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.
Meatspace Reboot Required
People do this all the time on blogs, they write about why they're not going to write anymore. They drum up a bit of drama and then get the ego-rush when everyone clamors for them to come back and write some more. And invariably they do. With the occasional exception...
I don't doubt that there are several hundred sites that I would enjoy reading on a daily basis. I don't doubt that among the host of people writing about their quandries and their experiences and their foibles there are genuine gems, almost as assuredly as I know there are thousands of authors I should be reading, like Stephen Fry and Will Self.
I wish I had more time to read Big Pink Cookie and Tampa Tantrum, they're bubbly and vivacious, and they have funny partners I enjoy hearing about, Mike and Todd respectively (Todd quits more often than a smoker with alzheimer's). I wish I could be as involving as Michele's Small Victory or as consistently funny as Davezilla. I don't get to hang out with Susan or Bill (who is really called Susan too), or Geeky, or Jimfo at all anymore. Miguel, you're funnier than you give yourself credit for...
There are many other people I've enjoyed talking to, working with, working for, and fooling around with online like Baz (hope you don't mind me linking you), Melly, Jessica, Jill, Philo & Choire (you guys...), Phineas, Caesar (still one of my favorites after two years), kd, Kymberlie, Joe and of course Statia who was kind enough to let me make a fool of her on her own website with a copy of her login. Twice.
...and not forgetting all the Brit Bloggers I recently befriended and hope to stay in touch with, Mike (the fairy godmother of UK blogs), Vaughan, Gert, Zoe, Pete, Karen, Tim (yeah I know you're not British, shut up), Mark, Stuart, Bobzilla, good ol' Mo Morgan...
I always wanted to be a Greg Knauss, or an Andre Torrez or Dean Allan. But then, when I say "always" what I really mean is in recent memory, and only online. I know already I don't have what it takes to be a Josh or a Riley Dog... and besides, I wanted to be an animator long before I ever saw the Internet.
Consider this me pulling a William Gibson, and by that I don't mean I'm taking him home with me tonight, its not that kinda cyberspace. I just couldn't be bothered faking my own death again.
Anna, I owe you a dollar.
Hiatus
Why no new posts this week? Well because its E3 week, and every spare moment of my time is being spent gleening any information I can about the host of gorgeous games on offer.
I won't bore you with all the details, which is why, no new posts this week. See?
Update: Details like the latest Doom III trailer which was released in the last few hours... that noise was the sound of every hair on my body standing on end.
I see what you are saying
La Nature est un temple ou de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe a travers des forets de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté
Les parfums, les couleurs, et les sons se répondent.
Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
- Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,
Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.
- Charles Baudelaire Correspondances
Sorry, can't write any real content, likely to be a bad week for content, its normally better than this. Yesterday was Gluttony though and I subjected our guests Karen and Pete to a chocolate tasting session (yes Mike, that included the Valerie chocolates which had to have been the best we tasted) in the park, we established that I am not a chocoholic, but rather a sugar-addict.
A Walk In The Park
In keeping with Lust Day, despite it coming to a very real close very soon here in the UK (Gluttony tomorrow though so stock up) it's somewhat ironic that the remake of Great Expectations be on one of the movie channels. I can't begin to go on about how wonderful the movie looks, how credible the performances are and just how satisfying the whole thing is.
Suffice to say, make it a long term objective from this week of sin to kiss someone passionately in the rain. You'll enjoy it, I promise you.
Have I Got Lust For You!
Oooo, I'm all covered in goose flesh just thinking about Charlotte Church on last night's Have I Got News For You. There she was, a seventeen year old millionaire with the body of a venus, the voice of an angel, presenting a political satire show. The only way it could have been any better would have been if Nigella Lawson (who also held her own on the show) had stomped onto the stage and given her a good long snog... with tongues.
Ooooo...
I'm sinning with Lust and loving it...
