it's been so long since i've done anything vaguely creative with my computer. so that felt great. i guess spending two hours doing something like that was considered a horrible waste of time last week, because i wasn't achieving anything. but now that i've achieved plenty i can really relax on my sunday. have some of that. it's a few photos i stole off the greenpeace site (shouldn't i be using optimised link text there?). plus two photo i probably stole from people's blogs. one is of peru (lima i think). i've left it really rough. i quite like that. i think it adds something. anyway. whatever.

so last night i spent a couple of hours round cristina's house (notice how i spelt that?). she made me dinner even. i'd popped round to take a plate back. a plate that i'd really blatantly encouraged her to leave round no.6. she'd brought us pancakes over, you see. this is after i'd invited her in for a cup of tea. i'd been sitting out in the back garden and grilly pointed out she was at the front door talking to alex and some dude. i should have told this story forwards but i just had to do it the hard way. anyway. with a combination of really good luck and mild scheming i'd managed to put myself into a position where i had no choice. no choice but direct action (havn't you always wanted to say that?) i have made you all proud. and properly this time.

after a really awkward minute of me standing at the door saying "so yeah. okay", completely unable to spit it out (the problem with planning what you're going to say) she totally saved my life. right proper. now everything has been reset and i can do it properly this time. right.

all previous bad news has evaporated. like i said, people were taking the piss. people being more of an abstract 'people'. no one is really trying to shoot me down. honest. haha. it doesn't mean the situation is ideal, but far better than i thought.

but then, someone in my dream did accuse me of being anorexic. that really hurt. and i have no idea what it meant.

5.6.2004: so it's saturday. i never write on a saturday. even worse is that it's the fifth of june. this date rings a bell but i can't quite work out which bell. what is happening today? what am i supposed to be doing? and how the fuck is it june anyway?

i had a nice dream, and thus making it a total shit to get out of bed this morning. but anyway. she (hey what the fuck did you expect?) was living in a skip with her bed at one end and all her stuff at the other. this was quite near my house and on the way out i saw a mutual friend (non-descrip) talking into the skip. this is the kind of thing that gets me really frustrated at the best of times. so on the way back i go over for a look. she's clearly sleeping. and anyway, it's not a skip, its a sunken bed in a raised thing at the side of her room. there's a really obvious 'emo' cd so i pick it up to look, knocking over the whole pile. this obviously wakes her and she jumps up. i start saying i'm sorry for invading her privacy and just walking into her room like, but she really doesn't mind. the noise just scared her is all. she climbs out of bed and across onto her other 'proper' bed. i notice she has a red tattoo really low down her back. so we chat for a bit and she's just the greatest. then i guess i kinda woke up.

and i didn't realise until i wrote that out how many references there are to things that actually happened. every little detail is from something. are my dreams always like that? i normally just pass them off as weird.

yesterday the spannerworks posse went up to the webmasterworld pub conference (ver6.5, why i have no idea). it was a free bar and a lot of fun. nice to put faces to names. i probably didn't sell the company very well (not like it's my job) but what do you expect when people who run dodgy casino sites ask you what you could do for them. i told them pretty straight. i suspect i also ate a meat samosa, although i'm not sure. and people don't seem to be able to comprehend that. come on, how would i know if it tasted meaty? after all the free alcohol the journey home was a lot of fun. hurray for the tube. back in brighton i met up with jess and grilly (notice, i keep changing the order because neither seems more right than the other) outside somewhere. by the clock. we walked back to mine down the north laines. the best thing about this was outside david's books - a huge skip full of old stock (aaah, that will be where the skip came from then). people were scrabbling in and over it. we picked up some fun looking books. a camera crew turned up (unrelated), who i readily pissed off by constantly asking them what they were doing. if the sound guy will keep gesturing me to shush then what the fuck does he expect? i just hope i'm not going to be on itv in july acting really drunk. not that i would see it or anything.

i lost my multi-coloured barcode. i don't know if that means anything to anyone but i need to make a note of it. and to be honest i'm not sure how i feel about it. realistically it's not something to be gutted about. and i guess i'm not. it was just a barcode. this also featured in a dream last night, but not one i tried to keep a hold of as long as possible.

i also must be less ambiguous with my postings, perhaps? apologies to jess for leaving my 'rage' open to her interpretation. at least the bit that wasn't about her. the bit about fucking off across the world. the bit that i have absolutely no right to be at all bothered or angry about. the bit that has really got me thinking all week about what i'm actually doing. and the bit that i've

4.6.2004: the color quiz results are in:

Unwilling to extend himself or exert undue effort (with the possible exception of sexual activity). Feels that further progress requires more from him than he is willing or able to give. Would prefer reasonable comfort and security rather than the rewards of greater ambition.

Feels that life has far more to offer and that there are still important things to be achieved--that life must be experienced to the fullest. As a result, he pursues his objectives with a fierce intensity that will not let go of things. Becomes deeply involved and runs the risk of being unable to view things with sufficient objectivity, or calmly enough; is therefore in danger of becoming agitated and of exhausting his nervous energy. Cannot leave things alone and feels he can only be at peace when he has finally reached his goal.

