| What comes out of my inner child, babbling, burbling |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|11:19 am] |
This is your wake up call
We control the horizontal
We control the vertical
The time is now
Captain Scarlet is Dead.
We want information.
Who are you?
The new Number Two.
What do you want?
You won't get it.
By Hook or by Crook we will.
We are the diddy men. We control the new model army.
Poor, poor Captain Black. The Mysterons own him, body and soul.
Let us die,
Let us sink down into the dark quiet,
Let it smother us,
I was a little light.
I was a little light. |
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| I hope |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|11:17 pm] |
That you pardon the candidness, candidity, candida?
I can honestly say that I have not felt as happy about being with someone. Sure, she is a lot younger than I am, and likes to make jokes about that fact to my detriment, but she is at least as mature as I am. She can follow me into my crazy place, and that is quite important I think.
Today we were out with some friends and Joe or Gawain mentioned the problem with giant rats under Valletta (there is a whole sub level to the capital city which is a badly kept secret) and she came up with the solution. 3-5 year old children, fed a diet of red bull and given knives and hammers. And today she swore at her brother. She told him to fuck off and eat his own shit (in maltese). These may be strange things to be proud of, but they made my heart glow.
Yesterday she called me up,
"I... didn't want to tell you via text message"
"What's up?"
"I... I just wanted you to know"
"What?"
"I think I am falling in love with you."
This is a good thing to know. |
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| Ah |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|07:07 am] |
Woken up at 6am by the phone, lying in girlfriend's arms, my face buried in her sweet smelling hair, arms and legs tangled.
A feeling of great comfort, love, belonging. Joy. Snatched away a second later by the voice on the other end of the phone.
Nannu died this morning at 5am, they had just got back from the hospital.
Ah.
I really felt for Tami, waking up with me to that news. I wondered what I would have done or said had it been her grandfather who passed away. Obviously she felt uncomfortable, so I let her slip out of the door. I went to wake up mum to tell her the news. |
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| More about bags |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|03:14 pm] |
Next time someone asks you, after you have paid for your shopping, if you would like a bag, spare a thought for them. Speaking as someone who says the same phrase "would you like a bag?" dozens of times every single day, I have noticed that there are a number of reactions to this question.
1. Mild Disbelief: A bag? Me? Perish the thought. I LIKE to hold things. It is what my hands are for.
2. Annoyance: Get away from me you bag dispensing FREAK
3. Delight: Why yes, thank you for your thoughfulness!
4. Wariness: A bag? I might want one. Who is asking?
5. Way too excited: I would LOVE a bag.
6. Confusion: WHAT? A BAG? WHY?
7. Eco-guilt: I forgot to bring my own bag from home, therefore I would like to use one of your bags, but only if it is free and you should know that I promise Mother Earth to dispose of this bag in a responsibile manner
8. Hostility: they say nothing, they just glower and walk out. I think this is a form of number 6, only exhibited by more paranoid customers. |
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| To a Special Teacher |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|03:11 pm] |
"Do you have a book, hekk, called To a Special Teacher" she asked, holding her hands up to display the approximate size and shape of said book.
"No," I replied, after performing a search to that effect, while knowing in my heart of hearts that once again a person has confused books with greetings cards. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 26th, 2009|12:31 pm] |
This description from a programme about Henry VIII made me do a bit of a chuckle;
"With the help of writers, historians, musicologists, film buffs and Alan Bennett, Ian sets out to analyse six images of Henry VIII"
With the help of... and Alan Bennett, and his super power of historical regression. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 20th, 2009|11:45 pm] |
"Hey Kris, have you ever thought of getting contact lenses?"
"Yeah. Contacts are a pain in the cock"
"You... you might be putting them in wrong." |
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| Retail Therapy |
[May. 18th, 2009|06:48 pm] |
Customer: I'd like a thriller, do you have any good thrillers.
Me: We have a few, I am sure. How about Da Vinci Code, have you read that?
Customer: Yes. But I want something not as hard.
Me: Not as hard....
Customer: Yes. You know, not as difficult
Me: Not as difficult.... as the da vinci code? |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 8th, 2009|12:55 pm] |
Went to see Wolverine last night.
Here is my review:
X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
HAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
seriously.
