Another dude out on the interwebs was thoughtful enough to clip it out into an mp3, but he let the links die so I’m doing everyone a favour, reclipping it and making it available by more reliable means.

Have a listen here or hit the wee down-arrow to download it feverishly into your collection.

So I sent Aaron this email which I knew he’d find funny and he replied saying it was good TF material. The thought of posting it had never crossed my mind so blame him for this childish nonsense. If you start reading it and don’t find it funny then stop and go and do something else as the humour certainly does not improve any.

What follows is an exact email thread conducted yesterday by me and some former work colleagues, all professionals in the IT sector.

________________________________________

From: Stuart
Sent: 12 February 2009 10:53
Subject: amusing

As you know I work for Hot______s. As you can imagine they have silly names for all their database users, stuff like HOT_ADMIN, HOT_MAIL, HOT_USER, etc. A user just came over yesterday asking about missing privileges when trying to compile a package. J (my boss), the user and I were discussing it and I asked what his username was. J then said, “It’s HOT_LOAD.”

As you can imagine I lowered my head and attempted to stifle my laughter. Then she realised and repeated it quite loudly, “Hot Load, ha ha ha”.

________________________________________

From: Leo
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:05
Subject: RE: amusing

Have you got a HOT_C0CK?

________________________________________

From: Jonathan
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:05
Subject: RE: amusing

Surely a HOT_DUMP?

________________________________________

From: Stuart
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:29
Subject: RE: amusing

HOT_DUMP should definitely be in use somewhere. I think we might actually have HOT_RELEASE too, ha ha ha.

________________________________________

From: Paul
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:38
Subject: RE: amusing

How about HOT_ORA-00942_TABLE_OR_VIEW_DOES_NOT_EXIST…

I’ve not really got the hang of this, have I?

________________________________________

From: Leo
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:40
Subject: RE: amusing

How about a HOT_NUN?

________________________________________

From: Richard
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:42
Subject: RE: amusing

HOT_JUAN? … sorry, had to join in .. this is quality stuff!

________________________________________

From: Jonathan
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:42
Subject: RE: amusing

HOT_TUB!

________________________________________

From: Stewart
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:43
Subject: RE: amusing

HOT_POTATO, HOT_POTATO

________________________________________

From: Richard
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:45
Subject: RE: amusing

Missed the ‘E’ off that?

________________________________________

From: Leo
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:46
Subject: RE: amusing

No e in potato. Just potatoes.

________________________________________

From: Richard
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:49
Subject: RE: amusing

I’ll never make President… Al Gore … anyone? Just me then …

________________________________________

From: Stuart
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:49
Subject: RE: amusing

It was Dan Quayle who couldn’t spell potato.

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1992.html

________________________________________

From: Paul
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:50
Subject: RE: amusing

Potatoe, Al Gore…

Do you want to go for the hat-trick “The Boy”?

________________________________________

From: Stuart Low
Sent: 12 February 2009 11:51
Subject: RE: amusing

We should call him The Buoy from now on.

________________________________________

From: Stuart
Sent: 12 February 2009 16:18
Subject: RE: amusing

Actually, I might have overlooked the funniest bit of the story. The guy had privilege problems with HOT_LOAD and the DBA in India created a role which needed to be granted to the user. He called the role BASIC.

So we granted BASIC to HOT_LOAD. Maybe I should create a role called MONSTROUS and grant it to HOT_LOAD?

________________________________________

From: Jonathan
Sent: 12 February 2009 16:30
Subject: RE: amusing

GUSHING?

________________________________________

From: Leo
Sent: 12 February 2009 16:19
Subject: RE: amusing

THRUSTING?

For years I played bass in bands alongside unimaginative and occasionally mediocre guitarists (I’m not being bitchy, they’d agree). I like the bass, and took great joy in providing the crushing “low end” back in the insanely noisy days of (the crappy) Bee Thousand and (slightly better) The Happy Ending. But I was always a guitarist first and foremost and as such would find it frustrating not being able to play the instrument I loved the most onstage. I got my fair share in the studio, recording lead parts and filling in when others couldn’t record a complete take but this simply added to the frustration.

When I moved to London I wasn’t sure whether to join an existing band, to try and start a new one or maybe just tinker at home on the computer. I thought about it for a while and didn’t do much about it, apart from playing and playing and playing when I was unemployed. I’ve never been a massive fan but discovered that (don’t laugh) playing Metallica is a sure fire way of improving ones skills; the speed, accuracy and palm-muting required by your picking hand alone needs to be of a very high standard to play along with a track. And that’s not even taking into account what you’re doing on the fretboard. Lyrically they might not be the best – “My lifestyle determines my deathstyle” anyone? – but you cannot doubt their musical talent. So I played, improved and damaged my ears.

