Yet another pass-it-on perlitikerl thang.

This time it's about privacy and stuff. Lissen up, especially if you live in Europe.

Post Office To Steam Open Your History File [from stand.org.uk]

One of the more extreme powers the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) handed out two years ago let government agencies obtain "traffic data" without a judicial warrant.

Traffic data is best described as the writing on the envelope of a message, instead of its contents. It can be the list of phone numbers you have called in the last six months. Or a full list of Websites you have visited. Or the times you log on, and from where. Or who you e-mail, or what programs you've downloaded, or what newsgroups you read. Or the position of your cellphone last Tuesday at five.

Because the risk of abuse of this power (there's no judicial oversight - all that's needed is the permission of a suitably high-powered boss), those who could wield it were strictly limited. Only the police, Customs and Excise and the secret services were allowed access to traffic data in the original act.

Not any more.

On Friday, the Home Office petitioned parliament to add a vast array of organisations to that list. If their passes, everyone from the DTI, any local authority, the Food Standards Agency, the Home Office themselves (of course), and staggeringly enough, Consignia. The final entry in the list says that "A Universal Service Provider within the meaning of the Postal Services Act 2000" has the same power as the secret services to read your traffic data. There's only one USP in Britain right now, and that's the provider previously known as the Royal Mail.

If the idea that the fricking Post Office has access to your web logs (access which would cost a competitive company millions, and would probably get them investigated by the Data Protection people), let alone every minor apparatchik on the block, you might want to kick up a fuss about this. It's due to appear before MPs on June 18th, and the Lords a little after.

How do I find out more?

Read the Order before Parliament. It's very short (although the list of allowed organisations is very long - two minutes should do it).

Flick through our quick notes on the original RIPA law. (The notes are based on an earlier draft, so the section numbers are a bit off. But you get the idea.)

What can I do?

Fax your MP now. The Order is to be debated next Tuesday, and these things are usually rubber-stamped. Tell your MP which groups you don't want to be spied on by (list them all), and tell him why. Explain what traffic data means (your MP might not now how wide-ranging it is). Explain it in terms he or she can understand - if they're a Conservative, explain how it's government prying into people's lives. If they're Labour, talk about civil rights. If they're Liberal, say what you like - the LibDems are usually down with this sort of nonsense. Ask for a reply.

It'll take twenty minutes of your time. It'll make a difference. Members of Parliament hate having this sort of wide-ranging power sneaked past them as much as you do. If you're feeling a bit lazy today, you could forward this message to one of your more overactive friends. And then write your letter tomorrow.

Experts

If you're a journalist, or want to write a detailed piece for others, you can contact Ian Brown (+44 7970 164526) at The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR). As ever, they were the ones to spot this piece of nastiness first. And if you're feeling flush, for £25 you can join the Friends of FIPR which will get you advance alerts and a warm feeling about these issues.

So, there you have it. Can't be bothered to reformat? Nip across to plasticbag.org- there's a txt file of the whole thing availiable for download. (You should read plasticbag anyway, coz it's a bit good.) Either that, or:

1: Use the view source option (from the View menu on the toolbar, or rightclick on the page and select view source)

2: Scroll down untill you see this comment: "THIS IS THE BIT ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY COMING UNDER THREAT"

3: Copy the bit between that and "END OF BIT ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY COMING UNDER THREAT"

4: Save it as a txt file.

5: Paste it into your blog, website, email, or whatever.

Et viola.

The Little Eyes Meet The Freindly Star-Nosed Mole

A new comic strip by me.

ERRRGHHH!

Oh, god- you mucky little so and so! Oh, that's just yuck, that is. Hey! Quick- QUICK! Look- isn't that your wife's car pulling up outside? Hurry! Close all the explorer windows and pull up that spreadsheet! Delete all the pr0n sites from the history- quick! She's coming up the paaa-aath!

Testing, testing

Nothing to see here.
Link

Arrrghh!

I'm going to stop checking that stupid site meter- it's just depressing. Why do so many people want to see pictures of deceased canines?

Warren Ellis fed my cat acid- and taught it to SING!!!

He did, y'know.

(Concept ripped off of inspired by fridgemagnet.)

Fight.

You know what I hate (apart from you, that is)? People who start arguments deliberately for no reason. I'm not talking about someone with a favourite hobby-horse that they can't keep from jumping on, or a particular bee in their bonnet that they can't stop from buzzing- I'm talking about people who will just argue about anything, regardless of whether they actually espouse the position they are taking. People who think saying "I like Vic Reeves" is in some way controversial.

It's so pathetic. I seem to keep meeting them; individuals who feel it is incumbent upon them, should the world at large say "sh*te", to say "sugar". I participated in an online discussion some months back where this very subject was raised, and was informed by one of the participants that we should all "worship these guys [argument fetishists] as gods".

Why? Why is that so goddamn clever? Since when is being a windup merchant something to be proud of?

Oh yeah. I forgot! Until you came along everyone else was is this big bland glass of passivity and complacence, and we all need your arguey goodness so we can start fizzing. Otherwise we'd just trundle along with the rest of the Mindless Herd™, wouldn't we, the hearts nestled in our doughy little chests untroubled by any strong emotion, our minds unstretched by any question more demanding than whether to get the pink glitter nail-polish or the blue glitter nail-polish, whether to shovel down frozen pizza or the tinned macaroni cheese as we sit like the slack-jawed fools we all are in front of Robot Wars, one with the soft furnishings....

Well, actually, no we wouldn't. To quote Harlan Ellison (and yes, I know I am unfit to take his name in vain- don't get all narkey, think of it like Xtians quoting Jesus) I wake up angry and I go to bed angrier. Sometimes I'm so angry I feel like I'm going to go into meltdown just from watching a five-minute news bulleitin. Look at all those other supposedly stolid, cud-chewing doombrains that you think need winding up- HER husband is dying of asbestosis! HIS dad puts out cigarettes on his arm! SHE campagains for a radical political group! HE'S trying to raise money for his daughter's leukamia treatment! Where, in all of this, do they need you? Do you think they aren't angry?

I don't need your pathetic stirring to make me more angry, and neither does anyone else. You want to fight and squabble pointlessly over positions you don't even hold? Join a debating society. Or go and play Tekken. Do anything, but get over yourself.

The end of the beginning of the end?

Stayed up till stupid o'clock last night, watching The Godfather with my pard'ner, drinking various types of booze and eating halloumi. Which was nice.

Then today I went in to what should have been my final year project viva and fessed up about jacking in the course. They were actually pretty nice about it (once I managed to get a word in edgeways). All I have to do now is email my course leader and hand in the paperwork, then I'm free. FREE!!!

I had a quiet day today. I've put the detective yarn on the back burner coz I need to do some research for it, and started on a less demanding yarn about a computer game. All I need now is a temp job so I can start making a dent in my overdraft.

I suspect this might turn out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made.

The beginning of the end


Today I went into Uni, to check my in-tray and find out when the dean of students will be around next so I can tell him what my plans are and find out where I stand credit-wise. After the end of this week, I suppose I won't be going back. It's not like I'm graduating or anything.

Students were standing around in twos and threes, snapping photos and taking each other's phone numbers. I guess I should have felt some sort of regretful, nostalgic something-or-other, but all I feel is relieved. If I never have to set foot inside that converted fish-packing plant that masquerades as a campus again it will be too soon. Just the sight of that manky aluminium facade hoving into view between the trees is enough to fill me with a near-crippling sense of gloom. I've been pretty careful about what I say here, because there's a slim chance that somebody at Uni could find this blog and get shirty, but I'm pretty sick about some of the stuff that's gone on while I've been there.

My weekend was pretty productive, tho' I didn't get around to updating this sucker. I'm about a quarter of the way through my current story (a sort of detective/horror yarn), and I added a few links to The Exchange. I also read through a couple of webzines that I reckon I could persuade to accept some of my stuff. It's funny just how productive I've suddenly become since I made the decision to jack in my degree- sort of like being 17 again. Hope it lasts.

Meme Propagation Strategy

Okayyyy.....

The Exchange

I've started another blog, called The Exchange. It's my attempt to collate all my writing-related bookmarks into some kind of useful resource. There's not much there at the moment, but I'll be adding stuff to it on and off. You can find it here.

w00t!!!

Oh wow oh wow oh wow. Just discovered this ace quiz tutorial. It's by Colleen Logan.

(Those of you who know me well can stop groaning and rolling your eyes. I promise not to make too many.)

Even better, one of my online mukkers posted this yesterday- feast your eyes on Fantod. I'm all over Gorey's stuff, me. I had this fantastic pop-up book when I was a kid called "The Dwindling Party", which was all about this family touring a huge stately home and getting picked off one by one by various monsters. It rocked.

Why are you DOING this?!

Gawd 'elp us, look at the state of you! You've surfed in here looking for pix of people with all their guts hanging out so you can see or whatever, and now you're going to sit and read through the archive, aren't you? You're actually going to sit and thumb thru six or seven pages of a total stranger's blog, just in case I've hidden a picture of a run-over dog or something in there. For the last time, there are no gruesome pix here! (Unless you count the colour-reversed detail from The Hands Resist Him adorning my sidebar.) Now, run along back to twitchingmammaries.com or whatever. And stop dropping crumbs on that keyboard!

