My day off

Being off work on weekday is bliss. I've got a cold, so it justifies my sitting around watching Spaced DVDs and surfing the net. It's not all good, though - I felt too weak last night to go see Jonathan Richman in Glasgow. Boo. Still, he seems to play at least once a year.
Back to my daytime viewing. I hate T4 - it's reduced yoof programming to endless repeats of Friends, sycophantic interviews (June Sarpong and Vernon Kaye in a competition to see who can crawl the furthest up Robbie Williams' fundament) - and the fucking Salon, but the Simple Life is strangely fascinating. It's an MTV "reality" show which places workshy socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on a Midwestern cattle farm. Witnessing two people who are so utterly dim and removed from reality is oddly compelling. You have to feel sorry for the people trailing in the wake of their idiocy. What did decent, hard-working people do to deserve these two fuckwits?

The Beasties are finally releasing new album. Hello Nasty came out the summer between school and uni, which makes me feel real old. While the Beasties have never been the greatest lyricists, they do have moments of genius, such as Ad-Rock's adaptation of Run DMC's King of Rock to "I'm the king of Boggle, there is none higher, score eleven points from the word 'quagmire'". So it was with a heavy heart last year that I downloaded their anti-war song. "Say ooh-ah, what's the White House doing?" was one of the better lines. I've managed to purge my memory of the rest. It was painful. Unfortunately, their new album apparently continues the political theme. Public Enemy it ain't.
Here are some of the rhymes, according to Pitchfork:

"Since 911 we're still livin'/ And lovin' life we've been given/ Ain't nothing gonna take that away from us/ We're lookin' pretty and gritty 'cause in the city we trust." ["Sonic Reducer"]

"We've got a president we didn't elect/ The Kyoto treaty he decided to neglect/ And still the U.S. just wants to flex." ["Time to Build"]

Eeee.

Good news! I'm getting tried out for some reviews in Plan B, the sequel to Careless Talk Costs Lives, and I've been given a place on a reviewing masterclass, which should hopefully lead to reviewing comedy, theatre and music at the Edinburgh Fringe for Fest mag. Yay! And Beard #2 is gradually taking shape. Very gradually.