The situation is preventing him from establishing himself, but he feels he must make the best of things as they are. Very exacting in the standards he applies to his choice of a partner and seeking a rather unrealistic perfection in his sex life. Feels that things stand in his way, that circumstances are forcing him to compromise and forgo some pleasures for the time being.

Longs for tenderness and for a sensitivity of feeling into which he can blend. Responsive to anything esthetic and tasteful.

Needs to achieve a stable and peaceful condition, enabling him to free himself of the worry that he may be prevented from achieving all the things he wants.

he wont be commenting.

last night me and grilly took off to the pav tav. 'strange by design' were playing what might have been their last gig. which is a real shame. a bassist down and they still rokka. but that was some evil drumming. and then obviously after the gig we went upstairs. we were supposed to meet people there but they decided to stand us up. not sure what to say about that really. so i just won't.

also, how great were the people laks bought round to see our house? can everyone please cross their fingers and mantra (yes i can use the word like that) to make them take the rooms? someone else led a conversation about dave mckean (well more like neil gaiman really). mantra damn it.

but the reflection of the bubbles in the base of the water cooler remind me of bill viola.

i wish i could watch baghdad comedown - "uninterrupted live footage from the ministry of information roofcam backed with chilled beats from autechre".

the trick with 'rokka' is you don't modify it with an adverb. and affixes are limited to degrees of 'rokka'. so it's not well rokka, it's rokkaga. also there are no tenses, believe it or not. if i had my way we'd all be speaking in an affix free language, something similar to mandarin. duh.

i should have spoken to transe express when i had the chance. i bet they go to some pretty chilly places. because this feeling isn't going anywhere is it?

3.6.2004: i don't mind you taking the piss as such. i guess i've been asking for it somewhat. and i'm getting used to it (as pitiful and pathetic as it sounds). but honestly. why the fuck do you have to take the piss in the way that makes me feel as inadequate as possible?

i couldn't sleep last night (it is related but in a way i've probably never explained to you). and when i eventually did fall asleep it was just to be woken up by bastard cramp at 6am. i didn't catch it early enough and couldn't pull my foot up. so now i'm just sitting here feeling really sorry for myself.

i don't know what to do.

i have to blah about me and grilly djing last night at east slope bar, but this morning i can't really face it. i'm sure grilly will cover it.

shit. all this and i've only ever heard her speak english even.

2.6.2004: i'm normally quite good at not writing about certain stuff. but i might have to make an exception. just to prove a point (although to be honest, i'm not entirely sure what it is). tonight grilly is djing at east slope bar to raise money for his indonesia rainforest conservation trip thing. so the perfect opportunity to bait a girl out (i used that word on purpose). a plan was required (acquired). i even drew a complicated flow diagram, one that would get you at least a 2.1 in software engineering. with branches depending on who is at home, who answers the door, who says they can or can't or maybe or possibly might come. i even made a special personal invitation flyer (no.4 or 11). i know what you're going to say. you're going to say that making plans like that will never work, but it wasn't like that. it was trying to avoid the mistakes i'd made before (i tried really hard to use 'i' there). so, for the (what?) third time we're armed with a perfect plan. we go around her house. we chat to her nice housemate who answers the door. and the house seemed so empty. but i swear she was in. i could see her shadow on the back wall. in the red light, when she opened her door. just taking the piss out of me. she might come down. she might come down. keep grilly talking. she might come down. if they said they couldn't make it we were going to invite them down the pub right then. why does nothing work? how can one person be so elusive?

i can say all of the above because i guess it doesn't really make any difference anymore. and although it's incriminating, it's too much of a pisstake to matter. it's good that i'm not too bothered about anyone reading it. what's the worst that could happen? hell, why don't i just change all my title and meta tags to her name.

anyway. there is a chance she'll turn up tonight. like i said, pigs might fly.

i just noticed that john kerry's initials are jfk. and also george bush again. there's a joke in there somewhere, i swear.

i also must make a note of the ass kicking dinner grilly made last night. he did a right proper curry sauce that we had on cheese nan from eschners. indian pizza. amazing.

1.6.2004: a whole bank holiday weekend of unwritten up splurdge. i almost can't be bothered to begin. anyway, happy june. a month that will be made fun by glastonbury (lineup) and the end of the student year. how do i feel about that? it's hard to say. especially without sounding like an ass. let me just count all my missed opportunities on one hand, while counting all the people i'm pissing off by doing it on the other. makes me feel like such a crap friend. this, from a very conflicting weekend which i'm no doubt about to force feed you in barely bite sized paragraphs.

the idea of the weekend was to visit martin. i managed to make it vaguely cerebral thanks to a birthday party in brighton featuring a potential (history tells us "pigs might fly") girl (singular) presence. this just being another way for me to mal-prioritise and come out feeling a worse person. if pigs do ever fly i'll be waiting with my blunderbuss full of sunflower seeds.

the idea of the weekend was to visit martin. i pulled this off quite well. i also got to see senser and ben and corey. what i did miss was amy's leaving party. that sucked, but at least i remain ignorant to anything else i might've missed on friday. i see a theme appearing.

