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.
Twas the Nuke that killed him
Heres a bit of movie trivia for you; Robocop's operating system was DOS based, Robocop 2's was a Mac OS, Robocop survived two deaths and three movies, Robocop 2 didn't last half a movie.
Hmm, wonder if that means anything.
Her loneliness is... non-existant
Britney Spears is supposedly a virgin, right? Cause she sure doesn't shake her hips like a virgin. (and why did I want to continue that line with "touched for the very first time"?)
Admonishment
Yes, fine it's not a witty combination of Acerbic and Suburbia at all, I picked it cause it was the closest I could get to Aardvark and the top of everyone's link lists!
Now quit it with the e-mails!
Regrets, I've had a few
Is it better to have loved and lost? I've yet to meet somebody who agrees.
I can already split the audience of this post into the two groups, those who disagree and those who have never been in love. I mean really in love, when your every waking thought is filled with when next you'll see them, be able to watch the movement of their body, feel the smoothness of their skin... when your very joints ache to be with them again, and then when you are together the time just seems to disappear...
As a young and very foolish teenager I made the mistake of falling in love over the Internet. A real pioneer, very few people were doing it back in those days. I only mention it because The Crow is on one of the movie channels and I'm overwhelmed right now with feelings of bittersweet regret, melancholy, some of the joyous memories float to the top of the pile but mainly I just feel the regret that I had a good thing and I fucked it up only to land on my feet with something better.
If ever there was a perfect movie to accompany the guilt and loss of a failed relationship then this would have to be it. The story was taken from the self-written, self-pencilled, self-everything but marketed comic book by James O'Barr, written in a fit of depression after his fiancee was killed it stands as an allegory about love, loss and the retribution that O'Barr never received.
Mixing poetry and paintings in with the atmosphere noir of the inked comic pages, O'Barr created a magnum opus to avenging wronged lovers, writing and drawing over 300 pages, with a visible progression in his style between the outset and the conclusion.
Is it good to get melancholic from time to time about lost loves and the paths unchosen? Sometimes. Is it right to dwell on the guilt and regrets? No, unhealthy and a waste of time, since the inescapable reality is always there to catch you in the end. So I don't dwell, I barely even pause for the thoughts. But sometimes, just sometimes, a reminder will creep in, an image, a song, a work of art that she liked above all others and the tears well up behind my eyes and my fingers ache and I think of those days again and know that I didn't make the right choice or the wrong choice, I made the only sane choice.
I am pilot error, I am fetal distress, I am the random chromosome, I am complete and total madness...
Proper blogging
He's only saying what we're all thinking.
and
Fuck. Fuckity-fuck. Thats really depressed me now.
More politics
For maybe eight or nine years now I've been a fan of Robert Heinlein and his works of science fiction. Less so in a geeky kind of way, y'know debating Trek-style how a Transporter could work or Star Wars style how explosions can be heard in space; more on the level of civil and social theory put forward in his works.
For instance, the piece you might know him best for is Starship Troopers if only because it was made into a very succesful movie by Paul Verhoeven. However the book was originally written and released as a children's book. This would be the same book that was blasted for being full of fascist ideas.
Heinlein posited that a governing body where only those who had actively served a term of military service were allowed to vote would be more effective than one such as our own where democratically appointed officials are voted for by the public at large. And what on Earth is wrong with that? Can't that be boiled down to mean that the people who have paid the most in blood, sweat and tears should be the ones to decide how a country is ruled? That a modicum of personal investment and sacrifice towards your country be rewarded with the power to decide it's fate?
The movie played off on the fascist imagery with such segments as Carl and his subordinates in quasi-Nazi uniforms justifying the choices that led to Rico's squad being practically wiped out. Or the counter-argument that the bugs are simply responding to human incursions into their territory. The animated series Roughnecks didn't touch it at all because it was basically a lite version of the movie with no human death and very little actual drama.
As Heinlein said himself: Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself -- or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remains.
So only those who have signed up and asked for the burden and responsability of governing, having already paid their dues to society are making the difference. It streamlines the government while also ensuring that only those people who's opinion counts are making the choices.
If the current state of affairs has proven anything it is that we need to put our faith in our armed forces in foreign affairs, would national service and a government stocked only with those that had proven themselves to be willing to take the risk of dying for their country not also ensure that our domestic life was better?
Bitter Boyfriend
Okay, so the site is called Acerbia right, so I guess I can use that to justify why I'm so very very bitter that my girlfriend got shown off on Screensavers last night.
Damn, damn, damn... she's not going to get away with this...
Bitchfight on a political scale
No, not Todd and I, I'm watching BBC Parliament. I can't believe I've never watched this before, it should be a pay-per-view event, this is great stuff.
Let me explain; The house is split between the two parties (some people would have you believe there are more than two, but lets be realistic here there are two parties that get stuff done or stop stuff getting done; Labor and Tory) and each side has half of the house benches to fill from the various contituencies around Britain... I think thats right...
The great bit is that on occasions like this *everyone* takes a swipe at the President... no wait he's the Prime Minister, my mistake, Tony Blair. The leader of the house tries to fairly give everyone a chance to ask the Prime President a question and the Blairster a chance to answer. Answers can be serious, solemn, pithy, witty, biting, derisive, belittling...
Some House members simply stand up to ask for more policemen on the beat in their constituency, some have a pot-shot at Europe, some ask for more money to fund hair-brained schemes... its like Congress on a much cheaper scale.
