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I’m still laughing at the Date My Sister Project that Gael linked. I showed it to my sister, who responded that she wouldn’t mind if Snookums and I launch a similar initiative when she gets to London. Heh.

In U.K. theater news, Mark Ravenhill has a new play at the Royal National called “Mother Clap’s Molly House”. The play intertwines both a contemporary storyline and one set in a 1726 London “molly house” (gay meeting place). Sodomy is somehow involved. The religious right are, predictably, already up in arms. I saw Ravenhill’s first big production, “Shopping and F***king”, back in 1998. I wasn’t a big fan, but it wasn’t because of the anal sex or the toplessness. I just thought it was a sucky play. It should’ve been called “Shopping, F***king, and Ramen Noodles”, because that’s the vision of my generation that it presented. And no amount of loud music and neon lights can paper over juvenile, sucky writing. But anyway, I still don’t see any problem with nationally-funded theater doing avant garde productions. I’m probably going to try to see his new one, just as an act of support for the RNT.

A Korean theater hit called “Cookin’” is coming to the U.S. “The show… features the high-tempo slicing of four chefs who have an hour to prepare a glorious wedding banquet.” They do comedy and use their utensils as percussion implements. It’s like “The Iron Chef” meets “Tap Dogs”! They don’t mention who gets to eat the food at the end though. I would hope the audience does.

Can you place this quote?

Oh, he’s very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads–they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.

Of course you can. Brigita found a great story about the enduring popularity of the film. The best part is that Edie McClurg, who played Grace, is quoted as saying that she wished they wouldn’t edit out her “dickhead” and replace it with “airhead” for TV. “I wish they’d just go back and play the real movie on cable,” she said. Ha!

I was a bit alarmed to read a story on Slashdot about car rental companies monitoring speeding via the car’s GPS system. Whoa. Did I speed at all on our trip? I’m sure I did; you can’t drive in Chicago without speeding. You’ve got to go 20 mph over the limit just to avoid being rear-ended. I’ll be watching my credit card statement…

Yahoo explains the story behind “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”. The REM Lyric Annotations FAQ tells a slightly different story. Neither site, unfortunately, explains why “irony was the shackles of youth.”

An e-mail from my housemate Nick: “DangerShirt.com – The World’s Most Dangerous T-Shirts! I like their sales pitch: ‘Your ass kicked, or your money back.’”

Man, I’ve really been slacking off with these. I missed a week’s worth while I was on holiday, and they keep moving the schedule around on me, yada yada yada, I’m a little behind. I’ll try and bring you up to speed. (Sorry for those who aren’t interested. This is going to be a HUGE post.)

Episode 4: Helang finally pulls it together! First they managed to win the Reward Challenge, which involved a giant square maze on a pivot which they had to guide a ball through without falling into holes. As reward, they got three chickens. While they ate well, there was still a large division between the “old” and “young” team members. As Jayne said of Adrian, He’s a total wuss. He won’t eat rat, he won’t kill anything and he’s lazy about the camp. And I’m getting really sick of him shagging Charlotte all the time.” (Okay, I added that last sentence. But you know she was thinking it.) Even that couldn’t stop Helang from winning the Immunity Challenge, though, which involved gathering masks that had been positioned around the mangrove swamp. Ular faced another Tribal Council, and various alliances were formed, changed, and broken. In a shocker, model Sarah was voted out by five of the other six members. Jackie, Richard, and Eve proved what nasty little beeatches they are yet again.

