at work the other evening, as i stood watching Harry Muchmore climbing into the 3 foot square chicken side freezer and closing the door behind him, i had a very scary thought.
im really going to miss working at cosham McDonalds.
i've known a lot of the people there since we were four, and most of the rest have become really good friends. when i go up to Stafford im going to have to do the same job (which isnt as bad now as it was when i started) but with a load of strangers.
AND i wont be able to nick one of everyones fries as they go on their break...
i had loads of other stuff to talk about but i've forgotten most of it....i'll try to remember as im typing....
yesterday i got The Mighty Boosh - Series 1 on DVD, and it truely is amazing. i'd never noticed that they used so many Polo mints in the costumes.... the Hitcher even had one of those giant plastic Polos that you used to be able to get with loads of tiny polos inside over one of his eyes.
the Hitcher is one of the best characters. 'es a cockney geezah! 'e'll cutcha! e'll slash ya one way! e'll slash ya t'other way, e'll slash ya diagonal! e's like Connect Four in dagger terms! AND hes in series 2 as well...you Slaaaaag!
wooo! i've just recieved an email saying that my Jay and Silent Bob stuff is being shipped! i can now have hours of fun tracking it around the world! at the moment its somewhere in Kentucky (at least, im guessing thats what KY is...) in the USA. before that it was in Florida. slightly confusing though, cos the actual shop Jay And Silent Bob's Secret Stash is in Red Bank, New Jersey...
estimated date of arrival is 1st september. roll on thursday.
yesterday i managed to install a digital TV card into my PC all on my own, and it works! life is good.
today is the last day of BOGOF at McDonalds. HOORAY! although it is Big Macs today, which is not good. im going to suggest that because i was doing pretty much all the BOGOF chicken sandwiches from 4 - 11 yesterday i shouldnt have to do macs today. hopefully that'll work...
theres an interesting new bit of kit in the corner of the kitchen waiting to be set up. i asked Donna if we were going to start ripping off Burger Kings baguettes and she told me that [i]we[/i] did baguettes long before BK and they nicked them off of us! the bastards! apparently only the one store in the south did them, and that was the Commercial Road branch in Pompey.
judging by the fact i havent seen her for a while and her name isnt on the schedule any more, im guessing that Flirty New Girl has quit, so i'll probably never see her again. never mind. im moving up to Stafford in a month...
im reading the Da Vinci Code and its making my brain hurt, but i can look smug because i worked something out 5 pages before the worlds best Grail historian and a leading Symbologist. they were trying to work out what language something was written in, and then there was a picture of the writing. i just thought "Da Vinci used to write backwards..." then went to find a mirror.
its all getting very interesting now. i wont say whats happened because i dont want to spoil it for anyone.
the world famous Grail historian is called Teabing. its quite strange cos i keep misreading it as Teabag...
heres the answers to the screencaps game:
1) Bad Taste
2) The Man In The White Suit
3) Bubba Ho-Tep
4) Delicatessen
5) Mallrats
6) Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
7) The Evil Dead
8) Napolion Dynamite
9) The Shining
10) Clerks
now im going to check if Shari has updated her blog then go and read more Da Vinci Code in the bath. see ya later
-x-
23.8.05
Movie Caps Game! - Round 2!
6
7
8
9
10
All these images were fine on my other computer but some of them are really dark on this one. if you have this problem too, you should be able to see them if you turn up the contrast on your moniter...
7
8
9
10
All these images were fine on my other computer but some of them are really dark on this one. if you have this problem too, you should be able to see them if you turn up the contrast on your moniter...
Movie Caps Game!
WOW! As Seen on Maddies Blog! Your Life Will Never Be The Same! only one of those is true: i nicked this from Maddies blog, but i think thats what she wanted so everything is peachy. Wow may also apply in some cases. basically, below are 10 screencaps from films. you have to guess what the film is just by looking at the screencaps. post your answers in a comment, taking care not to read any previous comments which may tell you the answers. and remember, NO CHEATING!
1
2
3
4
5
for some reason its only letting me put in 5 pictures so i'll do round 2 in another blog.
good luck!
1
2
3
4
5
for some reason its only letting me put in 5 pictures so i'll do round 2 in another blog.
good luck!
22.8.05
bloody hell!
last night i discovered that i will be going to uni on the 19th of september. thats FOUR WEEKS AWAY!
it hasnt sunk in yet but when it does im sure i'll be terrified.
the other thing is that this is way too short to get my film done. the plan is now to just work on the script to get it to resemble something half decent over the year when im at uni, then just do the filming in the summer hols next year.
im still going to try to get the gang together to make a short film about something which will probably be improvised on the spot. hopefully it'll be good.
[falls off chair and curls up in a ball muttering "four weeks!...four weeks!..." over and over again]
it hasnt sunk in yet but when it does im sure i'll be terrified.
the other thing is that this is way too short to get my film done. the plan is now to just work on the script to get it to resemble something half decent over the year when im at uni, then just do the filming in the summer hols next year.
im still going to try to get the gang together to make a short film about something which will probably be improvised on the spot. hopefully it'll be good.
[falls off chair and curls up in a ball muttering "four weeks!...four weeks!..." over and over again]
21.8.05
Funking A, man!
ok, so i didnt get any As (i got three Cs and an E, not quite enough to get in to Stafford Uni) but i still got a letter from Staffs saying they've accepted me!
it hasnt sunk in that in just a few weeks i will be moving out of the house that has been my home for about 16 years and going to live with a load of strangers in a big building in a city i've only been to twice...scary!
to celebrate i went a bit mad on Jay And Silent Bob's Secret Stash (http://www.viewaskew.com) and bought Jay and Silent Bob action figures, a Buddy Christ dashboard figure (for when i get that mini...), the Clerks Cartoon series on DVD - signed by Kevin Smith (must remember to see if my 'puter is region free cos i'll be leaving my DVD player at home) and Silent Bob's Dealers Union card which all came to $120. i think that was about £70...
i was slightly annoyed that Silent Bob's overcoat was £400...cant really afford that right now...
i have now watched all the Kevin Smith films. Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are my favorites, although you do need to see all of them before you watch JaSBSB. i do want to add Clerks to my list of favorites too, but that would mean that three out of the five films would be...
i didnt like Chasing Amy much. not sure why. it was very funny, its just not AS funny when you watch it straight after Mallrats.
dont think anything else interesting has happened...i'll get back to you if i think of something.
oh, yeah, i need to email Maddie the free iPod link...and some others too.
