My brain feels a little fried.

I've got 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins stuck in my head, and it will not go away. I've resorted to downloading it, but playing it over and over again is not working anymore. As a result, I think I'm going mildly insane.

Anyways, I've finally gotten round to downloading Arrested Development, and I'm working my way through that, astounded at how it's practically note-perfect, not a single missed step, balancing awkwardness, hilarity, and genuine emotion in the same minute. I'm starting to suspect there's something wrong here, it seems far too good for an American series, but it's going on far too long to be British. It's outstanding though. I'm understanding why people have been recommending it for bloody ages, but obviously they should have forced me ever harder.

Also, Steam is being a bastard, constantly offering brilliant deals. This game Psychonauts, which I've heard nothing but universal praise for, is going for a single English pound. Even if I wasn't facing the prospect of active employment that's starting next week, I'd still buy it, because for a quid, any game is worth it. Except maybe Starship Troopers. Two pounds that cost me, and I'm still convinced they should be paying me to play it.

HOLY FUCK THIS SONG WON'T GO AWAY

GET OUT OF MY HEAD

AAAAAAAAAA

Day Ninety Seven: I may stop using the 'day x' thing soon.

Maybe around day 100 or something deeply significant like that. Oh yes, that'll do nicely.

Anyway, apologies for my unforgivable lapse once again, but I was back home over the weekend, and then stayed there until, well, Wednesday morning, so I was slightly cut off from the ol' internet as well as being drunk a bit far too often with Matt.

So, I finally touched down back at university after a hellish 3 hour train ride (They actually cancelled my train. Not even delayed. Well, it was delayed, by about forty minutes, then they cancelled it. Fuckers. So I used about three different trains to transport me to Norwich instead, giving increasingly angry and sarcastic explanations to the various conductors and whatnot on my way up. I'm convinced that none of them were being paid enough to deal with that. So, where was I? Oh yeah.)

Right, I got back to my festering hole of a room, and I've got a fresh and lovely copy of Empire: Total War waiting for me. I mean, I knew that this game would effectively consume my life when I pre-ordered it, but man, I've never been so right about something before. I can't stop playing this game, and I haven't really done much yet. Apart from declare war on France, conquer half of Canada, and take over Florida while brutally murdering Cherokees. Goddamn I love this game. Even if it is taking up literally all of my free time.

Anyway, now I've got to go on some kind of sailing club boys social because James is afraid of them, and apparently I'm a magical social lubricant. This should be interesting, although moreso if James would actually answer his phone, the absolute BASTARD.

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Now playing: Portishead / Glory Box

Day Ninety Six: Skins

So, I might have mentioned before that I wasn't really that into the new Skins. The first couple of episodes didn't grab me and I just stopped watching after that. This will be important later, I swear.

Right, last night I was over at the neighbours, getting dinner made for me and all sorts. I'm honestly not sure why this happened, given that I am a terrible person and generally fearful of human contact, but nonetheless, free meal, so I'm there. Anyway, we finish up food, and we're flicking through the evenings telly. We watched a frankly terrifying documentary on the worlds fattest pets, another fine piece of investigative journalism by Channel Four, and it pretty much just illustrated the basic telly talking points in a very effective fashion.

-Americans are loud, insane, and a bit fat. Also, they stalk people with massive dogs. Also Also, you just need to own a giant dog and apparently you can get onto Leno. Which is insane.

-The British are unflinchingly polite, nice people, even when they are actually complete bastards. Furthermore, if two old men live together by themselves and refer to each other as brothers, then there is no way in hell that they are related. Those dudes are totally gay.

-Finally, Germany is a frightening country where the everyday language is like being yelled at aggressively.

Anyway, it's after this that Skins comes on, and my protestations are cut short by, well, the very nice people who gave me food for the night, so I'm not inclined to disagree with them too much. But still, it wasn't really working for me until they hit that magic area of quality TV programming, something that automatically makes a crap show good, and makes a good show great.