Charlotte's previous appearance on the show was pretty good, she stood up for herself and came off as witty, world-savvy and fun, I just wish I could find a picture of her from last night's show... she was absolutely stunning, and managed to be spontaneous against those quick-witted wags Merton and Hislop. I really though I was going to burst when she reported that some of our enemies from the latest Gulf War were hiding in France, not least of whom was Jacques Chirac.
They've got to keep her on full time... they've got to... and maybe if she and Mark Llamar could co-host Buzzcocks as well... heaven... I'd be in heaven.
My Girlfriend is a Dick
Today's sin... Lust away Zoe. I'm going back to bed...
Two things though, Cthulhu did put in an appearance yesterday, he's sat atop my monitor. Also, don't forget about the Mayday Project today, maybe I'll post Pix's entries as she's already done "waking up with dog breath and furballs"
Anna's emulating a dwarf cause its her birthday, so Happy Birthday Anna!
Glyph
At least one morning every week now Pix and I walk to Euston station in the sunshine. The rest of the time it is overcast or raining.
One morning out of every week the sun is shining as we walk along Hampstead road and turn into Cardington street the sun is shining against the windows of the hotel that faces towards the outer wall of Euston station.
The sunshine projects down at a perfect angle, reflecting against the strange warped glass of the hotel windows, filtering through the trees that line Cardington and for a few minutes on those sunny mornings strange symbols are projected onto the walls of Euston station... and I fear that Cthulhu himself will be summoned forther and go on a rampage through London destroying the minds of mortal men and altering the fabric of reality as we know it.
Which would be a pretty sucky thing to happen on a sunny morning on your way to work, eh?
Seven Sins: Stupidity
I had to leave the worst possible sin to the end of the working week, since I doubt anyone will come back over the weekend. (People, its sunny, you're not at work, go out and enjoy the summer!)
I can tollerate gluttony, sloth, wrath, lust, greed, any of the seven deadly sins... but I can't stand the worst of the bunch: Stupidity.
You know the ones I'm talking about. They double click on hyperlinks. They smear their fingers on your screen and say "wow, look at that, a flashing banner", or "what does right click do?" They're not contained solely to the technology workplace though. There's the guy who steps off the escalator in front of you and stop deads because his peanut-sized brain can't comprehend that he has to become bipedly mobile once more. So...
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it is to fight back against the stupidity. Educate these people. Be clever, be smart, be funny, be friendly, don't be rude about it, but educate them. Together we can raise the collective IQ and fight ignorance and stupidity...
Alternatively Anna has invented a dwarf for you.
Seven Sins: Sloth
Oh man... its almost three in the afternoon and I so cannot be bothered writing anything or doing anything. I guess that makes today's sin Sloth. It's almost the weekend...
Your challenge... feh, I can't be bothered. Take a break... enjoy your day, be lazy. Maybe Anna has a dwarf for you, maybe she doesn't, maybe she's being a sloth too, I can't be arsed to check...
Go see what I did for Gawker, and if you're coming here from Gawker, this was the Sin of the Day
The Geek Shall Inherit
We gamers and geeks owe a massive debt of gratitude to The Matrix for changing people's perceptions. Never before have pasty-faced coders and game junkies been in a better position to exploit the cool that permeates even just the fringes of The Matrix.
I may be sitting here perfectly still, typing at an incredible pace, clicking on icons and cursing at screens full of incomprehensible code, but my online avatar is actually kicking seven shades of shit out of yours. I'm talking to people on three different continents in three languages, 0|\|3 0PH +he|\/| 15|\|'T 3\/3|\| 4 R34l l4|\|9U49e. This page of code? This ftp program UI you see? I'm hacking the Pentagon.
But one thing I would just like to clear up... just one cause, y'know it is a slight concern to me when people like us are presented to the world for mass consumption is that we do not whoop, clap our hands and dance around with glasses of wine while building hydra 128-bit encrypted Trojans. That's misrepresentation and I want compensation.
