The Graduate. And a newt.

It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well,

You could see that Pierre did truly love the Madamoiselle,

And now the young Monsieur and Madame have rung the chapel bell,

"C'est la vie", say the old folks; goes to show you never can tell ..

It's been over yet another month since I posted on this blogamathing. Words have been difficult to find the past 5 weeks or so since graduation and moving out. 

No, not quite. There have been words and there has been free time, in abundance. Free days became mindless days and mindless days became boring. There's a point where you're thankful you don't have a job and have a lot of free time, but there's a point past that too. It begins just after you realise the money's run out. 

This is me looking like the unemployed graduate that I am, in one of the very few photos from the day that wasn't documented a thousand times over from the cameras of others parents.

I enjoyed wearing that robe, especially when the staff were walking around in their medieval looking capes and hats and stripes. It made me feel like an extra in Game of Thrones. Graduate of The Night's Watch.

There have been a few other things rattling around of late.

The Olympic Ceremony. I feel the need to give my 2 cents on the matter. I thought it was pretty good. It was not as spectacular as some had anticipated, nor was it as crap as others have claimed. From a technical and logistical standpoint, it was mindblowing, and every credit must be given to the choreographers and engineers that built the set-pieces and kept it flowing. Content-wise, it just missed the mark. It felt like a Guardian cryptic puzzle question. What links: The Industrial Revolution, Voldemort, the NHS and Dizzee Rascal?

I got that they were all key parts of our cultural history, but couldn't understand how they had been chosen, or why a particular area was given longer than others. Bond was good, Rowan Atkinson was fucking brilliant, but the NHS bits and the history of British music just dragged and didn't go anywhere. My question to all viewers - the dancing 'story' involving the black guy in the hat and the girl with big hair: how did he call her to tell her she'd lost her phone? That's like ringing your mobile to find out where it is, from your mobile.

7 out of 10. 9 for all who took part.

And its old news now, but the Queen really should've cheered up. It must feel odd doing a public engagement for her now, seeing as everything up to this point has been about her.

We saw the torch as well actually, waaaay back when it went through Headingley near Leeds. It was a little underwhelming, but made up for by the fact that we were high fived by motorbike cops beforehand as they drove past. 

I have no idea who the guy was running, but he seemed pretty thrilled anyway.

I've ruined my sleeping pattern again recently. Sleep at night is once again a strange occurence. You know that thing where you wake up in the middle of the night to pee or get a drink, and when you get back, you lie there and realise that your brain has been stockpiling a list of all the stupid and insecure thoughts you've ever had and has been saving them for a time like this?

"Hey, look!" The Brain will say, "It's 3.42 a.m! Seems a good time to have an analysis breakdown of that awkward conversation he had with that girl he was seeing. Let's especially dwell on the wording she used. Is there anything we can recall that he said that would make him seem like a real wanker?"

Or, "Hey, remember how he was looking through all those requirements for various job positions recently? Is there a way we can compound that and snowball it into an analysis of his incompetencies, regardless of whether or not they're relevant? 3.42 seems the best time for such a thing."

Or, "Can we turn that bowl of cereal he spilt earlier into a spiral of torture that somehow links in to every awkward conversation and rejection he's ever had? And tie this in with his inability to grow any worthwhile facial hair?

The last one's a personal truth, and favourite.

The ol' brain can be a problem. Not only with the torment, but also the speaking in the third person, as if it were a complete separate entity. Its been a while since I drowned it with Strongbow.

- REAL TIME TOPIC CHANGE ALERT -

We just found a newt in our house. It's about 4cm long and it's cute as hell. My mums already been on the internet googling "can I keep a newt?"

We cannot, apparently.

Aftermath

You'll remember me, when the West wind moves,

Among the fields of barley,

You'll forget the sun, in his jealous sky,

As we walk in fields of gold ..

It's the same old story. You finish something major, enter that phase of completion and freedom that you craved for so long and after a couple of days you're already winding up with the first onsets of boredom. In between eating cake and farting about on the internet, I'm half-arsedly trying to get my job in the pub back and trying to convince my sister not to base her choice of future universities solely on the attractiveness of the people in the prospectus.

I am very tired. I'd say I'd been this tired for the last 4 years but that'd be a lie. This is a new kind of tired. I have nothing of real substance to do so my body clock is shot to buggery and then some. I've started taking naps when I'm in Leeds, in which I occasionally dream about sleeping. My yawns are becoming something else. They're not just contagious, they cause bouts of narcolepsy among anyone who makes eye contact with me. Treat me like the sun and don't look at me directly.

I have the song Fields of Gold stuck in my head. It's a catchy one, particularly Sting's version.

It's been on repeat for three days. Wedged in my mind, somewhere between my memories of getting stung by a bee when I was about 11 and my knowledge of what maple syrup tastes like. And it's squatted there three days long. It's built a little hut and cooks marshmallows over it's little squatter fire. I cannot get it to leave my head.

Play me off, Sting.

Prometheus

Well I might take a boat or I'll take a plane,

I might hitch-hike or jump a railroad train ..

* potential spoilers ahead  *

 

I saw Ridley Scott's Prometheus again for the second time the other day. Discussions among friends on the film are wide ranging and a glance at my facebook feed shows one post hailing the film as "brilliant" and a comment underneath saying "nah i saw it yesterday - its shite". As a fan of the Alien films, I'd agree mostly with the first one, though Prometheus does fall short of it's predecessors. My breakdown:

POSITIVES

• Visually, one of, if not THE best films I've ever seen. The designs are flawless and the CG stuff isn't the half arsed clunky bollocks we so often see in big budget films of late. The opening credits showing a panorama of a volcanic world are worth the price of your cinema ticket alone.
  
  
• Deeper and a little more contemplative about the big questions than most other sci-fi films.

• Great main cast. Michael Fassbender steals the show with an Oscar-worthy performance as the humanoid android David, who is creepy and charming and mysterious all at the same time.
  
  
  
  
  
   Noomi Rapace is less of a power-frau than Ripley, but she's still very good. Charlize Theron is also great as the icy corporate bitch in charge of the operation.
  
