I have once again been home sick today. When I get sick it just seems to linger on and on, like pale blue eyes in a Velvet Underground song, only with more mucus.

A brief discussion with Matt has inspired me to rewrite my whole website as a Movable Type database, and that’s what I’ve been doing all day. It’s like one big blog, only organised by categories instead of dates. All the content is shifted across now, but the navigation needs some work still. I’d like to get it so that it automatically generates the tabs at the top of the screen according to the main categories I have defined.

No baby you’re not so green.
Sister Madly, Crowded House

A letter came from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative today to say that our research proposal has been rejected. It was accompanied by a little mark sheet showing where we had fallen down, which I read carefully and concluded that they couldn’t possibly have read the actual proposal. But there’s no point in harping on about it here. Suffice it to say that Bruce and I are going to have to find some other source of funding for our automated Kent Mathematics System. I had dinner with Bruce and Joanna, and we came up with a few other leads we haven’t explored yet.

When I got home there was a phone message from Jeff to say that Guards! Guards! has been cancelled. Which is a shame, but it comes because Jeff has got a really excellent professional role in a Court Theatre production, and can’t simultaneously direct an amateur Elmwood Players production. I can’t fault his decision - apart from the personal opportunity, there were other problems becoming evident with Guards! Guards! - some of the actors in major roles didn’t show up for the last rehearsal and it was looking a bit tenuous. On the less dim side, Jeff’s still keen to do Guards! Guards! at some point in the future and due to my inability to keep myself from offering helpful advice at the slightest provocation he’s even keen to bring me in more on the planning should there be a next time.

So, that’s two projects down. I have at least twenty others.

The Ten Eightiest Movies, via Metafilter.

If a double-decker bus crashes into us…
There is a Light that Never Goes Out (live), The Smiths

On Friday night Duane and I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and go for a run around Hagley Park. Years ago we used to go to the university’s recreation centre a couple of times a week and run around the track and lift weights and such. We weren’t extremely good at it, but we got decently fit and were widely remembered as the people in the gym who talked a lot about science fiction.

Now we are twenty-nine, and it turns out that all that exercise we did years ago didn’t stick because we’re not fit anymore. We ran for a bit and walked for a bit, and run for a smaller bit and walked for a longer bit and ran for the last bit and watched Casablanca with Duane’s wife Johanna, and agreed that we’d do it better next time.

There is a moral to this story, and it is this: Casablanca is every bit as good a film as people say it is, and if you haven’t watched it recently, you should.

Or is it me or I don’t know, I don’t know. Tally ho, tally ho.
Tally Ho!, The Clean

When it’s your mother’s birthday and more than one car is required to move the family to the restaurant where you’re going to have lunch, it is very important to make sure that your mother really is in the other car before you leave. This is something everybody should do.

I do not like clothes shopping. I seldom have any idea whether I like clothes until I’ve worn them for a month or so. In theory, having found an item of clothing I like, I ought to be able to go back to the same shop and buy more items that are similar. This is the sort of thing that makes sense to me, and I tend to assume that it would make sense to run clothing stores on the assumption that people might want to buy more of something they like. For this reason, I find it perplexing that more often than not I return to find the shop no longer sells the item I like. Nor is there anything much like it. Nor do the staff remember ever having sold anything like that, because they weren’t working there when I last visited.
Also, I find it irritating that I cannot buy shirts like they wear on Babylon Five. But try telling that to a clothing store clerk.

I would like clothing shops to be more like comics shops. I often wander aimlessly in and out of clothing shops without buying anything, but I seldom leave a comic shop without having spent at least a hundred dollars.

Firstly, the clothes should have titles, so you know what to call them. I am happy to learn the names of styles and fabrics, but I was not born with the knowledge. Put enough information on a sign beside each rack of clothing so that I know what it is, and don’t have to say “I want some pants sort of like those ones, but sort of heavier and not stupid-looking like those ones.”

Secondly, if they must keep changing the clothes, they should keep back issues. They might not sell them straight away, but if a customer comes in and says “I want another jersey like the one I’m wearing but not worn out”, they should be able to look in the back issues to see whether they’ve got any spares that haven’t sold yet.

Thirdly, I should be able to subscribe to clothes. If I like something, they should be able to put more of them aside for me on a regular schedule. I should be able to walk up to the counter and ask what’s in my file folder (or bag or whatever a clothing shop would use instead of a filing cabinet) and decide whether to buy it.

Fourthly, there should be a friendly clerk who knows my name and is sufficiently familiar with what I like to be able to recommend things to me. They don’t have to always find me something I definitely want to buy, and it’s fine if they make mistakes. But if I walk into the shop and say “Hi John, how are you, what’s new and exciting?” they should be able to point out a few things. Sometimes I should come in to find that they’ve put something aside for me without my even knowing because they figured it was my sort of thing.

Fifthly, everyone in the store should know all about Babylon Five, and its seminal contribution to men’s fashion. I mean the human clothes, by the way. Although I do also like the Centauri ones.

Maybe some clothing shops already have all this stuff and I just go to the wrong ones. And to be fair, I did force myself to go clothes shopping today and find they did still have the same kind of trousers I bought last time that are quite good except that they wear out after about a year. And they had some shirts that I think I might like one day. But today was an unusually good experience as clothes shopping goes.

Yesterday myself using Google to find a piece of information that I knew perfectly well was available from the bookshelf a metre and a half away from me. I knew where to find it, I could even see the book I wanted, but I used Google instead.

And it was faster.

It seems I am no longer playing Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. I have been upgraded to Lance-Constable Carrot’s Father and Brother Watchtower. And maybe some other parts.

In one week I have doubled my roles. If this keeps up, next week I will have four roles. And by opening night, I will be playing one hundred and twenty-eight distinct parts. Jeff will have to stick in more characters to achieve this, but I’m sure he’s up to it. He’d better be, because by the time the show finishes its run, there’ll need to be five hundred and twelve.

I’m hoping it will end there. Otherwise, by early next year I shall have more roles than the entire human population of the world, living and dead. And while I have much faith in Jeff as a director, I’m not sure he has time to fit that many secondary characters into a play that isn’t running anymore anyway.

Also, I will still think I don’t have enough lines.

Ai-yai-yai! Ai-yai-yai!
Monkey Man, Specials

It was a weekend of sudden walks, brains that would not die, plans about doors, the running and screaming of friend and foe alike, deep-fried squid with plum sauce, untutored throat-singing and playing symbolic chess with Death.

You know. That sort of weekend.

Always hungry.
Lullaby, The Cure

When my hair was long it never needed cutting. I used to go once a year, but I never really needed to.

Now my hair is short, and it needs cutting all the time. When it’s short, it gets too long.

When the whole thing washes away, don’t run to me.
Limo Wreck, Soundgarden