And my real name... is Deimos {puts on mirrored shades, pulls coat around himself and speeds off up into the sky...}
Update: Kerist! Those Wachowski brothers sure don't pull any punches when it comes to brutal storytelling. The Second Renaissance, Part 2 now available online. Don't watch it while eating, it has pretty graphic scenes of man fighting the machines
Pride: Day's Results
I didn't have to do anything or wait long. Pix won the photo competition she entered last week, cash prize and all. I'm so proud of her I can't stop smiling.
Seven Sins: Pride
The bodycount yesterday seemed to be minimal, I didn't see anything on the news about rampaging office workers across the globe all being linked back to an online call to arms. My stocks in office stationery did go up though so I have to thank you all for that.
Today's task, dead easy one, couldn't be easier: Sin with Pride. Write about what you're most proud of, let the people who missed out on Envy have something to be envious of and get Angry about. Your wife? Your job? Your kids and your car? Your feet up on the table and a cuban cigar?
What achievements define you and act as a source of pride for you?
If you need something a little more difficult then pick some silly little object and clutch it to your chest for the day, telling everyone who cares to get within earshot how proud you are of it. Obviously bel's going to have trouble doing that with her new website.
Too modest for words? Anna's got a dwarf for you.
Anger: Day's Results
Casualty List So Far:
- 1 Staedler eraser, torn to shreds
- 3 wood/graphite pencils, snapped like twigs
- 2 HTML templates, broken beyond the point of deserving repair
- 6 documents scrunched up and shredded by hand
- 1 server crashed on purpose by wreckless access requests
- 1 Post-its pad kicked across the office
- 1 telephone shouted at because the idiot at the other end of the line didn't spend the sizeable amount of cash he was supposed to in the correct manner or in the alloted amount of time
- 1 promise, broken
And I'm still working on the Primal Scream...
Update: Well the people of London are safe, I didn't go all Charles Whitman on them, but only because the bolt on my Mannlicher Carcano jammed.
Pyromanical Laughter
Lead a man to fire and he'll be warm until it burns out. Douse him in gasoline and toss a match and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Seven Sins: Anger
Grrr! I curse you all! I can feel the rage building up in me! All that attention and "oo, I'll be doing that!" and yesterday what happens? You can't even fulfill a simple task of covetting?! That just makes...me... maaaad!!!!!
Right. Today's task? Break stuff. Take all that suppressed rage and focus it on the inanimate objects that are lying around. Stuff you don't care about. That pencil? Snap it in half. That document? Rip it up. That guy who annoys you? Break his fingers... even if he isn't inanimate.
If you've got a private minute to yourself let out a Primal Scream, you'll feel so much better. become anger... mimic Mr Furious, let out all that anger and rage, and write about it.
Or if you're just a meek coward who refuses to break stuff and scream, Anna has a dwarf task for you.
Envy: Day's Results
So it got to be quite ridiculous as I tried to find something to covet today, I hadn't realised it would be such a difficult task. Eventually I had to pester Pix as we sat waiting for our lunch order.
D: "That's a nice scrunchy"
Pix: "thanks"
D: "I'm really jealous of that scrunchy, I wish I had one"
I felt like Jake and Elwood asking the rich diner to sell them his children.
Pix: "What do you need a scrunchy for?"
D: "To tie up my hair if it ever got longer"
Pix: "Don't be silly"
D: "No really, give me the scrunchy. What do I have to do for it?"
Pix: "Get down on your hands and knees and yap like Reese Witherspoon's dog in Legally Blonde"
So I did. On the floor of the café.
D: "Yap, yap, yap!"
Pix: "You didn't get down on all fours, you just put your hands down beside your knees"
D: "That wasn't a condition, you just said hands and knees. You never said anything about assuming a doggy position"
Pix: "Well I'm not giving you the scrunchy anyway, my hair's a mess and I need it"
So I pestered her continuously about it until finally she relented and gave it to me, at which point I discovered that having spent so long fixating on it and wanting it, only to now possess it, that it was pointless me owning a scrunchy.
