This is from a few days back, but it seems to me that most of the narratives I've seen that deal with kidnapped babies tend to deal, in some way or other, with the narrative of the Lindbergh Baby. Not to mention Donna's dirty secret.
The thing with Will Bailey and Donna is getting me a bit flabbed.
Okay, so the West Wing is trying its best to tread as lightly as possible between "keepin it real" and ga-ga-land fantasy. It's okay, and it really does seem like such a small step to take.
I'm now officially wondering whether VOIP is worth it. The problem with BroadVoice and X-Lite is that it requires a hell of a lot of bandwidth, so I effectively have to shut down Azureus just to get decent clarity - though apparently it does end up being the best voice quality possible. The problem with Skype and Phoneconnector is that it's not as idiot proof, even though it does seem much more efficient and probably more forgiving of bandwidth sqeezing.
I might give Skype the chance of running without Azureus - but there's still the issue of the USB port fucking up.
But having now discovered that rates have gone up to 10c a minute to the US, all this just seems like teeth.
Someone clever decided to post a list of overlaps between Sports Night and West Wing. I'm gonna e-mail them with ones I think they missed. Eventually.
Fighting about "going to the hot club"
In both series, relationships break up over the guy being too boring/serious, and the woman wanting too much to be exciting, and go out, be seen, go to the right club etc.
In Sports Night this is what breaks up Natalie and Jeremy in Dana Get Your Gun. On West Wing, this is the background story of Sam breaking up with his fiance Lisa Sherborne in 100,000 Airplanes.
This other one I need to tidy up:
With regards to fathers' adultery as discussed here there's also another theme that runs through boths episodes, that both episodes mention maritime, or celestial navigation (a theme repeated in the title of the WW episode "Celestial Navigation"). Both episodes refer to finding out about the father's adultery as changing everything, and this is compared to something as fundamental as maps changing, or in Jeremy's case, wanting to find out how something happened. This is echoed in Natalie breaking down to Isaac ("And the Crowd Goes Wild) about Jeremy wanting to get his stuff back, and giving the tape to the police, as violating a fundamental principle.
And so Louis is not crazy, and Diane Warren did write a song for Chicago based on her overhearing a divorced couple (or some such). Look Away. I'm just wondering now who "Don't Turn Around" was originally written for - I suspect that it's Ace of Base, but that blows my mind, and Aswad?
Getting more convinced that DVD rips aren't the same quality as HD rips. Finding Aphex Twin rather convincing. Ambient thing seems rather enjoyable, and quiet without being melancholy, which is a plus. Now starting to wonder if getting Boomtown was a mistake. More and often. Perhaps. Some things, however, are just too scribbly, and you get the feeling that you're just scratching.
I suppose I could write about the vague watchability of Boomtown, mostly because of the parables it spins. Just tad. I've just said that I've been trying to watch funnier things recently, and that's pretty true. The noodle place people recognise me now. It's probably worse at night with no people and no activity. And if I shower now, I won't sleep for a while yet, which doesn't seem so attractive to me. But my Lacey Chabert's grown up into a babe hasn't she? Less distinctive features, but such come hither hair. Though really it just might have been the same strategy as Mary McCormack, being Mary Louise Parker. Bonnie Hunt just seems so rife with insecurity, an ooze of vulnerability.
It's just that she uses her sentiment like a bludgeon. Fair enough it's not Alanis, but still annoying. That and the gameshow music.
And so the mysticism of Laura Nyro. From what I can hear she seems to be the Carole King of something, her renditions just quiet, sincere, clenching, not the same kind of spunk you hear with the ones that hit. It's probably not more than inevitable that the picting of it should come about, Amy Sherman and Aaron Sorkin, like a ball. It's a kind of plaintive wondrousness to discover these tiny stitchings, when the fabric is blanket and wrapped to everyone else perhaps. And particularly that the scriptor would have been obscured herself by aforementioned spunk. It's a kind of tugging, a kind of happy happy tugging, glad. I suppose a mention of basket weaving would not be out of place in all this. Layers and reusing of old whiskey to retain consistency. Listening with your spine.
Sophia Bush and Kristen Bell really look spookily like each other. If only it was called Hermione. Foghat rocks. Seoul Raiders was pretty awful. And like I told Winston, second day's a charm. Someone really needs to assure me that it's not the bloody drivers, and that the underclocking is making things better.
Oh my. Marti Noxon must be as concerned with ratings as much as she is with comedy. There's only one word to describe how bad it is. Charmed.
The girl girl dynamic isn't even as interesting or arresting as Hex. The non-blonde one is even slightly better than the locus, but they're all too pretty and blank.
How many times to they need to get shot? How much trauma do they have to go through? Someone must really have realised that the most fun you can have is people shooting each other up.
Ok, wow. They really pulled out all the stops for these guys leaving the series. The Doc thing is absolutely breathtakingly distancing and powerful. Bang. Though really, all the people who are good looking enough to still have a career must have decided to leave.
But really, somewhere along the line someone must have realised that there's only so much you can do with fire, so now it's a cop show with paramedics.
Well, apparently there are reasons why some people get to executive produce. Edward Allen Bernero is now interesting to me. The episode was really rather good, not exactly real-time, but done in extended long shots, nicely timed for the ads. Very detective fiction, a really rather lovelily put together. I suppose if I have to show anyone an episode of Third Watch, this would be it. I wonder if they ask very conscientiously for the actors to retain some fashion of how they speak, because the actors seem to talk a particular way, particularly pronounced with Davis and Monroe.
This really did seem to have a kind of lyricism about it, not surprisingly it felt very much like Before Sunset. What I'd take issue with is the symmetry of the dialogue, too neat, too closed off, too bookended and deliberately and contrivedly rambly - like the establishing and closing shots etc.
Yeah, apparently they just needed to get their stride back, took them till mid-season though.
Oh, and Mimi Leder's episodes of Jonny Zero (actually, most of that show so far) has been so absolutely disappointing. Especially for the fact that they're trying to be Angel, with Burly Guy in need of Redemption, Mouthy Sidekick, and Rescued Girl. The direction relied too much on very blarey music, and felt too much like an action film.
5th season third watch is a bit poor. I'm going to say they do rather unearned things, and that they try to "dig deep" in to the concept - but just for perspective I used to say that about Aaron Sorkin's West Wing season premieres. It's nice though, following through on a big narrative, a very large tattoo.
I suppose I shouldn't feel funny about people feeling sorry for me - I feel sorry for me :P. I really shouldn't start writing when I'm going to be distracted.
But really, after you hear John Wells (or whoever) talking about how after a while you have to stir the pot, it makes the stirring a bit contrived. And you'd think that there should never be such a thing as a transitional season, though that's what West Wing 5 was, that's what this season feels like. Also the meshing is starting to get really contrived.
Maybe it's just the start of season blues, along with the new, and not terribly engaging, characters. Tia Texada was much more fun when she first came on, and Nia Long is just so yawn inducing it's not true. Also the police storylines can begin to feel like they dominate, probably because they have that much more scope in many ways.
Mary McCormack was really rather fun on Celebrity Poker Showdown. She, like Mary Louise Parker, have people to thank.
Oh, and Jennifer Paige may be coming out with a new album eventually, having moved to the south etc. Yahoo search is good in that they tend to return the official page first.
I get the feeling it would have been an interesting and probably fittingly dramatic feature project, but as a series it seems to stumble quite badly. Sabrina Llyod is still quite fetching, but...
I've just discovered this lovely site devoted to the Yokas-Boscorelli relationship. Apparently these people refer to themselves as "shippers".
Yahoo Search isn't bad. It's currently replaced my default search from that other search that's getting backlashed as of now. Opera's editable search.ini is a god-send, as it the search.ini editor - both of which are easily searched for. I'm tired of opening movable type in IE, so I've taken to using Opera's notes to manually edit links.
So just to say, if people want to find solace from Chinese New Year, they're welcome to come over. Just remember that you will be required you to bring oranges to bai the stately and matriarchal Prudence. One in each paw. Plenty of prata and mee goreng.
I like Faith being special. I suppose it's all a lot more entertaining that I gave it credit for, as long as you get into it. Carlos was pretty Peep Show, but he was undoubtly effective, and not just a little funny a lot of the time.
Those fingers were gloating, not the expression of anything other than spite and bile. Whether wagging of flipping. It's honestly almost obscene that they should feel the need to abuse symbols in this way.
The gadding tourists abound Beach Rd make me wish I was back in Boston.
I just had a dream about the Britney Spears dating reality show. It seemed to be a continuation of something. I wasn't doing too well. My father was there somehow trying, on the train, to get his laptop online. I had an overly intellectual conversation with her and it seemed to go really badly, particularly when she didn't quite get me and she didn't know the word "visceral". Apparently Harvey Weinstein was the one producing the show. I also kept being castigated for not taking out my sheets in the morning, so much that I was fined for it later. I had left for some reason and come back to the midst, only find things had changed, and I had to catch up on my journal writing for her. After dozing I went to get paper from the room. In doing so I stumbled upon one of the guys making out with another girl, probably part of the show, an assistant of Britney's. I persisted, however in getting the paper, then told them to carry on. Later I realised that there had been a sock on the door and I had been too sleepy or something to notice. The guy got kicked off. Reminds me of barging into the greek guy's room with his hot girlfriend naked under the sheets, trying to get rizla. The bizarre shift was when we were suddenly in a kind of forum or tribunal questioning a killer, when the guy next to me said, I'm gonna kill him, kill you, then kill myself. I didn't quite hear him, so I asked him to repeat himself, and while he was doing that I wrestled the gun from his hands.
This probably goes up there with the -- as slayer dream.
And so perhaps Louis should do a kind of TV diary for each day, since that is what Louis does the most each day here.
Currently in freeze frame is the SI Swimsuit Model Search, the (probably) penultimate episode, and I find that they're making me root for Alicia - in a way that says to me this is the choice they want me to make, by stating that clear preference and portraying her narrative as the most compelling. And in such a way that doesn't make me think it's a fake-out. And looking at the shoots, I probably agree.
Project Runway isn't online, but the pictures on the website paint quite nicely the USPS thing that happened, and Austin making his model debut.
Just to mention though, that Louis has reorganised his room, so that the dining table is now right next to the bed, ready to be pulled out for mahjong etc. and the couch is now nearer the kitchen. Most important is that now the route to the toilet is no longer one that has to be traversed with such care.
State of the Union was a bit too showy for me, too much staged, which made the moving portions all the more alienating in retrospect. Immigration is something he seems genuinely to be standing up for, and he did a good job of articulating the need for Social Security reform. The vision of smaller government came out well. The layout of the Democratic response was a bit bizarre.
I'm considering whether to go for another 15" LCD, or should I already be thinking the prices of the 17s are good enough. I'm looking at the entry level 17" DVI from Viewsonic at $469 (all in Sing), or the 15 from Acer at about a hundred dollars less. It would seem to make sense to go for the 17, but first I have questions about how the desktop would span between resolutions, and really, if the S-Video will just clone, whether it's worth it at all to go ahead. Though I really should RMA the CMV one before it's too late. I'll probably just go and take a look at them and make a decision.
Just in passing, Last Train was a bit too reliant on it's OTT scoring, and was very radio watching. Third Watch season 3 similarly.
monkeysgotufty.com
Apparently someone's discovered that self-immolation is funny. All MS all the time. TV Tome, and Channel 4.
How fucked up is the American version going to be?
Somehow it seems that the Economist is the one that is able to write about industry and commerce with that kind of excitement and unseemly desire. And yet they do so by telling stories, creating manifestation - the narrative of sucess. You succeed by having followed the tenets, you fail by having not, or by not being aware of the tenets then; when things change, change your mind. It's just typical that the aspirational tone of it, and the mode in which it is presented, would be the way to make it sound like they were writing about there being no help or pity.
It's always sad when a series you like gets cancelled. Thankfully rips are now pretty much readily available of Grounded For Life.
Just a note to people, could you bring me back my stuff? It's not that I really need it back, but I'm beginning to forget what I've lent out, and I should try and get it back.
These would include Sports Night, any more sets of keys, Robotech, my magnetic card for the main door, Jenna Haze, probably Dead Ringers? Well, basically if you have it bring it back, you know, whenever.
Not bad for $130, 29 inch, Panasonic, about 5 years old, including them delivering it to me :D. 2 S-Video inputs, one for DVD, another for my comp - perfect. They said they'd deliver tomorrow night.
Remember Info.txt in mail. Copy over Outlook files, clean install Acer, install phoneconnector (software first), test skype, get beta of ABC, ask about new features, rip Murder One, rip K Street, laundry, go through mail, install kingston software, clean install klipfolio.
Bridge on Saturday. Buy beer. Buy CDRs. Ramones. Try file transfer with Winrar corp.
Writing suddenly seems to have become incumbent on me drinking, which is always a good sign. I think I've decided that general culling is going be better than obsessive arranging, at least this time round. Stout tastes funny.
I got my reality distorted again. Widgets look nice, but thinking of Opera and Klipfolio, those all seem less and less impressive. And when he goes on about digital music it makes me want to hit things.
First you show up. Then you see what happens.
Watching it brings me to a number of conclusions. I feel the sudden urge to react strongly against Todd Haynes. His politics is more middle-brow than I'd think imaginable - the term "the robots are going to eat us" springs to mind - or my new favorite, a capitalist version of a tin foil hat. Boo hoo, commercial representation, blah blah, oh marxist me. Twat. A large portion of why the film might be thought of as compelling would be due to the music, which is rather lovely. It was pointed out to me one of Haynes' contradictions in the film, that fame and celebrity, more importantly media-ness, come under some kind of limp flailing, when there's this almost fetishistic interest in the persona of a figure that would be iconic for so many reasons. ie he is politically and socially conscious/sentient (barely), but he still loves the trappings of Karen Carpenter. But she does sound like Aimee Mann. And as far as I know, image, or the perpetuation of image, is supposed to have a lot less to do with it than familial control. I refer you to my second chapter. I'd provide a link to the site where you can get it as a direct download, but the rest of the site is annoying beyond words. If he's still going on in the same way, he's that particular kind of rabid. The rabid that eats itself.
And so it seems a bit fun to just treat writing here (avoiding the B word) as a way of staving off desperation - the boring kind. Bunch of things that are slipping away, but whatever. Rachel Ray is on, and it is so much like porn, it's almost not funny.
I've always sort of liked making lists here, so DiscHub, another spindle of 50 Taiyo Yuden, the compact fluorecent bulbs, new thumbdrive, think about the new hitachi drive.
Writing here makes it clear that it's not a new medium, simply another interface - it doesn't seem to fundamentally change the experience. Links I suppose (the pictures could have been clipped in), but...
I almost wrote "it's strange the way things happen", but then decided that I'm not that awful a writer yet.
I had actually just recieved an e-mail from my hosting provider, telling me I had a vulnerability in my forum software (phpBB) that made them want to bale hay, but within minutes they've fixed it so ta-da.
What that led to though, was me actually going to my forum, something I haven't done for a bit, and find out people had actually posted on there. Now I suppose they posted while I was being lazy and holidaying in sunny Boston the last week, but no I probably wouldn't have known anyway.
The first is rather inconsequential, some girl/woman asking for free homework advice on the "meaning" of the flitcraft parable. Not that I'd mind talking to her about it, but she'd have to make a bit more of an effort - an e-mail about what she's got so far and a phone number/IM address would be sufficient. As will become more important later, my e-mail address, which I should make more prominent on my blog, can be found on the main page, www.fallingbeam.org.
