Here’s a quick pop-quiz:

WHO IS SCARIER?

Hint: It ain’t Subject A.

As is becoming habit, The Rock Star and I spent a lot of time this weekend in noisy and smoky pubs. Friday, Saturday and Sunday it was the Rock Star making the majority of the noise, but yesterday evening, we ventured into London to take in some aural trauma at the Oh! Bar in Camden where The Little Monkeys were making their London debut along with some local groups with notorious monikers such as King Lizard.

Sitting in the middle of a sea of hair, chains and purple leopard-print spandex (that was obviously a way of life rather than a moment of madness) I had some time to think about books and covers and so forth. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve noticed a distinct lack of metal-heads in town centres where violence seems to be the norm on Saturday nights or indeed, in any pub over the past year and a half where I felt that my person was in danger of being groped or mistakenly knuckled in a brawl. The conclusion…the world probably could use a few more hairy rockers. Leather pants and eyeliner for everyone!

The Rock Star and I felt vaguely out of place. I think we may be two people who might have to learn to appreciate the fact that we will never be dark, mysterious or in any way frightening, not matter how many tattoos we jointly own, but it was fun to be in the midst of so many people who were. Both of us also suffered from major hair envy; amongst the throng were many barnets that we jointly coveted.

The Little Monkeys and their hairy brethren did indeed perpetrate mighty acts of head-melting rawk upon the dark masses that gathered and lo, it was good.

And not at all scary.

Except maybe for this guy.

I’ve not exactly been chatty kathy this week, but I suppose that’s just the way it goes in the blogsphere. It’s been more of a “Went to dinner. It was fun.” kind of 7 days rather than a “From the moment I woke up, I knew it was going to be an interesting 24 hours. Mostly due to the 6 foot clown standing over me.” sort of caper. Some weeks, you become the happen-er rather than the happen-ee.

Everybody have a good Bank Holiday/Labor Day weekend. If you’re travelling, go safely. If you’re not, don’t spend too much time in front of the TV, it’ll rot your brain.

Meet me back here on Tuesday for more happenings.

Put this in the Death of Common Sense file.

So this grossly obese woman goes to her doctors complaining of medical problems related to her obesity. Unsurprisingly, the doctor INFORMS her that her problems are related to the fact that she weighs roughly the same as a Ford Explorer and that maybe, if she’d like these problems to cease and desist, she might just want to lay off the peanut butter and Mars bar sandwiches or she was headed for a premature dirt nap.

Does this woman take his advice, which makes sense, as her general practitioner has just told her to lose weight or DIE?

You wish. Instead, she lodges a formal complaint about him to the New Hampshire Medical Board saying that he “hurt her feelings.” Not only that, but the doctor had to apologise to Flabzilla in writing. FOR TELLING HER THAT HER LIFE WAS IN DANGER.

What do you do when the lunatics begin running the asylum?

I’ve been having a data clearout today. I’ve moved computers at least twice since I last did so and have obviously been transporting the silliest rubbish to each new, electronic home. So today, I’m doing the equivalent of throwing out the broken blender, the chintz arm chair and those yellowing stacks of newspapers that you convinced yourself were going to be worth something someday.

Along the way, I’ve encountered some of my old creative writing and have discovered something; it’s deeply embarrassing. Like porn written by your mother based on her own personal experiences. Some passages make you want to turn your face from the monitor in shame at their clichés, poor phraseology or naiveté. I feel obligated to make myself look, however, for we never learn but from our own gut-burning embarrassment.

I have found some pieces, however that don’t fill me with the urge to set light to myself. 4 years ago, I started writing a story about a midlife crisis, a few ghosts, a little bit of romance and a small village in Ireland, which, by the way, I have never visited, so I’m not entirely sure how I believed I was going to tackle that one. My worst problem is a writer is not being able to see a story through to the finish. This morning, on Radio 4, John Irving (author of one of my favourite books of all time, “A Prayer For Owen Meaney” as well as about 16 other books with roughly the same plotline) was talking about how he always wrote backwards, working out the endings first. Endings, however, are NOT my problem. Nor are beginnings. It’s all the crap in the middle that I seem to be incapable of sorting out.

