1: Get bowl in Weaver Street Market
2: Place eggs in the bottom (note: not sure whether they should be raw or cooked, but to be honest, that's the least of your worries, as you'll soon see)
3: Alternate thin layers of scrambled tofu and potato.
4: On the final potato layer, place a pancake on top, and drizzle with blueberry syrup.
5: You're supposed to eat the pancake first, letting little drops of blueberry syrup mix with the potato.
6: Erm…yes…
The Essential Godzilla collection is great 1970s Marvel madness.
A rather light day today, as last night, Collin, Christa, Mandy, Esther, myself, and a cast of other random drop-ins and drop-outs went out to the Orange County Social Club for a little drink. I was very restrained. Honest.
(In fact, it was my usual 'first night out with everybody and I feel very shy and intimidated' blues, but as ever, I'll probably get over myself in a day or two)
I've spent most of today sleeping, so I haven't got too depressed over this news today (what happened to the Lords?).
You may have noticed that the new pictures on the sidebar are at a slightly higher resolution. I have my new T9 camera now, woohoo!
Five words that normally spell disaster. I'm staying at Leigh's at the moment, which is a lot further out of Chapel Hill than where I've stayed in the past. There is a Chapel Hill Transit bus route nearby (free of charge, of course; yet another reason why I love this town - its public transport links are better than many British towns, which you can't say often in America), but I waited for about twenty minutes and thought 'oh well, I'll just walk to 15-501, and get the bus there'.
Yes, you can see where I went wrong. I walked for an hour, crossing the bridge over Interstate 40 (with centimetre clearances between myself and oncoming traffic), up hill, down mushy dale (Americans! PAVEMENTS! They're fun for all the family!), and got rather concerned that I wasn't recognising any of the landmarks as I was walking. Being too stubborn to turn back, I kept going. And going. As I was giving up hope, I saw a big blue building in the distance. I thought it was the Blue Cross Shield centre, but no, it was a BB&T office. But! As I saw hope dashed before my eyes, I saw the dilapidated K-Mart to my right. To my left, the new Super Target.
I had walked to Target. Oh my poor feet.
Thankfully, I knew there was a TTA bus station nearby, so I was soon heading into Chapel Hill. Today was an exploring day; wandering around the town, visiting the comic shop (obviously), bumping into Leanne (twice!), heading down to campus, then off to Southpoint Mall and New Hope Commons. Where I broke down and bought Tetris DS. Ooh, it's good.
It is, perhaps, somewhat disconcerting to get on a plane being greeted by the uplifted sound of Radiohead's No Surprises. Not exactly the tunbe to get you in the holiday spirit. But then. Flight AA173 is less a holiday flight and more of an extended bus journey, not just for myself, but for the seemingly endless parade of people working in the Raleigh Technology Park who use this flight. At check-in, security and boarding, it's always the same; chance meetings, bumping into an old friend at IBM, and so on. Me? It's just occurred to me that this is the fourth consecutive year I've been on this flight. Which scares me a little.
But I think I'm all ready. I'm slightly odd in that I appear to undergo a slight change whenever I fly back to Chapel Hill. I dress slightly differently, I wear a set of glasses that I don't wear back home, and I guess I feel a little different. Which is not to say that I jump into a telephone kiosk and suddenly develop a weakness for kryptonite (and really, that should be in my computer dictionary with the amount of times that I use it). I just feel slightly different when I'm in America than I do when I'm in Britain (and it's not just being off work, either, as when I was working at UNC, I felt the same way).
Nothing too interesting this flight in way of the SkyMall catalogue. Aside from the usual hot dog/bun heaters that I normally come across, the only other thing of note was a Möbius strip with the Lord's Prayer etched into its silver frame. It's a merger of science and religion! Or something. The in-flight magazine lets you know just how little it thinks of coach passengers by including a six-page feature on why company directors are having a hard time in the US at the moment, because they might be legally liable if their company breaks the law. Awww. I'm sure we all feel sorry for them.
Another thought: after four years on this flight - the menu hasn't changed once. You will always be given the option of "beef with brown gravy" (we're entering American country now, of course, which means that 'gravy' will get you a slimy white substance almost definitely of a dubious origin) or 'chicken with pasta' (actually, not too bad). Then about an hour from landing, the menu says that we will get a snack. This invariably turns out to be a single-person pizza, which is surprisingly nice. I have to say I look forward to that part of the flight.
I have played every single circuit of Mario Kart. I'm afraid to go into Animal Crossing, because I haven't been into my village for ages. The animals may have burnt it down by now (they can't be trusted with anything). But I still have four and a half hours to go, so I've got to do something…
Off to Chapel Hill again tomorrow. Expect lots of fancy pictures with my new camera, extended meandering blog entries, and lots more! Meeting back up with friends, drink experiments, electrical experiments, and Chapel Hill Comics.
Byeee!
Today, Time Warner is continuing that policy by releasing "V for Vendetta" – a vile, pro-terrorist piece of neo-Marxist, left-wing propaganda filled with radical sexual politics and nasty attacks on religion and Christianity.
INCOMING SIPHO FROM THE TELEX-A-TRON!
FETCH THE LATEST VIGGY ZUNE FROM CORE CORTEX NINE!
GOLDFISH-7 IS THE HERO! 2-CAT-2 IS THE VILLAIN!
(I'll do my best to avoid spoilers, but I'm going to be talking about the differences between the comic and the film, so if you haven't seen it, I'd avoid this entry for now)
Firstly, we shouldn't be under any illusions. V For Vendetta, the comic, is not a flawless masterpiece. As one of Alan Moore's early works, it is hamstrung by the structural constraints placed on its serial in Warrior, coupled with the final book being written several years after the first two (because of Warrior's demise). Even the setting of the original story is a little suspect, a failing Moore acknowledged in the introduction to the graphic novel edition and during interviews around the same time - "We had supposed that it would take a nuclear war to make England veer towards fascism. In the end all it took was giving people the right to buy their own council house." Despite all this, it's still a powerful polemic, as subtle as a bag of hammers in places, and as subtle as a scalpel in others.
Ever since the film was announced, fans of the book have been worrying about it, especially since early rumours indicated that the film would be set in "an alternate reality where Germany won World War II," which would have rather undermined the whole point of the story. Oh, and then there was V's introductory speech, which consisted of him saying a lot of words that began with the letter V.
The bad news is that the speech is still in there, although thankfully, it doesn't crop up again. The good news is that the WWII rumour was just that, and in fact, the Wachowski brothers have updated the story to reflect today rather than 1982. Instead of a nuclear war, we have a bioterror event that leads a Conservative MP to form a new party, Norsefire, which eventually wins Parliament (the book implies the slight collusion of the Royal Family; the film gives the new leader the dubious title of High Chancellor, suggesting that the WWII rumour may have come from an early draft of the screenplay).
Moore and Lloyd's version is very working class, capturing the grimy nature of Britain in the early 1980s. By contrast, the film is middle-class; instead of back-breaking and poorly-paid work at a munitions factory, Evey is a seemingly well-paid PA at the British Television Network. Some have said that this weakens V's point, as most of the characters seem to have reasonable lives, but I don't think it does. After all, if you weren't a Jew, you could get on quite well in 1930s Germany, and you could turn a blind eye to some of the measures that were going on around you. As they did.
Some of the changes don't work - I felt that V's television broadcast was pointlessly altered from Moore's more intelligent version, and I was sad that the lack of CCTV camera meant we didn't get the little girl's "bollocks!" scene in all its glory (it's partly in there, but it's not quite the same). Also, the removal of Fate means that the film has a few extra plot holes (how did V manage to send all the parcels? How did he set the trip in the police file for Finch to find?). Finally, the Shadow Gallery seemed a little pointless - as the censorship of Britain was much less restrictive than in the original (and while I love that Cat Power track, it didn't have the same resonance as "perhaps the term Tamla Motown" is familiar to you? Obviously not. Hardly surprising, I suppose. After all, they eradicated some cultures more thoroughly than they did others.")
No punches are pulled in the torture scenes; if anything, they're worse than the comic, borrowing images and devices from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Valerie's letter is also handled better than I thought it would be, and the change in Gordon's character, played by a film-stealing Stephen Fry, results in a much stronger connection between Evey and him, at the expense of some of the father issues explored in the book.
The finale has come in for quite a lot of criticism, and I have to confess that the touch of magic realism at the end didn't quite work for me, and I yelled at the screen (for which I apologise) for the American-centric suggestion that the Army can be relied upon to have honour (having watched The Plot Against Wilson this week, it's obvious that we can't. And if he hadn't been killed by the INLA, I would imagine that Lord Mountbatten would have played a large role in the original comic). I'm willing to forgive them a bit, though, as producing a blockbuster film that has that ending in today's climate takes some courage.
So, did I like it? Well, I feel a little compromised by knowing the book. The trailer promises an action-packed film, and this really isn't (much to the consternation of some in the theatre). At the same time, some of Moore's ideas about Anarchy have been watered down or removed to make the film simpler - at one point a supermarket is held up by a robber shouting "Anarchy in The UK!", which is followed by a Cabinet briefing on "the chaos", sidestepping V's explanation in the book of the difference. Having said that, it's still a very interesting message for 2006: "Governments should be afraid of the people."
A list of just some of the Acts that the Government refused to rule out of being subject to the new Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill:
Act of Settlement 1700
Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
Bail Act 1976
Bill of Rights 1688
Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919
Church of Scotland Act 1921
Civil Contingencies Act 2004
Claim of Right 1689
Constitutional Reform Act 2005
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
European Communities Act 1972
Freedom of Information Act 2000
Government of Ireland Act 1920
Government of Wales Act 2006
Government of Wales Act 1998
Habeas Corpus Acts 1679 to 1862
House of Lords Act 1999
Human Rights Act 1998
Identity Cards Act 2006
Immigration Act 1971
Local Government Act 1972
Magna Carta 1215
Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975
Ministers of the Crown Act 1975
Northern Ireland Act 1947
Northern Ireland Act 1998
Official Secrets Acts 1911 to 1989
Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949
Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005
Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Act 1706
Public Order Acts 1936 to 1986
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
Representation of the People Acts 1981 to 2002
Scotland Act 1998
Security Service Act 1989
Statute of Westminster 1931
Succession to the Crown Act 1707
Terrorism Act 2000
Terrorism Act 2006
Union with England Act 1707
Union with Scotland Act 1706
Welsh Church Disestablishment Act 1914.
On the brightside, it would mean that we could wipe out the independence of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Mind you, it would also allow a Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament, suspend the Magna Carta and declare himself King, though. Now that's a legacy...
…Eating a bar of Maya Gold Green & Blacks before setting off on an afternoon of programming.
My comments are frightening. My code only slightly less so.
Hurrah for the House of Lords once again! You know, I'd have somewhat more respect for the Government if they dropped some of their disingenuous. "Passports are voluntary!" they cry, knowing full well that the amount of foreign travel that Britons do means that they're really not. And they provide an easy way of filling an unpopular database.
Will the Government use the Parliament Act more than all other previous Governments combined? It's looking likely.
But, final good news for the day from Newsarama!
DOOM PATROL VOL. 4: MUSCLEBOUND TP
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artists: Richard Case, Steve Yeowell, Mike Dringenberg, Vince Giarrano, Jamie Hewlett, Rian Hughes, Mark McKenna, Doug Hazlewood, Malcolm Jones III, Scott Hanna, Mark Badger and various.
Collects DOOM PATROL #42-50.
256 pages, $19.99 U.S.
THE PENTAGON MUST BE TURNED INTO A CIRCLE! FLEX MENTALLO! THE MAN OF MUSCLE MYSTERY! THE HERO OF THE BEACH!
*wipes himself down*
To whit: discovering that the bus is extremely busy today, to the point where there's only two places on the bus to sit. One is Not An Option Because Of Not Wishing To Be Creepy, and the other is taken up by a guy whose idea of sharing is to almost fully open his legs, leaving me with a sliver of seat all the way to Oxford.
Boo.
See? If only we hadn't sold BR off!
And now, a pause to remember The Adventures of Flossie. Things will never be quite the same again (remember to flush the Wayback Machine as well, Matt!). There are times when I think of doing the same, but a month in Chapel Hill is approaching, and that normally makes this place a little more exciting…
And the weird thing is, this sounds like a restrained ceremony by Leanne…
Must have been a rather dull night for the buffet girl though - what do you do in those situations? Can you tell people off for coming back for third and fourth helpings?
The end of British Parliamentary democracy?
[Jim Murphy] told the BBC: "I have given assurances that there are more safeguards on the face of this bill than before, that we will have statutory consultation, we will not do anything that is highly controversial and the relevant select committees of the House of Commons will have a veto on every single proposal."
"Trust us."
Number 1: A helpful phone call from the Federation Against Software Theft.
Not much response to my plea for a book on the miners' strike, although I didn't expect a flood. Anyway, I did manage to find this:
With a title like that, its biases are rather clear, but I've already learnt that Scargill wasn't quite the corrupt person that I've always thought he was (the story back in the 1990s that he used union funds to pay for his house has since been described as 'entirely untrue' by the editor of the Mirror who commissioned it). So I'm expecting intrigue and shock! I'll let you know.
Oooh! Lovely emails from Johnny Boy about my review, and this:
Okay, so I can't go, but some of you might. yeah! yeah!
Curious news from Chapel Hill - a graduate student tried to run down down nine people in the Pit on Friday. It took me a while to work out how he could do it - but then I remembered that up by Davis there's a car park, and it turns out that's how he got in.
It was on Fox News this morning because they had an interview with Ryan Tuck, editor of the UNC student paper, The Daily Tarheel. Fox interviews are amazing, making you wish for the halcyon days of RISE:tv. Yes, they really are that bad. What was quite interesting, though, was the footage they showed of FBI agents going into his apartment. It looked suspiciously like the complex that Kavi used to live in back in 2004. Eeek!
And we all sneer at how Channel 4 commissioned Minipops, as if we're above that now…ha.
(co-written by a Cuban Boy? hmm)
While I'm busy smacking my head on the table at Mr. Blair's latest attempt to turn the entire country against him, does anybody know of a good book on the 1984-85 miners' strike? I'm reading David Peace's GB84 at the moment, and although it's interesting, it's difficult for me to tell fact from fiction, given that I was five at the time. Amazon didn't throw up any obvious works during a simple search; surely it was important enough to merit a few historical tomes?
(Unlike Scargill, I'm prepared to hold a ballot in the comments. Make a resolution below!)
There was a letter waiting for me when I got home this evening. Hand-written envelope, and posted in London. Rather intriguing. I open it, thinking that possible it's from Rachel, my friend from Chapel Hill whom I've never actually met who is spending a semester in Britain at the moment.
This is what the letter said (in COMIC SANS, GRR):
KATE WINSLET
Thank you very much for your letter - I apologise for any delay in responding to you. As I'm sure you can appreciate, Kate is extremely busy and it is often difficult to reply to each request individually.
However, Kate has read your letter and I hope that you will be pleased with the enclosed signed photograph sent with her best wishes
Kind regards
Janine Gray
Assistant to Kate Winslet
Now, that would be fine…if I had ever written to Kate Winslet.
*scared*