So I sent KS two CDs

...and this fellow and Oricon Allin wondered why I did that. Reasonable question, deserving an answer.
I did it because in the case of Rocky III, I already had the thing on cassette (I bought it reduced) - Zeta once told me re OSTs "you have at least 2000 and the possibility of duplication cannot be ruled out!" While I don't think I've got that many - yet - the possibility of duplication is another matter, and in some cases welcome if it's an expanded release (I've doubled up on Silverado, all three Rambo movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Total Recall for just such a reason) or if the OST is a song album with a score track and there's a separate score album (like The Iron Giant). Except that Rocky III has neither, and since I don't believe in buying a CD of something I already have in another format for any other reason...
In the case of the Basil Poledouris CD, it was because I found out from a very reliable source that it was a bootleg. A very convincing bootleg, admittedly, but still a bootleg. And supporting bootlegs, as the divine Miss O puts it, is not how I roll. If it had been the genuine article, I'd still have the disc because I love the music (especially since A Whale For The Killing is the only one of the three that I don't have on my tapes somewhere).
I'm glad he likes them. Now if only I'd brought Lonesome Dove or Red Dawn with me to play.

At last, at last...

She was a black hole on Diff'rent Strokes and Fame. Though not Good Times, strangely enough.
She steadfastly refused to ever make a decent record for years and years. And years.
She had producers who bashed my homegirl Paula Abdul.
She made videos that all looked the same.
She starred in a movie that was shelved for two years before getting released in Britain (Poetic Justice).
She also starred in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.
She took part in that Superbowl attention-getter with He Who Shall Never Be Mentioned On This Blog Again. Ever.
She teased and teased for years, and got all pissy about that video.
She made me feel guilty for lusting after her ass, more than any other female celeb over the age of consent.
She did even more damage to "Big Yellow Taxi" than Amy Grant.
She had beauty marks on her face. Not real ones (Cindy, Mariah, Jessica etc), the make-up applied variety.
She is Janet Damita Jackson, and payback's a bitch when Mother Nature's your banker.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the chancellor.

Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer) has been pushing for a yearly celebration of Britishness - a British Day - since the UK has no annual day of self-glorification the way other countries do. Not everybody agrees with him, and I go with not everybody.
First off, the main reason for such national days is to celebrate some kind of shift in the country's status - the French have Bastille Day in the wake of the Revolution; the Americans have Independence Day to commemorate being the first of the former British colonies to strike out on their own; but Britain has neither had a massive commoners-routing-those-born-to-the-purple thing nor broken free from some overseas overlord, hence they've never felt the need to celebrate being free. Employers don't throw a party to celebrate being away from someone under them (unless you know better).
(This may also explain why the French have the world's most rousing National Anthem, and the Americans also have a ditty that's fun to sing, whereas we're stuck with a fucking dirge.)
Secondly, one of my least fond memories of living in Barbados is Independence Day every year. All the stores shut, emphatically local music on radio, only locally produced shows on TV (although they did eventually put a stop to that - Zeta once claimed that Canadian TV is the worst in the world. She obviously repressed memories of CBC Channel 8), and rampant flagwaving. Two of my least favourite things in the world are overt displays of UK patriotism and parades (I have to say UK patriotism because when you get people complaining about the US variety and gleefully participating in the UK brand...). We're likely to get both of these in spades if this thing goes through, which'll be great for Middle Englanders. But I live in the South.
Oh yeah, and I hate the Barbadian National Anthem as well. Makes "God Save The Queen" seem like Jerry Goldsmith at his most rousing.

A borrowed life.

The otherwise appalling version of The Amityville Horror that came out last year had a nice turn from Rachel Nichols (in between killing The Inside and Alias) as the world's worst babysitter; inappropriate clothes, telling gruesome stories... "I suck at babysitting" indeed. And I suck at living.

I've always been good at one thing - being lucky in the long term, when I don't deserve it. Sharon told me once that my M.O. was to sit there waiting for something to happen, and she was right. Most of my clothes? Bought for me. My job at Ashurst? My aunt told me about it down at the Jobcentre. My getting to come back here for good? Mum talked Sharon into it, and she and Zeta had to move out of their comfortable and affordable place in Willesden to get a bigger place just to make room for me. Even the place I live in now had its rent basically paid by my sisters at least twice.