Okay, now this is seriously weird.

Awhile back, I agreed to participate in the Peer-to-Peer weblog review project. Months passed and I never heard anything more about it, so I assumed that I was rejected or just never contacted.

Then the other day, I did that lameoid thing of typing your name into Google to see what turns up. Amongst other things, I found this.

Now, take a look at entry number 13. That's my name, but this is definately not my blog. I don't know why it's under my name; perchance a coincidence, perchance a bit of a screwup, but I thank the mighty forces of sychronicity that brought it to my attention.

The journal is called "My Patch", and it's astounding. Go read. It is wondrous.

Bugger.

Got the verdict on my report today. Apparently it really was bullshit. Oh well.

Apart from the fact that I'm sorry to disappoint anyone, I'm having an increasingly hard time caring. What I was planning to do was make up the missing units over at the Uni's writing dept., but that's going to be a total pain- especially if my pard'ner (Brain to my Pinky) ends up in Barcalona or summat.

No, what I reckon I'll do is pick up whatever bit of paper my Uni is prepared to offer and sign up with the OU. It'll take longer and cost more, but frankly this has been on the cards all the way down the line. Us foundation-year yobbos never usually graduate at all; my getting this far is still one in the eye for a lot of people. I'm a bit miz, of course, but not gutted.

'Specially since I might get to go to Barca.

Oi! You!

Yes, you! Get your scrawny backside out of that cybercafe NOW! Go and do something useful. Finish that play/book/song/revolutionary manifesto/whatever that we're all supposed to be so in awe of. Go on, shoo. Shoo!

I despair.

Pix

Another day, another dose of weirdness from my site stats. Since you've surfed on in on your wave of prurience and stupidity, i'll give you a little piece of advice:

Learn to use a search engine.

Now, most people at this point would start casting aspersions on the reader's intelligence. The word "moron" might be bandied around, as might the word "cretin". Phrases such as "manure-filled, brick-thick, impenetrable cranium" tend to creep into the conversation. I make no such accusations; for all I know you're an enormous genius who looks down on Mensa with the sort of indulgent, fond amusement usually reserved for a box of stupid yet entertaining puppies. Be that as it may, you're a genuis who can't use a search engine.

Most of you have come here looking for pictures, right? Mostly pictures of dead dogs or fallout victims, true, but that's entirely your concern. And most of you have used Google, yes? Good for you. Now, do you see the little tag on the Google search page, marked "image" ? You do? Good! Now, what do you suppose that does? That's right- it searches for images! Well done!

So now you know what to do, you can stop typing "photos" into the search engine, can't you? Let alone "pix". Yes, some of you actually type the word "pix" into a bloody search engine and expect to be rewarded with photographs.

I hate you.

I actually sold my first story a couple of days ago. I'm well chuffed. Okay, it was only £20 from a webzine but it's a start; I've had stuff printed in loads of places (mostly crappy little photocopied fanzines that ran for 3 issues and were never seen again) but this is the first time anyone's actually offered me actual money for a story. I guess I just never took writing seriously enough before- it was always silly little Mordant's silly little hobby. Now I've decided to do this for a living things are coming together.

Oh, well.

Lessee: We gots footie, we gots jubilee. Two flavours of windbag, while the world creeps closer and closer to NUCLEAR WAR, and guess which one is on the front of the papers? That's right. And who chooses what goes on the front of the papers? People who are trying to sell papers to you lot.

Apparently some of you need your bloody priorities adjusting, so I'll explain this in a way you might be able to grasp: A NUCLEAR WAR DOES NOT STAY IN ONE PLACE AND IF YOU'RE DEAD YOU CAN'T WATCH THE FOOTIE OR WAVE AT THE UGLY WOMAN IN THE POSH FROCK OR GOOGLE FOR BOOBIES AND DEAD DOGS.

Get it? No, of course you bloody don't. You think you're all going to be sat on a hill somewhere, watching the fireworks from afar and laughing whilst eating a burger and groping a model, because you are Hard And Big And Clever and everyone else is part of the Sheeplike Flock of Common Humanity.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO NUKES OVER KASHMIR!

Yes, I know you only came here in your endless quest for model's tits and bloody road traffic accident photos, but please take a mo to pass this on. Thanks.

Hello,

I'm really concerned about the situation in Kashmir. Please join
me in calling on the leaders of India and Pakistan to cool down.

The conflict is edging ever closer to a nuclear war. A nuclear
exchange between these rival nations could kill 12 million people
and spread radioactive fallout around the globe. Through
MoveOn.org, I'm calling on President Musharraf of Pakistan and
Prime Minister Vajpayee of India to step back from the brink of
holocaust.

You can join us and sign a message from concerned citizens of the
world at:

http://www.moveon.org/nonukesoverkashmir/


Both leaders are currently banging the drums of war. Recently,
Pakistan tested its third missile in as many days, emphasizing
its ability to deliver nukes to the large Indian city Delhi in
under three minutes. Prime Minister Vajpayee told the 700,000
troops stationed along the border of Pakistan that he was
preparing for "a decisive victory."

While India has stated that it will only use its nuclear bombs in
the case of an attack, Pakistan has made clear that it will
strike first if threatened. And there's reason to believe that
it will follow through on this policy: in 1999, such an attack
was narrowly averted, over the protest of then-General Musharraf.

More worrying still, India and Pakistan have broken many of their
diplomatic ties. Unlike the US and the USSR during the Cold War,
India and Pakistan have no direct line connecting the leadership
of each nation. The possibility exists that nukes could be
launched as a result of a mistake, since there's no easy way for
the leadership of one nation to verify the intentions of its
rival. With millions of lives in the balance and weapons on
hair-trigger alert, the lack of communication between the two
countries is just plain wrong.

If India and Pakistan were to go to war, the effects would be
felt around the world. The trade winds above the two countries
are ideally situated to spread nuclear fallout. Essentially
highly radioactive dust, fallout can cause leukemia and many
other kinds of cancer, as well as radiation poisoning.

Assuming either nation survived the attacks, it's unlikely that
the conflict would even be resolved. Instead of pushing their
countries toward Armageddon, Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Musharraf must
re-establish strong diplomatic ties, disavow the use of nuclear
weapons under any circumstances, and work toward a comprehensive
agreement on the future of Kashmir.

Please let them know that you're concerned about the escalating
conflict today:

http://www.moveon.org/nonukesoverkashmir/

The lives of millions of Indians and Pakistanis could be at
stake.

Thanks.


(I didn't write that, BTW- I just got it in my inbox.)

A slightly less irritable gen-Xer writes

Okay, that last entry was pretty rabid even by my standards. To clarify: I really do think that giving me my own column is a jolly good idea. A column and money. I could do it, and I'd make your magazine look good, in a sullen and resentful kind of way. Permit me to whore out the last days of my latter youth for your readership's amusement. Go on.

A bored gen-Xer writes...

I know what I need. I need a regular column somewhere; once a week'd do it. Needn't even be a big flashy high-profile publication. Yeah, I know I have little experience and less journalistic education, but since most columnists are bobbins anyway I don't see that it makes much difference.

I have basic literacy skills, and I don't bang on endlessly about how mad/useless my pard'ner is in completely stereotypical terms which insult one gender and embarass the other. I do not whine about how difficult it is to live my hideously overpaid life, I don't spend half a page complaining bitterly because my 17-year-old Latvian nanny wants Sunday off. I have no children to endlessly brag/kvetch about. I actually watch a goddamn news broadcast now and again, and read news media besides the bloody Guardian Weekend fashion pages. I update this sucker at least once a week- which seems to be more than a lot of "star" columnists manage. To be sure, I whine about my probs, but at least I have weird problems with lasers and stuff.

Yeah. That would rock. Gimme a column, world. Are you listening? Hello? Moderately talented under-thirty here! I can use a spell-checker and I have a tatt! And a madonna! I'd look cute in a byline! I know how to use my bloody email! I have more than three braincells! GIVE ME A REGULAR COLUMN NOW!!!

"A portrait of the artist as a small pig!"

I am cross. Nay, I am more than cross- I am vexed.

I handed the poxy report in. Eventually. There was much running around and trying to track down bloody coversheets and finding that they'd run out and had to ge more printed, then finding that by the time the bloody coversheets had been printed the print-shop was closed and the bloody member of staff who was supposed to recieve this bloody report had gone home and general stacks of annoyance. I ended up handing it in to another member of staff, the guy who calls everyone "Chicken". So of course he opens the bloody thing before the glue is dry (so all the pages will probably fall out) and starts dissing my report.

"What's this? A portrait of the artist as a small pig? Oh, it's supposed to be your laser harp. What does it say here? Las-rup harv? Oh, you've used a funny font. God, you've put a thick load of bullshit in this report, Carnival."
"No... just a thin veneer of bullshit."
"Well, you want to adjust your veneer-cutter, Carnival, because this is a damn thick layer of bullshit!"

At least he didn't call me "Chicken."

You still here?

Why? Why, in God's name, why? Half of you find this page thru' a Google search for supermodel's bazooms and the other half seem to be after fetus in fetu pictures.

Yet you return, strange fetus-picture hunting people. Whyfor do you return? It is a horrible horrible mystery.

