as you can see the police actually caused a bigger traffic jam than we did. and some of those motorists really need to chill the fuck out. also the angry policeman. it was fun although i'm not convinced by the actual point of it. i doubt there was much awareness raised - there just a lot of pissed off commuters. and traffic jams are hardly good for the environment. plus brighton has a fantastic array of cycle paths.. but whatever.

have you ever noticed that the mannequins in the window display of the 'untited colors of benetton' shop are all whiter than white?



16.06.05: when it comes to china, internet censorship and endorsement it's normally google that you're hearing about. but not be out done by them again, microsoft are trying their hardest to catch up. again. their new blog software (msn spaces) disallows users from mentioning certain unfriendly words:

"the word 'demonstration' is taboo, but 'protest' is all right; 'democracy' is forbidden, but 'anarchy' and 'revolution' are acceptable. on msn space, chinese bloggers cannot use the name of their own president, but can comment on tony blair. 'tiananmen' cannot be mentioned."

"the restrictions were the price the company had to pay to spread the positive benefits of blogs and online messaging", also known as making dollars at the expense of free speech. my favourite quote is from bill gates, "it is a brand new form of capitalism, and as a consumer it's the best thing that ever happened". amen.

last night, while on the way to sainsburys to meet julie and purchase stuffs to concoct a very refreshing drink, i found a mystery notebook lying on the pavement. it's mainly full of crossed off lists, things like:

condoms
bunny girls
first drink free
lost flyers

i did find a couple of emails (that i'll be emailing later - for fun) and a few phone numbers, the first of which was followed by "cunt landlord". so of course i dialled the number, four rings and a high pitched woman answered "hello". i was hoping for an answering machine or a "yo, this is blahblah how can i help you", so i simply hung up. i didn't think people cared enough to do 1471 anymore. i sat there trying to get ice cubes and mint (a much easier task) into my glass for over a minute before she finally stopped trying to ring me. what is wrong with people anyway?



15.06.05: i've been rereading a selection of my old archives (collating data. researching and revising. that soft of thing), and it's depressing to notice how much better my writing used to be. i have a few theories of why this might be - primarily i suspect that my writing improves while i'm being crushed by angst. and bitter means sharper. i do far less moping, i think far less emo, and hopefully i've grown up somewhat. maybe this wasn't such a wise idea. i also comment far less on 'events', no doubt this is due to me removing the television from my life - i get less angry at the media now that i ignore it.

so while on this creative/destructive nostalgia trip through my last two years of 'data' i found some pretty funny photos. here's a mixture of me being dumb:

they're just too funny. that's aimee's shirt i'm wearing in the first one, i don't know whose hat. they were my maltesers, from back in the days where i'd still buy them (i was illustrating them for an american). in the really stupid photo of me, that's my old hat that i lost at glastonbury and dearly miss. don't ask about the pink feathers. the one of me in my blue shirt was included because it was taken just before the first time i ever went around jess and grilly's old house. also, i'd totally forgotten that that was on johanna's and tom's birthdays - which is why i was celebrating. it's weird how coincidences work, isn't it?

and here's how you're suppose to steal my images. i was about to moan at him but then i noticed he's actually hosting the image himself now. it makes me wonder how many people have done this without me noticing? it's impossible to track after all. it'd be nice if i was given some credit though. watermarking is for assholes, and fuck your copyright.

does anyone know anyone who knows me who lives in siloam springs, arkansas? i'm watching you.



14.06.05: here is someone else who is dabbling in the evil world of adsense. google will eat itself, disguised as global web-marketing & e-business information magazine, enables you to create mass click fraud across their own site in a bid to help them buy google shares with the money that you just made them. their more arty angle is covered here.

everyone is loving this, but really we're helping them make stack loads of cash. who is the evil capitalist now? it is not "google's growing monopoly of information" that is hurting the internet - you can cast google aside whenever you want, you have no investment in it, you can leave it for dead on a whim (apart from the people who have just invested in it, sorry) - it is the people who are polluting the internet with junk aimed at making themselves money. these are the people who are creating a need for google's "monopoly of information", because without it all you see is rubbish.

it's a very nice website, a very interesting and clever idea well executed (actually, i can show you a thousand sites that do a better job of looking like a 'proper' site when their sole existence is making money out of google).

but wait, what is that on the horizon? i think it might be an incoming lawsuit.



14.06.05: it's about time i started ranking number one for 'emo' in google. the hard work has finally paid off. and it's not just emo - this graph shows you my traffic over the previous month, and how it's rocketed since the last google update:

the problem is (apart from this meaning nothing to anyone but me), it looks like i'm actually going to go over my bandwidth limit this month. if you happy-go-lucky surfers click more on my adsense then my site might start paying for itself (domain + hosting + bandwidth != cheap for none commercial sites), otherwise i'll be forking out for the privilege of polluting the internet. (compared with the likes of lj, xanga and myspace that vomit the net dry for free).

and i also just realised why i get referals for "emo rubiks". he was called erno wasn't he? you want to get yourself a pair of glasses.

anyway, it looks like i've been busted. can i just say that that was never my idea, i strongly advised against the decision.



13.06.05: i was in oxford. this was after another drunken repeat of last friday. except this time we had jon over and played poker. i lost, but i did cook the best dinner (which was kinda hard after the three pints i'd had in the eagle, plus half the gin and tonic abi had left - i'm such a skank).

so yeah, i went to oxford. i really like visiting oxford, it feels like you're properly on holiday. all that old architecture, grass, rivers and sunshine and there's old grandma's old beard (er, "old mans beard"?) everywhere. plus matt and aimee's new flat is awesome. they have this bungalow with a huge garden backing onto a little stream with ducks. and a gigantor pylon. i was up early on sunday doing my stretches in the garden, it felt like i was worshipping the electricity deity.

anyway, it was aimee's sister's birthday and she was having a big party in this olde pub. i got to meet the whole family and everything. it was pretty cool although very weird as well. culture shock, it was a weird crowd. i felt a lot better when a bunch of belgiums turned up, they were just funny.

i spent all sunday morning waiting for the lazy kids to get up. i played hackysack in their afor mentioned garden until their landlords let the dog out. it proceed to show me far too much affection. i figured i'd be okay sitting down but he decided to straddle and attack my face. then he just stood over me as i lay on the grass, helpless and pathetic. sunday was also the cowley road carnival. i love carnivals, they mean ragga, street food and parades (it's been so long since we had a parade), which we missed. and all too soon it was time to go home.

now i've mentioned this quietly before, that me grilly and steph have a 'project'. and on the way back to brighton i finally began to write. three events and nine pages, you can call it source material if you like. this is stuff that i largely chose to not write about before. it all had to be recreated and it really took it out of me. i didn't think it would be quite so emotionally damaging exhausting. it restored my interest and positivity in the project though, that this is something we can actually do and it'd be worth it. my faith was waning - what is this trite over-angst self-obsessed rubbish about anyway? whenever i pictured it in my head i saw my life in jeffrey brown cartoons (or any of the other thousand people who've done it already).



10.06.05: hasn't it been a beautiful week? we've played hackysack nearly every day. i even managed to get away with wearing shorts at work twice. anyway, i'm off to oxford this weekend to hang out with the wright family. i'm a little scared as they're well hardcore but i'm sure i'll survive.

i'm not sure how i managed to rank number one for 'naked sluts' in msn, but it didn't really surprise me. given their good porn filter (microsoft employees know their porn) and their good absolutely nothing else, it's no big deal. however, when i suddenly find myself ranking number one in google.co.uk for 'naked sluts' i can't help feel a bit bewildered. with zero link equity and no proper optimisation, and there i am - in flashing lights with fanfare. and twelve for 'sexy girls'? you are having a fucking laugh.

this is unnecessary.



