Tora! Life!

Even though I'm allergic (slightly physically intolerant is more accurate) to cats,

and usually can't stand animals,

^^Alain's kitty kat.^^

This is just a pic of the song sayerer from
Alien Ant Farm, just forthe heck of it.

this one is different. Maybe it was just the frame of mind I was developing at the time (see the Moment of clarity post), but in any case I definitely noticed some interesting (awful word, but I mean it as well as I can) things about animals, and life in general.

When I arrived at Al's on Saturday and they told me they had a new cat I thought, "Oh great, sneezing and sore throat- as if I don't already have enough wrong with me at the moment. This is the last bloody thing I need."

As the afternoon went on though, she seemed to be having enough fun running around the house, minding her own business as we played Halo II (which I'm getting pretty good at) on the xbox (Still can't get used to the size of the controller though, it's just so massive!).

I didn't notice my allergies, either, because she stayed pretty much away the whole time, which was good. I don't think it would have been a problem otherwise, though, because I think my body was too busy with everything else to be bothered about it.

"Tora" is the japanese word for "tiger", apparently.
Because the orange and black pattern on her back does sort of look tigerish.
They adopted her recently, because they found her in their garden with no tags or anything.

Saturday evening she tried to sleep in my bed on Al's bedroom floor, because she usually does. We had to put her out in the hall for the night, because surely a tired, ill human counts for more than a simple pesky cat, right? (Answer: yes.) I'm glad she hasn't learnt to open doors yet, though, otherwise it would have eneded up worse than with Daffy at Nat's house.

Sunday morning was when I changed my perspective. Climbing around on Al's bed, trying to sneak under the covers with me, and generally being around made me see Tora in a whole new light. I recognised her as a living thing. Seeing her lie down, hearing her breath, feeling her clawing at the sheets, it felt really special. Being able to foresee when she hop down from or up to the bed, ad then the satisfaction when it happened. I'd never looked at an animal like that before. Part of my huge reality check I guess. I love it.

Concert

Last Sunday L'Ochestre Symphonique des Jeunes de Strasbourg played in Wangenbourg, which is a little touristy skiiing village way out near a few other small villages, where nothing much happens. It was awesome. Thought I'd mention it. Oh and a mention of Anne-Sophie, a.k.a. Nobody, whom I successfully converted from Utopian Anarchist to Don'tGiveAFuck-ist, who plays violin for the aforementioned orchestra. Here's a picture of her looking quite bizarre, which wasn't meant to make it's way onto my computer, but that'll just teach her to pay more attention. (A-S: I told you I would!)

This is her blog, which is actually pretty good if you read it properly:

http://personne666.skyblog.com

And a better picture, very nice.

Nat:

"(Alors voila, comme promis,
Sans trop de compromis.
Ni de rimes à la con. Promis.)"

The snail has rex.

Je t'attends depuis toujours.

Je t'attendrais toujours.
Je t'attends toujours.

Rex has the snail.

I LOVE KOOKY!


No need for this any more either:

No longer the Retriever. Cool! And I thank you for it, which means what it has to./,;
because
I made it and if it doesn't I'm gonna get medieval on it's ass.



And this is a picture of her looking very pretty indeed (as always) in that swimming pool.

A moment of clarity.

I was eating my muffin on Sunday, in the car on the home.
Pretty creepy.

"Yeah, I was just sitting here,
eating my muffin and I had what alcoholics
refer to as a 'moment of clarity'."

Let me clarify my clarity a bit, because it's not a terribly simpleeasy conceptidea..


Two weeks is a long time for thought.

Alone in your room for so long, with really nothing else to do. Reading as much as I did, inevitably leads to writing a lot down as well. And after a while, my perceptions of things have started to peel awaay from in front of my eyes. I really feel I can see now. All I can trace it to is the drugs messing up my sleep, but I don't mind. It feels great. I've got a permanent buzz. It only ever wears off for a few seconds at a time, when I blink and completely zap out, but then in an instant I'm back and fresh as a piece of meat what's not entirely dead yet.

It's as if someone has come and taken off the pair of filter glasses that have been editing what I see for the last few years. There was another semi-audible click. It was that kind of moment. Now I can sit next to the aquarium and stare at the fish without getting bored after 30 seconds. Can't wait till the fireworks on New Year's Eve. That's going to be really great. Like when we made that campfire at Al's cabin in Algonquin Park. Awesome captivation. Just staring. I also now feel a lot more helpful with my parents. Which can only iprove communication.

Thus it is revealed...

If you're fine, fine, fine, I'm sick, sick, sick!

(See what He did with the clever Slipknot lyric subtly parodied to fit the situation?
He's ever so good at those slight puns.
For those of you don't know The Heretic Anthem,
the line goes "If you're 555 then I'm 666.")

This whole episode started way back on the 20th of October, which was over a month ago now. It was a thursday, I remember because I had a 3-hour lunch break. That's when my headache started.

That evening I was faced with the standard energy-crash dilemma:

SCENARIO A:

I do all my homework, staying up much too late, getting much too tired and winding up much too ill for school the next day. Waste of time. Here, the question is:

"Is the satisfaction of knowing you've done good by your homework and can be proud of the achievement worth the physical exhaustion the next day?"


SCENARIO B:

I do none of my homework, getting plenty of sleep, and turning up for school healthy and apologetic. No homework though. Here, the question is:
"Is feeling good physically and turning up for class worth the negative guilt imposed by the disapproving teachers?"

I ended up with a kind of "6 of one, 1/2-a-dozen of the other situation":
I did do some work, but realised there was no way I could go to school the next day, I could just tell.

Sure enough, I had to stay at home on Friday and Saturday and Sunday, pumped full of headache pills and stomach-blockers.

By Monday I was feeling quite better. Not 100% yet, but well enough to go to driving school. That went on till Friday, and I got completely better. Had badly-timed growing pains in my legs, which didn't help with the stiff clutch they had on their Clios, but I just put up with it.

Gave myself Saturday off to recuperate.
I was completely cream-crackered after the 40 hours in cars anyway.
My first proper day of holidays, I deserved a break.

Sunday we had company round for lunch, which lasted well into the afternoon. I got a bit of reading done, but no proper work. I still had half a week, it would be plenty for catching up on the one-and-a-half days I had missed.

Monday lunchtime, and it was back to square one. I simply couldn't eat. This carried on through Tuesday, so on Wednesday we went to see the doctor. I was due for an MMR booster anyway. He said it was just a virus, take the mega painkillers and it should be gone by the weekend.

Which would have been fine. I'm usually on good enough terms with my teachers to get away with a stunt like that, they'd understand. Plus parental note overrides everything in these situations. I'd cope. No problem.

Thursday.

