All things must pass

I started reading 'Fear and loathing in las vegas' on Saturday, found out that he shot himself on Monday. I'm not going to start reading Dylan anytime soon...
I make no claim to have read much by the man, the stories I hear are fantastic though. He ran for a county police post on a legalising pot agenda, when he found out his opponent had a crewcut he had his hair shaved off completely. He then refered to him as 'my long-haired opponent'. Fear and loathing in las vegas doesnt strike me as anything amazing, its hard to tell when its so influentual..most journalists cite it/him as their reason for taking up writing.

On to happier things :
I have a passport. It makes me look like a miserable git but then there wasn't much I could do about that. A UK trapped Manning seeks foreign adventure, don't be suprised if the news reports find I've run away to Belgium.

I am 21! Slightly less exciting than Stav but a jolly time down the castle. Am now the proud owner of 'nice cup of tea and a sitdown' and 'scooby dance vol.1'.

Hooray! Laura Veirs will enrich my life with beautiful 'deadpan folk and eclectic musings', saw her in Newcastle years ago(2). I really like her music and she's even better live. To educate yourself click, I recommend bedroom eyes (but then don't I always?) If you're still excited, if not moist, then free your sun 6th march and make haste to Newcastle and find the place known as Allsaints church (I think it used to be st thomas').

For now dear muffketeers so long!
Careful now

Manning log-supplimental

Sorry about the previous post, sometimes a poorly thought out and structureless rant is needed.
Exciting and entirely important decisions of my life are needed in the next week, can't seem to gain the enthusiasm to give a decisive answer. Similarly for mr JMS, who ranted the other day about the demise of startrek and pleading to be given a go at making a proper trek, next day he retracted it claiming he agreed to do something else instead.
I hope you're excited by Alan Moore porn! That's right a reworking of peter pan but highly sexual, I'm intrigued if not a little moist. The rest of the article is probably worth reading...I only managed halfway before I had to swear at him (see if you can guess which bit!).

Other news in brief:
Stavros is 21! (You've never met him, pictures as I get them
There is no set of ordinals!
ODEs make very pretty pictures but are ultimately very dull!
3 is very close of infinity (official!)
If you don't listen to broadcasting house on R4 then you will never know true love or happiness (sorry, thats just how it is)

If things go well the next post will include muffins and scones!
Until next time, don't give me the weasseww!

Sideways

The chances are if you've been reading/listening to reviews then you've been assaulted by the waves of warm-and-fuzzies created by 'Sideways'. Two middle-aged men go on a weeklong tour of a wine region in America before one characters wedding. Yep loser comedy meets roadmovie (but not in space), both are failed something -actor and author. The author has a failed marriage and the actor is going to be married but wont give up picking up women. Our stooges set up, it's time to take them on the road. What follows is the moping of our writer and an introduction to wine-tasting, the jokes at this point establish why its so popular. The entire movie is a criticism of those who taste wine but don't know anything about wine and those who've never been to a wine tasting. Its almost an exclusive club and hands you the key to becoming a member, all you need to do is just say 'pinot noir' and nod sagely; try it at your next cocktail party. Our stooges strike upon a pair of ladies, our author has known one lady for years but she has been unachievable...until now! Alot more moping and we hit the extremely mediocre middle, entirely predictable plots occur for our charcters and our symapathies are manipulated. We're left wondering who the real loser is...well we would be if we hadn't already wondered this at the start. Who would have guessed that our dear author is like a wine before and the wines he owns serve as a metaphor for his life...*groan*
The truth of the film is that the entire piece is a cry for attention, middle league sitcom actors (yep, I recognised them!) acting in a low-budget film which has the potential to be big. This potential is the dinner party effect, people will recommend it as the must see lowbudget film. The thing is that although theres very little to endear it I actually enjoyed it. A mid-80s woody allen film, the jokes are good but he tries too hard to make a point, a point we don;t need and have heard before. The point is confused though, these arnt loveable losers, they're very annoying losers and Im not sure I could stand living around them as they continually go through these phases of self-discovery and relapse.
Worth watching for the comedy and a naked man chasing a car (always good)
Anyway see what you think but don't pay £6, I felt had.

chinese new year!

Hello dear blog and to a lesser extent my readers(luke and possibly now andrew).
Life has been dull of late but Friday night has been one of the best nights I've had in a while. Having been convinced to join the chinese-newyear-trust mailing list by a lady (rather an attractive one now I come to think about it), I twiddled my thumbs and waited for the emails to come...Who would have thought I'ld wait until January but wait I did.
When the aforementioned email arrived I lept at the chance of being a waiter ah the power over refills of water jugs and seconds of springrolls. As seems to be a running theme through my life it was a voluntary position but with all the spare noodles I could eat. Still waiting as I did many purchasings were had to make myself RESPECTABLE (and inadvertantly into a jewish tailor). My new highly stylish self was tried out today to great affect, people talked to me and no-one accused me of being odd -record?
The thing I don;t understand about the chinese, as lovely as they are, is why they need to have quite so many courses. I enjoy walking back and forth between the kitchen as much as the nextman but near enough 10-15 dishes is more than any man can take. Some of the plates almost burnt my hands to a crisp and I succeeded in dripping hot chicken juice down my trouser-leg (how I wish that was the first time I've ever said that). All this fun was had whilst trying to watch young girl tie herself in knots and then tie herself in knots whilst being held up in the air by older girl.
When did people become such bastards for charity? We had a number of bottles of wine for sale for £5 but try and explain this to people and you think you'ld just knife raped their only daughter! Its for chinese schools (thats what the whole sodding things about) but still they try to haggle with me, maybe £3 go on I've got a lovely smile..special discount. People then tried to steal wine after the meal was over... All of the wine had to be moved to the bar and be put under constant supervision. I was supposed to be able to eat any unclaimed meals but by the time the meal ended people screamed at us that we wernt immediately cleaning up whilst people were finishing off their tea. The tea whilst it was supposed to be green, whoever was in charge of buying industrial quantities hadn't turned up so someone ran to tescos to get 2 big bags of red label (I enjoy watching people shout at each other about who was responsible).
Dinner scraped off plates and put into three giant boxes the evening was ours to do with as we please. It seems our pleasure is defined as collapsing chairs then rolling giant tables into a fire escape, then stacking chairs into giant racks of chairs, then attempting to move these things without breaking our backs inorder to block another fire-escape. It was actually a lot of fun, far too much really. I was told to have a break but I was working at the bar instead with a list of cocktails I'd never heard of before, luckily they all seemed to involve pinapple juice in a cup...
I met a good number of people most of whom I'ld like to talk to again and even got offered a place on next years committee if I wanted it. I still think Nicks on to a winning plan by getting on the good side of the chinese now.
Evening wrapped up with excellent Jazz played and sung well, dancing whilst serving singing along to in the mood. An hour of tidyingup and shifting far, far to many boxes and watching a giant blackman come into the room every so often and grumble something about health and safety.
Cometh the 1am, cometh the thanks-slut's departure as we were all kicked out. It gets kind of embarrasing for everyone after the 4th time they've told you "you've been amazing, thanks ever so much". I admitted to them that quite frankly I'ld rather be tidying than listening to a bunch of besuited churchillians getting drunk and playing on dodgems at £40 a pop, they didn't seem to care.
Walking back from town I was dancing to the Bobby Darin in my head and everything was right with the world. I was eating 'pocket orange'-its been in my coat pocket for atleast 4 days with the intention of being breakfast. I passed a man whilst eating said Orange and wondered what the most suspicious fruit is, I don;t think its likely to be an Orange, a banana maybe but that could be used as a false nose for a disguise. Answers, muffenites, in comments plskthnx
News in brief:
Arthur Millar dead -yep, once married to Marilyn Monroe
Hans Christian Anderson, gay and virgin - OFFICIAL!
Catandgirl good - Cat's christian rock song :
'If you want to destroy my saviour
just pull this thread as I walk away
watch it unravel, I'll soon be naked
Dying on the cross! Dying on the cross!
God's only son!'
Lounge Nirvana : !!

Right, maybe its time to stop and stroke the weasel of sleep behind the ears, coax the oneiric badger out of the set of dormancy.
Until next time take your shoes off and THROW THEM IN THE LAAAYYKE!

Giant Robots!

Just got back from giant robot RPG, good laugh really. Games would be alot faster if people stopped trying to remember what anime/game the background music came from and general offtopic. Its a good bunch from CUCAS and I enjoy games evening; tonight after defeating lucifer, bear-mech and 2 other super characters last session we scavagened from their broken mechs and tried to infiltrate the base. The 'amnesiac angel princess', 'fairy knight vampire' and the 'pirate viking were-kitten' took crew uniforms and poked around the base; there was not much to be found but Zeng (evil overlord) had been testing alien tissue samples with mech parts! (cue dramatic music). At the same time the 'ghost pirate thief samurai' and the 'viking drunkard maniac' were looting the otherside of the base and smashing up important consoles and disguising themselves as a carpet monster.
There were not many clues to follow as to the whereabouts of zeng, so leaving his northpole base we travelled to Luxemburg only to find Tokyo tower had blasted off into space. How could this not lead to more mech confrontation at the sight of the tower? DE (the pogo-ing viking drunkard) leaped straight into the fray demolishing central Tokyo - much sadness and regret filled our angsty bodies. Continued fighting led to DE being ripped and his torso thrown into tokyo bay by a gold machine mounted elephant of justice. Talking gelephant (self styled captain of justice) down, explaining we were no threat and that Zeng had tricked him about his justice I thought it might be time for rest and investigation. No sooner had I thought that then cartheron had challenged him to a duel for the honour of his beloved mech-parrot cancarys. After acting out the duel we were called upon to mime the elephants legs trampling cartheron; never fear dear readers his ghostly status left him unharmed but his ancient samurai armour will probably be lost for all time. Sometimes for honour to be satisfied we must lose that which we hold precious to us, this is known to the Tao but it is not the true Tao.
If anyones that interested here is the place to go.
The rest of my life goes on as normal, if anyone really wants to hear about lyapunov stability or quasiasymptotic stability they can poke me on MSN. Until then dear muffinites keep watching the skies!

Not molesting children!

Ah web-presence, hear the story of my day. Today, unlike most days, has been filled with much running around. The waking (8:00), then the groan and going back to sleep then 'waking 2: the wakening' (8:50) led briliantly to going to lectures in time for lecture start (oscar nomination for myself with the lecturer gaining well-earned best supporting actor nomination). I love living 5 mins from the lecture theatre, I've only missed 2 lectures due to being away.
Later after lunch of market orange and a handful of dried apricots. I rush like a bitch to the citi-4 bus. I need to get to long road, not knowing where this was did not hinder me - oh no, or not knowing the stop to get off at. Here follows an afternoon of not molesting children (well sixth form students) and ultra-mathsing. I impress myself with my ability to do step papers and help with classroom teaching, not that they cared!
Imagine if you will 4:20 - the citi-4 bus back! The bus of jolly worker types humming their jolly worker tunes as every fucker in Cambridge blocks the one way system and we can't move. This doubles the journey to 30-40 mins and a snubbing by mr kelby, I would prefer very-loud-compsci-girl company too. Don't read irony into this, I mean what I say plus I gained a shiny 5p from bus seat!
Sitting in my room for an hour I get my daily LOL. Internet has the amazing power to both sooth and enrage! Re: enrage.....DOOM!! why the living-fuck would you make a doom movie? It doesnt have hell in it...why call it doom? RAGE! stan lee levels of shirt ripping rage!
Then dojo noodle eating...oh the tasty! pad phak thai (37A) mighty! How could you round off such an evening? why watching people play 'Gitaroo man' and reading baron munchausen. That is ofcourse until i spotted a DVD. 'A crazy man with super kung-fu' this movie had to be seen. It can only be described as a carry on film mixed with scenes of kill bill. AN origianl cantonese film is dubbed over by a cast of presumably 3 actors one one being a woman with very indeterminate accent. The kung-fu starting very well but descending to the down right insane as 1 in 20 moves actually connects and they seem to have 2 sound effects. A loose plot gives way to insanity and in the end the secret is to think like bean curd, true wisdom we should live our lives by. If we're all lucky I might have a copy to show by the end of term.
What more is there? A news in brief:
G K Chesterton - amusing author
Michael Howard - Jewish (I didn't know)
Look around you (not bad but with the same britcom faces)
Kate Bush - Fantastic
Fi Glover - Good thing

Till next post, take care!