Damn you Meg and damn you Guardian! I didn’t want to know that I’m part of the Dido demographic. I have thirteen of the albums listed – more if you include MP3s. I feel hearily disgusted with myself and must now immediately listen to the Pixies a thousand times to remind me why I’m cool. If you want to experience the true shame of my CD collection, the albums I have are hidden in the comments of this entry.
When you are ready to have a serious conversation about Green Lantern you have my e-mail address – and if you don’t, it’s tom%40plasticbag.org. Davo sent me this particular parody, mocking the adult comic book fan, and I have to confess that it is funny. Or at least, I imagine it must be if you don’t go through the whole thing going, “Wow – I remember Abin Sur – he was cool. And John Stewart. And Guy Gardner. And Jade. And the John Byrne reboot of Superman. And Hal Jordan before he went evil. And Sinestro. And… and… and…” And I imagine it would be particularly funny if you don’t finish the article and realise that you missed Kilowog and Arisia and the little chipmunk Green Lantern and the guy who looked a bit like a pickle with lots of arms who used to say things like, “In words of seventeen syllables…….” Green Lantern was always my favourite.
I don’t know how accurate or true any of this is. I wish I knew. I wish I knew who to trust to tell me the truth about such matters. I think we all wish we knew who to trust to tell us the truth about such matters. And in that lies the crisis of modern politics – there’s too much for any one person to grasp, and no-one impartial who can keep you reliably informed. Is it any wonder that the voters become disillusioned?
How unbelievably cool does this magazine look? This is post a its first redesign in eighty years, and it still has a wonderful retro-future design feel to it. It feels more like a periodical of sci-fi short-stories or something. I’m in love with it. And if you want to see the kind of wonderful madness that lurks inside it, then it even has a fairly well-assembled site.
So the Oscar nominations have been announced. I’ve been holding back from commenting on them until I’ve had a chance to let my impressions settle a little. And it has to be said that it’s a pretty motley selection of movies and performances on offer.
Films like A Beautiful Mind are always good Oscar fodder – nice worthy biopics which stretch an actor to perform the full range of emotions from serious-and-confused to serious-and-angry. But let’s be honest – this is not a life-changing film by any stretch of the imagination. Lord of the Rings and Moulin Rouge are both strong on spectacle, and as such they’re very unusual “Best Picture” candidates. Of the two, Lord of the Rings is the infinitely superior film – I think for most critics Moulin Rouge was essentially a tremendous Victorian folly – glorious in its ambition, and a bit lacking in artfulness and point. I’ve yet to see Gosford Park or In the Bedroom.
There’s an alternative approach to the coverage of the awards over at the IMDB which might prove interesting to people. And if you get bored of that, perhaps a glance at last year’s nominations or the nominations for the year before that will convince you that 2001 will not be considered a vintage movie year…
One of my flatmates has asked whether Riaz, a friend of hers from America, can stay in our flat for a few days at the end of the month and bring a friend. Unfortunately, the last time Riaz came to stay he was … difficult …. company for me – and someone I found very hard indeed to deal with. But I don’t feel I can protest too heavily after a guest of mine ended up staying in the flat for over two weeks a while back. There’s much more to this story than I can discuss in a public place. Which makes it all the more frustrating.
Dancing iMac. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Dancing iMac. Yeah, yeah, yeah! I was in Central London yesterday and I stumbled upon one of the new iMacs in a shop on Tottenham Court Road. As usual, it was slightly bigger than I expected it to be, but after a few minutes of play it became clear that it was really well put together. The screen is gorgeous, the angling mechanism smooth and beautifully engineered and – of course – the specifications are substantially better than my current computer.
Do you have the energy to talk to Ivan Massow live on guardian.co.uk this afternoon at 2pm? Some of the questions posted so far are gloriously absurd. One of my favourites reads: “Do you hold with these new-fangled modern paraffin light things? Or would you rather use the tried-and-tested candle?” Another absurdist rant ends, “Finally, I’ve not followed your carreer before but you seem a genuine and nice looking lad, and not a ‘hooray’. I wish you all the best in your life. “
Is this why I’m grumpy so often? Excellent. Now all I need to do is figure out why my jaw hurts all the time at the moment.
She’s finally done it. The ginge from the fringe, the neater B3ta feature! The sap from emap is back! And she presents BunnyCorp! Featuring Deep-fried Bunny! The Company History! And you can end it with tiny pixel pictures of me, Cal, Rob, Joel and… a waving crab…