samantha - tellybugs
sheila - dungeons and dragons
penny - inspector gadget
juliette - dogtanian and the three muskehounds
lucy - the raggy dolls
shirley - tiny toon adventures
glimmer - she ra

i used to totally go for cartoon chicks, hence the extensive list. samantha was my first love and perhaps the reason i love robots so much. she was actually a "hi-tech monitor and tracking device". incidentaly, the fourth telebug (zudo - zero failure universal data optimiser) was cooler and eviler than fuck. sheila was just beyond hot, i have no idea why. the reason i liked penny is obvious. she was the original cool geek. and she had the sexiest voice. juliette, she was just too cute and she was a total fox. but beyond that my memory of her is a bit hazy. i reckon lucy was just well nice. i liked how she fell apart when she got too excited. haha. as for shirley, she was into tofu and such things. now-a-days i'd probably go for fifi la fume instead, obviously. i also want to give a shout out to polly-ester (aka pururon), one of the samurai pizza cats (which no one seems to remember). i guess i'd grown up too much by the time that show came out, damn.

surprisingly, i was never really into cheetara. if anyone i would have gone for willykit. she was totally crazy. queen willa was a bit nice, but that whole amazonian thing? that totally isn't me. if i was still digging cartoon girls i'd be well into raven from teen titans by now. she rocks eight bells. and who is my favourite power puff girl? fuck off.

i totally loved the dreamstone. this also reminds me of a short magazine/comic series that i wish i could remember remember the name of. the girl in that was a total babe as well. the first issue came with glitter than you could glue onto all the pages where there was magic stuff going on. that sounds awful doesn't it? but it was wicked.

oh, and while i'm on a total nostalgia cartoon rediscovery trip. starfleet you fuckers. that was some dark shit. also jayce and the wheeled warriors and pole position were almost as awesome.

02.09.04: so i'm plugging this event:

i'm thinking about going. anyone wanna come with me? well whatever. you can get tickets two for one from hedonizm on trafalgar street. so there's no need to be lame about it costing ten quid.

check the doomsday clock though, it's like the watchmen all over again.

02.09.04: does this sound like me? answers on a fucking e-postcard, please.

Amusing and engaging you can capture an audience with your compelling banter. You love to make others smile and are always trying to cheer your friends up if they are down. You look on the bright side of everything and have a passionate and warm nature.

You’re a giver and a healer of the human spirit. You may have a talent for writing and be able to capture the answers to human sadness

You always seem to be helping others out with their love life and are rarely off the phone giving advice. Your own love life is sometimes on the back burner and a loving soul like you deserve the best partner. Why not try a Libran also ruled by your birth ruler Venus planet of love

at least it's a little nicer what the color quiz said about me.

for a start, i don't exactly look on the bright side of anything. my compelling banter isn't so compelling - it doesn't leave space for people's thoughts (no i can't believe i actually quoted that either, i'm so sorry, i am truly an asshole). i hate talking on the stupid phone. i also hate librarians.

so i totally forgot to mention that we saw the motorcycle diaries on sunday. it was actually just like the book, so success all round. i've been stumped as to what to say when asked if it's any good. i enjoyed it a lot. but like the book, i can't really say what happened as such. it's almost documentary, but with a bit of character and charm. criticisms? i was sometimes frustrated at how little scenery is captured (partly because i relate to trying), but this isn't really a problem. some more sweeps through machu picchu would have been nice though.

01.09.04: september? are you fucking joking. this month is about to get crazy though. the moving house situation is a fucker, really.

spannerworks newsletter is out. i insisted on using a new colour this month. sharon fruit orange rokka.

last night all i did was play too much connect4. i love this game with a passion. honestly, i do.

more ipod related whinges, except this time it's really id3 whinges. wouldn't it make sense if you could have more than one entry for each field? some songs are by two artists, or fit into several genres, or are on several albums. and i hate the composer field you get in id3v2. who the fuck fills that out and populates my music collection with clutter? sheesh. i do love my id3 tag editor though. after i worked out how to use it without fucking everything up it's immensely quick and useful. especially for sorting out your genres. rock and roll (no really).

i especially like the ipod music quiz game though. it's fun but pointless. like most things really.

31.08.04: introducing - the spannerworks fish

which i feed, you know?

so i spend my bank holiday monday in london doing the rounds. i met up with corey to check out his pad (well, waylan's pad). it was all very pleasant and i now have a new milkill tshirt. i'll sort out a photo at some point i'm sure. after this i began an epic mission to meet up with tom and laks. had it not been the nottinghill carnival, and had they not been right in the fucking middle of said carnival, this would have been easy. but no. after a quick game of sardines on the tube (i say quick, it was exceptionally long) i arrived in nottinghill. the only expriences i have of things like this are glastonbury and protests, of which is was verging more to the later. i was on my own and really on edge. there were lines and lines of police. screaming people. helicopters. the streets were full of smoke. there was rubbish everywhere. sound systems frightening off all the rodents (and probably uprooting a few trees). you couldn't see or hear anything properly. it was horrible. the street i needed to go down was blocked so i took a parallel street. to get to that street i had to take another detour because the road to it was too full. then i needed to cross a road but the police wouldn't let me. i went the long way round. half an hour later and i'm using maps at the bus stops and whatever laks shouts at me down the phone (between "i can't hear you"'s) to navigate. you can only see one block away and it sounds like machine gun fire. when i eventually arrive at the crossroads they're at it's chaos, rammed. lak's new directions just made me laugh (and the woman next to me). i'd fought my way this far and it had taken me at least an hour, i wasn't giving up. so i ploughed on and found them. hurrah. we wandered about and got some beers and generally had a more easy-going time. it was actually quite cool. dancing about the streets, etc. then when we were tired we went for noodles at fujiyama in brixton. i drank too much jasmine tea. it was good food.

the journey home was ipod indulgent joy. i have now mastered operating it through my jeans. but a few criticisms. firstly, i want different clicks or beeps depending on what action i do. if i play/pause or skip track i want to know which i've done, it's easy to do it wrong (through jeans as least, come on). secondly, with my old sony player you got more bass for your money. i havn't actually tried the ipod headphones yet (i suppose i should) because i thought my old headphones were great. maybe the ipod is somehow optimised for their own. who knows. better eq options would be nice. it would also be cool if it could be used as a digivice, but nevermind.

this is genius. albums that go insane in vibribbon. i used to have my own list that was pretty similar. 'pyramid song' is just stupid. i used to play it to aphex twin though. i was harder than you. "trust me it's the best game ever", never truer words spoke.

29.08.04: laurence basks love in new ipod, a series:

jukebox rox plus plus. i cleary have far too many toys.

i had such a cheap night on friday. when we arrived at the fortune of war they were giving out free drinks (some awful bacardi promotion) which everyone hated. so i didn't have to buy a single drink the whole time we were there. and then after that, when you are in the funky fish, pernod is only a pound. bargains all around us. of course it wasn't quite so much fun because we'd been so recently. i would have killed for something a bit more hardcore. i think i need to dance to some aggressive music. gr.

on saturday i had the best chocolate and orange cookie ever. ever. and nearly spent vast cash in nasty nip. there's too much i want in that shop, it's dangerous. i don't really need telling i don't need an 8" acid qee, but keep telling me anyway. so after all this shopping (popbot6, ojo) and a bagel, which was also very beautiful, i went with harry to the ali cats. this was kinda fun. it was some dudes birthday and there was cake. there was plenty of chatting but i was finding it hard. i'm guessing i was tired or something.

there are things i want to say. but arn't.

if anyone wants a gmail account - i am your man. email me.

