december 31, 2000

It was staring me right in the face

I just make SDoTH a blog and include it. Thank you, Blogger!
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SDoTH confounded by lack of FTP access shock

No sooner do I apologise for not sticking Katy's solution on the left of this blog, than Robert goes and solves the next one. Now I'm home they'll both have to share the honours. I must work out some kind of archive system for these solutions, if only so my blog page doesn't just get longer and longer and longer. Some thought to be had, I think.
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Repairable

Without trying to give too much away, the underlying conceit carried by Samuel L Jackson's character -- that comics are just another form of oral history, the truth of their tales much buried in the 'comic book style' but still harking back to a kernel of some legendary reality of good vs. evil -- seems almost too far-fetched even for fiction. However, the film has to be the best attempt yet at fitting the existence of comic book superheroes and villians into the framework of the real world, and Shyamalan deserves a lot of credit for making his point to subtly (though the reflection metaphor is a little overused) and realistically.

Yes, the film does indeed end suddenly, as my sister's friend told her, but this may be connected to a rumour I've heard that Unbreakable is the first of a trilogy of films Shyamalan is planning on making. Perhaps if he stopped allowing his scenes to breath so much, he could fit all three into one film. Unbreakable was good, but when it ended I felt like I should go and make a cup of tea during the ad break and settle down for part two. Not self-contained enough, I suppose.
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december 24, 2000

SDoTH soldiers on

Reluctant revelation mumbled quietly in the hope that no-one is really listening

I saw Little Nicky too. But I didn't like it. I promise.

I only laughed five times. And not really proper laughs at that, more resigned sniggers.

Honest.
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Stunning revelation!

Katy has found the time to submit a solution to the current SDoTH problem, and so should you. As I'm at my parents' and currently down have ftp access, I can't acclaim her success in the sidebar, so it'll have to be here for the moment.

Katy got from Carl Weathers to Tom Hulce in two steps (one less than my route via Sharon Stone in Action Jackson, and De Niro in Casino):

Carl Weathers

Little Nicky

Clint Howard

Parenthood

Tom Hulce

Very neat, and very impressive. Unfortunately it exposes her as someone who went to see Little Nicky, one of the worst films ever made. She should hide her head in shame. Particularly when she didn't like Meet the Parents. (I would link to her tirade about it on kitschbitch, but as she hasn't got her links to posts sorted out yet I can't. Let's just say it's in the December archive.)
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Driving home for Christmas

Driving with my sister down from London to my parents house in Surrey yesterday, Capital Radio kindly assailed our ears with the highly appropriate song 'Driving Home for Christmas' by Chris Rea. Which we were doing. Would you believe it. I was immediately struck by the synchronicity. Much more interesting though was a dreadful version of Slade's 'Merry Xmas Everybody!' sung by what sounded like Noel Gallagher. You'd think it'd be impossible to make that song sound dreary and miserable. But you'd be wrong.

Arrived home to what is becoming a dwindling celebration. I remember when I was younger the whole house would be covered in Christmas decorations, great swathes of soft, golden tinsel entwined up the bannisters, angels, gold, silver and white, dotted along the mantlepiece. But each year my mother's desire to decorate decreases a little bit more, and the house becomes less and less decked with boughs of holly, fa la la la. The only real constant in all this is the Christmas tree, always enormous, always covered in tiny silver strands, soft snowflakes, frosted glass and gold baubles, always magically beautiful. I think it's the one thing I'll really miss about Christmas when my parents eventually move to the States. That, and the reduction in the number of presents. Perhaps I can attempt to construct such a tree of my own when the time comes. And maybe go out and buy a few presents, wrap them up, and give them to myself to keep the numbers up.
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Go forth and litigate

At the party I had on Thursday night, some of us played a few rounds of Mini-Tumble, a game I was sent by Amazon as a Christmas gift for being such a good customer. Tumble is essentially a version of Jenga. To the extent of being a complete ripoff. The game is the same, and so are the rules and blocks, except in Mini-Tumble where the blocks are very inventively smaller (and therefore lighter making the game much, much worse). I think that's got to be grounds for litigation, Hasbro. And if so, I want my finder's fee.
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december 22, 2000

Flattery is the opiate of the massive

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Lateral thinking

If you want to make yourself clean your flat, have a party. I had a small get-together last night and spent all afternoon hoovering, scrubbing, disposing and shoving piles of probably important papers in cupboards where I'll never find them again. But the result is that my flat is tidier than it has been for about the last six months. Nice little party too.
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december 21, 2000

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner

Not moments after I posted my first SDoTH conundrum did I get a clean and simple solution from a certain Ramsie Shick who either shouldn't have still been up that early in the morning, or lives in another part of the world where it was a sensible time of day.

