It goes a little like this...

Achieve connection through something wonderfully life-saving like http-tunnel. I can see the world again, and the stress-exodus was an amazing experience. As I saw that XET opening screen, all the tension that had bound me tight for the past month flowed from me, trickling away to be replaced by bouyant joy.

You think it's sad, that I get this excited about being able to play an online game, don't you? Maybe it is. I'm far from making excuses about it any more. I care. You don't have to. I missed these people, these characters, these storylines, this pasttime.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Wednesday night I had dinner with Peter Garrett. Yes, Peter Garrett. See, he's a Burgmann College ex-ressie. He was here at the birth of the college, running rampant and apparently studying law, dreaming of getting a record deal. He returned to deliver the 30th anniversary lecture, and I was one of the tutors to be at the official dinner with him. Nice, wot? He was laid-back, friendly, and very definitely a Burgie-boy in all the best ways that phrase can be applied.

Afterwards, we went goffing. That was fun too.

J^e's guide to a fun night in with AIM:

1. Choose a random target by whatever whim takes you. Picking a mind-numbingly mainstream music group is a good way to start if you're stuck.
   
2. Message them with: "Hi! Guess who! ;-)"
   
3. Let them tell you who you are. Revel in your new identity.
   
4. Alternatively, pretend to be an acquaintance of that person. Bag the person a lot.
   
5. Carry on the farce as long as possible. Don't just be passive either, take the conversation forward. "Are you still with that blonde?" is a nice line to use.
   
6. For maximum amusement value, do the above with a friend. Compare notes.

Shauny cracks me up. That was by far the best summation of a rugby game I've ever read. That night I went to see From Russia With Love at the late screening. I'm such a Sean Connery Bond fan.

By the way, my life isn't totally governed by movies, as it would appear from reading this blog.

Ah, who the hell am I kidding? Yes, my life is totally governed by movies.

John Cusack is a god. There is no doubt about it in my mind, if in fact there ever was any. Last night we watched High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank back to back. Brilliance. Pure brilliance. Not only is the man gorgeous and funny, but he's a damn good actor too.

Meanwhile, it's Oscar-time! Hoo-bloody-ray. I was reading the paper yesterday, with a two-page article on the nominations. The author was one of those too-cool-for-this types who denigrated everything irrespective of race, colour or creed. People like that annoy me a great deal, because they don't have anything constructive to say or do. They can't create or improve, they can only mock. So frankly I don't give a rat's arse about his opinions, because he's got his head so far up his own arse that he couldn't see daylight if someone covered his navel.

My personal preferences for the distrubution of the little bronze men? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for best film, of course. I'd like to see Geoffrey Rush get best actor for Quills, mainly because I don't want Tom Hanks to get it. But definitely Joaquin Phoenix for supporting actor for his delightfully deranged Commodus in Gladiator. (Yes, Drioux, I know you didn't like him, but I did, so nyer. :-)) Anyone but Julia Roberts for best actress. I don't particular think Crouching Tiger deserves best director - there wasn't that much innovative or outstanding about the direction, just the movie as a whole. Gladiator did, however, have those flashes of brilliance. So I'd like to see dear old Ridley take that one out.

Croquet? Yes, the Club is back in business for 2001, with our first meeting last night. After which J^e and I went out for a bit of a dance. All in all, it explains why I'm currently feeling like my head is stuffed with cotton wool. It was all good fun and the minutes will be up on the website as soon as I decipher everyone's writing.

PS: I danced in a cage. Rah!

Well, I just watched The Patriot. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I was American. Or at least less cynical.

Perish the thought. Both of them.

Starts out fairly mediocre with a nice little family warmth lilt that you know isn't going to last. Mel Gibson's good at that quirky sort of humour. And incidentally, have I mentioned that his voice is now in my top ten "Voices that make me swoon" list? Seriously, watch this movie with your eyes closed. Aaaaah...

Ahem. Where was I? Oh yeah. Then there's the predictable end to innocence. After the most stunning sequence of the movie - a blistering action scene - it settles into a standard (but amusing nonetheless) guerilla warfare stint. Then things get complicated. Never too much so, though. After all, we wouldn't want to confuse any of our happily patriotic audience by unwarranted complexity, would we?. Still, though, it manages a broad portrait of all sides, and it's really not too bad.

A broad swathe of jingoistic fervour runs straight up the middle of this movie, as you might expect. The only thing that stopped this being another Independence Day for me was the occasional brilliant character moments, brief flashes of stunning acting and writing. If there'd been more of them and less silly flag-waving, this would have been a much more enjoyable 2 and three-quarters hours of my life.

Oh, and the villain was delicious. Simply wonderful. He made the moments when the ever-edible Heath Ledger wasn't on screen bearable. He swaggered. He sneered. He ponced about being as evil and vicious as ever an English-accented Disney bad-guy ever was. (Can we say Jeremy Irons? I thought we could.)

In general, not a waste of celluloid.

PS: Yes, it was abso-flogging-lutely hilarious to watch a couple of Australia's favourite sons playing American patriots. Next, I'd like to see Russell Crowe play Abraham Lincoln. Or perhaps Hugh Jackman as Henry Kissinger. Whaddya think?

A big cheerful wave to anyone from CANADA who happens to drop by. G'day and stuff. Specifically hello to Jeremy, if you come back again and happen to read this, and give that Aussie girl a big hug hello from me, y'hear? (I'm sure you know the one I mean, but if you don't, just hug every Aussie girl you know to make sure you get the right one. Aussie girls need hugs too.)

(And hey, Lizz, sorry about that. I mean, I'm sure everyone gets enough spam of their own without having to put up with mine as well. That's just a little bit bizarre.)

Well, I guess that's it then, kiddies. Might as well pack up my blog and go home. (This lends so much credence to that quote: "If you build it, they will come.")

Hah. Here's another entry guaranteed to get me even further banned on those safe-surf filter things (through which this delicious collection of college-student profanity and realism is apparently already unviewable). I may or may not have mentioned that Snake River Conspiracy is my new musical obsession, far eclipsing just about every obsession thus far with the power of my brief and impassioned Kittie flirtation, but holding on for the duration. Anyway, the following review of their single 'Vulcan' was not written by me. More's the pity. I wish I could write like that. It made me laugh so hard I fell off my chair. Literally. I'm going to have a bruise. So yeah, I thought I'd share it. It's pinched shamelessly off the Snake River Conspiracy main site, in their 'Press' section.

NME SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Snake River Conspiracy
Vulcan
(morpheus)

"FUCKKKKKKKKK!" That's how this stomping, swirling, clanging, roaring, superbly overproduced and frankly mental masterpiece of slickly ultra-discordant disco studio-punka starts and, just in case you've not quite grasped the track's subject matter, the lady singer screams "FUCKKKKKKKKKKK!" again and again and again very loudly and at regular intervals. Brilliant!

"FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK!" there she goes again. Imagine, if you will, Ginger from Garbage in a kick-boxing grudge match to the death with mock-cokernee Shouty Woman out of Republica. With Atari Teenage Riot's Alec Emprie as referee.

"FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK!" Shit, yes! This is what Indie Spice would sound like in a perfect world. Hell, this is what Bernard Butler would sound like if he wasn't just another scruffy, gurly-haired, po-faced, lemon-sucking muso bore with an overblown reputation and an artistically crippling Beatles fixation.

"FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK!" Thank you, God! You bastard! You make this poor boy sit through hour after hour of sub-listenable pseudo-'60's wank and cod-cerebral musoid anti-pop and E-fucked post-Ibiza nonger bollocks and then - just as he reaches the very pit of the trough of despond and starts to think that every single fucking single released this week is going to stink like a long-term homeless person's trainers marinated for a millennium in diseased dog shit - you slap him in the face with a slab of pop so shiny, so gratuitously aggressive and so 1999 and three-fucking-quarters that he involunarily ejaculates all over the computer screen with joy.

"FUCKKKKKKKKKKK!" It's Y2K Tourette's Pop and it beats the living shit out every single other record released this week and then dances naked around a bonfire of their burning corpses daubed in satanic runes and gibbering like a traumatised gibbon.

Like the woman says -"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKK!"

Been anally raped by a large web-based consortium? (Translation from Dee-lingo: Have you have a website on Tripod summarily deleted?) Well then, maybe this site will help you. Normally I'm not up for this protesting against the webpage providers, because usually they're quite within their rights and all that, and my apathy kicks in. But this Tripod deletion without prior warning (that's the killer right there) was just wrong. At the very least, warning notes of the violations should have been sent out. It would have just been polite.

I have previously commented a little on the larcenous tendencies of college students. But since she brought it up (I should have know you had a dodgy past, Shauny!), I thought I might explore the theme more fully.

Oh boy. Where to start?

Firstly, you have to understand something about my college, and I don't think this is limited to us. Our motto is: "Why not?" So, if someone was, for instance, to say: "Hey, let's steal a V-dub beetle and put it in the VC's parking place with a goat tethered to the steering wheel", the general response would be in the affirmative. The only problem would be finding a goat. And the solution to that, of course, would be to steal one.

Nothing is safe in Canberra. Especially around Scavenger Hunt time, when the real estate signs disappear like magic. Only things that are firmly cemented to bedrock survive. More about that later. This is about totally random acts of kleptomania. And a few carefully premeditated ones.

The first story I'd like to tell is my own induction into the world of sticky-fingeredness.
The target: a large cardboard cutout devil. I believe he was snapping his fingers, and probably holding a pitchfork. He was definitely advertising firelighters in Supabarn. He was cool.
The plan: beautiful in its simplicity. Grab a trolley. Place devil in bottom. Dump coats on top. Go through checkout, wheel trolly away to freedom!
The result: went off without a hitch, despite blatantly suspicious behaviour in the form of nervous whisperings and gigglings from the perpetrators. We got weird looks, but that was it. The devil is still on J¹'s door. (He scored it because he pushed the trolley.)

Second story was one by report only. But it's so good, it just has to get a mention here. This story was told by the more-Aussie-than-thou Pete over summer.
The target: It was a Buck's Night, right? A pub-crawl. And the best man gathers them together before they go into one place and says: "I want all of you to pinch something for a present for the bride and groom. The person who gets the best one gets a free beer at the next place."
The result: Well, Pete thought he did pretty well making off with the license act from behind the bouncer's head. Then he got back to the bus and found some of his mates waiting with a table. A large, round, wooden, solid table. Here's how it had gone. One of them had distracted the bouncer while the rest took the table out the back into the beer garden (empty at that time). They heaved it over the wall into the alley, ran around and picked it up. Smooth.

So many stories, so little time. Another one, this one centred around the delightful thing that is the Scav Hunt. Various items are procured - sexually suggestive road signs ('Slippery when wet' is a personal favourite) and park benches among them - but the year we stepped up to bat (our first year) one had never been accomplished.
The target: a concrete bollard. Scattered throughout the campus of the ANU like ossified giants' marbles, these round concrete balls mark off pedestrian zones and such. They're solid. They're cemented down. But J² was sure he could manage it.
The plan: Midnight. A crowbar. Three burly guys. Some heaving. Getaway via rolling it back to college. Hard part would be finding somewhere to keep it where another team wouldn't pinch it.
The result: Ultimately unsuccessful. The boys went off on their mission with high spirits and a big metal stick. Not even a drive-by by ANU security could stop them long (though I really wish I'd been there to witness three guys trying to look nonchalant with a crowbar). But the bloody thing just wouldn't move, no matter how much they swore at it. Finally they gave up and went to Maccas instead.

Incidentally, as I look out my window I can see, in the back carpark of the college next door, one shopping trolley, one witch's hat and one 'Work in progress' road sign. Looks like last night was a good haul.

This has been quite long enough already, I think, so I'll stop about here. I won't go into C^b's weekend cruise of Canberra, looking for a 'Danger: weapons discharging' sign. Or the small collection of golf flags in his room, one of which was borrowed for the 3B limbo pole this year. Or the huge Coca-Cola sign that adorned R^y's room for most of last year.

And our planned paper-bagging of the red-light cameras on Northborne is another story altogether.

And some pina colada Karmic Jellybeans (TM) for this hussy for her contribution to my quote list: "Do you ever have those days when you're hitting yourself upside the head with a frozen sock and you realise that a small hand axe would work so much better?"

For the speed and wonderful imagery of that quote, Megsy-Wegsy also scores a trip over to Susan's house (no points if you knew who the Eels were before Roadtrip). That must be her sister, right?

Ooooh, someone in my hall uses the same soap as my father. Well, presumably my whole family uses it, since my father isn't so obsessed with any facet of his personal cleanliness (unlike Mr American Psycho...) to use a different sort of soap than the one already in the shower. It's just that no one smells quite like my father, and the scent wafting down the corridor is Eau de Dad. It's clean, and sort of no-nonsense. No fancy flowers or spices, just getting-rid-of-dirtness. It smells like scrubbed skin and meticulous, but utilitarian fingernails.

I miss my Daddy. *sniffle*

Quote that sent me into gales of laughter: What is the sound of one hand smacking you upside your head?

Also funny quote that this reminds me of: Remember, when someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown. But it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and smack them upside the head.

I sense a list in the making here. Anyone else have quotes using the phrase 'upside the head' in them? I'll pay in karmic jelly beans (black, of course).

So mystic experiences are different only because those who experience them are of different faiths and hence use different vocabularies, symbolisms and mythologies to describe them. Or maybe it's because they are of those faiths, and hence geared towards having a mystic experience of a certain type. Which came first, the faith or the religion? Perhaps the experience isn't the result of the faith, but rather the faith is the result of an attempt to describe the experience. What is a mystic experience, anyway? Is enlightenment always good? Doesn't that presuppose that this divine figure (what I jokingly refer to as DOUG - Deity Of Unspecified Gender) is benevolent, good, light. What about Heaven's Gate and all that? Did they have a mystic experience? Maybe they were enlightened to death.

I love this class. Deeply, spiritually, but not sexually. Give me time, though. It's only week three.

My watch keeps stopping. Usually when I'm asleep. As if it was kinetically charged, and being away from my skin makes it sulk and die. It's not that cold yet. I don't know what its problem is. It does raise an interesting issue, though, in the vein of the buddhism lecturer the other day declaring that you knew you had slept because time has passed. If time hasn't passed, have I slept?

Yes, this is a stupid argument. I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping. Or maybe I have.

I had something else to say here, but it seems to have slipped my memory. That's been happening a lot recently. Taking notes and realise I've forgotten part of the sentence that came barely a minute ago. Is this sleep-deprivation?

Zonked out of my mind in a lecture on karma. The only way to escape the eternal cycle of samsara - birth and death - is to realise that there is no you. (Immediate thoughts of spoons and black leather.) But who is doing the realising? It's a Catch-22, and hence the people closest to it are those who will most likely never attain it. The closer you think you are, the more you think of 'you'. Hah! Sucked in!!

I went home and had a nap. I was so a cat in a past life. Mrow.

Woke up almost too late for dinner, but it was all cream pasta sauces, and I don't like them. They make me feel terribly icky. So a fast food run was engaged in. Waiting in KFC, we decide on 21 pieces, giving us cold KFC (food of the gods) for the rest of the week. Much to our chagrin, they no longer serve the stuff in buckets. We wanted a bucket! The girl behind the counter gives us a lecture on how we only want a bucket to pretend we're American sitcom characters. We just smile and nod, and think she's a blithering idiot.

Loud discussion on the Kama Sutra on the way through the McDonalds drive-thru draws many odd looks.

I love button-up jeans. They're just so much easier. The fact that I don't actually have to undo anything, just grab and wrench. No, I'm serious. If I do it just right - and I do, because I've had these jeans for a couple of years now and I wear them a lot. Oh yeah, and I have washed them in the last three months, thank you (2 points) - if I do it just right, the buttons come undone in a flash. And I don't have to worry about pulling them off like happens all the time to my other pants, because these are quintuple-stitched into denim, for DOUG's-sake.

Oh yeah, and it only works if you're in the jeans. Trust me, it's been tested. And don't ask by who. It should be patently obvious.

Incidentally, I was going to write this paper tonight, but I've been playing five card Texas Hold 'Em (that would be poker) for the past two hours. We started out playing five card draw and first hand, I get a 8-high straight. Beautiful. And J¹ beats me with a bloody Queen-high straight. Fucker! I paid him back later, though, when we bluffed everyone out and I won with an Ace high. He had a Queen high. Woohoo!

"Think of Buddhism as ice-cream. There are different flavours of ice-cream, but it all comes from the same root, this milk product, and the basis is vanilla. That's Theravada, the basic, plain, nothing added strand of Buddhism. And then you get Mahayana buddhism, where there are some additives to make it taste better, and you've got neapolitan, with the chocolate and strawberry but still the vanilla too. You start getting into cassata - with cherries and nuts and all sorts - when you get into Tibetan buddhism."

(From my lecture this morning on Buddhist mysticism. Fun eh?)

Last night I saw Charlie's Angels, since I missed it at the all-nighter. I know this is probably going to get me lynched by a large number of people, but I thought it was awful. Really and truly bad, in that teeth-grinding, American-sitcom sense of the word. Yes, it had cool bits. No, those cool bits were not cool enough, nor plentiful enough, to overcome the mickey-mouse plot, cutesy girly interaction and general cliche-ness of the whole thing. The fighting was nothing near as good as I'd been led to believe it was going to be, and it definitely paled by comparison with either Matrix or (most definitely) Crouching Tiger. I liked the end credits and Lucy Liu's wardrobe. And, to a lesser extent, other little bits, like Lucy's dominatrix routine, and Ms Diaz's 'crushing of larynx with boot' trick.

But basically, bah humbug and a big thumbs-down from Dee on this one. I came home and found that PB had been going to come, but had stayed here and watched Fight Club instead. Good choice there, boyo. Good choice.

I just read the entirety of this thing. I'm quite impressed with it, and I had a damn good laugh. Mostly spot on regional Aussie dialect. Maybe I should direct the people I role-play with to this site, so they know what I'm on about more than half the time.

One inclusion that really needs to be made, however. Dack: to pull someone's pants down very quickly and without their knowledge or permission. Apparently this isn't something Americans indulge in. Or at least, so I was told. Honestly, what do you people do with your youth?

Oh yeah. You shoot people.

(PS: Link from nothing.)

I think what I find so knee-weakeningly appealing about John Cusack is that no matter what, he always looks a little fragile. Playing a minorly tough cop guy, just finished swearing a blue streak at morons, and he still looks delicate. Delectable. Mmmmm.

Ahem.

Yes, I've been watching Con Air again. Silliness on legs - Nick Cage's quite long jean-clad legs, in fact. Not that I have a thing for Mr Cage, in fact, I really don't find him attractive at all, and as A mentioned, if he could get through the movie without actually talking, that would be just fine and dandy with me. However, I can't deny that in that specific scene where he's trying to talk Diamond and Cyrus out of killing the guards, and he kicks them in the backs, his legs look incredibly long, shapely, and overall eminently shapely. Shame they're attached to that completely non-aphrodisiacal upper body.

Where was I? Oh, nowhere near a point anyway. Excellent.

Film Group all-nighter. Charlie's Angels (which I missed, tutors' meeting, but I'm steadily wondering if I really want to see it at all), Shanghai Noon (I want to be Jackie Chan when I grow up), The Art of War, Die Hard, Con Air. Ten hours of sweaty guys (and girls) kicking ass. Cool.

The Art of War was... well, it was an 80s blockbuster with some 90s action. Nice action sequences. Some interesting direction. Overall, fairly mediocre, but quite a large amount of fun. Touch obvious in places, especially once I realised that it was following the rules for a blockbuster exactly. Since I practically have the manual on my shelf, there was little that surprised me after that.

The rules being, to whit: (1) High Stakes - the world has to be in danger, or at least the personal world of the lead character in such a stunning way as to render it all-encompassing - in this case, the looming of possible war between China and the US, another Cold War brewing. (2) Larger-than-life characters - they have to be capable of amazing things - Wesley Snipes as a blacker-than-thou UN secret ops guy, need I say more? (3) The Dramatic Question - what you sit through the book or movie to find out - as is so often the case, will he prove his innocence/get the bad guys/save the world and the girl. (4) High Concept - basically involves an unusual look, something the readers or viewers can really get intrigued in - UN secret ops, Triads, high-powered politics... yeah, I think we can do that. (5) And this one was the real giveaway: Close connections between the lead characters, especially the protagonist and antagonist. The closer they are, you see, the more intense the conflict is. And that's what made some of the 'twists' of the plot terribly predictable.

Sorry. Didn't mean to write an essay there.

Die Hard is the classic, of course. The ultimate classic. It's got all the elements. The irreverant Bruce Willis (always much more fun when he's not taking himself seriously), the delightfully sinister Alan Rickman, the moronic cops you love to see get killed (and honestly, how stupid are you when Bruce Willis' NYPD cop guy is that much smarter than you, I mean really...). Mind you, the best bit is still the coke-snorting in the office. God bless the 80s.

Here endeth the rambling. Go outside and get some sunshine, people. I won't be able to; I have a 500 word review assignment to write by Wednesday. Something tells me I should probably read the article in question in some detail. Maybe.

Hey dudes, I have this whole new layout and stuff ready to go, and I was all gung-ho and going to race in here and put it all up, but then I remembered that the socks server isn't up, and this means I can't access all the important acronyms like FTP and IRC and MUD. MUD!!! And then I remembered that I haven't been able to play my mu* (XET) in nearly four weeks now and this is driving me absolutely sodding bananas!!! So now I have to go and perform a few homocides. Back once I've washed the blood off my hands...

Pants too small to be allowable in several signatory countries of the UN. Red snakeskin-look PVC. They put the HOT! back in hotpants. They gave A a conniption fit. Well, not quite. Just that he's not sure he likes other guys looking at me as a sex object. Finding me attractive, that's fine. I was quite bemused by this, and I'm not quite sure how to respond. I have the pants. I will wear the pants. I don't want him to feel bad. But I love wearing them. They're unbelievably comfortable. And when aforementioned guys look at me as a 'sex object', I just find it funny. Funny how easy it is.

I'm such a wench.

Speaking of A, last weekend he got me a dozen long-stemmed roses. He brought them in a large box, wrapped with ribbon (pink, but I'll forgive him that this time). The most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. Deep red and smelling beautifully. They are starting to sag now (yes, just starting, such is the wonder of cut-flower food), and people keep telling me to dry them. Then, or so I'm told, I can keep them forever.

Well yes, but I'm not sure I want to keep them forever. It goes against my philosophy of romantically given flowers. This philosophy was something I only realised when challenged about it by J², who demanded to know why he should give flowers to K^r when they were only going to die. He'd much rather give her something that would last, some other gift that was useful. But that, you see, is the whole point. Flowers are useless. They die. They have no purpose but to be an expression of devotion, a quick message of love. That is what is so beautifully romantic about them. And hence, drying them would be diminishing their message, taking away the moment. Even keeping them for a week, still alive, seems to be making their allure wane.

Besides, I don't have anywhere to put a dozen dried roses. They'd be a bastard to pack up.

I go gothing because:

1. Scaring people is fun.
   
2. It's the perfect chance to wear gorgeous clothes I can't wear any other time of the week because of point one. And I do mean gorgeous clothes. I love my goffing clothes.
   
3. Other people wear even more gorgeous clothes and looking is not indicative of any sort of desire to pick up. In fact, the normal mating rituals do not apply.
   
4. The music is loud, fun and good.
   
5. You can dance. Really dance. Dance like you only dance in your room with all the doors locked.

More interesting things noted in classes (and I promise to settle down to some sort of routine here soon, honest, scout's non-honour).

Diana shows off her bad german: Es gibt ein Maedchen in meine Klasse, die genau wie ein Anime Maedchen aussieht. (After all, this observation was made in german class, and it is a sign of my return to form that I can think that much in the language, since a week ago, I couldn't.) "There is a girl in my class who looks exactly like an Anime girl."

She does. She really does. It's been bugging me for a year now, and I finally realised it. Petite figure. Heart-shaped face, framed by the right square haircut (dark brown). Tight t-shirt. Jeans flaring at the bottom with large platform-type sneakers. She doesn't quite have the cleavage right, though. If it wasn't for that, and the fact that she's actually a lovely, wonderful person, I might be tempted to claim she was obviously an alien construct and should be terminated immediately for the good of the planet and the human race as a whole.

But I'll resist the temptation. Promise.

While I'm on the subject of interesting things I picked up at university today, Bubbles declares she knows the German word for mullet (as in, the hair style, with which she has a small obsession; don't worry, she's on medication) but the teacher didn't believe her. Personally, I don't care, since I don't think it's going to be on the test, and I am an eternal student. There is only one commandment, and that is: "Is this assessible?"

Anyway, if you are interested in that horrible hairdo, repent now before it's too late and you bring down Western civilisation with your heathen hairdressing habits. (Actually, now that I think about it, why don't more anarchists have mullets?)

Now that I'm back at university, I can resume my usual habit. It goes like this: Tune out for first ten minutes of lecture while he burbles about what was on TV last night. Listen to first fifteen minutes of actual lecture assiduously. Take good notes. Start getting bored. Take sporadic notes. Mainly note down things that sound interesting.

And then, come home and tell the world those interesting things via this wonderful medium of bloginess. That word looks like it should have two G's.

Today's point of note: After the death of an ancient Chinese emperor, the characters used in his personal name could not be used in any other form of writing. To get around this impediment, a word of the same pronunciation was used instead.

Well, I found it interesting, anyway.

Another curious search referral: Anyone for some diet coke homosexuality? I personally fail to see the link, but I'm sure it's there. Really. (Can anyone explain it to the poor, tired, innocent student girl?)

Actually, I really resent the implication that I talk about, much less imbibe, diet coke. Nothing but the fully leaded petrol for me.