Something to take the chill out of the air,
[via eyedropper and Blackbeltjones ]
I take some small solace in thinking about Ken Livingston's fate when the GLC went down, look who's laughing now.
What with Febuary 14th approaching like a tiger in a vintners, I thought it might be appropriate to illuminate the noble holiday of Valentine's Day, as many Larper's are totally oblivious to this holiday.
So a breif history then...
In 1929, St. Valentine and a number of his close freinds and buisiness associates, were brutally murdered whilst rehearsing an amatuer production of Starship Troopers in a warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street, Chicago.
The Murderer? Al Capone.
The Murder Weapon? Other Men. With guns.
The Reason? Crime.
The dead, lifeless, dying body of St. Valentine's giant, 32 stone corpse bled it's... blood into the Chicago sewer system, where it hid for two years feeding on what we now know to be flotsam and discarded housecare. Eventually the sanguine... blood, overraught with boredom, left it's hiding place beneath Chicago and travelled out into the city's largest body of water, the Atlantic Ocean.
It was here that the blood began a slow, painful transformation through flies into an infinite volume of literal romantic love. Which can still be found today, in the form of musical greetings cards, thornton's chocolate, teddy bears with hearts, stalking and of course love hearts, the confection.
Thus Al Capone's plan to turn the world into a glorious utopia where human emotion was erradicated and the world was finally at peace was royally fucked, and never saw the light of day again, untill it was used as the plot in the movie Equillibrium.
Wow. The history of love. Fascinating, I think you'll agree.
Whilst I'm on a roll, here are some little known facts about or relating to love...
Did you know? That when dolphins are having sex, they're thinking about whales.
Did you know? That the musical device we call the tambourine is actually completely without love.
Did you know? Lions can fall in love with domestic cats, but the reverse is not true.
Did you know? Sting has never known true love.
Did you know? Brian Blessed is a really lovely guy.
There you go.
If you need to know anything else about love, time or well anything, simply ASK LEGION.
Fine. Fuck you then.
Legion.
One of the things about living in London is that I've learned the fine art of being exactly half asleep when travelling by Tube to work in the morning.
The division of sleepiness has to be precise. You have to awake enough to avoid falling under the tracks and causing thousands of commuters to tut disapprovingly about the short delay as they wipe your remains from the carriage, but on the other hand, anesthetised enough to cope with the horror of playing sardines with several hundred strangers.
Of course, this leads to problems, I'm pretty damn sure I bumped into JFS at Liverpool Street station this morning. And I mean bump into, as in we both said sorry and it was another minute or so before it dawned on me that it was John.
Anyway, here's some Hip Hop Hobbits.
Oh, just in case I haven't told you (yes you dear reader), I'm moving to Scotland in about two week. There will be some kind of small gathering in London I'm sure, where booze will be consumed and I will try not to be too smug about leaving the big shitty.
(In related nonsense, I may be in Brum next weekend, so I will do my level best to entice various monkeys, badgers, squid and actual people for a swift drink and a gossip.)
"Today I literally asked myself, 'Are we gonna get distracted from rebuilding Iraq because of our mission to Mars?" Now what the hell kind of president brings about the state of affairs where his citizens have to ask that question?"
"Wouldn't it be awesome if in twenty years time America's deficite actually became self aware and started crushing every nation in its path?"
Order the Fries Earthling. One man, his mission to eat three meals a day for thirty days from McDonalds and document how it affects his health. He's even made a film of it and is entering it in the Sundance Film Festival.
I am so glad that I rarely eat fast food any more.
[via Metafilter ]
Is there no end to this man's talents?
The Sinister Ducks - March of the Sinister Ducks. A song by Alan Moore and his band The Sinister Ducks from 1983.
All together now,
[via linkmachinego and scaryduck]
The Shaun of the Dead trailer is now up on the Working Title website (foolish flash website doesn't allow me to link to it, click on the news section). Bask in it's shineyness. Also has their Thunderbird's trailer, it looks kinda cool.
Also for people with broadband, the winners of Bush in 30 Second's have been annouced. Wonderful idea, open source anti-Bush adverts created by the public, my favourite is 'Bring it on'.
