np: "New Town" - Life without Buildings

So, I may be doing work of some kind again soon. Various things have happened lately, which I'm not going to discuss in case I jinx them, which have reignited my enthusiasm, and have quite possibly helped me focus on what I *actually* want to do with my life. We'll see.

The work also gives me the opportunity to write, if not professionally (i.e. I wouldn't be gettin' paid, boo), then at least publicly (several thousand readers, yay!). Which is a bit scary - my weblog gives me an outlet for most things I want to say, but it's essentially written for the smallish number of friends and aquaintances who get the in-jokes and indulge my sense of "humour".

So that's good. Thinking of something to write 600 words about every week sounds easy, but is it really? I'll spend twice as much time editing myself as actually writing, I betcha - something that doesn't really happen here :)

So. Anyone going to see Camera Obscura tomorrow night?

Today my brother took delivery of a new computer. As he's been working as a locum for the last three months, and has earned ELEVEN THOUSAND QUID, he went for a top-of-the-range one, and I went to look at it.

And that's all I did, really - there's not a lot on it. It's not even connected to the internet yet! Tsk.

However, there was one cool thing. He has some kind of jukebox situation, and to test it out he inserted (without any prompting from me) a bit of Belle and Sebastian. But the best bit was the effects you can put on the music! Not only can you make Stuart sound like ZEUS (Mandee, I think you should investigate), but you can make him sing like a gurl! It's really effective, too, though some of the effects are a bit woozy. And some could well drive you to acts of mindless violence. "Psychotic" is freaky but quite interesting; "drugged" is just a massive, building cacophony of feedback. Which goes quite well with Seymour Stein :)

I want a new computer. I need to be ready for Championship Manager 4...

On Halloween I'm supposed to be DJing at a gig by much-loved Pet Shop Boys tribute act Baxendale. Problem is, I have no idea what to play! My record collection boasts almost nothing like Baxendale - and it might be nice to go for a bit of themed stuff on everyone's favourite fright night. Wooooo.

So - I'm asking you to use the comment facility to leave suggestions as to what I should download for a super scary DJ set. Stevie's already said Thriller, so you can' t have that. Ta!

...of girls who, as it happens, tend to be quite cute but all I want is to be best pals with them: Alicia from the Aislers Set.

So, I went shopping with Archel the other day, and bought a "vintage" t-shirt from Top Man. Passing smartly by the slight distaste caused by spending £12 on something I could have got for £1 from a charity shop, I really am a bit pleased with my purchase.

At first, I thought it might just be a moderately amusing example of Engrish, but then I got thinking. I mean, what does "AVLIS" mean? What is AGC? Surely even far-eastern entrepreneurs have a better grasp of English than that? So, naturally, when I got home I Googled the article in question.

And it's better than I could have hoped! AVLIS (Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation) and AGC (Advanced Gas Centrifuge) are methods of enriching uranium,and information on both can be found here. It's a rather technical and dry piece, but it does contain a pertinent gem from "nuclear pioneer" Karl Cohen:

"“...a contest between a technology that didn’t work (AGC), and one that didn’t exist (AVLIS)”

Well, knackers to that! Go AGC! AVLIS merda!

Today's entry comes to you from the unfamiliar time of 7.05am, and features the letter Zzzzzzz.

I was just awoken from slumber by my mobile phone, claiming that my parents were calling. After one ring it stopped, but, panicker that I am, I called them straight back. My dad, an insomniac, was not impressed. My mum denied all knowledge. Wtf? Can a mobile phone really make such a big mistake? Or is something going on, something shady and maybe evil...

On the subject of dreams, which we weren't, I had a pretty depressing one shortly after going to sleep last night. I was taking part in some kind of competition which involved me versus a large number of shadowy forms (imagine the Dead of Philip Pullman). Each of us was trying to destroy everything of value belonging to all the rest of the contestants. As the game ended, I was washed over by a feeling of utter despair and pointlessness. I'm specifically avoiding trying to find meaning in it.

Changing the subject, if you're Sinister, go and have a look at my first wrangle with a thumbnail creation program.

Phew. I'm bushed!

I just got back from Richmond Park - visitors to this weblog in the early days may remember me coming over all pastoral about its beauty, and the possibility of finding snakes. Well, not today. Today I cycled round it in my RECORD EVER TIME! Now, I know you're not used to seeing macho posturing here (the internet: "yes we are"), but it mattered to me, as it may indicate that I'm getting a little bit fitter than before. Whoot!

Thirty minutes and fifteen seconds. Which means the thirty minute target still awaits! What would people do without goals? Why, they'd be useless, lazy, good-for-nothing layabouts with too much time on their hands.

Oh.

Today is varnishin' day*. Therefore, I am upstairs in my bedroom, pretending to find useful things to do on my computer. I have checked the weather twice (still overcast), applied for a job (whoot! Now that doesn't happen every day), and started listening to Rain(de)er Maria.

