Face the facts

Test how good you are at remembering faces here. For other tests and more on the mind and body, check here. The Disgust survey is particularly interesting...

Random Irritations and Joys No 111

Random Irritations of Life: This bloody bug I've caught that's making me feel so lousy..... Annoying buffer ads in progammes (Lost, Malcom in the Middle, CSI).... Windows - will it ever work?
Random Joys of Life: Watching a full moon rising in the twilight.... brilliant TV (West Wing, Bodies, Broken News) the English winning weekend (cricket, footie and both ruby codes)....

57 Channels and there's too much on....

One of the most useful things I've found on the web has to be Digiguide. At 9 quid a year it beats any listing guide hands down. And now I need it more than ever. Even just having Freeview and Telewest's basic package here at Wolf Towers, we have access to more channels than we could ever need. So planning a night's viewing requires precise planning. The main problem is that the stuff we want to watch all seems to pop up at the same time, so tough decisions have to be made. What to watch? What to record? What to put off until it's repeated later in the week? When to watch the stuff we've recorded? We've still got the whole of Rome and about three episodes of Nip/Tuck to get through. This doesn't leave much time to watch the DVDs we have piling up getting dusty, and it's a good job I have a bit of a travel to work or I'd never hear any music. And it grieves me to think that the last time we went to the cinema was to see War of the Worlds, and of the great movies we've missed since. To make things worse, now Telewest have launched a service called Teleport, which will have movies and TV progs on demand, that you will be able to use just like a DVD, with pause, fastforward etc.... sorry, I'm off for a lie down... or maybe watch that episode of House I haven't seen yet.....

Aerial View

There are two things guaranteed to send a tingle down my spine and give me goosebumps (why are they called goosebumps?) One is the opening bars of Star Wars, the other is tinkling piano at the start of Wuthering Heights. Whenever I hear it, I'm transported back into another time, (as described in Sandi Thom's I wish I was a Punk Rocker) watching gobsmacked at the TV when this beautiful waif appeared on Top of the Pops. From then I was hooked. While my mates were lusting after the likes of Debbie Harry and Siouxsie Soiux, my bedroom was dominated by a massive poster of Ms Bush, as the record player belted out tracks from The Kick Inside and Lionheart. So imagine my excitement as the days countdown to the release of Aerial, Kate's new offering. Excitement tempered with trepidation though, as with the aformentioned Lucas films, time builds an expectation that seldom delivers. And twelve years is loooong time, so the expectation is sky high. The first single, King of the Mountain, is promising, (though I think the video is awful) and reviews have in the main been favourable, so hopefully my apprehesion will be misplaced.