I also stumbled upon someone posting in my guest book, you can read it here. Now this is remarkable in and of itself, since he's the first person ever to do so ever. It also probably betrays his age/technical knowledge, which I'm not making note of to scoff or belittle, but it tells me any number of things. First that he might not have spent that much time on this, and being a news person I suppose that fits in with some idea I might have of them. Secondly that he's from the Guardian, and despite(?) what I might otherwise say about it, it is also another one of those that talks about blogs a lot, though since they give prizes for them, they can't be all that silly about it. But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that google ranks me pretty high in a search for Symrin.
This is what he wrote, which when I read it struck me with a kind of unexpected surprise (sic); and the instance of it was suddenly rather moving.
"Hi there - I don't know if this is the way to send a message - excuse ignorance - but I chanced through Google on a reference to the Symrin takeaway in York in a message on your site from 'subtitles'. This described Naseem Majothi the powerhouse behind the takeaway - though not by name. I thought Subtitles might be interested to know that Naseem is indeed a marvellous person from a marvellous family. Her father Yusuf has just died and I went with my family to a very moving ceremony of tributes to him at Huntington school in York on Sunday - all sorts of people from his brothers to a police inspector and neighbours talking about him. My connection with the family is that my parents took them in when they were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972 - with just £55 having had their thriving business taken from them without compensation. The spirit they showed in rebuilding their lives is truly admirable and U hope a source of hope and encouragement to others. They also make extremely good food - if Subtitles doesn't already know, they may be interested to hear that a proper restaurant next to the Symrin is under construction. Anyway, hope that's interesting. It's a small world thanks to the Net. All best Martin Wainwright (Northern editor, The Guardian)"
The occurance of events just seems all kinds of boggly. As Mal would say in reaction to a naked woman in a freezer-box: "huh." The blog entry he found was this one.
Well, Martin, my name is Louis Khor, I was a student at the University of York from 2000 to 2003. I started ordering Symrin because I'd heard great word of mouth about it from a friend I no longer talk to whose girlfriend at the time was a muslim and he'd joined the muslim society and heard about this place and told me (amongst others). Coming from Singapore we were all used to a much different tenor of "curry", I would assume south rather than north indian. But intitially the reputation was of big portions and the hottest curry we'd ever tasted anywhere. Initially my house mate would order and he would be know as Mr. Ong, but eventually when i started calling more, she would start to think he was me, Mr. Louis, and that's when he ceded ordering duties to me, because he suspected she was nicer to me. Knowing that Uni fees aren't what they are for foreign students, I'm convinced that if she had children, that I'd helped to put at least one of them through Uni, with the amount and freqency I ordered, or as it might turn out, they might think of naming a table in their new restaurant in my honor :).
She really was unfailingly friendly, though there were times when you could tell that she was no end of busy. After a while, I abdicated my choice of curry to her, since I had tried too many things there for me to trust my notion of novelty. She would sometimes include free drinks, and her free portions of sweet rice got me hooked on to that in turn.
On certain days, if I'm not wrong, it would be her father, the one mentioned above, who would deliver the curry. He was always similarly affable, and the recurrance of his deliveries was uneventful in as much as he wasn't a dolt and didn't get lost/late. It's unfortunate that the memory I have of him is not the most flattering one, the memory of young people thinking old people simply a bit barmy. He had once offered me and my kitchen of housemates the oppurtunity to buy the lovely chicken and spices and stuff that they bought wholesale, and we all smiled indulgently and sort of rolled our eyes. When I tried once ordering curry power, it never appeared, so...
As for her, I only met her, and saw her holding court, that once, and much of that recollection still seems pretty accurate. What I do remember is her being rather more forceful to her local staff, in the way only immigrant figures ordering about brits can be - reminds me of the chinese supermarket in leeds. Though now I think of it, her register did significantly alter even when she shifted from clients to her kitchen staff. She offered us free drinks and chastise me for getting the rather expensive Rani, and for later leaving the cans lying about. I'm so definitely going back there when next we go over to the UK. I hope the restaurant is up by then. Unfortunately I can't even seem to remember the number of the place, much less the address. I'm sure directory inquiries will have it somewhere.
I had to steel myself with a bottle of stout to write this. There's just been too much pre and post holiday trauma with money pissed away for me to be too eager to do too much. I hope my RMA goes well. I suppose there's really no need for martin to contact me again, and he's probably as elusive to contact as he found me to be, so whatever, but my e-mail address, as referenced above, can be found here.
Edit: Michel helpfully pointed this link out to me, the mention is right at the bottom (Opera's search function would be particularly useful). Here's the details of Symrin anyway for those looking for it:
Symryn
4 Saxon Place, York YO3 7UE
Tel: 01904 426293
This is pretty close to what I'm going to submit to Universities. It's an introduction and 3 chapters. Download in pdf here. Oh yeah, and thanks for the unmitigated deluge of volunteers the last time, I really *felt* the love.
Edit: Theres a newer, nicer formatted and spell-check version you can get here. I can't remember, but I don't think there are any huge substantive changes, it just looks nicer.
Ooh, look at me, I'm so wet, what could I do to become even more wet? Oh look, we're women, lets have drama drama drama. You love me, I know it.
Oh my god, the much much of *drama*.
I'm watching the OC preview teaser thing now, and it makes me want to watch the first season again.
Beer's nice. Nice cold beer. I think I've really come around on Becks; Bret Easton Ellis knows his shit - or is it Donna Tartt?
I'm increasingly fond of my new lamp, and am looking forward to the next one. Anyone going to IKEA is welcome to join me. I also need to go to Kino at Taka to replace a pen.
Entourage isn't too bad; again, fondness. As with the first season, Dead Like Me is picking up towards the end of the season. I also now have a nice pretty flower.
I started this post to write about something, which I now think I've forgotten - it might have been the lamp, but that doesn't seem quite right. My Audigy 2 NX is nice, except for the clicks - but I'll check that out some other time.
Michel, apparently, is another satisfied customer of the PX 100 - I was a bit too alarmist about warning him off the PX 200/250, since they're so-called noise cancelling - basically they're not as comfortable and the reviews say they don't sound as good.
I have the sudden urge to use my webcam, but I'm sure no one'd be particularly interested. It's probably because it's now perched nicely on my replaced monitor that is much better than the previous one.
1) Starhub and its addition of "free services" that will later have to be paid for - without advertising the fact anywhere except your bill.
2) The complete and utter inability to opt-out of M1 SPAM. I typically get it about once or twice a week.
3) ATIP labelling on Recordable Media packaging - education on benchmarks and media scans.
4) Console in Sim Lim to check prices - price transparency is essential for consumer confidence.
And so you wonder at there being a John Lennon episode of Freaks and Geeks, beyond the John Bonham one. And again the romance of doomed story cycles. And not milking it.
This is dedicated to someone I asked for something from and never really gave her back what she asked for, and I'm a quite a bit apologetic, which is me for sorry.
I think I'd be pretty upset if I looked back on this period of my life and remembered how one of the last great civil-rights conflicts occured and I did nothing more than mew. I'm going to try stowing some of my mitigation and attempt to be as little ambivalent as possible.
My response for a while now, has been (like "bite - me, who's. yo. daddy.") there is nothing to discuss. I am someone who has a great issue with evangelism - but I've also recently reminded myself that hypocrisy is what springs to the minds of people who lack imagination. Not that this is evangelism, but well, the hypocrisy thing sounded good anyway. Which is my roundabout way of saying - there's nothing to discuss.
I remember an extended and rather torturous conversation with Karen about morals - basically, me say morals = bad. But some things are just Right (up till a minute a go, it was Wrong). So - some things are just Right; there is nothing to discuss.
Another time, I said rather in a forceful way that the economic argument is a great one, since it got around rather silly arguments otherwise. Perhaps I want to say that because I want to be too Post-so many things, or I'm just in a place where aspiration and ideals are crushingly not encouraged. Regardless, money is a good reason, and one that can't be argued against except by people who want to protest globalization.
In many ways, I'm in two minds about any number of things, paternalistic single party states being one of them. With that in mind, I say this: if you have a bully pulpit, use it. Use it not for paltry things, don't be mealy mouthed about genuinely good policies *perhaps* disenfranchising groups of people - but above all, use it for things that are Right. Things that are Right are just that, Right. Republics were formed at least in part to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. If it's Right, it's Right.
I sometimes talk about the End of Satire - and I say it in the face of the entirely insensible. Do a search on this site for that phrase and you'll see how this links with free trade and the perception of self.
Some people (who are being repressed) say things to me like they don't need to get married, it's not something they're interested in, that all this is just unwanted attention making people backlash. I know this won't make me anybody's darling, and things will never be Right Right in my lifetime or the next - but it makes me angry and makes me want to do something about it whether they want it or not. I'm curmudgeonly in my own way and I speak like the I/eye of Empire, which translates in to all too earnestly; but like I said, things may never be Right. I wonder whether I really should be comforted by Derrida saying that the process of assimilating the Other is always necessarily a process.
I don't know if I've really changed my mind, but it's probably best that some things just remain Right, though somewhere I really believe some things are just Wrong. As for the lives people live, that's none of anybody's business - except the gossips like me. The act of Being is Being - but only when that Being is not shrouded, not hidden, not In or Out.
People who know me should realise that I really appreciate combative conversations - I'm not trying to beat people or evangelise, but I appreciate conversations where actual opinions are expressed. I love nothing better than being convinced to like something that you sincerely recommend. But at the same time, I'm not about to mince words about what is paltry and otherwise what I want to be effusive about.
There is not need to be offended - I think someone I really appreciate is Chris - someone with whom there can be heated debate with, and then you go out and have dinner.
I'm apologising for moving important posts down in the ranking, but I'm now watching the Bangles episode of Gilmore Girls - and like Paris who has just said it, I really like this band.
I need friendly volunteers to give me feedback on an unfinished draft of my novel - e-mail me if you're interested. In a moment of weakness I'm going to say that anyone can apply - though depending on who you are I might be very strict as to the kind/amount of feedback I want - if you don't want to be offended by this, you can, well, fuck off.
Total strangers can apply, but I can't promise I'll be incredibly enthusiastic - you have to sound friendly and not be stupid. There's an e-mail link on the mail page of www.fallingbeam.org if you don't already know how to get at me.
There's an introduction that I'm working on now, and two chapters that I've just tweaked, and a third chapter that's being finished and a fourth that's in teeny tiny pieces.
I'm suddenly very taken with the idea of Leigh (AllisonLeigh from the MyOpera forums) reading this, so on the astronomical off-chance that you are, e-mail me, since I've lost your address.
And just as a curiousity, the title is derived from this.
Also see this.
You cannot stop me from doing something that is simply possible on the network - it is there, it is available, so it is fair game so long as I affect no one else in the process. If you can find a way to secure your network to stop me doing certain things, all power to you - well actually no, wait a minute, unless it's a serious security breach that will affect others, you can bite my shiny metal ass.
As long as the work gets done, what the hell business is it of yours what I do while I'm getting there? If I'm not doing my job properly, you can avail yourself to the channels in place to have me disciplined/fired. What I do doing company time, goofing off included, is none of your god-damn business, as long as at the end of the day the work is done.
I don't even claim that there's any positive work aspect to porn (hence people in some places having porn accounts signed up for them) - it's simply none of their business. What exactly is a misuse of "company" property anyway? You're given a tool, and you use it to accomplish a task - but unless you want to at least partially break the tool, and waste your own expenditure, whatever else that tool can be used for, it should be used for. If I want to shove a staple remover up my ass to get me off, why not? No harm is done to others.
If I use the company car to ferry grapes, that was otherwise scheduled to be used by some other freak, then okay - but it is the incident of misuse, not the principle. If there are limited resources, fine, you can say that when there is excess demand, that users curb behaviour that would otherwise infringe on the resources of others, that's sensible. If I use excess capacity on the network at night to play online games and download pr0n, warez, gamez, mp3z, whose resources am I taking away from? If there is talk of legal liability, it is the end user who might be the subject of a sanctimonious and contrary government directive, the network itself is dumb and innocent - or it should be.
The only issue is an (at best) idiotic moral one - or a matter of PR. So you find out that a government agency is rife with porn surfers, so what? Government has no right to monitor the actions of individuals, much less people under their employ, unless there is a significant suspicion of wrongdoing that is to the detriment of others. Legality and government action is not to act as a censorious moral unity - it is there to prevent harm to others, or to help those that require help: if they can't find help elsewhere.
Not that PR is a bad thing in the way morals are, at least PR is honest. People are not normally like this, but in our company/government, we uphold a higher standard of professionalism. So if you accidentally e-mail your client pictures of you eating messily or dressing like a tramp in a sex-game with your partner, the company might castigate you for the slatternly manner of your portrayed deportment or bearing - would you that it were otherwise?
Sometimes how you get there is none of your fucking business. If you cut corners and endanger others or profits by doing so, that's an issue, not when you simply do things in a way other people have an irrational dislike for.
So they discover this about your company - are you so taken with your corporate ethos and identity, by even your national/religious rectitude that you fail to recognise that individuals are people too? Can you no longer differentiate your image of professional ability, which you rightly demand from your emplyees, from their entitlement of rights and opinions and desires?
I've discovered a cool thing to do with e-mail filters in Fastmail. If you include a "secret word" in your subject line, or use e-mail+secretword@fastmail.fm as the recipient, it will bypass all filters - ie it will definately get through to me.
I now designate my secret word to be batchcakes - but replace the a with an i where it most counts. This refers only to my public address that I tend to send mails out to friends with by mistake instead of my personal address.
Hi, I've put filters on my public e-mail account - so don't include anything that might set off my rather crude filters that will reject your mail and not notify you of the rejection. This includes the sure sign of spam: ...
So be more certain about your mail.
Or you can be good and send mail to the personal address I give to people, not forms. Yes I, by mistake, send personal mail from my public address, but people just got confused with the whole business of my rather more tart and extended instructions in the form of a signature, so deal with it.
Hypocrisy (the accusation of) is the last refuge of a lack of imagination.
Makes me wish I was a communist.
There are times when you really wonder whether Republicans don't deserve to be thought of as stupid.
M1 sends SMS Spam. I'll say that again. M1 sends SMS Spam.
You *cannot* opt out.
They do not ask if they can send you spam.
It is unsolicited marketing and it is *Unethical*.
They claim that because I'm using a pay as you go mobile and hence it is "technologically impossible" to not send me spam.
It appears that it is an extra service not to be harrassed.
It is an extra service not to recieve spam from the people who are sending it. Where do I sign up?
I cannot be removed from their database. "Technologically impossible".
Their site also happens to be BROKEN.
Isn't Zhang Yimou a clever clever man? It just shows that if you're intelligent enough, you actually can present melodramatic farce in your film to a fantastic end. You'd think only the middle-brow amongst us would walk out without feeling either pleased, sobbing, or smiling. Of course it helps if you still understand how to convincingly present spectacle. Though I'm convinced that Zhang Ziyi's appeal (sexual and otherwise) is in seeing her looking frustrated. But yes, if you want to see sexual charge, the film is also, in that regard, breathtaking.
It's a pity that he should be associated with a jingoistic rally (allegory-style) round the exclusion of foreigners and immigrants. So *that's* what that kind of masturbatory chest-clasping does to people. It's almost stunningly symmetrical, how the declamations of predjudice serve as a moralistic sheen for a more fundamentally racist political agenda - it's almost like classic hollywood.
I feel a bit (not quite exactly the same though) like Daisy right now.
I think I rather like this, considering films suspiciously after their DVD release rather than when they're in the theatres - especially the ones I wouldn't otherwise touch. It allows you to actually see the film. (subtle reference to barn isn't it?)
