Lufblog 02

well, we did go to leicester in the end. it seemed to be mostly people tramping it up hobo style and chavs, so we just wandered around the shops for a couple of hours. we found a brilliant shop witrh loads of lego, but i wasnt allowed any :P
we also found a d*sney shop where Andrea was magnetically drawn to all the Winnie the Pooh stuff. as much as i hate giving d*sney my money, i did end up getting a Buzz Lightyear.

we went see Da Vinci Code on monday, which was very good. Ian McKellan was great as Leigh Teabing, but lets face it, when isnt he great?
i've heard they're already starting to adapt Demons and Angels. will be interesting to see if they keep it as a prequel or turn it into a sequel considering they removed all the references to it from Da Vinci.

we didnt really get up to that much for the rest of the week. we did go and play pool on tuesday. i beat Andrea by either 4 games to 1 or 3 games to 2, depending on whether or not you follow the rule that you lose if you pot the black but then the white goes in too. (i do. Andrea doesnt)
and before you start saying i should have let Andrea win, if i had she would have complained cos shes too competetive :P

anyhoo, now im back in stafford and very bored. most people seem to have gone home already. Sanchia's still around so i might go and annoy her later.
im mainly occupying myself by packing stuff i can survive without between my parents visiting on the way home from my sisters until next saturday when they come back to pick me and the rest of my stuff up, and downloading Green Wing, Doctor Who and Family Guy. am just waiting for episode 1 of Green Wing to finish (apparently its going to take another 12 hours. its been going for at least 2 days) then i might watch both series back to back.

thats pretty much it really. oh and i did a stupidness test i got off Helens blog. turns out im totally smart :D

Lufblog 01

greetings from Loughborough!

friday was pretty uneventful. i arrived at about 3.30 and met Andrea at the station, hefted my bags into town, where we had a ver' tasty cheese steak sarnie in Subway.
after that we continued to heft my bags back to Andreas before venturing out once again to sainsburys to stock up on essential supplies.
in the evening we went for a chinese. and very yummy it was too.

saturday and sunday we didnt really do much. a brief trip to Blockbuster to stock up on DVDs. Andrea bought Legend of Zorro. i remembered too late that it was the one with Antonio Banderas in the bath....
on saturday Andrea cooked steak and chips, which was fantastic as ever, and last night i did pasta in sausage sauce, one of the few things i can actually cook. twas tasty indeed.
have promised Andrea that ill cook her some egg fried rice while im here too, and might try some of the things in me student cookbook. hot mars bar sauce sounds tempting :P

at the moment Andrea has abandonned me to go to lectures. she'll be back about 1 and depending on if its still raining or not we might go into Liecester for a look round.

speak soon.

Phew

the Film Tech exam turned out to be quite easy. everyone was bricking it when they read the front of the paper though. it said there was only 4 questions so we all thought it was essays, but it turned out to just be lots of sections to each question.
i had to guess a couple of answers, and from talking to others im pretty sure i got a few wrong, but im still confident that ive passed.

to celebrate finishing the year we went to see Mission: Impossible III. MUCH better than M:I-II. you could tell it was directed by J.J. Abrams though. it looked just like Lost. in fact i think the bit where Ethan Hunt's missus was doing CPR was identical, shot for shot, to the bit in series 1 when Jack was doing CPR on Charlie after.....Ethan....kidnapped him and left him hanging.

going to have a lazy day today. back to bed methinks...

Bono is really only 46?!

argh, i keep forgetting to blog.

to be honest, not that much has happened since last time. i handed in my 3D after a mad rush to get it finished, the same day i did a 50 question multiple choice exam for history of film which i finished in 20 minutes and in just over an hour i have a written exam for film tech which i have a feeling i might fail....

ive said this before many times, but im gonna start blogging more...
on friday im going to stay with Andrea at Loughborough for a bit, so ill try to blog what happens there most days, if not every day...

speak soon!

its been a good week.....

