Tune in for October 2006

There will be Big News.

Revolution!

I have recently come to the conclusion that there is a mighty gap in the food service industry. A gap that a savvy businessman such as myself could make a lot of money exploiting. It's not just another gimmicky shop, it's a giant leap in culinary evolution. In a thousand years time, when the world is at peace and human suffering is a thing of the past, curious citizens will look back to try and find the point where it all finally started going right. That point is here. Now. Today.

Jimmy: "Gee, I sure am hungry, but I just can't be bothered to cook."
Billy: "Why don't you get a takeaway?"
Jimmy: "Ehh, I don't want pizza."
Billy: "How about a Chinese?"
Jimmy: "I'm sick of it all! It leaves me feeling ferociously dirty. Down there."

Exchanges JUST LIKE THAT are going on EVERY MINUTE around the world! We are talking literally TENS of people who are going to bed hungry because the existing takeaway infrastructure cannot cater to their diet!

It is clear that the concept of 'takeaway' has failed. It is the VHS of food. Sure it's better than nothing, but you'd rather watch a DVD. Of course, before DVDs came about you settled for VHS takeaways because you DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THERE COULD BE SOMETHING BETTER!

So why do we cling to this archaic tradition? Where is the DVD of food?

I say, who cares?!

That's SMALL thinking. It's time to think DELICIOUS! Stay with me, guys. Here's where it gets a bit fruity. I say, let's skip the DVD stage. Just bypass it. Jump straight into the High Definition DVD revolution. No middleman. No compromise. Pure quality.

Wave goodbye to takeaway...

And say a big "hell yeah" to STEAKAWAY!








YEAAAAAAH!!!!









Maximum steak, minimum wait. One phone call and you can get a finely charred bovine slice delivered direct to your door. Walking along the street, don't have time for a sit down meal? Just grab a quick steakaway from the nearest steakaway stand and take your steak, and your hunger, away!

Think about it.

Once steakaway goes global no-one will ever be hungry again! Except the vegetarians, but they're an evolutionary cul-de-sac anyway, so their chorus of disapproval can only DECREASE!

Jimmy: "Gee, I sure am hungry, but I just can't be bothered to cook."
Billy: "Why don't you get a takeaway?"
Trevor: "Why don't you get a steakaway?"
Jimmy: "Ha! HA! HA!!! That's it! Hell yeah! That's what I've ALWAYS wanted!"
Sally: "Oh Trevor, you're so wise. I'm going to sleep with you."
Trevor: "Poor simple Sally. Why stay in for salmon, when I can go out for steak?"

- STEAKAWAY -
Hell Yeah!

Maybe that could be the logo? I don't know I am not good with business.

Whoops

It somehow seems to be March and I could not tell you how. March is virtually April and April is just a stone's throw from May and when it gets to May I'm afraid I will have to shut down completely. Of course, after May comes June and that is when it all gets rather exciting, what with the dual thrills of Finishing University and Having To Get A Job.

The obvious route would be to move back in with my parents and devote my time exclusively to online pursuits and the betterment of mankind, living off their hospitality and having a whale of a time. Unfortunately I fear this door can never be opened. Mostly because my parents are changing the locks and I will not have a key. Also they are selling the house. And emigrating.

Ah well, c'est la merde! I'm sure I'll find my career genre.

In other news, meaty progress is being made with Bookman. Episode 1 has been broadcast to an overall positive reaction, which is pretty darn groovy. I'm desperately proud of the whole thing because everyone involved has really gone above-and-beyond anything I ever hoped or expected. At the end of the day, I've been making outrageous demands on a lot of people's free time in exchange only for the dubious worth of my friendship and an occasional pint of Magners. I have great friends. It's been a hella steep learning curve, and I've made a lot of mistakes but damn it all if hasn't been worth it.

There is still a lot more to be done, but being able to watch one episode has really injected a lot of life back into the project. The second episode should be done by Wednesday and after that the momentum should be unstoppable. Hopefully all six will be done by the end of April and a lovely DVD can be produced for all the cast and crew and anyone else who might want one. One helluva year, whichever way you want to cut it.

Piers Morgan's The Insider is bloody brilliant, by the way. Now I want to be a hotshot tabloid editor.

I guess I could start by updating this frequently...

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

Finally seen Office Space.

Now I understand this:

It was a big deal to me 10 minutes ago.


Edit: Blogger sucks at uploading pictures. That's totally supposed to animate. It's a guy punching over and over and over again. Turns out he's punching a photocopier. I know! Blows your mind, don't it? For years I figured he was beating down his wife or something. Never did I imagine it would be office equipment. Simply mind boggling. Wow.

How is it December?

It has all gone a bit fast, hasn't it? I mean, like, everything. The six week summer holiday from school used to last forever, used to be so long it got dull. In the end I used to pray for school to start just to release me from the monotony. Where did the last six weeks go? Hell, where did the last six months go? I know I've been busy but, well, damn.

I haven't lost the time, I know pretty much what I did. It just seems like it shouldn't have happened so quickly. As Ferris Bueller once said - "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it". Oh 80s, you're so wise.

I watched Desperado for the first time last night. It impressed me a lot. Antonio Banderas is an actor I've only really been exposed to in Zorro and, let's face it, that's not exactly an exceptional piece of cinema. In this though, he kicked a lot of ass. Robert Rodriguez is one of those annoying people in cinema who are so disgustingly talented that they make it seem easy and achievable for the rest of us. I can't decide if I love him or hate him jealously. I think both.

Time to get a guitar case.

Not dead.

Just busy.

- Skater Boy is apparently being turned into a film. Isn't that silly? I thought it was silly so I have been making a parody of what I think it would be like. She dies at the end.

- Bookman continues. Big shoot on Thursday. Hope to finish the first episode by November. Will it be available online? Does anyone care? All these questions and more will likely never be answered. I am going to fight a Scottish mime and a Mexican Wrestler-Poet.

- Dissertation. Big ole long essay. Huurrrghghhhh.

- Helped out in a short film called 8. It is about a guy tormented by the number 8. I played Boy George, a coal miner of ill repute.

- Didn't sleep much.

- Ate poorly.

- Continued to ballroom dance with limited success. Now can Quick Step, Jive and Rumba without maiming feet. Count it as victory.

- Started making lists about everything to remind me to pay bills and phone people.

- Forgot to pay bills.

- And phone people.

- Must remember to buy more chicken sausages.

- I am seeing the Backstreet Boys tomorrow. I am still not entirely sure why.

- Wait, I do know why. It is because I am a fag and the Backstreet Boys are fags and have I heard this hilarious parody of 'I Want It That Way'?

- Yes I have.

- Also helping out on new cooking show called Better Than Takeaway. It is good fun.

"See the white bits on the chicken where it used to be pink? That means you won't get Salmonella."
"What's Salmonella?"
"It's a disease."
"Like AIDS?"
"No, well kinda, except you can't get Salmonella through sexual contact."

I feel it may be censored before broadcast.



I don't know who is in this picture as I found it on the Internet, but the mask looks the same as the mask I bought.

El Poeta Diablo is born.

Cosmic!

Hello, blog-readers! If you have forgotten, this is Trevor. You are reading my blog which is being updated because if I kept from blogging ONE MORE DAY, the rest of the site would disown me. In fact, they are calling me XVII Bones now and I feel a terrible shame. For the past year, I have been horrendously busy, but within the past month, I have been busier than I have ever been in my entire life - COMBINED! That is why I have neglected you all. Because I literally have 30 seconds to myself everyday, and that is not long enough to compose even a sentence! This is why Amanda is actually writing this for me.