It was very bad. Bad photography. Bad CGI. Cliched use of music. Terrible dialogue. It was just bad. The only good thing about the film was the fact that it wasn't so bad I fell asleep, and the people I went to see it with, who all enjoyed the badness as much as I did. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 6th, 2009|10:40 am] |
An man in his 60s came into the shop to buy a sticker book for his young grand daughter. He asked me so many questions and looked at me with so much distrust I had to check whether I was trying to sell him a porno sticker book or something. No, just Barbie, which in some ways is so much worse.
"How do you cut them"
"You don't need to cut anything"
"But is it good for a five years girl?"
"Yes. It should be fine"
"But where does she put them"
"She can put them wherever she likes, but there are spaces in the book for all of the stickers."
"No there isn't what about this sticker"
"Look, sticker here, and on this page there is a space for the sticker. They are all there I assure you."
I mean, I know what with the fast pace of modern life it's easy to get left behind by the advance of technology but you'd think he'd have learnt how a fucking sticker works. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|10:37 am] |
Since last November or so I have been involved with this group of young writers and we've got ourselves a webzine. The aim was to put out one issue every month and so far we've managed to fail to do that, having made four issues in six months, but we are getting into shape.
The idea was to make a webzine for genre fiction, but rather than catering to just one genre we went for all of them. Hence the name, something truly terrible and as pretentiously unpretentious as we could make it: Schlock.
You can find it here. There are some pretty funky things there already and hopefully there will be more up soon. This month's theme was Steampunk, and this dovetailed with someone else's suggestion that we get ourselves some contributor pictures done.
I bottled out straight away, I hate having my picture taken and in costume? But one of the writers came to the shop and guilted me into coming along, at first to provide moral support, but fuck it, I looked for and found a costume. So I went as a secret society wizardy chap. I am the fat Gandalf.
( images under the cut ) |
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| Loose bundle of ideas about nothing in particular. |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|10:32 am] |
Recently a friend (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wrong1 ) pointed my attention to this, which set me thinking. There are too many people, even if it's just a personal observation based on the queues outside the Post Office at 8am on a monday morning, and I am all for a campaign to teach people to be more sensible about where they sow their sticky oats and how often. Something along the lines of posters outside of pubs with the slogan "Oh, mind how you go", and a picture of a condom. Or, "Take off the beer goggles before you go home" and a picture of a man and a woman with dog heads going at it up against a bin. I'm going to do my bit too by remaining a confirmed bachelor and never having children. Although the chance would be a fine thing.
Then I thought to myself, "hang on, the Catholic church would have something to say about this" because it's true, they usually do have something to say about most things. Whereas most of us consider the application of pre or post coital contraceptives to be a sensible precaution (or postcaution, if you will) should you not want to conceive, the Vatican has other idea. The Pope has come under fire recently for suggesting that condoms cause AIDS, even with Vatican spokespersons crying shrilly after the fact that the Pope's words have been misinterpreted or taken out of context this is a fairly contentious idea. No, if you're Catholic the preferred method of birth control is to abstain, or use one of the calendar methods.
"Are we gonna use that there rhythm method right? Cos I carn't listen to music when I is doin it."
I was going to segue into a rant about Christian Science, but I don't really know much about Christian Science and my link (from birth control methods with the Papal stamp to a collection of pseudo-new age beliefs posing as christian doctrine) was tenuous at best.
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| Sar Chasm |
[Apr. 14th, 2009|01:12 pm] |
I seem to be unable, today, to keep out of my voice a hint of cynicism, out of my eyes the smallest degree of weariness. I am not an expert eye-roller like some of my colleagues and friends and friends of friends.
Pause, for a moment of consumer idiocy.
"Do you have DVDs?"
"This is a bookshop"
"Do you have DVDs?"
"No."
Maybe in other countries, bookshops sell DVDs. We do, actually, have some books with DVDs attached. That conversation was not exactly representative of the entire conversation. Beware the media, they will always manipulate data to make themselves appear in a good light.
I have so far today sighed deeply, rolled my eyes, been told I have an agressive tone of voice, and stared down at people who have asked me stupid questions. There have been a large number of them today and for some reason, my ability to cope is at an all time low. I can practically hear the voice in my head telling me to just cut my wrists now. |
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| Don't you just love it when... |
[Apr. 8th, 2009|11:27 am] |
You get a customer who comes in and says:
"Do you have Loranne and Simon's book?"