09.06.05: walking out of the cinema and i over hear this guy behind me say "it was too geeky, it was just like a really long comic". personally i can't bring myself to talk about a movie on the way out of the cinema, i'd much rather march out in silence, and comments like that are the reason. i don't want to sound like an ass, and more importantly i like listenting to those that do. to be fair to him though 'sin city' was just like a really long comic (no honestly) - it didn't quite fit into the discourse of cinema. the artwork translated beautifully onto the big screen (hats off to robert rodriquez), but the stories didn't really feel like a movie. they tried their hardest by splitting up 'that yellow bastard' but i'm not sure it worked. of course, it's too good to work as a series so what are you going to do? they stayed so true to the comics (er, what i've read of them) that i really can't complain. it's just that that's what i'm good at. with damn good casting, directing and soundtrack all you could really ask for is a bit less machismo? sorry, did someone say it was action film?

google is being very weird. it's redirecting me around weird urls and being awkward. it's sending me loads of referals (that over doubled the moment i got adsense, i never believed that would happen either until i saw it with my own tracking) but not showing me any of my apparent rankings. i see me nowhere for any search on "emo" in any country, on any datacenter, with any check box checked. johanna says she sees me at 14 for "emo" on google.com. what is with that? and how dare they redirect my actual search urls. am i rocking the emo serp or what? does emo love me or not?

over at wooster they have an awesome article about graffiti and advertising. go read.



08.06.05: it's getting desperate on the housing front. we need some kind of closure on who is moving in when and where and it's turning into a bit of a nightmare. does anyone want to rent in our house for two months? it's lovely. we're lovely. love love love.

tonights plan is to go swimming (i spent lunch kicking around a bag of sand and running up the shop to get fruit, healthy lad) and then watch sin city. anyone want to come?

these guys, these crazy crazy guys, they go chasing after tornados. and when they find one they place this camera into the middle of it. it's got seven cameras in it that films 360 degrees. it's the scariest video i've watched for ages.

and michael bach has some pretty funky illusions on his site. optical illusions are kind of tacky, but some of these are beautiful. this one is so simple it's almost passe. however it's done really well. others include this one (clearly the best thing ever) and this one.

pretty new jersey



07.06.05: it's one of either two things. i've either succumb to the beast, or i'm being driven by intrigue and science. basically i'm now running adsense on my site. i'll try amd not defend my decision, but what i will say is that it's been a lot fun.

here's the deal. msn ranks me fantastically (and bizarrely) well for a flurry of strange phrases involving "naked sluts", "hot sexy girls" and "topless naked girls" (topless and naked?! never). infact pretty much anything that is sexy, naked or a slut. i don't really know how this happened but it did. so i can capitalise (there's the evil word) on this traffic by serving these referals google ads. this is where the problem arises though. it's google that decides what adverts are relevant to my site and which to display. unfortunately my site has nothing do with sexy naked girls (or sluts even). google being cleverer than msn has figured this out, hence it doesn't serve the google ads i want it to. where's your synergy?

so what's a boy to do? i guess i'll just write some optimised copy about the afore mention sexy naked girls in a bid to get some google relevance here. just remember, i'm only playing and i'm not actually going to make any money from this (you need to earn a rather large amount from clicks before they send you a check). so i'm not a total disgrace. also, you might have notice the adsense isn't even interfering with the look of my site. or rather you've not noticed at all, can you even see it? luckily for me it says in the terms and conditions "you may stop displaying ads ... with or without cause at any time by removing the google javascript or similar programming from your sites". you don't even see the adverts if you're not in my target market. mother fucker, from where you're standing i look as clean as a whistle.

so if you were looking for naked sluts you know where to stick it.


..or maybe it's just because i'm emotionally inept.



06.06.05: not to sound weird or anything, but i forgot to mention the best thing that happened to me in wales. halfway up the mountain the sheep started talking to me. this ewe siddled slowly up to me, "hey you" she bah'd. scared the fuckshit out of me, i swear.

it was a really nice weekend though. friday was a night of white russians and cards. photo evidence:

there's something strange and beautiful about the photographs. i'm not sure how representative of tommy and julie they are, but i really like them. i hope this doesn't continue my trend of really liking people's photos that they really hate.

we only ate once on saturday. this was all you can eat pizza, pasta, chicken wings and salad. tommy won hands down. i was just out to pay them back for our previous visit where they didn't bring out another pizza. i hate to think how many chickens and pizza makers suffered for toms dinner. the other thing we did was watch commando and 'pirates of the caribbean'. both of which i really enjoyed. commando is one of arnie's crowning moments, a truly awesome film (next on the list is 'running man'). and if you're wondering "matrix kills approximately 78 people in the film". johnny depp was also reasonably satisfying, that film was much better than what i'd thought. entertaining and well thought out. now i want to be a pirate again (again?!).

a burnt out landrover, a horse wearing a mask and 1057 steps later (also a rather tasty nut roast, the second and last meal of the weekend) i'm finally gotten round to watching 'baise moi' (hahaha) and 'talk to her'. i've been telling people how bad 'baise moi' is for ages without having seen it. which is stupid but vaguely justified by that fact that it is rubbish. i just wanted to watch clockwork orange and irreversible again (and thelma and louise to far lesser extent). and remember kids, "self-immolation is too pretentious". i really enjoying 'talk to her' though (over a greek salad), but can't really be bothered to say anything about it. nevermind.

these french aids awareness adverts are too good. i want to fuck scorpions.

also, the new system of a down song/video is fucking genius. no not the riot police, but the r'n'b chorus.



03.06.05: continuing my hobby of messing with people who are hotlinking to my images, i just removed the girl from the beach on rachel's lj background. it's subtle but kind of spooky. she uses far less of my bandwidth than the other people and she didn't write anything that irritated me on her journal, hence why she incurs less wrath. also i havn't had the heart to ask her to 'cease and desist' since the photo looks kinda of nice. i might add a rainbow to it next week.

here's a rather scary article about a court order prohibiting two parents exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs" (er, that's a direct quote).

on a light note, i'm disappointed that matthew kelly was omitted from this quiz






02.06.05: yeah, if i'd actually done anything.

poom is awesome.

the make poverty history website makes very nice use of orange arrows. it reminds me of the good old kelis days.

nevermind.



01.06.05: you're talking to your ex-girlfriend. you're talking about one of her old tshirts. you know, the one you wore all the time and always wanted to keep. but now she tells you she's given it to her new boyfriend. he doesn't wear it though, he just keeps it in his draw. he doesn't wash it either, because when he smells it it reminds him of her. you mirror her rebuke, but what you're really thinking is that you used to do exactly the same thing.

pinch, punch.

i can't believe how i dropped dead asleep last night. i just couldn't stay awake once i'd clambered onto my bed. i was supposed to be talking to aimee. maybe it was her rhythmic tapping on my keyboard that lulled me to sleep. maybe it was the molasses. maybe it was the guiness. maybe you can have too much iron.

i went swimming in my lunch break today. i figured i'd buy a month swimming pass because it'll encourage me to go more often. more often means about three times a week or it wont really be worth it. swimming is fun but it makes you feel funny. probably all those kids vomiting into the pool.

should i feel bad that amanda shut her site down? i'm sure she'll be back..