-x-
UPDATE: i've just remembered an interesting dream i had last night.
i was on the Titanic with all my friends and family and people from work. it was dark, but we could see the iceburg as sort of a pale blue glow in the distance. we got closer to the iceburg surprisingly quickly but we still managed to turn so that it passed us safely on our right. but of course they are mostly underwater arent they? the Titanic suddenly lurched to one side as we went over a bit of iceburg that was just sticking out the water just after the main bit we'd managed to miss. we all knew what happened to the Titanic (im guessing the ship was a full scale replica or something) so we made it go as fast as possible (i have no idea who was controlling it). next thing its morning and we're all on a desert island. the Titanic is run aground (a bit like the boat in Madagascar) and everyone is walking around aimlessly on the beach. mark says something like 'i think we're lost' so i started making up things like the 'one of us is a murderer, one of us is a doctor, one of us has nice shoes, one of us likes shadow puppets' from the Lost advert for everyone. i cant remember anything after that.
it hasnt sunk in that in just a few weeks i will be moving out of the house that has been my home for about 16 years and going to live with a load of strangers in a big building in a city i've only been to twice...scary!
to celebrate i went a bit mad on Jay And Silent Bob's Secret Stash (http://www.viewaskew.com) and bought Jay and Silent Bob action figures, a Buddy Christ dashboard figure (for when i get that mini...), the Clerks Cartoon series on DVD - signed by Kevin Smith (must remember to see if my 'puter is region free cos i'll be leaving my DVD player at home) and Silent Bob's Dealers Union card which all came to $120. i think that was about £70...
i was slightly annoyed that Silent Bob's overcoat was £400...cant really afford that right now...
i have now watched all the Kevin Smith films. Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are my favorites, although you do need to see all of them before you watch JaSBSB. i do want to add Clerks to my list of favorites too, but that would mean that three out of the five films would be...
i didnt like Chasing Amy much. not sure why. it was very funny, its just not AS funny when you watch it straight after Mallrats.
dont think anything else interesting has happened...i'll get back to you if i think of something.
oh, yeah, i need to email Maddie the free iPod link...and some others too.
-x-
UPDATE: i've just remembered an interesting dream i had last night.
i was on the Titanic with all my friends and family and people from work. it was dark, but we could see the iceburg as sort of a pale blue glow in the distance. we got closer to the iceburg surprisingly quickly but we still managed to turn so that it passed us safely on our right. but of course they are mostly underwater arent they? the Titanic suddenly lurched to one side as we went over a bit of iceburg that was just sticking out the water just after the main bit we'd managed to miss. we all knew what happened to the Titanic (im guessing the ship was a full scale replica or something) so we made it go as fast as possible (i have no idea who was controlling it). next thing its morning and we're all on a desert island. the Titanic is run aground (a bit like the boat in Madagascar) and everyone is walking around aimlessly on the beach. mark says something like 'i think we're lost' so i started making up things like the 'one of us is a murderer, one of us is a doctor, one of us has nice shoes, one of us likes shadow puppets' from the Lost advert for everyone. i cant remember anything after that.
15.8.05
"why do you have to make the bacon so curly?"
im eating a bacon baguette, but its not very nice.
im a big fan of the food group known as BCBs* but this bacon is too burnt. plus its smoked and we usually have normal and we've also got a different brand of chilli sauce which, while nice, isnt quite as nice as the stuff we usually get.
Arrested Development was GREAT last night!
"i blue myself" "theres got to be a better way to say that"
"Tobias went to the Blue Man Group audition to be seen. unfortunately, as it was twilight, he wasnt" [Tobias is hit by a car]
oh, and Oscar being arrested and beaten at least 4 times because the police mistake him for his twin brother George snr.
its all good.
after that i watched Doctor Who - Spearhead from Space. apparently it was the first episode with Jon Pertwee after the regeneration from Patrick Throughton. it was quite good. very cheesy. it had the Autons in, no Nestine Consciousness though, just the Nestine people and their Autons. some nice "im being attacked by i giant plastic tentacle" acting from Mr Pertwee. i didnt know that the coat he wears with the little half cape thing on the back was actually nicked from a doctor. the type that works in a hospital.
this morning i woke up really early, annoyingly, and listened to Chris Moyles talking to Eugene from Big Brother. he sounded like quite a nice person, if a bit too similar to Jon Tickle from last year.
then i ordered pretty much Kevin Smith's entire back catalogue of films: Clerks 10th anniversary edition, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Dogma is the only one missing, because i already have it on video. im ashamed to admit that Dogma is the only one i've seen, but i have been meaning to watch the others for ages.
only set me back about £40, and thats including Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story too.
im going to watch them all in order, but not all in one go. past experience has taught me that i start to doze off during the third film in a row. thats the main reason why i've only seen the start of Day of the Dead. must watch that before Land of the Dead comes out....
after that i watched the original Amityville Horror. it was really boring, although there were one or two good bits. not gonna bother with the remake.
i think thats all i have to say for now....on weds i've been invited to Katie Gobles house (see TTotLD2) for a "Pizza and Friends night". not sure if that just means our group of friends meeting up to have pizza or if it means our group of friends meeting up to have pizza and watch the american sit-com Friends. the second option is quite likely considering shes my bestest mate Mark's girlfriend and most of his life revolves around Friends. give him any quote and he can tell you the character, episode title, episode number and series. could he be any more obsessed?
Gah! have to be at work in an hour....
*burnt crunchy bits
im a big fan of the food group known as BCBs* but this bacon is too burnt. plus its smoked and we usually have normal and we've also got a different brand of chilli sauce which, while nice, isnt quite as nice as the stuff we usually get.
Arrested Development was GREAT last night!
"i blue myself" "theres got to be a better way to say that"
"Tobias went to the Blue Man Group audition to be seen. unfortunately, as it was twilight, he wasnt" [Tobias is hit by a car]
oh, and Oscar being arrested and beaten at least 4 times because the police mistake him for his twin brother George snr.
its all good.
after that i watched Doctor Who - Spearhead from Space. apparently it was the first episode with Jon Pertwee after the regeneration from Patrick Throughton. it was quite good. very cheesy. it had the Autons in, no Nestine Consciousness though, just the Nestine people and their Autons. some nice "im being attacked by i giant plastic tentacle" acting from Mr Pertwee. i didnt know that the coat he wears with the little half cape thing on the back was actually nicked from a doctor. the type that works in a hospital.
this morning i woke up really early, annoyingly, and listened to Chris Moyles talking to Eugene from Big Brother. he sounded like quite a nice person, if a bit too similar to Jon Tickle from last year.
then i ordered pretty much Kevin Smith's entire back catalogue of films: Clerks 10th anniversary edition, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Dogma is the only one missing, because i already have it on video. im ashamed to admit that Dogma is the only one i've seen, but i have been meaning to watch the others for ages.
only set me back about £40, and thats including Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story too.
im going to watch them all in order, but not all in one go. past experience has taught me that i start to doze off during the third film in a row. thats the main reason why i've only seen the start of Day of the Dead. must watch that before Land of the Dead comes out....
after that i watched the original Amityville Horror. it was really boring, although there were one or two good bits. not gonna bother with the remake.
i think thats all i have to say for now....on weds i've been invited to Katie Gobles house (see TTotLD2) for a "Pizza and Friends night". not sure if that just means our group of friends meeting up to have pizza or if it means our group of friends meeting up to have pizza and watch the american sit-com Friends. the second option is quite likely considering shes my bestest mate Mark's girlfriend and most of his life revolves around Friends. give him any quote and he can tell you the character, episode title, episode number and series. could he be any more obsessed?