So I’m looking at this story and the background that I’ve constructed for it, which, I might add, it far better thought out than the story itself. I’ve actually got almost 9 sections finished without making any of the inhabitants of the village into the protagonist from the Lucky Charms commercial. But literally, right in the middle of a sentence, the story ends abruptly and I found myself terrifically frustrated because I WANTED TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS. Too bad for me.

The problem with writing a story that includes romance is that it inevitably leads to having to write about sex, which might just lead to my death due to extreme mortification. Even if no one else ever saw my attempts at mildly erotic fiction, it might just be enough to kill me that it existed. I have a certain friend who is extremely adept at this sort of writing (as well as all other sorts) and I have attempted to take a page out of her notebook, but I have discovered that a) she probably has a better imagination than me and b) a much higher tolerance for embarrassment, although there is little to be embarrassed about in her writings, which are both eloquent AND erotic. I even checked out (while The Rock Star was away one evening) an erotic fiction site in hope of finding some examples, but found the place almost entirely devoted to incest fiction, so I beat a hasty retreat.

So I need to work out what happens between my beginning and my happy ending.

A little metaphor, anyone?

The M4 stretches out before us like the long slog through the week ahead. The Rock Star is listening to Poison’s Native Tongue to maintain enough of a grip on consciousness to keep this vehicle on the road. According to our tom tom, we’re still 75 miles from the M25 and all I really want is a cup of tea. It’s been a long two days.

The Rock Star has the constitution of a rhinoceros; lurgy and other things that are “just going around” tend to bounce off of his toughened hide like so many pestilential ping pong balls. But when one does get through, he goes down harder than King Kong from the top of the Empire State Building. Friday was one of those occasions. He woke up feeling fine and by early afternoon he was doing his best shivering-puddle-in-the-middle-of-the-bed impression causing him to miss a Mis-spelled Band gig. He instead stayed home, being plied with tea and we watched “House of Flying Daggers” in which there is much gorgeous cinematography and people sitting on horseback being indecisive, but not much else. We also discovered the daddy of all ice-cream flavours; Ben and Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie. The memory of it still makes me quite emotional.

Saturday morning dawned like the proverbial new day. The Rock Star seemed to be feeling better, which was just as well as we had a rather long drive down to Somerset where The Mis-spelled Band was playing a wedding. The Cheerful Idiot, in a stunning display of loyalty, had pledged the band’s services, at a discount, to an old mate from school but rather forgot to ask where the event was being held. Henceforth, the long drive.

Unfortunately, half way to our destination, aforementioned lurgy awoke with a vengeance, having forgotten to set it’s alarm clock and got to work with a vengeance, rendering the Rock Star very unhappy. Upon our arrival at the picturesque Shapwick House, he collapsed upon a bench under a shady tree and tried to forget that he was alive for a few minutes until the van containing all of the equipment showed up 20 minutes later.

The reception itself was nice. I inevitably attempt to make myself invisible, which is probably unnecessary, but conspicuousness is not in my nature. (which is probably why I failed at the whole performance thing) Where better to blend in than in a room full of people who don’t know eachother? No one, including the bride or groom, even thinks to ask who you are as it’s assumed that you’re the partner of one of the guests. Crashing weddings (although I was actually invited to this one) would be a piece of piss.

These particular nuptials shared very little of the chaos of the ones of the previous weekends. No standing on tables, no vodka loge, and in general, an older crowd full of dotty relatives rather than drinking buddies. The only amusement of the evening came from the fact that the groom had elected to wear an entirely white morning suit and due to his extreme lack of hair, drew some comparisons to Dr. Evil. I also encountered the mandatory mad auntie that told me that I looked like the bride. I could see her point. We looked remarkably similar except for the bride’s dark complexion, heavy build and at least a foot and a half in height difference.

Thankfully, we had booked a room at a nearby Holiday Inn so after the festivities; we were pleased to have a nearby bed to crash into. £90 was rather a lot to fork out, but with the way The Rock Star was feeling by the end of the gig, I think he would have paid twice that just to be able to curl up and sleep in the wedding marquee undisturbed. Plus, we got a shower that could output roughly the entire annual rainfall of the Amazon and that, in itself was worth paying for. We also got a really decent spread at breakfast and discovered Tetley’s amazing new self squeezing tea-bag, The Drawstring, which really made our morning. Any technological developments in the field of expedited tea-delivery are alright with me.

