My philosophy, rated

Someone's stolen my plug sockets! I got into work nice and early at 8am, only to find my computer doesn't work because it isn't plugged in, and it isn't plugged in because... the plug sockets have been stolen! Seriously, there used to be a panel in the floor with all my precious power and network connections, and now there's just an untouched carpet tile! It's a bit spooky. *sigh* Obviously there has been some kind of misunderstanding.

Anyway, I tried this quiz Lilly had on her blog:

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 88% Modernist 75% Postmodernist 75% Cultural Creative 50% Idealist 44% Existentialist 38% Romanticist 31% Fundamentalist 31% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Hmm, sounds a bit stark and scientisty. I agree with the above, but also hold that nothing is certain, everything is possible, and love can save the world, though I draw the line at the healing power of crystals. Sorry but if I've got a cold I'll take a lemsip over a lump of rose quartz any day. I should point out that I answered at least 50% of the questions with 'neither agree nor disagree', hence 31% fundamentalist! Yeah that's me, a dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist!

I've just finished reading my first Iain M Banks book, Feersum Endjinn. Good fun, but I was actually expecting something even more out of this world! Probably been built up too much. Maybe his 'culture' novels are more what I was expecting. We'll see, I'll definitely be reading them at some point. As for the ending of Feersum Endjinn, it was a bit of a last minute dash round gathering loose ends. And what exactly does the 'Endjinn' do? Sure, leave it to the imagination. Thing is, I was really looking forward to finding out!!

Movie wise I must just quickly recommend Kung Fu Hustle. Funniest thing I've seen in years! Well, since Shaolin Soccer I guess (Stephen Chow's previous film). This guy's hilarious, and he really knows and loves film. He references everything from Casablanca to Spiderman and back to The Shining. The fight scenes involve over-the-top wirework and sfx mixed with classic Shaw brothers kung fu and a dash of the three Stooges. It's played for laughs, but is nonetheless hugely impressive.

Anyway, better get on with some work, and find those plug sockets!

My Life, Rated

It's Friday (yay) and I just don't have time to report on the many exciting adventures that occupy my time, so I'm posting a pre-packaged life analysis I nicked from Kieran's blog:

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	5.8
Mind:	7.1
Body:	8.6
Spirit:	4.5
Friends/Family:	3.4
Love:	0
Finance:	4.7
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

It's a bit suspect as according to the post test analysis I'm a bit of an athlete who needs to convert to Christianity or something. Oh, and join a dating agency apparently. Cheeky buggers.

Watchmen movie not happening

Sin City is released on DVD this coming Monday. There's a particularly lovely boxset which includes the three graphic novels that formed the script and storyboard for the film. What a movie! You'll find it on my wishlist, of course :-)

Speaking of comic adaptations, I see the Watchmen movie is officially dead (again), its official site now points to Paramount's home page and its listing is gone from IMDB. Just as well, it was going to be rubbish. Watchmen is too good to do a Constantine on. Constantine was fun so I didn't care that they messed with Hellblazer, but Watchmen is the apotheosis of the medium! It cannot be chopped, changed or condensed!

Here's the way to do it: A big budget 10 episode TV drama for the main story, interspersed with 9 half-hour segments in various styles such as documentary, chat show / interviews, news and even another TV show (Tales of the Black Freighter). If you know the comic, you'll know what I'm talking about. It'd be original, groundbreaking and totally unbelievably cool, just like the comic.

Must see movie of the moment: Hayao Miyazaki's latest, Howl's Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro), is showing at the Duke of York's from tomorrow. It's high time I saw some top notch anime on the big screen, now's my chance!

I got mugged...

Following a highly entertaining evening at a colleague’s flat-warming do, I decided about 4.30am that to remain any longer would only risk offending people. My manners start to deteriorate after a certain quantity of booze, and my sense of humour becomes infantile at best.

So I meandered into the early morning streets on Sunday 4th September 2005. The idea of immediately cycling the 5 miles home felt wrong, so I took a detour by way of Brighton beach. Perched on a wall outside the Gemini bar I was approached by two guys and a girl. The skinny white kid in a hoodie was after a smoke. I offered my pack and he accidentally took 6 or 7. This I could live with. I give up smoking every day so he was really doing me a favour. His female companion, an insane, amphetamine-fuelled, tiny blond girl, wondered if I had one for her too. I pointed out that her friend now had more than I did, so why not ask him?

When she asked the time I obligingly reached for my mobile (mug? me?) which she snatched from my grasp before I’d even activated the backlight, and scurried 20 yards to a group of several others camped around a bonfire.

Not yet grasping the futility of politely asking a dozen (I’m increasing the number as we go, OK?) hoodlums to return my property, I wearily trudged after her to do just that. The hoodie and his sidekick flanked me as I went, gently prodding me with their fingers – whether to encourage me or to make sure I was real I do not know.

By the bonfire I was in the middle of making a polite reasoned request to ‘crazy chick’ when someone tapped me unduly roughly on the face. As I lay face down on the pebbles examining the new, highly asymmetrical nature of my features and the pleasantly warm squirts of blood coursing down them, I felt what seemed like a dozen pairs of hands going through my pockets. There wasn’t room for all these hands at once so some of them beat me about the head to pass the time until their turn came around.

‘Time to go’, I figured, and crawled off through the crowd. Having dazedly reached ‘a safe distance’ I looked back and, feeling a rush of goodwill, offered them ‘the finger’. Amphetamine Annie considered this to be absolutely the last straw and came running after me to deliver a flurry of drug-dimmed blows amid yells of outrage at my rudeness. Too dazed to enter into a conversation I simply pointed to my gory mess of a face and suggested I’d had enough for now, and continued walking. At some point she must have tired, or maybe spotted something shiny, because the flapping limbs went away.

The rest of the story goes something like: find concerned citizen who calls police, accompany police to scene of crime, recover bike and credit card from idiots who are still there, ambulance, hospital, stitches, home.

So what did they get? An ancient Nokia mobile of the kind that most people now use as paperweights, approximately £1 in small change and a lottery ticket (which I now believe to be the winning ticket of course). I read in the papers that E’s are now selling for as little as 50p, so maybe they’ll be able to trade my mobile for one. Quite a haul.

What did I get? The best black eye of my life (fun for scaring passers-by and starting conversations in pubs), six stitches and a fractured orbital medial wall (what we doctors in fact call a ‘face bone’). My revenge plan is simple: Let them continue living their tiny miserable lives while I get on with more interesting things. Revenge is sweet!