Emo scene kids and more work. As always.

With a hangover, comes guilt and with guilt, comes the need to do penance in the form of dissertation writing. You may've- but probably haven't- noticed my absence recently. This is because the gigantic pile of work that has been threatening me for sometime finally carried out it's promise and has all but eliminated my social life.

I had to give my final presentation on Tuesday and rather than spend the previous weekend working on it (as would have been wise), I instead chose to do a bum breaking 12 hours in front of my laptop last Sunday working on my English dissertation. It meant that my presentation for my other class was pretty shit in comparison to most but by Thursday, I had pretty much finished my dissertation. It now only needs tweaking, and can therefore quite happily take a back seat in the grand scheme of things.

And although I wasn't best pleased about the idea of doing a presentation this week, that too is now also done and dusted, meaning the attached essay can now join the english dissertation in the kiddie seats and so I grudgingly accept that it was a good idea.

All that remains now is another 8000 words, so once again, it appears that I'll be spending the majority of the following week alternating between the stack of books I acquired at the library yesterday and my laptop. ARGH!

However, this is not to say that I don't allow myself a little bit of fun once in a while. I love me a bit of myspace cruising, but clearly not to the extent of some people. And so, it is with much chortling that I pass on to you, dear reader The First Annual Myspace Stupid Haircut Awards and their spawn, The Second Annual Myspace Stupid Haircut Awards.

Enjoy your weekend.

No rest for the wicked

I should be writing the presentation that I'm meant to be giving about how language in advertising conditions the way we think. Instead, I'm on here. I figured I could allow myself to post after yesterday's MARATHON work session.

For twelve hours, I sat on the floor, in exactly the same spot. I got up only twice - once for the loo, the other for the pizza that I ordered to compensate for the fact that I hadn't eaten all day.

I finally caved and made the pilgrimmage to the supermarket today, I couldn't hold out on air alone for much longer. There is at least one positive aspect to all of this work and hopefully it shall manifest itself on my waistline. I can't help noticing that I jiggle more since my trip home for easter, where I was virtually force fed by my overly concerned mother.

Another positive aspect that I cannot fail to notice is that I now have HALF of my english dissertation written up. Actually, over half- 5000 words. It has undeniably eased some of the pressure of the work, although there's always something to be done.

And with that, I must return to analysing Beyonce's face at close range and the implications on readers. Joy.

Free time? What's that?

I know I haven't blogged in over a week but right now, I'm just too tired, stressed, sleep-deprived and malnourished to look beyond the next essay. Three weeks is all I have left. Three weeks. THREE! ARGH!

[runs and cowers in a corner]

Jerry Bruckheimer is one rich bastard

Another day passes and with it, goes another wasted opportunity. Today, I put aside work and hit Oxford Street for a little retail rehabilitation - I figured I deserved it as I stayed up til waaay past 3 last night, analysing the data for my dissertation. It's quite possibly the most tedious thing I have ever done. So tedious, that even describing it would make my make my brain cut out, so let's not risk that, okay? Not this late in the day.

What really disturbed me about my work last night was that in the process, I managed to watch approximately 6 hours of Jerry Bruckheimer's various dramas. I admit, much of it was my own doing. First, there was CSI and CSI:Miami on Five, then I flipped over to Living, another CSI.

Half way through, I got bored and switched onto Sky Three, where I got to watch 2 episodes of Cold Case. Once it hit 1 am and all credible TV was long gone, I stuck on one of my CSI DVDs for company whilst I worked and it played right the way through, all 4 episodes.

I bet that man is sitting somewhere, in a very large mansion, on a very big pile of money, being attended to by an army of semi-naked nymphs. Or robots. He's probably so rich, he can get the guys at SONY to make him a little robot kid.

Ooh, that'd be creepy.

Anyway. TV is once again on it's sliding scale into the downright awful, so I think I'll take it as a sign and go to bed.

Or watch some CSI...

I just don't like Mondays

There's no getting around it, they should've just named Monday Shitday.

Somehow, no matter how hard I try or how little I set out to achieve, the day never goes my way. Despite promises to myself last night that today I would finally get my political piece out of the way, I'm still nowhere near.

At only 1000 words, I figured it would be easy. What I didn't factor in was my complete lack of willpower when it comes to these kind of things. So instead, I spent most of my day staring into the middle distance, watching a pair of pigeons squabbling on the fence.

And now, its 10pm and I'm only 500 or so words in and I'm determined to get it done before I go to bed, even if it's just a rough draft. Like the little engine that could,

I think I can, I THINK I CAN!

No, I can't.

Sunday Night Live II

At last, we have a wireless set up in the house, which allows me the opportunity to simultaneously watch tv, smoke a spliff and surf the web, all from the comfort of my bean bags in the attic. I've spent the day wandering between this location and the kitchen, reading the papers and generally being unproductive.

I shouldn't have written so much yesterday. Yesterday, in a burst of guilt and a silent house, I sat chained to my laptop for the better part of the day, save for walks in the garden. I somehow managed to get over 1000 words written, which proved to be the majority of the methoodology for my english dissertation. So, with that and my history/background section almost entirely written, things were starting to look up.

