necrogrrrl_jill

shallowthing @ 08:38 am: After the film, manniqueen_ left us, and yourapocalypse, crazyspideylady and I repaired to the Bell. After indulging in amateur cinema criticism and Holmesian nerdery, we spent some time looking at the old black-and-white pictures that hang in frames on the wall of the bar. I found the photographs fascinating, specifically the untold stories behind them, and the image of a bunch of off-duty soldiers from one of the Nottinghamshire regiments just prior to the First World War proved particularly captivating. What’s in the box in the handlebar basket of that boy’s bicycle? Why are some of the guys wearing their hats so far back on their heads like that? How may of these men ever made it home? That boy to one side of the crowd is barefoot – who did he grow up to be? Is the guy leaning on the railings as homosexual as crazyspideylady asserts he is?

Afterwards we went back to yourapocalypse’s place to watch more Holmes and eat pizza. I then escorted crazyspideylady (I still feel rather guilty over not being close enough to catch her when she took a tumble on the ice), and got to bed far later than I expected, which probably explains how I managed to squander too much of Sunday by sleeping in late. On Monday I finally wrote up The Bird Incident, and then on Tuesday I tidied the flat and did some much-overdue hanging out with notgothdammit, introducing her to Deadliest Warrior in the process. I may well have made a mistake there. Heh.

I started filling out the 2009 edition of that lengthy annual review meme on Wednesday, and polished it off on Thursday before suffering such a large motivational fail that I didn’t make it out of the house until past 10pm. Town was quieter than I expected, and possibly the highlight of my evening was watching a pair of police horses pass The Old Angel and then head along Stoney Street in front of me before turning off down towards the Arena. chemistrybecci had invited me to a small gathering at her place, along with Ninja Tom, Lisa, manniqueen_ and eventually jonthebloody. We all talked for a while, and then I fell asleep in the corner while they all watched Fawlty Towers (I blame myself not being fully awake when I eventually left for leaving my venerable longsleeve behind; I’m yet to organise going to collect it) before I walked home in pleasant cool under a beautiful full moon while listening to Prince.

Quote of the Day:
“Life is sex!”
- Nobuyoshi Araki, “Japan’s Weirdest Photographer”

fiendil @ 02:47 pm: Advent meme thing, day 23-30
( the end of the advent meme )

fiendil @ 02:06 pm: ( 20th-28th December 2009 )

fiendil @ 01:58 pm: ( 2009 Meme of the Year )

shallowthing @ 07:43 am: On the Saturday I ventured to the cinema in the company of yourapocalypse, manniqueen_ and crazyspideylady to catch the latest big-screen adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.

Let’s quickly establish my Holmesian fanboy status: The Ladybird version of The Hound of the Baskervilles was one of the very first books I ever owned; I can distinctly remember having it in the house we moved out of when I was five years old, because the drawings of the hound itself were so fucking terrifying to my four or five year-old self that they kept me awake at night, and I had to have the book put where I couldn’t see it. Heh. Incidentally, the accompanying story cassette introduced me to Mussorgsky’s simply awesome ‘Night on Bald Mountain’, which served as the backing music throughout. The two have been inextricably linked in my mind ever since, although it took me until the last year or so to actually find out what the piece was called. But I digress.

I have also read the entire Holmes canon (more than once), directly reproduced from the original STRAND magazines, complete with original typographical errors (including the infamous llama/Lama mix-up) and Sidney Paget’s beautiful stereotype-defining illustrations. I have also worked through the entire incredibly faithful BBC Radio play versions, adapted by Bert Coules and starring Clive Merrison and Michael Williams – the only actors to have portrayed Holmes and Watson respectively in all fifty-six short stories and four novels.

As for other screen adaptations… well, Basil Rathbone is excellently cast as Holmes, but those early films – although they established so many of the cultural stereotypes and expectations of Holmes – really aren’t actually all that good. Their cruel portrayal of Watson as a shambling moron has done damage to public perception of the character that is only now even beginning to start to be undone, some sixty or seventy years later. The Jeremy Brett adaptations were pretty good, though. Not always as faithful to the source material as they might have been, and Brett doesn’t look as much like Holmes as Rathbone, but his characterisation of the great detective – especially the whole “nervous energy” bit is fairly spot-on. (Incidentally, up until now my favourite film version of Sherlock Holmes has been the 1985 Young Sherlock Holmes. It’s really good, and well worth tracking down if you haven’t seen it.)

