Half Man Half Biscuit

I went to see the band "half man half biscuit" play at the Carling academy on the 13th. This band appeared in the mid 80s. They play sharp funny songs backed by a roaring guitar sound. I don't remember seeing them advertised to play before in the last 6 years, I have been in Liverpool. The place was packed. This was the big venue as well. I only drank one beer, because I didn't feel the long journey to the bar. People started singing-a-long at the first number. The band have put out a huge number of records. People even cheered when they did a recent song about buying a packet of pringles at a late night garage. Apart from the clever songe, I liked the guitar sound.

serenity

I went to see Serenity last week. This film has been featured on slashdot for some time. The guy behinf Buffy the vampire slayer was the director. From some early posts, it was described as a melting pot of the wild west and science fiction. I was not encouraged by this. However the film was just fine. There was good action and character development. It doesn't seem to have lasted long in the UK. Perhaps we still miss Blake's Seven. It was not a film, where you come out knowing more about yourself, but I didn't feel the need to torch the director's house, as I sometimes do with some films. I hear rumours that George Clooney is making a film of "a scanner darkly". The book is by Philip H. Dick and is probably one of the best books about drugs. Anyway it will be bad if he screws this up. The connection to serenity is science fiction.

I don't want to be a vampire

I watched a good animation DVD called "blood the last vampire" last night. The animation was very scary. I was a bit confused what the plot was about, as it ended with dead vampires and bombers taking off to liberate Vietnam. This is the thir vampire film I have watched this week. I am not obsessed or anything like that. There are sad types who pretend to be vampires. Or people who hope to be turned for the importtality and beauty. Not men, my thoughts of eternal life tend to move to silicon. The one vampire film I have not watched has Nicholas Cage in it. He thinks he is turning into a vampire, but isn't sure. This is more mental illnes than the occult. In the film he eats a live cockroach for some reason.

DVD

I used to watch way too many cheap martial arts and actions DVD and videos. But now I am much more sophisticated, as I regularly browse the world cinema section of HMV. I now do like a bit of sophisticated asian cinema. I watched the film "versus" this week. This was a classy criminals versus vampires and wirdo type movie fro Japan. I was in HMC today, and some woman was asking about some horror film with "ichi" in the title. I helpfully said that must be "Ichi the killer". The she wanted to know the director. On my list of things to do is to read my book on Japanese films. The film "Ichi the killer" is perhaps the bloodest insane filem I have ever seen. It looked like somone getting a present for their som. Very much like when I sent my into Manchester one to buy a dead kennedys record, only to find that it had be banned. Anyway it just seems very wrong to have a girlfriend who want to watch Ichi the killer with you. When it is time for holidays, it would be let's go to the Moors around Manchester, and bring a spade. Too much commitment for me. I hear the call of Manga......

History of violence

I have been walking into work, because I have started hating getting the bus. This evening, I had to listen to a buch of kids talk about some fight one of them had gotten into. It all seemed a bit confusing, but involved cousins, pit bull dogs and busies (Liverpool slang for police). On Thursday night I went see the film "history of violence". What a great film! I just liked the way the guys face changed. At one point his face was the family man, honest and maybe tough. The next he was this killer. I liked the crazy killer face the best. As a famous London gangster once said, "treat kindness with kindness, and violence with extreme violence."

Night watch

I have just been out to see the film "Night watch" at the Liverpool FACT center. This a vampire like take of "good" versus "evil" set in modern Moscow. I made the mistake of reading the Guardian review of the film. Ok, so perhaps there wasn't much of a plot. I liked the style of the film. Perhaps, it was the Russian subway that did it for me.I can still remeber going down those long escalators...

Spar music

Being a busy chap, I tend to get a lot of my junk food at the Spar shop close to my work. The spar chain has its own radio show that plays on as I shop for such essentials as microwave burgers. On Tursday gthe exciting new story was about the minimuim wage. The presenter was saying do "can companys afford to pay the minimum wage. Everyone want more money, but is it really possible to pay the minimum wage to 18 year olds". I bet the people working at the spar probably don't enjoy the spar channel. Anyway I had my a pound microwave burger in my grotty hand, as I walked out of the store. I had listened to the spar channel and I will obey.

abortion

Ok, I am bored of reading "the game". I need to get laid like everyone else, but I am not sure I need to sleep with people I don't want to talk to. There looks like another 400 pages of chating up techniques. While I was waiting for the bus, I saw a group of anti-abortion activists march by. Perhaps there is a clinic near by. As I watched a bus to he Alder Hey hospital passed by. The peple marching did not shake their fists at the bus, perhaps this would have been bad for the explosives. I have started reading "freakomomics". This is a book by a Harvard economist and a journalist. It is sort of microeconomics of the street. I think I thought it was going to be a Hunter S. Thompson rant type of book. It is meant to tell me why drug dealers live with their parents. (The book may not tell me why I need to know this). Anyway, you don't get to be a fellow at Harvard with left leanings, it seems very "insentive" based. Anyway one of the observations in the book is that crime in the US didn't explode in the US, becaused of the effect of legalisation of abortion in the US. Perhaps, I should have told the marchers about that.