HAHA THAT'S RIGHT THIS IS AMANDA, SUCKERS!!!!


And now it is Trevor. Hello! I have decided to forgo my typical 3 minutes for dinner in order to write a precious few sentences. I have already wasted 4 of them (inclusive [not counting "Hello!"]) so I shall get straight to the meat. Where have I been? What have I done? Who have I seen? I can only answer "Yes", "No" and "Mimes" (in no particular order).

I did go to a free beginners' Ballroom Dancing class yesterday with my housemate. There were about 10 guys and 9,000 girls there, so when everyone paired up I felt distinctly marginalised and strangely sought after. The best part was when everyone was doing quite an active Cha-Cha-Cha. It was fun because I got to shout "Cha! Cha! CHACHACHA!" over and over again and also because it was like those scenes in Teen Films where all the couples at the prom suddenly do an intricate and choreographed dance routine that would never, ever happen in real life unless you were at a free beginners' Ballroom Dancing class learning how to Cha-Cha-Cha.

On Friday I am going to a free (yes, yes, I am poor) Breakdancing class. I don't think I will be very good at it, as I am weak and very white, but it will be an experience if nothing else.

Maybe they will let me Cha-Cha-Cha?

Celebrating in style

It's not every day you turn 20 and I wanted to do something special, so I thought to myself, "What's a really unstable region right now?".

That's why I'm going to the Middle East, specifically Israel to busk and dance and frolic and drink til I'm pretty.

I'll see you guys in two weeks.

I feel better

It was good to get that out while I still could.

OH GOD I AM ONLY NINETEEN FOR THREE MORE HOURS

It is time for my second midlife crisis. My first took place at 9 years old after I ate some buttered toast and collapsed. Faced with my own mortality in a seafront café I panicked and thought I would never make it beyond 18. Well, I sure proved the pre-pubescent me wrong!

I also just spent 30 seconds spell-checking pubescent.

And I was right first time!

It looked wrong because my brain was reading it as pube scent, which I couldn't believe was right as it makes me die inside. Sigh. Back to my neuroses.

Any possibility of reaching 40 is, of course, ridiculous, so I think I am perfectly justified in having a wee crisis. In a few hours I won't be able to use "It's ok, I'm a wayward teenager with out-of-control hormones" as an excuse without having to LIE. I'll have to say "I'm terribly sorry sir, but I slipped and it just fell in there and we were both too polite to mention it", and there's simply no way that will fly!

I can't have angst. I know I've written about this before, but I still feel cheated. I need some unjustified heartbreak and an appropriate CD with which to open my veins. Maybe an AOL Dial-on-Demand thing. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any of those about lately. We used to have several hundred delivered each day, but they seem to have dried up. That was the time when we were actually using AOL as our ISP, so that made them even MORE annoying. Now that we've switched to strangely slow and poorly configured broadband they have, obviously, stopped arriving.

IT IS SO DEPRESSING THAT THE RANT ABOUT AOL IS THE BEST ANGST I CAN MUSTER AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS OF LIFE

Can I have angst about having no angst? Some kind of meta-angst. Like that song Ironic is meta-irony because half of it isn't ironic at all. That's like me. On a scale of 1 to Angst, I'm Alanis Morisette. I can't be as well adjusted as I think I am - I spent most of my formative years on the Internet, dammit. I am so repressed it should be a crime. This is HONEST, man. This is RAW. This is the stuff they DON'T show you on television. This is REAL. So go to hell all you teenage pregnancies. I could've got pregnant if I wanted, but I am SMART. And go to hell all you junkies, stoners and dweebs. I could've been high, stoned or archaic slang but again I'm SMART. Maybe if I hadn't been so SMART I might have LIVED A LITTLE and I wouldn't have so little ANGST to be ANGSTY about, but I made GOOD CHOICES. I had a happy childhood, man. Don't put me on trial. I rebelled against my middle-class upbringing in my own way. Sure I didn't get a tattoo, or a piercing, or dye my hair, or wear controversial clothing, but for a whole year I replied to every question with MONKEYFISH. That's pretty hardcore, right there. Hey Trev, how's it going? Monkeyfish. What? Monkeyfish. What does that mean? Monkeyfish. Why do you keep saying that? Monkeyfish. Yeah I'm the wittiest man alive and that is DARK, man. Sinister. Grade A crazybatch. Better than getting a 12 gauge through your nipple and a butterfly on your lower back. My 12 gauge is through my MIND, man. My butterfly is sloppily tattooed on my cerebellum with a needle of regret by a retired trucker of missed opportunities. So don't talk to me about pain. You don't know pain till you've been to an all boys secondary school for 7 years. You think that doesn't leave scars? I've got hang-ups, man! MAJOR hang-ups. They used to be private hang-ups, but dammit now I'm PROMOTING them. So back off. Just back right off. You've had a hard life? Have you DIED, man? Because I have. That's right, I stopped breathing for a few minutes but you know what, I came back. That takes stones. Big honking stones, pedro. You don't know jack about either of my lives so you can go on and ride your judge horse home to self-righteousville. He who is without sin cast the first stone. That's from the BIBLE, man. You know the BIBLE? That's the book you don't care about because you're OH SO MODERN and RATIONAL and SCIENTIFIC. Well maybe there's a reason it's outsold Harry damn Potter. The Bible's been in publication for 2000 years, and I sure as hell don't see Douglas bloody Adams in every hotel room around the world. MAYBE THERE'S A REASON! Make sense? Make a coherent point? Everything has to make sense to you people. Can't you just take something as it is. Why do you constantly have to stare at peculiarities and draw attention to the difference. Think of the children, man! The CHILDREN!

PARAGRAPHS!

PARAGRAPHS!!!

Shopping List

General:
Inflatable air guitars (2+)
Inflatable microphone
Banquetting Roll
Insulation Tape
A4 Paper
A3 Paper
Thick card
Marker Pens
Poster paint
Face paint

Day 1:
Futuristic Decorations
Time Machine

Day 3:
Posh decorations
Rap outfits (Giant gold chains?)

Day 5:
Watering Can
Seeds
COSTUME: Oxen (x2)
Chariot?
Paddling pool
Swamp decorations
Balloons x 200
12 inches of string x 200
Straws and tubes and things for siphoning
10 x Large Bowls
60 Large Cardboard Boxes
Sturdy Rope
Brightly coloured Ball Pool balls
Guttering (significant amounts)
(Glue gun? Saw?)

Day 6:
Cloak
Walking stick
Chauffeur cap
Security costumes – earpieces?

Day 7:
Water pistols
Ninjas x 3
Ornate Divan
Corkboards x 12
Bee costume
Cow costume (double up oxen?)
Milk and honey
Lots of torches
Gavel
Fake money (and lots of it!)
Detective costume (trenchcoat, hat?)

Day 8:
Placards
Boxing Gloves
Parking Warden costume

Day 9:
Rock and roll decorations
Clothes from different nationalities – French, German, Russia, Transylvanian, etc.
Jonathan Ross

Hello!

It is a warm, warm day.
I have been driving for a long, long time.
My car retains heat very, very easily.
I perspire occasionally.
It is not pleasant.

Urgh.

A lot has been happening to me. I have been listening to Irene Cara and Cher a whole bunch. I think it is the sunstroke.

Stephen Clarke entertains. A Year in the Merde, indeed.

My nose is an unfortunate shade of ill. I think it is the sunstroke.

I need to find an engagement gift. I am too young to have friends getting married. What is acceptable these days?