Anyway, the new movie. It is very good. Downey is rather miscast as Holmes (too old, too short, too fat, too scruffy, too dark), but manages to be quite endearing. Jude Law, however, is possibly the best screen Watson I’ve ever seen – after all, Watson is supposed to be a war veteran, a gambler and a ladies’ man, not an overweight buffoon. Eddie Marsan makes an excellent Lestrade, and Mark Strong as the villain of the piece has a very nice coat. The film also includes several moments of wish-fulfillment for long-standing Holmesians: Watson and Lestrade both get to punch Holmes, who – let’s face it – is frequently a bit of a dick towards the both of them in the original canon. The real star of the show, however, is the London of the early 1890s. I want this film on DVD simply so I can linger over all the establishing shots of the city...

Quote of the Day:
“It was the possibility of darkness that makes the day so bright.”
- Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla

shallowthing @ 10:43 am: My notes tell me that on Tuesday I also “Failed to go for a drink”, but I have neglected to record who it was with. I do recall being pleasantly surprised to bump into notgothdammit just down the hill from my new place though.

I can barely recall Wednesday and Thursday at all, but on Friday I downloaded MAME and a bunch of old games and got them working on my PC – namely the 1990 coin-op of Aliens (the first and possibly only stand-up I’ve ever completed; I must have blown £10 in change to do so, and this was in the days when credits were 10p a throw), and the legendary 1989 Final Fight, both in their original stand-up format. I used to absolutely hammer both of these games in my local youth centre, and I hadn’t played either of them since those particular machines were swapped out for newer (and to my mind, inferior) ones in 1992 or ’93. I played both of them until my right elbow stopped working while listening to BBC Radio 4 and largely failing to do any of the little jobs around the flat.

On Saturday I discovered the existence of an Alien vs. Predator arcade game. I’ve never come across this game in an stand-up version, and had been unaware of its existence until my search for the 1990 Aliens game took me to a fan site that purported to describe every video game ever based on the franchise. Made in 1994, it’s very closely related to Final Fight in terms of gameplay, and it features one of the best premises I’ve ever come across: A cyborg version of one Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer – with access to Colonial Marine Corps weapons and equipment – two Predators, and some chick with a katana tackle a massive xenomorph infestation in the largest city on the West Coast, and (spoiler alert) uncover a conspiracy in the process. My immediate fan-squee reaction to this basically boiled down to “SOMEBODY PITCH THIS TO FOX, STAT!” Heh.

Quote of the Day:
“Who does the things they do on stage in real life? You'd be an arsehole, wouldn’t you?”
- Ellie Jackson from La Roux

shallowthing @ 03:19 pm: On Thursday I was in a weird, unpleasantly restless mood. At the same time the day before, I’d been too weary to move, and yet that evening I was climbing the walls. I was a little tired, but I couldn’t sit still. I wanted to play guitar, but I couldn’t focus. I knew I should eat, but I wasn’t hungry. By 8pm I was considering going up to the apparently-revitalised red light district and chinning a pimp just to see what happened.

I’d kept my schedule for Friday clear so I could prepare for DJing Therapy in the evening, but since but the venue rather inconsiderately went out of business the other week I was left at rather a loose end, and with nothing distracting to do between Thursday evening and Saturday night. Not a good situation to be in when your brain works like mine does. Instead I got an early night… which then resulted in me sleeping in far too long, giving me a headache that lasted well into Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon I popped into town to pay manniqueen_ back for the van rental, and then dodged back home out of the seasonal crowds of twats clogging the city centre. In the evening I was persuaded to attend Nightmare for the first time since October 2007. The fact that it was the final one was a factor, but I my final decision to show up was based on the company of a few people I hadn’t seen in too long. It was baybee_bat and Stevi that persuaded me to appear, but it was nice to see urbancannibal, snootylj, crazyspideylady and mock2. There were no doubt other Mentionables that I’ve omitted to mention here, but the above are the ones can at the time of writing recall talking to. Heh.

Sunday and Monday were lost in a blur of apathy and completing Streets of Rage on my Mega Drive emulator. On Tuesday I got my newly-altered curtains back, ironed out the creases and hung them in the front room. Thanks are due to the lovely Kat for bailing me out in the sewing stakes there. They look very nice, and now that all three of the apartment’s windows are covered, I can start getting caught up in the several weeks’ worth of wandering about naked that I hadn’t been doing.

