4.10.2003: crazy crazy night. i was out celebrating peoples birthdays (although im not sure what the actual birthday peeps were doing). laks is back home. harry went to a party in london. christine and darren also went back home. iain went out. looked like it was going to be me and cally getting drunk on our own again. but wait.. whats this? my old mate ollie invited me to a house party. so vaguely unsure whether it was a good idea we got drunk, dressed up and gate crashed. it was the best idea weve had for ages. it was full of people who i should have already known had i done the whole uni thing properly last year. people id seen around and should have talked to. etc. it was a lot of fun. everyone was really nice. there was a guy who looked like steve bucsemi (as if im supposed to be able to spell that) cross with michael j fox. and a young zack de la rocha. the girl who made me a cheese and peanut butter grubbs was there. various people from anti-war protests (who were kinda surprised id remembered their names. haha). at one point the delgados were playing. pull the wires etc. aphex twin. atr. a cure song that at the time was the best song ever but now im not even sure which one it was. if it wasnt 'close to me' then i was drunker than i though. wine kahlua vodka and cider indeed. then this girl called rachael made me take photos of people wearing a lamp shade as a hat.

which i thought was kinda amusing. i also have to include this photo of ollie. cos its so damn funny. haha.

i met a lot of semi-new people. and i hope our house warming party next friday. on the way home i was crossing lewis road by the bear pub. this taxi (i think) comes around the corner onto lewis road in the right lane and goes straight into the crash barrier and lit-up direction cone thingy. bish bash bang. the car swerves from its lane into the next one narrowly missing the car that was adjacent to it. swevers across the other side of the road (there were no other cars about) and into the bus depot entrance. brakes. moves backwards and forwards a bit. then drives off in the other direction. i couldnt believe it. i think that was about 4am. not sure.

lost prophets. i heard their new song a while back on the radio and managed to blank it from my mind. i was gonna write i tirade of abuse about it but forgot. i saw the video yesterday. but before i start i feel i should tell my story about the lost prophets. the first time i heard them was when they played birmingham with hundred reasons (this was possibly at the end of 2000) and i thought they were pretty damn good. not as good as hundred reasons (who had only released one single on fierce panda at the time). so lost prophets were doing a tour and came back to birmingham and were playing the same venue. me and sian went down there and the whole band were outside saying the gig was cancelled because the venue was too small for them. the same venue id seen them at not months before. it hadnt taken their heads long to swell. theyd perfected their jumping around the stage image image image stage act and i guess they wanted a stadium or something. how very professional. anyway. at the time my old band regress was using the transformers thing as logo and font etc but they went and did it too (okay i can barely accuse them of ripping us off because they blatantly didnt). but then this happened. they blatantly ripped off one of our gig posters for their single. i gave up and transformers and started using gundams. whats the word for when two people have the same idea seperately? thats not it. then came their videos of them all posed up and dirty corporate whore image image image. the guy talks in an american accent while on stage. theyre welsh. they ripped off the whole doing an rnb cover in the middle of a song from incubus (no scrubs). they sucked on jo whiley. and all this while teens go wank crazy over them. so when i see their new video i am nothing short of gob smacked. who the hell are they trying to kid? they dont have an original bone in their bodies. he is the uri gellar of the pop world. yes i said pop. they have people in furry animal suits in the video. is it a piss take? more skateboarders and b-boys (although that guy has unparalleled skills. walking on his fingers? i was impressed by that trick). then the actual song. its a incubus riff cut in half and swapped around. i mean cmon. leave that poor band alone. stop stealing their song and style. you are the tarsem of the pop world. and what is that hes singing? seal? yeah it sounds like killer to me. haha. you ripped off adamski. and much more. so shouting 'burn burn' isnt really all that rage against the machine. but having cheerleaders dancing around you makes it far too 'burn baby burn'. and he is wearing an 'enjoy coca cola' tshirt. i rest my case.

while im talking about videos. funeral for a friend have a video on some beach with people digging up some buried treasure and shooting each other resevoir dogs style. i was really disappointed at the end when the chest didnt contain a real gun. i may be way off but i think that would have been a much better ending. and i saw another sigur ros video. their videos are beyond amazing. they make me want to cry.

i have another story. infact its two short ones. a pigeon came into harrys bakery the other day (yeah thats one of them). which reminded me of this time i came downstairs one morning many years ago (back in rugby) and there was a pigeon in the lounge. as it soon as it saw me it bolted (is that the right word for a bird?) at the window. bang. then it tried again. it went mental. i felt so bad for it. we caught it and put it out eventually. it had fallen down the chimney. must have scared the hell out of it.

so id already begun to doubt what i saw last night. i just went back down to the junction by sainsburies and there was zero damage. absolutely no trace of any accident. no bent barrier. no destroyed sign bollard thing. maybe my dream-like memory or this almost car crash was just a dream. nah. that would be stupid.

3.10.2003: i have this niggling feeling that its two peoples birthdays today. so happy birthday to the both of you. whoop. are you both 23? one of you 24? oh i lose count of all those years. i get a feeling i wont see either of you.. so have a good time and blah blah blah. im sure i can sort out something a bit more 'personal' later. haha.

major announcement: our house warming party is on the 10th october.

due to my lack of achieving anything yesterday i went for a bike ride. there was a park i saw on the map (queens park) i wanted to find and i felt like sitting on rottingdean beach. i found the park but only after going up a stupidly steep hill first. its nice though with a duck pond and everything. rottingdean is a bit of trek across the top of the cliffs. bumpy grass path. its not that hard going though. and i just love that bit of beach. i was the only person there. its totally contained by two rows of huge rocks and theres a kinda 'train track' going out to sea.

it reminded me of that dream i had. i also went there to get something for jo's birthday. determined not to forget it this year. this has been made vaguely difficult by a certain piece of software timing out. that and i dont have internet access yet. makes me mildly sad. but i was cheered up by watching an old woman go swimming the sea. in october. you gotta love that. unless the harsh reality is that she so unhappy with her life, scared of suicide that she has been reduced to trying to catch pnemonia. but lets not be morbid ey? i had a lovely time down on my remote beach.

2.10.2003: ages ago i promised a photo of me wearing the orange 'worker shirt' nicola gave me. i probably also mentioned a photo of the inside of big yellow storage. well heres me killing two birds with one stone.

2.10.2003: so heres the thing. i really like the wall hanging but its on the wall opposite my oversized window. this means that the wall reflects less light and my room is significantly darker. oh well. ill just leave it and see how bad it gets in the winter.

so it turns out i didnt actually send that stupid text message to aimee. who could have recieved it? it was obviously to aimee and really silly. i would have thought the reciever might have texted back calling me a fruit cake and pointing out my mistake. whatever.

i finished timequake. again i enjoyed it but wasnt over amazed. there were some good stories and some nice ideas (although never truly fleshed out). and i like the way he regularly ends paragraph with short style catchphrases much like chuck palahniuk. that along with me starting 'girlfriend in a coma' makes me really want to read lullaby. its about time i suppose. ill order it from amazon as a 'getting broadband present'.

can i try and be topical again? so let me get this straight. theres a woman and a man and the woman has to have cancer therapy which will make her infertile. so they remove some of her eggs and fertilize them with the 'happy fathers' sperm. then they freeze them. after a while the couple break up and the would be father doesnt want the embryos to be used because he no longer wants children with her. but if she doesnt use them she will never have kids. law suit blah blah and they decide the embryos arent to be used. sheesh. i dont even know where to begin on this one. well its barely a female rights issue as if they were allowed to be used it would become a male rights issue? right? hmmm. had they just 'done it' the proper way the man would have already consented and itd be too late. it would almost be like filing for abortion or (as it was nine months after) execution of small child. haha. it doesnt seem right having an extra layer of consent. as if most couples stay together anyway. the dude should have thought it through properly. why the hell didnt she just freeze some eggs in the first place? then she could have picked any willing male. i dont know what to think. although.. if all you want to do is have children then it only seems fair that she does. cant they have some arrangement where he just buggers off and has nothing to do with it. i mean.. its only his child genetically. does that really mean anything? gee. what trouble a penis can cause.

