rem

picked up a double cd plus dvd of rem's early years

they used to be good. certainly, they werer just coming to fruition when i went flatting and i had all of their albums. i was listening to fables of the recconsruction when i heard granddad had died

rem and the smiths. every time i hear them it brings back all sorts of memories, not all of them good

across the universe

on paper, this sounds like a bad idea. a musical based on the songs of the beatles? i mean it's been done before-i've always wanted to see sgt peppers lonely hearts club band, generally regarded as one the worst movies ever made wherein peter frampton and the bee gees save the world from (if memory serves) aerosmith

but i'd heard some good things about across the universe so on a damp sunday, i tuned in and....

well, visually its stunning. julie taymor is an underated director. i remember seeing her version of titus (andronicus) a few years back and being knocked out by it

i was surprised to see that the screenplay was by dick clement and ian la frenais. it didn't seem to have any of there ususal with or warmth

and the beatles knew how to write a good tune or two (i still prefer ray davies though)

but bono is not an actor (worst cameo ever?)

after about half an hour, i stopped trying to make sense of it all and just let the film wash over me, enjoying the tunes and spotting the beatles references.

all in all, not a bad film for a low blood pressure post-dialysis wet sunday afternoon

and i think i'd like to see it again at some point

inevitable

LOS ANGELES - An openly gay teen has been voted prom queen at his Los Angeles high school in a campaign that began as a stunt but ended up spurring discussion on the campus about gender roles and popularity.

Sergio Garcia said he felt "invincible" when he was crowned queen of the Fairfax High School dance at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Prom is a formal spring dance that is a tradition for American high schools.

Days before the dance, Garcia told fellow students that he was "not your typical prom queen candidate. There's more to me than meets the eye".

He also promised that he would be wearing a suit on prom night, but "don't be fooled: Deep down, I am a queen."

And he made good of that promise on Saturday, wearing a grey tuxedo topped off with the prized tiara.

Garcia, 18, said he saw fliers advertising the prom and the election but they didn't specify that the queen must be female. He thought the role would suit him better than prom king.

"I don't wish to be a girl," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I just wish to be myself."

Senior class president Vanessa Lo said she and other students were initially against the idea but became convinced he wasn't just an attention-seeking clown.

"It just goes to show how open-minded our class is," Lo said.

Unique Payne, 17, said she voted for Garcia because she supported the gay community.

Although many students were supportive of Garcia's run, others were upset and didn't understand why Garcia chose to run for prom queen.

"I'm not really happy about that," said 17-year-old Juan Espinoza. "He should've run for prom king."

- AP

and i agree with jan espinoza

when i first read this, i thought it was mildly amusing, but on reading it again, i started to think

the fact that he ran for prom queen comes across as a bit of a joke, especially as he says that he doesn't want to be a woman. fair enough, but i think it would have made more of a point if he had gone dor, and won prom king. if elected that would have shown that his fellow students accepted him for who he was-a gay male

n.b. did you notice the name of one of the students? unique payne. i wonder if she has a sister

who needs a comment section

one of my go-to blogs is the dim post. its often a standard political blog, but from time to time danyl indulgences in sharp and very funny satire.

if you've read blogs regularly, you'll notice the real battles take place in the comments section.

in this post, danyl shows that you can do without a comments section at all

the wire season one

just finished watching this and can i say-brilliant

i meant to ration it out-one episode a week-nut as the show reached its climax i couldn't help myself and watched the final two in one session

i've even been ear-wormed by the theme song (tom wait's song "way down in the hole" performed by the blind boys of alabama)

admittedly i had to watch it with the sub titles on because of the slang used and the the fact that some of the actors mumbled

i was a big fan of homicide: life on the street, which was sourced from the same writer (david simon) and same situation (crime in baltimore) but the wire takes it to a whole new level. because it was made by hbo, rather than nbc as homicide was, it seems a lot more...ahem...authentic. (i.e more swearing). in one scene where homicide detectives mcnulty and bunk are working a crime scene, the dialogue consists entirely of the word "fuck" or its variations.

