The Strangers

So, there's this new movie out called The Strangers, starring Liv Tyler, of Empire Records and Lord of the Rings fabulosity. The premise of this movie is, essentially, that a group of people dressed in masks come and take a normal, suburban husband and wife hostage and torture and play sadistic games with them.

Neato, yet another movie about societal rebels who don't play by our rules, who come into suburbia and shatter the suburban dream! Dear God, whatever shall we do?? Not that we haven't seen this movie, oh say, a hundred times or so. It's a horror movie. We know the plot. However, this movie tries to be different and special. It's different and special because it's not just a dumb slasher movie -- it's about these wacko, totally unhinged criminals hacking away (ha!) at the suburban ideal. If it were just an unpretentious hacker film, I wouldn't mind it. I wouldn't necessarily hurry to see it or befriend anyone who hurried to see it (though if you've seen it, don't worry, we can still hang out -- i'll just keep my back to the wall). But no, this one is eerie and haunting and purportedly thillingly challenging, designed to eff with your ideas of safety and idyllic middle class living. Super. Because all of our lives are perfect, and we all drive SUVS/4x4s. I'd love to see a movie like this where the people captured are black and living in South Central LA, or white and totally uneducated with no running water, and just as fucked up as the bad guys in the movie. It isn't going to happen, is it?

At one point in the film, to illustrate just how TOTALLY CRAZEE these masked torturers are, Liv Tyler asks him, in perfect suburban housewife "but-gosh-the-roast-isn't-nearly-done-yet" dismay, "Why are you doing this to us?"

And the crazy masked man answers, "Because you were home." Ooh. He's a really crazy mofo. Now it's gonna get MENTAL, yo. He's a torturer with NO AGENDA BUT TORTURE! What a nutter! As if breaking into random people's homes and wanting to play games that include knives, blood and possibly murder doesn't already make you pretty fucking loopy already. And to top it all off, his mask has a face drawn on it like a kids crayon drawing! Ha, you crazy guyz!

Directors/writers/producers, this is for you: we've seen the whimsical baddie before. The high-pitched laughter, scary clown, children's dolls, sadist-with-a-sensitive-streak, use of primary color and lullabies to freak us out shtick -- it's been covered sufficiently. For proof of this, please see the following:

-the Twilight Zone Episode Living Doll

-The Scream mock horror trilogy

-Gary Oldman's turn as a Beethoven-loving child killer in Leon: The Professional

-last but not least, and definitely not for the faint of heart, the truly horrifying, nearly-numbing killers in Michael Haneke's Funny Games

So, this movie looks really good. Oh wait, no it doesn't. This is just another "Stuff That White People Like" tedium-protecting load of dookie.

I hate writing blogs/reviews like this. I hate sounding so very blase and bored with all art and "seen it all" kind of stuff. I am in general, an interested, excited person. I'm keen to discover things, and have no problem sitting through silly movies or reading silly pap on the train. Yet I enjoy my Camus and Aristotle. I'm pretty easy to please. Just stop pretending you're showing us something new and different when it's tired and cringe-inducing. Please stop making movies like this so I can write excited/ing, interested/ing reviews. Cheers.

1:50 PM - 7 Comments - 11 Kudos - Add Comment

Bad China, Bad! No Tofu!

As if supplying Khartoum all its weapons to wage war on innocent black Africans in Darfur wasn't enough, look at this. Do they really think people don't know what they do? That hushing it up means the world isn't going to find out?

By Sky News SkyNews - Wednesday, August 13 10:28 am

A British journalist was arrested and dragged along the ground by police while covering a Tibet protest outside the Olympic Games area in Beijing.

John Ray, the China correspondent for ITN, says he was "roughed up" by officers during the incident, near the Bird's Nest stadium. He was driven away in a police van before being released, the British Embassy confirmed.

The incident started when activists hung a "Free Tibet" banner in the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, said human rights group Students For A Free Tibet. Ray was dragged into a nearby restaurant and held down by officers who also stamped on his hands, onlookers said.

