Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Future's Made Of Virtual Heartbreak And Misery, Actually, Jammers
What, you wanna hear it again? Sheesh. Double-posting ahoy!
Future's Made Of Virtual Heartbreak And Misery, Actually, Jammers
Not that I want this to turn into some god-awful extended Charlie Brooker genital massage, but I read the man himself's latest Guardian column with interest. In it (linky-roo) he told of the view generally expressed by womankind that he needed a wife, and also told of his vehement disagreement with said view. Basically, he was telling the entire Guardian readership that he's either single or has a very understanding girlfriend. Ah-ha, I then chuckled to myself, I wonder how many propositions he's gonna get now, especially seeing as how the yellow blob that used to accompany his column has been replaced with a picture of him looking enticingly dour? Sure enough, a quick browse through the comments to the piece reveals two offers in the first 24 hours after publication to jump his grumpy bones. And God and God alone knows (well, Mr Brooker probably does too) how many e-mails he got from people who thought that a well-crafted bitter bit o'prose would ultimately result in a beautiful future of shouting at the telly together.
Unfortunately, I speak on these matters with depressing experience, as many moons ago I engaged in some gentle e-mail banter with a faceless journo I didn't know who I "met" in a virtual sense through e-mailing a response to his column, and when the situation suddenly exploded into real life, it led to various degrees of rancidness and ended very, very badly. So I would advise the Brooker if he's reading this (Ha! Right) to not be tempted down that road, because all people everywhere are psychos, and that is the honest truth.
It's interesting, though. Think of folks meeting over t'internet and you think of bovine women from Cletusville, Alabama grotesquely coupling with skinny malcontents who live with their mothers. At least I do, but I sometimes have a creeping suspicion that my thinkings are about 5 years out of kilter with reality. Anyhow, is this www.foreplay.i'm-resisting-the-urge-to-make-a-com/cum-pun (Oh come now, Blogger. Sometimes you think you're just so clever with your "I think that's a website ACTUALLY" ways) Er, where was I? Yes, is this print/internet flirtation the future? A chance to really get to know someone's personality before things like, oh I don't know, irritating screechy voices and a tendency to laugh at their own jokes comes into play? Or is it possible to make yourself sound fantastically lovable by carefully writing and rewriting something (So I hear. Me, not so much) thus meaning that if you ever do meet in person, it will be nothing more than an absolute crushing disappointment, and you might as well start off by judging someone on their breast size anyway?
Bah, don't ask me. Like I say, for me, virtual flirtation only resulted in mild liver damage and an inability to read sports pages without spiraling into vicious self-loathing. But hey, that's just me. I'd love the world to prove me wrong.
Unfortunately, I speak on these matters with depressing experience, as many moons ago I engaged in some gentle e-mail banter with a faceless journo I didn't know who I "met" in a virtual sense through e-mailing a response to his column, and when the situation suddenly exploded into real life, it led to various degrees of rancidness and ended very, very badly. So I would advise the Brooker if he's reading this (Ha! Right) to not be tempted down that road, because all people everywhere are psychos, and that is the honest truth.
It's interesting, though. Think of folks meeting over t'internet and you think of bovine women from Cletusville, Alabama grotesquely coupling with skinny malcontents who live with their mothers. At least I do, but I sometimes have a creeping suspicion that my thinkings are about 5 years out of kilter with reality. Anyhow, is this www.foreplay.i'm-resisting-the-urge-to-make-a-com/cum-pun (Oh come now, Blogger. Sometimes you think you're just so clever with your "I think that's a website ACTUALLY" ways) Er, where was I? Yes, is this print/internet flirtation the future? A chance to really get to know someone's personality before things like, oh I don't know, irritating screechy voices and a tendency to laugh at their own jokes comes into play? Or is it possible to make yourself sound fantastically lovable by carefully writing and rewriting something (So I hear. Me, not so much) thus meaning that if you ever do meet in person, it will be nothing more than an absolute crushing disappointment, and you might as well start off by judging someone on their breast size anyway?
