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Alex Mace’s Blog

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Archive for May, 2004

WhyTheHell Live!

I’ve been to the Motorshow today, and boy are my legs sore from all the wandering round. Quite glad I didn’t go swimming this morning.

Sat in all kinds of wonderful cars, like Aston Martin’s DB9 and V12 Vanquish, Lotus Exige (I want one, even if I did mess up getting out of it), Seat Leon Cupra R, Honda’s Civic Type R AND NSX-R, various TVRs – they have many cars, but Chris coined a new word to describe the range – indiverse.

Other highlights included the fabulous Mini Open Air Theatre show by Russ Swift. We got to sit in the VIP area as I had my Ministry of Ownership passport with me. I could have got 10% off merchandise with it too, but as I already have 3 Mini shirts, that was more than enough. I also had a spin round the test track in an MG ZT 190 – a thoroughly impressive car! Pity they didn’t have the V8 RWD version.

Now to bed in time for a fairly manic time karting wise over the next month. I’m racing in Club100 Sprints at Lydd on Sunday, GP event at Herefordshire Raceway next Saturday, Club100 Inters Enduro at Warden Law a week after that and Club100 Sprints the next day. Possibly more racing the following Friday. Madness.

Bleh

What’s the point in doing anything when there’s no one to do it with?

Today I have been domestic. I haven’t got much to say at the moment. Everything’s ok I guess.

Few Things Of Interest

The title isn’t actually correct, I have been doing things of interest this week, but it’s been such brilliant weather I’ve mostly been getting out and about rather than blogging. For this I apologise.

I might actually detail what I’ve been up to this week later on, but for now I shall talk about some CDs I bought.

First off we have Absent Friends by The Divine Comedy. I bought this after hearing Mark & Lard (god rest The Biggest Show, I miss it so) play “Come Home Billy Bird” as their last record of the week. The album is certainly a lot more cohesive than Fin de Siecle was, which is both good and bad. Fin was certainly a lot more interesting on repeated listenings, but the variety made it quite hard to get into.

Absent Friends is an uplifting affair though. It’s not mainstream stuff, but it knocks most modern rubbish into a cocked hat. Buy it.

Second is Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age. I don’t need to write much on this. It is pure, distilled, ROCK. If you don’t like Rock, don’t buy it, and don’t talk to me. Otherwise, you best get it now.

Lastly is Morrissey’s lastest, You Are The Quarry. This may seem like a strange choice for me to those of you who know my tastes. It’s a weird thing though, I’m getting into a lot more different types of music of late. Anyway, this album is definately different. I was too young to remember any of The Smiths stuff properly, and it’s not something I’ve really been exposed to. However, it’s a most relaxing listen. It’s good to have on when you’re feeling a bit down because it makes you feel like you’re not the only one who feels like that sometimes. Recommended too.

I Must Be Mad

Am I the only one who finds this t-shirt from Lamborghini immensely cool?

coolness!

What does it say on the front? “Official Test Driver” in Italian. Must keep telling myself that ?31 is too much for a t-shirt…

Note To Self

Not everyone on the Internet is fantastic. Sitting in front of your computer all day is no substitute for getting out there.

So, with that in mind, I’ve been riding a bike about for the last few days. Ventured down to Whitchurch and back in a big loop, and nearly made it back up the big hill to Llangrove in one go. Go me! I’ll make the whole way soon.

While on this bike trip, I stopped in Whitchurch for a drink and read a magazine for a bit on a bench under a tree, and I was accosted by a random cat. It was a very nice cat, and I stroked it for a bit, and eventually convinced it that sitting down next to me was better than on my magazine. How odd.

Eurovision was on tonight, and I didn’t watch it. I did see a short bit of the German entry though, with an amazing monobrow and a strange mouth. Mum described the event as having “several monobrows”. Is this a good or bad thing?

Socks and the Karting

So often in my life have I thought things would always “work out” like the movies or TV. It never does, it like when someone who doesn’t believe in god prays anyway hoping 2+2=5. However, I’ve got this horrible feeling I am about to star in my very own episode of “My Worst Nightmare”.

Coming up at the end of June, pending enough entries, is the BUKC Legends race. There is a team entered by Marcus Haggers, of LMH College, Oxford. This team contains him and his mates. No problem with that. However, in a six degrees of Kevin Bacon style thing, one of these people could be someone I affectionately refer to as The Amazing Twat Boy. i.e. The guy who repeatedly asked out my girlfriend for three years. Who then got my girlfriend two weeks after she split up from me. I hated that guy. I hate that I have been told that we’re reasonably similar. Like he’s the inferior version of me that’s better overall because he’s nearby.

“So what?” I hear you cry. I’ve not seen the guy since all the crapness of last September. I do think I’d ever have to deal with this. Why do I possibly have to deal with it on what could be one of the best moments of the year.

Ok, we’re talking extremes here, but my life is turning into a TV show I do not want to watch.

My Mind Makes Noises. Empty Noises.

I have no idea what that title means. I think I might be delusional. Can you know if you are, in fact, delusional? I meant to get some proper things done this evening, but instead spent 2 hours talking on t’Internet.

With all my music now on the iPod, the following albums I have not listened to much previously are, in fact, ace -

Fin de Siecle by The Divine Comedy
Equally Cursed and Blessed by Catatonia
War on Errorism by NOFX

Box Car Racer is also excellent. Listen to them all now people, I shall use my mind to make you do so. See, I told you I was delusional, and I must stop putting “in fact” in the middle of sentenances. and I must learn to spell sentanences.

Funny That

I have my iPod playing in the office, and while the why it shuffles tracks ususally bothers me, today it seems to be playing things to match my mood. Such as -

Nobody Loved You by the Manic Street Preachers
Milk by Garbage

Today is not bad, just dull and unfulfilled. Roll on tomorrow, and pray it’s interesting…

Geek Goodness

I’ve spent all afternoon and evening messing with the RSS feed for this site, including throwing away all the code I’d written and starting again.

The upshot of all this is that whole entries are no longer encoded with htmlentities( ), and query strings after URLs (the bit after the ? ) are now properly encoded. This means this will now display properly on places like LiveJournal. I do it for you dear readers. Enjoy!

Also, I am getting 4 tickets for both Mark Thomas and Dylan Moran at Hay Festival. These are not allocated to anyone yet, so feel free to volunteer to come along!

What’s The Temperature Bob?

For quite a while I’ve been interested in the works of Michael Moore. You may not agree with what he says (and my Dad doesn’t), but what he says makes you think. He draws attention to both the ridiculous and the worrying parts of American culture. Mind you, American’s can be scary all on their own.

Anyway, Disney is blocking the release of his new movie Fahrenheit 9/11 because it’s afraid it will lose some tax breaks in Florida because it’s critical of Dubya when his brother Jeb is in charge in Florida. Florida you remember is the state that decided that Dubya should be President, when in fact Al Gore got more votes across the country than Dubya – and these people are trying to supress democracy in Iraq. Oops, build democracy in Iraq. Hmm.

Anyway, on one hand I commend Disney for all the free publicity they have given Mr Moore, and I just hope the film comes out soon here, because I really want to see it.

In a slightly related point, the British version of Michael Moore is one Mark Thomas, purveyor of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product on Channel 4. He’s a very funny guy, and all the stuff he does is really informative too. He’s on at the Hay Festival too on June 2nd, and tickets are ?7. Who wants to come? Also on is Dylan Moran of Black Books on May 30th for ?10. Both are likely to be brilliant. Place bets now!