Drifting in and out of consciousness

When posting about Panic last Wednesday, I forgot to mention a couple of things:

The people blowing bubbles
In the middle of the mosh pit. During 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' Respect is due. It was great watching people double-take:
'Ner-ner ner-ner ner-ner... Ooooooh! Pretty!'

The guy wearing the 'Les Miserables' t-shirt
Now that's irony.
Surely.

The ska covers of old songs
'Come On Eileen' by Dexy's Midnight Runners?
Briefly amusing, given my previous exposure to the original was entirely thanks to tooth-grittingly dire college 'bops' (EVERY fucking time), it was briefly amusing to hear in such a different context. I didn't really need to hear the whole thing, though, thanks.
'Rio' by Duran Duran?
Less amusing, as the only association this one has is Lee and Herring doing a throw-away joke about it on 'This Morning With Richard Not Judy'. Bouncy enough to jig about to, I guess, but so was the original, wasn't it? And that's not 'indie/alternative', is it?
Both in the same night?
No.

What I wonder is: were they both by the same band? Or is there more than one band out there covering 80s 'classics' in a jaunty 90s style for a 'jaded is so passé' 2k audience? Sometimes irony can go too far.

That said, I've got a wicked-cool ska cover of the Tetris theme tune.
And China Drum's fantastic grungy cover of 'Wuthering Heights' by Kate Bush is a Panic staple.

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Current site: Roleplaying isn't good for you. See?

Nasty atmosphere in the office, these past few days. Part of this is thanks to a bunch of travellers who've parked their caravans in the estate on which we are situated. Some of the knee-jerk reactions were frightening. I dunno, perhaps I'd feel more threatened if I had a car in the car-park, or had to walk home alone after dark, but I can't see that that a bunch of crusties camping near the office for a week or so is particularly terrible. Others, though, seem to think that genocide is the only solution. I'm not exaggerating, though I'm sure that they were. Still, the amount of fear and hatred seemed grossly disproportionate. Perhaps I'm being naive.

The other nasty factor is a constant one. One of our department is a very strange man. He had a running feud with the person next to him for reasons that have never been made entirely clear to me, as she appears to be perfectly nice woman, though perhaps not willing enough to shut up and put up. I am thankful that he has now been moved, as it made me feel physically ill to hear the hatred and anger in his voice as he would wander over to people near me as soon as she left each day and launch into a half-hour tirade about all the irritating things that she had done, limited, as far as I could tell, to spending quite a lot of time emailing or on the phone. I hasten to add that the nature of our work is such that anyone slacking will be found out (as I have discovered), and their lack of work will have no impact on anything anyone else has to do, so the reason why these actions so incensed him was purely personal. He wouldn't even talk to her, or cc her in on departmental emails, and on occasion would put his fingers in his ears while she was talking to others.

He has also taken against another colleague, and delights in a little light intimidation of him while he's around, and further obsessive ranting about him when he's not. I have literally not heard him go for 3 sentences without mentioning one of these two people unless he's discussing Blondie or formula 1, which are apparently his only two interests. He is aggressive to the point of discussing how much he'd like to punch these people. He has Freddie Mercury, racing car or Debbie Harry wallpaper and screen savers. He comes in earlier than me and stays later, even when I'm arsing around on the net and stay an hour later than I have to. He gets on well with our boss. He is 35ish, and doing this crap job in which everyone else but the management is ten years younger (except the aforementioned female colleague, for whom this is a stop-gap job after having a baby). I do not understand him at all. I am glad.

Current site: Dancing With Your Dog. It's like bestiality, but... tackier.