They gave us lesbians. And man, it was pretty sweet. So, I'll be checking out Skins next week, with the firm expectation of even more pretty girls making out. THIS I SWEAR.

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Now playing: Bruce Springsteen / Born To Run

Day Ninety Five: Let's abandon continuity!

(Geeky post up ahead. Seriously. Go outside and play football or something.)

One of the major problems with comics seems to be this massive amount of history hanging over all of the characters. If you look at something like DC, which has near 70+ years of back story to it, and has actually rebooted their own history more than a couple of times, then there's just a little bit to the characters there.

This is horrifying and intimidating for a newcomer to comics. It's like watching a soap with no idea who any of the characters are. Worse, it's tuning in half way through, and all the characters carry on as normal, and the audience has no fucking clue what's going on. This is terrible. And, yeah, with the rebooting of continuity thing. As I understand it, Crisis on Infinite Earths was an attempt to slim down the massive back story of DC in order to draw in new readers, as well as getting all the old guard excited with a big crossover event that would affect everyone in the DC multiverse. But, duh, it didn't work. Because it was such a massive event, it informed everything that happened after it. Continuity wasn't wiped clean, it just changed, and all manner of new shit began informing narratives. They've tried to clean it up again, with other Crisis events, but it doesn't work, because all it does is make the backstory for these characters even more convoluted and weird.

This is why there's such a fucking nightmare about adapting a Superman movie, by the way. There's so much legacy to draw on that any film simply gets overwhelmed with it.

So, let's abandon continuity. Throw it out completely. Obviously keep it for standard runs of comic books, the twelve or fourteen issue runs that happen, but get rid of this massive, archaic crap. Because it is scary, and not friendly.

Also, I'll be honest, because I just finished reading the out-of-continuity All-Star Superman and it absolutely rocked my socks, because it takes what everyone already knows about Big Blue and just distils it into the most awesome qualities of Superman punching people in the face.

And know I find out that it was written by the same dude who wrote Final Crisis. Huh.

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Now playing: The Rolling Stones / Wild Horses

Day Ninety Four: Talkin' Comics.

Transmetropolitan is maybe one of the more awesome comics that I've ever read.

Now, a matter of perspective here. I'm a huge dork, but up until recently I'd kept it confined to movies, TV, books, the internet...okay, what I'm actually saying is that I do most of the regular nerdy stuff apart from read comic books. Or tabletop gaming. Or, especially, LARPing. Because holy fuck those guys are weird.

The problem is that there doesn't seem to be as much of a massive comic book scene here in the UK as there is in the States. Comic book stores are strange and bizarre artefacts here in Britain, to be examined as curios of a weird and otherworldly culture, whereas in America they've got these things in every town. And that's a true and real shame, because comics are really awesome (and dorky) and it seems to be where Hollywood is getting all its ideas from as well, so that's probably got to count for something to.

This is where downloading comes into play once more, because, like so many pieces of pop culture that I consume on a daily basis, I download my comics. I tell you, the day when everything goes digital and free from DRM, I will start buying shit again. It's the best way to do, hell, everything, because it means I can spend far much more time in my pants, away from the public eye. And I think that's something that everyone can consider a good thing, because I should not go outside too much. Least of all in nothing but my pants.

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Now playing: Count Basie Orchestra / One O'Clock Jump

Day Ninety One: Right.

There probably won't be an update tomorrow, as I'm going to Sheffield tomorrow morning, and I've got an assessed discussion at 9am that morning too. And I'm going to the silent disco tonight, which will be most pleasant and awesome, but I'm concerned that a bit too much drinking might take place. So, I'll obviously be bringing to bear my considerable willpower to avoid drinking.

Oooh, I'll also be Rock Banding it up as well, displaying my awesome skills on the bass while Katie drums, Chris takes the other guitar, and Sarah takes on the vocals. Good lord, it should be impressive.