So come on, boys and girls, join in the crazy fun and try your hand at our next teaser!

Who knows, I may even start giving out small prizes to those who complete the chain in the most succinct (or even most amusing) way possible. I'm not promising anything though. Don't all get over excited.
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New bed! New bedroom! New world order!

My very expensive new bed arrived from Ocean this morning.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like this yet. Currently it resembles eight or nine enormous flat packed boxes and a large mattress taking up a lot of space against the wall in my bedroom. I look forward to putting it together with a certain apprehension.

By the way, is anybody else who uses IE5 on a Mac finding it really frustrating not to have the hyperlink, bold and italic buttons on the Blogger post form? I hate to admit it but I think I've finally found a tiny reason why a PC might be better than a Mac.
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New look! New location! New world order! (cont.)

This new design is really growing on me. I wasn't sure at first, but I find it much cleaner. It's also turned out to be quite a good thing that the links to other blogs are confined to such a small space. Everyone seems to be overrun with unmanageable recommendation lists these days, me included, and at least this will force me to rationalise my choices to the few that I actually read. In fact I think there's even too much space there now.

The long winter evenings must just fly by

Today was indeed my last day of work of the year, and truly glad am I to be finished. The five of us wrote a passable skeleton of a monologue for the opening of episode two of The Richard Blackwood Show to be recorded in the new year, and three sketches for notoriously uncooperative special guests the All Saints to dismiss out of hand. Seems pointless, doesn't it, but when you're being paid as much as I am you just don't complain. We actually finished all this by about 4.30pm, so Mark and I spent the remainder of the afternoon enjoying our own spontaneously invented version of that much loved movie connections game, Six Degrees of Tom Hulce, an actor we came across after spending a good half hour gleefully scribbling the names of slightly obscure and under-rated movie actors on the white board in our office.

The aim, as in the original Kevin Bacon version, is to connect a particular film actor or actress to Amadeus star Tom Hulce via films they have co-starred in. Our first victim, Fairuza Balk, chosen to be perversely hard, turned out to be a cinch after I remembered seeing a trailer for the film Imaginary Crimes in which it is described by, I think, the Boston Herald as 'emotionally luminous':

Fairuza Balk

Imaginary Crimes

Harvey Keitel

Mean Streets

Robert DeNiro

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Tom Hulce

The point (there is one) and indeed the joy of choosing Tom Hulce over Kevin Bacon is that Hulce has only ever taken the starring role in one film (Amadeus) and memorably appeared in only four or so others (the wayward son in Parenthood; the airline lawyer in Fearless; Henry Clerval in Frankenstein; the virgin Larry 'Pinto' Kroger in Animal House; and the voice of Quasimodo in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame) whereas Kevin Bacon has acted in literally hundreds. Which means Six Degrees of Tom Hulce should be a lot harder. We've been through a lot of connections this evening and I might start posing some to you in a lame attempt to fill space at the sides of this page. In fact I've put one there already to start you off. The first person to email me with the correct (or another viable) answer will see their name posted in glorious technicolour on this blog.

Some pivotal information:

• Jeffrey Jones plays Skip Tyler in the Hunt for Red October
• Emma Thompson plays Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing
• Doc Emmett Brown has a schoolmarm sweetheart in Back to the Future III

december 20, 2000

'Thanks for your kind review'

Sometimes it's easy to forget that people you know have access to the internet. Today I received a blank email from a certain lizmaybrice@hotmail.com, the subject simply, 'Thanks for your kind review'. For those of you who don't know, Liz is an actress I was at university with who recently appeared in the film Fortress II with Christopher Lambert. I went with some friends, and posted my thoughts on it as one of my first ever posts on this blog some four months ago. With trepidation I looked back at what I had written and, do you know, I'm still not sure whether the 'thanks' is genuine or not. See what you think:

'Did see Fortress II with pals and it was indeed appalling. But much more disturbing was the almost constant nudity of Liz May Brice throughout. She spent a large amount of time soaping herself down in the showers and we didn't quite know where to look. Still, I'm sure it was justified. That aside, she wasn't actually that bad (or that unattractive naked to be honest). She affected a passable American accent and, to her credit, made the best of some really pathetic dialogue. Not a good film though, and we felt rather cheated afterwards, especially as it cost £8.50 a ticket (rip-off Britain again). Oh for god's sake, what did we expect? It was Fortress II.'