its not a show you can dip in and out of, as i've said before its like watching a book, but the benefit of this is that the effect of the story is cumulative.

if you like crime dramas, or enjoy quality televisison, i cannot recommend this highly enough

my depression at having finished the series is leavened with the joy that there are still two series to watch.

the karma of jokes

there is a running joke at the dialysis based on the premise that no one really wants to be there

("where do you want the needle?" i was asked last night. "in someone else's arm " i replied)

a common one is trying to finish our sessions early, you know like telling the nurse techs that when the countdown clock says 2 hours to go, it really means 20 minutes, that sort of thing. yeah, its joking but not really if you know what i mean.

last night, the guy in the bed next to mine was trying something of that sort on with jills, one of the nurse techs, when beth (another nurse tech) came up and joined in the fun telling jills that the patient was checking to see if she was a soft touch (she isn't incidentally)

"do not let him off early" says beth

i look up and decide to put my two cents in: "you'll notice," i say to jills. "that she didn't say not to take me off early"

beth turns around to me "did i hear you say you wanted to do an extra hour?"

of course i backed down immediatly. we all had a good laugh and then each of us went back to what were doing.

cut to 9.47pm as i finish my session. it had been pretty good, only my nurse-tech shelley had worried when my bp dropped below 110 and dropped my blood flow to 350ml/min. (i've been pushed up to 400ml/min since i saw the specialist last week).
but this is when the problems start. first of all when the needles are removed, it takes ages to stop bleeding (as the needles go directly into an artery, you can imagine that there is a lot of blood). when the needle is eemoved there are two band aids and a special piece of material put over the resulting hole. i get a piece of gauze and press down hard on it until the bleeding stops. ususally this happens afeter 2.5 to 3 minutes, but last night it kept bleeding for five minutes. on each needle.

after the bleeding stops they do a final check on my blood pressure to check that i'm not going to faint on my way home. shelley does things by the book (101 ways to delay your patints getting home) and so insisted that i do this check standing up. bad move, as i stood up, everything started getting blurry and my bp came out at 95/36. so i did it again, sitting down. 88/33 and again. 86/30. and so it went. i had a bit of water and eventually, shelley got another needle and put 200ml of fluid back in. eventually my bp climbed to 108/45. "thats close enough" i say, grab my laptop and run (well, shuffle slowly) out of there.

as i'm leaving, i pass beth and note that the time is now 10.55. i had indeed spent an extra hour there

"i'm sorry" i say to her "i'll never joke about leaving early again"

juno

i have noticed a depressing tendency for "independent" films to become somewhat homgenous:
1. a coming of age story ehere the protaginist' intellegence and/or artistic sensitivity is brutalised/ignored
2. a quirky or repressive family
3. a soundtrack featuring songs by obscure alt-rock/folk bands
4. a vaguely episodic plot structure
5. pacing based on thne speed that paint dries

gone are the people who have their own vision like lynch or who can put a new spin on an old genre like the cohens. where are the dazed and confuseds, the pis, the happinessess? the films that have an edge.

these days it seems like the back stories of the fimmakers are more important than the film itself

for instance, late last year i saw waitress. a pleasant enough film which i enjoyed at the time, but which i would have to go back to imdb to remind me of the best lines. i think that much of its critical success was because the writer-director adrienne shelley was murdered just before the film's release.

similarly with juno. arguabbly the first thing that anyone knows about this is that it was written by an (ex) stripper, diablo cody. are we taliking about the susan boyle effect here?

ok, i have to admit that she wrote some good lines and the cast, especially lead ellen page (who was so much better in hard candy) delivered them well. and there was a good solid support cast. but its not all good. rainn wilson's cameo was trying too hard to be hip and the film was trying too hard to be wryly funny.

i didn't hate it (but then i'm still suffering post traumatic stress disorder from seeing meet the spartans; any film looks good after that) and i'd say that it is worth a look, but its never going to make my top ten