Its at times like these however that it becomes quite obvious that the problem with politics is compromises. To get something done you have to not do something else, give and take. I'm sure that politicians know how to solve the problems but they're bound by promises not to, that to avoid pissing the wrong people off certains things just won't get done.
Damn I need to find a better way of spending my time, I can't believe I'm actually giving two shits about how my country works.
How dare you bark at me like some junkyard dog...
I will admit to some wrong-doing here; I download the latest episodes of The West Wing over the Net. There's no way I could wait for a channel over here to broadcast the episodes, we'd be something like six or nine months behind. So I download the rather hefty files and Pix and I enjoy them immensely. However due to the time it takes people to encode, upload and propagate, we're still sometimes as much as a month behind.
Which is why it was only today that I got to see The Two Barlets and it struck me that there is quite probably a very good reason why Dubya is so inept at convincing everyone that he's the right man for the job.
He has been undermined by his father's legacy and is trapped in the shadow, he is haunted by the Florida vote and the knowledge that he did not have the majority of the public's votes and theres no way for him to sway the public opinion far enough to win a second term. He can't win a war against an invisible opponent and he'll have learned his father's lesson well from the Gulf War.
You can bet that support is already gathering around the next candidates, that people are making his political goals difficult to attain, even with the further empowerment that a "war" effort has brought to him.
What I can't help but mentally compare his Presidency to is President Clark's rise to power in the TV show Babylon 5 (see, I like my viewing to have a good deal of political intrigue), which ended in an outside force arriving on his very door to oust him only for him to eat a bullet.
Maybe Dubya will eat a pretzel instead.
p.s. West Wing boxed set DVDs of the first season will be available in the UK in the next month or so, just try and stop me from buying it. I believe syndication laws in the States mean that y'all have to wait until 100 episodes have aired, so you've another two years to wait.
Stating the obvious, part 1
The label on the inside of my jeans tells me that I am just the right size for a man my age, that I should turn them inside out to wash them and to keep away from fire.
Not "keep these jeans away from fire", more a stern motherly "keep away from fire"
So to whomever came up with that, thanks, and also, stay away from battery acid.
Stating the obvious, part 2
I got a lasagna for dinner, picked it up out of the chilled cabinet with my own two hands (hunter-gatherer type me, see?) what puzzled me though was that while checking the list of ingredients for potential mushroom-allergy I saw that the packaging proudly declared that the cheese topping is suitible for vegetarians.
I wonder if the ground-beef filling between the pasta layers is too?
Lunchie-munchies
Within five minutes drive from Disneyland Paris is the Val D'Europe shopping mall,
it is one of those constructs where you wonder why skateboards or rollerblades are not provided. The foodcourt at one end of the mall (the opposite end from which we parked) has a rotunda in the center with massive videoscreens so that everyone in the restaurants, bistros, cafes, bars, what have you, has a view of these large screens.
As Pix and I approached the Italian restaurant it became obvious that all the videoscreens were showing the same thing, a documentary on feeding habits in the wild.
We sat down and waited to be served as we watched a rattlesnake slither down into a burrow and eat the occupants. We made small talk as leopards brought down gazelles and tore their throats out before dragging the heavy carcasses over to the shade of a tree. We finished eating to the sight of packs of hyenas skirting around fresh kills, waiting for the chance to scavenge any left-overs.
It all did wonders for the appetite, but I can't say how the various children, their eyes hypnotically locked on any videoscreen in their line of vision, felt as they watched Bambi being killed or Thumper the rabbit being slowly eaten alive as his back legs flailed uselessly from the disjointed jaws of a snake.
Think-tank
Okay I'm befuddled here... I came up with nothing but a cool title and a vague idea of what the project should be... so, using the potential of the web to throw out the greatest of ideas I'm fishing for ideas on what "The Irony Chef" could be about. By that I mean what the format of the whole thing would be...
Tossing some ideas around last night Christine and I came up with (tentatively) two people try to outdo each other on a given subject over Instant Messenger with The Chairman there to toss in the occasional acerbic comment.
This would kind of tie in with the idea I had for playing what is, according to Neil Gaiman, the oldest game ever over IM... so old it doesn't have a name but players take it in turns to verbally outfox each other. Difficult to explain here.
So, comments below to assist in tweaking the format, sign ups for test subjects, maybe a judge or two... and really, don't get your expectations up, all I have for this so far is a vague idea and the title "Irony Chef"... oh and a logo... and a few contestants already...
Pillow talk
I move in close to kiss Pix goodnight...
"When was the last time you brushed your teeth?" she asks.
Uh, don't remember... could have been yesterday.
"You don't remember?!"
Look, I don't remember the last time I went to the toilet either, that doesn't mean I've got shit in my shorts.
Obviously I got no goodnight kiss.
Walking in water
It was pretty bad weather-wise in London this evening. Winds were pretty strong and tossing all sorts of things along the streets, the rain was that perpetual-wetness inducing type that isn't just a good old-fashioned downpour but rather the humidity type of saturation where you're just left feeling as though you're wading through mist.
I discussed this with Brendan while he was over, but... 90% humidity... wouldn't that mean that you're borderline drowning in the air you're breathing? Because if there's 90% water in the air you're breathing... and your lungs extract the oxygen out of the air, doesn't that mean your lungs are slowly filling up with water that isn't being absorbed?
Anyway, Pix phoned up from her office and said she'd come out without a coat and could I bring coat and cane to the office for her? I was wondering about a hat as well and wish that I had.
I sat on the Tube train with the coat folded over the cane and wished that I had thought to bring the tophat to put atop the cane. Tophat, cane and coat would then have made a sort of demi-person... a leather Baron Samedi about three feet tall. I would have propped it all up on the seat beside me and tried my hardest to do a sort of "Da plane boss! Da plane!" ventriloquist's trick...