I've learned my lesson. Envy is useless, necessity is better. Now I have to buy her a new scrunchy cause she doesn't want the old one back.
Seven Sins: Envy
I figure I ought to be a good host for this, I just took the Dante's Inferno Test and was banished to the seventh level. I'm not that violent though... no really. If you don't believe me then feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments... where I will tear through the soft pulpy greymatter of your brain with my bare hands and tear out your brainstem through your eyesockets... *ahem*
From what I've seen you all pretty much consider yourself to be pretty hardcore sinners "Oh I sin seven sins every day", "oh I'll have to start on the Ten Commandments just to make an effect" well people I doubt you consciously go out thinking "I'm gonna sin till I can't sin no more" and thats what this is all about.
Some people wanted Sloth because its a Bank Holiday in the UK, others wanted Lust because they've just been reunited over long distances (you need me to tell you what to do? Go shag you morons, get out of here), but I want a simple, easy task to kick this thing off.
Your mission should you choose to accept it: you are to fixate on an object that someone else owns that you do not, be it in your workplace, in the street, in your house, something you wish you had. Mention it a few times, point out how cool it is and how you've always wanted one, and finally ask for it outright.
Envy is about possessions, what others have and you do not. If the person readily gives you the item then give it back, it wasn't the right one, find another. The point of the exercise is to spend part of your day consciously envious of someone for something they possess that they won't give you and to write about your attempts to obtain said object. Me, I plan on trying to get myself a new watch today, maybe a Rolex or something, I've always wanted one.
Alternatively if you can't work yourself up to demanding that your boss hand over his Mont Blanc fountainpen, Anna will have a dwarf task set for you later today.
(this will remain the top post, new content will appear below this for the rest of the day)
Pun Wars
May the fourth be with you.
The Matrix Unloaded
I may have mentioned it before, I'm not sure, but I have a terrible memory for numbers (and whether I've told people or not). I can only remember my PIN numbers by assigning special dates or meanings to them and I can't remember any phone number longer than six digits.
In the town I grew up in we only had to worry about remembering a four digit number. None of this area code crap. My mobile number is ten digits... no... eleven, I only remember it by visualising typing it out on a number pad (dah dada dah dah... dah dadadadada) and fortunately the first four of my home number are the eponymous London 0207 which just means that I can say with utter confidence "oh sure, its 0207... uh... give me a second here... uh..." before giving my mobile number instead. This is handy because it means I can ignore the home phone when it rings, secure in the knowledge it can't possibly be for me.
(Get to the point!)
Right, yes, the point. So my memory for numbers is shit, but when it comes to sounds or pieces of music my synapses fire up like christmas tree lights.
"oh, that's the door sound from Doom", or "that pressure release noise comes from Aliens"
So it has been something of an annoyance to me that recently EVERY SINGLE MOVIE TRAILER THESE DAYS USES E. S. POSTHUMUS!!! I first heard of them by reading Goobita months and months ago, I recognised who she was talking about and checked them out. Great album, wonderful music, you've probably already heard 90% of it.
We went to see X2 earlier today and before the movie they showed the Matrix Reloaded trailer (when do we get Kill Bill? When?!) I sat there muttering...
"Andy Hunter's The Wonders of You. Overseer's Supermoves, taken from Snatch. Rob Dougan's I'm Not Driving Anymore taken from Driven. And finally Don Davis' Trinity Infinity from The Matrix score..."
My biggest problem with this trailer is that now anytime I hear any of these tracks on my Minidiscman I want to get into a fight with the unsuspecting people of London.
The Friday Five
1. What kind of clothes do you look your best in?
I like to be casual. Smart isn't my style. I was once told however that I would only look good in a binbag.
