Looking back over the last week and more I can see that this blog is doing a damn good job at reflecting my life. It’s dull, dull, dull. I keep meaning to blog about things that are in the news or just some random thoughts but to be honest, I can’t be arsed. I hate this time of year for exactly that reason.

Having said that, it’s not actually all as bad as I try to make it seem in my own head. It’s just that there hasn’t been a lot going on. I know I should have been doing my NaNoWriMo novel and I could have blamed the lack of scintillating posts (not that there ever really have been) on that but if truth be told (and around these parts the truth is something you can take or leave) there hasn’t been a lot going on.

Or at least, there hasn’t been a lot going on that I can tell you about. (Secretive? Moi? You better believe it buddy!)

However, I am starting a five week Directors course tonight (as in film director) and then I’m going to have to actually plan the script and find the people to star in my first short, book the dates and make the damn thing! I’m very good at procrastinating as I may have established elsewhere. I don’t know if this course is any good - it’s certainly not the National Film and Television School. It should give me all the skills I need to make a pr0n film though and they can always make money! ;-D

Newsflash!

The FBI have been searching Michael Jackson’s home and have just announced that they have found class A drugs in the kitchen, class B drugs in the lounge and class 5c in the bedroom.

Old, yet topical!

The ongoing battle for Broadband…

BT announced today that 100% of the UK would have access to broadband by 2005. They’ve also introduced the trigger levels for all but 600 of the remaining exchanges that were previously considered unviable for upgrade because the exchange was too small.

That means that I will be able to blog at speed in a year or two. Hopefully. Although I may just appeal to 46 more people in my village to get them to register interest as the trigger level they’ve set is only 100 people.

Now I could rant about this and how it’s really still not good enough and that if they weren’t so concerned about shareholders and profit margins that they could have upgraded the whole country a fair while back but I’m actually happy about this step forward. The only downside is that I can’t envisage the possibility that we’ll be able to choose any broadband supplier other than BT. Still, a lot can change in two years.

More info at the BBC

England are through to the final of the Rugby World Cup having beaten France by lots to not very much. And considering the form of their opponents, Australia, it really is an open result. Both sides have shown moments of genius and have equally played like muppets at times. The Wallabies are defending champions and have the advantage of the home crowd. England have Jonny Wilkinson. Should be a good game.

Gutted to find out yesterday that one of tyres on my car was punctured so had to get it replaced. A good thing too as it turned out that my two front tyres were worn down to an illegal limit so I ended up having to get all four replaced. A hell of a lot of money but cheaper than 6 points and a £2000 fine. And the cost of tyres.

Fortunately I was too hungover to really care and all I wanted to do was go home and go back to bed. We had some people over last for dinner and did a fondue (with oil and meat rather than cheese) which is always a nice social occasion. Plenty of wine was consumed but once again I managed to do what I always do and stab myself with a fondue fork. You’d think I would have learnt by now.

Unlike the previous evening I refrained from pathetically Blogging While Under The Influence. What can I say? I was drunk and pissed off as a result of drinking (you don’t say!) and arguing. What can you do?

So I was watching the old classic, “The Dirty Dozen” and it got to the beginning of the war games. Imagine my surprise when I saw tanks driving up and down my village!

[EDIT: Okay, I should point out that there weren’t tanks trundling through my village at 1am in the morning for real. What I mean is that in the War Games scene in “The Dirty Dozen”, Lee Marvin meets the eponymous group in a small country village in England. The village they used was the one I live in. Admittedly, it has changed a bit since they made the film, but not that much! Anyway, it probably only interests me as I’m a total and utter film geek.]

I will shortly be off on my travels again but this time only to the sunny and tropical climes of Manchester. It’s actually a business trip but will be there for most of a weekend. (Okay, so the business in question is going to be seeing my brother in law off in style on his Stag Do but still, if a job’s got to be done, it’s got to be done properly.)

The problem is that after the go karting, the paintballing, the lapdancing and the continuous drinking there will be the obligatory clubbing. I’m sure the general consensus is that we should go to a Cheesy Nightclub but personally I’d rather hack both legs off with a blunt, tuberculosis infected teaspoon than go to one of Those Places.

So does anyone know of any decent nu-metal/goth/punk/industrial nights that might be a good substitute. (I’m thinking of places similar to saturday nights at Le Phono in Leeds - or Bar Phono as it now seems to be called. Guess I’m showing my age by calling it “Le Phonographique” then!)

(Forgot to mention that I was in Bath last weekend. Nice place. Pretty. Went out for a curry but wasn’t overly impressed by it.)

“I admire a country which welcomes people to express their opinion. I’m proud of Great Britain’s tradition of free speech.”

Is it just me, or does this quote from George W. Bush suggest that encouraging citizens to express an opinion is a great British tradition but not something they’d do back in the good ol’ U. S. of A.? Either that or he’s being amazingly patronising.

Can’t wait until he meets Prince Philip!

That epitome of sanity himself, Manly Smell, has come up with a new meme. Fortunately for you I can’t be arsed to copy and paste his questions here so you’ll have to follow the link to the site that is fast becoming known as the cyber equivalent of a sex maniac on a pogo-stick revealing himself to you at a bus stop.

Unfortunately for you, here are my answers!

1. The most memorable celebrity dream I had was one where Freddy Kreuger kept interupting while I was trying to get laid so I had to beat the crap out of him.

2. The two celebrities I’d like to see brawling are the great ventriloquist George Dubya Shrub accompanied by his little puppet Tony Bliar and the Great White shark from Jaws. Okay, so it wouldn’t so much be a brawl as simply dinner but there’d still be blood. Lots of blood.

3. The only interaction I’ve had with people in the public eye was drinking a bar dry with Gareth Thomas (aka Rog Blake from Blake’s Seven). That man can drink, I can tell you. Oh, and I elbowed Walter Koenig (Chekov from Star Trek) in the head once while he was leching at a mate. He is very short.

4. The tools I’d use to become more surreal would be a rubber headed mallet, a chisel and a tile cutter.

What’s the word that describes that joyless feeling of absolute mind-numbing monotony and soul-sapping tedium that pervades the waking world and steals your youth and drains your energy leaving you empty, hollow and depressed, trapped in the proverbial pit of despair and wallowing in the stinking swamp of futility.

Oh that’s right!

A job!

All work and no play makes Dragon a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Dragon a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Dragon a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Dragon a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Dragon a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Dragon a dull boy!
All work and no play makes Dragon a dull boy!

Ad nauseam…

There’s a rumour going around that there could be a new NIN album out by the end of the year. Apparently in an interview with “Metal Hammer” magazine, Danny Lohner said that the new studio album would be out by Christmas with a world tour sometime next year.

I, for one, am not holding my breath.