This is an unutterably terrible filmed-off-the-telly "rip" but it has also just made me laugh uncontrollably at my desk, in a roughly similar manner to the way it did when I was three.



"I think you've upset it, dear dog"
"Oh, fiddle-de-dee"
"But it's pointing at me"

Obviously it is only funny because it makes no sense. However, that is not to be underrated.

Disconnect things:
1. Amazon are fucking enormous bastards. Of course, we have known this to be true for awhile but it's always good to stay abreast of these things. I refuse to use them and have been for about a year now; I try to avoid looking at products on their pages if I remember to check when Googling because I feel incredibly strongly about the way they are using the Kindle store to simultaneously rip off authors and customers and turn books into shovelware. Additionally paedogate and the epicly bastardish "according to your purchases you might like this" email I received from them at OldWork (on a specific work account that had been used once to buy a Pico pocket projector) listing its number one recommendation for me as... "Mohammed: Founder of the world's most intolerant religion" which I've still never found a way to make a convincing formal complaint about. All of which adds to a convincing portfolio of arseholery but if you read in-depth account of the way staff are treated at their main warehouse in Allentown including the fact that warehouse staff worked in 100+ degree heat collecting 120 items an hour while second and third floor offices were air conditioned then it seems to me fairly obvious that the bastard ceiling has been smashed through with ambitious gusto.
2. I fear I have not yet attained the level of grownupitude where I enjoy eating "wraps."

HAI GUIZE. As it's Friday let us talk about THE OLYMPICS. No, not those Olympics but the OLYMPDRINKS. Wait, that's an awful pun- immediately come up with better ones, LJ.

Anyway, the thing is that this will be a 'Lypics-long pub crawl celebrating the parts of London in which no Olympics are happening with a test of skill and athleticism to reach each day's pub, eg: Square Tavern, Euston has a wall around it suitable for high jump. Or, err, something. Anyway, for this to be any sort of a non-shambles I should start planning NOW and in fact find out some FACTS and use all of your BRANES to generate pub knowledge.

IMPORTANT FACTS NEEDED FROM THE OFFSET:
Where in London will there be no 'Lympics?

IMPORTANT DEBATES TO BE HAD:
What is a sport? What is a pub?

IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE YR BRANES NEED TO DIVULGE:
Pubbes must be found!

Therefore, LJ, I implore you to use the comment boxes to tell me about potential EVENTS (nb: these will be non-competitive but expected to be completed in order to reach the pub otherwise there is no point in ANYTHING, is there?)

This'll be a bit spoilered for anyone else who took one of the free copies of Reader's Digest this morning but there's a thing in it about the Reader's Digest Trusted Brands. Aside from whether or not you want to take advice from their readership, the presented question seems to what 'trusted' means in this context- surely that's pretty much irrational or subjective, when it comes to eg: washing powder?

Not keen to keep a good meme down tho, it's time for a POLL and then to COMPARE RESULTS c. 4pm. Remember these are brands, so 'Burts Bees' not 'Burts Bee's Beeswax honeypot thing that my colleague uses and smells great,' etc.
( boxes, not ticky )

Man, there is so much wrong with this guardian piece on Odd Future and Tyler The Creator. It's a hype piece for something that rolls wholly on hype, for a start and also it's written in the lamest, most right-on quasi-apologetic way.

As well as being factually innaccurate (Odd Future most certainly do use samples- Nature Feel by Frank Ocean is built wholly around an MGMT song) it's doing that thing where a nice white lady likes some rap music and assumes being critical of its negative aspects is being racist. Tyler The Creator's lyrics are full of dumb, obscene rape and murder fantasies; call me fucking Freud but that doesn't make him intelligent. Neither does it make him different to 50 Cent- P.I.M.P has a great tune, after all, it's just that it's completely disgusting and full of gormless lyrics, which make it shit. There are young angry black men (and women) and there are people who are the equivalent of the nastier, more pubescent shades of the internet- Odd Futures is like /b/rapsatanism for lame "nihilism" (read: sub-Nirvana t-shirt slogan politik) and being able to stage that theatrically doesn't make them good. It means they have a great sense of theatre, they can probably produce but unless they can actually prove they're intelligent then we pretty much have to assume they're thick as shit- "it's art?" What a fucking lame defense for doing what the shit you like and expecting people to be impressed.