Bah, don't ask me. Like I say, for me, virtual flirtation only resulted in mild liver damage and an inability to read sports pages without spiraling into vicious self-loathing. But hey, that's just me. I'd love the world to prove me wrong.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Prize: Gone. Nonsense: Continuing
Why aren't magazines as good as they used to be? I'm not about to embark on some teary-eyed nostalgic rant about how good Smash Hits used to be. Frankly, I never read it, for I was firmly in the Number One camp, the ad jingle of which has now marched forcefully into my brain and set up camp in my medulla oblongata, whatever that is. But today as I was idly flicking through the Guardian Weekend magazine, after I had bravely fought my way through the 14 kilos of extraneous supplements and emerged, shaken and inkstained, through the other side, it struck me that it really wasn't that good any more. It hit its entertainment peak on the revamp-before-last, and now wading through Jon Ronson's knowing pompousness and that other bird's verbosity monstrosity (ha! ironeeee!) really puts a grey pall over my Saturday afternoon lounge'n'read. Thank the criminy lord, then, for that celebrity questionnaire thing which I like cos I'm a nosy old bugger whose life is a little more complete for knowing that Jimmy Carr's best ever kiss occurred in his hallway. And of course la Guide, which has remained stubbornly unchanged for years and is all the better for it.
But come on. Nowadays, we're expected to pay about £14 for our monthlies, and they're all a big heap of bullpie. Man alive, I bought Q every month when I was a stroppy teenager. Now I can't even go near it in Smiths for fear I might see a picture of Bono looking sanctimonious, which would mean I'd have to torch the whole high street in an unholy rage. NME? Bleuch. Although that might have something to do with the fact that, since the Killers appeared, all music is dead to me. Even Heat used to be mildly entertaining, and there goes my carefully craftedandrogynouss blog personality. Empire can still wing its way through my eyeholes and into my heart, even when it cruelly ignored my pathetic entry into its Thunderdome write-off. But that's it. It's really depressing when all you want is some glossy-paged mind-gum to mind-chew, and instead you have to stand slack-jawed in a newsagent faced with absolutely nothing that interests you, plus you've already read the paper and the Metro and BOTH the evening freesheets, until you have to dumbly admit defeat, buy a scratchcard, and sit in the corner of a pub allowing yourself to scratch off an eighth of the silver for every pint you drink, by which time you'll be pissed and bitter about being psychologically £10,001 down, JUST TO PASS THE EVENING.
You gotta love the weekend, huh?
But come on. Nowadays, we're expected to pay about £14 for our monthlies, and they're all a big heap of bullpie. Man alive, I bought Q every month when I was a stroppy teenager. Now I can't even go near it in Smiths for fear I might see a picture of Bono looking sanctimonious, which would mean I'd have to torch the whole high street in an unholy rage. NME? Bleuch. Although that might have something to do with the fact that, since the Killers appeared, all music is dead to me. Even Heat used to be mildly entertaining, and there goes my carefully craftedandrogynouss blog personality. Empire can still wing its way through my eyeholes and into my heart, even when it cruelly ignored my pathetic entry into its Thunderdome write-off. But that's it. It's really depressing when all you want is some glossy-paged mind-gum to mind-chew, and instead you have to stand slack-jawed in a newsagent faced with absolutely nothing that interests you, plus you've already read the paper and the Metro and BOTH the evening freesheets, until you have to dumbly admit defeat, buy a scratchcard, and sit in the corner of a pub allowing yourself to scratch off an eighth of the silver for every pint you drink, by which time you'll be pissed and bitter about being psychologically £10,001 down, JUST TO PASS THE EVENING.
You gotta love the weekend, huh?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
3am: Not So Good For Ideas
I had a dream last night, which involved many, many things, most of which were probably very disturbing - they usually are - but that's all right, cos I can't remember them. I do however remember dreaming of a book called "How I Got To Kiss..." and then the name of a minor celebrity I have a worrying obsession with, who I shan't name because it's really quite embarrassing. Anyway, this was a dinky little picture book, of the ilk that you find by the counter at Waterstones - you know, the ones that are full of calming pictures of bunnies, or sarcastic cartoons of bunnies being tortured - and it was all there in my dream, words, pictures, and lo, it was wonderful. Well, at 3am it was wonderful, and as my mind only operates in a state of either only-just-awake or just-about-to-sleep it is still wonderful now.