Gah! have to be at work in an hour....
*burnt crunchy bits
14.8.05
not been up to much since i last blogged...
just working and sleeping really.
i went to Tescos with the money my parents left so that i dont starve to death and came out with 3 pizzas (one of which is in the oven as i type) and a couple of packets of three minute noodles. in my defence i was meant to be learning how to budget and the 3 pizzas were only a fiver (1/3 of my budget for the week) and i only got the noodles so that i had some change for the photo machine in boots. im also planning to invent something with noodles (normal, not 3 minute) along the same lines as my egg fried rice (basic engridents, then bung in whatever might make it taste nice) and another with pasta, so i will probably have at least one pizza left by weds, when my parents come home.
i did finally take my provisional licence form up to the post office (thats what i needed the photo machine) and i should recieve it in less than 2 weeks. £42 well spent, i think.
i watched Lost, and it is fantastic. i wont go into detail because i dont want to spoil it for people and i cant really be arsed. i will just say it did have me shouting at the TV and im glad to see a british character in the form of...thingy...Merry in Lord of the Rings...even if he does have a very posh accent when hes meant to be a druggy in a band. cant wait for the next episode on weds.
right now im watching Alien3 on Channel 4. i've heard its shite, but im giving it a chance. not bad so far.
apparently Cara did my OCL (like a report thing saying how good you are) today, so a pay rise may be in the works. i certainly hope so...
Maddie is back, so yay! i missed her.
ooh...the alien has just burst out of the dog...
oven is beeping to inform me my pizza is done so i will do a Shari and leave you. toodles
i went to Tescos with the money my parents left so that i dont starve to death and came out with 3 pizzas (one of which is in the oven as i type) and a couple of packets of three minute noodles. in my defence i was meant to be learning how to budget and the 3 pizzas were only a fiver (1/3 of my budget for the week) and i only got the noodles so that i had some change for the photo machine in boots. im also planning to invent something with noodles (normal, not 3 minute) along the same lines as my egg fried rice (basic engridents, then bung in whatever might make it taste nice) and another with pasta, so i will probably have at least one pizza left by weds, when my parents come home.
i did finally take my provisional licence form up to the post office (thats what i needed the photo machine) and i should recieve it in less than 2 weeks. £42 well spent, i think.
i watched Lost, and it is fantastic. i wont go into detail because i dont want to spoil it for people and i cant really be arsed. i will just say it did have me shouting at the TV and im glad to see a british character in the form of...thingy...Merry in Lord of the Rings...even if he does have a very posh accent when hes meant to be a druggy in a band. cant wait for the next episode on weds.
right now im watching Alien3 on Channel 4. i've heard its shite, but im giving it a chance. not bad so far.
apparently Cara did my OCL (like a report thing saying how good you are) today, so a pay rise may be in the works. i certainly hope so...
Maddie is back, so yay! i missed her.
ooh...the alien has just burst out of the dog...
oven is beeping to inform me my pizza is done so i will do a Shari and leave you. toodles
12.8.05
EYYY!
Anthony...you may look like a twat, but you've just got me £30 quid!
im gonna use it to put towards my Provisional Driving Licence application which i will be taking up to the post office tomorrow, as i have fallen in love with a red Mini Cooper at that place that sell cars in Hilsea. i hope i'll be able to afford it....
woot!
im gonna use it to put towards my Provisional Driving Licence application which i will be taking up to the post office tomorrow, as i have fallen in love with a red Mini Cooper at that place that sell cars in Hilsea. i hope i'll be able to afford it....
woot!
OHH!
just seen an advert for The Link with Ken and Kenneth. they're hilarious, as ever. Matt and David...watch and learn. those characters have been around for years and they're still funny. Little Britain? boring by series two.
anyway...what was i going to say before i was distracted?
oh yes....i am actually watching big brother! [waits for readers to regain consciousness]
but wait, i still think its shite, and im only watching cos theres something in it for me. i have a tenner on Anthony to win, and if he does ill get £30 back.
i found a site where you just had to take up one of their offers and then just recommend the site to some friends to get a free iPod. im already signed up for screenselect DVD rental, so i did the one where you have to sign up to another website and place a bet of £10. i thought it would be better to risk a tenner and get an iPod than spend a £100+ to buy one.
that woman who did the nasty with a bottle has been evicted and so has the actress. looks like my money might be safe. the other bloke looks like an eejit. to be honest so does Anthony, but not as much.
now theres a big brother special of 8 out of 10 cats. bah, i have to put up with Geography for another half hour....ah, but theres Jade too. she'll be funny.
so what have i been doing today, other than gambling? bugger all really. i got up late, had a bath, went on the net, watched Scrubs, 8 out of 10 cats and Bears Tail from last friday then went to work where Gay Andy mocked me for being slightly unshaven. he also hugged me, which was slightly worrying. but it could have been worse, it could have been Leo...
if you dont know, Leo is the new bloke who could only be more like Manuel from Fawlty Towers if he was from Barcelona instead of somewhere in India. to be honest i'd rather work with Manuel. his english is better.
anyhoo...the reason it would have been worse if it was Leo who'd hugged me, is that at the end of my first shift with him, as he walked past me to go and clock out, he stood way too close, put one hand on my back and the other on my arm and said "thank you". i have no idea why.
now he seems to think hes my best friend and whenever he sees me he gives me a grin bigger than his "i dont understand what you just said" grin. im terrified of him...
Gay Andy's not too bad. sometimes he acts like he hates me, sometimes hes fine. today was the first time i've been hugged by him though. why are middle-aged men attracted to me? must try to tone down my charm...
although i did keep looking up to see Jennifer quickly looking in a different direction. the second time she did it she was quite close to me, she looked away, then looked back and said "hi, Matt" then walked off. its a shame she has a boyfriend.
Davina is interviewing Macaroni the actress. hurry up and boot her off to tell the weirdo hes out and Anthony has won...
one of the ex-housmates looks like Naboo from The Mighty Boosh...
anyway...what was i going to say before i was distracted?
oh yes....i am actually watching big brother! [waits for readers to regain consciousness]
but wait, i still think its shite, and im only watching cos theres something in it for me. i have a tenner on Anthony to win, and if he does ill get £30 back.
i found a site where you just had to take up one of their offers and then just recommend the site to some friends to get a free iPod. im already signed up for screenselect DVD rental, so i did the one where you have to sign up to another website and place a bet of £10. i thought it would be better to risk a tenner and get an iPod than spend a £100+ to buy one.
that woman who did the nasty with a bottle has been evicted and so has the actress. looks like my money might be safe. the other bloke looks like an eejit. to be honest so does Anthony, but not as much.
now theres a big brother special of 8 out of 10 cats. bah, i have to put up with Geography for another half hour....ah, but theres Jade too. she'll be funny.
so what have i been doing today, other than gambling? bugger all really. i got up late, had a bath, went on the net, watched Scrubs, 8 out of 10 cats and Bears Tail from last friday then went to work where Gay Andy mocked me for being slightly unshaven. he also hugged me, which was slightly worrying. but it could have been worse, it could have been Leo...
if you dont know, Leo is the new bloke who could only be more like Manuel from Fawlty Towers if he was from Barcelona instead of somewhere in India. to be honest i'd rather work with Manuel. his english is better.
anyhoo...the reason it would have been worse if it was Leo who'd hugged me, is that at the end of my first shift with him, as he walked past me to go and clock out, he stood way too close, put one hand on my back and the other on my arm and said "thank you". i have no idea why.
now he seems to think hes my best friend and whenever he sees me he gives me a grin bigger than his "i dont understand what you just said" grin. im terrified of him...
