Yahtz Shot

My year in status 2011: part two

More TOTAL GOLD from my GChat status messages from 2011.

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“Rapping is my hobby / Rappers doesn’t want trouble / I’m the Liverpool-star / Those slut giving me love / I know what time it is / I have just buy my new watch… You all know nothing, this is the Premier League”

The absolute high point of former Liverpool run ‘n’ fall down merchant Ryan Babel’s rapping career. (Source: YouTube [disappointingly the translation has been cleaned up])

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“What were they doing? How did they make it work?”

My friend Alan on the unexpected miracle that is R.E.M.’s It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. Alan and I were engaged in an email exchange in which we were ranking each R.E.M. song in order of preference, album-by-album. We stalled at around Automatic For The People. It’s almost as if my extension of the form to include capsule reviews for every song (sample: “A bit of a mis-step lyrically I guess, but there’s a lot going on musically which I love.”) frightened him off.

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“I have been truly humbled by the support I always get on here be it this instance or through my Cancer Battles.”

Someone lauding the pleasant if meaningless gesture of wishing strangers well on messageboards, and capping up his experience with horrible illness so that it looks like a rejected title for a difficult second album. (Source: QPRdot.org) 

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“There is now an angry queue behind me. Isn’t it interesting that you can snatch a young woman’s life away from her in the most violent, painful, frightening way possible, take away her future children, her future Christmases, take away everything she loves, and yet there are elaborate systems in place to ensure you do not cross a bridge for only 30 pence?”

From a seminal Liz Jones piece in the wake of Jo Yeates’ disappearance. Always end on a laugh, Liz. Reminds me of an old Viz strip, I think it was Cockney Wanker, in which the protagonist was training to be a cabbie and taking the Knowledge. He was tasked with finding the shortest conversational route from “awful weather we’ve been having” to “send them all back”. (Source: Mail)

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“Some Russian commentators have suggested that Gullit may have a hard time adjusting to life in Chechnya after spending his recent years managing clubs in Los Angeles and London.”

O RLY? (Source: Telegraph)

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“Mick, you’re a liar… you’re a fucking wanker. I didn’t rate you as a player, I don’t rate you as a manager, and I don’t rate you as a person. You’re a fucking wanker and you can stick your World Cup up your arse. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are the manager of my country. You can stick it up your bollocks.”

Sometimes it’s fun to remember exactly how angry Roy Keane can be. (Source: Wikipedia)

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“It is now time to pay attention to my family.”

Edwin van der Sar on retirement. I like the implication that he’s been ignoring them completely since he began playing in 1990. (Source: Beeb)

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“I don’t think we’re saying there’s anything wrong with love, we just don’t think that what goes on between two people should be shrouded in mystery.”

From Andy Gill’s spoken word portion in Gang of Four’s Anthrax.

I had the entirety of Gill’s bit stuck to my wall when I was an angry first year student. I had heard it again on my portable MP3 device’s “shuffle” function and was re-struck by the directness, spareness of Gill’s language.

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“There’s nothing like transfer deadline day. Anywhere. In the world. You can talk about La Liga, you can talk about Serie A, but nowhere else in Europe will you see Jay Bothroyd dashing up the M5 to complete a medical at St Andrews. That’s what deadline day’s all about. Frantic, end-to-end action. I hate women.”

Jonathan Liew accurately imagines Andy Gray’s thoughts. (Source: Telegraph)

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“i’m going for shabbat dinner with the rabbi tonight, not sure what to wear”

A crisis for my non-Jewish friend Jess. (Source: GChat)

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“In Eastenders Darren on screen girlfriend buys him my book”

I followed Alan Sugar on Twitter for a bit, but soon grew tired of his witless posturing. I still find something alluring about the way he talks. Clipped, concise, wrong. I imagine it’s got a lot to do with how it’s cut, but watching the Apprentice gives the impression that Sugar’s speech IRL really isn’t that different to the Cassetteboy video. (Source: Twitter, good response here)

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“Due to the sloping nature of Bromley High Street, street level at the Boots end of the centre is level to the Upper Mall, whilst street level at the front entrance of the section is at the lower mall level.”