Being in Somerset, it would have been rude not to pop in to see The Rock Star’s nan, who lives in a little cottage in a lovely village called Roadwater. (Very Little Red Riding Hood. Although, if a Big Bad Wolf showed up at The Rock Star’s nan’s house, she’d probably tell him to piss off. She’s a tough old broad) Nan was well, having a fish supper and watching telly, so we had a nice chat, lots of tea, some ginger cake and a generally nan-ish kind of time before we headed out to see if we couldn’t find something pretty to sit in front of for a few hours.

The sea (or The Bristol Channel, anyhow) wasn’t too far away, so we went to look at that, which was very brown and very far away, as it turned out (low tide) and yet, somehow all of the merry makers on the beach were still behaving as if they were at The Med. The British are born to make the best of a windy mudflat. Although the crash of the surf was not to be heard, we did enjoy the nice air and some amusement at the expense of those who were attempting to fly trick kites only to have them spiral out of the sky and hit the ground with a rustly crunch.

The Rock Star particularly enjoyed the old stream railroad with the beautiful old locomotive that chuff-chuffed gently through the countryside; a bit of a boy-thing, but nice nonetheless. A much more civilized mode of transportation than the diesel juggernauts that shake our boat at all hours of the day and night.

After a cup of tea and Cornish ice cream, we decided we could no longer put off the inevitable; we had to brave the roads and get home. Holiday traffic in South is legendary and we could only imagine what horrors awaited us around Bristol, where traffic often comes to a complete stand still. But, touch dashboard, we’re moving along at a good pace and hope to be home in a few hours.

A weary Potamus, over and out.

Hey it’s official; I’m a t-shirt.

V. excited to receive my Blogapotamus shirts in the post this morning. Nice quality and everything, so if anyone’s thinking about doing the Spreadshirt thing, it comes highly recommended!

Alkelda brought this piece to my attention. First, I want to say that I’m down with internet gaming, but I don’t do it myself. I have a vaguely addictive, creative personality and I know better than to get involved, especially if I get to design my own purple, flying, mechanical unicorn.

Second Life is an on-line virtual gaming community that seems to be part D&D, part Snowcrash and part Monty Python. For example, this was a screenshot taken several hours ago in one of the game’s 12,000 virtual acres. It seems to show one character taking a projectile dump on another, who seems more interested in reading a virtual magazine on the grass than worrying about how she’s going to get the stains out of her blouse. There also seems to be what looks like a mutant horse, partially buried in the sand. I don’t know if I could survive in an environment where things like this regularly occurred. Real life is totally weird enough for me.

The interesting thing about this game is the vast upsurge in in-game businesses; real companies that make real money selling real services to imaginary people. Like that guy a few years ago who paid 5 figures in cold hard cash for a virtual island within the game. He is now making twice that in rent from other virtual consumers. Let’s face it, our kids are never going to think that’s anything out of the ordinary, but to me, paying real money for virtual services makes me think that someone out there is laughing their ass off. I still have to grit my teeth when renewing my domain names.

The business described in the Times article is a virtual detective agency who investigate virtual adultery. Concerned that your other half is spending a lot of time in his or her Second Life? Worried that Princess Astral of the Kingdom of Feyador or Gladthar the Mighty might not be as concerned about their wedding vows as Susan and Harry? That’s where Mac’s Detective Agency comes in.

The part I found the most amusing is that when the “Honey Trap” is sprung, because of the virtual nature of the game, the aggrieved partner’s avatar can be transported directly to the scene of the virtual flangrante delicto. Talk about being virtually embarrassed. Couples within the game who are “married” have been flocking to this service to make sure that their virtual loved ones are not out contracting virtual diseases from virtually every other person in the city. Does all of this strike anyone else as just a little bit strange or am I falling behind the times?