"Um," At this point I am still taken aback by the idea that I might know all of the authors by their first names, "oh, Frederick wrote a good book, Forsyth you know?"
"Yes. They're abroad at the moment but they just wrote a new book. Two of them now."
"Right. Do you know the titles?"
"No, Loranne and Simon, you know. They wrote them in English."
That's when I remembered Loranne and Simon. As it turns out I do know them, that's how small Malta is. Well, I have met them a sum total of twice. Simon was nice, I didn't speak with Loranne much.
"Is this Loranne Vella and Simon Bartolo?"
"Yes" He looked at me as though this had been evident from the beginning.
I had been desperately searching the system since he had first mentioned the names, for some reason the word Triq (Maltese for street) popped into my head. As soon as I realised who I was looking for I remembered the book was called Sqaq L-Infern (Sqaq is Maltese for alley way, or cul-de-sac, I've seen it applied to both) so I wasn't too far off.
Then the man chose some books and I poked him in the eye with my pen and stamped on his neck until he was dead. The end. |
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| Self Pity |
[Apr. 7th, 2009|03:25 pm] |
Lately I've become more of a hermit. I rarely go out and generally only see friends when they make the effort to come to me. I know that this is bad, and that there are people who would be glad to see me if and when I chose to leave the house, but I choose to ignore that. It's getting easier to justify staying at home over doing anything at all.
I've nominally given up roleplaying aswell. This is made easier by the fact that I don't go anywhere anymore. I never really felt welcome when I was. I know that's a problem of my perception rather than actual reality.
The problem with quitting gaming is that I don't stop getting ideas for games. If anything they have been coming thick and fast, even a few ideas I had forgotten about popped back into my head a few weeks ago. Anyway, I'm hoping the extra time means I will have more of a chance to write something. The only thing that is missing is the discipline to do so. |
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| vague ranting |
[Apr. 2nd, 2009|09:50 am] |
whenever I skip breakfast of a morning I buy a cereal bar to tide me over til lunch time. The least nauseating of these, I find, is the Special K bar which I may have mentioned before. The fact that I mention it all, let alone twice, is a sad testament to my lack of interesting things to say about anything. I should be commenting on the news or politics or saying something pithy and cutting about religion. Dammit, breakfast bars, you bring me down.
Lately I have noticed the information on the packaging has changed. Once upon a time (if I have mentioned this at all, and believe me I am far too lazy to bother going to look) the ingredients betrayed the fact that even though in the large print text the bar is a "Wheat Bar with Cranberry Pieces" the ingredients showed that these pieces were in fact dried strawberry pieces with cranberry flavourings. Oh the wonders of science. Now we have actual cranberry pieces with "added pineapple juice" and pineapple flavourings. Odd?
Yesterday I noticed the words "NOW WITH 50% EXTRA FRUIT" and before I unwrapped it and stuck it in my over-analytic gob I thought "I bet there are roughly the same number of fruit bits, they're just bigger." And they were!
That's enough wank for today. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 25th, 2009|03:47 pm] |
It's not a bin.
It's a fucking umbrella stand. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 21st, 2009|10:42 am] |
So lately I've been getting worried about my dog. His reactions to me are becoming more and more bizarre. He paws and whines at my stomach and tries to nip at the flab of my gut where it hangs over my belt. He gets really worked up and I get mad, and this is frustrating for both of us.
So I read that dogs can smell cancer and I got more worried. What if he was smelling cancer on me? So I went to the doctor and explained my fears, and after laughing for a bit, he did some blood tests and they were negative, phew. But my dog was still behaving erratically. In the end I decided to get the dog checked, and it turns out he has cancer of the nose.
He's fine now.
Disclaimer:
I have not now, or ever owned a dog. This was all an elaborate set up for a "my dog's got no nose" style joke. I am sorry if diagnosing an imaginary dog with nose cancer is upsetting. Please return to your normal lives. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|04:18 pm] |
"Kiss me, Hardy"
"Yes, yes of course Lord Admiral,"
"And Hardy..."
"Yes Lord Admiral?"
"Do you think you could... slip a finger up aswell?" |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 12th, 2009|06:54 pm] |
L'Oreal Paris and Maybelline New York have undergone a corporate brand merger.
