Wednesday, January 30, 2002

i wish i was stuck for ideas.

when i'm not moping around my house, feeling sorry for myself, i actually have too many ideas. and i've got a backlog of about 3 or 4 things i want to write. i don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing.

and no, mr fuzzy, it won't be set in victora.

the current, very rough outline for it is:

it's set in a victorian village in england. there's a boy without a name (he has a name, but just not yet), in love with a girl called emily (blind person story wasn't really working, so i'm stealing ghostly emily from that...maybe she'll be in both). he worships her from afar, they're pleasant enough to each other, but not close enough to really be friends. one night he carves her name along with his into an oak tree, sitting outside an abandoned old house on the outskirts of the village. it's a kind of futile filled, hopeful gesture on his part, and he leaves it there for the tree to heal and eventually forgets about it.

emily dies. this part is hazy, i think there were a lot of diseases & stuff floating round in victorian england. maybe she got consumption, or the chicken pox. anyway, she dies.

the old abandoned house turns out to be a kind of gateway to the spirit world, which everyone who dies has to pass through. the problem is that because unnamed boy carved her name into the wood, emily can't pass through, so she's stuck wandering the house.

unnamed boy discovers this and visits her, keeping her company, and kind of exploiting her in his own impotent little way.

along the way another girl enters the scene, possibly moving into the village, and she falls in love with unnamed peep, but never tells him. so there's this weird kind of worship-unrequited love thing going on across the 3 of them.

and that's pretty much all i have so far. it's a pretty big research novel, and is kind of far removed from the other one :) i thought it might be interesting to kind of populate the village, to explore the family dynamics, the sense of loss, and to write a haunted house story that wasn't tied up in revenge or fear.

and that's all i have...anyone who's been following my current girl situation will no douby recognise the blatant similarities. still, i don't laugh at where you all get your ideas from, and at least i'm writing again.

off to work on finishing the first novel.

Harry - if you're stuck for more ideas or in need of some inspiration the good folk at Something Awful have run some interesting competitions lately - this one in particular: readers' reinterpretations of the covers of children's books. (incorrectly placed apostrophe fixed! HUMANITY WAS SAVED!)

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

2 in a row.

lame!

i was reading this: http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp and the question of gaimans' genius brought back a memory.

once, long ago, someone i know described me as not quite a genius, but close, certainly up there. at the time i laughed, which is what i do with compliments, and i'm sure that at the time i thought it was affectionate and heartfelt. i think i still do.

but it doesn't explain why i'm sitting here, with my soup and my sad music blaring from my stereo and my hope that i'll be able to write something, anything, tonight.

i don't think i'm a genius, i don't even think i'm that smart. i'm good at bluffing it, and i sometimes have ideas.

but none of it really helps explain why i'm miserable.

that's pretty much the crux of the matter.

i think the sadness is warping into melancholy just now anyway, exactly the right time to go and write some of a victorian ghost-love story.

i had my first idea in about 2 weeks last night.

and it's pretty good, all pregnant and mutable, like newly birthed ideas should be.

i think it might fit into the second novel mould far better than the other ideas i've had.

still mopey though :( still, the interesting thing about writing & ideas is how much they reflect the situations around you at the time, and how the whole thing helps (?) to deal with the situations. or at least that's what happened with the first (unfinished) novel.

i hope this week gets better.


Friday, January 25, 2002

that's ok pol.

sorry none of it made any sense.

my writery skills tend to take an extended leave of absence when i get miserable...it's one of the reasons i dislike this state so much :(

hey, mr sigerson.

while i kind of agree with fuzz, about some of it at least, i want to add my own thoughts.

for the past 2 weeks i've been lost in a hazey hell of girl badness.

and what have i learned?

sometimes life is trying to teach you something, maybe, or at least that's how it feels.

supposing, and this is all hypothetical, that you really liked a girl, and had done for years. one day, she turns to you and tells you that shed been seeing someone else. crushing, but unfortunately inevitable. now, on top of that, supposing that exactly ONE week before you had a revelation about your feelings for her. while sitting on a train, going to see michelle (my counsellor) a little voice sprung unbidden into your head and said: "even if she wanted you, even if now she came up to you and told you that she held all of these feelings. you'd say no. because you know it wouldn't work, even with all of the longing & desire & garbage in your head. you'd say no to her. deep down you know."

