Titus. Stunning. Purely visceral. A feast for the eyes and the mind.

On the way out, I heard one punter whinge: "I wish it had been in modern English, so I could understand it. So you wouldn't have to concentrate all the time, and could relax."

Sonny, if you could relax in that movie anyway, I think you're seriously odd. Or maybe just a moron.

A fruitful morning of internet meandering? This is unbelievably spectacular and refreshed my morning. I also found some webrings that I liked (bearing in mind my mini-rant on the topic of a few days past). Dead Messengers sound like my cup of tea, something I want to be a part of. And as soon as I saw the name of the Seether webring, I simply had to be a part of it.

Seether is neither
loose nor tight.
Seether is neither
black nor white.
...Can't fight the seether.

I'm such a Veruca Salt girl.

On the back of my escapades last night at Narcissus I considered something called Almost Gothic, since I frankly think I am. But I didn't like the look of it, and it didn't really fit my concept, or what I wanted.

On the topic of last night, J^e and I had much fun. We were determined to stay until the end, having never done it before. As such, we hit the dancefloor with a vengeance. It helped that the music was absolutely brilliant, almost requiring our presence for the hour and a half straight we patronised it before needing a break for refreshment. I love DJs who, in response to requests, reply: "Hell yeah!" And, in grand goffing tradition, a strange man tried to chat J^e up. We were most sad when it ended at 1:30pm, despite the crowds trying to wheedle the DJ into "just two more".

I have over 3000 words of notes for my yoga essay. I have a rough outline. I have no idea how to make this essay happen. In fifteen minutes I will sit down and make it so.

I will.

I should have been doing it all day, except I was writing my German essay. And it took me all day because I was role-playing all day at the same time. Excellent scene, though. Lots of fun. Except it annoys me when I'm ready and raring to keep going, and all the Americans have to go to sleep. Soft. You're all soft!

You know, I thought I was past the age when I had to worry about putting both feet down the same trouser leg. Maybe skirts are the way to go.

On a different note, I am overjoyed to discover that J² is up to his old random emailing tricks. Today's offering on the alter of randomness:

Subject: The independent trouser society

A wise man once said "aarrrgghhh!!!! Get it off!!!!! GET IT OFF!!!!!!!!! AAAAAARRRRGGGHH!!!!!!"

Life's pretty straight without J².

Time is ticking away. I hate it when it gets to this part of an essay. A few days to go, the rough draft not yet finished... or begun, even. A huge party planned for tonight...

I will get through. Somehow. I always do.

At least I got a good night's sleep last night.

Somewhere, somehow, sometime, I found a script for the Matrix. It has been sitting in my Junk drive for DOUG-knows how long, and I finally dug it out the other day, in serious procrastination (yes, serious, I changed my desktop again) and had a flip. To my amazement, it was not the finished version of the movie, but rather maybe a draft or two prior to the movie one. It contains numerous interesting differences. Such as the following:

We are on-line, inside a chat room called "The Matrix." It is an exklusive web-site where hackers hang out.

SCREEN
JACKON: I heard Morpheus has been on this board.
SUPERASTIC: Morpheus doesn't even exist and the Matrix is nothing but an advertising gimmick 4 a new game.
TIMAXE: All I want to know is Trinity really a girl?
LODIII: 87% of all women on line are really men.
QUARK: The Matrix is a euphemism for the government.
SUPERASTIC: No, The Matrix is the system controlling our lives.
TIMAXE: You mean MTV.
SUPERASTIC: I mean Sega.
FOS4: ALL HAIL SEGA!!!

Well, it made me laugh...

Incidentally, after some hunting I found where I got the script from: The Cyberpunk Project. Check this place out. It's seriously spectacular. It's got the entire works of William Gibson for starters. If you really want to see what Trinity could have been like, get a load of Molly in Neuromancer. Wow. This place is amazing.

Wow. There is something majorly insanely screwy going on in my browser. Lots of links aren't showing up, or are showing up only as underlines. In normal text, some letters just aren't showing up. It's like I'm on Wheel of Fortune and I haven't said "Q for Quickie" or "G for Garotte" yet. Can I buy a vowel, please? (I think a reboot is in order.)

Fun things to find while searching for information on the Kinsey scale of sexuality.

Is it a bad thing that I'm starting to see similarities between some of the stuff in my Yoga reading and the ravings of the lunatic airman in Dr Strangelove?

To whit: "In every such [sexual] enjoyment, apart from the waste of semen, one loses enormouse energy of Prana also." (Swami Narayanananda.)

And: "Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence." (General Jack D Ripper, musing upon his post-coital glow.)