Last there was the long awaited return of Green Wing, and judging by the first episode, the second series looks like its going to be as good as the first.
looking forward to episode 2 tonight.

the weather has finally started acting like it should for the time of year. nice and sunny with a nice cool breeze. best sort of weather there is. puts me in a really good mood.

some days its still quite cold, but thats ok, cos on monday, at long last, after about 4 or 5 months of waiting, my Firefly Browncoat arrived! and very good it is too.



just like Mal's in the series and film, its very comfortable and keeps you warm too. i know of at least 2 FireFly fans who're quite jealous.

and finally, the best thing thats happened all week...
my good friend Andrea who i have known since college and regularly visit at uni in Loughborough, is now my girlfriend. i am VERY happy about this and i believe she is too :P


to finish off a fantastic week, im going home for easter tomorrow. am really looking forward to seeing all me friends again. hopefully will be seeing Katie and Daz sunday evening, then am spending monday with Andrea before going back to her house in the evening for the Havant College Crew Reunion. i havent seen some of those guys since the summer. i really cant wait!

thats all for now. speak to you on the other end of the country!

RAH! long overdue blogage

i should have done this AAAGES ago, but never mind.....
where do i start? ah yes...visiting Andrea in Loughborough

i went on the thursday and came back sunday afternoon. we spent most of the time watching Family Guy and having a good laugh with/at each other. On friday night we added alcohol to the equation and that proved to be a most entertaining night.
on one day Andrea cooked me steak and chips with peas and onion rings.......my favorite.....we also had my second favorite, chinese takeaway. t'was yummy indeed.

hmm...what have i done since then?

we've started filming for our Film Tech assignment, after quite a few false starts.
we did two shoots in the common room, one all afternoon, the other from about 9 til 1.
both were pretty much unusable due to shite sound quality and general poor shot setup
we've done many shoots of the street scene, all of which were ruined by either rain or the camera chewing the tape or varous other reasons.

then, eventually, we finally got to Derwent's aunts flat, did a whole day of shooting where we were getting excellent shots that looked really professional...only to find at the end of the day that nothing had actually come out on tape. no idea why.....it was really annoying. actually 'it was really annoying' is an understatement

anyhoo, we've since been back and got some useable footage. it looks like it could turn out to be quite good.

other filming news, i helped out Sanchia by being a zombie for her group. well....Lead Zombie and Corpse #1!
for the role of lead zombie i had some latex, tissue and red watercolour paint put on my face and wore my Ash from Evil Dead shirt which i had conveniently kept from halloween.
then i stood on top of a small hill looking disgruntled, then i notice the hero of the film, so i look even angrier, half point, half reach out in his general direction, speak something in zombieish (a random string of rasps, growls and gurgles i made up on the spot) then start to lurch forwards down the hill towards him as my zombie hordes come up the other side of the hill.

Corpse #1 was much more fun. i lay in the mud with raw sausages injected with honey and red food dye hanging out of a large tear in my shirt. then my future housemate Luke (not to be confused with film group Luke) ate them off my stomach :P
apparently it looked really good. i dont have any photos of either of my roles at the moment, but i know some were taken. ill do my best to get some asap and put them up on here.

im sure some other stuff happened, but i cant remember right now :P if it comes back to me i will be sure to update it.

but for now i will skip forward to Tuesday the 21st March where me and Aidan travelled to Stoke to see The Mighty Boosh Live!


it was hilarious. right from Howards play about pies ret in russia to the end of the encore.

Howard [dressed in military uniform]: woooould you like some piiiiiiiiiiiie?
Vince [kneeling on the floor with a banket wrapped round in a mother teresa style]: no i would not like some piiiiiiiiiiie
Howard: WHYYYYYYYYYYY would you not like some piiiiiiiiiiiie?
Vince: because laaast time you give me some piiiiiiiiiiiie i cut into the crust and millions of biiiirds flew out. they hit me in the eyes and temples.......it was a trick piiiiiiiiiiiiiie! whyyyyyyyyy do you give me trick piiiiiie?

Rich Fulcher (seen to the left as Bob Fossil) is a genius. ("or is he a retard? we just dont know" "im a renius")

lots of ad-libbing going on. i think he may have really pissed off Noel when he gobbed on him as Spanish Man.

