Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
Congratulations!
Just scanned this clipping from the evening edition of the local paper.
Bitter? Me? Fuck no. What a complete pile of wank, been saying it all along. Still, put me on the radar... no, in fact it didn't, I did that myself, all it did was add a few hundred hits to a dead site that people glanced at for twenty seconds or less and then made a "hmph" noise before agreeing that just the name Wil Wheaton was funnier than Bulletproof Punk.
The Postman doesn't knock anymore
Doorbell went and Pix, even though ill, went to answer it. I'm ill too right now so don't hassle me for sending the sick girl to answer the door. Anyway, it turns out to be an Amazon birthday gift (why yes, it was over a week ago, how did that happen?) of The Great Escape on DVD and Len Deighton's Bomber, both from my mother.
I'll explain the significance of The Great Escape later.
So, she gets back into bed and that's that. Doorbell goes again some fuzzy amount of time later and I'm told quite firmly that it is of course my turn. Yes, it is obviously my turn, cannot deny it.
I go downstairs and there is a delivery guy with a big box, the kind of big box people always want to receive in the mail because it could contain anything at all.
Tina! The cookies arrived! Yaay! And they're still mooshy on the inside. Double yaay!
T & A
I dislike Sex In The City quite intensely, and I realise that may not sit well with some of my fellow bloggers, specifically Baz, but the point of the matter is I'm fully entitled not to like it and I'll tell you why.
I don't like being blugeoned with morals.
Yes, a man sleeps with a lot of women and he gets called a stud, but a woman sleeps with a lot of men and she gets called a slut, I do not need a TV show to tell me that this is wrong. I also don't need it to tell me that we all have our little idiosyncrasies and quirks in bed, just as we all like our eggs differently in the mornings.
Every episode, the four girls have a variety of "unusual" sexual practices to put up with and they do, why? Because they're liberated empowered women. I hate it for the same reason I hate Ally McBeal; they both make all men look incredibly dumb. I don't understand men who watch it.
So when it came on tonight, a special double-episode no less, I went out for groceries. As I was wandering along our usually peaceful street somebody else was just getting home, unlocking his door and shouting up to his girlfriend/partner/wife;
"Is Sex In The City on yet, Tracy?"
"Yeah, just started" she shouts back.
"Any tits and fanny yet?" (fanny in this case pertaining to the front, not the back)
"Not yet"
Okay, so maybe there is a reason for watching.
In This West Wing
As dawn's first light breaks through closed curtains a man sits before his computer screen typing away furiously. It is Dubya's second State of the Union and Deputy Communications Director D Seaborn is doing his best to have the speach ready on time.
Press Secretary Melvania Cregg pokes her head around the door.
Mel: "Hey D, are you done yet?"
D: "Hirple. Hirple means to walk with a limp, it was originally used in 1450 by the Scots poet Robert Henryson."
Mel: "Thanks, but what does that have to do with anything?"
D: "I'm trying to write the State of the Union, and if we are going to push for better education standards I think people need to hear more obscure words."
Communications Director Miguel Ziegler wanders into the office.
D: "Miguel, hirple."
Mig: "No, use hobble instead. The Oxford English Dictionary claims that hirple is obsolete. What do either of you know about Senator Robson demanding that milk be given out only to the kids who can recite the Lord's prayer word-perfectly after their Pledge of Allegiance?"
Mel: "Haven't heard a word about it."
Mig: "D, look into it when you're done. Mel, walk with me."
Miguel and Mel start walking along plush carpeted, expensively-decorated corridors discussing the various issues of the day. When they are finished they have magically arrived right back at D's office.
Mel: "Why did we have to walk around while we talked about that?"
Mig: "Somebody said it was called pedoconferencing, I wanted to give it a try. Go find Philo, D needs a hand."
Melvania raises an eyebrow suggestively
Mig: "Not that kind of hand."
Melvania goes off to find Deputy Chief of Staff Philo Lyman. He is busy arguing with his assistant Michele Moss over the interior decoration of his office.
Philo: "Look, Larry King has a pink office, I've seen it. And what's wrong with wearing suspenders, I've seen him wearing those too."
Michele: "You're not wearing suspenders. You've got a belt on."
Philo raises one eyebrow suggestively.
Philo: "Y'know, for a Personal Assistant, I can't remember the last time you assisted my person."
Michele: "They don't pay me enough to."
Press Secretary Melvania knocks on the open door and Michele and Philo look round.
Philo: "Hey, how're they doing?"
Mel: "Fine, I think, they're arguing over 15th century Scottish vocabulary."