so the idea of the weekend was to visit martin. i arrived in reading with time enough to eat pizza and mildly relax before hitting the union building. i nearly got on the guest list and then could have almost blagged my way in. i did at least get a student discount though. the turn out wasn't that good (well if you will play universities) but it was great for dancing. senser truly are the shit. buy their album. go see them live. have their babies. they played all the classics, even 'no comply' and 'states of mind'. 'charming demons' featuring a brutal extra heitham rap at the end. and for a minute there i thought they weren't going to do infoburner. as if. the other highlight of my night was winning six games of 'moo pah chi' in a row. just call me 'laurenec the undefeated champion'. or laurence if you'd prefer, please. then on the way out we caught the guitarist, shared a smoke and chatted about player's 'angel of theft' (which i'd got phil to dj earlier). next time you must remind me to ask him how to play the riff at the end of zombies.

i also discovered a 'new' mogwai-style japanese extreme-core band. the band of the month is envy. and thanks to rock action records you can actually get their albums over here. recommended. thanks to martin.

actually, i musn't forget to tell you about a text conversation i had on the train. at 16:41 i recieved a text from an unrecognised number proclaiming "do you know your a twat?". i figure it's either someone who knows me or someone who doesn't (i'm pretty smart like that). i think what the hell and text back "jesus loves you". about five minutes later i receive another saying "i know but not u". that's just mean right? i reply "is that because i raped my sister?" to which there was no response. i guess i'm just not worth 30p. besides, anyone who knows me knows that i don't have a sister.

so on saturday we went off to meet ben in reading town center, as beautiful as it is, and is if by magic corey turned up too (hurray for being on the dole). we hung out. drank coffee. played football in the rain (well i was too busy staring at burn out catherine wheels and ants but nevermind). it was cool. went out drinking later and then back to jens house. i whooped martins ass at time splitters 2 (well first maybe joint first is impressive enough considering i don't play it).

as well as the previously mentioned pizza on friday night, i basically ate mondo quanties of crap food all weekend. mostly in crap pubs (weatherspoon scream chains etc). it's okay though. i managed to cry it all out on the way home, sitting on the train.

getting back to brighton felt great. it always does. i'm always exhausted and hating. also it was jess and grilly time. it was nice but i remember little of it. i always have really fuzzy memories of hanging out with them at the end of the weekend. we sort of watched swordfish. that film is so fucked up. lets hear it for american freedom. i guess the film doesn't work so well in a post september 11th america where they bomb people for pissing them off quite openly. it's the kind of film you could have a field day writing an essay on. especially with john travolta being a raving scientologist and the dude who wrote it (clearly) deluded with patriotism. although, what was that again? "patriotism means agreeing with the president". indeed. i had a nice walk home. the moon was fucking beautiful. relected in all of the houses as i walked up roundhill crescent.

monday was aimee day. i dragged her ass into town for bagel. guess what i got. guess what i got. get this.

It's finally come down to this: On one side, a semi-lunatic journalist barely tolerated by his own assitants; on the other, the President of the United States. One suffering from a degenerative, soon-to-be-deilitating brain disease; the other a total psychotic bastard. And only one will walk away from their epochal showdown intact.

In a finale worthy of creator Warren Ellis and Datrick Robertson's revolutionary title, the outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem makes his last stand for truth and justice against all the coercive evil the future can throw at him. But what awaits him at the end of this road - a mountain, or a grave?

the final issues of transmetropolitan. i heart dave's comics. at last i can feel complete. or something. god bless spider jerusalem.

then in the evening we saw harry potter. i don't care what you all think, the film was well good. i really enjoyed it. i'm quite aware some of the acting is regulary quite poor but whatever. gary oldman more than makes up for. as does ian brown. why is he in it? i have no idea. answers on a postcard please. alfonso cuaron rokka though honestly. i love all the little things he did. it's so sick its beautiful. i just hope they keep him on board.

in other news. lookit invader zim on dvd. shit the bed.

28.5.2004: radio america tells you kill in the name of freedom.

does the following quote not scare anyone else?

"Kerry will discuss his vision for restoring America's authority and leadership in the world and keeping Americans safe and secure.."

lets hear it for the nu world order.

waffles?

last night i discovered that there are some really nice pubs up the other side of lewis road. i would specify which side the 'other side' side is but there are nice pubs on both, so it makes little difference to you. it makes me quite sad i've not ventured up there before. but isn't that what the now is for anyway?

i need to do a lot of 'nowing'. someone kick my ass. i'd nominate you but it wouldn't be fair on you. just kick it anyway. i will thank you for it later. probably.

so i'm going to reading tonight to see martin and senser. at least, unless i get an unmissable invite before i get on the train. i hate to admit to being enough of a bastard to blow out my friends like that. but enough missed opportunities already. also, the more of a bastard i make myself out to be the more impressed you'll be when i actually turn out to be a 'nice' guy. the heart and brain on my sleeve should be worth something.