Dr Pipe: Hello! I am Dr My-Car-Broke-Down
-By-The-Side-Of-The-
Road-So-I-Decided-To-
Fuck-It-Up-The-Exhaust-Pipe. Yes, its German
[Howard and Vince try not to corpse]

Vince [about halfway through the scene where Rich spat on him]: I just found something on my cheek and put it in my mouth. that had better not have come from you...
[vince drops to his knees and rocks backwards and forwards in disgust]
Vince: you know i can get you fired!


as for the plot....its a cross between the Tundra episode from the radio series and the Tundra episode from the TV series with stuff from other episodes and some new stuff thrown in.

Basically Howard lets the Hitcher out of the box he was imprisonned in for crimes against humanity (he fucked a dolphin)
the hitcher then kills Naboo, the shaman, and makes a break for freedom.
Bollo, Naboo's ape farmiliar, tells Howard and Vince that to bring Naboo back to life they must find the Ruby of Kukundu which is either in the tundra or Spain. so Howard heads off to the tundra to look, and Vince goes to spain where he meets Rudi (to the left)

theres a good feature about it here

it was a VERY good show. im just disappointed that my camera had died by the time Old Greg showed up. hes possibly one of my favorite characters.

after the show we hung around the stage door for about an hour in the freezing cold with quite a few other fans. it was worth the wait though. I met Rich Fulcher, Julian Barratt (Howard/Rudi/etc), Mike Fielding (Naboo) and Noel Fielding (Vince, Hitcher, Old Greg/etc) and got them all to sign my programme!!!
Mike is TINY! he only came up to my sholder, if that.

the Electro girls just breezed past about half an hour before the guys and i didnt see Dave Brown (Bollo) at all. ah well. will have to get them another time :P

think thats about it for now.....walked into town yesterday as it was the first actually nice day of the year so far. perfect temperature with a nice cool breeze. put me in a reet good mood.

will blog again soon....hopefully wont take as long as it did to do this one....

dont mess with me

Rusty Rastelli People Iced: Forty Car Bombs Planted: Two Favorite Weapon PVC Pipes Arms Broken: Ten Eyes Gouged: Seventeen Tongues Cut Off: One Biggest Enemy: Jack Hammer Get Your HITMAN Name

lookit

look what i made in 3D Apps this morning :P
















i think you will find it is amazing

aaaaah! lack of bloggage!

im sorry for the lack of postage, not that anyone reads this...

im going to visit Andrea in Loughborough tomorrow so i'll blog about that when i get back.
if i dont then i give you permission to beat me with pillows until i do.

in other news i have the Mighty Boosh series 2 on DVD and it is VERY good....

only another 34 days til i see them live....

I HAVE A HOUSE!

just a quick blog before i go to film tech to say that, as of yesterday, i have a house for next year!

saturday night i got a call from John saying "do you want to live with us?" so i obviously said yes, then he said "get to Sanchias for 1 tomorrow with £100 and we'll all go to see the houses and get the contracts signed".

long story short, im now sharing a house with Luke, Rachel and Phil and John, Sanchia, Damon and Jenny are in another house just down the road.
im really looking forward to this now. its gonna be great fun!

and to make a great day even better, i got paid to eat a quarter pounder :P
i gave the bloke a tenner and he gave me change for a twenty. AND he was a manager. he should know better...

i was going to put up some photos of the house, but somehow all the photos i took managed to miss all the important stuff :P

now im going to read my chat logs from the convo i had with Andrea last night because i had a few strongbows to celebrate no longer being homeless and i cant really remember what was said...

blah

as usual, i havent had much to say, so havent said anything.

on saturday Andrea arrived from luffbra to stay for a few days because she is a lucky bum and has the week off.
after her arrival our days were pretty much full of wandering into town and back, eating chinese takeaway, watching films and TV programmes (mainly Family Guy), eating bacon sandwiches, getting drunk, eating pizza, quoting Family Guy at each other, annoying each other and generally having a good time.

this afternoon we walked into town and she caught the train back to Portsmouth to visit there for the rest of the week before returning to uni.
now im feeling a little lonely and depressed because i have no one to watch Family Guy with....
however, we have decided that next time i go to visit her were going to watch all for series and the film back to back, so that will be fun.

last week i went to my first lecture in my elective module, Introduction to Programming 3D Applications. it was FUNKING boring. i switched modules asap and am now doing Geometry and Dynamic Character Design.

i had my first tutorial in Char Design today, which is pretty much how to draw manga, and its a lot of fun.