Philo: "Since when did we live in 15th century Scotland? Do they need my help?"
Michele: "I thought you were beyond help."
Philo, Michele and Mel all head over to D's office where Mig and D are fighting over a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary
Mig: "Its a soliloquy! You can't use rhetorics in the State of the Union!"
D: "You can go to hell you Harvard hack! I've used rhetorics with the best of them, I used to write speaches for Tony Blair."
Philo: "I take it back, we are living in 15th Century Scotland and the barbarians are out in force today."
D: "We're trying to rewrite the Homeland Security passage."
Michele: "I thought it was going to be called the US Freedom Corps"
Mig: "Whatever, it's just martial law in pink fluffy bunny slippers."
Furious rewrites take place and eventually a finalised draft is printed off, with a few scribbled corrections in the margins before it is taken before Chief of Staff Davezilla.
Davezilla: "Is it ready?"
D and Mig: "Yes."
Mig: "We've removed anything that relates directly to Enron."
D: "And campaign finance reforms. And Osama."
Davezilla: "Good, then it's ready. Do we have the Homeland Peace Force written in?"
D: "Secret Police in Mickey Mouse Ears included boss."
All start walking to the cars waiting outside, they all climb in and the cars drive up to the House of Representatives. Once there everyone follows the staffers inside and as Dubya enters everyone is suddenly less filled with awe than if Martin Sheen had walked in.
Dubya: "Is it ready?"
All: "Yes"
Dubya: "Well, if this isn't all just one big circle-wank. Y'know I don't even need to deliver this orally? I could just hand over this here pile of notes. Lets get it over with. Y'all want medals for this?"
All: "No, sir"
Dubya: "Ah love medals. Just like my pa. Mr Crookshank, would you tell the speaker of the house I have something to bring before him?"
Dubya enters the room to rapturous applause and as he saunters down to the podium with a slight hobble D leans towards Mig
D: "Do you think we should have included the line 'Would you please all rise for the reach-around?' or might that have been a mistake?"
Roll opening credits
The Eighties all over again
Five expressions that are true, and one which is false;
1. working the eighty; to be serving behind a diner counter. (from the number of seats available in the average roadside diner)
2. to perform an eighty-one; to succeed against a common vote through other means. (Reagan's success in his election against Carter, suspected to have been maneouvered by Iran for instance)
3. an eighty-two; a request for a glass of water. (30's slang, customer code for water)
4. to be eighty-foured; to be confined in a US Naval prison. (from the Jolly Rodgers squadron VF-84, and their famed skull and crossbones insignia)
5. been eighty-sixed; to have been forgotten about or denied service. (from the number of tables at the New York Club 21, which had only 85 tables)
6. on the eighty-eight; to be playing the piano. (from the number of white and black keys on a full keyboard)
Answers in the comments, which one is false?
Survival of the species
Yesterday I went to meet Pix from the station as I have very few other excuses to go out these days (no thats actually a good thing, it means I get lots of work done, unpaid work, but work nonetheless) and found myself for the second time this week observing a few moments of a multitude of people's lives.
As passengers pushed through the automated gates they would see me watching for a second and then turn left or right depending on whether they were heading for a bus or walking to their final destination. It got to be an amusing little game. And then along came a little kid with his mother, as soon as they had passed through the gates the little kid turned around and started trying to feed his fingers into the ticket slot.
I suspect the ticket slot was whirring away quite happily... "Mmmmmm, ticket... Mmmmmm, ticket... Mmmmmm, ticket... Mmmmmm, little boy's fingers! Little boy's fingers! Munchmunchmunch!"
She picked him up and carried him away before it came to that though. Spoilsport. I believe in survival of the fittest, let the kid find out what happens when you stick your fingers into machinery.
Playing Jenga with God
D: Well hey there God, pull up a chair. You want me to set up the tower or do you want to?
God: I'll set it up, but I warn you D I'm very good at Jenga.
D: Yeah, I need a challenge, I beat my housemates too easily with my rock-steady nerves and tactical playing style.
God waves his hand and the tower assembles itself so perfectly that the corners could cut through paper.
God: You're so full of it D.
D: I know God, I know, but I'm in good company here. You start. Hmm, okay. You again.
God: Why Jenga D? Of all the games? I would have thought you'd want to play chess.
D: Nah, the Grim Reaper has me pencilled in for a game right after I die... oh, careful there, you didn't put the last brick back on top properly.
God: You know what this reminds me of?
D: The Tower of Babel.