I keep sticking to my chair and having to peel myself off. It is not very a-peeling. Ha. Ha. Ha. I made the same gag about half an hour ago talking to Amanda, and I think this proves that my brain is really not on any kind of sustained activity place. I think that should be in and not on, but I've come too far to back out now. So yes, Brain, you are slow and clumsy like the drunk mute.

I think it is the sunstroke.

My back is really itchy

Warm weather agrees with me not at all.

Filming on Absolutely Not About Reading has ceased until after summer, giving me time to fiddle with the footage, write the rest of the episodes and sort out props. I have filmed another couple of scenes since the last entry, mostly stuff involving The Librarian and Bookman's unresolved sexual tension. Disgusting levels of innuendo abound.

Sadly, I don't think I'll be allowed to film in the library anymore. Apparently the Bookman costume "intimidates" the other patrons. They may also have seen me salsa dancing between the shelves, I'm not sure. Oh well.

Amanda's latest comic is even more hilarious than anything she has produced to date. It is likely the most mentally divergent adventure ever committed to paper. I enjoy speaking in absolutes about matters of opinion because you can never prove me wrong. Ever. See I'm still doing it. Because all of you are unworthy of intelligent discourse. Dammit why can't I stop? So yes! In the next few days look out for a new Amandacomic. It is PURE SEXY COOL!

Notice I am not abusing Jeremy for being slow to update. This is because he has finally put up devilspoon. This wins him a two-week grace period and a letterbomb. Of LOVE!

Bookman Update

The first scenes with Bookman and his sidekick Page Boy (who is actually a girl) have been filmed. They were pretty complicated in places and I suck at directing action, so I may do some reshoots, but as a proof-of-concept they kick comedy ass.

We filmed outside the student union and one scene involved helpless female cliché Sasha McPetal having her bag stolen by nefarious two-bit hood Rob Burr. The first take went fine, but I wanted a second to be safe. This time round, one member of the public thought they were witnessing an actual theft. We found their reaction hilarious because they were comedy shocked and surprised, but looking back on it I am kinda sad because they didn't do anything like chase after the criminal, or even call the police. Where is community spirit?

It seems the world needs heroes.



He spies INJUSTICE!

This is quite easily the most fun shoot I have ever been on. I think it has something to do with wearing a cape. It makes everything seem easy-to-deal-with. Someone has a problem? I'll handle it! Stride forward, cape billows. Ooooh!

However, I fear I will never be allowed to film in the library again since I collapsed in hysterics when they told me I was "intimidating" other patrons.



In other Booman news, one of my crew drew a pretty lol sketch of Bookman. I showed it to Jeremy and he responded. Oh em gee, Jeremy. Oh em gee.

INCREDIBLE UPDATE: Amanda has since entered the fray with her own smashing take on the character. It is expression perfection!

So I'm busy...

No, really. Lots of projects going on at the moment. I shall explain two of them.

Mala Calidad

It is a parody of Spanish soap operas (literally meaning Poor Quality) with an emphasis on shocking accents and dubious facial hair.

I play Manuel Diablo. I emerge at the end of the first episode to find my beloved wife Maria about to kiss the sexy barman Diego. She thought I had died in the shipwreck. She was wrong. I drop to my knees and, staring in confusion at the sky, scream "Por que? POR QUE?!"

Fade to black.

"Hay un fuego en mis pantalones."- MANUEL DIABLO

Absolutely Not About Reading (ANAR)

This is my first attempt at making a series. I am aiming to make 6 episodes before I die, which doesn't seem too unreasonable. Then again, based on my track record of following through with things I start, it seems probable that I will in fact end up further away than where I started.

Nevertheless! I crack on.

Basically this is a show based around promoting literacy. It has a strong "Books are cool!" theme throughout and this is what links a series of skits. We have an old man who is harassing some random kid who only wants to play computer games. We have three deranged individuals who abduct book haters and force them to read from famous novels under threats of extreme physical violence. We have a group of publishers who meet and discuss how to make books more relevant to young people. That last one is funnier than it sounds. Honest. Finally, we have Bookman.

Who is Bookman?

Bookman is the real star of ANAR (yes I know it sounds like anal, hur hur hur).

He is a superhero lacking any kind of superpower. Unless you count self-delusion as a superpower. With his sidekick Page Boy (who is actually a girl) he fights selflessly against the evil forces of Dr Ill Iteracy, Miss Mass Media and Short Attention Span Man!

Just look at his super-emblem!

Doesn't that stir something deep within you? OH HELL YEAH IT DOES!

After a couple of months of pre-production filming finally started yesterday. All of the scenes for the first three episodes that involve Dr Ill Iteracy are done, which is ridiculously good going. Looking at the rough cut they are rather hilarious indeed.

Dr Ill Iteracy! Now with 66% more Diabolical!


He has kidnapped the famous author, Michael S. Adams. But why?


"You will write me a book, one so terrible that all who read from it will hate not just it, but the entire concept of writing!"

Michael S. Adams is resolute! He won't help this monster!


"I won't help you, monster!"


LATER ON....




Miss Mass Media explains to Dr Ill Iteracy why she failed to kill Bookman.

Short Attention Span Man wears the ugliest cardigan ever to exist.


So yes. I am pleased with how it is going so far.

Tomorrow we film the first Bookman and Pageboy scenes. I am a bit worried because this show is a massive ego trip for me and as such it falls to me to take the titular part. Oh well, if Orson Welles can write, produce, direct and star in his own films then I sure as hell can hilariously fail trying.

At the very least I'll come out of this whole experience with a really neat cape.


STYLIN!

Never again

Today is Yom Ha-Shoa, the Jewish day of rememberance for the Holocaust. Whenever the subject is raised the six million who died during the Holocaust is mentioned. The only resonance 6 million has to me is that it is a really big number. My head is screaming at me to make it mean more than the other really big numbers I used to calculate in maths lessons but in my heart all I can see is the result of 3,000,000 x 2.

"One death is a tragedy. One million is a statistic." - Stalin

Six million? What's six million? I cannot grasp the magnitude, the reality. Who can empathise with abstraction?

Show me skeletal families lined up in neat rows behind barbed wire. Show me a child's abandoned bear silently seeing off an overflowing train bound to Auschwitz. Show me a large room filled with row upon row of clinical showers. Show me a cart piled high with starved corpses, limp and squeezed together. It's OK, they're not people, they're not like us. They're cargo. They're nothing. Chuck them on, pile them high. We need to get from A to B. It's been a long day and the sooner we get them in the ground, the sooner we can go home to our wives and our families. Tomorrow's another day. 178 down, 5,999,822 to go.

And show me this repeated. Over and over and over and over again because they were not going to stop until every single person they deemed unworthy was dead.

I stare at that picture of a cart and force myself to count. At least 25 bodies piled one on top of the other. Every single one was a person with a life, with friends, hopes and a future. The sheer amount of waste was staggering. And it was OTHER PEOPLE with their own friends, their own hopes and futures who did this awful thing. The thought makes me sick. Six million.

Never again.

It worries me that in a recent poll of 4000 youths, over 60% knew nothing about Auschwitz.

It worries me that I see a generation growing up who don't know, who don't care and who don't even know enough to know they don't know.

It worries me that in the not-too-distant future there will be no more survivers of World War 2, no-one who was there.

It especially worries me that even now, with grandparents and great-grandparents who WERE there, who DID witness the horror, genocide continues.

Never again?

Tell that to Uganda, Turkey, Bosnia, Cambodia, Tibet, Russia, and more.