Speaking by telephone from the back of the police van, he said: "I have been roughed up. They dragged me, pulled me and knocked me to the ground. Now they are filming me."

He could then be heard asking the officers with him: "Why are you filming? I am a British journalist. I have all the Olympic accreditation I need."

Police officers could then be heard asking: "What's your opinion on Tibet?" Ray replied: "I have no opinion on Tibet. I am a journalist."

Officers were also filming and taking pictures of other journalists.

Meanwhile, a Chinese man who applied for permission to protest at the Olympic Games has reportedly disappeared. Ji Sizun, 58, travelled to Beijing from the southern province of Fujian to draw attention to corruption among local officials in China. He applied for a permit to enter one of the three designated zones set up in the capital for the Games.

The activist said he wanted to call for "greater participation of Chinese citizens in the political processes, and denounce abuses of power." But when he returned to Deshengmenwai police station, in Beijing's Xicheng district, to check on his permit, he vanished and has not been heard from since.

Police denied Ji had been arrested. "Petitioners have the right to apply. We don't dare touch them," said one officer.

The protest zones - which are well away from the Olympic area - were set up by officials following international pressure and controversy over China being awarded the Games.

But they have remained empty, according to activists, and a Sky News TV crew that went to film one of them was turned away.

Ji's case is the latest in a string of alleged human rights abuses. Other Chinese citizens who applied to protest have been harassed or detained.

Ge Yifei, a 48-year-old doctor who wanted to vent her anger about a property dispute in her home town of Suzhou, was detained for several hours before being escorted home.

Zhang Wei was allegedly jailed for 30 days after applying to protest about her home being destroyed in the Olympics development.

Parents whose children died in May's Sichuan earthquake were intercepted at Chengdu airport. Police tore up their air tickets.

BEIJING (AFP) - Eight pro-Tibet activists who staged a protest near Beijing's main Olympic venues have been deported, a spokeswoman for the group Students for a Free Tibet said Thursday.

The group unfurled pro-Tibet banners and blocked the entrance to a park on Wednesday, causing a scuffle with police that saw a British television crew roughed up and prevented from reporting the demonstration.

Students for a Free Tibet, who have organised a number of protests around Olympic venues over the past week, said their activists detained were seven Americans and a Japanese national.

"The seven Americans were sent back to Los Angeles and should be arriving shortly," Brianna Cotter told AFP on Thursday.

Pema Yoko, a Tibetan with Japanese citizenship, was sent to Frankfurt, and is taking a flight back to London on Thursday, Cotter said.

Yoko, 25, was born in London to a Tibetan father and Japanese mother.

"I feel a strong sense of commitment to defending Tibetan identity and speaking out against the Chinese government's brutal regime which is destroying my father's homeland," she said in a statement emailed to AFP.

9:32 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Just you wait, Enry Iggins

One of the nice things about being a "foreigner" (what Brits call anyone not British) is that people notice and compliment things about one that may be taken for granted in one's home country. One of those things for me, is the way I speak. Though those closest to me (you know who you are and your name begins with a 'B' and ends with an 'n') may make fun of the way I say, for example, everything, most others seem to find my American accent and way of speaking very pleasant and not very grating. I am constantly being told, "Oh wow, you don't sound particularly American -- you have a very soft accent -- how long have you been in England?" I must be doing something right.

And lest my fellow Americans misunderstand the weight of a Brit complimenting an accent -- this is a country that can fit inside Texas 3.5 times, and so far, I've counted no less than 12 regional accents: every single one of which is mocked mercilessly by everyone else. You can drive the length or breadth of the country in less than 8 hours, but you cannot stand with another person in a field without hearing Regional snobbery. The only accent one can get away with in this country is a Home Counties accent (Brief British geography/sociology lesson: The Home counties are generally considered to be those counties in the south that surround the metropolis of London, and the phrase is used in the way that Americans would use the phrase "Middle America" -- it just sort of means quintessentially English, with no funny accent, decently educated, middle class enough to know how to mind your manners and look sorry all the time): your general Southern English, ever-so-slightly-genteel-BBC-grain-fed accent.

