No Man Can Live At That Speed!

After quite a slow week of not making much progress, things are suddenly moving rather quickly indeed.

I found an ad in the paper which said:

WEB SITE PHOTOGRAPHER
Portsmouth based surf/lifestyle website requires a full time photographer to start with immediate effect. W need you to be able to hit the ground running!
If you would like to join a fast moving company and have the following qualifications and a flexible attitude then get in contact with us now!

Qualified to A Level standard in photography.

Knowledge of a digital SLR camera.

Proficient in the use of Adobe Photoshop or similar software.

Experience of a flash studio set up.

You need to be able to work using your own initiative and respond to the seasonal demands of the business. You may also be required to help out with product descriptions and web design if necessary.

Salary negotiable depending on experience.

References required.

Contact us by Email.

I thought that sounded interesting so yesterday evening I sent sent this email:

Dear Jane

I am emailing to enquire about the website photographer position you advertised last week.

I am a graduate from Staffordshire University with a BSc (Hons) in Digital film, Animation and 3D Technology.

The course included working with both digital video cameras and digital still photography, image manipulation using Adobe Photoshop, 2D animation using Adobe After Effects, 3D modelling and texturing using both Maya and 3DS Max, lighting for both photography and film and 3D rendered models, video editing and effects in both Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects and DVD authoring.

I do not have experience with a flash studio set up, but I thought my experience with lighting for film and photography would be helpful.

I have attached a copy of my CV with a more complete list of my skills and also contains a link to a showreel of my previous projects.

If you think I would be suitable for the photographer position or if you have any other positions you think I would be suitable for, please let me know.

Yours Sincerely

Now I wasn't expecting much to come from it, but when I woke up this morning I found an email in my inbox from a certain Jane.

Hi Matt – thanks for your email

Our website is: www.boardsportwarehouse.com – take a look.

All product is photographed in our studio at our base in Farlington.

We need all our products photographed and loaded onto the site which at times would also require product descriptions. We are a seasonal business so there are peaks and troughs as to when product arrives. At the start of each season i.e. Aug/Sept & Feb/Mar there is a constant flow of goods coming into the warehouse this then peters off which is why we need someone who can be flexible. At peak times it is a matter of getting as much photographed and onto the website as quickly as we can. Outside of these busy times we need design work done on the site and monitoring of other sites who we see as competitors.

Our website is fulfilled by our retail stores – currently numbered at 6 – we have partnerships with Animal & Quiksilver.

Hours are Mon to Fri 9.00 to 5.30 (with an hour for lunch).

If this interests you then please email your salary expectations.

Thanks

Jane

Now i'm slightly worried. I have no idea what sort of salary to ask for. I have no idea what they're thinking. If I ask for too much they could cast me aside and hire somone out of college with a photography a level for minimum wage, if I ask for too little they could stamp my file with a big "CHUMP" stamp, hire me for my suggestion and put however many thousands a year extra I could have been earning into their profits. Scary stuff.

Having thought about it for a bit, and discussing it with the parentals, I'm going to ask for something in the region of £17000-£20000. I suppose I'd better draft an email now....I'll come back when I'm done...

UPDATE:
It took a lot of thinking but I've finally written my demands in the form of an email:

Hi Jane

Thanks for getting back to me, the position does sound very interesting.

The salary I was thinking of was something in the region of £17000 to £20000, depending on terms and conditions. I would be interested to hear what sort of salary you had in mind.

As I said, I am interested in the position, and I would be happy to come in to discuss it and have a look around.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks

Matt

Just after I sent it I got an automatic reply saying she'll be out of the office on monday the 8th and tuesday the 9th, but thats fine by me because on sunday I'm going to Frome to visit Hogie, we're going to the Doctor Who Exhibition in Cardiff on monday and I'll be coming home tuesday, so its all good :)

I *AM* Still Alive

So i've decided to get back into blogging. Even if no one actually reads it, it might actually inspire me to do something worth blogging about.

So what have i been up to? Since I last blogged, quite a bit has changed:
I've completed and handed in many pieces of coursework with varying degrees of success.
I've completed my final year project and disertation and handed them in.
I've moved out of Stafford for (probably) the last time and back into my parents house in Portsmouth.
I've spent a couple of months trying not to worry about results while watching many DVDs.
I've received a letter telling me I have passed my course and am now a bachelor of science with third class honours, which isn't the best but it's ok, because its still a pass, and Daisy in Spaced got a third.
I've put on a silly hat and coat and shaken hands with vice-chancellor Christine King.
I've received a certificate which officially declares me a bachelor of science with third class honours.
I've watched every serial of Doctor Who from the time William Hartnell was the Doctor
I've extended the overdraft of one of my bank accounts and closed the other one completely (after two months of trying in which they took 36p interest, and 91p 'advance' interest which seemed like a desperate last grab at my money)
I've watched every serial of Doctor Who from the time Patrick Troughton was the Doctor, up to The Evil of the Daleks, which I plan to watch soon.
I've spent some time socialising with my good friends Mark and Mary-Anne.
I've met up with a friend who I've known for several years over the internet.
I've started coming to the end of my extended overdraft.
I've decided its probably about time i started trying to get a job.

