An interesting day

In the world of Bruce this day has certainly been unusual. I have:
* unleashed a torrent on a workmate who I hate (those of who know my workmates should be able to work out that one - eh Stuie...)
* got cut, by choice - pix to follow at some point as the lovely brunette bit was there with my camera in hand
* watching the metal show from Sat morning, pretty crap until we hit a trilogy of beauty: Naglfar, Satyricon and Dimmu Borgir. What is it about the Norwegian/Swedish death metal scene that makes it so good? I've thought about this abit, and the excellent documentary 'Metal: a headbangers journal' (which I think is still playing at Paramount) touches on it. My feeling is it that rather than being overly influenced by the thrash metal of the US and Sth American bands, the Scandanavians developed from a hard metal heritage of Europe, which has led to more tune based metal. The Norwegian/Swedish bands are happy to use keyboards and run longer songs - a progressive element to their metal.

B xx

Hamsters

In a piece of science news that's been making the rounds, apparently viagra helps recovery from jet-lag. Rather than induce a bunch of horny mile-high international travelers, the researchers took the less exciting route of giving hamsters viagra (read the article here). Possibly the highlight of the report:
"However, we used the intermediate dose for the rest of the experiments because at that dose animals did not manifest the effects of sildenafil-induced penile erections," they wrote.

Great stuff, go science! We Rock.

As you may have gathered I've finished marking essays and am back to blogging...

B xx

First conversation of the Day

Kerie: You look very respectable today
Me: I often do, I'm just dirty in your mind.

Ahhhh, still got it!

Office conversations

"How much is a 150 feet?"

me: "about 75 people"

B.

Music! of sorts

I've spent most of the last couple of weeks marking essays. These are causing more brain damage than a brick. But I do have some good quotes for you lot soon, including one delightful line "Women's breasts are very interesting". Hard to argue there laddie!

Anyway following a surreal conversation with another brunette concerning the latin for Naval Warfare (naumachia) lead to me wondering about the origin for machiato (sometimes spelt macchiato). Googling for machiato came up with boring things (coffee mainly, for obvious reasons) but also the following video.

Imagine if you will a combo of Wham, early Madonna, La Bamba with an accordian, sax and a dodgy looking woman. Why yes, I do have one I've prepared earlier:



Hee hee, B. xx

Idiots

Heh heh who'd have though the scarification thing would provoke such discussion :-)

Anyway in things that are pissing me off, idiots. And two particular types of idiots.
1) cafe queuing idiots. Why is it, in small crowded cafes, people feel the urge to stand in the middle of the thoroughfare, and then look grumpy when others want to get past. For gods sake you dumb bastards you're the dickhead causing the problem, you should be feckin grateful I even asked you to move. I thought I was doing you a favour by not walking straight through you.

2) and in a surprisingly linked topic. Idiots on the footpath. Again standing in the middle of Lambton Quay footpath during rush-hour, why yes you will piss people off. And no, I'm not going to go around you. Oh and lovely people who walk 5 abreast down Lambton Quay, I'm so *not* going to stop for you.

Of course having headphones on (and listening to Palestrina so it wasn't violent music!) meant I couldn't hear any complaints, but I'm guessing I got glared/yelled at.

Dickheads.

B. x

Scarification

So ok lovely readers, I want your opinions.

I'm thinking of getting some scarification done. In particular cutting and packing with ash. Design to be something similar to the following. So what does everyone think about it? I'm guessing this one might be a bit polarising...



B

Lecturers pulling the piss and Damm PsychoChickens

Ok so I bowl along to the lectures for the course I'm involved in, and this week we have the adorable Diane chatting about fertility. Apparently sperm production and efficiency are inhibited by chocolate, coffee, alcohol and marijuana. At that point I slid my cup of java across to the student sitting next to me and Diane said 'That's not going to help Bruce'. Sigh.

Bloody Neil and his Spocks Beard review, I'm now playing Snow which is probably my favourite of their albums. Damm him.

me x

Cake of the Day

In a posting frenzy...for *another* blonde bits birthday cake I decided to continue the EXTREME chocolate theme.
Jaffa Meringue Cake.
I doubt any of the intended eaters of the cake are reading this on Sunday, so it'll still be a surprise tomorrow morning! Go me.
It has 65% coca chocolate, but the crucial ingredient is the homemade That's a pretty pickle Bruce Marmalade. See, that's why yours won't taste like mine, nah nah nah.

B xx

Things I'd like

In a moment of contemplation while watching the Simpsons, I thought about things I'd like to see, and came up with:
Leprosy - I'd like to see a leper.
Ebola - I'd also like to see the effects of ebola.

There.

B xx

More movies

I've got my feet up watching Brideshead Revisted, one of my favourite novels and in general a pretty good adaptation - done by John Mortimer which may explain why the ironic, sarcastic Waugh-isms transferred across to the screen pretty well. But onto the movies:
First up The African Queen (1951), and I don't mean Barak Obama in a dress! One man, one woman, one boat and a river. What will happen? Love, romance, death, leeches? who can tell!! I'm a bit fan of Bogart so it was nice to hear that the Paramount was showing this - a new print no less. Ok so Katharine Hepburn isn't the hottest movie star, but the story was originally written by CS Forester, and the adaptation and directing for the movie was by the legendary John Huston (who, among other things, was in one my favourite movies, Candy, and writing Key Largo). Basically Bogey and Hepburn end up on The African Queen after the Germans slaughter the village Hepburn's brother is the minister at. And one thing leads to another. But it is an enjoyable wee movie, and Bogey looks rough - which doesn't happen that often. I liked seeing it again, the 80's movie Romancing the Stone is 'loosely' based on the same premise. But stick to the African Queen, it's a captivating romp of an adventure/romance flick. And there are leeches. the world cannot have enough leeches in movies.

And this afternoon the lovely brunette bit and I bowled along to Pan's Labyrinth (finally). I've been a fan of Guillermo del Toro since Grizzled Dog showed me the Devils Backbone. del Toro has a wonderful eye for the macabre and black humour. I loved this movie. Wonderful acting by the young girl, stunning sets, and a thoroughly engaging storyline - concerning free will and fairies. As most of you have either seen it or read the glowing reviews, I can't add much. Other than it's as good as the reviews suggest. The sadistic Captain is also wonderful, and possibly the best line of the movie comes from him. After he's explained how he's going to torture a prisoner in graphic detail, he then exploits the prisoners stuttering by saying 'if you can count to three without stuttering i'll let you go' - ahh priceless comedy!
This is a beautiful movie and story.

Love, B

Gangs of New Zealand

With the current drama in Wanganui (for the overseas readers: some kid was shot by the mongrel mob or black power and the other lot said 'its not over') there is a renewed push for gangs to be banned.

Dunno about you, but I'm not sure how well that will work within our Bill of Rights. Particularly the 'freedom of association' bit. How would they get around that? I'm also not convinced it would work in general. From the reading I've done (admittedly not much) I can see legislating against gangs - effectively giving the police more powers to deal with gangs as a terrorist organisation (yeah thanks Ron Marks, that's so helpful) would make them more attractive to potential recruits, and act as reinforcement for unity of the gang.

If this knee-jerk reaction to the situation does come to be enacted, I'm going to form my own gang. Possible names for this are:

White apathy - but I sense the irony of calling it that negates its use
White ambiguity or Ambiguously White

Feel free to join...

Love, B.