31.05.05: why are there hundreds of bubbles floating past my window? i guess they're to signify that the world didn't end after all.

i spent the bank holiday weekend doing various manly stuff, such as chopping wood, making fires, washing in the river and climbing mountains. i feel mildly rugged. the highlight of the weekend was climbing caderidris early sunday morning (the photos on that site are lame, although i couldn't do better as my batteries were flat. there are old photos here). the ascent was serene, i was the only person on the mountain. it was a fresh morning but the summit wasn't visible, clouds rolled up and out between the two peaks like it was some soft of volcano (actually there's a lake there). lucky for me the majority of the climb is stone steps (thanks to conservation work) - something i've had plenty of practice with. the final section is mostly loose stones though, and a total pain in the ass. but it's worth it as the view is predictably fantastic. i sat at the top eating my breakfast and watched clouds rise up out of the corrie and travel right over me. chilling. to the west there are several flood plains punctuated by the steepest looking mountains (bah, mere hills), one of which had really struck me the previous day. through the trees and across the valley it looked amazon-core. dense green and steeply descending in the river (obscured enough to look dramatic) it was a great vista. anyway, whatever you thought when you were little, camping is great. you only thought that because you weren't swigging whiskey around the campfire while recounting old war stories and bad jokes about ducks.

i found cthulhu. this was while investigating a 329ft sunken ship (just happening to be in my favourite place ever on google maps - the florida keys).

and while i'm on the cthulhu trail, i also found him playing drums on this kid bopz video (i have no idea what kid bopz is, maybe johanna can enlighten me?). it's awesome anyway.

this is what you get when you mess with the warriors. (for anyone who follows that link after amanda has stopped hotlinking to me, her background is a thousand flashing swastikas. brutal on the eyes i promise).



26.05.05: last night i dreamt you all died - it was just another beautiful rendition of the end of the world. i was in the garden back home (in rugby) trying to take a photograph of the awesome red sun. it was framed perfectly between the dark purple buddleia and the wall of cloud that was slowly sweeping in from west. this cloud was amazing, it was a dark grey all-consuming beast and it was picking up speed. infact, in a matter of seconds it had swept its way across the whole horizon. the atmosphere changed. you know when it goes all deadly quiet, the animals are all scared and the air pressure changes. it was like that. and then the wind started to pick up far too quickly and before i knew it the ground was being torn up and apart. we shouldn't have been safe inside the house but we were. a slurry of rage and debris flying past the window, it was a violent mass destruction. and then when it had finally died down you could see a huge ball of fire in the sky (i think it was supposed to be the moon). i kept taking photos but knew there was little point, it wasn't like i was going to get to develope them. ash was falling from the sky like vaka, and looking to the east was nothing but desolation - a flat sunken plane of wasteland. a second storm was on its way and a group of us took refuge in a school/factory/library. we began an attempt to make the building air tight, to stop whatever there was outside from getting in. clearly a hopeless task as radiation and evil slowly seeped in around us. i remember something very scary happening and finding a door unlocked, wide open. the rest of the dream then continued in third person, it was much later and a small team of pseudo-military men and women descended into our building. they slowly crept around the grossly mutilated bodies - some burnt, some pulled apart. they signalled to each other that there were no survivors and left, heading off under a glorious sunset, careful not to tread on the new shoots that were pushing up through the soil.

if you know anything you'll know that i've loved the london police for ages. but until yesterday i'd never actually tried to draw a 'lad'. i was thinking that the best way to improve and personalise my business cards would be to scrawl some funky graffiti over them, and the back of them has the most suitable blue circles (as seen here but without the writing). who would have thought they were so easy to draw though?

anyway. i'm off to wales to hide for the weekend, where there will be far less rubble and fire.



25.05.05: plowing through drizzle, and then staring out over the sunny grass - face pressed up against the glass like some kid gazing in awe into a sweetshop in some fucking tacky advert. how am i supposed to know what i want when the weather can't even make its mind up?

it's not enough for me to not watch tv anymore, just the thought of it is making me nauseous. its existence in the world, and our perverse dependance on it, is painful. i want to burn all of you.

i'm trying to eat the biggest flapjack of my life, and i feel as sick as a fuck.

and just to give you something to make it you worthwhile you actually having come here. you. check out the store wars movie. i'd love to call it deeply subversive but it's not. it's just fucking good. organic rebellion tofu-d2 rawk. it's nowhere near as stupid as the star wars rap anyway. it almost makes me miss adam and joe.



24.05.05: now my walk to work only takes fifteen minutes i no longer have time to think of anything to write on the way. i've also been doing nothing, so go figure.

we have a few huge blank walls in our new office, at least six meters long, and i've been asked if i have any ideas or preferences for 'enhancing' them. i'm currently pressing for a huge london police mural. how awesome would that be? can we get a vote on it?

on a more technical note, this guy has actually managed to 'page jack' google. if you do a search for google adsense he is now ranking top with no content the page - all it has is a single zero second meta refresh to google's adsense page. if you compare the back links of the two sites they're identical and the page's cache is that of google's. it's a classic example of where google's algorithm is seriously going wrong and it's the funniest thing i've seen all day. that's one brave guy. hats off.



23.05.05: i think my weekend was ruined by my friday night. all that action kind of took it out of me somewhat.

we left the new office early and headed to the cinema. i would never have bothered seeing star wars this soon after it's release, but it was with work people and blah blah blah. it wasn't so bad. i mean, some of it was awful but you knew this already. the funeral scene was especially tasty, and also the scene when your man gets killed in the snow. john williams, snow flakes and oh the tragedy. nice composite.

we then minced over to the fucking awful 'ha ha' bar. i hate that place, always have and always will. and this is not just because i got id'd on the way in again. he stared at my drivers license for a while, then back at me. sound familiar? he even had the cheek to ask me if i could remove my hat. getting into bars seems to be getting harder the older i get. it's true - it is more likely i'm 17 than 23. i spent the next hour being as offensive as possible to everyone in there. unfortunately i didn't get thrown out. we finally moved on to the 'fiddlers elbow', a much nicer pub, and finally to the world famous spiegeltent. i've always loved the spiegeltent and it's a real shame it isn't around all year. you've got to love a wooden floor - it creaks as you dance to the funk and jazz. it was way too busy but still plenty of fun. if only i'd stopped drinking at that point. i then got a terrifying backy (backie?) all the way down lewes road.

the rest of the weekend was pretty passe. now i just have to sort out my trip to wales this weekend. climbing mountains and all that.

this is rubbish.



20.05.05: i'm writing this from our new office, looking out over the old steine. this is one gigantor intimidating office. it now feels like we're a real company. it's open and airy and the new carpet is slightly spongey underfoot. when the phone rings i'm reminded of the end of lawnmower man (the best part of the movie - it's over). i guess it's going to be a very interesting couple of weeks as we settle into it. more on this later.

swigs from the rum bottle

so how long do you give someone to stop hotlinking to you? i figure it's like this. i might give the guy who's using one of my images as his avatar about a week (or until i get bored) before i change the image to a swastika and the words "white power". crude but effective - i'm sure he'll get the message quickly. as for the girl who is using one of my (quite large) images on her homepage, she's got just over a week (or thirty more downloads) until the picture turns into either a suicide note or a confession that her dad abuses her. call me an asshole but goatse is so passe. sigh, and you're wondering whatever happened to letting the punishment fit the crime?

thanks to daryl's terrible planning and awful decision making, i ended up with two cheap tickets to see the rap canterbury tales last night. one man theatre is always impressive and this dude was awesome. he'd written it in context of going to a rap concert and then getting stuck on the tour bus while they have a storytelling battle. it was some pretty high brow rapping.

the americans have finally left the building. the last few nights we've had "random travellers" staying in our house (under rather difficult and unfortunate circumstances). i didn't hang out with them but they seemed very nice when i briefly spoke to them (instead of when we blanked each other). so it's a shame really, but nevermind. i'll save us all the hassle of going into details, as it'll only cause arguments and upset. but it's not something i can ignore, or something i can fail to mention either. so whatever.