Episode 5: Now it was Ular’s turn to suffer. The weather’d been crap, and everybody was on edge. Eve voiced her concerns that Zoe’s an actress, which might make her more duplicitous. Zoe responded: “If I was any sort of actress do you think I’d be here being bitten to pieces by sand fleas? No. I’d be in my dressing room with a large Gin and Tonic saying ‘wasn’t I marvellous?’ Don’t worry, I’m not that good.” Meanwhile in Helang, Adrian admitted: “Here I have to do [everything] myself. Well, Charlotte acts as my mum sometimes, she comes and wakes me up.” I’ll let you fill in your own joke there. The Reward Challenge involved diving for letters and forming words. Helang’s “cleans” beat Ular’s “jury”, so they won Alphabet Spaghetti, Beer, and Chocolate. Some members of Ular were bitter and started picking their enemies on Helang. “She’s got some gob on her hasn’t she?” said Zoe about Charlotte. “Bikini babe we call her. She seems to have a large wardrobe of spangly bikinis and she’s incredibly loud. I just have a dislike of incredibly loud people.” The Immunity Challenge was an assault course in five legs. Helang won, but on the replay it was discovered that James messed up and didn’t go under one of the logs. Helang started to prepare for Tribal Council. Andy was torn between voting for Jane, who was less athletic, and Adrian (“I think the only way he could survive on his own is if McDonalds decided to open up on the island.”) In the end, everybody voted for Jayne.

Episode 6: The Reward Challenge for this show was to create a distress signal to be seen from the air. Adrian immediately showed why he’s a big piece of poo: “This challenge is such a nothing for me. It’s not a race, it’s not a competition, it’s not a diving competition… it’s just make a symbol on the ground.” Ular spelled out “SOS” several times while Helang eventually cobbled together an “X”. Ular won, but were less than thrilled with their prize. It consisted of toilet paper, sheets, pillows, and a Walkman. They were really pissed that it didn’t contain any food. The Immunity Challenge was some sort of treasure hunt that involved fetching a map in a bottle from the sea and then finding a key and chest. Charlotte screwed it up for Helang by failing to get the bottle on her first dive. Ular won the crucial Challenge and would go into Tribal Merger with six people to Helang’s four. Helang retreated to their beach to decide who to send off. In the midst of this, Charlotte revealed she’d had a premonition that she was going to win the million. At this, a million eyes simultaneously rolled back in their owner’s heads around the country. Charlotte, Simon, and Adrian decided to vote off James as punishment for losing the two earlier challenges. Andy and James wisely decided that Adrian should go. The actual voting was another huge surprise, though, as Simon switched his vote and Adrian was voted out. He’d been so cocky he hadn’t even brought his stuff from the beach with him. He kissed Charlotte good-bye (another communal eye roll) and left. Good riddance.

Episode 7: The time had come for Tribal Merger. Ular’s beach was chosen for the new tribe to live on (Helang never even built a toilet), and the new tribe name would be “Sékutu” (meaning “merge” or “join” in Malay). The group headed back to build their new camp and found a steak barbecue waiting for them. Tension was still high, though, as Ular cemented their plan to vote off each Helang member starting with Simon. The next day was Charlotte’s birthday, and the day of the first individual Immunity Challenge. The Survivors had to stand on a log in the sea and the last person standing would win. Twenty hours later, Andy, Richard, and Simon were still standing. Mark Austin, the host, explained that they’d only expected it to run six or seven hours, so Tribal Council might have to be postponed. Eventually Andy won around the twenty-three hour mark. As the Immunity Idol was placed around his neck, Andy explained that it was Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day in England) and that he was thinking of his Mom. At this moment, Andy became my favorite player. Tribal Council finally convened, and Simon was voted out as expected. Some unexpected humor came from Charlotte, who voted for Eve and explained: “There’s a masterplan concocted by James en route here. I’m not really sure why, but I hope it works.” It might’ve worked a little better if she’d voted for Zoe, the way Andy and James did. She’s such an idiot. Simon was very gracious as he left, saying that he hoped they’d award the million to the “true competitor, the true Survivor.”