I did basically say she made the best of a bad job, didn't I? I'm just disappointed that she didn't write any actual comments in the email. At least then I could be sure it was actually from her.
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Good Lord...

Apparently Kirsty McColl's died.
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New look! New location! New world order!

As is usual in these cases, I shall point out that some stuff doesn't work; mainly the 'about' page. (No improvement there, then.) The side bars will of course be filled with yards of delightful text in future, but at the moment it's 2:13am and I should really go to bed as I have to do my final day's work of the year tomorrow. Hallelujah.
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december 19, 2000

december 18, 2000

1 = happytablet.com (31%)
1 = fizzfizzbangbang.com (31%)
3 = gasgiant.net (26%)
4 = underlondon.com (10%)
5 = hamandcheese.org (0%)
5 = supermassive.net (0%)

I'm disappointed no-one liked supermassive.net -- not some feeble 'da jungle is wicked' kind of phrase, but a reference to supermassive black holes -- and I really went of happytablet.com by the end. But of course I'm not really going to buy any of them. Why should I? What a waste of good money that would be.
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december 15, 2000

They've also set up their own forum, separate from the TV Forum. Who knows where to post now?
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One of the most controversial pieces of quantum physics is The Copenhagen Interpretation, or how we reconcile the fact that quantum decisions are made on the basis of the collapse of infinite multiple probability wavefunctions. In his book In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, John Gribbin subscribes to the 'Many Worlds' theory, whereby every possible outcome of every quantum decision exists in one of many 'parallel universes' i.e. when a quantum decision is to be made, the universe branches into multiple versions of itself, each representing a different outcome, and we continue to 'experience' the strongest one of those (or cumulative effect of all) giving the impression of a definite outcome or collapsed wavefunction. Accepting this interpretation, I propose a theory of my own, namely, as far as the experience of an individual intelligent observer is concerned, death is impossible.

Basically, if you die, the point at which your conciousness ceases to exist is the result of a decision at the quantum level and, in accordance with the many worlds interpretation, there are other parallel universes in which your consciousness continues to exist. Now, since experience in toto is defined as the interaction between conciousness and the rest of existence, and in one universe your 'dead' conciousness experiences 'nothing', while in another your 'live' consciousness is experiencing, the impression should be one of continuation as your existence in the other universe is stronger than your non-existence in this. In other words, you won't die. You'll just continue to exist in a different universe, where the only quantum difference is that you remained alive.

Unfortunately, this theory also exists in a very solipsistic framework -- only your experience of the universe is important -- and as a result, it doesn't stop anyone else dying. In the end you, and you only, are immortal and continue to exist while everyone else is born and dies as you would expect.

If anyone can think of a reason why this is wrong, tell me.
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He proposes that time is simply an artefact of change in the universe, and that in a non-changing, static universe we would have no experience of time; after all the only way we decide that time has passed is that something has changed. However, I propose that without change observation is impossible. As an observer you cannot put yourself outside of a system in which change occurs, so observation cannot take place without change. The mechanism which allows us to make observations of a system is based on changes in our instruments, changes in our brain chemistry and so on. Without those changes -- in a changeless universe -- observation of changelessness itself cannot be made. Hence observation is inextricably bound in with the idea of change, and therefore time.

Barvour also suggests that the idea of length is erroneous, and we should only be concerned with shape as opposed to size. After all, he proposes, if everything in the universe were to double in size we would have no way of knowing, so length must be meaningless. Unfortunately this ignores the simple assertion that length is a relative not absolute concept. Yes, this negates it as a measure of absolute size when describing the universe, but it does not negate it as a concept.