Crucial information about Bromley’s premier shopping centre. Bluewhat?er. (Source: Wikipedia)

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“From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.”

The bible has more unexpected twists than the popular TV show Lost. (Source: Book of Kings)

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“I support ENGLAND in this year’s World Cup!, Cancer Research UK, A child is for life - not a council house !!, The X Factor, Don’t Respect Our Soldiers? then Get the Fuck out of Our Country, 2018 World Cup in Russia, FIFA your corrupt”

A selection of someone on Facebook’s group memberships. I imagine they don’t take The Independent. 

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“Vanessa Paradis talks to Bernadette McNulty about 25 years of sultry chanson”

“Sultry chanson”! Wow. I sent this to my friend Louis, who said “i just gasped!”, which seems about right. (Source: Telegraph)

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“Let’s look at some dynamics of your optimal life. http://bit.ly/eThIp2”

Sure, why not? (Source: email spam)

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“It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to see QPR flying high at the top of the table”

Ray Wilkins activates his Man From The Past charm to talk real nice about QPR. My word. (Source: QPR.co.uk)

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“Only cunts like you notice these things.”

My friend Hugh correctly summarising my pedantry.

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“Rashaan added: ‘How did a1 win Best Newcomer at The Brits? They are so wack!’”

I think I found this via Wayback Machine which is a treasure trove of forgotten former layouts for websites, and misplaced nostalgia for Internets Past, which are universally awful when you revisit them. I like that NME were covering what the band Damage were annoyed about in 2001. With EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS, no less. (Source: NME)

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“people probably aren’t running up to you on the street and saying, ‘Holy shit, it’s Uncle Vanya!’”

I’m always a bit suspicious of interviewers including their own funny words in articles. I tend to doubt that they’ve actually said them at the time. Still, hats off for the classic combo of swearing and Chekov. (Source: Vanity Fair)

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“J. D. Ryznar and Hunter D. Stair devised the series after noticing the incestuous recording careers of such bands as Steely Dan, Toto, and The Doobie Brothers and the singer-songwriters Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald.”

Yacht Rock is one of the greatest things that’s ever happened. The LOLs are extra hard if you happen to be geeky enough to know the real-life stories about and interactions between its characters. It’s a ludicrous premise for a show, I am so glad it exists. (Source: Wikipedia)

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“but i’m ADDICTED TO GAMIL”

Excellent GChat typing from my friend Jess. 

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“Connolly takes it as seriously as his football career and loves nothing more than going through the paperwork with his accountant or coming up with new ideas of how to advertise and improve.”

“Loves nothing more than going through the paperwork with his accountant,” REALLY? I tend to think it’s journo Simon Johnson who’s to blame for this sorry state of affairs rather than Not A Premier League Defender Matt Connolly. (Source: Evening Standard)

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“The Super Power Building in Florida, where the Super Power Rundown, intended to enhance one’s “Theta Perceptics”, will be given upon completion.”

I don’t know if anyone’s commented on this before, but Scientology is really out there. (Source: Wikipedia)

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“When Polly Jean Harvey burst into the public consciousness in the early 90s, her gravely voice, outsized personality, and often disturbing lyrics gave the alt-rock world a crucial shot of excitement”

Some wonderfully silly broad brushstrokes being painted here by a website that should know better. You’d expect this from the culture section of a mid-market tabloid, not sniffy men that wear glasses similar to mine. (Source: P4K)

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“She’s obviously a great laugh, but what insights will Mercedes bring to The Guardian’s world-beating coverage of itself, Twitter and its executives’ favourite conferences?”

To invoke John Oliver: BOOM! (Source: The Register)

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“He’s making a lol claim for relevancy in the post-critic era”

Deservedly patronising words for Everett True in a thread about The King Of Limbs. (Source: ILM)

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“Desperate Youths was their sellout record, made only for poseurs. Personally, I hated them way before that. Their only good stuff are the bootlegs of Kyp Malone’s early guitar lessons. He does a killer version of Camptown Ladies.”

More from ILM. Logical extension of “I liked them before you” chat.

