The Immodium Diet

Continuing the current fad for insane dietary practises, I feel that now is the time to revisit an idea I discussed with a friend, a couple of years ago. That is, the Immodium Diet. I have discovered from my own experiments that swallowing two immodium tablets has the effect of rendering one unable to undergo bowel movements for three days, to the hour. Rather than eating loads of steak and refusing to eat anything that would provide your body with the carbohydrate necessary for ordinary living, why not just clog yourself up so you never want to eat anything? Or maybe it'd just make you fat...

Strongbad's Extra Plug

strongbadshoes
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

For those uninitiated in the bizarre cartoon world of HomestarRunner.com, Strong Bad is a cartoon character who answers emails sent in by website visitors about once a week. Click on the link above to see the list of all of Strong Bad's animated emails, and once that's loaded, click Extra Plug for one that I found particularly funny.

Strange start to the day

There was a tall, suited, bald black man sitting to my left on the tube this morning gesticulating wildly at himself and mouthing words at his reflection in the windows at the opposite side of the carriage. He may well have been schizophrenic. Noone reacted to this as if it was troubling or unusual. There's minding your own business, but this lack of reaction practised by Londoners is still pretty freaky to me.

Her Majesty's iTunes

The Queen
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

Hey mama, this that shit that make you groove, mama
(hey)get on the floor and move your booty mama
(yaw)we the blast mastas blastin' up the jamma
(hey)so shake your bambama, come on now mama

As if further proof were needed...

Kennedy
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

...Nigel Kennedy is a complete wiener.

http://www.metro.co.uk/metro/interviews/interview.html?in_page_id=8&in_interview_id=956

The bit about Kylie Minogue nearly induced vomit.

That special feeling of dread

I have long wrestled with my pathological fear of answering the telephone - and today has been no exception. When I hear a colleague answering the phone, then saying "oh yes, yes, I'll transfer you now", there's a second when I'm paralysed by the idea that this call might be put through to me. If it goes to somebody else in the office, I breathe a sigh of relief. If my phone does begin to emit its particularly shrill ringing, then I generally have to deal with someone on the other end who is either placing some demand on my already-stretched time, or is making some cheeky, unwarranted complaint. I end up dealing with a lot of ungrateful bastards day-to-day. Which is rewarding.

I love it when a plan comes together

My friend has this great plan to confound Her Majesty's Customs (but don't tell anyone).

When my friend goes to Florida at Christmas, my friend is hoping that he will have saved up enough money to buy myself a *nice* second-hand guitar from America, where the pounds go further than they do in rip-off Britain. My friend been looking at ebay guitars for some time now, waiting for the right one, but it's occurred to him that they end up costing you hugely in postage to come from the US, the guitar is put at extra risk in the international shipping, and when it gets here, Customs will probably get their shabby mitts all over it and try and squeeze as much money out of him as possible.

So here's my friend's plan - he's going to take a really buggered-up old guitar, worth about a fiver, in a hardcase over to America. When he gets there, this will be thrown into the jaws of a waiting alligator, and then a quality instrument will be put in the case and come back to the good ol' UK without our friends at Customs getting involved.

I do love it when a plan comes together :-D

Our critique began as all critiques begin. With doubt. Doubt became our narrative.

Our critique began as all critiques begin. With doubt. Doubt became our narrative.
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

I have decided to start using my blog to make recommendations as to various forms of media that I've consumed and that I think visitors to my blog may enjoy/appreciate.

The first of these is 'Waking Life', a film that's the source of the title quote for this post and the image above. I saw it on Saturday morning and was completely enthralled, so much so that I'm going to buy the DVD. This film has everthing - beautiful, original visuals, thought-provoking monologues on existentialism, evolutionary theory, and some excellent acting conveyed in an original animated framework, Please do seek this film out. You will not be disappointed.

Secondly: I recently finished watching The Sopranos series 3 on DVD, and happened to catch an episode on Channel 4 from a later series, whilst channel-hopping a couple of nights ago. I've been a big fan of The Sopranos from the early days, and its charm isn't blunted by time. For those unfamiliar with the premise, it's the perfect 21st century setup, with a mafia boss who attends a shrink and spends most of his time trying to hold together his 'two families' (as the blurb always points out). The characters are very engaging, and yet the writing has a way of bringing you back to the fact that your on-screen anti-heroes are in fact people whose lives hinge on their morallly-indefensible actions, whilst the individuals themselves try and fail to construct a coherent honour system within which to carry out their organised crime. This is all tempered with a good dose of dark comedy. Little wonder the series has won a slew of Emmy awards.

More of my favourite film/TV series/music soon.

Curiosity and the success index

Maybe it's just me being odd, but from time to time I find the irresistible urge to try and find out what my contemporaries from school are doing nowadays. I'm not interested in fiends reunited, and, frankly, most of the people I went to school with were not my friends. But that doesn't stop me being extremely curious as to whether any of them have done anything interesting/salacious/illegal in the meantime, and to try and find out whether it's been chronicled somewhere on the wondrous interweb.

All I have managed to uncover so far is that stupid people seem to be making more money and living in more interesting parts of the world than I am.

This is not the way to make myself feel that my life is great - perhaps I should purchase a breed of silly dog (like a sausage dog), something I have often considered as a way of replicating a sense of personal superiority. I'd get up each day, see the raw end of evolution manifest in a ludicrous animal, and think to myself "hey, my life is actually pretty good after all!".

Red faces all round

A couple of weeks ago, I was queuing up to get a cup of tea from one of those big metal urns, and a lady in her 50s who'd already got her tea was walking back in the other direction, squeezing past the rest of us who were still queuing. As she walked past, she stopped to talk to the young woman standing behind me in the queue. It was obvious that they didn't really know each other, due to the tone of voice that the older woman used, but she seemed to feel compelled to congratulate the younger woman. "How long is it now?", she said. "Pardon?" replied the younger woman, obviously confused. She clarified her inquiry: "How long is it until the baby's due?" she repeated, pointing at the younger woman's protruding belly. "No, that's just my figure", said the younger woman. The older woman, obviously mortified at having offended someone with whom she was not fully familiar, tried to extricate herself from the situation very quickly, but was briefly halted by the young woman, who pointed out that this was the second time that this had happened that very day. Even I was pretty embarrassed.

Looking younger than you are

Last night I went to Tesco to buy some cans of San Miguel, 2 bakewell tarts and a bag of kettle chips. When I got to the check-out (marked "10 items or less", gratingly), the kid serving me, who couldn't have been any older than 16, asked me for identification to buy alcohol.

Me: "Uh, yeah, multiple credit cards do you?"
Kid: "No, I need photo ID"
Me: "A Young Person's Railcard?"
Kid: [stares at the card, unable to read a date of birth anywhere]
Me: [pointing] "I'm 26"

Okay, I had had a shave, but I have been legally buying alcohol for over 8 years now, and I wouldn't say I look 16/17!

I thought of a load of demeaning things I could have said back to the kid, but by that point I had left the shop.