Thats about it really. I have also read many books, and still have a pile of about twenty six to go after the current one, Dr No, by Ian Fleming.

I have also decided that unless it comes to having to live on the streets under a newspaper, eating out of bins, I will NEVER go back to work at McDonalds. Last summer I only returned for the money and the friends I had there. This year it seems that most of those friends had moved on, and I'd be surrounded by trainees who'd be thinking I was a trainee too, even though I'd been working there since December 2004. And they've got a new uniform so I doubt I'd still be able to get away with wearing my old uniform which was the one before the last uniform they had.
But yeah, I was enjoying it little enough last year when I still knew most of the people. If its just whoring myself out for McDonald's money, I think I'll give it a miss.

So what am I going to do instead? Ideally i'd like to get in somewhere doing graphic or motion design, working with Photoshop and After Effects, and gradually work up to becoming the next Guillermo Del Toro over many, many years.
This does seem a little far fetched however, so while I'm sending my CV and showreel (have a look ) off to whatever graphic design, or video production company I can find in Portsmouth, I will also be looking for something a little smaller, and a bit more temporary, that I will enjoy and keep the money coming in for a bit longer, just until I can get myself into the industry I got a degree for.
At the moment I'm planning on asking if theres any vacancies in the library and the shop round the corner that sells action figures and collectables, as well as considering applying for the ICT technician type vacancy which has come up in my old secondary school.
If all of that falls through I'll have to think of something else.

I also have a Plan B, which I have started already, but will kick in properly either at my birthday in 5 weeks time, or once I've managed to get myself into a temporary job and earn a bit of cash. The first part of the plan, which I have already begun, is to read The DV Rebel's Guide by Stu Maschwitz, which is "an all digital approach to making killer action movies on the cheap".
Step two is to aquire a digital video recorder of a decent quality, if not HD, for as little as possible. At the moment i'm thinking the Toshiba Gigashot K40H, which can do HD and will set me back less than £400. Hopefully I'll get one for my birthday, but if not I'll have to save up from my temporary job and get one myself.
Objective three is to follow the advice in The DV Rebel's Guide, and rope in a few friends to throw together a couple of short films. Maybe not action films, but definately done to the best of my ability on a minimum budget.
I'm not entirely sure what direction Plan B will go after this, but if nothing else it'll be something to add to my showreel, and shouldn't hurt my prospects for future industry based jobs.

Plan C is the promise from my fellow Stafford Alumni, Derwent, that if he gets a film project off the ground he will employ me as a cameraman for £4.95 an hour, plus expenses including travel and the cost of a drink.

I think thats pretty much everything up to date. As usual I'll add an update if I think of anything else, and hopefully I'll blog a bit sooner than I did this time.

I think i might genuinely wet myself with excitement

SQUEEEEEEEEEE! - Part II

Watchmen!

SQUEEEEEEEEEE!

blargh

Just to let whoever might be wandering through here know that I'm still alive. Been meaning to blog since I went home for the weekend about a month ago. On saturday i'm going back down for the christmas hols so perhaps I'll have a proper blog once i'm properly set up there.

At the moment though, i'm working hard to get my Lighting Tech assignment finished so I can hand it in tomorrow. My five scenes are modelled, lit and rendered off, I've written up the lighting keys for the five renders and now its just the 1000 word piece on light and colour theory. Only 1000 words. Should be easy....

In the meantime, here's some pretty pictures:


My bedroom at night: modelled in 3DS Max 9, lit with three simple omni lights and rendered with Mental Ray


















My bedroom again, this time lit by a daylight light set to simulate what the light would be like at 9am on the 12th of August 2007.....in Birmingham....it was the closest place to Stafford that was available. Then I applied a radiosity solution before rendering.

Return From Oz

Last Tuesday I skipped my DVD Tech lecture and made my way down to Stafford station. There I got on a train and a couple of uneventful hours later, got off at London Euston.
An even more uneventful ten minutes followed as I got the tube to Waterloo where I met up with a certain girl called Hogie who I've known for several years, yet never met face to face before as she was in London to see the Kaiser Chiefs.
We wandered around London for an hour or so, reminising about the good old days of the Green Wing Community on the IMDb messageboard before the second series where loads of n00bs showed up and ruined it by starting thousands of threads aling the lines of "Mac! Squeeeeeeee!", and talked about which bands Hogie had stalked and seduced recently and which were next, and the benefits of free newspapers and underwear with a giraffe on them.

