freedom and soup, really

I've come across a few blogs (written by people from the US) which uncritically champion the US as the freest of the free countries in the free world and say that the rest of the world is just jealous that they have so much freedom (the US that is), they can export it everywhere. Now I'm not sure what the real measure of freedom is, but just to satisfy my curiosity, can I ask anyone who has lived in the US and another country, which one they felt the most free(dom) in and why?

Anyway, back to the really mundane. Mr McMuffin made soup tonight and it was the best soup in the world I don't say that lightly as I come from a family of soup lovers (although we call it cawl) and am a pretty good soup maker myself. I don't know what he did to make it so good. The ingredients looked fine, although not terribly exciting, but given the McMuffin magic they combined to make the best soup in the world. So good I had to say it again.

...and again and again for anyone viewing this on RSS.

what a day...

I started my new job today. The only problem was that there was absolutely nothing that I could do so I got to come home after a couple of hours. It was gruelling, I can tell you. We sat and had a coffee and a fag and chatted. It was terrible. I joined the team on the day on which they moved into their new offices. Unfortunately, the new offices are still a bit of a building site. There was no water, which meant no toilets, no telephones, no computers, and no desks on which to put computers. Having said all that, it did look lovely, and everyone could see the potential. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

oops...

I seem to have deleted the comments too. Sorry.

top 5 lyrics that move your heart

I've been passed a couple of music memes, and a movie one too, over the last few weeks, but as you can imagine, I haven't really felt like doing any of them. So, just to be contrary, I'm going to do a bit of a meme that I found over at Eat Your Carrots. and which wasn't passed to me. It just got me thinking about all the songs that I love. I'm not sure that I could really name my top 5 lyrics, or even remember them off the top of my head, but these ones came to mind fairly quickly. I was going to give a little explanation about why I liked the lyrics but after 30 minutes of writing I gave up. It was just too hard. I guess what the songs have in common is an air of melancholy.

Duncan by Paul Simon
Couple in the next room
bound to win a prize:
they've been going at it all night long!

Maria's Little Elbow by Sparklehorse
she said 'I've really come to hate my body
and all the things that it requires in this world'
I bet you're out there getting drunk with all your friends and it'll get you
in the bathroom of a Texaco

Ten Storey Love Song by The Stone Roses
When your heart is black and broken
And you need a helping hand
When you're so much in love
You don't know just how much you can stand

Diamond's Smiles by Boomtown Rats
In the low voltage noise,
Diamond seems so sure and so poised
She shimmers for the bright young boys,
And laugh's “Love is for others, but me it destroys”

Bobby Peru by Luna
'S' is for sorry for all that I did
Now is the time to turn it all around
I know what is the matter so why can't I fix it
Forgive me please

UPDATE: a big apology to all you RSS reader types out there. I just couldn't get the layout of this post right and it was driving me a bit nuts. This is definitely the last time I will post it.

correction to the previous post

Mr McMuffin appears to be masquerading as me in the previous post. I think he has chosen some good songs, but when I mentioned Classic by Adrian Gurvitz, he said that the lyrics have to mean something to you, not just make you laugh. It's quite difficult to choose only five and tempting to disregard the tacky, but here they are:

What She Said, The Smiths
She said I smoke 'cause I'm hoping for an early death and I need to cling to something
I always thought (stupidly) this was a good retort to anyone who tiresomely mentioned that I really should give up smoking because it's bad for me (shit, why did no one ever tell me before?). Now that I have pretty much stopped smoking, I promise I'll never say those words to anyone.

Good Year for The Roses, Elvis Costello
I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick on the cigarettes there in the ashtray lyin’ cold the way you left ’em, but at least your lips caressed them while you packed, or the lip-print on a half-filled cup of coffee that you poured and didn’t drink but at least you thought you wanted it, that’s so much more than I can say for me
...and we continue my apparent obsession with fags. I love these lines hugely, even though I'm sure Elvis was mocking us all when he wrote them.

Friday I'm in Love, The Cure
I don’t care if monday’s blue, tuesday’s grey and wednesday too, thursday I don’t care about you, it’s friday I’m in love
I'm finally grown up enough to confess that I love the happier, poppier side of The Cure and any song that has the days of the week in it always rocks me (even Craig David).

Wrecking Ball, Neil Young
Meet me at the wrecking ball, wrecking ball, (I'll) wear something pretty and white, and we'll go dancin' tonight
This brings tears to my eyes when Emmylou sings it. She makes it sound so tragic and something Rosasharn from the Grapes of Wrath might sing, when I think it's actually a fairly happy little ditty.

