Friday, December 30, 2005

earwax

My ears are blocked up at the moment. I can hardly hear. I keeping pouring dewaxer down my ear and rubbing vigoursly. It is not so bad, I am kind of arrogant so I am not always intesrted in other peoples conversations, so not being to hear is not so bad. It makes me feel decoupled from the world. Anyway in a couple of days, I will be able to hear again. It is just a matter of waiting and feeling sorry for myself. What hurts the most is that Raymond Carver wrote an entire story about not being able to hear because his ears were bunged up with wax. The hero just lay on his bed and drank champagne, complained that he was getting divorced. He drank champagne to show that he wasn't an alcolhlic. After he open the second bottle, I had my doubts. That is why I am a loser. I just sit and complain about my losso of hearing rather than write a 4 page short story about it.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Hancock

One of my cousins gave me a collection of beers from around the world. There were 5 beers from: India, Italy, Spain and Belguim. Tasty. Trouble is I drank most of them while watching a program about Hancock with my mum. I really like Hancock's timing. He doesn't rush things. Howver in the end of Hancock's life the drinking took over and he stopped being funny. There is a famous performance at the Albert Hall where he does his old musical hall set rather than any new stuff. This was becasue he hadn't reheased his new material. It did look as though Hancock had gone as far as he could go. Perhaps with out the drinking he could have moved to a different level. Anyway it is always sort of depressing to see someone disapear into alcholism. Not even the beer I was drinking can mask that sadness.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

chess and the criminal mind

Another thing I noticed in spam kings was that one of the worst spammers liked his chess. I have long thought that playing chess is good traing for the criminal mind. It is a game of stratergy, but very abstract. Wasn't Moraity some kind of chess player? True you are unlikely to get mugged by a chess player, but it is likely that the person who the orders (via a muffled) phone call is sitting down in front of a board of 64 squares. Bishop takes knight, umm, I think get one of the lads to give Craig a kicking. At least when you kill someone in a playstation game, you know there will be consequnces. Someone may come around the corner with a gun and blast you. Or some little kid will come out and cry. Not so with chess. The bishop is cooly taken off the board and then the stratergy begins. I can the man with his finger on the big red buttom of numclear war, sitting there, thinking of the wisdom of his first chess teacher.

penis spam

I have just finished reading a book called "Spam KIngs" by Brian Mcwilliams. The book is about the people who send spam and the efforts of another bunch of people who try to stop it. This was a jolly good read, but what amazes me is that people actually do buy penis enlargment pills. Now I would like to claim that I don't buy the penis enlargment pills advertised in all those spam emails, because I am well hung, but the real reason is that I would never enter my credir card details in any random site. People did make a good living out of sending spam. so people were quite happy to get their pills that way. Because people want penis enlargement pills then there will be some nerd with a bulk emailer ready to sell them. So we need to stiffle demand. I think it is obvious what to do. Amazon needs to sell penis enlargment pills (and a bit of porn too), then no one will need to buy from dodgy spammers.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

presents

I have to admit I am not a good person to give presents to. I am not very good at saying the right things, even when I get something I like. My sister gave me a leather wrist band with some metal stuff on it. Normally, I don't wear jewlry because I don't view it as functional. What I said to my sister was thar "this is great because, I was thinking of getting one of those wrist tatoos and this looks just as good." OK, perhap I simple "thanks this looks good" would have been better. Actually what I was thinking was that "this will be really useful to protect my arm in a knife fight". As I get older I find that it is best not to always speak your mind.

Richard Pryor

I was so sad to hear of Richard Pryor's death a couple of weeks ago. When I was growing up (in the 80s) I watched a number of early Pryor films on TV. He\was the man. Channel 4 showed one of his stand up sets. I was not impressed -- not like the films at all. In the Guardian, one comedian noted that that he had seen this Pryor set on channel 4, and it had made him want to be a stand up comedian. If I could travel back in time, I would go back and ask my useful younger self to watch the entire concert on TV and not go to bed like some wimp ased BoB Hope fan. At least with the magic of DVDs I can repair this terrible sin. Pryor's set was astounding. I can see that he influenced Bill Hicks a lot. There is an intensity about his set that I like that is mixed with a warm sense of char. Yes you can charm an audience, even when you are telling a story about setting yourself one fire while doing cocaine. If I had only watched that program on TV in the 80s. Who konws I might have my own game show on TV.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

time

There is never enough time to do want I to do. I was walking home two nights ago after staying late at wrok. A women on the street asked me for the correct time. When I got home I realised that the dark wet night and my feeble overworked brain had forced me to tell her the wrong time. I suddenly thought that perhaps she will miss an appointment to see her sick child, because I told he the wrong time. Last night the same women asked for the time again. This time I am pretty sure I told her the right time. This makes me suspect that "asking the time" is the new "are you looking for business". Or perhaps, her mind has been unhinged by missing the dying moments of her child because a stranger on the street can not read his watch correctly. Perhaps, this is a subtle marketing ploy by the BBC to promote the new Dr WHO series. People could be payed to mess with people in the streets sense of time. This would remind them of "time lord" and hence boost the viewing figures. All a bit sneaky really. This is the kind of trick I would expact of SKY.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

films

I am looking forward to seeing some quality films this week. I was ready to go and see transporter II last week, but I had to stay late at work. The first film (transporter) was pretty dumb, but enjoyable. I was amused to see that transporter II had done well at the US box office. This was a big deal, because of the flops of such films as "the terminal". The other filem I want to see is "doom". Look I like these kind of films. Sorry that is just the way I am.

birds

Two weeks ago, I went for a steak slice from one of quality food sellers we have in Liverpool called sayers. I took the pastry outside the department store TJ hughs and sat on a lonely loser bench. All these pigeons suddenly flew in. They agressively started going after the crumbs from steakslice. I am a pacifist, and grankly women tend to freak out when you kick a pigeon in the head. So I decided to be a man and beat a hasty retreat. They followed me for a while, but I have long legs. Perhaps, this is the effect of genetically enginered food. Super pigeons who are going to eat me. I have seen the film "the birds" by Hitchcock. THis freaked me out when I first saw it. The film has birds attacking a couple. But at the end of the film. It just sort of ends. This freeaked me out. I had videoed it. So the first time I saw it, I assume I had blacked out. But in the sober light of morning, it had the same ending. I can't even enjoy a steak slice without getticg hassled by killer pigeons.