Further to a lengthy, confused and occasionally bad tempered conversation about Whut is Emo?, Rainer Maria came up and proved themselves one of the few bands in the genre I can actually talk about. Then it turns out that the album I have, Look Now Look Again, isn't emo in the first place. D'oh. For a full, frank, and mind-numbingly tedious deconstruction of the whole emo g-thang, go here.

*two years ago I painted the units in my kitchen orange, to go with the orange theme to my flat. Unfortunately, I didn't varnish them, and they got chipped, dirty and crappy. Yesterday was paintin' day, and today is varnishin' day. Maybe if I finished jobs properly first time I wouldn't have to do this.

Continuing in a sporty theme, last night I couldn't sleep. Happily, there was baseball on the telly! My passion (wrong word - my sleepy affection might be better) for baseball was born in the hideous summer of 1997, when I was recovering from losing a girlfriend to mental illness and a job to my own arse-elbow confusion. I was a bit down, and it gave me trouble sleeping.

However, I discovered that Channel 5, lord love 'em, had started broadcasting major league baseball from midnight to 3am on Sunday and Wednesdays, I think. And for some reason, when I was lying there in my gloom and panic, the sight of burly men hitting the occasional ball, scratching their nuts and chewin' tobaccy, combined with statistical mumbo-jumbo I actively enjoyed not understanding, proved the most relaxing antidote to my woes. I've loved it ever since.

I'm even, heaven forfend, beginning to understand it. However, some aspects still baffle me, so I've attempted to make sense of a couple of phrases for any other baffled viewers who might be passing by.

Fielder's Choice - tasty home-baked loaves eaten during breaks
Short Stop - a coy euphemism for a toilet break
ERA - how long it takes a particularly dull game to finish
A-Rod - used to unclog the drains in case of in-game downpours
RBI - Repetitive Batting Injury
Sac Bunt - a painful condition caused by tight baseball trews

Am I close at all?

This is a picture of me, taken today, on my return from AFC Wimbledon's 2-0 victory over Reading Town. Hurray! If you ignore the gormless top 1/4 of the photo, you can admire my brand new footie shirt! Don't I look swell? Go Dons!

Today, as I was waiting for muh pasta to boil, I decided to munch on something. So I looked in the fridge and found the remains of the Stilton I bought for my picnic with Stevie and Mandee last week. I also found the rest of the sweet pickled onions I keep in my cupboard for emergencies (i.e. when I really fancy a pickled onion). And - shazam! - I put them together, like a rather fancy cocktail snack.

And it was GORGEOUS.

I don't know what the dilly is with strong-tasting foods - I'm not a smoker, I don't have a permanent blocked nose, and I only occasionally lose my sense of taste after a particularly heavy night out. My favourite pizza topping is peperoni, gorgonzola and chilli, though this gets too rich for even me sometimes. I'm obviously some kind of crazy sensual thrill-seeker, ever searching for the ultimate spiritual experience. Mmm, anchovies...

Well. There we go. Is this the most pointless post EVER?

(p.s. if anyone can explain why a Google image search for "Haywards pickled onions" should come up with the South African Flag, let me know. Prize = a pickled onion. With some Stilton.)

There's a documentary on TV, as I write, about 9/11. Not a surprise, but a timely, emotive reminder of everything I was feeling exactly a year ago. NOTHING like this has ever effected me as much, despite being a foreigner, with no friends or family involved. I was just a watcher.

I abhor schmaltz and the manipulation of human feeling. But in my middle-class, educated, privileged life, I am a perfect example of what the western world produces and embraces. I've never felt like that before. I don't mean to try and turn this into a "me" thing, at all. But because it was New York, the physical representation of everything that our lazy, decadent, but fun (bad word. still works) society is about.

My thoughts are with everyone who has been touched by September 11th, 2001. Everyone.

In the last week I have managed to accrue £70 of fines. Whut? I am law-abiding and sensible with money (ahem). Don't the fuzz have better things to do than ruthlessly hunting me down for non-return of video cassettes (a bit of a problem, this one, as I can't find them anywhere)?

Anyway, as a result, I'm in a bad mood. I suppose my parking fine is fair in the letter of the law, if not in the spirit, and I guess Barclaycard had a late payment surcharge of £20 somewhere in the small print, but sigh anyway. Why does this have to happen now? Aren't I maudlin enough, you bastards?

