Magneto is gay

So I bought a new bike on the Friday afternoon; and by Monday morning it was stolen. At two and a half days, that still only makes it my second shortest period of bicycle ownership.

Sigh.

The sense of impotent blinding rage abated somewhat on the Thursday when we went to see the very excellent Reginald D Hunter; and abated further still when a guy in my office offered me the use of his mountain bike, which he had bought a year ago and used three times since. The rage returned the next day when I found out that his bike weighs more than the moon, and is actually slightly worse than the aids bike (which was also stolen); but was then almost obliterated entirely when I went to see the Melvins that same night. And then the rage came crashing back a few days ago when the chain on the shite bike broke at the top of my road and left itself in a neat line on the road behind me; and I realised that I was going to have to buy a new chain for a bike that I don't own because EVERY BIKE I'VE OWNED IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS HAS BEEN STOLEN.

I have resolved to keep listening to the Melvins until everything feels better.

complicated futility

Ben is getting pretty fucking sick of buying new bicycles for total strangers.

...and then we went to mauschwitz

Oh well.

Either side of getting the mice taken care of were gigs, mighty gigs. The first was YOB. Support came from Dark Castle, who were nice and doomy but somehow lacking something; and then Kongh, who sported some powerful Viking face hair and played a set that sounded like a musical timeline of the first ten years of Electric Wizard (this was, broadly speaking, a good thing).

And then of course, YOB themselves. On record, these doom metal titans sound like they are smashing their guitars together to create the sound of the universe exploding very noisily and in slow motion. Live, they were much the same; except louder, and with more tattoos and hair. Thanks to the hypnotic nature of their psychedelic rumblings (or possibly all the Red Stripe), I don't remember much of what happened; but I'm pretty sure that it was awesome.

And yet somehow still not as awesome as Enablers the following night. The gig took place at the Cube Microplex in Stokes Croft, a curious little tumbledown independent cinema run by beatniks in non-ironic cardigans who found the business of mixing drinks somewhat challenging. Support came courtesy of Beginnings and Finglebone, who were each perfectly lovely in a guitar noodling wall of delay sort of a way. They were rendered completely irrelevant the moment that Enablers took to the stage, and all conscious thought was obliterated by gravel-throated reflection and loathing, swirling tendrils of post-doom guitar, and the creeping realisation that my gin and tonic had been made with lemonade.

Not the gig we went to, but...

Just super.

Shame the mice had to die.

ipso fatso

Induction week for my shiny new grown-up job was largely a test of endurance in the face of relentless PowerPoint, interspersed with the occasional site tour. These site tours largely involved being led from one large and impressive building to another equally large and impressive building by one of the previous years recruits; and on arrival at each building some other chap would attempt to explain what the heck was going on there. So we were not in the slightest bit perplexed when some fellow outside a particularly large and really very impressive building indicated that we should gather around and pay attention. Levels of perplexedness peaked sharply as soon as words started coming out of his mouth.

He: Can you see me?

We: er... yeah.

He: Do you believe I can travel through time?

We: um... what?

He: Have you heard of CERN? They made a particle travel faster than the speed of light this week. So now time travel is possible.

We: er...

He: Here, take this. (the guy hands a Chinese newspaper and a used cinema ticket to the person standing nearest to him). Read this; high tide is at three. I'll come for you then...

...at which point our actual guide proclaimed that we didn't really have time for all this, and led us on to the next large and impressive building.

That was a few weeks ago; since then things have settled down and become somewhat slightly more normal. It's not awful.

Meanwhile...

Mouses are generally noted for their talents in three distinct fields.

1. Eatin'.
2. Poopin'.
3. Gettin' cancer.

My mouses, having spent the last year excelling at the first two, recently decided to have a crack at the third. Tetsuo has a pretty lumpy ginger armpit; but Kaneda is very nearly more tumour than mouse, so she wins.

Sort of.

holiday

We went to Santorini.

Santorini used to be a volcano; then it erupted, and some Minoans built houses on the newly formed rock. Then it erupted again and most of it fell into the sea. Eventually, the ancient Greeks built more houses on the top of a mountain.

Ancient Thera is around 400m above sea level. It gets a bit breezy up there, and the ground underfoot is a mixture of loose stones and big rocks polished smooth by the tread of many weary tourists. Fortunately there are at least a dozen lengths of thin rope at ankle height dotted about at the edges of the most sheer drops, and so the chances of being dashed against the jagged rocks far below are quite minimal.

We also visited more contemporary ruins in the ghost town of Mesa Gonia. It used to be one of the major villages on the island, but was abandoned after a massive earthquake in 1956. It now has a population of around 30 people, living in houses that look somewhat incongruous amongst the remaining ruins.

We did a spot more pottering about, but mostly we stayed around our hotel and beach resort and enjoyed the novelty of having nothing to do but read and get skin cancer.

We also drank a lot of cocktails. Our cocktail bar of choice was the Love Boat; partly because of their questionable taste in music but mainly because they often served up a free shot of something tasty/deadly/on fire as you got close to the end of your drink, like some kind of alcoholic end-of-level boss.

Sadly, my sunglasses (lovingly purchased for the princely sum of £1 from the women's accessories department of Primarch) did not survive the trip; Poseidon claimed them on day five. They were replaced that day with another pair of aviators even more fabulous and mirrored than before, and now I can dress up like Cochese.

So fuck you, Poseidon.

We have decided that we like holidays.