I even got a sushi dinner as a reward for my hard slog from my mother, so impressed was she by the fact that I'd actually done something, rather than loaf around all day as I am otherwise typically inclined to do.

Unfortunately, all of this had a detrimental (sp?) effect, as today I got nothing done. And now, I find myself unwittingly watching snowboarding on Channel 4, because I cannot find the remote control.

Nor can I find the second bar of chocolate that I liberated from the fridge about an hour ago. In my stoned haze, have I eaten it? Or has it suffered a worse fate, falling victim to the all consuming straggly-fur beanbag on which I have spent most of the evening?

If it is the latter, I fear that it may have melted somewhere in the burrows of the beanbag, which will subsequently need dry cleaning. Like Police Chief Wiggum laments on The Simpsons, nothing gets chocolate out.

In other news, why have I heard nothing of Clerks II? This alone proves the extent to which uni work has taken over my life. I've been reading Kevin Smith's blog over at silentbobspeaks.com, which has made it to my addictives list.

Enough yammering, all of this snowboarding is giving me motion sickness. I need to find that remote. And that chocolate bar, before it's too late.

The Great Ribena Berry Mystery 2: Revenge of the Berry

So, following my previous post, I suffered another bout of procrastinitus and found myself trawling google to find out about the Ribena berries.

I headed over to ribena.co.uk to see if they held the answers. And in some respects, they do, although I can't link directly to any of them, since they are of the belief that flash is cool, so instead you'll either have to go find it all yourself or read what I found below:

It turns out that they have 5000 acres of blackcurrants growing for them in the UK. That's a lot of blackcurrants. In order to impact on their percentage claim, we would therefore need to get about 500 acres of land and wait for three years until the blackcurrant plants mature. And in those three years, doubtless that GlaxosmithKline will probably acquire more land and more blackcurrants until they are emperors of the darkened berry. It's a fruitless battle, pardon the pun.

Big Corporation 1, Liberators of the British Blackcurrant 0.

The Great Ribena Berry Mystery

So, as we all know, all this supposed essay writing is really just a ruse and most of the time, I'm either doodling or wandering around my house, marvelling at various pretty things in a semi-stoned state. This afternoon for example, I spent a good ten minutes staring up into the leaves of the palm trees that are planted in our garden, just because I could and it looked ever so nice.

With all this time on my hands, I often start to think about really stupid stuff (see above). Last night, an old nagging question surfaced. Ever since Ribena changed their logo and added the shpiel about how 95% of Britain's Blackcurrants make Ribena, it got me to thinking, how do they know this?

Was a special task force set up over at Glaxosmith Kline? I can imagine the board meeting:

Boss: "Right, Jones, we need you and Hargreaves to find all of Britain's blackcurrants and bring them to us! Do you understand?"

Jones looks puzzled. "ALL of them sir?"

Boss: "Yes, go door to door if need be and bring them to me. I must only have BRITISH blackcurrants, do you understand?! Not Australian, Not South African and certainly, not American. I don't care what you have to do to get them, get me those blackcurrants"

Or perhaps, they've bought a large chunk of Somerset and have set up their own dedicated blackcurrant farm, so large that it is believed to contain the said percentage of blackcurrants.

Then, there's another aspect to consider - what about all of the blackcurrant plants that grow wild or in gardens? Surely, they must make up more than 5% of the total number of blackcurrants? Perhaps you, dear reader, have a blackcurrant plant that remains unregistered with the appropriate authorities? This has led me to wonder what would happen if I were to theoretically buy a couple of hectares of countryside and grow my own blackcurrants? Would Ribena be forced to change their percentage to, say, 93% or less, maybe? Or would Ribena thugs, dressed in giant purple velvet ribena berry outfits come and squish me to death, only to be added to their ever so sweet fruit mix drink?

Anyone willing to stump up the cash to buy a couple of hectares of land, grow some blackcurrants and test the theory?

Ssh!

I've never been the biggest fan of tom cruise, I'll be honest. Not for his lack of acting skills, just he sends my weird-o-meter off the charts. Now, not only has Katie Holmes found herself in a contract relationship with this man and up the duff with someone else's his baby, he's also convinced her to have a drug-free and noise-free birth, as I'm sure those of you who read trashy magazines will know.

Not happy with the baby being born into a silent world, he's now also apparently demanding silence and slow physical movement in the baby-zone around his mansion, posting large placards outside.

Check out the whole story here.

If I were his neighbour, I'd have a 3 day festival in my driveway. Actually, make it a rave.

Anyway, enough Tom Cruise bashing. As I mentioned late last night in a rather strung out nonsensical post, I went to the 4th Polish Film Festival the other night to see Persona Non Grata, the story of a senior Polish diplomat stationed in Uruguay, who suddenly loses his wife. I'll admit freely now that my Polish most definitely was not up to scratch enough to watch without reading the subtitles, but then with 4 languages in one film -Polish, Russian, English and what I presume to be Spanish - it was probably the safest option.

After the film there was a Q&A with the director and then a reception afterwards. Never before had I been so please to see a canape, having not had time to eat dinner before we left the house.

Anyway, time to get back to the data in which I perpetually sit.