Evelyn Rodriguez, a rather talented “generalist synthesist” blogger, quotes Steve Jobs from a commencement speech at Stanford this year. Jobs says: #

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

This is the crux of the argument for me, personally.

Last night, due to the sweet psiren song of Orange Wednesdays, The Rock Star and I took in The Island; a film we wouldn’t normally have gone to see in the theatre were we not getting 2 for 1. In hindsight, it’s not a film we would have even RENTED.

My biggest pet peeve was not the botched script. Nor was it exceedingly bland performances from two actors I know to be capable of better. Nor was it the monstrous length. Nor was it even the reliance on huge explosions to make up for the aforementioned botched script. It was instead the hugely blatant use of advertising.

If I’m in the mood to watch a 90 minute long commercial, I’ll tune into the Home Shopping Network. If a filmmaker believes that I don’t know an ad for a Mercedes when I see one, they have another thing coming.

Some films have made the product placements work. I, Robot managed to sneak one in for Converse when Will Smith’s character picks up a “Vintage 2004” pair on-line. It blends into the script and gives it a little historical placement. Minority Report was blanketed in advertising but it all worked as it gave the impression of a society that was completely saturated with targeted marketing.

The Island employed Wayne’s World style piss-take product placement. To illustrate my point, I have put together a little visual aid.

If my blog had the same sort of corporate sponsorship as “The Island”, this is what it would look like.

And those are only the logos that showed up on the screen bigger than life. There might have been subliminal ones that managed to worm their way into my subconscious, but I’ve sent out my little Brain Manipulation Rangers™ who will be hunting them down without mercy.

Procrastination is a terrible thing. I like to think that I don’t engage in it all that often, but I have a shameful secret. Something I’ve been trying to forget about for the last 6 years…taking my driving test.

I first came into possession of a driver’s license when I was 15; an age, some might say, that most teenagers are not capable of being responsible for a hamster, let alone a ton of steel that’ll do around about 120. The day previous to me receiving my learner’s permit, I rolled my parent’s brand new car down the driveway and crashed it into a fence so I was rather expecting to be locked in the basement rather than given an opportunity to get behind the wheel.

My father did most of the teaching, at my request. I love my mother, but she made me distinctly nervous. It’s a family trait: HER mother (the first woman with a driver’s license in the small town she lived in and the basis for just about every assumption that people make about women drivers) taught her how to drive and was responsible for many of her early accidents. (i.e. shouting at my mother not to run into a tree and startling her enough that she ran into a tree) My mom and I share nervousness as a trait, so the two of us in a car being controlled by me was a bad equation. My father is a calmer soul and took on the task instead.

At 16, I took my test. Those of you in the UK will be astonished to learn that I didn’t ONCE venture onto any public road during the examination; the Frederick, Maryland DMV constructed a special closed course on which nervous teenagers could have the fate of their social lives decided by an examiner, who, incidentally, was a Maryland State Trooper complete with uniform and gun. I passed. The gun helped.

When I moved to the UK in 1999 shortly before The Rock Star and I got married, I discovered, to my chagrin that US citizens arriving in the country are welcome to drive under the umbrella of their American licenses for a period of 1 year, but AFTER that, are required to secure a UK license.

Let me lay this out for you: I am allowed to drive for 1 year during which time I could be committing all kind of traffic related felonies, using children and senior citizens as speed bumps, etc, but after a YEAR of practice, during which time, my driving will have significantly IMPROVED, THEN I am no longer deemed capable of operating a car. To burn my biscuits further, I also discovered that CANADIANS are exempt from this bit of vehicular fuckwittery. JUST BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T CHAFE UNDER THE YOKE OF THEIR OPPRESSORS.

But back to our story in progress. The Rock Star has been teaching me to drive for the past 6 years. To be more accurate, The Rock Star has been trying to teach me how to pass the test for 6 years. Driving is not the problem. The difficulty seems to be a ludicrously easy-to-fail examination conducted by bitter sociopaths, but that’s just my experience. I am little comforted by the claims of all of the drivers around me that they’d never pass the test if asked to take it tomorrow. It is I who must face, once again, the cold reality of examination.