Quote of the Day:
“A person gets used to something better in one rip of a hurry.”
- Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla

pinkindus @ 10:14 am: 2010

I wish to you all a fulfilling creative 2010 :).

To start 2010 under a cheerful sight the limited edition Hello kitty Queen of the pink corset is the Deal of the Month . The ready made ones are listed at  £116 ($118 ) instead of £136 ( $220 ) , the made to measure one  is listed at £132 ( $214 ) instead of £156 ( $250 ). 

click on the picture for ready made , click here for made to measure

Note that from now on Freyagushi couture will be available only trough etsy and not on Freyagushi website anymore. Though if you don't want to go trough Etsy you are welcome to email me directly. 

I do accept payments in 2 times over 3 months for these corsets . You can also reserve an item with a 15% deposit and pay in the 3month after this .

xx  


 

shallowthing @ 05:24 pm: Saturday concluded with loveaurora providing wheeled assistance with moving the last few dozen boxes of my stuff out of Sneinton into the new place. While doing so, we were collared by a traffic warden who objected to the fact that she’d parked on the pavement just outside the building. Apparently you are STRICTLY NOT ALLOWED TO DO THIS, despite the fact there is literally nowhere else suitable for loading and unloading. Thankfully the warden in question was polite, friendly and reasonable. I couldn’t be bothered with going out to socialise after all that.

Sunday I spent being too full of meat and pastry to move, and on Monday I finally got my paws on the new Rob Halford album Halford 3: Winter Songs. My careful and considered critical opinion of this release is: “WHY, GOD? WHY? WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?” Seven years I’ve been waiting for new solo material, and he gives us this. The title track is okay, and ‘Get Into the Spirit’ is bearable, but the rest? It’s horrible. He’s done festive songs before – ‘Christmas Ride’ was pretty good, actually – and I have no on-paper objections to metal versions of the less dire carols, so there is really no excuse for this embarrassment. Possibly the worst thing Halford has ever produced, and a sad let-down.

On the Tuesday my new black bathroom mats were delivered. I was beset by lethargy once again, exacerbated by an overwhelming sadness caused by me being reminded by how too many people I care about are changing, slowly but drastically, and not for the better.

On Wednesday I tried to play guitar for a bit. I failed, but I did finally get angry enough at myself to get around to putting up the black Venetian blind I got for the kitchen. It was a pain in the arse to size it correctly, but it went up with surprising ease and actually looks very nice. I would have put up the curtain rail in front room too, but at this stage I was still waiting for the curtains themselves to be altered to fit.

Quote of the Day:
“Look, honestly, there’s no point wastin’ yer life trynna change stuff yeh’ve no chance’ve changin’. That just leads to idealism. An’ idealism’s shite.”
- Garth Ennis, Preacher, ‘You and Me Against the World’

shallowthing @ 07:56 am: ( Pointless Meme of the Day End of Year Special )

Quote of the Day:
“It’s a wholly illogical but nonetheless powerful belief that things will change for the better in a new place. That the urge to self-destruct will magically disappear.”
- Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla

shallowthing @ 06:19 am: On Thursday I played host to msbum, who’d been let down on her original promise of crash space after the gig she was photographing up at RC. I had only been planning to put her up after Assault the following day, but fortunately she’s light enough company that I could stretch to the extra night and not want to kill her. Heh.

The interim was spent eating, talking shit, watching a Def Leppard DVD, and playing with her camera. Far be it from someone as ugly as I have the misfortune to be to be entertaining thoughts of anything with as many opportunities for outright pretension as “modelling”, but since msbum has often complained that her male friends will never allow her to take pictures of them, and I have long desired to get over my mild phobia of being photographed through tackling it head-on, the logical conclusion presented itself. I was nervous as fuck at first, but something or other triggered the “obnoxious ‘rock star’” side of my personality and I must confess that I was rather enjoying myself by the point we ran out of both momentum and ideas. I remains to be seen whether I find the results anything except toe-curlingly embarrassing. Here’s hoping at least some of them are flattering…

After all that I was so warm and weary that I seriously considered having a nap before Assault. Being full of meat feast pizza didn’t help either, for that matter. Heh. Assault was much as I had expected it would be: Largely fun, but not as good as when I was involved in the DJing. But then I’m biased. I guess the fact that by this point I had almost completely lost my voice didn’t help the social side of things. That was rather weird: I didn’t feel ill, I didn’t have a sore throat, and I wasn’t hacking and coughing any more than usual, but my voice just packed up almost completely.