19.05.05: you see weird things when you have tracking on your site. yesterday someone came to my website from a google search for a local band. then half an hour later another person visits my site from a link in an email (yahoo mail). the link was to a post about the band. i mean, it isn't weird. i just find it quite curious. you can also see when people click on links from web versions of msn messenger. that is strange and gets my curiousity burning at the seams. what are you saying about me?!

and will all you stupid fucks stop hotlinking to my images. or i'll be forced to take nasty action (involving swastikas, mutilated genitals and photos of children - i'm clearly in no mood for taking prisoners). you fucking myspace fucks you. you're knobhead existence is costing me money. please note that it isn't individuals i'm annoyed with, i've been reasonably polite to you and i'm very understanding. it's just when a bunch of people do it at the same time it's a very unfortunate piss take.

what do you think would be more violent? beating some to death with a brick-sized block of mozzarella or a bin liner full of plastic bags? cake or death?

maybe all this rage is coming from my increased amount of exercise - all that extra adrenalin and testosterone (that or maybe it's just the assholes, i don't know). i took a huge detour on my cycle to work yesterday, up ditchling road to the golf course. i later bombed it around town trying to get me a ticket for the polysics gig (doors due to open in half an hour). it was a mad dash home and then to the concorde, early in hope of getting in on the door. five support bands is a damn good deal even if they are largely variations on ska. polysics themselves are hardcore jap-pop - bis meets mad capsule markets. the perfect happy pop rage, and halfway through all i was hearing was mad caps ("triiiiiiiibe"). the dancing was okay until some chump in a red shirt starting annoying people by dancing like a cock too far back, then it got great. someone told me to just push him because he was being a prick, but instead i moved right infront of him and danced like a total asshole. the is all testimony to the fact that i am getting fitter.

i know i shouldn't waste time on google maps, but this is the prettiest one yet. just look at it close up.

and excuse me for being standoffish, but i'm getting a bit fed up with all you 01100011011101010110111001110100s.



18.05.05: so let me tell you how rubbish msn search is. it's ranking me top for naked sexy girls. (out of 44 million pages). you can't beat that. i'm also sixth for naked sluts (out of nearly 50 million), but only 12th for japanese sluts. i suppose what it shows is how good their porn filter is. maybe i should start turning into a porn site and see how far i can take it before i lose my rankings - like slowly replacing all of your neurons with identical electronic ones.

i'm not sure why they felt the need to animate modern toss, i would have been glad if they hadn't. i guess we wont be saying "what are you? some kind of cunt?" anymore (or the lj alternative "what kind of a cunt are you?"). another one has bitten the dust.

and over at google sightseeing: pollution, more pollution, the florida keys, birds, dinosaurs and a ufo. exciting what? and for julie here are some major logging operations. grumble.


17.05.05: yesterday at work was exhausting. i think i fell asleep three times (including out on hove lawn at lunchtime). i didn't really nap very well when i got back either - i could have asked everyone to shut their doors if they want to play loud music but i just couldn't be bothered. it was kinda nice anyway.

then we decided it'd be nice to get lunch at the fringe (since that's where me and grilly were going for open mike, and since he'd had an exam and deserved the treat). we got there early but the kitchen was closed for cleaning. the bar woman was unabashed, heartless and bitter - like we we're supposed to know this in advance. like it ruined her evening having to tell us. "you stupid stupid ignorant people wanting food from me". she did a brighton pout and stared at me with her cold eyes. a grubbs single vege tropical with chilli is far better value anyway. we get back to the fringe bar and i'm dying for a pudding. i figure i'll forgo the bar woman's previous asshole and shell out for a posh hot chocolate. she stares at me again, and tells me (like it it's taking all her effort to speak and she hates me for it) that she's just switched the machine off, not moments ago. she sighs again. oh it's just one of those years isn't it? you poor creature, struggling with those difficult and awkward customers, too much pain for your life to bear. and all this was my fault.

i'd never actually played at an open mike night before. it should be nothing compared to a gig, but there's something that makes you feel a bit more vulnerable. it was a reasonably laid back affair though and much fun. we played "love" and "midweek cd purchase" (or, um "midweek with libby purves" - yorke reference). on neither of which i really know what i'm playing, but at least i've almost got a feel for them now (even if the feel is in a different time signature). i think we did pretty good and i won a book of things to do with dead cats. also a lolly.

i still wanted a hot chocolate so me and rifa went in search of. and until we got to 'more' they either didn't do them or had just switched the machine off. what is wrong with brighton? (it's not just all the baby shops). 'more' does a sweet and creamy hot chocolate though, it didn't have mocha syrup or organic chocolate buttons in it but the fringe can fuck right off.

on return home i curled up with my copy of flight, warmed by the hot chocolate and happy stories. it would have been a beautiful ending had i fallen slowly asleep.. but being kept awake by house mates (and their friends) is nothing that can irritate me. i guess it's just that i don't like people taking things out of my room without asking me first. but whatever, nevermind.



16.05.05: we had a good weekend yeah? it seemed very long, especially sunday, and now i feel exhausted. my bank balance does too.

flight volume 2 was an essential purchase (must not stalk the cute comic writers/illustrators). as was the handsome boy modelling school album - collaboration action (alec empire wins). i think i ate everything else i bought. i've wanted to eat everything. we saw steph's portfolio and it looked like it would've tasted pretty amazing. it's just a shame we were all tricked into eating pig. it's more of a shame that no one really cared.

this was after a tour of the ugly side of brighton's saturday night. these bars that would have been nice had they not been unbearable - over priced and over crowded. the dj is a selfish cunt. surely going to the off license on the way home, listening to our own music with our own company in our own non-smokey house is much more appealing? no?

but what actually happened on saturday is we went into town three times. this is why it seemed so long and why we spent so much money. obviously. and then again on sunday (for breakfast real early so the students had a reason to get up, or something). this is with thom, who is living with us for a bit because he can't stand his house mates either (not a reference to me). we did some hill walking and some beer garden drinking and some hanging out on the level non-action. slowly drinking hoegaarden all day wasn't it. it was long but slipped into nothing mere hours later.

"i tried swallowing pennies but it didn't help. now my mum has me going to the toilet in a bucket until we find them"

i'm just too tired to focus - my head confused from the stupid dreams that wont leave me alone. come to the fringe tonight, it wont be anywhere as near as shit as it was on saturday. i promise.