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“A woman about 25 years old, Nemi almost always wears black clothes (although does very rarely wear red scarves, gloves and has a red bathtowel), has very pale skin, and very little in common with most of the rest of the world.”

There’s a good chance that quasi-Goth scribble Nemi is my least favourite fictional character of all time. POOR Nemi, with her limited colour palette and entirely inconsistent (dependant on plot requirements) inability to relate to the rest of the world. Awful, awful woman. I enjoyed these derranged re-fixes of her risible cartoons last year. (Source: Wikipedia)

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“Why do people insist on saying this? It’s not actually true, everyone talks about music. You play “No Fronts” by Dog Eat Dog and everyone goes “Shit son, that’s my joint right there”. ”

Amusingly forgotten song used to make excellent point. (Source: Ich Lüge Bullets)

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“Well a very, very heavy burtation tonight we had a very darrison bite let’s go ahead taris tasin’ loose for the bit behead the pit”

There was a period when it was definitely inappropriate to laugh at Serene Branson and her Grammys-presenting meltdown. Roughly four hours after everyone had seen the video when it was suggested she’d had a stroke. But it turns out she just had “neurological episode” which was an “isolated incident” and now she’s “fine, wonderful”. So LOL it up:

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“amazing drink. GO FANTA!!!!”

Sure. (Source: Unknown. SHIT.)

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“America’s only magazine” 

Excellent tagline for glory-era Simpsons writer George Meyer’s magazine Army Man. (Source: New Yorker, via SNPP)

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“Neil Caldwell has come up with something that is pure genius. He has created the color wheel of bacon! No, this isn’t some graphic design trick (although Neil is a graphic designer). This is real, genuine colored bacon.”

Can you imagine writing for one of those blogs that has to be endlessly effusive about pointless, wacky shit? Your mind would become scrambled and fuzzy and you’d start to genuinely believe that a color wheel of bacon deserves to be called “pure genius”. (unfortunately, I’ve just realised this orginally comes from a site about bacon, which makes their excitement a little more understanable. I thought I’d seen it on Memecrunch or Trendbitch or something) (Source: Bacon Today)

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“Out of the way, brain queen!”

The Simpsons is sometimes at its best with silly, throwaway lines like this. Just perfectly written, delivered, and timed. (Source: The Simpsons [at 3:20])

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“A classic email from a classic person”

Marc Maron, presenter of my favourite podcast, in one of his better moods. (Source: WTF)

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“I’m in love with football. The passion, the obsessive nature, the worshiping, all the symptoms of love are there. Football rules my mind day and night, night and day. It may not send me flowers or tell me that I don’t look fat in that dress, but it gives me butterflies, makes me cry, and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. Football provides excitement and anxiety, just like any other relationship.”

There’s little worse than the suspicion that someone writing about how much they like something doesn’t actually like it as much as they’re claiming to. Source: (Soccerslutinaway [come on, there’s even an uncertainty about the username.])

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“EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \ - the slashes, according to Allan, included to represent ‘the ascent, the crest of a wave, and then the crash’”

Fuck off, you just like needless trendy typesetting. (Source: Quietus) 

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“There seems to be very little that has not been put down in print about this most shocking but memorable of events. This entry put the issue into a much greater perspective than Billy Joel ever could.”

Now hang on just a second… I don’t think if you’re doing a detailed exploration of every event mentioned in Billy Joel’s We Didn’t The Fire you’re in any position to criticise the great man.

(Source: H2G2)

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More in a week, probably. And maybe some things that aren’t my GChat status in the meantime.

My year in status: 2011 part one

I change my GChat status whenever I’m going to be online for most of a day. 

Having always struggled with longform blogging it’s a neat way to highlight the sort of internet verbal ephemera which tickles me endlessly.

I like that my statuses stand alone, without explanation or context.

My friends can highglight + right click + “search Google for [Thom’s status message]” if they want to (and are using Chome or newer versions of Firefox.)

Still, for posterity, thoroughness and my desire to read through them all again, here is the first part of my annotated status messages for the year 2011.