Oh and here's some Real Tech Support stories, to cheer Chris P and Pax_Draconis up.
Been an interesting kind of week, work has continued to be a bit mental with my boss now signed off on the sick for the forseeable future. People continue to assume I know what I'm doing while covering for him doing bits and pieces. Oh well fake it till you make it I suppose, *sigh* Micheal J Fox made it look so easy. At least I now have my partner in crime back to spread the insanity around.
Have managed to se more films in the last week or so than I have in months, Equilibrium, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Spirited Away again and finally Kill Bill. It's kinda cool taking Rich P out to show him culture.
(Oh some spoilers ahead).
Foxy had brought Equilibrium on DVD and forced me to watch it, good thing too as I'd heard it was very so so, but it is in fact a very beautiful film. It's very 1970's school of sci-fi in parts, but you can understand that with the source material it's working from (1984, Farenheit 451 etc) and it has the courage of it's convictions. I'd actually say it has a better rounded approach to the philosophical topics it touches upon than the sometimes vacuous Matrix trilogy.
And some of those scenes were just beautiful, Gun Fu in the dark only illuminated by muzzle flashes, the scenes in the hidden temples to emotion and when he tears off the covering on his window to see the city illuminated at dawn, that quite took my breath away. I also loved the little touches, the repeated shots of people rubbing their hands along something, the children directing the secret police, it was just a nicely put together film
We went to see Cowboy Bebop and Spirited Away at the Riverside Studios near where I work, £5.50 for a double feature was very worth it. Cowboy Bebop was everything it was promised to be, tall people with great hair driving fast cars and space-ships, people shooting other people, having kung-fu fights and blowing shit up. Everything that I demand in a film of this stripe along with some very nice animation and random philosphy. Some of the best bits of the film are when our hero, Spike Spiegel, is just wandering around Morocco Street doing his Noir detective thing. The character animation and the backgrounds are just, well rather lush. I'm going to have to get the series on DVD or something now.
Spirited Away was as good as it was the last time, I still get overcome by the cuteness of the small mouse and his crow buddy, that and the wonderful soot creatures. They're gradually releasing Miyazaki's back catalog starting with Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in The Sky, both films I would recommend to just about anyone.
And as a complete counterpoint Kill Bill, well it's not a work of art but I was greatly amused throughout. Quentin is obviously having a lot of his with his homage to Hong Kong Action Films of yore and so was just about everyone else. You didn't care about the stupid ammounts of gore that were flung about or the sudden shift into a snow covered garden, who cares if it doesn't make sense, because it looks wonderful. It's also pursuaded Rich to play a swordmaker at Maelstrom which is also good.
On Saturday myself and Mr Ed went along to monster for Spearhead as we hadn't been along in ages, it was also an excuse to pimp Everichon to people.
It was a lot of fun and also a reminder that I am horrendously unfit, I spent the afternoon playing a collection of warbeasts, wardogs and the occasional possessed green skinned feral while being repeatedly pagga'd into the floor. It's also nice to see that some things remain a constant between linear systems, the occasions that players attempt something very stupid, the players who forget to pull their blows and all the rest. But we got some good reactions from the players that were worth the bruises and scrapes and Si, who was reffing, was the consumate professional as always.
Wonder how Labyrinth will compare in two weeks?
Oh and falling it with the LJ herd because I feel like it, could people please recommend me.
1. A movie.
2. A book.
3. A musical artist, song, or album.
4. An LJ user (or group/weblog) not on my friends list (blue_room).
5. Something to do in the next two months.
Now add to your own live journal/weblog.
Also if you ever wanted a personal appearance by an Ali G impersonator you can buy one now on e-bay. Check out his replies to comments at the bottom of the page.
And finally oooh look at all the pretty lights. I like pictures six and eight myself.
Freaky toonish educational nonsense.
Have found online notes for The Wasteland at this site, which is prompting me to think about taking an English Literature course again.
Mr Penis's letter to the management, and a freaky yet addictive game
I have played games this unusual. Can't say I enjoyed them much.