it's a revelation, one of those things that sparks and spreads out through your brain, changing everything in its wake. and the voice in your head looks at the timing. if the relationship had been revealed, even a week before, you'd have gone mad. it would have spun out of control, taking the friendship with it.

sometimes, it just looks like the world is trying to tell you something.

so....

then on saturday, you're trying to deal with the whole thing. there's a sense of loss, of mourning a relationship that is now cemented out of reach, and it will take time to find where it all fits in your head. the phone rings. on the other end is a girl who's already told you she has a crush on you. she tells you that she still feels the same, that being with you makes her feel really happy, and that she needs the space to clear you out of her head.

you tell her you understand. it's a situation that is close, very close, to home.

again, it's the timing.

and i'm not sure if there's a point here, or something.

but sometimes it's not about anything, sometimes you can't make stuff happen, sometimes you just have to go along with it, because the world, or god, or karma, or something is trying to show you something.

maybe.

or at least that's how it feels.

in more concrete terms:

all of the advice in the world is bullshit pol. none of it works! it's like trying to sum up someones life in a single word. it can't be done because lives and relationships and the complex interactions between everything can't be summed up in single, easy to remember, easy to digest nuggets of information. life is too messy for that, and if you try to force it to be clean and fit some mould that has worked for someone else then you are doomed to failure from the start.

for what it's worth, it's been years for me too. and i thought i'd found someone, but hadn't. about the only thing you can do is keep living your life, hoping that you'll meet someone at some point.

i can't make any promises, i don't know if i'll ever meet anyone, or if you will. despite what everyone currently in a relationship tells us.

and i know it's difficult, because they all seem happier being with someone.


i don't know. this has all been pretty stream of consciousness, and probably hasn't made much sense. i don't have any answers, my life is as fucked up as anyones. the only thing that i kind of hold onto in times like this is something from the bloke who wrote "raging bull": he was talking about his kids, and how when you have kids you look at them and hope that they make it. at the same time, you know. you know that some people don't make it, no matter what you do, or how hard you try, sometimes people don't make it. but sometimes people do.

not very positive, but it helps me...and might help you.

good luck man.

harry.

Thursday, January 24, 2002

i just looked at my hands.

and they looked like they belonged to two completely different people.

fuck.

i think there's something wrong somewhere.

*updated* Church eucharist pub crawls. It's the latest craze. Question is, how soon till we see the P*ps* M*x boys doing it in a caffienated carbonated beverage commercial? In unrelated news, Somalis who fought against the US have seen a bootleg of 'Black Hawk Down' and cheered when the 'bad guys' died. Problem is, the bad guys are the Yanks. (^_^) As far as Mothmen are concerned, the To Believe Or Not To Believe question is quite simple. Belief in the paranormal is a pandora's box, and I think subconsciously everyone knows that a certain amount of weird shit goes on, it's the amount that is in question. Trouble is, it's a slippery slope from 'lights in the sky' to 'the CIA is in league with the Lizardmen from planet Vril and/or John Friedrich was a CIA stooge and there are sekrit US air force bases in Sale or Moe or wherever the hell they're supposed to be, and the CIA sacked Gough because he was going to go public about the function of Pine Gap and the Omega Navigation Facility at Darriman in SE Victoria... And you *are* supposed to be getting a job and paying taxes and not rioting and looting and writing cranky messages to the Melbourne Indymedia website ... or this one for that matter.

So there's this new Richard Gere fillum coming out, called "The Mothman Prophecies" and it's based on "real events" that occured in West Virginia in the 60's... And the website's all full of this "The Mothman Lives" crap... and I would have thought "yeah yeah yeah another Blair Witchy type deal", but then I remembered reading about this Mothman stuff a couple of years ago, and then again recently in a book that Mr 4.0 left at our house... so then I was like "wow, cool", but then I realised that it was Richard Gere and so I thought "no, not really".

screenshots from eve-online.com. Looks like mankind.net to me ... is that crap still running? and does anyone actually play MMORPGs?