Then she very nearly made me miss my next train by trying to get me lost, but I managed to get on just in time, and I was once again on my way to Portsmouth. This was another very uneventful journey, except I was standing some of the time for this one. About six I got got off the train at Cosham and encountered Christ on a bike. I navigated my way around him as he got off, folded it up (it was a collapsable bike) and carried it onto the train, then I made my way over to a taxi and got a lift down to the Kings Theatre, where I went in, found my seat and waited for the show to begin.

At 7.30 the curtain went up and on stage was a busy farm scene, evidently run by Henry and Em who were apparently wondering where their niece, Dorothy, had got to and were worried as it looked like there was a storm coming in. A few minutes of comedy banter later there was a familiar voice from off stage and on walks Toni in a blue dress and pigtails.
When she started singing Over the Rainbow I was almost blown away myself. I had no idea she could sing like that. I'll never know how its possible to fit a voice like that into such a little girl.
What followed for the next two hours was a very entertaining and VERY funny version of The Wizard of Oz (if you hadn't already guessed) with some very talented actors (not just Toni :P). And during the interval the family I was sat next to bought me an ice cream which was very nice of them. I think it was jus cos I was there on my own, but either way I'm not complaining.
I think Toni may have spotted me in the audience, as she was looking right at me for a couple of verses of Follow the Yellow Brick Road, but I can't say for sure as it was quite dark in the stalls and I have no idea if you can actually see to seven rows back from the stage.

Unfortunately Toni was caught up with theatre stuff after the show so I didn't get a chance to see her, which was a shame as I'd got a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum to give her, so I waited outside for the crowd to die down a bit and got a taxi home.

The journey home was slightly more eventful than the journey down. The first part, a ten to fifteen minute journey from Cosham to Fareham, went very well. the train left Cosham on time and even got to Fareham a minute or two early. The train from Fareham to Southampton Central left on time, but then it went downhill very quickly. About half way there we stopped for no apparent reason. Five minutes later there was an announcement to say that the signal man needed to talk to the driver and we would be off again once he'd gone back. After another five or ten minutes we evenutally started moving. Unfortunately, by this time it was 1.15, the time my train from Southampton to Stafford was due to leave. As we aproached the station I saw it going the other way.

When I got to the station I found there wasn't another train to Stafford, and the best I could do was wait an hour and catch the Edinbourgh train til Birmingham New Street and hope I'd be able to make my way from there. So I endured an hour on the freezing platform with a very loud child who repeatedly told his very tired mother about his dream where he was stood on the edge of the platform and he fell on the track because he was 'wiggling', and then I got shifted off my seat by a group of elderly Italians for no apparent reason, as there was a perfectly good empty bench next to the one I was already on which I sat on instead.
At 2.15 I got onto a very crowded train and managed to find a seat, although it didn't have a window, I was still glad I didn't have to stand. At Reading things improved dramatically as I was turned out of my claustrophobic, no window seat by the people who had reserved it and was forced to sit at a table seat right next to a great big window instead, along with Trevor McDonald and a young boy who was happy to have finaly got a Nintendo DS and a copy of Pokemon Diamond. I considered challenging him to a battle (the young pokemon trainer, not the McDonald impersonator) but as he was still excited about catching Starlys, I thought my Elite Four-beating team might have overwhelmed him somewhat.

My luck continued to stay changed at Birmingham as I got off the train and found that the next train on the platform right next to the one I was on stopped at Stafford. It was absolutely packed and I had to stand, but I didn't mind too much as it was only two stops and I eventually got home two hours after I would have if I'd got the direct train from Southampton.
But still, despite all the trouble on the journey back, it was still worth the trip down. I finaly got to meet Hogie in person (two GWC members down, along with Shari, only Deppy, Paula and Lucy to go) and I got to see Toni and hear her sing, even if I didn't get to talk to her or give her a book.
Thursday night I wrote Toni a little letter and posted it along with the book on Friday, so hopefully I'll hear back from her soon.

Not much of interest has happened since I've been back. I pretty much wrote the entire proposal for my Final Year Project (FYP, for future reference) on Thursday and handed it in Friday so I don't have to worry about that any more, just the FYP itself...
Today I got fed up with the clothes and books all over my floor so I gave it a proper tidy. Once I've taken down the plates with the remains of last nights dinner on it'll finally be good enough to take the photos I mentioned last time, so I'll upload them tomorrow.

I've found a recipe for pumpkin pie so I might give that ago tomorrow too. Its bound to be a disaster, but hopefully it'll still be a TASTY disaster....

'Bout Time I Blogged Again

Back up in Stafford now, awaiting the arrival of my new PC.
I think I've settled in up here. My room is smaller than it was last year, but I've still managed to fit a suitable amount of geekery in without it becoming crowded. I should probably upload photos like I did last year and the year before but perhaps I'll have a tidy up first and add them later...