6 million people died and we light a candle and say 'never again'. For once, I don't have a joke or a one-liner. I am trying to put myself in their place, to see what it was like, to see behaviour so far outside my experience it doesn't seem real. But the grainy black and white picture of Nazi guards hurling yet another broken body onto a cart reminds me that it is real. It did happen. Suddenly, I'm very aware that without the commitment of my grandfather's generation my parents wouldn't be alive. I wouldn't be alive. Suddenly, it's very, very personal.

6 million people died and we light a candle and say 'never again'. A powerful gesture. A symbolic gesture. I'll do all I can to make damn sure it isn't a hollow one.

A family holiday without a family!

I spent the last five days at the Oasis Whinfell branch of Center Parcs. There were eight of us motley student people living in a four bedroom log cabin thing. It was the kind of place I like because while it was full of nature (which I hate) it was very obviously tamed nature.

Nature knew its place.

And its place was to sit either side of the paths and not intrude. I like that.

I rode a bike a whole bunch for the first time in years. I am not built for bikes. I asked them for a chariot that I could strap to the backs of four other bikes and be pulled around like Ben Hur, but they were all out. I became very saddle-sore and nearly ran over many, many slow moving children.

Oh yes, for some reason it was a Scottish school holiday and the place was packed with Scottish families. Scottish families and the eight of us. Boy did we feel out of place. Mums and dads with their kids out enjoying a nice family bike ride being interrupted by frantic bell ringing and cries of "Death from behind!", "Hurry up you lazy goit" and "Squirrel! Five points!" from scraggly degenerates. Seriously, the bells were awesome. I'm going to start carrying one as an affectation and ring it when in danger or in doubt.

Designing things badly

Why would someone, when asked to design, for instance, a chair, purposefully make it uncomfortable to sit on? Personally that would be high up on my list of Things That Make A Good Chair. Closely followed by making one that didn't wobble and one that was attractive to look at.

According to this criteria I recently found the world's worst chair. It was in a service station and was in fact physically painful to sit on. I think this takes a special effort, so I want to say a special "Go Die" to the designer of that chair. Better yet, I'll just strap him to one of his own chairs and wait for his spine to explode.

Words cannot adequately describe how sinfully terrible this chair was, so I have drawn a picture.

THE DEVIL CHAIR!

¿EL CHAIRO DIABLO?

Hate, thy name is Ugly Green Chair.

With your pubs and your clubs and your ministry of sound

I love libraries. Something about them is immensely appealing to me. A massive variety of books mixed with the sort of people who choose to spend their afternoons in a library make the average public library a fantastic place to visit. For the last year and a half, I've only really been going to University libraries which are full of students and books of learning. They are nice enough places, but a bit bland. Everyone is there to work and there's only so many times you can change the last search on all the library index computers to "Trapped in library index computer. Send help!" before you are arrested by the humour police. University libraries are just SO BORING!

Public libraries on the other hand, are awesome. I visited my local public library today with the intent to work on an impending essay. The plan was to plagarise heavily from my earlier writings and any obscure books I could find. The fiction section beckoned me alluringly in a manner which I found alluring and I found its allure too alluring to resist. As I browsed the A-Z of authors, two oddities became quickly apparent. First there seemed to be nothing at all by Stephen King and second I was being followed. I judged her to be about middle aged. She had a hairlip and she talked to herself.

It all brought to mind an incident that had occurred a week earlier. I was walking down the high street and I heard a man coming towards me having a very angry conversation with someone I couldn't see. I assumed he had one of those newfangled phone earpieces and I took a moment to reflect on the forward march of progress. As he got closer I realised he was mad and I took a second moment to reflect that he was probably enjoying his conversation far more than anyone who actually had a mobile earpiece. I'm not sure why, but this put me in a fantastic mood for the rest of the day. Anyway, back to the latest crazy person.

She wasn't being too obvious about following me, but if I turned down an aisle, several moments later she would join me. Then when I left, she would wait for a short time and follow. I wasn't sure what to do. When I listened to her muttering it didn't really give me any clues. Judging her harmless, I resolved to ignore her until I had solved my first mystery - that of the missing Stephen King. I have mentioned before how I have been reading his Dark Tower series. It's fun stuff and, unlike many series, has now been finished. However, according to the many bookshops I have consulted on the matter, the books will not be out in paperback for a very long time. We're talking years. As a consumer, this annoys me. Generally I prefer to buy books that I enjoy, as I will re-read them many times and be able to lend them to people to broaden their literary horizons. I do not enjoy paying £25 for one book, especially as it is heavier to carry than the cheaper versions. It strikes me that I am paying extra for a feature I do not want. You won't be weighing down MY hand-luggage, Mr King (or your publishers), no sir!

I'm sort of the Patron Saint of Paperbacks.

My library quest was a way to read these books and achieve closure without betraying my principles. I could read them for free, wait a couple of years until they are out in paperback, buy them and complete my collection. A good plan, no? But it was being foiled by my inability to locate any Stephen King at all. Not even a Shining! In most libraries and book shops there are whole shelves dedicated purely to King, that beautifully prolific monster. Not this one, it would seem.

Perhaps they were all out on loan?

I gave crazy lady the slip and veered dizzily at the nearest computer. The venture proved fruitless as the computer did not work. Well, not entirely fruitless. I noticed what looked like stale banana smeared over the casing which, on reflection, may have contributed to the non-functionality of that particular terminal. I love public libraries.

It was back to the aisles to search the old fashioned way. Crazy lady was nowhere to be seen but, like the Peter Pan crocodile, I was certain I would be able to hear her coming. I scoured those damn aisles for ages. You'd think Stephen King would be filed under K, or maybe even S if the librarians were stupid, but no. Both places bare. I tried to put myself in the mindset of a small town librarian and veered uncontrollably towards a frighteningly tall stack of Jane Austen novels.

Just as I was about to give up I heard the detached mutterings of my old friend and wobbled dramatically into the nearest aisle. It should be noted at this point that in a nasty twist of fate I am currently exceedingly ill and my symptons chiefly involve a high fever and a penchant for falling over. Needless to say it made the entire trip hugely exciting. As I took stock of my booky hiding place I suddenly realised with delight that I had located the Stephen King section, sensibly categorised between comics and Fantasy, next to books with titles like Elven Queen Luscioux's Quest To Get Her Kit Off. Or at least that's what I surmised the title was from the possibly terrifying and definitely creepy cover drawings. The actual number of King novels in evidence was disappointingly small and I was unable to locate either of the books I wanted. It was time to go upstairs and do my essay.

I turned to leave and who should be making her delightfully insane way toward me? Who else but crazy lady? I realised that I would have to deal with one more issue before I could work. OK crazy lady, you want to follow me? THEN FOLLOW ME ALL THE WAY TO HELL!

I walked into a toilet, had a fantastic poop and when I emerged she was gone. I love happy endings.

I found myself a desk and began to scribble notes about Interest Groups in my chicken scratch cavalier scrawl. I hope that last sentence establishes in your mind that I do not have good handwriting. Because that was what I wanted. Now those of you reading this who also have bad handwriting will relate more to the story. It's a clever technique that often works when you aren't made undeniably aware of it by lazy writers.

Hello. I am being watched. No wait, he's not actually looking at me. He's looking sort of through me. I turned around. There was nothing but blank wall behind me. Has someone managed to switch my t-shirt for one that has a Magic-Eye puzzle on it without me knowing? A quick check proved that this was disappointingly not the case. This particular gentleman was quite short, quite stocky and I assume, based on the evidence at hand, quite mad. I decided to ignore him.