Sadly it was not to be, my imaginings of a voodoo child to accompany me to Pix's office were thwarted by the fact she has yet to waterproof the hat with the black boot polish she bought weeks ago.
Here starts the petition to persuade her to damn well waterproof the sodding hat so she'll wear it more often.
Ooo baby, baby ooo!
Todd is taking a break from certain online obligations?
It started off so well too... I wonder if this is just rumor-mongering though? Does their producer know yet?
But where is Huggy Bear?
Well, wouldn't you know it, I had something tucked away in reserve, something even more wrong than the Wesley Crusher fansite... and the world conspires to keep me offline for almost a whole day. A whole day! What else was I to do?
So I watched a bunch of DVDs and stuff.
Last night Pix came home and said that one of her co-workers has asked that we bring some stuff back from Paris this weekend for her friend David Soul.
I coughed.
David Soul? Yes, David Soul, of Starsky & Hutch fame. She'd never seen it. My girlfriend is a philistine when it comes to stuff like this. She doesn't know Mel Brooks, she doesn't know Star Wars nearly well enough, to her a cult movie was made by satan worshippers.
Okay, well she's not that bad anymore, but she used to be, and she has taste now.
So I went online to try and find some images of David Soul as Starsky... or was he Hutch? Who cares, the title sequence was shit cool. Anyway, I found this site, a woman in Florida does fan artwork of various TV shows... with a different perspective... see for yourself.
Its not just Starsky & Hutch, they're all at it.
Playing Risk with Hitler and Stalin
Okay, you both have your cards and the armies are all laid out... roll the dice to see who... what. What is it?
Hitler: I vanted to be blues.
Stalin: Tough luck shorty, you got the greens. Now roll the dice.
Right, Hitler to start... imagine that. Lets get started, these total world domination games can last all night.
Hitler: Ach! I have all ze time in ze vorld!
Stalin: Why does that sound familiar? Hmm, good move, but you've left yourself open here in Southern Europe.
Hitler: Those accursed Slavs! They cannot even defend zemselves against
Now now, lets keep the racial bigotry to a minimum please, this is Risk, not war.
Stalin: I could attack you there but...
Hitler: You don't vant to do zat.
Eh? You bastards! You've been double-dealing behind my back! Haven't you. You coniving bastards.
Stalin: Yes, a non-agression pact signed by the two of us. I shall remain in Russia and Australia.
Hitler: And I just vont Europe... and maybe zum of Africa...
Thats not the point of the game, you're supposed to conquer all six continents.
Hitler: Vot about Antarctica?
I don't know, for some reason they've left it out of the game, I suppose they couldn't think up a funny enough name... I mean some of these are just a little bit ridiculous... Jakutsk? Where the hell is that?
Stalin: Oy!
Hitler: I vant Stukas to attack zis territory here...
That might be a bit difficult... for one thing you're attacking from North Africa across the Atlantic ocean into Brazil.
Hitler: ya? I vish to secure some retirement property.
Stalin: Your motives aren't in question, its that you're attacking with 3 armies against a defending force of five...
Hitler: I have ze element of zurprise on my side.
Righto... and the operational range of a Stuka?
Hitler: Zey are ze lightning dive bombers, striking terror into ze hearts of my enemies and ze opening proponent of mein blitzkreig tactics, as put forward by Guderian... uh... zix hundred kilometres perhaps?
Not exactly trans-atlantic, are they? Plus, the biggest problem here... Risk doesn't have Stukas. You can have footsoldiers, cavalry or cannons. See?
Hitler: I vant mein Stukas! And Panzers! Millions upon millions oft Panzers!
Stalin: Your vaunted Panzers are nothing against the mechanized might of my army... not that I plan on attacking you once I have enough armies built up...
Hitler: Ve shall crush you like ze bug!
A Volkswagon Bug?
Hitler: Nein! You will not scorn ze Volksvagen! I forbid it!
Well while you're forbidding it you've just lost Great Britain and you're facing a war on three fronts as soon as I get into Africa...
Hitler: Zis ist ein very complikated game. I shall have to call upon my advizors. Rommel! Guderian! Speir!
What? You can't do that!
Stalin: Don't worry, he probably won't listen to a word they say.
Three rounds later
Stalin: Or he might take control of the whole of Europe and North Africa in three rounds.
Damn, if I can just keep funneling armies down through Greenland...
Hitler: And now I reveal my master plan! I shall attack you Stalin! You who has been been peacefully fortifying all of your territories! You who has been secretly conspiring to attack me! You who has been ruthlessly deporting your own people out to the frozen goulags of Siberia! You monster, you!
Rommel, Guderian and Speir all rest their respective heads in their hands, shaking in disbelief at the utter single-minded stupidity going on before them.
Well thank Christ for that, looks like I may win after all... in the long run...
Tapping the potential
For all those of you who are coming through from AE (otherwise referred to as The Pix on this page) via Harrumph (and excuse me if I don't just give off one big harrumph that she got a front page link!) hey there, stick around, she's the talented photographer, but I'm the wordsmith of the couple. Honest.
I have monkeys too. She doesn't have monkeys. Everyone loves monkeys, don't they?
Update: Oh, I see, the Anti-Bloggies made the front page of Wired, right, well that most bitter thing was a joke because I was up against Wil Fucking Wheaton, as my prior incarnation the Bulletproof Punk, y'know?