Gay Andy's not too bad. sometimes he acts like he hates me, sometimes hes fine. today was the first time i've been hugged by him though. why are middle-aged men attracted to me? must try to tone down my charm...
although i did keep looking up to see Jennifer quickly looking in a different direction. the second time she did it she was quite close to me, she looked away, then looked back and said "hi, Matt" then walked off. its a shame she has a boyfriend.
Davina is interviewing Macaroni the actress. hurry up and boot her off to tell the weirdo hes out and Anthony has won...
one of the ex-housmates looks like Naboo from The Mighty Boosh...
11.8.05
WARNING! This Blog may contain traces of nuts, dust and spoilers
Personally i dont think anything i say about either of the films i saw today can really be called spoilers as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was written years ago and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who couldnt tell you pretty much the whole plot if you asked them and War of the Worlds has been around for literally a century and at least 4 versions, but never mind, i should probably warn the people who have been imprisoned/trapped in a deep dark hole/picked up by aliens, moved at the speed of light, then come back to find its 200 years later even though they've only been gone a couple of minutes á la Close Encounters/whatever that the following does contain spoilers. if i remember there will be some spoiler free stuff at the bottom.
SPOILERS AHOY
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
i saw this first so i'll talk about it first. much better than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! its much closer to the book and far less cheesey. Tim Burton is a genius, Johnny Depp is a fantastic actor, the children could speak their lines without looking and sounding like they were reading them off a card just out of shot when they've only been able to read for a week (see younglings in Star Wars Episode III for comparison) , Christopher Lee, they had mostly REAL SQUIRRELS instead of CGI, Deep Roy makes a great Oompa Loompa, Kevin Eldon and Mark Heap walking comedy dogs and talking with comedy voices, a fantastic 2001 reference (i was the only person in the whole cinema to laugh when it came on the Oompa Loompa's TV, and again when the music started), and Helena Bonham-Carter really is quite fit...
as for the down side....how the hell did Charlie manage to spend a 10 DOLLAR BILL in a BRITISH sweet shop? who in Britain uses the word candy? the small child behind me sang along to the advert for Coco Rocks at the start and then started kicking the back of my chair towards the end of the film. thats about it.
one thing thats annoyed me with both versions of the film though: surely sending the chocolate bars via TV is a really bad thing to do economically speaking? they have to use hundreds of times more chocolate to make the bar to send, only for it to be reduced to the size of a normal bar. it has just occured to me that it might be possible to send that one huge bar to millions of different TVs. that would be quite good for making a profit.
War of the Worlds
wow. very dark and very un-Spielberg-ey for a Spielberg film. even the camera movements would have been more suited than a Sam Raimi film to a Spielberg. not that im complaining, i thought it was fantastic. i used to hate Tom Cruise with a passion, but since i've seen Mission: Impossible hes really grown on me (and that was before i was told i look like him). i very nearly laughed out loud when the martians started zapping people and turning them to dust. i liked the way their clothes fluttered down afterwards...there were some points when i was nearly in tears too.
only three bad things i can think of:
Dakota Fanning's screaming was REALLY annoying. it went in via your ears then scraped its fingernails down your brain.
Robbie really should have died.
"...those microbes which god, in his wisdom, put on this planet..." i'll accept it in the 1888 novel by H. G. Welles because they didnt know any better back then. i'll also let it slide in the 1933 radio series and just get mildly annoyed with it in the 1953 film, but for fucks sake! we're in the 21st century! you can keep the bit about how we've earnt the right to live here by building up an immunity to them, but please! they're here by chemical chance, same as us! of course thats just my religious belifs (i.e. non-existant.....like god....)
bah...i forgot to listen out for the noise the tripods made as the martians inside were dieing. i wonder if it was the same sound that the shark in Jaws made when it died and when the lorry in Duel drove off the cliff...?
HERE ENDETH THE SPOILERS
as i predicted, yesterday i took my script to Muscats and all my main cast read it and...and...and there is a grasshopper standing on my Paint Shop Pro 7 & Animation Shop 3 Reference Guide.....how did he get in and why did he decide to clean his antenna and feet on a big white book when theres a nice green CD case not too far to the left? c'mon you....you'll die in here...let me take you to my room where i can chuck you out the window into the garden where you'll have a slightly higher chance of surviving? now hes jumped on the side of the book case...now back over the books and CDs he was on to get to the computer speaker. [Matt wrestles with the grasshopper and is briefly overpowered but he quickly regains control] ok. hes out the window now.
anyhoo....oh, yes....as i predicted, yesterday i took my shite script to Muscats and my main cast read it and thought it was hilarious. i really need to work on the character development side of things to make it A) longer and B) less shite. i want to get the script pretty much finished by the end of the weekend. it wont happen, but i'd at least like to have it nearly done so that i've got something for Shari to read to make sure it is less shite before we begin filming, although i am quickly running out of time for that...
i asked people if they had any ideas for other possible songs to go at the start instead of I Predict a Riot by the Kaiser Chiefs. Lynda, who i dont like much anyway, suggested pretty much everything that wasnt suitable from Jimi Hendrix to Britney Spears, so i had fun arguing with her. the only thing she suggested that was halfway decent was Dont Stop Me Now by Queen, but as i pointed out, the aim is to NOT try to blatantly rip off Shaun of the Dead. i also argued with her about M*A*S*H. she thinks its great. i disagree.
i could have killed her later on in the evening. we were all watching Spider-Man 2 and she kept making comments about the Peter/MJ love story (stuff like "yeah, so what? its only her" when Peter is staring at MJ walking down the stairs with John Jameson Jr at the plane-arium) obviously shes never had the oportunity to find out what it feels like to see the love of your life with someone else...
must stop being depressing. tomorrow im going to either watch the first two episodes of Lost from Channel 4 last night or listen to my parents record of the 1933 radio series of War of the Worlds, cos i still havent heard that yet, depending on what sort of mood im in.
GAH! i've just almost had a heart attack. the volume was a lot higher than normal for some reason and i received an un expected email. as a result Yahoo Messenger blared out some Papa Lazarou talking nonsense way too loudly. damn spam! its bad for your health!
im home alone til weds cos my parents are camping. may have a few friends over next monday or tuesday, depending on when im working next week. nothing too big though...
hum....im off to bed now. see ya later! wow....have i really spent an hour and a quarter writing this....?