This should not be so. It never should have been.

I don't deserve it. I'm lucky I'm surrounded by people who either basically like me (at work) or who care for me (in my family circle) but what do I ever do for them? I take all the damn time, but I hardly ever give. Most of what's in my life isn't really mine; I want to be able to be there for my family, the way they're there for me. I want to stop feeling like a damn sponge. True, I've never been arrested and I don't set out to hurt anybody, but...

Look, when I was younger I used to feel sorry for my Mum when the rest of us used to go out and leave her at home by herself; I wanted her to be happier. Now she essentially is happier, and I'm not. Which is better than us all being unhappy, but...

I don't like to ask for help with money. I don't like to worry about what a failure a lot of my life's been. I don't like feeling like my life hasn't been my own.

And yet, if I was going to end it all I probably would have by now. I can still make it, but I have to pretend that no one'll be around to save me. Because I know one day they won't be.

Hell of a way to start a Monday.

Yes, I did see those service station pics.

And I don't care. At all.

I wanna go home. Now.

So I stayed overnight at Sharon's place, and slept in the front room. Which wasn't warm enough that night, which tied in with it being standard January weather means I want to be at home in my nice warm bedsit, sipping a Lemsip and listening to my two-CD Lost in Space or anything else that arrived for me yesterday (and why the landlord or his assistant didn't give me the package on Saturday I will never know), instead of being here at DMWorks typing this out with the air conditioner going. In winter.

I'm dripping, and snuffling. I want to go home. Actually, I think I will around noon. (And thanks to Sharon for the oranges, pills etc... bless.)

Why do they have to be the same?

As I write this, Mum and Sharon are watching Shrek 2 (for the first time and yet again respectively). I have yet to see it, and I don't plan to. Probably blasphemy in my family (both Sharon and Zeta luuurve it and the first one), but it's for the following reasons. (Hey, roll with it; it fills up space. Plus when DreamWorks extends their string of Animated Movies That Aren't As Good As Pixar's with Shrek 3, it'll still be on-topic.)

1. The presence of Jennifer Saunders. Jennifer Fucking Saunders. Jennifer "I Am Never, Ever, EVER Funny" Saunders.
2.The first movie didn't really do anything that Rocky & Bullwinkle's "Fractured Fairy Tales" couldn't have accomplished in about five minutes and sans expensive computer animation.
3.In The World According To Mike Myers, everything has to bow to his will. This is not only in keeping with why Fiona changes to look like Shrek, but also the only possible explanation for The Cat In The Hat.
4. The above also ties in with what bothers me most about the movie; just as Beauty and the Beast (an animated movie that, unlike Shrek, I've seen more than once) could only have been better if the Beast had remained a beast, it's always seemed not that far from body fascism to me that ugliness = goodness and the obvious vice versa. Imagine if it was... well, you know. Shrek ugly and Fiona lovely, or Shrek handsome and Fiona ugly... wouldn't that have gotten the idea across a bit better?

Hm. I guess I am shallow. SFW.

And all those pop culture references are gonna date it the way Toy Story and its sequel won't be.

The weekend!

And not only have I finally made some progress on my long-in-abeyance current work (with thanks to Jennifer for her technical advice), but Charmed starts the return of my shows for the New Year. So you know where to find me for the next 21 Thursdays (or Saturdays). Of course, stuff I'm waiting to come in the post (birthday- and CD-related) still hasn't shown up as of yesterday, but those are the breaks.

Shame about Big Brother. And my workmates. But those are also the breaks.

How'd you see in the New Year?

I was asleep. I wanted to be awake, watching something on cable.

Instead I was asleep. (Until fireworks woke me up.) Got to talk to all my family, though. And so I saw in 2006. With nobody.

Don't cry for me, just comment on what you did. And who you did it with. :)

36, going on... 25? Or 47?

Not one of the worse birthdays.

On the downside, it rained a lot, I'm worrying about rent again, and I didn't hear from Dad.

On the upside:
The Onion Vol. 16, a desk calendar of said brilliant American satirical organ and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on DVD from Zeta.
Honey on DVD and toiletries from Sharon.
Comfy shirts from Mum.
And my cable reconnected from NTL.

So it's a step forward. Happy New Year, y'all, and give me the strength not to get any more diabetes-induced headaches.