Wednesday, January 23, 2002

i'm going to get a t-shirt made.

simply saying:

WARNING : This t-shirt does not contain any trace of a trained therapist. if problems persist, please consult your doctor.

michelle and i are going to have a farking field day tonight.

I keep seeing a motorbike with 'FRAG' on it somewhere. Perhaps the bike is rigged to explode in an accident. When I was in Belfast near the town hall I saw a big purple Jag with the personalised plate 'UZI'. Someone told me it meant something other than 'submachinegun'. I didn't believe them. So where are plates 'LUSER' '0WN3D' and so on? ENQUIRING CAFFIENATED SLEEP-DEPRIVED BEE-RIDDEN MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

Oh how we laughed. And then we realised how close it all was to home, and we all had to scrunch up in a dark corner, arms hugging tucked up legs, weeping and rocking backwards and forwards.

Monday, January 21, 2002

mr sigerson, truly you are a genius.

like truly.

right, i'm off to do laundry & to see exactly how much weirder my life can get.

and to finish my story about being born....and maybe the suicide one...but that's almost done anyway.

speaking of writing shit:
"she felt radiant. Her joy flared beneath her skin, sending shafts of light out through her pores and illuminating the world."

it's one of those lines i'm immensely proud of :)

oh.

and don't get me all nostalgic aboot scottish prisons......*wipes a tear from his eye* that whole place was a prison *sniff* i miss it *sniff*

Saturday, January 19, 2002

seeing as it's a made up word miss noodle, i'll let you arrange the spelling for it.

my life continues to reek of oddness. a lot. thank fuck for detox weekends, and flatmates moving out....i've dragged my stereo & computer out of my room 'cos the living room was looking a little sparse...got no fridge, and no plates, and no cutlery, or pots and pans, and 4 months rent to cover...but FUCK it's nice to know i can do what i want, when i want...i'll be able to come home to an empty house...and watch what i want & write what i want & generally hopefully have eliminated one of the stress things from my life.

but.

oddness abounds. in a kind of cyclic, push-pull way...and i'm not sure i like it.

Friday, January 18, 2002

Drink me!
Which drink are you?


So does anyone know what an Imperial tastes like?

There are no coincidences. There are only cars, the geometry of which fails to satisfy French people. I don't know if that's all French people, or just someone called Noël, but to me it is of little difference.

I really wish my job didn't suck anuuus. (Harry, is that how you spell it?)

And now, some light relief.

Harry: the coincidence fairy has been shitting on us both. I wrote to some alt.religion.kibology girly (married, kids, natch) and she's a 2d art lead for Infogrames USA. NOW JUST WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

"The armadillo icon looks like an iud coil to me.

"During the last round of layoffs last Spring (when we had Spring), about 100 people (I just typed poeple about three times before I got it right, there), piled over to our house and we had a cerimonial burning of a stuffed armadillo (our Xmas bonus from the previous year). It went up fast. Nice kid's toy."

"I feel lucky to have a job. I think they forgot to write my name down when they were axing people."

Hooray for quinkydinks ... (did I just *say* that?)

Thursday, January 17, 2002

you're dead fuzzy!

and loud music really helps to stem the thinking.

i'm going for bills record of 3 discrete posts in a rowm, on (mostly) unrelated topics.

um.

WTF!



it's early. not late like these posts usually are. i couldn't sleep. only eating a pasta salad and a muffin for an entire day doesn't really leave you with enough comfort to let you sleep late.

that and the weirdness which seems to be slowly burrowing into my head, laying eggs of oddness there, before scurrying off and carking it,

sometimes the world is too full of coincidences.

i don't believe in fate, or god, or karma.

but sometimes.

it just looks like there's something. Watching and making sure that certain things happen at a certain time and in a certain order.

um.

yeah.

i'm going to work now.

bbbbbbbbbbbbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

oh, and by the way, we have a NEW CAR and it is spanky

Blimey, Bulgarians are obviously more uptight than Italians, who've had this kind of stuff for a long time now. Uptight or less morally reprehensible. One or the other, I forget which.

three times in a row bill.

you win todays award for most bored person.

your prize is a shiny new car.