Episode 8: This one sucks. While I can appreciate Ular’s strategy, it pisses me off that some of the most useless, crap people (like Jackie and Eve) are surviving simply because they got placed on the better team. Luck of the draw shouldn’t factor into being a Survivor. Anyhoo, Charlotte was very upset because all her suitors had been voted out and all the other girls hated her. That was a small highlight. As Eve put it, “It’s the constant screeching in my ear that winds me up.” Charlotte responded in excellent bitch fashion: “She needs to go straight back into the army and start ordering her corporals around like the little sergeant major she is. I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with the fact she’s 4ft 2.” Another small moment of humor came when Zoe lost her fishing hook and went off on a rant about life on the island. “What is the sodding point of being here?” she said. “I haven’t had as much fun since granny got her nipple caught in the f****ing mangle.” (For the record, I have no clue what that means.) The Reward Challenge involved diving underwater and hanging onto a submerged log for the longest time. James eventually won after staying under for nearly two minutes. (The official site said he used “meditation to aid him”.) He won a night with all the luxuries of a five-star hotel, and when told he could share it with someone, he instantly chose Andy. Awww, James is my other favorite. Even though he’s so skinny he looks like the Sloth guy from Se7en. So they went off to have their night of hot tub, food, and massage on the beach, while Charlotte got to spend the night with six people who hate her. On second thought, this wasn’t such a bad episode. The Immunity Challenge involved the Survivors standing on logs and answering questions about survival on the island. To my dismay, Pete eventually won. Everybody knew that Andy would be the next to go. As Pete himself put it, “There’s a tinge of sadness. I was hoping Andy would win the Immunity Challenge. He’s a great guy. It’s a hard decision. Hard game. Tough rules.”

Pete spent the next day moping on the beach by himself. He’s a devout Christian (the Bible was his luxury item) and the decision to vote Andy out was weighing on him heavily. “I’m frightened that it’ll come down to the votes on the last day and it’ll be two people I couldn’t give a monkey’s about and that’s so wrong because a million pounds is a life-changing thing.” Andy observed this and told Pete, “Promise me you’ll vote against me. I’m ready to go. Promise me you’ll be in the last two – if you are you’ll win the one million pounds. Think of how much good you could do with it. Nobody else here would. The only way you can do it is if you vote against me – if you don’t you’ll be off.” Did I mention how much I love Andy? Poor Pete was still in a quandry. “I gave my word to Ular but how just was that word? Do I think it’s right to stick to my word even if I think something unjust is going to happen or do I break my word to make something more just happen? Which way do I go? It’s a nightmare.” Wow. I didn’t expect complex moral and ethical issues on this show. That’s why the British version rocks, kids. Oh, and we don’t have product placement like the US one. And our host is better. But I digress. The rest of the former Ular members knew what was going on and hoped that Pete wouldn’t go behind their backs. Jackie lived up to my bitchy expectations and said of Helang, “They don’t have to be bitter, just be resigned to failure. Losers!” Why couldn’t they have voted her out in that first episode? Even Nick would be better than this. Finally, Tribal Council. Mark Austin explained that whoever was voted out would be the first member of the jury to decide the eventual winner. The host then went on to question Richard about his voting strategy. Richard said quite straight-faced that his loyalty was to the old Ular and that he was going to vote for Andy. “He was my nemesis for 23 hours, he’ll remain my nemesis for quite some time.” Andy’s response to this: “I will be voted of the island in the next few minutes because the majority here know that if they fail to do this I’ll punish them severely at forthcoming Immunity Challenges – I take that as a compliment.” As expected, all of the Ular voted for him. My Andy was gone. A slight glimmer of hope was presented by Pete, though, who said as he cast his vote: “This is the first part of the promise. I’ll try and keep the second part as well.” Man, I hope Pete wins. Anybody but Richard, Jackie, or Eve.

Britain may introduce a US-style green card system in the UK for immigrants. The scheme would give priority to those with skills needed in the country. As an “IT professional”, I’d be pretty high on the list. Awesome. My current visa runs out in the beginning of 2003… and though I’ve still got two years left, it’d be nice to know that I could stay longer if I choose without getting thrown out of the country.

So I was reading Dan‘s site today and came across a reference to a “Turducken”. I clicked on the link and found myself at an amazing site dedicated to the preparation of a this dish, which consists of a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. Of course, I immediately sent it round to Snookums, Nick, and Alex with the suggestion that we make this the centerpiece of our next barbecue. So I continue flipping through the guy’s BBQ pictures, and my eye is caught by a familiar name in a caption. Two of my good friends from college were at this event! There’s Nat and Staci right there. How random is that? I’m off to e-mail them right now. I gotta know how this thing turned out.