It becomes even more necessary to beat C***play in the pub quiz this week. Knowing my luck, Starsailor will be in the house, all brandishing PhDs from Harvard :(

"We arranged to meet at 6pm, but Mark [insert surname for maximum effect], as ever, was 5 minutes early, perfectly turned out, and clutching an excellent white wine which perfectly accompanied the fresh swordfish and polenta I had rustled up"

Crudely paraphrasing Maddie, this is the kind of thing I think you should all be writing in your respective journals. Basically, I'm beginning to panic about being Googled when I apply for a job, go on a date, etc. Having googled myself the other day, I was partly relieved and partly extremely embarrassed at what I found. Admittedly, most of it was stuff I've written myself, about myself (overused word of the week: solipsistic), so I have no-one to blame for it but myself. Oh, and Greg :)

Suggestions for inclusion if you can't be bothered writing your own:

"Not only is Mark [insert surname for maximum effect] witty and erudite, but he can tie knots, knows the Heimlich manoeuvre and can sing the Finnish national anthem"

"I was brainstorming with the guys from Corporate Strategy when I realised there was only one man with the power to proactively imagineer beyond the envelope. That man is Mark [insert surname for maximum effect]"

"Mark [insert surname for maximum effect] is GORGE!"

Thank you.

Does this scare you? It scares me. Ladies, the importance of bras is yet again emphasised below, from last week's Observer Sport Monthly:

One can only guess what it does to other sensitive areas. (/me shudders)

Another pub quiz last night, and another triumph! Uh, sort of. Despite only getting 4 of 31 questions wrong, we were only credited with 23, while the winning team got 27. Treason and plot! personally, I reckon it was an insider job.

You see, the Shepherd's is the home pub of popular angsty combo Coldplay, who I know you're all big fans of. I begun to realise something ewas amiss when bernie, the kindly landlady, passed me my change for the jukebox with the words "now I hope you're going to put on some of that lovely Coldplay". She didn't really look like a typical fan, but many a mickle, etc. Then they asked a question about which album is currently no. 1 in the charts. Surprise surprise - Coldplay again.

As we hadn't chosen a team name by this point, I was strongly pushing "Coldplay can suck (sic) my shiny metal butt". Eventually the more diplomatic team members argued it down to only the last 4 words. However, while we got complimented on our name by bernie, the winning team just happened to be called "A sudden rush of quizziness to the head". You'll notice they misspelled "cuntiness" quite badly there.

So anyway. Obviously the only way they could prevent a bunch of non-Coldpay-acolytes from winning was to fraudulently double the number of errors we made. Marianna had to forcibly restrain me from demanding a recount. Grr.

Incidentally, the questions we got wrong were: how many children did Queen Victoria have; how many people died in Britain from taking ecstasy last year; what sits in a corner and travels the world; and, erm, can't remember the last one. Anyone who can get all three without cheating gets a special prize. Get commenting!

As both Archel and Maddie have already posted today (as was when I started writing this, humour me, please), it may be time to bring you up to date with my weekend. Those not Sinister may as well look away now, otherwise you'll grumble about in-jokes about people you've never met. If you are Sinister, prepare for a rollercoaster ride into the dark subconscious of the list...

On the subject of dark subconsciouses, last night, on the suggestion of the swoonsome Marianna, a number of us decided to revert to 13-year-oldness and watch horror films while eating curry and drinking shady cocktails from Miss Daplyn's Drinking for Debutantes and Dilettantes. Two titles were chosen after much debate: The Omen and Suspiria. Most of you will be familiar with the former, though if you aren't, leave work, the dinner table or your lover and go and rent it immediately. It gets better on every viewing.

Suspiria is a very different kettle of fish. When we took it to the counter in the video shop, the chap who served us immediately pronounced it a classic. He seemed rather excited. Having already watched The Omen by this point, Suspiria was under pressure to impress. I'm not sure if "impress" it quite the right word, but it did... something.

Firstly, the soundtrack. Many scary movies build up the major scenes (or "breath-catching gorefests") with subtle use of sound effects and music. Not Suspiria. Oh no. A good ten minutes before something nasty is about to happen, soundtrackers The Goblins kick in with effects that are a cross between an unpleasant schoolboy imitating the knifing in Psycho, a washboard (?) and the unpleasant's schoolboy's friend whispering a heavily reverbed "witches!". This gets louder and louder until some duly horrific piece of action causes screams around the room - stand up Ms Longmire and Mr Chu.

However, even this pales in comparison with the, um, stunning visuals. While the plot, the acting, the timing, and anything which requires anything resembling subtlety are pretty much written off, the sheer saturation of COLOUR is a marvel to behold. Everything in the ballet school, where the action takes place, is red. Everything. Where things really get weird is the lighting. As the movie progresses, and realism is left flapping forlornly in the first draft of the script, you realise at times the only action worth its name is the use of different gels by the overworked lighting ops. Mainly red, of course, but, uncharacteristically, green lights start appearing, to satisfyingly spooky effect. Woooooo...

To discuss any more about the film would involve giving the plot (hoho) away, so I'll leave it to your curiosity. But it was certainly an experience, and Marianna was practically applauding with delight, so I guess it was a night well spent :)