This was Davezilla's idea of... yes alright! I was bitter! I was fucking bitter about it! He's as funny as a battery-acid enema! He just has the bigger fanbase! This site is called Acerbia for fuck's sake! I'm bitter and twisted about everything!
Hmm, "boring or lame or obsessed or weird"... I'll pick "weird" thanks.
Corporate Sponsorship Slut
I'm afraid that I've had to start running banners on Acerbia, the good news however is that I get to pick and choose them. I've started off with one I'm sure you'll all recognise and appreciate, they really do have a valuable and useful product.
(refresh if you missed the animation, but please do click on it, its not like me to pull stunts or pranks... is it?)
Playing catch up
Holy crud, I just found out that by the age of 22 Isaac Newton had already formulated the binominal theorem of algebra, the elements of differential calculus and the inverse method of fluxions. Plus on top of that while he sat in an orchard he discovered gravity.
Imagine that, everybody floating around until a twenty-something farmer's son discovers gravity... of course this was back in the days when everything was in sepia tones because colors hadn't been invented yet and you had to be careful not to get too close to the edge of the planet or you'd fall off... ah, those were the days.
I'd better get cracking on some new projects, I've got until the age of twenty-seven to beat his achievement of laying the founding principles of the laws of physics.
Would sir like to order?
The scene; A small Italian cafe, very nice, mosaic artwork on the walls, Abba Gold playing (that bit not so nice, but bareable) candles on the tables.
He ordered: Steak with peppers and onions and a side order of fries.
The Pix ordered: Penne Pollo Pomdoro
When it arrived we were asked if we wanted black pepper. I didn't but she did, so the waitress came back with the really tall phallic pepper mill and twisted the top a bit. Nothing came out. She adjusted the tiny screw at the top and twisted some more, still nothing came out.
"Thank you that's fine" said the Pix, and the rest of the sentence went unspoken in all three heads: "even though nothing came out"
So as soon as the waitress had her back turned Pix coated the penne in table pepper and we left it at that.
Abruptly, the sound ceased...
No one would have believed, in the last years of the 20th century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us.
2001 has been and gone, where the fuck were the aliens?!
It started so innocently too
Pix and I got past the standard domestic saturday shopping trip thing very quickly after she moved down here and now enjoy the evolutionary leap forward that is on-line shopping... however... sometimes we just have to go and shop, and sometimes the cupboards can get a little more barren than they should so we went to the supermarket.
Unfortunately being amongst all these other people just wandering around looking at shelves full of products caused me, in a moment akin to Dawn Of The Dead, to spontaneously become a zombie.
For the rest of the afternoon I trod with heavy limbs and arms partially outstretched, eyes closed to crescents, mumbling "brains" every chance I got.
"Grab me one of those would you please?"
To which I would reply "braaaainnns"
"How about this sauce to go with some chicken?"
To which I would reply "braaaainnns"
By about the sixth aisle she'd given up trying, we wandered around together, she'd point and say "brains?" and I'd reply "brains". I was reminded of the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter credit card commercials that claim that only 7% of communication is verbal, well today 100% of our communication was zombie.
We got to the check-out;
"brains" she said to me, and in turn I replied "brains", the woman in front of us was too busy reading about Callista Flockart to care.
We got home and went to dump the groceries in the kitchen and get started on dinner;
"brains?" I asked to which she craftily replied "brains"
So I chopped up the chicken and she heated the skillet and set to work cooking. It wasn't until I opened the tin of refried beans and started scooping what has to be the closest equivalent to dog food humans have onto a plate that the comment hit the mark.
"Brains" she said and I couldn't have agreed more.
So if you and your partner are having trouble getting through the daily drag, try being zombies for the day, it really does lower you to the level of the people you're out shopping with.
Testing a theory
Movie Formula 676134: How To Make A Meg Ryan Movie Suck
Allow Meg Ryan to star.
You should have brought lilies
The fact that today is Valentine's day was just my excuse, in all honesty I went and bought Pix flowers so I could throw out the skanky old dead ones that were stinking up her desk. She'd been promising to take nature morte photos of them and encapsulating the poignant moments of death as the beauty fleets into the past and... aw bollocks, she just couldn't be bothered throwing them out.
So I went to a flower shop, and stood with three other guys, all of us looking very uncomfortable and waited.
The first guy wanted a dozen red roses, no expense spared... wait... how much?! Uh... okay, he changed his mind and just wanted six. Who says romance is dead.
The second guy had the sales girl make up a bouquet for fifteen pounds and write the card for him. Although why "with love from Bernard" is so difficult to write I don't know, maybe he had really bad penmanship.
Guy three wanted one of the lovable bears with "I Wuv You" printed on the satin heart in its arms and a balloon filled with helium that declared "You mean *this* much to me"... about a foot across, thats not very much. Nothing says love more than a squeeky voice and a cheap teddy bear.
I refused to be embarrased when it came my turn. I'll have three of those, three of those and six of those, don't look at me and try and make me feel gay for being in a flower shop I have important business to deal with... there's a bunch of dead flowers marked for destruction when I get home with these.
Here's a multiple choice for you, what did Pix say when she saw the new flowers in the vases the old ones had been in until I threw them out and washed the vases out?
a) I knew they'd perk up if I left them alone.
b) What did you do?
c) Did you walk far for those?
d) Oh you're the bestest, bestest boyfriend ever and I wuv you dearly.
e) Does this mean you want sex?