Yuck. Still not better. Not eating, and this time I was throwing up, too! Water-vomit is orange, in case you were wondering. And it hurts. Because it has to come from a long way down. Not fun.

That night was the worst night of my life.

I hate remembering it. I was genuinely afraid.
Feeling like you're falling, even though you just have, is the weirdest feeling I know. It creeps me out. This time it was worse though. I'm perfectly used to almost falling over in the middle of the night in the toilet because I didn't have enough for supper. That happens all the time. Sometimes, if I'm having thrill issues, I can even convince mysel it's fun. Like a game. Aim for the bed or you lose. But this was different. I was already in bed. There was nowhere lower to fall. And I don't mean that metaphorically.

The only thing I can compare it to, and I don't know how useful this will be, because I don't know if anyone else has experienced this the same way as I have, is what I used to feel like when I went to sleep when I was quite a bit younger.
I could see myself in my bed, from above, spinning slowly, and fading, going down. Not down anywhere in particular, or towards anything real, just down. Generally into darkness. It was sort of a transition between awake and asleep. My way of knowing that I was definitely on the way to Dreamland now, just a few more seconds of keeping my eyes shut and -
That always reassured me. I felt in control, knowing that I could always just cancel the whole operation, by opening my eyes. Simple.

This was different. It was all faster. I got worried, because it happened in spells which were longer, and seemed even more so. I felt no power over my own situation. Nervous about the guarantee of still being conscious in a few seconds time, I shouted; partly to get my Dad to come and hold my hand, and partly to remind myself what sound was like, and to check I was still here. I wasn't though. Not really. Mentally, I was a mess.

Talk about tempting fate. Thursday evening, before I went to bed got really bad, I had tried eating some toast, and Dad had looked over and said how terrible I looked, that he was beginnning to get a bit concerned, and that he was wondering wether I shouldn't be in hospital on a drip or something.

By Friday lunchtime, after more vomit, I was.

For the sake of my good mood and getting this damn post up at last (it's now Thursday 1st December), I won't go over the entire story of my hospital experience. I wasn't myself, I got very bored, they did lots of tests, it took them a long time to work out what I had. More on exactly what that is later.

However, at least one (in fact I can think of at least 2) positive thing(s) came from it:

I got lots of visits, and I'd like to thank the following people for making this troublesome experience as agreeable as possible with their visits and chat (and especially letting me use their houses!)

(There's no real order to this, except if you count that in which I remember them. Also, anyone who gave me half a thought counts as well, but you can't be mentioned, because I'm not telepathic.):

Saz, Tammy, Tash, Tess, Sash, Amy, Clémence, Jane Early, Maggie O'Boyle, Mum, Dad, Joanna, Alain, Phil, Nancy, Cara, Emily, Jo, C&C, and anyone else I might have forgotten (hope you understand, I mean, if you were there, you saw the state I was in!) .

Completely besides the point here, but notice how most of the people in that list are girls???
What (if anything) does that say?

Prty Knife

God's Final Message to His Creation:

"We apologise for the inconvenience."

"I think I feel good about that."
said Marvin.

The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.

Luckily, there was a stall nearby where you could rent scooters from guys with green wings.

Douglas Adams.

I'm Eighteen

Lines form on my face and my hands
Lines form from the ups and downs
I'm in the middle without any plans
I'm a boy and I'm a man


I'm eighteen!
And I don't know what I want,
Eighteen!
I just don't know what I want,
Eighteen!
I gotta get away!
I gotta get out of this place!
I'll go runnin' in outer space, oh yeah.


I got a baby's brain and an old man's heart;
Took eighteen years to get this far.
Don't always know what I'm talkin' about;
Feels like I'm livin' in the middle of doubt.


'cause I'm eighteen!
I get confused every day,
Eighteen I just don't know what to say
Eighteen I gotta get away


Whoa lines form on my face and my hands
Lines form on the left and right
I'm in the middle, the middle of life
I'm a boy and I'm a man
I'm eighteen and I like it!
Yes I like it,
Oh I like it; love it; like it; love it:
Eighteen, eighteen, eighteen, eighteen, and I like it!

Alice Cooper (Love It To Death), 1971.

Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer was this comedy singer back in the '60s, but a lot of his stuff still applies nowadays. Just check this one out for starters:

Pollution

Time was when an American about to go abroad would be warned by his friends or the guidebooks not to drink the water. But times have changed, and now a foreigner coming to this country might be offered the following advice:

If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!

Pollution, pollution!
They got smog and sewage and mud.
Turn on your tap
And get hot and cold running crud!

See the halibuts and the sturgeons
Being wiped out by detergeons.
Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly,
But they don't last long if they try.

Pollution, pollution!
You can use the latest toothpaste,
And then rinse your mouth
With industrial waste.

Just go out for a breath of air
And you'll be ready for Medicare.
The city streets are really quite a thrill -
If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will.

Pollution, pollution!
Wear a gas mask and a veil.
Then you can breathe,
Long as you don't inhale!

Lots of things there that you can drink,
But stay away from the kitchen sink!
The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay
They drink at lunch in San Jose.

So go to the city,
See the crazy people there.
Like lambs to the slaughter,
They're drinking the water
And breathing [cough] the air!

Found a great site with all his lyrics and even some MIDI tunes to boot so you get the gist of it.

The Cure

(it used to be so Easy
/"Boys Don't Cry")

10:15 Saturday Night.

10:15, saturday night
And the tap drips under the strip light.
And I'm sitting in the kitchen sink;
And the tap drips:

drip drip drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip drip drip

drip

Waiting for the telephone to ring

And I'm wondering
Where she's been

And I'm crying

For yesterday

And the tap drips:

Drip, drip drip

drip Drip, drip drip drip Drip, drip drip

drip Drip drip drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip

drip drip

drip.

It's always the same...

Bounce!

Now, this one's going out (albeit late) specially for Mr. Mustard the Sacksquasher-sasquatch-sashquash (sat on a watch).

Rock and/or Roll
terminology 101.

Now, get this right, because I'm only going to say it once. Pay attention! Especially anybody.

All too often I come across ignorant fools (well this is France, after all) going on about how great the pogo at their last metal concert was. This is just plain WRONG. Metal concerts are not designed for pogo, and that's not what happens at them. At least, that's not what it's called.

(DISCLAIMER: I am well aware of how perfectionist and pedantic this next bit will sound, but after all, Sash did ask, so it's his fault (and Lauren's, of course, can't forget her ;p), and besides, a pedant is just someone who wants his opinions to the Truth. Maybe more on that later.)

