Journal Entries
Colds and hayfever
Posted May 27, 2003
I am allergic to dust and pollen. Pollen isn't always there but, because of my ability to organise things into neat tidy 4 foot high piles of piles, the dust is always there. And there are other things which I'm allergic to but don't know about yet. Should probably get some tests done. But, when there is no pollen and no dust in Autumn and Winter it is either the traditional time of year for a flu epidemic and for it to get testicle-torturingly cold.
I think I've had a cold almost non-stop for about 3 years now. And it's one of those things you can never get used to, like women and the time signature in Radiohead songs. Although women aren't like the time signature in Radiohead songs, except that just when you think you've got the hang of it everything changes again but without Thom Yorke singing 'Cut the kids in half'. This isn't from personal experience though, although I'm sure it could be if I could remember before 1pm today. I'll have to ask people about that. Oh and I think I like the 'Romeo + Juliet' film that Radiohead wrote some of the music for. It's either Radiohead's fault, Baz Lurhmann's fault or someone else's fault. But then again, isn't everything?
I'm joking. Just in case anyone gets offended, just work out the interpretation that means no-one gets upset and that'll be the one I'm going for in most cases. When I'm billious I tend to make more sense anyway.
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Latest reply: May 27, 2003
The Matrix
Posted May 22, 2003
It's an okay film. The acting isn't great. The special effects are very good. The allegory is so obvious it wasn't worth it (calling the city 'Zion' is about as subtle as it got).
There's also the very obvious point - what's wrong with blissful ignorance? The set up on Earth seems okay from what I remember. Humans are enslaved and some are miffed that this is the case. I bet rabbits are mortally pissed off that humans rule the world but because they don't have opposable thumbs the poor things have taken to dying of mixamatosis as a sort of protest. If we're going to talk philosophy, then two things:
1. I bet the writers weren't thinking of the film as an allegory for the question 'is it better to be free even when freedom is painful and perilous?' as suggested by that really annoying critic in The Glasgow Herald. Think about it logically (oh go on, it doesn't hurt much) - if the Wachowski brothers put the Christ allegory so bluntly, do you really think they're going to manage to put a subtle existential question that has remained unanswered for centuries into a film with Keanu Reeves in it (nothing against him, sounds like a nice guy, and he will always have been in the Bill and Ted films no matter what)?
2. If Neo is invincible in the new films, then how the heck can the good guys lose?
Everyone who loves the film loves it for two reasons: either they like Keanu Reeves or the fact that the bullet-time thingy looks cool and has been copied a lot afterwards.
I'd rather go and see 'The Actors'. It looks crap but has Dylan Moran in it. Which is just as bad a reason for liking it as people have for liking the Matrix. Except that I'll probably leave 'The Actors' happy and leave 'Matrix Reloaded' melancholy. Big, big difference.
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Latest reply: May 22, 2003
Sounds like a flash of the blindingly obvious to me...
Posted May 2, 2003
I only write these things when I'm annoyed about something. The reason I'm writing this is because that thought only just occured to me and as far as I'm concerned that's incredibly annoying.
Writing things down in an ostensibly public domain (even though you know that it's going to be read by at most five people) is why the internet was invented. You can say 'Phew I got that off my chest and into the public domain' while happily ignoring the fact that only one close friend who is going to sympathise (well, hopefully) with your plight and some people who you are as likely to meet as they are to read your journal.
Otherwise there isn't too much to be annoyed about at the moment, apart from the usual. And the usual has now been the usual for long enough to make it incredibly dull, monotonous etc. to the point where you wish you'd taken an Advanced Higher Boredom. Oh, and it's only a fortnight to the English exam and I'm starting to transfer the blame for my lack of revision to Jane Austen for making 'Emma' quite so long.
On the positive side I've come up with some better ideas for my epitaph. Previously if I died feeling miserable, I would have 'Hah! Told you so!' on my headstone and if I died happy, I'd have 'Hah! Told you so!' too. Now I've decided that no matter what happens I'm going to have 'Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden' as it's a quote from Radiohead (saves me thinking up anything original as that just causes trouble) and also it requires a degree of thinking to get the joke while putting a positive spin on death. Also, I'll be able to see from my new resting place if Thom Yorke is spinning in his grave...
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Latest reply: May 2, 2003
Stress-related Illness
Posted Apr 15, 2003
I have shingles. Interesting. Apparently it's a form of chicken pox that is brought on by stress. So therefore I am stressed, or have been stressed about something enough to make me feel like insects are trying to eat me from within for about a week. What irritates me the most is that I now feel like one of those people who live with their significant other (can't get married, too much of a commitment) in a large flat in London, and who work in P.R, who become incredibly neurotic at the age of 30 because it's a round number, and maybe round numbers mean that they're fat or something. Anyway they get stressed, and start squeezing little rubber balls with mission statements on them. At least, I feel like I've been bracketed in with them for being stressed and middle class at the same time.
All I've got to worry about is a huge back catologue of being either a bit or a complete arsehole (no middle ground involved here). And I was in a play in which I was the only person who knew their lines and so was the only person worried about forgetting them because no-one else could forget them. And girls generally are nerve-wracking. The play is over, worrying about women is nothing new, so perhaps it was a case of being over-critical.
Fortunately I solved this last night with the help of Mr Bob Dylan.
A little self-justification never hurt anyone. Listen to 'Blowin' in the Wind' and just think to yourself 'I've been walking down the wrong roads, I'm now on the right road, even if I am stuck in a traffic jam the size of Kazakhstan.' Well, it worked for me. That's what I like about the past tense in the phrase 'I was an arsehole'.
I'm more of a git now.
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Latest reply: Apr 15, 2003
Why do I bother?
Posted Apr 13, 2003
Today I was supposed to have had a band practice and do some of my history dissertation. I did neither, but through no fault of my own. The reasons for this are twofold:
1. None of the rest of the band turned up.
2. The computer appears to have deleted about 800 words of my dissertation so I had to type them out again.
Important factor to consider when reading this rant (I don't know how to convey ranting other than putting the entire thing in Caps Lock, and that looks a bit strange): THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED (now there Caps Lock looked good and, I hope, got the point across).
Considering the control freak tendencies of our guitarist musically (if it's louder than Oasis he get's upset, if you tell him you think it'd sound good if we made it sound a bit like Joy Division, he goes and puts a Coldplay-esque jangly chiming guitar over your [slightly ripped off] 'look at me! I can pretend to be Peter Hook' bass line), I wonder why he and the rest of the band never try to organise any rehearsals. The outcome at this rate is inevitable, about 48 unused bass riff; a bored drummer; a singer who alters between good, passable and painful in his singing ability and the guitarist who is a doctor's son from a well of family in Bishopbriggs who wants to be Keith Richards and likes to say "rock'n'roll" a lot - we are going to fail spectacuarly. We haven't even got a decent gig yet because, yet again, other people have let me down.
I'm not saying I'm not capable of letting people down, but I think I'm doing as much as can be reasonably expected (gad, I hate that phrase) of me to make my life successful, although by whose standards I have no idea.
Everyone has different objectives, and unfortunately this appears to mean a lot of people will lead only moderately successful lives because no-one is willing to help one another, because then they will be the ones living moderately successful lives, and so on. The moral of the story is probably that people are pretty darn selfish. The next time I see the guitarist he will probably ask me if I've learned the bass tab for Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer' yet. I will reply that I refuse to learn it for religious reasons.
This is all painfully obvious, but I felt like writing something.
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Latest reply: Apr 13, 2003
Beano
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