Reasons to be cheerful

I was reminded this evening why I don't like getting caught up in conversations between groups of older women, as the conversation always seems to head for the same territory: people they know who happen to be dead. It's not even that this conversation happens in a wake house that causes it, as I remember being on a workshop group for the long-term unemployed (I was actually in and out of a part-time job for a few years but qualified for the workshop treatment) that was helmed by an older woman and for some reason during the tea breaks our winding-down conversations were fixated on deaths, preferably gruesome ones. I have vague memories of how someone at the table was told she shouldn't (for identification purposes) view the body of a husband or son - I know I sound callous here but I've actually blocked out most of the minutiae over time - who had been flattened by a lorry because there wasn't enough left identifiable as a human being let alone an individual. Then we actually went to even darker places I shan't bother recounting here on the slim possibility someone in the group may be reading.
Alternatively, I also seem to have the same narrow band of conversation when in the company of older men - albeit construction site stories. I may try to exude the air of an educated bohemian by drawing pictures of feminist twentysomethings exploring the consequences of urban ennui and polar bears eating someone's head, but pretty much my entire working adult life has been in the construction trade and I am at heart a slightly stereotypical example of a working class catholic to the point that I willingly bought the Sun on multiple occasions. Yes really.
I don't apologise for it, either, as the Sun is a fantastic example of economic and practical design because it is a newspaper that can be devoured in its entirety during your morning tea break in a way that something on a similar level like The Mirror cannot. The Sun even manages to be economical in the outrage it can instill in you in a way that something like the Guardian can't - it takes a full twenty minutes to digest the latest Monbiot piece on environmental atrocities or Julie Burchill's latest failed attempt to overcompensate for becoming middle-class and having a life so devoid of worth and meaning that she's managed to make Tony Parsons a sympathetic figure, but even then there's barely a flicker of anger at the end of this cold reportage while the Sun can give you a five-paragraph story on dole scroungers on a council estate that makes you want to burn down their offices and manages to instill this towering rage in a matter of minutes. It's a fantastic piece of construction and the only regret I have about buying it for my work breaks was that I didn't have the moral courage to simply buy a real pornographic magazine and a copy of Mein Kamph.

Apologies for rambling, but this is the first time I can recall in ages being this sober. You know what you need in your life? Some Endhiran. Go on - you got to the end of this post and you deserve it.

Of all the harm that ever I've done...

Yep. That's about right.

In the words of the wise Irish philosopher Susanne Morrison, "what goze arund cumms arund!1!", and depressingly sooner than I'd hoped, that 'working on dead' comment I made in a recent post in regard to relatives who have the alcohol bug has come back to haunt me.
In true Irish fashion, I haven't learned a lesson from this, I am getting drunk tonight, and updates may be sporadic while there's wake-housing being done.

Too tall - blood couldn't get to that heart. Just awful to watch.

I am watching the second episode of Being Human to see if it gets so bad it's good. Not so far, but it's very wangsty and it has that 'two male leads living in close quarters so let the slash fiction commence' vibe going for it that might attract True Blood fans willing to settle for less.

feeling the rush like a heart attack

And so to the end of another unsatisfying page. One page in two days is not ideal, but I remain in high hopes as I simply haven't actually got to sit down for any length of time to try and churn it out yet. I gather this is a common malaise at this time of year as people struggle to settle back down into a routine even though it's nearly February, as I went to the gym last night and the place was bunged with people who obviously hadn't seen a gym for quite some time. Ah, New Year's Resolutions - I remember those! Soon they'll all have given up on ever being fit, but me, I'll be sticking to my guns and drinking every night if it kills me (it will), continuing to not eat meat or any kind of meat byproduct like gelatin (though I'm not a vegetarian), and even though watashi no nihongo hidoi desu ne, I am still trying and that is the main thing.

Watching:
The Cape - which would be utter crap if it ever stopped taking itself seriously, but as it is, it's a pleasant enough superhero outing even if the name of the superhero is uninspiring, the costume a bit unmemorable and the leading character a bit characterless and flat. It has its problems, but thankfully not being enjoyable is not one of them. It's gloriously daft, knows it, but never once feels the need to wink at the audience or feel ashamed for being a superhero series. It's like Smallville, Heroes and No ordinary Family never happened - which sounds like a great world to live in.
Bob's Burgers - now they haven't marketed this show as best they could have, as I took it to be a nihilistic and one-note Adult Swim-type affair where the burger store gets destroyed or shut down every week in the denouement, but it isn't that kind of show at all. Bob is a struggling everyman and his troubles are constant while he remains true to core values like family and decency and while that may be out of fashion in comedy circles these days, I think it would have benefited the show to be seen as the spiritual animated sitcom successor to King of the Hill that it is rather than something like Home Movies or Drinky Crow. Bob's Burgers maintains an internal logic that stretches across not only the episode but the show as a whole and while the burger bar is struggling it remains open and minor successes are had among the failures which comprise the main comedy moments. I'm pretty much sold on the show now, and do hope it sticks around.
Fairly legal - which has an interesting premise (it follows an ex-lawyer as she pursues a career in mediating legal disputes outside the courtroom), but seems to segue into straightforward legal melodrama too easily. It remains a competently made legalese show, however, and the writing is good with only some hamfisted delivery here and there letting it down.
Shameless (US) - I have never seen the UK version thanks to my need to avoid contemporary drama made by Channel 4 on the basis that I do not hate humanity, but the US version seems unique by way of grounding itself entirely in the Projects - rather than the suburbia beloved of pretty much every US drama I've ever seen featuring white people - and does so without feeling like an ill-considered transatlantic transplant operation like some other shows do...
Being Human (US) - awful. Just awful. Between the leads (particularly the perpetually typecast Sam Witwer's angsty vampire) veering their delivery of comedy reaction between camp and deadpan inconsistently and a very annoying ghost it's bad enough, but there's an unwelcome staginess to the whole affair, from Witwer's brow-rubbing to the anachronistic detached house where proceedings take place for the most part to the ever-reliable vampire staple of baring fangs and hissing at the camera while clawing the air.

you can see his stripes but you know he's clean

Not even joking here, I am totally blaming any corrections I need to make on the current page on the cold weather. And also my lack of posts these last couple of days.

All the best blog entries are about the weather - blogging WIN for Bryan.

you know when my father wants something it's like sex with Kobe Bryant - you can kick and scream all you want, but it's gonna happen

No work done today, just thumbs.

Jack Daniels was the snifter of choice last evening and I can safely say I won't be doing that again in a hurry. I am really out of the habit of drinking it.

Watching:
White Collar 2.10 - glossy trash, just how I like it. A bit short on explosions and punch-ups for my liking, but Human Target took a huge dip this season and I need something to be on while I do other things and the improbably pointy-chinned main character of this is somehow not quite smarmy enough to hate to the point I stop watching. Not yet anyway.
Never Let Me Go - in which there's this bit where someone strokes the cheek of the sheep-like main character and calls her a poor creature and it suddenly occurred to me the movie was, if you chose to read it as such, a metaphor for the the English class system as it doesn't actually exist outside whimsy, with the upper/ruling classes never seen and the educated middle classes doling out judgement upon the pitiable working (under) class of ambulatory organ donors who meekly comply to their own deaths-by-inches without ever once questioning why their lives are worth less than their organ recipients. I did like it, all the same, but in the same way I like those daffy episodes of Trek where Voyager's Doctor is kidnapped by a private hospital, or that one where the captain turns into a space walrus because her ship goes too fast and which was so bad the makers decided it would never be referred to ever again.
Royal pains 2.13 - more glossy trash, but this one is about a doctor who works near a beach and whose dad is played by the Fonz. EYYYY!
Sportsdome 1.2 - which has the touching story of a young girl with cancer who only has her hate to keep her going.

brought to you by Smith & Wesson - fine craftsmanship, finer killsmanship

Nothing from me today except sketches.

Which admittedly I ran off just so I could do the daily screen grab.
Sometimes you have off days and can't do the proper work because you're so cold you have to admit the house booze budget will be better spent on heating the place so you can feel your extremities (though the numbness is at least a comforting break from the pain that usually follows when flesh meets a tiled floor). This is one of those days.

Of course, not being able to buy beer means I must now resort to the dangerous volume of Jack Daniels I have in reserve as a matter of habit. I used to drink a bottle of that a night and now I actually tap that out onto the screen... erm...

Watching: Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York - which utilises stock footage of the World Trade Center attack aftermath to make it look like there are clouds of volcano ash billowing through NYC streets. I have no idea what I think of that.
Sportsdome - which I found a lot funnier than I thought I would a spoof of ESPN reportage.
The Good Wife - which I enjoy a bit too much, making me think I am going through the menopause. I suspect this makes me the target audience.