27.5.2004: radio america tells you to fear. it's nice to see you can still buy into freedom, even if you can't buy 'freedom fries' anymore.

this bush thing is priceless. i'd drop all the ones i did as links, but they were a bit offensive. i know it's easy to misinterpret my humour at the best of times, never mind on the internet.

i had a dream last night. in it there was girl called rose who had red eyes. i told her i'd never noticed them before, apparently she'd inherited them from her father. i couldn't tell if she liked the fact i'd noticed them or was annoyed that i hadn't before.

this guardian article has a more comprehensive list of the artworks destroyed by the saatchi fire. it also features some fantastic quotes, respect to dinos chapman and chris ofili (thinking of the smell created by captain shit burning is at least worth a chuckle, surely).

ddr will get you fit, come on.

26.5.2004: listening to the news over the recent months you'd think there was little that would actually make me sit up in bed with shock. nearly 50 people get killed at a wedding and i'm burying my head under my pillow mumbling "mother fuckers". they bulldoze over 100 houses and i'm groaning underneath my duvet. i hear that over a hundred artworks from the saatchi collection have been destroyed in a fire and i've leapt from my bed, now standing naked in the middle of my room gawping at the tv. i know that it's nothing compared to the shit that's going down across the world, but i just couldn't fucking believe it.

blossom is the most beautiful thing about spring. hurray for blossom falling through the rays of sunlight falling through trees. it is so much more picturesque than snow.

here's a pretty good article on vincente fox (president of mexico) and the zapatistas. did you know he used to work for coca-cola? he was the operations supervisor for the whole of latin america. crikey.

greek yoghurt and honey really is all that.

25.5.2004: it was the flash introduction that convinced me.

check out bip's photography. i know this dude through work (he does some of our admin or something). he's heading off for a trip to gaza next week. not sure if that's interesting, exciting or just crazy. i always wanted to be a professional photographer though, i guess i kinda got side tracked.

okay. trying to win the sigils in final fantasy x is the biggest load of bullshit ever. are you bozos (yes i said 'bozos') trying to waste my pissing time or what? frustratingly hard and long drawn out pathetic tasks are not fun. what is the point? you bastards. on another note, does anyone know how to get back into the cloister of trials in bevelle after you've got the airship? this is so not the place to be asking this. groan.

24.5.2004: good morning. would you believe it's another lovely day? hurray for summer and apple juice. pimms for breakfast. shouldn't you all have finished your exams yet? hurry up.

so before i fly headlong into what has embaressingly developed into my monday speciality of writing out the exact events of my weekend word for word in fear that if i don't the weekend will be lost from me forever, which no one can or ever does read through reasonably and still retain any amount of coherent information or actually finish, i should get out the important details of events and such like straight away. that's the longest sentence i ever wrote, i swear.

it's the departure lounge on wednesday. so mother fucking be there. at the prince albert. for all your "i wish i was japanese" wants and needs.

you all want to know so bad what i did over the weekend, don't you? friday was spent hanging out with aimee and her work mates. i hadn't been to the font (and not ferkin) or casablancas for ages. it isn't as much fun when it's not free to get in and tequila isn't a pound. but fun none the less. i remember babbling about my 'koala meat awareness society' and the 'vegetarian guerilla army' (is that not a bit hypocritical?). what a way to pick up chicks huh? the coolest thing about the whole night was the guy who followed me back from aimee's and up roundhill crecsent, playing away on his acoustic guitar and singing an unrecognisable song. i swear this guy will become part of some legend or other. the man who stalks the quiet streets of brighton late at night, lulling people with his uplifting chord progressions.

i did the best shop in ages on saturday, and all without going into dave's comics (which i promised i wouldn't). i picked up the new 'silver mt.zion' ep (or album rather) which is so much better than their last cd. not that i didn't like the last album, it was just weird. also a london police tshirt which is too big but i wanted too bad. also another evirob because my previous one is getting lonely waiting for the third series to land. also street logos, the new book by tristan manco, surprisingly affordable considering how colourful and glossy it is (yum, the smell). i also picked up a good few copies of happy endings for 50p each. you all love me, you just do.

saturday evening was the carnival. basically a whole load of samba bands and a street party. street rave! this was down on a very packed maderia drive. there were just too many cool people about. they should do this every weekend. people all dressed up and painted funny dancing to psuedo-carribean house reggae rave? it was a total townie-free zone. the sea was fucking beautiful. like a huge shiny 5p floating on an upside down tequila sunrise. we had a bit of a dance. everyone was happy. it was great. after the sun had set we headed over to the spiegel tent (world famous). unfortunately there was a huge queue of attractive people outside so we had no hope of getting in at all. it was kinda disappointing but at least we'd managed to get in the other night. it's a real shame they can't just leave the 'tent' there. it has a proper wooden dance floor and everything. its all mirrors and candle light. last time we were there they had a dj playing funk and hip hop. it was proper special. i have love for that place.