In America, there are a few accents that are mildly annoying or that get mocked ceaselessly -- namely, a Southern accent, a very strong New York accent and possibly a Californian Valley Girl accent. Other than that, we leave each other's flat, bland, friendly voices the hell alone -- after all, mocking the way a man speaks could be mocking the way he was raised, the way his parents and grandparents spoke, the neighbourhood in which he grew up. Because Americans are all from somewhere else, making fun of an accent could quite literally many times be making fun of a race or culture as well. But the linguists have got this covered, so I'll leave the beauties and mysteries of intonation and accentuation up to them. This paragraph is just to convey my American amazement at the Accent Snobbery that goes on in the UK -- I remember asking my partner once, "Is there anyone that speaks properly here?" and receiving a laugh in response.

And get this -- if people speak "properly" and sound like the Queen or the folk over at the good ole BBC, they call it Received Pronunciation. How Social Classist is that?? I'm shocked and appalled. Granted, if you've ever listened to the Cockney or East End accents for longer than a few minutes, you can understand how the first reaction would be to either hit someone over the head with pronunciation tape or ship them off to Australia (go to YouTube and search for EastEnders and you'll see what I mean in 10 seconds flat). But wow, Received Pronunciation: the accent the illiterate masses receive from the Educated Few. I love it. So vastly different from my American upbringing.

So, all that verbiage to convey -- it's going to be alright. I don't speak like a Scouser, a Brummy, a Cockney, a Geordie, a Yam Yam or a Welshman, so it's all OK.

And to prove it, here's how Mister Genius Quiz Man rates my aaaaaaccent.

Currently watching : My Fair Lady Release date: 1998-12-08

12:44 PM - 10 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

I’ve been here such a long, long time

Right. So I've been in Britain for nearly a year, and I'm still freakin' weirded out by stuff. I even have to purposely say "dude" and "sweet" a lot just to remind myself from whence I came. My friend Caroline (she's amazing, just FYI) recently sent me a list of things that weirded other Americans out who live in the UK, and I thought I'd expand and add to it. So, for all you Yanks (and yes, I tell them all the time that most of us aren't Yanks): aren't they bizarre? And for all you Brits: yes, you are. ;-) And before anyone gets their panties/knickers in a twist: I do love living here.

*   Marmite - also known as 'the jar of evil'. It is a yeast extract product that Brits spread onto toasted bread with butter. This could bring a grown man to his knees. This shit is AWFUL. I mean, combine the salt of the sea with a slightly sour flavor and this is what these fuckers eat in the morning on toast. It is an affront to bread!

    * 'Biscuits, Jim, but not as we know them!' We would more likely call them 'cookies'..but cookies isn't a term used much in the UK. I don't even think twice anymore about translating this one. BUT -- I found Oreo cookies over here! Hallelujah.

    * Sandwiches with butter on them or unusual sandwich filling combos such as chicken & sweetcorn, cheese & onion or brie & grape. Prawn & mayonnaise is my favorite disgusting combination. No, I don't want SHRIMP cold, nor on a sandwich. Yech.

    * Referral to wheat bread as 'brown' bread. Complete and total absence of most very healthy whole grain types of bread. Scouring the shelves for weeks, I finally found a suitable brand.

    * Asking for a 'white' coffee, rather than coffee with cream.

    * Having alcoholic beverages at lunch on a workday! And then a few beers after work with your mates, and then a few glasses of wine at dinner...honestly, my poor liver! These people can DRINK. It's astonishing, really.

      *Jell-o is known as 'jelly'. As G.K. Chesterton famously said: "I don't like jelly [jello] -- I never eat food that is afraid of me."

      *Stove is known as 'the cooker' or 'the hob' -- I've gotten very fast at translating F to C though!

