Eastern Promises

Image courtesy of http://www.imdb.com

I liked this movie so much that I've watched three times in the past week. To be fair though, I'm not sure though, how much of it is to do with the quality of the film itself and how much of it is to do with the lead character. After all, a lean, muscular man with a sexy Russian accent, lethal hand-to-hand combat skills, stone cold determination and a touch each of ruthlessness and tenderness... It's quite an appealing combination!

Potty time!

It's not a sufficiently traumatic childhood if someone, somewhere, doesn't take a cute photo of you on the toilet!

More weekend photos...

OK, let's get one thing straight, even though the following photos came out of Eddy's camera, it was me that shot them... I'd commandeered his camera briefly whilst he had a snooze on a park bench in Monaco! ... right under the nose of the cops too, though in Monaco, you pretty much do everything under the nose of the cops. I saw more police in Monaco than I have in the rest of France, and I live with a policewoman! (Though technically, Monaco is a city-state totally independent of France).

Heart defibrillator -- there was one of these every 500m!


Palace of Justice


Palace of the Grimaldi Princes (initially under the command of the Genoans, but one of the Grimaldis disguised himself as a monk, snuck in and disembowelled all within with his sword... now that's what I call cool!)


View of the harbour

Facebook sucks!

I have to say, I didn't really have anything much against Facebook to begin with, other than it was yet another social networking site vying for my attention in order to whore out its advertising. But when a friend of mine urged me to join a few months back and bragged about how many friends he had (of course it's quantity and not quality that matter), his dickheaded ambassadorship of Facebook turned me right off.

People who hate Facebook:
1. Me
2. Zak (we have a bet about who will cave first: loser mutilates their genitals)
3. My sister
4. The guy who wrote this article. What a champ!

Advantages of stupidity

1. Greater chance of passing on your DNA. You wouldn't think about whether now was a good time in your life to be having a baby, or if you could afford it, or if your partner was a suitable mate, or about the various genetic flaws you possess and wouldn't want to give to your offspring, or if the world was too dangerous a place nowadays to be bringing up a child, or anything like that. Beyond, wow, sex, fun!! it's unlikely that you'd be thinking at all.

2. Life would be full of surprises. You'd not have the wherewithal or foresight to accurately predict the consequences that relate to the actions and so life would always be interesting and full of unexpected things!

3. Jokes would be funny. The reason timing is so important in humour is because enough time is required so that the incongrous premise can be sufficiently set up, but not too much time is given, because then the audience will work out the incongruity before the punchline. Being too smart means less stuff is funny because you can see the punchline coming a mile away.

4. Ignorance is bliss. Although life would be difficult and things would somehow never quite work out, you wouldn't have the self awareness or analytical skills to realise that things aren't as good as they could be or that most of the crap that happens is the result of your own stupidity. And if you're too stupid to realise that there's something wrong, who's to say that there actually is?

5. No self doubt or introspection. For one thing, you wouldn't have the time for it, what with it taking an hour or so to accomplish the simplest of tasks, like programme the VCR (ok ok it's anachronistic... the DVD player). Secondly, what does introspective even mean? A four syllable word! No way, dude. Come to think of it, even the word syllable would be a bit beyond you.

It wouldn't do to just pretend to be stupid whilst still being able to think -- you'd want to kill yourself. The only real way to gain the benefits of stupidity would be to truly start thinking stupidly, that is to say, to stop thinking whatsoever. But I think, if I really wanted to, I could develop the knack for being stupid. It's probably just like any other skill, it takes practice. Of course, sitting down and devising a detailed plan for learning to be stupid is probably somewhat self defeating... It's so much easier if you have a natural talent for it!

Weekend photos

Pics from Eddy.


Sitting by the harbour in Monaco


An interactive piece of art at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice

Nice and Monaco

Spent the weekend over in Nice with a friend who was visiting. Photos to come, hopefully, because although I didn't take any (well, I took one, see below) he took quite a few.



So, my singular photo! It's the Russian Cathedral in Nice. Probably the most interesting thing I saw there, architecturally, not that the rest of the city is ugly! In fact, it's quite picturesque, particularly old Nice, which is weathered in a good natured kind of way -- my favourite type of weathering.

Seeing as we were there for a couple of days, we took the bus to Monaco, which was... interesting. Actually, as immaculate and beautiful everything was, I found it to be too clean and pretty -- I suppose when you have money coming out of your arse you can afford to have every blade of grass made in place -- hell, even the footpath was clean, as if it had been newly laid only minutes before we arrived! I'm inherently distrustful of the impossibly perfect; I think it's symptomatic of an inability to see life (in all it's sticky, stinky glory) realistically.

Ancient Lorgues

I quite like Lorgues, with its narrow streets and gently weathered old buildings, but it's not until recently that I've discovered the long history that goes with it. The area has been inhabited since Neolithic times and that many of the nicer old buildings were erected in the 17th and 18th centuries. A stone fountain I walk past every other day was built in the 13th century, and the old citadel walls that are still here and there were built in the 12th century. Pretty cool! Below is a pic of the town's clock tower, built in 1623.

On My Desktop

Images courtesy of http://www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/

Centre Pompidou has decentralised and will be opening an additional museum in Metz, which will open in 2009. Currently the building site looks like this:



But when it's finished, oh my won't it be pretty! I really like the design of the building, though I think I'm alone in liking the bizarrity of modern architecture and art, or at least one of a very scattered minority.