Refuse of my weekend of celebration:
- 1 bottle of vodka (Tsarevitch; cheap and nasty)
- 1 bottle of Peppermint schnapps
- 3 packets of Kool Mints
- 2 blocks of chocolate (one Top Deck and one Peppermint)
- 1 packet of mini Toblerones
- 2 bottles of Wolf Blass 2000 chardonnay (a very good wine, if I do say so myself)
- 1 bottle Blass Shiraz (the wine with attitude)
- 1 bottle Deutz Brut champers
- 1 bottle Beacon Hill something-or-other, which was also quite acceptable
- 1 empty packet of hair dye (used, not drunk)

I had fun, what about you?

Dee's Great Hair Funkifying Experiment continueth! Yesterday the last part of phase one was completed. Namely, my mouse-brown roots (which ended the delusion a lot of first years had that my hair was naturally black) were dyed as bright a red as one can find in permanent colouring. (Loreal's Intense Red for anyone who cares, and why is Fudge so piss-ant in the staying power department? I wanted to be Red Corvette, but it disappears after one wash.) It looks incredibly funky, with the dark copper roots fading into black lengths. Just as cool as I wanted it to look, really.

Now, we relax for a bit before entering Phase II. (That's 2, not eleven.) This involves getting a haircut, since I'm sick of this skanky remnants-of-perm thing that has my hair all over the place. I want short, I want sleek, I want sexy. I want stunning and revolutionary and unique, too. In short (yes, short) I am going to get a Storm haircut; short, with two longer bangs at the front. Shorter than the usual Storm haircut, though. A Storm for the new millenium, if you will.

The problem is how to explain this to my hairdresser. I'm going to wait until I go home because my hairdresser in Gladstone is wonderfully brilliant. If anyone can make this haircut, it's Maria. All hail Maria.

I don't think I can write 3000 words on the meaning and aspects of Yoga by Friday. This is troubling, because I have to. Buggrit, buggrit, buggrit millenium hand and shrimp. I'm going to be very happy when this whole undergrad uni thing is done and I can stop stressing about the next essay I have to hand in. Only problem is, then I'll be doing something else and worrying about something else. When will life stop? Please, Mr Conductor. I want to get off.

The joy of a restaurant that covers the table with butchers' paper is that you can play Mr Squiggle's Doodle and Hangman while waiting for your meal.

I discovered the only way to get thrown out of a game of Mr Squiggle. Turn the Union Jack into the Australian Flag. But I got allowed back in because I turned a random doodle into the Bat Signal.

And the perfect word for Hangman is "quaff". Try it.

See, the dear delightful Rob talking about smoking and computers makes me think about a story A tells about one of the stars of his early college years. Perhaps it was Sevo. Perhaps another character of whom I have heard so much that to actually meet him would be an anti-climax. This character, however, smoked cigarettes he rolled himself. He also played Mechwarrior. Anyone who has performed either of these two functions will know that they are both activities which require use of all ten digits. Somehow, however, this tremendously gifted individual managed to do both at once. He rolled his cigarette while playing Mechwarrior.

When asked how, he replied: "Too much practice at both."

I love college.

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. Go on, let Our Lady of the Internet read your mind. You won't believe how accurate she is! (I'm a little ashamed that it took me two tries to figure this out. Then again, I was doing stuff in other windows at the same time.)

If you were going to start a webring, what would your criteria for acceptance/inclusion/interest be?

I got thinking about this because I've been vaguely wandering the net for the past two days, looking for a ring (or two, or three) to join. I don't just join willy-nilly, though. I need it to be something that I feel a connection with. Something that defines me. Something that makes me... well, makes me want to join. And not just the requirements and theme and things, but the name as well. I hate these poncy, flouncy, airy-fairy names. At the same time, I'm very picky about the technical details. I want to be able to surf the ring easily, for all the pages to have the code up and working. For all the pages to be good; sites I want to be linked to.

I mean, there are some rings you just join. Like the dotcom ring. Like the webloggers ring. But for the rest, I'm the pickiest eater alive.

Of course, the temptation when you can't find a ring exactly right is to make one. But then it's exactly right for you, and no one else. So now I am pondering the ultimate challenge. To make a ring that is exactly right for those you want it to be exactly right for.

This bears thinking about. I am long past the age where I rushed into anything and everything. (As a side note, the first webring I ever created in a fit of pique - Bared - is still running very strong. This gives me something of a nice, warm feeling.) Maybe I will begin something. But it needs to simmer a little first.

While I'm at this ranting and raving in a random fashion (like I ever do anything in a non-random fashion)...

Damn. J² just rang me (the fourth external phone call I've had today, not including birthday ones - why is everyone suddenly seized by the desire to telephonically communicate with me? I hate phones, people!) and completely derailed my train of thought.