God: Exactly.
D: You have this thing against people getting too close to you, don't you. Were you breast fed as a young deity? Whoa... steady... steady...
God: Look D, I got Old Testament on their asses and smote the bastards, scattering them to the four winds and making it nigh impossible for them to ever communicate amongst themselves ever again. Don't push your luck. Oh, good move, I was certain it was going to topple that time.
D: You forget I did structural engineering for four years and architectural drawing, I'm guestimating tolerances and possible structural weaknesses as we go along, I'm also keeping a mental note of how many blocks are missing from each side.
God: You're so full of it. Hey! No touching the other blocks!
D: I never did.
God: I saw you! You loosened the one in the middle but then pushed against the one at the side to free it.
D: Oh fuck you, you can't even see that side of the tower.
God: I'm omnipotent.
D: And I'm really sorry about that, have you tried Viagra? Look, okay, I'll put it back if it'll make you happy.
God: You're gonna burn in hell for cheating there D. You repented nicely for that Genesis Blog stunt with the free redesigns but your bad karma is mounting up fast.
D: I thought the Christian church didn't work on karma. Aren't the last rites supposed to absolve me of all sins if I renounce all others and embrace the one "true" God?
God: We make exceptions for pretentious pricks like you. Are you gonna play or are you gonna try and argue your way into heaven?
D: If I win can I get a Get Into Heaven Free card?
God: Sure. You're not going to win though.
D: We'll see...
CRASH
God: Best of three?
Name that architect
So several months back one of the girls I live with moved out, and she was replaced by Ursula who is a sweet but occasionally naive girl. The street I live in is made up of rows of houses that are easily over a hundred years old. There's even a gap between houses on one side where it's conceivable a bomb during the Blitz landed off target. The houses are all split level, three storey with terrace and gardens and we're lucky enough to be on the top floor of our particular house.
Above the front doors along a number of the houses are stained glass semi-circle rose windows with etched portraits of famous authors, Keats, Shelley, those sort of guys. Their names are proudly written in block capital letters in an arc above their heads.
This evening after we got back from wandering around Spitalfields market where I tried deperately to remember what the From Hell significance of the Spitalfields Christ Church was, we went into the kitchen where Ursula and Fran were chatting away. The conversation eventually got round to Ursula pointing out that for the first time she had noticed the stained glass author above the door and realised who it was. All this time she thought she'd been living in a house built by Ron.
Its late and I'm wired
Once again I find myself only managing a post well past midnight. Well, screw that, I've been living on Eastern Standard Time since I quit the job. Oh yeah, the job. Well I did promise to tell y'all about the job, and yes, it will be told. along with the story of my summer job as a cowboy waiter... hoboy, you're just gonna love that story. See, this is Jessica's fault for writing her story on Fray, I now feel obliged to share my two wierdest careers so far already at such an early stage in my life.
The site isn't even close to being fully operational. As an analogy, imagine like... the Starship Enterprise being sent out on a mission three weeks before even Scotty says it's ready. Thats the current state of this blog. But you're getting the content and you all seem quite happy so far, apart from the guy who is threatening to go and tell Parkers that I'm using an image of their car. Since you can't copyright colors (like the rainbow, duh!) that'd be the only material even close to copyright infringment and its still placeholder stuff anyway. Yes sorry, if you've already become fond of the little silver car but I can't keep him, he's not mine. The houses are final though, just... send more! (in the time it has taken me to edit this post and make it ready for publishing Pix has already removed the placeholders and is working on the final graphics, so this bit may seem confusing, but it made sense twenty minutes ago)
I'm a great upholder of the intellectual copyright ideas, unless I'm pretty sure its a harmless swipe and more a tribute than anything else and just too little to cause any harm to anyone. I guess that line is one I weigh internaly between my morals and better judgments... and yes this is me back-peddling slightly to not appear holier-than-thou, as I simply could not make any such claim after attaching somebody's head to Elizabeth Hurley's body and then taking it all around London with my weekend guests.
Aw crap I forgot what point I was trying to make. I got sidetracked reading everyone's comments on the other posts. There was a time none of you would post because I had some sort of "big intimidating aura" thing going on.
This is turning into a rant... but what I really want to say is that we're all just people. All of us. If we were really important glamorous people we wouldn't be spending our time in front of computers typing and coding and designing as much. This applies to people like Dave Linabury, Elise Tomek, Tom Coates, Meg Pickard, we're all just people (Meg I haven't met yet so I can't say for sure, but I'm siding with including her here for the sake of the argument, since her sister Anna is) so don't let some awards thing make you think otherwise. Hell if I can get to be a finalist after five months of no longer being a professional lurker, anyone can... as has pretty much been proven by some of the other nominees that just leave me agape in horror. Kaycee was a meme?!