The form of dancing known as pogo-dancing originated in small London pubs at the end of the 1970's, at the time of the emergence of punk into society (I like Johnathan Ross's way of putting it with the comparison to the sci-fi B movie with the alien worms that get into your head and leave later and you think "phew, that was close" but then the eggs (oh yeah) hatch and you end up with a head full of worms.), where gigs would attract 150 people (plus the band in the corner with next to no space) into the basements designed to hold 50 or so. As you can imagine, this caused something of a problem when it came to moving around sideways, as had been the style of dancing up until then. The only solution to release all the energy you got from your speed was to jump up and down and trust your luck that your feet might touch the groundat some point later. Because all this was going on underground in a big city, though, the ceilings were never terribly high, so you kept coming down a bit earlier than expected. The overall effect this produced was to make the crowd look like they were all hopping around on pogo sticks, hence the name.

Moshing, on the other hand, is something quite different altogether. (Well, insofar as two forms of rock dancing can be differecnt, sort of like the difference between African and Asian elephants.) This type of dancing is what most people refer to as pogo, because it's easier to pronounce, but that doesn't make it right. I'm not so much of an anorak on the exact historical origins of it, but my best educated guess would have to be the '80s, when metal started appearing with bands like Black Sabbath and Motörhead and all of them. It was old glam-guitar-solo-rock which had been injected with a huge dose of agitation by the punk movement, and my was it good. And with it came lots of money, which meant bigger gigs, stadiums and wide open spaces. More room to dance, so sideways made a comeback. But there was still the issue of anger management, and very soon arms (fully equipped with spikes of course) started flailing and punching. That's where it became a contact sport, survival of the fittest/biggest/best furnished in the guard department.

Here endeth the lecture.

Ironic Virus Theme Coming Through Here Part 3

She's gone into the valley,
Who the hell are Jack and Sally?
Dropped down from my high-hill,
Overview of the scene
Where have I been?

Where haven't I been in so many slow recent thoughts though?
What is there now that I do not know?
Am I out? Is this doubt?
Or do I just go on, singing my song,
Whch is now far too long,
And going quite badly wrong.

Never would have said,
Would have rathered seen 'em dead,
This idea doesn't fit in my head,
But I'm not seeing red.
That's life, blunt edge of the knife,

It was just my bit of fun,
Staring at the barrel of this loaded gun,
What did I expect?
More than second best?

Hidden meanings,
Cryptic message,
Got rid of the seemings,
(torn at the seams, straight through the sea)
Seeping away what I was seeing.
And yet through all the bleating,
In those moments that now seem fleeting,
That fleet of things, under my sheeted wings.

Massage my crypt,
Into which I've slipped.
Beware the brew from which I sipped,
Off the cliff, I have been tipped.
My ties to real world have been snipped.
Now the switch has been flipped,
And my heel in the Styx finally dipped.

Die Ärzte

Mein Ex(plodierte Freundin)

(salsa-style)

Gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert,
ich hatte nicht damit gerechnet, darum bin ich blutverschmiert.
Wer konnte ahnen, da sie so reagiert?
Gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert.

Täglich liest man in der Zeitung
von spontanen Explosionen
man blättert um und denkt im stillen:
"Das Schicksal wird mich sicherlich verschonen."
Ich frage sie - nee, ich frage SIE! - wie konnte so etwas geschehn?

Mein Baby war mein Ein und Alles,
und, entre nous: sie war auch schön.

Gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert,
ich hatte nicht damit gerechnet, darum bin ich blutverschmiert.
Man kann sagen, ich bin ziemlich irritiert
gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert.

Ich rief sofort die Polizei an
und sagte: "Komm schnell vorbei, Mann!"
meine Freundin ist passée,
so wie ein China-Beller "D"
Sie flog mir plötzlich um die Ohren,
kein Wunder, dass ich traurig bin:
ich hab nicht nur 'ne Frau verloren,
nein, auch die Bettwasche ist hin.
Ich wollte sie gerade kussen, da gab es einen Knall -
gerade eben lag sie neben mir,
jetzt liegt sie überall im Raum verteilt.

Gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert,
zum Glück trag ich 'nen Integralhelm, darum ist mir nichts passiert.
Wer konnte ahnen, da sie so reagiert?
Gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert.

Als meine erste große Liebe ganz spontan in Flammen stand
da habe ich noch laut gelacht.
Die nächste wurde dann von Außerirrdischen entfuhrt
ich hab mir nichts dabei gedacht.
Mit Freundin Nummer Drei
war es auch bald vorbei.
Sie versteinerte, das fand ich ganz normal.
Doch als die vierte explodierte, wurde mir dann langsam klar
da meine Partnerin zu sein wohl nicht ganz ungefährlich war?

Gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert,
ich hatte nicht damit gerechnet, darum bin ich blutverschmiert.
Wer konnte ahnen, da sie so explodiert?
Gestern nacht ist meine Freundin explodiert.

The Vandals

My Girlfriend's Dead

(from the album "Hitler bad, Vandals good.")

I once had a girlfriend, but then one day she dumped me and everywhere I'd go people would ask me where she was.

But I don't want to talk about her.
But someone always asks about her.
So I tell them all my girlfriend's dead.

I say it's leukemia or sometimes bulimia or a great big truck ran her over and chopped off her head.

But I don't want to talk about her.
But someone always asks about her.
So I tell them all my girlfriend's dead.

I guess there's a part of me that likes the sympathy or the looks on their faces when I tell them how she passed away.

But I don't want to talk about her.
But someone always asks about her.
So I tell them all she's dead.

My girlfriend's dead you see, it's a total lie- but it's easier on me than having to admit that she likes someone else.

My girlfriend's dead you know, please change the subject or I'm going to go jump off a building and join her in heaven.

Squirrel Songs

www.illwillpress.com

Foamy the angry squirrel busking in a park, it's hilarious, the music's cool too, and here are the lyrics pinched straight from the subtitles:

Squirrelly Wrath

I will kill you all

Nothing you can do about it

I will kill you all

Nothing you can do about it

Squirrelly Wrath

Squirrelly Wrath

Squirrelly Wrath

You’re all gonna die

You’re all gonna die

Squirrelly Wrath

Squirrelly Wrath

I’m The Lord & Master

I’m the lord & master

All of you are bastards

Worship me

Or I’ll stab your eyes ‘till you bleed

I’m the lord & master

And So I’m A Squirrel

And so I’m, a squirrel

And you’re not, how pathetic you are

So I’m, a squirrel

And you’re not, you’re just human, how pathetic you are

You don’t have a fluffy tail

You don’t have squirrelly wrath

You just build to destroy

While I collect some nuts

And you all suck

Apart from anything else, just postng for thesake of it, quick'n'easy, because I can't be bothered to write up my two weeks in hospital (So that's where he's been then!) yet. Especially with having to go back for more final tests tomorrow. Might do it this afternoon if I'm feeling up to. Might not.