Kinda annoyed at the uni we've missed two important lectures about our final year projects, first because no one bothered to tell us there was one and second because two different people (including the lecturer on the lecture we were meant to be at) told us that we were meant to be going to the Friday one when we're not. we're meant to be going to the Monday one. Grr.

As for Toni...my paranoia of the last blog went completely after I saw her at work the next day, but unfortunately we didn't get a chance to meet up socially before I had to come back to Stafford so things are kinda on hold for the time being.

Now I'm gonna tidy up a bit...

Bemuddled

[Warning: This is written straight after a night out at Guildhall Walk. Not drunk, but quite tired]

Wednesday last week I went on a date with Toni, a girl I know from work and have kinda liked for quite some time. We went to see Harry Potter 5, then onto Wetherspoons where we had a drink and spent a couple of hours just talking, exchanging our life stories, before getting a pizza in Cosham, coming back to my place to eat it, and she asked if we could watch my Road to El Dorado DVD. We had a great time and before she left we had a hug and she said we'd have to do it again before I go back to Stafford.

Only problem is, other than an hour at work last friday, tonight was the first chance I've had to see her. We went to Bar Me and then on to Route, but we were with people from work the whole time and she was kinda distant from me, sticking to the other side of the group. I did buy her a drink though and had a couple of hugs, but didn't really get a chance to talk. It didn't help that as I was getting up the courage to say something to her, try to talk about us, she bumped into Ronnie, her ex, although they're still friends.

A bit later on she came over to say she was going home, and as I'm not a huge fan of clubbing, if she wasn't there there wasn't much point me staying so I asked if I could bum a lift. In the car it was just the two of us and we had some time to talk, but I still couldn't get myself round to asking about us. When we got to mine I said thanks for the lift, gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, but that was about it.
Problem is, I don't want to rush things, but at the same time its less than two weeks til I have to go up to Stafford.
When I started writing this post I was going to say I don't know what to do, but in the typing process I've had some time to think.
I think I'm gonna have to keep texting, as I am now, not pestering her, but being friendly, asking how her shifts have been, if she's been having a good time at her many social events, etc. at some point I'll have to arrange a time where we can meet up, just the two of us, have a drink or two and just talk about us. Depending on my shifts next week, Wednesday will probably be the last chance we'll have to have a proper date. Ideally I'd like to have the talky thing after that, because the second date might solve all the issues, but I don't know my shifts for next week yet and if they're all lates than it'll have to be this Saturday. If she's free that is. If the worst comes to the worst we'd have to do it by text, but I think that should be avoided if at all possible.

Think I'm starting to lose my own train of thought. Must be time to go to bed.
I think what I'm trying to say is, I don't want to rush things with Toni, but I'd like things to be resolved before I go back to Stafford, so I'm going to have to try and arrange a time when just the two of us can get together and talk about what's happening, find out how she feels about it and what she thinks, then maybe go on from there. I dunno...will have to see what happens. I'm gonna go to bed now...

Random moment: why is there a paper clip on my bed?

Well that was a fun Friday night...

I went to work for a normal 5-11 shift. Started off doing chicken side with Aaron, it was a bit busy but nothing the two of us couldn't cope with and we had a good laugh while we're at it. At seven I went on my break, had a Chicken Premier and an apple pie and read a couple of chapters of Silence of the Lambs.

Towards the end of my break Phil sticks his head into the crew room and asks if I'll stay on to help out on the close. I've only been scheduled a twenty hour week and I'm in a pretty good mood so I agree. Go back from my break. Cook on regular grill til eleven then we get started on the close.
We finished at about quarter past one in the morning and the five of us were boxing up some happy meal toys ready for the breakfast shift. The others were talking about the negative effects of drugs and Phil started talking about how someone took half a tab of ecstasy and died in agony because they had a bad reaction and it forced half their brain down into their spine.
Now, I've seen plenty of gory films and don't have any problem with them because, subconsciously, I know its not real. However, if something like that IS real and I KNOW its real, that's a different matter.

Phil started talking about HOW it forced half their brain down their spine and I started to feel a bit dizzy. I decided to go and get some fresh air so I turned around to go outside but then my vision went a bit funny. Next thing I know I hear Aaron say "he's just having a lie down" so I opened my eyes and found I was on my back on the floor by front counter.
I got up, not quite sure what had happened, and was led over to a seat while Donna got me a bottle of water and a tissue (apparently I hit something on the way down as I'm missing some skin on my chin and it was bleeding quite a lot at the time)
Then Phil had to fill in the accident forms and check I was able to remember things like the date and what shift I worked and the like, and then he had to take me up to A&E, just to be on the safe side.

A&E.....on a Friday night.....