So it got me thinking, in the groggiest possible sense of the word. My job does not exactly give me what you would call "satisfaction". In fact, it's mindless, boring, and I have no prospects, but unfortunately it pays quite well, and I need the money. Whores will have their trinkets, to quote someone in something. But maybe this was a *gasp* sign. Nay, a quest! Maybe I should jack in the job and devote my life to attempting to kiss this celebrity, and detail the attempt in an rancidly cutesy manner replete with little charcoal drawings! It appeals, because there is nothing I enjoy more than manipulating minor celebrities into a bout of light tonguing. I assume so, anyway, having never got any closer to minor celebrities than seeing Richard Herring in a discount bookshop, and he wasn't even doing anything interesting.
But the dream died, as all dreams do, when honest to God I spent hours this morning googling said celeb in an attempt to find out any way of getting near them, and drew a complete blank. Which is irritating, because it really is a very minor celebrity who not many people would even recognise, so there's every chance I could see them on the bus, or in a pub, or anywhere else where normal people congregate to celebrate their anonymity. Plus there's that whole loving relationship aspect of my life which probably wouldn't flourish if I suddenly became a pauper-stalker.
Hey ho. Just had to tell someone, or in the case of this, no-one. Remember, a superb prize still up for grabs to the first person to read this nonsense!
So it got me thinking, in the groggiest possible sense of the word. My job does not exactly give me what you would call "satisfaction". In fact, it's mindless, boring, and I have no prospects, but unfortunately it pays quite well, and I need the money. Whores will have their trinkets, to quote someone in something. But maybe this was a *gasp* sign. Nay, a quest! Maybe I should jack in the job and devote my life to attempting to kiss this celebrity, and detail the attempt in an rancidly cutesy manner replete with little charcoal drawings! It appeals, because there is nothing I enjoy more than manipulating minor celebrities into a bout of light tonguing. I assume so, anyway, having never got any closer to minor celebrities than seeing Richard Herring in a discount bookshop, and he wasn't even doing anything interesting.
But the dream died, as all dreams do, when honest to God I spent hours this morning googling said celeb in an attempt to find out any way of getting near them, and drew a complete blank. Which is irritating, because it really is a very minor celebrity who not many people would even recognise, so there's every chance I could see them on the bus, or in a pub, or anywhere else where normal people congregate to celebrate their anonymity. Plus there's that whole loving relationship aspect of my life which probably wouldn't flourish if I suddenly became a pauper-stalker.
Hey ho. Just had to tell someone, or in the case of this, no-one. Remember, a superb prize still up for grabs to the first person to read this nonsense!
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Popularity, Like, Totally Blows Anyway
I don't know why I'm suddenly so concerned about anyone seeing this blog. Frankly, the idea that someone I know reads this tirade of nonsense sends cold, steely fingers of fear snaking through the sinews of my soul (alliteration translator, he say: that's bad). But in my darkest moments, it does strike me as a tiny, tiny bit silly that I occasionally clatter away on my keyboard in a frenzied fashion for a few minutes, and no-one else in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD knows about it. At all.
It's not like I have anything much to say, I understand, and I'm fully aware that my writing style is based on what would happen if the brains of Mr Biffo and Charlie Brooker were blended together and the resultant mess repeatedly thrown against a wall until the splatter began to form some kind of legible characters, only bad - blame that on far too much Digitiser, Bubblegun and TV Go Home in my formative years - and also I tend to use 76 words when 1 will do, which I've just worked out is from having to write 1,500 word essays at uni when the underlying idea could be expressed in four (usually a variation of "I don't fucking care").
But it would be nice to have someone at least glance over here, even if it's to instantly surf away into undisclosed realms of internet pleasure elsewhere. I don't read any blogs, see, apart from the aforementioned Biffovision (there, my first ever link. Are you happy now?) and those big American ones, Gawker and all that. So I have absolutely no idea how to get people onto your blogs, short of scrawling the url in marker pen in the bogs of the Guardian offices, which a) I don't think they'd be very happy with and b) I bet someone's already had that idea.
Oh, I'm drowning in the meta of blogging that no-one reads a blog that no-one will read! Well, on the offchance that you're reading this, you are the first one ever. Ever, ever, ever. Gotta be worth something, eh? No? How about this? You win a PRIZE! Leave your address in comments and I'll send you something. Ha! That's bound to work!