       *I can't find regular pie tins anywhere. As "pie" can mean a salty (they'd call it savoury) or dinner dish, they have one standard shape, even the sweet pies. I've found something called a sandwich tin, which did ok for pumpkin pies.

Use of any of the following words, phrases or mannerisms:

    * Over usage of the terms 'as well' or 'right' or 'actually' or 'lovely'. Examples: "You're coming along as well, yes?"; "Right, good, thanks." or "Right, must continue this project."; the word actually can and will come at all places and times in a sentence, ad infinitum; "Lovely, thanks very much." or "Oh, she is lovely, isn't she?". Everything's lovely and nice.

    * The four B's: Bugger, Bloody, Brilliant, Bollocks -- dirty, dirty, dirty.

    * Crisps instead of potato chips

    * Cheers as thank you or goodbye or the end of a sentence.

    * Speaking of the end of a sentence: we call it a period, they call it a full stop.

    * Chips instead of fries -- but that's sort of basic.

    * Silent 'h' when pronouncing Birmingham or anything else with an h in the middle or saying 'h' as if spelled 'haytch'.

    * All of the town or county names with e's in them are pronounced as if they have a's in them. Examples: Hertfordshire would be pronounced Hart-ford-sher, and all strung together very closely, no glottal stops. Clerkenwell would be pronounced Clarkenwell. Bizarre.

    * Referral to garbage or trash as 'rubbish' and the garbage man as the 'bin man'. Saying 'bin it' instead of 'throw it away'. Trash is considered an extremely rude word, I guess.

    * Petrol...it's the same as gas, right? Or is it? Ok..let's just say the stuff is EXPENSIVE! Also, gas stations or petrol stations aren't called that -- they're called garages; and garage is pronounced GER-ahhhge.

    * 'Y'alright?' as a standard form of greeting instead of 'Hello, how are you?'. The first time someone said, 'Hello, you alright?', I was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm fine, why? What's happened??'

    * Slipping up and saying 'dollars' when you really mean to say 'pounds' or 'cents' when you mean to say 'pence'. Saying stuff like 'more bang for your buck' and 'I feel like a million dollars!'.

    * Use of both knife and fork. But not just to be polite and when a knife is needed; nay, ALL THE TIME. In America, it's extremely rude manners to hold your knife after you've taken a bite. You place it down and chew your food so you don't look like a gluttonous caveman. Here the knife and fork are held constantly, and instead of the fork beind held upright, it's turned over and the food is heaped onto the back of it. It's the damndest thing I ever saw. =)

    * Automatic mental conversion of 'z' to 's' when writing words such as 'organisation' and 'visualise'. Ditto with superfluous 'o's in words like colour and flavour.

    * Single kiss on the cheek of those you are greeting. Hugging is NOT an option. This freaks me out. In America, social rule NUMERO UNO is YOU DO NOT INVADE ANOTHER'S PERSONAL SPACE. Everyone hugs and cheek kisses hello. I feel as if I'm at a Pretty in Pink party!

    * Everything's so tiny. And I mean SMALL. There are acres and acres of land completely unused (yes, I am a big environmentalist, but this is all getting a bit silly -- planting trees would save you the space you use on the greenbelt business), and houses are being built on top of each other. People literally consider a duplex (here they call it a semi-attached) house as a suitable place for a family with kids to live. To someone from such a huge country, it's like raising a kid in an apartment! (Sorry, in a flat.)

    * Writing the date in British fashion no longer seems a bizarre thing. For example, my birthday, which is April 15, 1981, is written 4-15-81 in Yankville, and 15-4-81 in Limeyville.

    *Military time is always used. The 24 hour clock is a beautiful thing. No confusion.

    * I find myself defending the UK in futile arguments with Real Europeans and Americans who may have been in the UK for as long as 14 days, and know everything there is to know about it. For me, the UK is a fantastic middle ground between the bombastic youthfulness of the US and the world-weary selishness of Continental Europe.