Got there at about two, twenty past a nurse came over to ask what happened, shine a torch into my eyes and make some notes. About twenty past three the same nurse calls me through, sits me down and then, about ten minutes later, comes back to take my blood pressure, shine her torch into my eyes again and then disappears.
Forty five minutes after that two other nurses show up and one takes my heart rate and the other measures my blood sugar and they both disappear.
Then, just before five a doctor shows up, shines HER torch into my eyes, takes my pulse and asks me what happened. She decides I only fainted, all my blood pressure, rate and sugars are normal and I'm fine to go home. I was outside by 5. Phil drove me home and it was daylight before I got to sleep.

I'm not too bothered about the overly long wait. Phil said I had to stay clocked in for the time I was up at the hospital so an extra four hours at premium rate pay boosted my twenty hour week somewhat.
I've got another 5-11 shift tonight. Phil said I didn't have to come in if I didn't want to, but I probably will. I told him i wouldn't stay on for the close though...

Looking forward to tomorrow night. I'm going on a tour round Old Portsmouth where they tell you about the various ghosts that are supposed to be there, with actors around to re-enact what happened to them. My friend Toni plays a prostitute who gets murdered. Good fun. And, all things going to plan, I will be seeing Toni again on Wednesday....

[insert some sort of title here]

This morning I found that Yahoo owns Flickr so I as good as had an account there anyway. As a result you can see my photo-a-day pictures here.

Ganon is alive once more. It turns out that when I took the fan out to clean out the dust the processor came out with it and when I put it back the pins didn't go back into the sockets properly, which meant the whole computer wouldn't work. Just took a few moments to straighten up the pins and clip it back into the socket before putting the fan on again.
Luckily this got it working again. It was nothing to do with the graphics card, and I didn't have to buy any replacement parts. Jobs a good'un :P

I was going to say something else as well, but I can't remember what it was and I have to leave for work soon. I'll post later if I remember.

Random thing to do

Last night I decided I'm going to take a photo of myself every day for a year or so, then put them into After Effects or something to make a video. It'll be interesting to see how much, or little, I change.
OK, so apparently it's been done before, but i don't care :P i just think it's slightly creepy that i decided to start mine a year to the day after he finished his...

In worse news, I cleaned out inside Ganon, my PC, the other day I removed about 4 years worth of dust from the fan on the motherboard, took out the graphics card, cleaned the dust out of the fan on that, put the graphics card back in, gave the rest a good vacuum....and now it doesn't work.

The only problem seems to be that the monitor won't get any signal from the PC which implies that theres something wrong with the graphics card, but unfortunately thats about the extent of my knowledge because I don't know that much about the insides of PCs, so I think I might have to get in my tech support. I'm sure I can bribe him with a cup of tea...

It's gonna be an interesting couple of weeks

The thing I hinted at that was supposed to be happening tonight has had to be postponed for a couple of weeks so you'll have to wait a bit before I blog it.

Instead I'm gonna go to the Chinese and watch some DVDs. Only problem is the Mai King round the corner, which is closest, seems to be the only Chinese in a 10 mile radius that we DON'T have a menu for. Plus its raining.

You may be wondering why I'm having to fend for myself tonight. or you may not be. I don't know who actually reads this. But anyway, I'm home alone for a bit. My sister Karen has gone camping with the Guides where she's a leader and my parents have just gone camping.
So I'm home alone til Sunday when my sister comes back, and then its just us (and probably her new bloke a lot of the time) til a fortnight on Sunday when the 'rents come back.

No idea what sort of shifts I'm gonna get, hopefully next weeks schedule will be up tomorrow. After this weeks nice shifts I'm half expecting to get three two til elevens and two three til closes.... we'll have to see.

Ah! Its stopped raining...to the Mai King I go.

And we're back. got a bit wet on the way home but it was worth it.
I got special preparation rice, beef chow mein and Hong Kong style sweet n sour pork. should be good. While I was in there another woman came in and ordered four dishes, all of which were chicken. How boring is that? You have to have a bit of everything.

Anyhoo, I'm going to eat now and I cant remember what else I was going to blog anyway. Lets hope these next two weeks fly by so that what was meant to be happening tonight can happen and then I can blog about it as an added bonus.

Toodle pip!

things might be looking up.

first, McDonalds have given me NICE shifts this week. Only one 8 hour shift and I did that Monday so its well out of the way. On top of that they've given me Friday off so i'm making the most of it and...well...we'll see how it goes before I blog it...

not much to say other than that, just that hopefully things will start to pick up. we'll just have to see...

Reading it back this blog is pretty much pointless, but I don't care :P

been meaning to update for a while....