This proved tricky as he honestly seemed to have nothing better to do than stare at some imaginary point exactly three inches behind me. Every so often I would look up, try to catch his eye, fail completely and, defeated, go back to working. I began to notice that every five minutes or so he would wave around a book he had in his hand as if to say, "Look! I am holding a book therefore I am using the library and therefore I have every right to be as sinister as possible!". Then it was straight back to the staring.

After an hour and a half of this, yes, 90 minutes of creepy stares, I managed to catch his eye. He was surprised, I think. He was definitely flustered. He spun on the spot for a while in what I assume was either his attempt to look casual or his attempt to drill through the floor. It took him a good few minutes to decide on a plan of action. He strode purposefully all of three metres to a nearby photocopier, placed the book he was holding on the transparent bit, held it down as if he intended to photocopy something and resumed staring at the same point three inches behind me. I was filled inexplicably with admiration.

Now every five minutes he would raise and lower the lid of the photocopier as if to say, "Look! I am now using library facilities to photocopy from a book I located within the library. This excuses everything!". As yet another dizzy spell struck me, I realised something that I should have realised a long time ago.

It was time to go home.

As I left my desk I watched Staring Guy continuing to stare and raise and lower that photocopier lid. A part of me likes to hope he's still there now, stood alone in a dark library, a thin trickle of drool decorating the determined jut of his jaw. Bless you, Staring Guy. I pray one day you find what you're looking for. I also pray that no-one ever wants to use that photocopier because, well, the toner cartridge is probably full of yoghurt.

I love public libraries.

Neither here nor there

So the last four or maybe five days I've been helping to run a Spring Camp for overpriveleged kids. I, along with one of my friends, was responsible for 17 of them. They were all 12-13 years old and when they were alone, some of them were kinda interesting to talk to and be around. However, when they roamed in their pack it was like a swarm of 'Rapters leaping on the back of a T-Rex and ripping at its neck with Tiffany jewellery and I-pods.

It was overall a postive experience, but I did manage to lose my voice. It now only works at the 'Barry White' frequency. If I try and go louder, quieter, higher or lower than a very specific scratchy bass rumbling, it cuts out. This is most frustrating, but we must make the best of these situations.

Currently there is last minute packing going on. I am preparing to leave on yet another trip. This time I shall be driving to Cambridge (to collect a passenger), followed by Nottingham (to attend a party) and finally on to Loughborough (to attend the National Student TV Awards conference thing). This shall be a landmark trip because it will be the furthest and the longest trip I will make driving a car. It will also be a landmark trip because it will be the last trip I make driving a car. Driving is hard. Motorways are hard. Unfamiliar roads are hard. In these circumstances, staying alive? Also hard.

I have a new mobile phone. It is a strange and confusing beast. I don't like it. The key that makes a space after a word is different. Stupid change.

In other news, Stephen King should hurry up and release the last two Dark Tower books in paperback so I can read them. CLOSURE, dammit!

Goodbye.

Strepsils Soothe

So the play is finished now. It went well, I think. I did have a horror experience when it came to removing mascara because it seems like nine metric tons of the stuff ended up on my face. Makeup is a strange and confusing beast, but I am nevertheless a very pretty man.

Last night my uncle took me to his filmmaker's club. Upon my arrival the average age in the room shot down to about 45. I got to meet lots of fun people with names like Fred, Kenneth and Lester who wear hearing aids and do the handshaking thing where they squeeze your upper arm and shake your hand forward-back, not up-down. I want to be an old amateur filmmaker as soon as possible.

I have recently driven on a motorway for the first time in my life. Lord. People are maniacs. I cannot wait for the time when I have another lane installed in all roads for my sole use. It is possible that this time may never come, but I remain hopeful.

Disease stalks my existence. After so long in relative health, the balance of pestilence has intervened once more to strike me down. I am currently running an obscene fever and should probably be doing anything but sit at the computer.

The two books I have read most recently are Songs of the Doomed by Hunter S Thompson and Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I am going to recommend them both to you because anything Hunter writes is worth reading, and this Maguire book is very entertaining. He tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West (from the Wizard of Oz) from her point of view.

I went shopping yesterday and bought two videos for £1 each. Igby Goes Down and Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. Both are films I've wanted to see for a while, so I hope they won't disappoint. The Culkin family look very similar.

My syntax freewheels out of control. I bid you good day.

[Blog Entry]

[Anecdote]
[Aside Comment]
[Throwaway Remark]
[Second Anecdote]
[Third Anecdote]
[Dubious Punchline Vaguely Related to Throwaway Remark]


Too busy to blog, insert your own.

Born to be mild

So I'm 19.

But I won't be 19 forever and when that happens I'll be 20. And when I'm 20 I won't be a teenager anymore. No big deal, right? Wrong! It means I won't be able to ever have teenage angst. Ever!

I figure I should at least have had some sort of pointless depression at least once while I can reasonably get away with it. Live the whole teenage experience, as it were. And where better than on a publicly accessible web log?

To begin with, here is a letter talking about very little.


Dear Real Life,

Stop it. Just stop it. We both know what you're doing and it's not funny anymore. Sure it used be amusing, even cute, but you've taken it too far. Enough is enough. If you don't cease and desist immediately, there will be consequences. Dire and mighty.

You know what I'm talking about.

Best wishes,

Trev


Wow, that was fun. I'm not really sure what I was talking about, but I'm kinda hoping Real Life will read it and go "Oh no! He's on to me! Better shape up!" and maybe I'll find some money on the floor or something. I haven't thought this one through very much.

I also wrote an angsty poem after listening to some Avril Lavigne and smearing ketchup on my wrists.


New Friend, No Friend

Growing isolation,
Surrounded and alone.
Individual nation,
Sat down on my own.

Never introduced me,
Conversation fading fast.
Hello. Hello. And how are we?
Pleasantries don't last.

An extension of your outfit,
Mere accessory,
Matching hat, matching bag,
And matching friend. That's me.

I turn to look at you,
A stranger's staring back.
My friend I thought I knew,
Has turned into a ninja.


That was even more fun, so I wrote another one.


Pointless Echoes of Pointy Shadows

L is for the love that I feel for you.
E is for Engels who I think you knew.
N is for nightmare of bourgeoisie rule.
I is the instinct that makes you so cool.
N is for no-one standing in your way.
Your revolution will happen today!

Happy V-Day, Vlad!

Love,

Trotsky x


That one got a little sidetracked, I think.

Gosh this angst thing is kinda hard.

Current mood: Salty

WHOOMP? There it is.

I, along with 41 other students, recently ran in an election for 17 places at the annual National Union of Students Conference. My policy platform was centered on women's suffrage, pirate rights and keeping secrets from the Nazis.

I will not be attending the annual National Union of Students Conference this year, but I sure as heck made some damn good posters.

A plague on BOTH your trainers!

Dance rehearsal tomorrow at 12.00 instead of 2.00, so comfortable clothes (no jeans). Bring your plimsols or jazz shoes or you'll be dancing barefoot!

Once again I am writing about Romeo and Juliet as out of all the many projects in which I am currently involved, this is the least depressing and most amusing.

I haven't owned a pair of plimsols since I was 7, the nature of jazz shoes are an enigma and I only own one pair of casual trousers that aren't jeans. The director will just have to accept training shoes and a surly attitude if he expects me to dance.

I plodded along to discover that the Masquerade Ball, a key scene in the original text because Romeo kisses Juilet for the first time, has become a choreographed dance routine set to Michael Jackson's The Way You Make Me Feel. It's certainly different.