Yeah, so this weekend will involve a massive train ride to Sheffield, meeting up with Mike en route at Nottingham for some excessive drinking and partying with Carol for just one night, then I get the hell outta there Saturday morning to come back to Norwich and write 2000 words about issues surrounding Elizabeth 1's gender. I predict that it will be one of the best essays I've ever written. The problem is that when I get back in, presumable hungover and knackered, I'll be straight online, looking for the latest episode of Battestar Galactica. So there might be a problem there.

You might ask: "Andrew, why the hell didn't you plan ahead, get this essay done in advance and make sure that you don't go out tonight. And seriously, more like Battlestar GAY-lactica dude."

To which I'd calmly and rationally respond: "HEY FUCK YOU PAL"

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Now playing: Jet / Are You Gonna Be My Girl?

Day Eighty Seven: Yeah, it's Valentine's Day tomorrow.

I mean, really, is there a worse holiday? It's miserable for single people. It's expensive for couples. It's absolutely sickening for everyone involved, and it's abominable that it exists. However, it has provided me with a great excuse to get terrifyingly and completely steamingly drunk tomorrow. I'm meeting up with James and Chris at about three, and we're going to start drinking and never stop. At around 10.30/11 we're going to head to the LCR to take part in the standard single guys Valentine's Day ritual. Basically, we hit on depressed and lonely girls who are out that night as well, or we throw up on them. Either way, we have a system. It works.

Also, The Office feels really weird at the moment. I think it's because since they resolved the Dwight / Angela / Andy plot line they haven't really had, well, anything as the main plotline. There needs to be something major happening soon, otherwise I may stop getting up really early to download the episodes. Instead, I'll be switching to the routine that I currently employ for Heroes, which is download it at whenever the hell o' clock, and watch it begrudgingly, almost out of routine.

It's lucky that Battlestar Galactica is still currently throwing out awesome episodes week after week, otherwise we'd be in real trouble. And I guess it's good that Scrubs has hit a new stride as well, and is actually genuinly good agiain. And of course, 30 Rock continues to surprise me every day with it's continued fantasticness. So, guess we're okay at the moment. I just wish The Office would start being brilliant again.

(Warning, the above post may be completely incomprehensible to those of you who don't download the vast majority of your TV.)

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Now playing: The Lonely Island / Sax Man (feat. Jack Black)

Day Eighty Five: Movies

Right, I don't know what happened, but somehow I managed to miss Crank. I only just finished watching it, and my holy lord it is like totally the best film ever.

Well, no, that's not true. It's not a thinking movie. It's not going to challenge your perceptions, or alter your mind. But holy shit, this film kicks ass in a very, very special way. We're talking Shoot 'Em Up levels of kick-assery. This is a film that opens with Jason Statham being injected with some kind of crazy Chinese poison that means he needs a constant flow of adrenaline, or his heart will stop, and he'll die. It's pure Macguffin crap, but it lends itself very well to Statham fighting the hell out of absolutely everyone, and causing horrifying property damage. This film is just non-stop fighting and explosions, and it's awesome. Watch it as soon as you possibly can. It fucking rocks.

Also, as a completely unrelated note, I'd just like to make it clear that the album "Incredibad" by The Lonely Island is officially the best fucking album in the whole wide world. Honestly, it's so good that it's the second album that I've actually bought using actual money. And that must surely count for something.

Uh oh, Callum has just walked in, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to get drunk with him. I'd love to stay and chat but....oh no, he's dragging me away.

No, I want to stay and blog!

Noooooooooooooodfiosdhfososrhlenwq;ln r!%$%$"^*((((*

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Now playing: The Lonely Island / I'm on a Boat (feat. T-Pain)

Day Seventy Nine: I can't really think of titles anymore.

So, further evidence that I'm a horrifyingly sad bastard, I spent much of my morning watching Mean Girls. There's something wrong with me, I'm sure. Also, what went wrong with Lindsay Lohan? Seriously, she was all sorts of awesome in Mean Girls, and then she just kinda stopped doing anything remotely good. Although, she was superbly outshone by Lizzy Caplin, who I will make my wife one day. My word yes.