    * I'm constantly asked if I'm from Ireland because I've taken on a slight UK bias in my vocal intonation, which I guess sounds Irish...but then, I've gotten Dutch several times as well.

    Words I had to get used to:

    -Stroppy -- it means grumpy, testy, nasty, pouty, etc. One can also "throw a strop", which is akin to throwing a fit.

    -Snarky -- nasty, sarcastic, mean, bitter. Saying a snarky comment is something bitting and harsh, often said in a snide manner.

    -Fit -- it means hot, sexy, and not physically in shape or athletic.

    -Todger -- it means weiner, or 'willy' as they also say. Having sex can be called rogering. I've honestly never heard so many words for penii or sexual intercourse. If I weren't American, I'd blush!

    Words/phrases they use instead of words we use:

    -'Quite' and 'rather' instead of 'very'

    -'As well' instead of 'too'

    -'Have you had any joy with ____?' instead of 'have you had any luch with ____?'

    -French spellings on just about everything: 'tonne' instead of 'ton', 'centre' instead of 'center', etc.

    -'Nick' instead of 'steal'. For example, 'Did you nick my keys?'

If you can think of anything else, add yours!

2:16 AM - 12 Comments - 13 Kudos - Add Comment

Autobiography in five short chapters

Thanks to A for this.

............................................................................................................................

Autobiography in five short chapters

By Portia Nelson

1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

2. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole on the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place. But it isn't my fault. It takes a long time to get out.

3. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in. It's a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

4. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

5. I walk down another street.

12:46 PM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Lachrymals
Category: Writing and Poetry

Some Roman women saved their tears in them.
    They held flat narrow-necked heart-shaped delicate phials
        Below their eyelids against each cheek in turn
And caught their tears. No one could shed enough
     In a single spasm to fill that tiny hollow,
        So the women stoppered them with glass teardrops
And waited. In the meanwhile, some wore them
     Like pendants to have that smooth translucent glass
        (The colors of changing light on the hills)
Nearby all day and all night: none could be certain
    When grief or pain or a sudden abundance
        Of sorrow might come welling into their eyes
Again.  When they were full to the brim,
   Some women carried them as charms
       Of remembrance through their lives
And into their tombs, and some would pour them out
   Into quiet streams or onto the bare earth
         And walk away, and some would drink them.    

--David Wagoner

4:00 PM - 4 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Social Justice ain’t like it used ta

www.kiva.org

I heard about this amazing website yesterday call kiva.org (from my fab friend Mike Liaw).

For as little as $25.00 one can participate in what is known as microfinances, which provides loans between $200-$1000+ to applicants from third world countries for various business needs.

Read more at this WSJ report, this NPR report, or visit the website at www.kiva.org where you can find Journal updates of many businesses there as well.

In the past month or so, they've had so much exposure that they're now having to work overtime to get more businesses on the websites.

8:14 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Today’s the Day
Category: Life

4 things have happened today to make me think that I am on the top of Lady Fortune's Wheel:

Uno) This morning, I got a seat on the train. So far I have been working in London for 1.5 months, and this is the second time I have had a seat on the morning train. The train was running a bit late, so it was one of the nice, plush commuter trains too, so I got a nice wide comfy seat.

Dos) Though it was a tad colder today than usual, the sunlight was absolutely POURING over the South East today. The lakes were glittering, the fields glowing, and people seemed so charmed by this that they were LAUGHING on the train, instead of glowering malevolently at each other.

Tres) I walked into work today expecting a shitstorm because everyone is back from a huge meeting in Barcelona that didn't go so well. Instead, everyone is smiling, happy and buying each other coffees.

Quatro) My co-worker said that he "needed a bloody fag" to get his day going. When I didn't respond, he thought I was offended, and said, "I apologize for my geographically-correct, Trans-Atlanticly questionable slang." Then he realized how stiff he sounded, and we both laughed til we cried.

A whole lot else could go wrong with today, and I'd still be smiling.