My first attempts at manga


and the profiles


and finally three quarter views. ive been told the top one looks a lot like me....

cant wait for next weeks tutorial, but before that i have to endure an hour of History of Film tomorrow morning...

speak to you later, you ragamuffins. hopefully it wont be so long til my next blog.

Im Back in Staffs

so heres a film related viral questionairre:

ONE (1) earliest film-related memory:

im ashamed to say....going to see Mrs Doubtfire at the cinema.

TWO (2) favorite lines from movies:

either "im a Derrek, and Derreks dont run" or "its Derrek! and hes gone apeshit!" from Bad Taste

"good....bad....im the guy with the gun" from Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness

THREE (3) jobs you'd do if you could not work in the industry:

sculpter.
second hand bookshop owner.
cartoonist

FOUR (4) jobs you actually have held outside the industry:

erm...ive only ever worked in McDonalds

THREE (3) book authors I like:

Robert Rankin
Terry Pratchett
Douglas Adams

TWO (2) movies you'd like to remake or properties you'd like to adapt:

the Brentford Trilogy by Robert Rankin, although technically thats 7 films :P

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, but hopefully Terry Gilliam will get a chance to do that first

ONE (1) screenwriter you think is underrated:

erm.....i dont really know of many screenwriters. perhaps if they werent underrated i would have heard of them...

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY READER(S)

i know it was yesterday, but i dont care.

happy boxing day or whatever...

will blog the festivities of yesterday later.

im home!

yup, yup! im back in Portsmouth!

im sorry, i havent blogged in a while but there hasnt really been much to say.

the League of Gentlmen Are Behind You ROCKED! so many hilarious moments...shame i cant remember them all....

[Pauline in full pantomime dame gear] "tonight...for the first time....round about half past ten.....[looks at watch] oh, it is an' all.....for the very first time in history.....its gonna start raining.......PENS!"

Pam Dooves audition for the Legs Akimbo's Comunativity with Steve jesturing at Reese as Pam saying that Ollie (also played by Reese) couldnt be there for the audition for abvoious reasons.

ah, there was so much more but i cant remember it!

oh, yer, some great visual comedy involving Herr Lipp and and Justin on a bench, but i wont try to explain it cos ill just mess it up...

thursday and friday i was working on my model of my room for 3D constantly with only about 4 hours sleep in between.
i got it finished in time to hand it in, went to the place where you hand coursework in at 4.45 and found they were already shut when they were meant to be open til 5. as you can imagine i wasnt too happy.

i was pretty much screwed because the only other day i could hand it in was yesterday and i was coming home on the saturday. fortunately Aidan was staying til the monday, so we all gave our projects to him to hand in.

if blogger will let me, and if i remember, i will put up some screenshots of my room for you to see when i get back after christmas.

also on friday, after the coursework fiasco was all sorted, i went to see King Kong. you may remember a little while ago i gave a very enthusiastic review of Goblet of Fire (which i now think is a bit too generous for what is mostly an average film). now take that enthusiasm, triple it and then square it. thats how good Kong is!
theres a couple of moments where the CG is a bit overdone, the fight between Kong and the T-Rexes (T-Rexi?) just gets more and more rediculous and theres a bit where Jack Black is blatantly running on the spot in front of a blue screen, but the rest of the film makes up for it. to be honest, those last two things made it more entertaining.

and now saturday. what fun that was....
after the half hour trek from uni to the station at surprisingly high speed considering i was carrying 3 very heavy bags, i arrived at the station just in time to see my train leaving.
i staggered over to the ticket place and asked the bloke in the fish tank if there was any other way i could get to portsmouth. he very kindly printed off a thing with all the connections for me and i staggered back to the platform and collapsed onto a bench.

because i dont trust public transport, especally trains (im paranoid that i'll get on the wrong one and end up somewhere else), i kept getting up to look at the departures board to check the trains time. and i was very lucky that i did.
my train was cancelled. i quickly grabbed my bags, went back to the fish tank (that now had a woman in it) and asked for *another* route. she told me that there was another slightly earlier train that went to Birmingham International. it has just pulled into the platform! i got on, sat down and relaxed.
if id not checked the board and saw the train was cancelled i have no idea how id have got home.

anyhoo, i got off at Birmingham International and didnt have long to wait til my train arrived. which was packed. i ended up stood with my three big heavy bags in the middle of the carriage.
fortunately this was only for one stop and i ended up sat next to a very nice girl who was on her way home to Romsey from Sheffield Uni where she was a second year doing pysiotherapy. shame she was married...
we got talking, cos there was nothing else to do, and after a couple of hours she went to get a Hello magazine. the puzzles pages provided another hour or so's entertainment. i got most of the film clues on the crossword, but was stumped by "Mrs Henderson --------?".
i knew there was a film called that, but couldnt remember the last word....
i was quite impressed with myself for getting the riddle thing from the first line (it was Wellington, by the way) and we did quite well on the clock thingy too.
anyhoo, she got off at Winchester and i went on to Southampton alone. the rest of the journey, and from Southampton to Cosham, was pretty uneventful.

when i arrived home i found grandma had come for dinner. while we were eating she told us about this film she'd seen at the cinema called Mrs Henderson Presents (AAAAAAAARGH!).

sunday was very unventful, and yesterday i went back to work at McDs from 4 to 11...and i enjoyed it!
however i sense the novelty will wear off at some point during my 4-11 tonight or thursday....
tomorrow im having a lightsabre duel with Mark and Muscat. hopefully will put up some pictures.

will probably blog before, but if i dont HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Voom

hello.

i got a bit bored so i decided to sketch some of my favorite scenes from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. as you do.

Below, are two sketches of Marvin in the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta, from Life, The Universe and Everything. you should be able to see a bigger version if you click them...


Marvin Talks to Zem the Mattress in the Swamps of Squornshellous Zeta


Marvin Tells Zem of the Speech He Gave at the Opening of the Cyberstructured Hyperbridge Through the Swamps of Squornshellous Zeta

i've also done one of Arthur and Ford being taken to the airlock by a Vogon guard, but Blogger wont let me upload it for some reason. will try again later.

i decided to call it a day for now after trying to draw a scene from the bridge of the Heard of Gold. i did a very good Arthur, a not bad Ford and then completely ballsed up Trillian.
will have another go at that at some point. and i want to have a go at doing something with Agrajag too....

if you have any requests for scenes from H2G2 (preferably the book or radio versions) i'll be happy to give them a go.

A good week for geekery

greetings people. i have not blogged for a while (again...) so i thought it would be a good idea if i did.

this week has been a good week for genreal geekery, as you may have spotted from the title.

on monday, i got a piece of british cinema history. the toaster from Shaun of the Dead!
it really is quite impressive. its made of foam stuff coated in rubber and painted. it does look very realistic.

plus it was held by the one and only Simon Pegg and thrown at some guy dressed as a zombie (Mark Donovan acording to IMDb. hey, he was Gregor in Black books too...)

in other news, my green lightabre also came!
i spent a lot of yesterday evening dueling with Luke and John. we convinced Luke that he wants to get the Darth Vader one, and Johns going to bring his Mace Windu one back from the land of the Scots after christmas.
then we can have an uberduel in the courtyard. am also looking forward to my uberduel with Mark and Muscat in Court Lane during the holidays.
am biding on a bag made for two lighting tripods on eBay so that i can stransport them to home and back on the train slightly less conspicuously.

not much else has happened recently. we've almost finished our 90 second film. we only need one or two more shots and to redo the laser bit and we should be sorted, so eyyyy.
i did bugger up my knee slightly during filming yesterday. when i was running to get James' gloves to fix a continuity error i managed to bend my knee while my foot was at a funny angle.
as a result my kneecap popped out and then back in again.

so i staggered to the little bay bit where all our bags and some of our crew were hidden, fell over and sent Luke (different Luke to above) back with the gloves while i lay on the floor for a bit, rubbing my knee and saying 'ow, that hurt'
tis fine now though.

finally, please go over to Maddie 2's blog and show your support for the 'more 463 buses' protest by downloading the protest song, written and performed by Maddie and Maddie 2.

speak to you later. unless something else interesting happens before then, it probably wont be until im back from seeing the League of Gentlemen live with Darren next tuesday. should be good.
toodle pip.