I think the point I'm trying to make in both these cases is that although the arguments he puts forward have some validity, they are meaningless in the context of any possible experience of the universe. So, take that Mr Barbour. Although, I suppose I should have read his book first, before really laying into his theories.

[via nubbin]
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december 11, 2000

Ow!
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december 9, 2000

Feeling slightly better. If anyone cares.
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december 8, 2000

Despite an early lead by gasgiant.net, happytablet.com now seems to be leading the field.
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Which domain names shall I waste my money on?

gasgiant.net
happytablet.com
hamandcheese.org
fizzfizzbangbang.com
supermassive.net
underlondon.com

See the results.

I think I kind of know which ones I'm interested in already, but I wanted to try putting a poll into my blog. Very exciting. Thank you to MisterPoll.
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december 7, 2000

'We spent 20 minutes transfixed by webcam images an undisclosed location in the northern hemisphere where a four-year-old child has been left home alone by it's parents, who were bribed by online donations to leave him as long as possible. After five days he'd gone feral, randomly eating raw meat, sleeping and crying regardless of time of day - and, heartbreakingly, he even kept trying to call 999 but didn't realise he'd kicked out the phone power lead. Almost too disturbing over iced gins and bacteria-free lemon - and beautifully so when accompanied by specially commissioned K&D remixes of original music never actually sent to them by Richard D James.'

Admittedly, it does at times feel like it could have been written by a random word generator, but there are still moments of simply joy to be had in its reading.

[Kindly transcribed with forgivable spelling errors and word omissions by "Big" Dave Griffiths, though who "Big" Dave is, I have no idea.]
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[Quite rightly receives no sympathy from anyone.]
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'Is that James Bachman?'
'Yes...'
'This is Rajesh from Freenetname -- we've completed the transfer of your infinitemonkeys.co.uk domain name for you.'
'Oh. Thank you. So my Freenetname account is gone now, is it?'
'I'm afraid so.'
'Right. Okay. Bye then.'

The web host is dead -- long live the web host!

I can't actually use it yet, of course. 'Filter down' and all that, apparently. But infinitemonkeys shall return. With lots of Server Side Includes, no more AddFreeStats buttons, and maybe even a bit of PHP. (Yeah, likely story.)

[Actually, contrary to all I've been told by Freenetname, I've discovered that my old site still exists. There shall be continuity after all.]
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Today was my last day on The 11 O'Clock Show and bizarrely it doesn't so much seem to have ended as just stopped. Perhaps because there is one more show tomorrow, the recording of which everyone will be attending in expectation of a rather funereal post-show knees-up. I wouldn't say I've enjoyed this series really, although it has been interesting for several reasons, chief among them the division of Mark and myself as a single writing unit. With twenty writers, there's only room for one team, and by the end everyone seemed to be working with everyone else. I think though, that I am really getting to the end of my tether with hack writing, particularly for 'entertainment shows'. Yes, the 11OCS is the closest we've come to writing actual comedy for television in quite a while, but it's still essentially factory entertainment with no real personality. I suppose I'm really disappointed that so many of the ideas and ideals we came into this, the fifth series, with seem to have fallen by the wayside and there isn't really anyone to blame for that except ourselves. The carrot of performing; the opportunity to make an actually satirical comedy show; the possibilities opened up by a completely new team both in front of and behind the scenes. All these seem never to have materialised, and this leaves us with a show that is essentially identical to the series that preceded it. Maybe, as Phil Clarke [the producer] suggested before the series even started, however hard you try there is only one kind of topical comedy show to be made three times a week and whatever ideals you start with the 11OCS becomes it. I think there's a reasonable amount of truth in that. But hey, perhaps I'm being churlish -- the money was good and I get to write comedy for a living.

Next Mark and I are straight on to another in the long list of hack-writer consumers, The Richard Blackwood Show; a programme where we do actually have the good luck to be not finally responsible for the script (there's a script editor), only have to do two days a week and none of those in the studio (generally stressful and unpleasant), and still be paid more than we ever have been before. Doesn't really sound that bad, does it? Except of course we're still righting writing* unsophisticated, untaxing 'comedy' for somebody else. We start on Friday. Unless I'm terribly ill, of course...

*God, you'd think I'd know how to spell my job by now.
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december 6, 2000

Instead I've been wasting valuable slumber time filling in Vaughan's Have You Ever survey.

(And I think I can justifiably lay claim to be the first person to answer it.)
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Why the hell doesn't this kind of stuff ever happen to me? Probably because I never take the No.9 Night Bus home. You know, it's not that I want sex (although of course like any single man, I do), it's just that I desire... companionship. Closeness. Human warmth. Someone to fill the space in my double bed. I really do miss this essential element of relationships. My mother keeps ringing me and asking me if I've met anyone yet and I coolly reply, 'Oh, no, no. But it's not a problem. I don't really need anyone at the moment.' Back me up here. Surely everyone lies to their mother? I do need someone, and the lack of fulfilment in that part of my life probably frustrates me more than anything. I suppose it's mainly my fault because I do nothing about it; and if someone does express an interest in me, I'm very judgemental about them (essentially comparing them to my ex, against whom they inevitably come up short) before I really know them at all. Sexual confidence has never been my strong point -- all my life I have only been the pursued rather than the pursuer. I just need someone I like to actively pursue me again. Either that, or I need to work up the confidence to be the pursuer. Pah. Que sera, sera.

"If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come -- the readiness is all." You tell 'em, Hamlet.

[ P.S. Posting while pissed really is to be recommended. I've been more voluble on here than I have been in ages... ]
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Smoking is an odd thing. I really ought to give up (chest pains, shortness of breath, uncomfortable hyperchondriac cancerous discomfort below my ribs -- the literal meaning of hyperchondria) but there is something intrinsically media about the practice. I was reading an interview with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Empire this evening (a person whose career, along with those of Jack Black and Patrick Marber, sets some standards for my own) and I believe he is described as 'smoking enigmatically'. I feel I should pity myself for finding this in some way impressive but, God help me, I do. Smoking carries with it some sort of age-old film star sophistication, and perhaps it is that that I cannot quite shake. I honestly believe (as do many self-deluded people) that I could give up through willpower alone; after all, all one has to do to stop smoking is stop buying the things. But then I'm trying to lose weight and yet find it very hard to stop buying packets of strangely delicious cheese and onion crisps when I go to the pub. Perhaps I am simply weak. I hope not. The ideal situation for me, I think, would be to regress to the state I was in about three years ago when I was simply a 'social smoker'; i.e. give me a drink and I'll have a fag, but you won't find me smoking during the day or even needing one without alcohol. This would maybe take me down to forty a week, rather than ten a day. (I concede ten a day is not really that much on the scale of heavy smokers, but get me on to the bastards and I won't stop until I run out or have to go to sleep.) Seems like a sensible plan until I admit that at the moment I drink most nights. So: smoking when I drink; drinking most nights. Doesn't really end in much of a reduction.

In all honesty, it's not going to be something I kick right now, if only because dieting and giving up smoking don't really go together. But I'd like to be able to give my lungs a couple of days rest every now and then without feeling that my body's missing something, chemically and socially.
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december 5, 2000

december 1, 2000

Thought I was on to something today with gogglebox.com, but it turned out I'd accidentally typed in 'googlebox' by mistake which could be a common problem now our fingers are so used to typing 'google' all the time. Try it.

To paraphrase someone or other, a good domain name is so hard to find these days. I tried looking in the Penguin Slang Thesaurus under related terms (comedian, tv, etc.) which is where I found 'googlebox gogglebox' (see? -- there I go again) but to no avail. Go on, toss me over a suggestion.
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[via linkmachinego]
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Rory has responded:

'Re: your request for info on Eric Bana... he's a regular on commercial TV here, particularly 'Full Frontal', a late-90s successor to 'Fast Forward' of the early 1990s. Both are 'tv spoof' type sketch shows, and not very inspired.

'It's widely agreed that his role as Chopper Read is where he's come into his own. We were out of the country during the movie's run here, so I can't comment. Chopper is a real bloke, though - very real. Whether his many books about his exploits are entirely true, who knows. But he looks the part, both his ears having been chopped off. You will have noticed that he spent many years in Risdon Gaol in Tasmania...

'BTW, Jane and I were in Thailand, not Indonesia. Haven't been able to add Indonesia to my list yet.'

Not as impressive as his last Australian comedy biography but it seems that Bana hasn't made much of an impression until now.
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