/terrorist campaign against the machines and their reality. The machines keep a lid on it all, until the Zionites find for themselves a messiah figure, which really upsets the boat. The machines decide that enough is enough and finally go after the Zionites.

So, the message of the Matrix films seems to be that a free but hellish existence is better than a utopian, but unfree life even if one doesn't know that one is unfree. And that's not a message I'm sure I agree with.

Contradictions In E Minor

So, if I'm in such a good mood, why has today's playlist so far been this and this? Good albums, both, but hardly cheery. Perhaps I'll put this on next, to liven things up a bit.
Still, I was inspired enough to knock this out for one of Meg's friends (click on the pic to see it in a new browser window because I haven't even begun to look at Javascript yet):

The Republican Party of Minnesota called earlier. I was half-inclined to pick up and chat to them for a laugh, but in the end I chickened out and let the machine take it. I don't want to get convicted of (and subsequently deported for) un-patriotic behaviour, which is most likely exactly what they would have got if I'd answered...

Melek Stonecutter: Casts Fireball
Beholder takes 41 damage

In what is apparently a common problem for those computers with Athlon processors, the random shutdown problem appears to be caused by an overheating motherboard. It's what I suspected, but I hoped against, because it means I either have to sit here with the windows open all the time (and that'll do no good in the summer), or we're going to have to get inside the beast and stick another fan in there...

"...I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity..."

Yesterday, Kev reported that he'd achieved a state of transcendental calmness, completely unintentionally. Accidental Zen, if you will.
Today, I feel something similar. I've had the first uninterrupted, sort-of-full length night of sleep I've had in weeks, and I feel great. 7:45am is usually an alien time for me, but today I'm in a slightly creepy "hello world!" kind of mood. Bizarre.
Also bizarre is our PC's recent behaviour. It is randomly turning itself off. Not shutting down, not warning us in any way. It just switches off. The monitor LED goes from green to standby orange, but the NumLock light on the keyboard, and the laser on the mouse stay on. CtrlAltDel does nothing. Pushing the PC power switch does nothing. Pressing the reset switch restarts everything, but then we get the "Improper Shutdown Detected" sequence. Baffling. Still, I'm in far too good a mood to worry about it now. But if anyone has any idea what's up, I'd love to know!
(As far as comments go, I'd prefer it if you used the comments on the left. I'll leave the others up in case of further comment system breakdowns, though.)

"e ne em ma ni a gi a gi ni mu ma ma dam e ne em am an ki ga a gi a gi..."

Dear God, now my right eye has stopped working. What is working, however, is the comments system. Enjoy.

(Twenty-minutes-later-update: And it seems that BlogExtra is working again, mere minutes after I get a new comments system. Sheesh...Well, I can't be arsed to sort it out right now. I'm off to do something more useful.)

Fear Is The Mind-killer...Well, Lack Of Sleep Will Do It Too

I am somewhat dazed at the moment. I'm not sure whether it's because of my recent lack of sleep, or whether it's because I just watched all sixish hours of Dune. I was warned by Rad not to watch this until I'd read the book, but I'm a complete git and I never listen to anyone. I think I'll still have a go at the novel soon, though I'll tackle it after a full night's sleep methinks.
Six hours of trippy scifi about religion and drug trafficking after a mere three hours' sleep. Yikes.
Could I have used the word "sleep" any more frequently up there? Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
I enjoyed Dune, by the way, but then again, I enjoyed the much-derided 1984 version too, although I haven't seen it in years.

Things To Do In Denver (or Minnesota) When You're Dead (Tired)

Hmm. Well, BlogExtra say that the comments problem will be sorted out within a day or two, although I'm a little worried that the problem they think is plaguing the comments system is different to the one that's plaguing this here blogger. Oh well.
I'm writing this at 4:40am, my time (not really MY time, I mean I'm not that arrogant) because I'm having another insomniac night. Still, I've got things done. I've had a very interesting chat with this man about a fascinating new small press project which should be fun. I've put together some material for the soon to be new and improved Borderline magazine, which will probably all get rejected due to a change in the magazine's format, but hey, I tried. I've done final sketches for commissioned pictures I'm to do for a couple of people, and I should have at least one of them done by the end of the day. And now I'm going to try and do something with the mess that is my website's links page.

My God, what an exciting life...

Leave Me Behind, I'll Only Slow You Down

Well, the lack of comments would appear to be due to the disappearance of the BlogExtra server. Last time this happened, I added a second comments system which didn't work properly, and then enetation returned the next day anyway. It's been a couple of days now, but I'll wait it out.
Woke up this morning with a screaming pain in my right shoulder. It still twinges now, eight hours later. I literally couldn't move, and was flat on my back for seven hours. Then, magically, at five it went away. Weird.
Or maybe I'm a lazy beggar, and I just made it up to cover the fact that I slept in for no good reason. You decide...

(Except you can't, because I have no comments system! Hahahahaha...)

Kev's blog has apparently moved, no doubt in order to stop me visiting his blog, a plan which failed miserably. I've updated the link on the right (or down at the bottom if you're not reading this in a full-size window).

Er...

Well, my links are back, but now my comments are gone. Willikers.

Winter Wonderland

It's snowing. =D

And The Winner Is...

Hmm...a lot of people seemed to have a very vague idea of the answer to last weekend's Halloween competition question. Most people seemd to know that there was a connection between William Shatner's face and the first Halloween film. The correct answer is that John Carpenter, looking for a suitably scary mask for the killer, had to resort to using a rubber William Shatner mask, painted white for added spookiness.
The following people gave correct answers, and will receive their prizes in due course if I can be bothered to (a) come up with prizes, and (b) send them:
Rad, Paddy, Liam, and Mr James Leahy (BBC script bloke extraordinaire). BiLly was close enough, and no one else entered.

For some reason, my links keep disappearing. I blame Liam, as he seems to have just moved to blogger. Obviously his presence has messed everything up.

William Shatner's Face II

It was bitterly cold tonight, as I found myself escorting a bunch of children I have no blood relation to around American Suburbia (which is exactly as weird as offbeat comedies make it look). I wasn't aware that I was going to be doing this, so I was rather underdressed as the temperature hovered around 2°C. I actually started to get flashbacks to rugby games at school, of being tackled onto hard frozen ground, of having hands so cold that you weren't properly able to get changed afterwards, let alone actually write anything in any subsequent lessons.
A number of people were doing drive-bys. They'd chug around in their Enormous American Vehicles, stopping outside each house to let thousands of kids out to collect sweets, collect the kids, then move on to the next house. At first, I scoffed and mocked these people for quite blatantly not entering into the spirit of things. As ice crystals began to form inside my internal organs, I began to see the advantages of the American Strategem.

Competition Update: Mr Patrick Booth, currently of the borough of Merseyside, formerly of the borough of Chelsea, has been the only one to enter thus far, but he did get the answer right. Come on people!