Friday, January 17, 2003

Glud-vin!

As a part of my New Year's Resolution to read the newspaper much more often, I bring you this article.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/4945183.htm .

For those of you unfortunates not in the know, Cheerwine is the king of all sodas. It's a cherry-esque soda brewed in North Carolina, and marketed in NC, SC and parts of TN, VA and GA. It totally rules.

My thanks to Kristen Idleberry, the cutie who hooked me up with Norwegian translation of "Cheerwine".
For the record, she also speaks Nynorsk and the other Norwegian tongue, Swedish, Danish and Finnish.
And she's not blonde nor helmet with horns.*

My other Resolutions include: exercizing more, being on time more and reading more quality books (i. e.: Portrait of a Lady rather than Dr Who: Combat Rock).

*Joke, K., joke. Hotties never wear armour.

And from last time:
*I did, however, order a free sample of Astroglide. We were talking about the site, and I went, and was totally intrigued. It was really well designed, in as much as I notice these things. Did you know it was invented by NASA? Be a patriot: use some!

Go here.

"I've been to Nice and the Isle of Greece
While I sipped champagne on a yacht."


Yesterday was fun, for a day I spent eight hours in my car.
I dashed south only to meet a fairly significant snow storm. Missing my target, I sped back North with the storm on my heels.
Then I gave in.
There's this porno palace right at the state line.
I've passed it dozens of time, but I've never been past it alone at a reasonable hour. I've either been with people who'd NEVER go in or past it at 3 am (Not even I want to try it then).
It was pretty frightfully dull, really.
Lots of straight people having sex. All the vidoes had to be able to be aired on cable TV, so they were all broing soft-core stuff. The most risque tape had black girls in it. They had magazines (I found an old two pack of Playgirl, the only one I even thought about) but the really scary ones were the local Swingers Mags: Georgia/Alabamba/Tennessee Swings!
*shudders*
And there were toys. I'd never buy any*, but these people put some Serious thought into masturbation. Serious thought.

I had been at the Major's for a few days and missed seeing somebody I had wanted to, so I geuss I was looking for amusement. I mean, I had to u-turn and travel back five miles after I passed it...

Speaking of the Major's, I escaped there for a few (umm... eight) hours and came away with the Mix of Perfection. I started out attempting to download music from my own computer, burn it and free up memory. When I couldn't find me on KaZaA, I started downloading stuff I wanted.
Thus the Mix was born.
It's got Tatu, the Russian Teenage Lesbian Sensation (like you need a reason to like *that* ) doing a cover of "How Soon Is Now?", Lemon Jelly, Belle and Sebastian, three songs from Sixty Nine Love Songs, Serge Gainsbourg ("69 Annees Erotique") and Camera Obscura!
AND it has my new favourite song, "I've Never Been to Me." It's the hysterical song about the girl with the perfect life moaning about it: you can see this woman with a cigarette holder in a bar in 1978, drunk, harassing some chica. What sells it is the absolute commitment this lady, Charleen, invests it with. Top it with an uber-kitschy spoken monologue and Damn, boy! you got a tune.

Otherwise, life has been quite boring. I'm in debt again to the phone company. I expect they'll get a bad check. Work, work, work and no fun.

There was a bit fo drama earlier this week when BWWBR almost got thrown out for not paying his bills, but it was worked out amicably, almost. The Little Red Car got some work done for free and is working nicely for the first time in months.

It snowed. For the first time in my memory, the snow didn't lay on the road and ruin the world as we know it. It was very pretty while it lasted. It reminded me that I like Winter, even as little as it comes down here.

For those who are interested, I died of a drug over-dose, though where that came from. I've no clue.

Reading: I'm STILL reading The Return of the King. I'm on the last book, though, and looking forward to the indices, as nerdy as that sounds. Tolkien was a historian and linguist, so it should prove interesting reading. I'm impressed by his efforts in creating Middle Earth, but I still think it's sad.
Deeply sad. I'll save actual commentary on the book till the end.

Word of the day: fell -- extremely bad, cruel, fierce, terrible.As Eldritch is to Lovecraft, so Fell is to Tolkien. You know it's a bad motherfucker when he pulls that word out. Which he does with regularity. The Nazgul is fell; the troll is fell; the balrog is fell; The Mines of Moria are fell; the fell is fell.

Dr Who of the Day: Destiny of the Daleks, parts 1 - 4.
"Ooh, look! Rocks!" The beginning one of the strangest season ever. Douglas Adams was now the script editor and Tom Baker was in control of the directors. And snogging the girl who played Romana (they later got married). The whole thing is played very fast and loose, and if you think too hard it falls apart.
But man is it fun.
There are great touches: the newly regenerated Romana's clothes are a female version of the Doctor's, down to the boots, coat (in pink) and long scarf. While penned in, the Doctor reads "Origins of the Universe" by Oolon Caluphid, which crops up several times in the Hitch-hiker's Guide Trilogy.
Unfortunately, the budget is crap. The eponymous Daleks are a bit dodgy (you can see the dowels that hold them together in part 4). And the Movellans! Disco Robots, baby, with silver dreds and a groovin space ships. It was 1979, I suppose...
Plotwise: eh, it's a dalek story. They trundle out 23 minutes into part one. Not really a climax when "Dalek" is in the title (Not that that hadn't been a problem for at least a decade at this point.) The idea is interesting though, of two logical minds in combat. And it puts the Doctor and Davros in nice opposition. Underscored nicely by Baker's manic movement and Davros in his wheelchair.
Yeah, I recommend this puppy.

Reason Laura Llew Rocks, number *mumbles a bit*: Girls with Power Tools. Oh yeah, how much did I want to see that? I bet she'll be on a tool company calendar now, no doubt in her ******** *****.
What's that? The next Reason She Rocks, natch.