  
• Nice links to the original Alien film, particularly the much-needed final scene and the introduction of the recognisable space-jockey.
  
  
  
  
  
• Old school gore. There are various bits that are tougher to watch than I was expecting, like a tentacled alien C-section. Be warned

NEGATIVES

• Pretty much everything about  the crew of the Prometheus spaceship. They've been in suspended animation for two years without ever having asked what the nature of the expedition was, wake up and find themselves to be generally incompatible with one another (needlessly) and, while Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender run around exploring, the non-speaking parts of the anonymous 17 member crew essentially just stand around waiting to be killed.
  
  
• The old man makeup. Hmmm.
  
  
•  Noomi Rapace legging it round and jumping over crevices shortly after major traumatic surgery and a couple of painkillers.
  
  
• Not giving answers. I guess this is the classic setup for a sequel, but the film just doesn't work as well as a standalone project as the producers thought; they tease us with questions and possibilities but only explore them superficially with no real closure.
  
  
• Questionable behaviour. Upon first contact with a creepy snake-like alien, the first response of one of the biologists is to poke his finger near its head, resulting in his gruesome untimely death.
  
  
• The space-jockey aliens from the original turn out to be wankers.
  
  
• Slightly better link between films needed in final scene. This isn't to say the final scene isn't awesome, but I think a more solid link was needed, perhaps having the alien-esque creature that emerges to be recognisable as a young Alien queen.

It would have been so much better as a direct prequel. For me, the perfect ending would be to have the crashing Engineer ship kill both Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron. In the crashed ship, the space-jockey lies dazed and injured in the iconic pilots seat. In the cargo hold, the thousands of vases containing the black goo and alien life forms lie scattered, some smashed and some opened, revealing Alien eggs, one of which opens.

In the cockpit, the Engineer realises the implications and sends out a transmission as a warning to other spacecraft, which the Nostromo will pick up in Alien. As the Engineer finishes the transmission, a facehugger leaps from the shadows.

OH YEAAAAHHHHHH.

In which Max finishes university

Then he may play on his harp in peace,

In a world such as Heaven intended,

For all the bitterness of man must cease,

And every battle must be ended ..

Holy nuts, it's been nearly a month since I wrote on here.

University has officially finished. The last academic essays I will hopefully ever write have been submitted, the last exams completed and arrangements made for graduation. The relief and happiness of finishing it all totally outweigh any bittersweet feelings or nagging doubts about the future that I anticipated last September. For myself at least, there's a kind of warm stoicism surrounding it all: what has been done is done. Nothing can change it, thus it shouldn't incur any feeling of regret or "what if". 

This celebratory period has however entered it's twilight days, and the real world is gonna bitch slap me into something of substance around the 1st of July, when I will have handed in the keys to my Leeds house and severed all ties to the slovenly, wondrous life of the pre-graduation-ceremony graduate. I think my friend Jazz summed up this time the most succinctly, something to the close effect of "all I've done since finishing is drink alcohol and eat cake".

In addition to drinking and eating cake (I almost wrote 'caking' there, let's make that catch on), I've been to a drag party, ruined my body clock and watched lots of stuff on the internet. I've now become far too keen a slave to Game of Thrones after me and Anya watched the first series in about two days. For any US fans of Thrones, the whole show is a pretty accurate depiction of the North-South relations in the UK, complete with the correct accents. Winterfell is Yorkshire.

Oh yeah, and I made a tit out of myself again. I ran into someone I knew the other day and we had the briefest of brief hello's while on our respective ways to places. Then he said "have a good night" but I first heard it as "how are you mate?". So I said "yeah, not bad. How are you?". And that's where it got awkward.

To recap our conversation:

Him: "Have a good night"

Me: "Yeah, not bad. How are you?"

Its only wednesday?

My baby don't mess around,

Because she loves me so,

And this I know for sure,

But does she really want to,

But can't stand to see me walk out the door?

On Monday, Nigel Farage of UKIP stated in all seriousness that the current Eurozone crisis could see the rebirth of National Socialism in Europe.

With all respect Mr. Farage, you are a fucking idiot.

We've finally boiled down to the last fortnight of university. We have our german grammar exam tomorrow, followed by one on the German student movement of the 1960's next week. Yesterday I had my French oral exam, in which I may as well have doodled in my own shit for all the good it did my degree. Hopefully the upcoming ones will be a little more successful.

Oh yeah, my Britains got Talent updates. What happened to them? I can't even remember who was in the penultimate programme, so I'm afraid there's not gonna be a post for any eager people wanting to know more. Long story short, that performing dog who I said probably wouldn't win ended up winning. It was good, but not that good.

Britain's Got Talent 2012, day 4

In the dark, for a while now,
I can't stay very far,
I can't stay much longer,
Riding my decision home ..

Wednesday's winner was Sam Kelly, a straight man trapped in a gay man trapped in a bisexual man's body. The ladies will love him, if not for his singing qualities then because he's the only bloke in the final 10 so far who looks like he could fight someone off if they tried to sexually assault him. The others who made the cut are the inanely named Nu Sxool, who probably won only because they were kids.

Wednesday's dropouts ..

Chica Latina -  the singing hairdresser. Good enough singer, but the outfit only really made her attractive in a bovine sort of way and I didn't really like her face. David Walliams comment "you ooze sex" doesn't quite conjure up the image I think he was going for.

Malakai Paul - the little black kid who I swear was also one of the dancers of Twist and Pulse Dance Company. Won the audition after breaking down from stage fright (potential 2013 contestants: crying is a sure-fire audition winner and a brilliant excuse for the judges to kick you off without having to say you're crap). He was good tonight, but did have a little cry into Dec's jacket when he didn't make the final. If I were ever to cry on someones shoulder, it would be Dec.

Gatis Kandis - the poor fucking bloke. Never in television has the sadistic freak show mindset been better personified. In the audition, it might have been funny because he was really struggling and in the early stages, thats almost acceptable. To make him go back out for the live show was cruel. Keep telling yourself that he really knows why people are laughing.