From now on their logo will be:
"Maybe she's worth it" |
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| Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes |
[Mar. 9th, 2009|12:12 pm] |
Watching the Watchmen. How many poor film reviews have started with those words since last friday? Quite a few I will bet, and I'm not going to add any more to them but I will say a few things.
( Spoilers, maybe? )
Why do I keep wanting to write /lj-cunt? |
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| Just dropped in, |
[Mar. 5th, 2009|12:06 pm] |
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To see what condition my condition was in. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|10:50 am] |
It is time once again for badly translated nursery rhymes! Today we will look at an example from Hungary of "It's Raining, It's Pouring".
The sky outside is grey.
The water comes down from the heavens in great torrents.
It is time now for us to discuss the sleeping habits of old men.
Oh no! A Calamity.
The old man suffers from concussion and is probably dead now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 9th, 2009|10:54 am] |
"Do you have teach yourself Spanish?"
"Yes, we have a section upstairs."
"Are they english to spanish or spanish to english?"
"Uh, are you after a dictionary, they are two way."
"No, I want teach yourself Spanish. It's better if it is English to Spanish and Spanish to English."
My head hurts. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 31st, 2009|07:32 pm] |
I was looking something up on IMDB and there's a picture of Kate Winslet wearing a top with a
plu
n
g
i
n
g
neckline in the top right hand corner.
Fuck if I completely forgot what the hell I was looking for.
She's dropped some weight (I much prefered her looking rounder though - and grungy as in Eternal Sunshine..) but not from her boobs....
aaaanyway
cf. my previous words on the likeability or not of one Pres. Obama bin Laden, I retract aforementioned statement, early days and all that, (I was beginning to feel like Veronica Cartwright's character in The Witches of Eastwick) and would like to add this observation on the commentary during inauguration day:
BBC reporter: Yes. The crowds have gathered in large numbers for this... once in a lifetime event, and look, almost everyone in the crowd is waving a stars and stripes on a stick.
I believe they are called Flags?
also. Fuckabout, how many italics did I use?
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 30th, 2009|12:39 pm] |
I didn't realise things were so bad that the Guardian has published a column on How to Survive an Apocalypse
Also.
I know this will get me booed at...
But I don't like Obama... |
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| Hi there |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|11:46 am] |
so i had an epiphany-in-the-reverse on friday night. i got home drunkeded, and with a queasy belly, having been told that a girly likes me. she is not at all bad to look at and seems nice but she is very young (i have since discovered she is 19) and to be very honest that is making me keep my distance like a bajillion miles.
anyway, so i have been struggling with what to do about my pencil and paper rping, this is where the epiphany comes in. the first game i tried to run was (in my own head at least), fairly disastrous: i had in my mind a fairly definite idea of where i wanted the story to go and getting the players to go there was taking a lot of effort and then i got sick and the game sort of died out.
with me so far? for one reason or another the game didn't start up again and the embers died and i lost interest. this happens with me, sometimes i can get interested again after some time has passed and then things can start moving again. in fact, in the old days i used to plan for it; with a change of pace or even a complete switch of scene for a couple of weeks so that i could get my mojo back by not thinking about what has become of my (once upon a time, again in my own head) perfect story.
christmas came and went, and the prospect of a week in serbia loomed so i stalled on restarting the game, knowing that the fire had gone cold and hoping that the change of scenery would bring new ideas. it did, just not for the game in hand. i did have lots of ideas for a one-off game i had run almost a year ago, back when i was still seeing my friends on a semi-regular basis, you know, before the complications of life got in the way and now they're doing their own things with partners and families and i'm on my own.
anyway, so i've half filled a notebook with ideas about this shadowy world of magicians and cultists and i decided which system i am going to use and half decided how the magic works and all of that stuff you leave until after you've nurtured that spark of an idea and made it work for you a little. and then... and then...
well, i started to think about the players, the kind of people they are, and how they would navigate the dense layers of story i was preparing and i just lost it again. coming home on friday in the dark on the bus, half drunk and it was raining and i thought, "what does it matter?" and that's where i was when i got home, in a poisonous mood. and that's where i am now.
i just don't think that changing the setting or the game will make any difference. they will still be them, as much as i love them and who they are, and i will still be me and that's that. |
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