And holy fuck if people aren't impressed. And why? Some 20-year-old saying he doesn't give a fuck? Nihilism isn't anger, it's apathy and it shouldn't be mistaken for activism or even art. It's only fear of hip hop and lack of knowledge of the genre that lets critics sit there being fascinated by these barely post-pubescent fucktards. Yes they have the beats but if you've got menacing beats and then you rap about how, fundamentally, you want to touch some titties and you consider the lack of constant availability of this an imposition on your wank sock's life then that's not a great record. Same as a lot of black metal has good instrumentation but if you even consider the lyrics then it's self-indulgent crap of the highest (lowest) order.

I am an angry person (obviously, from the above) and I understand that anger, when it's used like a hammer, gives a clarity of thought and purpose that Odd Futures certainly do not fucking have. What's the point? Anger (and art) is supposed to have a point, even if it hasn't got a focus, not be an excuse for being a dipshit.

Urgh. In my trip down the genocide literature memory lane I'm on to We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. If people want to be disturbed and unnerved then they could do worse than to try that. If they want to hang out at a frat party with boring bastards who'll roofie their best friend, by all means carry on with Odd Futures. And the point isn't even that it's controversial (it isn't- it's in the mainstream press, on mainstream radio) but that it's fucking unbelievably boring.

I like a lot of rap music that theoretically demeans women (the follow up line to the one in my subject line is 'bitches love me cus I'm fuckin' with their best friends") but then that goes for most of music generally- white boys with guitars are just as bad for it and visa versa with lame female empowerment anthems about how males don't get shoes and there are contexts where its basically well-meaning entertainment and contexts where it's whingey attention-grabbing misuse of the concept of free speech.

Totally and completely unrelatedly, you can vote for pippaalice's badge designs to be made into a real actual thing here:
http://bit.ly/jusvQx

The ghost currently has the most votes I think but the squirrel is also excellent- I think they are the sort of thing that quite a lot of people on my flist will like so, y'know, FYI.

Edit: did I not get the memo about it being Nice White Lady Apologist Week? In this, our heroine conveniently forgets Fukuyama's famously awesome cultural values; I haven't. For our purposes, it matters very little what strange thoughts occur to people in Albania or Burkina Faso, for we are interested in . . . the common ideological heritage of mankind.". Stand up dude, there. *sigh*

Oh, fvck this Oscars lark except that I rly, rly want Cheryl Hine's dress. I have no idea who she is but lady, that is one bucketload of glittering coalface sparkle and I effing want it. Also in 'no idea who this is but nice sequins' news, Dale Dickey, who must have struggled in primary school, with that name and has now risen above it in GLORIOUS SPANGLYVISION.

Further "dress reviews":
Jennifer Hudson looks hott except that she probably needed to Look Into Bras for that one or just... I don't know, not look like her tits had been flattened and pasted onto her collarbone. Sad times for an awesome fiery torrent of dress.

Cate Blanchett appeared to dress as the magic mirror for Florence Welch to look into and both of them to be informed that for all this "most pale and interesting of them all" japing about, they will never be Tilda Swinton.

Scarlett Johannsen appears to have forgotten she lost tons of weight and now looks like Natalie Portman, so can't wear something that would look 20x better on Christina Hendricks. See also: purple is not happening even if you actually are Natalie Portman, who appears to not be handling pregnant styling very well.

If your name is Busy Phillips then do not take the Oscars red carpet as a moment to attempt to pull off an 'and by nature!' joke via your dress. If you're Mark Wahlberg's wife, tho, then do what the fvck you like, as you seemingly look like a supermodel in a daisy-studded bathing suit and immense red sarong. Or whatever that is. Full points, lady.

Finally, although I am aroused by Mila Kunis' cold, dead stare and can for totes see how she bought and wore this item as I covet it already, there is a reason we shouldn't be allowed to go shopping on our own, Mila. Clearly, you suffer from the same compulsion to head straight for lace and ruffles as I do and it's ok to admit you need help from more restrained people in order to choose a dress that doesn't make you look like a sexy loo roll holder. Oh god, it is gorgeous though and in that delicate, electric violet that doesn't suit anyone caucasian- oh, Mila, let us elope to the ribbons and lace factory and wear translucent, bandaged regency dresses all day.

Edit: oh god, it's even more beautiful from the back. Marry me, Mila, we are clearly meant to be. The ceremony would be a suffocating mess of shredded brocade. ♥ She is so pretty. SO PRETTEH.

Also what hey, this is Jennifer Lawrence? D00d, why are you dressed in a maxi version of Pamela Anderson's Baywatch gear?

Mind you, the actual key to success was, as always, being amazingly hott in the first place. At which point it really doesn't matter if you're dressed as the offspring of an Aztec sun god and the Great Gatsby.

