I justify the logo problem by pointing out that I've already given the money for the item; I'm not required to become a walking advertising hoarding for them. Truthfully though, it's more of a desire to prevent everyone from calling me a hypocrite. I've read No Logo, abhor the trading practices that go on in the Free Trade Areas and so on, but I still buy my clothes from the evil multinational corporations. Not until they're on sale, but that doesn't make me feel any less guilty. As you can see, I can manage to make something as simple as buying a new pair of trousers a stressful experience.

Anyway, today (after spending some time in Durham) I decided that I probably needed a pair of trousers that weren't jeans, so I trundled around the clothes shops, looking for something reasonable. Things that struck me on this journey:

• Being able to identify Sixpence None The Richer's "Kiss Me" from three notes being played on pan pipes is incredibly sad.
• It's a good thing Dad stopped fixing TVs. I don't know how he'd react to a combination TV/VCR/DVD.
• Are you sure that Vintage Wash isn't just a euphemism for "The Chinese workers wanted an extra 2c/hour to iron these"?
• The mall seems to play nothing but an 80s compilation on a loop. It's an interesting way of highlighting how the UK and US treat music differently; you'd be hard pressed to find a UK compilation that plays The Clash's "Train In Vain" and follows it with Swing Out Sister's "Breakout". I'm not complaining — I just found it a little odd.

The current poster for Finding Nemo is fantastic. There isn't enough footnote-related comedy in the movie poster industry, in my opinion*.

*Footnotes are great**

**Especially nested ones***

***Yes, I read YS when I was little. Why do you ask?

After an hour of wandering, I stumble across Brightleaf Square, seemingly the only remaining retail operation left in the downtown area. It appears to be modelled on Boston's Quincy Market, but is less than a tenth of the size. A few restaurants, a small music shop, and many boarded-up failures.

I leave completely disspirited; I've never seen a city in such a state like this before. I wasn't expecting New York, San Francisco, or even Oxford, but I thought there would be something, if only a shop or two.

Travelling back, I decide to go the Southpoint Mall again. On the way, the bus passes the South Square Mall. When I arrived in August, it was having trouble competing with the two new shopping centres that had opened; now it's completely closed, and a wrecking crew is turning it into scrap. The inside of the mall is completely exposed; a pile of metal girders is growing next to the abandoned car park.

I hope Raleigh is slightly healthier.

Hitlerism. An intriguing choice of word. Those nasty Germans can never be trusted, can they? So let's ignore their little objections to the USA/UK razing party.

Scariest moment: the cheering and applause when Bush put on his best "hard man" stance and said:

And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.

But enough of that. I've been checking the access logs, and I want to know who is ending up on this site after doing a search for "Denise Richards bond mpeg". I'm not sure what's scarier: that somebody is looking, or that Google thought that this website would help them.

I should remember to read the menu properly before I order. That way, I might not be confronted with a double burger containing a pound of beef, plus a huge mound of waffle fries dripping in some strange cheese sauce. Yikes.

After finally reading Stormwatch: Force of Nature, I must say that I prefer it to The Authority. It's interesting to see Ellis changing his style as the book goes on, from the over-captioned first few issues, to the beginnings of the cinematic style that he currently uses.

Oooh. Shiny.

Which means I won't be flying to Washington. But! But! There's an Amtrak station in Durham, so I can ride by train. Yes, it's a five hour trip; but I've always wanted to travel across America by rail. I'm slightly insane, but you knew that anyway...

I'm off to watch the State of The Union address. I need a good laugh.

Oh no. Ashcroft is the guy left behind. There's just no end to their evil. Even the Mayor would make a fairer President.

Hey boy...Hey ....Superstar Bush....Here We Go!

Soft-pitching it, I see: "we going to cut taxes, improve the economy, help fight the world's diseases...AND KICK THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF IRAQ!"

Has any President ever said "Actually, the state of the union is pretty ropey, and I'm really sorry about that" ?

The Departmeant of Homeland Security is mobilising. Excellent news. I take it that they've got the brown shirts ready, then? And the fancy helmets.

BWHAHAHAHAHA! "Our economy is improving"

It's back to trickle-down economics everybody. Because they worked so well in the 1980s, didn't they? They didn't saddle America with trillion-dollar levels of debt, oh no.

At the rate he's giving money back, shouldn't they just stop bothering to collect income tax? It'd be a lot easier.

People are crying.

PEOPLE ARE CRYING.