And that blonde one too, Rachel McAdams? My word yes. But only when she had dark hair. Blonde, and in the movie, she's just a little too convincing as an entity of pure scary evil.

Anyway.

I've been in a weird sort of funk recently, with the constant zombie genocide of Left 4 Dead and the resultant erratic sleep pattern making my brain feel funny. But I've got the solution. A proper good night of drinking, followed by some hardcore sleeping through all of Saturday. I'm going to tear mad shit through the 90's LCR, so I'd like to apologise to anyone who I meet that night, as I'm going to be ludicrously, horribly drunk, and I won't be a nice person.

I think what really fucked me up this week was getting absolutely destroyed for Tuesday's beach party LCR. (well, I had to. It was nice to bring out the enormous hat again, for no real reason.) Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem, but I then had to go to Liberate! with Callum and Damien for another epic gay night which I believe culminated in a magnificent rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody all along the Avenues, followed by watching about half of Goldeneye, which is now officially the best Bond movie ever. I decided that this was so, with great authority.

So, yeah, I'm going to attempt to get my brain unfucked soon. There isn't that much left of this term now!

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Now playing: Guster / One Man Wrecking Machine

Day Seventy Five: Bleh

I know I was at a house party last night. There's no beer in my fridge, and I've got new pizza boxes and takeaway menus in my room. I also woke up with an open and completely undrunk can of coke next to my bed. That proved useful in getting up this morning.

Oh yeah, so I found this on youtube. Streetfighter, as played out by those little video links that you can click on within videos now. It's worth playing through once just to appreciate the insane amount of work that's gone into it.

Man, I am still far too hungover to deal with any of this.

Also, I can't stop playing this. It's like Left 4 Dead, except actually constant zombies, and you can't run away.

And seriously, Left 4 Dead is actually the best online multiplayer game I've played. I've been far too used to all this 2142 and Halo nonsense, where I'm fighting against teenaged Asian kids who've been playing the game since it was released for 21 hours a day, and can headshot you from 2000 yards away using a pistol. In that respect, Left 4 Dead is a lovely contrast. It's like being in school, the group has to move at the pace of the slowest kid. If ThUnDeRcOcK_69 from Germany is being retarded and gets eaten by a zombie, everyone else has to stop and help, otherwise they're all screwed. It's a brilliant system, this forced teamwork.

The only problem is the horrifying imbalances that can happen in Verses mode. If you're up against a team who know how to properly use the zombies, and you've got three mouthbreathers who can barely walk unassisted then you're probably screweed. But Left 4 Dead is the only online shooter that's still fun, even when you're losing. That's how well is works.

So, what you need to do is buy it and start playing. Add me via Steam (Aceaz5) and let's get some games going.

Alternatively, if you've already got me on Steam, then, dude, we seriously need to play more!

Day Seventy Three: Man, Battlestar is seriously awesome.

I mean, I'm not sure I've covered this enough. I've been re-watching it through from the beginning, and it's still capable of constantly rocking my socks. I think the main reason why is that I've been burned so many times before by other sci-fi shows.

The big thing as a kid for me was stuff like Stargate and Voyager, and the problem with these shows is that that had a very pronounced tendency to manage to change absolutely nothing from episode to episode. Okay, maybe that's unfair. Stargate at least changed slightly from season to season, there was a sense that there was a progressive plot line. Every five episodes or so something would happen to change the universe that these guys were living in, and that's a good thing.

But man, Voyager was just different class. Somewhere out there on the intertubes is a list of which characters have died, in which episode, and just how many times. The exact number is not important, it's just that over seven seasons, I seem to remember every single main character dying at least once. At least Stargate only did that with one character, and they had the good grace to make it a running joke.

Voyager though, was something else. That punched the reset button so often that I'm surprised it even worked by the time they got to the final season.

The point that I'm laboriously trying to make is that every single action that happens in BSG has consequences, consequences that actually have repercussions for more than two episodes. Also, it has killer robots, and wicked awesome space battles. So, yeah, you should totally check it out. We're in Season Four, and we're wrapping it all up, and it is awesome.