SPOILERS AHOY
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
i saw this first so i'll talk about it first. much better than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! its much closer to the book and far less cheesey. Tim Burton is a genius, Johnny Depp is a fantastic actor, the children could speak their lines without looking and sounding like they were reading them off a card just out of shot when they've only been able to read for a week (see younglings in Star Wars Episode III for comparison) , Christopher Lee, they had mostly REAL SQUIRRELS instead of CGI, Deep Roy makes a great Oompa Loompa, Kevin Eldon and Mark Heap walking comedy dogs and talking with comedy voices, a fantastic 2001 reference (i was the only person in the whole cinema to laugh when it came on the Oompa Loompa's TV, and again when the music started), and Helena Bonham-Carter really is quite fit...
as for the down side....how the hell did Charlie manage to spend a 10 DOLLAR BILL in a BRITISH sweet shop? who in Britain uses the word candy? the small child behind me sang along to the advert for Coco Rocks at the start and then started kicking the back of my chair towards the end of the film. thats about it.
one thing thats annoyed me with both versions of the film though: surely sending the chocolate bars via TV is a really bad thing to do economically speaking? they have to use hundreds of times more chocolate to make the bar to send, only for it to be reduced to the size of a normal bar. it has just occured to me that it might be possible to send that one huge bar to millions of different TVs. that would be quite good for making a profit.
War of the Worlds
wow. very dark and very un-Spielberg-ey for a Spielberg film. even the camera movements would have been more suited than a Sam Raimi film to a Spielberg. not that im complaining, i thought it was fantastic. i used to hate Tom Cruise with a passion, but since i've seen Mission: Impossible hes really grown on me (and that was before i was told i look like him). i very nearly laughed out loud when the martians started zapping people and turning them to dust. i liked the way their clothes fluttered down afterwards...there were some points when i was nearly in tears too.
only three bad things i can think of:
Dakota Fanning's screaming was REALLY annoying. it went in via your ears then scraped its fingernails down your brain.
Robbie really should have died.
"...those microbes which god, in his wisdom, put on this planet..." i'll accept it in the 1888 novel by H. G. Welles because they didnt know any better back then. i'll also let it slide in the 1933 radio series and just get mildly annoyed with it in the 1953 film, but for fucks sake! we're in the 21st century! you can keep the bit about how we've earnt the right to live here by building up an immunity to them, but please! they're here by chemical chance, same as us! of course thats just my religious belifs (i.e. non-existant.....like god....)
bah...i forgot to listen out for the noise the tripods made as the martians inside were dieing. i wonder if it was the same sound that the shark in Jaws made when it died and when the lorry in Duel drove off the cliff...?
HERE ENDETH THE SPOILERS
as i predicted, yesterday i took my script to Muscats and all my main cast read it and...and...and there is a grasshopper standing on my Paint Shop Pro 7 & Animation Shop 3 Reference Guide.....how did he get in and why did he decide to clean his antenna and feet on a big white book when theres a nice green CD case not too far to the left? c'mon you....you'll die in here...let me take you to my room where i can chuck you out the window into the garden where you'll have a slightly higher chance of surviving? now hes jumped on the side of the book case...now back over the books and CDs he was on to get to the computer speaker. [Matt wrestles with the grasshopper and is briefly overpowered but he quickly regains control] ok. hes out the window now.
anyhoo....oh, yes....as i predicted, yesterday i took my shite script to Muscats and my main cast read it and thought it was hilarious. i really need to work on the character development side of things to make it A) longer and B) less shite. i want to get the script pretty much finished by the end of the weekend. it wont happen, but i'd at least like to have it nearly done so that i've got something for Shari to read to make sure it is less shite before we begin filming, although i am quickly running out of time for that...
i asked people if they had any ideas for other possible songs to go at the start instead of I Predict a Riot by the Kaiser Chiefs. Lynda, who i dont like much anyway, suggested pretty much everything that wasnt suitable from Jimi Hendrix to Britney Spears, so i had fun arguing with her. the only thing she suggested that was halfway decent was Dont Stop Me Now by Queen, but as i pointed out, the aim is to NOT try to blatantly rip off Shaun of the Dead. i also argued with her about M*A*S*H. she thinks its great. i disagree.
i could have killed her later on in the evening. we were all watching Spider-Man 2 and she kept making comments about the Peter/MJ love story (stuff like "yeah, so what? its only her" when Peter is staring at MJ walking down the stairs with John Jameson Jr at the plane-arium) obviously shes never had the oportunity to find out what it feels like to see the love of your life with someone else...
must stop being depressing. tomorrow im going to either watch the first two episodes of Lost from Channel 4 last night or listen to my parents record of the 1933 radio series of War of the Worlds, cos i still havent heard that yet, depending on what sort of mood im in.
GAH! i've just almost had a heart attack. the volume was a lot higher than normal for some reason and i received an un expected email. as a result Yahoo Messenger blared out some Papa Lazarou talking nonsense way too loudly. damn spam! its bad for your health!
im home alone til weds cos my parents are camping. may have a few friends over next monday or tuesday, depending on when im working next week. nothing too big though...
hum....im off to bed now. see ya later! wow....have i really spent an hour and a quarter writing this....?
9.8.05
Meh...
after sending my 12 pages of script to Shari, i got a reply which pretty much said "its shit", and to be honest i agree. im going to do a lot of work on it tomorrow, then have a chat with the cast at Muscats in the evening to see if they have any ideas about what to do with it.
anyhoo.
i just remembered something i forgot to tell you about my holiday. i was eaten by a horse. well...nearly.
i had been forced to get up early and do some locks first thing. while we were doing the third one i turned around and found a horse staring at me. i was desperate to avoid doing locks and i noticed that there was a bridge over the small stream that seperated where we were and the field where the horse was, so i went over to stroke it on the nose.
as i crossed the bridge i realised that the horse was walking towards me. apparently it thought i had food and it was quit disappointed when i only wanted to stroke it on the nose. it sniffed at my hand as i put it out to stroke it, and then did that freakish thing that horses do with thier top lip. when it had confirmed that i didnt actually have food it tried to eat the arm of my waterproof coat instead, while my arm was in it. after it decided that wasnt edible either it got bored and wandered off.
this morning i got up at half 9 (this narrow boat holiday has returned me to normal human hours. its very scary), had a bath, then eventually left the house at 11 to go to Commercial Road.
i popped into the Sony Centre where i almost fainted at the sight of Mark actually SERVING CUSTOMERS! it was very shocking. normally he just stands around watching Friends on the many, many TVs.
after wandering around for a few minutes, looking at the new video cameras that replaced mine, the computers, simultaneously watching the news about the shuttle not landing and Russian submarines and some dodgy, overacted wrestling programme which seemed to be about a wrestler signing a contract while a man in a cowboy hat yelled at him and being called "sir" by Marks boss, he eventually got round to seeing me.
he handed me my microphone and DV tapes, got me loads of discount (i payed £50-something. he got me £47 off!), i gave him a tenner so that he can buy his first legal drink tomorrow (cos its his birthday). then we just stood around chatting for a bit. and his mobile phone went off.
