My blog probably jumped the shark a little while ago, but I have no real self-control and just continued to write. In retrospect I should probably have finished up at fifty entries and called it 'Fifty First Blogs' or something witty like that. Now, though, that I'm up to 100 posts and today marks exactly six months since I started blogging I've decided to end it once and for all.
Lauren Perkins claimed that the thoughts I blogged about were always cynical and pessimistic (yes, when she did finally grasp the idea of what a blog was she was scathing) and she is kind of right. My favourite quote of all time is Janeane Garofalo's classic "The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth." So putting Perkin's constructive criticism to good use I've created a new blog which will only feature things I like (photos, music, videos and some writing). Also in lieu of my writing here I will also contribute to sick twisted nightmare, a joint blog with my second best friend Nicola Cooper, which features a collection of aesthetically challeneged ephemera.
I thoroughly enjoyed writing vague and uneducated thoughts on the cultural landmarks of 2009 (there were entries on Twilight, the financial crisis, swine flu and Michael Jackson) as well as snidely reporting the quotes and habits of my friends and co-workers (my dad thought my blog was espescially harsh on Sophie, ironic as she is my biggest, and perhaps only, fan) but in the immortal words of Nelly Furtardo 'all good things come to an end', so I'm outtie.

Next time you see an old lady or man grappling with a mobile phone, savour it. Because in ten years this scene will be non-existant as the next generation of geriatrics will be almost completely tech-savvy. The thought of seeing a senior citizen texting, tweeting and listening to an iPod is just as inevitable as it is depressing.

Hard to say exactly what I mean, but:
-In The Reader, Bernhard Schlink writes in such a way that the scenes he constructs are envisioned in my mind as if they are watercolour paintings.
-Just saw the trailer for Nora Ephron's new movie, Julie & Julia, and it looks to be another of her signature creations. All of Ephron's protagonists are perky but inoffensive, homely, well-scrubbed and unnaturally sweet; comparable to daisies. These characters used to be played by Meg Ryan, until she got too old and too involved in with the surgeon's knife. Amy Adams looks set to play them for the coming decade.

Death fuck off and stop stealing our celebrities...

I know this is a little Harold Chasen of me, but obituaries make for good reading. Says Jack Gladney, the protagonist of my favourite novel, DeLillo's White Noise, "When I read obituaries I always note the age of the deceased. Automatically I relate this figure to my own age. Four years to go, I think. Nine more years. Two years and I'm dead." The reading of an obituary brings our own precious mortality to the forefront, whilst simultaenously feeling like an invasion of the deceased's privacy. With celebrity obituaries there is a third dimension- the star's achievements and character are finally judged and validated and become officially imprinted into popular culture. Celebrity obituaries give the plotlines of a life in a set of polished sentences, just as any other ordinary death notice does, but they are extended by the fact that they also sum up how the deceased celebrity shaped and/or reflected the times they lived in. And this year, sadly, the passing of famous people seems to be relentless. From Jade Goody ('Goody and Princess Diana were the most prominent avatars of a wide strand of English culture, defiantly anti-intellectualy and unashamedly emotional') to John Hughes ('His universe of jocks and nerds, socialites and misfits, rockers and rebels defined what it was to be an American teenager, and influenced a generation of movie-goers and makers') to Patrick Swayze, star's obituaries not only serve us up a neat narrative, but a chance to remember how each of them had a subtle influence on our lives, how each of them was a small brick in the house of our culture.

I'd heard mixed reviews about 500 Days of Summer, but I wasn't expecting the complete atrocity that it was. Think of a really, really bad imitation of Annie Hall, but put into a warped time machine so it's all non-linear and post-modern (ie. different), and you have this film. I disliked almost everything about 500 Days of Summer- from its desperation to be an 'indie love story' (the incesscant namedropping of alternative bands was so contrived and reeked of try-hard) to its soundtrack (which got a thumbs up from most people, but to me just sounded like a lot of female moaning, and if I wanted to hear that I would watch porn, which would have better visuals and a way better storyline). My main beef, however, was with Zooey Deschanel. How did she get such a good rep in Hollywood? Elf and Yes, Man are hardly classics. And she seems to have become the alterna-girl du jour, for no apparent reason, except that she's named after a Salinger character and has huge blue eyes. Thousands of Frankie- reading hipsters drool on Zooey-porn blogs about how she's so adorable because she sings in a folky whisper and wears floral (which does not make her cool, but rather makes her look like a freakish extra from Mad Men). Until Deschanel does more than live in Laurel Canyon and profess to loving 40s films and 70s music, her indie credentials are as faux as the latest movie in which she stars.

During high school I never really cared for the weekends, but now I'm working I await them with great anticipation. Getting carried away with excitement on a Friday afternoon is just one of many habits I've attained since I began to bring home the bacon, (another habit being that I've started to use embarrassing slang such as 'bringing home the bacon'), and they all make me feel so ridiculously plebeian.

Molly Young believes we place so much importance on styling our hair because it reflects the amount of control we have over our own lives. If this is true, the above picture would indicate that my life was a complete and utter uncontrolled train wreck circa my 18th birthday.

There are certain stories that are always guaranteed to make the news because of the general public's compulsion with the low brow. The abduction of pretty, young (white) girls, psychopaths living normal lives in suburbia, unconventional sex practices, teen pregnancy and bungled police work are good examples. Each of these alone is enough to make a headline, but the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard is an American classic, because it incorporates all of the above. What makes this so signaturely American though, above all the perverse details that have become Fox News fodder, is the moral lesson of good defeating evil, and the will to never give up hope. You can almost smell the inevitable telemovie and Oprah exclusive.

Favourite headlines of the past week: 'Little Lunch Murder', 'Secrets of Suburbia'.

The best movies to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon are the ones my Grandpa lends me. Stylistically they are all quite similar: The running time of these movies is irrelevant, but the pace is always slow, and despite successful moments of humour, they are always underlined by a deep melancholy. Prime examples include Annie Hall, Places in the Heart and Scent of a Woman.

This afternoon I attentively observed what are regular winter scenes: smoke rising from chimneys in the cosy pink twilight, prim old ladies briskly walking their minituare, manicured dogs (jacketed in the latest styles of canine coats) and shoppers pushing their trolleys against the icy wind to make it across the car park to the safety of their automobiles. The afternoon smelt like chopped wood, and these sights and smells filled me with melancholy, mostly because I knew that afternoons like this are strictly seasonal and are coming to an end. In the warmer months ahead they expand and become more languid. In winter, afternoons morph into silent, ominous evenings quickly, the way a black gloved murderer's hand smothers the mouth of his innocent victim.

Observing a person's groceries on the supermarket conveyor-belt is the most intimate you can get with them without being naked.