Or maybe I should blame Zack de la Rocha, who's screaming about American dreams again. That boy really has a one-track mind.

Why do people think removing the vowels from swearwords makes them more acceptable? I don't get it. How is "b!tch" supposed to be less offensive (to those who find it so) than "bitch". If you want to say it, come out and say it. Swear, dammit. Don't just play pretend.

Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday dear Dee-eee...
Happy Birthday to me.

Maybe that's narcissistic and crap, but I'm feeling all little-kid-bouncy today, and I felt like doing it anyway. And now I can drink in the United States as well.

Der-brain quote of the day: "What does your coffee-maker do?"

I finally made a concerted effort to pin Dr Mac down, worried that if I left it any longer he would forget about me and I would no longer have an Honours supervisor for next year. So I rang and left a message that I would be there between 3 and 4. Upon reaching his office, I found a note to myself, advising that he would be back at 3:45. I wandered out to Union Court and sat, buffetted by the wind, my fingers freezing as I wrote in my journal and thought the sort of random thoughts one thinks on a cold, quiet autumn afternoon.

When I came back I was loitering at the top of the stairs when one of my other lecturers came past and hailed me. We chatted a little, and I mentioned why I was loitering. At which point Dr Mac came up the stairs. He was carrying one of those square boxes of wired geraniums. Or rather, he was holding it at arms' length as if he was afraid it would bite him.

"This is what you get when you give a presentation to a bunch of admirals' wives," he says with his usual bluntness. You either love Dr Mac or hate him.

"It's very pretty," my lecturer comments.

Dr Mac grunts, and we all laugh. I feel briefly as if I'm in a sitcom. We meander along to Mac's office and I cut to the chase, saying that I'm basically there to let him know that I'm still interested in being Honoured, if he's still interested in supervising. He says he is, puts my name on the official card that is held to his filing cabinet (extensive) with magnets. I cheer inwardly.

We move on. What I'm studying. Whether I should do International Law even if I was allowed to (which I'm not). He bags out the law faculty in an amusing fashion. (His bluntness is his most defining personality trait. He has a sticker on his filing cabinet that reads: "Fuck Authority". I like this man.) We move on to talking about Thirteen Days, which he also though represented the themes well, though he is not a big fan of anything that glorifies the Kennedies.

We end laughing about Kevin Costner, and I trip lightly out of there. I have an Honours supervisor. WooHOO!

Philosophical question of the day: if a slut wears pale pink and pretty little-girl bows and looks all innocent, is she still a slut?

(Oh dear, and the exam period is still two weeks away. I'm going to be barking at parked cars by the end of this semester.)

Canonisation is like a little gold star next to your name in the roll-call of God.

Listening to Alanis Morissette (yes, I am up to M in my alphabetical CD-listening) regresses me. Well, not really regression. I never was an angry teen. I was an angry pre-teen, but I got over it by the time I hit 13. But yowling along to Alanis makes me feel like I was, and I still am. The sort of music that makes you mosh around the room, shake your hair, bounce on your bed, throw your stuffed animals. This is, no doubt, why almost every girl of a certain age owns it. It calls to us. Even if we were never there.

Today, to plain sight, I accomplished nothing.

I role-played all day. All glorious, imaginative day. You can't understand it unless you do it. It was like living free. Like flying. (And every time the damn make-shift connection I'm forced to use due to the IT staff's incompetence went down, it was like being yanked back to earth. It made me scream like a harpy.)

It really is the crack cocaine of writing. It's the immediate hit. The fast and sure thing. Like caffeine straight into the vein. I'm still popping.

The RP logs section has been redesigned and updated, if you care.

If there is one thing above all others that annoys me in a netball game, it's people questioning my team placement. Right, there are these rules, and only having one guy in each third of the court. I know these rules. I've been working with these rules for the past two seasons. They're damn annoying.

But there's always someone who thinks they know better. Like the stupid girl playing opposite me last night. It was an ADFA team, so I don't expect too much in the way of mental faculties. But honestly. When I load up my monster defense team (A in GD and K^L in WD, if you care), she goes and complains to the umpire. Who tells her no, it's fine, they can do that. So she comes sulking back, and has a whinge.

So I explain it to her. He is in this third, he is in that third, it is legal. She declares it isn't. I explain it using smaller words. She declares it isn't. So, finally, I simply say: "Look, sweetheart, I've been doing this for two year. I think I know what I'm doing, all right?"

She didn't speak to me for the rest of the game. What a loss.