One of these days I may actually write something with my own two fair hands, but for the time being I'll remember that sage piece of advice I give to all beginning tech writers: "The best possible outcome for you as a writer is to write nothing at all."

A Bulgarian news show in which the female presenters removed their clothes as they read the headlines has been cancelled only three weeks after its launch.

The MSAT private TV station pulled the plug after a shapely newsreader took off her bra just as she delivered a news item on the Pope.

more

The Brotherhood Of The Wolf
Sure to be the year's best film to mix martial arts, 18th-century European costume drama, historical allegory, and horror, Christophe Gans' The Brotherhood Of The Wolf assembles elements that might have seemed random had the director and co-writer not linked them so seamlessly.

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

f**king anxiety.
f**king nerves.
f**king brain.

and

f**king flatmates.
f**king inane laughing.
f**king EVERYTHING!

well.

my writing output kind of dropped off for a bit during november and december, what with me writing the novel and all. for the interested it currently sits at 58,041 words and is still being worked on in between the other stories i'm trying to write.

after this, i'm off to try & finish my garden of eden as hell thingy, which continues to mutate beneath my pen.

but just to prove i haven't been slacking off.

well, i have, but it's been therapeutic. i've put another one of my fairy doodles up here. it's not as good as the demon children one, but i wanted to prove i was still writing.

in case nobody believed me.

and there's also the giants story forming in my head.
and the woodcutter / wiccan / werewolf thing, which i finally figured out how to make work.
and the blind person / fetish woman story
and the novel...mustn't forget the novel.
and the second one.

f**k

Saturday, January 12, 2002

Speaking of three sluts coming along at once *fnarr*, an associate of mine swears that he was 'broken in' by three dirty old trollops from Abyss. All at once. Said experience scarred the boy for life, apparently. That'll larn him for looking like jim morrison's red-headed nephew and poncing around in leather pants with NO KNICKERS!

Pol may I humbly suggest preying upon drug-addled youngsters at the nearest dance venue? It works in the movies. A friend of mine from primary school is now married to a gurl what he met at a Jazz Bar so you could strap on the Fez and try your luck with the local wankers. If that should fail then go home and try your luck with a Jazz Mag instead.

Where the fuck are ya again?

Poetry: umm who were those incredibly offensive comedians from the UK in the 70s what said 'c*nt' a lot in their routine? I'm thinking about their routine Right Now. "My old man's a dustman, he wears a dustman's hat, he's gonna die from cancer, now what d'you think of that?"

Finally: Public Enemy Vs Dexy's Midnight Runners (~350k mp3), via The Null Device via boingboing. Share And Enjoy(tm)!

Friday, January 11, 2002

*spanks Bill for writing a norty poem*

Yep, we do need to go out drinking one night, it's possibly a bad idea to combine that and Withnail and I, especially as I know from experience there's more than one person on this blog who has a tendency to play the Withnail and I drinking game - keeping up with the film - it gets kind of difficult (and indeed blurry) when it's nearly closing time in the Mother Black Cap - "We have to work quickly! Two quadruple whiskys and another pair of pints please!"

I think everyone knows my theory on ugg boots - first you just pop down to the milk bar in them, and then it's the discotheque!

mary had a little lamb
and it was always gruntin
so she tied it to a five bar gate
and kicked it's little



i'll see you lot down the pub then?

Thursday, January 10, 2002

never run around the house with pants off - always place underwear securely on head before beginning motorbike impressions - the placement of leg holes can enable accurate simulation of motorcycle helmet.

does this mean you found a scanner, bill, or did you finally sell your soul (again) for the vehicle pictured below?

and now a word from our sponsor, Loch Lomond:

I met a hawt chyxor in Perth
I chatted her for all I was worth
Then I asked her to bed--
She likes carpets instead--
So I crawled off to drown in the Firth.