26.08.04: fresh ipod smell so good.

i was in a shitty mood yesterday. this was for many (a few) little (big) reasons - of which my ipod was a minor one, despite me using it as the main excuse. so i apologise for being an asshole to everyone i spoke to yesterday. whether you noticed it or not, i was at least trying to piss you off.

i have this dream that keeps popping into my head. it's from years ago, i must have been six or something. and i have no idea whay i keep thinking of it. you remember how you used to be able to get those jellies in plastic molds with foil down the back? i dreamt i was one of those. i was a jelly sad sack from the raggydolls (yeah, but lucy was a babe though. wasn't she just?). i was really hungry and walking about town looking for food, to no avail. in the end i ate my own thumb. i thought "hey, it'll grow back". but then after it had gone i began to doubt it would ever grow back at all. i was very troubled.

tidus and yuna uber-celestial weapons abound. now we are in business. this is the kind of shit that happens when you have no friends.

and sleater kinney were taking the piss when they wrote 'prisstina'. perhaps you have to hear it to fully understand.

25.08.04: at five past nine (gmt) last night my ipod arrived in the netherlands (eindhoven, to be exact). then at half six this morning it had reached croydon. eighty minutes later and it was 'out for delivery'. does that mean it could be waiting for me when i return home?

does it? does it?

'motorcycle diaries' opens this week at the duke of yorks, i really want to see it but i'm worried it'll be nothing like what i'm hoping. i want big sweeping scenery of south america. and i want the whole che guevara thing not laid on really thick. i only actually finished reading the book quite recently. i enjoyed it over a good nine or ten months. it's quite easy to pick up and read every now and again. a good toilet book. or a good train book. even a good once-a-week lunchtime book. it's very undemanding like that. how it'll scrape into a 'plot' is my only concern. also, on bank holiday monday casshern is playing as part of the frightfest film festival in london. i need to decide if i'm going, it'll cost me about £20 though (including train). too much? i'd make a day of it but it's a bank holiday innit? there is also that jo nearly saw it at her film festival in switzerland. i would probably get some sick satisfaction in seeing it before her. i can be a bastard like that. it was her own fault she missed it anyway, so i have no sympathy.

more films, we watched 'noi albnoi' again last night (me and the aimee). i had forgotten how funny and sad it was. it's now rooted in the list of films i definately really like and could easily watch any number of times. so there.

all my girls are deserting me..

24.08.04: woot me on my tax rebate. two bonii in a row. let's have a party (it's been so long since we've had a party). let's go on holiday again. let's buy another ipod (then they can have ipod sex, innit?).

any girls want taking out to dinner? just ask..

it's raining like a bastard outside. and bastards rain like this.

fascists are the only real trendsetters.

so yesterday i had my first ever reiki session. this was a lot of fun. i even managed not to giggle the whole time, despite my stomach happily gurgling away (although nothing comparable to jo's boisterous belly). but it was well good, rifa has the skills. she makes a good cuppa too. it's hard to write anything because i know she's going to read this.

respect the link text.

i need to go haoum now.

23.08.04: i did very little all weekend. i went into town for the first time in ages. i read some. i played some. i watched some bits of some films. i did some experimental cooking resulting in a 'meal'. briefly hung out in preston park (oh how i miss it). but it was all very neither here nor there really.

friday night was (girl) robin's leaving party. i'm sure i had something to say about this, but my mind is a blank. actually it was the first house party i've been to where i arrived on my own. i hadn't even thought about that until robin mentioned it. i did get a proper glass though (rather than a plastic cup), which was nice. even if i did manage to dis it, i loved it really.

here is some fantastic sigur ros trivia (if i ever start the friday quiz again, be warned). so my favourite is "all sketches on ágætis byrjun were done with a bic ballpoint pen". you know my love of the biro.

damn, these qee's are cool.

and while being dumb and searching for www i found the iraq body count site. eep.

also, i'm listening to the new prodigy album and it just sounds like alec empire. haha. well, sort of. he's been listening to too much peaches. and these beats get boring really quickly. maybe it will grow on me. maybe all the songs don't sound the same. and i was the only person who actually liked 'babys got a temper'.

20.08.04: i have to comment on last nights clouds, but don't know how or where to begin. "tonight matthew, my clouds are going to be my mountains". but that's exactly what it was like. they were so bright against the night and they met the built-up horizon in every direction. they reached up into the middle of the sky, stretching up impossibly high, curving in to totally encapsulate. like a valley seen through a fisheye lens. in the distance, rising up behind hollingdean we have mount pileus. where we should be meeting the ocean is the nimbostratus mountain range. we have gone back into the valley. and when you stop walking you suddenly realised how low they are, and how fast they're travelling. it's verging on epic. i swear.

and so i eventually watched 'central station', thanks to aimee's reluctance to go to the music quiz. after the first fifteen minutes i'd decided i loved it already. the start is so good. there's such a good combination of comedy and sorrow. the people you meet at the station are really interesting and all character. i think it may have lost a bit of it's spark during the middle of the film, but by the end it was all good again. hurray for happy sad endings. there were so many subtle bits of nice filming as well. the only thing i didn't like is the translation of the tongue twisters. not as bad as the 'la haine' translation of 'asterix' into 'snoopy', but still, would it really hurt to do a direct translation?

anyway, i'm feeling a bit uncomfortable. might move about a little bit.

19.08.04: this morning i woke up with a fucking sly headache. this hasn't happened to me for a while. nor has getting cramp in my calves, which also happened this morning. both of them. what is going on? along with hardcore storms and death outside my window, this week i've had a spate of extreme dreams. these featuring all of the obvious people (person - despite my insistence that it's over), but also featuring a few unexpected appearances. please just let me sleep in peace. the intensity has gone, but the longing is still there. anymore, i'm just sentimental about it, and in dreams her face is as vivid as ever. also, i featured in jon's dream about a bee being stuck in his ear.

maybe hannah jameson has been putting herself out a bit. next time i see her she is fucking dead.

last night we trekked out in the rain to see 'chris t-t' play upstairs at the fringe. this was totally worth it as we saw four bands/acts play for a measley quid. next time i will definately donate more money. it was one of the better 'geezer with a guitar' nights i've been to. chris t-t is cool, no matter how much rifa goes on about him/them (ducks). also some women whose name i've tragically forgotten. although clearly, she didn't sound like "what was that women from belly? tanya donelly was it? yeah her". i chose not to comment. i think she sounded more like the women from 'the sundays', but now i'm just as bad. about the fringe bar, the other thing i love is the balcony. and how it lies all lit up.

and other things about venice. ephel duath had played a gig there a number of weeks before we arrived. can you imagine how awesome seeing ephel duath in venice would have been? the posters advertising the gig were beautiful and malicious, equally.

18.08.04: my ipod has shipped within the last hour. thank you, klaudia. awaitness.

did you notice it's a little breezier in here today? yesterday i partook in some spring cleaning (late, i know). the rather over-zelous size and quantity of new holiday photos meant i was really pushing the boundaries of my webspace quota. at some point i will need to pick up and leave for domains new. but i'll lose all my hard work, as i doubt demon will ever do me the courtesy of 301ing the domain, nevermind 301ing every file. so squashing and rearranging it is. the old and rather content-less regress website is now stationed over at geocities (i'd remove it completely but i still like some of the photos). i also busted a few renegade psp browser files that were (rather embarressingly) littering all over my directories.

also i thought of a quote. or rather, one found me. it isn't what i thought i was looking for, but that song will tear your fucking heart right out.

and the bottom of the tank is all muddied with a thousand lonely sea monkey carcasses. and a dark wind blows.

