Hunter S Thompson

So the great man finally shot himself. What I liked the best in the books of Dr. Thompson was the insight. When I read "fear and loathing on the campaign trail", he did have many interesting things to say about American politics in the early 70s. After a while he seemed to get a bad reputation, so he wasn't allowed to get close to people in power. The book "better than sex" was much less effective, because he stayed in his ranch, and just spent his time sending faxes to CNN. (Many of the reviewers on Amazon seem to like this book for some reason). He meets Bill Clinton, just once, and then all he talks about is the French fries that the big man stuffed his face with. I liked the stories about the guns and drugs as well of course, but that was only part of what Dr. Thompson was about. Many of the commentators seemed to be only interested in his excesses. When he was on a TV documentary, they put subtitles on, because they must have felt that he was difficult to understand. Here is story in the independent newspaper

street figher

Good news fellow martial art DVD viewers. The street figher DVD's are now available again. These are famous martial arts films from the early 70's. They star Sonny Chiba as good/bad karate expert. I have seen all three of the films, when I lived in the US. Dor some reason, the local blockbuster had all three films. I could have imported the US DVDs into the UK, but that also involved a lot of hassle with multi-region DVD players. I do warn you though that there is another street fighter film with Claude Van Damme or Kylie Minogue in it.. Yep, it sucks.

books

My energy level is so low at the moment. I can't wait until term ends. I can than have a holiday. There are books in the stores that claim to help improve energy levels. Of course they are all full of new age nonsense. But I just feel that I need to do something. I have always felt, that somehow all problems can be solved, by just getting the right book. As a result I have a reasonable large book collections. You never can tell when a certain volume will be needed. What if I am attacked by a demon? Good question, I don't have any books on dark magic. I will not survive on my vague memories of stories by Aleister Crowley. Umm, I don't have anything suitable close by. I must go to Amazon (now) and get some written protection against the dark forces. I have been amused top see how the Blackwells on the Liverpool compus is trying to stay in business. They now sell CDs and videos. It is a fairly small store, but they now have an entire bookshelf on Manga comics. Well that works for me.

Stolen

I am living in a cheap, but nor particularly nice neighborhood decided to renovate the house I am living in. This has taken almost 10 months. There has been a lot of scaffolding at the front of the building, so the local kids of thrown rocks through the windows a couple of times. Also there have been a number of break ins. A couple of years ago, I had my computer and a sword stolen. About six months ago, somebody stole a breadmaker. There is clearly some deep religious significance between people stealing swords and breadmakers. Perhaps, a new Jesus like figure, with crusty rolls and a semi-sharp sword. After I got broken into again, they stole a DVD player. This seemed to break the pattern, but in the DVD player was a DVD called "Sword for justice". This was a Japanese manga animation. So freaky, or what. I know I should just move......

life

I wanted to go amd see the film 2046 this evening, but I was behind on the course I am teaching. This just sucks f course. I can't stand another late night at work, so perhaps I will go and see the film "assault on precinct 13" tomorrow. I think I need the sound of gunshots from the cinema screen at least. The bloggers on the quantum diary site say things like " I forgot to sleep last night". I can't keep up with that kind of pace...