Simon Pegg with my toaster


me with my toaster

me with my shiny new sabre, and equaly shiny old one

i have just seen a very, very, VERY good film

*********************************************************************
WARNING - this kinda contains spoilers, but kinda not if youve read the book. if you havent read the book but are planning to see the film, then A) where have you been for the last 5 or so years, and B) read the book first you simple minded little goit!
*********************************************************************

yes, people, yes it is true. i have seen Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and i saw that it was good.

its much much better than the dire Stone and Chamber, but to be honest thats not hard. i'd say its just a tiny bit better than Prisoner.

the trend seems to be to make the films darker with less 'funny bits for the kiddies', which i like, and theyve also thrown in some funny bits for the older people too (Hermione: "Viktor isnt very talkative. hes more of a physical person" [insert funny look from Harry] and Myrtle with Harry in the bath)

another great thing. they've changed Professor Flitwick. hes no longer Warwick Davies wearing a clingon forehead and funny nose, hes now Warwick Davies with funny hair and a tache and almost identical to how i see him in the books.

to be honest there were still quite a few bits i didnt like. the broomstick/dragon chase was pointless and served no purpose other than to fill the lack of quiddich, and the part with Harry talking to Sirius through the fire was reduced to one scene, which to be honest, wasnt needed.
they also made a big deal about how badly Neville reacted when Moody performed the curse that was used on his parents on the spider, only for it to be glanced over in passing during the flashback of Karkarovs trial in the penseive.

the challenge with the maze was greatly improved however. instead of meeting a series of tests that were pretty much meaningless after the size of the first two challenges it was a much more sinister race through the maze as it continuously changed shape and tried to trap the entrants. and the bewitched Krum made it even better. to be honest i was expecting one of them to stumble across the frozen body of Jack Torrance clutching at his axe (although they wouldnt cos in the original end to The Shining, Mrs Torrence [i forget her name..] goes back to the hotel with the police who search the entire maze and dont find him. but i digress....) it also had my favorite shot of the film (out of the ones that didnt have Fleur in her swimsuit for challenge 2, i mean), which was of Harry with the cup glowing in the background, as he looked back at Cedric being caught up by the maze, but set at an angle.

then we have the graveyard scene. ooooh, the graveyard scene :D

the graveyard scene is what makes this film better than Prisoner.
the general 'wtf?'-ness as Cedric and Harry wonder why they were taken there and Harrys slow realisation. the very graphic death of Cedric. and then.....the return of Voldemort!
the Return was perfect except for three things. Pettigrew looks completely wrong, he was less reluctant to cut off his own hand than i remembered, and Voldemorts voice was wrong. but everythign else right down to how Voldemort looked, was EXACTLY how i saw it. Fan-bloody-tastic.

even after that it was still good. im not one who usually gets emotional at films, but the part where someone shouts out "the boy [Cedric] is dead!" and Amos Diggory runs down to him brought a lump to even my throat.

and then, not long after was what i call the Regeneration Of Evil. or at least thats what ive called it cos it gave me flashbacks to the last episode of the new Doctor Who. Mad-Eye Moody transforming into Barty Crouch Jnr....played by David Tennant!

think thats about everthing i need to mention. oh, and Eric Sykes in his cameo. always good to see.
if i remember anything else i'll tag it on the end later.

ver' good film. not one of my favorites, but still ver' good. go see it. now. this very instant.

by the light of the gibous moon....

hello, my little weblets, im back from Loughborough!

had a reet grand time too. before i start telling you what happened over the weekend, i will say that we watched 9 and a half films, and they were all linked in some way.

they were: The Naked Gun, Napoleon Dynamite, Hot Shots, The Naked Gun 2 1/2, The Mask/Legend of Zorro (whichever ones in the cinema now), Shrek 2, The Naked Gun 33 1/3, Hot shots Part Deux, a Knights Tale and the first half of Shrek.

see if you can work out the links. i'll give you the answers at the end.

