SHOP SMART, SHOP S-MART! Julia and Kelly are back in the States. Julia left me her beautiful 60�s lampshade that I will be selling on ebay and she took back memories of the best of British culture � namely, naked women in the newspapers and Big Brother. Kelly seemed to have a lot of fun despite the extra long travelling involved. Julia called me a freak a lot and thought I had way too much time on my hands after seeing my �Rocket Mike� helmet � there was also the usual arguments over her poor taste in music as opposed to my own exceptional choices. I also probably came over as something of a conspiracy nut whenever we got onto American politics but it was interesting to see London through American eyes. So what else is new? We are off to Stockholm at the end of August � the Jess n Mike European Tour continues. Jess found return tickets online for �5 each so you can�t really argue with that. We will be flying into an airport the size of this room but that�s all part of the fun. Began to relax yesterday with the house to ourselves as Duncan was away for the weekend and then Frank turned up on the doorstep. No complaints though as he cooked up a storm and then we watched The Terminator, which was as good as ever. I am slowly weaning Jess off the Hives by playing a lot of Iggy and the Stooges � no reason to settle for a cheap shoddy copy when you can have the original. I think we just got some tickets to see The Get Up Kids too but I still need to sort out the Fugazi tickets. My friend Doc got mugged at knifepoint the other night and although he�s ok that bit of news pissed me off more than anything else has in a while. Lets hope the fucker responsible goes down with one of the more excruciatingly slow and painful cancers... This is some of the stuff that I�m getting excited about at the moment: 1. 'Lullaby' by Chuck Palahniuk published in September � the first part of his horror trilogy. I�m reading the new Clive Barker at the moment � his first foray into writing for kids and its pretty good although its no 'His Dark Materials'. 2. Kill Bill � martial arts directed by Tarantino with a fucking great cast including Sonny Chiba. Ask me who Sonny Chiba is and I�ll have to slap you. 3. Bubba Ho-Tep: A mummy movie with Bruce Campbell as a 68 year old Elvis kicking undead arse in a Texas rest home with the help of JFK � who is black. I thought they didn�t make these kind of films anymore and although I�d be very surprised if it got a cinema release anywhere it should pop up on DVD and the festival circuit... its only just started shooting but I�m already counting the days. Is Final Fantasy X any good? It has an OVERKILL option in its battle system and some dodgy death-metal music when the future-sport kicks in... what else do you need to know? Is the Playstation II a lot better than the Playstation? Only in the same way that having sex with a real woman is better than sticking your cock between the bed and the mattress and using your imagination. Andy � still using a Nintendo? Damn � that�s like sticking your cock in the dog�s mouth � feels good initially but something somewhere just isn�t quite right. The biggest news I guess is that I�m not vegetarian anymore... I finally gave in to the pressure around me everyday... all that meat, all those animal products... So from the time that you read this I am officially vegan. Feel free to come at me with all your lame arguments as to why that�s a mistake and I have a few thousand reasons to make you feel ill about any and all dairy products... Mike is blogging to: Raw Power by Iggy and The Stooges