17.08.04: the last two nights i've been to bed really early (like, before half ten). however i am still tired. i even actually slept okay last night. the night before i was less fortunate. i woke up around half three with something dying in the garden that really wanted me to know about it. i couldn't even begin to guess at what kind of animal it was. a cat? a bird? a frog? any of those. it squealed and cried for half an hour. it was about all i could stand. if i'd had a doll i would combed its head right off. and just when you think it has stopped..

perhaps it was just trying to warn me.

everything is broken. everything. my computer is broken. my internet connection is broken. my hard drive is broken. my mp3 player is broken. my hat is broken. my leg is broken. and the rest. but worst of all, my mathmos tumbler is broken. i am so upset. i havn't given up hope yet, but let's be honest, it's proper broked. everything is broked.

finally, thanks for all the nice comments about my holiday diary. i know i always grimace and act like i fucking hate your compliments, but i love it really. come on, who doesn't? you have to act weird when someone admits to reading your site. it's obligatory, i don't know why.

16.08.04: i am always trying to think of ways to explain and justify the existence of my website to you all. the 'why'. because there should be a reason for this much self-indulgence. a while ago i quoted douglas coupland's 'life after god', now i give you chuck:

"we used to go to church to reveal the worst aspect of ourselves, our sins. to tell our stories. to be recognized. to be forgiven. and to be redeemed, accepted back into our community. this ritual was our way to stay connected to people, and to resolve our anxiety before it could take us so far from humanity that we would be lost."
chuck palahniuk - non fiction

hungry world must eat less meat. i've been saying this for ages. the environmental reasons to be vegetarian are the only ones that will ever stand up in an argument. the amount of food that is fed to livestock could feed the world fifteen times over (i forget the reference, sorry). how can you argue with that?

15.08.04: it's that shitty time on sunday again. 'teardrop' starts playing, you wish you'd caught more sleep and you wish you weren't suddenly all alone again quite so quickly. you also wish you could compete with everyone else's awesomes of the world.

i mean't a lot by that. anyway, friday night was brilliant. after a crazy fiasco (that i little understand and will comment on less) me, cally and aimee ended up going to the funkyfish - for drinking and dancing. a lot of dancing, infact almost enough dancing to make up for the extreme lack of dancing over the past weeks and months. if you check their website you'll be able to find a photo of us even. three hours later and it was about time to hit the beach. five minutes after this and it was time to go pseudo-skinny dipping. it's dark and all you can see behind you is the wall of black that makes up the beach. infront of you, all you can see is the next wave. the sea is lapping about your knees and the wave is a good two meters tall. i don't know what i was thinking either. you're underwater, upside down and travelling really fast in an unknown direction. also you're drunk. it was the best fun ever.

back on the beach and were passively hassled by some random guy. whatever. and then another guy wouldn't let me in the taxi because i had wet jeans. whatever. i'm eventually home and i find all this shit in my underwear (badge excluded). whatever.

all those stones. i can't believe it. i also slept with my hair wrapped in a towel. this was followed by dave's diner for breakfast and a drive up to london to hang out with those guys. nicola's birthday barbecue in the park, featuring everyone. this was a whole lot of fun. james's pizza and burgers. walking around barefoot. hackysack and poi. laurence spent a lot of the time moping about, but whatever. there are few better ways to spent an evening than in the park with all your friends. as it went on the sky turned the most perfect pink. and then this:

we started a little fire. danced around it naked (no, not really) and eventually headed back to their house, where i promptly fell asleep in bens bed. their house backs onto the railway line, so several times in the night i woke up thinking i was on a train, confused to where the fuck i was heading. we were catching the night train north to escape the heat of southern italy. halfway across siberia and i had missed the waterfalls. back in morocco and the train was now travelling in the opposite direction to when i was last conscious.

i guess what it is, it's just that everyone else has their someone else. and it's a feeling i can't escape from. even when i try my hardest, even when i don't try at all.

14.08.04: so i have boiled down 40 pages of holiday diary into something that i (and possibly i alone) consider fit for human consumption. no monkeys allowed.

it can be read here.

13.8.2004: front page of the sun today - glass war

so people keep asking me about my holiday and i've been pretty much flat out refusing to talk about it. however, now i've finished writing about it i'm willing to chat. i'm still not ready to make my writings live though, not until all of the photos are ready. this is me being a pain, i know, i know. but as a show of good faith here are two photos. the first is the alps from my plane and the second is lugano.

my apologies for the gargantuan file sizes. for a while now i've had my jpeg compression settings on about 10%. does that make me a dirty photophile? yup.

so last night linda invited a number of her ef friends (english first, they drag foreign kids to england to teach them english) over for a party. it was quite cool having a living room full of hardly any english people. and i managed to avoid an almost very nasty conversation about vegetarianism. when some 'chicken in my crips doesn't both me' guy says what really gets him is people eating rabbits (like, how could you eat a rabbit?), and then goes on to say that in the bible (or whatever) pigs have always been classed as lower life, i am ready for violence. instead i turn to comedy, "so what about babe? i'd eat babe and i'm vegetarian". cue what you expected, "oh, you couldn't eat babe". followed by various people discussing how disgusting it is in china that they eat dogs and cats. and some russian girl telling me i'm funny in the weirdest way. i didn't know what to say so i walked out. if you eat meat at least be consistent. the russian girls gave me nice cookies though, so i can't complain.

12.8.2004: confession time. i have bought a beast of an ipod. but it is all worth it, if not just because the woman from apple who phoned me up had the second most amazing accent i've ever heard. and she was as friendly as pie. klaudia, you and your german/irish voice rock.

you heard

it's lame of me to point out but look at me ranking on the first page of google for emo. you see? i am the original emo. i will emo in your holy water. my emo is bigger than your emo. fuck all of you emo's.

holiday diary imminent. hold tight.

11.8.2004: i love this. mobile phone viruses passed around by bluetooth. i see fire brought by the winds of change. a new crop, fresh from the soil.

and while i'm playing the news bunny. i feel compelled to comment on the rapist winning the lottery. what the fuck is wrong with you people? you make this front page news. (okay i just wrote a few more lines and then realised it may be unwise to be saying that kind of thing. i deleted it and wont be starting again).

last night i went to the prince albert, again. i do like that pub though. especially the non-smoking room (ahem). and i'd like to think that i didn't get in the way of aimee hanging with her ex-workmates (the goal of my evening). so i was really happy and glad i went. it was also 'interesting' watching guys chatting up girls. please tell me that that is not what i should be doing. it makes me cringe.

on a positive note, i feel there has been a certain move in my perspective. this isn't from what other people have said (to which i've generally been replying "no no no"), but rather it's been happening and i just didn't notice. i was too busy whining about it to notice anything. so all of a sudden it's gone. barely even replaced. barely even missing it. possibly it wasn't even there to begin with. it was mistaken and labeled badly. of course none of you will believe me, but i can argue this in none cryptic terms. just try me.

'lien' is my favourite prime word.