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“The Miami Heat retired the number 23 jersey on April 11, 2003, even though Jordan had never played for the team”

You’re doing shirt retiring wrong, Miami Heat. (Source: Wikipedia) 

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“This is a campaign to stop violence against children.”

I like how nebulous, vague, this is. And the well-meaning utter hopelessness of thinking that changing your Facebook picture will Make A Difference. And the fact that it turned out the NSPCC had nothing to do with it. (Reckon they might prefer more traditional campaigns that, you know, raise money.) AND the Mail’s OMG PADEOZ!1 story (Source: Facebook originally, group info has changed and original text is now viewable here)

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“You’re gonna fuck that girl”

From an ILX (down currently) thread in which people were changing words in Beatles songs for the word “Fuck”. I am mature.

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“What I honestly feel like I saw tonight wasn’t The Greatest Musician In The World Performing The Most Amazing Songs Ever, but rather a fantastic musician performing his wonderful songs. God, I have to say that is so much more gratifying than trying to look at it as a life altering event.”

Ben Goldberg correctly realises that reunion hype is a dead end. (Source: P4K) 

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“Thanks to the internet I had a joy able afternoon watching the game live while watching live scores on the red button with the BBC. It fell like a television studio has I reacted to scores from around the leagues.”

“Thanks to the internet”! There just aren’t enough shout-outs to the information superhighway.

There’s a definite distance between the language a certain type of football fan (I imagine the older sort) uses on a forum and the language they’d use to say the same things IRL. It’s jarringly accentuated when the syntax is shonky. (Source: Clark’s Pie and Curry [TBF he does apologise, needlessly, for his only-slightly-off spelling etc.])

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“not like with myspace, that postmodern wonderland”

My friend Anna said this, somewhat wistfully, on GChat

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“Its just someone looking for something to write about, imagine Carl Curtis, except this guys getting paid to do it.”

Someone said this about me. “Someone looking for something to write about” seemed a funny criticism to level at a journalist. (Source: CCMB)

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“The only thing that makes sense is ham”

A contestant on Fighting Talk said this when talking about the relative prices of products. I’d still stand behind this statement out of context.

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“Christmas Number Ones which aren’t Christmassy but make still make you feel Christmassy when you hear them”

My sister, via email, explaining a segment on Chris Evans’ breakfast show that morning. This was the example they used:

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“It’s impossible to imagine a high-gloss player-franchise, a la David Beckham and his appalling wife, moving to doggy Liverpool.”

Amusing clash between American sports phraseology with English sport and use of “appalling”. (Source: Boston Globe)

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“If not wanting to hear men bum each other while I’m watching MOTD makes me homophobic, then I apologise…”

That’s probably not homophobic in and of itself but… I like the casual juxtaposition of “men bumming” and a football highlights programme. (Source: The brilliant / horrendous F365 forum)

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“he was moaning, ‘I’m really not well. I’m not good’, but we were a bunch of lads and kept telling him to shut up.”

More “quality” “banter” from “the lads”, specifically a man who has failed to hold down a job in the Azerbaijan Premier League - Tony Adams. (Source: Mail)

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“where are you walking. walk. wrk?. god i feel like this is the beginning of the end for me.”

My friend James said this to me on GChat. He was unwell.

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“The song consisted entirely of “Na, na, na-na-na, na-na-na-na, na-na”, punctuated with the occasional “Way cool!” or “All right! All right!”, and underscored by rhythmic instrumentation, ending with a resounding “Just do it!”.”

Oh, the glorious quasi-academic, joy-sapping language of Wikipedia! Especially good when it’s about subjects like this, the theme tune to Clarissa Explains It All. (Source: Wikipedia)

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“MANCHESTER UNITED NO TO ARABS”

The red tops have a lovely way with words sometimes. (Source: Star)

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“Best tune??? That’s hard… My favourite band of the year though has got to be Mumford & Sons.”

Former ineffective QPR targetman Danny Dichio never met a sickly quasi-folk band he didn’t like (or a punctuation mark). Dichio, I’m pretty sure, used to moonlight as a DJ in his QPR days. I’d always imagined it was more house than harp. (Source: Roker Report)

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“Stone recently said she’d like to have ‘little gay boys’.”