Mark has been my best friend for ages, easily 5 years, maybe even more, and i do love him (in an Anakin/Obi-wan sort of way, you understand. i just hope i never have to cut his legs off), butwhen someone tried to call him, and i heard his ring tone...i almost crushed him under a KDL-W50A10 50 inch plasma tv (its HD ready and will only set you back £5799.99).
I HATE THAT FROG!
then he told me he was having a party for his birthday. on saterday. when i have a 5 - close at McDonalds. why do people not tell me about these things 2 weeks in advance so that i can book them off?!?!?!
after that i left. i went into HMV to find a CD wallet that will hold the 50 DVD-Rs i bought for about £3, but instead came out with Anchorman - the Ledgend of Ron Burgundy and Garden State on DVD instead.
Anchorman is great. its probably even funnier to me because i had low expectations of it cos all the clips i'd seen looked shite. i only got it because Empire kept raving about how good it was and HMV were doing Buy One Get One Free. the Gang War bit with all the different newsreaders wat the best bit. Ben Stiller is born to play Spanish people with dodgy moustaches... it took my ages to recognise Owen Wilson because he had black hair. i thould have spotted the weird nose and inability to close his mouth properly way sooner than i did. and that reminds me...i must remember to check IMDb to see if that was Kelsey Grammar with the ginger curly hair...
i've only seen the first half of Garden State and it is very good. Zach Braff is great and Natalie Portman is...well...Natalie Portman. its not what i was expecting, and isnt as funny as i thought it would be, but its still very good. its more of a subtle humour than Anchorman. the sort where theres long periouds of silence, then you giggle to yourself.
i had a 2 til 9 shift at work, but they let me go at half 6. which was nice. im not going to get to see Flirty New Girl until sunday which is quite depressing. and its only for three hours. never mind. im going to ask her out some time soon cos im fed up of being lonely. its not nice.
i wonder if i have time to watch the end of Garden State before The Mighty Boosh starts at 11? im gonna give it a go. speak to you later!
UPDATE: apparently it wasnt Kelsey Grammar, but im going to have to watch it again to look out for Neil Flynn in his uncredited roles as a cop. hes the Janitor in Scrubs if you were wondering. hes my favorite character...who regularly torments Zach Braff...
anyhoo.
i just remembered something i forgot to tell you about my holiday. i was eaten by a horse. well...nearly.
i had been forced to get up early and do some locks first thing. while we were doing the third one i turned around and found a horse staring at me. i was desperate to avoid doing locks and i noticed that there was a bridge over the small stream that seperated where we were and the field where the horse was, so i went over to stroke it on the nose.
as i crossed the bridge i realised that the horse was walking towards me. apparently it thought i had food and it was quit disappointed when i only wanted to stroke it on the nose. it sniffed at my hand as i put it out to stroke it, and then did that freakish thing that horses do with thier top lip. when it had confirmed that i didnt actually have food it tried to eat the arm of my waterproof coat instead, while my arm was in it. after it decided that wasnt edible either it got bored and wandered off.
this morning i got up at half 9 (this narrow boat holiday has returned me to normal human hours. its very scary), had a bath, then eventually left the house at 11 to go to Commercial Road.
i popped into the Sony Centre where i almost fainted at the sight of Mark actually SERVING CUSTOMERS! it was very shocking. normally he just stands around watching Friends on the many, many TVs.
after wandering around for a few minutes, looking at the new video cameras that replaced mine, the computers, simultaneously watching the news about the shuttle not landing and Russian submarines and some dodgy, overacted wrestling programme which seemed to be about a wrestler signing a contract while a man in a cowboy hat yelled at him and being called "sir" by Marks boss, he eventually got round to seeing me.
he handed me my microphone and DV tapes, got me loads of discount (i payed £50-something. he got me £47 off!), i gave him a tenner so that he can buy his first legal drink tomorrow (cos its his birthday). then we just stood around chatting for a bit. and his mobile phone went off.
Mark has been my best friend for ages, easily 5 years, maybe even more, and i do love him (in an Anakin/Obi-wan sort of way, you understand. i just hope i never have to cut his legs off), butwhen someone tried to call him, and i heard his ring tone...i almost crushed him under a KDL-W50A10 50 inch plasma tv (its HD ready and will only set you back £5799.99).
I HATE THAT FROG!
then he told me he was having a party for his birthday. on saterday. when i have a 5 - close at McDonalds. why do people not tell me about these things 2 weeks in advance so that i can book them off?!?!?!
after that i left. i went into HMV to find a CD wallet that will hold the 50 DVD-Rs i bought for about £3, but instead came out with Anchorman - the Ledgend of Ron Burgundy and Garden State on DVD instead.
Anchorman is great. its probably even funnier to me because i had low expectations of it cos all the clips i'd seen looked shite. i only got it because Empire kept raving about how good it was and HMV were doing Buy One Get One Free. the Gang War bit with all the different newsreaders wat the best bit. Ben Stiller is born to play Spanish people with dodgy moustaches... it took my ages to recognise Owen Wilson because he had black hair. i thould have spotted the weird nose and inability to close his mouth properly way sooner than i did. and that reminds me...i must remember to check IMDb to see if that was Kelsey Grammar with the ginger curly hair...
i've only seen the first half of Garden State and it is very good. Zach Braff is great and Natalie Portman is...well...Natalie Portman. its not what i was expecting, and isnt as funny as i thought it would be, but its still very good. its more of a subtle humour than Anchorman. the sort where theres long periouds of silence, then you giggle to yourself.
i had a 2 til 9 shift at work, but they let me go at half 6. which was nice. im not going to get to see Flirty New Girl until sunday which is quite depressing. and its only for three hours. never mind. im going to ask her out some time soon cos im fed up of being lonely. its not nice.
i wonder if i have time to watch the end of Garden State before The Mighty Boosh starts at 11? im gonna give it a go. speak to you later!
UPDATE: apparently it wasnt Kelsey Grammar, but im going to have to watch it again to look out for Neil Flynn in his uncredited roles as a cop. hes the Janitor in Scrubs if you were wondering. hes my favorite character...who regularly torments Zach Braff...