Um, explain why taxes on shares are unfair. Saying it in a silly voice doesn't make it true, you know.

Bueller? Bueller?

Okay, so Federal spending shouldn't rise above 4% each year. How's that going to play with a rather expensive fight in the Middle East.

Yay for the gutting of Social Security!

He's suggesting a National Health Service! High quality health for everybody! Oh no, he's against a nationalised service. To the end of my days, I will never understand why this country does not have a proper health system.

Energy independence! Gee, George, if you're so keen on the environment, why did you refuse to sign Kyoto?

$1.2 billion for hydrogen cars? Not bad.

Satanists for the homeless!

Well, that's just alienated all the non-Christians...

Roe vs. Wade? Its days are numbered.

Now for the fun part. Abroad! Confound the desires of evil men! Do you think he's going to...HANG ON! The problem with the lack of AIDS drugs in Africa is because the multinational companies charge extortionate prices for them, and the US is the major opponent of the compulsory patent licensing schemes that the Third World countries are turning towards.

Confronting EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!

We're winning! Yay! er...where's Osama? How come Kabul is the only Government-controlled area of Afghanistan? YEMEN! But we've killed some people, so YAY! CLAP!

American Justice! Where they put you in a prison without charge or trial? Or is that not what you meant?

Star Wars. Please. No. Make it stop. Look - missile-based interceptors just WILL NOT WORK. If the enemy has any sense, they will send enough decoys with the real missiles to render a missile shield useless...

Neverending WAR! Excellent news.

But, George, what about those nations that already have weapons of mass destruction? And let's be fair, didn't Russia and America bully each other during the Cold War?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! He's just described American foreign policy for the past fifty years. Didn't they install most of those generals and dictators?

He's going to do it for us, you know. I'm so grateful.

No-one else is allowed nuclear weapons. Sorry about that. Or do free nations get a pass...hold on...he's just said that they'll go it alone if necessary...oh dear...anyway, if Iraq was to say, hold a democratic free vote, and Saddam just happened to win, does that mean that they could have their nuclear programme?

STOP HITTING ON IRAN, OKAY? They're making progress, and every time you open your mouth it sets the progressive movements there back six months. And, wasn't Iran democratic before you toppled the regime and installed the Shah? Oh, yes it was.

Got that? You're not allowed nuclear ambitions. The club has closed. In the immortal words of Minnie Driver: "Y'can't come in."

And spies, George. Let's not forget the spies that were on that inspection team...

Iraq has no military capability, George. You know this. You know that one aircraft carrier in the Gulf could take out most of the Iraqi army. But scare stories. But what you're not saying is that most UN Inspectors don't believe that the chemical weapons that Iraq possessed could be viable after twelve years. BUT THEY DIDN'T GET THE URANIUM! That was the point of the British evidence! If if they were after that, then their weapons programmes weren't going according to plan, were they?

Do you have the slightest shred of evidence to back up these claims of scientist intimidation?

What? Saddam Hussein is not insane. If he was stupid enough to attack Israel, they would respond with their (illegally developed, but we'll let that pass) nuclear arsenal. If he attempted to use them on American troops, the NATO Doctrine would turn Iraq into a nuclear wasteland. I don't think he's the type to commit suicide.

This dictator, who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons, has already used them on whole villages - leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained - by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.

Of course all this went on in the 1980s, when Iraq was funded with American money of course, but we'll skip over that, shall we?

Your enemy is not surrounding your country - your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.

Rise up! This time we promise we won't wimp out on you! Honest!

We have a new deadline. February 5th, people!

For all the vaunted usability of the iBook, I can tell you that fitting extra memory into it is a maddening experience. The manual tells you to insert the card at a 30˚ angle, but neglects to point out that you can't do this in the way that looks obvious. That was fun. As was assembling the machine after thinking I'd got the chip in correctly, booting up, and finding that I hadn't done it right. You have to go through several layers of metal to get at the memory slot (it's my own fault for having an AirPort card, I suppose), which became extremely irritating after the fourth attempt at installing the chip.

Nevertheless, it's in, it works, and now my laptop has more memory than the main computer (640MB vs. 384MB). Fear my l33t skills.

I wouldn't say that it's a cut. More of a deep gash. Mach 3 blades — they're quite sharp. A question to the chemists out there: when I went to the pharmacy, the shopkeeper recommended I use hydrogen peroxide. Is this normal? It scared me, so I just went for the safer antiseptic cream option. I didn't want a blonde thumb.