2:26 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Life in London Town

A wee bit about my life so far after 1.65 months living in a suburb of London:

I work for a Fortune 100 IT firm that has offices in 24 countries. They are a Big Deal. I am a Personal Assistant to the Director of Sales in the UK. That keeps me busybusybusy, and I love the bustle and busywork, much more ideal than my last job, which was for a far nobler cause and dichotomously much worse for my soul. I walk to the train station every morning along a stream/riverlet path swathed with fields, willow trees, swans, large stately manor homes, ducklings, quaint bridges. If I leave early enough I can stroll and watch the tiniest ducklings tentatively dip one webbed toe into the water before leaping in unceremoniously. I ride the train for 25 minutes, get off at Liverpool St. station and then walk 10 more minutes to my office right next to a Starbucks (there's no place like home, there's no place like home…). I walk a lot in my spare time. Andrew  (the WonderHub) and I went on a 3 hour walk recently and didn't even notice the time passing.

Things are different here. It's more old-fashioned in a lot of ways. We don't own a dryer, because they're 'bad for the environment', yet every household I've been in has at least one electric kettle, which takes up enough electricity for 4 tumbles of the dryer! The washing machine is rough, and I have to wash even tough clothes on a delicate setting so they don't get frayed. Anything delicate I hand wash and then hang all clothes to dry on a skeletal structure that is the stuff of nightmares if glanced at too quickly at night.

In most bathrooms there are two knobs, one for cold, and one for hot, so that one has the equally charming options of turning one's hands numb with cold or scalding them. Everything in general is more...organic, less pretty, bright, refined. I don't say this as praise nor criticism, merely as an observation. Frankly, it's all fucking fascinating, especially from a writer's standpoint. Why haven't I ever heard of/seen these things in stories or films? The grocery stores, especially the ritzy ones, are a sight to behold – fresh produce stacked for miles, very inexpensive European food that we pay highway robbery prices for (Charis, that goat cheese we love and normally pay $4-5 for? It's £1.50 here).

 Everyone is from everywhere else in London, which is just like LA, and comforting in that way. One can't be too homesick when everyone else is homesick too. In that way, I feel at home amongst a group of travellers.
I hated L.A., toward the end. I had some of the best friends a girl could ask for, yet I felt like the smog was choking me in more ways than one. There is something about the formality of this sombre, ancient, gray city that makes me feel safer than the open, too-bright, corner-less spaces of L.A. I'm curious to see what my perspective on my hometown will be when I return as a visitor.

Everyone smokes here. EVERYONE SMOKES HERE. One can't walk off the train without getting a rancid gust of it in the face. They do it around kids too, which I've seen about once a day here so far. That makes me want to put their head through a wall. I am amazed at how little I miss smoking. If I ever missed it, I guess I missed the habit, really. I romanticized smoking because it was something to do, because I never had to look as awkward as I felt (people smoking cigarettes are more intimidating), never had to really sink into my boredom.

I also think it's sexy in a Woody Allen sort of way (I was born in the wrong decade, apparently). I love watching sad, pretty women smoke. The fretful way the cigarette seems to tug their lips into a deeper frown. But I also LOATHE the smell, always have, don't like the dryness on my lungs, etc, so am glad I quit.

Our dear President's foreign policy makes it awfully hard for Americans to get on anywhere in the world, but I grow tired of the remarks about how Americans have no sense of irony, no sense of sarcasm, and this from people who haven't even travelled in their own country, let alone mine. I just remind them (with a huge grin to help take the bite away) that judging people based on their country of origin is bigoted. That seems to work. But in one day I've had to say it about 12 times, and the same joke over and over really does tire one out.

