Yay! Paid at last! So, off to Amazon I toddle! Today’s purchases:
Forever Faithless - The best of Faithless. Yes I do have most of the tracks already, but not these versions and there are three new tracks that sound quite good…
Culture of Fear – I’ve had my eye on this book for some time, it comes very highly recommended. The author had a segment on Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine.
According to the news the Crazy Frog single is due to hit number 1 in the charts this weekend. There’s only one solution to this blight on society…
This link is for PABAHH, the Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood. It’s… educational.
http://www.pabaah.com/
There are links here about why Star Wars should be boycotted because of it’s anti-american message, why Michael Moore should be tried for treason and why people should boycott movies like ‘Monster in law’ because an actress once protested against the Vietnam war.
Edit: It seems they don’t like me anymore: Your coming from a site that we don’t like. So why dont we send you back!
I don’t know why this gives me such a warm fuzzy glow… (Other than picking holes in their appalling spelling)
Inflicted on me by
1) Total Number of Books
I have no idea. Eight to ten large boxes full if I remember. I don’t have a lot of space in my current flat.
2) The Last Book I bought
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
3) The Last Book I Read
I’ve just finished Cryptonomicon and I’ve just started reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell by Susanna Clarke.
4) Five Books that mean a lot to me
Hmmm… This is a tricky one. These are in no particular order.
1) 1984 by George Orwell, which I think should be required reading
2) Neuromancer by William Gibson, which although written in a strange way, started the cyberpunk genre off.
3) Red Star (A graphic novel)
4) Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, which started me on the whole writing malarky
5) Faust by Goethe
5. Tags
Okay, I think I’ll pass this on to
Well, I pretty much enjoyed it. I’m still trying to figure out how much I enjoyed it after you take away the niggles. I think I’d like to watch the whole series back to back to really make my mind up, to see how it flows.
It was definetly worth watching, but here are some of my gripes.
a) General Who? Okay, General Grievous would have had more of a place in my brain space if I had watched the Clone Wars, but one of the things that irritated me about the Matrix sequels was that you only got the full picture of what was going on if you played the game, watched the Animatrix, read the short stories etc etc. In the past Lucas had shied away from that.
b) Acting. Okay, it’s Star Wars, but that’s no excuse for some of the atrocious acting.
c) The fall of Anakin. Whoah, that was fast. “You’re a sith lord and I’m going to hand you in. Oh wait, no I’ve changed my mind, for my wife I will join you. Excuse me while I kill some younglings. Whoops now my wife is disagreeing with me, better try and kill her.” That should have been a much slower process.
d) Qui-Gon immortal? He’s what now? Eh? Where did that come from? And it works how? Rather a lot of open questions from one throw-away comment right at the end.
e) In RotJ didn’t Leia say she remembered her mother? Or does she mean her adoptive mother?
f) Climactic battles? Misnomer much? Especially the wookies.
Okay, so it sounds like a boring fan-boy going on a “Lucas raped my childhood” rant. That’s not the case, I did enjoy watching it. I just sometimes felt the niggles were impeding me suspend my disbelief.
Last weekend was wierd. My friend Monkey was back from Italy for a week, so I toddled off to St Albans for a visit to see him, his new girlfriend and to generally reaquaint myself with the town where I had spent so many years of my life. It was strange coming to St Albans as a visitor, staying in a hotel etc.
The days activities were of course a success, traipsing from pub to pub, avoiding popular locations and going for atmosphere, talking about art (contemporary art: overly maligned or random mess), creativity (apparently living and working as an artist in Italy works better because there is no financial safety net) and whether or not Tony Blair was spawn of Satan (the jury is still out on that one). The conversation was made somewhat more cumbersome as Monkey’s Italian significant other spoke only broken English and I only speak menu Italian (Due saltimbocas e una bottiglia del chianti per favore).
But the wierd part was the overwhelming nostalgia. Memories, both pleasant and unpleasant, sometimes tinted rose, overlaid with actually seeing the place ‘in the flesh’ was certainly an overwhelming experience. I still like St Albans, but now it’s probably more in an intellectual sense. I doubt I’d ever want to live there again.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050512/325/finv3.html
“The nation’s largest shopping centre said on Thursday it was banning youths wearing the “urban crime” uniform of baseball caps and hooded tops, a move supported by Prime Minister Tony Blair.”
Now I’ve always thought that dressing like a Chav ought to be a crime, but I don’t see what getting these kids to change their clothing will actually achieve. In St Albans, if memory serves, the pubs with the most instances of violence were those with a strict dress code (no jeans, no trainers, no football shirts etc). Conclusion: Put a thug in a suit and he’s still a thug.
Urban petty crime and ‘anti-social’ behaviour is a major vote-winning concern for Middle England, but will banning certain types of clothing in shopping malls help? I very much doubt it.
Here some excerpts:
“Reports suggest a new craze in which young people slap strangers and film the assault on mobile phones is on the increase.“
“The assaults have prompted an ITV documentary on the subject.“
“People affected by such crime heal more slowly than those who have suffered from an accident because they know that somebody decided to hurt them on purpose.“
“Bluewater shopping centre in Kent has banned hooded tops, baseball caps and swearing as part of a zero-tolerance crackdown on intimidating behaviour.“
“A Police Federation spokeswoman said: “Obviously this kind of behaviour is illegal.“
Deary me.. Of all the bizarre crazes. It reminds me of the kerfuffle we had about the tango adverts…
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These statistics were generated using
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