i'm sorry to keep going on about this, it's the beginning of a new love affair, where you can't stop mentioning the object of your affections, and you're constantly saying "oh well [blank] says this" or "x does that", but forgive me all the same.

i wanted to point out how much i now love seth cohen - seth cohen starter packs (as given to his two lady friends) consist of quite a lot of stuff i don't know much about but it sounds appealing: the goonies (which stu has been going on about for years), death cab for cutie, the shins and bright eyes, plus a copy of the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay (high on my list of all-time favourite books, and v. appropriate for seth's comic book graphic novel obsession). oh and i'm seeing bright eyes at the sbe next month with cressey.

i'm so so sad.

holy hamburgers people are selling invitations to gmail on ebay. that just never occurred to me. and people are paying like £30 for an invitation. insanity. can they not wait for it to go properly public? i mean gmail's pretty good, but the whole point is that it's *free*. sorry, i just wanted to share that.

there was dancing on the streets of shepherd's bush last night when qpr went on a bus tour to celebrate their promotion to the first division. even i was there. it was quite strange to feel part of it - i'm not really a rangers fan, but even i felt a surge of delight when holloway and his blue army went past us on their blue and white hooped bus. and also the wives really did look like footballers' wives, all straightened, bleached hair and orange tans. it was grate!

other than that, i've been wasting my time getting over excited about harry potter - i've re-read all the books, and i've been playing the games slightly obsessively. and speaking of over excited there was a belle and sebastian track on the oc on e4 the other day. i think my life might be complete.

and i've taken up pilates - i got fed up with being so inactive, so i finally got around to taking a course. it only started on tuesday, but i enjoyed it. huzzah.

oh the most exciting thing ever happened tonight at work. those of you who have been reading for a while will know of my residual love of mark owen. so you can prolly imagine how unbelievably thrilling it was for me to serve him a gin and tonic and a glass of white wine. and he tipped me a pound. swoon. more on this story tomorrow i should think.

edited 14/5/04 - ok here is proof of my ongoing adoration of little marky owen. the woman standing next to him in the queue and i had a good girly squeal over it (after he was a safe distance away) - we were both feeling sort of shaky and exhilarated. very strange.

blogger is looking seriously hot now. it's got more new functions than you can shake a stick at - including this sexy new profile thing, and post pages (look ma, just like mt), and comments (i rather like haloscan - but their server is pretty unreliable. i don't want to lose all my old comments though).

one of the scary things about the profile page is that along the side, it tells you how many posts you've written (181), how many times on average you post per week (once, oops), and scariest of all how many words you have written (37,070). 37,070 words. imagine. that's almost a (short) book's worth. and i'm not even very prolific. i knew this blogging thing was a good idea. also it acts as a sort of pseudo memory for me - so for instance, this time last year, we were nearly finished our open paper, and i was posting about being an extra. nice to know my life hasn't changed that much. although my current essay title "use the example of a factual, or news programme, series or genre to explore the contention that british tv journalism is currently more concerned with infotainment than a serious exposition of important issues" is rather less lurid than the essay i was writing this time last year, which was called something like "'he saw the skull beneath the skin': images of disease and decay in webster's duchess of malfi". i think i prefer the latter really though.

well here's a puzzle, there is a little meme thingy here (scroll down to may 4 entry) to do with how many students at different universities it takes to change a lightbulb. fine. but the final one is york and it reads "York: Three - One to change the bulb and one to check his maths coursework". im guessing the implication is that yorkies are rubbish mathematicians, but the one i know is bluddy grate, so it's clearly neither true nor funny. i'd have thought maybe york - seven, one to get a porter to change the bulb and six to stop the geese attacking him as he comes back into the block. or something.

mmm, went to the lovely sanctuary with my mum yesterday for a proper day of relaxation. sort of felt like i deserved it having worked on the door at bh all week - stamping hands, everyone's favourite (although it did mean that i got to touch beth orton and stewart lee - both in for jolie holland i think, though it might have been polly paulusma thse female singer/songwriters kind of merge after a while) - it got to the point where i rolled over in my sleep, and my cat prodded me, at which point i told him he had the wrong stamp.

i'm not proud of this, it's an affliction that i don't seem to be able to, er, shake off. i've tried to deny it, but i think that the best thing to do is to just own up - i have to accept that i am addicted to the oc. yes it's formulaic (hmm i wonder which formal occasion will be spoiled by a fist fight this time round? a casino night? cotillion? someone's house party?), yes the two leads have no more than three expressions between them (puppydog eyes (shared), confused (ryan) and slightly miserable (marissa)), yes they're playing 16 but they're all in their twenties (except for mischa barton who really is 16), and yes it's almost as unreal as sunset beach (though there hasn't been a storyline about cursed jewels yet. but somehow it manages to be great - it benefits from having adam brody as the supremely geeky but still sexy seth (seth: you mean when you lost your virginity, i was playing magic the gathering? ryan: you're still playing magic.).

now maybe it's just that buffy was my main man and i needed a replacement, but the oc is doing a very nice job.