I love foot traffic. Being on the tube/train amongst so many people, and then walking along with a huge crowd makes me feel less lonely than being ensconced in my own little world of metal and glass sitting in traffic. Even though people here would still trample you if walk too slowly, it feels more like being part of something and less like being just one grain that makes up a beach of sand. Oof, that was cheesy. =)

There's more petty crime here, at least in a London suburb. Everyone warns me not to walk alone at night or even during the day. Walking alone at night anywhere in any country is perilous for a woman, but I have been warned by EVERYONE not to make eye contact with men that I pass alone. People are really afraid here too. A recent survey by the Home Office found that 80% of adults (mean and women) over 30 would stop to help a stranger who had collapsed, but would not involve themselves in an altercation, even if it seemed a woman was being hurt by a much stronger man. No one says hello, and when I do say good morning/evening, a lot of times I get hostile responses. But I'm keeping at it. No way should a bunch of teenage punks run the countryside because their lazy asses don't want to work for a living. We've all been mugged, or harassed or bothered, but that doesn't mean we stop trying. But then, maybe you can take the American out of America, but not the 'try, try again' attitude. 

2:44 AM - 11 Comments - 21 Kudos - Add Comment

Why, why, WHY, and so on, etc., ad infinitum

WHY, for fucking fuck's sake and all of holy fuckdom, is my absolute hero and demi-god, Warren Ellis, writing a column for the SUICIDE GIRLS blog?? I'm sorry, but last time I checked, the Suicide Girls was nothing more than what every single other piece of pornography out there is -- a way to make money. Sure, it dresses itself up as "redefining beauty" (why? because the nipples that you show are pierced?) -- the most laughable claim a nudie website could make. Yes, the girls on there may be fatter, thinner, hairier, or more drug addicted than your average porn star -- oh wait, what's that you say? That you can find plenty of fatty, skinny, hairy or drug-induced pornography? Oh. Well, top this: at Suicide Girls, a lot of them have HAIR THAT'S DYED CHERRY RED!! Oooh! That's one I've never seen before! Add to this that you have the privilege of paying $4 per month to see the cultural redefinition of beauty, and what do you have? A pretentious group of dumb kids who think tattoos and piercings = different.

Listen, if you're naturally a tattoo and piercing lover, good on ya. Similarly, if you love boobies and booty and coochie in its pornographic form, have a pat on the back as well. If you want to make money, I'll shake your entrepreneurial greedy hand. But don't waste my time by cloaking your commonness with the pretentious bullshit that I can find in copious, vomit-inducing amounts over at good ole Suicidegirls.com. Ok? Right. Ok.

And now that I've given Suicide Girls a free advert (fuck, shit, piss, tarnation), here, reprinted, I'm sure illegally (but the suicide girls can suck my ever-loving dong), are the brilliant words of Warren Ellis; who, it turns out, is as big a sell out as anyone else in the world of free capital. Spider Jerusalem would piss in his vodka tonic.

*AHEM*

So what do we know today that we didn't know last week? Well, there's members of the Quebec police posing as demonstrators in order to kick up a ruckus and create an excuse for their uniformed comrades to go into the otherwise peaceful protestors with batons. The Quebec police, caught red-handed, openly admit they did it, with a "and what the fuck are you going to do about it, Anglo peegs?" attitude. Which would be new, if most people didn't already know that French Canadians are among the most unpleasant mammals on the face of the planet. I couldn't give a fuck how many soldiers they send to serve with the United Nations -- if Canada wants to impress me, it needs to saw off the French bit and float it out of the Cabot Strait and into the North Atlantic. Let's see how long those shiteaters last when they only have each other to sneer at.

What else? Ah, yes: it turns out that a company hired at great expense to take on dangerous and difficult demolition work at Ground Zero in New York City doesn't actually... exist. This is a wonderful story. This company has no records to speak of, its president is contractually prevented from talking to the press or anyone else, and very few people in the architecture and engineering trades have actually heard of it. Which may possibly explain how, on Friday, one of their workers lost control of a pallet jack -- not the most complicated bit of apparatus you ever saw -- while working on the 23rd floor of the building, managing to somehow drop it on a temporary shed and all but killing the two guys inside it. And it was the third incident there this summer to harm or kill firefighters.