10.8.2004: just to let you know i'm back in brighton safe and sound. fortunate for everyone else but unfortunate for me. there was a moment..

while on my travels i wrote 39 pages. plus took over a 150 photos. clearly it will take me a while to boil this down. in the mean time you can read this great article about the zapatista caracoles.

and you can be satisfied.

also guerrilla artist banksy has covertly cemented a 20-foot (6-metre) satirical statue protesting at the british legal system into a central London square. how the ..?

4.8.2004: today is my last day in england.

i want that to be as dramatic as i've written it. unfortunately i'll be back (late monday night). i still don't know exactly what i'm going to be doing, so if you see me on the road kill me. although i'm neither that spiritual nor rotund.

i'll be reaching milan at about four tomorrow. heading up to switzerland for a couple of days, then heading back into italy to some unknown destinations. one plan might be to just take the first train headed in a good sounding direction. i've always been excited by places with fun names (i won't mention them). it might be a high speed burn. might just be high speed. maybe just a burn.

also, don't expect presents or postcards. my bag has no room and i'll be seeing you before any post would arrive.

my juice has 247 crushed cranberries in it. and 50 crushed rasberries even. fresh and less than a gram of fat. subway can stick that up their corporate arse.

time for a 'pad thai massacre on western'.

3.8.2004: too much work. too busy. too much sorting out. etc etc. etc. panic panic.

friday was pretty cool though. lunch was spent out on hove lawns. infront of the sea, basking in the sunshine. it was kerry's last day at work (sort of) so a picnic was in order. sandwiches and ginger ale (with tuaca of course). then back at office - champagne.

after this i caught the train up to rugby. this was a rather dull journey and it seems like ages ago. rugby was nice. didn't do much but it was cool. again, i think i spent my time quite well (more hammock etc). and tshirts for my birthday, to think my parents are cool enough to buy me designers republic.

i just need to blab about some (variously) upcoming films. mostly 'ghost in the shell 2'. why had i not heard that there are some trailers knocking about? the best of which is by far the japanese one. just look at those birds. they've gone all out on this one. even if the story is awful it still looks beautiful. it's going to be a good year for japanese manga, don't forget the casshern trailer as well. also, darren aronofsky has been taken on board to direct 'the watchmen' (it was previously terry gilliam). i still think this is a terrible idea but i'll wait and see. more importantly however is that his sci-fi project 'the fountain' is no longer on hold. maybe he'll get to make this movie after all. other bizarre news is spielberg planning on directing a live action transformers movie. that would just be insane.

"assists the return to a more positive outlook when you need comfort and resassurance. provides support at times of emotional demand". fuck off.

30.7.2004: yesterday was okay but largely uneventful. i had a nice lunch in some 'italian' pub garden in hove with rifa, kerry, leeroy and alistair (sometimes you regret starting to write out everyone's names). then after work me and jon met cally (plus work mate) at the 'fortune of war'. sitting outside was lovely. and i tried my hardest to find the girl working there especially attractive. but even if this exercise been a success it would have been vaguely pointless. did you see the glasses she was wearing? did you see that micro-expression? that's not weening or moving on, it's just transferring. and no one deserves that.

i just can't find anyone attractive.

there is a crucial word missing from that sentence, and i'm too self-concious (wrong word) to put it back. but what is it? first correct answer on a e-card to emoware@gmail.com will win a very special prize. all entries (correct or otherwise) will be entered into a prize draw for a less good but also very special gift. failure to recieve any entries will result in me doubling my frequency of using the words 'like', 'really' and 'just' when writing and talking. like really though, just email me already.

really though, i've been missing people quite badly this week. not only has everyone gone miles away, they are all also totally uncontactable. bash. bash bash bash.

everytime i've reread what i'm writing i've added another 'bash' there. what is that about?

so jasper fforde's new book is out. i've heard it's not as good as his previous book, which i never thought was that great anyway (the greatness lies in his first two, although i have trouble convincing most people even of that. they're just not "their kind of thing"). i'll be buying it later today, as i desperately need something to read on the train. i just wish it matched the copies of his other books i have, the hardback looks kind of weird. is that being a little anal or what? sorry.

my sexy debit card has cracked. this means i can't extract money from machines or purchase from shops which swipe. if you can name one place that uses the smart chip and gives cash-back i will give you love. biblically.

i'm in rugby this weekend. because it will be perfect beach weather.

and i'm so hungry i think i'm going to shit out my own stomach.

29.7.2004: i can't listen to 'svenf g englar' at work in the same way i couldn't listen to 'high and dry' in the walkabout. these two events are obscenely uncomparable. but when you lose your grounding and grasp of reality this shit happens. i'd blame the sun, or lack of sleep, but it's entirely my own fault. i've had a stupid week. it's been emotional in a really dumb way. i just hope i havn't made a total fool of myself. likely. i can't believe how frustrating it is. all this stupid confusion and over reaction. i'm not currently at all my best friend (i wrote it like that on purpose).

i had a nice evening, would you believe? i had a wholesome chat with rebecca (that made me feel loads better, i might add) and conversations with harry down the gladstone. after this i totally fell asleep in the living room. i can fall asleep so easily when there are people around. when everyone else had left (big brother had finished, gee) i headed off to my own bed. i didn't sleep for ages. something about cookies crumbling.

has it really been fifteen years since grant morrison's arkham asylum? about time for an anniversary rerelease then surely? i'm a sucker enough to buy it anyway.

"if i ever see this girl again i'm first gonna need a few shots of valium"

28.7.2004: i didn't mention it before because i completely forget about it, but last night we went to see tanya donelly at shepherds bush. kudos to ben for reminding me the night before. and getting us (me and martin) tickets. there were several things great about the whole evening:

• all of the chandeliers
• andy warhol on guitar
• the lack of a drum kit - one solitary cymbal on stage
• the guy coming out of the toilet telling me "after you". huh?
• the little girl on the train going "but it has to go weally fast" (fists clenched in a downward motion, eyes wide with excitement). nothing made me want to smile and cry more all day
• me saying "do it again and your dead" in my most convincing voice to the guy who apolgised in the absolutely nicest way for accidently kicking me
• the first chord of 'untitled and unsung'
• followed by the middle verse of 'red'
• untogether? ..even without thom
• the jabba the hut stone

it was a whole lot better than i actually thought it was going to be. i was also the youngest person there (perhaps). i love the new country direction (no really, i'll be buying the new album today) and she didn't play too many songs off lovesongs. the worst of which being 'landspeed' and that isn't that bad. i always like 'manna', but mostly because of the echoey bit near the end (clearly her vocals arn't that good to pull it off live). songs off 'beautysleep' were okay too, with great bits mixed in. honestly though, the evil country twang through the middle verse of red gave me goosebumps. i was an inch off the ground. amazing. even if it does have a stupid chorus.

and i would like to apologise for my shockingly bad mood yesterday (which i had at least until i got to london). there are reasons. it's just hard to come to terms with something when there is no where else for you to go. okay, like my forest is being cut down but the rest of the world is nothing but ocean.

a good page about chinese internet censorship. because i mentioned it haphazardly yesterday. i won't rant.

27.7.2004: just don't expect a smile from me. for at least a few weeks.

because i don't think i'm ever going to sleep again.

pop.

and because i'm in a bad mood i'm going to link to this article on google and yahoo's censorship co-operation with the chinese government. if that's even a valid sentence.

bastards (unrelated). i'm so eloquent it burns.