1.10.2003: punch kick for being so quick. etc. im now back in the lovely brighton and am only one wall hanging short of sorting my room out. although to be brutally honest im also short my own wardrobe, draws and mirror. hurray for parents? they should be in spain right now. madrid i believe. or possibly somewhere around there.. in the land or air. i know not.

on the return journey i realised i must add another item to my hate list. windows on public transport. when youre on the bus and open your window (obviously you cant touch other peoples windows because that is rude or would involve you actually talking to someone. god forbid) you do nothing but put the wind up the person two rows back. i hate myself for the tacky end of that last sentence. i had a dream where the windows open outwards (this was sensible at the time) and when you open what appears to be your 'virtual' window inwards it opens the window two rows down out. its a beautiful mechanism i swear and would solve half of the angst people acquire while on the bus. unfortunately it doesnt solve the problem with windows on trains. which i personally think is far worse. all it takes is one asshole to sit down and open their window for everyone in the cabin has to but up with only being able to hear the rush of wind for the remainder of the journey. cant they invent a noiseless window? you see the americans have the 'refrigerator car' right? i only know this from a spin doctors song (theres a story i dont want to tell) so i may be way off. but id rather cheap tickets (dont worry im not going to get into a rail debate) and people just be a little more considerate. especially if you get on the train and sit down next to an open window. just shut the damn thing. theres one problem with what im saying and that is if i was a better person i would just get up and ask everyone if i could shut their window. but then maybe its unfair to put pressure on people like that. and it would be even worse if someone said no because i would be so angry id have to sit down next to them and opthamically burn holes in their skull. can i use that word like that? im not trying to be clever or anything. honest.

shut that damn windows. its autumn all ready. numbskull.

but anyway. i really enjoyed being at home. it was nice hanging around with nan and good to play some drums'n'guitar and ssx tricky. which to be honest is all ive done. guitar, playstation and alcohol. i hope my parents dont mind when they get home to an alcohol-less pantry (yes we have a pantry ..now shut the hell up).

we watched 'city of god' again and it is better than 'la haine'. maybe i think that because ive seen la haine so much. anyway. the dvd comes with a documentry interviewing various police, hoods and people living in the shanty towns. its well worth getting the dvd for (especially since it only cost me 13 quid at amazon). i just dont understand how a society can get into that state. there were kids walking around with grenade launchers and the police have a military artillery.

despite not being able to hear my walkman on the train thanks to the open windows i did manage to enjoy finishing 'generation x'. its not great but i did like it. it has many charms. i guess i might read 'girl friend in a coma' now. although i started timequake by kurt vonnegut this morning, which i believe clive bought me for my birthday one year (along with 'seven years in tibet', a book i definately loved reading). im about halfway through it already. its easy reading.

i met a guy last night whose names is actually ezekiel (i feel vaguely stupid saying this because on of my main lectures last year was called ezekiel but he was very foreign so was bound to have an interesting name). i asked him if his parents were religious or hippies (i dont really now why but it made sense at the time). he said no but his mum has started inviting the jehovas witness's around. all he wanted to know was where i got my tshirt and i didnt know.

then i had the most violent dream ive had in a long time. i knew i shouldnt have watched jaws2 the other night. we were all in the middle of ocean getting brutally eaten by this huge shark. nearly all of my friends were there getting killed one by one. near the end (after many deaths) there were five us hanging onto this rope and each other just above the water (the rope was suspended in mid-air due to.. uh.. dream logic). then every now and again the shark would acrobat out of the water and knock us under. ive never felt like i was drowning in a dream before so it was pretty interesting. it ended with me still hanging over the water with three friends remaining. very pleasant im sure. sorry. haha.

28.9.2003: i know im a bit slow in talking about chatrooms closing and such but i feel i should. not because i know anything about it.. but still. i wouldnt bother but theres an article in the (dirty dirty) sun that has 'system of fear' written all over it. "we snare paedo in just minutes" ack. what do they expect being called 'teasing_tanya_13' and acting a total slut? thirteen year olds dont act like that. they just dont. and its not like the guy was pretending he wasnt 41 and wasnt called 'vitalsuperscrew5'. i mean honestly. its barely tricking young girls. and they were terribly vague about what chatroom they were in. the only actual examples of this happening have been girls who are all too happy to run off with their over-the-hill boyfriends (okay there may be oodles of contra examples i havnt noticed but it does have 'media field day' written all over it). i suppose theyve been tricked or fooled or whatever. but kids arent that stupid. and if they are then there is something else seriously wrong. obviously a major problem is im not a teenage girl so cant really speak for them. but then none of the people saying or doing anything about this are either. people are so afraid of things they dont understand. the internet is no more full of paedos than the local swimming pool (oh shut up). and if mathew kelly is so innocent why doesnt he present the childrens 'stars in the their eyes' anymore? anyway. this is how it should have ended:

teasing_tanya_13: actually i am a sun jounalist investigating chatrooms.
vitalsuperscrew5: really? im a daily mail journalist investigating it too.

i think its to time to replace 'asl' with 'asiq'. the thing is.. i just dont like the way its going. banning things and censoring things. its not the way to make anything better. a little bit of education goes a long way. lets not have a government or corporate take over of the internet. and using dirty old men to sway public opinion is all 'clean act'. paedophiles and music piracy are not excuses to control the internet. fuck the bozos.

27.9.2003: hello. i havnt been up this early on saturday for ages. but anyway. how great is new cadburys bubbly chocolate? you pay more and you get less chocolate. and the same goes for kitkat squares. less for more. which i guess reminds me about current controversy about junk food adverts. this has been doing my head in. to be fair it is a more complicated issue than this.. but what is wrong with everyone? they banned adverts for cigarettes. but anyway "its not guns that kill people". if people just dont want to eat properly then its their own fault. and if parents cant control their kids then its their fault too. what happened to educating children rather than not even telling them what they can and cant do, but not telling them anything. having more regulations on adverts doesnt work either becuase the itc and asa dont have enough power. it takes at least a week to get an advert banned and then it only gets removed from broadcast. releasing a controversial advert creates publicity, it still gets shown and then they dont even get fined. it stops nothing. if it was up to me id put stronger regulations on food content. not a popular option with the corporations that are making your kids fat.. so itll never happen. but nevermind. cant we reduce it to riot mentallity and tofu-bomb mcdonalds again? fresh veg sabotage dairylea lunchables. when i saw that advert i nearly mentioned how disgusting it was they said they were good for your kids. i really should have planned what i was saying there. i just started typing and its a terribly confused mess. im not sure what my point was. well at least i know it.

actually it makes me wonder why this has happened now. maybe its because of the fast food rockers. can we ban them as well please? just check out how badly their website has been constructed. say cheese. actually the presenter of cbbc is wearing a yankees tshirt. youd think theyd notice that the way hes standing makes it look like 'wankers'. but nevermind. and while im making semi-rude comments about whats on kids tv. atomic kitten really are tramps. and that phone in where you win if you make the presenter vomit is not cool. although i do find 'bogies' funny. its so immature but it is funny. it would be better if they were shouting something else. but i dont really want to talk about this anymore.

so did you hear about that guy who went to prison for building a house extension without planning permision? hes out again now and he was being interviewed on the news when he said he had instructed his solicitor to sue the company who took it down for 50 million pounds. oh how we laughed. haha. hahaha.

yashi managed to get her collar off but no one noticed. i mean.. i should have noticed yesterday when she standing at the window all day watching me do various things in the lounge. the poor thing couldnt get back in the house. but then its her own fault for taking her collar off. auto-punishment. we have a magnetic cat flap because the other cats discovered they also preferred salmon to cat food. i suppose if their owners want to keep wasting money on expensive cat food its up to them. but its not cool they coming into our house and shitting the whole time.

my parents phoned me from the top of machu picchu (pikachu?) yesterday. well i thought that was vaguely interesting anyway.

