Wow. Last night, I saw one of the best films I think I ever have. As part of the IFI’s Horrorthon festival, the inimitable Night Of The Lepus was shown. Astonishing, simply astonishing.
The plot? Simple. Giant killer rabbits terrorise a small town.
Rory Calhoun, Janet Leigh and, a very snappily-dressed DeForest Kelley star (and I do mean star). Great plot and great dialogue. Some of my favourite lines:
As Janet Leigh shoots at a giant rabbit that’s attacking a bloke, it scarpers, leaving him all bloody and with shredded clothes. She rushes to him saying, “It’s ok John, the rabbit’s gone”.
As a white-coated lab guy examined some debris before the rabbits were discovered, he mentioned that it had been gnawed and had traces of saliva. “Like a vampire?” someone asked him. “Possibly”, he said.
As a military policeman addressed people at a drive-in movie, “There is a herd of giant, killer rabbits heading this way”.
Overall, it was amongst the funniest films I’ve ever seen and I urge you to see it if you can. Night of the Lepus, people. Make it so.
Incidentally though, it was made in 1972 on a very small budget and has a distinct lack of ‘no rabbits were hurt in the making of this film’ disclaimers. I’m pretty sure there was a rabbit on fire at one point.
There are many cons. Another year, another hole further on my belt. Another few empty follicles closer to glabreity. Another step away from understanding ‘the youth of today’ and what possible rationale they might have for listening to music through the tiny speakers of their mobile phones (last time on the bus: three different twats, simultaneously sharing three different shrill, tinny, phone-noise songs with the rest of the passengers). Each day I grow closer and closer to waving a stout walking stick and shouting, “damn kids”.
My hangover recovery time has increased considerably, despite the amount of practice I undertake. I make a funny grunt/groan when I bend to pick something up. I no longer have the same disdain for people who ‘garden’. I find myself evaluating flat caps in shops and wondering if it’s too soon.
The pros list is shorter. I can hang around a shop all day with little regard for the Mosquito device they have installed.
Still though, it is my birthday. I wonder if I can persuade Mrs. Jimmy Page’s Trousers to do that thing I like.
I am the quintessential procrastinator. That Hamlet bloke has nothing on me. What the hell is wrong with me? I know I should be doing something a little more worthwhile (relatively speaking at least) and yet I don’t.
Instead I do other things. I drink lots of tea. I stare out of the window for a bit. “That internet’s not going to surf itself”, I say and sluggishly click from one site to another. There are so many unnecessary and inessential draws on my time. How much masturbation do you think is too much, for instance? So many pointless things eating into my day. Eating into the time in which I should be doing something productive.
I need to break this dilatory pattern. I need to steel myself and get a system going. I need to turn off my email notifications. I need to resist the siren call of Google Reader. I need to stop wondering what’s happening on BBC News and Boing Boing.
Damn this internet. Damn its e-ticement. Damn it for its information-allure. Damn its myriad methods of interrupting what I should be doing. Damn it hell for its easily accessible pornography.
P.S. In Sideshow Bob fashion, I am aware of the irony of posting on the internet in order to decry it.
Its uploader for Mac was buggy - editing anything already typed in the text fields before an upload caused it to go mental and, after every upload, it made me login again. It limited me to 100M a month, which isn’t too bad on an ongoing basis but my initial surge of photos came to more than that and I’m not willing to fork out for additional space or wait a month to upload another few. Lastly, and most imortantly, it lacked any decent sorting options - stuff was presented in the order in which it was uploaded and I couldn’t find anything to allow me to sort photos in the order in which they were actually taken.
So then, I am back with the Google chaps. Picasaweb for me. Gave me 1GB upfront which means I can actually upload the photos I want to without having to wait for three months. Granted, if I’d stayed with flickr, in a year, I’d have more space than that but I’m all about the instant gratification, me. Picasa also allows me to sort things the way I want to and makes it easier to organise photos once they’re uploaded.
To be fair, it’s not perfect. Flickr was better at easily tagging photos or albums and flickr also has better ’social-networking’ (possibly in part because it’s the most popular). I’m not really uploading photos for networking opportunities though, so these weren’t deal-breakers for me.
Also, Picasa doesn’t as yet have that flashy sidebar widget where the images expand and shrink. Static selection of random images for my sidebar now. Oh well.
I am DIY-Boy again. The bedroom this time as I continue my quest to make something presentable, and slightly less annoying, out of the odd collection of acute and obtuse angles, shit workmanship and general arse, that the builders piled up and called a house.
There is an ulterior motive. The previous owner’s carpet was still in the bedroom and, not only does it look a bit shit, I’m convinced that I’ve been walking around on that person’s skin cells and pubes for the last four years.
So then, carpet: gone. Eeeuughh - nasty job. In it’s place, a nice solid-wood floor with no place for dust and pubes to hide. Shitty, sticky-outie wardrobes that the builders hammered to the wall: gone. Snazzy new ones in a much better position. A bit of painting left to complete and then, it’s done. Even without the painting though, l’m markedly happier with the room. It looks much better and it’s now much more intelligently laid-out.
Worth the hassle then? Yep. Mind you, the bathroom is next on the list (not for a couple of months though). My answer might be different after tackling that.
I have put my name forward for consideration to join the 21st century. Part of the initiation process requires that I sign up for something called flickr. I did so today and it’s already annoying the hell out of me by repeatedly making me sign in despite my ticking the ‘don’t fucking bother me for two weeks’ box. And it’s a secure page for sign-in, which means Firefox won’t save the information but makes me type it all every time. Bastard.
All that notwithstanding, I have managed to upload some images this afternoon. Some are from the last couple of weeks and some are older. I’ll probably bung another few up soon and then wait for flickr to grudgingly surrender more storage space in a month. Most of the images are mono, except for the ones that aren’t. I tend to like mono for a lot of things. Don’t read anything into it.
You can see the flashy flash thing over in the sidebar should you be interested in additional glimpses into my disturbingly lacklustre life.