26.7.2004: last night me and aimee hung out at the prince albert with some of her work mates (hence the previous de ja vu comment). it was their jamaica night, i never realised they did it every week. reggae a go go. it was well good. i really fancied a baileys and milk but was too chicken to ask.

and then on the way back there was a pile of books and games outside a charity shop. temptation aside we took nothing. it wouldn't have been right, especially after the conversation about the time i took some digimon toys for free from a birmingham charity shop. because we were 'donating so much', that was all of matts junk. it was practically stealing wasn't it? i felt terribly guilty afterwards but i had no money and too much love. love for the plush digimon that is.

anyway, it turns out that the version of 'the butterfly effect' we saw the other night was not the one that showed at the cinema. that had a wholly different ending. one i might add is even worse. this completely proving they have no grasp of chaos theory and the film's premise is actually rooted in fate. the fools.

a quick search on google is currently showing me number one for emo laurence and brighton emo. i think that's quite funny, so does anyone want to start an emo band? we could rock you know. or is emo not in anymore. hey wow, i'm also 20 for just emo although that is only the uk index, and the global engine has ten times the amount of sites. just don't think i'm deluding myself, i'm quite aware these arn't great terms. and is it obvious that i'm only talking about this to improve my keyword density? i'm such a loser. and while i'm on that subject. it's only called 'emo ware' because emo is a substring of 'gnome' backwards anyway. believe.

wow. velvet goldmine on dvd for a fiver. now i get to easily watch all the amazing bits in short mtv style sittings. i also got the new taking back sunday album. are they an emo band or what? i don't like the cover much though. i'll let you know how it sounds later. bloody emo bands.

25.7.2004: the weekend has been spent well. running through corn fields. chasing dragonflies through woods. climbing trees. gazing out over lakes and ponds. up in an isolated cottage just north of chemsfold. a sort of tribute to new years, or to the eclipse even. this is swedish nicks house (he's the none swedish 'swedish nick') and it was fantastic.

after a minor road trip (i'd like to think) me, john and cally arrived at nicks about 2:30 on saturday afternoon. glorious sunshine. fields or swaying corn. clouds and distant forest. we found ben, nick, nicola and cliff sitting beside a small fishing lake. dogs are fun when they're wet, and they still play 'fetch' when it's with a stone into water. evening came around and it was more of a banquet than a barbecue. you should have been there, you would have loved it. margaritas and pimms. the garden was huge and green, decks had been set up on the patio. it was a proper summer garden party (apart from the drum and bass). we made apple and blackcurrant crumble. the fruit was from the garden and it was too delicious. i over ate and had to lie down (this had nothing to do with the pimms and lemonade). me and nicola made the custad. i love custard so much. even three pints of the stuff. and heating it on an aga made it that little bit more exciting (yes, custard is exciting).

then everyone got dressed up in their seventies outfits again. nick's dad played some cream and tubular bells. time stood still (or something). there was 80% vodka that burns a trough down the back of your throat. and chop glows sticks in my hair. also there was the most beautiful cat, whiffy. with the haziest green eye and ash fur combination. he seemed arrogant but really it was just shyness. cats just ooze decadence, but you fall in love with them just the same.

i was pretty much first in bed. all that food and wine (except it was pimms) and the antics of the night before (detailed below) took it out of me. i was happy though. smiling in my sleep, despite nearly falling out of the window, callys threats and johns psycho babble in tongues.

so on sunday morning i was up before everyone else. i spent the hours dazing in a hammock. listening to a silver mt.zion playing in the wind and blowing through the trees. you could float there for hours. i havn't felt that comfortable for ages. i finished 'the motorcycle diaries' and then i dreamt of you. and as i awoke i felt your kiss on my cheek. from all those one way conversations i've had in my head.

then in the evening drinking lapsang souchong tea.

so what would you reply if you recieved a series of texts along the lines of:

"in dreams i'm riding a chinese dragon through storms over an icelandic fjord. the children all scream and cheer. i am made of plasticine. we spent the day picking coconuts. and when the sun finally set we caught the orient express west. we saw waterfalls in russia, and in india - the state circus"

well aimee said "i bought a piece of understanding for 3 bucks a hit. i drove across the desert with 15mins to catch me plane and trash my car a flat out high speed burn". respect to her. on friday we met up with her work mates at the prince albert (post de ja vu?). gin and tonic. babble babble babble. this was followed by a party at a house on the square just down from churchill square. now, how cool is that? it was banging. i sat on the front balcony over looking the square. me and eva talked about prague and how we both talk too fast for each other to understand. then we might all have danced. a bottle of not enough lemonade and vodka. fortunately for us aimee knew when it was time to leave. it was just a shame the booze brothers (i'd never actually seen them before - they do exist) wouldn't give us both a lift. getting home was difficult, to say the least, but achieved. when i eventually reached my kitchen i ate half a loaf of bread and munched on an orange pepper. i thought it was funny. so should you.

24.7.2004: the remix collective's website makes me feel all funny inside. running my mouse over that, i don't know whether i'm going to have an epileptic fit or an orgasm.

also work magazine.

23.7.2004: we have another walking monkey. this one's quite interesting though, natasha is quite different to oliver as she only started walking upright after falling ill. oliver's case suggests something genetic whereas this is apparently due to brain damage (i'd personally hold judgement on that one though). unfortunately i can't find any decent articles on it at all, you academics are just far too slow (learn to blog damnit).

i just find it a little hard to believe that the change is due to brain damage, or at least on its own. walking is a really instinctive thing and it's pretty much hard programmed. a specific change to something that fundamental would take really specific brain damage. that's also excluding the skeletal and muscular factors involved in such a dramatic posture change. so here's a monkey i'd quite like to hang out with. can anyone arrange that? also, some before and after footage would be fantastic. please.

this has all got me thinking about oliver again. that was one scary chimpanzee i would loved to have met. it's such a shame he wouldn't mate with anyone.

while on the subject though you have to check out this list of famous monkeys. my favourites are crap (although that is seriously not cool, you have to laugh) and nim chimpsky. i was always fascinated by kanzi, but again it's one of those things where you need interaction to really understand anything useful. i find it hard to relate (or believe in any useful way) a lot of the things these kind of researchers say. what they found was pretty useless on its own. so lets get back to talking about episodic memory..

22.7.2004: this morning i bagged myself a gmail account. woot on that mother fuckers. you see? my friends are clearly better than your friends. now watch me do a little 'i have a gmail account' dance. wheeee.

emoware@gmail.com innit. spam me all you want.

i still think they should give pokemon cards away inside packets of cigarettes though, don't you?

so my favourite fish at work just died. the blue gourami. i hadn't got too attached yet, we only got them the other day. but still..

