| Shooting Stars |
[May. 29th, 2009|10:51 am] |
I have two tickets to go see Shooting Stars on 10th June 2009 at 5:45 (good to get there really early though, especially for this).
But, I can't go...
Does anyone want them? |
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| Dusseldorf |
[Mar. 28th, 2009|12:03 am] |
I'm sat at the end of departures/arrivals of Dusseldorf airport waiting to board my flight out of here. From what I've seen of it, it's a wondeful place, a hodge podge of old, reasonably new and new with the feel of one of Englands cities like Birmingham or Liverpool. The architecture ranges from old pre-war churches (I'd date them exactly, but I don't want to be too far out either way) scattered about art-deco appartment blocks with sky rise office buildings here and there.
I arrived yesterday morning at 9am, was at work by 9:30 and after a day of work which I could have achieved in London I was the last to leave the office at 6 ish. The office, it must be said, has been the hardest part of the city to find my way around and I got lost on my way out to the lifts. Everyone here is very polite and they all have well spoken English, which, as with anywhere you visit, is reasonably annoying as it means in my short stay there is no way I'm going (and I haven't) to learn any German. It's to the extent that I had to ask the person sitting next to me if they were actually English because their English and German both seemed so good. He was, infact, a bloody Yorkshireman who grew up in Sheffield and he had live in Germany for quite some time either here in Dusseldorf, Berlin or a rural town which I forget the name of.
I was rather tired when I got to my hotel, which has a chinese contigent of that cannot be described. The hotel was wondeful, and the bed, well, I'd know if it was nice or not if I didn't go straight to sleep as soon as I hit it. It's all very sad however that their services seem to be less than desired for a geek like me, no internet (or rather, you have to pay) and no tv (or rather, you have to pay). It was at least in part because of the lack of services that I decided to venture out for a while to 'discover' Dusseldorf and found myself weaving between churches whilst trying to get lost. I found it very hard to get lost unknowningly marking out main roads and key churches which I could bounces too and fro. My most shakey moment was when I went in to a small supermarket to get something to nibble when I got back to the hotel. After looking for something 'native' to buy I decided on some American Style cookies and some Chocolate for my girlfriend (a little present from my travels, european chocolate, what says I love you more than chocolate from the continent?) and appeared from the supermarket not knowing which direction I was facing, where the nearest main road was or what I should be doing. I kept walking the way I was before entering and found myself on a road with trams and a big shopping mall, this I remembered and set off back to my hotel.
I'd love to go back if only for a short holiday in which I could visit the Rhine, see the sights and perhaps have a proper Dusseldorf meal. My hotel seemed to be right in the middle of what would be called China Town, if it wasn't on a huge main road and nothing like a town, I couldn't really find anything like a traditional German restaurant, lots of pubs, but then I've never been great at venturing into public houses in different countries.
There's not much more to say, I'm on a tube back home now where I should be greeted by a nice Chicken or Lamb Kebab from a very good Turkish Restaurant around the corner from where I currently live. My flight back was ok, a tiny plane measuring five people in width and seating just four, I read about Game Theory and decided I need to look up what Sub-Game Perfection is as I don't really understand it from what the book was saying.
Game theory is a topic of another post. |
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| Would you like some mice with that sir? |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|11:58 am] |
It's rare that companies have reason to celebrate in times of recession but we saw one of those times recently and last night was our celebration. Six of us went down to a restaurant called ##NotSureIShouldTell## for a nice meal, and I must say the meal was nice, I had a pheasant salad with duck to start which was nommie and for main course I had ribeye, rare, which, as you might have guessed, was awesome. I've also started to drink wine a bit which was nice as I was able to partake, however it did mean my head was a bit groggier than usual this morning.
