Mat Bowles

Hmm, not sure what to think on this one. mendees, having moved to Exeter, is thinking of going to the Cavern tomorrow night. Fine, fairly normal. To see a band called "Betty Curse". The lead singer of which is a persona created by Megan Burns, the actress who played Hannah in 28 Days Later. Now, of course, she's 20, not 13/14 as she was at the time of the film. And, um, she looks pretty good from what I can find (band Myspace, her Myspace). She's also, it appears from a few interviews, fairly switched on.

However, she's backed by Island Records quite heavily, the contact section of the site (no direct link, not possible, see below) essentially promises to spam you with stuff about all their bands that might be of interest, and it just oozes marketing shill. ( Musings on how the marketing men take over the world, and how it turns us all into (too) cynical gits... )

So, cool new artist with both track record to appeal, the looks to carry it off and a genuine goth/alt girl to like, or simple marketing dream designed to cash in on a market that the big boys in the industry can't, normally, get in on?

And, perhaps of more direct relevence, given it's apparently free entry, if I were to cancel my normal Monday night stuff, anyone interested in going along tomorrow?

The DM of the Rings. I read the first, and chuckled, I kept reading, and chuckled lots. Then they introduced Legolas. And Gimli reminded me of nadriel.

If I was well and at work, I'd have skimmed linkfrenzy's post. As it it, I read more than a couple links. Maybe not managing to sleep/keep food down for three days has an advantage? Not one I want to repeat soon, anyway.

Tee hee:

nadriel: I love arguing with philosophers, you can't lose.

matgb: Well, you can lose.

Pause

nadriel: You bastard.

matgb: Some of us aren't playing.

Those confused by this conversation will find a link in my sidebar called "don't click this". It's been there for awhile now. harlotqueen provided the url for me, very useful.

Also, despite being fully networked and connected via Mike's ADSL line, my dial up box pops up randomly. Especially true when streaming via youtube and similar, very annoying. OTOH, I now understand all the fuss surrounding Olberman and Colbert, very very cool.

Firefox 2.0 RC1 has been DLd, it has some good bits, some bad bits, and it's disabled all my favourite extensions, which will annoy when I get home, may go back to 1.5 for a bit. Not keen on the close tab red x now being in each tab, that's four years of mouse habits needing retraining there. Ah well, someone'll do an extension to change it within a few days of release as always.

OK, in my bio, the bit that says I don't need broadband? I stand by it, I don't. But, well, staying at nadriel's does have one advantage, we've netweorked up and he has a 7.5 Mbs connection. I mean, the exchange in Paignton can only manage 2.5Mbs for our business line, he has 3 times that all to himself.

So, what do you do with sucha fast connection? Porn? Don't be silly, Mike wouldn't approve (and there's only so much I can be bothered to look for anyway). YouTube. I've heard so much about the place, now I can see it in all its glory. For example:

Paxman interviews Dawkins about The God Delusion. Dawkins namechecks the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (via)

Now, Dawkins can, at times, be difficult, obnoxious and intemperate. He says he's an agnostic not an atheist because you can't disprove God (this is also Scalzi's position). I say I'm an atheist because I believe there is no god, and assert it's as valid a belief as any other. The line between our views is semantics. But his point is sound. YouTube rocks.

Right, comments to my last post reveal that far too many of my friends lists are uncultured barbarians who don't appreciate good coffee. This is no good at all. Something must be done.

In the meantime, I want to find out what else you're all making the wrong decision about. So I thought I'd poll it good.

[Poll #826727]

It's a big bunch of either/ors. Like all good polls, there's no sitting on the fence, make a choice. I'd have posted more, but apparently 15 is the limit.

Might do some sort of meme quiz thing out of it if I can figure out how to code one, I'll get there eventually...

lithium_doll:

I'm going to try for the 1000 comments anyway. SPAM ME! Invite your flist, your family, your enemies, your milkman. I welcome discussion, poetry, fic, jokes, pr0n, pretty, pretty pictures, and politics. And anything else. I'm easy. So, so easy.

here. 'twas her who pointed out to me I'd made my 500th post, so go comment as requested? She may even make a vid or something. However, as rho observes I must've deleted some, as the post number said 503:

( Rho's mighty LJ-fu )

Which was interesting. It also means that milady Doll has deleted about 31 posts at various stages, as it's actually her 1031st...

Today, I was due in Exeter. draich_goch even rang me to remind me. I said hello, and immediately went back to sleep. Instead, I read Jon Courtney Grimwood's 9TailFox. Apparently, it's an SF novel. I'd say it was even less SF than the Ashraf Bey series (which apparently he's writing a new one of), but there y'go. Good read, regardless.

Basic premise is that a San Francisco cop is investigating an apparent murder committed by a 13 year old girl, and gets killed. He then wakes up in the body of a coma case who's been unconscious for quite awhile, and, conveniently, is a little bit wealthy. There's the usual Grimwood characterisation, but I'm not really sure it's a real difference from either the Ashraf books or Stamping Butterflies. I didn't spot some of the twists, although they were heralded, and some of the elements were a little OTT, but I suppose the OTT elements may be what made it SF.

