December 20, 99. I heard about an online Pictionary (the game where one person draws the word for the other person to guess) site today - http://www.rita.nu/ - which looked really good except that I think it's been made by Swedes who haven't picked the best possible dictionary for it. I nearly gave up when my word was 'whore' and the person I was playing with got 'soliloquize'. The last word I got was 'bride'. At least it wasn't 'wedding night'. Cos then I'd have to draw a whole reception party and stuff. Get your minds out of the gutter!
Speaking of mature reactions, I actually bothered screen shotting this content.
September 29. (Is it just me or has September been going on for a hell of a long time?).
So the new series of Beverly Hills, 90210 started tonight. I really think that it's time to let go when the stars of a show that began when the characters were in early high school begin to bald. Sure, one or two of them could be premature, but when there's only one male cast member left with anything like a full head of hair, it's time to move on.
But Bev has a lot of problems anyway - any show that lets half its actors become producers is asking for trouble, cos there's no chance that anyone will be making rational casting decisions once the animals have taken over the farm. I'm just glad they got rid of Brandon, but what on earth will he do now? At least Dylan (ok, you know I mean the actor but I can only remember the character's names, right?) got a movie in while he was still young enough to be presented as spunk material. At their age their lack of acting ability is really beginning to show.
Aaron Spelling has a lot more than letting guys with wrinkles play 16 year olds to answer for. It's stupidly obvious to say that those shows offer a wildly distorted view of reality, but it's also a lot of fun. Hey, those shows offer a wildly distorted view of reality! See?
Um, so anyway, these are things I've noticed about the Spelling universe:
1. Never let that long lost cousin, sister or friend move in with you and hang out with your boyfriend. Like der, you'll be off working all day, and she'll be hanging round the house cos she's unemployed (and of course single, having just arrived from Arkansas) and he'll be unemployed and hanging round cos his business/yacht/car/bar/skateboard will have just gone under. Being from out of town, she'll be evil; being a Spelling boy he'll be tempted by any cleavage that looks nothing like Tori Spelling's; you're doomed, sister.
2. When you're miserable and single (but you've still got your career, it really isn't that bad, and no doubt there's some client who's willing to buy the company or whatever to get to sleep with you) WHATEVER you do, don't have a toke of a joint or a line of coke cos you'll be 'addicted' and stuck wearing drab brown makeup for at least three episodes.
3. If you're stupid enough to have ignored my warnings above, at least make sure that you don't make new druggie/breakup friends cos you'll be dragged to a club that looks like a Blue Light Disco crossed with some kind of goth thing full of writhing 'freaks' where you have to stumble through the obligatory 'too many drugs' scene. Don't forget to nod off at the wheel and crash the car on the way home, there's a good girl.
4. Worst of all is the 'intervention' scene where the friend you called from jail comes to bail you out and drags you off to some other tonk's apartment where everyone tells you they love you before being earnest at you to get you off the drugs/booze/evil boyfriend.
5. Actually, I lied, that might not be worst of all. If you're really desperate you can flirt with being gay, but if you do, you don't get an intervention scene (don't want to offend that pink dollar!), you just get a jolly good rogering (from the boyfriend that cheated on you in the first place) that convinces you of the error of your ways. But at least you get to wear pretty girl makeup again!
September 14, 1999. It's assignment time, which of course means that I watch a lot of tv while I try and get the energy to go and study. So of course I end up getting really annoyed by stupid ads, so I get up off the couch to rant about them online. Once I'm there, I'll usually end up feeling guilty and do some study, so it all works out and obviously means that I can watch as much tv as I want.
So what is it with tampon ads lately? They're just plain mean right now. (And 'napkin' ads - anything that you bleed on, I guess. Sorry it that's crude, but it's about time you all found out that women don't deal with mysterious blue liquid once a month. Actually, it's blood *gasp*). Some chick is late for her job house-sitting/dog minding, and supposedly that makes it ok for her to go through her employer's things, spill expensive perfume, and fill the bottle with dog's piss? Somewhere along the way they make the point that some sanitary pad soaks up perfume like a demon, but who cares. I'm not going to buy the same products as piss woman, I might end up acting like her.
Meanness occurs in tampons ads as well. Some chick is at the laundrette, and being a stupid little bimbo, hasn't brought any change (like der, where did she think she was going when she left the house with a basket of washing and some detergent?). She wakes some old guy and asks him if he has change - but no, he hasn't, so she shrinks his t-shirt in the dryer. What a cow! I think the ad is trying to say that she's sassy and carefree because she has Brand X tampons, but the message is more like 'she's grumpy as all hell because she's got her period and basically she's a little dim'.
While I'm here, two more ad gripes: one is about the ad for Tic Tacs, where a (presumably anal-retentive) woman has orgasms over the fact that one tic tac lasts for two hours and only has two calories. As if anyone that obsessed with counting calories would eat anything 'naughty' enough to give her bad breath anyway!
Finally: if I see one more ad for a redesigned pack, I'm going to throw a tv through the window. Not my tv, and not my window, but the window of whatever dumb advertising executive thinks that keeping the brand name in the public view is more important than treating the viewing audience like idiots. I don't care that Pantene now has a white bottle (that's really what the ad says, btw), and I don't care that a box of tampons has a click-top pack, or is in a floral or leopard skin design. I changed my clothes today, but you don't see me getting up a huge ad campaign to tell everyone about it.
September 7, 1999. Am I the only one who's noticed that the cover of Alanis Morrisette's latest album looks like nothing more than bad fan art?
September 1, 1999. I'm so lazy. How could I let so many months go by without updating? I blame uni, myself. I've barely had time to drink, let alone write. Ok, just take the whole of my trip to America as a rant. One of these days I'll get around to writing it up. Meanwhile, a new version of Pagespinner has been released (insert 'Made on a Mac' rant here), which is really the only reason that I got around to actually doing this.
So I have a new house. On one of my first days there, I noticed a big Work Care billboard down the road. I thought it read, 'A Health and Safety Nap can make all the difference', and I thought, 'right on! good attitude'. Imagine my dismay when I realised that the sign actually said 'A Health and Safety Rep...'. I still think the first version makes more sense.
Lots of things have been annoying me lately, but right now I can't think of many. I'm thinking of starting a page called 'things I didn't say today' because lately the person in the street seems to have turned into the arsehole in the street, and I've had to stop myself yelling at some idiot almost every day.