8.8.05
FILM ONE NOW HAS TITLE!
i hear you all gasping in surprise!
i hear you all saying "but hes no good at titles!"
i hear you all saying "hes been trying to think of a title for months!"
i hear you all saying "i bet its a shite title!"
i hear you all saying "ow!" as i beat you about the head.
it is not a shite title, but its not particularly original either. it is called, quite simply:
THE CURSE OF MIKEFERATU
i have also, after slaving on it for a whole day, increased the script length to 12 pages! this has, however, got me slightly worried. im pretty much into the third act and the film is only 12 minutes long. that isnt good. im also paranoid that its just a string of in-jokes about my friends who no one else will get/care about.
to help with this i have sent my 12 pages to Shari for her to read and give advice. one things for sure: its certainly not going to be the next Evil Dead. [shakes fist at Sam Raimi] although my excuse will be that he made Evil Dead when he was 19 and im still only 18 until october.
that is all for now. im going to pick up my microphone and some DV tapes from Mark at the Sony Centre tomorrow morning, then i have to face work from 2 til 9 (and probably get a warning for missing it on the sunday even though Donna said she'd sort it all out for me) then its episode three of the frankly amazing Mighty Boosh on BBC3 at 11, then on wednesday i am going to Muscats house, along with most of my cast, for pizza, DVDs and convincing everyone that Muscats Cut Down Star Wars is not a good project to be involved in and TCoM* is.
goodnight people, and have pleasant dreams about Milkmen, lobsters and a whole load of spaghetti
-x-
*a note to all Pratchett fans. by TCoM i mean The Curse of Mikeferatu, not The Colour of Magic, althought that would be a good film project to be working on too. maybe in 10 or 20 years after i've made it big....fridge magnets are great....
i hear you all saying "but hes no good at titles!"
i hear you all saying "hes been trying to think of a title for months!"
i hear you all saying "i bet its a shite title!"
i hear you all saying "ow!" as i beat you about the head.
it is not a shite title, but its not particularly original either. it is called, quite simply:
THE CURSE OF MIKEFERATU
i have also, after slaving on it for a whole day, increased the script length to 12 pages! this has, however, got me slightly worried. im pretty much into the third act and the film is only 12 minutes long. that isnt good. im also paranoid that its just a string of in-jokes about my friends who no one else will get/care about.
to help with this i have sent my 12 pages to Shari for her to read and give advice. one things for sure: its certainly not going to be the next Evil Dead. [shakes fist at Sam Raimi] although my excuse will be that he made Evil Dead when he was 19 and im still only 18 until october.
that is all for now. im going to pick up my microphone and some DV tapes from Mark at the Sony Centre tomorrow morning, then i have to face work from 2 til 9 (and probably get a warning for missing it on the sunday even though Donna said she'd sort it all out for me) then its episode three of the frankly amazing Mighty Boosh on BBC3 at 11, then on wednesday i am going to Muscats house, along with most of my cast, for pizza, DVDs and convincing everyone that Muscats Cut Down Star Wars is not a good project to be involved in and TCoM* is.
goodnight people, and have pleasant dreams about Milkmen, lobsters and a whole load of spaghetti
-x-
*a note to all Pratchett fans. by TCoM i mean The Curse of Mikeferatu, not The Colour of Magic, althought that would be a good film project to be working on too. maybe in 10 or 20 years after i've made it big....fridge magnets are great....
7.8.05
Mystery of Missing Barber Baffles Police
last sunday i was dragged out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6 am (after finally getting to sleep at 3 am after a close at Maccy Ds) and shoved into the back of a car.
about 6 hours of unadulterated boredom later i found myself in Silsden (oop nort' somewhere. near Bradford). Me, my mum, dad and grandma, got out the car and onto a narrow boat called Dans Drum where my sister and her boyfriend Paul already were after driving up from Bangor.
while we were waiting to be told we could do a runner with the boat some sort of parade went through Silsden including a Noahs Ark float (with Hilarious Cardboard Giraffes[TM]) and a Doctor Who float (with Tom-Baker-A-Like, very good Tardis, slightly dodgy Dalek, and a Cyberman smoking a fag). we fed some ducks, then we pushed off down the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (heading away from Leeds).
after that it was pretty much boredom all the way, with the occasional period of knackeredness brought on by an overdose of locks.
there were some good bits though. leaving at the same time as us were The Old Codgers (named by us) who we managed to leave behind and finally escape from on day three. one of them had a Vincent Price type mostache and kept looking at me with i slightly scary grin.
between us, me and Paul drafted a plot for a film called the Narrowboat Pirates, which includes boarding other boaters to pinch a tea-bag a high speed chase at a wopping 4 miles an hour and involves having to stop to go through a lock.
i started the script for Vamp Movie. only did about 6 pages though, so i'll need to get that finished this week.
what else?
oh, yes. some of you may know about Chavs and how they are scum and how it should be legal to hunt them. me and Paul also spent a lot of time discussing ways to kill them. Pauls favorite idea was to put a tiny, virus filled needle in the brim of every burberry cap so that when a chav put it on they would get a prick from it and get aids. my favorite is just the simple option of a samurai sword and a big crowd of chavs.
Canals seem to be a popular place for chav scum to hang out, and we had to go through Wiggan, which is Chav Central. while we were doing the 23 locks that run through wiggan we encountered a gang of them who we decided must be known as Ince Crew, according to all the graffitti (if only i'd had a marker pen to ad 'st'...). they didnt give us any trouble (not sure why. may have been the big metal lock keys we were carrying, it may have been the security bloke driving up and down in his van, or it may have been the two policemen on scrambler bikes. i guess we'll never know...) but a couple of the chavettes were looking at me with grins not to different to the Vincent Price Old Codger. understandably i had a scalding hot shower with a wire brush at the first opportunity. i still feel dirty...
i cant remember where it was, it might have been called Cherry Tree, but we stopped somewhere along the canal and needed a shop. we eventually found one that was in someones front room where you tell the person what you want and they get it off the shelf for you. i swear that when we went through that shop door we whent through a portal to Royston Vasey.
the two people who ran the shop....well...one of them looked like the fairy from Willo the Wisp, was a bit dim and gave the impression that her parents may have been in the same family before the wedding, and the other was about 3 foot tall and at least 100 years old. the biscuits they sold us were out of date too.
Hogie and her texts were a big help in getting me through the week. for a lot of the week she was with 6 of her friends because it was her birthday on monday. apparently they all decided they loved me. im not entirely sure why, but that was the single scariest phone call i've ever had in my life...
now you probably know that Hogie was an active member of the Green Wing Community, but when her parents found out that she'd made friends with a group of people on t'internet they automatically assumed we were paedos out to get her and disconnected their internet. we've still stayed in touch thanks to the marvel of mobile phones, but on friday her parents discovered that she had called me from her home phone. they werent happy, and Hogie sent a text which basically said "parents know i called you. not happy. should probably stop texting you. goodbye."
this made me feel guilty cos i'd played a big part in this rift between Hogie and her parents, and the guilt joined with missing her made me depressed. this depression made me feel lonely, and tis loneliness made me tell Deppy something quite personal. never mind. the next day i cheered up when we went to a pub and were served by Brian Topp (from Spaced)'s long lost brother, and while we were there Hogie started texting me again so everythings peachy and [sings in a Kaiser Chiefs sty-lée] OOOO-ooooh! and ma Hogie loves me! OOOO-ooooh! and all her friends love me! [/sings in a Kaiser Chiefs sty-lée] thats enough of that....
you know those electronic signs over motorways where they turn on various lights to spell out messages to inform you of any accidents or bad traffic ahead? most of the ones we saw on the way home said "make time for a break", so i kept myself entertained by thinking up other messages they could put up. i cant remember most of them but here goes: "make the world a better place: run over a chav", "you there, in the silver Picaso, stop picking your nose", "I see dead people", "Fall asleep at the wheel. Dares ya." and finally, the best of the lot: "do no allow your badger to steer"
wise words there, i think you'll agree...
i invented some fantastic games involving ducks over the week. the rules are below:
Ducky Races - for when you have minimal ducks
each player picks a duck.
you throw a lump of bread.
the player whos duck reaches the bread first is the winner.
