It’s that time of year again. I don’t recommend you actually go and read Ulysses, although hopefully the new film version might be a little more accessible to the normal human being.

There are, apparently, concerns that the celebration might die out, so I suggest you all go out, dress up and drink a pint or six of Guinness in memory.

I tried to draw a picture of it before I tore it up like a sausage or something I wonder theyre not afraid going about of getting a kick or a bang of something there the woman is beauty of course thats admitted when he said I could pose for a picture naked to some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the job in Helys and I was selling the clothes and strumming in the coffee palace would I be like that bath of the nymph with my hair down yes only shes younger or Im a little like that dirty bitch in that Spanish photo he has nymphs used they go about like that I asked him about her and that word met something with hoses in it and he came out with some jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a thing simply the way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom out of the pan all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his teeth still where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent they fearful trying to hurt you

Blimey, three posts in the space of half an hour. You lucky people.

Last night, I went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Lowry with a couple of friends. A couple more than I was expecting, actually, because I bumped into Lydia from off’f the Just Shoot forums at the tram stop, who was going to see with a friend it for her birthday. Small world.

It’s a very, very clever play: it takes Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and kind of inverts it from the perspective of the eponymous characters. It opens on the pair tossing coins, which repeatedly come up heads: this sets the theme for the play – the protagonists are aware that they’re being dragged along by events outside of their control, but they don’t understand how or for what purpose. Other characters from the play enter and exit their scenes with little apparent explanation, and they try their best to determine the appropriate courses of action – all to no avail as the power of the narrative carries them along regardless. Existentialist themes of choice, the meaning of life and death and the nature of narrative are explored through the characters predicament, and fleshed out further by The Player, the leader of the group of travelling theatricals from Hamlet. The use of Hamlet as a basis – which already makes use of a play within a play – serves to make the themes of narrative and control all the more clever and complex.

All of which combines to form a mindbendingly funny, complex and thought-provoking piece of theater in the true absurdist style.

Now, I should really try and see Waiting for Godot some time.

The other day, on my way home, people kept falling over in front of me:

• A guy was cycling up towards Picadilly, turned right, got his tire caught in a tram line and went flying.
• A girl at the bus stop stepped up to get on the bus, missed the bus completely and went over.
• Getting off the bus in Chorlton, a girl slipped on the edge of the bus floor and narrowly missed faceplanting the pavement.

Of all the mutant superpowers in the world I could have, I get the ability to make people fall over in a comical fashion. Brilliant. Can I trade it for X-ray vision or the ability to be in two places at once, please?

So, right. Sainsbury’s in Sale has a pay-and-display carpark, because it’s right next to the central shopping area and they got pissed off with people parking in it and buggering off into other shops, thus depriving Actual Sainsburys Customers of valuable parking space and costing them money. Hence, pay and display.

However, Sainsbury’s quite rightly deemed it unfair that their actual real customers should have to pay for parking when they’re already paying well over the odds for their pretentious (but delicious) Taste The Difference Quantum Cheddar anyway. So they offer a refund of your 50p parking cost if you take the ticket into the shop.

I’ll let you think about that for a moment.

Yes, that’s right. You buy your ticket, but you can’t leave it in your car, because in order to get your refund you have to take it into the shop. So you buy your ticket, go into the shop, and get the money back. The whole thing is an exercise in total pointlessness and utter, abject futility.

This looks like the best holiday company in the world. I suspect Naomi may disagree.

A while back, Sven posted a quiz thingy which was supposed to tell you which one of his homies you were. I filled it in several times, and it never came up with me, which is kind of confusing, given that I was reasonably sure – up until this point – that I was me.

However, after some detailed study (that is, I’ve just sat here for half an hour going through all the options in the quiz trying to get it to come up with me – yes, my life is that empty) I have arrived at the answer. It is this:

Sven thinks I use a digital camera.

I am, frankly, appalled by this slur on my character, and I shall be expecting an apology from His Royal Svenness in the next couple of days.

I have a new policy. I am going to continue having birthdays, but I will never be any older than 25. The thought of being a mere four years away from 30 is far too depressing to even contemplate, so as of now, I’m not going to age any more, and therefore yesterday, I was 25 for the second time.

The weekend itself was actually pretty good. I hijacked a friend’s leaving do at FAB Cafe in order to make it look like I had more friends than I really do, and spent a happy couple of hours watching bad Asian films and drinking Greene King IPA. I even attempted to get some actual real live females to come along, but in the end, only geek-in-training Rachel could actually make it, thus leading Naomi to the obvious conclusion that Rachel and I were having a secret perl-and-Java-programming-based lovefest whilst she was away in Norn Iron. At this point, things got confusing, but I seem to recall cleavage being involved. Either way, Naomi now has it into her head that she has competition; maybe I could arrange some sort of fight to the death. Or bikini-mudwrestling competition. Or something. Anyway, forgiveness was apparently eventually forthcoming as Naomi took me out for dinner (hurrah for womens lib!) on Sunday, and that was all good.

Richard apparently had a hand in the selection of my birthday present, which explains why I’ve now got 760 pages of “Jesus and the Victory of God” by N.T. Wright sat on my bookshelf. Other people were apparently also consulted, and it seems that Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology came up as an option at one point. I’m not entirely sure what I’d have said should that actually have turned up in my birthday stocking…

Anyway, my flatmate proved he knew me best of all by presenting me with a bottle of 12-year Glenfiddich Caoran Reserve. Hoorah.

Lori invited me round her place to look at her meme. So I did.

1. The total number of DVDs, videos, and films I own.

Somewhere in the region of 75, I reckon. Not as many as I thought, to be honest, but there you go.

2. The last film I bought.

That would be Belleville Rendezvous. The last DVD I bought was the SM:TV Live Chums special edition DVD.

3. The last film I watched.

In FAB cafe last night, I watched half of Mr Vampire and all of Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla. But both of those were without sound, so I’m not sure if they count. Last film at the cinema was Episode III (brief review: meh).

4. My favourite five films of all time, ever.

In no particular order, and subject to change whenever the hell I feel like it:

• The Usual Suspects – Just stonkingly good and very clever.
• Memento – Also very clever, and the dark ending is fantastic.
• Lost In Translation – There’s something about this which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s a brilliant piece of escapism.
• Almost Famous – The definitive coming of age/road trip/70s rock movie. Brilliant.
• Can’t decide between Spirited Away (perfect fairytale escapism) and Ghost in the Shell (more Matrix than the Matrix)

5. Tag three people and have them blog this.

Sven
Richard

Nayf (if he ever decides to blog again 🙂

Not that that’s a bad thing, mind. Also: Brain Worms! You can’t go wrong with brain worms.

Today, I shall mostly be Wallpaper Debugging. That is, I’m going through that process whereby every time I fix a bug, another one pops up somewhere else – like when there’s a bubble in your wallpaper, and you flatten it, only for another bubble to pop up somewhere else.

It is quite annoying, and I fear that later on, I might have to kill someone.