21.7.2004: me and jess got us a house. it took a total of five hours spread over two consecutive days. i think that's a record. so, next year we'll be living on park crescent road (you heard).

yesterday, it was raining in the morning. but by mid afternoon i was ready to get naked and run into the sea, arms flailing. this i pretty much did (minus the nudity). hanging out with jess and robin was really relaxing, especially the juice in pavillion gardens. having the afternoon off work was a great idea. even the vile estate agent didn't ruin it. i made some real progress as well. standing in spar trying to decide what yoghurt to buy and my phones vibrating again. i can't deal with these levels of panic. all these extreme feelings really make you feel alive huh? haha. in the end it was okay though (she took it the right way). i still have a plan (including the likes of hope and karma) and that is all i need to keep me going. just you watch.

there were also two car accidents outside my work yesterday. needless to say i missed both. one involving a blue car with a mashed front end (now sitting on the pavement opposite tesco's) and the other involving an old women driving into the basement of a house off palmeria square. how she managed it is beyond me. it looks quite interesting down there today though. it's something akin to richard macduff's sofa (yes, that was a dirk gently reference).

last night we all watched 'the butterfly effect'. it was no ones choice really so everyone is exempt from blame. before i completely slate it i should point out that it isn't all bad. it's just that any good bits (there is at least one bit i thought was clever) have no chance to redeem the film. it's trying to be intelligent and fails miserably. any film that deals with time needs to deal with it well, especially if it's told linearly (something that twelve monkeys pulls off beautifully) as this film is. there are just too many plot holes and too little logic. for instance, you see him take the knife at the start (he has made a change from the future) but he doesn't stab his hands the first time round in the class room. you can't show it linearly and include some changed events but not others. it makes no sense. the other major problem with it is the title and premise. clearly it has ignored the fundamentals of chaos theory and has more to with fatalism or simple cause and effect. although, having the main character keep waking up and the world be taken over my monkeys would make for a terrible plot.

actually, it would make for a fucking wicked plot..

oh wait, actually that's been done. and it was definately awful.

but you get my point, right?

i've always hated the odeon's website as well. that's why i never go to see films there (well that's at least half true). matthew somerville's situation raises a lot of interesting trademark and copyright issues though. and it just goes to show you that brands and logos have gone too far. here's a guy who is actually helping out the odeon. by slapping on a new front end to their site he had made it accessible and usuable (at uni i could never access the site because we were running linux). this new 'interface' causes zero problems for users, the claims of data security are all trite as it linked directly through to the original site. the only problem is the odeon no longer have control over their look and as far as i'm concerned that's fantastic - their site is fucking ugly. it's an implementation disaster. there isn't even really any intellectual property, it's just cinema listings. so get over the fact that the people have the power to remold you how they actually want you. and surely, don't you want to be what they want anyway? image is nothing (i say this ironically, of course).

20.7.2004: "your website actually makes you look really interesting". yeah, thanks for that rifa. maybe hannah jameson has finally returned.

the possibilities with break dancing transformers is endless.

stupid links aside. i uploaded photos last night but forgot the thumbs. so it's going to be like this for now:

john
aimee
tom & ben
cally & nicola
smokey laurence

i didn't actually take that many photos and didn't want to use cliffs (which will no doubt appear on his site) so apologies to people who arn't listed above. i also didn't have many photos of the party itself, just people. if that makes sense. whatever.

then from rachael's birthday party ages ago i have these two:

i just really like the top one. i have no idea why. and obviously 'live stair dismount'. no grillys were hurt in the making of that sequence.

last but not least it's a new photo of aimee. hurray.

so i've got the afternoon off today. me and jess are viewing some houses. we will get a house. a house. to live in. you hear?

really though, what i am going to do today, you should all be telling me not to. it's two things. the first is that this is now a learning experience for me. by doing something now i'll be able to do it next time, and a whole lot better. i said before about learning my lesson. the other thing is trying to find a satisfying ending. either way though, i'm not sure it's fair on the other people involved. but nevermind. and the only person who is going to look stupid is me. and that's okay.

"the most gorgeously stupid thing i ever cut in the world"

19.7.2004: a most hardcore and weird weekend. i'm still not sure what i think (or feel) of the weirder aspects. but last night i slept really badly. i wasn't comfortable enough to go to bed, and when i eventually did i couldn't fall asleep. and when i did it was only to wake up at four feeling awkward and confused. i hate the way the middle of the night (morning) confuses the simplest matters. nothing makes much sense. i eventually drifted off at about half five or so. now i feel like i don't feel at all.

but not something about everything being a copy of a copy of a copy.

it started friday with me sending that text message. i wouldn't normally do that kind of thing but it felt liberating. when the worst case scenario is better than what is going to happen you can't go wrong. the reply i got was a little depressing but allowed me to be even more stupid. i told her about the stone (pause for dramatic effect). i laughed for about half an hour. of course no one but me would see the funny side, but so what? it felt good to be able to take the piss. the text conversation became very confusing and quite rediculous (this is why you shouldn't use texts, people). asking about favourite dinosaurs was a step too far but the whole thing was quite exciting. this story might have a happy ending. tomorrow might have a happy ending. this week probably wont.

i'd love to go into great details. i'd love to draw you a graph of my emotions over the weekend. i'd love for you to understand. but no.

i did very little on friday night. it was just me causing trouble with texts. i made another arty cd cover and ate laks pseudo burrito. i didn't watch 'the eviction', so don't fucking talk to me about it. when will you people realise i don't do tv anymore.

saturday was hella fun (yes, i said 'hella'). shopping in town and stuff. eating pizza on the beach (although i nearly crashed from not eating soon enough). i bought a book from dave's and fell asleep outside the dumbwaiter drinking a milkshake. the text conversation was looking on the up, but was fantastically crushed by a phone call along to the soundtrack of 'lost in translation'. my fingers keep trying to pour my heart out but it wouldn't help. the details are nothing that needs recording. i napped. i went round aimee's to borrow a shirt. a shirt for the party.

needless to say the party wasn't ruined for me. not by drink, not by assholes, not even by a girl. be impressed. the party was super great. nearly everyone had dressed up 60's or 70's. only aimee could tell the difference (little did anyone know her boots were actually 70's while the rest of her 'costume' was 60's). check my fetching shirt. check my pimms (i forgot the mint). i'll save the party rundown for when i have photos. or rather i'll let the photos do the talking.

i woke up on sunday at 8am just having to get up. i managed to put if off until 10am and could take it no more. i started the day by organising all the rubbish. cans were rinsed, crushed and placed in binbag a. bottles were emptied and placed in binbag b. this took an hour and a half but at least it will all get recycled. our next party will be carbon neutral. or perhaps not. after i'd cleaned enough (the house, my room and myself) me and tom headed into town. i wanted to buy shoes. i bought a jacket and a new bowl. we had a coffee (well tom had hot chocolate). we met up with various people in various places. we then all had dinner at piccolos. it was very like aimee's birthday when i first moved down to brighton. we ate the same food (this sentence is far too ambiguous). we hung out at the level. this is where my happy juice began to fade. we ended up in the new vic (our actual local) playing battleships and an elaborate version of the name on the head game. and this leads us back to where i started. me going to bed.

photos. i have some beautiful photos. but with me updating my site at work (during my lunch break of course) i find it really hard to include pictures. sometime this week i'll make a real effort. i've got two parties worth and some other random crap. don't hold your breathe but do get excited.

on a more professional note, google seems to updating backlinks and so far it looks rediculous. none of best (relevant) links are showing at all, especially for my evolutionary art page. the losers. i've also been making a half arsed effort to rank for various 'brighton' and 'blog' related searches. hey look it. i honestly didn't think i'd make number one but there you go. another thing that google's doing i really dislike is listing sites like these. it's interesting to see what your site ranks for but a lot of those come up in a search for my full name. "emo glasses" and "how to dress emo" are kind of funny, but "teenage girls vibrating love pussy" and "i'm it lovin mcdonalds" are not. at least i totally own my results page. dominated.

and over the weekend i passed the 3000 hits mark. this is totally arbitary because a 'hit' is counted by an image loading on the homepage and fuck knows when the counter was last reset. but still. charting progress none the less. i sure get way more visits than i used. thanks jess and grilly. haha.

