pleonasm:now

Lost blogs

Hurrah! The Tin Man is back! Well, he's been back for a few months now, but I've only just found out. I was typing URLs of sites I hadn't visited in a long time into my trusty browser (the fantastic Mozilla, if you must know - I could never go back to non-tabbed browsing now!), and most of them were 404ing on me, when suddenly one sprang to life: the blog of the Tin Man, aka Jeff, a somewhat neurotic attorney from Jersey City, NJ, whose hyper-analytical, self-critical postings kept me gripped throughout 2001. In fact, his blog inspired me to start my own (this one) in April of that year. And now he's back, after a year's hiatus. It's like my life is flashing before my eyes ...

Also back is the astoundingly witty Ernie, who has a huge and dedicated following. He's partial to rather frequent adjournments, but this time he appears to be back for a while. Yay³. Read it daily, because I said so.

In other news...

Wow.

26 may 2003

Odd one out

OK, so that was more than one day. Five, to be exact. Ahem. Anyway, the answer to the quiz is #4. I've never been on TV at all, let alone Wheel of Fortune. The rest, though, are all true:

1. One day in 1991, Morrissey was approaching the stage entrance of the Caird Hall, Dundee, for his soundcheck. Suddenly, he was surrounded by people clamouring for autographs. In the brouhaha, I ended up directly behind Morrissey, looking over his shoulder at the items he was signing. Then, on a whim, I decided to pinch his bottom to see how he would react. He actually jumped, and gave a little yelp. Morrissey, in the unlikely event that you're reading this, I'd like to offer a sincere apology for such unseemly arse-violating behaviour.
2. I don't remember the exact details, but there had been a rash of burglaries in our village in Cyprus, and the Kyrenia police started hauling people in. My brothers and I, and some of our friends, were questioned at the police station by two police officers in extremely broken English. I was about ten years old, and it was just me and the policemen in a little office. Not very pleasant, to say the least. In the end, it turned out that a local soldier was behind the thefts. I shudder to think what happened to him (visions of Midnight Express).
3. Some time around 1990, Jeffrey Archer (now Lord Archer and ex-con), the bestselling author turned politician, gave a predictably self-promotional lecture at my school about his life. Afterwards, I was standing outside the lecture hall, waiting for a friend, when a rather short person walked up to me and held his hand out. I looked at him, confused, and asked him who he was. Then I realized it was Archer, and shook his hand, embarrassed. Honestly, he looked totally different up close - older and smaller. Later that evening, I sat next to him at dinner, where I put my foot in it again.

4. [False - see above.]
5. Some time in the mid-to-late 90s, I went to see Blur in concert at the Masquerade in Atlanta. The support band were the superb Pulp. Both bands were huge in Britain at that time, but not very well known in the US, so it was incredible to see them play in such a small venue, for a total of $10, at that. Afterwards, I went to a bar called MJQ, then at its old location beneath the Ponce de Leon hotel. After a couple of beers, I noticed that Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur, was standing next to me; he stayed there for over an hour. I didn't exchange a single word with him, but could hear everything he was saying. To his credit, he didn't give the woman he was chatting up the old “I'm a star!” routine, but she was obviously won over anyway, as they both went outside for about ten minutes, then came back in looking rather - erm - dishevelled. Just then, Jarvis Cocker, lead singer of Pulp, walked in, looking rather unhappy. He stood at the bar for a while, looking royally pissed off, then left.

So now you know.

24 may 2003

Quiz

Which one of the following things about me is not true?

1. I made Morrissey jump by pinching his bottom in public, in Dundee, Scotland.
2. As a child, in Cyprus, I was once interrogated extensively by Turkish policemen who spoke next to no English.
3. When Jeffrey Archer walked up to me and shook my hand, I looked at him and said, “Who are you?”
4. I won over $12,000 on Wheel of Fortune in 1996.
5. In a bar in Atlanta, I stood next to a rather drunk Damon Albarn for over an hour, listening to him trying to pick up a woman who didn't know who he was. Then Jarvis Cocker walked by.

Answer tomorrow.

19 may 2003

Done

Well, almost. That was the single most gruelling semester I have ever had, no exaggeration. It honestly felt like it was never going to end. All I have left to do now is revise one paper this weekend, and that's it - until September. Hurrah!

In the meantime, though, email has gone unanswered, non-school papers have stacked up and collected dust and dog hair, voice messages have languished in the phone's digital memory ... this will take some clearing up over the next week or so. So I shall reply to your email, I promise, eventually.

One thing that doesn't suck about doing schoolwork 18 hours a day is that you can listen to music a lot of the time. Well, I can - I know it distracts some people, but I find it actually helps me, especially if it's relatively upbeat. It sort of gets me in a groove, gets the creative juices flowing, and makes the time go by faster. So, anyway, I've been listening to a ton of new stuff, some of which is listed in the currently section over thar on the right. I expect I'll be writing an album review or two in the next week or so. And I have a new photography project in the works!

In the meantime, I can't believe I've never linked to Buffy's Swearing Keyboard. The best one is the letter X. Turn the volume up and let it rip!

16 may 2003