13.05.05: today i'm smelling of melon, a cantaloupe i think. it's not cocao butter but i'm still fruitier than you.

holy fuck, it's horrific. if they're going to make robots that reproduce themselves they could at least not make their movements that fucking horrible. you can read about it here or here (their actual site), but i'd recommend you don't. it's scary.

so last night a bunch of us went to see the edukators. the first thing i need to mention is how good the 50p vege samosas at the duke of yorks are, and apolgise for my stroppy "oh fuckit" when the guy infront of me bought the last two. as for the film, it was competing in the same league as the tasty indian snacks (although i would have been happy having 13 samosas instead). it's a german anti-capitalist fest, filmed on what looks like a reasonably low budget to great effect. it felt good. my one criticsism is not the use of the soundtrack (which i quite enjoyed), but the constant use of monologue disguised as dialogue. the writers politicals are preached to the audience in too forced a manner - "you are a slave blah blah", while the girl/guy nods or says something painfully designed to allow the protagonist to deliver their next soundbite. yes, it's what they do in adverts and it really irritated me for the first half of the film (helped by the "why are you doing something so stupid when you clearly know better" factor that you love in horror films). it almost felt wrong when the actors didn't face the camera to deliver some of their lines. to be fair, it's probably not as bad as i've made out here and it definately didn't ruin the film. it clearly redeemed itself in the end. so it's worth seeing, and not just for daniel brühl.

and this is why i love a softer world - ideas for greeting cards:

The cover is a picture of a puppy dog - big sad eyes. A Golden Retriever, maybe, some breed that everyone loves, something vulnerable. The text on the front reads, "You think love has to last forever for it to be real. You think it isn’t true love unless it lasts until one of us is dead." Inside text: "You’re confusing love with dog fighting."

Front cover, a pretty butterfly, pinned under glass. The text reads "I'm glad you stayed." There is no inside text.

joey and emily truly rock.

i'm just annoyed because someone posted photos on wooster three months after i put photos of the same graffiti on my site. clearly i should have sent them in.



12.05.05: when i shut my eyes i am a tiny black ninja, bounding.

it's funny how the hundreds of polystyrene balls running down the street are dancing in time to the music. they follow me all the way to work. it's also funny how the woman at the crossing is either repeatedly pressing the button or holding it down. she must be in a real rush.

so i thought i'd treat you with some more of my search referals. be sick away:

hot girls talking about clouds
pissing in the urinal +men +pictures -pussy
willy hanging out
english sluts
vespas with naked girls on
tight cling film bitch
women with tits so big they cant ware a bra or a shirt
man sucking himself
i raped my sister
raped and eaten sexy
koala meat and buy
eat seagulls receipe
zoe milks cats
biggest block of cheese
sea cucumber disection
drink poppers?
poppers spilt in the ear
flaming sambuca accidents
"post rock" "animal rights" -moby
wanking over konnie huq
official vin diesel site
whigfield isnt pretty
ashmore mentalist
emo italian girl
kids drawings crap nazi
snows of kilimanjaro has a universally appeal
the beach was empty except for a lone naturist
lucy reached the stage where everything makes me especially saying the word "toilet"

those last few are just weird. some of them are hilarious though, my favourites being "post rock animal rights -moby" and "whigfield isnt pretty". lets not ignore the horrible ones, i'm still constantly shocked at some of things people search for - and i'm a professional. why anyone would think you're supposed to drink poppers or eat seagulls is beyond me, never mind raping and eating your sister.

"a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself"



11.05.05: this morning is very fresh isn't it? i'd go as far to say "biting".

they're spending millions on ruining renovating embassay court. yes it now looks cleaner, but it also looks shit. at least it made it into mirrormask before they fucked it up sorted it out. i've seen the stills and dave mckean has done beautiful things to it.

last night, after a right assholey house meeting we relaxed at the cowley club over a beer and a beastly game of table football. jess & grilly slaughtered me & julie (hey at least it wasn't 10-0). we then swapped teams and me & jess managed to draw and then actually win (6-4). we bought books and went home a little bit heavier.

what i took away from the house meeting is this. the residence clock is ticking and the need for new house mates to sign contracts is becoming urgent. i'm not going to start freaking out quite yet, but omfuckufukfuckufckcufukckufckckkfcck

and i have a real craving for fresh strawberries.

the best thread ever



10.05.05: there's no need to feel inadequate just because i smell so god damn good. i mean, i wouldn't normally buy anything from somewhere like lush, but there's something about cocoa butter and honey that i just can't resist. plus it wasn't me who paid for it, it was my parents. how glamorous am i know fucker?

i also have to point out that i think the bay leaf might be the best indian restaurant in brighton. i'm more than happy to be corrected though. and for lunch i'd personally head to planet india on preston street, but i'm biased.

and not to be a geek or anything, but seven soldiers is really starting to shape up. i knew i always loved grant morrison, and his new meta series is turning into a goldmine.

about the moose, it's actually something julie wrote in her dissertation. it's not that weird or even funny. but for a minute there, it was fucking hilarious.


09.05.05:

06.05.05: this morning my legs hurt. they're cut, bruised and stung. it must mean we had a good adventure last night.

it started off with a cycle onto campus. i wish i'd spend the last of my student years cycling to uni, but then it's nothing compared with the romance of catching the train (swoon). we sat outside the meeting house waiting (or chilling, i can't remember which took preference). it was different to be on campus again, and it was surprisingly calm. the night had already started but it still felt warm. it was comforting dark. we were there for a party on east slope, somewhere i'd previously missed out on. it's a very strange place, feeling and smelling like a holiday camp. with strange stacked and bolted together buildings, a bit like lego (or some less stupid suggestions). the actual living areas are like some weird section of a labyrinth, so obviously i was loving it - those strange corridors, differing levels and awkwardly positioned stairs.

soon it had passed (past?) our bed time so me and tommy snuck out. we only had one set of wheels so it was going to be a long, slow and winding journey home. tom had better plans and we were soon clambering through shrubbery and forest. cycling through trees in the middle of night - it's always been one of my favourite past times. breaking through the trees, along a large field and past the husk of a burnt out car and motorbike. it's that park again, the really dramatic one, and half way round it we begin to climb. it wouldn't be so hard without a bicycle but where would the fun be then? the grass is wet and slippy and slopes this steep aren't meant to be scaled. reaching the top and we were greeted by a moon lit lake (not to be dramatic, it was actually a pond). in the same way that i previously could have thought of the blair witch project (but i didn't), i could have thought of harry potter. but i didn't. (this is just my bad pop culture reference). instead i took a leak. approaching the top and brighton had slowly appeared, a mash of fuzzy sodium orange and two misty grey tower blocks. it added up to a fucking awesome scene. all that was missing was the unicorns (oh shut up). heading south is where we encoutered the roughage. my legs were exposed from cycling and the brambles were invisble against the long grass in the moonlight. not only was there a fence where there shouldn't have been but there was also a skate park. this i couldn't resist, and apart from walking into a low grinding rail (dude, it was dark) i sustained no injury. from here it was downhill all the way. infact, from tommy's house i didn't have to peddle once. fun plus plus.

and now it's the weekend again? wow.

so i'm stealing this link from johanna (and not even giving her link?! the cheek), because it's just too cool to let her keep it to her own blog. although hey, she took it from somewhere else obviously, and this is how the internet works. but now i've digressed so far it's barely worth bringing my point back. er. it's the khronos projector. let's fucking hear it for spatio-temporal gradients. yeah.



a href="newsarchive17.asp#05052005" class="date">05.05.05: there i was, about to happily walk out in public proudly wearing my magoo "pop songs" badge, when it suddenly dawned on me what day it was. my badge is only a bloody nice conservative blue isn't it? i would have looked a right cunt.

actually i'm quite worried about today's election. not as scared as i was during the american election (that's the sick sad world that we live in) but i do feel edgy. perhaps it's the conservative party political broadcast that i accidently saw last night. perhaps it's just that i got carried away in thinking that it would make a difference. or perhaps it's just the passive hate i can see in people's eyes.

