Do you know what's great? Those egg.com adverts where their advice on saving car insurance is to attach a cardboard box onto someone else's car, suggesting you drive around in that instead - thus sparing you of insurance payouts. And your dignity. I heart those adverts. Do you know what isn't great? Gum in Jet Set Radio is not great. She's hip looking, and does this great little dance when you select her, but really, her tagging skills are just ridiculous. And yet, I can't give her up. It's a masochistic love/hate thing. Do you know why New York rocks my world? New York /totally/ rocks my world because: * On cable, they have this insane program called "Undressed". It's all about shagging, and gay footballers and gay chess players and the size of one's package and feeder fetishes. It is, officially, one of the greatest television shows ever. * Those wonderful sinister kids Laurel, Brian and Matt will welcome you into their homes where you will watch the premiere of the new Joss Whedon series, after which they will ply you with sordid gossip and discuss the wonders (disasters?) of nerve dating. * There's this great bar in Brooklyn called Union Pool. It's full of achingly stylish yet completely lovely hep cats dancing to rock and roll. A boy in your posse will win the style stakes by wearing a Paul Frank pyjama top as a shirt and you will steal snapshots of girls snogging in the photo booth, which you will later make photocopies of and stick on lampposts in central London. * Fashion rules NYC. Wake up! The Strokes look is /so/ over. It's all about 1920's lingerie, yo. Also, the trucker's cap is /totally/ in. Muh brethren's attire has finally become vogue. * You and your homeboy stumble across a small park in the centre of Chinatown where old men play Chinese Chess with great ferocity and name calling. Later, we sit at a nearby table and play Go. Slowly, a few of the aforementioned gaming masters come over and watch, shaking their heads and tutting as they figure out my lack of strategy. I refuse to place a stone whilst they're there and my ass gets go-kicked again. But there are turtles in buckets and Powerpuff Girls paraphernalia to look at, so my disappointment is short-lived. * Entering a street festival in Little Italy, your posse will discover a freak show which features the visual delights of: "The World's Smallest Horse!", "The World's Smallest Lady!" and the "Snake Woman!" - The head of a beautiful lady, the body of a large plastic python. It totally rules. * You jump on a random subway train only to discover your carriage has been overrun by a posse of 13-year-old skater homeboys. They're completely hopeless but their enthusiasm for skating up and down the aisle and grinding on the seats is commendable. One of them will declare this the "Soul Train." G and I applaud. * You get to see the first episode of the new series of Buffy. * YOU GET TO BE IN THE AUDIENCE OF THE RICKI LAKE SHOW! Whilst waiting to be led into the studio, one of the show's producers will ask you, "If it's a serious topic, please, whatever you do, don't shout out, 'You big fat bitch! '" Everyone sighs. Once inside, it was clear that behind the scenes was far more entertaining than the show itself, even /with/ the "Tupac is alive" obsessive - "My boyfriend looks a bit like Tupac, but I wish he'd try harder. I dunno, like maybe wear bandanas like Tupac does." During the breaks, Ricki's sidekick Darlene was our entertainment, a lady who proved to be genuinely, insanely funny. And she fell down some stairs in a comedic manner - accidentally! This woman is a genius. Later, the audience erupted into a pop-idol like singing competition to win t-shirts and a boy two rows in front of you will bump and grind his booty throughout the /entire/ show. And then, it was back to London. Which was GRATE! And do you know why? Because it was filled with pub gatherings, and quiz nights, and insider gossip about Angelina Jolie, and realising your celebrity crush now looks like a 60-year-old version of Jeffrey Archer - ugh, and there was picnicking and Tigermilking. Tigermilking was great. I, unfortunately, was a little too inebriated to pay much attention to other people's debaucherous actions, but I /do/ remember that everyone looked gorgeous and the DJs were fantastic. Daphne and Celeste! Dolly Parton! Nelly! Le Tigre! What a fab selection. One might call it eclectic. I'd call it the tits. Isn't this post great? No? Apologies. Miss Marianna Longmire +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+