Bück dich!

"Das Gesicht int'ressiert mich NICHT!"

Ich will nur ficken,
Ich kann mich selbst schönen Briefen schicken,
Ich will dich hören,
Schrei, 'ber nur wärhend Augenblicken,
Mit 'nem riesenlauten Rammstein Lied.
Schneller Rythmus, kein Melodie,
Laut, lauft zu lang,
Fäng ich an zu kommen,
Ja das wird so gut,
Denn du riechst so gut,
Vom Hinter,
(nicht nur im Winter)
Die Sonne zwo-drei-vier
Komm mal hier,
Kuss mich und... dann... Bück dich.
Noch mal
Ich will alle
andere Pferden reiten.
Auch kein Nabel auf dem Bauch,
Auch keine Mutter,
Aber ich bin kein Zwitter
(I'm not that weird.)
Jetzt als es kalt wird,
Der kleiner Mensch stirbt,
Wo ist sein Engel?
Answer: in Hell
Mit 'm Teufel,
Hier, mein Tier,
Der mich nie verzweifelt,
Werd ich nie zufrieden sein?
Ich weiß was ich brauch: time.

"Feuer frei!"

Ezekiel 25:17

Jools Winnfield's "cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I pop a cap in his ass":

The path

of the righteous man is beset on

all sides by the inequities of the

selfish and the tyranny of evil

men.  Blessed is he who, in the

name of charity and good will,

shepherds the weak through the

valley of darkness, for he is truly

his brother's keeper and the finder

of lost children.  And I will

strike down upon thee with great

vengeance and furious anger those

who attempt to poison and destroy

my brothers.  And you will know my

name is the Lord when I lay my

vengeance upon you.

Who cares?

I side with Maddox, please someone convince me I'm at least a little bit wrong.

What is the point of this "blogging" bullshit? It's not like I don't speak to 99.9% of my readers (if there aare any that... you people never leave any bloody comments so how the hell do I know???) anyway, and even then most of the time we speak about nothing and bullshit and the usual boring pointlessnesses. It's like in Pulp Fiction when Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) are in the restaurant (Jack Rabbit Slims ("A wax museum with a pulse.")) and they've just ordered and they're talking about the awkward silence that has just developed (I could go on forever with the details, I know that movie prety much by heart, plus this is the Internet.)

MIA
Don't you hate that?


VINCENT
What?

MIA
Uncomfortable silences.
Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit
in order to be comfortable?

VINCENT
I don't know.

MIA
That's when you know you found somebody special.
When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute, and comfortably share silence.

VINCENT
I don't think we're there yet.  But don't feel bad, we just met each other.

Seriously, I reckon that even applies over the 'phone (The bit about "comfortably sharing silence".). Talking with nothing to say, I can stand it, I can just about understand it, but it's a shame really. It's not helped by pointless msn conversations that go (sic)

hey
hey
how r u
gd u
gd
ok (5 minutes or so go by)
soOoOoOo...
so
swdywtta?
eh?
so what do you want to talk about now?
oh
dunno
nefink * *I tried my hand at a little "txt-spk"
wha? nothing?
no anything
o
um...

And so on. That was a real "conversation" I had about a year ago (I was in red). I had just started using msn, after having been told and retold the miracles it could perform (Let's not start fellating Hill-Billy Gates just yet.). How dissapointing, eh? Put me right off that did. Anyway I kept it as proof of... hm I had a particularly sharp point to put at the end of this sentence but anyway I think you all get the gist of what I'm trying to say, and a fairly long time has passed since i was pretty pissed off at the world when I started writing this (Why does that always happen to me?).

On the other hand, I have had some really interesting discussions over the Net. And you can have loads of silly fun with webcams...

I suppose it just depends on the people really. Because I also find that my msn conversations often reflect my real-life conversations: anything from really cool funny deep whatever great feel-good discussions to hollow "hey - hey - gotta go -me too - see ya - bye" talks at school (although that's partly due to the hecticness of timetables and crowds and crap).

(And so smoothly the topic is brought circlingly back to where it started... long live structured essays!) Which brings me back to my original point. I think. Makes sense to me right now. Hm. Bleh who gives me any money about this being coherent at all? Most of the time people reading this type of blog (I don't have any illusions about the absolute standardness of this website - even in saying that I'm nothing special.) are usually happy for any kind of update at all, let alone a good one. But at least I think I'm not part of the large mass of REALLY shit blogs that Maddox had a really good (of course) pop at.

Apart from anything else (if there really is anything else to be a prat from), if I write too much on this small piece of webspace, I end up not having anthing to say (with my mouth) to the few people who'll listen (with their ears) (if they haven't already heard it, that is).

Who gives a fuck?

Or anything else for that matter? Everyone is selfish. It's human. Just acknowledge it, and the world will be a better place.

Tired, Tattered, Tortured &Torn.

"Fuck this shit I'm sick of it you're going down this is a war!"

It seems no matter what I try to write about, it always ends up coming out in rhymes, it's shite. It makes my texts sound a bit better (apparently- I'll take my English teachers' word on that one), ut then after a while I try to force mself to rhyme, and the mesage is slightly lost, and it takes longer, so I stop thinking about what comes next, and most of all it sounds corny. Not to mention the alliterations. But I can't help it. I'm almost obsessive-compulsive about it. And very quickly I start re-using the same tired old rhymes, which just sucks. That's why none of my songs are ever any good. Which is a real shame, because I really want to get good at that, but it seems that practise is bad for it, and everything is always less perfect than what came before. Maybe I'm just not one of those people who can just churn out songs like an elephant with diaorrhea moves shit. But then again, that's not what I want either, because what I'm after is more thought-out lyrics, with more meaning and depth and all that stuff (you know what I mean so I don't need to try and say it). Also, I must remember to write my material down more often, because sometimes I come up with really great stuff, and then forget it and regret it and never get it back. Bleh who gives a damn?

Twisted Sister

Why does she do that? It's just not right. I can't see the reason, and neither probably can she. Why am I not like that? The only difference I could see would have to the parents, but then why did it not happen to me? Spoiled maybe not by me. She expects too much, I won't let her get away with it. Mum and Dad won't do anything about it, she's so precious in their eyes, but I see straight through the disguise, won't be fooled by the lies, must stop talking in rhymes. Not my fault, but I get the consequences... I hate not her but what she has become, and what made it be so, but even then not all of it because I depend so much on it that I cannot afford to lose it. A world of her own, where she is alone, but that reduces my own. Pretty princess, not right, not fair, we fight, pull hair, but what does it achieve? Nothing, I believe. This strain I must relieve.

It's easy though, it's not that huge a deal on the scale of bigger things (nothing ever is).
Still I which it wasn't so, it could have been so mush better. Where did it go wrong? I don't want to have to keep on writing a song, each time we don't get along... This has gone on too long.