so we saw 'hitchhikers guide to the galaxy' last night. it wasn't so bad as you'd all said. it was an enjoyable watch and a good reminder of the genius of douglas adams. i was happy with the production, i'm glad it didn't feel too expensive. having said that some of the visuals were awesome (i'm mainly thinking of the planet construction yard here). the acting was tolerable. some of it was even really good. i mean, didn't john malkovich totally make the film or what? he totally stole the show for me (amonst other good casting etc blah blah). on a down point though, i really wanted to see the cow that wants to be eaten. nevermind. i also enjoyed the cameos and the new look of the guide book (sex). that's about all i can be bothered to say, sorry

and i should also say something about casshern, considering i'd been going on about it for so long. it is a truly beautiful looking film. i don't think it will disappoint you as long as you know what to expect - it's pure japanese over the top drawn out movie making, along with obligatory complicated and largely unexplained plot and very silly action scenes (i know how bad this sentence is). what confused me the most was the soundtrack, it flipped from superb to cheesey far too often. it's painfully epic and i'm still confused about it's message. i guess it's about war. dot dot dot.

and i'll tell you what, the mia album is fucking brutal. she could muller dizzie's ass any day of the week.



04.05.05: something is starting to really bug me. actually it's less of a "thing" and more of a "one", and i just couldn't help but ask this guy about his political views. i was going to be tactful but instead i found myself coming out with "so i heard you were a bit of a nationalist?". he said he would vote bnp except they're a bit too racist (apparently, or so i've heard). he might vote for ukip instead because they're more anti-europe than the conservatives. or course europe is bad because they'll come in and ruin our strong pound and also take away our identity ("oh you know, our heritage and our traditions"). they'll probably take our women as well. that or rape them, i don't now. i was going to ask whether he felt uncomfortable working in such a multi-cultural and mixed race office, but i'm trying hard to not be an asshole these days.

i mean, you have to be accepting and patient with new people right? learning new skills can be hard and time consuming. it's just that when they go and give you tuna (or trout?! wtf?) instead of coleslaw with your cheese and beans baked potato it's really fucking trying. i especially asked her for coleslaw because i could tell she wasn't going to give me the side salad (which is why i go the pig instead of the other place). she had already failed to take my hint of "can i not have tomato with the salad". and how can you mistake coleslaw with fish stuff? i feel completely justified in unleashing fury.

ragh.
.
.

i've always found google's antics in china curious, and their careful balance between cenorship and freedom of information is quite interesting. anyway, google has now invaded china, setting up an office that will enable them to make much more yen. it's actually pretty boring news though, it just means chinese people wanting to pay google for adverts can do it easily and without going through a middle man. i imagine that once google have a firmer economic rooting in china it will be much tougher for the government to ban them for including 'china unfriendly' sites in their results. er, maybe.

i never noticed before how yen was the end of money backwards.



03.05.05: it's been so long since thursday. but i've hardly missed it. not being at work for four days was lovely. the sun came out especially for the may day holiday and all was awesome.

friday's seo workshop slowly turned into the drinking session that i was planning on avoiding. my swollen glands were saying this was a bad idea but it ended vaguely well. at least i think it did. saturday was great even though dave's comics had sold out of that stupid book that i wanted. i was so pissed off i nearly bought it from borders. but i didn't. instead, and since we were already in that neck of the woods, we decided to go check out the girls in the world cinema section of hmv. they'd only gone and fucking got in casshern (in a nice but stupid tin box), which more than made up for the short comings of dave's comics.

then tom came round and took me seriously when i told him "okay, only use four chillis but put the seeds in". it was a good dinner to prepare us for fletcher's party - another horrifically drunk and obnoxious affair. i was finding it all too easy to be very rude. and i can't really deny that it was me who burnt the two holes in the twin towers poster. thank grilly for stopping me from completley burning them out of the photo altogether. i was ready for some proper pyromania. and i'd like to think that it was tom's idea to climb on top of the bus shelter. we didn't of course, but it did end with my bottle of wine smashed all over elm grove. you bunch of drunk fucking student assholes. what a waste.

anyway, sunday was obvious may day celebrations. we caught a roast from the george and headed up to queens park (totally failing to acquire alcohol or lemon curd but we did get rather nice coffees). it was nice to get the shoes off and some dog shit on the frisbee - it's always the way. the image that sticks in my head though, a bunch of small children playing under the cherry blosson. someone high up in the branches ensuring a steady snowfall of pink petals. the kids dancing around screaming "it's snowing, it's snowing". it created an almost perfectly circular carpet of pink on the lawn. painfully photo worthy i'm telling you. stupid kids.

the problem that followed was getting food. we had to buy pizza from the fucking spa. but it was okay because then we finally got to watch casshern. pretty pretty.

the next morning i'm just chilling in bed when corey phones me. he has this crazy idea to come down to brighton. another call later (to bully ben) and we're meeting ben and corey at the station. it was all beach weather, apart from the sea that doesn't realise this yet (and is still fucking freezing). whatever, we got totally sunned. and not only that, but ben decided to stick around for the music quiz and won us six beers. long live the 'sonic butt nuggets'. it was the girl band first half that did it.

i feel there is lots to write but i just want to go home.

and for some reason my mug tastes of melons. i'm now very suspicious.



28.04.05: i'm starting to resent walking up chatham place (up to seven dials). your breathing rate increases but the air is all exhausted. cars queue all the way up the hill from preston circus, their noisy engines chugging and pumping away. and i'm wondering why my throat hurts?

something else i was thinking on the way up the hill was whether prisoners get a vote or not? my first reaction was "stupid, of course they do". but a quick search tells me that actually prisoners don't get a vote, even though the uk signed the international covenant on civil and political rights (yes i copied and pasted that) and the european convention on human rights. i guess that's where my incorrect "or course" came from.

anyway, i'm off to see greenpeace now. and i have a workshop tomorrow. so i might not be around. does anyone want to do anything friday night? i think i might be very available.



27.04.05: oh, and if you're wondering what actually happened, some girl who'd said twice that she'd be coming to the party didn't. that's all it was. it was nothing.

but i dreamt last night that i was going to die at four o'clock. i took a long bath and we sat about waiting. i was told my head would remain alive and screaming for around ten minutes. that small amount of comedy wasn't really enough to dislodge the lingering dread. it was dark and now i can't shake that feeling.

back in the real world and we watched surplus ("terrorized into being consumers"). you're going to have to bear with me for a minute while i do a little rant because i have a few problems with this film (unfortunately all of them are probably obvious and quite uninteresting). it came across a bit like an art student's politcal film project. that might be vaguely judgemental, but that's what i'm here for. basically, the film has a target market and it's in that that it's failed already. its style and its cool doesn't make for a documentary - it's a music video. the reason i have interest to begin with is that i'm fed up with that style of marketing (yes, it's just propaganda). sorry, but i don't think "using the enemies techniques" is all that clever - the style isn't used to make a point, it's used to deliver it. i found it very difficult viewing, trying to remain attentive so as not to miss the actual content. which was another problem, because there's hardly any. i doubt anyone is going to learn anything from watching it, and that makes me wonder what the point was. having said all that i'm now feeling less bitter. i'm glad i watched it and i did enjoy it. it has some excellent quotes (that you thankfully wont miss as they're repeated over and over) and an interesting talk by john zerzan (although i'm still not convinced by the property damage argument). i just felt that i was cheated somewhat (i'd say disenchanted except that would make me an asshole). but hey, the film won a bunch of awards so what do i know?

and i nearly forgot to mention how beautiful the morning is. i walked a different route through the park and for a couple of minutes i actually felt like i'd moved on.