Who would have thought that Richard Curtis could write better, more convincing, more sincere, and much gentler swaying political commentary than people would credit Michael Moore with? In so many ways I should be offended by how polemical it might be thought of as - but if nothing else, at least he tries to be complicated despite the insistence towards referencing the puerile and sentimental.
How could those people have trailed the film so badly?
I suppose it's not the thing itself that impresses me - but predictably enough for my understanding of myself - it is the avoidance that seems so heartfelt. It's a film with a very fragile insistence that is brittle despite being soft, and whether they realise it or not, very very hard. I suppose it does what good comedy does, show and then do really good gloss. I'd have to watch it again, but I'd like to think it has that same undercurrent of desperation that comes with all declaration - with all marvelous fictions that gesture towards the impossible.
I don't think I've ever been offended by the first couple of frames of a show's theme - much less started an entry being supremely annoyed by it before the end of said theme. The words fuck and me come to mind. I feel like I should be Toby right now.
Huh, I don't know where they've been all my life, but now I'm starting to understand what the Manic Street Preachers were. Game On doesn't lie.
Just got the pilot for Freaks and Geeks, and Linda Cardellini does really really well. Not to mention that it gives me a much better understanding of James Franco's appeal. Dawson's Creek really did a disservice to Busy Philips, and yay for geeky slayerette.
Part of me really dislikes the image of myself that came to being when I started running. It's just too much an accomodation.
It's not quite the right shade of blue, but it's actually solid and not flimsy plastic, so it's a good seat - all are welcome to come and gaze in wonder at mad skilz.
I suppose consumer advocacy is more what I want to do, rather than simply commercial consultation.
And it's lovely to have a full 256 of upload to complement the 3000 downstream - I recommend it to anybody. 1500 is for chumps (yes, this means you).
And to think that the place is actually clean - not perhaps in spite, but independant like Hedda Gabbler.
I suspect I'll succumb to my spending instincts by the time I talk to Leong - dual-layer is too far away for me to wait like that, and anyway it should be affordable before I jump. And hopefully they don't run out of Ritek so soon.
There really is a certain poetry about Anna Paquin - the wispy album cover kind. DJ boyfriend indeed. I suppose it wouldn't be me if I didn't complain how the development of Fly Away Home really lets down the really lyrical evocative beginning. I mean but she really is beyond being good for a child actor. There's something about this particular film that just allows her to be the focus, it's not the importance of the Piano, and it's not the shrift of X-Men - it can really be a film that has her in it. It's a certain kind of breathtaking.
The impression of things being wrong isn't and shouldn't be cause for anything. In envisaging a more open society, I can't think of anything that annoys me more than the advent of rabidly adversarial sniping. I'd like to ask myself though, what I'm to do with the fact that people take advantage, and that calls to responsibility are probably more regressive than I'd give them credit for.
I can't believe that a single party is the product of the fact that there is only a single issue. Though to be sure, there probably is only one broad vision that is most congruent with momentum - and that should be a matter of education rather than the debate of the ignorant.
That said, political lineages are much less subject to scrutiny when there are aggressive and legitimate elections where someone else can actually win. Sonia Gandhi and genuine surprise are probably too much to ask for. Regardless, people are just more complicated than all that in person (hopefully) anyway.
And because ideologies should not be forced on anyone, money is the best reason - who wants to join my libertarian party?
Obviously the Economist just doesn't want to be anything other than clear about their opinion - but making it snarky just makes it seem all too personal - the principles they state are as like universally acknowledged truths, and they know how not to sound preachy. It is simple, when there is no Glasnost, you put the principles of Perestroika at risk despite the seems. Repeat after me - no shirt, no shoes, no dice - there are many roads to socialism.
You'd hope that when it's so flagrantly obvious that it looks like rubber that the rubber/not is not the issue. What should be the cause for national reflection is why the song and dance has to take place - the performance of legitimacy and the thing itself are not necessarily congruent. Mistaking that the hopscotching deftness is as good as, or is, the legitimacy, is the most damaging thing when there are no checks and balances.
When you can actually touch the surface to scratch it, then maybe you'll know when you're seeing the real thing. If it's right then it just is - all the flapping and tickling just makes the seems more seem. Similarly if it's wrong then it should be able to not happen, pretending otherwise is that other kind of momentum, and it's not always just farce.
But perhaps West Wing has taught me nothing? Perhaps posturing is par for the course? But you have a better chance of saying the right thing, emanating the right thing, when you are the real deal, yes/no?
Anyway, now I can feel justified in pointing you to the only place I really get news from about where I am. Take a wild guess.
I feel the need to explain to him, perhaps on the off chance that he sees this, or not, whatever.
What happens when you have no future is that you come, literally, to live in the past. You see, he, perhaps you, don't/can't understand this, certain fuckwit doesn't understand it, but it's true.
And your reaction, after a while, is to think to yourself, that this is not what you want to do, that there is nothing noble or transcendent about confronting that aspect of horror, of concieving of the world around you as an attic.
There are some people who simply do not want to talk to you (ie: me) and for all that, I think I'd rather have an empty attic.
You see, even though my third chapter is meant to lead up to a descent into hell, perhaps there's a reason it's not written yet.
That said, wouldn't you rather go back to Tekong?
Tell you what, let's go and watch Elephant together and then you'll understand better.
I'm trying to stave off watching yet another episode of Sports Night, largely due to the fact that I can't stop, and one day there will be no more.
And also, I'm here to remind myself that I should write about how Sorkin's reliance on rock to express jubilation and exuberance - happy things - is a lot more convincing with sports than it is with politics. With politics it comes off as being - I want to say smug and exclusive - self-congratulatory, perhaps indulgent.
Part of me thinks the way he handles love is the way most people of a certain kind handle it, though obviously he does it with a breathtaking deftness in a way that is eloquent and moving. And there are times when I think those people are hideous.
Did anyone else notice that the Simpson's had a rather extended reference to the Economist? What's that about? It was in the one that just aired in the US, I think 15x18.
I'm missing being in the US right now. Largely because I've actually been watching most of the TV I download with the ads cut out, since people do that as a service, and also to reduce file size. I downloaded however, an episode of Conan, and while it's dated 22nd of April, it's an older show. Regardless, I'm watching a Zelnorm ad now and it's rather gratifying. What was also cool was watching Jewel do an ad for Loreal, and if I'm not wrong, having her music in the background.
Good times.
Sports Night is absolutely breathtaking. Sure there are episodes that aren't quite as pleasing or as lyrical, but there's an inescapable (I don't use this word often) verve about the show.
I don't like sports, I don't watch sports, which is why the tagline as quoted by IMDB is pretty cool: "It's about sports. The same way Charlie's Angels was about law enforcement."
There are also significant reasons why Aaron Sorkin should choose to work so often with Joshua Malina, and within a couple of episodes this comes into clear focus, he's absolutely brilliant. I must say though, that the women in the series are exceptional, who would have guessed Natalie used to be in a cheesy rip-off of Quantum Leap (Sliders). And as the title of this post suggests, Felicity Huffman is officially my new favorite actress, for a while at least.
I want to write a glowing entry on Sports Night and Aaron Sorkin, but I really can't muster up the will to do much more than link you to the TV Tome page and the DVD that's on sale, and tell you that some friendly fellow is posting it on Suprnova.org.
Very much in the same way as people are doing for Dead Like Me. Now I'm not saying that DLM is the best series, but I do really like "A. Cook", and once Bryan Fuller got done with the considerably stiffer early episodes, and esp. once Laura Harris comes on, the series really picks up. But yes, penchant for the character of the slacker girl, and a recurrent theme of family.
I can't seem to sleep. So let's tell you what's going on. I got my debit Mastercard today, which is fun, making my life in this place complete (aside from the fuck-you glasses). Apparently you should remember to notice the words in bold on the instruction slip that tell you to use your ATM card to activate your debit card. Anyway now I won't have to carry my ATM card any more and I can stop carrying around my HSBC cards (they sent me another debit card, my issue no. is now 7...)
I've applied for a job writing about games for this place called GameAxis, which I think is a subsidiary of HardwareZone. Sounds like an ideal situation for me, but we'll see how it goes, Louis has learned how not to hold his breath. But honestly I don't think I can be bothered to try for SPH till after these guys blow me off...
I've worked my way up to doing 3 rounds round the convenient circuit near here, which takes me a nice round 30 mins. If I keep it up I really should get new shoes. I should also get more CDR, an 80 pin IDE cable, buy some M&S shirts, and perhaps more pairs of socks. Shorts I think I'm doing okay with so far.
And yes, Overnet is doing exceedingly well, with my downstream being consistently about 90-100, which is pretty amazing. And as tends to happen, it just got around to completing a whole bunch of things that had been languishing for a while, so my queue is starting to see 300...
And the ficus election episode of The Awful Truth has somewhat renewed my idea of Michael Moore. Not to mention that Louis Theroux meeting the Hamiltons was quite a bit of a hoot if I should say so myself.
I suppose again that it doesn't matter how flawed Enterprise is, it doesn't matter how mediocre it is, there are just moments when it is simply sufficient. Part of me thinks of it as the uglier twin of Firefly, since they debuted at the same time. I mean I didn't have to watch beyond the teaser to just sense that this could turn out to be a good one - perhaps more moving that I'd give it credit for, maybe less.
And it's not that it evokes particular memories, it's more likely that it triggers some subconscious response that recalls without recalling. You can read one of my previous entries on Enterprise here.
I'd like to think that my cryptic titles would be at some point an interesting study or at least a point of consideration.
Tim Minear is a clever, clever man. Part of me is just convinced that he out-Joss-es Joss Whedon. He's the reason Out of Gas is the high water mark of Firefly, and why I've just watched the second episode (actually 11th) of Wonderfalls again with a certain kind of wry, loving relish. For all Joss' talk about space and imbuing, Tim Minear is the one whose handling of it is most deft, most "organic".
And so it's done. I now have socks and shorts, so that the world may tremble. I've also bought film fest tickets, after staving off inquiries by su-lin as to whether I had actually bought them yesterday as I had said I would. For better or worse, some of the seats are couples' seats, but I'm sure we can handle that.
Uh, so what's that?
The fuck you table.
The what?
The fuck you table.
Huh?
Fuck you.
And so I went to get my new table leg and to have my chair fixed, and was happier.
It's sort of happy making, and quite calming, rearranging the stuff in the room. My secret plan, which might actually come to fruition tomorrow, involves rug for the floor and probably table for me to work at. Ask, and IKEA will provide.
Oh, and I now have tumblers, ones where you can actually pour a whole can of coke (diet vanilla) into.
I'm probably better off not using the external keyboard in all this, my right arm is feeling marginally more comfortable this way. But thankfully the table I'm looking at will actually be able to have adjustable height, so that I can lower everything to the appropriate level.
It's nice having Angel Season 4 pour into my lap, and "Spin the Bottle" is a rather very good episode, restores some of my faith that Joss does certain things fantastically.
Must remember I should buy film fest tickets some time soon, though probably won't get the chance tomorrow.
It's not an anxiety by any means, but it is something I wonder about, that my physiology has really changed after. It's just a sense of your body being different, not to mention the short term memory loss.
So you see, when you're making fun of it in the way you make fun of mechanical (or electronic) reproductions, it is a private thing, away from the intrusion of society. So you're making fun about your own, non-present, anxieties. When people who live in a place where we have the end of satire talk about it, it becomes what kettles of fish become.
So no, how would that be personal?
I've entirely forgotten that it was the Alias pilot when we have Jack Bristow telling the guy from Shindig that it really is like asking your neighbours whether you can have a loud party.
Mean spirited.
This was a couple of days ago, but just to say, Borders Singapore makes fuck-off stupid plastic bags.
Went to buy tickets for Hellboy, remarkably few pre-sales, though I suspect that Winston and I will be sitting just in front of the Hellboy Fanboy Collective who got the entire row behind us. I'm hoping this means that I did not, in fact, get seats too far to the rear of the cinema. And that dead centre on the seating chart really is dead centre in the cinema.
Overnet has been behaving itself remarkably well since I changed ports, I suspect the cable company's trying to limit usage of the default ed2k port. And I'm no longer getting the same annoying firewall messages.
I actually should be listening to "Painted from Memory" now.
It's just so typical that the reason why they didn't cut Irreversible is more reprehensible than if they had cut it.
Spartan is good, but did they have to use a hacksaw? I can only imagine what they would do if jesus was spelled as fuck in aramaic. But to a certain extent, I would say that Spartan does for the political thriller what the Wire did for crime drama. It was good. I'll get the DVD, pity I won't want to watch it in the cinemas here again.
I'm sorry, but just the idea of Peishan and her nice spanky new Bible thumping, snuff film watching fuck-buddy was just too tempting to pass up. I apologise. I should have had more faith. And by that I mean Eliza Dushku.
Being funny makes up for a multitude of sins, which, if you've watched Firefly enough times, you understand. Wonderfalls is pretty funny. Lesbian porn :).
I am now officially a bit baffled by why Fox fucked with the series run order. It was a great episode, if only for "destroy her". There really was nothing to be gained by putting those episodes first other than to pump up the concept, which to be honest is exactly what they didn't want to do if they put this as the follow up to the pilot.
It's about the family. Not about the shop.
I can't remember if Kristeva is the one that talks about this, but there is the assertion that the process of pornography is to create metonomy - to reduce the thing itself to one of it's functions or appendages. Hence, they talk about how in sexual pornography, the woman is reduced to the vagina, or in "Not I", where the woman is reduced to a virtual vagina.
So an aspect is substituted for the thing itself. Affective piety is offensive.
I'd like to say (in this case) that I don't watch pornography, but that's patently untrue in at least one (if not more) definitions (colloquial or otherwise) of the word, even though I think the statement itself is pretty accurate. I'd like to say that well, I watch porn, but I don't watch snuff films - which is true, but not quite accurate.
Hitler-Cartman is endlessly amusing.
I'm altogether too happy about the fact that I now have claritine - or actually, a form of generic loratadine. Tufty.
Oh, and that christian rock episode of south park is funny beyond words.
So... West Wing concept episodes... It's probably easier to criticise because it wasn't quite fantastic, but the gesture again is that of "we've had 4 seasons of Sorkin, and that can never be reclaimed, so lets go get dialectical on everyone's asses".
Perhaps it's because I've been watching Chris Marker documentaries (which I was trying to tell Cari about) but I had high hopes for the episode at the beginning. The immediate reaction at the end was of "not too bad", and yet 5 mins after, now, here, things are rather more like puddles of piss (ie fluid). The way the episode resolved, not even polemically, stating accusations and then putting the bow around at the end, demeaned the enterprise.
This is the reason we stopped watching the west wing after the first season, because it became insufferable at a certain point for the soft core of it's politics and the ejaculation of it's glow. What's more, the collusion of the diegetic documentary maker was all the more cloying for the looping sensationalism. Granted I came back to the earlier episodes later and couldn't find it, but I find it now, and something tells me it's different.
The digital look was fun, the press staff was fun, the use of sets was fun.
You get the feeling that the meandering of the earlier seasons served the broader aesthetic purpose, that resolution is constantly deferred, that like the trope of nation building, there is always constantly more work to be done. Now when things wrap up like candy wrappers, the twisting at the ends leaves your fingers sticky like cookies when you eat me.
It's all the more infuriating that the documentary is meant to have gestated till after the end of everything, the end of the second term. I'd never wish any series cancellation, but I wonder if I'm missing something.
I want a muffin.
I'm sorry I ever doubted how moving the West Wing could be despite everything. It's a pity that I didn't get to see the budget storyline before the later episodes. Everything really just makes Mary Louise Parker's lusciousness all the more central, all the more pregnant.
And I thought Overnet was starting to seem overrated.
Now this is what I mean and this is why I get pissed off. I don't like John Kerry enough to forgive him his demagoguery. Howard Dean is doing the right thing by his party, but he is the victim of his own sincerity.
People of integrity should be able to stand up and say what is right even when it isn't popular, and even when Lou Dobbs and the Trade Police are vershnickt. Kerry isn't stupid, Kerry is educated, and he should be standing up for smart not for ball tickling. Who would have thought that anyone would get to accuse Bush of being on the smart side of the fence?
It does make sense to send jobs overseas. I'll reference the economist to you again so you get that it is my newspaper of choice. The amount of jobs lost overseas are a tiny fraction of the workforce. There isn't enough of it to make up too significant a proportion of cyclical unemployment. Jobs are lost and gained as bad companies die out and new companies are formed. Good companies are good because they make money, would you have it otherwise?
People's jobs are more secure when the company they work for remains focused on being economically viable, which means it needs to make profit. If that means sending jobs overseas, they should be applauded with both hands. Going on a witchhunt against people who are doing exactly what they should is irrational - tell the leopard not to have spots.
More jobs overseas means what? More, and richer, people to sell your goods to. Expensive goods that only you can produce. Expensive goods that require highly paid staff to produce. And in the mean time, have you noticed that it now requires less people to do what you used to do before? A jobless recovery where production increases means a leap in productivity, which means you're getting better at what you do, which means in the future you can create even more than before - prosperity that is.
It's like Old Norse notions of honour, only this time, instead of reductive recycling of finite commodity (which seems increasingly unlikely), you have an ever expanding cycle of wealth and renewal.
And people wonder why I dismiss the Passion as affective fallacy.
People who criticise Bush on spending money on Iraq are the very isolationists that claim Bush to be so. You help yourself by helping others - if anyone should know that giving to others does not mean taking away from your own, it should be the Democrats.
Non-paltry comments can go to the forum - though for once I wonder if I shouldn't enable comments to the post. If you're not a fuckwit I'll reference you by editing this post.
Obviously I'm going to burn in that very special level of hell for this, but it's done, and I'm sorry it happened.
I can already feel like my mind is contracting and I feel dirty, not to mention paltry.
It's just the fact that the conversation takes place, that the rating should be lowered because "it's a good film" which makes me just want to point out that what government anywhere should be allowed to legislate value? Applying arbitrary notions like lines in the sand apparently isn't enough. The suppression of thought leads to impoversishment and inefficiency - the disruption of market forces, as some might say.
I wonder what the rating would be if Jesus was sodomising Mary, both of them.
Hi, I'm Louis, and I read (past-tense) today's Life.
Is there any doubt that despite the extreme close-ups, that Wonderfalls is Tim Minear's show? I'm sure no one likes that they messed with the airing sequence, but to be fair, those were pretty good episodes, and also good episodes to start with. I still get a bit disoriented when I watch Firefly and Shindig comes so early.
But yes, I must find the time and way to organise a Firefly screening party of some sort or other some time. I should also finish my third chapter.
It was quite fun the way that L word used Nick Cave, though I just remember when I first heard the song, that I wanted the interventionist god to be direct her away, out of some kind of spite or pique.
William Sadler wasn't inaccurate then in describing his character, the Bush thing was hilarious. Almost makes me want to watch the Roswell boxed set I bought.
It's not just that I terrorise, it is also that I am beset by anxieties. Things annoy people, people annoy people, certain things with certain people annoy people.
Is it any surprise to anyone that Howard Dean should be so heartbreaking to me right now? His comment is here, and he was replying to this.
And so good starts are just too much pressure. It's very satisfying not having to be polite. Simmering tension humbug boo hoo.
I, I, I. Am a man more sinned against than sinning.
And so it was that three years of his life, by passings and mishandlings, and the carelessness of listening and the slap-thwap of whispers, became transmogrified into not things.
S- had a habit of wailing on CP, oh wail, oh wail. And so when it came to money, everyone just sort of nudged about the fact that it wasn't just in money that higher ground was gained, which is what friendship is all about.
Who would have guessed that all (as far as I know) of George's stuff is being re-released. I'm suddenly really missing the Travelling Wilbury's albums. The boxed set is this, all his Dark Horse albums, even though I already have a couple of the discs already.
Unfortunately I'll end up waiting for a bit to get it, unless it's available for cheap in Singapore (not a chance), probably waiting for another more comprehensive collection to come out, or at least a complementary one. I already have the albums that aren't dark horse anyway I think.
Note to self: blogs are not meant to be pretentious(?).
And so I would sit in front of the window and stare out longingly at the curtain. All the idle lying on duck shit. It's nice to cuddle sun-block.
Return Argos stuff. Buy Bikram Yoga. Buy Shooting the Past. Nuts for dad. Trains on Sunday leave at 5.10 and 6.10, arriving at 7.19 and 8.24.
It seems ShareReactor has been the target of some governments sting, so it's offline and the owner is facing criminal charges. But well, there's still Shareconnector, fileheaven.org, therealworld.de, bucktv.com, and others who might never reach the scale of SR, but that's what suprnova is for. The wheel's always turning, but it only matters to the people on the rim.
So yes, Paul Smith shoes. 2 pairs of them no less. Lightning struck hell freezing over.
Easy racism (against mainland chinese for instance, or boat people) on the part of someone from a racial minority is fantastic, especially in the way it discomfits those in the majority who experience it with a kind of shock at the non-fraternal illiberality of it all. Of course it happens easiest from those who come originally from a place where they are anything but the minority.
And so Joss Whedon really inhabits that kind of mediocrity, the kind that Karen seems intent on bringing out in me. It is perhaps how much not I want to be intervened in that makes me so unprepared to be inadequate and unconsidered. Go fill your anxieties like a well - exactly like a well. Other people probably realise that suicide is a solution. And one that is fed.
Gone, but I don't know wh....
Need to remember to keep notebook charged so have to go to smokey area. Have a look at Karen's prospective lamp. Need to download all the crap required for creative, just in case, though the driver's what's most important. Must bring CD and DVD to test playback. Must check that they've credited my account as and when they do. Check the train timings for friday. Remember to buy watch and liquitabs. Collect pin no. Go crazy and buy a powered usb hub.
Oh and of course there had been a ridiculousness about soliciting friendship, or the feeling of it, remotely, and by proxy, which he admitted later; but you get lonely after you leave and you wish the ones who could make it otherwise weren't either. But cradle snatching happens, and well, that's something.
"Is it time for the descent into hell yet?"
"Oh we love those, ."
"You remember that last one, with the buttons and the fringe?"
"Oh no, was it...? Oh yes, yes... no."
"Excuse me, are you writing stairway to heaven in there?"
And so it was an overly bright day in Manchester and K and D2 were in The Filmworks, after it was a multiplex but before it was sticky. K felt it was very much like a the painting of the open door, both in the hanging and the brushing, and especially with the unintentional red lights, and that smell that smelled like pre-haunting emulsion. That was the day when they'd both discovered why you always have a pair of sunglasses on overly bright days in Manchester.
First off, let's send you to C-Span.org, it's the website for a public interest broadcaster in the US that has loads of content on the elections so far and in particular, content on Dean. His remarks at the Gridiron Luncheon are a good place to start. And well you could have a look at www.deanforamerica.com.
I'll say it here. I don't think John Kerry will win it. And if he does, I really don't think he'll be the kind of president envisaged by those who support him. Put simply, he doesn't have the brass. "He's better than the other guy" is not good enough.
But enough about that. You can find a nice simple bittorrent client here. More info, and an introduction and useful FAQ can be found on the original bittorrent page.
Once that's installed, you should go to www.suprnova.org (yes it's misspelled) and go crazy. The link for Firefly, though, is here.
The problem, though, is that you're behind a router, and without you reading a router manual (they're actually really short and clear though) this is what you should do. You have a Netgear router. I'm not sure of the exact model no. but I suspect it's this, the manual for it is here. Anyway, you need to know about port forwarding, so you should read this to figure out what to do. The ports required are supposedly 6881-6999, but you can read more about it at the rather more informative d-link page, they're another company that make networking equipment, but the info is similar. Oh, and you find out your IP (which is where the ports will be forwarded to ie your computer) by looking at this.
You wonder when "they'll like us when we win" stops being enough. If there was one thing that made Dean stand out it was that he was willing to say that he's willing to make the right decision, whether it's popular or not. I'm not saying his rationale for revisiting trade agreements wouldn't have been fallacious, or that they wouldn't be fueled by the same affective fallacy that afflicts so called "liberals", but at least the gesture was there. Kerry can still bite me.
Now it just seems that jobs has become such an Issue that only the Republicans can sound the right note. And as for Lou Dobbs, you wonder whether there was some point when the media said to itself that a part of their service to the public should not be to feed its anxieties under the pretext of assuaging them, but rather be a tool for public education.
For a government that is founded on it's ability to educate it's electorate, it's unwillingness to promote what is right and things that are irrepressible, is simply irresponsible - a lacking of will and information.
You claim that people aren't going to like it and yet you concieve of yourself as being able to guide people into thinking the right way. You can stick your neck out and say unreservedly that free trade is the way to go (as they admirably should) and yet this truth is just too difficult for people to swallow even when it has no effect on them or their perception of their pocket books.
I wonder if I would ever explain to Mary the feelings I have of antagonism towards people who previously had authority over me. Or if I could explain, as I could to Cari, that I (like her) live in morbid fear of bumping into people I might know on the street.
So yes, I've always gotten bad vibes from certain people, and others well probably don't have the time or inclination to be that friendly. Not that I don't understand this, I never really want to see any of my recruits' ever again, as might be rather explosively been shown when that guy turned up in Su-lin's room. But translation man.
I think I will try to make the first step and try to e-mail Matt.
As you'd think, the Economist probably does a lot better at making the case that trade and capitalism have to be accelerated, not retarded, to make the world a better, and less poor, place.
That, and why Americans really shouldn't be so obsessed with the movement of jobs. And basically that they're better off now than they ever were. (The first link requires subscription)
Just right now, Aimee Mann is making me want to cry.
It's all about drugs, it's all about shame.
There's just an emptiness of feeling in the inability to make connections and the inability to think and have thought. It might a bit be about superiority and pity but it's also a great feeling to have access to that well of feeling and that grasp of intellect and thought. You wonder if righteous anger might not be seperated from it.
I'm just here, not really wanting to look at my scribbles, wondering if I should go to Borders. I'll be off to have dinner in a minute probably, likely to be burger king. Don't feel like browsing DVD's or CD's, feeling a bit tired, wishing I wouldn't end up smelling.
It's pretty goddamn cold today, about 4 degrees. I'll probably eat, then go back to Karen's, hang out till I got to Delwyn bearing eggs and hopefully a working copy of DVD-Region-Free.
And I don't feel like playing Ultima 9. Is this really a genuine sense of not wanting to be immersed to come up and want againt to be swept away? Only this time the Oceans have stopped and the waves are too embarassed to crash anywhere except Karen's room.
I'm seeing Ve-Yin tonight, hopefully for a nice fulfilling dinner. It'll be a bit strange no doubt, I hope he figures to come upstairs to look for me, though I'll take a stab at staying downstairs for a bit.
And so aside from thinking I should get the Echo Indigo, I wonder if I should just sit in front and try like it matters. Lost lost lost. For better or worse, I think I'm going off to go and write to Cari.
Just feeling a sudden desperation to write, despite being on Karen's computer and her ancient keyboard. It's not like shuttlecocks, it really is like being stuck, breathless and dazed, unable to move.
And thinking about the past isn't all that happens when you have no future, the present just seems to loom. As with all panic attacks, things go away, but it's just a feeling of wanting to sleep perpetually, and of worry and sinking.
The Corner is a bit disappointing. I suppose if I was expecting the Wire, this isn't it. I just hope the rest of it is better. But the landscape is similar though, and not in buildings of people so much, but in language and lingo. I've only really seen 2 actors who would eventually go on the Wire, but here it just seems they're all not quite where they should/would be.
I suppose though, that this really is much more of a journalistic work than The Wire is - it's just that the breadth and subtlety of The Wire is so much more appealing, and so much less Gritty.
For some reason, the wireless link has shaped up in the past couple of hours, so that I might actually have a ghost of a chance at watching Angel soon. Of course I could just wait 3 weeks, but it's the principle of it.
It's getting a bit annoying sitting here, but that's being sort of paliated(?) by my looking for sound solutions for my lovely new laptop. So far the Echo Indigo seems the most promising - PCMCIA, so no dangling about. Thing is that it's about 130 US, and it would probably cover up my wifi switch, which might be a bit annoying.
Also I wonder if I would really need to try to get along with WinDVD 4 to get the most out of it - I'm finding since DVD Region-Free that I really like WMP as playback software in favour of PowerDVD.
I can't be bothered to write another entry, and I'm sure these cafe driven ramblings please no one but my fingers, but I just watched the West Wing where Toby tries to save social security; and it's still good. But obviously that's what really precipitated me wanting to spend 130 dollars.
And so Caffe Nero is all that bad. It's not so smoky today, the music is a more sedate weekend version of the usual frenetics.
I've tried the food and it isn't horrible. The pasta is okay, not something I'd recommend even as microwaved food goes. The soup wasn't all bad though, and is palatable.
It'd be nice if they had a toilet round here.
I wonder if I would have been better off having Eggs Benedict at City Screen, but then it's not Eggs Michael, and City Screen ain't the Original Pancake House.
Doesn't everyone love spotty wifi connections :P.
It really is just too noisy and far too smoky to write comfortably at Caffe Nero. I wonder when they're going to start recognising me and bugging me about not ordering drinks. I suppose I could buy overpriced water, but it all just makes me want to go to the toilet.
I suppose Cari won't be able to find a fourth for mahjong, so if they want to play anything it'll have to be Tai Di.
Oh, and clever man at this electronics shop near the Shambles managed to get me the requisite cable I'd want to plug in in the UK without an adaptor. Apparently those small plastic things aren't allowed here. I suppose the fact that it leads to me sticking pens into sockets doesn't cross their mind. But yes, adaptor cable is good.
Isn't it just predictable that the table next to the power point should be the one with the spotty wireless coverage? The Bastards.
But at least now I'm getting my money's worth from my access plan. Fat chance of me buying much coffee from this place though. I get the feeling wifi is not a priority for most of the latte sipping crowd here.
So yes I'm back in York in the most surreal way possible. Luckily Karen's friend just got back from Mecca, and "know's a guy".
Got confirmation that I'll be going to see Cari on Monday. House of Sand and Fog is still showing here, so some time next week maybe. I'll probably try to move to Delwyn's after dinner or something.
Amazingly, torrents are doing fine, and Angel is on it's way.
And so the West Wing has decided to go Bigger. It's now Topical and it deals with Issues. I feel a bit guilty saying that with Sorkin and Schlamme gone it's now gotten more middlebrow, but that's at least partly the truth. There is a sharpness, a snappiness, a deftness and a more subtle understanding of subtext, that has been changed into something else.
To be sure the new episodes are stunning, whether it's just the HDTV rips or not I can't be sure. Mary Louise Parker has never looked more luscious - and perhaps the largest iconographic change has been the entry of the window and entrance into the Residence. It's a more personal, more "character driven", and they've made it very clear that this is not last season's West Wing.
The aesthetic shift is a purposeful one, and they're trying to be bold and being unapologetic as they would have to be. And as much as I enjoyed a number of the episodes, I can't help but feel that they're making better TV at the expense of artistic deft and lyrical subtlety. But that doesn't quite exactly characterise it so accurately as I would like - it's okay, it's different, and there are episodes that really benefit from being taken away from the flow of a greater arc, existing as if in suspension; for all the insistence in that episode on the real world, the very circumvention.
Season 4 was a good season, and I'm starting to get a new appreciation for Sorkin doing a Season Premiere.
Okay, so this is what the plan is going to be - if at all possible, I'm going to stay with Delwyn when I arrive on he 3rd - and stay with him over the weekend. On Monday I'll likely be going to Scotland to visit Cari, and will stay there till Tuesday (hopefully).
At that point, when I come back, I'll go to Karen's place and stay there till the 18th when Hiaw Khim comes, she might arrive on the 19th I'm not sure, and after maybe straddling a day or two with people we'll end up back at Delwyn's room while he's away.
If Delwyn is really too busy, I'm hoping I can do a rotation between Dion/Emen an Delwyn. I know you're all busy, but maybe you could squeeze me in for a night or two when you don't have something immediately pending?
I'll need someone to lend me a sleeping bag, and please don't get ideas of letting me sleep on the bed, I feel bad enough; though I might take a nap or two while you're at class etc.
I promise I will be as inobtrusive as possible. I've discovered that CaffeNero in town has a wireless hotspot and that will be my best bet to remain connected while I'm in York. Hopefully they support torrenting. Otherwise I'll be ankle deep in TV marathons, I'll be watching the Wire, Roswell Season 1, The O.C. if I feel like it. I hope as well to bring lovely samplers of lovely series over, an Angel, a Spooks, the Firefly pilot etc. Oh, and Nip Tuck if that turns out well.
So hopefully I'll be interested in getting exercise most days and going into town to get my fix, and try my best not to spend too much time in your rooms. I'll be trying to write as well.
The only imposition I can imagine is that I'll be on the phone at odd hours, but I'll either take it out into the hall if possible or find a nice calling card plan and an obliging pay phone. I still have my Dog/Bone card, so that should work out.
I could go to other hot spots, The Cloud is supposed to be more widespread, but they focus on pubs, and it really won't be good for me to spend the whole day in a pub. No indeed.
Or I could just end up too stoned for words and sleep all the time.
So unless I hear otherwise, I'll be landing at Delwyn's doorstep, wherever that is, on the 3rd, sometime after noon. Yay me.
There is probably nothing quite like having an entire series/season of a TV show at your disposal to just marathon your way through. I'd probably credit Season 1 and 2 Buffy that really set me on to this, that time when I was staying in Coventry one time over the holidays. Close on the heels of that was the Pacey loves Joey storyline on Dawson's Creek. I suppose Soprano's season 1 would count, back in Singapore...
But yes, The O.C. is doing well on that list, along with Cold Feet, Ultra-Violet, Spooks, Once and Again, West Wing, 24 (Season 1), Twin Peaks etc.
And I mention no caveats with The O.C., it's not good for it's genre, it's just good. It's engaging and it's really funny in a way that Angel can only achieve (fantastically though) with muppets...
The Wire though, is climbing the charts - I've just ordered Season 1 of Roswell, and I'm hoping Nip/Tuck isn't just a signal of my desperation.
I've been putting off writing this entry for a while now. It just feels strange coming out of the system and being left stranded. You know there's nothing to be embarassed about but it still feels weird telling all this to people.
I'm (obviously) not being sparklingly academic at UChicago, that ship sailed long ago. I'm now having problems coming into the US under Visa Waiver because I'm not able to prove I live somewhere else. Hence my going back to Singapore.
I've been applying to Creative Writing courses in the US of course, but Northwestern has already said no - though I will be reapplying, since they have rolling admissions. I'm also now applying to Boston, which looks more promising, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm sure I'll be plying Richard and Mary for recommendations for a while yet.
That wasn't as volumnous as I thought it would be to explain. I'm sending a bunch of people who I have to e-mail this post link so I don't have to keep repeating myself. I'm going around to find out who can put me up while I'm in the UK from 3rd March to 28th March.
I would say though, that my parents have been remarkably supportive about me being a bum :P.
Doesn't anyone else just think John Kerry is a boring pathetic prune? Why is it that I don't trust Clark, much less John Edwards? There is just that suspicion of insincerity and avoidance that you get in the eyes of most of these candidates, Dean being the exception. Look at them at moments of private publicity and you see the shadow leavening their hidden guilt and shame. They all have their politician smiles. The conflict in Dean seems so much more of a felt one, of where speaking the truth goes beyond the pale.
The theme of this, as it was in Twin Peaks, has to be reversal - where the civil war of self, and the imposition on self flap.
Dean is a orator of conviction and moves me. He is a man of humour and intellect. John Kerry couldn't excite Louis Theroux. You'd wish someone who talked the talk so convincingly and resonates that feeling so palpably would do better, as he will.
Why do I feel that all the rest are just running?
Aside from a general feeling of unease, discomfort and overall worry, I can't say I'm particularly happy. I haven't written at all since. It would be a kind favour if everything went smoothly and things didn't get butternut shaped so quickly or so adversely.
Perhaps I'm looking for my own reversal of the Civil War.
Howard Dean was not angry, he was not displaying any particular loss of control except the melancholy exuberance you get from that twinging of defeat. He just strikes me as someone who speaks his mind and is so envelopingly sincere. Wesley Clark probably wouldn't be the worst candidate, but he doesn't give me that sense - that sense of unequivocal belief in the will to be conscientious and work to the fulfillment of belief.
I just watched a bunch of people who wouldn't - I'd rather think couldn't - see the barn. Anger had no part in it.
I suppose a couple of significant things have occured for me in the last 24hrs or so. Well perhaps not Important, but striking nonetheless.
I was up till 7 in the morning watching Michael Moore's 'Roger and Me' - and while I might have just been in one of my overly sentimental moods as I can tend to be that late at night, I found it incredibly moving. And despite a broader picture of economics calling out to the rational part of my mind, the depiction of devastation and in a real sense the personal and human tragedy that attends to it - the unwillingness of parties to make even the smallest show of claiming responsibility, of recognising the human cost of their decisions, makes me want to make a bonfire out of issues of the Economist. The casual dismissal of human degradation that the film depicts is appalling to the extent that my self-consciousness about my own outrage at it becomes almost laughable.
I've also been watching the Democratic debates that are now leading up to the Iowa caucus. And while only Lieberman can present anything approaching an intelligent way of selling free trade, Dean is a stunningly charismatic orator. You really get a sense of how he has such self assurance in the integrity of his pragmatic beliefs, especially when he talks about health care, and when he talks about the will towards honesty.
Of equal import is that I sat through the majority of a marathon session of Real World Las Vegas. Brynn is rather comely - most of the rest are really rather funny, or perhaps just dumb and boring. Frank is impressive in his own way, in the way he handles people and the way he comments on himself and others.
Also there has just been "Faking It Changed My Life", and a lovely revisiting of some of the favorite people from that first series, the chef, the cellist, the jockey, the bouncer. The chef wants to become a writer and I can't help but feel warm feelings towards his self-effacing manner and his will towards aspiration - ambivalent beckett quotes notwithstanding.
And here is the load of tripe article of the day, such a lot of utter fear/guilt mongering that makes you want to slap people. The CDFreaks article links to the original gall.
It's nice to be putting words together again, particularly pleasing that it is in a public dialogue.
In case you don't get it, new Opera Beta = Louis goes back to posting on the MyOpera forums :D.
It irks me that more people don't use Klipfolio, and that there's not more activity on the forum, so here's a plug for you - Klipfolio is absolutely lovely. It lets you view at a glance all the newest headlines from your favorite sites, as well as showing you the weather and a bunch of other useful things. And you can find my very own klip for this blog here. I suppose the lack of forum participation is also a function of ease of use and lack of problems, other than my pet bug.
Anyone who wants me to ship the Firefly DVD to them from here in the states just drop me a line. It is the one thing that I promise not to gripe about people asking me for. Details we can work out, but more people must buy and watch Firefly - if it were running for president it would get my unambiguous endorsement. Email link's on the main site, on the right.
Mike managed to fix my chair arms; it doesn't wobble anymore. I hope my Palm OS upgrade arrives today or I'm gonna have a cow. My keyboard is too nice for that. Why have I been finding the Economist so very racially problematic recently? That despite a rather good article on punctuation.
Why are people praising Bush for doing something when what he really did was raise steel tariffs when it was politically expedient for him to do so, and then now lower them when it's expedient to do that? Two words, flip-flop.
It's so much like an episode of Yes, Minister, it's not even funny. If anything, he's simply backing down from a decision he knew he'd eventually have to back down from anyway. What's even more frustrating is that the Democrats, instead of saying that, are saying the easy thing and coddling the steel workers.
They should find a bridge and throw money off it, like they're doing with agriculture, like the EU is doing with the CAP. Wrong wrong wrong.
Can no one else see that Bush is tickling the Midwest by basically having done nothing? Talk about zero-sum. Spin spin spin.
But then that's what I said about Jeff Buckley, and see where that got me. It's not that I found out about him through MTV Europe, 120 minutes, and later in more regular rotation - I simply miss the sepia-tinted me.
You know it's hard on your mother and me. Of course it's that much more charming when Louise Wener sings it.
Why is it, that on certain days, things just go that slightly bit wrong and you feel as if things will never go right - when you feel your writing's crummy and you're saying things that are so banal and trite. Your raid array appears to be offline from overclocking, and you've watched the season finale of season 2 of West Wing again, and it's made you upset in that despondent resigned kind of unhappy.
If I'm not careful, I'm going to spend 2 weeks in Shanghai having a West Wing marathon of Season 2.
I really like the Ainsley episodes - makes me want to go find some good Gilbert and Sullivan.
I'm flying to Shanghai on Saturday morning (early).
Oh, and just to give notice to people of York (who give a damn), I'll be there from the 3rd of March to the 26th, and am shamelessly asking for volunteers to put me up.
I'm starting to realise why satire can by its nature be so emphatic and uncompromising - why it needs to paint extremity as extremity. The gesture itself asks for a register that confronts the ridiculous with that measure of outrage (The Right Honourable Rape) that appears so unmitigated, unchecked, irresponsible, unfair and like a man making a tailor.
And also it's never quite as funny otherwise - ambivalence I suppose is the answer and the companion. That and somehow it just doesn't feel right, as if somehow the prose has taken on a life of its own and refuses to be molded in that way.
I ask for some indulgence in spite of the fact that my next sentence might well start with "...but the economist says". But well, it does, here and here, which is my belated reaction to the very paltry treatment of the issue by people who should know better. Belated because I'm seeing these episodes of the West Wing on Bravo reruns.
I perhaps never quite realised why I remain so loyal in watching Enterprise each week even though it can be so achingly mediocre. Last year when I was stuck in my room lonely and unhappy, it was a kind of solace to have practically an entire season of it to watch on VCD downloaded off kazaa.
I'm just saying, that inevitably, if you want to make an artistic point through representation of things as they occur, you have to understand that this representation, which you invest and presume will act as some kind of "cautionary" (I know, I know, a dirty word) or revelatory unveiling *of barbarism* - that it necessarily becomes subject to aestheticisation, not least by the social discourse around it.
Which is why you can find portions of Body Shots online with metadata that works directly contrary to intention.
Is it really that difficult for people to be more personable? Or do I just bring out terseness in people? I mean I make an effort to be funny in my e-mails, I kept it short, I didn't waffle - is it too much to ask that they attempt to sound more encouraging/direct?
If I have to think more about the Inquirer application I'm going to hoist myself by my balls.
...gets me to the church on time...
If there ever was a headline that gave the story away... maybe I can webcast it.
There are obviously a whole bunch of things that I now wish I had included in my e-mail to Mageek (whoops, sorry - grand-high-poobah-boss-man), I suppose the most important of those omissions is that I'm just aware of how important context and implication are to providing a piece of writing with perspective and analytical depth - that how online publishing has to gear itself for the onset of aggregation and things like RSS - how important that the headline should pull you in and the content not disappoint to maintain that rapport with the audience. And that I do actually know how to write a non-breathless sentence.
Writing for the Economist now pales in my imagination - the INQ is where it's at.
Oh, and for those of you who've actually lost control of your mouse and seen my "resume site" you'll understand why I refused to send that load of tripe to them.
Hopefully now my pathetic attempts at hardware reviews will never see the light of day.
It must have been me reading a Longhorn blog, and all the Microsoft ra-ra-ness that being plagued by open-sourcers can engender, but I'm really not all that invested in MS per se. I have enough faith that my prose conveys my ambivalence, but I suppose at times that ambivalence becomes a bit too indeterminate and confusing even to myself.
Honestly though, a lot of the stuff that got bandied about was pretty heavy going, and some of it was pretty rough - I have nothing but sympathy for anyone on the recieving end of it, whether or not at the end of the day I think they brought it on themselves.
It's nice to have some thing/s that make me want to write again, the exertion does me good I think.
I think what Michel's mention of my entry in his blog did was really crystalise in my mind that I couldn't give a toss in a sense about the topic itself - I glanced at Cringely's article (I'd seen it earlier anyway) and just shrugged - that aspect of it really doesn't interest me. In a larger sense I'm just intrigued by the (in many senses) ideological conflict that engenders this level of rhetoric; but also I'd be happy to use Linux if only I didn't have to go through being a newbie again and a bunch of other things.
In terms of what I have at stake in all this, I hate to think of it this way but I am (only) an end user - obviously part of me thinks this makes me king anyway. I suppose I should blame ATI for the fact that their drivers suck ass and whenever I boot up I seem to have to change my refresh rate, and all the other software developers for fucking things up - but in a sense on MS' part, they really just can't use that as an excuse.
I really wish I knew what was up with Overnet.
I don't know that I would have bothered to comment about this, but after the Economist decided to write tripe, I suppose I can't help it.
Mahatir is a racist and delusional. I'm sorry but did we not know this? He's no better than Lee Kuan Yew in this respect (if not others) - he's a doddering old man who decides he knows everything and wants to mouth off now that he's not long/no longer in office. He over-sees a country that has institutionalised racism inscribed in it's laws - which, if nothing else, is at least honest, unlike elsewhere, where dominion is completely ellided.
Here is someone who is willing to use an adversarial people as an example of how his own people have so abjectly failed. That said, there is not (and definitely not here) any benign construction of the "other" - saying people control the world by proxy, however good it sounds or how much of a (rather funny) joke it is, does not negate the fact that it is predicated on a real sense of dislike, distrust, hatred.
But if Mahatir were not known to have distributed copies of the "International Jew" before, would this not be someone calling for the end of violence, the call for a return of pride to a group of people? Whether or not either side is more sinned against than sinning is now too internecine a knot to untangle - but if aspiration could become the pursuit of intellect, of technology, of advancement and discovery, would that not be grand?
If it were not for the fact that I cannot entirely dismiss the Economist's assertion that this is, regardless, a form of casus belli, it does not expunge the problem that Israel has a lot less to worry about than the muslim world put together from a conflict between the two. It might be a joke to some that the Jews rule the world, but it would be a very poor joke to say that Muslims do the same. And muslims don't get away with having governments who institutionalise terrorism.
I will now take one step too far and take issue with the fact that this one comment has generated more column inches than it should have because it's pushed the Jewish button. Just like Trent Lott, there are legitimate reasons why this should cause alarm and reaction. And yet why am I sick and tired of hearing about black oppression and the holocaust? Because people have said it better, and it's being said at the expense of other things - just so it can indulge a particular paltry liberal core of sympathy and outrage.
Izzit cuz I is bleck?
And if I were complaining about my own oppression rather than those of others, I'd bother to be more exacting, more selective, and less depreciative of my capital accumulation of whine.