Basketcase

"Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me..."

"Oh sod off, you nauseating adolescent!"

ahem...

I realise I sometimes get carried away.
It's fun. I like not being able to feel the ground. And I get to move around without any great movement on my part.

But seriously, sometimes my train of thought goes a bit off the rails, and crashes and gets a all messy and there are loads of innocent passengers... oh shit, how far can I push this metaphor do you thank?

Sarah: le bol!
Ça: ras le bol!
Ça rase le bord,
Le ras du bol.
Ce rat: si beau.
Ce vin nouveau.
Ce chat, ce veau.
Je me bats, tu me vaux.
Jeune et plat, tu m'avoues.
(Sarajevo)
Mes aveux, pas du sot.
Ras du seau, pas de sceau.
Rats du sol, pas de l'eau.
Passe de l'eau, vu de l'aube.

RRR - 666

RoadRunnerRecords (responsible for unleashing upn the mortal world such amsters as Nickelback, SlipKnot, Deicide, Murderdolls, to name but a few), for their 25th Anniversary ("that's half the lifespan of rock music itself") have come up with an absolute gem: Roadrunner United, The All-Star Sessions. 18 tracks of great metal, performed by arguably (I am of the position that that "arguably" means "probably not, but maybe" as opposed to "I think so but for legal reasons I can't say so and I still want it to sound like a positive fact"), the best in the business (Oh yes, even I use over used clichéd alliterations.)

The concept is simple, yet devilishly (oh how poignant) brilliant, even if it did take a year for the great admin over at RRR did take a year to get it going (the original idea dates back to August 2004).

4 "team" "captains" write a few songs, and get their favourite musicians to record it. Then they pick a singer, to whom the song is sort of adapted to begin with, who writes and records the lyrics. The result? Awesome, just (!) awesome.

Check out roadrunnerrecords.com for more details, and then go buy it!

I had first read about it in May or June, and ever since I've checking up regularly to find out hw they're coming along. When I found out that the European release date was today (one day before the US! (plus the time difference)), I didn't think for a minute (didn't need to with my new-found metalhead) before deciding to go buy it. Which also gave me an opporunity to buy my Bloc Party ticket, which was good.

!8 tracks, 77 minutes, 59 artists, only 4 of which appear more than once.
Does it get any heavier than this?

Viral-Vital

Now I am haunted,
By what is flaunted.
I never was daunted,
Until now.
I can see how,
But I won't have a cow.

Have I failed the test?
Am I just second best?
I can't have it all,
That would end in a fall.

I know what I need,
A bit more than a seed,
But I can't succeed,
Because I am a weed.
See how I bleed!
See how I bled,
As you fed, on all my bloodshed,
Now that you've wed?
But alone in your bed!
You should not have fled!
Now I beat in your head!
And you are now...

enough said.

Marks, Marx, Marcs, Marks.

There are Deutschmarks, former currency of Germany and some bits of Yougoslavia. Not a Bad Thing, but the Euro is a Better Thing.

There was Karl Marx, the forefather of communism, a.k.a. Old Major in Animal Farm by George Orwell. Usually, called a Bad Thing.

I only ever knew one person called Marc, smashing fellow (Good Thing), he's in NY again now (Bad Thing).

But I want to talk about are school marks, or grades, as the yanks call them. In my country (p.s., having just re-read this whole thing, I know realise how old I sound. I'm so sorry.), there are all out of a possible (?) 20. So, in maths, for instance, there could be 20 questions, one point each, or some variant on that. Or in sports twenty shots at a goal one point per succes. But then comes the problem of languages. Specifically spelling-oriented tests (dictées as we used to call them), ok, one mistake = -1 and a bad mistake = -2 et cetera. ok. But we don't do those anymore (And a damn shame it is too, some of the spelling at our level is dreadful. Not to mention the fact that it saved my french average!), all we do nowadays are essays, opinions based on textual evidence, or even just personal experience and taste (Soon I will put up my first dissertation with the question, and you'll see what I mean.). How the hell are teachers supposed to state that one opinion is worth more than another? Surely this goes against what they are cramming into our brains every day? And I know that what they're actually marking is the way arguments are presented, the potency of the examples used and all that stuff, but surely that shouldn't count for nearly quite so much as it currently does? Surely, as one could reasonably expect, they should be looking at what is being said, as opposed to mereely how it is said? To me, content is worth much more than style, in that style is more eaily faked, but content is what really matters. Message over medium. I'm sure I'm not the only one who, in countless situations, has had a great idea shunned ignored, dereciated and ultimately nullified by some "teacher" who does not which to rethink their opinion in light of new data and observations postdating their own studies, in the name of conforming to rigid criteria set by someone who really doesn't know what they're on about. But enough of general rants, here's some pretty telling numbers about why I have no faith whatsoever in the system.

In 4eme, I went from 6 average in the first term, to 20 in the third, via 13. That's a steady increase of 7 points per term. One could think that I mst have gotten into shape pretty damn well that year, but in fact, the opposite is the case. At the end of the previous season, I had given up both my weekly judo AND football practise (all in all about 6 hours of sport per week). My general state of fitness was in considerable decline, despite my having taken up playing the drums (which honestly does not count as sport, really.) The way I achieved such a miracle on paper? A fluke. 2 in fact. Just after the first test (the very next lessn, actually), which I had failed miserably because it was endurance and I had a headache so I got 6 for, I did my ankle in. 2 months off. Second term went normal-ish, with the normal-ish sports like badminton and basketball. The third term, we did "expression corporelle", in which I got 20 because I'm so arty (and because my group's was the only one that was any good), and then in football I also got 20, through some freaky incident in which I managed to score both goals, not hit any traffic cones AND do the whole thing really quickly, for the first time ever. The very same lesson I broke my wrist as goalkeeper. And that's how I went from 6 to 20 in the same year.

Now, you could say that that was in collège, and that now it's different, but I move it's not.
Last year, in geography (more on that later... cor I've really got a lot to say about that class, and it's not just last year, it seems it's always going to be this crap... no!), I used to work pertty, hard until in the second term I got ana average of 9. This surprised me somewhat, in that I worked fairly hard (by my standards, which admittedly are pretty low), paid attention in class, took notes... the whole enchilada (mmm... mexican food...). Whereas everyone else basically did bog all the whole time and were pulling of 15s and 16s. So I decided the lazy-boy might work. Couldn't hurt, and I did it with all my other lessons, so why not? And of course, third term, I got 13.5 average. That's +4.5 in one term. In lycée.

So overall, Marks are Bad Things.