IMPORTANT LINK-
If you live in the UK and your MP is on this list voting 'no,' ask them why they think 2,500 sqkm of ancient woodland and forest for all future UK visitors and residents is only worth £450m and then ask them to vote for a full public consultation and against the sale. If your MP is on this list voting 'yes,' then send them an email saying that you are glad they did so and asking them to do it again. If your MP is listed as not having been present, email them and ask them to be there next time and to vote for the preservation of the forests.

I know I put this on here the other week and also on Facebook but it is rly effing important. If the Forest of Dean is sold off and destroyed, it won't grow back. If woodland is sold off and not looked after, it will die. If we sell the forests you won't be able to walk in them, even if they're kept in good condition because they'll be private property and the paths and tracks will be closed.

I wrote a big letter to my MP (who is Malcolm Rifkind, I see -TEH SHAME) but you could just send something really simple, through their online form, saying 'I see you voted this, I am appalled by/applaud this move.'

Some things you could mention if you do fancy going on a bit-
-biodiversity and indigenous property are going to be major international issues over the next ever; the UK will look like even more of a shithead than usual if we sell our forests and then ask Sumatra not to cut theirs down to make communities accessible etc.
-pretty shitty form by the hosts of the Millennium Seed Bank
-£450m won't be enough to affect the amount of debt that a child born next year is already in at birth, whereas they might quite fancy a walk in a forest one day whilst they're sitting in their hermetically-sealed enviropod (without being too 'think of the children!' hand wring-y, the forests really aren't any generation's to sell)
-forests aren't just trees, they're actual pieces of landscape that stop mudslides and erosion and keep valleys supported and offer shelter for thousands of species

Otherwise I will have to start writing weepy things about Beech trees, as well as Polynesian conifers and then you can only imagine the amount of maudlin botanical shit this journal will be filled with.

Being stuck in a gondola (as in one of these, not the things in Venice) with a giant fvckoff crab.

That is genuinely my biggest phobic fear. Obviously I have more real fears like 'checking my bank balance' (altho this is getting better) and fast-moving traffic and neuroses and things but it's the combo giant fvckoff crab/gondola nightmare that's the worst thing I've ever fvcking thought of. I know that giant crabs are amazing creatures and part of the splendour of nature etc. and that very few people have ever died on gondolas and that they rarely, if ever, fall off. However, you needn't imagine I'll be rationalising it if it ever comes to pass.

Fortunately this isn't the sort of fear I regularly have to attempt to overcome.

The best song about being scared is Fear by Jazmine Sullivan, although its brilliance is sort of as part of the album (Fearless) where it sits in a mass of strut and panic and gleeful wickedness and sadness. That said, both of Diddy's last albums have been on the topic, too and very very good; I was listening to Last Train To Paris all the way to work this morning and the bared-soul insecurities are pretty staggering; I'm surprised to find out its a concept album, since it feels so personal- it seems unlikely that the confessional bits are 'in character.' The quote at the end of alexmacpherson's interview with him from last year really sums up the whole thing, in its obviously over-confessional style; like dude, you're a rapper with a line in premium vodka and you have a clothing empire and a helicopter and whatever and yet this-
"...I've been successful in a lot of things, but I haven't been successful in the love area. And that's not just me finding someone to love, that's me loving someone back and being mature enough to sacrifice and not be selfish. I've always fucked love up. I think I've had love there, but I don't think I knew – and I still don't know if I do – know how to handle it. Sometimes, when someone's trying to give me love, I get uncomfortable. You know what I'm saying. I'm not an easy person to love, and that's the thing …" He tails off for a moment. "I've never been able to achieve and conquer love."

That's some fear. And quite a decent slop of maturity.

(I v much like that interview, I think it's one of Lex's best, although it's short it feels like it completely perfectly describes the album, better than a review)

I walked to work this morning even though my legs really hurt. WELL DONE ME. I also did another run last night- I will not be doing one tonight as I will, instead, be playing Rock Band. Which is essentially the same thing, right?

/webskive

Yes I know I'm spamming, I have lots of things I'm meant to be doing so suddenly livejournal has become tremendously important.

( on dresses )

THE INFINITE HAT LOOP:
1. It is cold outside.
2. My head is cold.
3. I need a hat.
4. I will go to a hat shop to buy a hat.
5. The hats in this hat shop are very expensive.
6. The hats in this hat shop are far too hot when I am inside a hat shop.
7. I am bored of this hat business now, I probably don't need one.
8. It is cold outside.