Life Inspired by TV Cream who have posted their first attempt at creating a television listing, I thought I would publish this early attempt at blogging. Actually it's the text from a letter I wrote from university to an old school friend in February 1994 when I was nineteen years old. Written originally on a PC and printed out (I must have produced two copies), a print out which I've now just sat and typed back in again having found it recently. Which rather demonstrates the resilience of paper as a storage medium over digital.
But it has all of the hallmarks of this blog with embarrassing stories and reviews (one of which, for the film Like Water For Chocolate is essentially just a synopsis of the plot so if you haven't seen it yet, and I recommend you do, I'd skip that whole paragraph). Plus note I didn't see fit to ask my friend how he was or reply to anything in the letter he must has sent me first. Some of it is quite poignant, some of it I'd entirely forgotten and would be a odd precursor of things to come and some of it is just ...
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Dear [name withheld],
Tired. Stretch. Barf.
Sorry, but that's my attempt at reactive poetry. I know it isn't that good, but I was looking for a way to start this letter. I know its taken me a while to write but you know how it is - things to do, places to go, people to see (rubs chin with tips of his fingers).
There was a massive fun fair in town, and after dropping a video off at the city site library I decided to go on. Big mistake. The first couple of rides were fine. Effing scary, but fine. But the second two. Now, I've never chucked my lunch (and isn't that a nice turn of phrase?) before on rides, mostly because it isn't usual for me to go on them. But this particular one was a doozy. It not only span you round by an axle, but each axle had four cars on it which span also - so you are spinning in two different directions at once - thus was too much. I don't think I hit anyone.
But after this I got the bus home - big mistake number two. We are going out of town and next to the uni and this guy from our hall and his girlfriend get on. As the bus pulls out, my tummy decides it has had enough. I open the window and fountain appears from my mouth, hitting a passing sports car. Eventually I have to rush off the bus and throw into a bush. I am now known in the hall as "Spuey" (so funny I nearly top myself).
The girl situation is the same as usual (that bad eh?). A mixture of unavailable and unusual. There is one girl - Katrine. She seems to the think the same way I do. ('We dream the same, dream we want the same things -- ooh!"). Thing is, she's French. But having said that we don't seem to have any problem communicating. Like me, she can think of a lot of things to do other than drinking, like just talking with friends, making food, reading and watching movies. I just know she's got a boyfriend in France. Having said that, she did say I was probably the only English person who talks to her so I guess this is in my favour.
Friday, and I've got my tux. This is quite possibly the most expensive night out of my life. £56 for the tux. £23 for the ticket, and I guess £10 for the night. This had better be worth it (it probably won't).
I've been seeing some really nice movies lately. "Like Water for Chocolate" for example, a Brazilian movie about a girl who has to battle against family tradition. Every youngest girl like her must never marry and look after the mother. The Story is very tragic in nature, as everyone slowly dies, but with a slightly quirky sense of humour. The real shock being at the end when she and her once intended husband finally get together to make love, and its so food her ides in her arms and in the style of R+J she commits suicide so that they can be together eternally.
I also sat through "The Three Musketeers" a film which was such a wasted opportunity. I smell an overzealous editor, with a knack of getting rid of much of a film's character content in favour of swashing the buckle. That said, Chris O'Donnell isn't a bad Dartanion (despire being a French man with an American accent), and there are some nice one-liners from the barely sketched in Porthos and Aromis.
I've also been watching loads of Woody Allen movies lately, and I think they've been having a strange effect on me. At the weekend I bought a rye loaf, and nearly got some bagels -- this could be N.E. fever, but I started to read leaflets about stress and depression and say things like "Eat something". And my wearing my jacket more often.
Speaking on Northern Exposure, it's back on again on Mondays at 10pm. So there isn't a bad week on TV -- NE on Monday, Quantum Leap on Tuesday, Star Trek (for now) on Wednesday, Red Dwarf on Fridays and the New Adventures of Superman on Saturday (if you haven't seen it yet, I strongly recommend it -- it's kind of a cross between the movies (action) Northern Exposure (character development) and a hint of Moonlight (general weirdness)].
Its hit dinnertime and I'm hungry, and there are probably people waiting with more important things to do with computers, so this is Stuey signing off. Hailing frequencies closed.
Seeya.
Ensign Stuart I. Burns
Starfleet Academy Library Cadet.
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