Wave of Mutilation, The Pixies
Cease to resist, giving my goodbye. Drive my car into the ocean, you'll think I'm dead, but I sail away on a wave of mutilation
This reminds me of Gypsy Tart as a young impressionable teenager who found these sort of lyrics irresistible. Even now when I hear There is a light and it never goes out I think of her and how romantic she found the song, even though she wasn't too impressed when her then boyfriend wrote a song called Cut your head off which she always thought was about her (he denied it). She played Leonard Cohen, Joy Division, The Cure and The Smiths incessantly and oddly I always found the misery strangely uplifting and just the thing to get me in the mood for going out.

exhale

We had a few good pieces of news last week and one of them is that Slinky is now officially ours. Of course we have gained ownership in his years of decline, but I'm so pleased that we don't have to worry about our lovely neighbour moving and taking him with her. Slinky is celebrating by moving from bed to bed nursing a pus ridden eye from where the Evil Black Cat slashed him. Fortunately he is on the mend, as of course any medical treatment is now our responsibility.

I have now seen most of Revenge of the Sith and I have to say it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. It was a bit of a family outing, so I sat between the Niece and Big Sis, ate doughnuts, mocked various bits of dialogue with the Niece, slept, ate doughnuts and repeated these actions for the whole two and a half hours. A very pleasant afternoon indeed. Rock Cake pointed out that he is one of the few people to have see all seven of the Star Wars films, which include this gem. I really think that's going too far.

Anyway, I have been touched by the nice messages for Mr McMuffin and I really think that they helped him through the whole ordeal. I'm sure he'll say something himself, now that he's been able to let out that breath he's been holding for the last fortnight and I no longer wake up in a cold sweat imagining life on the streets.

honest cosmetics...

I was a bit surprised to find that Olay has done a bit of research which finally tells the truth about the seven signs of aging that most women fear the most. You can see it here. It makes interesting reading.

...and now for the good news

Despite the terrible reference that I received from my last b*stardly f*cking employers, my new employers have decided to give me the job. I'll be starting work next week. I shall be dedicating myself to being the very best employee that has ever been, and to seeking the absolute destruction of my old manager. I have decided that my new hobby will be to take them to court. I don't care if they write me a more positive reference, the more I have thought about it, the more I want an apology and to be compensated for the money that I have lost and the awful stress that Mrs McMuffin and I have been living under for the last few weeks. My nose has been suffering. When I get really stressed I develop a eczema type thing in my ear canal, although in recent years this has migrated to up my nose. Fortunately, it is all hidden from sight, but I know it's there.

star wars

I saw the new Star Wars movie the other day and I have to say I was really impressed with it. The special effects were truly spectacular. I guess it has to be some indication of how things have moved on that I don't think there was a single moment in the film when I thought that doesn't look real. The script was poo though. George Lucas has never made any great claims for his ability to write dialogue, and there is some real clunky stuff in this film. I was also struck by the, at times, leaden performances of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen. They both seemed to be struggling to provide their characters with any kind of emotional substance against the overwhelming backdrop created by the special effects. Having said that, I was still moved by Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader. It made some kind of emotional sense that he allowed himself to be seduced by the dark side of the force.

Now, whatever happened to poor Padme? Once Queen Amidala, ruler of Naboo, a political mover and shaker who was not adverse to getting involved in the action herself. In this film she is reduced to a poor whiny soul who spends much of the time wringing her hands over what has become of her man. She seemed to have very little to do in this installment of the saga, although her fate is certainly entwined with the creation of Darth Vader. In fact, now that I think about it, there were actually very few women in the film. I can't think of one, apart from Padme, although I do seem to remember that a female Jedi Knight was murdered towards the end.

Anyway, putting all that to one side, this is a great film and ranks up with the best that the first trilogy had to offer. I would probably even be tempted to go a little further to suggest that it may even be the very best film of the lot. Do yourself a favour, put aside all those misconceptions and predjudices and go and see it. You will be pleasantly surprised.

PS: is it wrong for me to like General Grevious so much? It's just that he reminded me of an ABC warrior from 2000AD. Now there's a comic that is just crying out to made into a movie.

i am loving it...

I just realised how good Spotlight and Automator are in Tiger (Mac OS 10.4). I did a search for all the movies on my computer and when they all showed up in Spotlight, I highlighted them and created an Automator workflow then I added a Finder action to the workflow and saved all the movies, which had been spread over three hard drives, to a folder on my desktop. I then imported them all into iPhoto. It has taken me a little while to work out the benefits of Spotlight, other than just finding things on your computer. I just couldn't work out what I was supposed to do with the lists of stuff that it unearthed, but now it all makes sense. I love it.