Ennui

I hate this. I have this goddamn piece of coursework to hand in today, and whilst I'm aware on some level that it sucks I can't persude myself to care. I am so tired of this, and now I've got next year to look forward to as well (groan). The situation is that I loused up a few bits and bobs on my 'leccy degree, and so I'm going back next year to pick up a few credits on the writey side. Which will suit me much better as there will be less sums.

I don't want to be doing this. I particularly don't want to be doing this at the advanced age of 28. You know what I want? I want a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

Tomorrow is crunch day. I will be handing in the final report for my project, and hopefully demonstrating that the wretched thing actually works. In a couple of weeks I have to give a talk on the project. Then it's over. I get my life back from the demons of electronics.

Well, sort of. 'Coz, I still have to find a summer job, right? And if nobody helps me out, I might end up back at the Little Green Monsters That Live In Your Pants factory. I won't want to, of course; helping to increase the number of Little Green Monsters That Live In Your Pants isn't something to boast about. But I have bills to pay, a leaky flat to support, that kind of thing. Of course, if someone wanted to put a spot of work my way, that'd be one less pair of hands at the Little Green Monsters That Live In Your Pants factory, wouldn't it? Everyone wins.

I might even stop hating you for a while.

The Government is STILL stalking me

Well, it has begun. Yesterday I bunged out a yarn to an online zine, and when I went to take a look today the whole site was gone. The whole thing. Even the ezboard attached to the site was affected- all their images were x-ed out.

I'm a jinx.

Summertime blues

It's nearly that time again. No sooner do I wade through the morass of work that stands between me and the end of term, than I will have to think about getting a summer job- hopefully one leading me into some part-time work next term, and preferably something involving freelance writing.

Yep, if any of the people who nagged me all last year about going into writing as a career were to contact me with help or advice, that would be cool.

If it's not too much trouble.

If they've got time.

I said, if it's not too much trouble, IF. THEY'VE. GOT. TIME.

What a revolting development this is.

The reason I have no microcontroller came to light yesterday. I'd been badgering the lab staff concerned by email, but the emails were going unread. Why? My squeeze's name appeared as the sender instead of mine. Apparently the lab staff don't bother to read anything unless the sender is called something like "Great Big Nigel", "Barry 'Pliers' Jackson," or "Guido Dannigerio's Large Gentlemen With Baseball Bats".

Anyhow, the reason that I have no microcontroller is that the guy in charge of obtaining our componants DIDN'T BLOODY ORDER IT. He was so bloody cheerful about it, too: "Oh hi, Mordant, come in. Yes, I've been completely ignoring your emails because you're not that six-foot-tall nutter who threatens to beat people up. Now, let's see... oh, yeah, I've also failed to order the single most vital componant in your project, despite the fact that you sent me the entire catalogue entry for it back in March. Never mind, I'll order it now and it should reach you about a week after the deadline, thus horribly messing up your grades. That okay?"
And I can't kill him because my uni has this silly thing about homicide, even if the victim is a technician.

I hate him and you.

"If I only had a brain..."

Okay. My putative light-harp has hit a snag. I have my lasers and all the other bits, but I have no microcontroller. Without my microcontroller I cannot convert the beam data into MIDI data, and am reduced to using strightforward tone generators to demonstrate my work. Rabbits.

Rather than go to Maplin's and shell out a small fortune on sound generators from them, I'm cannibalising some cheap and noisy kids' toys from the 99p shop down the road. The effect will be somwhat less impressive than I had planned, but there's a certain keen satisfcation in gutting a squeezable key-ring-Pikachu. Now, if I'd thought of calling my project "The Laser-Driven Pokemon Autopsy Harp" in the first place, I'd probably have my own telly programme by now.

"Hey! Who are all you people?"

I have my lasers now. I cannot be stopped.

The new site-tracker I installed last week is yielding some fascinating data. I don't quite understand why someone would do a Google search for fetus in fetu pictures, but if you do, you get my blog- I'm something like tenth on the list. I reckon about half the people who read this thing don't mean to come here at all.

I'm a total deadhead when it comes to interpreting this kind of data, but the rest of them are apparently coming one of two sources (apart from the vast tract of UNKNOWNs, that is.) The weirdest thing is that a lot of the traffic seems to come from other people's blogs. Yes, for some reason people actually link to this thing from their own blogs, which is a bit like wearing a T-Shirt that says "I'm With Horrible!" or "Love me- love my oddly-dressed social retard!"

Not only that, but as far as I can make out there are people who actually have me bookmarked, and come back regularly. WHY? First off, I never say anything even that might even remotely concern the average reader. Second off, I update this thing on a pretty sporadic basis. Lastly, and most importantly, aside from a very very small group of people, I hate all of you. Yes! All of you! Like it says on the sidebar! I do not hate you for your amusement. I do not hate you in a cutesy, kid's telly way. I just hate you.

I hate your petty obsessions, your vacuousity, your deep self-loathing and the smugness that conceals it. I hate your veniality, your homogenity, the way you preach individuality and then ostracize anyone who doesn't listen to the 'right' music or wear the 'right' clothes, I hate the way you whine incessantly about being ostracized because you don't listen to the 'right' music or wear the 'right' clothes, I hate the pathetic bundle of trivia and compromise and prejudice and rationalization that makes up every one of YOU.

Why do you return again and again to wallow in my Hate Of You?

Deadline Day! Arrrrgh! Arrrrghhh! Arrrrrrrrghhhhhh!!!!

For most of my stuff, anyhow. I have a presentation for Monday and a test on Tuesday and my bloody laserharp to demonstrate on bloody Wednesday. Like I said- ARRRRGHHHHHH!!!!

God help me. I'm so dead.

Goth In Fancying Xander More Than Spike Shock


STOP PRESS! In a statement that sent shockwaves across the six people who were still talking to her after she admitted to not fancying David Borenaz four months ago, a dreary black-clad neurotic today confessed that she didn't fancy James Marsters either.

BLEACH

"Well, I like the clothes he wears on the show and everything but the bleach job is a mistake. He's quite nice as a brunette," remarked the ghastly self-obsessed Gen-Xer. "And if you ask me, he could do with more meat on his bones."

BOOZE

"I'm disgusted," said another sorry fishnet-clad loser. "I used to talk to Mordant if I met her in a club or something, but only because she was generally on her own and always had booze. And was too drunk to notice if you nicked it."

"Yeah," chimed in a similarly attired social reject. "She even said that Riley was more fun than Angel. I mean, shhuh, yeauhh, right?"

B+S 4 EVAH + B+A 4 EVAH

Meanwhile, the various B/S and B/A relationshippers have formed an uneasy alliance, marshalling their forces to deal with the freak. They have issued the fanfic equivalent of a fatwah; should Mordant submit any kind of fanfic, they will give her really horrible feedback and then email the URL to Karen from Ohio's kids, along with the offender's description and email addy.

"It's harsh, but it's the only way," the B/S+B/A vs MC allience said.

BALONEY

A guy claiming to be mates with Joss Whedon's cousin stated: "I can hook you up with Joss, no problem. He's a really good mate. Whenever I'm in the states we get together for a pint. He's always looking for new talent, and you might fit the bill, baby. No, it's true! I am mates with Joss, and I can get you a part on the show. Like, a top part, sugar."

BAPS

"That Sandra Glenda Michaels is getting saggy baps," he confided, before being hauled out of his seat by a large gentleman in an industrial-grade nametag.

BOOT

The large gentleman commented: "Oh, sure. And what was it last time? Oh yeah. You're Doctor Avalanche's half-brother, and you wrote all his songs. Oi! Who let this sh*tehawk in? He's barred!"


No-one even remotely connected with BtVS was availiable for comment.

Further evidence that the Government hates me!

Today I was going to add a link to a personality test. Not just any old personality test, but THE personality test- the What Pixies Song are you? test, as seen on plasticbag. (I was In Heaven, btw.) But the test has mysteriously disappeared. A simple web screw up? Too much traffic on the site? Or huge evil Government plot to destroy my morale? You decide.

The truth is out there.

I am being systematically persecuted by the Government!

The proof? They've banned my lasers. I need my lasers, and they are banned. Lower-power lasers are availiable but I have to wait for Maplin to get some in. Since the Government are probably sitting around reading this and laughing into their cocoa, I would like to say to them: Eat my shorts, Government people! I shall have my lasers anyway, and I shall buy a big huge book on making my own lasers so you can never take my lasers away again! I shall make many lasers. And a Tesla coil and a coin-shrinking device. And I shall laugh at your bafflement, Government.

I hate the Governmnet. And you.

No lasers!!!

The biggest stress in my life today is that I still don't have my lasers. But I do have Pokey.

We'll always have Pokey.

Scrumpdillyishus Land

It's official. I'm in love with The Branflakes. All Branflakes are now exempted from my simmering hatevibes until further notice. Go here to see why.

Christ, I can't belive it's nearly the end of term. I'm so sick and tired of Uni. I ought to be panicking, but I'm not. I have actually been working fo rthe last few days; I suppose that's why.

I still don't have my lasers tho'.

PatronisingMessageMachineGO!!!