My film debut was a rather embarrassing affair. Rishi had an assignment due today for one of his classes, and in a moment of inspiration, he decided to make a movie instead of writing a paper. It was supposedly a recreation of a childhood fable told to Rishi and his friend when they were eight. Obviously, this meant that Rishi and Ludovic were played by the two grad students. A complete shambles, yes, but it was fairly good fun. Although I refuse to watch the finished film...

First up: the new phenomenon that is sweeping the nation (or possibly just filling up a few column inches that an editor desperately needed to fill. You decide): Google Stalking. Cower in fear as a person who has a passing interest in you decides to see if you have a history on the Internet, and discovers that you once got involved in a Superman vs. He-Man argument. Or that you got bitch-slapped by Roger Stern. At least Warren Ellis never told me to kill myself. I think.

The Internet. Helping the neurotic to become even more so.

Of course, there's the beneficial flipside; speaking entirely hypothetically, if somebody you like turns out to be a possible member of PETA, it's probably a good idea to be prepared beforehand, just in case she doesn't react well to a suggestion of a steak dinner (also, it might be advisable to look for pick-up lines in places other than Leonardo DiCaprio films. Just saying). (there's far too many parentheticals in this entry. Cut it out —Ed.) (Sorry) (Stop that —Ed.)

On a slightly different subject: Neko Case. A further indication that my taste in music is faltering rapidly, or quite good? I can't decide.

I finally got around to doing my first homework for the Technical Writing course today. It turns out that I was right in thinking I could do it in an afternoon, but next time, I'll try and get it done a little bit earlier than two days before the deadline. And not get distracted by anime series featuring normal and genetically-enhanced humans beating each other up via the use of huge mecha battle suits. I promise.

Time to play Tumble Dryer Lottery again. I'm working up to a full "Why doing the washing in America is quite annoying indeed, actually" post, but in the meantime, just understand that not all tumble dryers are created Equal.

Also, American writers not being able to write subtle comedy? Cheers? M*A*S*H? The Simpsons? Futurama? The Daily Show?

Poor Iain Lee. Oh, wait. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

ha.

Sorry. Just had to get that out of my system. To be honest, I won't be truly happy until everyone who was involved with the 11 O'Clock show is publicly flogged and exiled to Inner Mongolia. It's just a little thing I have.

< stewart lee>BUT WASN'T ALI G. FUNNY?</stewart lee>

I believe in Voltron.

• Funny Face (1957)
  AMC, Sun Jan 26 01:00pm EST
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
  AMC, Sun Jan 26 03:10pm EST
• Sabrina (1954)
  AMC, Sun Jan 26 05:35pm EST
• My Fair Lady (1964)
  AMC, Sun Jan 26 08:00pm EST
• Roman Holiday (1953)
  AMC, Sun Jan 26 11:20pm EST
• How to Steal a Million (1966)
  AMC, Mon Jan 27 01:45am EST

What?

Snow. Everywhere.

And once again, I had no food. Thinking that spending the day eating junk food would probably not help my stomach much, I had to get to a supermarket. Normally, this would be easy, but the only flaw in Chapel Hill's otherwise excellent bus network is that it shuts down at the first sign of a snowflake. This meant that I'd have to walk to Carrboro and back. Again, not usually a problem, but it was -7˚C outside.

It was great fun. Especially on the way back, when I finally had my soup in a bread bowl (it's a long-running family joke, don't worry). The snow hadn't frozen at all, so it wasn't too hard getting there, except when the wind picked up. Then it got very cold indeed. Anyway, I managed to get all the food for the weekend without succumbing to frostbite.

I had lots of plans for today; I was going to get started on my marking, work on some of the coursework, but my stomach had other ideas. In the end, I did nothing. Hopefully, I'll be feeling better tomorrow...

Listening to Radio 1 through the RealPlayer feed is a frustrating experience. I wish they'd hurry up and implement the Ogg streaming that they've been promising. On the bright side, I managed to hear part of the new Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia record before I lost the connection, so it wasn't a total waste of my time.

Richard: Yes, it was rather a rambling post. Thanks for taking the time to post all the legal information. We'll put you in the "Lawyers who we'll spare when the Revolution comes" pile...

David Munns, chairman and chief executive of EMI Recorded Music North America, called Rosen "a tremendous advocate" who has been "extremely influential in both transforming the music industry in the digital age and in fighting piracy."

