There are times where I just come to the conclusion that Americans are weird. This story from the BBC doesn’t do anything to disavow me of these ideas. Why the hell would companys like Macdonalds and PespsiCo NOT advertise on the anniversary of September 11th? Were Pepsico thinking of doing an ad where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre are replaced by fuck-off huge bottles of Pepsi Max along with the slogan “almost as good as the real thing™”? No. Were Macdonalds going to do an ad of Ronald Macdonald dressed as a US Marine huinting down the Hamburglar dressed as Osama Bin Laden? I doubt it

To be brutally honest, yes, it’s a day where lots of people lost their lives. But do Japanese advertisers worry about the anniversaries of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Nope. What they have is this “July 6 – Every year, in Hiroshima, Japan, people float lanterns with prayers, thoughts, and messages of peace down the rivers in commemoration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Until this year, the only way to join this celebration was to go to Hiroshima personally.” Now that sounds much more how it should be done.

I’ll admit, I think that “Boeing, the maker of the four planes that crashed on 11 September, is in negotiations with NBC to sponsor a special “concert for America”” (© BBC again) is a pretty dodgy and sick concept, but I can also see that if one company needs to be seen to be “doing something for America” on that date, it’s the manufacturers of the planes, and/or the airlines that had such pisspoor security checks. However, the airlines involved aren’t doing any ads that day – that I can understand more than companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi bailing from advertising.

Maybe they should just show the entire first run of Six Feet Under on Sept 11th, or have adverts for funeral homes all day. That’ll be more in keeping with the mood that seems to be desired.

But I’ll stick with the primary concept of “Americans are fucking weird sometimes”.

Fucking hell – a working comments system : and it’s been tested in IE as well as Nutscrape 4.7 & 6.2 and Opera. So there.

The BBC has been busy. They’ve done this quiz about people’s usage of Earth’s resources etc., and it’s quite cool. Six bloody pages, mind you, but it’s not like it’s rocket science or anything.

Anyway, if everyone lived like me, apparently we’d need 2.4 planets. Allegedly, this is a good score. Which makes it all a bit more worrying than perhaps it should, but there we go, such is life.

According to The Guardian’s latest quiz, this is me :

You scored 8 out of a possible 11
Fortissimo
Impressive – you can tell your Traviata from a trattoria, and probably know where the music you hear on adverts comes from, but disdain to buy classic ads collections.

I can live with that. It’s odd considering my own father still thinks I’m a pleb when it comes to classical music, knowledge of composers and the like, but obviously the knowledge has rubbed off somewhere along the line…

I just read this story on the BBC, and I’m sure they’re wrong, that I remember years Ago either Waitrose or Safeway (probably Waitrose) doing a photo-degradeable plastic carrier bag.

Of course, they were shit, and on hot summers days weakened before you were halfway home so your stuff fell through the bottom. But that’s the price of progress, isn’t it?

I thought I’d also quickly put this link in, because it’s one of the better UserFriendlys of recent times. Kind of sad, because it used to be regularly good, but appears to have lost the plot a bit recently. Still, that’s comedy I suppose, never going to appeal to everyone all the time.

Project for the day? : Recovering from the weekend. As usual.

In fairness, it was a pleasant weekend, spent in Nottingham. Even the trains ran on time. Even the club we went to was OK, although more and more I realise how little I’m into the clubs that really should be renamed as “late night meat markets” – it’s more drinks, pulling and playing current charty-type stuff, or at least the dance remixes of it. This time it was the Nottingham Palais (which I remember from two revamps ago when I used to go there, but that’s ancient history now).(and then there’s this link, just for Si and Rach to laugh at) And yeah, it was OK. Although it got better at about 1.30, 2ish when they started playing stuff the way I prefer it – not so charty, more just serious beat, have some fun and bounce around a bit.

I think maybe I’m just getting older or something – then I realise I’ve been going clubbing for half my life, and I’ve always hated the late-night pulling joints, so it’s keff all to do with age. It’s more to do with music, with attitude, with lots of other stuff too. But not to do with age. Weird, isn’t it?

But I love the pure music, feeling the bassline belt through your chest cavity, feeling it in the long bones of the legs and arms, and letting it get inside me. Hell yes, it’s noisy, and probably destructive to eardrums – in fact the Palais had signs before going in warning about the volume, strobes and smoke machines (which is a fair point, because it’s very rare that smoke machines aren’t a pain in the arse/sinuses/mucus membranes/eyes) which is indicative of what a wanky bunch some people really are – what the funny fuck else do you expect from a nightclub? Then again, they didn’t have a warning that half the place would be filled with pissed dickheads, hen-nights and twats in St. Trinian’s style outfits. And that was FAR more traumatic than the volume or the strobes. Ah well, there appear to be far more people who find women dressed as schoolgirls attractive than people who go to clubs because they love music, so I suppose I’m the minority in this situation. And the Dj’s who talk over the music just remind me of Secondary School discos.

As it is, I’m used to places like Heaven and Bedrock, places where people go to enjoy the music, not really to get pissed out of their brains or pull. Of course, if you do end up going back with someone that’s fine, but it’s a bonus, not a mission objective.

All the same, it was a good night. Taxi’s were bloody expensive, but a) that’s because we were staying WAY out of town and b) when aren’t they expensive? But between 5 in a taxi, it’s still not bad – less than £3 each, so what the hell. It was a good night.

Except for the lack of sleep. Most of that was personal choice though, talking to Sky instead of sleeping. But he’s fun, so it was a good way to work through a night. Sam was crashed out completely (I’d never seen someone sleep in the recovery position before – but she does), Dave was awake, Mick, Rach and Stace were conscious (which is as fair as it gets) and Sky was wide awake and disturbing in his knowledge of 90s chart hits. VH1 were playing all the Number 1s of the 90s (and some were more Number 2s, but that’s beside the point) in chronological order – Sky could tell us which track was coming up next. Which is kind of scary, and immensely sad and bobble-hatted. If he got out more, he’d probably be a trainspotter.

But it was a good weekend. The Sunday involved me ending up doing six Tarot readings – two for Sam, one for Rach, one for Marie, one for Stace and one for me – and I’d forgotten how much they do take it out of me. There’s no physical reason for them to do so, but bloody hell, they really do knacker me. And of course doing it on minimal sleep was a really smart decision. Leaving Nottingham at 7.30 in the evening and getting home at 10pm didn’t help really on the lack of sleep score.

However, I really do think that Chinese take-aways should be nominated for a group OBE for services to the public, particularly those gimps among the population who don’t get home til 10pm, can’t be bothered and/or can’t find the energy to cook, and the lovely people at the Chinese are still working to cook food. They’re saints, each and every one of ’em.