It's not like I have anything much to say, I understand, and I'm fully aware that my writing style is based on what would happen if the brains of Mr Biffo and Charlie Brooker were blended together and the resultant mess repeatedly thrown against a wall until the splatter began to form some kind of legible characters, only bad - blame that on far too much Digitiser, Bubblegun and TV Go Home in my formative years - and also I tend to use 76 words when 1 will do, which I've just worked out is from having to write 1,500 word essays at uni when the underlying idea could be expressed in four (usually a variation of "I don't fucking care").
But it would be nice to have someone at least glance over here, even if it's to instantly surf away into undisclosed realms of internet pleasure elsewhere. I don't read any blogs, see, apart from the aforementioned Biffovision (there, my first ever link. Are you happy now?) and those big American ones, Gawker and all that. So I have absolutely no idea how to get people onto your blogs, short of scrawling the url in marker pen in the bogs of the Guardian offices, which a) I don't think they'd be very happy with and b) I bet someone's already had that idea.
Oh, I'm drowning in the meta of blogging that no-one reads a blog that no-one will read! Well, on the offchance that you're reading this, you are the first one ever. Ever, ever, ever. Gotta be worth something, eh? No? How about this? You win a PRIZE! Leave your address in comments and I'll send you something. Ha! That's bound to work!
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Thoughts Are Weighed Down By Mince Pies
Time to gather my thoughts from the amorphous pile at the bottom of my spine, possibly using some super-futuristic space brain-net. I've lived through another Christmas, I've got a new shiny white noise-giver that will once again inexplicably break exactly two-fifths of the way through the most boring journey of my life, and I've just figured out how to adjust my chair which means I can recycle the typing stick currently strapped to my chin. All in all, reasons to celebrate, which I shall do by writing some words.
I watched a great deal of bullpie television over my limited Christmas break, none of which I can remember, apart from the hugely disappointing demise of Pauline Fowler. As a, and believe me I choke upon the word, fan of EastEnders, I'm used to the sudden abrupt personality changes needed to shoehorn whatever idea the writers fish out of their implausibility cauldron into the genearl running of the show. But come on, now. Nasty, nastier, nastiest, nice, dead for no reason? We all knew Pauline was going to die, so wasn't this a golden opportunity to kill her slightly more imaginatively? She could have been gored by that stupid dog, or frozen to death by the random 2-hour cold snap that descended on Walford just in time for her to have a nice snowy exit.
Oh, and now, now we have to go through the tedium of Sonia and Martin being psychotic at each other, presumably so we can endure another one of their favoured mucus-all-over-one-another's-face scream/tonguing-a-thon. And God bless the casting people for plucking two extras from grumpytvcops_r_us.com to thunder round the square on the say-so of a 86-year-old extremist Christian half-crazed with grief, who in turn is relying on the obviously 100% accurate witness statement of a small child so terrifying in her robotic line delivery and searing glares that she should probably be given her own pan-format spin-off where she is sealed in a plastic cage and continously sworn at by Captain Jack.
In conclusion, I'd like to apologise for the overuse of hyphens in the previous paragraph. Advocaat rules!
I watched a great deal of bullpie television over my limited Christmas break, none of which I can remember, apart from the hugely disappointing demise of Pauline Fowler. As a, and believe me I choke upon the word, fan of EastEnders, I'm used to the sudden abrupt personality changes needed to shoehorn whatever idea the writers fish out of their implausibility cauldron into the genearl running of the show. But come on, now. Nasty, nastier, nastiest, nice, dead for no reason? We all knew Pauline was going to die, so wasn't this a golden opportunity to kill her slightly more imaginatively? She could have been gored by that stupid dog, or frozen to death by the random 2-hour cold snap that descended on Walford just in time for her to have a nice snowy exit.
Oh, and now, now we have to go through the tedium of Sonia and Martin being psychotic at each other, presumably so we can endure another one of their favoured mucus-all-over-one-another's-face scream/tonguing-a-thon. And God bless the casting people for plucking two extras from grumpytvcops_r_us.com to thunder round the square on the say-so of a 86-year-old extremist Christian half-crazed with grief, who in turn is relying on the obviously 100% accurate witness statement of a small child so terrifying in her robotic line delivery and searing glares that she should probably be given her own pan-format spin-off where she is sealed in a plastic cage and continously sworn at by Captain Jack.
In conclusion, I'd like to apologise for the overuse of hyphens in the previous paragraph. Advocaat rules!
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