March 2005

March 27th, 2005. Silence

I know this site has been quiet so far this month. There isn't really any excuse for it, other than being lazy. Lazy, and unthoughtful; I've been slipping home after work and drifting off to sleep without really considering much in-between.

The rest of the month, though, is probably going to be even quieter. This time, though, I have a good excuse. I'm going down to London for a week, and I have no idea if I'll have any internet access. In the meantime, I'll take a notepad and pen, in the hope that I'll have something to put on the site when I return. See you in April.

20:23 Comments (5)

March 21st, 2005. Credibility

Shopping at the weekend, with lots of HMV vouchers to use up. My hands were hovering over the CD racks, and heading ominously towards the new Moby album. "Erk," I thought, "how Radio 2 doesn't-really-like-music-but-buys-records-anyway of you!"

Yes, but he did sounds quite good on Top Of The Pops. And at least he sings on his own records now.

But, but, it's still Moby. It'll be played to death on every TV advert for the next year! Even if there's one OK single, the rest will still be bland MOR-dance aural wallpaper.

You won't know unless you try. And besides, why be embarrassed about buying a record? There's nothing wrong with liking something that's popular.

There is something wrong with liking crap, though.

In the end, I had to compromise. I *did* buy the Moby record - but, to balance everything out and maintain cosmic harmony, I made sure to buy an Anti-Moby record too. So, I also got the new Momus record to go with it. And, do you know what? Momus is much better.*

* apart from the long, long track about the Morecambe Bay Chinese immigrant drownings, which sounded like a bad plot-exposition song from a bad musical.

12:58 Comments (3)

March 16th, 2005. Pointless Prize Of The Year Award

And this year's Pointless Prize Of The Year Award goes to Vee, for winning the prize for posting the 1500th comment on this website since ... um ... since I started counting. Or, at least, the prize would go to Vee, if there was one. Sadly, all I have to give away at the moment are empty disposable coffee cups.

20:47 Comments (1)

March 13th, 2005. Spot The Reference

Being a Big Geek, I like nothing more* than to spot references in things. Recognising quotes, lyrics, music, anything. I love the moment when I recognise the background music on some awful TV show or trailer. For example: if you're a regular reader of the Scary Go Round comic strip, you can get a daily email from John, the strip's writer. Each day's email has a whimsical subject line, and on Friday I was delighted - far more delighted than I probably should have been - when I immediately recognised that Friday's subject, "Back in California where it's warm", was a lyric from the Low song California.** Which was not only good because I recognised it, but because it's a very good song. Hurrah!

The downside of all this pattern-recognition*** is that it makes reading my horoscope a very risky business indeed. It makes it very easy for me to read something into the slightest little thing. For example, this week, my horoscope in The Observer says:

"By [next weekend] you'll be facing a changed planetary picture, whose theme tune is a little less conversation and a little more action."

That's what I read, of course, but what goes into my mind is:

"By [next weekend] you'll be facing a changed planetary picture, whose theme tune is a little less conversation with the Office Gossip and a little more action with at least one of the Office Crushes, fingers crossed."

I probably should talk to the Office Gossip less - or, at least, be more careful about what I tell her and how much of her I believe, which isn't the quite the same thing. Just because I think it's in my horoscope doesn't mean it'll happen automatically, though.

The tenous connection between the paragraphs above - it might make sense now but it won't in the morning - is probably caused by the amount of vodka I've just been drinking. Time for more, I think.

* This is probably not actually true. I quite like some other things, too.

** from their latest album The Great Destroyer - available now in all good record shops, and plenty of rubbish ones too.

*** Well, one of them.

22:05 Comments (5)

March 7th, 2005. Input / Output

The plan was to spend my lunch hour writing a long, intellectual blog-post tying together numerous aspects of history, culture and civilisation.

The reality is that I'm slumped in my office chair checking ILX and Livejournal, and slowly drifting off to sleep. Mmm, half an hour of lunch left - just enough time for a nice semi-sleeping nap.

12:31 Comments (2)