As Paris, I spend most of this scene dancing with Juliet. This is a mixed blessing. It is good because Juliet is obscenely talented and manages somehow to keep me (mostly) in time with the music and from making too big of a prat of myself. It is bad because we are at the front of the stage a lot of the time and when you're leading the rest of the dancers in the steps, you shouldn't suck quite as much as I do. Nevertheless, I gave it my best and managed to produce a fair approximation of the complex stepping, rotating and high-fiving that everyone else pulled off with ease.

Until the lift.

When the choreographer explained that the next step involved a lift, I had visions of Flashdance and compound fractures. I made the mistake of muttering "Time to hit the gym", which is not the best thing to say within earshot of the girl you are supposed to lift. Somehow my defense of "it's not because you're fat, it's because I'm weak" failed to heal the sudden rift. Women are strange.

I was reassured when it appeared to be the simplest damn lift ever. It seemed that all I had to do was hold the girl up for half a second, balancing her mostly on my right arm. Fine. Easy. The girl was quite small and light, so I went into it fairly confident. In fact, she was so small and light that I was worried about hurting her, so the first time we did it I hardly lifted her at all. The choreographer told me off and said I should be using my hip to support her.

We tried again. It went wrong. As she soared gracefully in mid-air I smashed my hip into her side and flung her several feet across the room.

Whoops.

Sorry toots, but that's Shakespeare.

Stylish!

Oh yeah, I had the haircut. It was very traumatic because I had 18 months of knots in my hair and the cutter got very annoyed and ended up hacking them all off in frustration.

Stupid hair cutter. I will never be the same again.

Here is a recent picture of me since the procedure.



I have taken to shunning daylight and haunting old theatres.

So very, very busy and tired. Oi.

I have written another article, continuing my regular update schedule of once every six months.

I went shopping for some necessities and ended up buying this:



OH NO A SWITCHBLADE!



Ha ha just kidding BITCH I'LL COMB YOU!

Then I bought this:



Now there's no way I can make a bad film! Just like a real film-making-person-thing!

However, in the frenzy of buying all these fun items I forgot to buy the food I need to eat so I may very well die in the near future.

LEGO PIRATE BRANDISHING HEAVILY-ARMED-LEGO-MONKEY - THE ULTIMATE LEGO WEAPON! ALSO HE HAS A PISTOL!

Avast!

A date has been set

Friday 11.15 am - haircut.

Stupid Internet

I have now completed my assessments and exams for this term. Hurrah.

This is noteworthy because it has been the first exam period in about 6 years where I haven't had internet to keep me going. It mysteriously died a few weeks ago, but my friend fixed it yesterday. This meant that instead of breaking up revision and essay writing with visits to cat grooming websites and AIM conversations about cat grooming, I was forced to be inventive with my time-wasting. Leaving the house was out of the questions, so my housemates had to bear the full brunt of mindless distraction.

My first activity was to create an overly elaborate harness for one poor chap's keys which was then affixed directly above his door. This was to test the theory that, like a dog, he was unable to look up.



He never did find them and got rather distressed. My own conscience intervened at this point and through guilty hysterics I pointed above his head.

Another of my housemates has yet to return from her holiday. Her absence leaves a door dangerously unguarded. I must help defend her room!



But what use is a giant string web stretched across someone's door without...



...tin foil spider and his stumpy legs of DEATH?!

No use at all, I am sure you'd agree.

Lastly I planned and executed an insanely complex treasure hunt with the wallet of one of my housemate's as the treasure. Clues led him all over the house from our disgusting bins to inside the X-Box to under his mattress to the depths of the freezer. Unbeknownst to him it was in fact a race against time because his wallet was hidden at the back of the oven. In my opinion it gave the game an extra EDGE. With lunch time and inevitable cooking gaining, he barely managed to snatch his leather prize from the ceramic grip of fan-assisted fate and punch me solidly in the throat.

Reality is a dangerous place. I hope to never return.

A Game For Winter

What do you need?



How do you play?











I have been playing Scarf a lot.

stupid bloggy foreshadowing

I check not just once, but twice, about the ingredients in the mashed potato and I am assured not just once, but twice that there is neither milk nor egg within its crumbly matrix. As I swallow my first mouthful of it and feel my throat burst into screaming flame, I decide to allow the slight possibility that I might have been deceived not just once, but twice.

I run into the kitchen and start swallowing water hoping that the mash simply contained a whole bunch of needles and I would be able to flush them out. In between futile gulps I manage to yell something in the general direction of the chef. My stomach churns depressingly as he casually mentions that by the way I probably shouldn't eat the mashed potato as a couple of gallons of milk have just been emptied into it.

Bother!

I sprint to the Medic and cooly inform him that I am going to be very, very sick and would he mind terribly making sure I don't die? He watches me throw up everything I've eaten over the last two days into a nearby bin.

Five minutes pass.

My pulse is normal.

I try and throw up some more, but there is nothing left to evacuate. It hurts.

Ten minutes pass.

A disturbing rash appears all over my body.

I continue to hurt.

I begin to palpitate.

Five minutes pass.

I try and throw up some more, not expecting any miracles. Blood fountains from my mouth.

I begin to worry.

The medic takes this opportunity to ask me if I'm OK.

I respond by spraying some more blood in his general direction.

I have a stabbing pain in my stomach.

The medic decides to call an ambulance.

I do not fault his decision.

I stagger into the Ambulance and sit down. They begin to drive, but do not turn on the siren. For some reason this really upsets me.

Half way through the journey I realise that the stabbing pain in my stomach does not signify impending death. In fact it signifies an urgent need to poo.

"Hello Paramedic! I need to poo."
"OK."
"No, you don't understand. I need to poo. Right now."
"We have no facilities for that here."
"I feel I should inform you that I am pooing right now."

My mind boggles at the revelation that ambulances have nowhere for sick people to defecate. Am I the first person ever to poo on an ambulance? Surely a small toilet is a useful design feature to install? Hell, a barrel in the corner would do. Even prison cells have toilets.

I cannot stop myself from squeezing log after squishy log into my pants. I cannot remember a time when I have pooped anywhere but a toilet. I also cannot remember a time when I lacked any kind of ass control. This is not fun.

Through a supreme effort of will I clench both buttocks into a single horribly stained cheek and stem the brown tide of filth.

The hospital appears to be located several thousand miles away.

I wish desperately for clean underwear.

We finally arrive at the hospital and I waddle determinedly towards a toilet.

It takes half an hour before I am fully purged.

At several moments I need to brace myself against the wall.

I emerge several kilograms lighter and with the sharp pain in my chest gone.

My trousers smell. A lot.

That toilet will need to be condemned.

I get to ride in a wheel chair the full five metres from the toilet to my bed.

I get given one of those neat backless surgery gowns and someone else's name tag. I try to point this out and in response am stabbed in the finger. A quantity of blood is removed from me.

I do not feel like I am in safe hands.

The rash begins to subside.

My blood pressure is taken and found to be low.

I am feeling a lot better.

I explain that I have low blood pressure.

They do not believe me and leave me with only my effluent clothes for company.

My brother arrives with a car.

I decide that it is time to leave.

I return to the campsite.

Five minutes pass.

I am in the shower, but I will never be clean.

"Cry Havoc!"

I've just packed up my pimping gear, which includes a spare pimping suit in case anything goes wrong with my first choice. Yes, it's that time of year again when I wander off to be a Youth Leader on a Winter Camp. Not content with meaningless inter-power, I anxiously seek out petty situations I can dominate in the real world too! Oh ego, you're so wacky!

I shall be spending just over a week attempting to teach kids how to be productive members of society through a hideous combination of entertainment and informal education that I like to call intertational. I plan to use this term as much as possible. Why have I stolen all your cuddly toy animals and hung them with thick rope from the ceiling with stuffing hanging out and ketchup pools of blood beneath them? Because it's intertational, little Jimmy. Because it's intertational. Now stop your crying and learn a valuable moral lesson!