26.04.05: i feel the need to acknowledge that yesterday was the anniversary of last year's worst day. it may be slightly harsh or an unfair judgement, but i hadn't (and havn't) felt as bad as on that day for the longest time. it wasn't the let down or the disappointment - it was the absolute crush. the previous months (far too many to feel comfortable admitting) had been spent with only one thing on my mind. i had a single goal and nothing else mattered at all, everything would simply follow, beautifully falling into place. and then (crunch) you suddenly realise that you've been ridiculous. you've wasted the last month - the whole time thinking it's okay that you're doing nothing because you have a plan. and it's fine that everything's revolving around a single aspiration because you want it that much. but then when it all goes wrong, when you wake up at 8am and all you can do to stop yourself feeling so lonely you might die is to switch on the television (only to switch it off again because it's the worst thing you could have done and now there's an even bigger gap to fill), you've left yourself with nothing. all that time has been wasted and it can't be given back. the same applies to your future, it's all been destroyed. where the fuck do you go?

how horribly melodramatic this is, but it's what lack of sleep will do to you. i ran about all day in a frantic trance not knowing what the fuck i was supposed to be doing. the tzatziki helped, as did the earl grey and the balcony, but essentially it was all fucking horrible.

i'd like to think that i've learnt my lesson, but to be honest i have no idea if i have or not. either way though, it's nice to see me being more emotionally stable.

i'm tempted to delete all that and write about what a pleasant time we had last night in the nia cafe "not" celebrating jess's birthday. nevermind.

and finally, here is a present for you all. they have six silver mt zion gigs, thirty two godspeed gigs and twenty three mogwai gigs (currently listening to the best version of helicon1 ever). and yes they're funny file formats but i'm sure you can handle it, noob.



25.04.05: it's monday morning again and i'm learning how coffee makes it hard to focus. perhaps it's that my eyeballs are vibrating. perhaps not.

you might have heard but last week ended in something of a rail trip up to halifax. it's a mean five hours up / five hours down affair involving much alcohol and reading. long train journeys do weird things to people. i watched a man buy a can of diet coke with his credit card. and people's reflections in the double glazing of london tube trains make them look beaten and disfigured.

we finally get to halifax and i've been assigned room 404. you can make the jokes up yourself, but laugh away because my room was massive. huge bed, sofa and bathroom. there isn't really a shower in there but i tried for it anyway - impeded by the angle of the ceiling i felt a bit like bill murray.

the night before was an awful trawl around halifax's best pubs and bars. it's a thursday night and it's horrible out here. being a bunch of 'business' men (oh how you'd laugh) we felt compelled to visit the local lap dancing club. actually, there is no "we" in this. it was soley down to one person, and the first question he asks on the way in is "how much for a personal dance?". it is incredible. the problem is i wouldn't even call it an experience. it was neither that good or that bad - but just quite sad. in its defence it probably was the best place to get a drink. it wasn't packed, the music was okay and the women (on average) were probably wearing more clothes.

the other problem around here, apart from none of the clocks working, is that i can't actually understand what anyone is saying. ordering food and drinks was easier when i was in spain. i just smile and nod at the nice northerners.

the weekend was nice too, much the same as any other weekend really. going to town, eating out, buying comics, buying music, drinking some coffee - reading, napping and sleeping. it was good to get out on sunday morning and it was even better to feel some spring rain. british weather is the best. i only got half my chores done (my jeans are still ripped all the way up the right leg) but whatever.

this is the funniest thing i've seen all morning (and then some).



21.04.05: rubik's revenge was short lived. i finally nailed the cuboid mother fucker.

in other news i'm off to halifax today and will be back late friday. so that's where i'm at.

and the next time i spend the whole evening trying to find one of my books only to find someone took it into their room there will be tontie hammers at dawn action.

yeah, to the wall you funky twat.



20.04.05: thanks to rifa i finally broke my seal on the mad hatter cafe (and thanks for lunch too). this means i can now go there all the time, although why i/you wouldn't walk the extra distance to the sanctuary i don't know. i really miss that place.

and i sure as hell don't have to sit here listening to this shit. i hate cars and i hate mobile phones. grr.

there were some bands last night. i think it was 'the thermals' and 'the smalls' (i jest you not) at the freebutt. i spent most of the time ignoring the bands and staring at people. and when i say people i don't mean any more than two - the problem clearly not exorcised (she looked more like her than any english girl should). 'the smalls' were a pretty enjoyable droney grungey business. 'the thermals' were either one very long and noisey song, or about forty very short aggressive ones - so loud he broke the mike.

i'm still playing too much n though. it's total aeon flux core - at least the nearest any computer game will ever get to emulating the first series. too awesome i tell you.

thanks to grilly (and radiohead) for pointing out that george monbiot has a blog. you can add me to your thanks list now.



19.04.05: i have this problem where sometimes i just can't help looking at someone. maybe i should use the word 'staring', as that's what i'm trying not to do. it isn't like a "wow look at that girl she's so gorgeous" thing. not like that at all. it really frustrates me though and i hate to think what these people must think. why does that weird guy keep looking at me like that? and what am i trying to achieve here anyway? unfortunatly i have no conclusions, or even any interesting ideas. i just felt like making a note of it. perhaps it's not that bad or weird anyway. whatever. having someones face burnt into your retina is never what you want.

but last night we went to some ukulele anti folk thing at the fringe bar. if it wasn't such a cliche i'd really fucking hate ukuleles, and luckily there weren't many present (sorry but i can't help my feelings). there was spinmaster plantpot though (mp3s coming soon apparently), he's the best fucking thing i've seen in ages. violent and hilarious acapella. i just wish he didn't remind me of alexi sayle because that's lame of me (in a similar way to my pj harvey comment), but nevermind.

another reason i like having a website is when people suddenly start talking about something new, for instance mia and her galang video (even william gibson is getting in on the action), i can point to a post nearly two years ago where i mentioned her. however, clearly i'm just an asshole - no one likes the "you're so passe because i was talking about it years ago" do they now?

and by the way, there really is no need to visit my site five times a day. i'm just saying, is all. i find it somewhat somewhere between embarrassing and unsettling.

also i just had my first ever visitor from luxembourg. woot.



18.04.05: last night i dreamt it was nearly christmas. i hope you can appreciate how much that freaked me out. i do only have five squares in the wrong place on my 4x4x4 rubiks cube though. not that it really makes up for anything.

anyway, the pavillion gardens were nice on saturday. some kid called harry lost his ball and i nearly hit some girl with a well aimed dog. what i mean by that is the dog nearly hit her while trying to catch its 'stick' i threw (actually a slobbery rock). that doesn't mean i threw a rock at a girl, or something.

i'm still impressed that i managed to get home from the concorde in under forty minutes. unfortunately far from impressed that i agreed to go to that fucking hell hole again in the first place. the last great night i had there was with my parents for fuck sake (although to be fair it was zion train). it was okay y'know, but wouldn't you rather have been in so many places?

at least we can now just hang out on the beach. the wind is a bastard and the sun will give you skin cancer, but it's nice as pie i'm telling you.

all else i did was reading. i'm too busy to write this rubbish.