Day Seventy One: Inernetnerts

So, have you guys heard about Microsoft Songsmith? It's the most insane and weird thing I've come across, today at least.

The original idea is that you sing into this program, and it then automatically generates music that matches your vocals, creating something lovely and beautiful, as illustrated by this lovely video.

(By the way, make sure you watch the whole movie. At the very least, skip to around 1:55, otherwise you'll miss the best ever line, delivered with not a hint of irony: "Microsoft, huh? So it's pretty easy to use?" Bravo. I bet the script editor sat up in bed and hugged himself after he came up with that.)

Anyway, that's not why this song is. See, if you take a rip of the vocals from any song, you can plug it into this program, and it'll automatically generate a result for you. They can, at times, be terrifying, like this version of 'Roxanne' by The Police, which has changed into something else entirely. Other songs, I think, bear experimentation. Like 'Wonderwall', which has now become my favourite song again, for all the wrong reasons.

I mean, this is just a completely weird and facinating thing, trying to watch technology interpret music and just coming up with completely insane versions instead. Look! 'Just What I Needed', by The Cars. What in the blue fuck happened there? Or with 'What's Going On?' by Marvin Gaye. I mean, we're way off the insanity chart and moving into "good and holy jesus this is freaking me out please make it stop" territory here.

The best, I think, is going to have to be 'Enter Sandman'. Man, that's just fucking completely batshit insane. While being completely fantastic, of course.

In fact, I'm not going to listen to cover versions of songs any more. I'm going to let Songsmith do the work from now on. Because this is beautiful.

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Now playing: Alice Cooper / School's Out (But probably not the version you're thinking of.)

Day Seventy: So here's a story

OKAY FOR SOME REASON FACEBOOK IS GAY AND CAN'T DO ENTIRE NOTES IN IT'S SYNCING SERVICE. SO CLICK VIEW ORIGINAL POST IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ON MY DRUNKEN RAMBLINGS.

ALSO I DON'T KNOW WHY I STARTED TYPING THIS IN CAPITALS AND NOW I CAN'T SEEM TO STOP.

Anyway.

While I was back home and without internet, I'd be checking all my favourite blogs and sites, and I'd keep seeing people updating with "Yeah, I'm playing too much Left 4 Dead right now, but I'll be back soon" and I'd think that those dudes were total losers. I mean, how good can one game be? I've played addicting games before, and I still managed to keep the blog going. Jesus, these people are just really lazy.

So, obviously, that's what I've been doing for the last couple of days. It helped that James' birthday managed to land right on the Thursday evening, which wiped me out both for that evening and also the following morning, due to a nine am start doing TV sitcom, which incidentally promises to be even wankier than animation. I even used the term "post-modern" in the first seminar. It doesn't bode well for anyone who wants to watch telly with me ever again.

So, Friday night, and I figured I'd do a double update to compensate for the missed one. Until I remembered I had another party to go to. It was just over the road. And also I'd apparently and very drunkenly promised Chris that "Oh yeah mate I'll definitely be there mate no worries mate I'll see you there dude."

So, house party (with awesome bottle opening hat) and another lazy morning later, I decided to do my double update on Saturday and make many many amusing jokes about the whole situation.

Then I ran into both James coming round and getting drunk with me while we played left 4 dead before leaving with the rest of my house for the LCR which was pretty brutal.

So I've made it to sunday, and I'm kind of just lying in bed after eating far too much bacon, as expertly prepared by both Kate and myself, and I decide to give Left 4 Dead a quick blastthrough.

And that takes us through to now, where I've actually had it turned off for more that an hour, but it is still five in the fucking morning. Honestly, the problems I've got are far too much for just one post, so I'm just going to say sorry for the lapse in updates dudes, but they will resume in the regular fashion this monday. Which is technically today but I'm going to go ahead and work a little blogger magic to pretend that that never happened...

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Now playing: Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack - Season 3/ All Along The Watchtower (From 'Crossroads, Part 2')

Day Sixty Six: Site news, and what the hell happened to last weekend. I mean seriously what the fuck.