Other things to look forward to living on your own Mr Callaghan:

1. dressing yourself in the lounge room
2. re-enacting the 'running across beach with prong at full mast' scene in 'Les Amants Du Pont Neuf' up and down the hall
3. every night is stinky food night
4. stereo == owned
5. they say you're never alone ^W^W^W^W^Wsilence is golden
6. getting scared by small insects and arachnids is a lot more fun when you're alone
7. green grow the rushes-o

oh and bill ... if they export it, I will come.

[runs around house with pants off making two-stroke noises] niiiii! niiiiii! niiiiiiiiiiiii!

Wednesday, January 09, 2002

kick

ASS



my flatmate's gunna start looking for a place this weekend.........living by yourself tralalala.

plus points



  1. clean sink

  2. quiet when i come home and try to write

  3. space, space and more space.....


not so plus points



  1. less cash for stuff for a few months



but it's a small price to pay. or a big price...but at least i'll be a bit happier.

hopefully :)

room of love stuff, miss mel sent me some *ages* ago, and i can't remember them :( still, no matter. i wrote most of a novel :)

and.

you know, sometimes you have thoughts that spread out over the surface of your brain, changing everything in their wake?

well i had one this evening, sitting on the train, going to see michelle.

and.

it.

was.

strange.

but good :) but unfortunately i can't post it here. those of you who see me daily will no doubt hear about it at some point.

afghanistan == oil
repeat until brainwashed
AFGHANISTAN == OIL
don't let anyone persuade you otherwise
AFGHANISTAN == OIL
oh and == secret drug war
just like Kuwait == oil
can't wait for the 'sanctions' against Iraq to blow out of control
lucky the australians are in charge now!
who wants to go out harassing moslem women? It's the Year of the Outback you know. It'll be really patriotic.

Drinks: good, except, I think I've launched into another 'Overtime of maniacs' episode, and I'm no longer allowed to see daylight. And I can't do anything on Saturday afternoon, as I'm gonna be midsumma-ing like crazy.
Afghanistan: Yes, I probably agree with Sue Ann Post, even though I haven't read the article. She speaks the truth, apart from the time she *says* she caught that fish.
Heroin: Yes... err, I mean no. Bad. Naughty heroin.
Sigur Ros: If they are going to come out, we need tickets. Badly.
Other Room Of Love shenanigans: Film doubles...
The Borrowers and Payback
The Siege and Independance Day
but they are the only two I can remember offhand... *sniff*

Tuesday, January 08, 2002

what on earth is St Swithin's day?

Monday, January 07, 2002

it's late.

i've been writing a little.

it's nice not to have to worry about word count all of the time.

and in the spirit of the day, and probably the week, i've been reading about other peoples misery at lowbrow

this week is gonna drag. and drag. i can feel it.

fuck.

maybe listening to radiohead and nine inch nails all day isn't the best way to sway my mood.

Well you know, mr fleagle, that if you take both our names and mix them together, you wind up with Evill Penis.......

Friday, January 04, 2002

Another quiz, but one that I think you'll all have the most fun with, seeing as we're all, relatively speaking, well-heeled globetrotters of one degree or another. Here's the first question and its answers as a sample:

While staying in Moscow you are invited to eat at the home of a business colleague. To thank your host you present her with a bunch of 24 carnations. She responds by:

* Kissing you on the lips. Flowers are given only by lovers

* Crossing herself. Even numbers are for the dead

* Thanking you. Carnations are a traditional symbol of friendship

* Adding the petals to the meal. They are considered a delicacy

They get weirder :)

mulholland drive is the end of this month.

who's up for weird lynch lesbian action.

*put's his hand up*

and i wanted to post this, by john carmack:

The games with 500 page design documents before any implementation are also kidding themselves, because you can't make all the detail decisions without actually experiencing a lot of the interactions.

Putting creativity on a pedestal can also be an excuse for laziness. There is a lot of cultural belief that creativity comes from inspiration, and can't be rushed. Not true. Inspiration is just your subconscious putting things together, and that can be made into an active process with a little introspection.

Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.


given all of our current creative (& other) situations, it seems kind of appropriate.