15.04.05: where did my beautiful sleep go? eighteen minutes past ten and that last coffee didn't even dent me. now i'm just looking forward to the pad thai massacre.

so hey, ladyfest benefits rock. i'm not sure why they have to call them benefits when they could just be 'ladyfest nights' but i'm shutting up already, fear not. so far these have all been awesome nights with lovely people and cake. the first band up was 'the alsations' (plural but just one person?) and was total placebo-core. i really wanted to mention this but i was concerned it'd be taken the wrong way. nothing to do with image (that would be shallow and obnoxious), but rather to do with stefan olsdal and his bionic evil dildo. i may be wrong but i don't care, it was all compliment. after some sleater kinney later and we sit down on the surprisingly sit-on-able floor for 'bat for lashes' (featuring abi of astra and abi fame on big drum and viola - which i just typo'd as "violence"). i see natasha about town quite a bit, so i find it hard to comprehend how exactly she acquired so much talent. what with her being a normal and real person and everything. i still can't quite put my finger on who i think she sounds like (probably a good sign) and pj harvey et al comparisons are so obvious i feel shit for even hinting at them. the final band were blood red shoes again. steve (ex 'cat on form') is nothing short of a jackhammer. all this band needs is a nic endo to ruin their simplicity and slay everyone. i'd pay to see it, right proper.

and not that jess would want to steal any of what i wrote for her planb review, but just incase i've gone to the effort of water marking the prose. the technicalities of how that would work get me all excited, but let's just pretend that i didn't say that.

yesterday i spent four hours on various trains without a book. i really wanted to read. i took my frustration out on my notepad. calling all tentacles and spikes, laurence is doodling again:

i left the lines in so you could see how stupidly large it is.

and just incase you were thinking about voting for veritas or weren't convinced that kilroy silk is an absolute cunt, you should click those links. i've never read so much bullshit since grilly sent me this. the trailing comments make me think it's tontie hammer time again.



13.04.05: if you're wondering why i was late to work today (or left the house late) it was because i was watching two seagulls have sex - the male literally standing on top of the female. best wank i've had in ages.

so i got done by one of them 'charity muggers'. not done in the way that i gave them money, but in the way that i ended up getting immensely pissed off. the mistake you make is stopping and talking to them. i'm not condeming them, it's just that i walk past about five of them every day. what was the difference this time? where did i fail? i tried to take him on didn't i? there i was, busy ignoring him ("hi, yeah great thanks, whatever"), when i noticed he was working for a charity that i actually work for myself. right, i thought, i can fucking have him. of course it didn't work. he came back with "well then you must understand the importance of the charity and how they need you to donate a small amount of money a week". but i already work for them, i'm "doing my bit". a couple of minutes later i told him i felt bad because i was wasting his time and was going to leave. he still didn't give up. i found out they don't actually get commission though. but they do get a bonus when they reach a set target and then they get extra money over that.

i've been playing a lot of n. it's painfully addictive, has beautiful physics, and the n stands for 'ninja'. if i hadn't already made a lewd comment today i would tell you to "go suck a fuck".

hurray, the vegan chick is back



12.04.05: i think the problem may have been due to the violence at which i banged my head while in the toilet of the cowley club. for half an hour i was seeing in black and white. and when we finally got down to the beach i'm sure i could see meteorites falling from the moon. i must have imagined the gentle 'plop' before they sank to the sea bed.

it's almost embarrassing how many times we've seen abi and astra play. perhaps they're just an easy way to pick a pub, last night it was the greys (y'know, the pub with all the beers). the music was good although to be honest, and potentially controversial, it was generally quite uninspiring. astra and abi (and their keyboardist) were as great as ever, but the other bands just didn't have the same edge. beautiful voices and everything, don't get me wrong. there was just something missing.

you may not have noticed that the new silver mt zion album is out. especially if you only shop in 'essential music' who don't stock "all of those godspeed off shoots, there are just too many of them". fucking fools. anyway i digress, the album is as phenomenal as you would have expected. it's beautifully constructed in every way an album could be beautifully constructed. it even has bells and whistles (metaphorically of course). only a new glassjaw album could i praise more. the head automatica website is sex though.

i also just received this through the post. but more on that slice of wonderful loveliness later. you could treat yourself too, if only you lacked the apathy and self-loathing.



11.04.05: i don't really feel like i've done anything. maybe the word is 'achieved'. either way i'm rubbish. like waking up too early from a nap because your body is scared it's getting dark, and it knows how depressed you'll be when you realise you missed the end of the day. all that time that can't be given back.

i'm desperately search for something that i've done that is worth mentioning. i suppose this is why, after sunday roast and a film at the joogleberry and hanging out on the level, i felt desperate to build something. some creation. you're just losing the days again, and need to mark them with something more permanent than a vague memory of falling asleep in the evening sun. it probably wasn't this bad, it just felt it at the time.

i'm now officially committed to my kilimanjaro climb. to the value of £140. does that mean there is no going back and in under five months i will be up kilimanjaro? what have i done?

i've been thinking about my reasons for climbing kilimanjaro and i think the list would make you sick. am i really living my life based on 'wwjd?' style decision making? is it really all to do with me trying to get over inadequacies i've (possibly falsely) acquired from various people? this isn't a competitive thing. it's more like me trying to feel that i have a life. that i am worthy. or at least would have been. it's not that i can't explain this properly, it's more like i don't want to.

the google sightseeing blog is amazing. a while ago google bought keyhole, technology involving hi-res satellite imagery of the whole world). they've now integrated this into google maps. so there is much fun to be had finding all of your favourite landmarks (in america at least). for me, the highlights were niagra falls, mt st helens, rainbow bridge, some huge writing and some weird salt ponds.

and mostly for my own reference, the glastonbury line-up.



08.04.05: no one cares about this, not even in my industry, but there's been an update over at google images. it's now indexing 417 images from my site and i've had quite a few referals for various graphics (mostly stuff from my layouts page). frustratingly there is no indication of the search terms people have been using (the url referal string is largely useless). i quite like how it has worked out though, most of my images are behind javascript so it only ever lists the tiny preview graphics. that's something i need to have a think about. but there's no rush, google images only ever updates two or three times a year.

i've also started a proper kilimanjaro climb page. think of it as a splinter-blog. i wanted a place where i could keep all the kilimanjaro information and updates together. i imagine it'll mostly be copies of anything relevant i've written on this page, but who knows (apart from myself, i guess).

i bought crap orange juice this morning. i just couldn't reach the one i wanted, it was right at the back of the fridge.

oh, and the chemical brothers video for believe is gorgeous in most industrial dinosaurus way.



07.04.05: the sea looks like pea soup. i've never eaten pea soup, but thanks to the internet i know that it's the same colour as the sea. fascinating what?

last night i had my fitness assessment for the kilimanjaro climb. i came in at about an average, something i think i should be happy about considering i spend the best hours of my day sitting at a desk. i'm not technically committed to the climb yet though, as i havn't paid my deposit - i'm still a little concerned about my finances (maybe i should start a second fundraiser for my £81 a month council tax bill, that's £19 a week). i'm full of enthusiasm though, climbing kilimanjaro is something that i really want to do. and the ball is rolling so it's not one of those things you talk about but what never actually happens. i just need to find the time for fitness training and raising money, and sooner rather than later. (oh, and cheers to rachael for the email)

also i'm supposed to be telling you to go and sign this petition to stop the slaughtering of wolves in norway. but then, i can't give you a good to reason why you should sign that over any of the other thousand petitions that are on the site. i got a bit overwhelmed and ended up not signing any (this isn't quite true).

does anyone want a raw crumpet?

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