I'm feeling a lot better these days. I think the month between the phone call and that last blog I was in denial about it ending, trying to convince myself that we were going to give it another go and work things out when it obviously wasn't going to happen.
After writing the last blog, and having a short conversation with Andrea over MSN which cleared up a couple of things for me, I accepted its over, and I'm moving on.
I still think about her from time to time, but not so much these days. She still hasn't come round to give me back my stuff. I'll text her at some point and ask her if I'm ever going to see my copy of the Picture of Dorian Gray again.

And that, unless anything particularly interesting happens when she eventually brings my stuff back, is the last I'm going to say on the matter. Its in the past, I'm moving on, and I'm getting on with my life.

McDonalds has been claiming ownership of my soul once again, and I've been working there most days. When I went back to tell them I was able to work over the summer I gave them severely reduced availability so that they couldn't do a repeat of Easter with 10 closes in a row.
One til eleven on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, One til close Tuesdays and Saturdays and nothing at all on Wednesdays and Sundays. That way I can ensure I get days off, and don't have to work too late or too many days in a row.
However, my first week they completely ignored this and gave me long shifts on six consecutive days, but I complained, gave them my availability a second time and I haven't had a problem since.

The influx of trainees has been pretty much unbearable, with most of them having barely two braincells to rub together. Easiest thing in the kitchen: putting buns in the toaster. You put the crowns upside down on a bun tray and put them in the bottom of the toaster, and put the heels, also upside down, straight into the top of the toaster. Easy, no? I seem to remember I grasped it first time. But not these trainees, no. Some of them had been there a week before they got the hang of it.
And there's so many of them too. At one point last week there was only me and five trainees in the kitchen. When you're working like that you can't work properly because you have to concentrate on what YOU'RE doing as well as watching each of the five trainees at the same time to make sure they don't make stupid mistakes.
At one point I had to go and find something in the chiller, leaving the five trainees alone in the kitchen unsupervised. Fortunately no one died in the minute or two I was gone.

I read on my break as its one of the few times I get the chance to these days. (When I first started it lead a lot of the more chav-like employees to ask if i was gay...not quite sure of their logic...) Last week I was reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. One of my favorite stories. It bugs me that there hasn't yet been a film version that actually follows the plot of the book, but maybe it'll be me who does it first.
Anyway, to the point. I was reading Jekyll and Hyde, written one hundred and twenty years ago, with the famous storyline about the doctor who uses a potion to separate his evil side, and has been used many other times, most recently in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film, and the current BBC drama Jekyll.
And some of the trainee's have never heard of it.....

Its not all bad though. Yesterday I was teaching someone how to do the chicken side of the kitchen on his first ever shift. After an hour or two he was better than the other trainee who was helping me and he'd been there at least two weeks. More trainees like that please.

I also now have money again! Instead of being at the bottom of both my overdrafts (£150 at Abbey and the slightly worse £1400 at Nat West) I am now in credit at Abbey! Half of my first lot of pay filled in the hole and and the other half beefed it up nicely. Some of the extra went to paying off what I owed my parents and some to preordering Harry Potter 7. I do enjoy the books but I still don't think they're good enough to deserve all the hype they get.
Anyhoo, I think in future at least half of my pay each fortnight will go into my Nat West, and the other half can stay in my Abbey to use as spending money, so hopefully I wont get into my overdraft again. I got £310 for two weeks, so if that keeps up for the next ten I should easily fill my overdraft and have plenty left to fund my DVD addiction next year.

Momentous decision of great moments! I am no longer going to buy Lego! It was fine having it all over my room in Stafford, but back in Portsmouth there's just no room for it. I've got my AT-AT stood on my bedside table but the rest is still packed in boxes. There's two new sets, a Jedi Starfighter that comes with a Kit Fisto minifig and a Tie Crawler, which I do want, and will probably get in September, but after that, unless they bring out a really cool new model, then I'm done.
I'm probably done with action figures too. I've got some of my Invader Zim ones on display, but I haven't bought any for a while. I nearly got some Doctor Who figures but decided against it as I didn't think they looked enough like who they were meant to be.
I'm still a geek, I just think it's probably time I grew up a bit. I'm going to be 21 in two and a half months....
I AM going to be buying the replica of Mal's gun from Firefly though....

Tomorrow night I'm going to meet up with me old mates Muscat, Mark and his missus Mary-Anne. Should be a good laugh and I'm looking forward to it.

Better finish up now, as there was some tidying I planned to do before work today but I ended up blogging instead. I've only got a nice short shift today. Three until nine. Only 6 hours. It should breeze past.
I've probably said this before, but I'm going to try to get back into the habit of blogging more often. We'll have to see how that pans out in practice...

its over

a few weeks back i had a phone call from Andrea.

she said she didn't feel the same spark as when we started going out, but instead of calling it a day we could wait til we were both home from uni and see how it goes. that alone made me pretty depressed, hence the previous post about not having a very good time.

so i agreed to give her some space until her exams were over and we were both home, only having a couple of very brief conversations on msn.
her last exam was on friday and she came home on saturday so this morning i was thinking about sending her a text to see if we could meet up so i could give her the birthday presents i'd already got her and maybe talk about what we were going to do.

then, this afternoon, i signed into facebook and found she'd changed her status to single. apparently its over for good, and i didn't even get the change to give it another go.
i've written her a text, but haven't sent it yet. maybe tomorrow.

and on top of that i now have to go for my first shift back at mcdonalds. what a brilliant mood i'm in for it.

life sucks again.

hum...

Not having a very good time at the mo. I'd rather not go into details though.
Hopefully things'll work out in the end. we'll have to see...

going to be back in Portsmouth in a couple of weeks or so.

McDonalds Are Trying to Kill Me: Day 6

its finally over!

at the start of todays shift i was pretty much dead on my feet after last nights late one, but i drank about 3 cups of coke and pretty soon the caffeine kicked in and i was up and running again.

was quite a fun shift. theres a new guy called Tommy whos come over from china and all week people have been teaching him various english phrases which usually turns out to be quite amusing. tonight he asked for phrases for if he wanted to start a fight, for some reason, so now he knows 'come on then', 'ill crack yer jaw' and the more difficult 'ill kick seven shades of shit outta yer'.
we've had some interesting conversations about the meanings of words. like 'shades', 'mutual' and 'numpty'

time for bed i think. i get a nice long lay in and i dont have to go to mcdonalds at all until thursday :D
given up on my TV cos the Liverpool Street Station stickers are rarer than gold dust. still keeping an eye out for Euston Road for a DS and Old Kent Road for a mobile, but im not particularly fussed.
if i get paid enough for it and can persuade my parents to let me get it, i found a pretty good 32 inch HD ready TV for about £350. will see what i can do.

McDonalds Are Trying to Kill Me: Day 5

it was a long one tonight. the area manager is visiting the store tomorrow morning so we had to get everything perfik before we could leave. eventually we got out about half past 1. at least its time and a half after midnight gos its bank holiday :P at least i hope its time and a half...
they wasted a lot of time on the close by getting me to do the ajax. i havent done it for over a year now so it turned out rubbish and charmaine ended up doing it again.

i now have marylebone station on the monopoly competition, meaning i only need to get Liverpool street station to win a HD tv. unfortunately theres only one on ebay and its going for £77 so im guessing my chances of getting one are very slim. if anyone feels like giving me £79+ so i can put a bid in please let me know...

im shattered. think its time for bed.

only one more close til i get a day off :D

McDonalds Are Trying to Kill Me: Day 4

Shift was pretty good, more or less.

first two hours where incredibly busy, but soon it petered out and before long it was deader than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And I got to watch Doctor Who on my break :P
Pretty good episode.

Time to watch a couple of episodes of Peep Show before sleep. Got to watch series 3 before series 4 starts next Friday.

only 2 more shifts til I get a day off.

McDonalds Are Trying to Kill Me: Day 3

This shift I went into the office to tell Charmaine that I didn't want to do my shifts for Tuesday and Wednesday as I'd been given 10 closes in a row leaving me no time to work on my uni assignments or see my friends while I'm home.
She said I'd have to find someone to cover the shifts for me if I didn't want to do them but Damien and Phil were both in the office at the time and they said 10 closes in a row was a bit harsh and later on Phil came out and said he'd sorted it for me and I had the days off. Woo!

The rest of the shift wasn't too bad. Starting to feel the tiredness of the late shifts kicking in though. Apart from a couple of busy patches it was mostly dead last night, so I got paid time and a half for standing round doing nothing much at all.

the good thing about having so many shifts is it ups my chances of winning on the monopoly thing. at the moment I'm halfway towards winning a Bravia TV and a mobile phone and a third of the way to getting a Nintendo DS Lite. Go me!

I just wish I'd picked up those two station squares that were on the crew room table on Thursday. They could have been the other half of my TV.

McDonalds Are Trying to Kill Me: Day 2

Today's shift wasn't too bad, just really unbelievably hot. Everyone in the kitchen was sweating a Josh big time (Josh was a lobby host at Cosham Drive-Thru, where I work, who was famous for being sweaty even in the middle of winter).

I was working with Steph for most of this shift which was good. She is one of the few people at Cosham who actually works hard all the time, so between us we had everything sorted.
I also had some good news on this shift. A week or so before I came back, Colin Owen was sacked for making racist comments. Now I never have to work with the annoying bastard again! :D

The close was quite good. I forgot that they were quite enjoyable, but I still don't want to do ten in a row. Tomorrow I'm going to kick up a stink and try to get out of the shifts on Tuesday and Wednesday so that I can work on assignments Tuesday and see Andrea Wednesday.
I'm hoping the 'you haven't left me any time to work on my uni assignments while I'm home argument will improve my chances of getting time off.

think its time to put some washing on and go to bed now. my feet are killing me.