Only big drawback to me is it made me miss San Francisco and wish I'd organised my stay there a bit more than "get up, find something cool to do" while I was there. Ah well, can always go again sometime. Well, assuming it doesn't sink into the sea anytime soon...

Yeah, I know, but, well, I've been ill ( details ). So I did some finishing work to voting_taktix here. I'm using Wordpress ( wittering ), and have spent the day styling it.

Well, that's not strictly true. I've spent the day with the style edit windows open, but I've alsow been trawling MySpack (which my dial up hates), looking at funny stuff and generally goofing off. draich_goch? Call to Power II sucks. Big time. Can't see the point, it's like CivII but without the cool.

Um, re the site? It's nowhere near finished, but it looks OK in Firefox. It, um, doesn't even look viewable in IE. I have NO IDEA what's gone wrong there, the layout is all weird but I haven't touched the positioning FFS. Ah well. ( Wanna write for the site? )

Anyway, it's after midnight, Old Harry's game finished nearly an hour ago, time to finish reading stuff and shut down for the night, hopefully I can get a nights sleep and go to work tomorrow.

As of one hour, ten minutes ago as I type this, I officially became 32 years old. Do I care? Not really. Do I have any special plans? Well, I've got the week off, so, well, I'm meeting Mum for lunch tomorrow, and going to visit Granny Wednesday, which'll be cool, haven't been to Slapton for ages.
( Lunch with the 'rents )
( A walk though the village, a chat with Dad )
( Shopping for books )
( Gaming at Rob's )

Then home, to check messages, post this, catch up with some memes I've been storing up, then turn in.

Memes and quizzes

I did a mindmap. It's too wide to display properly for the 3-column layout, so here's the link. When I say "I did a mindmap", what I mean is I aske them for one and gave them my email address about 6 months ago, and got the reply last week. Meh, it's free, so de nada.


( What Goth am I? )

( West Wing Character )

New layout

Also? I switched to the new Expressive Vox theme layout. Huge advantage is that the html is very clean and everything has a nicely defined class, so I can style each element. A numpty like me has managed to personalise my journal fairly well. Nowhere near finished, but it works. Tag cloud, page summary, profile, all fairly good. I did go through and delete a huge pile of one-use only tags to make the cloud look almost respectable. Now all I need is to learn how to make banners look good. Or ask someone for one, want to use the same one for here, my MySpace and possibly the column at TaKtiX.

Paulie (trustedhippy_fd) tagged me (the bastard). So I've got to do a book meme. OK, easy, I love books. Only, um, I have to choose one, for each. Ah, bugger. This may take awhile. However, before that, an answer to his question:

I've been meaning to write a post here asking if anyone else has found it a lot harder to read decent fiction since they started blogging?

Yes, yes, and thrice yes. The more I've been writing and reading online,t he less time I spend reading books. I used to avarage a book a week, sometimes one a day. Currently, I'm at less than one a month, and the too read pile is huge.

I'm reading more, I'm better informed, I'm aware of every theory about the latest news story (including most of the crackpot ones), but actual, real, books?

Example. An entry from over a year ago. That book I quoted from? I bought it in the Xmas sales in 2004. It looks immense, it's from one of my favourite authors. Still in the pile next to the bed. Still unread. Sure, I've bought, and read, other books since then, but 18 months after purchase, an Iain M Banks hardback sits there unloved. Ah well. Anyway, to arms my friends, to arms...

( A list of books, and why I like em )

10. Five others that you’d like to do this
Ah, bugger. OK. Chris devils_kitchen and Chris strange_stuff. paulatpingu, faeriecween and susannah_banana

And anyone else that wants to.

If in doubt on any given issue, read elephantfeed, as the fluffy elephant seems to have its head screwed on.

If there is a banging on the flat next doors door, it means that someone has let someone past the security door when they shouldn't have. If, on opening th edoor to find out what is going on, you are greeted with a distraught looking female, react according to instinct.

If, on asking said female (of indeterminate age but looks wasted) if she's looking for the neighbour, she collapses into a sob story, pay attention to words of sob story. If she says "he paid me to have sex with him, but gave me a checque, so I can't afford to pay for the B&B tonight and I've nowhere to sleep", then turning off your normal altruistic instincts might be a good plan. Esepcially if oyu happen to know the bastard is actually in but not answering the door.

If the lady upstairs (Anne) gestures to you to run and leave it, probably a good plan to shut the door and not get involved.

FFS, I need to move out of this building. Girl claimed to Anne that a) she's 16 (she looked a lot more, um, "lived in", but was definately off her face on something) b) he'd given her a cheque for £400 (um, for sex? with that? he's stupid, but not that stupid - besides, if it's for that much, it's definately rubber, he's as skint as me, but earns (a lot) less). Spoke to Anne after she left (Mike never opened the door). She'd rung him from upstairs, he wasn't going to leave the flat. Even the girls downstairs (who, let's just say, aren't the nicest of neighbours) thought she was a problem.

Charity? Maybe it ought to begin at home. But to bring back 16 year old drug addicts and pay them for sex with a rubber cheque, and then hide from them and let your neighbours deal with it? I thought he was the decent neighbour (apart from Anne).