On top of my monitor crouches a soft-toy frog. It has unnaturally long and bendy legs. It is currently up on its toes. His name is Jeremiah. Because Jeremiah was, as you may or may not know, a bull-frog. And he was a good friend of mine. When L gave me this particular incarnation of Jeremiah, he was wrapped around a small bottle of mighty fine wine, which we helped him drink. Actually, he wasn't very good at the drinking part, being a stuffed animal and all, so we drank it ourselves.

Singing: "Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me."

All right! New carp design up and coming atcha. Probably looks bad in Netscape. I don't care. I really don't. I love this redesign, and intend to keep it for a goodly long while. Let me know what you think (even if it's just to confirm that it looks like a cat's breakfast in Netscape). Please? I'll love you forever, or something. Yeah.

Oh wow. I can FTP again. Blinding, overwhelming, comprehensive redesigns of absolutely everything coming up. But for now, the fanfic section has been redesigned and updated. Finally. Spiffy new design, even if I do say so myself. Wait until you see the rest of everything.

(Incidentally, I can FTP via this insanely brilliant application. I might just bow down and worship both the people who made this and the absolutely brilliant person who sent me a link to it.)

The other day I was reading the newspaper at breakfast when I came across a man whose surname was Beretta. "Oh my god!" I exclaimed. "I have to find this man and marry him. Immediately!"

Everyone else failed to understand.

Have you ever before come across a file that simply will not download? I search, find the same file in a dozen different locations, but the download dialogue box simply sits there, flipping its little bit of paper, and going nowhere at the speed of light.

Bloody annoying.

Meanwhile, I like this place. Lots of fun fonts. Including what I am assuming is the original home of the ever-loved-by-J² 'Creepy Girl'.

So many things boiling inside me. So many tracks ahead of me.

I have a pile of books that is now the height of my bed. The Plague (Camus, and current), The Proof House (KJ Parker), Lost Souls (Poppy Z Brite), Dune (Frank Herbert), Makers of Modern Strategy (various, and work, and yet not), and Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco, and yes, a re-read, but lately I have found myself plagued with references, with hints, with half-remembered glimpses of the shrouded truth, and I want to recapture the throat-tightening beauty of the faint despair and intricate tragedy that was this book).

I have a novel, lurking around my room in densely-typed pages and scribbled notes on the back of desk-calendar pages. Around my mind in the tilt of a chin and a line curtly delivered. I have the urge to write, to get it all out, to shape the words like raw clay into a vessel that can hold my imagination in tangible form.

I have idleness, pulling at me with sticky fingers, offering a horde of delights. Roleplay, the crack-cocaine of writing, computer games, long, luxuriant coffee and Friday-conversations in Cafe J^e.

And I have university. Demanding with its financial justification my attention, my time, my efforts. And yet still interesting. Fascinating. Ready to suck me into a whirlpool of academia. Spending the rest of my life balancing in the compator shelves, fuelled by university-cafe coffee and this inexplicable curiosity about things no one else cares about. An office, lined with the books picked up on my travels (three more garnered today at the Co-op book sales, where everything was two dollars - one on prophecy, one on eastern European post-war communism, one on the trial of Queen Caroline). As you can see, I have thought overmuch about this possibility.

I want... I want... I want...

I don't know what I want. And in six months I finish my degree. I never wanted to think about this day because it was four (three... two... one...) years away and honestly, things would sort themselves out by that time, right? You'd think I knew myself better. But here I am, five days short of 21, and wallowing in indecision.

You know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Has anyone else noticed that when you finish FreeCell, that King looks really, really smug?

Just me? Ah.

I just went to see The Breakfast Club. Yes, for the first time. It was really quite a good movie. Very stage. Not really what I was expecting at all. As I remarked to J^e, it was like a teenage version of a hostage situation. Let's get five different personalities and twist until they go snap. And then watch. For the record, that could have been my high school, and I fit somewhere between the nerd and the weird girl. I so empathised with Johnson when he was talking about getting an F. Been there. Felt it. Sooooo happy to be out of it.

I could have lived without the folks two rows behind us psycho-analysing everything, though.

Oh my god, I rock. I now have a shirt that has "Spank me" written across the front in big pink letters. I am the coolest person on earth.

Or maybe, just maybe, the wonderful people who bought it for me and with whom I live are the most wonderful people on earth. THey have made this the best birthday party I have ever had. I love them. Each and every one.

But especially Jen. Go J^e. You rock so hard it defies the english language to capture.

G^j is back! There was huge secrecy surrounding a proposed trip out to Woden shopping this afternoon, and after much sneaking around and furtive looks, I concluded it must be because G^j would be taking us. I was proved right, and felt suitably smug. For about five seconds, at which point I gave it up and just stuck with feeling happy because our favourite ditz is back with us.

On that note: Hi Jeremy! Thanks for keeping an eye on her while she was over there. But what on earth did you do to her hair? It's DARK! And what happened to her accent?? She keeps twanging her Rs. It's perfect until she says something like "work" or "third" or something like that, and then it's North American all the way. We teased her all afternoon. Naturally.

But it's still very good to have her back.

Good news? Probably won't be goodbye viscerate.com come late June. I found nifty services at RedRival that will allow me to have a domain off my account there. And it has web-based uploading (in fact, that's pretty much all it has). It's cheap too (as you'd expect). It's be even cheaper if the Aussie dollar ever climbs out of this horrible rut. I'll be hoping for it, let me tell you.

Yay me.

I am currently engaged in a project I perform every few months. Listening to my entire CD collection in alphabetical order. Amazingly, it takes less time than I think it should. Witness: I am already up to D.

Why do I do this? Just because. Because once in a while I need to listen to the CDs I wouldn't otherwise ever get around to listening to because either they don't mesh with anything else to create a harmonious three-CD listening collection, or simply that I never feel like listening to them because I bought them back in the mid-90s sometime and my taste has ricocheted off in different directions since then.

Like Meredith Brooks. Like the Cranberries. Like Roxette too. And it's interesting having the segue from, say, Deadstar to Dope.

I'm swearing a lot recently. I think the stress is getting to me.

FUUUUUUUUCK!!!

No more SOCKS server for me. Ever. Well, technically, its viability is 'under review' and anyone who lives in a society with bureaucracy knows what that means.

I'm in such a goddamn bad mood. You know what this means? No more domain for me. viscerate.com will be going bye-bye when my current lease runs out because there's simply no point in keeping it. Why? Because I can't FTP until they get the SOCKS server back up. And I've already covered how likely that is.

Fuck. Back to free servers. What's more, back to free servers with online file uploading. You know how many of those there are? Bugger all, my dears.

And to top it all off, I get up here to find some new fan fic waiting for me, but it's fucking awful shit. And what's more, it's fucking awful shit about my dearest darlingest Scott and it pisses me off!

I'm going to go and scream until I feel better.

Quote of the day: "Unfortunately, no, there are no more echidnas. If you like, I can superglue some toothpicks to your head and you can play pretend."

There is no such thing as wasted time. This is not a test. This is not a performance. This is life. A grand symphony. And every moment is a note of equal length and value. Every single second is an amazing experience. Every single second has something to offer. The only waste is if you choose to ignore it.

You've never what, Shauny??? All right, that's it girl. You, me, Cafe Essen. Now. We'll drink our way through the coffee menu until we're so wired on caffeine we can't blink and we're giggling at pink butterflies no one else can see.

You think I'm kidding, don't you?

While we're at it, I'll read you selections from Hitch-Hiker's Guide.

I love it when people talk about what I've talked about. Makes me feel like I'm not jus thaving a meaningful discussion with my own navel. In specific, now, this regards Lis in my guestbook (which hardly anyone ever signs, you twerps).

Optimism probably isn't the best word for what I was ranting about below. Naivety is much better. Because like we realised for J^e, most bitter people are actually optimists. They've been warped by having their good hopes for the world crushed time after time by rampant stupidity. Of course, I don't think I am one of these people. I hope for good things, but know I won't get them. I am a full-blooded cynic.

Meanwhile, about the trees: The thing is, it's a small percentage of our oxygen that comes from tree-photosynthesis anyway. Most is produced by processes in the ocean. (And trees in rainforests don't even notice it's winter except that it rains a little less. There is no summer and winter in rainforests, just the Wet and the Dry.)

Optimism annoys me. It annoys me because the people who practice it refuse to see reality. Even when they acknowledge that they are 'hopelessly optimistic', they still believe it is a good thing, and not something they should make any effort to overcome in order to live in the real world. Mostly, it annoys me because it makes me feel nasty and cynical and mean to be injuring such an eggshell view of reality.

And maybe I am, but I hate feeling like I should twirl my moustache and tie the poor optimistic blonde to the railway tracks.

Politics tutorial this afternoon prompted this sudden spill. Under discussion: Should there be a trade-off between development and human rights in developing countries? Answer from my sunny group: No. Rights are necessary, inalienable even, and they should not be compromised. Obviously, (they went on, being the Academic!Optimists that they are) this is a Utopian view, but an effort should be made to stick as close to this as possible.

Point One: People who are starving don't give a fuck about having the vote. 'But if they don't have the vote, how can they make their displeasure at starving known?' Believe me, sweetheart, if the people are in dire straits, nothing in the world can stop them having a voice. That's why god invented riots.

Point Two: There is, not anywhere even near the edges of possibility, but right slap-bang in the middle of the here-and-now, the situation whereby no matter what action is taken, the rights of the people are violated. The rights of the few, or the rights of the many? Who to shaft? Say, for example, a state with ethnic conflict, separatists running a campaign of terror. De-stabilising the government, retarding development, and since the people are living in a war zone, what human rights do they have? Should the government enforce more militaristic actions to produce stability and development, but thereby reduce the total rights of its citizens? 'Well, there should be due process for everyone, even guerillas.' And what precisely is that due process, honey? Listen to their demands, and state firmly: "Well yes, we see your point, but we can't allow you to split our already fragile and only marginally economically viable country into two completely useless parts, sorry." And, of course, the guerillas will accept that, lay down their guns, and go home.

Sometimes, optimism just makes me sick.

The rant endeth here. I'm tired, I'm going to bed.

Questions that pique this morning:

If deciduous trees lose all their leaves in winter and sort of go into hibernation, and hence are photosynthesising, why don't we run out of oxygen?

Why is it so many political isms are also art movements?

How good a first line is: "They were killing her father today."? I like it. I want to use it.

When will I ever have a chance to sleep normally ever again?

How cool a name is 'Manochehr Dorraj'?

It's amazing how much weight the threat: "I'll spank you" now seems to have when it falls from my lips. This is, I sense, not something to be bandied about, or it will lose its power. Fear is a beautiful thing.

This is seriously going to expose my geekdom, but I find this quiz far too funny to care. I especially liked the question about the golem. And answer D to it.

He was my kind of guy. Tall, lanky (skinny, even), dark oh-so-dark. Brooding. Intense. Talented. He was Paul Dempsey of Something for Kate and he was pouring out his soul on stage.

The concert was brilliant. Oh, didn't I mention I was going to see Something for Kate last night? Well, I was, I did, and they were brilliant. Rawly evocative. Soul-wrenching stuff. It's not even my sort of music - too alternative, not heavy enough - but it was exquisite. "Electricity" rocked my socks clean across the room. (Or rather, would have if not for the fact that I wasn't wearing any and the crowd was packed too tight for anything to be rocked anywhere.) Mr Dempsey's solo songs were heart-rending, when his band left him alone and vulnerable on the stage with just his guitar and a few hundred adoring fans.

He is, as A said, a very attractive man. Physically, but most of all emotionally, mentally. He has a beautiful soul. And I feel privileged to have peeked into it.

Backed up by Big Heavy Stuff and Adam Said Galore. When the music is loud enough, I can feel my jeans vibrate against my legs. I don't feel the music in my stomach any more, I feel it in my clothing.

"You ruined years - okay, months, weeks - of hard work! You corrupted my pet, and worst of all you spoiled my FUN!" Astra from X-Men #87 (Courtesy of the quotes page at X-Men Unlimited.)

Why do I have to live at an establishment so full of moronic wankers?

Last night proceeded from the sublime to the cor-blimey (or, alternatively, from the I Rock to the Fuck You). There was a Slave Auction after dinner, and having better ideas this year than moshing around the stage screaming: "Fuck you won't do what you tell me", we decided to take part. And so, J¹, myself, and the first year who had been assigned to us (not randomly, he was one of our friends) decided on a plan of action.

It was stunning, even if I do say so myself. From the top: Myself, dressed in the $5 pants (tiny hotpants of the red snakeskin variety), a tiny black top, tiger-stripe stockings and stiletto heels. I lead in, on a chain, the two boys, collared and wearing porn-star vests. We circle the room to thunderous and raucous applause and approval. Once upon the stage, we proceed to act out a little BDSM roleplay. I handcuffed our firstyear to a chair. I slapped J¹ around a bit. I spanked the first year while J¹ ran off to dance with audience members. And then I forced them to do push-ups until I kicked J¹ off the stage and stomped on the firstyear.

The audience didn't know what to think. Watching the terror dawn on some of the more mainstream faces was a very significant part of the fun. It was good.

We sold for $50. And then later did an encore for $150.

However, later that night, after I'd gone to bed, I hear the door alarm going off. And off, and off. I stumble out of bed, thinking that someone's broken the break glass again and I'm going to have to change it, seeing as I'm on duty and all. But I get down there, and what do I see? Some prime candidate standing there with his foot in the door and his hands over his ears as above him the alarm continues to peal.

"You want to close the fucking door?" I ask, incredulous.

"Huh?" he says, still with his hands over his ears - deafened and dead drunk.

"Look, close it, you fuckwit," I snap, and reach for it, intending to yank it shut and hopefully break his leg in the process. At that point two other delightful specimens run up the stairs, come inside the door, and close it behind them.

Fed up with the unbelievable stupidity of the people I live with, I went back to bed.

Reality does not stupidity negate.

I miss my Brute Squad; it has scattered to the four winds. J¹ is languishing in the attentions of a female I and sundry others believe unworthy of him. J² and R^y have escaped this tangled web, as have the others. I am a solitary queen.

C is fun to be around. Easy to interact with. On the surface, which is as far as we ever go. I am worshipped, but never known.

I can't decide whether this is a good thing, or a bad.

I just found my new favourite page. I'm going to be giggling about this one for a good thirty seconds yet.

The washing machine has been broken for the past two weeks, leaving us with two washing machines in this wing to service some 100 people. I'm running out of clean underwear. I'd better not be hit by a bus any time soon.

Today, I redesigned. You can't see it, though, because the fucking FTP still isn't fucking working because the fucking IT staff is too busy contemplating their own superficial cleverness to do something fucking useful and in their fucking job description.

Ahem. This has been the situation for some three or four months now. Hence the root of my annoyance.

Plus the IT guy gets on my nerves anyway. He's a smug, self-righteous bastard who thinks he's so terribly clever and well-informed. He might well be right about the latter parts, but while the former prevail, I will never admit it.

At the moment I'm contemplating how greatly he would be improved by, say, the surgical implantation of a flower pot where his head used to be.

He'd probably have better conversation then as well.

Shauny, I so do this too. Lace I will live with. I actually like it, because then you can show it off through a thin shirt to add that touch of goth-type class to any conservative ensemble, but bows? They gotta go, man. Can't be having with none of that.

Life is just so passe.

Something that stood out from last night's movie (the visceral Thirteen Days): At a table in a cafe, the beginnings of a back-channel deal are hacked out between a Russian spy and an American journalist. The spy leaves to talk to his government, and we see two other men at another table, just having coffee. And it blew my mind to think that people could be conducting their everyday lives while at the next table the world might just have been saved.

Oh. My. God.

I am rendered speechless. Incapable of coherent thought. For ten minutes after leaving the theatre, I could barely blink. As the credits rolled, and I came back to reality, I thought I was going to cry. Not because the ending was sad. Or that happy-make-me-cry sort. But because it had been so unbelievably gripping.

The movie - Thirteen Days - is the best piece of film I have ever seen.

If you don't know, the movie is about the Cuban missile crisis. I am a political science student. I know exactly what happened. And yet still I found myself wide-eyed, on the edge of my seat, praying that the most horrible thing of all - global nuclear war - could be averted. It was spot on the money. It was stunning. Exceptional Completely and utterly mind-blowing.

Why are you still reading? Go and watch it. Now!

This is history. This is what so very nearly happened. This is how close the world came to ceasing to exist. It should be compulsory viewing. For everyone who dares to study strategy or international relations or fucking deterrance theory. For everyone. Because we need to know. To stop it ever happening again.

C: Are you going to go as Domino to the Black and White Ball? Come on, you've got the leather pants and the attitude, the shirt would be easy to improvise, and then you just need the black dot of make-up. And a hair cut.

Me: And a Glock. I'll do it if you get me a Glock.
C: Will a replica do?

Me: No, I want the real thing.
K^L: What's a Glock?

Me: A gun.
The fear was palpable. K^L: You're going to give her a gun??

Three days before he was assassinated, Abraham Lincoln dreamt of his own funeral.

His press secretary had a bad feeling about the play outside which he was shot.

Kennedy's press secretary had a bad feeling about Dallas.

The moral of the story is: Listen to your press secretary.

Especially if you're a president elected in a year ending in 0. Because apparently all of them have been shot at. Look out Dubbya, you're next.

"Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants has the coolest film clip in the history of anything ever. Discuss.

One essay finished. One to go. Hell to be traversed wearing nothing but a fetching kimono and a pair of golf shoes. Nervous breakdown at 84 hours and counting. See you at the beach. (5 points because I'm going to be really impressed if anyone knows this one.)

Random quote of the day: "That's the only time I died; when I was an echidna."

Right, so, who the hell is this person, what is this program (I don't watch television, remember?) and why do I have referals from that page? It's all too much for this cynical little black duck, on the verge on a nervous breakdown from Confucius and neo-liberalism. Bugger it all.

"You are receiving this e-mail because you are a member of the webloggers webring and are a sexy little monkey."

Immediate reaction: Yay for me. Subsequent thought: Is this guy channelling J²? Or maybe R^y. It's so hard to tell, these days.

While cleaning out my inbox (it gets messy in there), some of the more interesting email subjects:

AhhhhhhhhChoooooooooo!

Re: Ha ha FUCKING ha!

Re: *sidles in, whistling innocently?*

The Amazing Compendium of Crap

Cash Bonanza (this was, incredibly, not spam)

Star Wars shit

why a fork brother, why not a knife... or an ice pick?

Sir yes sir

But i don't wanna repeat you! Waaaaah!

I can't believe I'm bothering.
A distressingly small list of interesting titles considering there are 250+ emails in my box. Honestly. My friends should do better. This is a far cry from the halcyon days of emails from J² with subjects such as: "If I see him again, I'll rip his tits off".

In the end, there is nothing I can do. I cannot change the mind of another. I cannot sort out the problems of my friends. I cannot even give advice that I know to be sound because there are so many variables. The people, their thoughts, their words, their actions. Most importantly, their emotions.

How much simpler it all seems on paper, or the pixelated screen.

Cheers and great rejoicing: plastersaint.net is up and working. And hosting, which might give me somewhere to flee when viscerate.com runs out and I have to hide because I can't afford to keep it going any more. I'd better make a decision about that soon, actually, since it runs out in June, I think.

Gulp.

Meanwhile, I'm still a little bit in freefall from that shock I got last night. Caught a little by words in email this morning, but merely slowed, not stopped. I'm hoping that by the time I have breakfast and a shower I will have my feet under me and be capable of writing that damn Confucianism essay today. I really need to, because I've got one on neo-liberalism due Tuesday that I haven't started yet. I'm coming the closest I've ever been to completely not getting an essay done, and it's scaring the crap out of me.

Dammit. I was motoring along. Everything was going to work out just fine. I was on track. It's amazing how a few lines from a person on the other side of the world who I barely even know can entirely derail my day. Now I am turning in small circles, put-putting in vain. Getting dizzy. About to fall over. And my plans for essay work (highly necessary, since I have two of the suckers due very shortly) are shot to hell.

Part of me wishes this sort of thing didn't happen to me. Or at least that I didn't react like this. Another part knows that it is impossible for it not to. Such is life, and me.

What is one to do when a blank warning box pops up? One of the standard Windows variety. Little purple status bar... with nothing in it. Little picture of a question mark... with nothing beside it. Two little buttons to click on... with no words on them.

I took a guess. I'll pick the one on the left for fifty bucks.

Hard to tell if I won or lost, really.

"Yuan Jang sat waiting for the Master in a sprawling position. The Master said, Those who when young show no respect to their elders achieve nothing worth mentioning when they grow up. And merely to live on, getting older and older, is to be a useless pest.

And he struck him across the shins with his stick."

Confucius, "The Analects", 14:46

I hadn't realised how much I'd missed J²'s presence in my life until it was returned to me. He and I are birds of a feather. We fit in an easy, natural way. Spending time with him is just simple. Not simple-like-breathing like A, but simple in a purely comfort and fun way. He's working in the university with a clown (long story). He's been hit by a car and escaped with merely bruises and a sense of his own indestructibleness (some people should never learn how to commando roll). He's loaning me books again, like Frank Herbert's Dune (a testimony to how much influence he has with me that I consider reading the book I long ago dismissed as sci-fi twaddle). Oh yes, and like Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls, which he declared the funniest thing he'd read in ages. Somehow I know that statement is going to offend the literary sensibilities of a lot of folk. Somehow, I also know I'm going to agree with him.

We're that sort of people.

Hey, dude, way cool! Anarchist Wombles! Yeah!

How on earth am I getting referrals from Angel and Cordelia fluff-smut?? I mean... buh?

I don't even like Angel. He annoys the hell out of me. And did from the first moment he depressingly moped onto the screen. Honestly, I just thought he was a wimp. Feeling sorry for yourself for a couple of centuries might show great endurance, but it's not something that's particularly going to turn me on.

"A gentleman is not a pot." - Confucius "The Analects", 2:12

Why do Sullies Swamp Hens (more mundanely known to the general public as 'moorhens' I believe) have a white butt? I mean, the rest of them is black, or blue, and they have this white tuft right on their posteriors underneath their (black) tailfeathers that looks like someone shoved a cockatoo up there or something.

Which might explain why there are so few cockatoos around these days...

Enjoying the small things...

...coming in out of the crisp morning, the best a Canberra autumn can provide, and running my fingers through my hair. It's cold, feeling like dead matter chilled over by the air. Like it is. But for some reason it's the most interesting sensation I've had in weeks. I'm sure my classmates think I'm insanely narcissistic, combing out my hair with warm fingers just to feel the plastic-slither of the strands across my knuckles.