The Sugar Dandies - two gay guys ballroom dance. This act mostly led to comparisons to me and my friend Dan. Given the choice, I prefer the Del Boy and Rodney comparison.

Beatrix von Bourbon - her sexy burlesque routine was good but again, a little work on the name wouldn't go amiss. I get that she needs a glamorous burlesque stage name, but it doesn't help when a girl is sensually taking off all her clothes and all I can think about is how nice a chocolate biscuit would be.

Be Minor - girl group. Meh.

Brynolf and Ljung - stonking magicians. Maybe not Royal Variety, but insanely talented.

 I miss Dennis Egel already.

Britain's Got Talent 2012, day 3

Is there still magic in the midnight sun?

Or did you leave it back in '61?

In the cadence of a young man's eyes,

I wouldn't dream so high ..

This one's a little late, I apologise.

The Loveable Rogues got through, which I'm quite chuffed about because they actually seem pretty cool. Enjoyable to watch and listen to, presumably because they just seem more down to earth than the array of crazy people they battled against to get here. The other one is Molly Rainford, the 11 year old who sang It Must Have Been Love, which was a little awkward. It wasn't anything mindblowing, but at least she can sing well.

Falling by the wayside were:

Ashley Elliott - played the xylophone. His brief 'story' bit that came on before his act was him being a farmer with his parents somewhere remote looking, in a very The Hills Have Eyes-looking setup. He was good at playing xylophone, but no dice.

The Zimmers - admirable for the determination, confidence, defiance of expectation thing, but not actually that good and occasionally a little cringey.

Honey Shazad - pretty and soulful. She was good.

Area 51 - mindblowing. Should have been in the final hands down. Easily the most effort and as much coordination skill as the street-dance groups.

Twist and Pulse Dance Company - I originally mistyped that as 'compnay', which I think they should consider using. Twist and Pulse Dance Compnaaaaayyyy, pronounced like that. The little black kid saved the act from boring, but seriously, when don't they?

Lucky - will give me nightmares forever. The walking on her back thing was too close to The Grudge for my liking and the creepy china doll paint is exactly what it says on the tin. if she'd managed to pour the cup of tea with her feet perfectly, it would have been terrifying. Amanda Holden's comment "It was like Alice in Wonderland on acid" would have been good if Lewis Carroll hadn't written Alice in Wonderland while already on acid.

Dennis Egel - on some level, he should have won by default. What a man. It's the kind of act that you imagine goes home to his hotel room after filming, rings his mates in Germany and says 'guys, this is really going too far. The Brits actually think I'm serious; the bet's off." The outfit was a definite upgrade from the auditions, I prefer his Asgardian style helmet over the gold shower cap. And nothing broke this time.

Stay Tuned.

Britain's Got Talent 2012, day 2

Something's starting today,

Where did he go, why you want it to be?

Well you know November has come,

When it's gone away ..

Second round was on tonight. Amanda Holden had a better choice of dress.

The first act to go through, and rightfully so, was the mind blowing opera duo Jonathan and Charlotte. That kid IS Hurley from Lost and a definite Hagrid in the making but he can definitely sing, even if it does ocasionally look like he's doing a huge hard poo when he hits some of the higher notes. The girl on the team is still pretty good, though if she hasn't already, she'll be teaching Hurley the meaning of 'the friendzone' in weeks to come.

The other act through tonight were Kai and Natalia, the ballroom dancers, who were loads better than the other generic dance groups that there were. As if that guy's only about 16.

Tonights losers:

Four corners - dance group, same old, same old. The only redeeming feature of this group was the pink haired girl, but that in itself became a drawback because nobody cared about the 20 other guys she was sharing the stage with. Even Alesha caught herself out during the judges comments with something like "Mmm, you are talented and passionate and .. oh, in fact, all the rest of you were good too, yeah .."

Cascade - they do some impressive stuntman choreography, but really, who's gonna let the French win Britain's got Talent?

Karizma Krew - danced. In a group.

The Show Bears - I vaguely remember something similar a few years back. These guys are more like cruise ship entertainment, and not just because of the sailor outfits.

Fish on Percussion - actually not bad, I always find drummers quite cool. If he'd just gotten rid of all the people dancing around him. Apparently he's a frequent percussionist in Ibiza and played at Beyonces VIP afterparty in Egypt. Why he's here I don't really get.

Graham Blackledge - when you list cool instruments, the organ doesn't usually make the cut. Though having said that, the bloke playing it didn't exactly rescue the act. He was a little weird, and not in a classic stage fright way. I see a future for him as an ever-so-slightly-awkward musician, shilling his BGT fame around, before ending up at Butlins as the backing musician in a restaurant, along with some 17 year old boy-girl combo called something shit like 'Bezerque' or 'Misteree'.

Paige Turley - 14 year old scottish singer. Makesh my houshemate Kellie do her besht Sean Connery voice by acshident when she comesh on shtage. She wasn't bad, but I'm liking the fact that we've got some acts which aren't just singers going through. I reckon we'll pick up enough singers like her in the next few days.

You stay classy San Diego.

Britain's Got Talent 2012, day 1

When the paralytic dreams that we all seem to keep

Drive on engines 'til they weep

With future pixels in factories far away ..

After a month of giving carte-blanche to idiots to embarrass themselves, the 21st century incarnation of the Victorian freak show that is Britain's got Talent entered the first round of the semi finals this evening. There has been some weird shit, but it's still infinitely more preferable to X-factor, if only because it offers a little more variety and we don't have the gruelling week-on-week repetition of contestants telling Simon that his negative feedback only gives them determination, even if he hasn't opened his mouth yet.

We, the Great British public, have so far chosen the Welsh choir group Only Boys Aloud and Ashleigh and Pudsey, the girl with the dog. The former I guess is kind of heartening because they seem to have genuine talent and offer something a little different to the usual nameless singers and oh so fucking boring street-dance groups, and if they win, they may face more interesting prospects than trooping sadly back to the cold Welsh valleys from whence they came.