16.7.2004: a quick count on my entire news archive and it totals 223,929 words. with arial at size 10 thats 274 pages. i have typed way over a million characters. and this is excluding html tags. exciting huh? rather.

16.7.2004: i really dig the paintings and artwork that is up in the mad hatter cafe at the moment. you should check it out. i've only seen them from the street (on the way to and from work), so does anyone know who they're by?

i also quite dig my house at the moment. there's just the right number of people always about and everyone seems to be having a decent time. it's relaxed and still fun. apart from the usual residents we have linda who moved in about a month ago. she's currently working for ef. nick (swedish nick, although he's not swedish) has also been here for the last week. he's mostly smoking. we lived with them both at the end of last year. it's a bit weird how it's happened again but it's definately good.

the highlight of yesterday was the curry me and laks made. it might not have been the tastiest, but it was definately the healthiest and most satisfying. lets hear it for joint effort cooking. on the way home from work i saw her sitting in a coffee shop (no i wont mention which one). i have a habit of looking in every shop and cafe as i go past, just in case. so we had a chai, met up with harry and went late night shopping. this was for outfits for the party, it was pretty much a failure though. we bought coriander and green chillis (2p each! bobby rocks) and cooked. it was awesome.

so laks thinks that i'm doing okay and that i don't need a girlfriend. that i'm happy enough without so shouldn't pursue it. can we see a show of hands for this please? (i don't mean that in an arsey way)

also these photos of ben being naughty really made my day.

also we have new fish at work. for those who don't know- it's my job to take care of them. i'm great like that. my new favourite fish is the blue gourami. he rocks, i tell you.

also the number and variety of litre juice cartons on my desk is scary.

wouldn't coriander chewing gum be great? also basil.

party ready. steady.

15.7.2004: i've now got three stains.

15.7.2004: so i downloaded this track off kazaa the other week. it was so totally the most amazing song ever. but now i can't find anything else by the band and i've lost the mp3. it's starting to piss me off and this song just wont get out of my head. the only trace of them on the internet i could find is this page mentioning they split up ages ago and how fucking great they were. it's totally rediculous, i spent hours and that's all i got. how am i ever supposed to enjoy music ever again when the best band in the world is also the most elusive? i figure the only way forward is to persevere. hopefully one day i'll hear some of their other songs and discover that they actually sucked anyway. it would be nice knowing that had i bought their album it would have been a total waste of my fucking money. it would then be easier to buy the next glassjaw album, that is if there is a next glassjaw album.

well that's how i see it anyway. it's lame when the best possible outcome is realising something wasn't actually that great anyway. or, it's lame when the best possible outcome is a lessening of the blow. that's what your goal is.

big up to the bar girl in the gladstone who gave me an extra baileys in my coffee. muy appreciation.

how can you not love something that is only describable as "[exploding] into tsunami size torrents of roaring noise, tetsuya’s vocals ripping into the hoarse screams of a wounded animal as the drums batter a way to freedom". envy.

why do i always feel like i'm about to be run over?

and oh, there's a stain on my finger.

14.7.2004: i had sad dreams. they made me sad. they made me stay in bed until 8am. but writing that down makes it seem so early. shit. maybe it was also the text message i was trying to compose in my head.

because, can it really end like this?

only to the fool who didn't notice it had ended already, and in a much better and more satisfying way. the fool who didn't walk out of the cinema before the trite faux 'happy ever after'. i keep changing my mind about whose fault this is, whether it is actually mine or not. and there is actually nothing i can be bothered to write, without going into details, about why i'm still going on about it. you fucker.

listening to reggae while it can't even be bothered to rain outside.

listening to easy jazz while i can't even be bothered.

but wait. happy birthday to cally (she will hate me for that link).

"don't say another word about the other girl", more fitting than you would imagine. you and your darkest eyes.

13.7.2004: these dunny's are fucking great. especially the designers republic one. sort us out a "i love my dr" qee. please. now.

but why would i want to link to sonic the hedgehog hentai? i guess i wouldn't.

12.7.2004: i need to start writing on the weekend. catching up is becoming a chore for both of us. so moving swiftly on, a quick summary. jazz rooms, concorde2, duke of yorks, swimming and a baby seagull fell off our roof. it waddles around outside our house squawking and wailing and pissing everyone off. learn to fly or just die already. as hearltess as it sounds. i'm fed up of seagulls trying to ruin everyones day. especially mine, you selfish bastards. take a running fuck and off.

thursday night i was invited out with robin, beth and anna (and i put them in that order because it sounded best), although actually i probably invited myself. but no worries. i'd never been the jazz rooms before, it is so dingy, i love it. it was a punk night of sorts. beyond this i don't really know what to say about it. i'm not sure about everyone else but i actually had quite a fun night. it was good to hang out with people. and that other dude whose name i shall remember as being 'simon'. nice guy. i also got to moan to fresh faces about girls not phoning. hey, they asked. on the way back, down lewis road, this woman walks past me. "hello", in the cheeriest voice you are ever likely to hear at 2am. we had a brief but pleasant chat about the evening before we reached my turning. why isn't everyone nice like that?

i would have written that all on friday but we had a business lunch up at sevendials. because i left it i no doubt forgot any details that would have made it an interesting story. i would like to confuse you with a story about me talking about the cowley club to beths house mate cristina. but i wont. to be honest i just wanted to say 'business lunch' mostly. indeed.

friday night was a mad one. a load of london people came down (ben excluded, he had a blind date) and it was the boutique at concorde2. after the pub with work mates i managed to get in a nap, some chips with pasty and a reasonable amount of bison grass vodka. also see, tequila, irn bru and koala. koala? i have no idea. not spiderman at least. by the time we get into the club we are me, cally, jon, linda, aimee, nick, nick, cliff, james and eddy temple-morris. hey look it's eddy! so i go over and ask him if it's true that zane lowe is all his fault. he laughs and his friend tells him i can't say that. turns out it was. for some reason i felt obliged to tell him my mate corey calls him eddy temple-wankface. in a nice way, obviously. he's a cool guy though and he played some quality tunage. better than the crap norman cook was spinning in the main room. the loser. the concorde is good but i hate how packed and hot it gets in that room. i find that quite hard to enjoy. it gets to people, they start doing things like snogging their friends. a weird coincidence though, while i was at the bar getting some water i was standing right next to the woman i talked to on the way home the previous night. she was still friendly. and while aimee was being ill i watched them throw out an unsettling amount of glass bottles. in a vaguely drunken state of disbelief i started an arguement with a worker there about them not recycling. it was rediculous though. and i read this morning that the club is 40k in debt and if they don't pay by later all their equipment is going to be bailiffed.

don't worry, aimee got home without being sick in the taxi. hurray. i crashed at her place overnight, as this avoided the chaos of people getting home at 6am and cally nearly burning down the kitchen, bless. and it's always nice waking up in a different country, even if it isn't one. i think aimee's balcony is my current favourite place. it is as continental as you like. comes with free earl grey tea too. i could sit there for hours, which i actually did. and have done. aimee was clearly going to be no fun (infact i heard she stayed in bed til 9pm) so i went recruiting for a trip to dave's diner. an hour later me and cally were feasting (if there was ever a better word) on almighty vege breakfasts. another hour later and i was doing the same with tom and laks, although i stuck with my cappucino.

we wandered around town. i totally zoned out, i would have felt lost if i had the ability to feel at all. eventually i fell asleep on a very windy beach. and after that i really needed a hot chocolate. you have to love the 'end of the lanes cafe'.