I will also be wearing a pimp suit and encouraging others to do the same.

There are reasons.

I should be back before the New Year. If I am not, assume the worst.

They probably fed me eggs.

haze

my mind is whirling and i can't focus

it's been a week and i haven't had one good night's sleep

i was hoping being at home would give me some time to relax

no dice

too many essays, too much illness, too little time

little time, little time, little time

outside it is raining inside it is draining

all critical thinking has flown away on leathery wings

splendid

Static good?

So I'm currently reading Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, which is yet another item I have purchased recently in Oxfam. They even gave me a special card that says if I spend yet MORE money, I can get some sort of voucher in the dim and distant future.

Lila was bought because I've been idly keeping an eye out for it ever since I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by the same author. I was attracted to Zen because of the snappy title, but it sure turned out to be a thought-provoking read. Oh Robert M. Pirisig, you may have a name that I can never remember, but you have books full of smarts!

It's first night Chanukah on Tuesday! I went gift shopping yesterday and come the morrow, my housemates shall receive many nifty things. Mostly projectile weaponry, but also dvds! Whoo! My only regret is that there aren't more Chanukah themed songs. Adam Sandler and dodgy parodies of Hey Ya (We spin the dreidl, oh we spin the dreidl!) should not be the limits of Chanukah-related musical entertainment. Just ONE new, catchy and original song would make me happy. Just ONE new, catchy and original song with a prominent bass line, saxaphone and maybe a breakdancing Rabbi. Is that so much to ask?

Oi vey.

Fake it 'til you make it

The theatre people got back to me again. They want me to be Paris. I said "OK" because it's clear to me that they're obscenely desperate for male parts. I wandered down to a rehearsal two days ago, pretty confident that I'd be able to handle it - I mean I just need to be cocky and say things like "These times of woe afford no time to woooooooooo!" and make ghost gestures with my hands. Easy!

Then they told me it was a 'dance rehearsal'. I was halfway out the door before I realised they wanted me to participate. Laughing in their collective faces failed to disuade them. Oh well. I shall demonstrate to them the error of their decision not through my words, but through my actions!

I have no formal dancing experience at all, excluding that time some girl tried to teach me how to waltz in time for a big dinner-dance. Foolish girl! Ballroom dancing is for people with grace, balance, hand-eye co-ordination and did I mention balance?

The choreographer got us doing stretches. Turns out that spending the majority of your time sat on internet does not give you a flexible body able to handle the rigours of THE DANCE! Being able to type a lot words per minute does not automatically translate into having the lithe, muscular body of THE DANCE! I decided that I was not starting off on the best foot (pun) when I couldn't even complete the stretches without falling over twice. I managed to play it off by saying "Whoa! Did anyone else feel that?!" and looking around worried, but I think the choreographer was on to me.

"OK guys! We'll start off slow. Just do what I do."

Starting off slow. That's good. I can handl-

"5 6 7 8 and step and step and swivel-step and arms-up 3 4 and step click step click step click step click and arms-down shoulder-turn freeze 2 3 4"

Wha-

"All together now!"

And they all did it perfectly! All of them! How I hate them with their dance experience and grace and ability to spin around on their left foot with their right foot in the air without barrelling into the girl next to them and making her glare at me, well I'm sorry little miss Ballet Lessons Since The Age Of Five, but my talents lie elsewhere. I just need to get them in a Super Smash Brothers tournament. Not so big now you're trapped in an egg, are ya?

By the end of the two hours (two hours!) I had worked out a way to fake the dance so if I hid at the back it looked like I was doing it right, but really I was just lifting my arms and walking around. Maybe this dance-play wouldn't be so bad, after all?

Then I went to yesterday's rehearsal. I wandered along ready to hit them with such gems as, "But now my lord, what say you to my suit?" which I planned to gleefully misinterpret as a reference to my snappy new Oxfam number.

First I asked them if they had a script for me. The director told me no, but not to worry, as today was a 'singing rehearsal'. I didn't even bother laughing in his face, because it was clear how this was going to turn out. But this time I wasn't alone! There was another guy who hadn't been to a singing rehearsal yet. An ally! At last!

They asked us what kind of voices we had and without hesitation the new guy said "Baritone". I hated him immediately because my answer of "Shocking" wasn't what they wanted. Of course the entire cast could sing spectacularly. I couldn't hit middle C. I couldn't even swing a puny fist in its general direction.

Terrible decision makers though they were, they weren't stupid enough to give me anything to perform solo. A plan formed! I would do what those wacky pop stars do when they can't sing - lip sync! I tested my plan.

When I sang along with everyone else the musical director would stop playing his nifty keyboard thing and say "Wait, wait, someone's a bit flat."

BUT, when I just lip synced, he had nothing but praise. "Wow guys, much better!"

After Christmas we'll be starting the actual dialogue, so until then I'll just work on that damn step click.


In other news I was recently auctioned off as a slave for £17.00.

BUSY TIMES!

The Wizard of Oz remains creepy

Three teams of two.
Twenty-four hours.
One surreal day.

That is the challenge I threw at the feet of my housemates a couple of days ago. The team that manages to have the most surreal day as judged by the other teams will be victorious. They win nothing bar respect and a fine story that they will tell and re-tell until it becomes distorted to the point of fabrication. Each team will take a digital camera to provide proof of the events they say they experienced.

While we have yet to pick a day for this monumental event, I have been trying to up the ante of surreal events within the house. So far I've spent a day dressed as a pirate without explanation, covered every door with cling film at 4.00 am and swapped the bedsheets in two rooms. I am aware of the fine line between surreal and prank and I blur that line furiously.

I bought a suit in Oxfam for £15. It smells of old man, cigars, death and oil. I like to think it was a gift from Castro to Saddam, but more likely it just belonged to a tramp with a fondness for diesel.

In other news the film I have been starring in is now completed and I shall watch it in a matter of hours. It's called "The Idiot's Guide to Filmmaking" and my character is a self-absorbed, plagarising hack of a writer-director. For some reason it wasn't that much of a stretch to get into character. Hmm, who knew?

I have run out of books that I haven't read yet. I require more. Recommend me something to purchase. Please...

I have unholy needs.

Answers on a postcard

I am still alive!

I know, I know, it's as much a shock to me as it is disappointment to you. You won't believe half of the things I've been up to since my last blog entry!

1) Handing in essays on time.
2) Discovering the lost city of Atlantis in the back of my cupboard.
3) Visiting my parents for a couple of days. New carpets.
4) Hunting mammoth in St. Kitts.
5) Spending three days in a hut with no heating and no showers. I subsisted on some crisps I found and a bowl of sugar that may or may not have already been digested once. I was with 25 other people and together we planned a 7 day winter camp adventure goodtime for spoiled children whose parents just wanted ONE WEEK to themselves IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?
6) Trepanning.
7) Cooking a chicken!
8) Becoming a chicken.
9) Developing the beginnings of a cold.
10) Anything remotely productive or beneficial.

It seems the majority of my activities and thoughts revolve around eating or cooking food. I could totally be a sitcom character who starts off well written and quickly devolves into a one-dimensional caricature constantly rehashing the same jokes for cheap laughs!

I'm also reading a book entitled "What a way to go!"
It details over 500 comedy, outrageous and grotesque ways people have died. Some famous, some not. Choose a number for your own comedy, outrageous or grotesque death!