WOT I DUN IN LUFFBRA

i caught the train from staffs and got to Loughborough surprisingly quickly. im sure it was never an hour and a half. i managed to scare Andrea cos i sent her a text saying im at the station (meaning Stafford) which she didnt get til she left her lecture, 20 minutes later, and thought i meant Loughborough. hah. i laugh at her.

after id arrived and met Bad Anthea, as she likes to be known *ahem*, at the station we wandered through the streets of Loughborough and found a hyowge and busy fun fair.

we negotiated our way through to Andreas halls which look a lot older than mine [looks smug] but she also seemed to have a bigger room. although this might just be some sort of optical illusion due to my wardrobe almost reaching the ceiling and hers not.

once there we watched Naked Gun before venturing back out into the cold and darkness to A) take some photos for my film Tech assignment and B) go forraging for pizzas in Sainsburys.

both were successful. (see left for the photo ive chosen to submit and the contents of my digestive system for pizza)

after our victorious return we celebrated by cooking and eating the pizza and then watching the remaining 2 Naked Gun films and Hot Shots.

by then it was about 1 in the morning. we found Muscat was still online and then (delete as appropriate depending on if youre Muscat or not) did lots of naughty things to each other involving hand cuffs, chocolate sauce, lightsabres and sheep/wound up Muscat by saying we were doing lots of naughty things to each other involving hand cuffs, chocolate sauce, lightsabres and sheep.

then to bed. Excellent host as ever, Andrea kept her nice comfey bed and gave me a sleeping bag on the floor.
meh, it wasnt too bad. i slept quite well considering. and when we woke up in the morning (just. it was 11.30) i jumped, still in my sleeping bag, onto her bed for a bit.

after we eventually got up we wandered back into town, negotiating our way through the carnival people once again, and got a Maccy Ds for lunch (mmmmmm.....beef deli sandwich....) before heading round to t'cinema to see t'Legend of Zorro, wich is tres bon. i know the Spanish for 'very good' would have been better but i dont know what it is so nyah. [UPDATE: 'Muy Bueno', according to Maddie]
lots of fantastic fights, a good storyline, a small boy who can act, great jokes, Catherine Zeeta-Jones in a low cut dress and Anthonio Banderas naked [for the ladies] (im sure it should have been a 12 instead of a PG cos of that) and a great action set-piece on a train.

while i was saying what i thought about the film and Andrea was saying what she thought about Anthonio Banderas, we bought some STEAK! and chips and then went back to Andreas where we had STEAK!, chips, peas and onion rings, although she had to cook a second lot of onion rings cos the first lot were....erm....well camoflaged on the black baking tray...
aside from that it was a very good meal. especially the very, very, very, very nice STEAK! which cooked perfectly by the lovely Andrea. yummy yummy. i think i'll be going back to that restaurant again...

after that we watched Hot Shots Part Deux, A Knights Tale and Shrek 2, before going to bed.


today we had a pretty lazy day. got up late, Andrea had a shower then i went for a bath, just for the novelty cos we dont have one here. twas a very good bath despite Andreas flatmats thongs hanging on the radiator...
afterwards we wandered back into Loughborough to find that the fair had mysteriously disappeared overnight, and bought a sandwich and rented Napoleon Dynamite from Blockbuster. i also bought my essential student purchase (see right) .

again, we returned to Andreas abode to masticate upon the aforementioned sandwiches and did look upon the aforementioned film.
during the film we were joined by andreas friend James, who isnt a Muscat or a Mullineaux. hes another James.
after Napoleon was finished we only had about an hour before we had to leave to go to the station, and didnt really have anything else to do, so we started to watch Shrek.

the train journey home was pretty uneventful. i did finish reading Dracula though. t'was very good, and well worth reading. now i get to read THe Liar, Stephen Frys first novel, so woo!

anyhoo. now im home so i think thats pretty much it. think sleep might be a good idea right about now.

Goodnight, you lovely people!

wow...its 12.17. i started writing this at 10.47....