24.9.2003: ive just been updating all day. how dull of me. its all pretty minor. rearranging stuff and putting in links to archive stuff. although i have added a few more pictures.

and then this photo of boat i took in reading. i never noticed it before but i think i like it a lot.

i cleaned the windows in our lounge and i cant believe how clear they are now. i also cooked dinner for me and cally and it went down pretty well. this makes me happy. girls liking your cooking ranks quite high up on my list of important things. smiles all round. back to rugby tomorrow but i havnt planned or packed or anything. whatever happens happens.

24.9.2003: i must apologise to harry for just stealing one of her diet cokes (asda). i got up in dire need of water and some muppet switched off the water without telling me. actually i shouldnt complain because its our new and improved shower being fitted upstairs. im still a bit dubious but i hope itll 'rock'. another point about switching off the water.. i know theres nothing you can do about it but its so gross when people piss and then cant flush. eeeew. i just hope i can hold it all in long enough. i had a huge breakfast last night (but more on that later).

i finished the news archives. all the pictures and links will work if they still exist. im not sure how much of my old site is still uploaded but some of it is definately still there. i thought it was quite disturbing how the first acrhive is nine months and the last two are barely one month. i really am dangerously increasing the amount i write. my next skill to learn is conciseness. its a shame cos i really think i wrote some damn good entries in the last few months but theres far too much and no one will ever read it. phooey. time for a random subject change.

the invader zim haloween special is amazing. its the most gross episode ever. my favourite bit is when dib goes through his own head and turns himself inside out. jhonen is genius. how they allowed that on kids tv is beyond me. haha. the robot in it made me nearly wet myself (no not really).

so about that breakfast. me laks cally and christine (you notice how ive started spelling peoples names right now? good) went to the escape for snide. which is almost an anagram of indie. is that the point? like rub is the rnb night. anyway.. it was empty when we got there (early cos lovely darren drove us). but it was well fun. once we started dancing we didnt stop (well me and laks didnt cos were hardcore). to be fair you cant do that in the gloucester because either awful songs come on or you get knackered cos theyre far too good. the most poignant (is that even the right word?) moment of the night was me sitting in the living room listening to weezer's first album. now listen to me when i tell you that is one of my favourite albums of all time and know that i mean it. i bought it when it came out because of their cooler than cool performance on 'the word' doing the sweater song. then i went off it for quite a few years. probably relating to some sentimental drivel or something. but didnt enjoy listening to it anyway. then when they played buddy holly at the escape it made me so weirdly happy. i never even liked that song. then when we got home (the walk was surprisingly quick) cally cooked a full dinner/breakfast or beans toastie (okay that was) and sausages. i tried to stop her making so much but it was kinda hard. she has a proper nine to five job as well. she hardcore. and she can play violin. how cool is that? anyway. photo of the girls before we left (i wish we had an after photo too but nevermind).

while im doing photos i should do some of my room but i want to finish sorting it out first. instead heres my new stencil i was babbling on about. i bought an a1 sheet of card to use. its barely 1mm thick but im hoping itll be okay. its definately easier to cut than cardboard and i can draw straight onto it. theres the original doodle and the scanned stencil before i cut it. it looks a lot better on paper. now im wondering if its a little too complicated. oh whatever.

ive been toying with a few stencil ideas actually. id love some peoples opinions on them. the problem ive had is that i cut them down to the stencil and because im so familiar with the picture it still makes sense to me. but im worried that you cant actually tell what they are. this is kinda lame i know. and the problem is from my poor choice of things to stencil. but thatll come with experience right? haha. i quite like these though. what do people think? corey? haha. i spent the most time on the last one because i really liked it but i dont think its really stencil material.

believe it or not the unkle album was actually released. you should see it. its the nicest package since the delux edition of king. and it smells like 'death to the pixies'. this all makes me very happy. i got a free set of stickers with it too. the box is huge though. and it came with a dvd of various mixes and videos. this bizarrely includes the 'eye for an eye' video but with all messed up sound. what is wrong with these people? i should feel a bit of mug for buying the dvd single separetly but thats so gorgeous and full of tasty extras too it just makes me double happy. i am such a dirty consumer. but at least i know it. anyway.. my dad generously bought it for me. i digress. i can see why people have slated the album but i suspect i quite like it. i guess it does have its poor moments. but i think the real problem might be that unkle give of this not-quite-justified feeling of amazingness. ill shut up now.

23.9.2003: i just updated the news archives so you can actually browse then now. kinda. they all less than a 100k anyway. in an ideal world i do this properly but it would be too much effort. the main reason it did it was because theres various links around my site to archived news stuff and the file was far too big for that to work. a good chunk of old stuff still hasnt been updated so it works with the new site but ill sort that out sometime. its all minor cheese really. i dont know why i bother. haha.

me laks and cally stayed in last night playing drinking games. namely the name game. ive never played it where so many w's and y's have come up. especially on my turn. nevermind. i went into uni yesterday and forgot to take my disk so no one is reading any of this (like people barely do anyway). my parents are now in peru. this doesnt mean you can go and break into their house though as its being house sitted. i found out corrogated cardboard is not the thing to use for stencils. and i also found out that cally went to art college. thats kinda interesting but she has none of her stuff with her. do you think they actually released the unkle album or its been put back again? ill find out soon. i think i sent aimee a very stupid text message while half asleep and im worried that it didnt actually go to her but someone else. this would be obvious to the person because it started "hey aimee". but no one has text me anyway so i have no idea. im just wasting all of our times now.

22.9.2003: i still dont have the internet at my house. so replies by email and website updates are still all too infrequent. im going back to rugby on wednesday or thursday. so internet action then possibly. hopefully the guys in the house will have sorted it out by the time i get back. im not going to make the effort. darren was asking me why i dont phone up and do it. i would have said 'well why dont you do it?'. but he does work nearly all day. ive done enough for the while anyway. or something.

22.9.2003: it wasnt going to be our house warming party. but i think it mildly ended up as it. it was a good night. some of callys friends came down and then some of harrys (or possibly more like harrys boyfriends). i only drank half of my 'moving into new house' bottle of wine as well. so i dont know how i got so drunk. although possibly less drunk than everyone else. its hard to tell. someone started a debate about things being alive. i stopped paying attention pretty quickly but i noticed how many people were talking at the same time. not like interupting and going over the end of other peoples sentences but they were properly talking at the same time. and no one was making any eye contact so no one seemed to notice. it was very frustrating though because i didnt know who to listen to. thats when i started listening to the girls conversation. surprise surprise theres was far more interesting. unfortunately it was the other conversation that took over the room. why does that happen? so then no one was talking to each other but just into the air. damn philosophers. i cant quite explain how extreme it was. nevermind.

something else weird happened too. i was playing this game on harrys phone called bounce. and she asked me if i was winning (can you see where this is going?). so i was like 'oh man you made me lose'. im not sure how i then explained i was not talking about bounce but about 'the game'.. especially since no one ever knows what youre on about and give you weirdo looks the whole time. then one of andrews friends starts going mental about it. she couldnt believe i played the game. i guess shed never met anyone out of her circle who played before. it is always a bit scary though. she was told about it in reading so i got excited that maybe she had heard it from martin or something but it was years and years ago. so it wasnt martin who took the game to reading. yknow i might have been around for donkeys years.

i watched four films yesterday. im quite ashamed to say it was the first time ive seen buffalo 66. i really enjoyed it though. its definately a well good film. it really made me want to listen to comsmopolitan bloodloss (ive really got to cut down on my 'though's). it reminded me of irreversible a bit. its definately got the same kind of feeling. the whole violent revenge thing going on. especially in a seedy club. saying that they arnt really similar at all. they just feel the same. thats not entirely true either. irreversible feels horrible. its hard to explain. in a way it made me want to watch it again. but deep down i really doubt that thought. we also watched 'city of the lost children' but i dont think anyone liked it. at all. which makes me a little sad because ive always loved it. i do kinda see why people might not like it. poop to them.

i had a really abstract dream about saving the universe. it was pretty hard going. and i actually doubt anyone but me would have interpreted it as 'saving the universe'. but you can all thank me for you waking up on sunday morning anyway.