Deftones

KNIFE PRTY

My knife - it's sharp and chrome
Come see inside my bones
All of the fiends are on the block
I'm the new king, I'll take the queen
'Cause in here we're all anemic
in here - anemic and sweet...so...

Go get your knife, go get your knife
And come in
Go get your knife, go get your knife
And lay down
Go get your knife, go get your knife
Now kiss me

Oooh...well I can float here forever
In this room we can't touch the floor
In here we're all anemic
In here - anemic and sweet...so...

Go get your knife, go get your knife
And come in
Go get your knife, go get your knife
And lay down
Go get your knife, go get your knife
Now kiss me

(Rodleen's screams)

Ohh... I could float here forever
Ohh... Anemic and sweet
Ohh... I could float here forever
Ohh... Anemic and sweet...so...

Go get your knife, go get your knife
And come in
Go get your knife, go get your knife
and lay down
Go get your knife, go get your knife
Get filthy
Go get your knife, go get your knife
And kiss me...

Unholy days

Right (left) here (alone) we are (i am) (am i?) at last at the end of the holidays, nearly 3 whole months from where (when) we started.


Off School 7th june and kicked the summer off in style by going to watch "House Of Wax" with Sarah and Tamara. very good creepy movie, highly recommended.

Then came veging for a bit and I did nothing. so little that i can't say any more about it.


Alain & Brian 11-12 june:

This was our little inauguration of the summer, And on saturday afternoon it was a beautiful day, so we decidedd to make the most of it and stay in all afternoon playing Quake 3 (excellent multiplayer fps). Lots of fun. Also good to get all three of us together again for the first time in over a year.
On the sunday we went to a Kung Fu beginner-thingy, which was fun but exhausting. It's really impressive stuff, but not really my kind of thing (what with having to be in some sort of physical condition nearing fit).

On the whole a great weekend, fantastic way to start the summer. I didn't even regret having to miss the Anti-Flag and Die Toten Hosen concerts.



Work at Rothgerber's apple farm, 13-17 june:

(I got a summer job! yeah, proper work! manual labor! getting up at 7 every morning! more than a typical office 9-5 i can tell you. )

Technically, none of this was exactly legal, because in France you have to be 16 years old to get a job, which is a stupid law but that's just the way it is. (It's not like us People are supposed to have any influence on the way country's run or anything vaguely democratic like that.) But we found a way round that alright. First my dad offered to just write my birthday down as the 2nd insted of the 22nd and pretend I was dissleksick (dyxlesia lures, K.O.?), but they said that they would simply declare me all official-like and stuff with my real birthday. When my dad gave them a look and was about to ask them why run the risk, they said, "I know we're in France, but this is Alsace." Plus we know them personally, my dad used to fix their computer, and I had done my "stage en entreprise" work experience thing with them. I'm probably the only person to have gone on to work for the company they did their work experience with. The one hting I learnt from the experience is that I do NOT want to be a farmer when I grow up, and therefore I MUST get qualifications and get a better job. Stay in school or we'll make your thumbs bleed. Your choice.

I was totally shattered at the end of my 34.5 hours of picking the weedy fruit to give the bigger fruit proper room to grow (hardened the ends of my thumbs no end), including several in the boiling heat (had to give up on 2 afternoons because of heat-stroke) and torrential rain. I was paid minimum adult wage, which was nice of them. 212,77€ after I gave quite a bit of it to a government I don't get to take part in. I only atually got my paycheck (my first ever paycheck w007!) a week later, because they were closed and/or I was busy (read on for more...), and even then I had to keep it safe while I was away for another week, but the money got to my bank account in the end.

At the end of the week, as I said I was shattered, and would have really loved a nice lie-in. But nooooo, not for me, I had to go and do the silly thing of throwing a party straight away. A big one, too. (I make this sound like I regret it and/or that it was a bad thing. I suck. Simple as that. I intend to remedy this idiocy right now... or at least, very (relatively) shortly). And besides, it's not like any of it came as a surprise, it was all planned months ahead. Yes, I chose to do all this next stuff at the same time just after the work.


Birthday Week 17- 24 june:

So after my last morning of work, Natalie and Alain came over early for helping with getting the party ready and stuff. My parents went out for dinner so we had the stereo on really loud, Blink-182 while cooking too much food (we had seriously overestimated how much pasta 5 (me, nat, al, my sis', her friend) people can eat), it was great.

Saturday was the (first) day of my party. As usual, it consisted of my dad on the bbq, and then a massive waterfight, which this year was proper massive, because there were 14 of us, instead of the usual 6. I had originally intended it to be 12, but then Nat's visit came up and Lena was with Tess at the time, and Tess was coming so Lena had to, too. Which was good. Anyway it was the best ever by far. The transport worked out really well, Alexei even came on his bike (lunatic!).
I got some great presents, some of them genuinely meaningful. In the evening those who hadn't left went down the road (literally) to the restaurant for dinner which was really good, as usual. We came home and had a few beers, threw apples at each other, played PS2, cards, talked, then some of us started watching Pulp Fiction while others just talked in another room, thenwe all migrated to the living room and set up camp and talked some more. Surprisingly little was actually said, despite all the talking. In all I think I got somewhere between 2 and 3 hours' sleep.

Sunday morning crept up on us, and with it camethe morning after the night before, and the stragglers left, all saying how amazing the party had been (hey I'm only telling the truth). In the afternoon Nat and I went to the cricket my dad was playing in after having watched several recovery dvds. That was really nice.

On monday (20th) Nat and I went into town to meet up with Chris and Tess at Cara's house to practise for the Fête de la Musique for the very first time. There was no drumkit, so I had to just imagine it all in my head. We had enough instruments and cables and amps and stuff, through some bizarre twist of people actually being fairly reliable for once. All that was left was to decide what were actually going to play. Ah. Right. We knew we had about 15 minutes to fill, or so we had been told. In the end we did a mixed-up cover of Wishbone Ash 's (some old band, I'd never heard of them either) "Error Of My Way", one of Nat's songs, and one of Chris's songs he did solo (the only way really). It was pretty... hm.. how to put this.. sporradic? is that a word? it should be. But we pulled it off with both hours of practise going really well, and on Tuesday we went up and it went down pretty much ok. It was fun, in any case, and definitely worth doing again.


<== Tess (rhythm guitar) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
getting plugged in
(hehe not needed for me!)

Chris (a.k.a. Jimi Junior) (lead guitar) ==>

On Wednesday it was my birthday, so Nat and I went to Europa-Park to celebrate. We were meant to take the bus (there are 2: 7:50 and 8:20). We turned up 10 minutes early, but there was no bus. We waited around till 8:30, thinking it might be late or something. But someting was deifnitely wrong, because there was no-one else standing around obviously waiting for this bus. Turns out that they only run on weekends outisde the summer, which for some demented reason they define as july and august. Anyway with a bit of quick thinking and mobile phoning my mum ended up taking us. We eventually got there a couple of hours after we had intended to, but we still managed to get all the good rides done, because none of the queues were too bad (which was weird... the weather was fantastic).

