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Showing posts from November, 2006

Bollocks to Brighton

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I'm quickly realising that digital TV is shite. More choice, means more repeats, more reality and more tight budgeted crap that falls flat on its arse after two shows - no wonder people are turning to the internet. Give it 5 years and the licence fee will be dead. Blunder , the new Friday night comedy was brave with its range of characters but only one really stood out. Karate Johnson blew everything away. Tom Meeten played a martial arts expert who tells morality tales then demonstrates his karate skills and er, bollocks. Talking of double '0's, cinema finally offered some solid entertainment with Casino Royale . The whole presentation was great and different to other Bond films: slick, dark and edgy - no cheesiness, not so many gadgets to rely on, Daniel Craig made the character more real and no super baddies that were larger than life. The only spoiler for me was the constant product placement. Sony was far away the worst offender with their Vaio, phones, Bravia and cam

Kill Bill

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Started the working week with a 2 day course away from the office. After the hassle trying to claim for travel costs I arranged a lift with 'Bill' from my department. I'm normally quite a good passenger but after experiencing his driving habits I was close to slapping him a few times. Almost all traffic lights he stopped at he would turn the engine off (just mildly annoying), drive at 5 mph below the speed limit (quite annoying), constantly played classical chamber music that reminds me of Blackadder or listen to Radio 3(very annoying), driving back home he would avoid traffic by taking a different road only on guess-work then getting lost then arriving at an even worse place before therefore taking longer to get home without asking my local knowledge (biting hand to stop slappage), getting totally flustered when given directions and snapping at me to give one at a time (hand curling into fist but still being bitten) AND refusing to drop me off anyway near my house in case

Happy Birthday Sam

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Our weekend began with a work's leaving do at Banana Wharf in Southampton. You can smell the money next to the motor boats and the bars are full of middle-aged boaty types or WAG wannabe's sniffing out Saint players. Another bar, another location on Saturday night. Inigo in Clapham hosted Sam's birthday mash-up. Decided not to drink but drive. Got a bit messy. Sam, bless her, was in a happy, huggy, birthday trance, Kev got quite out of it and Trev leading the way to dance on the tables. Got some good photos on FlickR but by 1am I was getting bored with the general rammedness of the place with beer-heads at the back of the place getting upset after me stepping on their feet to get to the toilet.

The Prestige: magic trick reveals too early

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Glad it was 2 for 1 Orange Wednesday last night. The Prestige had received some good reviews but at the end of it I didn't think it quite deserved the acclaim. The cast list was great - Hugh Jackman (Wolfman to Kerry), Christian Bale (Batman), Michael Caine (Batman's butler), Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis (Gollum) and David bloody Bowie all directed by Christopher Nolan who did Momento & Batman. All good on paper and the film got more interesting as more clues revealed themselves. Nolan and Jackman start off as assistants/stooges for magic acts before developing their own performances. The wife of Jackman's charcter dies after drowning in a trick which Nolan tied the ropes to her. He can't remember if he tied a different knot which could have caused her death so Jackman blames him for murder. Before that though we see Jackman dying after his 'final' act but that's just the tease to find out what actually happened before and after. Bowie plays some stra

Antique button bashing

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Whilst Kerry had her mop chopped in Notting Hill I turned into Mr. Sensible and did my Xmas shopping. By 1pm I had got almost everything I needed. This gave me plenty of time to mooch around and visit the Game On exhibition at the Science Museum. With a ticket time for 4pm entry I was given 1hr 30 mins to look and play. Highlights for me were rekindling memories of playing, the arcade machine, on the N64 and, a classic Spectrum game I used have as a kid. Lowlights were having my arse whipped on (the guy had obviously been there all day). Loads of games were available to play plus lots of things behind perspex glass to ogle at including a ZX81, the first Pong game, promotion stuff for GTA such as a baseball bat and the game's plot on post-it notes. Staff were a bit clever checking ticket times and booting out hangers on. I left before my alloted time as my feet had taken quite a punishment all day. What was weird for me was walking around a museum experiencing antiques within my
Grand Theft Mario If you've seen [adult_swim] on Bravo you'll like this.

Always out-numbered, never out-gunned

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How Steve got shot Originally uploaded by Ginger DJ . Mark's stag do went rather well with the paintballing. Campaign Paintball was proud to host such celebrities as Maurice Gibb from the BeeGees and some of the Bill (plus more), even Daniel Beddingfield had left his mark in grafitti. Surprised at how busy the place was and concerned whether we had to fight against under 16 years. In the first game I shot 3 balls and lasted 2 minutes. Second game I started to hang back a bit crouching then soaking my decent trainers in a wet ditch. We were winning a perfect game thanks to some more experienced players. 3rd and 4th games were in the Dodge City with lots of wooden buildings to get smoked out of. After lunch came the Speedball game using inflatable shapes with a British Bulldog game rule. Our opponents were a different team than before and had more players who cheated big time. Last scenario was the muddiest just like WW1 trenches. Because of the numbers disadvantage we were

Fatboy snipe

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Last weekend was just decorating so I won't bore you with the details. Work has been good but busy hence no blogging. Teaching karate has its ups and downs. Tuesday night was Halloween so I had the feeling a few people would be missing. Only 6 people turned up so my treats of sweets, karate related games and scary mask went out the window, and my least favourite student, ugly and fat kid Joe wound me up in front of the class pointing out my mistakes as usual. He's about 13, probably eats chips with everything and has been promoted to a high grade without putting any effort into it and for just turning up 5 times a week. You'd think all that training he'd be skinny as a rake but his lardy spare Formula 1 sized tyre hasn't shifted and he wears socks because the floor's too cold. I'm sure he's only doing karate to ward off bullying at school but the kid's got too big for his boots and needs to learn a lesson in manners. According to Kerry's training