It's stupid, I know. I graduated with a First from Manchester, close to the top of the class. I got decent A-Level grades, and my GCSE results weren't bad either. Despite all this, I still don't feel clever. Or even reasonably competent. Ho-hum.

But enough of that, as it's boring, and you've heard it before. I spent last night watching Bonnie and Clyde and The Good . Yes, I've never seen Bonnie and Clyde. Would you think less of me if I admitted I've never seen Apocalypse Now either? Or Raging Bull? Thought so. Just ignore the last few sentences, and we'll be fine. I liked them both, although they weren't exactly uplifting...

Well, that answers that question about next season's Buffy. And yay for Xander! I'll stop here, before Bonnie attacks me with a chainsaw.

Nobody wants to play with George. Aww.

"He should also realise that many of these pirate operations are linked to organised crime on a worldwide basis."

Our friendly fire alarm welcomed us back to Chapel Hill this morning. Next time, I will remember that although the dressing gown looks warm, the coat would probably be a better choice.

Back to work tomorrow. Sigh...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning. The journey to Myrtle Beach was fairly uneventful, only almost losing control of the car once, and running one red light. We stop at a random Wendy's, meeting three other car-loads of our group who also decided to stop there on a whim. We also have to stop to buy drinks, which is slightly more complicated than it sounds.

Apparently, North Carolina law prevents spirits above a certain strength from being sold in normal shops. Instead, this type of alcohol can only be bought from a state-run chain (ABC). This probably explains why Smirnoff Ice here is made with vodka flavouring instead of real vodka. Rishi and I are given the task of buying the alcohol, as we're the only ones who are legally old enough. I should have realised there and then what sort of weekend this was going to be.

When we arrive at the hotel, about an hour from midnight, the drinking begins in earnest. Somehow, our room becomes the focus of the night activities. Everyone makes up for the reasonably late starting time by drinking as much as possible.

Maybe it's just my lack of experience, but I don't seem to remember drinking games being a big part of student life in Manchester. Most likely because we could all go out and get drunk without facing arrest. Unless you attempted to steal a traffic cone, but that's another story for another time.

Anyway, people got very drunk, very quickly. I'm coaxed into joining a game called 'Circle of Death', during which I'm glad I mixed myself a rather weak drink. Then it's 'Have You Never Ever?', which is a wonderful game for people looking to start a blackmail racket. By the time this ends, it's almost four o'clock. We now have a few mean drunks, people being sick (in our bathroom. Oh, and in the bath as well. Nice), and a call from the front desk complaining about the noise.

At this point, it's time to think about going to bed. That's when things really start to fall apart. Some are locked out because the person with the key has already gone to sleep. Others go to their room only to find that some people have decided to use the room for...other activities. So at five in the morning, we have to come with a new sleeping plan that gives everyone a chance to sleep in a bed that hasn't already been slept in. Space rapidly becomes short...

Which brings us to the start of today's entry; for your benefit, I'll skip the hour-long discussion searching for the meaning of life (thankfully it ended just before the sun came up). People start to wake-up around midday (as ever, I'm up much earlier than that), and we go to a local pancake house for breakfast.

A pancake house which has quotes from Numbers (1:1, if you're interested) on their placemats. Still, nice pancakes.

Saturday seems to end quickly; a trip to a local mall and returning to watch the end of the UNC basketball game eats up the daylight hours. Dinner is at the Carolina Roadhouse, which is pleasant enough, and then the drinking begins again. This time, I'm cajoled into playing more of the games, but no-one watches me pour my drink, so I play just with Coke (yes, I'm boring. But I didn't really fancy getting drunk. And this way, they don't feel as if they're leaving me out). This goes on until about two in the morning.

After again waking up before everybody else on Sunday morning, I decide it might be an idea to go to the beach. As it would be rather silly to drive for five hours and not actually see the sea. Stupid, stupid, stupid idea. So cold.

I wonder what the legal limits for drink-driving are in North/South Carolina. Because I'm sure that every driver taking the group back home would have been breaking the law back in Britain. Thankfully, everybody gets back safely. And we have Monday off, so we can use that time to recover.

It was a very short trip, especially as most of Saturday was spent waiting for everybody else to wake up. But I had a good time, and I now know everybody's name. A few months late, of course, but better now than never.

And that, Class, was how I spent my weekend. What was your like?

Spent the day listening to a sonic assault; Electrelane, A Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed You Black Emperor! Music for planning mass invasions.