However, nearing the end of our stay I saw a mouse very close by, cute little bugger not bigger than a golf ball. I told the marketing guy, who's American and does not afraid of anything, and he saw it when it came back and told the maitre'd. I didn't care, and I don't think anyone else at our table really cared either, it's just a cute little bugger and it's London, they're to be expected. However, the matradee gave us some free wine so I can't really complain, which might make the name of the restaurant a bit more understandable. :)
... afterthought, why doesn't Livejournal have a "Hungover" Mood? |
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| Watchmen |
[Mar. 17th, 2009|09:40 pm] |
I've been waiting for Watchmen to be released for quite some time. For those who don't know, as most of you probably don't, Watchmen is an adaptation of the brilliant (an understatement) graphic novel by Alan Moore. As with most adaptations, it's not completely true to the original text. In fact, there are quite a lot of changes, but having said that, and having thought about it long and hard, I have to admit that the movie is very close to the original text. Far closer than most movies ever get and the movie is a good two and three quarter hours long. For the movie to be completely true it would probably have to be released as a series of movies, maybe 6 or so, each being about 2 hours at least. This is because there are so many side plots, time jumps and things that are explained so well through the medium of comic but which are nigh on impossible to translate on to the big screen without creating a mammoth. An example of this is the psychologist who, in the movie, appears very briefly but in the comic the psychologist passes Rorschach daily. His plotline interacts with many of the other complex plotlines which eventually all come together at the end. The psychologist goes through trials and tribulations in his marriage because of his apparent kindness and need to help other people. The movie introduces this character very briefly as a means to show you things about Rorschach, but then he's gone. It's almost as if he's only there so as to make the movie feel more complete to fans of the comic book, which is something that annoyed me. There's no real way of putting all of this into the movie without giving the psychologist character his own movie, or a large chunk of a movie and if you think that there are at least five of these characters you get to a story of about six hours or more. I don't want this to become a rant on why I disliked the movie. It's obvious I'm a seething fanboy who wanted the completeness and quirkiness of the comic to come across in explicit detail and it's just not something that's ever going to happen. Either way, finally, I can say I'm pleased with the result, with things to be desired of course. However, something that was brought up with me was what your regular John Smith would think of it. They're probably not going to get any of the references to the psychologist, or the journalists. They won't see Rorschach pottering about because they just don't know that they're meant to be looking for a creepy fellow with a sign. It also, unfortunately, seems that they don't get very much of anything else from the movie, or the people I have heard about don't. I'd love to hear what other people thought of it who had not read the comic book as, at a guess, I think everyone who has reviewed it would probably have done a bit of research on it and read the comic book. |
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| A quickie on Watchmen |
[Mar. 6th, 2009|10:57 am] |
I saw Watchmen last night, it was pretty fabulous, the iMax really is fantastic, even at 3am with 100 odd other geeks. There's not much I can really say on it untill all the people I know who have read the comic have seen it as everything I have to say about it is to do with if it is good or not and about the adaptation. I'm happy to wait though and let other people make up their own opinions before I force feed them my blither :D
Flat hunting day commences at 12:00... flat hunters GO. |
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| Five people you meet in heaven |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|01:08 pm] |
A few days ago I finished The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It's a lovely book about an old man, who dies and goes through heaven meeting the people who most influenced his life. It's an easy read and, well, there's not much more really to say about it. It wasn't life changing, it will make me think about who I will meet in heaven, but it was cute and quaint and I'd recommend people to read it just because it's so easy to read and pretty lovely.
Apart from that I've been not doing very much... had pancakes, NOM :D
As you might have guessed I'm not really in a writing mood, maybe I'll be able to say more about it another time. |
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| Sweets and the Nose |
[Feb. 18th, 2009|10:26 am] |
I've been trying to cut out sweets and I had an eclair binge the other day that ended in one of my fillings falling out. I now have an appointment with the dentist (which for some reason I keep spelling 'dentish') later today. This doesn't seem to have detered my sweetie eating, even though I've been told I have the startings of gum disease I still seem to eat the dreaded sweeties. This morning I was starving on my way to work and so got a chocolate bar, last night in tesco I bought some chocolate cake things, I just can't stop, well I can, and I will. Once again I'm using this as a means to let people know that I'm not going to eat sweets, this will encourage me not to eat sweets because I'll feel ashamed if I go back on my word.
Amusingly this morning on the tube some old man, probably rather excentric, though he didn't look it, jammed his finger all the way up his nose, swirled it around a few times, pulled it out and sucked on it. "NOM" is the noise I imagine he was making in his head. There was an old lady looking in his direction and I can only imagine she had nowhere else to look. Either way it made me chuckle something chronic, that and all the bustling idiots that make their way to work, run for the tube (which actually I did this morning) and get annoyed at everything. Isn't working life brilliant?
In good news I haven't bitten my nails for a long while so they're starting to get long. |
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| The Bridge |
[Feb. 16th, 2009|12:34 am] |
I've been wanting to see this documentary called The Bridge for a while, and my lovely lovely girlfriend bought it for me for Valentine's day. Not really the type of thing you'd buy someone for valentine's day, but for me, it was wonderful. It has always really intrigued me that people commit suicide as I love life so much (if not outwardly then inwardly) and feel it's a deep shame when people give up their life for whatever reason.
The documentary could easily have gone wrong, and it's not the type of thing you'd pick up, read the back of and say 'oh, that's interesting and sounds tactful'. I'd actually wager that you'd probably go the different route and comment 'that's tactless and a bit vulgar, why would these people film people committing suicide and not help them'. It is however very tactful, interesting and even quite eye opening, for me at least.
The Golden Gate Bridge is apparently considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world and it's not wonder why, from the way this documentary shows it it's a beautiful sight and in the mist is incredible. Although I prefer the suspension bridge in Clifton, Bristol the Golden Gate Bridge is a lot larger and considered the number one place in the world to commit suicide. The Bridge says that in 2004 24 people committed suicide off the bridge, though the number is more likely to be larger due to people jumping during fog or at night time. Though currently the bridge is shut to pedestrians at night time.
The movie follows one suicide primarily building a character around the person and revealing the most dramatic footage of this one jumper. It's not surprising that the majority have great depression but what's interesting is that a few people being saved are caught on camera. One mad, a photographer, takes photos of a woman climbing over the edge, and only as she's about to jump does he realise what he's doing, grabbing her by her collar and pulling her to safety. One of his comments being that afterwards when she was being taken away by police, she looked back at him and he thought she was angry for him having saved her (how do you deal with that, you feel like you've done a good thing and yet you're hated by the person you think you've 'saved').
It's a documentary that is interesting to watch and I'd recommend to anyone with an interest in psychology or depression. |
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| Flatmate (nothing to do with the bible at all) |
[Feb. 9th, 2009|05:17 pm] |
I've decided to leave the house today to save my anxiety and anger. I'm not sure who has the problem, me or my flatmate, but certainly I can't wait to move out and in to my own place (with my Emma) later this year. It's not that he's untidy, he's not, he's just thoughtless. Not doing washing up, cleaning maybe once every few months and then only cleaning very specific bits of the house and nothing else. Our electricity bill is out of this world, £80 per month, which, and I may be wrong, seems like a hell of a lot of electricity. Certainly when I'm in my own place I won't be using quite that much.
A few weeks ago he cleaned the bathroom and I must say I was impressed, I'm unsure as to if it was because I said I was sorry that the kitchen was a mess and that I was going to clean it on the Sunday (which I did) or becuase he realised it was crap. Either way, he said it had been smelly for a few weeks and he really had been meaning to get round to it, however, you know what the annoying thing is, it's still bloody smelly. I'm just not sure he really cares about the state of the house he lives in and he doesn't seem to know how to clean properly.
Like I said, I'm moving out soon, and I don't know how to drive, I have no idea how I'm going to move all my stuff from my current flat to a new one. Sofa, Bed, Books, Computer, it's all going to be a bit of a trek, especially if I move somewhere else in London, be it North, South or further out West.
I've been slightly worrying lately that I write complete trash and no one reads it, that it's complete arse drivel. I worry about this because reading an article recently about 'blogging' it said that you should write about what interests you, if it doesn't interest you how can it interest others. I just want a headsup from at least one person (that isn't My Emma) that people read this and at least get to the end of each entry before demoting me to the pits of writers hell (not that I'm a writer, I don't think I have either the smarts of the vocabulary for such a profession). |
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| Mirrors |
[Feb. 2nd, 2009|11:17 pm] |
I don't understand what it is about mirrors that people love, wherever you go there are mirrors. I happen to look at myself in the mirror daily but not that often and I could easily live without a mirror (mostly because I know I'm beautiful, jokes). I could survive because I've managed to build up this ability not to care about how I look, it's taken a while but I got there eventually. In fact, that's not true, I do care just not all that often and it would probably help me if I didn't have a mirror to look in.