The name of this operation? The John Galt Company. Who is John Galt? That's the question that runs through mad-as-arseholes Ayn Rand's novel ATLAS SHRUGGED, wherein he appears as a mysterious character hellbent on destroying the world that terrible leftie types made. He's a fake engineer. And John Galt Co would appear to be a fake company, insofar as they don't seem to have done anything but make the area more toxic and kill even more people. People on the net, of course, are already asking if John Galt Co are a shell or storefront company for the CIA. Which sounds like bullshit at first blush, but, really: who could invent the idea of a fictional company actually named for a fictional character getting hired to clean up Ground Zero and doing nothing but making more mess and killing more firemen?

And, apparently, a great Cosmic Nothingness has been found. A void in space that's a billion light years across – a significant chunk of the visible universe, in fact. Right now, as I type this, cosmologists and technologists are developing a perfect explanation of why we have dragged ourselves from the amniotic muck of early time, through a history rank with blood and horror, into an age of scientific marvels, striving to see through millions of years of old light and across the immense and jewelled universe itself – to look at a fucking great hole.

See, this is why I don't have a fucking jet pack. "No, no, we need umpty million quid to look for fucking great holes, why on earth would we want to cure cancer, the common cold or Frenchness?" Bastards. Happy Sunday morning. Now fuck off.

9:06 AM - 11 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

For my favorite Aussie

I hate doing things like this, but since she asked so nicely:

Ten Random Things About Me, For Darling Chels

1) I am addicted to hummus. ADDICTED. I could bathe in it. I've tried to make it myself, but to no avail. I can easily be bribed to steal things or assasinate political figures if given vast quantities of hummus.

2) I have been to every state but Alaska, Vermont and Maine.

3) I did a lot of stage acting in college. I made money at it, and that was awesome. Most notably, Jay Leno watched one of my performances at Disney, and told me I had "killer eyes". Not bad!

4) I sang in a gospel choir for 5 years. Second alto, baby!

5) During my childhood, I moved literally every single year of my life. Sometimes more than once a year.

6) But my dad wasn't in the military.

7) I studied Latin and American Sign Language in high school. I translated shows at Disneyland for hearing-impaired folks. I even dated a deaf guy for a little while.

8)  I can't name a single song by David Bowie, The Who, The Clash or Metallica. What a nerd.

9) I am more attracted to people when they use big words.

10) I started writing poetry because the History professor that I assisted bet me that I couldn't write a good satirical poem about Napolean. I won the bet.

1:22 AM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Poem for Friday

In honor of Valentine's Day, for all you sappy happy romantic bastards, I present two of my favorite love poems. Enjoy.

If you're single, who cares? It's probably more heart-wrenching being single when your car breaks down and there's no one to help, or you have good news or sad news and there is no one to share it with.

If you're taken, enjoy it. It's the silliest day of the year -- a day that gives Type A people the freedom to express the goofy sentiment that bounces around their hearts at the thought of their lover. Either way, enjoy the poems, dammit!

To A Long-Loved Love II

In the moonless, lampless dark now of this bed
My body knows each line and curve of yours;
My fingers know the shape of limb and head:
As pure as mathematics ecstasy endures.
Blinded by night and love we share our passion,
Certain of burning flesh, of living bone:
So feels the sculptor in the moment of creation
Moving his hands across the uncut stone.

To a Long-Loved Love IV

You are still new, my love. I do not know you.
Stranger beside me in the dark of bed,
Dreaming the dreams I cannot ever enter,
Eyes closed in that unknown, familiar head.
Who are you, who have thrust and entered
My very being, penetrated so that now
I can never again be wholly separate,
Bound by shared living to this unknown thou?
I do not know you, nor do you know me,
And yet we know each other in the way
Of our primordial forbears in the garden,
Adam knew Eve. As we do, so did they.
They, we, forever strangers: Austere but true.
And yet I would not change it. You are still new.

1:58 PM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment