plasticbag.org

I went to a press screening of The Gift last night. I was masquerading as ‘Matthew Ford’, a co-worker of mine at timeout.com, who wasn’t able to make it. So I’m at reception at 20th Century Fox and the nice lady says, “What’s your name?”, and I reply, “Matthew Ford, thank you kind lady”, (or something like that) at which point two separate people I know but were not expecting to be present howl “Tom!” across the room, at which point I immediately go “Yes!?”, immediately triggering raised eyebrows from reception woman who now suddenly resembles Baba Yaga, Russian Hag.

The film itself was fairly average, which was a pity. It had a great cast (Cate Blanchett, Hilary Swank, Keanu Reeves, Greg Kinnear), but a fairly run-of-the-mill plot (psychic helps in murder case and might become the next victim) which everyone at the screening figured out fairly early on. Keanu played psycho surprisingly well, but all his effort was rather undercut by his “Bill & Ted do the Deep South” accent. And there were at least a couple of moments that could have been lifted completely from What Lies Beneath. Worth a look if you need a scare but are feeling undemanding.

“President George W. Bush has lost his middle initial from many computer keyboards at the Old Executive Office Building in the White House complex. In an apparent prank carried out by departing Clinton administration staffers, Bush aides discovered that dozens of computer keyboards were missing the “W” key.” [CNN]

Breaking News: BlogVoices may be collapsing under the strain of finding a suitable web-host. If anyone out there can help, please do so. Sharpish!

Tom Coates Explains Everything (to Tom Cosgrave): Standing up, against the wall. (to Grant Balfour): Marriage is a powerful meme that intersects with the biological imperative of the Selfish Gene, but does not overlap it precisely. I would suggest that memetic dominance in your character makes you keen to form such a union while (because it over-rides the biological instinct in your case) making the possible partner in such an enterprise a ridiculously perfect abstraction. (to Paul Kester): No I don’t have a Norfolk accent at all. I sound very British. Mark at riothero said I sounded like Hugh Grant, which just goes to prove that Americans don’t really know what they are talking about. No, nothing is happening in my love-life either. Wes Bentley will insist on feigning disinterest. And my favourite film used to be Jesus of Montreal, but is now probably American Beauty. The why of the last one is too complicated to go into in depth! Next!

In science fiction films, the aliens always have much more powerful technology and make all the humans feel inadequate. I feel that way about people who have expert command over more than one language. Which makes me very embarassed to shamefully beg for help in translating a post from prolific.org‘s other site.

Tom Coates Explains Everything (to Martin Stevens): In answer to your questions, I am 5’10”, I have never had therapy but I took anti-depressants for six months many years ago, I have never had sex with a woman and my favourite cake is the heavily marzipan-laden ‘Battenberg’. Next!

The most important line in the best joke I have heard (and/or repeated) in years: “What shall I do with my long bony fingers and my big rubbery lips?”

Tom Coates Explains Everything: OK – I’m going to assume that a few people are going to find this place who haven’t been here before. In order to make things easier for said people, if you need any questions answered about anything (What is the capital of Uganda?), then e-mail me and I’ll put up my response here. [tom@plasticbag.org]

So voting is now open for the 2001 Bloggies, and alongside it has come the standard amount of concern about popularity contests and competition between webloggers. plasticbag.org is (I think) in good company in the ‘best european weblog’ category (co-nominees are prolific, kitschbitch.com, notsosoft.com and lukelog. I think I’m voting for prol.

[Addendum: horrified / flattered to see that Meg and I are also up for ‘Weblog of the Year’. Now I feel tremendous performance anxiety.]

Over the last four or five months I have received the same piece of junk mail (in a variety of different formats) at least eight to ten times. Apparently coming from the e-mail address ‘hahaha@sexyfun.net’, it contains an attachment and reads as follows:

“Today, Snowhite was turning 18. The 7 Dwarfs always where very educated and polite with Snowhite. When they go out work at mornign, they promissed a *huge* surprise. Snowhite was anxious. Suddlently, the door open, and the Seven Dwarfs enter…”

Today I received the same e-mail twice, with one version being written in Spanish. I finally snapped and did a search on the net, only to find that it is a worm-based virus that sends itself to anyone who sends e-mail to an infected computer. All the information you need in order to deal with the virus is here. But be warned, I know for a fact that at least one of the people who has sent me e-mail has contracted this virus. If you’ve ever seen it, or think you might have opened it, run a virus check immediately.