On Thursday Nat left on the train :( in the morning, and in the evening I went to Nancy with Corell and some of his friends to see Slipknot (see that post).

Thursday night I slept at Corell's, and thankfully he had mentioned to his dad that I had a bus to catch in the morning to go home on, because otherwise I would have missed it because I, being an idiot, had taken my watch (and with it my alarm) off for sleeping. Anyway that's fascinating. The rest of Friday was spent packing for snowboarding, and then actually leaving. That night I stayed in Switzerland. I must have covered some record distance in those 24 hours.



Tignes:

Ah, Club Med, you just can't beat it, really. Unlimited food, great people whose job it is to be friendly and entertain you as much as possible, unlimited coke-fanta-sprite (this was one of the more expensive ones with fountains in the restaurant, but because it was just me and my dad we could afford it), great people who aren't paid, but are really friendly anyway, and did I mention the unlimited quality of the food and drinks? Altogether pretty damn nice.

The real plus side of all that food, was that I genuinely needed it, because of all the sport I was doing. It wasn't so much the three hours of snowboarding every morning (after 11 am the snow started melting and it became more like white-waterboarding (but not like surfing because it was downhill) than anything else) that was tiring, though, but rather the walk back up to the hotel from the bottom of the funiculaire. In winter, of course, they don't have this problem as there's enough snow to have a slope all the way down to the front door... Anyway apparently they're renovating the whole thing over the next couple of years to fix this "problem". Personally I didn't really mind because it helped my appetite (my mum said I needed to eat more... I'm not complaining!)

One of the reasons we got to go for the low price we got was because we went out of season (I know July should hardly count as "season" for snowsports, but I don't make the rules.). The problem with that was, nobody else went. The place was deserted. Seriously, there was no-one my age, because they were all still in school, the silly sods! But socialising wasn't my main reason for being there, I was there for the snow, and no-one being there meant the pistees were pretty empty most of the time anyway, so all the better for me!

So after a week of that, I went home, leaving on Saturday (2nd July), staying in a hotel in France on the way, getting home shattered on Sunday (3rd July).



Pakostane 7-20 july (9th-18th):


Now, when my parents annouced to me and my sister that we were going here, we both pointed out that they had said that what with Kenya in febs we were supposed to be cutting down on the expensive holiday front, and that surely a small country next to India counts as pretty bloody expensive. Then of course they said that it's not a country in southern Asia but a village in western Croatia, and that the spelling is quite different.

Again, in typical Club Med fashion, it was all great weather, great food (although this time only unlimitied orange juice and beer... stil not too bad considering my parents gave us plenty of money for the bar, plus my sis' and I are particularly good at leeching of others... score!), great people, but I didn't get to know anyone properly because everyone was there for a different set of days so there were departures all the time. We even set up a sort of geeky levels system whereby one's level is determined by the number of big arrival days one has seen (arrivals being mainly on weds and sats.), hence someone jus arriving would be a level 0, et cetera up to about 3, with the occasional person being a 4 (cor how pathetic were we?). But none of that joke stuff got in the way of friendships or anything, everyone got on with everyone else fine, it's just that no real groups were sealed too well, because they all got disrupted all the time by the bloody wednesday arrivals from bloody Paris (there's only one weekly flight).

Driving there we took 3 days, staying overnight in Bavaria, a country in Germany, and a very swank hotel (nice to see how one of the other thirds lives) in Opatija, which is next to Rijeka, in Croatia. It was my first time in a formerly communist country (techincally, we drove through Slovenia earlier that day, although that hardly counts), and the touristy bits look just like the touristy bits in Italy, same see, different side, but altogether very much the same.

The drive back we did in 2 days, because we (by which I mean my parents) wanted to have a whole day at home to get the house ready for my aunt (dad's sis') and cousin. We stayed in italy, in a hotel called the Regina, a name that for some reason I recognised. Turns out our family once stayed in a hotel with the same name somewhere completely unrelated, something like 8 years ago... weird.

So in total I sateyed in hotels in 5 different countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Croatia, Italy) in 3 weeks.

There was an island just off the coast where we were staying, which had a very particularly unpronouncable name. Brace yourself, as it is somewhat deprived of vowels... it was called Krk. I've triple-checked, there is no typo. That's right, the placename was spelt Krk. Apparently there are some really pretty things to see there, but who cares about that crap, I mean, LOOK AT THAT NAME! And it's not like this is an exception. If you go to the site on the end of that link, scroll down and look at the map, you'll see that the other placenames aren't exactly over-furnished in the vowel department. I have a theory about the whereabouts of these missing vowels (I say missing, because I have found them. One could never say that they just disappeared, because no civilisation would be mad enough to make their own lives so complicated by purposefully removing the key elements of their own language (although some African lagnuages have gone a bit far to counteract this threat, and have thus caused the inverse problem: underconsonance, but that's another story altogether); howver one might say that they were never there in the first place.). I postualte that during the Occupation, the Romans raided the land, pilaging sentences and reducing words to ruin, leaving behind them an excess of Ks and Vs (neither of which is to be found in present-day Italian), and integrating the spoils of their crimes in an attempt to enrich their own words. The remnants of these crimes against communication are to be found at the end of every single Italiano word.

About five minutes after leaving, I saw a sign saying "WARNING: minefield." We went through a few abandoned villages, all falling to pieces. There was a war ("conflict", for those who are too modern for the real wor(l)d) here less than 10 years ago.



Cameron visit 22-27 july:
- veging. what else can I say?


Al's 27-31 july:

Saw "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", which is just your standard fairly good yet really crap action movie. It being in French didn't affect it at all, if you get what I mean. Next day saw "Batman Forever", which was definitely better than all the other Batman movies combined, if ony because of the Batmobile, as made by Aston Martin (oh yeah, the Yanks rejected the project without even trying, have it!).


And, in case you hadn't noticed, we also made a blog about red bull.


Beckenham 2 - 17 august:

This trip was a house exchange, which, for those of you who didn't get it from the name, is when two families decide to swap houses for a certain amount of time. A lot cheaper than hotels. I won't go into the details, because that's even less interesting than what I'm going to say instead.

So first day in London, I of course went to Camden Market, which frankly was something of a let-down. I had expected it to all be run by punks, and to go back 26 years as I walked down the street. Instead all the stalls where run by entrepreneurial Turks and Greeks and what-not generic foreigners. It's all been turned into a tourist trap. I saw a couple of real proper hardcore punks there though, and I feel like such a poseur even repeating it, but I have to because it was so clever, anyway he had written in bleach on his leather jacket:

"WE'RE SO VERY FUCKING SORRY,
THIS PRODUCT HAS SOLD OUT."
No shit.