20.9.2003: i think ive settled in at last. this is good. we went the concorde last night to see peaches it was an amazing night. it was me tom laks cally and john. we had the last tickets as well. cobra killers were supposed to be playing to but we didnt see them. nevermind. peaches was well good. and the djs were fun too. my memories are just a string of weird events. like tom and laks taking their wine glasses out the house because they hadnt finished their drinks. tom stowed the glasses away somewhere around the level. and we were talking about the camel toe song earlier that day (how we got talking abou that i dont know) and then they played it. with a beat obviously. then when we came out we lost john and went swimming in the sea. not technically skinny dipping but it was near enough. that was definately the high light of my night.. the sea blends into the sky and youre just floating in everything. or something. when we got back we were trying to be really quiet coming in. the first thing cally did was trip over the vacuum cleaner in the hall and set it off. i swear that thing has no off button. i took me ages to switch it off. then john appeared and kept confusing which floor he was on (weve all done it.. the house is kinda confusing) and accidently walked into harrys room while she was trying to sleep. haha. i also talked to ollie. he was this dude on my course in the first year at birmingham. he disappeared half way through the year. i kept seeing him around last year but never said hi until now. more weirdness.

went to the cinema the night before and saw spirited away. i really enjoyed it. its a cross between 'the lion the witch and the wardrobe' and final fantasy (the game). the wizard of oz? its a bit ico or willy wonka too. infact its just like playing a really uninteractive computer game. its got a lot of charm though. and some of the scenes are beautiful. i especially liked the bit when she helps the sludge god (or whatever) in the bath. and the paper 'aeroplane' things chasing the dragon. its all just typical adventure fairytale stuff but it works well. go and see it.

18.9.2003: so when i said mogwai and melt banana were playing the same night at the concorde i forgot to mention that hundred reasons, cooper temple clause and funeral for a friend are playing the dome the night before. hot hot heat are playing the concorde the night before that. and the night before that the music are playing the corn exchange. what the hell is wrong with raido 1. theyre trying to kill me. oh wait. here is the link.

18.9.2003: well here i am. im only two wall hangings and a set of draws short of a bedroom. its like all my other rooms put together. anyway. the last few days have been absolute crazyness. we still dont have internet so ill be carting this into uni later. apart from that i have no idea where to start..

so i came down to brighton on saturday thinking i could move in because the previous tenants were moving out that day. like we had all been told. but they were actually moving out at half ten on sunday. but there was space to leave my stuff. i could just crash at the lads house. this was also not to be as their landlord had been around and changed the lock on james's old room (the only free room) and left it locked. so me and cally cracked out the wine and got drunk with juan. we slept on his floor. drinking spiderman crazyness. playing dominos. i forgot to mention that my parents took us out to this kinda posh indian restuarant at the marina. that was tasty. i digress. on sunday we went down the house at about half eleven expecting it to be empty but there was stuff everywhere. some people hadnt even packed. the house was dirty. they had cleary done no cleaning for months. or rather no hardcore big cleans (that you do when you move out) for months and months. we vacuumed and scrubbed and wiped and etc. ive been cleaning everyday since we moved in. bill (the landlord) bought around some bleach to clean the fridges we asked to be replaced. said itd work and i could do the rest. im like.. we shouldnt have to clean the house when we move in. so he offered to buy us paint for the rooms. im like.. he should but that anyway and pay us labour. he also lied to me about not being able to do anything about the upstairs shower. i heard the plumber tell him about this thing he could install that would work perfectly. anyway. i think my rant might be over. its actually a good house. and muy chuffed with my room. last night i worked out how to close my window. haha. theres still junk all around my room but bit by bit its being put away. ill get some photos up as soon as weve got internet (oh its just easier).

heres some damn good news. saian supa crew are playing the concorde in october. i forget the exact date. but i think its a saturday. someone remind me tell nicola. now heres the piss takingly good news. mogwai and melt banana are also both playing the concorde. on the same bill.

the new perfect circle album is well good. and i also have to confess to buying the thursday album. oh something like they were playing it in the shop or something blah blah blah. i got the mars volta album a while back and i love that too. and the mad capsule markets are the new pitchshifter. word.

get this. harry works in a bakery and can bring us bread back nearly every day. can i have a 'whoop'. this includes cheese straws and cakes (although we told her not to bring back cakes cos we will just eat them) and chiabata. whoop.

i eventually gave hayley (well its spelt wrong anyway) her mug eventually. i wrapped it and everything. i didnt realise her birthday was as close as it was. so it ended up being late. but hey. i was in rugby. and matt can come and get his video because its ugly. haha.

i have plenty more junk to whittle on about. especially relating to our lovely new and slowly getting more clean house. but right now i just need a sandwhich.

10.9.2003: hands up anyone who remembers the angel that i chalked under the bridge in brownsover. me and corey went down their today on a bit of an expedition (but more on that in a minute). it was done many years ago during a very lazy summer (id guess at 96 or 97). it took me hours and afterwards i felt very guilty. not because it was blatant defacing of a decent old bridge but because it caused a wave of 'real' graffiti. including spray painted boobs and "wanker" written over the face. the whole bridge was covered in badly sprayed tags and badly thought out slogans. a few years later they eventually cleaned the bridge. they removed all of the paint. bizarrely enough the angel remained. how chalk survived the cleaning process and the paint didnt is beyond me. a few years on and its not looking quite so hot. but you can still make it out. just behind the ever eloquent graffiti.

we went down there in search of a moral wall and blank canvas. armed with stencil, paint and camera. so i thought for the sake of record id take that photo of the angel. this was as a woman walked past with her dog (saying something to him about not to hump my leg or jump up or something). she made a comment about "youre not taking photos of the graffiti are you?". she said it with a grin so i explained how there used to be a chalk figure there that survived so long. she remembered it too. so i told her it was actually me who had done it but felt really guilty about it because of all the graffiti that followed. she said something like "yeah but they werent as artistic". she actually quite liked it. then she suggested i redo it. that really made my day. i never actually thought that my random act meant anything to anyone but me. i never considered the number of people who walked past it everyday. when i first did it was huge and intriguingly out of place. why did i think no one would notice or think about it?

or rather we werent looking for a blank canvas but more of a test ground or practice area. if anyone wants to moralise about graffiti then id love to have that conversation. but just incase you dont then id like to point out the ultra amount of care we placed in choosing locations. it took ages to find somewhere id even consider. so here are the results from our first steps in stencilling.

and what did we learn today? mainly that stencils are not so hot on bricks. and cardboard that is vaguely flexible doesnt hold to the surface enough to not blur. my stencil was slightly too complicated and i wish id used the variation on this that id worked out. and i suspect that you cant really work out what its supposed to be if you dont know in advance. which might be good because it makes you think. but lets be honest.. if you cant tell what it is then the stencil has failed. they also looked much smaller than i initially imagined.

9.9.2003: while talking about birmingham i forgot to mention the single thing that irritated me the most. the number of mullets. ack. away away.

theyve been talking about the 'gay school' on tv a bit. corey pointed out that its actually a place for kids who have had to leave or been kicked out of other schools. which kinda ruins the majority of peoples debates. but me pesonally.. the amount of homophobic abuse i had at school was obscene. infact most of the insult thrown my way were sexuality related. i would have loved to be rid of that. but then had i gone to a gay school i suppose i would have been the victim of straight bashing. haha. but i think it brings up another point. now i have to be careful with this because it was five years ago and may just be specific to my school and my personal experience. but the homophobic abuse had nothing to do with actually being gay. beautifully illustrated by the time this kid came running into our technology class screaming that if you asked stuart if hes gay he actually says yes. not that he was gay. but that he was just weird enough to say he was. they never really thought any of us were homosexual. we were all just "queer homos". etc. of course these insults meant far more to the people who were gay. which is real shitty. i guess society moves in evil ways. ive totally lost the point now. sorry. ive got a headache.