Saturday morning was spent lying in far longer than I had intended and discussing the feasibility of a self-rolling sleeping bag (perhaps using a small vacuum pump and those memory-rod things from Batman Begins) while msbum packed up her nest on my living room floor. After I saw her off at the station, I staggered off through the blinding sunlight, back to my old place in Sneinton to do some cleaning and collect some more stuff.

Quote of the Day:
“I turn ‘What if?’ into ‘So what?’”
- Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees on coping with nervousness

shallowthing @ 10:17 pm: Swallow the Sun, after the intervention of the winged visitor, seem like something of an afterthought in my memory. Which is a shame, as they were really very good. They had a real wall-of-sound thing going on, and while they might not have been as crushing as, say, Celtic Frost have been known to be live, they certainly did a splendid job of reproducing their studio sound live. There wasn’t much in the way of interaction with the crowd, and Mikko Kotamäki seemed pissed off about something – perhaps the way the crowd noticeably thinned out after Insomnium left. And they didn’t play ‘These Low Lands.’ Heh.

The following Monday I finished off the bedside cabinet, and then put up the curtain rail in my bedroom. I’d have hung the curtains too, but I was defeated by my lack of curtain hooks. Apparently my logical conclusion that they’d come packed with either the rails or the curtains themselves was, in fact, erroneous. Instead I unpacked my guitar, and spent the evening reminding myself how much I’d missed having it – even though we’d not been separated for that long.

On Tuesday I bought curtain hooks and retrieved my iron from Sneinton, and then used them to iron and hang the bedroom curtains. I’d have done the same in the living room too, but the curtains I’d bought were too long and needed to be taken up by some seven and a half inches.

On Wednesday evening, I headed down the UoN RockSoc Christmas party at the Central. Admittedly I don’t know as many of the RockSoc folk as I used to, but I do know enough of them not to make it too odd than I turn up. Besides, I wanted to have a look at the venue; I’d already been starting to get the impression that a lot of events are going to be taking place there rather than anywhere else in future. I think I spent most of the evening perching on a barstool, enjoying toxik_angel’s hugs, casually horrifying the freshers (they need to man up, and fast) and playing Statler and Waldorf with yourapocalypse. Comedy highlight of the night was probably when Mike played Ignite’s ‘Veteran’ in the upstairs room. yourapocalypse and I promptly threw ourselves at the dancefloor, and everyone else even more promptly left. Hah.

Quote of the Day:
“The object of every man’s desire was staring me in the face from the age of about fourteen.”
- David Rappaport, (1951-1990), 3’ 11” actor

pinkindus @ 08:49 am: new Hello kitty x anime products

New Hello kitty and anime products on Etsy : all pink and girlie with a slight hint of medical .It isn't because i dress in black now with black hair that i don't like pink anymore ;).

The Hello kitty queen of the pink corset is a limited edition of 3 : 2 ready made size 24 and 22 ( click on the picture below ) , made to measure here

anime neckties
 
 

Remember that you are welcome to pay in a few time for pieces more than $150=£100.I also accept to reserve items for 3 months with a 15% deposit up front.

If you want to purchase one of those items  but don't want to go trough Etsy just contact me to freyagushi(at)googlemail(dot)com or ask for collection if you are in London xx

shallowthing @ 11:18 am: Between the end of Insomnium’s set and the start of the headliner’s, I went off to talk to a few of the people I know in the crowd - ironlord, jellybearwhore, and a few Leicester people headed up by archenemy888. It’s while I was standing at the bottom of the stairs speaking to the latter that what will for evermore be known as The Bird Incident occurred.

( Cut for Loquaciousness: The Bird Incident )

Quote of the Day:
“… a heartless creature is a loveless creature, and a loveless creature is a beast. To be a beast is perhaps bearable, although the man who has become one will surely pay hell’s own price in the end.”
- Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three

shallowthing @ 07:29 pm: I timed my arrival at the gig to perfection, missing the local bands and walking in pretty much just as Omnium Gatherum took the stage. They were good, better than I was expecting, and noticeably improved on when I saw them supporting Dark Tranquillity in the Basement. Although I was disappointed that they didn’t play the beautiful ‘Greeneyes’ from the most recent album, they did include ‘No Breaking Point’ and ‘The Return’, which almost made up for it. I was the only person dancing at the start of their set, but I most certainly wasn’t by the end. I was especially pleased and amused by the two young lads in Bloodstock T-shirts to my right, who were headbanging in time with me and attempting to take pictures of themselves while they were doing so. Aww.