A fine thing to wish for. (Source: Graun)

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“I have never ever heard rockist *except* as an insult.”

User pinefox correctly incredulous on ILX (temporarily RIP)

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“Carragher, for me, is nothing. He’s like a make of ketchup or mustard to a normal person, not important.”

That’s just a wonderful a put-down, El Hadji-Diouf. I imagine it happening in a playground and all of Diouf’s (then-Blackburn) mates going “ooooh! He called you Heinz fam! You’re like Coleman’s! Ohmydays!” (Source: Sun)

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“I chained him off of his bike, then used him for a speed bump. I was extremely satisfied and ecstatic for a few minutes after that. Simply golden.”

Man reminisces accurately but with disturbing glee about violence in the videogame Road Rash 2 (Source: Sega-16)

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“Fucking ghosts. I for one am SICK of ghosts smacking small children in the face with RED controllers. SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE!!!”

Excellent sceptical response to odd, hyper-detailed account of supposed haunting of someone’s house in which the author kept capping up the word “red” to describe the antagonist of the story - a flying Playstation controller. (Source: F365 forum)

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“I find boxers comfortable because they don’t chafe at your groin, and there’s plenty of room. They’re tremendous.”

You can try to argue with Dickie Bird, but you’d be on a hiding to nothing. Or chafing. (Source: Indy)

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“His mom came in and saw like an acidy pattern poster on the wall and asked what it was supposed to be and I told her it was ‘science’ “

When they’re not sad or tragic, stories about taking drugs are always brilliant. (F365 forum again)

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“I have a job interview at 8am, then work from 9-11:30. I’m then meeting my friend and we’re going to view an apartment at 3. I will then meet up with my best friend and try to save our friendship, then be going to a gathering at a friends house, where I will stay the night, and trying to keep myself busy so I’m not tempted to buy any more heroin.”

What a payoff! (F365F)

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“We cannot afford to have nights like this. Yes, this is the most angry I have been.”

The idea that anyone who’s “the most angry they’ve ever been” would be able to identify that in the moment is hilarious to me. Well done, Nigel Clough. The idea that he had been asked the question “is this the most angry you’ve ever been?” makes it even better. (Source: This is Derbyshire)

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“Kind of like a secular U2 without the world domination complex, with a far more natural populist vibe.”

User Josh in Chicago nails his description of the band Big Country (ILX)

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“The helicopter that will carry Phil Collins from Wembley to the Airport arrives at Wembley”

Enjoyed one of those “I’ve completed the internet” feelings when I came across this minute-by-minute review of the Beeb’s coverage of Live Aid. Also like the implicit elevation of Phil Collins to near-royal status. (Source: The Unofficial Live Aid Site)

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“QPR is a special type of club. The razzmatazz. The name itself. Queens Park Rangers. And the ground.”

I hope I never get so jaded that people saying nice things about my football club that are patently untrue fails to make me well up a bit. Cheers, Neil Warnock. (Source: Graun)

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“Pure pop brilliance - when pop was pop and not modern-day Simon Cowell faux diva shite. When the fuck are kids going to wake up? This stuff is brilliant!!”

YouTube seems like a peculiar battleground for REAL MUSICS! bores. Always fun to marry the earnestness of such statements with the supposed paragon of musical achievement they’ve been posted under. In this case it’s the Lightning Seeds’ Sense which is, to be fair, a gigantic hit. (Source: YouTube)

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“D.C. Thompson The Humourless Scottish Git – created in retaliation after D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd threatened legal action over a variety of Viz spoofs based on characters from The Beano and The Dandy, including Biffa Bacon, Black Bag, “Roger the Lodger”, “Wanker Watson”, “Arsehole Kate” and many more”

Toon / Scotland comic turf wars of the 90s were roughly as intense as that whole Bloods / Creps thing. (Source: Wikipedia)

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“The concert opened in spectacular fashion with a siren alert, flashing lights and a drum roll that suggested something exciting was about to happen and Level 42 did not disappoint.”

Of course they fucking didn’t:

(Source: BBC (via Level42.com)

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That’s all for today. There will be more soon.