Hokay. Any poor bastard unfortunate enuff to screw up their HTML on one of the message-boards where I have my grubby mits is getting this in their inbox:-



Hiya,

I noticed you were having some probs with your HTML code, and I thought this might help.


<b>Whatever you want in bold type</b>
Creates bold text
<i>Whatever you want in italics</i>
Creates italic text

<a href="http://www.whatever the URL of the website is">Whatever you're calling the link</a>
Makes a link

<img src="http://www.Whatever the URL of the image is">
Inserts an image in your post

NB: Some sites, especially free websites such as Geocities, don't allow you to do this. You may have to buy web space or use a free image hosting service.

If your image is large, then you can make it fit on the page by inserting width=500 into the code, like this:-

<img src="http://www.Whatever the URL of the image is" width=500>

Webmonkey is a useful resource. It has a searchable database and a cheat-sheet detailing commonly used HTML tags.


I am so revolting when I'm being all nicey-nicey. I should do it more often.

Yup!

I rule.

Just testing. Nothing to see here.

<a href="http://www.whatever"> Name of link </a>

We're under attack from little invisible spies the size of ants!

From this site:

The tiny invisible personnel (codename Bee) of surveillance station/system unlawfully control everyone's lives with illness/death inducing techniques (see details on Part IV-A1):
According to inside information frrom Taiwan former President Chiang Kai-Shek,, the United States had successfully developed invisibility technology (first tested in the Philadelphia Experiment) for use on human after WWII. After using invisibility technology, the personnel & equipment become tiny (as small ant), invisible and can levitate. Thus , by wearing a propulsion on back, every tiny invisible personnel can move as small flying ant. So, the tiny invisible personnel can gently fly onto a target's head to control his mind and bodily functions, or fly near a target's organ to induce illness/death .without most victims' knowledge (see details on Part II-A of my website).

Holy cow! And all this time I've been blaming the rising pollen count for my hayfever, when really it's evil miniaturized government agents flying up my nose!

Ahhh! Now they're forcing me to go to the fridge and get a beer! Oh, my God! I don't want a beer- I should be working- No! No, don't make me load up Sim City 3000 again! No, pleeease.....! Nooooooo.........

"Vote for the crook, not the Nazi...."

My sympathies to the French, who've just had to vote in an evil little criminal for prez.

Oh, you don't get it? Let me explain, in little words that have a chance of penetrating the superdense substance that occupies your skulls.

Imagine that you were standing in a polling-station, right? With a pencil in your hand, right? And there were basically two names you could stick your cross next to, right? Imagine that your choice was between President Margaret Thatcher or President Nick Griffin. I'm surprised the entire voting population of France didn't stick the pencils up their noses and commit urban-myth-style seppuku.

Oh, and before you start making clever remarks, remember who just took Burnley. Hint: Not the Lib-Dems.

My feelings towards you lot are a matter of public record.

No. I'm not kidding. I really do actually hate you.

Stuff my blog needs:

More better pix. (Bite me, Portland; I will find a non-falling-over webhost.)

More stuff about my non-online life. I was trying to keep this primarily about my cyberexistance, but I've realised that this is potentially a dull subject. And it makes me look like a big geek. Not that I care.

More updates. This is going to be the hardest thing to achieve; I am a busy geek, with many aspects of my geeky life to disract me. Also I suffer from a very unwebloggerlike disability in that I don't regard every minute and tedious detail of my day-to-day life as worthy of posterity. However, I remain inspired by my undying Hate of You.

There are many, many things I hate about you.

Nothing I do has any meaning. I am incapable of affecting the world except in in the smallest possible ways. My life is a futile cycle of work, consume and die.

I came to these conclusions (for the hundred millionth time), following the Mayday demonstrations last Wednesday. I wasn't in the main ruck, having attched myself to a sort of mini-demo that some freinds had organized. It involved walking around London with placards, some blank, some bearing a huge photograph of a fluffy Siamese kitten with an expression of culpable stupidity and crossed eyes. The kitten was to invest the affair with a sense of general fluffiness, and the blank placards were to hand out to passersby; we had big felt-tips to write whatever slogan the passerby wanted on the placard. Sort of a free-speech thing. Some of the slogans we ended up with included anything from "Bush is a corporate w***** (and so's Blair)", "How about a nice cup of tea?", "We all come from stars", and commentary on global capitalism couched in choice Portuguese obscenities. After a while the smog of dope fumes started to get to us and some of the placards were amended to include pirates, ninjas, and AYBABTU. (Yes, I know it's deader than crimplene but WTF else can you write on an A2 blow-up of a fluffy kitten?)

The demo went rather well. We stopped for tea and biscuits in Chinatown, then wandered round some more. It felt... good. People's responses were varied, but mostly on the positive side of bewildered, and the blank placards provided a neat answer to that age-old question: "what are you here for?"

"Hmm. Not sure. What would you like?"

We went and hung round Trafalgar Square until it looked like the police were coming to turf everyone out.

The high spot came when we got stuck in Frith street, trying to get to Soho square. A police cordon had blocked the way and these two drunken eejits were trying to start a ruck, with much shouting and pushing of riot-shields. The sparse crowd were getting a bit sullen and fed-up generally. I feared ruckage.

Suddenly a young man appeared at one of the windows opposite. He turned up his stereo full blast, and the strains of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" blared out across the street.

He got a standing ovation. (And you can all bog off and stop laughing. Now. It was cool. You had to be there, but it was muy cool.)

Yep, the actual demo was a groovy thing indeed. Good party atmos, good company, nice bikkies, and the Minor Deity of Frith Street with his magic stereo.

So what's with the grim, you might ask? (Assuming you'd been scripted by Joss Wheedon.)

Well, about the time we were leaving Frith Street, we met Mark. I had never met Mark before, and it's my sincere hope that I never meet Mark again. For Mark, my children, is the Anti-Frith-Street-Stereo-Bloke.

Mark is the Uber-F*ckbake.

The least offensive thing he said all night was his suggestion that Chinatown's staple diet is dog. From there is was all downhill, really. The yecchily heavy flirtation. The hand that I couldn't unglue from my thigh. The attempts to impress me with financial profligacy, an aquaintance with one of the bouncers from Stringfellows, and his having seen Jordan's tits. Quotes from Nostradamus. The fact that he didn't actually know what the word 'capitalism' meant, and seemed to blame the French for it. The assertion that he had a degree in psychology and it was a scientific fact that twelve-year-old girls who flirt with men "know what they're getting into". The fact that this no-brain-having piece of human detritus refused to let me have a conversation with anyone else, and wouldn't leave me alone all night.

(Mark. Mark the courier from Surrey: if you're reading this, you are everything that I despise. You're an ignorant little nonce and I hope you plough your scooter into a motorway support. If anyone out there knows Mark the Racist Nonce Courier, please- do the world a favour, and kill him. Tell him you can get high from sucking a scooter exhaust pipe. Anything. Just get rid of him.)

So that, coupled with my usual post demo comedown, is the reason for my huge and catastrophic ennui. Power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of the Marks of this world; all I have is a cardboard placard, a photo of a kitten, and my deep and abiding loathing of you lot.

I may be down, but rest assured: I will return. And I still hate you.

Labelled and Negated

Was gonna post a big rant I wrote last night, about how some people use spurious accusations of "intellectual eliteism" to dismiss ideas and people they don't feel comfortable with. That's something that truly yanks my chain; it's like this big catch-all diss for whenever someone's losing an argument or doesn't want to modify their rotten behaviour.

I'm not sure I should, though. People are likely to take it the wrong way, and frankly I could REALLY do without another round of bashing right now. Plus there's the possibility that my Number One Fan is going to read it, assume that the whole thing was written solely about hir, and start toychucking again. It annoys me that I've had to start censoring myself, just because some people can't learn to conduct themselves in a responsible way.

What're you looking at?

Well?

"Drat- and DOUBLE drat!"

Suddenly realised how much funnier the Lung Fetus thing would have been if I'd made the central character a male film-star instead of Anne Rice. Richard Gere is out, of course, but... Oh, how could I have missed the opportunity to cast Hugh Grant as a monkey-gland injecting fetus-in-fetu casualty? Damn me for a short-sighted fool!

(On the other hand, anyone who turns up to conventions wearing a coffin deserves all the urban legends they get.)

"And nowwwww, the end is neEeEaArrrrr....

My regular fans may well have noticed a protracted spell of bloglessness. This is partly down to my getting all writery and stuff, but mostly down to my having a shedload of work for Uni (end o' term draweth nigh, you see).

I'm stressed. I'm on top of everything except my final practical project. This is NOT MY FAULT. My lasers haven't come in yet and I can't make my project until I get the lasers.

So there.

Perspective time again, kids.

This is from a piece by white writer Peggy McIntosh. Someone was good enough to post it on a message board where I spend an unhealthy amount of time, and since I never come across cool stuff like this myself I'm going to nick it.


"...After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are justly seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about it existence."

The first 25 items listed are:



1) I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2) If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area that I can afford and in which I would want to live.

3) I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

4) I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

5) I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

6) When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

7) I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

8) If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

9) I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can deal with my hair.

10) Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

11) I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

12) I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes or not answer letters without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.

13) I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

14) I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

15) I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

16) I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color, who constitute the worlds' majority, without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

17) I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

18) I can be sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge" I will be facing a person of my race.

19) If a traffic cop pulls me over, or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.

20) I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race.

21) I can go home from most meetings or organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

22) I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.

23) I can choose public accommodations without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

24) I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my race will not work against me.

25) If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.


Now, let's all us white middle-class types go away and have a bit of a think, eh? And while we're at it, let's look at what we've been writing lately and and ask if it was even remotely near as useful.

Or we could just sit around and whine about our own problems a bit more. Whatever.

(I hate you.)

Whoa. I've got this wierd virus that's making me all, y'know, trippy. It would be fun if it weren't for the mucus.

I spend too much time stressing about the stuff I've got to do and not enough actually doing. All this non-stuff-doing must stop forthwith. If I put my stuff on display here, then maybe I will find the motivation to actually do it. I can picture your eyes sliding across the text, your smirk as you find a particularly tough thing I have to do, perhaps chuckling a little when you see an exiting but demanding task, smug in the belief that I lack the will and the talent to complete it. I want to picture your annoyance when you come back in a few weeks and find that I've completed everything I said and then some.

So here, in no particular order, is some stuff I've got to do...

Uni stuff. (Can't bear to go into details. My brain will melt.)

House stuff. (Ditto.)

Writey stuff: The SF story I started yesterday. Poems. But most importantly I must find some new electronic thing and write an article about it; I must do this by the end of the week. For it has come to pass that your narrator has bitten the bullet and decided to head writing-wards. Hey, don't blame me. Sure, I experimented a little, back in my teens- who doesn't? Bad speculative fiction. Worse Goth poetry. Really terrible song lyrics. But I'd pretty much quit; just rolling the odd verse, y'know, when I needed to chill out. I could go months without even jotting down an idea. I was perfectly happy, chugging along in my little tech-geek groove, and then a few months ago, I fell in with a bad crowd.

Writers. Journalists. Poets. They all egged me on until, beaten down by the unbearable peer pressure, I caved in. Now I'm hooked again. I'm already planning articles for the trade journals, short horror stories, you name it. One of these day's I'll have made a start on a novel.

I know there's no hope for me now, but I pray that some young person reading this may profit from my example. To that young person I say: Run! Get out- while you still can!

"Story of find in Afghan cave 'was made up' to justify sending marines"

Britain was accused last night of falsely claiming that al-Qaeda terrorists had built a 'biological and chemical weapons' laboratory in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700 Royal Marines to fight there....


From the Guardian/Observer webpages, here.

God, this makes me angry.

God I'm wasted.

w00t!

Following the announcement below, my board got its first troll! I'm so chuffed. Ordinarily of course this would be cause for hot sweaty annoyance, but since I've only publicized the board in a couple of places other than here, I suspect that the angler in question is someone who's either read my blog or knows me from the Barbelith Underground. Which tends to imply that I've trip-trapped over somebody's bridge hard enough that they'd actually bother to come round and insult me publicly, rather than using my email like the rest of the world. Which, coupled with the general brainlessness of the message itself, gives me a lovely warm glow. I like pissing off morons.


Today's story idea: A horror author gets abducted by a bunch of teenage magickians, who think they can force the writer to summon a demon from one of their novels. (Yeah, it's crap. Maybe I could work on it...)

Today's mood:

"In case the laughing strangers call..."

I'm trying to drum up traffic for my message board, Thee Big Acidic Mudshow. I will have an online community! It must and shall be done! Go there NOW and post something- anything! (Except porn links, smartarse.)

"You want to know why I hate you/ Well I'll try and explain..."

Stuff you do that you don't have to do and which makes life just that little bit more unpleasant than it needs to be: part of an ongoing series where I elucidate just why I really, really, don't like you and why much of my waking life is spent in seething resentment of the waste of valuable resources which is YOU.

Chapter One: On the Underground.


Sitting down in front of the ticket barriers to rummage in your bag for your ticket. Yeah, that's right, you've lost your damn ticket so the rest of the world can grind to a halt for all you care.

Walking very slowly down the stairs because you've got your arms round each other, thus getting in my way so that I miss the last train before the signals at Arnos Grove go on the fritz again, thus making me wait 20 minutes for the next one, thus making me late for class.

Shoving past people who are trying to get off the train as you try to get on. A two-for-one slice of rudeness and terminal stupidity.

Walking backwards in front of your mate so you can keep talking to hir whilst waving your arms oblivious to the fact that you're in a crowded tunnel full of people who would dearly love to get out of your way but can't because the only clear space happens to be in the path of an oncoming train.

Assuming that your journey is more important than my journey purely because you're wearing a suit and I'm not.

Frottage. (Mark you, I get less of this than I used to. Must be the collar with 4" nails for spikes.)

Ignoring the two grown men who are harrassing that fourteen-year-old girl. So what if there's a whole carriage full of you and only two of them? So what if she's weeping and begging them to leave her alone? So what if all it takes to make them back off is for all 5'6" of me to give them a hard stare? You don't need this, right? If she wasn't wearing that school uniform they'd probably have ignored her, right? Look at her, snivelling away, making the atrophied remains of your conscience prickle uncomfortably. Hell, you're the victim here! Yeah! She deserves everything she gets, making you feel vaguely aware of the way that London is slowly sapping your humanity, leaving you a craven, loveless husk of a creature who won't lift a finger to help a distressed kid even when you've got 30-1 odds on your side. And after you've had a long day at work, too.


God, I hate you all.

Apparently.

What kith are you? Find out here.

"...And now his biggest fear is that someone's going to drink him!"

Finally finished my urban legend project last night. The idea was to cast a spell by encoding it into tropes and thus embedding it into an urban legend. Here is my completely made up untrue story....

The Anne Rice Lung Fetus

"I heard this from my cousin Josh. At the time it happened he was over in the states, working as a hospital porter. He got freindly with one of the anaesthetists there, and this guy told Josh the whole story.

A few years back, Anne Rice started suffering severe chest pains and was whisked into hospital for a chest x-ray, which revealed a shadow on her lung. Because it was right near her heart, they decided to give her a CAT scan to get a good look at it so that they could operate.

At first they thought the lump was a teratoma, but when they opened her up they found the malformed remains of a fetus- her twin- which had somehow implanted itself inside her ribcage.

The lack of space in the chest cavity meant that the twin had become curled in on itself so as to be unrecognizable at first. The legs were missing- it was just a head, torso and one arm. Apparently what had happened was that she'd partially absorbed the twin whilst in utero, a case of Fetus in Fetu. Somehow it had started growing again; this was put down to Rice's use of a dangerous and unproven anti-ageing treatment (a pituitarin/pinearin mixture derived from monkey-glands).

You know what the weirdest thing was? All this happened right after she published The Tale of the Body Thief!!!"

Open letter to a porn-link poster

Dear Porn Link Guy,


I'd like to congratulate you on your recent post, which included the URL for a porn site. I am sorry that your courageous act was greeted with such a negative response from my fellow posters. I myself found the information you provided both edifying and enlightening.

I second your accusation that those who complained about your post are censoring you, nothing more, nothing less. So what if the URL was not flagged with a warning? So what if you actually said it was an article by Noam Chomsky, or your homepage? So what if someone could click on it and get fired from their job, or kicked out of school? Is that your problem? The internet is a forum for free speech, goddammit! Your porn link is emblematic of that. Anyone who'd work for the kind of employer who'd fire them just for looking at porn during work hours doesn't deserve a job. And who needs school anyway? Anarchy in action, baby! Anarchy in action!

If it wasn't for fine exponants of free speech like you, we'd never garner certain important facts. For example, I now know that BARELY LEGAL TEENS WANT IT NOW!!! If it wasn't for porn links, how would I ever have found that out? I'd be walking around, utterly ignorant of the fact that BARELY LEGAL TEENS WANT IT NOW!!!!!! Let the elitist clique of feminazis and their quiche-eating male lackeys whine all they want. I'm sure you'll all agree that BARELY LEGAL TEENS WANT IT NOW!!! is vital information, which should be distributed as widely as possible.

Raise your glasses, people. Here's to Porn Link Guy! Long may he continue to fill our browser windows with nauseating pop-ups! Anyone who says different is a retarded, pinko, free-speech-hating, censorship-getting-off-on, intellectual elitist fagbitch. Just like Chomsky.

Missed class again today. Come midnight, I will have pursuaded myself to care; come 2am I will be obsessing beyond all hope of sleep, and come tomorrow I will be back to my usual no-motivation-having self. Why is it that my get up and go always gets up and goes just when I need it?

Today's mood:

Today's story idea: An alabaster statuette of a mythical creature, a scarlet feather and a piece of blue embroidered silk. They are each owned by a child: a boy owns the statuette, a tomboyish girl owns the feather, and a fair-haired girl owns the silk. They are important somehow.

Today's story idea: A series of six short stories based on the tapestry series, "the Lady and the Unicorn", one of which would posit the use of unicorn pelt in haute coture, and the consequenses of this.

"Courage to Refuse - Combatant Letter 2002"


From here. Please read this.


" • We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.
• We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people. We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides.
• We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories, destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country.
• We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society.
• We, who know that the Territories are not Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated in the end.
• We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.
• We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
• We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.
• The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them."


Yis'ga'dal v'yis'kadash sh'may ra'bbo, b'olmo dee'vro chir'usay v'yamlich malchu'say, b'chayaychon uv'yomay'chon uv'chayay d'chol bais Yisroel, ba'agolo u'viz'man koriv; v'imru Omein.
Y'hay shmay rabbo m'vorach l'olam ul'olmay olmayo.
Yisborach v'yishtabach v'yispoar v'yisromam v'yismasay, v'yishador v'yis'aleh v'yisalal, shmay d'kudsho, brich hu, l'aylo min kl birchoso v'sheeroso, tush'bechoso v'nechemoso, da,ameeran b'olmo; vimru Omein.
Y'hay shlomo rabbo min sh'mayo, v'chayim alaynu v'al kol Yisroel; v'imru Omein.
Oseh sholom bimromov, hu ya'aseh sholom olaynu, v'al kol yisroel; vimru Omein.


The funeral prayer has a number of conditions and pillars. These must be strictly fulfilled. As regarding those who do not know how to perform a funeral prayer, I briefly state the following: First, Every one performing funeral prayer should maintain ablution, as is the case when performing any other prayer; Second, Every one should say four times Allahu Akbar. After the first one he should recite the Opening chapter of the Quran. After the second "Takbir" he should recite the second half of Ibrahim’s prayer (performed towards the end of each prayer). After the third Takbir he should pray for the dead one as well as for Muslims the following supplication or what is similar to it. According to Muslim Abu Abdul Rahman ibn ‘Awf ibn Malek (R ) quoted part of a prayer the Messenger of Allah p.b.u.h. At a funeral, Ibn ‘Awf memorizes the following: O Allah, forgive him and have mercy on him. Relief him of all evils and pardon him. Honour his status and widen the entrance of Paradise for his entry. Wash him with water and ice. Hail him and purify him of sins as you purify a white garment of filth. Grant him an abode better than his abode, a family better than his family, and a spouse better than his spouse. Let him enter paradise and protect him from the torment of the grave and the punishment of Hell. "Hearing this, I wished I had been that dead person", the reporter stated.

The worshipper then makes the fourth Takbir and prays the following supplication, which is one of the best supplications: O Allah, do not deprive us of his reward; Don’t exercise any trial on us after him, and forgive us and him. There are many traditions in this context. It is recommended, however, to make a lengthy prayer for the dead person, a prayer that seeks Allah forgiveness for the then dead person as well as for all other dead Muslims.



(You will, I hope, excuse any errors here, and take this as it is meant. I'm not religious myself, and these funery customs are not mine.)


Today's story idea:

#0: One day, there was peace.

Today's story ideas:

#1: A red room. Red walls, black "japanned" furniture. Who lives here? A woman lived here once. She was an actress; some called her a poseurse. Here she burned incence and wore out-of-style dresses, headbands, a long necklace made of paste diamonds. Here she smoked black cigarettes in a long holder between lips the colour of cranberries, wrinkled from smoking. The rouge bled into the wrinkles. She smelled of powder and the perfume that she kept in a Lalique glass bottle. She had a glimpse of something but she lost it. Now she's gone.

#2: A playing field. To one side is a large area of waste ground; there's an industrial estate in the distance. There's been a bonfire here, a big one, but it's burnt down now. It's a cold day, the sky hidden by low grey cloud. You've been walking a long time to get here. Why?

Today's mood:

"You're my only hope..."

I used to have this total obsession when I was younger with finding my wise old man/woman, my Gandalf or whatever. People seemed to latch onto it, use it as a way into my life where they'd (inevitably) wreak all manner of havoc before I'd (inevitably) rip off the pointy hat and false beard and reveal... well, some callow dipstick with a need to be needed, usually. Eventually I got wise to this and spent a lot of time jumping up and down on my Obi-Wan cravings with big boots on. Which seemed to work.

But I was thinking recently that I've become a kind of Obi-Wan figure for a few people in the last few years (yes, yes, I know, lucky them, ha bloody ha). Wise old dude, sort of thing. Not sure how that happened- some of them have even been older than me. I try not to let them invest too much in me, since I know damn well that I'm as big a moron as they are, I just have a different angle on things. Sometimes I'm able to help. Which is cool. I'm not saying it isn't cool.

But I don't want to be the wise old git without having had my wise old git. Where's my wise old git? I want my Obi-Wan Kenobi! Even the crappy Ewan McGregor one with the comedy accent.

I want a Wise Old Git!

"Novocaine for the soul..."

I can't do this. I seriously cannot do this.

The pills, man. They fuck me up like you wouldn't believe. Tegratol, 1200mg a day. I can tweak the times I take them, make sure I eat first. whatever- and it never gets any better than this. Like today: I had to miss class because I couldn't get out of the bloody bed. You think that's funny? Of course you do- you're a moron. Let me give you a run down of the side-effects, so you can have a really good laugh.

First, there's the way they make my eyes dry up so I keep getting infections. Then there's the way my mouth feels like it's been stuffed with cotton-wool half the time; I'm always thirsty. I can drink pint after pint of water and still be thirsty. But I could live with those. What bothers me is this: I'm tired.

I'm so tired I could just keel over. I wake up wanting nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep, but I know that even if I do it won't make any difference. Six hours, eight hours, half a day- it all feels the same. Sometimes I'll sit down with a book and five minutes later I'll just be spark out.

Conversely, when I do sleep, I don't sleep properly. Sometimes I'll see in two o'clock, or three, or four. I'll lie in bed and listen to the cars going by, the sirens, the growl of a double-decker bus. And the relentless tick-tick-tick of the poxy alarm clock by my bed, telling me that the night is slipping by me, unslept, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Stop taking them? Ha bloody ha. You don't know how many times I've wanted to do just that. Flush the whole lot down the loo and have done with it. But that would mean going back to how I was before I started taking them.

A lot of people think doctors overprescribe epilepsy drugs. They do. One survey tentatively put the number of wrongly-medicated folk at five times the rate of actual epileptics. Could be wrong, of course, but nobody's really counting. Epilepsy isn't sexy. Celebs who'll spill their guts all over the colour supplements about their drug dependancy or their diabetes, but they're loth to tell everyone "Oh, and by the way, I sometimes fall over and start twitching and frothing at the mouth."

No, the irony is that these pills weren't pushed on me. I begged for them. Begged as the fits got more frequent and worse, begged as my life slipped further and further into the mire, begged as I struggled to hold down my job. It took years. By the end I was ready to lick my GP's boots if he'd only help me to do something about the monster in my head that was chucking me to the floor three or four times a day.

In the end I got the meds. Didn't work. The dose had to be upped. Eventually the fits had stopped but I was stumbling round the house on rubber legs, eyes rolling in a head I lacked the strength to hold up. Tegretol suppresses the electrical signals in the brain, you see, but it also seems to do a number on the body.

The side-effects receded, and I could function again. Just. But I'm so fucking tired I could scream and my head feels full of fog and this is as good as it's going to get. This is as good as it'll ever get for me.

Why am I telling you this? Because nobody else will. Why should you care? Well, you probably don't. You are, after all, a moron.

And I hate you.

I need to do stuff. I really need to do stuff now. But I cannot do stuff- I am cowering in one corner of my life, rigid with fear. The knowledge that I have not done very much stuff and I need to do it NOW pins me down like a moth to cardboard, with stuffdoing forever just beyond my reach. I shall go forth and do STUFF presently.

I wonder if anyone's actually reading this?

Nope, the Grant Morrison thing was a false alarm. Some dipstick mucking about. Probably the guy that got kicked off the board, or one of his mates. If he has mates.

"What if it was all true...?"

This is a bit weird: I may have been involved in pissing off Grant Morrison. According to rumor, he's been posting here under the name "Mr. Insensitive", and apart from some pleasantly cryptic I-know-something-you-don't stuff about the new X-Men comics, he's lived up to it. I breifly entertained the suspicion that he was the total fucktard that recently had to be kicked off the board. Anyhow, he posted some pretty lame stuff, got some pretty frosty responses and has now deserted us.

I wonder if it's true? Sounds like a collossal windup to me, but y'never know. I really hope it's all been a hoax, not coz I'm a total fanboy who can't bear the thought of pissing off the man who gave us King Mob, but because... well, I like his comics, and I'd hate to think he was such a boring bloke in real life. Maybe it was all some out-there psychological experiment. Whatever. Just a little too soon after the whole Total Fucktard Experience for some of us, I suppose.

Today's story ideas:

1. Coat bought in thrift store is actually a primitive alien life-form that functions as a communications device.

2. Goth obsessed w/vampire pop culture becomes one and can't handle it.

3. People who reckon they've been born w/elf or dragon souls ("otherkin") are actually right. They've been put here to learn/teach- someone with a "dark elf" (will refine this to be less D&D-ish) soul becomes goodnatured and compassionate, while someone with a high elf soul can't let go of their old life and becomes more and more elitist and judgemental.

4. God is a memory from a previous stage of our evolution.

5. A meeting of disparate people in a cold room- they all look unhappy.

Today's mood:

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake..."

You know what I need? I need a god complex. A big, fat, grandious, Messianistic, worship-me-I'm-brilliant, black-helicopters-were-circling-my-house-all-morning, more-revolutionary-than-thou god complex. I come into contact with so many fucktards who think they're some kind of wild, out-there maverick genius just because they haven't yet worked out the difference between offencive as in "fuck" and offencive as in n*****, or they've read a couple of conspiracy sites . I want a god complex so I can deal with these people.

Think I'm talking about you, specifically? That's because you're a self-absorbed string of pondweed, Mr/Ms MI5's Most Wanted! There are gajillions of bigheads just like you out there- just like you! Same giant, economy-sized ego, same "sense of humour" that's only stimulated by rape jokes, same tired old "let's put Superglue on the doorhandles of the headmaster's study" brand of "revolutionary" antics. Same shit, different shithead! Offended yet? Good! Because I HATE YOU!

"We Have Such Sights To Show You..."

I need more tattoos (and peircings). I do not have enough tattoos (or peircings)- in fact, I would go so far as to debate the possibility of my ever having enough tattoos (or peircings). Also I want four spherical implants in my left arm and a teardropshaped implant over my sternum, but those would be harder to come by.

My problem is purely financial, you understand. I cannot finance my ideal body. I was thinking of setting up a private site with a paypal account so people could contribute to my tattooedness, but I can't think of anything interesting enough that people would pay to see it, and I'm far too normal looking to make a good cam whore. I wonder if any reputable tattooists would let me take a webcam into their studios? Then I could charge people membership to my site, and when I had enough money they could all tune in and watch me getting some ferociously huge back-peice done. Filming the implants being done would be better yet. When I get my implants done it must and shall be webcast. Not because they will be particularly special, but just because somebody having bits of teflon inserted under their skin isn't something you see every day. Unless you are a professional teflon-bit-inserter, I suppose.


My cheesedoffness continues apace. It's like there's something hugely missing out of my life (to coin a phrase), and it's not a widescreen telly. The really annoying thing is that I know it's up to me to sort it out, and I don't know where to to start. The things that used get me going, get me fired up, they just don't do it anymore- they just seem like the same old thing now. What am I looking for; does it even exist? Who shot JR?

"Why are my desires so cryptic with darkness? And why do I no longer care?"

--Julian Myndfyre


Today's story idea: Woman living in house with daemons- money running out, will soon be evicted, doing nothing to forstall this. Daemons metaphor for lethargy, desair, "switching off".

Today's mood:

"She may be the face..."

I want a full head cast done. Just to say I've had the experience. It sounds really screwed up and horrible: sitting there, unable to move for hours, while they slather plaster or whatever onto your Nivea-ed phiz. It'd be really easy to do me as well, coz I'm bald apart from one little love-lock at the back and I've no eyebrows.

I could do loads of stuff if I had a cast of my head. As it is, I'll just have to do small peices that I can stick in place with eyelash glue or summat. I want to make lots of little sticky things for my face. Borg-implant bits, rips, vegetation, that sort of thing. I want to work on my image more. Cute little eyeliner doodles are all well and good, but for serious impact you need serious PVA glue work.

I'm thinking about masks, the projects I want to do. I'm restrained a little by the fact that I have to wear glasses but I think I can get round that- I've got an old, fucked-up pair that I could incorporate into some sort of eyepeice.

It must and shall be done.


I'm going to add a new feature to my blog: "Today's story idea", which will do what it says on the tin.

Today's story idea: Nothing, really
Today's mood:

Coffee... need coffeeeeee....

The Price of Tomatoes Has Fluctuated Again

I was flicking through some sites last night / this morning, looking for photographs of the cast of Buffy naked and smothered in apricot jam, and lo, it was borne in upon me that for most sites, Gothic(k) = completely crap. Everyone and his suicidal underage girlfreind wants a website, but when they get one what do they do? Put it under wraps indefinately while they sit around looking for Anne Rice characters to name themselves after. Yahoo ran out of permutations of "Lestat" in 1998, when the number of digits that you'd need to stick on the end would no longer fit in the User ID box. (They'd have run out even sooner if more Goths could actually spell "Lestat" properly.) Riceans have been forced to unearth more and more abstruse pseudonyms. I'm thinking of starting my own internet company: LameVampiroidNames.com- we'll do the searching for you. Employing the sevices of two 17-year-olds called Louis98781 and Louis99521 to do the actual reading (let's face it, they'll never get proper jobs anyway so I can pay them under the minimum wage- hell, I could probably pay them in eyeliner) LameVampiroidNames.com would provide the discerning unimaginative dipstick with a suitable monniker... for a modest fee, natch.

It's a surefire success. However, I don't feel that the world really needs yet more web pages consisting of a dribbly red blood graphic,
some truly bad poetry typed in red on a black background, and a link to Sanguinarius.org. No, we don't need more Goths- we need better Goths!

Let's have a Goth retraining camp. Lock'em up for a couple of weeks and don't let them out till they've read a Patrick McGrath novel or two and can quote from more than one Baudelaire poem. Don't tell me I'm being unfair. You need the about same vocabulary for Suskind's Perfume as you need for Interveiw, you don't need to learn any scary new words.

They'd thank me for it one day. Let's face it, if your online persona is going to scream "effete trollop with delusions of intellectual superiority," you might as well be able to tell your clique from your cliche. N'est-ce pas, mes enfants?

What are you like?

Ah, shit. Remind me not to surf when I wake up in the wee small hours.

It shouldn't matter. It's all a long time ago, my life is immesureably different since I left this person, I've been in a relationship with someone else for the last, what, five years... but somehow it does. It does matter. Apart from the tiny weeny corner of my soul that still wants That Ex dead (with big fuckoff knives in), I honestly hoped That Ex'd be happy, or at least in a life with the potential for happiness. But nooooooo.....

I was mucking around with Google when I came across a website that looked familiar. After a moment or two I realized it belonged to That Ex. (You know the sort of thing I mean. Everyone's got a That Ex.) 'Course, a tiny little part of me was hoping that the site was being kept up as a memorial, That Ex having bought it in a messy RTA, but most of me is all venomed out where this person is concerned and was simply hoping that That Ex had moved on, learned from all the stuff that went down between us and generally sorted things out a bit.

Nope. In the intervening years, That Ex has learned exactly zilch. Same hackneyed philosophy that I thought was so mind-melting at first and which seemed less and less so as time wore on, same trite phrases being trotted out, same frankly fucked up attitudes rationalized in the same thin, tired way, same immaturity leaking through the cracks in the wise old facade. And I'm thinking, yeesh, have you changed at all since I knew you?

Oh. Yeah. You have.

You've bought a new shirt.


Today's mood: sorry, they don't seem to do a "horribly disappointed" emoticon.

Pseudodermis_tm.com: The Face of The Future

Been thinking today about skin: fake skin. I reckon that'll be the next big thing: breathable polymers that can be grafted to the human body. No more facelifts or skin peels or Botox shots, no more sunbeds or Jolene Creme Bleach, just a veneer of plastic laid over all the flaws. Hey, mum, can I have a new Laminated Barbie?

'Course, there'd be the usual unscrupulous clinics who'd ship you off to Poland and do a really crap job: shoot you full of narcotics, slap on the plastic, get rid of the air-bubbles with a hypodermic full of wallpaper paste before you woke up, then send you home looking just mahhhvelous... till the first time you take a long hot soak in the tub and your brand new Pseudodermis(tm) starts to lift off like when you leave your PVC jeans too close to the radiator. Then there's the effect of the trapped bathwater on your skin...

Girls as young as fourteen will attempt to improvise. The latest craze will be to have your mates over to wrap you in cling-film and turn on the hairdryer. Catching on swiftly, the company will rush to get its Home Pseud-Io Line onto the shelves despite doubts over safety. The first fatality will be a fourth-former named Chanel Nerys Bligh, of 23 Mountpleasant Drive, Margate. She will expire due to the inhalation of concentrated plasticizer fumes. Pseudodermis Ltd will express sympathy for the dead girl's family, but will not accept any liability. Sales will remain buoyant, and Chanel's mum will end her days chained to the security fence outside the Pseudodermis HQ; clutched in her withered hand, a placard made from a broom handle and a faded 8x10 photo of her dead child.

(Damn. I really should patent this fake skin stuff before somebody else does...)


Today's mood:

This is your brain on paranoia, Part One (Well, my brain, really)

How come I didn't come across this[work warning + major minor alert, although why I'm still doing this I have no idea] a few hours ago? And to think I was worried....

Talking dirty

Have re-read terms of service, and in the absence of any definition of things like "vulgar" or "obscene", I've decided to go back and add a few strategic asterisks to be on the safe side. Also, I'm going to add work warnings and minor warnings to any sites I think need them. I hate censorship, and sort of resent having to do this, but I understand that the tribe of Blogger has to cover its collective ars- sorry, buns. And anyway it's only a few rude words, not the Magna Carta.


Goddamit!

Later:- Having just completed said act of creative butchery, I went thru the Directory. Some guy with the f-word in his title. His actual title. I'm sulking now.

I also came across some prime examples of Why I Hate You, No Really, I Honestly Do Hate You.

Item: Weblogs with "blah, blah, blah," in the title.