Insomnium came on what seemed like five minutes later, in possibly the quickest between-band changeover I have ever seen – I think all three bands were sharing gear – launched straight into the opening one-two of ‘Equivalence’ and ‘Down With the Sun’ from new album Across the Dark and the room, which had filled up nicely by now, erupted into synchronised headbanging. Every single member of the band, first four rows of the audience, all whipping their hair up and down in time. It looked awesome.

I was worried that the majority of the audience would only be there for the headliners and that Insomnium would be confronted with a wall of apathy, but I was thoroughly pleased to be wrong – if anything, most of the punters seemed to be there for them. At first it seemed like the crowd were most interested by tracks like ‘The Killjoy’ from Above the Weeping World, but I think the song that got the single biggest reaction all night was probably Across the Dark’s obvious single ‘As the Last Wave Broke’. It’s nice for me to be able to see a band I like in their ascendancy for a change.

Quote of the Day:
“I remember Macclesfield Leisure Centre in 1983. I was playing drums on ‘Blue Monday’, and in the corner of my eye I could see this kid pucker up and lauch the biggest green ‘un I’ve ever seen, and it landed on my knee. I thought, ‘You dirty fucker’… the next song was ‘Age of Consent’, which started with the bass, so I got into my stance and started playing. The kid started smiling, it must have been one of his favourite songs, so I smiled at him, finished the riff and then hit him over the head with the fucking headstock. He went down like a fucking kipper with the four pegs in his forehead. As he went down and I pulled the bass back, the fucking headstock fell off. It cost me £150, but it was worth every penny. It was fucking hilarious, a very satisfying audience participation moment. One of New Order’s greatest moments.”
- Peter Hook, bassist (among other things) with New Order

adam_supernal @ 06:05 pm: Anybody going to Leipzig for WGT want to share a room? I've found a twin one near the main station for 25 euros each a night.

shallowthing @ 05:01 pm: Other than damned inconvenience, the demonstration/protest/riot/delete as applicable didn’t really effect my day. I collected by beloved guitar and ferried it over to the new place, and I was slightly embarrassed by how much better I felt to have it on the premises with me.

The evening saw an NTU RockSoc trip up to Sheffield Corporation. I wasn’t much inspired by the music or the attitude of the local wankers (telling me to cheer up is pretty much the fastest way to piss me off after heightism). I recall there being no fewer than six separate instances where I had to tell mouthy local strangers to piss off. That said, I do always like going north (I’m never the oldest nor the ugliest punter on the premises) and since there’s a strange timeslip effect whereby the further up the country you travel the further back in time you go, Corporation is appropriately dark, loud and free of emos – Like Clubs Used To Be. Hah.

The music wasn’t terribly inspiring on this occasion, more’s the pity, but unlike most trips to other cities, I fell in with a couple of awesome randoms (Kyler and Becky, this means you, in the unlikely event that you’re reading this) that I met and they managed to keep me entertained to the point whereby the night seemed to vanish in short order. I bailed on the club just shy of half an hour before the coach was due to leave, and went on a solo mission to find the awesome takeaway that yourapocalypse and I discovered the last time we were in Sheffield together. I was impressed by my own inherent sense of direction: My feet led me straight to the place, no deviations, no wanders, and I proceeded to stuff my face with some exceedingly pleasant fish and chips.

I had a bit of a lie-in on Sunday morning; more than I expected, less than I was worried I might. I made my way back to John Lewis, collected the rest of my lampshades, returned home and hung them. They look very nice. Then I went back to Ikea, and got a two-draw bedside cabinet to match the chest of drawers in my room. It’s black, heavy and utilitarian. I lugged it home on the bus (I really don’t envy poor baybee_bat having to travel on that fucking thing regularly, especially at night) and got stuck into assembling it before I had to set off for the gig.

Quote of the Day:
“It probably didn’t matter, but he liked loose ends no more than he liked crooked pictures hanging on walls.”
- Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla