Living a life less ordinary

Japanese man marries virtual girlfriend

A Japanese gamer has taken the highly unusual step of ‘marrying’ his videogame sweetheart, in what must have been a very bizarre ceremony recently.

The gamer, known only as Sal9000, is a big fan of the Nintendo DS romance ‘em up, ‘Love Plus’, in which players attempt to woo their digital paramours with flowers, lavish dates and such. The behaviour of these in-game girlfriends then changes dependent on how they’re treated. Ah, so true!

I just got another three months... on top of the month I still have left!! Takes me to the end of March 2010!

Breathing room!!!! *big breath in* *big breath out*

*bounce*

..being outside the Gaff and (almost) bumping into Kixie, who I haven't seen in a while and she was on crutches. I ragged her along the lines of that being what you get for lobbing petrol bombs at people! She'll get herself into trouble one day.

Yesterday was a total Fail! I neither got to the Happy Funeral Party or Invocation. Still, a nice half-bottle of pinot noir kept me company as did Sarah Connor and Dollhouse (I've missed the last series after they said they were cancelling it.. or something..)

( [Synopsis] - Sheridan's birthday, a new club night )

I almost definitely without a s.o.a.d. over did the giggling water. Oops! *grin* This morning has been made up of slobbing around feelinga a bit sorry for my internal organs and a text from LS saying how she's out at a film shoot (nudge nudge! wink wink! Say no more squire!) and there are not going to be any zombies there. Awwww! :)

I am, of course, aiming to happily chase the glum away at Happy Funeral Party 2 over at the Korsan Bar tonight.

Also tonight there's Invocation over at the Minories... hmmm.. wondering if I could pull off a double-header! *grin*

I know some of you might be interested in this as I've seen LJ posts about people going to see them. It's a long time off but...

Muse, Wembley Stadium, 11 Sep 2010

Doors are at 4pm.

Standing tickets are £45 (ouch!) and go on sale tomorrow from 9am.

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This Saturday caveynik presents Happy Funeral Party 2, the very best in post punk, old school goth, deathrock, gothabilly and more over at the Korsan Bar in Shoreditch. It's from 9pm-3am (maybe later), and costs just £4.

Click for a flyer

If you got a crap Xmas present last year, you can return the sentiment by giving a notebook made from elephant poo!

Calling all zombies/zombie-friendlies/zombie fans...



Click the this link for more info.

I've not been practising my 'food chemistry' the past couple of days and Boy! Is it beginning to tell? The bright, sparkly "up and at 'em" energy levels have dipped quite substantially to a more sedate level of 'meh!'. This oversight will be redessed in the next week once I've stocked up on some of the vital elements required.

So, I was sat there (here!) in a fairly sedate level of 'meh!' when saucy_goth pings up with an "I'm bored!"[1] and asking me what was going on. At this point I remembered that missyk8 was having a happening over at the Elixir Bar and that Reptile was also on. We concocted a plan, a mighty fine plan and duely enacted it meeting up at Mornington Crescent tube and travelling up to the Elixir. We had a drink there listening to the rolling mix of drum'n'break'n'things which was quite interesting if not really "my thang maan!". Said happy brithday to the birthday girl and after the one headed off the Reptile.

LS is a baaaad girl by suggesting we openly flout the law and have boozes on the train down. Our carriage was later joined by a group who were easily in danger of falling foul of the open can violation. Get to Reptile, get in, get a drink. LS met up with her friend, Ed and I spent a lot of time outside smoking carbon-tipped ciggies[2]. Had chats with a few including a bit of a catch-up with caroline_vain who I haven't had the pleasure of talking with in a long time.

Somewhere around about 2am and my energy levels were starting to wane so I took myself off to a bus stand somewhere in the area, jumped on an omnibus after only a few minutes and was back at base in no real time at all.

[1] which remings me of the opening to Toyah's "I want to be free"
[2] A new range of filter tips with a crushed graphite(?) layer in them. Helps remove some of the more lethal constituents, I guess. I do like the idea of having carbon-fibre HEAP tips on cigarettes though! :)

Haven't made it out to Departure, mainly on account of being fragged out and it being cold and windy outside.

However my reticence to go out has been rewarded by the news that NASA has discovered a significant amount of water on the moon.

This is, I feel, incredibly good news. Depending of course on the size of ice there is on the moon, it could be feasible to make a more permanent presence there.. and then, of course, as the moon's gravity is only one-sixth of the Earth's, it'd make it easier to travel to other planets in the solar system. It'd be a bit like the ISS only much much bigger! :)

Of course, this now also brings with it other problems. If there is water on the moon, and we subscribe to what I like to think of as "the Star Trek fallacy[1]" of "life as we know it" by which water would have to be present, what happens if scientists now detect some form of life, living or extinct, within that "significant amount of water"?

First there's that whole issue of whether there would be sustainable compatibility between the human race and the other lifeform(s)? If it was some form of microbe, would it be fatal to humans? As we as a race would not probably have had any exposure to it for the last x-thousands years, the human race would probably not have any antibodies against any form of extraterrestrial microbe.

Then there is what I think could be a bigger problem. If some form of life was to be found what would be the reaction of the religions on this planet who all proclaim that god made life on this planet and this planet alone? It'd sort of pee over the whole "garden of Eden" idea, don't you think? Once you challenge one of the fundamental mainstays of those religions what would happen amongst the disillusioned people who had previously subscribed to those religions?

[1] The 'Star Trek fallacy' is the concept of "life as we know it", which generally subscribes to such ideas that for life to exist on a planet there has to be water and oxygen. There are life forms on this planet which survive in environments without oxygen and water just happens to be a very simple molecule with a multple valency.

So, the last London Lite (free) newspaper is today. The LondonPaper, also a freebie, went boom a while back. Is the Metro still running?

It wouldn't suprise me if the Evening Standard announces sometime in the next few months that they have "had no choice but" to go back to charging to cover their costs, what with the "advertising downturn" and all.

The conspiracy theory? That the ES has used its prominent position to "go free" for a few months to nudge those other free papers out of the arena. When it becomes the "only" London paper then it can then go back to business-as-usual and charge, with no competition.

I think that explains why the ES are still paying the paper stallholders to distribute the paper. It keeps those prime distribution sites in the hands of those who are 'friendly' to the paper, maybe for when they will be "needed again".

Just a thought.

..when you change the date you get paid!!! I'm loving this idea of working for myself by working for someone else... at least for the moment that is.

Bloody cats are pithin' me off right now.. one cat in particular, the tomcat that's running on one of our servers (it's 5.5 outputting through log4j if that makes any difference). Supposed to be doing a daily cycle of the logfiles. The instance on the (default) port works a treat but the second instance with EXACTLY THE SAME SETUP (except for port number and directories) doesn't work?!?!??! Probably something stupid to do with ownerships, identities or permissions.

I blew out a chance to go and see Cold in Berlin at the invite of the deathrock meister. Still it's cold and blowy and over in bleedin' Shoreditch so.. I think I picked the winning card. :)

Right, time to eat (said Zeebeedee) as well as more forays into the world of vampires, shapeshifters and fundamentalist god-bothering whack jobs.. oh, and I may sample that other bottle of wine I seem to have gifted myself a few months/years back. Hope it works out as well as the 2006 Shiraz I found that I had over the weekend.

Do I know? Yes. Do I care? No, why the hell should I? Simple as.... *grin*

Killing Joke:

• 15 April 2010 - Picture house, Edinburgh - Price: £20 , doors: 7pm
  
• 16 April 2010 - Hammersmith Apollo, London - Price: £22.50 , doors: 7pm
  

Got moving a little later than planned yesterday which meant I only managed to get to Blacklist. Nice musics, chats with a few peeps. Note to self - if you must drink Old Fashioneds, then do NOT switch the bourbon type. I currently feel like I have a lemming drilling its way out through just above the right eye socket so that it can make it to the exit. Doh! My own fault, I should've known.

I doubt I'll make the Lydia Lunch gig tonight as I've been listening back through some old copy and I can't honestly say there's anything that she's done that "grabs" me enough to want to spend the time and money on a gig.

There's nothing showing on my list of fun things to do for tonight so I may just have a QNI (what!? Another QNI??). I'll see, something may pop up.

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You probably already know but New Model army have announced their tour dates and the tour ends in the UK. The UK dates are:

Nov 25 Cambridge - The Junction
Nov 26 Brighton - Concorde 2
Nov 27 Birmingham - O2 Academy 2
Nov 28 Manchester - Academy 2
Nov 29 Glasgow - Cathouse
Nov 30 Gateshead - The Sage

Right, back to causing riots in Liberty City! :)

Fuck your loudness...

*HA* *HA* *HA* Oroboros.. that's all I'm going to say about that...

Read into that what you will. You're still wrong! *grin*

*ha* *ha* *ha*

Tonight I am, almost definitely, without a s.o.a.d, going to attending Blacklist. Afterwards, I'm not too sure. Part of me says "Go to Inferno!" but what with the new photo-ID door policy[1] and the fact that I get a bit gothtrophobicunderwhelmed by the some of the deliberately overtly forced efforts of people who are definitely absolutely trying to let everybody know that they're having fun, well it's getting a bit old-hat for me, I think.

I am however tempted to try Louder than Fuck down at The Garage, which is a night I kept missing when it was in Chalk Farm Road. It'd be cheaper to get in, goes on a little longer, about the same distance back to base and I'd be interested to see how a grunge night goes down in Lahndahn town. Does anyone know if it's any good?

Then tomorrow I might just go to the Lydia Lunch gig just to see if she is a "musical genius" or just "bat shit crazy".

Looking at sinbadsilk's posting about the Electric Ballrom requiring photo ID for all their events, I thought I'd have a look and see if the EB had anything "official" to say about it online.

Flakey memory tells me to look up the EB's URL throguh Google, so I go there, type in "electric ballroom camden" and sure enough, top of the list is "The Electric Ball Room" (notice the word breaks) complete with a google map of the venue's (correct) location in Camden. The URL points to electric-ballroom . co . uk (notice the extra hypen).

So, it seems that someone has passed off their website (electric-ballroom) as the electric ballroom's website (to the point that google maps links the two). Of course, electricballroom.co.uk (with no hyphen) is still there but beaten into third place in the search by some other website with a very similar URL which is being google-mapped as the actual ballroom!

Amused me anyway! :)

...you open you mailbox and find that E-Bay have sent you an invoice for £0.00(?) Considering I haven't used them in about 6 years, I'm guessing they're just fishing for trade.

Also, a little further down the list of emails was one inviting me to buy tickets to go ice-skating at Somerset House from a "well known online ticket retailer". Considering the last time I bought tickets to go ice-skating there was two years ago and I ended up just walking away from them because of situations beyond my control at that time, it scratches a bit of a sore spot with me.

( Don't say I never give you nuffink! )

..some of you might be interested in this:

Special FREE TG Event
TG invades the Barbican!

Dark Carnivale Sideshow

In association with the Robert Kusmirowski exhibition
(Free admission till 12am)

10 - 1am: Shows & DJs in Clubstage on Level -1, Basement

The world's largerst fetish / body art club hosts a special sideshow event featuring live music, performances, visuals and DJs.

The Urban Voodoo Machine - Live

The Baron & Missy's Missadventures - Sideshow Freakshow

DJ David TG & Guest: Mash-up Freakshow, Neo Swing, Gypsy Punk, Glamour Trash, Electro Clash

Dark Carnivale Freakshow Visuals

No enforced dresscode, but dress-up and explore your imagination and invade the Barbican! Wear a Mask, Fetish, Halloween, Carvivale, Circus, Burlesque, Cabaret, Masque Ball, Moulin Rouge, Body Art, Medical, Uniform, Surrealism etc (No nudity for this special event - as open to general public)

Free Admission
Barbican Centre
Silk Street
London EC2Y 8DS

Details here :=> http://www.torturegarden.com/events/barbican/

While looking to freshen up the entries in The Little Black Book, I found the following which may be of interest of you.

All of these gigs are at Bardens Boudoir over in Stoke Newington.

• Sunday 15 Nov 2009 - The Legendary Pink Dots, 30th anniversary tour with support by The Oscillation, doors: 7.30pm, £10 (advance)
  
  
• Friday 20 Nov 2009 - Black Plastic, 8pm-2am, £3 before 10pm, £6 after (£5 N.U.S/flyer)
  
  
• Thursday 10 Dec 2009 - Publicist, KASMS, Prize Pets, Circuit Breaker, doors: 8pm, £6/£5 (advance)