I've been musing about writing. Sometimes you come across bits of writing which just have so many good bits that you keep wanting to tell everybody - you find a quote and you keep pushing the start back a few sentences adding a couple on the end until ... I just pasted this into #london.pm "It hits us, hits us both, simultaneously, like a semi made out of lightning which is also a professional boxer. Carrot Cake Soup . You cube the carrot cake, some pieces have frosting and some don't, and you put a handful of these chunks into a bowl full of milk. So let's go do it. We'll do it later this week, he says. But I know that's the same as not doing it. Why not now, I say? I know a store where we can get all the stuff. You can just buy it, the way you can buy stuff in the household cleaners section and make a bomb big enough to kill God. The stuff is just lying around there and nobody's doing anything with it. It's not a crime to buy them separately, and what we do at home isn't any of their fucking business." Which is from http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2002-01-15 there was more funny stuff, particularly the Morse Code bit and the throwaway line about the director of Alien Resurrection. We've had threads before where people have nominated their favourite bits of writing - http://www.spesh.com/danny/wireduk/ is my prestated favourite and pretty much everything at http://www.monkeybagel.com/ makes me laugh my tits off. Particularly [ENGINEER delivers HARDWARE and ARCHITECTURE to SYSADMIN for BUILD.] ENGINEER: Look, I got us a monkey! Let's stick him in this bagel and then he'll do our taxes! SYSADMIN: A monkey will not fit in a bagel. [demonstrates] MONKEY: Nice. Real nice. Does your mother know what you do for a living? SYSADMIN: [whispers] Yes. She tells the neighbors I died in 1997. MONKEY: I don't blame her. ... SYSADMIN initiates BUILD PROCEDURE by engaging HARDWARE SUPPORT.] SUPPORT: Do you have any experience in accountancy? MONKEY: Eep! SUPPORT: Yes or no? MONKEY: Eep! SUPPORT: I have here a straight razor and a quart of gin. I stop cutting when the gin's all gone. MONKEY: I used to cook the books for a defense contractor in Iowa. SYSADMIN: You? But you're a monkey! MONKEY: And you died in '97. You think you're the only one with a past? from http://www.monkeybagel.com/shit.html, and the whole of http://www.monkeybagel.com/fantasia.html 'Then she says, "I noticed that the carpet looks a little dingy in the living room; (;) may I steam-clean it?" I say, "No, 'Beth', I cherish every moment with you." She sighs contentedly and lays her head on my large, firm pectoral muscles and hums the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms in its entirety, note-perfect, bursting quietly into song for "Walk of Life". I love that song. I doze off. She steam-cleans the carpet anyway.' SEE! I did it again! I couldn't help it. Those are monster quotes. They're too large. I should have just put the line about the Gin and the Razor. But the lines around it are funny. But they need context. And I couldn't run the risk that you might not read them. Yes, I am the person that irritates you by reading out bits from their book every 2 seconds "IF IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD I'LL READ IT WHEN YOU'VE FINISHED. SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU FUCK" Sometimes it's an author that you like - you just connect with them, they touch a particular nerve or tickle a certains et of neurons a certain way that's particular to you and only you. And the thousand other fan boys, but you get my point. It's the same with songs - some times you just click with an artist or a song. Sometimes its just the mood sometimes it's soemthing deeper. I remember Alex posting soemthing here a while back about a night clubbing when it all just clicked. Tonight, god is a dj. Lyrics of the moment : "He flys through the air, with the greatest of ease. That daring young man in the blue dungarees. Struck down by the g-force of a semtex device, he bucks like a seahorse, keels over and dies" I had to stop myself typing in the whole song, which is "Look Mum! No Hands" by Carter and has so many great lyric snippets that ... just look at them here, ok? http://www.fruity.dircon.co.uk/songs/lookmum.html They're on Fruitbat's own web site but you really ought to listen to the song proper because it just *works* better that way. I reckon it's got something to do with rhythms and that, in fact, the whole of human existence is based around rhythms. Pity I have none but maybe that's an advantage. I DO IT DIFFERENTLY! I AM THE HAWK! YOU ARE THE HARES! MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAH Sometimes I swear I can feel the lumpiness of text. Parting on a synthesisia note. I played Rez the other night. It rocked. http://www.segaweb.com/previews/ps2/rez.html