The Age and The Null Device are both mentioning Blue Velvet's rerelease. Anyone wanna watch it this weekend? `cause everyone else will be soon! I picked it up for $10 at one o' dem HMV sales a year or so ago. Might help dislodge some of the words from the writers' heads for their books ... although Bill and Eve (Evill? Beve? We must think of a kyoot new collective noun to refer to the betrothed) gots a bigger telly. "It's not the size that counts" does not apply to tellies. "Chips and Coke" anyone?

Hey, Alex, look at me!! You may be a quiz whore, but I'm blogging twice in a row!!! Oh the horror!
Novel: I will finish it at some point. Maybe one night a week is a good thing. So far, I'm procrastinating, because I can't write when the room is messy - so (takes on gruff antarctic explorer voice) I may be some time.
My characters are all developing in my head still, but so (oops, stops doing gruff antarctic explorer voice) is my other story, which is getting more disturbing the more I think about it... I hope they're not going to combine in some horrible mess of viscera and pineapple upside down cake. Bea would not be pleased.

Oh dear.



Which Rocky character are you?

Thursday, January 03, 2002

no hurry on the novel miss noodle.

it's not like i'm scurrying home each night, to write.

hang on.

i am actually.

but not in the same volumes as november, and certainly not with the same level of focus. been having some crises of confidence the past few days....bugger....need to finish something, just to prove i can do it.

anyway, for anyone interested in finishing their novel...i nominate a special evening, at least one night a week, where we can get together & write, or promise to write, but where we have specific goals! i really want to finish mine, and i'm still writing, but it's going slow...and i don't know if the thing as a whole is any good, and i don't know what's going to happen after she kills the woodcutter, who's actually a werewolf, and his house burns down, and she meets a pregnant woman when she's fleeing.

bugger.

i didn't plan any of this. and i've still got the short stuff to finish. does anybody know any good food sites online. for like a date. where one person is blind, and the other person is nekid?

right it's late. so bed. but i just saw 'the man who wasn't there' and it was good, and it gave me some ideas...and i want to write, but i need to get into work on time tomorrow, because i made a big check in last night, and there might be trouble.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

please return your people to their lying foetal positions before landing.


Which Rocky character are you?

I am a quizwhore.

tomorrow i be handing in the dole form. it contains 100% Truth(tm)!

yeah yeah happy an merry an stuff.

work = very tiring - this 8 hour day thing is surely a joke.

Dinner tonight = seafood - I'm paying because i forgot to buy lunch and we've found a new vietnamese restaurant that's right down the road and ultra cheap.

Happy new year indeed.
Gaiman thing: cool
Being back at work: poopoo
Meat: yes
Firearms: no
All manner of seafood, including big fuck off tuna and giant squid heads: yes
Lack of sleep (or at least what feels like it): bad

Somewhat topically, I'm reading this book called 'A Cook's Tour' by Tony Bourdain. He spent the better half of a chapter describing a bunch of hungry Portuguese villagers, who fattened and killed a pig, at a big feast. It made me hungry.

And speaking of writing, I need to finish my novel so I can get it published and live (comfortably) off the proceeds. I promise I'll do it, Harry.

Tuesday, January 01, 2002

HAPPY NEW YEAR FELLOW BLOGGEROOS!

so there!

and for your work-time browsing pleasure:

here : for an interview about the game i used to work on back in scotland.
here: for a very, very big list of fetishes....this will show up in vampirella...you've been warned!

and :




Take the What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be? Quiz



heh..so close to my actual resolution it's not funny :-)

and i wanted to reproduce this part from neil gaimans journal, just because sometimes people say the words in your head far, far beter than you ever could:

And I just realised I probably won't post again in 2001, so this is by way of being a New Year's greeting to all of you out there who read this. May your 2002 be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't to forget make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in 2002, you surprise yourself.


My own new year's resolution? I want to write more. There are too many stories not told, and a limited amount of time to tell them in. And I want less stuff around. I've spent 40 years accumulating stuff, and now can't remember why.


off for an early night peeps...work tomorrow :(