It just seems like people complain so much about how they look and how long it takes to get ready etc and this seems to be entirely down to the mirror. If we didn't have one we'd not worry about how we looked as much, we'd trust friends and family to tell us the truth about how we look more often and I think we'd all go through life not worrying so much about how other people are going to think of our appearance.
What brought all of this up is that the house I'm currently in has mirrors all over the place, the two I've immediatley noticed are in the bathrooms and on the landings. The ones in the bathrooms I noticed because both I could see myself in whilst I was having a pee. This seems to be a very odd thing, why would I want to see myself peeing? Above a sink, or above a dressing table I can completely understand, both being places where you can have functional mirrors or elegant mirrors on a dressing table.
Anyway, my middle names are being taken the piss out of so I'm going to depart this realm of writing and go bedward where they goblins of friends fun can't harm me. |
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| Doing |
[Feb. 2nd, 2009|11:15 pm] |
I'm a do-aholic, however vulgar that phrase/word sounds. I just love to be doing things all the time and recently if I'm not doing something I get annoyed. It's something that I'm pretty sure I picked up from my mother, she always used to pester me to get up and go out or just do something and if I didn't, if I lazed in bed too long she got angry. I now know how she felt as I get the same feeling about my flatmate and his total neglect to do anything around the house. God knows he might be doing something useful in his room all evening, but all I know is I see the dirty washing and stuff and get annoyed. It's not only that though, I don't like to just sort of sit and not do anything. If it wasn't for computer games I'd probably work all the time.
This train journey is a great example. I read for the first half, tried to sleep for the second half and when that failed I people watched for a bit, when that returned nothing interesting (because I'm on a train and how much people watching can you really do when you can't see many people?) I just sat and looked out the window for a bit. This very quickly became boring and so I decided to turn on this little bugger and write this. I find it interesting because up untill quite recently I've just been a very lazy person and, also, quite recently, I went through a period of apathy where I really just didn't want to do anything. It did however help to be doing something mindless, watching a crap movie, a tv show, something that I didn't have to think about.
Anyway, I just recieved a text, so I'll sign off here and spare you any more babble. |
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| Zombie Dreams |
[Feb. 2nd, 2009|10:36 am] |
Recently I've not been sleeping great, I attribute it to being ill'ish, blocked nose, groggy feeling all about the head, but I've started to have really cool/weird dreams. A couple of nights ago I had a dream that ended with me taking a drag from a cigarette that had cianide at the end. This caused my dream self to stagger around dramatically for a bit, fall to the floor, cough up bloody, attempt to respawn as a different person, realise my mortality and then everything went black. That's when I woke up. It was interesting, but quite scary at the same time, my dream self confronting mortality made me think about it too (how cliched). The same night I also dreamt about some weird spiders with sharp hooks and that I was friends with Notorious BIG or maybe that I was actually him.
( clickie ) |
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| Nottingham |
[Feb. 1st, 2009|11:14 pm] |
I'm at a friends house in Nottingham this weekend for another friends birthday. I left earlish this morning trainward bound and it was pretty boring for most of the journey. There were however, two notible moments, the first was a kid who walked up and down the isle saying the announcement incorrectly, and second was a woman who had Jamie Smart Bohada te stickers on her bag, so I asked if she knew jamie smart, the writer/owner/creator of said stickers and she said that one of her friends used to go out with him... Pretty damned uneventful, how is it all these 'bloggers' have such imaginative and elaborate lives and we're here sat doing nothing in particular?
( clickie for more... )
... Now... I have to play rock band...
What the rest of the night will hold I do not know, but it's 11 already and I swear about 2 minutes ago it was only 9.
Bed is what the rest of the night holds... perchance to dream. |
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| Cormac McCarthy - The Road |
[Jan. 28th, 2009|10:44 am] |
I finished The Road last night and I must say I really really enjoyed it. It's full of hope, toil, strife, love, pain and it's written in a gripping and engaging way. By the end I really did feel like I couldn't put it down till I had finished it, ending up sitting up till well past midnight reading, something I don't think I've ever done.
It's been made into a movie and should be out later this year and I'd recommend it to anyone. I always find it's best not to know much about a book/film before you see it, so I'm not going to give anything away, just be warned, it'll have a rollercoaster of a ride with your emotions. |
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| Westfield |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|10:20 pm] |
I'm currently sat, by choice, in Westfield shopping center, the huge new(ish) shopping center in the Shepards Bush. There's not really much to report on, but it's full of the craziest people, kids, adults, mutated wild boar. The sales are on everywhere and one should really be taking advantage of such low low prices in this time of financial wreck and ruin. The Apple store has to be my favourite with loads of devices for me to play with without even buying, they have loads of phones which you can use to do whatever you wish with. A couple of weeks ago I called up a friend from the Apple store, much to his bemusement. Sent emails, used interwebs and texted. I do wonder sometime what wonderous trouble I could get myself into in that shop (not store).
Anyway, I was left alone for a while whilst my emma went off to House of Fraiser and I ended up wasting my time in the Apple shop instead of tip tapping away on my little netbook. Either way, I'm finishing this in bed, like a good old english man (though instead of grumbling about the state of the country I'm typing on my livejournal). The Apple shope in Westfield has to be my favourite shop, not because I like Apple products, far from it, I can't stand the foul little things, but it gives me a chance to get into trouble and look at a mac, use Final Cut pro or Shake or any of the other things that I'd like to use every day (on a regular pc). It also gives me a chance to catch up on all the calls I need to make, however, as the only time I can go to the Apple Shop is the weekend most of the people I need to call are not at their office desks.
Whatever, I'm babbling and I know you all love that, whoever is out there, reading, silently judging :P |
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| Slumdog Millionaire |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|01:26 am] |
My Emma and Me just got back from seeing Slumdog Millionaire, awesome, go see it!
That's it! |
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| The English (books) |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|01:23 am] |
There are two books about the English that I really love, one I have just finished and the other I read quite a while ago. The was Watching the English by Kate Fox and I'd suggest anyone English reads it to get a sense of how obsurd we really are, a feeling of dread from some of the obsurd things we do and to just laugh at it all. I'd also suggest anyone foreign reads it as it's going to shed a lot of light on why we're such a bizarre set of peoples. From how and why we queue, to how and why we say sorry if someone else bumps into us. These are small things I've always wondered and was too English to ask (not really, but it goes :).
The second is the one I've just finished and is called Queing for Beginners, it's less for the foreigner looking to find out about the bizarre species known as the English and more for and English person who just wants to find out a bit more about our past and what makes us English. What's the history of commuting, why do we give up our seats, when was the first time someone got into a fight because a youngster didn't give up their seat (this last one is far earlier (early 20th century) than one would have imagined, what with us all complaining that the country is going to the dogs because the youth won't give up their seats anymore).
I don't have any other books about the English on my list to read, but I look forward to finding some, at the moment my love is for books about Music, recently having bought Musicophilia and seeing lots of books like This is your brain on Music (I think it's called). |
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| Writer's Block: Honey Bear |
[Jan. 19th, 2009|12:59 pm] |
It's funny because my mother always used to call me tigger because I always had energy and didn't like anything that she could throw at me to eat. :P |
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| News years reading |
[Jan. 13th, 2009|08:43 pm] |
This year I was given a bunch of books for Christmas which I plan on finishing by next year, the list so far:
Bold is currently reading.
this is having read.
(The date started -> The date ended).
Queuing for Beginners - Joe Moran
The Road - Cormac MacCarthy (mid-jan -> 27th January 2009)
The Year of Living Biblically - A J Jacobs (28th January 2009 -> 18th February 2009)
Singled Out - Bella DePaulo (25th February 2009 -> 20th March 2009) Couldn't finish Page 144
The Red Queen - Matt Ridley
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
Furhter Adventures in Search of Perfection - Heston Blumenthal
The Woman Racket - Steve Moxon
Film Studies - Teach Yourself
The Nation's Favourite Twentieth Century Poems - Various
Zen and the art of Poker - Larry W Phillips
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
Holidays on Ice - David Sedaris
Alec - Eddie Campbell
Cairo - G. Wilson & M Perker (23rd March 2009 -> 23rd March 2009)
How to Fossilise Your Hamster - Mick O'Hare
Can a Robot be Human? - Peter Cave
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom (18th February 2009 -> 25th February 2009)
Mome issue one (2005)
Musicophilia - Oliver Sacks
A Very Short Introduction:
Game Theory (24th March 2009 -> )
Emotion
Logic
Intelligence
Just a short list then :) |
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