Ashleigh and Pudsey - it's a girl and a performing dog. It's pretty cool but until the dog plays an instrument it probably won't be a winner.

Who have we lost along the way so far?

Analiza Ching - the Chinese violinist. Should be there instead of the dog. Amazing talent. Even more amazing boobs. Sue me, it's true.

Rachel Knowland - sung a song. Had the Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta look, but that's about it.

The Mend - they got the white street-rapper thing and boy band hand moves down, but they also had the faces of 40 year old kebab shop owners.

United We Stand - Diversity did it three years ago and better.

The Jive Aces - not untalented, but more of a yorkshire working mens club entertainment troupe than Royal Variety Performance.

Lauren Thalia - she was pretty stonking at guitar and singing for a 12 year old, but seriously, her confidence and 40-year-old-woman-trapped-in-a-childs-body thing was just unnerving. A sweet rich child who will probably grow up to be a bitch. Will probably call people 'honey' and 'sweetie'. And she had an annoying laugh.

Zipparah Tafari - where me keys? Where me phone? Have you ever been in that situation, where you lost your keys and your mobile phone and your fucking mind? It's depressing he even got this far.

There we have it. I think it's on every night this week, I might do an entry for each one.

Anonymity

City's breakin' down on a camel's back,

They just have to go 'cos they don't know whack,

So while you fill the streets it's appealing to see,

You won't get out the county, 'cos you're mad and free ..

Anonymity is amazing.

I’ve been meaning to try and work this post into conversation with people, as it helps to explain a habit of mine which has become far more frequent in this final year of university life.

About October-November time last year, I began taking long walks around town, usually late at night. In these early days it was more of a distraction than anything else, a way of clearing my head and getting away from what we were realising was going to become an even more hellish workload. However, as it went on I started to realise that it was less of a semi-therapeutic escape from stress than a desire to be a random everyman to passers-by (random in the true sense of the word, not the crappy one which has been by hijacked by anyone who considers themselves remotely quirky).

The anonymity thing goes back to my first year. Back then, fresh out of school among an uncountable number of new faces, there was the best chance one could have to re-invent oneself; to become a new ‘you’, cast off any habits that you weren’t fond of and simply adopt a new mindset for a new stage of life. The beauty of this was that none of these new peers would recognise a change; rather they would accept this as the ‘you’ you had always been.

Admittedly I didn’t do the best job I could have, but it was almost a thrill to realise that it was possible. Then inevitably, whatever persona you had chosen for yourself became the norm and altering it remained as much of a challenge as it always had been. The updated me, with whatever improvements or changes had been made, had been somewhat set in stone with this new group of friends and course-mates.

This changed again in Germany, though this time with the advantage, to some extent, of a language barrier: new friends could be made and the chance to be a different person arose again, but any alterations that might be perceived as negative could be shrugged off and attributed to misunderstanding or differences in culture. This example is true for the people I was in close contact with. Amongst the population of the town however, it was even better. It wouldn’t be an over-estimate to say that virtually everyone in the tiny town where I was working recognised or at least knew of me, so meeting strangers in the street and chatting to them was amazing, simply because I could dispel or encourage (even to the extent of telling little white lies) any pre-conceptions they had of me. This was perhaps one of the most rewarding aspects of the year.

It is in some sense a mask which hides anything that you feel unable or unwilling to change (feel free to make inadequacy jokes from this point.) This is probably where my love for masks at times like Halloween comes; being disguised is far more interesting than being you with a pair of cat ears.

Which leads us to my aforementioned habit. I naively underestimated the range of people that one can come across in a large city. Walking round Leeds at night, one can meet more interesting and story-worthy people than in a whole day spent on campus. Night is infinitely better because people are at their most open, namely drunk, homeless, and generally more likely to be sociable.

And these random encounters, which you don’t even have to go out of your way to find, are fantastic. Because these people know nothing about you, there is a slim chance of ever coming across them again, and all the feelings of that first, wonderful year come flooding back. Their judgment, if any, is irrelevant. Judgment from people has never really phased me, but it’s never as interesting coming from your friends as it is from people you are making your first and probably only impression upon. You can re-invent yourself between streets, change your name, your accent, be as charming, as confident, as interesting or as much of a stand-offish dickhead as you choose. Anonymity is my buzz.

Concerning the negative personas, this isn’t of course to say that you go out of your way to be a dickhead. It’s just liberating sometimes to act completely out of the norm under the legitimacy of being just another weird guy or drunken bigot that you don’t have to walk more than five minutes to come across on the average night.

It’s a weird habit. I don’t deny that. And this isn’t to say that any of my friendships are stale or I worry about changing my habits amongst them, it’s simply that the thrill of being someone else of your choice, if only for a night, occasionally outweighs the more solid relationships of everyday life.

There’s probably some weird Freudian explanation for this, but it’s better than some of the current theories involving prostitutes, drugs and nervous breakdowns. It’s just nice to be someone different for a change, yeah? Man, you sure are a stickler for details.

Final week

And in times of elimination,

We've got nothing to lose,

Please repeat the message,

It's the music that we choose ..

This week is the last week of university. Come thursday, I will never have another seminar. Sure, there's another essay to be finished on top of two written exams and two oral exams, but it's a start. I can't even express how awesome a start this is.

I've nothing interesting to add, as I'm up to my neck in work and revision, so I'll leave you with a joke which I overheard in a cluster.

A dog walks into a job centre and asks if there are any jobs available.

"Wow, a talking dog!" says the clerk. "With talent like that we could get you a job at the circus!"

The dog looks bewildered.

"The circus?" he asks "What the hell does the circus want with a plumber?"

Baby names

Due to lack of interest, tomorrow is cancelled,

Let the clocks be reset and the pendulum held,

'Cos there's nothing at all, except the space in between

Finding out what you're called and repeating your name ..