I realise that this is supposed to suggest wry self-deprecation on the part of the diarist, but what it actually suggests is a complete lack of originality. You really had better be under the control of a demonic power, the age of 15, or the influence of mind-altering substances.

Item: Titles or descriptions featuring references to the supposed insanity of the diarist.

Either post evidence that you actually suffer from a genuine psychiatric illness or crawl back to the karaoke bar from whence you came, you sickeningly tedious person, you.

Item: Titles or descriptions which make much of the fact that the diarist is a woman, yeah? A W-O-M-A-N! With all, like, womanly glands and hormones and stuff. Bet you didn't expect THAT, huh? Huh? Well, get with the programme, wake up and smell the coffee, and take a reality check, mister, because the SISTERS ARE-"

Oh... do shut up.

Shopping and...

Went out shopping in Camden yesterday. God, that place gets on my pecs more and more. It's always heaving and everything's so wildly overpriced. I was looking to buy one of those hooded sweat shirts with an "evil inside" logo, but I'd have to remortgage my kidneys to afford one. Thirty quid for a sweatshirt. (Oh, well, seeing as how I can't get one off the market for a fiver and write something on it myself, you've got me over a barrel... hey, wait...)

Went up the TG last night, spur of the moment. Chocka. Took it pretty easy but had a good time anyhow, chatting, hanging around the lounge and watching the show. Didn't stay till the end, just till 3-ish.

(Ah, shit. This is going to turn into one of those teejus shopping-and-clubbing blogs if I'm not careful. Must... get... brain...)


"But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke..."

I'm getting increasingly dissatisfied and cheesed off at things at the moment, my own lack of mental activity being the main source of cheesedoffness. Ever wake up and realise that someone's had all your best ideas first and that there is nothing left for you except to become another style-over-content muttonhead, spewing cheap, pseudo-intellectual guff from every orifice, hiding your vacuousity behind a screen of convoluted post-modernist "irony", examining the sociopolitical ramifications of What H Off Of Steps Said Last Wednesday, marooned on your little island of self-absorbed pontificating where everything that's important to you is political and yet nothing political is important, where taupe is the new ecru, where your personality is something you slip on with your new shoes and pop-culture is king?

Or is that just me?


"You great big beautiful doll..."

I really worry about things like this site. [work warning + completely unsuitable for minors], It was posted on my fave message board (ie, the one where I actually do more than lurk like a pervert) and mucho learned discussion is ensuing. It's heckofa creepy for sure, but there's something about it that tickles my sense of humour- especially the FAQs. Check this out:

"Q: What sort of people buy REALDOLL?

A: REALDOLL customers include futurists, artists, art collectors, film-makers, scientists, health professionals, housewives -- you name it. There simply isn't just one type of REALDOLL customer! We provide REALDOLLs to single men, couples seeking to enhance their s*x lives, people looking for exotic decorative art, adult retailers who want the ultimate display mannequin..."

So, not sad sacks who can't maintain a relationship with a real person, then.

"Q: Does the silicone flesh have a foul odor?

A: No. REALDOLL's silicone flesh is very nearly odorless. You can detect a very mild odor: a pleasant and fruit-like fragrance."

At this juncture I sprayed vodka'n'coke all over my keyboard.

"Q: What if I don't fit with RealDoll's... parts?"

Oh, wow! Oooh, you stud, you. So that's how come you need to bump the lala with a big pile of silicone in a bad wig- no mortal woman can handle your mighty, God-like proportions!

"Q: Can I use my REALDOLL as a pool toy?"

Bwahahahahahaaaaaaaa!

"Q: Do you have any rejects or used models I can buy for cheap?

A: No."

Damn, these guys are restrained. A more honest answer would be: "UUURGH! You rank swine! What the hell is WRONG with you? No wonder you're spending several thou. on a silicone toy- women won't come within ten miles of your house! Maybe if you scraped the grimy crust from your repellant carcass you might stand a chance. Yee-uch!"

Don't get me wrong: I'm into the whole "re-cycle by re-use" ethos. It's just that there's some things you don't buy second-hand....

I really hate you.


Today's mood:

Nothing to do, nothing to say...

Damn, I hate being bored. Boredom for me is an inescapable sign that I am being boring. I must DO stuff, and I must do it hard and fast and long! But what? Writey hat, writey hat, I need my writey hat!

I think I drink too much.


Today's mood:

"Sleep no more, McCarnival...."

Goooood, insomnia is really starting to bite. Staying up 'til three surfing science and "weird" sites is sort of fun but now the fatigue hallucinations are starting up. I keep thinking I can hear stuff in my house; couldn't sleep last night because of all the odd little sounds my mind was throwing at me. Woke up this morning absolutely convinced that there were voices in the next room, and I thought I'd left the telly on all night. Nothing. Telly switched off, radio alarm ditto. I have got to learn to chill out...


Sleep Depravation = Techie Inspiration

On the plus side, I had an idea for my one-armed-person's can opener last night.


"Roses are red, violets are blue...."

Oh, and for those of you who are dribbling tears into your double-mocha hazelnut latte with cream, more cream, and extra syrup 'coz you didn't get no ickle red hearts in the post, here. I'll be your valentine. My love for you is as deep as the clingfilm wrapping on the cards you never got, as sweet as the cheap waxy crap that the confectionary industry laughingly calls "chocolate", as enduring as the pink tinfoil wrapped around a heartshaped peice of said cheap crap. Of course I don't know you and would probably hate you if I did, but hey. It's a valentine.

Knock yourself out.

Later that same day...

Hmm. This [Work + minor warning!] is nowhere as good as the haunted painting from a while back. It's damn sloppy work, if you ask me- far fetched and clumsy. The Haunted painting blurb was far more elegant, getting the point across by denying that anything weird had happened, whilst at the same time heavily implying that it had. Man, that still cracks me up. I wish I could get hold of a better image than the ones the sellers posted on ebay- it'd look great on my wall. Or a t-shirt. I can't believe that the only merchandising the "lucky buyer" has come up with is hugely expensive posh reproductions. If it was me, there'd be haunted painting shirts, haunted painting coffee mugs, haunted painting mouse-mats, haunted painting lunch-boxes, you name it. Cheap copies of The Hands Resist Him would hang in every sullen teenager's bedroom next to the knockoff Marilyn Manson posters and skull-print scarves. I'd be minted, mate- minted!



Today's mood:

A new and mighty force is now at large in cyberspace. Beware!

Sorted out an ezboard yesterday. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but hey- it's there. Probably get flamed a couple of times by sad sacks wHo TyPe AlL tHEir PoStS LiKe ThIs and then forget about it. And I also knocked up a website over on Geocities. I have very little to put in that either, but I think that'll change. I really must screw my "functioning human being" head back on and get some proper bloody writing done.

Making the world a better place for amputees

My current project for Uni is as follows:

"to go around the house with your dominant hand behind your back and when you find that there is something you cannot do, that usually takes two hands, redesign the object so that it can be used with ONE hand only. Object of design must be mechanical - no electrical solutions permitted. Use functions analysis to come up with your design."

The engineering department is obsessed with designing gadgets for one-armed people. Not that I'm complaining, you understand. The world needs more automatic page-turners.

Today's mood:

Much yay.

Hokayyy, now for image fun:

YEEES. I did it! I am Godlike! I am like unto a god! WHoo! YAY ME! etc.

Now let's do some more...

plasticbag.org
The Swearing Buffy Keyboard
seanbaby.com

link

Gnnnn. I give up. Henceforth all links will be in plain text that can be cut'n'pasted into the browser.

You. You tell me how to make the links work. You've been to more school than me. And don't fucking tell me it's the icon of a world and a bit of chain. I see world. I see bit of chain. I interpret using Brain, The New Wonder Between-Ear Insulation Device. I go pointy and clicky and still my links are pale and flaccid. Fuck you . I hate you. And your freinds. Especially your really good freinds, the ones you lend clothes to and have known since you and they were 3.

I hate them most of all.

No. I shall not have links in my blog. In fact I have only just relocated said blog after the last Great Hard-drive Collapse, because I didn't have it bookmarked, hadn't written anything down, and couldn't remember what I was calling myself when I signed up. I could have given up and got a new one, but given my past history you just knooooow where that's going: blogdom would be littered with my forgotten usernames, my discarded selves. I would be the weblog equivalent of the Nameless One off of Planescape Torment. Or something. Fuck, I hate you.

No special reason. I just do.

I will have links in my blog. It must and shall be done.

href="http://www.blogger.com"

href="http://www.blogger.com"

"http://www.blogger.com"

href=<"http://www.blogger.com">

href="http://www.log.dial.pipex.com/randomacts/babystories/babystories.htm"

Work, link! Work!

Bum. There was supposed to be a link there... wonder what happened? *$£!? caffine withdrawal. Must... drink... tea... now....

End of term. I have my life back.

Except I don't. I have taken the weekend off and tomorrow I have to get back to studying again, all ready for my exams. I loathe life. I am studying on the most stressfull course my uni offers (according to the head of department) and I am powered by all the white-hot motivation of, say, a cheese and pickle sandwhich. I hate everything, especially you. You are unworthy even to cast your gaze upon my august blog.

Bastards.

Fuck off and go here, instead.


Or go back to typing body-parts and superhero names into Google. Whatever. I don't care.