9.9.2003: why the hell are they talking about google-whacking on 'des and mel'? oh.. its dave gorman. haha. some weird things happened this morning. weve been looking after simon (the toddler from next door). hes the cutest thing. mum took him to sainsburies and i told her i didnt want anything. but then i started to really fancy some biscuits. especially bourbons (id eaten one at coreys yesterday). i was this close to texting mum to get some but decided that itd be stupid.

guess what she bought at sainsburies? and better than that. it was simon who wanted biscuits and when asked which ones he pointed to the bourbons. what an amazing coincidence. then mum went out visiting a patient and i had to look after the little terror (oh barely). i was excited and scared at the same time. what fool leaves a 1.5 year old in my care? but rather disappointingly enough he just fell asleep infront of the tv (i know i know. they never switch it off next door). then just as i was in the middle of a particulary interesting part of harry potter he woke up and started screaming for his mum. i havnt had enough kiddie practice to deal with this kind of thing. so i picked him up and did what you do. and then as if by magic the door bell rang and it was jan to take him off my hands. how amazing is that? its almost like he sensed his mum coming. almost. haha. theyre breeding pyschics next door. no wonder theyve had so many kids. it cant be an easy procedure to get right.

me and corey went out for a drink with laura and gareth last night. i love weatherspoons. no really. halfway through gareth commented on how he disagreed with me about the new metallica drum sound (hes a drummer btw). i was kinda taken aback. its always weird when people talk about something you wrote on your website.. nevermind when its someone you presumed didnt even know you had a website. haha. but still. i always act funny when people mention it but it is always nice to know people have looked at my website. anyway. coreys here. time to play some noisecore.

8.9.2003: here we go. ive been promising (myself) to upload some new photos of random things. all of them apart from me wearing my orange shirt because i just look too goofy in the photos. nevermind. here we have my dads new car (and you can eventually see exactly why i think that purchase was so rediculous), my two favourite kittens from the old house and some random bionicle lego.

i had to cut out the lego because the background was awful. but now fiddling around with photos has become somewhat of a bad habit. not as bad as suck-popping gum mind. but anyway. thats the kind of thing i mean when i refer to 'killer robot death machines'. haha.

7.9.2003: if i was a good writer i would know where to start. alas not. i went to birmingham yesterday. its about time i got over my love/hate relationship with the city. i do really like being there. ill diss it constantly but i cant help feeling good being there. going back is (i hate to say it) a somewhat over sentimental affair. i guess what i have to get over with is that fact that ive left university. or rather that ive left school even. being back in birmingham just reminds me of all the things i left behind. theres an awful lot of good memories. all of which are completely in the past. trying really hard not to repeat myself.. i spent three good years in birmingham and no matter how horrible it seems i guess i do really miss the place. walking around the city center makes me feel horribly emotional. although on saturday this didnt last very long. its the new bullring. what have they done? theyve turned birmingham into disney land. like i mentioned early. i just dont know where to start in explaining my solitary dislike for the place. the old market area was grim but it had real charm. i felt a bit sad when they bulldozed it. i kept having dreams about visiting the places that no longer existed. its so weird that these places you used to be able to go are no longer there. you just cant go back.

but the new bullring. i hate it for so many reasons. and i am the only person with this opinion. everyone loves it. all the stupid gimmicks that people will bore of within no time. all the 'variety'. its the same damn shops that have been in birmingham forever. h&m and hmv. and i was shocked at how many shops around the rest of the city had already closed down. i bet beaties (that opened about a year and a half ago) are gutted. theyll lose all of their business. not they deserved it anyway. but still. there are a lot of new name stores but they just sell the same crap as everywhere else. like the lego shop has nothing that toysrus doesnt. more varied names for claires excessories (was that an accidental pun? sheesh). and worst of all is selfridges. hailed as having amazing archiecture and being oh so revolutionary. it like a cross between rackhams (which was practically empty) and the crystal maze with a bit of magazine vomit trend fashion thrown into the mix. curvy balconies indeed. my main problem with selfridges is the total lack of direction. its random. blotches of stlyised islands of clothes chairs and lighting. people dont know where to go. its impossible and horrible. the food hall is full of things no one who shopped in the old bullring could actually afford (i know what that sounds like) and people are trying to eating in the middle of this rabble and confusion of people. eveything is so overly expensive. these used to be the cheap shops as well. it just makes me sick that people will pay five pounds for slivers of chocolate with fancy crap on. what a waste of effort. when people in some countries cant even efford basics. and everyone is reveling in this amazing new shop. its nothing than a giant stress multiplier. its just noisy and chaotic. even the random area of comfy seats (at least i didnt think they were for sale) with a dj platform was uber cringe worthy. you can feel the (oh and i hate to say it so blatantly) capitalism vibrating through you. its just a horrible experience. its so removed from the birmingham i used to know. i care nothing for it. they have a website but i doubt ill be visiting it.

another problem is there are hardly any bins. the pavement was littered with the maps they were handing out. its disgusting. this reminds me.. i still find it funny how people put rubbish in bins that are for sale in stores. you can guarantee that there will be garbage in the bins in bnq or homebase or where ever.

but anyway. how many damn shopping centers does one city need? im so damn cynical it hurts sometimes. anyway. i did bump into rhys. ex-singer of velcro gloves ..the best extremecore band ever and they werent even known outside birmingham uni. he was looking pretty smart. or perhaps i should say 'bling bling' in a very welsh way. haha. its so very true. he's moving down to brighton anyway. weirdly enough.

corey mentioned quite a few things to me which i was going to talk about. but ill leave them for him and his blog page. when he eventually realises that itd be a really good idea for him to do one. itd be better than playing civilization2 all day anyway (yeah yeah i know you dont play it all day. haha).

4.9.2003: well im in rugby. which is nice. doing absolutely nothing all day. im reading harry potter. im up to about page 160. which seemed like loads until i actually checked the page count. gawp. most books would be over by now. looking at it like that.. its pretty amazing. im really enjoying it though. its definately top stuff. i didnt buy final fantasy. but i do have to confess to buying 'enter the matrix'. ack. its just a bit of fun. actually its a lot of mindless fun. and i also hate to admit that i actually enjoyed the hacking bit. although it was rather brief and far too easy. but then i grew up using dos.. so what would i know. i thought it was kinda clever how you could drop mamba weapon caches into the levels and stuff. its a nice touch. the problem is now when i watch tv i keep expecting the picture to go all bullet time. sheesh.

i also bought some new lego. haha. theyve released some new bionicle characters that are lush. i just love my robot death machines. theyre well sleek though. id get a photo but my cameras packed away upstairs somewhere. im sure at some point ill take a million and do something stupid with them. theres a big backlog of pictures i havnt been taking or uploading. my dads new car. my orange shirt. this reminds me.. my shaver is also packed away (not in storage though at least) so im looking mildly rough. embarresingly enough i doubt i could grow a beard or anything. haha. but still. nevermind.

since ive been playing ps2 games all day everyday (actually its not that bad.. i did go round coreys house and watch mtv for a bit). id like to restate my love for ssx and ico. lets hope the third and second installments wont suck. or rather.. i hope theyve made zoe and moby 'cool' again (man they sucked in tricky).

while i was talking (or rather wasnt) about watching mtv around coreys. we saw the music video awards. it was pretty dull and i dont even have anything to say about. so i wont. oh wait there must be something. nope. although ill tell you why it was so dull.. it was the same four people the whole damn time. and i hate metallica. which links me nicely to the kerrang awards. which was more interesting but a far worse affair. especially the life time achievement award where people kept going on about how everyone there was influenced by metallica and everyone loved them. then again how not a single person there wasnt influenced by them. metallica influenced everyone. what was that again? i just wish i was there to go "hey i always hated metallica. theyre the reason the word metal makes me cringe. metallica never made me wanna learn to play anything. they just made me wanna vomit. and then they became corporate capitilist whores. theyre cds get pressed in maquiladoras where they force starving mexican children to listen to 'my life style determines my death style'. it was them who sexed up dossiers so they could sell their cds to iraqis as 'solar panels' for heating water. i hate that fucking band". but like corey pointed out i dont think i would go down so well. isnt it time to destroy their egos? i cant express my disgust at that band. their only redeeming feature is the amazing drum sound theyve got on their new songs. and thats soley down to their producer. the drums sounded like arse live. but apart from metallica the kerrang awards.. well. still sucked. but then what did i expect?

my mum just gave me the best sweetcorn. butter everywhere.

does anyone else think corey should start a blog? corey! corey! corey! man. if only i had a readership base i could really ..umm.. i dont know. ill tell you what is weird. i just found out loads of my old friends from birmingham have livejournals now. like its some dirty craze. its just messy as well. its very strange. and theyre all very the same. its like the internets turning neutral. i was reading about the msn journal thing. or was it aol? oh like it makes a difference. sounded kinda crazy tho. but then i cant critisize without being hypocritical so.. although i have my own website. this is not just a journal. i make an effort yknow (okay.. not to the extent that ive done it properly with a database and stuff but still). like ive said before.. my website evolved from something that once made a bit more sense and its the same for this page. i never meant to become so obsessed with writing crap for the three people who read it (is it that many?). actually i know a few people who drop in now and again. but lets not do shout-outs ey? ive already totally gone off topic. and ive got sweetcorn stuck in my teeth.

oh btw. dont buy the new unkle single. and if you do get the white one. all but one of the remixs are really lame and the video they put on the single is the edit. they put the damn edit on the cd. what is wrong with them? thats so stupid.

