I recently watched The Bourne Ultimatum (which was awesome, you should all go and see it) with Louise at Swansea Odeon cinema. As an aside, it’s so refreshing to only have to pay £5 for admission; screw you London cinemas and your DVD-priced tickets.
Back on topic – during the fantastic scene at Waterloo station Louise turned to me and exclaimed that Jason Bourne would kick James Bond’s arse. Through gritted teeth I had to agree. What do you think?
I’m at work and thoroughly exhausted. My New Years Resolutions have burnt out. The exercise thing hasn’t gone well, mainly because of the amount of work I’ve had – so at least one resolution has gone to plan.
The dwindling frequency of my posts makes me wonder if I should post them to one central location and just duplicate them here. Myspace is awful, Facebook less so but still not good nonetheless, but most of my non-geektastic friends would rather read my messages there. Their lack of feed support does not help my decision.
I’m not looking forward to the Wales-England rugby game I’m going to see in 3 weeks – Wales have been abysmally poor and England… well, they’re a one-man team. A good one-man team though, and so far playing better than we are. The cunts.
Escaped unscathed the other side of a work-related drama, in which I figured I was either going to get myself sacked or hand in my notice before a cooler head prevailed. It’s a long and probably uninteresting story that I won’t bore you with. Office politics, people sticking their oars in, too many cooks spoiling the broth, and many other cliched proverbs spring to mind.
Watched the entire third series (or ’season’, if you insist on being a Yank about it) of The 4400 in one day-long sitting last weekend, and it was great. I highly recommend it.
I also loved the Mike Judge film Idiocracy, which paints a pretty grim portrait of what society will be like in 500 years: Benefit-leeching council house dwellers breeding irresponsibly create a dumbed-down society such that a guy with an IQ of 100 is the suddenly world’s smartest man, the President of the USA carries an machine gun and has a harem, the top rated TV show is called “Ow, my balls!” in which the star just gets kicked in the nuts for half an hour, one can buy 6000-calorie burgers from a family establishment called Assfuckers, and no-one drinks water anymore, just soft drinks (and the soft drinks manufacturer employs over 50% of the American population). Watch it, laugh a little, then die a little inside knowing it could happen. Never mind climate change, address the human stupidity issue first and everything else will fall into place.
Sextupled. That’s what my workload has done over the last 7 days. Thanks to some residual festive cheer I haven’t thrown myself under a train about the matter yet, though I’m sure I’ll be a worn-down shell of my former self in a month or two. So, don’t expect many posts, not that my blog posting frequency is anything special.
Christmas and New Year were alright. Growing up means that each year these days mean less and less. Don’t you miss being a kid? Having said that, the sense of emptyness you feel come Christmas evening (when it dawns that it’s all over, and you have another year until next Christmas) is lessened too.
Snakes On A Plane is truly a fantastic film. Tongue in cheek Samuel L. Jackson greatness.
My New Years Resolutions are as follows (with current status)
1) Try to get in better shape – sitting at the computer all day means that all the extra padding settles in a hideous tyre around my waist. [I did about 10 sit ups on January 2nd, then gave up.]
2) Catch up with my friends more [Given the workload dumpage, this one's right out the window until about July]
3) Stop leaking money and save, otherwise how will I ever afford a house?! [This one I've had some success with, thanks largely to a pre-Xmas pay rise, backpaid to May last year!]
4) Be more productive at work [I guess I have no choice now!]
Now that rant mode is switched off.
Currently watching/recently watched:
- Robot Chicken :: excellent call Barney
- The X Files :: bought the complete DVD box set, feels like its 1994 again
- Dark Angel :: not bad, though Jessica Alba’s character way overdoes the pretend-black-speak. Did James Cameron forget his lead character was white along the way or something?
- Creep :: Not the greatest film, but still enjoyable to see Lola running again, this time from Token Horror Monster un the tunnels next to Charing Cross tube station (factual error: Jubilee line trains don’t run through Charing Cross)
- Taken :: Was a bit slow-paced for Louise’s taste, but I found it utterly absorbing. Spielberg done good again. Dakota Fanning, however, is almost certainly Satan.
- Rugby, lots of it :: Got to watch these things while they’re on BBC and not nicked by Rupert Murdoch. Last weekend of it coming up, and my boys are taking on the All Blacks. By ‘taking on’ I mean ‘trying, probably unsuccessfully, to stop’. I’ve had a moderately successful run of bets on the games too, thanks in no small part to my good friend Tom who is now offically my personal rugby pundit and tipster.
- Random people videoblogging on Youtube :: I don’t give a damn about these people or their videos in the slightest, but it’s quite comforting to have in the background when you’re working. (I’m one of those people that works best when there’s background noise)
What I haven’t been watching
- Lost :: Sky have now got the rights to show it in what is a genius business move (let Channel 4 build up the fan base and shell out on promotion, then outbid them when the contracts up for renewal). On a personal level, however, I’m gutted. I’m sure there must be *some* way I can watch it…
I found a cracking website (albeit not bookmarked on this computer) which has all of my old MS-DOS favourites: Commander Keen, Jill of the Jungle, Wizkid, Captain Comic, The Incredible Machine etc. They have not aged well.
Thanks to CD And DVD Bargains I got an email last week alerting me to the fact that Amazon had listed the 7-disc Nightmare on Elm St DVD set for just £6.97. Shortly after snapping up said title they changed their misprinted price to £16.97, but they’re honouring the orders anyway. Lovely!
In unrelated news, an old friend from my schooldays is visiting London in October to perform at the Royal Albert Hall as part of a championship brass band ensemble. How posh! We then remarked how Carmarthen (one of our local towns) seems stuck in a time warp, as those who didn’t move away haven’t moved on. So true.
Yesterday I met a friend from my first year of halls at lunch. She divulged in some quite explicit detail her recent bout of food poisoning, and the drunken toilet habits of her former flatmate. I was glad I wasn’t eating at the time; my lunch – much like the most shocking part of the anecdote – was liquid.
Today I met Henry briefly to shock him with my £3k win and to ask how St. Paddy’s day went. I had bailed on going out with him and some old friends that evening thanks to my tardiness in leaving the event at King’s College.
Said event (a National Science Week event to promote medical physics at university level) was so-so. It was a bit mismanaged and my ineptitude at public speaking was apparent. But I did meet a Nobel prize winner and in terms of making me look good it did the trick.
My Missus (who is a King’s student) was hanging around all day to score brownie points from her tutor for looking like an enthusiastic student, along with poaching the free food on offer and swooning over me in my suit like a ravenous schoolgirl.
Yeah, it was terrible.
Last night was pretty good. What was supposed to be a straightforward drink with some friends turned into a pub crawl, meandering through the streets of Central London from Bond St to Edgware Road. From humble beginnings in a packed Mayfair boozer, we staggered into pub after pub after pub, then ventured into an upmarket Brazilian cocktail bar (sampling a fantastic Caipirinha), then ended the night in a West London tapas bar, where the alcohol I had consumed (despite my insistance to stay relatively sober) was soaked up by octopus, clams, chorizo and wine, and various other delicious edibles. Yum.
Today, by contrast, is a bit of a downer. I didn’t win the Euromillions jackpot. Or the National Lottery jackpot. Then I watched Battle Royale 2 – a film I have anticipated for quite some time, and which I had devoted 2 hours to watching this afternoon – and was thoroughly disappointed. Not a patch on the original.
This is a mish-mash of stuff I’ve been up to. I don’t think I’ll be able to cleverly segue between these mentionables, so I won’t bother.
I am torn between going to see Guns 2 Roses tonight – a Guns n Roses tribute band I’ve been looking forward to seeing – and going out with a group of friends from halls I haven’t seen in months. I toyed with the idea of both, but seeing as the gig is in Walthamstow it makes that job difficult.
Speaking of Guns N’ Roses, according to Axl Rose himself – someone who is notoriously tight-lipped about such matters – GNR’s 14-years-in-production album Chinese Democracy is going to be heard this year. I won’t hold my breath.
Knowing I’m leaving Bulldog and have only them as an alternative, BT tried to covertly charge me £75 to get reconnected, then had the gall to sign me up to a 12-month contract. I rang them up yesterday morning, did my best Mr. Angry Customer impression, and they relented.
Angry phone call #2 was to Bulldog, who – despite promising to terminate my contract on December 17th – charged me an extra £60 this month. They gave in (eventually).
Watched Cube, Cube 2 and Cube Zero this week. (And yes, you are supposed to watch them in that order.) They are really very good, and I recommend you watch them. I always like it when I enjoy a film starring a cast of unknowns – I feel like I’ve got one up on everyone else.
One of the websites I’ve been working on at UCL is nearing completion and is looking good, even if I say so myself. Ironically, this comes at a time when my job is at risk – the grant funding that my job depends on is looking increasingly unlikely to come through, meaning that come April or May I’ll be seeking alternative employment. I’m gutted, but I’m also grateful that I’ve had such a good opportunity here, and happy that my contract termination isn’t a result of poor performance or them not liking me.
I was bored this morning so wrote back to another one of those 419 scams today. My would-be scammer, one Mr. Bill Dooru, answered promptly, asking for an address to which he could send me the important documents. I gave him this:
Big Ben LeClock, Westminster Bridge, London, SW1A 0FU, UK.
Feeling happy with my potential scam-bait, I discovered this site, which shows people successfully baiting these bastards a million times better than me.
I was roused from my sleep by “the postman” who “had a parcel” for me. In my momentary lapse into dysphasia I mumbled something about being there in a minute (or at least I thought that…) and staggered into the bathroom, where I put on the first thing to hand – an ill-fitting old dressing gown belonging to the missus.
When I (finally) answered the door I discover it’s no ordinary mailman, it’s Louise’s Dad, delivering some DVDs I had ordered. And laughing heartily at my choice of morning attire. Nothing like a generous helping of humiliation to wake you up in the morning.
The accompanying photo is the stack of DVDs I acquired over Christmas. Some might say I went a bit overboard. They’re probably right.