December 2009
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Dec 31st
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2009 - TV (part 3)
I’ve had a slight change of heart since the last post (all of what… four hours ago), as it occurred to me that I don’t really watch any shows that could be described as the ‘worst’. I try and watch shows that have at least something that catches my attention, for all their faults. So, instead, here’s the Top 5 Most Disappointing. Spoiler warning, for those in the...
Dec 31st
2 tags
2009 - TV (part 2)
Here’s the second half of my TV Top Ten for 2009… 5 - Curb Your Enthusiasm is the veteran of this year’s list, most of whom have barely a season to their credit. But Larry David’s improvised comedy powerhouse just keeps on going, with the latest season containing an oblique look at the Seinfeld reunion that will never happen - aided by the Seinfeld regulars prepared to...
Dec 31st
2 tags
2009 - TV (part 1)
Television is the category that’s way more expansive than any other. Maybe because I pick carefully what books, music, films and comics I buy, but TV gets beamed magically into my living room. Anyway, here’s the first half of my TV Top Ten for 2009… 10 - Cast-Offs may have seemed - to the cynically-minded - as if its idea of a group of physically disabled volunteers marooned...
Dec 31st
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2009 - Music
1 - Stardeath And White Dwarfs - The Birth. This is a surprise late entry, even though it comes straight in at number one. The band are fronted by a relative of Wayne Coyne, and they supported The Flaming Lips on their recent tour. I was initially surprised because I thought they were two separate bands. In truth, they’re very similar to the Lips, but they have a fuzzy, industrial grind to...
Dec 31st
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WatchWatch
Dec 30th
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2009 - Comics
This year was one in which I finally weaned myself off comic books - or rather, the habit of buying comics month in and month out irrespective of whether I enjoyed them or not. Most of them I just dumped, and some of them I stopped buying monthly, planning to pick up the trades later… but never did. (I’m also well behind on my UK small press comics as well, because I’ve not attended...
Dec 30th
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Batman Returns
Quite simply a dark delight of fantasy filmmaking, crammed with moments of beauty, black comedy, horror, romance and unexpected violence. Daniel Waters’ script simply bristles with dark - often subversive - one-liners and otherwise clever lines; the villains have solid - if bizarre - motivations; and every role is played to the hilt by one of the most impressively assembled casts ever. And,...
Dec 30th
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Top 10 Worst Sex Scenes of 2009 →
Dec 30th
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Top 10 Sexiest Scenes of 2009 →
Dec 29th
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2009 - Books
Once again, a year in which I read a ton of books, but very few that were newly published. Luckily I have (just) enough for a Top 3 Best & Worst. Best books first: 1 - The Gone-Away World is the debut novel of Nick Harkaway, and it was the best such book I’ve read for some years, putting me very much in mind of Michael Marshall Smith’s Only Forward. Set in a world devastated by a...
Dec 29th
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Magnetic North Moves East →
The magnetic North Pole is leaving Canada and travelling towards Russia at the rate of forty miles a year.
Dec 29th
1 note
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Bad Gift Emporium →
Just the thing for that particular Christmas gift.
Dec 28th
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listening to "The Flaming Lips With Stardeath And... →
Dec 28th
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The Dark Side Of The Moon by The Flaming Lips →
Dec 28th
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2009 - Movies
1 - Where The Wild Things Are was easily my favourite film of the year, one which had me from the first scene and didn’t let go. Criticism that it isn’t a children’s film seems misguided - I’m not sure I’ve seen a single piece of advertising for the film that as much as implied it was ever meant to be. I think the filmmakers made exactly the film they wanted to, one...
Dec 28th
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In California It’s Legal For A Policeman To... →
He’s a bad lieutenant. Except he’s not a lieutenant…
Dec 28th
Dec 25th
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Hour of Slack #1236 - SubGenius Ultimate... →
In celebration of Xistlessnessmess, The Church Of The SubGenius (re)presents a prepackaged, repackaged smorgasbord of audio delight for your Christmas delectation and diversion. Happy Christmas. Slack Xistlessnessmess. Praise “Bob”.
Dec 25th
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The “Psychic Barber” →
Dec 25th
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Woman Knocks Down Pope At Christmas Eve Mass →
STRIKE!
Dec 24th
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Kids At The Dinner Table
Girl: Shut. UP!
Boy: Right, that's one less Christmas present you're getting from me.
Girl: ... How many presents have you got me?
Dec 24th
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WatchWatch
Happy Christmas Eve, kids!
Dec 24th
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Topless Robot - Worst Holiday Presents: And the... →
Dec 24th
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BBC News - Top Cat voice Arnold Stang dies aged 91 →
Dec 24th
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Man In The Dark, by Paul Auster
Auster has an easy, sometimes lyrical, prose style and an eye for character moments that, while memorable, never really add up to what you’d recognise as a living, breathing character. As August Brill, the protagonist of Man In The Dark, lies awake in bed with only his thoughts, it’s through these ruminations that we are forced to build up a picture of the man, and it’s a bitty,...
Dec 24th
1 tag
Superman & Muhammad Ali Step Back In The Ring →
Dec 23rd
BBC News - Sleepover for snowbound shoppers →
Over one hundred snowbound customers of John Lewis in High Wycombe were offered food accommodated overnight in the store’s bedding department. This is why it’s worth sometimes paying a little extra.
Dec 23rd
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York Vicar Preaches "Thou Shalt Steal" →
Church of England vicar Tim Jones preaches the breaking of the eighth Commandment for the poorest of his flock this Christmas - “My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift.”
Dec 23rd
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Ratatouille
Another Pixar movie. So, the stuff everyone raves about is, on examination, only slightly better than standard. It’s a better standard than most animated movies, but the adulation handed out to every Pixar effort is getting a bit much. The problem with Ratatouille is the plot - it’s obvious from every character introduction what their story arc is going to be. Villains look nothing...
Dec 23rd
2 tags
Def Leppard: Animated! →
Now, I’m not a fan of Def Leppard. I don’t know anyone who is a fan of Def Leppard. I have just - in the course of this post - written the words Def Leppard more times than I have in the last, say, twenty years. Which is, coincidentally, the last time I heard of Def Leppard - two decades ago. But they are developing themselves as a TV cartoon show. I suppose we must assume that they...
Dec 22nd
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Holy See declares unique copyright on Papal figure →
Reading between the lines here, but this looks to me like an attempt to remove His Holiness The Pope from being the subject of satirical lampooning. Surely, if his name and image is copyrighted, and that copyright rests with the Vatican, then they can refuse all manner of requests, especially from the makers of South Park and the like. Will we even be able to use the phrase, “Does the Pope...
Dec 22nd
Dec 22nd
39 notes
2 tags
Britney's Year Of BS →
Britney Spears’s website has a ‘Year In BS’ (not sure if that stands for Britney Spears or BullShit - maybe both) featuring the story of her dating an Indian choreographer at number one, fifty five places above the story that her family were so poor they ate squirrels.
Dec 22nd
1 note
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Dec 22nd
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SFX's 20 Worst SF/Fantasy Films Of The Last Decade →
Two points: firstly, this list doesn’t include X-Men Origins: Wolverine or Terminator: Salvation, and therefore is fundamentally flawed; secondly, the ‘last decade’ isn’t over until the end of next year.
Dec 21st
These snowflakes are so big I can actually see their shadows being cast by the streetlights.
Dec 21st
Rain, Go Away
Just realised today - outside in the freezing rain and the elbowing crowds -that noticing the particular way a woman carrying a shoulder bag and getting into the driver’s seat of her car is just enough of moment to make the aggravation go away. It’s the most graceful and easy motion, and it lasts just a second, but the way they do it is just beautiful to watch.
Dec 21st
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Pink Ouija Board →
This is a Ouija Board. It’s pink. It’s about as cute as can be. It’s also available from other retailers, and the comments are always worth a look.
Dec 20th
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Live Radio Synesthesia →
The Church Of The SubGenius Hour Of Slack Podcast #1235.
Dec 20th
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Zack And Miri Make A Porno
Pretty much a thesis on the current state of Kevin  Smith’s career, this is the film where he plainly,  and quite painfully, attempts to claw his  audience  back from the superior Judd Apatow. The truth is  that there’s nothing more to Smith’s work than sex  jokes, geek references, and the sort of sophomoric wish-fulfillment fantasies that most men lose by the time they hit...
Dec 20th
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My True Love Gave To Me... →
Sunderland citizens receive Christmas Cards warning them of the dangers of Chlamydia. Because nothing says Happy Christmas like pelvic inflammation.
Dec 19th
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Religious writer claims Golden Girls causes... →
Dec 19th
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If they had Facebook in Star Wars… →
A few hilarious Facebook Wall post exchanges from a galaxy far, far away.
Dec 19th
Dec 19th
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WatchWatch
Trailer for the BBC’s upcoming adaptation of The Day Of The Triffids.
Dec 18th
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Up The Walls Of The World - by James Tiptree Jr
The first of Tiptree’s few novels, this deviates from the earlier, acclaimed short stories but develops something quite different, both in the author’s own works and in the mainstream science fiction of the time. The earthbound narrative is quite plain and, while people with rounded and interesting characters, is perhaps overpopulated for the novel’s needs. But it’s the...
Dec 18th
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Dec 18th
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Would Female Orgasms Kill Men? →
Female orgasms are apparently ten times stronger than men’s, a level which would kill any male experiencing it. Anyone?
Dec 18th
3 notes
Dec 18th
1 note