i think cally made me dinner. it was yummy anyway, although it needed more chilli. more. then in a desperate need of something to do we went and watched fahrenheit 9/11. my first ever late showing at the duke of yorks, clearly where all the cute chicks hang out. i don't think i can really be bothered to discuss the film, so i'll be brief. it is a good documentary. however, i didn't need to see it. i didn't learn much. and really i don't need to watch footage of george bush saying many stupid things. it's all a little redundant. i'm not a target market in this equation. infact the majority of people i know really need not watch it. it's a good piece of propaganda but solves nothing. it also comes a little late, but we can't really criticize it for that. in the end it's a good bit of propaganda. i just hope it can pave the way for a more politically aware society, because if it doesn't it's achieved nothing. the next bastard will just be more careful. incidently, my favourite bit was the 9/11 footage at the start. that was beautiful. and i stand by my comments.

on sunday i did the best shopping. if i was a girl i'd be impressed by the contents of my basket. i met aimee in the fruit aisle, she was so colour coordinated i didn't really know what to do. (remember mrs scarret?) we hung about and watch 'lost in translation'. i still love that film. it still makes me sad. one of the deleted scenes has the coolest robots in though, i can't believe she cut it out, it's beautiful.

armed with enough ghee to grease up (something witty) i did curry for dinner. too much turmeric and i was totally wired. luckily laks took me swimming. water. after that i can't remember any more of my weekend. my memory filled up when the kit-kat chunky wouldn't come out. the man refunded me and then i got two kit-kats. i did the right thing and let the man have one.

that's it. it must be.

i just this second booked me a flight to italy, i guess there is no turning back. you just hope i don't join a circus while i'm there. or take any dull photos of my breakfast (btw, the anonymous person wasn't me, i was just feeling left out). jo's travelog is actually quite good though, and is evidence of her raging blog envy. join us, on your own you are nothing (self-referentialism is not dead).

8.7.2004: that stupid seagull was the saddest thing. it totally ruined my fucking day. and my evening. or at least it would have done if my day could have been anymore ruined, something i wont go into (y'all know this is a lie).

i hung out of aimee's window watching the lightning. i guess i don't really know what to think. or do. it's all so very fucking stupid. enough to make me reread what i've written and actually add more 'fucks' rather than take them out. i was also sad that we were eating her 'build your own' ginger bread house without actually building it. this is another sign of my pathetically fragile view (i don't want to write 'grasp') of reality, which is also the wrong word.

we used to brush our teeth together after going out. it was one of those cute little rituals. it was one of those things that burns a groove down your cheeck when you realise you had completely forgotten about it.

but i was convinced i was going to have vast and elaborate dreams about seagulls. instead i just shaved my head, leaving floppy bits at the front. i really liked it, but looking in the mirror i had the saddest eyes. i was welling up. a beautiful moment, but it was completely crippled by the shitty morning. just when your duvet no longer has a name.

also, other people who are no longer my friends: see karma, see fairness, see hope.

also, the storm was all for me. the little egomaniac bastard.

also, something about your wings giving you more than i ever could. and that was a long time ago.

my life is so unromantic.

7.7.2004: and i just saw the worst fucking thing while in town. the wind's really blowing outsite, and as i walk around the corner of gardner street and north road (by infinity foods) there's an almighty gust. and a smack. maybe a thud. this bird has been blown down really hard onto the path right infront of me. it looked up and cawwed a bit. jumped about. cawwed. then started really cawwing, like a baby crying on the bus. and flummoxing about the pavement, not really flapping not really hopping. it was quite very broken. and these guys just stood there and fucking laughed. you think of all the things you can do to help it. but there really was nothing. i'd only have hurt it more. the poor thing was freaking out. a minute later and it was just lying there gasping for breath as people tip-toed around it.

"and when he died he didn't even look human at all"

7.7.2004: i hated yesterday. i hate today.

this all could change but lets be honest, that isn't likely. the one thing i don't want to become, it's looming over me. i've been such a nice person for what seems like ages. i'm just not sure i can keep it up. it gets harder to drain the scowl from my face when walking down the street. and it's easier to call someone a fuck than to apologise to them on behalf of themselves. apart from not sounding like a teenager, what's the fucking point anyway?

i'm sure this is all one big misunderstanding. or a lack of understanding. and just as all my 'abstract concept' friends abandon me, the bastards. who needs time and fate anyway?

there is crap written in my archive if you're confused (there is a hint in that sentence). august is going to be a fucking shit month. you watch.

the other morning i had a listen through of the old '3.5" floppy' album. some of those songs are well good. and not just in a crappy sentimental way. i tried to find their website but failed. i was singing all the way to work, "hang out with me tomorrow". who'd have thought it would end like this?

i hate yesterday (i will have hated it). this includes the evening. because it was one big fucking waste of time. the things i clearly could have been doing. the awesome vs the banality (or rather worse). 9pm came around and it was just too much. i went for a walk. a long walk. for the how many nights in row? i'm wondering if my love (or perhaps 'need' would be a better word, more likely 'urge') for walking comes from when i was little. i used to have trouble sleeping (a different reason) so my mum or dad would take me out for a really long walk before bed. i think that's pretty much it. i just take myself out instead. it was good but it's never enough.

6.7.2004: i'm not sure what to say. yesterday was a very nervous and energetic day. but yet what can i get away with saying? interesting one. if you're sharp you may have noticed this post has gone straight into the archives.

which means no one will read it but me. to demonstrate the other reason why i do this. i don't like forgeting things.

so i did the right thing and phoned cristina. this was after me leaving work at lunch to 'take the afternoon off'. i can work from home. well, at least if jon isn't doing the same thing. not a problem because i can do the work in the evening. i have the afternoon to hang out with some groovy european chick. or rather have placed myself in a situation where i can totally ring her.

i won't go into the details. as i am being a bit blaze about the whole thing. and for all the wrong reasons. it's a good job i planned it though, but i was still left with nothing concrete to bang my head against. i would say something about taking it easy but time isn't my friend, not after i took the piss out of it with all my waiting and longing. alas. straight after i've called her i get told from work i have to get on icq when i get home. a minor problem i'm sure.

so there i am in the middle of town, totally wired, thinking what the fuck am i going to do? all of a sudden i am actually slacking off work. and it's all a girl's fault (no of course it isn't mine, you daft fucker). i run between all the shops where i know someone who works there. i start calling people who are still around in brighton. i even go round rifa's house and jibber at chris (of chris t-t fame). in the end i sprint to the nearest internet cafe. the one on lewis road near my house, recently painted bright green. the guy working there is a total star. lets me install icq, gives me a biscuit and sorts me out a cappuccino.

this is when i started to come down. the things you should have said. the things you wish she'd said. how when people are really nice they do things like be nice to you (i wish i could be bothered to word that better). that i ran away from work and was still a prisoner. i felt so trapped sitting in some little internet cafe looking for people to babble my angst at. will something please ground me.

when i got in i called aimee and jess straight away. these girls rock and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. i hadn't spoken to jess since i left for glastonbury and hadn't realised how much i missed her (perhaps that i kept trying to ring her was a big clue). it was super great to chat. and much appreciation all round. after that i dashed up to aimee's house for dinner. it is weird. she has this ability (that i presume she is generally unaware of) to totally calm me down. like my grounding or something. again, i wish i could make that make more sense.

anyway.

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