I wish I had something interesting to write for my third post of the day (make the most of it; I'm not taking my computer to South Carolina this weekend), but the most exciting thing to happen to me today was a visit to the Post Office (Bonnie, your package should arrive in 2-3 days). So there's not a lot to talk about. Talk amongst yourselves for a while.

The Supreme Court rejected the Eldred case by a margin of 7-2. Copyright, for the foreseeable future, is infinite. Personally, I think if this is going to be the case, then let's make it retroactive. If Disney gets to own the rights to "Steamboat Willie" for all time, then the heirs of Hans Christian Andersen, Rudyard Kipling and the Brothers Grimm should be able to sue them for infringing upon the original stories; the descendants of the Brontë sisters should have rights to the profits of all the TV and film adaptions of their work over the past hundred years, and the distant relatives of Shakespeare should be able to sue everybody. It's only fair.

The point of copyright law is that ideas cannot be owned by anyone. However, to promote learning in the Arts and Sciences, people are given exclusive rights to their creations, for a limited time. After this period has expired, the work enters the public domain. There it becomes part of the cultural fabric, able to be repeated, embellished, or reworked by society. Shakespeare isn't an important part of Western culture because he was responsible for several good plays back in the 16th Century; it's because those plays are still being performed today, and have been for the past several hundred years. Because they're in the public domain. Because anyone can have access to them and perform them, without having to pay a tithe to a publisher.

Do you really think it is wise to leave our cultural history in the hands of corporations? The same corporations that have wiped influential parts of British TV history from existence, simply because they needed the space? The ones that deny access to 93% of the 37,000 films released between 1927-46? Or the ones that only keep 174 books in print out of the 10,027 released in 1930?

Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses.

‘It is time,’ he said, ‘for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry.

Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything.’

Lots of people are being very negative about Marvel's latest publicity campaign. Personally, I'm quite happy to see them expand, especially with what seems to be mostly new concepts (as far as the teaser images show). It's also good to see that they're still employing Gail Simone, as her removal from Agent-X seemed to defy all logic (sales up, critical success). It'll be interesting to see if these new titles tie in with the latest Wal-Mart rumours.

Anybody know anything about X-Box development? My group might be using it to construct games for the blind. Does the fact that it's PC based make it easy to develop for (just use DirectX as normal)?

Okay, now I've seen everything. Man vs. Beast. Can a group of midgets pull a jumbo jet further than an elephant? This Wednesday on Fox. Boggle.

Shiny.

Theft \Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.

Incidentally, I find it amusing that the comic in question has such a twisted copyright history. If Carl Henderson and/or the Kimota! book are to be believed, then one of the greatest works in the medium's history is little more than fan-fiction. And we know how they feel about that, don't we?

UPDATED: Richard seems to think I'm on shaky ground here. Read the comments to find out why.

Didn't die. Felt stupid afterwards, of course.

Vote Lieberman! He's a "different type of Democrat". Yes, he's the type of Democrat that makes you seriously think about voting for Bush. On the other hand, he's got next to no chance of getting the nomination, as long as the Democrats maintain some semblance of sense during the primaries.

Did I mention I have a new office partner? His name is Nolan Walker. I know two things about him so far: he has a fluffy Cthulu toy on top of his computer, and he's an anime fan.

No Buffy tomorrow. Grrr. It's actually more frustrating watching it over here, as at least back home you're guaranteed a new episode each week, rather than playing Re-run Roulette...

Umm. Yes. Before I went insane, I did have something to say. But yet again, I seem to forget what. I remember! I've come to the conclusion that the former occupant of this room was a NRA Republican, that has a rather strange fetish for bed linen. I'm not making this up; every two days, I get another catalogue full of towels, mattresses, and blankets. It's rather disturbing. What's that? I need to get out more? Understood.

Trust me Matt, you will feel better in the morning. If not, just apply more until your body goes numb. That way you get the benefits with none of the downsides...

A busy day tomorrow. I've got to change a course, go to three different lectures, make an answer sheet for the first homework, attend the Writer's Block meeting, and then make it back for a Floor meeting at 7:30pm. Should be fun.

A particular highlight is the Matt Stone/Trey Parker history of America animated short halfway through the film, while the "What A Wonderful World" musical interlude presents a damning (although admittedly one-sided) view on American foreign policy through the past fifty years. There's been some condemnation about the interview with Charlton Heston, but that took place a long time before Heston revealed that he may eventually have Alzheimer's, plus he had ample time to prepare for the meeting, so he should have been ready for Moore's questions.

What I like most about the film is that Moore doesn't present us with a simple solution to the problem, or even why it exists in the first place; what makes Windsor (in Canada)a place where people feel comfortable leaving their house unlocked, while a few miles away in Detroit, fear rules the city?

While I'm here, can somebody answer a question for me? While I believe Pete Townshend, it has raised a point that I've never understood: who on Earth uses easily traceable credit card details to gain access to child pornography? Surely the idea is to remain secret? Let's hope they never get clever...

I could have saved the team of L&O: SVU a lot of trouble: IT'S JOHN RITTER! OF COURSE HE DID IT!!!

Still can't remember what I wanted to talk about. Oh, I'm going to Myrtle Beach next weekend. In January. Brrr.

So far, they insist that correspondence has been overwhelmingly positive. We'd like to address that. If you think that the Entitlement Card isn't needed, head on over to STAND, where you can fill out an e-mail to the Home Office and let them know your opposition to the proposal.

By the way, if you live in the Oxfordshire area, you might need to know your old postcode if you wish to fax your MP a copy of the email.

Go and see Gangs of New York. It's not long enough, but it's filled with mayhem and violence. In. Top. Hats. There's nothing more that you can ask for, really.

Adaptation was like looking into a mirror for two hours, which was fairly unsettling. I did like the digs at Robert McKee (I'm still not sure why Hollywood is so in thrall to a man whose credits only seem to contain Mrs. Columbo and a Bible film) , and Donald's ever-increasingly insane screenplay was hilarious. I'm not sure when it's coming out in the UK, but you should try and see it when it does. Just ignore the last twenty minutes, and you should be fine.

Catch Me If You Can was rather different from what the trailer suggested - it's much slower than you'd think, but again I recommend that you give it a try (especially if you like fancy title scenes); Martin Sheen sings! Tom Hanks also tells the world's greatest Knock-Knock joke.

Kill Bill looks interesting, although the trailer gives little away other than UMA THURMAN TAKING NAMES WITH A SWORD. What more could you possibly want?

This semester's TA job is going to be a little bit different from the last one; I have to construct the homeworks this time (although I don't have have to mark the mid-terms or the final). Thankfully, the professor doesn't want lots of hard questions, so I won't have the guilt of giving the students evil assignments.

Three films tomorrow: Catch Me If You Can, Adaptation, and Gangs of New York.

But isn't the entire point of the Brit Awards that everybody gets increasingly drunk throughout the evening? I'm also not entirely sure what "as live" means - if So Solid Crew dedicate an award to Kim Howells with a nice sprinkling of swearing, does that mean that ITV will show it? I can't imagine so. Oh look, they're giving Tom Jones a lifetime award. I assume no-one else available that night.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BONNIE! Okay, so it's not actually your birthday yet, but by the time you read this it will be. She now has the ability to vote. Civilisation is DOOMED.

Oooh. I get to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

A few questions to start things off. Do you live in America? Do you have a Social Security Number? Did you buy a cassette, LP, or CD between 1st January 1995, and 22nd December 2000 in America? Yes? Fancy joining a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA for price-fixing? It's not going to be a huge amount of compensation (the site suggests that it'll be somewhere in the range of $5-$20), but you could use the money to stock up on CD-Rs...

Meanwhile, back in non-Communist Norway, Jon Johansen can legally watch DVDs on Linux, after being acquitted of breaking into his own computer. Expect to see Jack Valenti explaining how this judgement will cause a mass outbreak of DVD piracy in the next few days.

Yes, Safari is fast. But it doesn't render HTML as correctly as Mozilla, and it doesn't have tabs. So I'm sticking with Chimera for the moment.

I wanted to write something about Careless Talk Costs Lives, but I'm fighting against delayed jetlag at the moment, and it deserves better than that.

Ooooh. Shiny.

Um, where was I? Er, yes, going to bed now.

Two hours later.

Oh! She's moving! She's awake--no, she's just moved her head. I do hope this won't cause irrevisible liver damage.

After another hour, she finally wakes up, thankfully around the time when passing out is beginning to seem like a good idea. I don't drink anything for the rest of the flight, for fear that she'll go back to sleep...

A warning for anybody attempting to enter the US through Raleigh/Durham airport: add about two hours to your arrival time. This should cover the amount of time you'll spend trying to get out of the airport. The gauntlet is as follows:

• Firstly, you'll come off the plane, and start queuing to get past the Customs inspectors (who seem quite cheery today).
• Then, you head to baggage claim. Everything is going okay so far. You get your bags, and queue to hand in your Customs form. Someone will cut in front of you, but you won't mind too much, because you just know he's going to get pulled aside by the officials.
• Then you get in another queue. This is baggage re-checking. Yes, you put your suitcases onto another conveyor belt, and you're told you'll get them back later.
• Then you have to pass through a metal detector. Be advised - they've turned the sensitivity up to 11. This means that belts, shoes, safety pins, old KitKat wrappers, just about anything will set off the alarm.
• Then you suddenly find yourself in the main airport terminal, and you understand why they do all this. Arrivals and departures are not segregated, so 'things' could be planted fairly easily (thinking about it, I wasn't entirely truthful in Gatwick this morning; who knows what Bonnie put in that envelope?). I suppose it's possible that the airport was originally designed for internal flights, and international flights were something of an afterthought.
• Now you find your way to the other baggage reclaim station, and wait by the Fort Worth carousel (where else would you find the Gatwick luggage?). Eventually, your bags come around, and you can finally leave the airport.

The bus trip home was a little crowded; normally with the TTA buses, three people in a bus at the same time is busy, but tonight every seat was occupied. Plus all the bags. It was quite cosy. Haven't seen much of Chapel Hill yet, as it was dark when I got back.

Anyone want to lay odds as to whether I can make it to the end of The Daily Show? I think I stand a chance...

• Look Around You
  A perfectly observed, lighthearted take on all those schools programmes we watched when we were small, accurate down to the timer that used to preceed each different programme on ITV/C4. Check out the skewed version of the periodic table on the BBC website.


• 24
  I missed the first season of this, so the placing here is solely on what I have seen of the second series. Guns, explosions, and head-slicing. What more could you possibly need from an action series?


• Buffy The Vampire Slayer
  The new season has an air of finality; everything seems to be pointing to an ending. And what an ending. So far, the current run is managing to surpass seasons two and three easily. A solid stretch of entertaining single-story episodes, plus the unfolding saga of the now customary season threat, the series is questioning things we've always believed to be true, and showing us glimpses into a larger story which makes us suspect even long-trusted characters. I can't wait until the Angel crossover later on in the season...


• The West Wing
  It's never going to be as good as the first season, but The West Wing still manages to excite. The first few episodes of the new season were little more than Aaron Sorkin shouting "LOOK! This is how you should have played 2000!" to the Democrat Party, but were very entertaining (Josh and Toby should get stranded more often). After convincingly beating the ersatz George W. Bush, the theme of the series seems to be rather clear: Be Careful What You Wish For. They have everything they ever wanted now. And that's where things start falling apart. Again, the rest of the season should be very interesting.


• Firefly
  Every now and then, you come across a certain type of person (the Internet in particular seems to be a gigantic strange attractor for them), who knows everything about a TV show. The show ran for about ten episodes on ATV during the summer of 1975, but they can freestyle on any element of its production history, storyline, or backroom politics for the best part of an evening. If you find yourself with one of these people, the correct approach is to nod your head approvingly, whilst at the same time backing away, desperately trying to attract somebody else's attention in order to escape. So just don't ask me about Firefly. Just take it from me that it was the best science-fiction programme on TV in the past decade, accept that the dialogue was unique, and nod approvingly when I curse the executives at Fox. It's for your own safety.

• Punch-Drunk Love
  An Adam Sandler film is one of my best films of the year? Yes. It's such a wonderful, sweet little film. There's very little more to say about it, except that you should all go and watch it when it comes out in the UK later on in 2003.


• Minority Report
  While the ending was slightly disappointing, the rest of the film was a barnstorming Spielberg adventure. I'm looking forward to Catch Me If You Can as well...


• Monsters Inc.
  While Shrek was little more than a slight scaffolding on which to hang various anti-Disney jokes, Pixar showed everybody just how you make a children's film with this funny and affecting tale of the monsters that live in your closet. Technically stunning animation plus sharp and witty writing; they were robbed at the Oscars.


• Ocean's Eleven
  Like Monster's Inc., this film slips in by virtue of a late UK release date. Effortlessly cool.


• 24 Hour Party People
  Not exactly the obvious choice for my favourite film of the year, but this amusing, informative, misleading and crazed love-song to Manchester manages to capture the essence of the city by lying to the audience for two hours, all accompanied by the best music Manchester has to offer.

• Idlewild - The Remote Part
  Reminds me of Virginia Woolf. I have no idea why.