So, damn. That was a good couple of days.

I was still awake Thursday morning, having spent the preceding 24 hours solidly writing up two essays for politics and animation. Finally met up with James on campus at around twelve, and spent about an hour getting them both printed off and handed in. I also laughed at Karine and Scott, who had also both been up all night, but in the library. Scott was particularly amusing as his essay was about half the length of everyone else's, and Karine as she'd been in the same damn spot of the library for about three days in a row, or something completely fucking retarded like that.

A smart, rational person would have then left campus, filled with joy in his heart, and gone back to bed. My friends, you know me. I am not that guy. I went to the bar with James, and we drank beers. Several beers. I had Matt, who I believe talked to you Thursday, arriving, so I made him come to the bar, and have a beer. Then, bidding farewell to Nicki, Damien and Callum, who had arrived at the bar at some point, I went back with Matt. And there we continued drinking even more. Two crates of Budweiser gone before we left the house again. I was taking Matt to the Christmas LCR.

I think Kate, James, Emily and Camden were with me here as well. It's a bit blurry. I remember arriving at the LCR, and having to exchange tickets for a wristband which was our magic pass to everything that was there, the bumper cars, the spinning whirligig thing, and the LCR, which featured the magic of the one and only Vengaboys. Truly an exceptional evening. I drank an awful lot of Vodka Red Bull, I was rude to an exceptional number of people, I co-ordinated attacks against people on the bumper cars and I rode the whirligig thing so much that I nearly threw up. Somehow, me and Matt were able to walk home to sleep for a couple of hours.

Friday was my birthday, and I had Mike coming up. Or down rather, from his Uni and then catching a lift with us home. So, we head to the greasy spoon, get baconed up, and then wander to town to meet Nicki Callum and Damien for beer & burger at Spoons. It was magnificent, but it hurt. So much meat. Post-crippling burger, we grabbed Mike from the station, then went to Sainsburys to buy a shitload of beer. And some fake red bull. And vodka.

So, house party time, and Me, Matt and Mike have cleared off a case of beer before anyone else has arrived. At some point we played N64. My memory isn't entirely clear, but I'm pretty sure I kicked everyone's asses. later on, we were playing King's cup, and while I don't remember playing a whole much, I do remember being forced to down a dirty pint that was half filled with Thom's mulled wine. After that it all gets really fuzzy. I remember kicking a cat at some point. It was probably being a cunt. I'm pretty sure at some point I jumped up and down on Matt's car, because he won't stop reminding me about that. Then, towards the end, Callum, Mike and Matt came back with my birthday gifts, which consisted of a cone, a massive roadsign, and an advertisement for double glazing or some shit on a massive wooden stake. This was totally fucking awesome. As that evening wore down, I think I passed out, because I don't remember going to sleep watching Wayne's World, although I am assured that we did.

Saturday morning was not good. We woke up early, again. And we ate a shitload of bacon, again. It took me far too long to get packed up, and I'm sure I've forgotten several important things as well. When we finally set off we stopped by the co-op to get juice, and Mike found a half-drunk mug of Jack Daniels and coke in the glove box. I have no words to describe this.

We finally made it home after a deeply painful journey. I had considered updating my blog that evening, but I was so unspeakable tired that I ended up going to bed ludicrously early. Then, on Sunday, my aunt, uncle, cousins and grandparents all came round and were stubbornly nice to me, no matter how much I insisted that I was still the same horrible person. Then, to close out the evening, I got drunk with my cousins, my sister, and Mike, who had come round for reasons that I cannot recall at this time.

