Sparky the Wonder Goat presents culturedgoat
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
strokable goat in a strokable coat's LiveJournal:
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| Saturday, September 30th, 2006 | | 2:00 pm |
(5 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Friday, September 29th, 2006 | | 2:30 pm |
Unfinished unreleased culturedgoat material - Part 1
Believe it or not, I used to actually have a vague modus operandi for this journal, and would actually make a regular effort to publish a completely inconsistent string of anecdotes, pictures, and articles about whatever I felt like writing about that week. That was back in the day when this journal was pretty much my only creative outlet, and I would write to escape the drudgery of a routine punctuated by full-time employment. culturedgoat will be wrapped up very soon, and replaced by a new journal, exclusively for writing about my travels to and within Japan. This one will no longer be used, but will remain online, more for my own selfish reasons than anything else, as - random and inconsistent the content may seem - it does, for me at least, effectively plot the important points and developments throughout the last four and a half years of my life in London. The official closing date will be Oct 5th, when I leave the country, so, as we wind things down, here are some lost nuggets of unfinished material that I simply either didn't have the time or the self-discipline to finish. There's tons of this stuff saved in private entries that were never completed or made public, so I've had a look through them, and picked out some bits and bobs that I like enough to give you in their unfinished form. Here's the first one, written way back in January 2005: ( Tim and Matt review Britney Spears videos ) (16 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Sunday, September 24th, 2006 | | 8:00 pm |
(27 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Thursday, September 21st, 2006 | | 4:30 pm |
On Thursday the 5th of October, I'm moving here:  But before that, on Saturday the 30th of September from about 5pm, I'm drinking here: 
Upstairs at the Bricklayers Arms, 31 Gresse Street, Soho, London, UKIf you are reading this, you are invited to my leaving-the-country do. And never before in the history of do-having have I been so adamant that I want everyone to come down and have a drink, so we can hang out for what will be the last time for a good long while. The following day, I'm packing up all my stuff and spending my last few days UK-side with my family in Oxford, so this will be your last chance, yo. Plan is to hang out at the Brickies til closing, then maybe go dancing somewhere. Any Q's, feel free to get in touch by email: sparky@goatmusic.org, or phone 07747 467 579 (OMG my phone number is on teh internets). Seeyas there, yes? Even if we've lost touch or don't speak often, or even if you never really liked me and were just nice to me because your partner/sister/owner demanded it, or even if you've never actually met me and know me solely as some weirdo on livejournal who pops up increasingly infrequently to relate arbritrary and uninteresting anecdotes about his life, then, hey, come down anyway and contribute to the carefully maintained illusion that I have lots of friends! Girlfriends/boyfriends/friends/friends-of-friends/less-good-friends-of-friends/ex-flames-you're-hoping-to-maybe-sex-up-again-one-time/family etc. all welcome! Also, please tell anyone who doesn't look at the internets or livejournal that often, but might find this information useful. Thank you! 来てください、ありがとうございます! (53 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Thursday, September 7th, 2006 | | 11:30 am |
Okay, well, it's definitely actually happening now. Got visa. Got plane ticket. Got naive optimism. I fly out on 5th October, which is exactly four weeks away. Now, the date to diarise is Saturday the 30th of September for a farewell gathering type affair. I have no idea where this is going to be yet, but it'll be within London, and it will be on that day. Visa is good for six months, at which point I can jack it all in, or apply for an another one. I have to actually be outside Japan to apply for a new visa, so chances are I'll may be back in England around April next year, if only for a short time. According to one of my Japanese textbooks, here's what happens next: ( The Adventures of a Gaijin in Tokyo ) (32 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 | | 12:30 pm |
Date: 30 August 2006 From: 斉藤 恵 Subject: Your visa result
Tim-san, Konnichiwa! Ogenki desuka?
Good news!
Your certificate of eligibility was issued from the Immigration Authority of Tokyo today! Please see the attached file for more detailes about the procedure. I gots me a visa! Watch out Japan, Timmaah's a-comin' over! Whoa, this is actually freakin' happening. (30 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 | | 4:00 pm |
(87 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Saturday, July 8th, 2006 | | 2:30 pm |
(80 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Thursday, June 22nd, 2006 | | 11:30 am |

A change is coming. | | Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 | | 6:00 pm |
Wow, I should try moving out of my flat more often - I've had offers of space on sofas in all four corners of London, to Edinburgh, to as far afield as Austin, Texas, and Toronto, Canada! THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who responded to my plea with offers of temporary housing, and all your words of advice and support. I am overwhelmed. As it's turned out, the situation is slighly less urgent now, as I've finally managed to get hold of the landlord and demanded to know what's going on. Bizarrely, he's been very responsive and helpful this time, reassuring me that I am not responsible for the council tax, and it's the council's screw-up because he has paid the tax for the whole year already. He seems pretty sincere about it, and seemed just as shocked as I was that these backdated bills had suddenly appeared in the post. We're both seperately going to phone the council and go over it with them, and hopefully that should be the end of it. That said, I AM moving out pretty soon anyway - specifically at some point in the first half of August (my lease is expiring, and I ain't renewing), so if the kind offers of sofa-space still stand, then I may well humbly ask some of you if I can take you up on them. Again, a HUGE thank you to everyone who registered their support in my time of panic - you are all awesome, and to be able to call you my friends is really not something I shall ever take for granted. (9 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Thursday, May 25th, 2006 | | 1:30 pm |
(54 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Monday, May 22nd, 2006 | | 10:00 pm |
(25 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Friday, May 19th, 2006 | | 2:00 pm |
(21 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 | | 3:30 pm |
(40 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Monday, May 15th, 2006 | | 6:30 pm |
(23 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Sunday, April 30th, 2006 | | 8:00 pm |
When I was in Tokyo, this girl told me I looked like Reno from Final Fantasy VII. Not being familiar with the character, I thanked her politely, but had no idea what she was talking about. Last night I saw Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, ( and I still have no idea what she's talking about ) (40 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 | | 12:00 am |
Male, 24, SSOH, seeks accommodation; also you want to come to the Handbags gig this Friday
- For various reasons that will be explained in greater detail later, I'm looking right now to move out of my flat and into a houseshare, for around 4-5 months - till September, basically (I'm flexible as to exactly when within that month). If you know of anyone in the greater London area who might need someone to fill a roomspace for that amount of time, please let me know. I know that a lot of students head out of the city for the summer, leaving their rooms free until the new term, so if you know of someone who might like a lodger to cover their rent in the meantime, then by all means let me know! I'm not going to be lugging all my stuff around - just a suitcase full of clothes, my laptop, and some books, so I'm not going to take over anyone's room or anything. The above may sound like an incomprehensibly weird request to some of you, but rest assured there is a very good reason for it. No, I'm not in any kind of trouble, financial or otherwise, nor have I fallen out with Al (whom I was planning to rent with). There are just a few things that mean we can't do that right now, and in the meantime my current flat is beginning to totally suck, in a variety of different and depressing ways. - I really hope some of you can make it to the Handbags gig this Friday, Upstairs at the Garage. Mean Fiddler are putting us on, and it's only £3.50 with a flyer. We've been in the studio a bit lately, and there's a whole sooper dooper album in the works, so we've got a batch of wicked new stuff to play. Also this means that gigs might be a bit sporadic for the next few months, so come and get your fix in Highbury this Friday! - Tokyo pics + words to follow very soon, promise - just waiting to get the last of my photos back from the developers (filled my whole memory card while over there, and had to switch to good ol' fashioned film). (13 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Saturday, April 1st, 2006 | | 1:00 pm |
Tokyo
Before I went on this trip, I was prepared to accept the reality that the Japan I know from manga and anime was probably a colourful exaggeration of some of the country's cultural quirks, and by no means an accurate portrayal of the culture and the people. But I was wrong - Japan is exactly like in manga and anime, complete with impossibly cute chirpy girls in crazy outfits...:  ...and giant robots:  Crazy times. More pics/words to follow soon. (13 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Saturday, March 25th, 2006 | | 9:16 am |
こんにちわ! I'm in Tokyo! And it's really something amazing - everyone here is so pretty and impeccably dressed. I feel scruffy in comparison. Everywhere you look there are bright flashing lights and weird cartoons playing in shop windows, and everything is impossibly cutesy. Last night we watched Sumo Wrestling on TV, and ate out at a wicked little restuarant, then wandered around Shinjuko (the area where we're staying). This city is really something - everything is so clean, and ordered, and everyone looks freshly pressed and groomed. Also, unlike certain other folk (ie. Parisians*) Japanese people really appreciate it when you try to speak Japanese to them (even if your Japanese sucks, like mine). I've just had a proper Japanese breakfast (which involves lots of rice and sesame seeds) and am about to head off to the Ghibli Museum. さようなら! (* More lazy cultural generalisations to follow in the next update, probably.) (11 heavy pettings | pet the goat) | | Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 | | 12:30 am |
Thank you to all who responded to yesterday's entry with advice and counsel. I have decided that I will speak to the tube station management, and find out if they have any details of what happened next - perhaps a crime number or something. That way I should be able to find out if any of the people that were arrested are going to trial, and put myself forward as a witness. Following that, I will lodge a complaint with the IPCC, and then, depending on the response, I will consider passing the photos and video I have onto the media. I know some of you remarked very reasonably that any kind of media coverage would only serve to lambast the force as a whole, but I want to make it clear I would not be distributing these images as part of a whole "fu ck the po'lice" trip, or to provide an outlet for my rage - I genuinely want to use this material in the most effective way to bring about awareness, and hopefully change. On a happier note, I'm off to Tokyo on Thursday, for a week - so if you want me to bring anything back for you, you'd best make it known to me in the next couple of days (cue a multitude of requests for "something Japanese" - and no, I'm not bringing back a case of used schoolgirl underwear. Not for anyone else, anyway). There's a visit to the Studio Ghibli museum planned, so I've spent the last few days cramming what I haven't seen of the Miyazaki catalogue. Kiki's Delivery Service is definitely my favourite so far - genuinely charming wonderful stuff. Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind had an awesome idea behind it, but the story, with it's surprisingly abrupt end, ultimately seemed a bit confused. I think Spirited Away suffered from being overhyped to me, because I found it rather plain, and actually ended up falling asleep through some of it. Some nice creature designs though. Next up on the viewing roster is Princess Mononoke. Anyway, before that, there's a Handbags gig on Wednesday at the Bull & Gate. You really should come. Yes, you. (15 heavy pettings | pet the goat) |
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