THE OFFICIAL ANSWERS TO THE LINKY LINK FILMY MCGAME(TM)
ideally, we would have liked them to all be linked in a continuous loop, or ourobourous if you will, but unfortunately that is not the case:

The Naked Gun
same franchise as
The Naked Gun 2 1/2
also same franchise as
The Naked Gun 33 1/3
written and directed by the same people as
Hot Shots
same franchise as
Hot Shots Part Deux
features both someone pulling off a beauty spot and someone mentioning the joke about a horse going into a pub and the barman saying "why the long face?", as does
Shrek 2
stars Anthonio Banderas, as does
Legend of Zorro (it wasnt Mask)
in which the bad guy is played by the same bloke as the bad guy in
A Knights Tale

this is where it goes a bit wrong. we wanted something to link Knights Tale back to Naked Gun, but thought this might be a bit difficult so:

Napoleon Dynamite
has a mexican character who would have fitted in in
Legend of Zorro
AND in one scene said mexican character, Pedro, makes a pinata in the form of another student and in
Shrek 2
Donkey mentions some guy took him to a party where all his friends tried to pin a tail onto him [donkey, not the guy] and then they all started beating him with sticks and shouting "pinata! pinata!"

oh, yes and Shrek 2 is the same franchise as Shrek

Wibble

First up, Halloween pics:


a dodgy picture of me as Ash


Sanchia looks puzzled


Rachel and Luke trying to work out how youre meant to make an origami beaver


Sanch, Dan and Pumpkin with said Origami Beaver


that guy whos name i can never remember in Lukes pirate hat


Dan auditions for the part of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz


and on friday.....i went home!

twas very very good. on saturday Katie came round in the morning, and we were joined by Emma at 2. we went to see Wallace and Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (third time for me)

later on i went to Marks and had a go on his purple lightsabre (something tells me i should rephrase that) before we headed off to the pub and got slightly jovial (but only slightly cos i only had a pint and a half). a good time was had by all. and i made him promice to talk to us online more, and to come to Stafford to visit. so far hes done neither.

on sunday i went out with my family on my mothers side for a meal, where mum and my two aunts tried to take the worst possible photos of each other and there were general discussions along the lines of "who is going to get great-uncle Tony's farting clock?"

monday was quite exciting. i got my hair cut (not yet found a barbers in Stafford...), went to McDonalds and told them when id be back to work, then had a major race against time involving a car chase. ish.

saturday and sunday there had been no trains running in Portsmouth due to engineering work. i walked round to the station with dad to go home but all the trains to southampton were running late, meaning that by the time i got to southampton central id only have a minute to find my train before it left for Stafford.

dad offered to drive me there instead. after driving faster than dads ever driven in mums car and jumping a few lights we got to the station with 2 minutes to spare.
ah, well. i got the train and managed to get home, so thats ok

tomorrow afternoon im disappearing for a whole other weekend cos im going to visit Andrea at Loughborough. should be good.

UPDATE: Paula now has a blog of her exciting times in australia. go read now. see link ---->

Halloween, and stuff

i had some photos from last monday, but Blogger is being an arse and wont let me upload them. will try again on sunday. might have some of Sanchias photos then too.

Monday didnt quite go as planned. John randomly dissappeared off to Stoke without telling anyone and Luke had to go to a drama thing. instead, we just sat in Sanch and Rachs kitchen chatting for a few hours, before heading off to the Lounge for a bit, then finding our way to a party in one of the other houses in Stafford Court where i won a game of twister. possibly as i was the least inebreated person playing.

that party kinda broke up after the fire alarm went off, and we went home.

not done much else this week. went to a preview screening of Brothers Grimm yesterday, which was very good, if a bit predictable in places. im really hopeing it does well in the box office so that someone will actually give Terry Gilliam the money to make Good Omens....

well thats about all for now, except im going back to Pompey for the weekend!however, this does mean i wont be online for most of the weekend, but some people will be getting some pretty random text messages when i get bored on the 4 hour train journeys.

anyway, thats all for now. i will return on sunday with (hopefully) halloween photos and tales of what i got up to at home.

toodle pip!