Friends, casual acquaintances, passing net surfers and bots, I have something to say. Its better to burn out than to fade away... there can be only one... hwooooarrgh.
One final piece of writing etched into the VSX annals for 2004, that is. Or rather, several disjointed pieces messily stitched together.
Friends and Family Christmas is as Christmas does, as my lookalike once nearly said, and verily a good time had came to pass for Powersurge & his clan. I'm lucky to be a part of a close but fairly extended family, which makes birthdays and Christmastime a bit of An Event. A bit too much of an event, I fear, as excess 21st Century toxins accumulate within my 25th Century frame, and I start to feel pretty 12th Century in constitution (curse those insidious infernal rhinoviruses!)
This Winter, circumstances have dictated that the annual Christmas Eve meet-up in the Worst Pub In the Midlands, and event that myself and my old school-friends have endured enjoyed for the last decade or so, did not take place. Such is the progress of time, I fear, as the diaspora of my unit from its crashlanding site continues apace. One good point, however - after many years in the wilderness, tonight I shall be meeting up with Princess Valium, Viper Squad keyboardist and occasional sax guru (I will share any valuable updates on her moon-rock eating habit at a later date).
With myself and my friends unable to meet as often as was once possible, I do wish I could conquer my telephonophobia. Even more so, I wish that more people that I have "physically known" (as it were) were part of this "phenomenon" known as "weblogging". Maybe they are, but they just keep it anonymous. Or maybe they're just not as boring as me...
Festive film review During those cold dark days between Christmas and the New Year I find that there is nothing better than a trip to the cinema to see some snow, and this Christmas was no exception. Two films - Yimou Zhang's House of Flying Daggers, and Joel Shumacher's Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera. If you're wondering which to go and see yourself, the snow in HoFD was significantly more blizzardly than that in PotO. Very impressive.
If your cinematic criteria stretches further than precipitation, then I enjoyed Zhang's "Hero" more than "House...", possibly because it was more glossily stylised, more "super-hero". Starbucketta preferred "House" as she felt it had more depth, more heart. Both were good.
As for Phantom, I quite unexpectedly enjoyed it greatly as well. Three suprises of the feature: the appearance, straight out of TV's Brookside and Hell's Kitchen, of pop-star-failure Jennifer Ellison And Her Cleavage. Something else I'd never expected to see in my lifetime was the name of Richard "Finders Keepers" Stilgoe projected in massive cinovision as the credits rolled. Also putting the jeepers up me (whatever they are) was that Faith No More's "Be Aggressive" kept threatening to break into the soundtrack...
Wedding news Some progress. The wedding list is in hand, and the honeymoon booked. We've stuck with our original idea of Koh Samui in Thailand. Despite the terrible tragedy that struck at the weekend when much of South East Asia was devastated by tsunami, Samui was unaffected, being sheltered from the waves within the Gulf of Thailand. Although it somehow felt wrong planning our honeymoon whilst much of the region is in such terrible circumstances, delaying wouldn't be a right thing to do either.
Pressie news Christmas is a time of giving, but its also a time of taking, and you lucky, lucky people will soon be bearing the brunt of that, as I take lots of lovely piccies for you with my spanking new digital camera. No longer will I have to wait months to illustrate my writing on these pages, no longer will I have to filch images from other website - from now on, you'll be subjected to my own poorly-taken photos. Here's one, for example, of a superhero in my fridge:
Since Christmas is a time of giving, YOU, the lovely reader of these words, may well be feeling generous with your unwanted gift vouchers. Or you may be drunk. Whichever, please feel free to forward onto me any of the following tokens of your appreciation - the unfulfilled remnants of the wish list (the contact address is to yer left, pisshead):
-- CD's --
William Shatner - Has Been
The Orb - Bicycles & Tricycles
The Orb - Orbvs Terrarvm
DJ Shadow - The Private Press
Orbital II (the brown album)
Mr Scruff - Keep It Unreal
David Holmes Presents The Free Association
David Holmes - This Films Crap Lets Slash The Seats
KLF - White Room
-- Books --
The "League of Gentlemen" Scripts and That
William Gibson - Pattern Recognition
