!!~~POST #900 - GALACTIC RETROSPECTIVE FREAK-OUT~~!!

Keeping it simple this year.

Happy Nine Hundredth Blog Post.

I wonder if there's anyone - other than me - who has read all of these. I can't imagine that there is. Such a person would surely be known.

What was once an ironic "anniversary" special has become a regular fixture of the cultural calendar. It's impossible to remember a time before I posted a photo of myself doctored in MS Paint and rambled on and on and on.

Let's take a trip back in time. But we don't need a special portal or an 80s "Martycar". We can just click on links. HG Wells would be astonished that it's so easy.

Post #100
Post #200
Post #300
Post #400
Post #500
Post #600
Post #700
Post #800

I've been conducting a long conversation with my future selves. In Post #800, I wrote:

But enough about me. Post #900 Paul! How's it going, man? Did you manage to plant some flowers in your window boxes?

Also, have you done any good tweets lately, or is that whole deal over with now?

It's.. going, Post #800 Paul. Still going. We didn't manage to plant any flowers, I'm afraid. We did let the weeds grow, though. And a wild flower grew somehow. It was purple. Nature always finds a way. Jeff Goldblum was right.

And the tweets seem to have dried up. I did do a cutting @reply the other day, but that's about it.

@MattRichardson3 A menu is not a book.
— Paul Fung (@diamondbadger) September 9, 2014

I've never embedded a tweet before. I like it. It's much better than my usual copy-and-paste marathons. I don't know if it's enough to get me tweeting again, but stranger things have happened.

So, Post #1000 Paul. You must feel pretty pleased with yourself. 1000 Posts is nothing to sneeze at.

How did you like the last half-season of Mad Men? Did Don Draper die? Did Pete Campbell go to Woodstock?

Also, what's your mobile phone situation? At the moment, my current one seems to be on its last legs. I hope you've got an iWatch.

Seen any good gifs lately?

***

On my desktop, there's a text file called 'shoe song':

If you were to double-click on this text file, this is what you would find:

The question is: why?

What kind of a person would:
a) "write" a "song" about shoes
b) think it was of a sufficient quality to transcribe
c) save said transcript on his or her desktop
?

This kind of person.

It's not even like I have loads of stuff on my desktop. If I saved everything there, it would at least be understandable. I wrote a stupid thing and just saved it, unthinkingly.

But my desktop is very tidy. I have very high standards for the items that will appear there. If I don't use a program for several months, the shortcut is removed. If two folders can be combined, I will do so.

I like my desktop to be as clean and clear as possible.

And yet, there seems to be room for the lyrics to a terrible-sounding song.

It doesn't make sense.

Of course, the song is supposed to be terrible. It should be sung in a feeble, tuneless manner. That's the genius of the song.

listen to ‘shoe song’ on Audioboo

You see?

I'm rather interesting.

***

In these anniversary blog posts, I like to mix things up. I play with form, with medium, with tone.

So here's a poem about belts.

Through loops, a snaking binding brace

Metallic grip of ancient craft

Support contorts with serpent grace

Pan-equatory, fore and aft 

No shame, no fear of fallen cloth

With pride, the trouser keeps its height

No exposed undies, by my troth

The belt makes braces look like shite

Oh dear. My opinion of myself just plummeted.

If you're American (and I can't imagine why you would be), you can replace 'braces' with 'suspenders'. It will screw up the metre, but that's the least of our problems.

***

I don't particularly care for chocolate, and I don't particularly care for croissants. But I love chocolate croissants.

It just goes to show that things can be more than the sum of their parts.

Equally: I don't particularly like oxygen. I don't particularly like hydrogen. But I love water croissants.

Everyone hates protons. But there are protons in everything they love.

Value is a matter of scale.

Wisdom.

My opinion of myself just plummeted upwards.

***

Ooh, it's suddenly got dark outside. I think a storm is coming.

I'd better go get the washing in. I haven't done any washing, but I'll get some in anyway. Hurriedly stuffing clothes into a basket tends to ward off evil winds, even if you're in T.K. Maxx.

Or maybe it's not a storm. The darkness could mean that the world is ending. The apocalypse is probably upon us.

If so, this blog will be an important historical artefact. Future civilisations can study this as a missive from a moribund society. Which is exactly what it is.

I saw this video/song on that site that has people telling you what their jams are. It's pretty good.



Not quite as good as my sock and shoe song, but still worth your time.

***

We've been watching the 80s television series The Jewel in the Crown, which is about the British occupation of India and set during the Second World War.

It's really good so far, and is full of shiny-faced oblivious posh people and slightly heavy-handed metaphors. I'm glad we don't have an empire any more. I've already got enough things to feel guilty about (personal cowardice, unwatched films in Netflix queue, that motorbike I stole).

The British mindset is now a winning combination of inferiority and arrogance, which is the ideal cocktail. I can't imagine why the Scottish would want to leave.

I'm going to stop writing this now.

It may seem a bit abrupt, but I can't be sitting here all day. In my screengrab of the shoe song icon, you can just about see that it was taken at 13:47.

It's considerably later than that now.

I hope you've enjoyed this extra-large celebration edition of "The Headscissors Comedy/Thought Experiment".

I value your custom. And your customs. (Shaking hands and whathaveyou)


***