"Something's gone very, very wrong"
My sleep pattern has been off for quite a while now, no matter how hard I try and set it back on the right track. Last night was particularly disturbing because I had fitful dreams on the edge of consciousness. Images from my time assigned to the Rickenbacker flitted through my mind, the mess hall, the loading bay, the storage ducts... a three year career in the Navy culminating in that disastrous mission while escorting the Von Braun.
My body twitched occasionally as I recalled hearing the audio logs of Captain Diego and Dr. Delacroix, testimonies in absentia, the nightmare scene that greeted me as I entered the mess hall to see Bronson's violent quelling of the mutiny, all so vivid and all because of one person: Korenchkin and his obsession with genetics.
I threw back the covers and got out of bed, coming over to the machine which I had previously named Shodan after the operating system aboard the Von Braun after the Xerxes system was deactivated, now with three hard-drives I've renamed it Bubbles, Blossom and Buttercup, but at heart I know its still the same bitch in there pulling the strings. The one behind Janet Pollito's death.
No, there was no sense in denying it any longer, my former life had come back to haunt me in my sleep where I was defenceless against the onslaught of horrific imagery and a victim to the fears that were born out there on the Von Braun.
Like Ripley returning to LV-426 to confront the Alien, I would have to go back out into the cold vaccum of space and kill that computerised bitch once and for all, it was time to kill Shodan.
System Shock 2 ranks amongst the most popular PC games of all time and makes Event Horizon look like a family picnic. Created by the talented people at Looking Glass Studios. Their unfortunate demise can be read about at Salon.com
Eat a bug
I won an Anti-Bloggie because I didn't win a Bloggie. Which, considering it's coming from someone who lost out in the same category to the man in the DVD I won with the Anti-Bloggie.... is making my head hurt.
So I'm not the funniest person on the web but I am the most bitter? That can't be right. Well, I suppose I did ask for it. Actually I'm quite happy with that. I'm bitter and I'm proud!
Lavonne has moved blog locations, you'd know this if you read her often enough, update now. Also, Andre Torrez is back and blogging in a very sparse template, I don't want to jinx this one though cause Greg Knauss never finished his JaNoWriMo. Somebody could have mentioned that Andre was back though, or did I miss that memo?
Maybe I need to go eat a bug.
D was sent to a Federal Penitentiary for eating a bug. He now resides there with a pet rock for company. Greg Knauss went on to become an even more succesful online tech journalist and had another four kids. Andre Torrez was killed in a freak TiVo playback accident. Lavonne Ellis was named sole succesor to the Monroe estate after an obscure family tree was uncovered.
Pay up!
Nothing original left on the web? BT trying to patent the hyper-link?
Ha! We spent all weekend patenting the simplest biological functions and you didn't even notice. That'll be every cent you ever saw in your life split between the lot of us.
An offer you can't refuse
What he had: Raspberry Ripple ice cream.
What she had: Mango and Passion Fruit Sorbet (Sherbert to some)
His first clue that she wasn't quite enjoying hers as much as he was enjoying his: "Want to trade?"
His reply: "You chose yours, I chose mine, you chose wrong, deal with it."
Putting me off my aim
Took me a while to get it done but my AIM name has changed. No more shall you see kilgore99 or davepunk00 online, so you might as well delete those names from your list, nobody liked them anyway.
Also, my buddy list didn't transfer over, somehow I got a back-up copy from several months ago, I realise I should upgrade to the newer version but until I do you may want to reintroduce yourself, or if you're a first offender, say hello, its cheaper than a movie and the ecclectic wit is free.
That bear is right out of necessities
It's silly season is it? Valentine's... what a waste of time. Just as Christmas is a waste because it shouldn't take a yearly event to show how much you value your friends and relatives (and how much they value you is directly proportionate to the cost of their gift to you) and how a birthday is silly because nobody celebrates the day you were conceived, and the day before your birthday you are still somehow a year younger than the day after...
There's a flower shop within arm's reach of our place, Pix and I walked past it on our way out to breakfast this... afternoon. Late breakfast. Anyway, a young couple with child were standing outside the flower shop picking out which large white teddy bear hugging a red satin heart with "I Wuv You" written on it he was going to buy for her.
How nauseating.
Later today we walked past another store, selling inflated hearts with red paper hearts inside and a small bear standing up on it's hind legs, face pressed pathetically against the transparent plastic.
I wonder how they get the bear inside.
"He's sealed inside at the factory" she said.
How does he breathe?
"He doesn't, thats why he's pressed up against the side like that, he spent his last few seconds screaming 'help meeee!' at the uncaring factory workers"
How morbid. Why didn't he claw his way out?
"They declaw them before they seal them inside. You can't expect teddy bears to be released into the general populace with claws, they'd maul small children for dribbling on them."
What about teeth?
"Those are taken out too, these are obviously gummy bears."
Stubble and cheek
You know how it is right when you go three or four days without shaving, right? You start to realise that, hey, actually, why bother? You start off the first day telling yourself that the manly stubble makes you look rugged and world-travelled. Yeah, you're a busy man and you sure as hell don't have time for such triviality as shaving. There are places to go and people to see.
Then on day two, you say to yourself that, yesterday you didn't shave, why shave today? Nothing bad happened yesterday, nobody pointed at you and laughed, no small birds of insects took up residence on your face. Forget shaving, I'm going to look twice as rugged today.
By day three you're not even looking at yourself in the mirror.
And so that is how I came to be very grateful that I had flaked out repeatedly some five mornings in a row, with quite the manly beard, as I stood in La Senza Lingerie store with Pix as she picked through the racks and displays.
"Ooo this is nice!"
Yes, very nice... in as deep and gruff a voice as I could muster. We were just out of the perfume store and my sense of masculinity was wavering. I could just go a few choruses of Sade right now. Are the salesgirls looking at me and thinking we're in here buying stuff for me? Why am I the only person over five foot eight in here?
No! Must be strong! Beard! Big fuck-off beard! Gruff voice! Think of loud explosions and sports events, think guns and ammo, Soldier of Fortune... yes, that's starting to have the right effect. Ooze testosterone in here and you're doing well.
"I don't think they have this satiny robe in my size, what should I do?"
Uh... kill a bear with your teeth and then rip it to bits... no, um. Oh darn honey, well, lets try somewhere else.
Thank God for apathy and natural beard growth.
Tickets please
Welcome to the automated Odeon telephone ticket reservation line! This service is charged at a premium rate but we won't tell you that until its too late (where have I heard that before?)
Please state the name of the cinema you wish booking information for.
I believe you said... Holloway
Press star if this is correct.
Please state the name of the film you wish to book tickets for.
I believe you said... Monsters Inc
Press star if this is correct.
Which showing would you like to book tickets for?
No, trick question, you're not supposed to say anything, I'm taking a Shakespearian pause before I list *very* slowly the various showing times and leave twenty second gaps between each one so you have time to key in the number.
You have selected the seven... thirty... showing of... Monsters Inc at... Holloway Odeon. If this is correct press one. No, not star, this time I said press one.
Please select your type of credit card.
Well, say something, I'm not listing options this time.
Please input your sixteen digit code, then wait for about a minute before anything else happens. This is how we make money on top of the snacks and popcorn expenses bitch, so don't hang up.
Please input your expiry date, then your date of issue, contrary to all known laws of common sense. Because we'd rather know when it expires than when it was issued even if chronologically it was issued before it expires.
Please input a contact telephone number, so we can add you to a few spaming telephone sales lists, like you think this transaction has any chance whatsoever of coming into contact with a living breathing person?
Please select how many tickets you wish for each category, there will be a thirty second pause between categories just to make you paranoid;
Adult.
Child.
Teenager.
Simple-minded adult.
Prodigious child.
Student.
Pets.
Pet rocks.
You have selected... two... adult... tickets for the... seven... thirty... showing of... Monsters Inc at... Holloway Odeon. If this is correct press the phone deeply into your forehead to see which button leaves the best imprint.
Please do not hang up the phone until the confirmation has been read back to you. Please press hash to authorise the transaction, after the confirmation has been read out to you.
Ha-ha, another trick, see, just before I told you not to hang up, that was me reading out the confirmation and then you went and waited like a simple-minded gibbon for a full three minutes before the automated recording had to tell you that you'd already heard the confirmation and that it was really just a complicated way of asking you to press the hash key.
Thankyou for calling the automated Odeon Advance Booking hotline, we have made a mint from your convictions that automated would be faster than waiting in the queue for a real person to take your call. Now here's a song while we boost the call charges to an even higher premium rate...
Daisy, daisy...
What the...
Goddamnit! These aren't my sweatpants!
Within minutes, France surrendered
I don't normally do this, since this is technically supposed to be about me being funny, but this was too good to pass up.
ANGERED BY SNUBBING, LIBYA, CHINA, SYRIA FORM 'AXIS OF JUST AS EVIL'
Beijing -- Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviler than "that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President Bush warned of" in his State of the Union address. Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the best."
Crackers don't matter
Yesterday I had an e-mail conversation that deviated into just what it would take for you to kick someone out of bed territory. As in "I wouldn't kick her out for eating crackers in bed"... Pix eats sticky biscuits, does that count?
Well, then last night, when I went to bed, Pix started messing around. Just playful, "I've got bright red hair" sort of messing around. I stole the covers, she put cold hands places they shouldn't go without a Presidential veto ratified before Congress and eventually... she ended up on the floor.
"It smells of feet down here"
Thats because you're closer to your own smelly feet down there.
"That's cruel, I'm going to stay down here and sleep on the floor."
So I threw down a pillow or two... six actually. Then I heaped the bedclothes on her and in the darkness the silence was unbearable, so I looked over the edge of the bed only for a hand to reach up out of the fluffy detritus and grab my hand. It was like something from a Nightmare On Elm Street movie.
Oh, and since we watched Eddie Izzard's Glorious for the zillionth time, I've had to put up with various "Covered In Bees" type situations.
She took a packet of Bird's Eye frozen petit pois and hung them over her head saying "Look, covered in peas!" then when I asked her to open the door she pulled out her keyring and dangled it over her head saying "Covered in keys!"
Maybe I should get some pepper and find out if she wants to be covered in sneeze.
Going down the plughole
My first clue as I stepped into the shower should have been the distant cry of "Iceberg, right ahead!", however oblivious to the impending disaster, I turned on the water and let the jets relax me.
That is until I realised that my ankles were wetter than they should have been, even taking into account that I was standing in a shower cubicle. "Aha," I thought to myself, "the plughole must be blocked" as Jack and Rose ran past looking for a lifeboat.
So while out getting groceries, with a very silly half-washed hairstyle that made me look like The Lion King, I also stopped in the domestic cleaning products aisle which was bigger and far more convoluted than it should have been. Did I need to clean brighter than bright? Did I need pine fresh scent? Did I need a large bottle of industrial-strength bleach? Did I need to shower this badly?
I finally settled upon a bottle of Mr Muscle Sink & Plughole Unblocker, since I had worked on their ad campaign once and felt that after fucking them over on that they deserved some of my cash in return. The instructions seemed clear enough;
1. Pour entire contents down blocked plughole through standing water.
2. Allow to work for 30 minutes. For tough clogs allow to work overnight.
3. Rinse with hot water from tap.
Well no problem there matey! Standing water is exactly what the problem is, I've got all night and being the man of action that I am, I know how to rinse with hot water with the best of them!
Except... when it came time to get to work I couldn't even break open the childproof cap to the bottle. Yes, I know, push down and twist. Only, when I pushed down it locked the cap in place, so I cut through the neck with a breadknife.
After pouring the entire contents over the area of water covering the plughole I noticed bubbles appearing, which either meant that the stuff was working or whoever was down there had just suffered chemical burns and his oxygen had run out. Meanwhile Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine were busy trying to figure out how to escape the sinking ship as Shelley Winters had a fit of over-acting.
Feeling manly and proud of myself for having identified the problem, figured out the solution and put the plan of action into action I then went and watched violent movies and ate chocolate cupcakes. I am domesticated man! See me shake my mane and hear me roar!
Serving the public
Hi there, I'd like... uh... a meat samosa, a sausage roll and a chocolate cupcake please.
"No meat samosas left, you want chicken instead?"
Chicken is meat. Sure.
"You want me heat it up in microwave?"
No thanks, I have a microwave at home.
"Is that everything?"
(at this point I realise I'm dealing with one of those cashiers)
Sausage roll and a chocolate cupcake please.
"Sausage roll, you want heated up?"
No thanks, I have a microwave at home, remember?
"What else?"
Chocolate cupcake. No, that's a croissant... that's a tart... yes, that's a cupcake.
"You want me to heat it up?"
Sure, nuke the little bugger, it'll make for good content on my website.
(she gave me a very strange look, as if I was using a different level of vocabulary to that which she was normally accustomed... or maybe it was the language barrier)
No I'm just kidding, that'll be everything, how much is that?
"You don't want white rolls? You ask for white rolls, no?"
And that's when I shot her, your honor.
Dead or alive...
I knew that the Special Criterion Limited Edition Robocop Director's Cut wouldn't stay that way for long. Available only in the States, the asking price for a copy over here in the UK after it was deleted was £80. Close to $125. For a DVD... with oh, sure a whole bunch of extras, but $125?!
So I was very pleased to see that the trilogy boxed set would include the special edition of the first one, making it worth paying £30, even if it did mean I'd have two shiney new coasters.
Robocop wasn't just a case of diminishing returns but also of diminishing violence and novelty. The first one (I've been informed) accurately portrays Detroit, which is ieonic because it was filmed in Dallas and Pittsburgh. Verhoeven understood the uber-violence necessary to make the movie work and anything with visual effects by Phil Tippett is worth the money. Well... okay, some bad moviesto his credit...
Sure, Verhoeven has some clunkers to his name... okay, THE Clunker. But the man gave us Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers... he knows Sci Fi, and even better he knows Heinlein and PKD Sci Fi.
Robocop 2 and 3 are bad, very bad. Despite having original stories written by Frank Miller, the man who gave us The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, and Elektra... (is it just me or is Dark Knight Strikes Again just a little too sloppy?), the loss of budget shows through, especially in 3. Gah, cute kid who can do anything with a computer... where's my shotgun? Damn, I'm out of shells after blasting that Wheaton kid...
Paul Verhoeven; the man who satirised American foreign policy and only the foreigners got the joke... shame about the career.
Whats in a laugh?
As I was picking out groceries I overheard the couple behind me talking.
Him: "Life could be worse."
Her: "How?"
Him: "You could be pregnant and in love with a man with no money."
Her laugh told me that yes, she was pregnant, but that no, she didn't love him.
Question Time
To discuss this current surge in interest from two of the more respectable news gathering institutions on the planet Time and the BBC, I have with me in the studio Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, actress Sarah Michelle Geller and against all laws of causality Alexander the Great, with a direct satellite uplink to Chris Taylor.
First off, I throw it to you Sarah, Weblogs, self-obsessed drivel or a valid form of creative writing?
SMG: Well I've read a few, and I can't honestly say that they're harmful in any way. Some of them can be a bit dull for my tastes, but hey I'm an actress and I don't always have time for this sort of stuff. I try and stay away from the Net though, too many obsessive fans.
AtG: Fans?
KAA: People who adore you for your work.
AtG: Oh, right, subjugated people?
KAA: No, no, of their own free will. Free will is a powerful force.
Secretary Annan, in respects to the overall benefits of having such an outlet available to anyone who cares to take part and make their thoughts and opinions known to all and sundry, how do you see this as a community building tool?
KAA: From that perspective, I'd say that the inter-connectivity of the entire pursuit should be encouraged whole-heartedly. Its rare to see one of these sites that doesn't link other, similar, or occasionally contrarily opinionated sites. As one of them so succinctly put it "It's all about the linky-love baby!"
AtG: I'm sorry, what on earth are we actually talking about?
SMG: Well duh, dude, the Web.
AtG: The web of Ariadne?
SMG: Whatever. I don't need to talk to you, I was on the cover of Parenting by the age of six.
AtG: I was King of Macedonia at the age of 20.
KAA: Seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Oh, uh, I don't have any such achievements to boast about, I'm just a regular guy with a penchant for big words
SMG: Star of the highest-rating teen show on television!
AtG: Commander of the front line Macedonian cavalry!
KAA: Peace negotiator with Iraq, facilitating in the repatriation of over 900 western hostages!
Um. Self-published author? I wrote a cartoon strip once that ran for a few years.
SMG: Spokesperson for Maybelline and role-model to thousands of teenage girls!
AtG: Defeater of King Darius and conquerer of the Persian Empire!
KAA: Peace-broker in Lebanon, Nigeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina!
I made three short films in college... and I was up for one of them Bloggies the BBC were talking about.
SMG: I'm Buffy The Vampire Slayer!
AtG: I am Ozymandias, ruler of the known world!
KAA: I am Kofi Annan, seventh Secretary-General to the United Nations!
Oh I knew this would just turn into an ego-maniacal pissing match... maybe its time to go to our satellite link... Chris?
...Chris?
A steak dinner
I have memories that are not my own.
My mother always did her best for me, even if there wasn't always enough to go around. It never occured to me that she might be doing it at the expense of her own health. Every Sunday night she'd cook me a steak, a very thin and somewhat chewy steak, but it was proein and just what a growing boy needed to start his weeks off.
One Sunday thought I went back into the kitchen while she thought I was watching TV and saw her soaking up the juices from the frying pan into some soft white bread, making the most of the remains. That was the day I understood what sacrifice was and the strongest bonds were always going to be within the family.
I have memories that are not my own, I think those are Lee Iacocca's, in fact I'm pretty sure. I read his autobiography when I was eleven or twelve and my mind assimilated the scene without it ever actually being relevant to my life (so you can stop writing that e-mail right now Mum)
Lee Iacocca, the son of Italian immigrants studied his way up from nothing to become a student engineer on the production lines at Ford. He eventually made his way into management and was the driving force behind the production of the Mustang even against Henry Ford II's wishes (and for that I am eternally grateful cause I will inherit my mother's '67 one of these days) and when fired over personal differences turned Chrysler around and saved something like 600,000 jobs in the long run, taking it back from the brink.
"...it's amazing how in a free society you can become as great as you want to be." -Lee Iacocca
Techno bunnies
So the deal was that first we would install my new 60Gb hard disk to compliment the 30Gb (full) disk already in my machine, and then we would switch Pix's motherboard for the new one.
There's nothing actually wrong with the old one other than the fan has taken to chanting like a mumbling Buddhist monk. Mmmmumumnmumumnumumbmunmmiumumumm... etc ad nauseum. So we strip the case from my machine and try and work out jumper setting to turn the new disk into a slave to the primary (whoa! geek-fu right over my head, okay, here's a pink fluffy bunny rabbit to take your mind off the nasty techno lingo)
Jumper clips were designed by the demons of computer manufacturing. No really, they were. In fact there are warehouses that employ ten-year old children to wedge them down over the pins and ensure that anyone with even the most lanky fingers cannot get any kind of purchase on the edges without deadenning at least a dozen nerves.
With the hard-disk installed and tripling my disk space (after we doubled the amount of memory a week ago... damn I love Pix) it was the turn of her machine. We stripped the case off and I removed all the cards and memory chips and we were about to switch out the motherboard when Pix says "Why don't we just switch the fans?"
Duh.
It was as I was closing the case up again that I thought I saw movement from a corner... I peered in further and sure enough a tiny procession of little dust bunnies were making their way out from under the mother board and inspecting the newly installed fan. They gave it a good once over and then surrounded it in a tiny circle, two rows deep, bending down they then began this slow low chanting sound...
"Mmmmumumnmumumnumumbmunmmiumumumm..."
Suicide is painless
So to help get rid of this cold, Pix suggested euthanasia. Uh... okay. Seems a bit extreme, but the way I'm feeling right now I was okay with it. So she gave me two little pills, and that was that. Well, at least the cold doesn't get the better of me this way.
"Take them after food," she said "it says so in the instructions."
Righto, painless assisted-death after a final meal, seems to make sense to me. So I took the two pills. And then I took another two after dinner last night. And lunch.
Um...
What are these again? I asked.
"Echinacea."
Damn.
The Great Escape
So I said I'd explain what the significance of The Great Escape was and why it was so special that my mother bought it for me on DVD for my birthday. Many years ago, the first time I ever saw it was one 26th of December, my mother had gone to see her father in hospital and the rest of us, sister and step-father, stayed home.
Christ, they've got half the Magnificent Seven locked up in here... and there's Detective Bullitt, the other man from U.N.C.L..E., Jim Rockford, Blofeld, and isn't that Q as the tailor? Those Nazis don't stand a chance! (you have to realise I was very young at the time but already I had a replete cinema lexicon to work from)
All very stiff upper lip, tally-ho, pip-pip and all that bollocks. Drat you rotten Nazis, you've shot down my plane. I won't stand for this, I'm going to make some very weak tea and plot your downfall while pretending to draw birds and sing Christmas carols. I hope there's room in the tunnel for Elmer and his orchestra boys.
However, by the time they had escaped and were all waiting for the trains to get them out of Germany, there was a knock at the door, my step-father answered. A police car, one of those Rover's with the orange stripes down the side, was parked outside in the street, and two policemen, quite possibly the first two I ever met, informed my step-dad that my mother had been in a pretty serious car accident.
So I never got to see the end. She was okay after surgery but lost the feeling in a few fingers and hasn't really got back to playing the piano like she used to. For years afterwards, whenever conversations on movies came up (and with me around they invariably do) and we'd get to the older movies like Towering Inferno or Bullitt, The Great Escape and the half-hearted recrimination that I never got to see it all the way through would get an airing.
I guess I'll have to find something else to bitch about now.
Nazi guard shoulders his Schmeiser machinegun and points unsympathetically towards a distant concrete single-storey building with barred windows.
"Cooler"