Number 42
Mary Paterson (murdered 1828)
Paterson was a particularly beautiful Edinburgh prostitute who was murdered in 1828 by Burke and Hare so that they could sell her cadaver to the surgeons for dissection. After killing her, they carried the body through the streets of Edinburgh in broad daylight to take it to one Dr Knox. Children followed them, chanting, 'They are carrying a corpse.' Her body was so beautiful that Dr Knox preserved it in whisky for three months before dissecting it. He paid £10 for the body, and probably as much for the whisky When Mary Paterson was laid out for dissection, some of the students recognised her and artists came to study and sketch her.

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Obligatory Halo Post

I am not a big gamer. Most games do not interest me unless they come on a small black cartridge with a hedgehog on it or a larger grey one that you need to blow on. One of my housemates, however, is a big gamer. Not fat, just really, really into his games. He recently acquired for the house an X-box which he insisted be hooked up to the main TV. After my plan to hook up the mighty megadrive to that same TV was unanimously shot down, I was hurt when everyone voted in favour of his proposal. Gotta roll with the punches.

And so, it came to pass that X-box became the console of choice in the House of the Trev.

I had never used an X-box before. In fact the most advanced console I have used regularly is an N-64 playing Super Smash Brothers until my face melted. This was several years ago. Oh, I also played Tekken 3 a whole bunch of times on my friend's playstation. My point is that I am not down with these new-fangled gizmos with their 'loading times' and 'internet'.

"Come play some Halo with us!"

I ignored their cry because I saw that this Halo was of the first person shooter genre. I am no good at the first person shooter genre. I was good at Wolfenstein when I was 9 and terrible at Goldeneye when I was 14. Everything other first person shooter I have played has been a boring catastrophe. A slow-moving train wreck packed with explosive tedium.

"Come oooooooon!"

They made a convincing argument so I gave it a go.

THESE CONTROLS MAKE NO SENSE

I spent a good hour playing multiplayer and getting destroyed. They all laughed and laughed and laughed.

THE CONTROLS REALLY DO MAKE NO SENSE

Excuses, excuses. Of course, we later found out that new players should not be playing a character called 'Inverted' where down is up and up is sideways and the button for fire makes you poop instead. I changed character.

HEY THESE CONTROLS ARE KINDA NEAT

I fear I have now caught the Halo bug. I won my first game against my housemates last night. It may have been a fluke, but I did.

I just heard that Halo 2 will be arriving tomorrow.

I hope I'll be able to spin-dash.

Chips for Breakfast

The theatre people got back to me a couple of days ago. They wanted me to go to a recall. I didn't.

In other news, I decided to write that Novel-In-A-Month thing. I am on about 300 words, so I'm kind of behind. Yet another project falls by the wayside.

That essay I was moaning about is finished. It is the worst collection of words ever to congeal on paper in this or any other language. This even includes fake made-up languages like Esperanto, Klingon and French. I need to get my head together. I've been thinking a lot about the future lately. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? It's a big world out there with a lot of opportunities, and I'd like to make the most of it. Cliché I know, but true. With this being the case, why do I utterly fail to apply myself to my University work? This is what I have wanted to do for years. I slogged and bled through insanely dull make-work for my entire childhood purely so I could have this opportunity. A lot of people would commit multiple homicides simply to be in the same position. Now that I am here why on earth am I treating time like a urinal and pissing my future away?

I can't come up with an answer and I don't like it.

I know I'm smart. I know I have the ability to do well. I know I lack any semblance of motivation.

Angst angst angst.

Genuine confusion.

Impotent rage.

Yeah I said impotent.

Hehe, impotent.

It's not funny.

My seed must be spread.

...

Sup ladies?

Update

They never did get back to me.

I can't say I'm terribly disappointed or particularly shocked, but I sure am disappointed.

What would Hanoch Piven do?

Small things, small minds

Last year I didn't have to worry about managing my time. My activities were limited and easily controlled.

This year, things have changed. For one thing, I have a job where I earn monies. It's not a particularly cool job, but it still sucks up time. For another, I am trying to write and produce a relatively involved film AND write and produce a satire on 90s television while keeping on top of an ever-increasing pile of essays.

Am I forced to do these things? Of course not.
Will I let myself give up? Of course not.

Once I take on these tasks, I feel like I must see them through. It's a part of my new decision-making process:

"What will be the more interesting chapter in my autobiography? Do that, then."

With this new process whirling around my head I came across a sign, "FIVE MALE ACTORS WANTED FOR NEW PRODUCTION OF ROMEO AND JULIET, AUDITIONS 6PM". Oh hey, that could be interesting, but then again I was thinking about going home for dinner...

Wait, it's raining outside. I will audition.

I get lost in an unfamiliar building, eventually ending up in the basement. I ask a friendly janitor with a giant boil leering at me from beneath his eyebrow for directions.

Including myself, there are three people auditioning. I notice the other two quickly doing some maths and liking the odds of getting offered a part. I ask what parts are on offer.

Romeo
Benvolio
Tybalt
Mercutio
Paris

The hell? That is every major male part in the entire play. Something's up.

They give us each a reading, which I perform with my usual cynical detachment and lewd gesticulation. So far, so good. "Now we'd like each of you to go and prepare a song."

The hell? Romeo and Juliet isn't a musical. Something's definitely up.

They assure me that I am quite wrong. I explain I cannot sing. The other two start warming up with some scales. I reiterate my lack of singing ability. They tell me to do my best. The other two smile smugly at me. I decide they are talentless hacks. I walk to the other side of the room and pick up a chair. The other two are surprised. I place the chair one metre away from the producer and director. I have everyone's complete attention. I pose outrageously on the chair. The other two are less smug. I perform a spoken word rendition of Rocketman. All of it. I hold my end pose for a full 10 seconds. The director is stunned into silence. Shatner would be proud. I collect my coat and walk out the door.

I find out tomorrow whether I got the part.

For dinner I ate my last steak and a slice of wholemeal granary loaf. I washed this down with a litre of 100% pure Florida pink grapefruit juice (not from concentrate).

How has your day been?

Prevarication

The module is entitled Approaches to Political Science and is an introduction to the various ways of studying why people make certain political choices. As usual, it is a very interesting topic taught by a disturbingly boring man. The reason I bring this up is that, for the most part, the workload is infinitesimally small, especially when compared to most other courses. This leaves me free to pursue my other interests (eating, sleeping and making pitifully self indulgent student television). Occasionally however, I am required to submit an essay in order that I can remain a part of this fine institution.

I cannot motivate myself to write something unless I am inspired. Those currently teaching me inspire me only to distance myself from the material, lest I end up like them, a hollow shell of regurgitated opinion.

I have made as many sandwiches as one can reasonably get away with, so I am forced to turn to other ways of avoiding work through debatably productive diversion.

Hi.

How convincingly can rational choice theory account for political behaviour?

Looks tricky, going to need another sandwich.

Dropping in to see what condition my condition is in

The most boring conversational topic revolves around one of the most interesting conversational enablers. Of course I am referring to the hooch, specifically those people who insist on recounting the exact volume of each beverage they drink. I was so wasted last night, I drank nineteen pints of raw ether, thirteen flagons of absinthe and my bodyweight in fine whiskey.

These lists annoy me because they serve no useful purpose.

I annoy others for a similar reason.

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A correlation

The more I drink, the better I become at bowling. Why is this so? I know not.

Could I bowl a perfect game? I think so. I would need, however, to imbibe ferocious amounts of alcohol. A challenge is extended, but I fear that accepting it might lead to death, or worse, to DEATH!

My path is clear.

The fat is in the fire now

What? There is no insight here. This is congealed self indulgence.
I care not for it.