That's How It Happened

Are Goldie Lookin' Chain the new Pitman? All the mp3s. They hit Radio 1 on the 5th Feb. (Oh and if you didn't hear it yet, check Beasties on Zane's show, you have till Thurs)

Sad to say, but in recent days I've actually been getting out-doors, instead of staying home and slowly etiolating in the dim light of my iMac. I attended easily the worst, most pitiful, most ill-conceived, worthless seminar ever. Supposedly some debate about the interface of art and science, it was just unmercifully wack. Shame on the Royal Institution. (Gabriel Coxhead's book is good though. Available now where-ever books are sold.) As a response to this awful lecture experience I've plunged into mindless socialising. Hence just a few prime links for ya:

Hottest kicks 2004? Laser Rift.

Rarest Beastie Boys record ever? "...an intended non-LP B-side called "The Scenario", a murder story that the group calls their best song, proved too graphic for CBS [Records]" - Creem, May 1987. It did appear in Pump The Volume, but was never "commercially released". Some-one pick this up for my birthday.

Pickled dragon.

Nice online Scrabble app. Sadly uses US dictionary only, not International Words. And as Kottke points out, Hasbro are kinda free with the cease and desist orders.

A whale explodes (and not for the first time.)

From a forum for really bad drug experiences, on the consequences of chomping down eight grams of shrooms at once:

"I think I experienced ego loss, although Im not sure, I have to read up on that subject sometime. What I can tell is that my ego certainly was very much changed after that moment in my life, I have become alot wiser and its easier for me to form complex thought and figure out complex questions or concentrate on someting for a long time. On the other hand my social life has suffered, I find it harder to communicate with people, when im myself they think I talk/dwell too long on, to them, seemingly boring subjects, which Ive learned to avoid that to a good degree although I slip sometimes Which is frustrating cause I cant express myself fully the way I like too alot."

Who says drugs don't fuck you up? Read more horrific "experiences".

Last night saw The Ruffness headlining Cargo. This near legendary Scottish band have never played London Village before. Naturally the turn out was huge. The club was packed with baying fans, including a number of celebrities. I'm not one to name drop, but swigging beer near the bar was one Jon Bon Jonas, Sweden's finest Bon Jovi impersonator. As ever I didn't get my shizzle togizzle and missed the support act. Apparently they were hot though.

The Ruffness themselves are famed for their rock-n-roll lifestyle. Their tour bus was destroyed at a recent gig after a horrific pile-up. Surprising then, that they made it to Shoreditch intact. They played an hour-long set, featuring most of their now classic repertoire. Their two EPs are a funksploding mix of anthemic dance tracks and bluesy "ballads". They fall outside of a conventional genre, but being a lazy webhack I'd say they are: A. Like James Brown crossed with Roni Size, or B. Like Manu Chao on acid. Right that's enough cheap similes. Essentially they rocked Cargo from top to bottom and back again. The crowd were with them all the way stomping and gyrating throughout. This is probably their last London gig for some time, but you should rush out and buy the E.P.s now.

I am exhausted by two straight nights of hard drinking. If I'm not staying home to hear The Beastie Boys on Zane Lowe's show, tonight at 1900GMT, I'll be at Gabriel Coxhead's book launch. He has my congratulations for finally being published, just 4 short years after graduating.

PS For everyone who keeps searching this site to find out if Hiroshi Fujiwara really had a cameo in Lost in Translation. Yes, I read that too, and no I didn't spot him either. He's not in the credits, but apparently he's seated next to Scarlet Johansson in one of the club scenes. Anyway the DVD is out on Monday, so you'll all be able to check for yourselves.
PPS For all those hunting for pictures of Cam's Range Rover. I'm too good to y'all. Here are the pictures.

Updates have been a little thin just recently. I've battled through high winds, snow, and a roaring hangover to bring you this little shop report.




Gloria's is London's newest sneaker boutique. It's nestled under the Old Truman Brewery, off Brick Lane.
I was underwhelmed by the design, much less glam than the cages of Foot Patrol. The shop is hung like a gallery. Lots of Jordan (the b-baller, not the "Celebrity") related artworks, and some prints from Vaughn Bode. They have a ton of Japanese toys on display too. Mostly Kubricks, including the Pantone series and the Bow Bricks, as well as a couple of Michael Lau figures. My whole attic is full of worthless Star Wars toys, so I have vowed to stay away from any more "collectable" plastic junk. I should have thought that if you're a toy-head you can probably get your fill at PlayLounge, but it does add interest to the store.




Anyhow the majority of the store is devoted to rare kicks. It's about 80% Nike. Jordans leave me cold, but they have several varieties in stock for afficionados. They have a bunch of Dunks including a few SBs, and the Mexico Dunk. The stock of AF1s was more impressive, including Chi-Towns, West Indies, and about 10 other colourways. Other highlights for me included, Safaris, Trainer 1s, and horsehair Rifts apparently called the Air Hoof Insanity.
Other merch includes ParkWalk T-Shirts, Sneaker Freaker Magazine, and an array of Vaughn Bode stuff, including Bode Bars. I guess even graffiti writers need a peanut chocolatey snack.
Overall I was slightly unimpressed. It's a bit nerdy, a bit too Shoreditch Twat. Gloria's certainly isn't London's most alluring sneaker store. However if they can maintain supplies of rare stock I'll be checking back there often enough.
PS If anyone is finding this bandwidth heavy content a strain on their browser, please complain via the comments system. In fact please comment on everything. Although my referral log paints a happy picture of flourishing micro-broadcasting, I'm starting to feel like a rather lonely life raft cut adrift on the high seas of the blogosphere.

Are you feeling lucky? I am. Result 1 of about 4,590,000.

From the creators of Britain's longest running electro festival comes FRESH 2004. It's strictly guestlist only, but I could probably sneak you in if you slip me a Paul McKenna. I just posted it here in my ongoing drive to showcase the best of Murray Graphix.

Here is my first eBay auction ever! Woohoo! Make me happy and bid now. I will hand deliver to anyone I actually know.

A majority of my search engine referrals come from acquaintances googling themselves. The rest come from sneaker freaks. If you think oxford brogues are the height of cobbling cool, well I apologise in advance for this update: the five rarest dunks of the new millennium.

1. The Charity Dunk



Limited to just one pair. No-one knows who owns them, but they paid a cool $30k. The pair in the photo were made to demonstrate the colourway, and then destroyed on completion of the auction.

2. The Orchard St Dunk.



Just 24 pairs ever, most kept back for in-house nike-hedz. A few pairs were dangled precariously around the East Village for kicksologists to find.

3. The Paris Dunk



These were sold from Collette, probably only 150 pairs ever. They feature the designs of a dead french dude called Bernard Buffet, and every pair is unique. These have rocketed in price to well over a thousand dollars.

4. The White Dunk



Just 202 pairs, sold by lottery with 200,000 tickets. The first pairs are just showing up on eBay. They are made from painter's canvas, and are otherwise devoid of detail.

5. The Supreme Dunk SB High



Two different colourways for the Supreme Low, but it's the mad starspangled High that gets in at number 5. No-one is sure how many of each of the SB Dunks have been released. Rumours vary between 250 and 2500, with 444 being a distinct possibility. All the SB Dunks are rare, but the Supreme Highs (even more than the ostrich skin Stussy Dunks) seem to be the most covetable.

I consider myself extremely well travelled. My passport is almost out of pages, due to endless stamps and visas from obscure principalities. The map above shows the countries I have visited (in red, not green, obvs). It makes a mockery of my pretense of having seen the globe. I raise this issue, because this morning, while scurrying to work in the rain, I saw a woman carrying her Selfridge's bag on her head. When I was a kid in Swaziland this used to be commonplace. Even in metropolitan Jo'burg, african women would carry goods to and from the market balanced on their heads. Now you don't see it anywhere in southern africa. It's an outmoded tradition being replaced by motor scooters and buggies. Unreasonable as it is to protest, it's sad that modernisation wipes out local picturesque practices. I am the first to admit that I lust after Nike sneakers, Krispy Kremes, and all things Americanophile: but I do regret globalisation. Before you accuse me of loony leftism, I think Naomi Klein sucks, I love GM food, and if Vincent Gallo keeps up his support I might even turn Republican. (PS If you'd like a map like that click here, for an even fancier one try here.)

All of those about to rock, we salute you, and you are cordially invited to the aftershow p-a-r-t why? because we gotta, chez moi.