One of my housemates recently told me a story about someone they know who's just become a dad, at our age. Apparently he's not exactly father material, though to avoid hypocrisy it's worth noting I'd be pretty balls at it as well. Anyway, this housemate often reads on here. I often begin telling her anecdotes from my life and she stops me midway and says "yeah I know, I read it on your blog", and then taps her foot impatiently and asks if I'm going to buy milk anytime soon.

Anyway, I consider this blog to be more of a public service than anything else, so if she reads this in the near-future, she might consider forwarding this post to the new father, because it's never too early to think about names. Suggestions:

Boy -                                                                Girl -

1. Ralphus                                                          1. Glycerine

2. Batman                                                          2. Georgierella

3. Lucipher                                                        3. She-Hulk

4. Thor                                                              4. Thirteen

5. Mungo                                                          5. Snerkels

6. Shitting-Bear                                                 6. Lou

7. Herman                                                         7. Jella

8. Guido                                                            8. Tangerine

9. Alfonse                                                          9. Sinergy

10. Tortelloni                                                    10. Dave
________________________________________________

Max Martin. He's here to help.

MS paint

You can tell the Sun, in his jealous sky,

That we walked in fields of gold ..

I had a dream last night that I was Harry Potter, being chased by a transformer kind of robot round some kind of open-air refinery. About the Harry Potter bit, I wasn't exactly Harry per-se, I was still me, but I was Harry in that dream-world kind of way, where you know you're something even though you're nothing like it. You know what I mean. And I remember swinging from the top of some tower, landing on the ground and finding out Chewbacca was with the transformer.

Something like this.

It was actually pretty scary and less awesome than it sounds.

Little Miss Sunshine and Alien vs. Predator have both been on tv tonight, both pretty sweet films, so I'm gonna kill some more time on Paint. All pictures copyright Max.

Click for full size. I've missed doing these.

Mammoth

Goodbye ruby tuesday,

Who could hang a name on you?

When you change with every new day,

Still I'm gonna miss you ..

I'm becoming slowly more certain that my sources of information being used for my dissertation are drying up a lot faster than anticipated, which should mean that my essay survival instinct will kick in shortly; that is, opening the floodgates of stuff previously deemed " not relevant", "wrong" or "do not use in dissertation at any cost" and rebranding it as useful waffle with which to supplement what'll probably be a frail word count.

I ventured out into Huddersfield today for the first time in ages to use the library, which was full of pensioners and old black guys apart from the two lacquered grandmas running the show. I got some work done, so I might start making this a regular thing.

After a fortnight of lying round at home worrying about money and searching for dissertation inspiration and not producing anything substantial, just getting out of the house and seeing other real people doing people things again was great. And like I say, it gave me a proper chance to translate some academic thoughts to paper, instead of having them just bounce round my brain like a roomful of toddlers high on oreos and meth.

Of late I've started doing that thing we all do where you make a mental list of all the crazy shit you'd do if you suddenly ran into some money. And not a couple of quid on the pavement, I'm talking the lottery or a dead relative leaving you a metric fuckton of inheritance cash.

Apart from the supreme amount of travel, I'd start with a Woolly Mammoth.

Hell yeah.

I can't think of anything else that would sum up my position atop the financial heap than a Woolly Mammoth. I'd keep him in the room with the dogs, because amid the barking and farting they probably wouldn't be phased by a Mammoth, who I'd call Oppenheimer.

What happens thereafter remains negotiable. In any case though, the future spent travelling may have to be put on hold seeing as I'd be the owner of a 10 foot tall supply of sweaters and rugs which I'd have to feed and presumably walk.

Youtube

We could have had it all,

Rolling in the deep ..

Youtube Comment Award of the day goes to user ipitythefool1984, with his comment "you are a proper gay boy, get some testicles you batty boy. Your mam would be gutted that you will never bear a child, aids is going to be your friend".

I like how, with the exception of "you are a proper gay boy", its kind of well written and vaguely poetic, in a dickheadish way.

I wanna share this vid with you. You may have already seen it, its the kind of thing that appears on Rude Tube and stuff like that. The opening isn't that funny, but wait til just under a minute and a half and it'll kick in properly. I haven't laughed as much in ages.

 

Dissertationator

If you'll be my bodyguard,

I'll be your long lost pal,

I can call you Betty,

And Betty when you call me,

You can call me Al ..

I noted twice today the need either for a clone of myself, or an android version of myself. And now having actually typed that, I'm unsure of the need for a second procrastinating layabout who makes more snacks than he writes essay paragraphs. I'd like to be able to just arse about on my newly fixed laptop tomorrow and send my clone/mandroid in my place with the direction "Oy, dickhead. Go write my dissertation."

The uni workload is more trouble than it's worth. Particularly the dissertation, the grief, despair, confusion and anger of which can drive one only to alcohol or whatever mind-numbing distraction is on hand. While working on it in recent weeks, there's been a lot of throwing around of phrases to the tune of "this too shall pass". Inevitably it will, but that hardly makes it more bearable.  These are meant to be reassuring words but if you think about it for five minutes, they're still complete crap. It's like saying "c'est la vie" to someone having their arm amputated.

Returning to my earlier point, and still on the subject of limb removal, my laptop has been fixed, thanks mainly to my dad and various anonymous, well informed tech-nerds on the internet. Being without the laptop has been like missing an awesome limb, hence the metaphor, and now I feel like someone who lost their arm as a child and has just had an awesome weapon-arm fitted on the stump. Like the Terminator.

I have an idea for a 5th Terminator film where a final year language student re-programmes a Terminator to know all about counterterrorism in West Germany in the 1970's and sends him back in time to help write his dissertation for him. Except that not only is the dissertation unexciting and difficult, it's also self-aware and trying to take over. An early scene will see the dissertation kill a room full of people just by being so fucking boring, at which point the Terminator (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) will burst in and type 2000 words before the dissertation escapes out of a nearby window.

"That dissertation is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

And like all good Terminator films, the final scene will take place in some kind of dark assembly line-factory place, where the student and the Terminator type the final sentence and, with minutes to spare before the hand-in deadline (indicated by a red numbered digital counter), they both hit "save", print the dissertation AND submit it online on time.