My first attempt was doomed to failure from the start. Not only did I forget the mandatory examiner’s mirror, but I also spectacularly failed to locate the hood release and the horn. In my own defence, the horn was in fact located on the end of the turn signal arm, which is not where I would normally look for it, but it made me look like a right prat from the get-go. I was so flustered, I ran into a curb which completely ended my chances of a “pass”.

My second attempt, however, still leaves me with the bitter taste of bile in my mouth. My examiner, a frumpy, unfriendly middle aged woman took it upon herself to fail me for signalling briefly to navigate around a line of parked cars, which I had always been taught to do.

“It no doubt confused motorists behind you,” she said nastily, “they probably thought you were turning right.”

“Um…but there was no road on the right to turn onto,” I replied, “Just a row of terraced cottages.”

“It was dangerous,” she reiterated.

In the burning black pit of my soul, I wished at that moment that she would be devoured alive by fire ants.

This was over a year ago, now. Since then, I’ve actually had to retake the theory test, which now includes a fun-filled “virtual reality” section. Mercifully, I DID pass that, but I have yet to book another test. My trusty Ford “Fiasco” is currently sucking down volts on a deep charge in my in-laws driveway after a spectacular failure to start yesterday evening.

Will our heroine ever get back on the road? Watch this space for the continuing adventures of DSA Girl…

A purple version of the All Knowing Ball arrived on our doorstep just as the Rock Star and I were heading out to this weekend’s wedding festivities, so naturally, I delayed us long enough to cut open the packaging that would survive a nuclear holocaust to get at the shiny toy inside. I also accidentally cut the instructions in half, but luckily, this little gadget seems pretty intuitive, being in possession of only 4 buttons that read, “Yes”, “No”, “Sometimes” and “Unknown”.

The first game we played, we decided to go easy on the ball. We chose to try to make it guess “elephant” which it did, leaving both of us rather speechless. Obviously, the questions the ball asks mean more to it that they did to us, because try as we might, we couldn’t see how it could have gotten “elephant” from the questions that it plied us with. Not only did it guess correctly, but every 5 questions or so it would issue sarcastic comments like, “This is too easy!” or “You think you’re being tricky?”

So, for the second game we decided to give the taunting ball a challenge and test its metal with specifics. The Rock Star suggested “Stonehenge”. To be fair to the ball, I can imagine there’s only so much room in its little database and it can’t really be having with proper nouns on top of everything else. It’s answer turned out to be “A mountain” which was kind of along the same lines, but not quite close enough, and we revelled in our cleverness at having outsmarted a small piece of plastic and electrical connections.

For your amusement, here is an example of a game that I played with it just now which the answer being, “A hippopotamus”

Is it…Animal? Vegetable? Mineral
Animal

Is it small?
No

Is it dangerous?
Sometimes (When the Rock Star went to South Africa as a teenager, he learned that hippos and crocodiles had a racket going on where the hippos would capsize a boat and then the crocs would come and clean up the mess.

Does it have short fur?
No

Is it smooth?
Yes

Does it live in groups?
Yes

Does it have legs?
Yes

Does it help accomplish a task?
No (Unless they are specially trained, hippos are usually complete rubbish at accomplishing tasks. Like doing your taxes and things. Best leave that to crocodiles.)

Does it have four legs?
Yes

Taunt: Hmmmm….Are you trying to confuse me?

Does it have a long tail?
No

Does it have fur?
No

Is it a mammal?
Yes

Does it come in many varieties?
No

Can it swim?
Yes

Is it an herbivore?
Yes

Taunt: I can’t believe you’re thinking of that!

Can it run fast?
No

Does it live in water?
Sometimes

Does it bring joy to people?
Sometimes (It all depends how excited you are about hippos, I guess.)

Is it soft?
No

Is it involved in movies?
No (Not any more, anyhow. They had terrible problems with drink and drugs and are now drying out at a rehab centre in Arizona.)

Taunt: I’m thinking. You can do better!

You’re thinking of…a hippopotamus?
Yes, you fucking smartypants ball, I am. And I’d lose the attitude unless you want your next challenge to be trying to guess which electronic graveyard you’ll be consigned to when I tire of your divinatory antics.