Announcing the first howithappened.com competition:
The challenge is to find two words that have totally different meanings, but are identical save for the addition of a single letter. My prime examples are, COLOPHON and COLOPHONY. A bottle of cheap cava to whomsoever submits the longest pair. Anyone who steals from Lost Consonants gets an ass-kicking instead of wine.

The drunk elephant electrocution story is currently a "hot topic" in the blogosphere according to Blogdex. Even if this were already vieux chapeau (old hat, geddit?) to you, well you probably didn't know that these were not the first pachyderms to be fried. I hereby claim dibs on this elephant vs voltage meme.

In a feature ripped from every Saturday Supplement: COOL VS FOOL

COOL: Original McFetridge Vandalised Vandals (saves so much heartache)
FOOL: $1300 Paris Dunks (like you're gonna wear those on a rainy day)

COOL: Winning at iPOKER (awesome simulation software)
FOOL: Losing at real poker

COOL: Surfer's Path (Most gorgeous surfmag ever)
FOOL: Relax Mag (Most gorgeous magazine, about who fucking knows what)

COOL: Mike Mills (Thumbsucking)
FOOL: Tim Burton (too much sucking, not enough not sucking)

COOL: Acquisition (best P-2-P ever)
FOOL: Intellectual rights

COOL: Root Beer (mail order in the UK!)
FOOL: Cristal (thirsty rappers in Houston)

COOL: Curb Your Enthusiasm (already on DVD)
FOOL: Seinfeld (not on DVD for months, maybe even years)

COOL: Gloria Gaynor (Finally great kicks in East London, so fresh there's no link)
FOOL: Alife Rivington Club (exclusive Manhatten kicks, fuck y'all NYC bitches)

COOL: The weak dollar (1.84 to the £ baby, lets bid on those Paris Dunks after all)
FOOL: George Bush (controversial I know)

Young Nixta promised never to return to English shores until I published his not so recent letter. However it appears that he is due at Heathrow in a matter of hours. Not wanting a gentleman to break his word I now present: A Letter From Nixta

My dear fellow,
Not only will I endeavour to keep the spelling metsops and grammtical titsuppery to a minimum, but also I will attempt to explain to you and your readers the feeling of unrestrained contempt I feel for your fine bloglication.
It is a wet and blustery Christmas Eve, and if you take a peek at Nixta.com you will see that for very nearly two whole months, nothing has been written (and that last post was itself a desperate attempt to treat the constipation that supplanted the diarrhoea my readership had suffered earlier in the year).
I blame this constipation on your good self and your blog pages which are written as seemingly effortlessly as Mozart would knock out a pre-dinner tune or as a child would eat its own fresh nasal discharge.  With your magnum opus, I fear there is no room for nixta.com.
You must excuse me now as my air-conditioner cover has been blown away once more and I must hunt it down before the squirrels make a home of it for Winter,
Nobby Cathcart.

As you can see Nick has a fine line in neologia, spoonerisms and obscene metaphors. I commend this letter, as the finest ever sent to my "bloglication". As for the photo above, I should explain. Young Nixta had gained notoriety as the scurge of Manhattenite Culex Pipiens, (Based on sitings of dead pigeons, he was co-ordinating pizza boys to blitz drains with mosquito larvae poison, in order to eliminate West Nile Virus, I shit you not.) Following a slight failure to control WNV, Nick progressed to trying to put Ankor Wat back together. Even from the above photo showing the GF in one of the many temples of Ankor, it should be clear that Nick had bitten off more than he could chew. I'd wager that even roboto-Stephen Hawking armed with the processing power of SETI@Home couldn't reconstruct that broken-ass pile of rubble. Heaven knows what project Nick is tackling in Blighty, but I'm hoping it mostly involves plenty of beer and x-box.

Me and Cam'ron gotta lot in common. We both know what the eighties was like, we polite, can listen and take advice, plus we know how to lay the pipe. That's why we mad fresh wid da shorties.
Seems Cam has fallen on some hard times though. He's selling his Pink Range Rover for $180,000. If my ride wasn't so damn hot already I'd snap that shit up in a mad second.

AllConsuming is a handy site that spiders blogs to extract book reviews. You can use it to see what people think of books you're reading. I was absolutely incensed by people's dimwit opinions of Nicholson Baker. In fact I am so angry about it that I refuse to even link to their low IQ blogs. As far as I am concerned Nicholson Baker is slowly building the greatest ouvre in modern fiction. Room Temperature and the Mezzanine are two of my favourite fiction works, and The Size of Thoughts is my favourite collection of essays.