None of this stopped me from buying loads of stuff with the stupidly large amounts of cash my various relations had given me.
Incidentally, this particular day was exactly 2 weeks after the second round of London bombs (the ones that failed), which had been themselves set exactly 2 weeks after the ones that killed people, and because we all know that terrorists work in a predictable and obvious pattern, there were literally hundreds of police officers all around the tube. Not a good day for muggers.

The following day we went to Thorpe Park, which has got loads of record-breaking rollercoasters, like the world's first backwards & in the dark coaster ( I forget the name, it was something like "X" or something stupid), which is like a combination of Europapark's EuroSat and EuroMir rides. There was also Colossus, the world's first 10-loop coaster, which is mind-corkscrewing. Amongst others.

We also went to Oxford Street one day, because I had somehow managed to accumulate more gift money, and I bought some stuff, including a trip to Metal Militia, a great little shop (also with a smaller version in Camden) with loads of t-shirts and badges and patches and stuff... just about cheaper than in France. later we went to Madame Tussaud's, the wax celebrity place, which was awesome yet creepy.

Meanwhile, the Ashes were on, and England were doing quite well for themselves after the standard defeat at Lord's, and the summer was shaping up quite well indeed. I still had another 2 weeks.

Also, as was the purpose of our visit to Blightey, we did manage to find time to see the family, which was good. Um... yeah is it not slightly strange that I don't have a little more to say about that?

On the last evening, wehad to call the police out to our (well, not ours) house because a bunch of local kids had broken into the back garden and stolen a sheet of the line (for to carry thyne swag most preciousome) and removed the door (and carefully placed leaning against the wall) off the shed, found there was nothing to take, and scarpered (not without my mum going out to have a look and then returning promptly back to the house at the first noise). Of course I hadn't been made aware of the situation, so you can imagine my reaction when these police officers stick their head round the door with radios going and everything! Anyway it all got sorted, apparently they were already dealing with the same thing going on down the road, so they got to us pretty quickly.
So once the nice mr. poiceman had written it all down and chatted a bit with us about quite why we were in someone else's house in the first place, and revealing to us that "Round 'ere these days, I tell you, I don't blame you for living all the way out in France." (someone hasn't recieved the Livingstone public morale speech yet...), we went straight down the pub. Even Joanna, who for two weeks had been on msn, came along.


Geneva 20-27 august:

So as I had just got back from England, it was of course time to leave again! (story of the summer really, unpack and repack on the same day, shows how I do in fact have enough clothes).
This time it was just me, off to see Nat. The first half of the week we just stayed and watched tv and listened to A LOT of music and played Boggle and Go Fish with 8 decks (3 hours).
Then when we finally got round to going out, we decided on swimming, but of course the pool was closed for some deranged reason. So instead we went for an ice cream in what can only be described as an ice cream restaurant/bar. It was absolute dessert heaven. Cost loads of course, because it was Switzerland where everything is nice (as in, there's no Lidl in Switzerland).
On the last day we went to see The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, which was most excellent. Not quite what I had expected, but these things never are. A pleasant surprise.


Al's (again) 28-31 august:

This time round there was some kind of purpose to my visit, namely: driving! Well, ok, just the theory for now, but still, feeling all responsible and apprehensive and stuff...


Back to school on friday afternoon. (2 sept). Which is... er... 2 weeks ago yesterday. Well, can you blame me? I mean I did only start this thing at Al's at the end of August, look at how bloody long it is!!!.

Surely it can't be this simple...?

Your dogma peed on my karma. Thanks MC!
My karma ran over your dogma.

manslaughter = man's laughter ... ??!

Your intolerance of my intolerance makes you a hypocrite. Think about it.
Your tolerance of my intolerance makes you a sick soul. Thanks Al!

There's no "I" in "TEAM",
But if you look hard enough, Don't you just love double-entendres?
There's a "ME"
And 3 "F"s in "F*** OFF!"

Did I just say that out loud?

My Virus of Life.

"I get nervous, perverse, when I'm near her it's worse..."

I can see her: she can see me,
Can she hear me here staring so soflty?
I want her, to hold her,
To touch her, to feel her and fuck her.
I know I can't, though,
'Cos I know it's wrong...

I fantasize about it,

But that's all it can be,
She's too good for me,
And it's not what I need,
I like her, too much, and she does not know it.
This is confusing, I hate it,
All of this musing...
But it feels like nothing...
As I wait for it,
Building up inside me,
As long as she keeps me
Trapped unknowingly,
What will happen to me,
If this doesn't happen to be?
How happy will I ever be?
I don't think you quite see
What this means to me.
This shit is so big
And I seem to have figured it out,
I have no doubt.
My body, it scares me,
Her body, it shares me,
Nobody would spare me
She has no clue, and neither do you...

Random siliness.

I disdain it. Not randomness and silliness, which is loads of fun, it's te best thing I now. No, my gripe/beef/niggle/whatever is with it becoming cool. It's not cool. It's nerdy and facetious. I hate the fact that just because someone is naturally and spontaneously kooky and crazy and wild, everyone around that person then starts acting the same. And fake crazy is dangerous, because when you get in to that, you lose all track of when irrationality is fun and when it's genuinely annoying and seriousness is needed.

The main drawback of this latest craze of eccentricity is that marketing has got hold of it. All things slightly weird are viewed as cool and therefore sell well. My best example of this is the Pizza Hut sponsor ad that comes on just before The Simpsons. I won't bother describing it, that's just pointless. But they're just trying to be clever through being stilghtly odd, which draws attention etc. But it doesn't work. idiotic to the point of being funny is quite hard, if not impossible, to manufacture. Channel 4 managed it, with their new show "Balls Of Steel". Now THAT's funny.

In any case, I intended this post to be positive, and it will be, because I know loads of people who are fun and random and spontaneous and silly, but who also know when to turn it off, and they make me laugh (with them at them). I can do it sometimes too, I think. er,,, yes well that's that because I'll either be modest or pretentious and this is just showing me being unsure of myself and this just goes spiralling out of control...

All in all, this is one of those "omg i love you guys soooooooo much that i've lost all my capacities of intelligent and articulate and orignal commenting guys never change please ever you guys are so great stay as you are love you all sooooo much" crappy skyblog style comments, with a pinch of me being sarcky and also me realising that i do want my friends to change and grow and all that stuff, just not overnight. It's inevitable, and I intend to get in the habit myself too, so I might as well not worry about it.

I see it every day in my friends, and it's the most beautiful, untainted, pure caracteristic of youth I can think of.