1.9.2003: white bunnies. pinch punch. etc. its all kinda hard to comprehend. but here we are. what is probably my least favourite month. the coming winter. the first cold and miserable days. october is when you start (started) uni so that was okay. november is horrible too. but a bad september is awful. i was on campus last night to print out my thesis. it was all very melancholy. the word not the album. haha. the library looked very lonely. and it felt like christmas. my thesis is done and my masters is over. is it any good? well as i pointed out you can read it. but ill understand if you dont want to. haha. it will definately do. im not convinced that its up to distinction standards. but that does not matter. fuck the egg heads. i think that it is good. and good gets you a good mark. not a brilliant mark. the results section was a little shakey and the conclusion perhaps a bit short. there is some good content though. im just not sure how well it flows towards the end. it was 50 pages. 13049 words. and thats after the removal of the abstract and contents page and all diagrams and figures and bibliography and all appendix and section headers. its not as big as my dissertation but theres a lot more content and its far more complicated a topic. id like to combine the two. that would make one hell of a project.

so i have to go into uni. get my work bound. give it in. hang out with the academics. get the train into town. get the train to rugby (all three or four of them). its okay because i have harry potter to get into. now ive finished its safe to start. maybe i should buy final fantasy x. haha. but anyway. i have to profusely thank emma for letting me stay in her house. and the lending of her sleeping bag and towel. stuff to cook with. and everything else. etc. far too decent. i mean its not like she really knows me that well. i know her through ellen and thats pretty tenuous too. anyway. i must go and brush my teeth now. and pack. pack the sack. its time to go.

so david hill is coming in to reduce spin and blah blah blah. on the news they said no one had ever said anything bad about him. everyone respected him. maybe no one has read captive state. particulary the chapter including monsamto (is that right?) and gmo. id explain this better but 'my life' is 'in storage'. and theres nothing worse than someone acting like they know it all and getting it wrong. as soon as i get my books back ey?

i had a dream last night that nicola had a penis. not that shed always had one. just that she got one for a while. she kept asking me for help and advice cos she couldnt control it. it was quite a big one too. im sure this has some deep freudian meaning. but whatever.

31.8.2003: so im sitting here going more and more crazy. things stop making sense what im writing and everything seems wrong. this is so not fair. and then i realise that i havnt eaten at all. i stumble to the kitchen and feed. i cant believe i went so long without eating. what an idiot.

31.8.2003: happy birthday to you. happy birthday to you. happy birthday laurences news page. happy birthday to you. hip hip. hurray. hip hip. hurray. i cant believe its two years old. and also i cant believe what its turned into. i never really intended for this page to become some live journal verging on blog evil affair. but i cant help that now. speech. speech.

but this is weird. here i am sitting in emmas old room in emmas house. i officially have no home to call my own. one day to go before my thesis is handed in. twenty five hours to be exact (hey that gives me a really good idea for an original tv show). i left 91 stanmer villas last night. i wasnt as sad as i thought id be. i was quite happy all day actually. the london posse all left quite early. the house just felt weird. its been a really good year. but i dont feel like the memories are so much engrained in the house (is that a word?). its more about the people and places. that and compared with last year its a much smaller change (well actually its probably bigger but it feels less). nicola gave me two ef (english first) shirts. one is an amazing shade of puke orange. im wearing it now. i love it (photo to come soon). theyll be waking up in london soon. thats too weird too.

ive put most of my belongings into big yellow storage. i totally love that place. its just corridor after corridor of yellow padlocked doors. it feels very weird. id say its just like the matrix but i bet everyone says that. i could never work in a place like that though. im far too curious. id be pressing my ears up against all the doors and spend all my time looking for ones that werent locked properly. the curiousity of whats in each little four by five foot room would kill me.

i wrote me a news entry in the lab at uni and emailed it me but i havnt recieved it yet. i have no internet. so thatll be weird when i stick it in because itll be out of time. unless of course i slot it in after this and dont upload until then. which i cant do because i dont have internet (sheesh). here is a plan. ill take this file into uni with my thesis. im sorry im typing this crap and wasting your time. but while were on the subject. anyone with ntl digital cable broadband whatever will know they send you that pack with the internet stuff in. you get a huge ethernet cable and an ethernet to usb adapter. i was still in our house when the man came to pick them up (well the ntl box anyway) and he told me that they throw it all away. i couldnt believe it. so i had the cable and the adapter. but those cables are so expensive to buy. what a waste. its an economic and environmental disaster. they shouldnt be allowed to get away with such waste. but anyway. talking about waste. im wasting my time.

29.8.2003: im at uni not doing my thesis. so hi. a couple of things tho. like the current purple pussy strip. its so funny because it is so true. the next time i miss an episode of digimon i havnt seen because they change the times i am gonna ..i dont know. probably do nothing about it. they have the most random damn times. but anyway. the good ol blog of william gibson pointed me towards this. its a blog from a woman in iraq. its a really good read. so read it. ive been thinking about taking down the michael moore link. i mean. just look at his site. its all advert. it looks so nasty and commercial. its only existence seems to be to promote his films and books. i really liked bowling for columbine. but ive read a lot about it by people who didnt. and a lot of them have fair comments. he does interview idiots and weirdos. its just seems like he started with a little too much bias. but anyway. he does more good than bad. its just not ideal if your critics can criticise you. as it were.

i got on the train at london road station (i love that station btw). and there was train man standing by the doors. when i got on he told me "you have to press the button to make the doors open". like. you know i never knew that. since i was like three. like. sheesh. obviously i hadnt pressed the button because i had presumed he was getting off. standing by the doors and all. i mean. honestly. as if i need telling how train doors work. what an idiot. sorry. just a bit bitter. thats all. haha.

ill save me bitching about the party everyone had last night until later. ive really got to start my work.

28.8.2003: by popular demand. laurences top three songs to walk to:

1. daft punk - da funk
2. no doubt - hella good [fuck off its true]
3. dandy warhols - good morning

28.8.2003: i had a nightmare yesterday (ooh and a dream last night). i barely got any work done. i decided i should run some 'fitness adaptive walks' from a higher fitness level instead of from random genotypes (note this was actually worth it cos i just got the results and i like them). so in the morning i coded up the necessary classes and set it running. i also set going 'neutral walks' of high fitness too. because i dubious of the results. thats a lot of java processes. i kept doing my work. moaning about it being hard without the results. started the abstract. finished the bibliography. after a while my computer is slow i just dont know what to do. i leave it for a few hours. the runs are ticking by so slowly it hurts. before i go to bed i decide to shut it all down and start again. word had crashed too. it was probably that what was causing the problem. it took my twenty minutes to shut it down. infact in the hard i hard rebooted. so that really sucked. today i might go into uni. i havnt decided yet.