Starring Robert Downey Jr. as The Student, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the Terminator, Liam Neeson as the Students supervisor and Anthony Hopkins as the voice of The Dissertation. Morgan Freeman will narrate and Matt Damon will have a supporting role as The Student's nerdy friend who is killed by The Dissertation somewhere in the first half.

This could actually be a great film.

Weather

Oh, and I'm gonna buy this place, that's what I said,

Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head ..

The weather has finally reached a point that I'm enjoying. I stopped checking the weekly forecast about a month ago because it was simply too depressing. There were never any days above 7 or 8 degrees. Then one day it shot up to 10 and I was all "Wicked, I might not wear gloves that day!" But today it's kinda glorious and warm and I have my sunglasses at hand.

An old person started talking to me about the weather when I was walking into uni. (Experience is teaching me to resign myself to the fact that I'm one of those people that random people talk to). And he said something like "nice weather here today! But apparently they've got snow in the midlands!" to which I said "ha, crazy" or something nonchalant like that, and he grabs my arm, looks me in the eye and says "makes you wonder why they call it global warming eh?".

I miss the time when old people just talked about being old or told crazy stories about their life or childhood. So I just said "have a good day" and carried on. It was better than grabbing him by the jacket and screaming "It's climate change motherfucker!" at him.

So yeah, do come see my new band, Climate Change Motherfucker on thursday.

Freddy vs Jason was on last night. I watched it once one night when I was about 14 and in my tired, delusional state, I told myself it was a good film. Then I watched it again last night, just to be sure. It is impressively bad. Given the choice I always vote team Freddy, because he's simply a better villain than Jason, but not even he redeemed that one.

However, if he were to appear in my dreams one night to kill me and stop me having to write my dissertation, I would greet him with a hug.



Lets be activists

Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone,

I hear you call my name

And it feels like home ..

My newsfeed on facebook is clogged with reposts of the "Kony 2012" campaign, which aims to make an anti-celebrity out of Joseph Kony, head of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, which is known among other things for the kidnapping of children to turn them into soldiers and sex slaves. The campaign's run by a group called Invisible Children Inc, which is really what jogged my memory: they made a film called Invisible Children which I remember someone talked to us about when I was in 6th form, watching excerpts from the film. It's undeniable that the man is a complete fuckhead who is in dire need of killing, but my problems lie with the legitimacy of the campaign group themselves, and the way it makes people act.

The simple fact is, Invisible Children Inc does not spearhead their child protection campiagns with negotiation; rather, they endorse the use of swift, decisive military intervention to end the activities of Kony and the LRA. While this seems a logical option against a guerrilla-terrorist faction, the fact remains that Kony's forces are themselves children; traditional attempts to kill or capture him will result in the deaths of a great deal of children, which somewhat contradicts the group's aim in the first place.

When you combine this with the military force who would conduct such an operation against Kony, the Ugandan Army, the situation is even more bleak. Having raped, looted and pillaged their way through wars of their own, it seems highly doubtful that the Ugandan military will grow a conscience when faced with a mob of armed children. The Ugandan army and their disrespect for human rights is what is being supported when the Kony campaign is promoted.

It looks good on the surface but why should this change anything? The US military continues to assist and advise the Ugandan army forces in their search for Kony and have even tried directly themselves on some occasions. This proves either that he's as elusive a character as, say, Bin Laden, or that the Ugandan army has its own agenda/sympathies with Kony's reign of terror.

Apart from which, how many people who actually reposted it on facebook actually considered it before doing it? You watched the video; it's pretty heavy stuff. You heard about the campaign and reposted the vi- ooh, new notification! House party on wednesday? Sweet.

As if anyone cares. It's about the cause, people, not the flawed, half-arsed campaign.

Awareness has become as easy as remembrance, apparently. I vote we all change our profile pictures to a central African child soldier we found on google images and pretend we're making a difference, just like we did with poppies and "God bless Japan". People get so caught up in raising awareness they forget the situation is far from one dimensional. Awareness is no bad thing, but when it's for a cause which I don't believe is fully understood, it'll do more harm than good.



champs elysees

Everybody in the whole cell block,

Was dancin' to the jailhous rock ..

I've just got back from my old housemate Guy's gig. I wrote an ode for him and there's a picture of him somewhere in the archives of thgis blog, somewhere in the 2010 or 2011 entries. The gig was at a place called Carpe Diem which means somethinbg I've forgotten the name of.

I'm a litle drunk.

Not "a little" as in, 'an understatement metaphor for being trashed', mind you. No. Just a little drunk. But drtunk enough not to feel the cold and to think that gpoing to a computer cluster is better then going home.

Here are some foods I will never eat under any circumstances:

1. Mushroom.

2. Courgette

3. Liver ( i tried to like that one so many times as well)

4. Water chestnuts. They ruin chinese takeaways becaiuse when they're doused in sauce they can look like chicken.

5. Bananas with too many bgrown patches.

And I'm going to start signing stuff that people at uni give me (like for charity or signup things) with stuff like Winnie the Pooh, or James T. Kirk.

Won't bind your legs

You're trying to make your mark in society,

You're using all the tricks that you used on me ..

The Artist. Oh my god. What a film. It made me want a tailcoat, a top hat, a very thin moustache and a trained dog. Go see that sucker; some places have re-released it after all it's Oscar success, which it deserved every bit of.

Today has been a gurgling turd of a day. I did some artwork for Dan's election campaign, ate some pasta and watched the Simpsons. Someone did however link me to this picture.

I wonder if they have these in my size. I kick children and animals like that at least three, four times a day. The nice people at H&M make a good pair of trousers, but they just don't take into consideration how many times a week I have to roundhouse kick someone.

Thats all for today.

Oh and The Chase is back on! Well played, ITV. My favourite from this evenings show was:

Bradley Walsh: "The highest waterfall in Europe is in which country?"

Contestant: "Venezuela"

Nosebleed

Saturday I'm running wild,

All the lights are changing red to green,

Moving through the crowd I'm pushing,

Chemicals are rushing in my bloodstream ..