Drowned In Sound has always given me a laugh, especially the Community section where opinionated little indie shits spout off about what’s good and what isn’t. It’s especially fun to wade into a discussion about which bands should be voted by the fans to play ATP and throw in something like, “Have U2 ever played ATP?”

Anyway, there is a Musicians section which is self-explanatory enough and I’d check this on a daily basis to see what was happening. I emailed a couple only to find out their tunes were the usual shouty indie pish with jagged guitars, ironic synths and a metronomic beat. Boring.

One day a decent sounding ad was listed containing a simple enough Guitarist Wanted headline which was enough to get my attention. Turns out there were two of them, no vocalist, one on bass and one on guitar and they were looking for guitar number 2. Everything else is done by computers. Influences the same as mine and the tunes appealed in that soundtrack/soundscape/drone/noise way that I love. So far so good.

I was given a handful of tunes to learn which I duly did and wondered what it would be like actually playing with a band as a guitarist for once. I showed up nervously with a guitar and a half-dozen pedals for a run-through and played with them for a few hours. And I went back the following Sunday and did more of the same.

I was officially asked to join on Wednesday but wasn’t given a $1 million advance like Rob Trujillo was, shame that. So now it’s time to ship my Sunn amp down from Edinburgh, buy some more pedals to add to my arsenal and hopefully write and record some cool music.

One major thing has changed from last time though – this time I will never, ever expose myself to loud volume without ear protectors. I suggest you do the same kiddies.

1. My default frame of mind is bright and optimistic. I have shorter fuse than most though. Not something i’m proud of.

2. My mind absorbs numbers and superfluous data like a fat kid absorbs chips. I know most telephone numbers i’ve looked at a few times off by heart. Al’s old number in Saudi was 00966501613115, Aaron’s old number was 07900423577. I went on a date with a doctor once. She told me I was ‘on the autistic spectrum’. That’s not good date chat.

3. Catchy one-liners and concise phrasing turn me on and always have. I remember clearly standing up in the shopping trolley at pre-school age telling my mum to buy Vortex because ‘It Kills All Known Germs DEAD’. I loved thinking up clever taglines for ads at uni.

4. Being in the sea makes me feel elated. I grew up in the water. It’s the most magical element.

5. I learn most quickly when out of my comfort zone. I’d love to be more prolific with the gifts that I have. Lazyness is less acceptable the older you get.

6. My friend Lauren is always happy. Her philosophy is catchy and concise. ‘People are more important than things, relationships are more important than money’. She is wiser than me.

7. Hearing is on a par with sight. Music is more important to me than most things.

8. Erratic artwork appeals to me most. Pollock, Basquiat, Cabellut. Order terrifies me. I understand that it’s necessary but it freaks me out.

9. I can understand the argument for polyamory. Some people genuinely experience a need to be with more than one partner and are resolute about their partner’s right to do the same. I’m not one of them.

10. I have an irrational fear of the supernatural. It’s very silly but it genuinely terrifies me.

tw-fucking-eet

No one you know is interested in it. Your life is admirably succulent without it. Out of curiosity you inspect the main site – perhaps register an empty account – but there are no meaningful clues of any worth. You pull up a few random feeds, and stare blankly at the torrent of worthless bilge.

Executive summary:

• At worst, for the passive user, it’s a cheap way to stalk feel close to a miniscule set of tech-savvy C-list celebrities.
• At worst, for the active but pioneering microblogger, it’s a dispiriting void in which to fruitlessly drain your creative juice.
• The real value only emerges – in a similar way to ‘real’ blogging – when a number of your own friends choose to take part, and you have a mutually interested audience.

Micro-what? STFU

I know. Microblogging is an ugly word but an old concept. It essentially means, lower your expectations. The nuggets here are, for the most part, throwaway comments. Or ideas without time to be developed. Think back to the early days of TF, when a youtube URL and a few acronyms (hmm, to LOL or not to LOL?) constituted a well-crafted post.

Twitter fills the yawning gap of time between TF posts. Sometimes you really do just have a sentence or two to say, and it’s worth ten seconds of someone else’s time.

Look, pussbook does this already

Kind of. Status updates get lost in a sea of sparkly froth. You’ve got hundreds of friends. You only really care about the daily spewings of a small subset.

So, this voyeurism angle. Who could I possibly care to read about?

Good question. As an example, let’s see whose lives I now peer into with freakish ease:

• Stephen Fry. Creatively foul-mouthed and always entertaining. Loves twitter like he loves a generous coating of man-butter
• Kristin Hersh
• Mike Skinner. Pithy and creative
• Russell Brand. Just getting into it
• Jonathan Ross. Loving the attention and ability to disseminate gossip
• Regina Spektor
• Warren Ellis. Bad-brained and darkly funny writer of comics. Best quote on experiencing a hangover, “I appear to have woken up in Stephen Hawking’s body.”
• Neil Gaiman. Avid user

There’s a *nnrgh* reality TV aspect to this. I don’t truly benefit from knowing the details of Stephen Fry’s travels in New Zealand, or the hourly updates on the health of Neil Gaiman’s dog. It’s compelling nonetheless.

The word ‘twitter’ accurately skewers the banality of the medium. But banal events in the lives of those people you care about are important; they’re the fodder of conversations you aren’t having. With enough fleeting glimpses into someone’s life, you feel closer, wherever they are.

You can follow me, and the reliably deviant ms.bean. If you don’t have a twitter-ready telephone – which you will need to get the real addiction – you can also catch my dribbles just on the left there.

The pilot dude is a war ace or something and mumbling obscenity about Baron von Richthofen, managed to glide the powerless plane politely around Manhattan – past my apartment – before dumping it in the river just next to the skatepark that I frequent in warmer months.

You can read things about it in guardianland and see the grubby-vision twitter pic that killed their servers overnight.

Clearly the pilot is to be commended for not killing everyone. I understand he has been granted an unlimited number of blowjobs within the tri-state area. The media coverage is amusing though in spunking the word ‘miracle’ around; as usual we can associate God’s will with the fact that everyone survived, but not presumably to the act of stuffing beaky engine-killers into the aircraft in the first place.

not good subway reading

Each time I consumed it, there remained the completist’s vague sense of unease that every nuance, every reference hidden in every panel had not been fully appreciated. The niggling* feeling was exacerbated by the sheer pageturnness driving me to tear through it in double-quick time. Reading Watchmen for me was like watching Chinatown played at 1.5x speed after four beers. Good, but you weren’t joining all the dots.

So with the film coming out the day after my birthday and the release of the Absolute edition, it’s time to get back on it. This time, the pages are big enough that you can read every headline and graffiti clue hidden away in the panels. This time I’m taking notes.

The artifact itself is huge and weighty and gloriously shiny. Reading it this time is odd for a different reason; the book itself (at least my copy) is toxic. There’s a strong chemical smell coming off the zingy amazingness pinsharp pages of glory, a solvent of some kind that fucks with your head like you’ve left the gas on. I was excited to read Watchmen again, but I didn’t expect to be buzzing off my tits.

My notes now contain insightful observations like, Rorschach is anti-heroic in the sense that the reader identifies mostly with the face the blobs pretty flowers never the sunshine pale horse the eyes owlish and flying skintight…

Let’s hope the film doesn’t spoil it.

* use this word with caution in NYC if you don’t want a David Howard-ing

the man himself

Long time since I posted, I know. Let’s see.

Back in the grunge days you’d hear wild tales of Perry Farrell’s Lollapalooza. Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins. An impossibly far-off event. These days it’s hosted in Chicago, a short flight away and hence a no-brainer. Got together with Olivia to form Team Strawberry Blonde and did the Grant Park experience. Definitely and unexpectedly the most civilised festival I’ve ever been to – clean wandering among topiary and fountains and uncrowded open spaces under blazing sun. The only criticism was the amount of stuff crammed together – some British electro band on Stage Obscure drowning out the agreeable pansyschrek noise coming from MGMT.

Chicago itself is much cooler than I expected. It dawned on me that New York is retro, 50s, gargoyled skyscrapers from the end of Ghostbusters. Chicago is neo-futuroid, shiny, full of public art and wall-to-wall contemporary architecture. You can get the idea here.

The end consequence of a sound recommendation from Milnotron several ages ago, I went to a really remarkable Parts & Labor gig in Brooklyn. The ‘venue’ was a trashed up, board-windowed attic space with raw electrics hanging from the walls and evidently no proper licenses. The organiser urged the smokers among us to walk away from the unmarked front door before lighting up outside, in case we drew the cops’ attention to the place. A frantic soak in a bath of noise and whisky.

We saw Rushmore projected in an abandoned outdoor swimming pool. We saw The Shining projected on a big screen under the Brooklyn Bridge with all the lights of the city behind.

I flew home and saw my Gramps for the last time.