(no subject)

Fun night out last night, which started slow and built. Stops on the Road To Hangover included:
Glasgow's Only Micro-Brewery (I don't drink beer)
The Ubiquitous Chip (Good Food)
Jinty McGinty's (Live Oirish singer, and a blonde barmaid with a Large Black Bush)
The Loft (vast bar above the Grosvenor Cinema)
and, finally,
A Nightclub in a Crypt (Oran Mor)

A good time was had by all, but the play-list in the night-club (and the fact I was back in old student stamping grounds) had me wondering if I'd wandered into the time-slip 'tec show currently running on the BBC (Life On Mars):

Blue Monday
Planet Earth
Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)
That stupid one with the Leo Sayer riff
and Jump by the Pointer Sisters.

I was distracted slightly (along with every other guy in the place) by the pair of blondes who decided to treat their boyfriends to a display of simulated lesbianism on the dancefloor, but left before it all went horribly wrong.

I wonder what happened to Neil and Ewan?

Random Plugs - Stuff that's been putting a smile on my face in the last couple of weeks

Music:

The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian
It ain't going to change your life, but it's funny, literate, and silly. In the tradition of current timeslips they seem to have been drawn back to San Francisco in the late sixties, and are producing a very mellow vibe just now - the first track starts off with a stomping Doctor and the Medics/T-Rex riff and then goes onto tell a cautionary tale about community service and bad girls.

Podcasts:

In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 - the list of programme titles in my itunes runs: Geoffrey Chaucer, Greyfriars and blackfriars, Heaven, Human Evolution, Pragmatism, Prime Numbers, Relativism, The Abbasid Caliphs, The Graviton, The Oresteia... Each program is 40 minutes of three experts trying to explain their field to an intelligent and enthusiastic layman, and ranges from marginally interesting to completely fascinating.

Books:

It's pretty redundant to plug Flashman, since the bandwagon is moving, but it's not too late to jump on board when there's lovely new editions selling 3 for 2 in Borders. I've gone back to the start of the series for Flashman and royal Flash, but I'm going to treat myself to my favourite, Flashman and the Redskins next.

I fincally read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099410672/026-2486995-0086000

Don't know why i waited so long - it's a huge historical romance of a cyberpunk creation myth, with great WWII action, geekiness unbound, Turing and Bletchley Park, a taxonomy of modern society based on Lord of the Rings and the definitive way to eat Captain Crunch. the codebreaking stuff is fascinating, as I expected, but it's also a very funny book.

TV

The new series of 24 is noisy, silly, and great fun.

DVD

Firefly - yes, I know I'm late to the party, but I'm really enjoying it.

It's not easy being green.

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know. You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems. Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green. Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

The Muppet Personality Test