I've strung bits together into what looks vaguely promising, hopefully Cari will find it funny (if she's not terribly pleased :P).
I've decided that going over to the UK will be just the thing, probably just before easter. I'll have to find someone to put me up when the time comes, mayhaps Ve-Yin, but you never know. Visiting Cari will be fun, wonder if Claire might be around. I should really mail Claire, wonder if I should mail Anthony. Should really mail Ve-Yin and Andrew. Oh, and commiserate with Delwyn about his accomodation.
I've discovered the joys of Halo, something I'm sure Eugene's familiar with (another person to mail). It's not too bad, but I get the feeling my having turned off any and all anti-aliasing is just the thing. Unless I'm feeling particularly ready to become one of those people, I don't think I'll be paying 300 bucks for a graphics card anytime soon. But yes, some modicum of fun.
Oh, another reason to mail Ve-Yin is to tell him about my lovely discovery of Misfit's of Science. Bittorrent, and Suprnova.tk are lovely lovely lovely - they're also the source of said Halo... :D.
It does vaguely concern me that writing here has not been much of an attraction of late, but I suppose it's not surprising. I'm not kidding though, that Hunky Dory is an absolutely fantastic Bowie album, just such frenetic energy and yet so shaped and hovering between control and exuberance.
There is a certain paltry surrender to the supernatural. Those who imagine that their computers have personalities and moods ? that is the supernatural of the blithely flacid ignorant, not the supernatural of the will, of defiance.
I wonder at points whether I am actually telling a story at all, whether I am simply stating my opinions as people can find so objectionable, and yes there is a certain cack-handedness about ill-performed obliqueness, when it becomes *so* much of a conceit ? as bad as the pointedness and directness of political intent. Sometimes I wonder whether it is ambivalence that I aspire to but rather just a struggle to get things right amidst all the geometric complexity.
I really don't intend to be mean to anybody (though to people who really *don't* read this), but for fuck's sake, if you insist on ascribing mystical forces and a personality to your computer, you can fucking well go out and dance naked in the rain instead of coming crying to me when things go wrong. Whose god-damned fault?
I take it very personally when people I know are fuckwits about computers, and I'm a complete snob about it, but I find very good reason to be when people refuse to become informed about something that's so important to them. We should ALL and I say ALL, become fascists and have extension ladders. If you don't want to empower yourself there's very little I can do to help you - using computers requires you to maintain a reasonably steep learning curve, and you ignore it at your peril.
I make it a point to admit my broad range of ignorance, but learn what I need to in good time, and people cannot always expect "computer people" to know everything or want to know everything. I know about what I'm interested in, in what I use, if you want to use something else you can for god's sake find out what RTFM means (Read The Fucking Manual).
I don't do this for a living.
Isn't Bowie wonderful?
Well, ahem, yes, Michel talking about Alizee? All becomes clear now. It's getting quite compulsive downloading her videos and performances. Very much like a paedophile's dream Kylie. But then she just looks young I suppose - she's 19?
And just to set things straight about Overnet, it's all my fault, and Overnet is fantastic - mess around with the connections and learn how to use port forwarding and the world is wonderful again.
Su-Lin might be interested in this :)
'It's an interesting thing,' said Spruce, 'but very few of the great masters of trash aimed low to start with. Most of them wrote sonnet sequences in youth. Look at Hall Caine - the protege of Rosetti - and the young Hugh Walpole emulating Henry James. Dorothy Sayers wrote religious verse. Practically no one ever sets out to write trash. Those that do don't get very far.'
From Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour Trilogy (pp. 673-674).
Actually, now that I think about it, the article I just posted on the X-Men is actually the epitome of all the things I really dislike about a certain kind of criticism, that I tend to conflate as Marxist.
Not that the article is not perceptive and well, the accusations it makes are actually quite fitting. It's just that there's a general tone about it that is rife with that dramatic turn for revelation and the relish and strut of political discovery. However much I am swayed by the accuracy of the accusations it makes, and obviously I feel them to be necessary, even essential, to any reading of the text, yet the problem lies in that this kind of writing is just so very simply not very good literary analysis. Beyond that, it is also just not very fair or descriptive - to the extent that it becomes a kind of naive imposition on the text, and lacks any real engagement with the complexity that accompanies any text deemed worthy of comment.
Just as examples that spring to mind, what of the aesthetics of spectacle involved? The endless close reading that can take place in examining the narratorial and textual elements of the form the text takes - the framing of the action, the "how" of the story being told in a series of panels, the issues of focalisation and perspective that are involved. Not to mention the sexual fetishism inherent in the depiction of bodies, the textual and verbal ticks that pervade the series, somehow independant of the change-over of writers. And I suppose I could make some snarky comment about ignoring how funny things are but that would be somewhat unfair.
Not that I am not guilty of doing similar things - and to be honest it is very effective as a kind of rhetorical trump, to undermine the politics of a text - and yet I find that it's really the easy, and lazy way out, an effective way of dismissing texts rather than examining them.
Accusation, if nothing else, detracts from the more fruitful examination (if you want to retain the same ideological slant as accusation allows) of the mechanics, the emotional appeal if you will, of how and why these texts are then still so attractive and persuasive. If you wish to move beyond idle politics, then you come to the point where these caveats become a baseline, a point of departure from which you examine the million other things that are of so much more interest. I appreciate that he's writing in response to something, working against the flow of something, but it's just how predictable he has to make it that is rather disappointing.
Of course it's politically compromised. Deal with it.
Without mentioning that I've been spending most of the past week catching up on the edonkey-available Uncanny X-Men, I found this rather sensible, if somewhat annoying (though reasonably well written) article on why X-Men was not concieved as the kind of trope for racial tolerance it's accepted to be today. Vive la Marx.
"or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads."
I feel stuck.
Oh, and I bought Nigella Bites on DVD. Mmmm...
It occurs to Louis that Nigella reminds me of Su-lin, in the most flattering way possible :). But yes, gastronomic porn.
Seems like a sensible thing to say, clever Keynes. I read the Economist too much: the article that quotes it is here.
I quite like this interview with Adrian Lamo. I'm not sure whether I like that "Faith Manages" (which I initally thought was quite lovely) is from Babylon 5; though obviously there has to be some kind of connection between romance and belief.
Bouvier, till her wedding day,
Shot's rang out, the police came,
Momma led me out, to the front lawn,
and prayed for Jackie's Strength...
30th of August is when I must play mahjong. Clarissa and Delwyn will be there. Emen, what the fuck do you have on that you're so god-damn busy. Anything less than getting laid is not good enough. It's not like I didn't ask early enough.
So would Su-lin like to play mahjong? (I promise we'll actually play as much bridge as Su-lin's little heart desires, which I'd be rather intent on myself anyway)
Anyone? Peishan too busy? God damn it what's more important than me coming back and mahjong? (please restrain yourselves from answering that)
I know my sister-in-law reads this, though I suppose marital bliss is excuse enough?
I'll promise to be no end of charming (read: sullen and tired) and I'll bring lovely duty free wine...
Screw you guys... home.
I'm just thinking of the time when I exclaimed about Jiang (Q) who told me he was going to watch Chicago in Sinapore, to which I did qudruple takes and kept exclaiming how wonderful that was. It was only later that I realised he was referring to Chicago the musical which had been on forever whilst I was thinking of Chicago the band.
On another note, I have a punchline without a joke, which goes "...which really puts the whore in Sephora".
Su-lin is just so agreeably funny at times. I mean, personally, this is the kind of writing that I think Su-lin excels at, basically being Su-lin on the page - pithy, sharp, very very sly; very like a china-shop wanting to be a bull.
Now if only Su-lin would master the art of short paragraphs, which makes online reading so much more pleasureable... :P - and honestly, which I think would really play to her strength of very syncopated prose - punchy with a sense of rhythm and pace.
Following my little anti-MP3 diatribe, I'd just like to give a heads up to people that I'll be giving away my MP3-CD collection because I can't stand them anymore and will be bringing my CD collection with me like a lamb, or like Mary, whichever way you see it.
At the moment, the way I see it, Winston and Peishan should get first dibs, then Clarissa/Delwyn - I don't suppose Su-lin particularly wants anything. If Dion were interested he'd have to work through Delwyn in some way. The services of a burning machine *might* be on hand, as well as a ridiculous amount of CD-R's to people who are at Mahjong parties, or who come over to my place after I build the new comps.
The Michelle Branch CD is a mixture of getting things okay and being annoying. As with most autorun flash stuff, it takes over your PC without asking when you insert the disc (autoplay is actually useful which is why I don't turn it off by default). It also has all it's content as macromedia embedded .swf files which, unlike the previous penchant for .mov files, I can't view in full-screen.
So I bought at 19 inch monitor running at 1280x1024 for fuck? (yes I do realise resolution doesn't actually matter in full screen mode, but I assume it does somewhat in midget size)
On the up side, the trend in these things has been to make them much easier to exit than before, which means that the content is actually easy to access, meaning you're actually going to bother to view it more than once, since it's not as annoying as it once was.
Still no initial menu for playing the CD instead of going straight to the extras. Viewing the extras is not the only reason you put a CD into your PC. Fuckwits.
The Neil Young album I bought was slightly more elegant, putting the extras on a DVD - and in this case, it seems (I haven't seen the extras yet) that the content is actually an integral part of the musical experience. Oh the wonders of economic circumstances creating new forms of art :D.
Of course I'm in many minds about the rather pathetic fillip that most offer in terms of special extras to get people to pony up for the CD rather than downloading. But then I've just recently been evangelising my annoyance at the inadequacy of compressed audio formats - CD quality is really just so much sharper and fuller.
The album's wonderful, Young just sounds so much more crunchy with Crazy Horse. And I'm quite impressed with the HDCD format in which the CD's released, though I suppose I shouldn't have been pissing myself/been surprised by the discovery that the format is now owned/propogated by the Vole :).
Well yes, it does seem that Louis just tends to be tetchy when he's blogging, but it's probably just the nature of the exercise and the will in not wanting to be entertaining on demand.
There's to be a lunch buffet thing on the afternoon of my brother's wedding dinner, which might be a good excuse to get people together to play cards, feed them and avoid my relatives. Honestly the first people who come up to me and tell me I should lose weight are gonna get a hand to talk to. I would have said I'd tell them to go fuck themselves, but there are things relatives just don't understand.
I'm just thinking of the rather curt way in which I rebuffed Ve-Yin's attempt some time back to draw out my romantic aspirations by talking about computers. If you don't get it, whose fault is that?
(Please note: close personal friends are somewhat exempt from all this, but only just.)
Oh, and just to say to people in general, if you have "friends" who live overseas, esp in the states who you want to bring stuff back for you? - don't be an idiot. Shopping for things, even online, isn't the most fun of things, esp when you have to be considerate about things you don't want to be.
The excuse that "things are cheaper there" is not a good one. If you can get it where you are, I'll charge you courier fees for bringing it back. "Shipping is so expensive" - not as expensive as my time for stuff I don't really want to do. If you want a keychain I can buy from somewhere I go to everyday (ie nowhere) then fine - things that require me to think while packing my suitcase create enormous amounts of animosity (think MP3-CD players).
Oh, and if I wasn't unemployed, I wouldn't be home all day to wait for UPS deliveries - which means I might have to end up going to the delivery depots to pick up stuff. I'm bringing back heatsinks from here because I really don't want to have to deal with shitty brand ones in Singapore which I know nothing about. And cases are just too big.
The US is insular and myopic - shipping overseas is not something it does easily; for goodness sake, they don't even bother to make alot of their stuff autosensing, so the fact that the rest of the world uses different voltages (but do offer autosensing stuff) doesn't seem to bother them. NTSC is not the only video format available to the world. Deal with it. Rock and Roll.
Oh, and 2 words: Region Encoding. Thank god for Lite-On and the pirate realm that is Asia (and the smurfing interweb).
And on a personal note, I really don't go very many places when I'm here, I spend most of my time at home. Going out is an event, and an event that I want to keep genial and happy, not frustrated and tetchy.
(and oh) For the sake of momentum I've allowed my fears to grow larger than life.
What had promised to be a sweltering day has actually turned out rather temperate, no doubt partly because it's not so humid, and because I've not left the house :D.
Feelings of dissoluteness and lack of employment (in one sense only, not the other) are starting to creep in, though reading the Sword of Honour Trilogy (I've actually finished the second book) is quite a lark.
If Su-lin's reading this, could she recommend a Dorothy Sayers book to me? Basically a good one to start off with, something rollicking and fun perhaps.
Hate the sinner, but love the sin.
Huh, it appears the Economist has decided to do a fluff piece on blogs and say nothing particularly insightful (and get things very much wrong - eg: Blogger was selling Blogger Pro long before Google). I suppose the whole thing about the corporatising of blogs is something interesting, but then we know this already.
Like most mainstream newspapers the Economist tends to fall into the trap (less often than most though obviously) of writing about things that simply exhibit how little they really know about what's really going on.
Just because it's news to the doddering old and the intellectually stunted, doesn't excuse you talking nonsense about something you obviously have very little investment in, and something that you're obviously not too clear about. Worse when they decide that they should put aside anything they've ever been taught about tone and come off as completely uninformed and cack-handed.
What's especially disappointing is that for a newspaper that so often makes it its mission to push boundaries in how people think about things - to persuade and illuminate - as well as to provide startling and insightful observations about the unusual sides of overworn arguments, it can so often resort to this kind of sensationalised wolf-crying.
Regurgitating the opinions that could be found by any idiot in the know, much less by Slashdot responses reduces your newspaper from the bearer and illuminator of knowledge, to the rather pathetically journalistic function of nutella - all you do is spread.
You'd think blogging out of boredom is a sign of something, or that it's not the most productive - and yet, as I'm coming to realise, I'm not really to keen anymore to report what's happening around me. And probably my most idle posts are the ones that contain the most reflection, the most considered commentary, which is probably the better part of this blog.
I feel a frustration, and above all a kind of trepidation at writing - I find myself avoiding it, despite thinking to myself that that's what I'd like to do. But then the shuttlecocks here is nothing new, it's not that different (though it is different) from writing academic work.
What can I say about the Throwing Muses but I never quite understood how demeaned the term religious experience had become until I experienced this kind of trembling.
It's amazing the amount of good celluloid I've been seeing recently (Wrong Turn exempt of course). I just got the DVD of CQ, by Roman Coppola, and it's pretty good. It's making me want to buy Danger: Diabolik.
Because I like being dismissive without extended explaination of my pique, I'll just post three links to articles in the L.A Times, the first of which talks much nonsense about critical theory in general, narrative theory by association, and film theory in particular. Obviously no one who knows me will have to guess who's the top of my intellectual midget list now.
(Please note: because the L.A. Times wants you to register with their site to read this crap, I've sacrificed a disposable e-mail account to give you a username and password, so you don't have to. User: latimesprintscrap pw: absolutecrap)
Lights, Camera, Action. Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology.
Some idiot who doesn't seem to quite get how much of a marxist stereotype he's making of himself.
A response to the above idiot, which I've not read, but which probably isn't great.
Film Theory: Elitist Nonsense or a Critical Life Lesson?
Letters of reply, the first by Branigan, a sampling of whose work I've actually read, and who is shown to be a rather witty intelligent man, not least by his response.
This is so god-damn funny (amongst other things) I can't be bothered to comment too much on it, but just to say, download it (after you've registered on my forums of course) and laugh your ass off.
On a more serious note, let me say this: Rodney King.