2. Star Trek Original, or Next Generation?
I love the kitch factor of TOS, and I hate Will Wheaton... as Wesley Crusher (I'm sure he's a very nice man in person... GIVE ME BACK MY BLOGGIE!) and anything is better than Voyager.
3. Have you ever done drugs?
I'd rather not say. But I will tell you that I could never smoke crack. I could never do a drug named after a part of my own ass.
4. Cats or dogs?
Where?
5. Is this the real Friday Five or did you make all this up yourself?
She made me do it! At least my answers make more sense than Miguel's!
Sinnerman
Starting from Monday I'm going to attempt to harness the power of the Internet for my own nefarious purposes (since I'm now bored of being number two and three for Britney Spears Sex)
I have a real dislike for the religious zealots who still refuse to believe scientifically proven facts (they're dinosaur bones! This isn't some sort of palaentologist conspiracy! there really were other creatures on the planet before man!) or who quote scripture and verse but can't explain what the animals ate on the Ark or why strawberries have seeds on the outside in deference to God's command in Genesis.
Before I go any further can I just state that there is a massive difference between faith and organised religion. Faith is something natural and human. Organised religion seems to have been the driving force behind mankind's desire to destroy itself over the past couple of millenia.
So, starting from next Monday (5th of May) I propose that we collectively sin. A different sin each day of the week. And after you have sinned you can confess it on your site, either immediately absolving yourself or fataly condemning yourself. I'll pick a sin each day, suggest some ways in which you could commit it, but ultimately it's an open-ended proposition.
On the flipside, for those of you who want to commit some of the fun sins but perhaps don't want to be a glutton, or lust after someone you shouldn't then the wonderfully talented Anna of Little.Red.Boat will set alternative tasks involving those other seven abominations: the dwarfs! Who knows, you may wish to write about both, some people do nothing but Friday Fives and This or That Tuesdays...
If you'd like to spread the word so everyone starts off on the same foot then you're free to copy the image below and link back to this post. But be sure to come back on Monday, we've got some collective sinning to do!
Acerbia and Little.Red.Boat cannot be held responsible for any sneezing fits, grumpy feelings, anger mismanagement or gorging binges that may be brought about by this project, you're grown adults and you should know what you're doing is wrong... and get a deep-rooted sense of satisfaction out of it
Kurtz
I watched a penny spider as he ran across the pages of a folder my colleague carried and pointed him out as he ran along the paper's razor edge. She put her fingernail down and blocked his prgress only for him to turn and run back along the edge the way he had come, I'd assume because it was a path he was familiar with.
Once at the opposite corner I blocked his progress again and he turned and ran back once more. It wasn't until we'd seen him go bach and forth several times that I realised how alike a child caught between uncaring divorced parents it was. The adults amusing themselves at bouncing the little creature back and forth... shirking responsability.
So I stopped it and put him on the ground where he could go and find something to eat. Perhaps he was eaten by a bird or crushed underfoot seconds later, but I felt better about not using it for my own entertainment. And there's always the chance that he met up with his girlfriend spider and they had lots of kids and then they devoured him.
Blogiversary II
Today is my two year blogiversary. Funny... I don't feel any older.
I started out writing about the May Day protests (they don't count as riots) since I was working not far from Oxford Circus at the time and things got silly from there.
My hero at the time was and remains Greg Knauss, he shaped what I wanted my sites to become: a daily source of at least one good laugh. Eventually Pix had enough of me writing on her site and revoked my login, so I set up Bulletproof Punk. 666 entries later and upon hearing there was a movie in production I shut it down by faking my own death and let the URL lapse.
Acerbia was born a month later.
So as a blogger I've been doing this for two years. I spent four or five months with this site emulating EOD, some of you may remember that design... and this latest one is nice and clean and easy to update so I figure I'll be keeping it for a while.
Audience has increased from Pix and my mother to... Pix, my mother and my sister. A full on 50% increase in traffic. Not bad eh?