Today I had a nosebleed in my Core German class.

I feel my body deserves a medal for its timing, I mean it really went above and beyond.

It was just as we were going round the group to hear various responses to a presentation we'd just seen; the circle got to me and my nose conveniently started to bleed, meaning I got to skip the end of a fairly pointless seminar sneezing pintfuls of blood in the Parkinson Building toilets.

When that becomes an enjoyable alternative to education, you know you're ready to graduate.

If I could enhance this power, I could cut short all boring seminars by at least 20 minutes. If your nosebleed can be stopped with 2 minutes pinching and a quick dab here and there, then your nose is a fucking weakling.

If, or when, it reaches the point wherby I can summon nosebleeds at will, I'll be an unstoppable tour de force whenever I have lessons. The lecturer will look over in expectance of some valid contribution to our discussion, or wait for the answer to their question. And I'll calmly place my index finger firmly over one of my nostrils and go Mount St. Nosebleed all over the desk.

Noesbleed related success in future classes is paramount to the friends I'll probably lose as a result.

Y'all take it easy.

Chief

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness,

And I would have stayed up with you all night,

Had I known how to save a life ..

Today I called someone "Chief".

This is a step up from 'mate', which I use for everything, from friends, strangers and inanimate objects round the house. It's also an improvement on 'boss', a word I picked up while working in the pub. That got used mostly for customers who seemed gruff and alcoholic, now I use it more often for helpful cashiers, gruff or not.

But chief?

Who calls people 'chief'?

It was in the garage down the road from my house. I bought a mobile top up voucher and a tasty drink, and I ended the transaction by saying "thanks chief" to the bloke behind the counter. And I kicked myself as I turned away, as I realised he was kind of asian-indian looking. Had I just nonchalantly insulted him by taking the Indian thing a step further? He either hadn't noticed or was too confused to call me on it.

Words like mate, boss and chief are a testament to my laziness. I see you, I know you, half of you I've known for the best part of four years, but I'm just too busy and too fucking lazy to call you by your name. I'm focusing on other, incredibly imprtant things. Too busy to think of your name, chief.

Anyway, how often do you use someone's name in a conversation anyway? Chief can be a way of mixing things up. Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle, chief.

Enthusiasm for dicks

Valley's deep and the mountains's so high,

If you want to see God you've got to move on the other side,

If you stand up there with your head in the clouds,

Don't try to fly, you know you might not come down ..

I feel that I've entered some sort of wormhole or some fortnight-long coma. Where has February gone? Last I checked it was about the 5th and I was struggling with a torrent of work. Then Rip van Dickhead suddenly looked up and realised it was the 23rd. This tends to happen every time at least three deadlines are all in the same week, its a bit like I've just got out of Shawshank and realised the world has become all fast and in a big hurry. Admittedly I'm a little more Red than I am Brooks.

More Shawshank references, anyone?

My French class was cancelled today, meaning a blissful 2 hours free and making dragging myself out of bed at half eleven somewhat redundant. I went up to the German department in my free period to talk to Ingrid, one of my module coordinators and had possibly one of the best, most awkward and most hilarious lecturer conversations of the last four years. Just to get it in some sort of context, my project for this module is based on the art of a bloke called Otto Dix, who I did a presentation on last week. Our conversation was as follows.

Me: "Ingrid, did you get my email with my presentation powerpoint and handout attached?"

Ingrid: "I did, thankyou very much. Did you get all my feedback?"

Me: "Yes, it was very helpful. I think it'll really help me focus the project a little more and make it a little less vague."

Ingrid: "Well, your presentation went very well, your enthusiasm for Dix really came through" (read this sentence out loud)

Silence.

Me: "My enthusiasm for Di .. oh, right. Yeah"

Ingrid: "I need to be more careful don't I? It can be a little tricky talking about Dix."

Me: "I'm uncomfortable"

The last line wasn't really there, but it was certainly running through my head. Both of us were laughing too much at this point to really form any kind of counterpoint, but when someone nonchalantly points out what they perceive to be your enthusiasm for dicks, there isn't really any going back.

We're seeing more of these presentations today actually. Without sounding like a twat, nobody really wants to sit and listen to other peoples presentations. If this module had an exam, it might be useful, but seeing as we've picked our own projects and done our own research, it seems a little redundant. I feel sorry for everyone who had to sit through mine and my overwhelming enthusiasm for dicks.

I start to zone out during presentations. They're never uninteresting, its just that stuff which isn't relevant to me doesn't exactly make me Curious George. This is occasionally the case in seminars, where I start to float away into a world of distraction, when all of a sudden I realise I've been asked a question. And I look up at the lecturer, the magic roundabout theme tune fizzles out, the monkey stops banging its cymbals, and I realise I've been listing my favourite cereals in the margin of my notepad in lieu of taking part in a discussion of the German Student Movement.

Other than the attention span, I am a wonderful student.

As an endnote, if anybody feels like using google to find this blog using the most obscure and interesting search terms possible, please do so. It'll break the monotony of people searching for Bioshock porn.

Donut

Like a bridge over troubled water,

I will ease your mind ..

Did you ever watch that film, The Passion of the Christ? Remember when Judas betrays Jesus (spoiler alert) and he's tormented by those demons, whcih are kinda like humans but with distorted and creepy exaggerated features? There's a guy in this computer cluster a little bit like that. I don't think he's a demon, but he still creeps me out.

I'm a little sad at uni today because the Krispy Kreme stall has gone from in front of the union. The last time it was here, I split a box of twelve with Emma which we ate during a screening of some German film. I walked by the stall the other day and was sorely tempted to buy some. They had all the good ones. One girl also at the stall was pointing them out to her friend.

"Oooh, thats the one with the chocolate icing and .. that stuff".

"Custard?"

"Yeah, with the custard in the middle"

[Me, inserting myself shrilly into the conversation] "They are NOT MEANT to have custard. DON'T eat the ones with custard centres."

I don't believe in custard donuts. YOU ARE A DONUT. You do not also need to be a puddding that's served in a bowl. We ask far too much of our food. Jam is good, or rather, that weird pseudo-jam which isn't like what you get in a jar but which is perfect for donuts. Seriously though, some of the latest Krispy Kreme designs, the icing to donut ratio is off the chart. Like a horse ate a tub of sprinkles and painstakingly shat each one.

What else has been happening recently?

I went to a house party. We found this guy, who nobody seemed to know. He passed out early on so we played pissed person Buckaroo (everybody won, essentially) and had a little photo shoot.

Yes We Dan

Don't stop, make it pop,

DJ blow my speakers up,

Tonight, I'mma fight

'Til we see the sunlight ..

What's that? You go to the university of Leeds? Great.

LUU Elections are just round the corner, so on that day, please give your vote to Daniel Brooks for Activites Officer. Can we improve our union?

The campaign don't start 'til he walks in.

And if you don't go to the University of Leeds, hell, come along on voting day and pretend you do.

Wrecking Ball Operator

And when you're out there, without care,

Yeah, I was out of touch,

But it wasn't because I didn't know enough,

I just knew too much ..

If my life goes to pot after university, I'd like to become one of those guys that knocks down buildings with a wrecking ball. I don't know if that even exists as a thing anymore; do they just blow it up with dynamite on each floor and collapse it 9/11 style, or take it apart piece by piece? Is there some kind of license involved, perhaps a permission slip?

I imagine there are classes. Like a driving test and theory test for cars, except instead of learning to indicate and brake properly, you're taught how to stop a building falling on you. If I ever make a great deal of money, I'll buy a wrecking ball, and some buildings, just to knock them down. I don't imagine there's anyone who wouldn't get at least a bit of a kick out of such an endeavour.

Maybe there are. There are probably people in the world who operate wrecking balls who are bored shitless of it. They spend long hours destroying buildings, pondering wistfully about playing Opus 10 by Chopin to a well dressed audience, or serving haute-cuisine in an up-market parisian restuarant. If only he knew there were people like me to which he could give his job.

That's pretty much all I have for you. I walked into town yesterday to deliver a hat and a pair of gloves to my sister for her to take home to my dad (sounds rather Dickensian in retrospect) and I stopped at McDonalds for the first time in ages. I had a big Mac. And I wasn't aware of this, but apparently big Mac's are now made out of cancer. The tastiest cancer there is, but fuck, my stomach was a wreck.

And walking back through Millenium square there was some sport playing on the big TV screen above the row of restaurants and bars, and the commentator said something to the effect of "whoever plays the best today and makes the fewest mistakes will win the game".

I don't know a great deal about sport, but I'm willing to bet that's some sharp analysis there.

More toilet etiquette and Imbolc

The camera won't let me go,

And the verdict doesn't love our soul,

The digital won't let me go ..

Saturday night was Imbolc, the Celtic festival of Spring. Armed with three 2 litre bottles of scrumpy cider, which for the record I could have refilled with my own piss and you wouldn't know the difference, I headed down to snowy snowy Marsden with Alex and Oli to get us some Pagan goodness. I maintain that one of the highlights of the night was our impromptu gathering of a motley crew of homeless people, broad yorkshiremen, football hooligans and some black guys to share our scrumpy with on the train back to town.

However, what I really took away from Imbolc is people's toilet etiquette. Or lack thereof. I lamented a few posts back about when people shut the bathroom door behind them when they leave, leading the next desperate person to hop around thinking its occupied. This example is more of a house thing, today's focuses more on public toilets. I'd like to take a minute to discuss this with you.

This one's for the guys. I think I've only ever used the women's toilet once, on an Otley Run, pissed as a fart in a homemade frog outfit. However, I am well versed in the protocol of the gents toilet.

Today we're gonna learn about urinal etiquette, following an experience at a pub at Imbolc. Let's imagine you're me, after a couple of pints. You need to pee something terrible. But, just as you're off to the loo, another bloke has the same idea as you. You go in first, hold the door for him, he follows. The cubicle is occupied. There are 3 empty urinals.

Let's approach this together, shall we. You both need to pee. There are three urinals. What do you do?

98% of men know the answer to this, instinctively. It's a base thing, like eating and breathing. If you're a guy, you will understand the etiquette involved: you keep at least one 'courtesy urinal' between you.

This is as much of a comfort thing than it is a practical thing. Maybe there's something in our subconscious thinking "this guy is gonna stare at/grab at my cock whilst I pee, so I'll keep him at a safe distance just to be sure".

If it's not that, then it's the old (but no less valid) worry of "this guy looks like one of those bizarre guys who nonchalantly looks up at the ceiling when he pees, ignoring his aim, whereby the piss splashback is maximised by the angle at which it hits the porcelain and I get a mini shower".

But, the bloke from the other night, who we'll call Sir Alan Sugar, was either unaware or unconcerned about such problems. I took the urinal on the left, fully expecting our hero to take the one on the far right, leaving a middle urinal buffer zone.

But no, Sir Alan takes the one in the middle, like an amateur.

And we pee together, shoulder to shoulder, while the guy in the cubicle farts to remind us that he's still there and we couldn't even have waited for him to finish in order to pee privately even if we'd wanted to.

I'd like to clarify, I have no real problem peeing next to somebody. I don't get stage fright, or my bladder doesn't pack up or anything like that. But I also believe that certain situations shouldn't have to be experienced by anyone, least of all anybody who may have been drunker than me and therefore more scared. This post is essentially an instruction. Pick the right urinal.

This was pretty much what was going through my head at the time. Sir Alan Sugar wasn't in my good books. And halfway through his pee, he coughed kind of loudly and distractingly. I took this as a means of conversation starter, so I took the only logical course of action: I grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and slamed him into the wall, like in Terminator.

That's a lie. No, I actually just turned to him and screamed "no talking!" and accidentally peed on his shoes in my moment of vitriol.

No, I actually just finished my wee and left. This post isn't to say that nothing interesting happened at Imbolc, but the fact that this remains one of the more memorable moments highlights the importance of weeing etiquette. Take note.