then after a small gathering of people in my bedroom it was sunday. time for reading old unread adbusters articles and rediscovering the greatness of deltron3030 (they played some of the album in the mash tun after the ballet). also bagel buying, but really i only go to sainsburys to meet girls. attempt to meet girls. hope to meet a girl (who i actually saw a bit of the other day - her forehead and right eye). the highlight of the day was jess's trip to the cowley club for vegan dinner. massive bangers and mash. rokka. sitting around talking about goats and 'moo pah chi'. me and jess had a few well good games. oh, the strategies. but i will never beat her at the stupid gun game (that actually isn't that stupid). anyway. we (we) don't eat out enough on sunday. it is the most fun.

so glastonbury tickets went on sale again last night. this morning john recieved 54 (count them) emails confirming he had tickets, that totals 108 of them. by lunch he's now had over 600 emails saying his tickets have been cancelled due to lack of funds. no wonder they sold out so quickly. what a mess. i should also point out this wasn't at all johns fault, he was instructed to keep clicking until he recieved confirmation. infact, he just recieved a call saying that he'd actually ordered 514 pairs of tickets and has been charged £33,000 to his bank account. the fraud squad have been phonig his house and everything. come on, no need to have a laugh at his expense.

the kelis song is actually a grower. i thought it was right proper poor when i first heard it (this isn't surprising since i do dislike 'that kind of music'), but now i'm kinda enjoying it. i also have a thing for arrows and that delicious shade of orange. is orange the new red? for sure 2004 was all about the #b00000 but its rein might have ended.

since grilly started working on the weekend he's blogging far too much (i'm so hyp). my favourite of his links was the series of cumshots (are these actually real?), although to be honest i much prefered the series entitled women of the israel defense force.

link for aimee.

what is with buying vespas and putting up random cool vespa photos on your site? apart from the obvious, i found (rather bizarrely, while looking through the backwards links of one of my clients) this blog featuring various retro photos of women and vespa. it was just too much of a coincidence to not mention.

tenuously related, why exactly is our new toilet paper enriched with vitamin e?

21.5.2004: i don't think i've ever seen the sea so dark and lifeless. like the storm has drained it of all light and colour. i think i might go for a swim. it's kind of like liquid gloom.

last night we had an awesome storm. the kind you can feel building up all day. and you just know it's going to be brutal. the sky turned dark green and pretty much tore a hole in itself. i was lying safe in my room listening to lien (swoon) as everything went dark and east brighton disappeared behind a curtain of rain outside my window. i'm not sure what inspired me (probably the tshirt i was wearing) but i decided it had been far too long since i'd been out in a good storm. so i went out. you get such a better view when not on the other side of a piece of glass. perhaps it was a similar move to jess running down the street pretending to be an aeroplane and gunning down innocent people. but it was great. i had to stand on the wall because our garden was quickly turning into a lake. and just when you thought it had reached its peak it started raining even harder. like machine gun rain drops, or rather the shotgun in doom when mod'd to the speed of the gattling gun. if i was a cloud i'd hate us that much too. like i said, it was awesome. i felt kind of bad about the puddle i left in the kitchen, but what can you do ey? even if i get pneumonia this weekend it was worth every penny.

and don't let me look at the kid robot site while in possession of my credit card. and ashley wood is also out to destroy me.

20.5.2004: i feel a bit confused. the last few days have left me feeling quite odd. having my regular routine disrupted, i couldn't have asked for more. i suspect it's more along the line of the dreams i had last night tainting my short term memory. being in a constant state of hyperactive exhaustion will let 'em do that to you. i was woken up at half three by voices coming from underneath my table. after a mild panic of not having a fucking clue where the fuck i was and what the fuck was going on (with all the 'fucks') i thought maybe my tv was on. then i realised it couldn't possibly be that, or my radio. this genuinely freaked me out. i was intercepting signals. something had gone horribly wrong. i forget now what the voice had said exactly, but it was quite concerned about something happeneing. as i lay in bed with my desk lamp on (just incase) i started remembering what other voices had said previously. voices i had completely forgotten about. everything started to tie together and make sense. it was about this time i thought i better get a glass of water, go for a piss and sort my head out. i cleaned up a few of the dead leaves from my carpet and went back to bed. there is something worrying about dreams planting memories in your head. perhaps it will teach me to eat bagels before bed time. see also: drink alcohol & sugar, caffinated anything, all of the above.

moving swiftly on. me and my honeys (aimee and laks) went to see the preljocaj ballet on tuesday. it was a terribly trendy affair (brighton wise) but really enjoyable. the music was commisioned by air, and apart from the occasional aphex tweenage riot white noise attack it sounded pretty much how you'd expect (although saying that, i imagine it being quite hard to see how that can fit in with ballet). all the red wool and glass balls are a lot fun, believe. hurray for french things.

so i took the day off yesterday. spent a nice portion of it hanging out on sussex campus. i guess i do miss it, but mainly due to it being where all the girls are hiding out. so sunny and green everywhere. it makes me wish i could swap my sunday for wednesday. i doubt it would really help mind. the rest of the day was generally spent hanging out with jess, grilly and p3ta (that evil fucking cat, i swear). although to be honest, all i really remember about the day is desperately trying to come up with a plan of action and things to do. i blame the sun for my weird behaviours.