so the party. i think it was a best yet. there was no where near as many people as last time but the atmosphere was much better. i didnt actually take any photos. at the time i couldnt be bothered and theyd just look like the last ones. so nevermind. james was taking loads with his polaroid camera (that was a bit rubbish actually) and i stole one of those. they all came out messed up. so it wont be much use in understanding the party 'vibe'. but it looks cool. ill scan it sometime. haha. but nearly everyone came. lux and tom were a bit late. aimee had bought her sister and sisters boyfriend. they slept on my floor which was weird. nice kids tho. although i really shouldnt call them kids. there arnt really any anecdotes to tell. ben and nick were totally off it. crawling around the floor feeling the carpet. nicola was really drunk because she hadnt eaten and was crying about being so hungry so i cooked her a pizza. there was much 'yay we have a house' style partying. tom (alisons boyfriend) really liked poppers. then i got accused of drug pushing. like as if. actually that was probably the funniest moment of the night. his face went all funny and then i told him it relaxes your anus. haha. the look of horror on alisons face. pringles everywhere. it all becomes a little hazy. some guy fell over in his seat in the garden. a load of people went off to some rave. someone put on the steve-o movie. oh god no. a shocking amount of people passed out. including nicola of all people on the floor in the lounge. although she did manage to nab the duvet first. but yeah. it was more just hanging out than the crazy party event of the last one. we still had john djing. and people no one knew. but yeah. whatever.

i had a dream about jo and corey. this has made me think i should have gone to spain. it was really lucid. or vivid. whats the difference anyway? i was meeting them both (it appeared to be at some festival or something) but neither of them knew about the other person. and they were both standing next to each other. it was pretty funny. but i have no idea how to explain it. maybe ill attempt it later and on a more one to one basis. if either of you care at all. haha.

i finished reading 'captive state'. i was going to start harry potter but thought it might interfere with my work. so ive started 'age of consent'. the last chaptive of captive state was brilliant and it goes really well into age of consent. i like the big font. im liking it so far. although i dont know enough background to convince myself i believe its right. rather than him telling me its right. maybe i should go back and read the communist manifesto. haha. i think people should read captive state though. it definately feels a lot more relevant than 'no logo'. eventually all the gmo malarky makes sense to me as well. i thought i understood that at the time but apparently not. and i also learnt that its still quite hard to have a debate about this stuff. that was with james. he thinks privatisation and corporate globalisation are brilliant. explaining why his ideas of what they are make them seem good but in practice theyre not and backing it up with evidence ..just makes you sound like you only half know what youre on about and are waffling some crap you read out of a book. which in reality is exactly right. so what the hell am i going on about again? whatever. i just reread all what i wrote and its worded awfully.

thesis page count: 27 ..without the appendix (Which i havnt done yet anyway so whatever)

27.8.2003: if you click here you can download the new mogwai video for 'hunted by a freak'. i really like it. brings new meaning to the phrase 'its raining cats and dogs'. or something. its cute tho. cute like a disney movie.

26.8.2003: two flies dance around the ceiling. but in reality its a single fly and its shadow. constant use of my mug has left three days of tea stains just below its rim. multi-coloured lines dance around my screen. i write an obscene email to aimee. oh how ill miss the bagels they sell in the guild shop. back in birmingham people argue about moving the rock society night into old joes. somewhere many years ago mogwai are about to explode through their mixing desk. martin is about to hit that drum. camomile honey and vanilla. the sun sets over prague. when its dark i get flashes in my peripheral vision. there hasnt been enough time to comprehend what is about to happen. im so focused on a single objective. and the events of the next few weeks are awfuly timed. in four days time ill have to move out of my house. ben will be living in london. in six days time i have to submit my final thesis. its like im about to get the bends. its going to be horrible and i cant even plan for it. there is so much to be done i cant even begin to explain. i havnt talked about the party. soon i wont even remember it well enough to commit it down on paper. fake paper. words like: investigation research search space landscape fitness. whats worse is that i know what this sounds like. i wonder how jo is doing. and this isnt even an accurate quote.

"where are we going?"
"i dont know but i guess we'll find out when we get there"

23.8.2003: the party starts here. we all know this. saw hybrid last night. they were really good but the singer/guitarist is such a poser. its a shame cos it ruins the bands coolnes. there was this girl who really looked like someone but i couldnt quite put my finger on who. that was bugging me all night. but it was a reasonably weird night. various things making me feel weird. things people did or said. there was a lot of confrontation in the air. well it seemed like that anyway. me and cally had fun when we got back. id forgotten my key so we scrambled round the back in the pitch dark to see if the back door was unlocked. it was all a bit blair witch. aimee and matt heard us and he went and opened the door for us. we didnt find this out until the morning. aimees sister slept in my room with her boyfriend. theres something just odd about people sleeping in my room. i felt reasonably sober when i got in but as soon as i was in bed my head starting buzzing. all that thesis work. my brain just cant shut down. it was doing some crazy mapping of reality onto some high dimensional hyper-sphere. or something. stupid like that. at the time it seemed totally rational. kept my up all night. i just realised i dont really have anything interesting to say. nevermind. i guess ill go and have a dub shower. bomb opera.

on the off chance there is anyone out there who wants to read what ive done so far on my thesis it is here. hopefully. its pretty much complete up to where it stops. all sections finished but the last three. and the appendix. um.

22.8.2003: ive been playing around with this program that guesses your gender based on how you write. results from this site seem reasonably conclusive. so i was quite happy when it was convinced im a girl. this was based on my previous news entry and bits of my thesis. everything but one paragraph of my news entry came out girly. the male paragraph was the one where i talked about tatoos sex comic books and geeks. which i think is pretty interesting because the algorithm isnt based on what words you actually use, but their type. i think its based on a context free grammar. i suspected that it didnt actually have any clever male vs female information hard coded. and it starts off guessing, improving its decision algorithm based on feedback from people telling it its right/wrong. but apparently not. which is a shame because i would imagine that would work better. the actual statistics from the site say its only 50% accurate. haha. oh well. this paragraph is also female.

and this guy makes me shit bricks. and yes thats the same guy who did the 3d anime stuff. here we have another monopoly on talent. maybe he should hook up with shynola and take over the world.

21.8.2003: i have plently of small tidbits of babble for you. various things that i thought were well interesting at the time. or really pissed me off. either way. i got my final exam mark back and i didnt fail it. a rather surprising 47% which makes me wonder exactly how far they pushed the marks up. i didnt even answer half of the paper properly. this gives me a warm and fuzzy 66.45% average for my modules this year. hurray you must be thinking. but this now means that a distinction is possible (you need 65% in modules and 70% on the thesis). it would have been somewhat of a weight off my shoulders had a distinction been unattainable. alas not. i have no idea how good my thesis is. some of what ive written i know is good. i think it might fall down during the conclusion. nevermind.

i had a plan today. see my supervisor at 12 (no he wasnt there). then head into town to buy wrapping paper (no reason) and a book (whatever i found i wanted. itd make me feel better). then go back home. with a day saver this costs £2.40 which is obviously the best option. so i go to get the bus but only have two pounds plus a lot of coppers. oh the glee to find i have enough money. then the rudeword of a bus driver said he wouldnt except it. he tried to convince me that it is "illegal to accept more than twenty pence in coppers". can you feel my rage? small change is against the law. he told me to go and change it at a shop or bank. id just like to point out that its not illegal. its more like he has a legal right to refuse it. if he wants to be that pedantic (you see what i did there?). anyway. i tell him ill have a single then (which is putting me back a whole £1.20 as i need another two journeys still). he says he still wont accept it. i stare blankly at him. i nearly dropped all my coins. i wish i had. then just got off the bus and got the train like i should have done in the first place (return to falmer from london road is £1.45. with a journey to town and back its a little bit more than a day saver). he then realises that he has no choice. since hes such a legal whizz. grudgingly taking my money. knowing full well that his second dismisal of my money was purely because he just didnt want to give me a ticket. bitter old man with no friends trying to make everyone elses life a misery. like the guy on the train who says "we cant take young person railcards once you get on the train". they really hate it when you point out that its at their discretion and if he wanted to give me the 33% discount i deserve he could. its pety. id understand if they were on commision but they make no extra money out of ripping people off like that. thanks to the bus driver this morning i couldnt afford dinner (this isnt true but i did have to take the train at extra cost and journey time). snide.