So, it's Monday evening, and I should be getting right back into my normal schedule of blogging every day, right? Well, no actually. See, I'm taking a break for the holidays. It's for a number of reasons, involving my home's shitty internet access and the fact that I need to use the family computer to type online, but the main point is that I don't want to be one of those guys who are blogging about their families and whatnot. I've been that guy. He's even less fun than the one I am at the moment. So, from now, consider The Useless Ambition on hiatus. I think over 1000 words should be enough to tide you over for a bit. I may post sporadically over the holiday season, but updates will officially resume when I return to university in early January, and I have actual things to talk about. Until then, good people, it's been real. A special shout-out to all those people who I saw over the last weekend period, including all Thursday and Friday, and everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Facebook. You are all especially lovely. I'll see you in the new year, when The Useless Ambition will be back, with even more daily aimless rambling and drunken chats about TV and movies. I'll talk to you all soon.

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Now playing: What the fuck, my computer doesn't even have this? Fuck this shit.

Day Sixty Two: Oh right, videos don't count as posts.

So, I've "finished" one of my essays now, with a mere 4500 words to write by Wednesday. I've got the sneaking suspicion that I might overrun that slightly. I will almost certainly fall asleep in the Christmas screening as well, because if I haven't finished my essay by then, I'll certainly have stayed up all night before working on it just to try to do so anyway.

Anyway, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on youtube (because otherwise I'd have to actually concentrate, and I think anyone who's ever had an essay to do will agree on my sentiment of 'FUCK THAT SHIT'.) and getting generally freaked out at bizarre tribute videos. Some people have too much spare time. After all, I'm only watching weird tribute videos. These people have to sit down and edit them together. It's weird.

Also, I didn't really discuss this at length yesterday because I wanted to sleep quite badly, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS AWESOME.


I've been following the Lonely Island dudes since The 'Bu, and the fact that they've joined SNL was some of the best news I'd ever heard, as I though Saturday Night Live was finally gong to start being funny again. You know, a return to the glory days, when they had actual good comedians and genuinely inspired writing and sketches. Essentially, I want Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray back on the show. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, but the dudes are still as awesome as ever.

Also, I still can't get over the way that Timberlake dances and mouths 'Jizz' at the camera. Cracks me up every time.

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Now playing: Cat Stevens / Wild World

I need to go to bed

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4

Also, holy shit, that was the Timberlake!

Day Sixty One: Hmm.

I've had a number of people nag me to check out Vitamin String Quartet now, so I've been doing that this evening. I've got to say, it was time well spent. (Youtube them, they are awesome.)

Vitamin String Quartet is the collective name for a group of tribute albums which reinterpret alternative rock by playing it in a string quartet. It's fucking awesome. I always really enjoyed it when rock took on classical music, so to have it come from the other direction was pretty damn cool.

That said, I cannot find any decent torrents for them. I know, to recognise work I like I should actually buy it, but I'm far too poor to be doing that at the moment. Christmas presents, on the other hand, would seem to be quite well sorted.

Also, I thought I'd put up an advance warning now for next week. Not only do I have two major essay deadlines for the 11th, but I also have to deal with the stress of turning 21 on the 12th, as well as having two of my best mates come up here to party with me. Needless to say, it's going to be a sleepless, drunken, and generally fuzzy couple of days. So, don't be surprised if my entries for next week are even less coherent that usual. It's probably due to the cocktail of substances that will be sustaining me through the next week.

See you on the other side!

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Now playing: Sweet Diss and the Comebacks / Dunder and Dwightning

Day Fifty Nine: Oh hey, that looks interesting...

You know what the worst thing about Wikipedia is?

(There are a great many things, actually. The fact that anyone can edit it, the lack of citation for much of it, the insanely anal habits of the administrators, the schizophrenic nature of their relationship with pop culture and the bizarre ways in which they format templates, seemingly arbitrarily. Anyway.)

The worst thing is that you can jump onto the Wiki to look at, say, Samuel L. Jackson, and after about half an hour's worth of facinated clicking, end up on the page for Scots Law.

(Here's how it went: From Samuel L. Jackson to Snakes on a Plane, to Ronny Yu, to Hong Kong, to English Language, to The United Kingdom, to Scotland and then to Scots Law.)