Amazing that it might need pointed out. and yet... the more bloggers you meet in person, the more amazed you become that, well, yes they may be entertaining or funny, or both, or on rare occasions neither, but they're only human, and all humans have flaws. Except from what I hear, Heather Champ who is described by all and sundry to be an uber-goddess and the epitome of the female form and intellect. Damn, wrong continent and two years too late.
This turned into a really long rant. Its not even a one-topic rant. If you made it this far, I will endeavor to make this part of the blog live up to its subtitle of Acerbic Bites and use the Stories section (coming soon to a sidebar near you) for this sort of thing in future, then at least you have the option of reading this much crap just to see why I may have linked you *this* time.
One flaw about me nobody needs to know or would find out otherwise: I have really bad toenails, they're hardly ever cut straight and sock fluff can actually be well on the way to sentience by the time I get round to digging it out. Meme started, your turn now.
Check your eyebrows at the door...
...cause this here is Tiger Lil's Flaming Woks of Death Restaurant and the gang is all here.
So the day started off with the alarm going off and me promptly ignoring it, well, not ignoring it... consciously deciding to disagree with its opinion of what the time was, knowing full well that I wouldn't possibly sleep through a day in which I get to meet Miguel and Jessica for the first time.
Well, nearly.
So within half an hour of getting Mig's phonecall we were meeting him and going for a light breakfast. An hour later Miguel and I went to the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens and there, standing out like a burning effigy was the red-haired Jessica.
We visited Portobello Road and Tottenham Court Road before seeing some of the more touristy sights like Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus, Nelson's Column (very phallic) and Admiralty Arch with the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace visible along the streets, saved for another time.
After a quick jaunt back to the house where Acerbia was duly shown off it was time for dinner. As promised we took cardboard cutouts of Michele and Melly along to partake in absentia in the merriment, and the flaming wok chefs started their engines like dragster exhausts blazing across the track. The idea is pretty simple, chose your vegetables, chose your meat, chose oil and sauce, it all goes into a large wok on a flame broiler and boom, the whole thing goes up in a pyromanic wet dream of flames. This is the proverbial heated kitchen brought to life because you have to shield your eyes from the towering inferno before you. A good wok chef can make the flames go as high as four feet from the wok.
Satisfied and with a newly acquired tan we also indulged in pitchers of drinks all round and some photo taking. I realise there's very little more mortifying than taking pictures in a restaurant which is why I'm not including any of myself. Ha.
Tomorrow, we plan on giving Camden market a very thourough going over, as there is much to be bought by all concerned. All in all, my feet may be complaining, but they appreciate the experience of meeting in person some very good friends.
Welcome to the neighborhood
(This post refers to this design)
I suppose it had to happen eventually. There was this whole wonderful omnipotence and mystery surrounding "when you gonna launch the new site? What's the design gonna be like?"
Well, reload the page.
Did you notice what happened?
Thats right, the screen flickered momentarilly. I paid a lot of money for the special javascript to do that, so make sure I get my money's worth. Warning, if you tend to suffer from migraines or epileptic fits then don't do it too often.
Right, the credit is due to a bunch of people, my two designers, my coding diva of a girlfriend who said yes at the right times and no at the right times... and some of the wrong times... and she said maybe a few times, which left me a bit dubious as to the nature of the relationship but thats all in the past, cause now, here it is. Acerbia.
Hmm, the place was quieter when the estate agent showed me around it. Are those gophers or really big rats? And is pool water supposed to be that nasty nicotine yellow color?
Welcome to the neighborhood, they don't bite... once they're sated.
Welcome to the neighborhood
(This post refers to this design)
I suppose it had to happen eventually. There was this whole wonderful omnipotence and mystery surrounding "when you gonna launch the new site? What's the design gonna be like?"
Well, reload the page.
Did you notice what happened?
Thats right, the screen flickered momentarilly. I paid a lot of money for the special javascript to do that, so make sure I get my money's worth. Warning, if you tend to suffer from migraines or epileptic fits then don't do it too often.
Right, the credit is due to a bunch of people, my two designers, my coding diva of a girlfriend who said yes at the right times and no at the right times... and some of the wrong times... and she said maybe a few times, which left me a bit dubious as to the nature of the relationship but thats all in the past, cause now, here it is. Acerbia.
Hmm, the place was quieter when the estate agent showed me around it. Are those gophers or really big rats? And is pool water supposed to be that nasty nicotine yellow color?
Welcome to the neighborhood, they don't bite... once they're sated.
Mr Congeniality
At first I was afraid, I was petrified...
No, wait, that wasn't me, that was Gloria Gaynor, but personally I prefer the version by Cake. So to tell the truth I wasn't afraid, in fact I courted the nominations. I even went about creating cute little graphics to be displayed prominently on influential blogs with myself depicted as James Bond.
And what happened? Did I get considered for the two categories I asked for? No, I sodding well didn't Gracie. I wanted Best Euro, I wanted Best Newcomer, because I started blogging this year after years of lurking and European, I was educated in sodding Paris! I speak three European languages! I've been to just about every bloody country in the Union at least twice. Including Scandinavia.
But No. No, people weren't happy with that. They obviously saw the graphic and didn't pay it the blindest bit of attention, they just blanked it, body-swerved in cyberspace, my graphic was quite obviously talk-to-the-hand'ed, because what do I get instead?
Most humorous.
Fuck. That means I have to be funny.
Lets get one thing straight, right here and right now, I am only funny to hide my innate insecurity and technology fetishes, not because I have to be. In fact, the rules of Bulletproof Punk were pretty straight forward in my mind. No war, no sad posts about how awful my life is (cause it simply isn't) and as few memes and personality tests as possible. Unless I started it. Or Miguel did. Or it was actually funny.
Okay, so just... don't pressure me to be funny. I've seen the mail Michele gets about being "more political" or "more motherly". If it just isn't funny then... go back through the archives and reminisce about how yes, all this used to be fields when I were a lad, kids these days don't know they're born with all these funny blogs out there. Used to be for entertainment we'd bash our heads on two bricks and wear knotted handkerchiefs on our heads.
Those were the days. You try and tell kids that, these new blogs just appearing on the scene, and they'll snatch your CSS out from under you and make off with all your femnale admirers.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
The standard filler text for any designer who just wants to drop dummy text into a page design and get on with the important part of making the page look pretty because, hey the content, not my problem, eh? Content is for the writers to worry about, me, I just wanna see what text looks like dropped into the templates and if it breaks then I'll fix it.
Well, so much for the idea it was dummy text, it is real latin, just not quite in the proper grammatical order. As it turns out the words "lorem ipsum" were part of a passage from Cicero, entitled De finibus bonorum et malorum, pertaining to a treatise on the theory of ethics written in 45 B.C.
The original read; Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit . . . , meaning "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain . . ."
During the 1500's, an industrious printer adapted the text to produce type samples, it obviously became popular in a way that "The Quick Brown Fox" never did and even before electronig publishing was the norm, self-adhesive sheets preprinted with the lorem ipsum text would indicate on paper mock-ups where the text was intended to go. And all this time, designers have been seeking out the lorem ipsum dummy text to save themselves the pain of putting in any real content. How ironic.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Flamingoes and chickens and guinea pigs, oh my
I am reading a pretty fantastic book at the moment, it includes characters who change the shade of their skins with pigments, a lot of you know the author and read him occasionally.
When I was in Florida years ago I went to Busch Gardens, one of the best amusement parks in the world. At the time it was home to the fastest and largest rollercoaster ride in the northern hemisphere. It was pretty damned good. The Bud breweries were within the boundaries of the park however and the smell of yeast, like freshly kneaded pasta permeated the air and could leave you feeling quite ill if you were dry-heaving at the exit of the largest and fastest rollercoaster in the northern hemisphere.
Another feature of the park were the large flocks of flamingoes. Pink flamingoes. They're not naturally pink, they should be a muted light grey color, but they become pink when they are fed large quantities of shrimp, the crustacean carapaces tint the birds their trademarked Floridian pink shade.
Canaries should be fed carrots to retain their vivid plummage, caucasians will occasionally take on a slight orange color to their pale white skin if they eat too many carrots, or drink too much Sunny D. If you feed Guinea Pigs beetroot their white patches become a soft purple shade.
My mother kept chickens until all four hens and the three cockerels were stolen just over two weeks ago by the local kids. She revealed something over lunch today as everyone acclimatised to being in 2002 and we saw our first Euro notes instead of the familiar French franc notes; if you feed your laying hens alfalfa grass then over time the yokes of their eggs will become greener and greener until you eventually have green eggs to go with your ham. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the secret Dr. Seuss never told us. Happy New Year to all.