Duck Split
throw two bits of bread in opposite directions.
see what happens.
Duck Bounce
throw bread at ducks.
try to bounce it off their heads.
and finally, my personal favorite:
Hungry Hungry Ducky - for when you have a huge crowd of ducks
Select a duck.
take as many slices of bread as you have and break them up into pieces.
use these pieces of bread to feed ONLY your chosen duck.
this game is surprisingly difficult.
especially if your duck is as useless as mine was.
i think thats everything...oh, yeah when i got home i found two tickets to The League of Gentlemen Are Behind You! had been delivered so yay! the only problem is its at Pompey Guildhall on tuesday the 6th December and i might be up at Stafford Uni...
i also had a message on the answer phone from Donna, this is the Donna from McDonalds who i told i wouldnt be able to work on the sunday because i'd got the dates wrong for my holiday, asking why i wasnt at work.
i've been writing for about an hour so i should probably stop. see ya!
oh, yeah. the title of this entry is the headline from the local newspaper in Silsden which i saw when we got back at the end of the holiday. it ammused me. im not entirely sure why.
about 6 hours of unadulterated boredom later i found myself in Silsden (oop nort' somewhere. near Bradford). Me, my mum, dad and grandma, got out the car and onto a narrow boat called Dans Drum where my sister and her boyfriend Paul already were after driving up from Bangor.
while we were waiting to be told we could do a runner with the boat some sort of parade went through Silsden including a Noahs Ark float (with Hilarious Cardboard Giraffes[TM]) and a Doctor Who float (with Tom-Baker-A-Like, very good Tardis, slightly dodgy Dalek, and a Cyberman smoking a fag). we fed some ducks, then we pushed off down the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (heading away from Leeds).
after that it was pretty much boredom all the way, with the occasional period of knackeredness brought on by an overdose of locks.
there were some good bits though. leaving at the same time as us were The Old Codgers (named by us) who we managed to leave behind and finally escape from on day three. one of them had a Vincent Price type mostache and kept looking at me with i slightly scary grin.
between us, me and Paul drafted a plot for a film called the Narrowboat Pirates, which includes boarding other boaters to pinch a tea-bag a high speed chase at a wopping 4 miles an hour and involves having to stop to go through a lock.
i started the script for Vamp Movie. only did about 6 pages though, so i'll need to get that finished this week.
what else?
oh, yes. some of you may know about Chavs and how they are scum and how it should be legal to hunt them. me and Paul also spent a lot of time discussing ways to kill them. Pauls favorite idea was to put a tiny, virus filled needle in the brim of every burberry cap so that when a chav put it on they would get a prick from it and get aids. my favorite is just the simple option of a samurai sword and a big crowd of chavs.
Canals seem to be a popular place for chav scum to hang out, and we had to go through Wiggan, which is Chav Central. while we were doing the 23 locks that run through wiggan we encountered a gang of them who we decided must be known as Ince Crew, according to all the graffitti (if only i'd had a marker pen to ad 'st'...). they didnt give us any trouble (not sure why. may have been the big metal lock keys we were carrying, it may have been the security bloke driving up and down in his van, or it may have been the two policemen on scrambler bikes. i guess we'll never know...) but a couple of the chavettes were looking at me with grins not to different to the Vincent Price Old Codger. understandably i had a scalding hot shower with a wire brush at the first opportunity. i still feel dirty...
i cant remember where it was, it might have been called Cherry Tree, but we stopped somewhere along the canal and needed a shop. we eventually found one that was in someones front room where you tell the person what you want and they get it off the shelf for you. i swear that when we went through that shop door we whent through a portal to Royston Vasey.
the two people who ran the shop....well...one of them looked like the fairy from Willo the Wisp, was a bit dim and gave the impression that her parents may have been in the same family before the wedding, and the other was about 3 foot tall and at least 100 years old. the biscuits they sold us were out of date too.
Hogie and her texts were a big help in getting me through the week. for a lot of the week she was with 6 of her friends because it was her birthday on monday. apparently they all decided they loved me. im not entirely sure why, but that was the single scariest phone call i've ever had in my life...
now you probably know that Hogie was an active member of the Green Wing Community, but when her parents found out that she'd made friends with a group of people on t'internet they automatically assumed we were paedos out to get her and disconnected their internet. we've still stayed in touch thanks to the marvel of mobile phones, but on friday her parents discovered that she had called me from her home phone. they werent happy, and Hogie sent a text which basically said "parents know i called you. not happy. should probably stop texting you. goodbye."
this made me feel guilty cos i'd played a big part in this rift between Hogie and her parents, and the guilt joined with missing her made me depressed. this depression made me feel lonely, and tis loneliness made me tell Deppy something quite personal. never mind. the next day i cheered up when we went to a pub and were served by Brian Topp (from Spaced)'s long lost brother, and while we were there Hogie started texting me again so everythings peachy and [sings in a Kaiser Chiefs sty-lée] OOOO-ooooh! and ma Hogie loves me! OOOO-ooooh! and all her friends love me! [/sings in a Kaiser Chiefs sty-lée] thats enough of that....
you know those electronic signs over motorways where they turn on various lights to spell out messages to inform you of any accidents or bad traffic ahead? most of the ones we saw on the way home said "make time for a break", so i kept myself entertained by thinking up other messages they could put up. i cant remember most of them but here goes: "make the world a better place: run over a chav", "you there, in the silver Picaso, stop picking your nose", "I see dead people", "Fall asleep at the wheel. Dares ya." and finally, the best of the lot: "do no allow your badger to steer"
wise words there, i think you'll agree...
i invented some fantastic games involving ducks over the week. the rules are below:
Ducky Races - for when you have minimal ducks
each player picks a duck.
you throw a lump of bread.
the player whos duck reaches the bread first is the winner.
Duck Split
throw two bits of bread in opposite directions.
see what happens.
Duck Bounce
throw bread at ducks.
try to bounce it off their heads.
and finally, my personal favorite:
Hungry Hungry Ducky - for when you have a huge crowd of ducks
Select a duck.
take as many slices of bread as you have and break them up into pieces.
use these pieces of bread to feed ONLY your chosen duck.
this game is surprisingly difficult.
especially if your duck is as useless as mine was.
i think thats everything...oh, yeah when i got home i found two tickets to The League of Gentlemen Are Behind You! had been delivered so yay! the only problem is its at Pompey Guildhall on tuesday the 6th December and i might be up at Stafford Uni...
i also had a message on the answer phone from Donna, this is the Donna from McDonalds who i told i wouldnt be able to work on the sunday because i'd got the dates wrong for my holiday, asking why i wasnt at work.
i've been writing for about an hour so i should probably stop. see ya!
oh, yeah. the title of this entry is the headline from the local newspaper in Silsden which i saw when we got back at the end of the holiday. it ammused me. im not entirely sure why.
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