This is an arbitrary example, because no matter what I intend to look up when I'm there, I immediatly get distracted. It's why, for example, if I get drawn into discussions about politics or world events I bring up weird pieces of information that I should have no business knowing, like having intimate detailed knowlege about The Act of Union, or being able to describe how crystallization works. These revelations often make people think I'm a massive dork/nerd, which, admittedly, is true, but honestly, I don't ever go online with the intention of finding out just what exactly Poynings' Law is, I'm just easily distracted.

Well, now you know why I know random and useless information. I was probably just looking up Iron Man 2 and I just got distracted again.

(Oh shit there's Sam Jackson again I am lost.)

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Now playing: Eric Clapton / Tears In Heaven

Day Fifty Three: Why The Cable Guy is the best film ever.

Yes, I'm aware that I've done one of these before. Let me explain something first.

I have a tendency to get, just maybe a bit hyperbolic about movies or TV that I like. Actually, that's not strictly true. I get a bit over the top when describing any single piece of media, good or bad. This is not a bad thing, it just tends to mislead people when I tell them something is fantastic. However, when I say that a film is, in fact, the best film ever, you can still assume that it's pretty damn good.

With that in mind here's why The Cable Guy is fantastic.

The film centers around Matthew Broderick (nicest man in Hollywood) who splits up with his girlfriend. Then, as he gets settled into his new place, he meets...The Cable Guy.

Given that this was the film that nearly killed Jim Carrey's career (that's now been replaced by 23), I was a bit worried when I first watched it. But man, does this film ever rock. Nowadays Jim Carrey plays against type all the time, but this was the first time that he ever did it. And seriously, if your expecting something along the lines of Ace Ventura, or The Mask (which is also fantastic), then you won't be happy. Carrey plays a dude who is completely insane, and not in a fun and happy way. The film just centre around the friendship that Carrey essentially forces onto Broderick, and Matt just becomes more and more freaked out.

Ah hell, you know what, just watch the clip.

If this doesn't appeal to you, then, well, you're probably a bad person.

Or you fear good things. Either way, you should probably watch it.

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Now playing: Jim Carrey / Somebody to Love

Day Fifty One: Excerpts from my politics in animation essay (which focused on The Iron Giant)

- Has anyone ever noticed that Brad Bird seems to have a serious problem with redheads? Seriously, the villain in both The Iron Giant and The Incredibles is a ginger. I mean, Jesus, I think Brad has a serious hang-up on this.

- Man, The Iron Giant is totally about not fucking with the communists. The giant is all like, ‘be who you want to be’, and only acting in self defence, but when he thinks the military have killed Hogarth, he fucks their shit up but good.

- “Superman…” I mean damn, if you aren’t holding back a little tear there, then you officially have no soul.

- Did you know that Vin Diesels voice required absolutely no changes for his voice work? When he speaks normally, he actually sounds like a 50-foot robot.

- Oh, that Mansley dude is the definition of bureaucratic arsehole. Seriously. In the live action version, he would be played by the same dude who played Walter Peck.

- While it is obvious that The Iron Giant represents communism, and Dean the beatnik free spirit of America, it is less obvious but no less true that the fisherman represents the red states of America. And Mansley's Car is clearly a symbol for the crumbled military-industrial complex. Also, nukes just represent nukes. They don't need no symbols dude. They already know what they are.

- The American military is great, and actually super effective and efficient. Except, of course, when it has to deal with 50-foot robots.

- Jennifer Aniston is now fantastically distracting as a voice actor. I keep replacing her with Rachel instead of Hogarth's Mum.

Although, holy shit, she’s ginger too. Okay, so red-headed girls good, red-headed guys, bad.

- Do not play Atomo with the Iron Giant. He will melt you with his laser eyes.

-Rather than referencing, I choose to leave all footnotes and references blank until the end, where I put "GOD IS THE SOURCE OF ALL TRUTH AND LIGHT. ALL TRUTH IS FROM HIM, AND WE ARE ALL SUBMISSIVE TO HIS WILL."
Then I put a row of kisses, and a smiley face.

And a crudely drawn picture of a bear.

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Now playing: Pink Floyd / The Great Gig in the Sky