Most of my current reading list came from Oxfam:
Kill, Kill, Faster, Faster Boring
The Tao of Physics Boring
The Complete Urban Farmer Excellent
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls Boring
Hip Hotels, Italy Boring

From Amazon:
The Meaning of Everything Excellent

Proportionally I've done better paying full price for new books, rather than taking a chance on a bunch of second hand rubbish that I had passed over on first publication.

The Complete Urban Farmer has my attention. It's full of esoteric 70's gardening tidbits. I don't really want to make this blog a diary of my gardening exploits; however I did plant blueberry bushes this weekend. If you too like fresh fruit in your morning yoghurt, then you can't do better than blueberries. They have a very long fruiting season, and two bushes will provide enough to eat every day. You need at least two, because they have to cross-pollinate. You need to plant them in ericaceous (acid) compost, and ensure excellent drainage, or they fall prey to rainy winters. Crocus has them available now.

Research Day:
What the crap does M&M stand for?
Answer: Mars and Murrie

Who invented treasury tags?
Answer: Who knows, not Google.

Who first ordered eggs benedict?
Answer: Either Lemuel C. Benedict or Mrs LeGrand Benedict. The two branches of the family are still arguing about it here and here.

Who were the first two members of the mile high club?
Answer: Mr Lawrence Sperry and Mrs Waldo Polk

Did the writers of Friends invent the phrase "going commando"?
Answer: No
This one had bothered me for 8 years, so good to finally know that it was 80's college slang.

Update:
Not content with failure I have emailed the treasury bureaucrats to this effect, I expect an urgent reply:

Dear Sirs,
I know this is not strictly relevant to your important public work, but I have a burning question. Do you know why treasury tags are called treasury tags? I have searched in vain on the internet. I naturally assume from the name, and their relative popularity on our side of the Atlantic that they must have originated near Whitehall. Please could you help me find out who invented this handy item of stationary, and whether they worked in Her Majesty's Treasury.

Yours faithfully,
Rufus Cartwright

Before you balk, I deliberately subtly misspelled "stationery", and omitted the "Dr" so they would think it was from an inquisitive child, not a moronic time waster like me.

Many many fine links go rejected by my highly discerning internet eye before I deign to bother you with true gold. Here for your amusement: Ben Affleck's Stupid Car

Update at Beez Fanz. Don't even think about missing the Feb 4th gig.

Scenes from a weekend at leisure:

Annie Morris' private view at the Adam Street Club. Normally private views are to be dreaded: warm white wine, boring arty types, and a desperate search for something nice to say about awful pictures. Annie's show was however a triumph, and heart-felt compliments, and wine, flowed freely.

Yoel Sano's birthday at Malayasia Aji Ajo. Steamboat is a culinary tradition that doesn't seem to have spread to London. You get a big boiling pan of soup, and a giant spread of vegetables/meat/fish/crustacea to cook in it. Our steamboat was of collosal proportions. We washed it down with litres of Tsing Tao, and then proceeded to hours of terrible karaoke.

Viewing a pokey two bedroomed flat in Islington, with a 4000 sq ft 1938 bomb shelter attached. It was extremely Blair Witch. We passed through a double set of rusty iron bomb-proof doors, complete with submarine style wheels for locking, descended into a giant unlit mouldy underground cavern. If the flat above hadn't been so dire, we might almost have put in an offer.

Anyway, that's my weekend over. Back to the real work-a-day business of odd weblinks and delivering babies.

When you have no religion, there's no-one to be true to; except yourself. I think I may have condemned myself to atheist hell. In a single day I broke four of the central tenets of my lack of faith. In ascending order of pure evil:

1. No Frappucino Consumption.
I didn't just promise myself not to do this anymore, I promised my cardiologist too.

2. No Buying Relax Magazine.
I really fell off the wagon with this one. I just stopped by the Japan Centre to see the new issue, and walked away with four of these insanely expensive, incomprehensible mini-style bibles.

3. Never Visit The Rockwell.
The Rockwell Bar in the Trafalgar Hilton on Trafalgar Sq was Evening Standard Bar of the Year 2002. After previous impossibly bad service I had sworn never to go back. I relented in order to celebrate Hippo's birthday. Despite my fore-boding, I actually had an incredibly good cocktail, a Derby Smash.(Watermelon Juice, Maker's Mark Bourbon, Pimm's No.1, Raspberries, Ginger Beer.) Eventually the bland decor and crap hotel music overwhelmed me, and I fled with the GF to Hanman. Hanman rules: a tiny super authentic Japanese bar in Soho, all yellow neon lit, music from obscurist DJs, and walls decorated with limited edition T-shirts. Much more my style.

4. Don't Wear Dunks.
For no particular reason I succumbed to a whim and picked up the last pair of Laser Cut Dunk Los from Foot Patrol. They are limited to 2500, so hardly exclusive by my standards. The catch is that they have a sweet graf design, created by burning off the outer layer of leather with a laser. Way over-hyped, but kinda beautiful. I probably ought to put them on eBay to save the last remnants of my self-resolve.

Even a movie as brilliant as Lost In Translation gets some bad reviews. I thought it was electrifyingly good. Its deliciously bittersweet, all the more so for news of Spike and Sophia's pending divorce. I particularly liked Scarlett Johansson, I don't know how I overlooked her in Eight Legged Freaks and The Man Who Wasn't There.

The clear highlight of the movie for me were Bill Murray's sneakers. He wears mocha/curry/beach Nike hTM Wovens for much of the film. It doesn't seem to have pushed up prices on eBay yet, so I'll hang on to my pair. (For non-initiates hTM Nikes are released in runs of only 1500 worldwide. The initials stand for Hiroshi Fujiwara, Tinker Hatfield, and Mark Parker. Designer of Good Enough, and consultant to Nike; Nike Vice President, Design and Special Projects; Nike Brand President; respectively.)

My parents are finally back from holiday today. It's pathetic but my brother and I (aged 23 and 26) can hardly cope without them. I checked in on him yesterday and discovered he had had nothing to eat except chocolate biscuits since Tuesday. I myself have been reduced to wearing a pair of 1997 Batman Slipper Socks to work (complete with rubberised yellow tread). My brother has been working on the documentary "I met Osama Bin Laden." It hits Aussie TV this week, and will be on BBC 2 in February.

Other movies I am looking forward to? The Coen's remake of The Ladykillers. Stacy Peralta's documentary on the history of big wave surfing: Riding Giants. Oh and I guess grudgingly I have to accept that Episode III has me a little intrigued.

I don't often attend hip hop gigs. There's an element of ludicrosity about going to see Eminem and Fiddy prancing around a stadium, and an element of fear that keeps me away from more underground events. It was with slight trepidation that I went to Cargo last night. Featured Infected no.1, who claims to have some street credentials, had advised us that, since everyone would be carrying guns, we had to apologise swiftly if we bumped into anyone, and never ever stare at anyone. As it turned out, there was plenty to stare at.
Cartwright's Law of Fashion, states that with for every thousand miles you get from New York, the peak of fashion is delayed by a month. By way of example: trucker hats entered the millinery zeitgeist in NYC last January and were already overblown there by May; they gained popularity in London in early summer, and are so passe right now; in Cape Town though they are still tout-la-rage. Based on Cargo in mid-January I can safely predict that Cape Town will be donning ridiculous flat brim baseball caps by April. In fact I had forgotten how fond of headgear hiphoppers are. Apart from the ubiquitous flat brim caps, there was a whole array of bandanas, fluffy visors, even beanie/cap combos.
I went with Tom MacRae (the script writer, not the song writer), and the GF (I need a spousal pseudonym, a la Belle de Jour and A. A. Gill). We missed the support acts while indulging in fine wines and nibbles. We did hear some fine beat boxing when the decks briefly failed, and while enjoying Bajan Mules (Cockspur rum, angoustura bitters, ginger beer, nutmeg.) an un-named MC freestyled over Mad World to much applause.
Tony Rotten and his "Rottonostra" colleagues didn't make the stage till way after midnight. It was a great set. Loud loud beats, fluid rhymes, and a really up for it audience. My more bourgeois companions were amused when mid-set Tony shouted out:

"Fingers in the air for Kim Howell, the culture minister who don't know nuffin about culture."

But by then I was already intoxicated enough to roll with the preposterousness of it all. The set finished with a blinding rendition of "So Rotton", principally sung by a fired up crowd. Only 14 days into January, but barring a Nirvana reunion this was probably the best gig I'll see all year.

My father's friend Charles Guggenheim got more Oscar nominations in the documentary category than anyone ever. Aged about 15, already a precocious brat, I was into Frank Lloyd Wright in a big way. When I told Charles I was going to New York and wanted to visit the Guggenheim Museum, he said to me, in a thick Ohio/New York drawl:

"Tell 'em Charlie sent ya."

That might still be the funniest thing I've ever heard. I went back to the Guggenheim last year to see Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle. It was an incredible exhibition, an absolute must see if it is ever restaged. This is a funny article comparing Cremaster 3 with Donkey Kong.

I am still into architecture and design now. If sites like Design Is Kinky are too rabidly contemporary for you, then check out Design Boom. It's chock full of great interviews, pictorial histories, and it looks lovely. I am off to see Blak Twang tonight. Trans-atlantic readers have probably missed out on Tony Rotten's brand of UK hiphop: you can catch up with a slew of videos at the official site, and this collection of MP3s.

I am just finishing my fourth consecutive night shift. I feel like a big cat pacing in its cage. I am itching to escape and maul the keepers. My social calendar for this week includes: movie going to see American Splendour and Lost in Translation; Blak Twang live at Cargo; the return of the prodigal parents from South Africa; two birthday parties; Annie Morris's private view; and a whole lot of crazy drunken-ass crunking.

Mini-Research Day:
The Manhattan cult restaurant Shopsin's has some odd rules, including that you can't copy the order of the guy sitting next to you. I figured this was probably the inspiration for my favourite Seinfeld episode "The Soup Nazi". Anyway a minute's googling proved I was quite wrong. Al Yeganah was the original Soup Nazi, and it seems he wasn't too happy about the caricature.

This incredible page reminds me of the tumbling scripts at the start of the Matrix. It seems to be a giant compendium of Google search terms, aggregated and cross linked to collect massive Google juice. Scroll through it fast and it's like having the whole of the internet flash before your eyes. Pick through it slowly and it's a disturbing, yet fascinating insight into the pop-cultural collective psyche. (Warning: clicking through from that page is majorly NSFW).

Wiley Wiggins' blog is censored by the NHS Gestapo on the basis that it is "tasteless". He's the star of Waking Life, Richard Linklater's film about lucid dreaming. It's a much misunderstood movie, which I thoroughly recommend, not least because of great cameos from Steven Soderbergh, Speed Levitch, and Linklater himself (playing what I think is Bally's 1981 Fireball II Pinball.) Anyhow I am abandoning my precious blog for the night, I shall try to catch a few fragments of dreamless sleep before dawn.

Finally a weapon for fighting godzillas and other assorted intergalactic sea creatures. When the godzillas do arrive in Tokyo, all the kids who invested in the world's largest x-box controller™ to play Tekki, will be able to jump into these mecha-babies from enryu.jp and kick ass.

In a complete u-turn from my comments of December 30th: real magazines suck, long live online magazines! Being Hunted call Relax #84 "too obscure". Instead I can recommend EvilMonito. They have a great interview with Kostas, (whose figures are available at Zoltar the Magnificent). They also sponsored a beautiful collection of surfboards, in support of Ewing's Sarcoma sufferer Jason Bogle. These boards are far too classy to ever get wet, but fantastic none the less. All in all a kwality online publication.

GloFish has a big brother, the slightly derogatorily named Freakoid Fish. Americans are really making me proud with their refusal to disavow GM products.

Holy schmoley, forget bidding on eBay for back issues, you can buy all of Grand Royal records for $10000.

The Bimbo Ball appears to be a giant hamster ball for your children. Dis-allowing the risks of suffocation, this would be a great way to keep roaming toddlers out of trouble.

I know there's already a profusion of useless buttons and badges on my site. Most of it is just ruining the colour scheme. However to add to the confusion expressed by some viewers, I now introduce the new comments system. Each post now has its own comments box. This officially replaces the old sidebar system that sucked. Go explore, all submissions welcome.

In last month's Tokion (available at Magma), Jacob Da Jeweller checks Nigo as his best customer. Now in this slightly out of date article, he is named as the world's third largest collector of vintage Star Wars toys. I am so glad he doesn't waste the money I spend on his clothes.

MC Pitman can't get Radio 1 when he's down the mine, but he can leave harassing messages on Gilles Peterson's answerphone.

Like the rest of the internet, the most popular blogs are overflowing with sexual confessions, and titillating stories. Here's my prurient fantasy: I am an Octochamp on Countdown, as the show ends I go back to my dressing room, but get confused and mistakenly wander into the dressing room shared by Carol Vorderman and Susie Dent....(mmmm....lexicographer.) Even Countdown has its own conspiracy theory these days. The hateful little nerd Julian Fell wrote this incredibly interesting article about being a Countdown savant. If you want to go on Countdown you can write to this address; I think I would be too nervous. I appeared on All In The Mind in the early 90's, and my performance was only fair-to-dismal.

6 months ago I hardly read any blogs. I certainly didn't bother with any personal blogs. Now a sort of comradeship/morbid curiosity leads me to peruse all manner of mundane journals. Here are my top five least favourite oh-so-common posts:

1. Mucus/pus/coughs/colds/sneezing. I have no interest in minor ailments.

2. Announcements of major world events, e.g. Saddam's capture.

3. Analysis of Bush/Blair or even Britney

4. "Last night I dreamt..." Even duller in blog form than real life.

5. Discussion of the myriad intricacies of blogging.

I am aware of the vague irony that this post probably fits into category 5. If this bores you go check out the skating chimpanzee again.

This article seems to be written in haiku:

Firefighters said the boy
and father, left Piggly Wiggly
without telling them how
the boy got trapped in the toy machine.

An above average day for odd news mostly because of the drunk polish pike, and the inline skating chimp.

Having an odd sort of day. When you work a mix of night shifts and day shifts you do get a little disoriented. In an homage to Microserfs, (which I half feel is Coupland's best book), I am only eating spherical foods today. So far I have got by with a honeydew melon, lotus bean paste dumplings, chicken dumplings, and satsumas. I need suggestions for supper though or I may starve.

I found the head above in a gutter. It might be the head from a super rare Mike D action figure. Most everyone has their own action figure these days. Even mutilated Uday (Complete with dying words), and Nancy Pearl: Librarian Superwoman. Doctors don't commonly get their own action figure. Luckily there are plenty of guides to doing it yourself. If that seems like too much work andgor.com will sculpt a 12" plastic likeness of you, for just $400. My birthday is due on the 27th February... (Incidentally those of you who actually know me, please reserve the 28th of Feb for my birthday spectacular.)

This blog has only been around for two days, but its already worrying me a lot. Its written by "evan", who seems to have potential as a high school Columbine style mass murderer. I would have reported him to the FBI, but he does link to Infiltration which is awesome, in a jaded teen naughtiness kinda way.

Mister Pants is however not threatening. Just a very funny well designed site for fans of clowns, kittens, life size puppets, and incredible links. This fantastic biography of ODB came from Mister Pants. Go and enjoy his hidden treasures.

Cocktails at Mash last night. The clientele, service, and food are just as poor as ever. The decor looks terribly dated. The cocktails are still good though. I enjoyed several Mojo's, which bear no resemblence to the classic Mojo recipe, but is a frothy banana and rum frozen milkshake.

I would like to point out to faithful readers that this site can be accessed in number of equally glamourous ways. The site is hosted at geocities, and I respectfullly request that all links are to this url. However for on-the-road convenience many people seem to like, earthcallingrufus.com, and now rather more sensibly you can click to howithappened.com.

In the further continuing efforts of everyone I have ever met to become famous, Ebru Ercon had a full page feature in Metro today. I don't know how my parents could have been so wrong in suggesting a sensible career in medicine. Everyone I know who pursued acting, art, or now fashion, seems to have drifted effortlessly into blissfull success. Meanwhile I have to content myself with a job that actually helps people.

In the spirit of Shattered I stayed up for a straight 42 hours yesterday (and the day before). That 100K would be mine for the taking. I failed to actually do anything productive with my 42 hours though. Thus I bring you other people's news:

ALF (the alien) has finally made his TV comeback.

Yoel has reviewed Last Samurai online. He made a fat $100 for this article. When you see how he strings out his complex academic sentences with long long sub-oordinate clauses, I think you'll agree he earned every cent.

Barney Barrett has a new band. Respect due to Khooster for the web design.

Some guy called Chris Kirk has fallen victim to one of the best practical jokes ever.

Experiments in 60's Photography Volume 1

This is the first ever image produced with my new (1965) Edwin Land Polaroid Camera. As you can VERY CLEARLY see it's an image of the view from my balcony. I trawled up and down Tottenham Court Road trying to source the bizarre 3V battery required to fire the shutter. Finally in desperation I turned to Maplin, who sold me a convertor for normal AA batteries for 33.2p (It's a VAT thing.) The photo smells deliciously of toxic chemicals. Indeed the pack of film (also from 1965), comes with detailed advice on coping with alkali burns. This is definitely one Polaroid camera that should stay out of the bedroom.

The nice people at h mathis seem to be sending me a lot of hits, so I thought I'd link back to them It's not a completely pointless link. A good friend of mine once wasted a whole summer trying to make a drinks can out of cardboard; h mathis has already done something similar called the Swell Mug, check it out.

MICROZINE has opened in the street where I grew up. What was once a leafy residential haven of french cricket and half-baked skateboard ramps, is becoming a metropolis of exclusive designer boutiques. Anyway I can save you the trouble of visiting my old street, because MICROZINE is a bit pants. There's honestly nothing you'd want to buy, though the in-house magazine does have an amusing quote:

Interviewer: "Why did you choose to open your first store in Islington?"

Microzine Owner: "I wanted to be as far away as possible from Oxford Street."

I wish they would bog off to Southern Australia.

I finally unveiled my new skillz on X-Box Live and now rate inside the top 100 at Amped 2. I spent the morning kickin ass against American teens who've stayed up way past their bedtimes to play. I almost felt guilty when (at 4 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) some kid announces that:

"My mom is probably gonna confiscate my x-box, when my midterm report comes out."

Here are three fairly hefty movies, just for the 512K and above hedz, no 56k foolz:

1. The Geoff McFetridge Vandal Experiment 01

My Champion Vandals are still in the box, 100% deadstock. I can't figure out what to do with them, but over at FreshMeatInc they set to work on their pairs, and here is the result. Anyway its nice to know there are only 498 other pairs out there now.

2. The Longest Line

The Pharell Dunks (Yes I know I mention him every other post) and the Nike ESPO Air Force IIs (which I already dissed here) finally dropped, provoking insane 24hr+ queuing at NikeTowns worldwide. (1000 pairs suckas, get with the 499 crew). This video however shows what happens when the world's most desirable consumer brand finally opens a flagship store in the world's most consumerist city.

3. Whack-A-Mole Perfection

I saw some kids in Brighton who were pretty hot at Dance Revolution, but this video of Whack-A-Mole really takes some beating. I have always thought that people who say you can achieve anything if you try hard enough were idiots, but you really can become superhuman at video games. Here is another video of a Tetris mutant exceeding human capacities.

I spent the night in Brighton at the very charming Alias Seattle Hotel. Brighton has much to recommend it. We won stuffed toys at various stalls along the pier. (Though Sega's Soul Surfer in the arcade was hugely disappointing.) Supper at Blanch House was delicious. In the morning we thoroughly enjoyed the finery of the Pavilion. The afternoon was whiled away in the antiques and bric-a-brac shops. I picked up a mid 60's Polaroid Land Camera 103, for a mere fiver. I haven't yet produced a clear image, but I am confident of enjoying pre-digital instant imaging by nightfall.
All in all Brighton was a great success. I don't think I could stand to live among the vegan bi-curious hippies permanently, but as a weekend break it's wonderful.

I hosted poker night last night. I lost a fairly sizeable sum, partly due to incompetence, partly drinking too much Captain Morgan. Poker is actually pretty stupid, it's boring to play sober, and often painfully slow, and always infuriating to lose. If you do want to become a poker genius I recommend Doyle Brunson's Super System: he teaches you to play like an aggressive high roller. Follow that up with a spot of Sklansky and Malmuth: they teach you to play like a statistician. If those two books can't improve your game you'll have to turn to the Annotated Erdnase, which is the best book about card sharpery ever written.

I went to Mitcham today. I thought it was a deodorant, but it turns out that it's a place somewhere beyond Tooting. I had to travel to Zone 4, the furthest I've been on the Tube in over a year, then get a bus, hilariously called "The Mitcham Belle". Anyway I entrusted my broken amp to the good people of Rodney's Radio Repairs, and I shall pray for its safe return.

This has been the most boring day of my entire life. I could never have anticipated how much crap TV would be on. My own lethargy prevents me from leaving the sofa though.