so i left the number 6 gang getting on with their work and thought i'd pop round to see aimee, bumping into matt (of number 14 fame) on the way. he made me wish i played basket ball (why? i do not have the foggiest). the guy is a dude though, and i will be expecting him at our next barbeque. not to get side-tracked too badly, but it turns out that p3ta frequents their house as well (although they didn't name the little bastard).

so (so) i get to aimee's house and they're on the way out to some indie club (the music library). i didn't really want to go, but then i wanted to go home less so i tagged along for the ride. get this, its £1 to get in and 80p a bottle. this will mildly explain the voices in my head huh? it was typical indie (via dynamite sal no less). like snide at the escape but not quite so rockin'. and i never fail to get pissed off when a dj decides to play 'killing in the name'. a room full of people shouting "fuck you i wont do what you tell me". killing in the name. yeah! killing! killing in the mother fucking name. there is nothing worse than pack mentality. its the old "he likes to sing along but he don't know what it means". after sitting through an hour of nightmarish iraq and palestine news (you know i can barely even remember which was which) it was about my limit.

in other news.. i passed my driving test. in a mini. you crazy fuckers.

17.5.2004: i suspect i had a pretty decent weekend. the trick is to what? i don't know. i played friday by ear and it worked out quite nicely. there was a party of sorts at my house but i couldn't really enjoy it as i had my last driving lesson (before my test) early the next morning. so i invited grilly round (who was followed by boy robin, rachael and a guy whose name i made a real effort to remember). after a while of basking in other peoples party i went back with grilly (after a slight lag) to watch the transformers movie, which is nothing like star wars (especially when compared with the masters of the universe movie). i stayed over theirs and it was really quite nice. although i did have some weird dreams, and in the morning i had a nightmare trying to open the window and switch on the tv. also a biting feeling of loneliness before everyone else woke up (for this i blame the room. it's size, baking heat and location). their shower is great though. really. i would recommend it to everyone. along with dave's diner. that rocks a medium fat one. lewis road for all your full vege english breakfast needs. extravaganza.

my driving lesson was good. the only thing worthy of mentioning is the place my instructor made me park at the end of the lesson.

'the level' was really nice. it was a proper sunny day for it. we briefly hung out there, surrounded by party people, before heading into town. here i made some quality purchases, actually managing to buy something from dave's comics this weekend - lumakick and pop gun war (which corey suggested, although to be fair it was sitting in my phone reminders for months before i deleted it because i couldn't remember what the hell it was). both of which are beautiful. richard hahn is clearly following me around making notes on my behaviour. if he wasn't making such good 'comics' from it i would have him hunted down, shaved and sterilised. what i want to know is what happened to the walk. nevermind.

i met up with people down the beach and did nothing for a while. the heat does that to you. listened to 'welcome to the monkey house' in the hot poles over nachos (does that sentence actually make sense to anyone?). the rest of my evening was spent watching (falling asleep to) eurovision with jess, grilly and alex. also learning vicious new games from jess. they probably arn't (weren't), but i was tired and just couldn't cope. how embarresing. anyway, she now knows how to play 'moo pah chi'. action. tell you what though, i had much difficulty remembering what i actually did on saturday night. i think the sun, stress and beauty got to me.

sunday was easy, it felt mostly like a saturday didn't it? harry cooked me a well good vege breakfast (two in one weekend ey?). then me, laks, tom and aimee went into town for pizza and beach. i guess what i was feeling is that i really need to be part of something. an almost abstract 'something'. i realised this while watching people drum, but it had nothing to do with them. i swear. very unlike how my 'in the background' inferiority complex is nothing to do with a girl. but anyway, not to harp on. we went for drink at the 'end of the laines cafe'. i urge you to go there, its lovely and the guy is nice as pie. as nice as their hot chocolate. all 46 (or whatever) of them.

i've babbled on long enough and said nothing of any interest. sorry.

so yeah. i'm doing a writing course tomorrow and then going to the ballet. then i have the whole day off on wednesday. also my driving test (at eleven somthing). so wish me luck, sad sacks.

14.5.2004: i want a round of applause for myself, please. after months of suffering from 'variable div width syndrome' i have eventually solved the problem. you just wont believe this. it happens when the last word on a line is italicted. how fucking stupid is that? across all browers as well. i can't think of any sensible solution so all i've done is unitalic any words against the margin. obviously this only works cos i suck by having all my positions and sizes in pixels. anyone got any better ideas?

i have also started using permalinks. you can nab these by clicking on the date. so if you want to link to some crap i said that's the way to do it. is that self-obsessed or what?

eurodisco by bis fucking rocks rokkaga. believe that.

14.5.2004: 'radio zapatista - chiapas no se olvida' kpfa 94.1fm - may 14 from 8:30 to 9:00pm (pdt).

"We present news from Chiapas, interviews with folks who have recently returned, EZLN communiques, great music and related issues. Because the corporate media have decided not to cover the Zapatista struggle or to provide only negative coverage, we believe that this program is important. Radio Zapatista mixes Spanish and English so as to reach people who speak both languages"

it's either seven or eight hours behind english time, depending on what website you read and who is on daylight saving time already. i'd bet on eight, but luckily you don't have to worry about it too much because they have a streaming archive of the last 24 hours. i thought you all might find it good listening and they need the support.

today i am going to solve the stupid ass problem of this div changing width for no apparent reason. see how it is underneath the picture over there? i'm also going to stick in permalinks on my dates. possibly. this is mostly for my own convenience.

13.5.2004: the size of this directory scares me. i hate to sound naive (again) but i honestly thought that kind of thing wasn't so rife. insanity. especially the site with "add to checkout" next to each photograph. shudder.

also. i checked my site using this funky icapture tool. it gives you a screenshot of your website through safari, apple's non-pc browser (you see what i did there?). i had a few complaints (ahem) that my site fucks up on macs so i checked it out. turns out it works just great on safari 1.2. but it's not my fault if the university won't upgrade (for free) to the latest browser version. sorry jess that your browser sucks (i'm also sorry that i took back my winning go on grass so you could 'pretend' to win. that's the last time i'm nice over a card game).

no i didn't download the new morrissey video.

13.5.2004: so all of a sudden you realise that you havn't been watching any tv. this usually happens when you sit down to eat your dinner and switch the tv on. casually putting on mtv2 or challenge tv (knightmare! takeshi!) and you don't recognise any of the adverts. you havn't even heard of the bands, nevermind seen the music videos. i couldn't decide if i felt liberated or alienated. like when you drink cow's milk instead of soya milk for the first time in months (or weeks whatever). or like when you eventually find a new girl who is beautiful in every way that matters, but you can't talk to her because you're speaking a different language.

so anyway, i saw some new music videos. i suppose the most interesting was thursday's 'war all the time' (you can watch it here, btw). it's a nice idea what they've done there, but it's just not enough. like they were scared to follow it through with some substance. are the days gone of meaningful political videos? (ratm awol). are people just too scared or is it kinda passe? thinking about it now, i just find their video insultingly half arsed. like they're using war imagery for nothing but style. that is being a bit harsh but for fucks sake.. just say something with it.

the other video i saw was for morrissey's new song. it took me a while to work out who it was, and i was quite scared by that. i was only half paying attention (because someone in the video looked like a certain someone, at least they did over my stir fry) but the lyrics seemed really poor. and doesn't the new muse video have a beautiful start? terrible ending though, and the whole 'no surprises' thing is so 1998. sort it out.

12.5.2004: havn't we been going on about the importance of junk dna for ages? i guess the biological science world should pay more attention to us evolutionary computation geezers. we rock y'know? if you're bored you could read my these. haha. oh, how i laugh today. now i'm just being sentimental about writing essays. i know all you peeps hard at study arn't going to understand, but i really miss having impending exams and dissertations. or perhaps it's just that i wish i was a part of it. revise wise.

(i can't believe i wrote all those clever words)

12.5.2004: well the most interesting thing i've found all day is the whitehouse's robots.txt. for those who don't know this is the file that tells search engine spiders what they can and can't look at. for instance, they're not allowed to look at http://www.whitehouse.gov/911/patriotism/iraq/. it's only mildly interesting but still.. (edit: i just bizarrely accidently found this link about the whitehouse robots.txt. oh well, i thought i was being clever. a better article)

i'm also working on a new picture for the side over there (unbrandamerica.org). i havn't been doing anything creative (as such) for a while now. my art is suffering. laugh. so i am making an effort. the side effect of this is that my site will looking screwy until i'm finished. this may be a few days or an hour. who knows?

11.5.2004: okay okay. enough. i've spent over a week now trying not to write about iraqi prisoner abuse. shock horror, honestly. is it that surprising that people who have been trained to kill have less apparent understanding or respect for human rights? they've been taught (could you go as far to say 'conditioned'?) to hate and murder. it's barely fair to moan at them for it now. there is no one person to blame as such, not the soldiers, not their commanding officers (or whatever whoever). it's a fundamental problem that's inherent in the (tries really hard to think a word other than 'system', incase i get accused of sounding like 'the matrix' again) mother fucker. yes it's wrong, but we knew this before. it's just a simple scaling down of what the government has been doing for decades.

subharmonia was great. total core music all night. where else could you get merzbow, mogwai and ubermetal? bit of a shame about the overkill on josticks but the candles were fun. musically, i think it is the most extreme night in brighton. bring on your aphex twin sludge core. all of it. i can't remember hearing any sigur ros or godspeed you black emperor! (i can exclaim too, grilly) as promised but i forgive them. especially since the organiser dude said if i bought along some records next month i could dj. stick that in your cake hole.

i had a weird olive dream. okay, i admit it, it was actually a girl dream. but it was the olive that makes it worthy of note (or rather it doesn't but i'm going to anyway). we (some abstract 'we') were at at wedding reception (well, we weren't part of it. just there at the same time). and some girl was eating at one of the tables (oh just any damn girl). she gave this guy (he was just any guy) an olive and the whole dream suddenly went into slow motion. like. dramatic. i hate the way cheap special effects are working their way into my dreams. as if it wasn't traumatic enough. honestly.

getting out of bed was the hardest thing this morning. and the lift is broken at work. seven floors up. i just carried up a delivery of new chairs too. how fit am i going to be?

