Burn

Hello
I should have done something exciting and edgy today. Like going to see "teen film of the decade" (uncredited source; this is what the advert said, but I suspiciously can't find the quote online anywhere) Wild Child, starring whatshername from Aquamarine, that walking haircut from Stormbreaker, and for some reason, Nick Frost. Starring Roberts as some sort of EVIL Malibu teenage socialite who gets banished to boarding school in mega-strict England (because obviously English people don't know how to have fun) only she causes havoc everywhere she goes, and starts all the parties, but ultimately we get a happy compromise of stiff upper lipped English snobs having a gay old time, and crazy US bitch gets a dose of normality, and learns how to do sums or something. I should have gone to see this, I really should. Instead, I did some historically dull activities, which I would say I won't bore you with, but then I don't know who you are, or why you're reading, so maybe this is fascinating for you.

I bought a new CD writer from PC World because I'm sick to the back teeth AND sick to death of burning cds in the weedy little tray that pokes in and out of my laptop like the worlds limpest Swiss Army knife. I'm not expert on these things, but this external CD writer is massive. It's like, bigger than a bible. It's almost the same size as a hardback cope of Ken Follett's A World Without End, and just about as heavy, too. Which makes me wonder what the little burner inside my laptop and located just underneath the Caps Lock and ASDFG keys thing it's doing. No wonder it broke. Although apparently not, as the album I send my dad in the post along with a copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo made managed to work OK. To be on the safe side, I walked up to PC World to buy a new one. I've never been in PC World before, but boy are they nothing like the adverts. Admittedly, I went to PC World in Cardiff, and like most things in South Wales, you're guaranteed to get more pathetic version of what might be brilliant elsewhere, but even taking this rule of thumb into account, PC World was a shocker. For the wealth of technology available in, store, I would have though they could have at the very least, created holographic staff with extensive artificial intelligence who actually knew where anything was, and without acne that looked like it was going to erupt any minute. Secondly, it's wonderful that they divided the store into "PC" and "Laptop" halves, but what I was looking for (an external drive for a laptop) wasn't on either, when it should surely have been with Laptop accessories, but it wasn't, it was with a bunch of other CD drives, all of which were labelled in such a high technical register the only words I understood were "CD and DVD", the rest might as well have been written in Klingon. I had to ask for help off one member of staff, who served a pleasant dose of bullshit that the drive I had in my hands was exactly what I was looking for, and then when I got to the "tech desk" where the lady informed me this drive I had was an internal drive for a PC, not a laptop, and that the one I really wanted was fifteen pounds more expensive (of course!). The tech desk was quite interesting, because there was a little room where people with big thick glasses were dismantling laptops. I couldn't help but think it was somewhere like this that Gary Glitter got rumbled. He'd have paid £114 to have his laptop fixed on site too.

I took time to have a look around Newport Road, since it's not every day you get to walk around in the pissing rain amongst an avenue of vile oblong concrete and stainless steel megastructures all ten times the size of the QE2 and infinitely less exotic or relaxing. They're all there: Comet, PC World, Pets at Home, Maplins, some stupid place whose logo was a big R in a circle, a big fuck off blue structure called WHAT! that used to have a high street version, at least three carpet showrooms, and all your other favourites. There's also a drive-thru KFC, a drive-thru McDonald's and a drive-thru Burger King. These as far as I can remember, are the only drive-thru's I've ever really seen close up. They're a massive disappointment, although I get the feeling that the Newport Road industrial estate, which is basically built either side of one long road which stretches beyond the horizon into a scribble of overpasses and junctions about two miles out of town, is modelled slightly on the entrance road to American towns, they've not quite nailed the true horror of these commercial landing strips quite enough. The McDonald's was having a refit when I went past, although they'd kept the drive-thru open, which I thought was rather sad, but not as sad as the thought that the only reason they did that was because they know people are too lazy to try and navigate six lanes of traffic to go to the Burger King on the other side of the road. There was also a Do It All, which became Focus in fuck-knows-when. There was a plaque just outside the entrance commemorating the store opening in 1982. The store was shut, the only sign of life or any kind of wood or plastic was a skateboard ramp that had been built in the car park. I thought for a moment about all the hopes and dreams that took place on that day in 1982, and how this massive structure was now standing stagnant like the Titanic, sunk in a wild sea of grey retail gloom on the outskirts of Cardiff. I carried on. By this time the rain couldn't be described as anything less than ridiculous. I was amused though, by the number of mobile burger vans that had set up in the car parks of the stores. WHAT!, Allied Carpets, The stupid shop with the big R in a circle; even the Quik Save car park had a burger van and Quik Save closed in early 2006. Running one of these burger and hot dog vans must be the worst job in the world. I guess it's like running a worn-out old dog of a pub in a backwater suburb, where you deal exclusively with regulars and nothing but regulars. Here it's builders and nothing but builders. What a job.

When I returned home, I did some rearranging, which including moving all of my DVDs out my bedroom and into the lounge. I cunningly disguised this as a "share and share alike" motif, where my housemates are now entitled to borrow any of my DVDs at will, but really it was an excuse to free up some space in my room. The space previously taken up by the DVD shelving is now taken up by three perfectly neat stacks of books. I still need to sort out space somehow for both these, and a rogue collection of CDs that I've amassed and have no sensible place for which I've then stacked on top of them. I'm praying I won't need to get to any of these books in the near future because I've stacked them like a cross between Jenga and Kerplunk and if they fall over, then there's nowhere for them to go but to fall all over me.. The CD burner works fine though. I made myself two mixes today, to listen to as I pottered around making and doing things. The idea of making a mix CD, putting it in my crappy CD player on the window sill, and playing it was an alien concept last week, but now it's back with me, like a familiar itch or an old friend I'd taken for granted. I wish I wish I had some other people to make mixes for. Requests please.