2007 Retrospectacle

Last year I posted the following aims:

Be more assertive
Get more Pandora-time
Get a better job
See more of my friends (especially ex-workmates)
See more of a certain young lady

So how did I do?

Assertiveness? Well, I’ve started saying “no” to things that I really don’t want to do, instead of suffering in silence. I still could do some work on the whole confidence side though. A work in progress.

Pandora-time? Four outings in 2007. Not great, but not bad either. And I managed to tranny outside of the county borders. That was a first!

Better job? Oh yes. Very much so.

See more of friends? Not as great as I hoped, but those tat have MSN/Facebook get contacted regularly.

Certain young lady? We split up in summer. These things happen.

But what of the rest of the year?

Transpocalypse 2was a lot of fun, and I finally got to meet some fellow bloggers in the flesh.

Battle of the Bands continues to be the best place for music on the East coast. I got to meet my newest favourite unsigned band – Punch the Vicar - and got to wear my saloon girl fancy dress to the final. We also had the Town Centre Music Festival 2, which was great fun too.

Sadly my last remaining grandparent passed away in May (and the funeral was on my birthday :( ) but at least she didn’t suffer, and it was nice to see all the family together even for just a few hours.

July wasn’t much fun either, with me learning the hard way that Trans-hatred can be found in unlikely places. This event severely coloured my attitudes and actions regarding trannying.

Fortunately it didn’t stop me trannying at the Waterfront in September and appearing on Outline’s website 

Socially I managed to gain a new gaming group, and discover all sorts of interesting new games like Fading Suns, Serenity, and SLA Industries.

And lastly, I got sucked into Facebook.

So what will 2008 hold?

No aims this year, lets just see what happens.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers!

Attention span of a gnat

Its not new, but I've been thinking about this for a while.

Whilst channel flicking I happened to catch Russell Brand's Ponderland. Everyone's always raving about Russell, so I thought I'd give it a look.

I don't know about his other work, but Ponderland tonight consisted solely of clips from old television programmes interspersed by comedy. Well, I say "comedy", but it just seemed to be variations of "Look! Didn't people say/do funny things in the old days? Isn't that hilarious in and of itself".

He's not the only culprit. I've seen a number of clip shows where old fashioned clothes/mannerisms/attitudes are pointed at and laughed at. No actual jokes. Just laughing at how things were different.

I suppose if you have no concept of history, just seeing something different to what is popular today, is a source of never-ending hilarity. But anybody with a shred of historical knowledge, or even just somebody who was there, will just think, "Yes. That's what it was like. Do you actually have a point to make?"

I don't mind playful pastiche. I don't mind jokes at the expense of the past. Even cruel satire at the expense of old-fashioned attitudes can be funny if handled right. But just pointing at something old, and laughing because it is different, just shows how ignorant you are.

On the other hand, all these "isn't the past funny" shows will make excellent material for future shows...

"Look at this clip of a 21st century presenter mocking the past. Aren't his clothes funny? And listen to his dated catchphrases. Hilarious!"