• Sleater-Kinney - One Beat
  An album that wants to remake the world, and has the tunes that makes you want them to suceed. Shake your tail for peace and love.


• Aimee Mann - Lost In Space
  You want company in misery? This record is for you.


• Low - Trust
  You will feel teary-eyed when listening to Point of Disgust. Mormon Steel.


• The Polyphonic Spree - The Beginning Stages Of...
  Distilled sunshine, filtered through the best LSD Texas has to offer. Dirty hippies. But lovely.

• Black Panther
  One of the biggest surprises of the year: Black Panther is still being published. After sales dropped below the 20,000 level, few people expected Marvel to keep this title around, no matter how successful it is critically. The attempt to attract new readers with the ambitious, complex five-part Enemy of The State II storyline was rather unsuccessful in raising the sales figures, but once again it showed that Priest is one of the best-kept secrets of the comic world. Intricate plotting, deft characterisation, plus excellent art from the team of Jim Velluto and Bob Almond. As the year closes, the title has changed its direction somewhat, becoming now of a police procedural thriller, and no-one expects it to last the whole of 2003. I certainly hope that it does.


• New X-Men
  Last year, the X-Men finally stepped out of the Claremont shadow, thanks to Grant Morrison. This year has been somewhat less dramatic but still very interesting. The repair work on Cyclops is staggering; he's now one of the more fascinating characters on the team, rather than being the lifeless leader of the team. There's been amusing revelations about The Beast, intriguing new members like Xorn, and there's the resurfacing of the Phoenix. The book hasn't been as exciting for over a decade. And who knew that Grant loved Storm Shadow so much?


• Three Days In Europe
  A slight cheat here, as I've only read one issue of this so far. If the rest of the series is up to the same standard, this is going to be a very funny series. It has all the charm and wit of a classic romantic comedy, and I hope that it continues on this high note.


• Transformers: Target: 2006
  It's not a new comic, but this Titan release is probably the first time that many people will have seen the story, so I feel justified in including it here. I like to think that it's not nostalgia clouding my judgement here; this is a classic children's adventure story, as deserving of praise as any Disney film. As Simon Furman's first epic Transformers story, it has dated somewhat, but it still holds up rather well (it's not as overwritten as most 1980's Marvel comics), and has an enjoyable mix of interesting storytelling devices, twists and revelations, and plenty of robot devestation. All the things a growing boy needs. Plus an ending which can still bring twenty-somethings to their knees...


• Blue Monday
  The best teen films that John Hughes never made. And Chynna Chugston-Major made me realise there was more to The Beat than 'Mirror In the Bathroom'. You can get hold of the first collection of Blue Monday on Amazon, and I urge you to try it out.

• My So-Called Life
  A confession: I didn't actually watch all of MSCL when it was originally on British television. This was partly a scheduling problem, as Channel 4 decided to show it at an awkward time, but I had a video recorder; I watched the first three episodes. It was just too real for me to deal with at the time. Looking back, I really should have made an effort to watch it. There aren't many series that can have the lead say "I love you so much, it hurts to look at you", and not have the audience burst into laughter. The story of MSCL's long journey to DVD is too long to recant here, so have a look at this link for the details if you're interested. If not, then a brief summary: it took a long time, and it was rather expensive for those of us who ended up funding the project. But I'm glad I finally have a chance to watch this series.


• Roman Holiday
  The disc is fairly bare (and misses a golden opportunity to include Audrey's famous screen test that landed her the role in the first place), but the newly restored print is so wonderful it has to be included in my favourites of the year.


• Singin' In The Rain
  A digitally restored print which looks like it was filmed last week; glorious songs; a commentary which has more of the great Stanley Donen, another disc full of documentaries plus an entire deleted muscial number. One of the greatest musicals ever filmed. What's not to love?


• Back To The Future
  Finally.


• The Fellowship of The Ring: Extended Edition
  Even if you don't like the film, there's no denying that this is the DVD of the year. An extended version of the film that manages to fill most of the cracks that were apparent in the original theatrical version (including information that's rather important to certain scenes in The Two Towers), spread across two discs with four commentaries featuring just about everybody who had anything to do with the film. On top of that, there's two more discs containing documentaries about almost every aspect of the film's production. New Line even promoted the two different versions of the DVD in a responsible manner, going out of their way to let people know that this version was coming out a few months after the original made an appearance in DVD form. A showcase for what the format can achieve, we can only hope that the trilogy's other two films will get the same treatment.