I should perhaps follow up just a teeny bit on the whole Byatt/Potter thing. I'm quite appreciative of Su-lin's rather startling analysis of it here. As I've remarked recently, I seem to be quite sympathetic to people who are invested to the point that their writing constantly and inevitably returns to their master narrative. For the Economist, this is economic theory, free trade, competition; for Waugh this seems to be nostalgia, the past, Catholicism, the sense of loss and time passing. For Su-lin it's Fitzie :).
Just to clarify though, from Su-lin's entry (gently, so as not to offend), I don't feel "scoff" is quite the right way of describing my position on Byatt and Potter. True is the fact that I'm not commited to either and find myself largely agnostic in the midst of that particular quarrel.
Possession is not my favoritest of books, but there are portions that I find no end of intriguing (not just Val, which I find the most moving), especially the bits that the Potter article seem to illuminate. Largely because my Oral Assessment group ignored this when I brought it up, and as the Potter article elaborates, Byatt exhibits at least some form of knowledge/sympathy with Marxist rhetoric (if only by its pointed absence, as in Possession).
Particularly so with her incessant evocation of nostalgia and the expression of an irretrievable halcyon past - mixed with her scepticism/dismissal of the urban, the new, the economic. All a particular brand of rather unproductive Marxist thinking if you ask me - and which is particularly ironic coming from Byatt, expressed as it is in a hopelessly C/conservative register.
But while I obviously find the expression of this in Possession the most interesting portion of the book (noticeably also because it occupies a very marginal presence, away from the rather tedious letters and poetry) - and I find her bible thumping in the article simply distasteful - she does actually write with aplomb and with the skill and presence that attends a scholar and a woman of letters. The Salon.com idiot might as well go and write for the Guardian.
Regarding Harry Potter. If I hear myself say, yet again, that I'd read the Narnia Chronicles over again rather than Harry Potter, I'd probably be forced to keelhaul myself. Similarly with the whole Val thing in Possession.
My objection to Harry Potter is simply an aesthetic one, that I find the level at which it is reified by the superlative praise/evangelism that it recieves rather distasteful - quite aside from the content of the books themselves, the perusal of which is rather precluded by my distaste.
As Choon Ping once said to me regarding Moulin Rouge (and I suspect Su-lin said to me regarding Potter), I'm 'one of *those* people'. Though unfortunately having actually seen Moulin Rouge, I can at least with some authority say that I'd rather cut my heart out with a spoon than watch it again. Pretentious motherfucker (not Choon Ping, who is no end of clever despite questionable taste - I mean Luhrman). Harry Potter I can just dismiss like I dismiss Coldplay, as something which is so obviously not quite up to what it is purveyed to be. Though it doesn't help that Coldplay sucks ass.
I'm not in much shape to write terribly much, but I might as well. Have a newfound respect for Nigella, since, if her recipes are anything to judge by (Bloody Mary by the Pitcher to be exact), she's not one that's shy of her alchohol. I must say that was a fuck load of vodka to put into not that much more tomato juice.
Needless to say, now that my lovely Bordeaux glasses have arrived, tomorrow will be passed in a similar state of merriment, with what promises to be a rather handsome bottle of 2000 Bordeaux (young at the moment, but I'm testing before I plunge into buying a case to store).
Getting hammered of course requires doing rather passive activities, which in this case means watching Spooks, which, as the second season episode I watched promised, is pretty damn good. And Matthew MacFadyen (who was so wonderful in Poliakoff's Perfect Strangers) is absolutely the man.
If this morning was anything to go by, my mornings might well be take up in maintaining my contacts with Singaporeans through IM. Clarissa was nice enough to endure Louis and his incessent prodding/goading/grovelling. And whatever Clarissa's having, she must be smoking up a storm: her parting shot to me was that she thought Don't Stop (Funkin' for Jamaica) was rather good. It's a Mariah song. Moment of weakness I'm sure :D.
With my Mp3 cds around me again, I find myself rediscovering dusty things, just as I have been so eager to do with the buying of the Pixies etc. Morning Glory has really lost none of it's charm or verve, making their subsequent offerings all the more inexplicable. Diana Krall's 'All For You', which is now playing, is as always, sublime. None of her other albums really approach the tone and register that this one achieves, as far as I know. Maybe it's just Nat King Cole.
And I thought Byatt was full of tripe. I found what edel mentioned as the rebuttal to her article at Salon.com (not hyperlinked because they're probably as bad as the god-damn fucking Guardian) which is probably the most pathetic load of nonsense I've read since that article on Buffy from whereever. If you insist on seeing what drivel gets published by intellectual midgets you can have a look at this. It's almost worth the Salon daypass just to experience horror of that magnitude. Fuckwits.
Edel's blog has an article by A.S Byatt on Harry Potter. Being me, and not having read Harry Potter (not even when I'm high/tight) and pretty much disliking Possession (despite fantastic bits on Val) I'd just like to say, about that article - tripe. Tripe tripe tripe.
And about Su-lin's entry about RJ people collecting for charity? I sympatise, and I find her vignette quite effective, but I just remember being strong-armed into doing such nonsense and resenting it for years to come. And students forming lines to collect for charity (and I really mean no offence to dear Su-lin) makes me want to bludgeon them with a spoon. A spoon I tell you. Emotional blackmail is never pretty, and I refuse to feel guilty about emotional blackmail.
What I do feel probably altogether too self-congratulatory about is what I did just before I discovered that they no longer forced recruits to donate to the Community Chest, for fear of alienating them in the future, when they have more than $200 a month. The community chest guy told me that my company had an unusually high voluntary donation rate, which he attributed to my appealing to them, telling them of what I'd done as a recruit - clever people they are, using GIRO cuts out the negative utility from continually giving, ie not having to see students with cans.
I shall recommend TypePad to people when it comes out, Blogger has such consistent issues with its archives (at least on its free service), and is so much less feature rich (comments etc.). Though for the non-mental-midgets, hosted Movable Type is probably the way to go.
Just realised that I can actually host a whole bunch of e-mail addresses at the fallingbeam.org domain if I so chose. I really like the word biffing. Clever Waugh.
Speaking of Wilde, I probably regard him in a sense the way I regard Spinal Tap; as cultural artifacts who provide a frame of reference that has become divorced from the thing itself that had previously generated those reference points - and hence are things that are interesting to experience on those terms. Except that Spinal Tap is funny. And not quite so annoying.
Oh and just to say of people who give Liz Phair grief about working with Matrix, it's very much akin to Emen telling me I didn't have to move out last year from House H. So there.
Ari Fleischer, like, I suspect, people in government can tend to be, appears to be fundamentally dishonest. He was on Letterman a couple of days ago, and I've just watched it on my comp becasue I'd taped it. There has been no significant proof of chemical or biological weapons found. The fundamental reason they went to war, and why I supported the move to war, was the issue of defiance, not the issue of guilt. Which obviously I think the Economist makes clear here.
Deliberately misleading people is not a difficult thing to admit culpability for; obviously it's easier to just say certain things - when you're not sure how accurate information is - because you want it to be said. The alternative would require some measure of moral courage (to use a flagrantly army term), to not say things in earnest that you simply want to be true.
It seems I probably had the books I wanted to quote from when I was in York, or at least The Maltese Falcon. My stuff just arrived, together with my RAM. Haven't found The Rules of Attraction yet, but I'm sure it's somewhere, just hope it isn't Singapore.
The section I'm using from The Maltese Falcon is longer than I thought, and I'll finish typing the lot in later. I considered putting it on a seperate page, but it's important enough to put on the main site page - though when I fine Rules of Attraction, that quote will probably go first.
I must say that the Pixies rock big time, and my 4.1 speakers are quite a godsend in that respect. I actually downloaded Hotel Paper off Kazaa just to the the mp3s, since the Ogg files weren't using the 2 rear speakers. Then again it could just have been Winamp 2.
Hmm... checking out using my fallingbeam account for SMTP so again I don't have to be dependant on an ISP for sending mail. Finding out that actually the features of the hosting plan mail is quite cool, they actually allow both pop and imap, so if and when I ever migrate new addresses, they'll probably be fallingbeam addresses.
I know my site's been a bit neglected of late, except perhaps for the blog, but as I'm now in Chicago and ordering a sinful amount of computer hardware (RAM and 2 SATA drives for my RAID setup) I should be paying more attention to it. And also I no longer have the excuse of the books not being around for the front page quotes on my site. And all the assessment rubbish should be going too. Really need the RAID setup, since the IBM drive seems less than capable of dealing with the demands of video editing.
Found out that it's probably better to record Once and Again on analog cable rather than digital, less jerkiness. Oh and I'm taping Red Cap since it's not on DVD. I really wonder when I'll get around to watching all the crap I bought.
Oh and I've been using K++, not noticing too much difference from Kazaalite, been busy downloading the absolutely hot Liz Phair (thanks Tag and Rename) and getting the unaired episodes of Firefly. November seems a long way away to wait for the DVD.
Editing video is a bit tedious, but I suppose the policy is that I don't record to keep stuff unless it's not available to buy (yet at least) hence the taping of Once and Again season 2.
Gave Su-lin a little tutorial on using Kazaa. Su-lin seems to get it better than Peishan, though both had to be handholded - Su-lin just seems more intuitive about it. I get the feeling Su-lin takes issue with me railing against York, but then, as 'In a Lonely Place' suggests, there is every reason for being not 'normal'.
I'm still quite swayed by the idea that the film uncovers the futility of reading signs as if they were traffic-stop-signs, that the element of faith and belief - the appreciation of the unseen/unproven - is the post-lapsarian frustration of spirit in being unable to quite divorce the self from the need for interpretation, the need for reading and proof.
I don't think I'm wrong in asserting the urgency or primacy of this semiotic engagement in the period, I would assume that the detective fiction genre is merely a happy coincidence and convenient catalyst for these impulses.
Maybe Waugh can convince me to convert to Catholicism :P.
As I pointed out to Eugene, I'm always more eloquent about things that I dislike. So let's just say Igby Goes Down is absolutely sublime. Even the musical director's occasional apalling taste in timing and music didn't detract so much from the fact that it's so incredibly affecting - so moving while being so absolutely hilarious.
It's a tribute to the director that the players in the film were so amazing despite being such mediocre actors elsewhere. Amanda Peet and Jeff Goldblum (who I normally despise like I despise Ulrika) were actually fantastic, as was the normally so wooden Ryan Phillipe. Bill Pullman of course was immaculate and Susan Sarandon flawless - but I was just taken aback by how much Kieran Culkin resembled a young Robert Downey Jr. - with all that ambiguity of will and succeptablity to tempation, not to mention the pervasive sadness and shiftiness in his eyes. Claire Danes played up the snotty pseudo intellectual college girl with aplomb, and regardless looks rather nice in her knickers and not much else.
They have Red Lights lighting the way from the main escalator well to the various cinemas, presumably to allow people to adjust to the relative darkness of the cinema. The corridoor I passed on the way to the film smelt of BMTC; which made me a bit unsteady for a while, so I had to hold on the the handle of the door.
I suppose it's been quite an eventful day, and not totally annoying for being graduation. The ceremony itself was pathetic till the guy from Aardman Animations came to give his speech, which I thought was quite okay, he seemed really quite affected by what was being proffered to him - which is a nice thing to witness.
Still not enough happened for me to take off my shades on approaching the Vice Chancellor. It was my little tribute to Less Than Zero, and the spirit I suppose of Rules of Attraction - I think reading The Sword of Honour Trilogy is getting to me, in a good way.
Only spoke to Ini (don't even know if that's how his name is spelt), which makes me wish I could contact him and be nice for having been so sullen when I saw him. Wish Johnny had been there, he would probably have been the other person I'd bother to talk to. The rest can pretty much carry on sucking eggs.
The day could only get better from there, had lunch with the parentals at Cafe Uno, bought a suit which I'm quite taken with.
Had a nice cathartic encounter with the porter etc. which I'm feeling vaguely guilty for now. It's a pity that something so good, that you dream about doing so much for so long, should have to lead to this kind of nagging niggling remorse. Probably feeling so guilty cuz I'm feeling happier, less in a funk over the whole graduation fuckshit, after spending the evening with Eugene, Delwyn and Dion.
We actually went to Symrin, which turns out to be just a dinky little takeaway instead of the restaurant I'd envisioned. The woman/owner was as affable as she always is over the phone, and it was a real pleasure to see her finally.
She and her shop seemed like such a fixture in the community there, with people constantly coming and going out of the shop, that she had hardly a free minute to banter with us. I could say something asinine about immigrant integration, but that just seems rather trite and out of place.
But she really knew all her regulars by name and they all treated her like pretty much a community leader, a figurehead of a family. She'd send regards to peoples' families, and would great people with a chirpy "hello trouble". She reminded me of Arun, and the lay philosophies that he was so assured of - especially around the subject of money.
After dinner was time for all out gossipmongering session, bringing up Cain from the past year, such as there was, and rehashing the old favorites that Eugene had not quite heard of. Eugene of course had plenty that we found new. But I suppose, like amsterdam, what's spoken of in Eugene's kitchen stays in Eugene's kitchen. Unless you ask. Doesn't even have to be nicely.
But plenty of shoveling going on about practically every non-ninja Singaporean/peripheral for the past couple of years. And I mean all. Fun fun fun.Eugene is one crazy open mouthed fucker - ie fantastic. I was rolling on the floor laughing for most of the time - literally. From the insight he gave in to Emen though, makes me think better and better of our mutual friend (not that I had though badly in any way to begin with). Makes me wish I had spent more time with Emen - clever Emen.
I can feel my Organ of Veneration acting up again. Su-lin's blog is quite engaging. For those that have not found the wonders of it, her blog is here. I'll probably but a permanent link to it sometime. But yes, I like the story about her skiving sister which you can find here. At the time of posting it was the most recent entry. Nice, charming, engaging - and at points revealing a kind of depth of feeling in tandem with a sentimental attachment to family - which even for her is ever so ambivalent.
I have two rather distinct ways of thinking of sentimentality but hopefully the import of the word itself is allowed to be dependant on context rather than rigid meaning/association. But then I probably prize ambivalence too much for anything so clear - helpful huh?
It'd be nice to think that I have a Great Story to tell, and that one day I will find a way to write it. But then I feel the need to just get Any Story down on paper, lest greatness never materialises.
Tried calling Cari, shall try to leave my TV with Ve-Yin for her to pick up - hopefully Jason's coming down with her, so they won't have too much trouble with it all.
Hmm... still resentful? Oh Yeah Baby. Motherfuckers.
I am feeling a huge great swell of seething resentment towards this university and the whole graduation rigmarole.
Nice obliging Emen came to visit my lovely blog/site. Nice to see him rather amused. Louis aims to please. But yes, clever Emen. Louis is starting to sound more like Su-Lin for some reason. Soon I'll start going "heh" in IM conversations.
Busy busy busy. Will probably be going to Manchester tonight to play mahjong and pick up the parental units tomorrow morning.
I've migrated my phone to pay as you talk, instead of actually cancelling the phone, which seems to be easier, I'll have to get them to send my bill to Manchester so it's easier for Delwyn to pay my last bill. I'll have to give them a call again.
Unfortunately when I go in to close my bank account, I'll probably be putting money in rather than taking it out. I'll have to ask if they have any alternative accounts I can move to so that I can pay my mobile bill instead of Delwyn. Will have to cancel my direct debit as well though.
Ordered the Gianduja, hopefully it'll reach the hotel in time, don't quite know if the paper ticket will make it here in time.
The graduation stuff can be picked up tomorrow at 4 or something from Physics, and I'll probably return Su-Lin's book then, or later tonight before dinner.
So yes, busy - all without leaving my room.