10.5.2004: i think it was another one of those weekends, the really unbalanced ones where friday night and saturday are spent in a daze and then sunday sucker punches you for all it's worth. (apart from the fact that you knew it was going to happen). it just wastes away in the most depressing manner. and there is something really viral about it that i wish i could understand. i suppose i feel bad bothering other people to hang out and do stuff. and everyone is out of sync as well. i guess sundays are just designed for girlfriends. oh.. and church too.

friday was cat's last day at work. it's kinda crap she left but what are you gonna do hey? so after being dicked around by clients all day it was right necessary to get a few drinks in down the free masons. they do good vodka and the guy who kept serving me looked like a thin phil jupitus. there was another guy there who looked like moby. it was all very weird. amy said something funny but i can't really remember what (oh yeah. i said how when i was younger people always mistook me for a girl. and she said "when i was younger people always thought i had highlights") i then managed to rendevous with grilly even though i only had one bar left on my phone (mind, i did initially go to the 'earth and star' instead of the 'evening star'). his friend jo (girl) was down for the weekend (thinking you can probably read this on grillys blog). they weren't sticking around so i tried to get a four pint take away of their espresso stout but get this.. the woman wouldn't serve me without id (drivers license or passport). i explained and argued and eventually gave up. she then wouldn't serve jo who had already been served. like i am 17. they caved eventually anyway.

then we hung out at the lovely penthouse (above the free butt). i love that little hang out. get your butt asses down there tonight because its sub-harmonia (or whatever). i've been promised constellation style records. so rock it.

i think we pretty much went back to my dig (or like whatever) and chilled there. it was peachey keen. rachael joined us also. i love people appreciating my room. especially after all the effort i've put into it. everybody just hang ya? but then i also have this thing where it's all just wasted because it's (paragraph cut short to avoid angst spillage)

saturday was the usual standard saturday. driving lesson followed by late trip into town. managed to not spend ages in dave's comics (not to freak the staff who work there, plan for next time). bagel. beach. hot chocolate at the end of the laines. all that 'would be' romantic stuff. weirdly for me there was a girl sitting in the cafe that i used to really fancy back in my first year at birmingham. i realise now why i don't use the word fancy anymore. a similar thing happened that night when we met up with (boy) robins friends. i never realised that he had done his degree up in birmingham but turns out he used to live with some girl i had almost known. crazy coincidences, for me at least. maybe next week i will bump into jo peachey. twitch.

we got curry and it was fantastic. me, jess and grilly have now had quite a few communal 'pre-house' meals. nice huh? so then my favourite part of the weekend.. we took a trip to preston park, i had forgotten how much i feel for that park. it's expanse of grass i like no other. clearly, this is what i've been missing the whole time. we went there to see transe express. kinda insanely beautiful french performance acrobats thing. it was stunning. they had this huge metal tree mobile thing, hanging from which are these amazing birds and trapeze things. things. the music was awesome and i can't even thing how to begin describing it without getting it wrong. i want to remember it as manic french/japanese opera jazz. whether that was what it was like or not is neither here nor there anymore. i havn't used the word 'spectacle' yet either. why didn't i have my camera?

so house party for (boy) robins birthday. blah blah blah (need to leave work so must gloss over it). then home. i think. sunday. sunday was just sunday. it was redeemed by laks cooking me curry and then playing grass with jess and grilly. i just have to point out (even though it will get me beaten up later) that i beat jess twice at grass. it has to be mentioned cos i finished the game without any protection cards and 'utterly wiped out'. this was just before jess was going to devastate us with a hand of 'stone high's and euphoria. that is why she will kick my ass. it was a damn good game though. i feel sorry because grilly still hasn't won. then i went home and john bit a hunka chunk out of a lemon. worth mentioning because it was funny.

now i am totally leaving work. come on.

7.5.2004 i am bit confused about grilly's reference to pacman. i could have swore i hadn't given him the pamanhattan link. why is he running round brighton dressed as a pacman character, jess? these blogs are getting far too incestuous. is it only me who still writes my own? (shit, i nearly called this site a 'blog'. heaven forbid).

7.5.2004: you never thought it would happen! against all the odds it's the friday quiz for four weeks running..

1. if in his programme you would be, wind the wool and follow who?
2. what actually is sticky-back plastic anyway?
3. who is steve chung?
4. where is your face?
5. the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides. the car's on fire, who is driving?
6. who is harder, cloud or tidus?
7. which uber-fucker did orson wells play in his last film?
8. what links transformers the movie and boogie nights?
9. what comic inspired the website that i stole that question from?
10. who wins this weeks quiz?

is it a little obvious that i struggled this week? it's more like i just gave up. i tried to hide this fact by mixing up the last minute questions (such as ones about sellotape) with the proper ones (proper ones?!?). so email me the answers and i'll let you win. hurrah.

due to the poor quality of questions i'm going to try really hard not to force myself to do another one next week. either way. there is now a friday quiz archive with answers. and if you are lucky/unlucky enough to be using a reasonable version of explorer you get them upside down. c'mon, that is service.

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