my neighbour (the one who has really noisy sex with his girlfriend) has an invader zim tshirt with a huge barcode down the front. it looks totally comic book geek. so im happy ive never seen them for sale. it be so tempted too. along a similar line.. i noticed the dude who works various week days in the comic book shop in town has an 'invisbles' tatoo down the inside of his fore arm. its pretty sweet. which brings me onto.. the last but one issue of 'the filth' just came out. i think i finally actually understood what has been going on. them coming out so far apart i kinda lose the plot somewhat (theres a plot?). grant morrison is amazing and the filth has been pretty good. its not the invisibles but as if anyone could pull that off twice.

the kids from next door were sitting on my wall when we went out last night. i came back and there were plastic blue balls over my room. theyre pretty big. what is wrong with these kids? thats the most pointless thing any kid has ever done to try and annoy me. and cori spells his name corey too. then i found out that theyd stole the balls from the girls. sheesh.

but then if i was linkin park id film my new video in prague too. i mean.. who wouldnt? gold frapp. im liking the video. im not really liking her new image. she should think more along the line of gibbons and less minogue. i mean honestly. i dont mean it in a rude way but i find her more disturbing than attractive. something is just not right there. do you think i talk about music videos too much? i guess i have a mini passion for them. i loved the sky in the finch video until i saw it on a decent tv. it looks like a bad psp job.

oh. and if you want my opinion.. if you are in your own country and you bomb people who have invaded you (especially 'illegally'), you are not a fucking terrorist. you are a freedom fighter. there is nothing more frustrating than the way people (especially america and their bastard media) use such biased terms. iraqi militant groups doing nothing but trying to save their country from american imperialism are terrorists. the moujahedeen and khmer rouge were freedom fighters. its just the way that everyone only seems to be able to see the world through western eyes. where has the global vision gone? i want to finish on a quote from heitham. the first time i ever saw him he said something along the lines of "i used to think there was right and wrong. there is no right and wrong. its just one big rudeword".

the first time i did the rudeword thing it seemed kinda funny. now it seems a bit stupid. its not about censorship. im quite comfortable typing fuck/cunt whatever. it just seems a bit more mature. and leaving things to the imagination is always good. i cant explain this properly so im gonna shut up.

last and definately least. i had a (id call it a can but its made of cardboard. so what the hell am i gonna call it now?) carton of twinnings fruit tea. it wasnt that nice. and i was really disappointed when i checked the ingredients to find out its only 0.5% tea. more water and sugar. can you not get away from it?

thesis word count: 10451

20.8.2003: ever wonder why we dont have any wal-marts in england? its because they own asda. its been speculated that asda was chosen as it has 'a higher average store size than any other in britain'. scares the hell out me anyway.

i actually really like the new placebo single. special needs. even though it includes the line 'i guess i thought you had the flava'. haha. i just cant help but go weak at the knees when that mogwai-esque background distortion fuzz plus piano comes in. indeed. and while im on the subject.. the guy from 'him' is far too attractive.

saw an amazing house. big rooms. full of bad taste chic. it was definately a period house. stuck in some time where glazed shit brown bricks were the rage. a room painted yellow and half wall papered with orange stripes was cool. it even had its own bar in the lounge. i hate to say it but it was just awesome. but in a very weird way. retro. i would have insisted we take it immediately had it not been situated in deep moulsecombe. darren has put his foot down at having a house without parking. its just lucky we havnt found such a house that is perfect in every other way. we saw this one house in kemp town that was kinda odd. the upstairs bedroom window had been left open and it was full of bird feathers. pigeons had perched on the door and there was poop all over the carpet.

anyway. were putting down a deposit tomorrow morning. the house on roundhill crescent is effectively ours. and a guys (called ian). so thats good. i have no idea what room i want. i quite like the green one but its kinda tiny. its cute though. and a nice colour. not sure if my bed will fit but nevermind. the only problem with this house is that its not available until the 14th september. i have to leave this house on the 30th august. which im not too happy about because our contract runs until september. im paying for the 31st. my thesis is due 1st september. this is a total bummer. but itll be alright in the end. obviously.

so ill be in rugby i suppose. going to be a pain carting all my stuff there and back but nevermind. there is always big yellow storage. ill go check it out. im still writing crap because im sure i had something else i wanted to say. but totally forgot like. nevermind.

interviewer: "did you ever get close to over-dosing?"
jack osborne: "i think i should have died ..four times"

20.8.2003: i dont have time for this crap. but i love it.

19.8.2003: what the hell is wrong with my neighbourhood? oh well. my brain is feeling pretty weird. so none of y'all mess. its totally buzzing and ready to do some serious damage. the best thing i could do is go to the gloucester. which is funny because it is also the worst thing i could do. im seeing hybrid on friday. and we have the party on saturday. thats one hell of a lot of partying for a lad who has a thesis to do. i estimate i have ten days to nail this bitch out to dry. or something along those lines at least.

something i would love to discuss. i was just watching some program and they were making a big deal about the new millenium. that everyone on the planet was partying. like it was some great world unity. 2000 years since jesus. its obvious that all religious holidays have become far less religious in their 'happenings'. and new year isnt at all religious, its scientific. so non-christians celebrating '2000 years of christianity' is fair enough. although its barely more significant than any other year. lets be honest. i presume its a ground in measure that has been completely removed from its roots. so thats cool. so what about the countries that dont use our calender? or the people who dont even use a calender? the end of one year and the start of the next is totally arbitary after all. as is the 2000 years bit. so i just wondering what percentage of the global population actually give a shit about new years. and 2000 in particular.

19.8.2003: well guess who won the quiz last night? on our last ever team appearance as well. thats ten free beers we had to carry home. lets have a big cheer for me and ben. we didnt even cheat this week.

i went out to feed the kittens. well.. give them milk. and there was ellen again terrorizing the poor little critters. shed bought the whole family as well. theres four sisters. and one of them let on that theyre not allowed pets. this explains a lot. and there dad is one of those always angry types. we have a lot of them around here. theres ellen madelaine hannah and lauren. (argh theyre back again). theyre all quite reasonable apart from ellen. she doesnt understand what 'please leave now' means. or understands that the cats will never like her if she keeps chasing them all the time. hannah is still sitting out there. but shes being reasonable so i dont really mind. it would be better if they all just went home though. haha. i bet theyre really irritating ben. hes trying to sleep. what will it take to get rid of these damn kids? i suppose if i stop going out then hannah will get bored and leave and then the other girls will stop coming into the garden and making me have to go out and get rid of them. its like being back in rugby with the boys next door. what a crazy parallel.

i want to talk about my elbows. theyre in a bad way. i use them a lot when i work. resting on the table etc. ones bruised and the other is raw. they hurt so bad. oh well.

i wonder if cats like tapioca?

its now twenty to twelve. for the last forty minutes ive been trying to get rid of the girls. i mean. it is kinda nice having the attention and stuff. something that they blatantly lack at home. or rather discipline. well ellen at least. shes a nightmare. she said 'im gonna get a shark to bite your willy'. it was straight out of brazil. and she spent the whole time pulling brances off the plants and throwing them at me. then demanding a cuddle when she left. sheesh. i guess they love me. haha. in the end i just pushed them out the house and shut the door. they said they would come back around later.

oh fuck sake. theres two boys climbing over the storage unit. i just went and told them off. hannah was with them with this big grin. now shes knocking at the door. i might pretend i cant hear her. hes on it again. what does it take to get them to stay out of our garden? i dont want to shout at them. anyway. sod writing this. im going to get on with my work.

this is worth writing. the two kids (haidan and corey?) came back with hannah again. so i went out to really tell them this time. hannah says 'corey wants to try a chilli' (i hope this isnt confusing corey. tell you what i spell his name cori). so i pick a good looking chilli and give half to aiden and half to cori. theyre hesitant. then in they go. and i got it all on camera. heres the best photo i got. the video is too large to update. they ran off. and i dont think they will be coming back. i guess their parents might. i admit it. i am a bastard. these are nicks chillis and are the hottest chillis ive ever had the misfortune (read 'stupidity') to eat. and i only had a sliver. they were spitting for ages. i told them to go and drink milk.

haha. witness thy jalepeno.


thats ellen. witness the evil.

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