Hmm, it seems that my ravings about getting a starred first were rather premature, so, well, that's that. Only thing that saved me from 2.1 anonymity was my hardworking nature for my Norse translation, which no doubt pulled up the marks of that module to 70. No surprises for which module the 50 was for... Richard Walsh apparently does have a sense of smell, giving me a 68 :P.
The whole CD buying spree has been pretty rewarding, if only for the fantastic cover of "Wild Honey Pie" by the Pixies on the Live at the BBC disc.
Just watched an episode of Spooks, and lets just say I'll be buying the Season 1 DVD sight unseen. Very impressive, the 6 episode season format really does seem to do wonders for QC with the BBC. Will probably consider getting Red Cap as well, just for cute blondy woman whose name I can't remember right now: ah, Tamzin Outhwaite.
Still no reply from Cari, so I'll have to see her after graduation.
Feeling retiscent despite the things that are happening, probably because it's just busy stuff and other people's problems that are coming up. Otherwise, still glorying in the firstness of my first. Shall skulk round the department office tomorrow and try and find out my detailed results. Really wonder if I should fight for my starred first.
I do however, have a bunch of CD's now that dig deep into the Throwing Muses ouvre in particular, as well as getting more of the Pixies, and the first Breeder's album. Woo hoo.
Spong was at Ve-Yin's place and answered the door, cuz Ve-Yin was at the gym.
Cari hasn't replied yet, but anyway Delwyn's coming down tomorrow to pick up stuff, so can't really go down anyway, unless I just go after noon, and mostly to deliver the TV and get sloshed.
Got a haircut from James again, at Sharp. Pity that just as I've found a hairdresser I like, that I have to leave. But then I'm leaving York, so...
Shall wonder at Peishan's lack of appearance and ask her about it.
Still feeling out of it despite having been back for the weekend - a bit strange, but not entirely unpleasant. Shall go off and take a shower.
For whatever strange reason, it's my old blog that's been getting the most hits, probably cuz it has the most text of the whole site - though the search strings that lead people here are a bit predictable - mostly stuff with subtitles somewhere. Ah well.
Oh, and the general consensus among the 3 of us, ie: Dion Delwyn and I, is that what happens in Holland, stays in Holland.
So you're going to have to ply us with vice to get anything out of us. As far as I know, officially: "We went the to see the museums".
I've got a first. Yay for me :D. Tell me how clever I am here.
I'm in Amsterdam:P. Woo Hoo. Using the rather naff comps (all macs) at the hostel I'm staying at. Keyboard is awful, so more when I get back. I love it here. It may be my new home.
I just spent about 50 pnds on CDs :). God damn that record industry, saying we don't buy CDs anymore. Here's what I bought:
Pixies - Doolittle
Breeders - title TK
REM - Murmur
Soundgarden - Louder than Love
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
The Smiths - The World Won't Listen
Basically delving a bit deeper in to the classics and getting the new Breeders CD, which, from what I've heard so far, is superb. The rest are just things I'm embarassed I don't have more of, especially the Pixies. Bought all of it from this place in York called Track Records, near the Burger King.
Seems like a pretty good place for alternative stuff, ie not the pop-alt stuff that they sell at chain stores. And they had most of the stuff I bought at about 5.99, which is nice.
I'm sure I could get this stuff on Amazon from resellers and stuff for that price, but it's just nice buying a whole bunch of CD's from an independant store. And it's nice sifting through bargain shelves and finding exactly what you should be buying/what you wanted to buy.
I suppose my taste is a bit dated by now, which is why what I bought was in the bargain section anyway...
Oh, and the TV reception depends on the weather apparently, so whatever. Shall now go e-mail Cari to ask her if she wants a slightly damaged TV cabinet.
Have moved into Ingram H, where I'll be until graduation. Depressingly, it's that much of a nicer room than my old one - the TV reception is absolutely flawless and sharp after the intense fuzziness I've become accustomed to.
Emen will be over in a minute, as will the curry (again). Everyone seems to be pretty damn sick of moving and carrying all this crap all over the fuck-shop. I know Delwyn and Dion are pretty grumpy having to keep going back and forth to Manchester.
But well, will be leaving for Holland on Tuesday, which is actually when my results come out, but *what-ever*. I've pretty much got the route to Stansted, we'll have to pre-book the parking so it's cheaper, and we've got accomodation sussed for both Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
I think the plan is that we just spend the last day farting around Eindhoven, but not actually staying there. Apparently it's that boring that hostels aren't actually a priority.
I've found "What Katy Read", so I'll see what Su-lin says, whether she wants me to try and get the money back or whether she wants a last reminder of her time in York, a souvenir if you will. Like I planned to do with the Golding books in the RJC library - which no one ever took out :P.
I'm feeling pretty shitty now after a night of packing, and I've just been looking at websites about speeding in the UK. The good news is that if indeed I got snapped, then all Dion has to do is state that he was not the driver, and that it was me driving. I just wonder what they'll do when the discover I'm not a UK citizen...
I'll probably ask Dion to give my Singapore address and we'll just see what happens. But the speeding laws really do look fucking draconian. Fine there were speed camera signs all over the place, but... I just suspect that because I was going to overtake someone, that my speed might well have been rather high, which would mean a larger fine/more points. Not that it really matters about the points, since I won't be driving in the UK anytime soon. Bastards.
Maybe Louis should stay away from manual cars.
Aside from the fact that I left the handbrake on while driving for a considerable amount of time (sorry Dion), I was sweating like crazy for most of the time (it was hot, but not that hot). I can't remember driving that badly since I first started driving. Had problems moving off, stalled a couple of times, became far too fond of stepping on the clutch... I should be shot.
But yes Karen now has a place to store all her crap, one that she will gladly pay for - won't you Karen? The fact that she'll be getting most of my crap thoughtfully leftover presents should be a lovely consolation.
Just been through a Firefly marathon. I really cannot praise the series enough. It's just the way it stands up to multiple viewing that impresses me to no end. Of course certain portions are a bit affected, but the rest that isn't genuinely moving is just gorram funny. I have no doubt that it's the feelings of loss that accompany it's less than illustrious history that allows it that particular poignancy, but that is special in itself, and worthy of comment. If only the movies are this good. Movies. Plural.
Delwyn and Michel are nice company, and so is Chateau Online. Delwyn I have no doubt I will see again, but thinking of Michel strikes me as a particular kind of redemption. Michel's nice. And above all nice to me, which is nice.
Because, as Firefly is testament to, that sentimentalism is never quite complete without the uproariously hilarious, have a look at this, and wonder. We wish we all had Cheezy Bao.
Saw Claire today, and must remember to go and meet her again at 10.15 on Friday in Vanbrugh. Claire, as always, is nice, and she wasn't just ignoring me, since she only finished her stuff 2 weeks ago and is still recovering. I saw her in Vanbrugh where I was going to have a sandwich.
I must endeavour to promote my site to her, since she's not one who's likely to be online perpetually with messenger, and the forums might be a nice spontaneous place for her to come once in a while.
And of course since she wants to know all about me, she can come and read this lovely blog. I shall endeavour to send her an e-mail (which. like all my e-mails now, contain a subtly placed link to this site) with my internal no. so she can perhaps remind me of our meeting so I won't forget.
Hope Dion found his car radio place, if not he's a bit cock :D. Should have mentioned to him that slot loading players are probably the way to go rather than disc changers, but I suppose they're cheaper anyway, so he shouldn't go wrong there. Hope my boxes are able to get delivered, Parcelforce should be smart enough to put it with the porter if no one answers the door.
Otherwise when I'm not packing I might go and practise driving manual again, which shouldn't be too bad of a stretch. Still haven't remembered to go buy cucumber. Might try and drive to somewhere with cucumbers then.
Andrew's been a bit tardy with his e-mailing me the number of the storage company, but I suppose he's having exams. I might give him a call tomorrow or something.
Michel's coming over for dinner, shall try and message him to bring me a copy of the unaired firefly episodes.
I'm returning to being impressed with Chateau Online, since the mixed case they sent Delwyn looks pretty good. Granted we probably drank the nicest bottle of the lot, but it was rather superlatively pleasant, and very smooth.
Have decided that even though this is a long entry, because there is no central thread or link to the various portions of it, that using the extended entry function would not be a good idea. To use the extended entry function, the entry body would really be like a kind of teaser to the rest - Showtalkers does that a lot - and the best bits of the entry (referred to in the title) should be in the extended portion. In this case, since it's rather meandering, that wouldn't make much sense - though if the content spread across a no. of categories, I'd probably split up the entry, as I have done.
Dion posted in my forum, which is nice of him, you can find his sparkling witticisms here. You can also see how he voted in my ongoing poll.
Oh, apparently the random fetching women in the Wimbledon stands were not so much random or girlfriends but convenient representatives of the BBC, who are now pottering about in filler between matches. Hanging out and cozying up to more dishy tennis men.
I've just cleaned out the rice-cookers in the kitchen. It would be wrong to say things were alive in them, more that things had evolved and civilisations crumbled. Not that I'm one to talk.
Am planning a dinner for the psycho students who have finished their first exam today, so I can make use of the Emperor chicken spices I have. Chicken rice is planned for Wednesday. Wonder if there'll be enough food for everyone. Emen's in a mood so he's not joining us for what ostensibly would have been his brithday dinner.
Hopefully celery and oyster mushrooms will be enough. If not I could just make the steamed egg. I've got to remember to buy cucumbers for wednesday.
Wimbledon's on, though I can't seem to find out when Henin is playing. It's all men's tennis now, with gratuitious shots of pretty women in the audience (I assume the girlfriends of the dishy male players). Bored now.
It's so god-damn humid here right now, having just rained. It's been about an hour or more since I moved all my books and tapes out onto the landing (and into the bath). They will all be packed by tuesday night after I get all my lovely boxes from seven seas (my moving company).
I'm hoping to fit everything into about 3 boxes, since I really don't have a lot of clothes that I want to keep. The weight limit of 30kg per box might be an issue, but I'll try and spread the weight out.
Thinking about looking for a job is fucking depressing. I wonder where the hell I'm gonna get a suit.
Hopefully I can get them to ship my stuff later so I don't have to hold on to the stuff here before shipping it. All my crap is going to storage. Karen had better know what Paypal is.
Yup. Bought a car. Which I could have done. But no. No car for me. I'm so getting a car in Chicago.
He got a pretty nice Vauxhall, about 9 years old, but runs pretty well. A bit rough round the edges and the non-facade externals are showing a bit of wear, but otherwise quite nice. Seems to purr along quite admirably. But not exactly the ideal road trip car - need to get air conditioning and a slightly less rickety car for that. And Ryan Air is like 40pnds return, so... And they fly to Eindhoven :D.
I feel bad for being so snarky about Sulin's site. I've not been able to reach her to show her my 5 minutes of work on a new template she can use for her blog: here. Very rough work, I just changed the colour of an existing template to the first green colours I could find.
If Su-Lin comes to York she can get short tutorial in how to change colours in HTML code (well actually in the template CSS...). But yes, as Peishan pointed out I like things nice and clean none of this huge image background malarky.
I will now blog out of boredom. I'm surprised by how much I like "No Code", one of
The link above is to www.allmusic.com, which is a fantastic resource for quick overviews of artists and their albums - very canonical and very biased towards the popular and the mainstream, but a useful resource nonetheless. It's where I sent Peishan when she asked me about political activism in rap/popular music.
May I recommend to you the blog of the esteemable Sulin, to be found here. (Sulin, did you get my ICQ messages about your new template?)
I'm sure Sulin will be ever so cross, but I just have to speculate as to the nature of her blog's Title: Fitzie's Arms. I surmised that it was probably a rather ironic reference to Fitzie's distinct lack of arms, but Su-Lin assures me otherwise. The real reason for the name is somewhat more pedestrian :P.
Just at this moment Sulin's blog is having issues with templates. Or to be more exact, I'm having issues with her templates - Su-Lin, dear, background images fuck the hell up this wonderful thing called smooth scrolling and are the work of the devil and the bane of the internet (well them and spam, pop-ups, animated gifs, embedded sound files, flash, and any browser other than Opera).
Nice to listen to Rage Against the Machine again. Peishan was asking about political activism in rap, so obviously they came up. And as I suspected, the forum was a bit too much for Peishan to handle ;). Oh, and Su-Lin's comp is acting up, suspect it's her modem drivers - if Su-Lin's reading this, please just go to windowsupdate and download whatever new available drivers there are...
Site seems pretty much sewn up, in terms of formatting. Spent far too much time tweaking the layout of the style sheet... But yes the content will get there eventually. Teo seemed rather disappointed that my resume wasn't up.. :P
Oh yes, just wanted to comment that whoever's been downloading my Klip, hoorah for you, since you'll probably be reading this quite regularly. Good for you :D. At least I know Teo will be proficient enough to figure out how Klipfolio works...
Andrew's over with a couple of bottles of wine, but it's just a bit early at the moment. Xiao Ran's coming over for mahjong, so that should be a good time. Bumped in to her after seeing Clarissa going towards her and Michelle's place. Michelle's funny :D. Lots to say about being pampered upper middle class in this country that privileges ghetto cred - also has lots to say about the innumerable racial encounters she's had. Must be something about her demeanour. Her and Ve-Yin... *sigh*.
It's just past 3.30 at night right now. I didn't sleep the night before, thought I sort of made up for that last night already. I've had an excruciating day at my computer classes, so much so my eyes are vaguely swimming as I read myself typing this.
I suppose I'm being stubborn, as I tend to be, under certain circumstances, late at night, when I decide I'm not too fond of sleeping just yet - which is why I was awake to go and see Su-Lin the day before yesterday.
The visit with Su-Lin went well, she's handed in her stuff, I watched her photocopy and bind her thesis and hand it in. Apparently that bitch Alison (Alyson?) O'byrne is a TA at Leeds now. I gave her name the finger on the staff name list on Emen's behalf. Her kind (including Ulrika obviously) deserve nothing less than damnation.
The revival of Su-Lin's computer went well, she now has a reasonably up-to-date Operating System that wasn't installed 4 years ago. She's also made Opera her default browser the clever girl. If only all my evangelising went so well. Cross cable is a wonderful thing - as are PCMCIA network cards. I must remember to bring back whatever spare parts I can from HK's place to Singapore.
The Category system for the site is pretty useful, if a bit paranoid making since I tend to be composing halfway and thing of something that's more applicable to another categoy and switch halfway to another post. But it's all good, as long as Peishan doensn't whine to me about reading too much computer stuff (I'm not letting it go - boo hoo; muahaha).
I'm a bit torn about whether I should go to Andrew's birthday party on Friday, since it would be an ideal time to go to Leeds and play bridge with Su-Lin. Again, we'll see. It's nice to know that Emen's going to Andrew's do though, so I'll know someone at least. Shouldn't I remember that I hate events like these?
By the time anyone reads this, probably Su-Lin will be done, but she's struggling hard away with her thesis right now, and I'm sure she could do with some positive thoughts flowing her way. And anyway it's just nice to be able to support the wonder that is Su-Lin.
Louis will be going to visit her when she's done, in about 3 or so hours. It should be a hoot, and we shall have a nice lunch and I shall come away with nice food and Su-lin will hopefully have a nice newly formatted computer.
Beginnings, supposedly, are alway hard, and this has been no exception. I've spent most of the past day setting stuff up. It's late. Or early. Certainly brings to mind the fact that this beginning is not one that is a Beginning - but then, so few instances are.
So if we are really to pretend that this is the start when we know it is not, then let us not bother with half-delusions - which is why this is the The First post. And as we all know, in the beginning, when things are just minted, we are to create rules, things to make things tidy and neat and organised.
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