plasticbag.org

Eight episodes in one night. It’s almost inhuman devotion. Noam and Nick C arrived around seven with pizza, drink, cream cakes and muffin mix to find Mella and I ready and waiting for the first of the evening’s screenings. We started off with the rather startling Passion from Season Two before skipping to the final, traumatic episodes, Becoming Parts I & II. Noam looked a bit shaken afterwards, so we reassured her that Buffy would indeed return to Sunnydale by watching the first episode of Season Three: Anne, even though it isn’t actually that good. Before the episode I pointed out to all present that Anne was also in the episode Lie to Me, as well as having appeared in several recent episodes of Angel. This earned me the Buffy Geek Of The Night Award. Shortly afterwards Noam and Nick departed, leaving Mella and I with a stack of new episodes of Buffy and Angel peering up at us lasciviously. It didn’t take long before we had marched our way through the two episodes of Angel, and while I ducked out so that Mella could see I was made to love you, which I had already seen, I returned for The Body and Forever. Asleep by 3.30am.

Thanks to Ralph for finding me the IMDB‘s list of Cool Buffy Quotes.

Time and need are connected in some strange extravagant way with one another. The more desire you feel, the longer seems the time you have to wait to see it fulfilled. The harder you exert a pull, the further you seem to have to strain. Relationships between people can be measured by their perceptions of time. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” he cries. “I seem to see him all the time,” she complains.

If anyone knows where I can get a copy of Fireball without paying the extortionate trans-atlantic shipping costs, then could they please mail me?

It’s true. I give up. I accept my fate. I am become (geek) god. How else can explain the cravings? Why else would this fill me with such drooling awe? For what other reason would my tongue moisten at the mention of #include <beer.h>? And Oh My God, look at all the pretty caffeine. It’s like the mothership is calling me home. [Tom also enjoys the theatre, novels, music, films, contemporary culture, philosophy and ancient greek tragedy. If you would like Tom as your sexual partner, please e-mail a photograph and (small) MP3 of your voice to: tom@plasticbag.org]

I’ve talked about Grant Morrison‘s theories on the relationship between sunspot activity and youth rebellion several times before – but here is another article connected with it: “The Sun Does a Flip”. Again the eleven year cycle is mentioned, as is something called ‘Solar Max’, which we can only assume is a deity associated with rebirth and bloody irritating revelations. Hail Solar Max.

I confess. It was I that thought that Dan was a funny bastard. I do not, however, wish to rip his arms from their sockets. I have someone else in mind for that particular treatment.

Last night I found myself watching The Tailor of Panama with Nick H at the Odeon in Leicester Square. I’ve been celebrating my return from the brink of madness this weekend – I got paid on Friday and suddenly found myself safe from bankrupcy and able to pay the rent for another month. The sheer amount of relief that this has provided me is indescribable. I decided that I should use the opportunity to get myself functioning as a person again – to attempt to salvage my self-respect by any means necessary. So I went out for a drink and a meal with a few friends, sorted out my malfunctioning phone by trading it in for a new one, spent a Tower Records credit note I’ve had forever, and started trying to decide what clothes to buy for my ‘interview outfit’. The only thing that I’ve not been able to work on at all is my hair, which is fast becoming an obsession. I can’t look at someone in public at the moment without being aware of the fluffy mullet I’m developing.

But back to the film. There are a fair number of conflicting reviews about it in the media at the moment. One of my particular favourites is over at the BBC. I don’t agree with it, but it entertained me. In short, although the end of the film is a bit messy, it’s an extremely intelligent and entertaining movie, with an comedically corrupt feel to it, and some great performances. Go and see it, because it will piss off Middle America, and you know that’s always fun.

This evening I am proud to host the second Maida Vale post-work Buffy marathon, in which my source at Time Out will exchange new episodes for old, and where we shall once again talk about the full range of merchandise that litters the flat – from my box-sets to Mella’s Angel cut-out, posters, books and chocolate bars. We will also (with any luck) get to watch the episode about the death of Buffy’s mother that is discussed at considerable and intelligent depth over at Salon.com. The song said, “whatever gets you through the night, it’s alright”. But I think I can honestly state that Buffy helps me get through the days as well. And I don’t care how sad that sounds – I got a first class degree from a good university, did over three years of postgraduate work, delivered papers overseas, retrained as a journalist and worked for Time Out while running a series of relatively successful websites – and all by the age of twenty eight. My opinion should count for something goddammit.

Are you in a doomed dot.com start-up? [again from seethru]: “You’re one of the dotcom revolutionaries. It’s a career at the bleeding edge of new media. You’re well paid. You’re in demand. Everything’s rosy. But next week, will you be standing by the traffic lights, mopping windscreens with a damp chammy? You goin’ down, fool!”