Some Observations From A Brief Sojurn To The Former Colonies, presented in Chronological Order in the Fashion of the Day

Why in God's name don't they let people check in early? There's nothing to do here apart from drink overpriced coffee and dull-eyed people shuffle around - let me through into the hall of wonders beyond the check-in desk, where there's a few decent shops and some comfortable seating.

You know, I don't want to ever get used to seeing people walking around with submachine guns.

Why are Pret A Manger so cheap? They don't taste cheap. Is it a placebo?

TV tells me there are a million enthralling human-interest stories surrounding me at the moment. I'd settle for seeing someone with amusing luggage.

Why yes, that is my teenage self in the passport photo. Indeed, it is highly amusing. How I laughed through those years of pubescent angst.

Goddam Microsoft have spoiled me for air travel. I want Club World, not World Pauper. Window seat might be nice though.

You know, I wouldn't actually travel if I had a cough like that. Much less sit next to innocent, undiseased people who are then trapped next to the cold, unventilating window.

Okay, I'd really like it if you stopped coughing now.

PUT YOUR HAND OVER YOUR MOUTH, YOU INCONSIDERATE BITCH

Why am I watching Bad Boys II? What defect in my personality prompts me to do these things?

Hah! You stopped coughing! You stopped coughing while watching Love Actually! It's psychosomatic! I knew it! I'll kill you!

This stuff doesn't taste nearly as bad as it's made out to.

Yes, that's it, keep coughing. I hope you bring up a lung, millimetre by agonising weedy, yapping, millimetre.

Terminator 4 is a very bad film. I should write to Hollywood and explain that one spectacular car chase doesn't make up for vapid acting, appalling lazy use of established stereotypes and plots that don't even stick to their own reality.

Tell you what, don't bother landing, just dump the damn thing on the runway and let it skid into the terminal. I'm sure those fillings I'm currently swallowing weren't doing much anyway.

Place of address? Shit. Er... shit... er - oh, hold on, they can't check. 34 Maple Drive, yessir, that's where I'm staying. Heh.

Yay, airport welcome.

God, this looks like Nightmare on Elm Street. Surely there can't be anywhere this wholesome?

Basement rec room. Never thought I'd see th- Jesus, that's an enormous TV.


Well, that spun out a little more than I was expecting. Maybe I'll finish it later.

New spectator sport: the sheer, horrible desperation of the music business. I don't like parasitic posting, but I agree with this so wholeheartedly I feel I must record it.

Tee hee. The Washington Post reviewer must be feeling in a pretty lonely place at the moment - specifically, in the director's family. It's only a shame that most of the reviews require registration to read...

Dead man walking

Well, I know what it looks like now, I suppose. Considerably less momentous than you'd expect, actually, although I'm sure it'll be more significant in retrospect.

I think it's time to confess to some strong feelings I've been grappling with since, oh, last Monday.

I take comfort from knowing that I'm not alone:


EDIT: Ooh dear. What I've seen of PC code was pretty sloppy, but I didn't think they'd actually release it in that state. I hope all that "localisation" we're getting before February includes some serious spanner work backstage.

Also

This having been the first weekend in a long, long time in which I haven't had anything to do, I fell to reading and thinking and other things I've successfully managed to tune out over the last few months. I managed to get quite cross about some pretty well-worn themes - society, capitalism, that sort of stuff, the sort of thing that a thousand university arguments are made of but are obliterated once you've graduated and are consumed by them - and I thought I'd write them down here, mostly as an aid to my increasingly ineffective memory and also to let me think things through. I've discovered I have great difficulty internalising Big Thoughts, with the result that insight either pops out randomly (and rarely, I might add) or far too far after the event to be of any use. Writing them down seems to aid critical analysis, and putting them on the internet offers just enough of a chance of exposure that I'm compelled to think about presentation and understanding.

Anyway. I had a "This is undoubtedly deeply unoriginal, but it's not consciously derivative and I need to get my own thinking going on" post lined up, but now it doesn't seem worth saying. I think, perhaps, that's a bad thing. But at least I'm thinking about it.

Big Robot

You should go here. It's the work of talented people.

Greenlight. I've got to get one.

Picture perfect. Another litigous blow against grammar.

Genesis
Well, it was another fun evening at Yeast Unlimited but, alas, rendered deeply sinister by Kieron and his ever-present notepad. I'm not looking forward to any of it appearing in a comic script soon, but should it come to pass I would like to claim responsibility for the gangsta rap of "Keepin' it Real (Ale)". I'm pretty fucking hip that way. Catch me when I'm thinking clearly and there may be an original comedy-drama serial in it for you...

And of course it's totally organic

Squirrel, box, computer. Gosh, I wish somebody would make an operating system that intuitive.

Here comes the aaaaaargh

Caution: Aim away from face

remember; by pushing shift you're letting the terrorists win.

Pull!

"I'm more worried that they would be trigger hesitant..." Oh, good. I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel, knowing that there are psychological programs in place encouraging people to shoot down airliners.

Slow week

ATI screams and threatens press in pale shadow of Bosnian war

Sounds about right to me. I did go away with the aforementioned T-shirt and a fondness for white beer, so it wasn't a total waste of everybody's time, effort and money or anything.

Epiphany

Things I Once Did Scorn But Now Embrace Or At Least Accept:

Circus training
Shop-bought coffee in takeaway cups
The Microsoft Corporation
Owning more than one pair of shoes
Starbucks
The importance of personal grooming
Owning less than three cars
Allotment gardening
Breakdown cover
Shaving daily
The notion that doing a university degree may not be all that beneficial
Comics
Air travel as tedium

In related news, this really would appear to be long, dark teatime of the soul. I've suddenly realised why I haven't missed television all that much since I became distracted over the course of last year is because most of it is utter, utter shit. I've also rediscovered the curse of being sober with nothing to do: my mind works upon itself. The effect becomes more disturbing and the results more worthless with every time this occurs.

See? Much more of this and I'll have to hit the whisky before the voices overwhelm me and I start writing disturbing letters to minor celebrities, or talking in the third person.

Chrissy: Fred Astaire is like your grandad, but with rhythm
Neil: i think you proved humans can communicate by emoticons alone
Kieron: AintItFatFacedAmericansInTheirBasements

That's pretty much been my day. Pathetic, really.

Theya Culpa

I was all set to rant - in a low-key, self-deprecating and ultimately useless fashion, admittedly - about how Hollywood repeatedly throws its toys out of the pram rather than admit that:

(a) Entertainment has developed to the point where there are plenty of alternatives to watching films, no matter how big the explosions are, and thus movies are inevitably going to perform less well. See also: marketing projections the RIAA won't ever talk about.
(b) Most modern films suck.

However, I can't because they're absolutely right on this one. They're just pissed off because the word gets out straight away. Dammit.

The Verdict Was Mail Fraud

You may remember him from such films as these. I'm still quite scared that films like this are produced in the post-McLure era. I mean, Havana Nights?

This means war

Most pathetic advertising slogan ever:
BF1942: Secret Weapons of World War II
"So secret you don't know they exist - UNTIL YOU'RE DEAD"

So that's where the copywriters went when Dolph Lundgren gave up "acting".