McDonalds Are Trying to Kill Me: Day 1.5

As I'm back in Portsmouth for Easter I thought I'd go back to McDonalds to give them an extra pair of hands and make myself a bit of money.

However, it never occurred to me that they would give me TEN 4pm til 1am shifts on TEN CONSECUTIVE DAYS.
I'm not convinced I'm going to survive and not 100% sure its actually legal so I'm going to kick up a stink and try to get meself a couple of days off so that I can A) sleep, B) do some work on my three uni assignments and C) see Andrea again before I have to go back up to Stafford.

My first shift was yesterday. It wasn't too bad, I got a bit tired in the middle, but after a caffeine boost from some Coke things improved slightly. it was the first time I'd closed in at least a year so I was a little rusty but it wasn't too bad and we were out by half 12.

Only half an hour or so before I have to leave and do it all over again for the second time...

least successful mugging ever.

I just went into town to get out some money so i could go and visit Andrea in Loughborough for the weekend.
On my way back, walking up Crooked Bridge Road (where Luke and Rachel were mugged for fireworks in November) this large guy in a camouflaged jacket crossed the road ahead of me, and then carried on so that i was right up against the fence with him right next to me.

he asked 'got any money?', I took out an earphone (connected to my £200 mp3 player) because i couldn't hear him over Duran Duran and politely asked him to repeat himself. he said 'got any money?' again.
I said no and went to carry on walking, but he blocked my way and said 'what else you got then?'.
so i just pushed past him. he tried to trip me up, but failed, and we both went our separate ways.

initially i was quite shaken but before id got to the end of the road id realised how half arsed and ridiculous it had all been.
better get packing. ive got to be at the station in an hour.

Quick blog

I'll post a proper blog at some point in the near future, but this is just a quick blog to say if you click

HERE

you should be able to see 7 minutes of footage from Spider-Man 3. all legal too :P

looks like it'll be a goodun.

McDonalds ruined my valentines day

i had it all planned out. as soon as my graphics tech tutorial had finished i was going to come home, pack a few things and surprise Andrea a couple of hours later by turning up on her doorstep and cooking her her favorite for dinner, spaghetti bolognese.

But no. McDonalds reared its ugly, greasy head and spoilt it all. Its given Andrea a 4 til midnight shift. gah!

so now I'm just going to go for the weekend. I'm still going to cook her spag bol on friday, its just not a surprise any more. still, she doesn't know about the XXXXXXX XXXX or the XXXXXXXXXXX XX (censored in the unlikely event Andrea reads this before friday) so its all good.

just not as good as it would have been.

Bollocks

The house I'm living in has been leased to someone else for next year.
This means that if I go straight into my 3rd year of uni, which is what I was thinking of doing, I will have nowhere to live while I'm doing it. My other option is to get a work placement for a year. I have no placement and nowhere to live wherever this non-existant placement may be.





Bollocks.




On boxing day, Andrea's cousin said he had some contacts that might be useful in finding a placement, but Andrea's since said this might only be for a limited value of 'useful'. However I don't seem to have many options so I'm going to have to get in touch with him and see what he comes up with. If that proves successful, then jobs a good'un, if not I'll just have to write to various studios/whatevers and see if they'll take me.

If I can get a placement in/around London this may also solve the housing issue. Earlier this month I received an email from my cousin saying it was good to see me again over christmas, and I was welcome to stay over at his house in London whenever I wanted. I'm not sure if he had for a whole year in mind, but you never know.

If all that goes tits up I'm going to have to find another place up here. Dave's said I'm welcome to move into his house, but the rent is at least double what I'm paying now, and theres a chance ill have to live with James....

If THAT fails.....I'm going to have to find a dumpster with free gas and electricity and a broadband connection....

I think thats all my worries for now....we shall have to see....

The University's Blown Away...

...well....nearly....
apparently the roof is in danger of being blown off in the high winds, so its been closed til monday. shame really cos i have mondays off anyway...and i can't make use of the long weekend to visit Andrea cos she's got exams to revise for and forbidden me cos id distract her.
fair enough really.

time to catch up on all the stuff ive downloaded and not got round to watching...

Back in Portsmouth

ill start of with this very insightful cartoon.

All assignments are finished and handed in... just. I finished my 3D Modelling for Film assignment at 3 on Friday. As it had to be in by half past I quickly filled in the hand in sheet and dashed up to Derwent's to get a lift up to the uni, getting to his house at about 10 past. I went in to find Dave desperately trying to burn his assignment to CD, Derwent still writing in his log book and Luke still RENDERING.

Derwent and Dave were eventually ready to go and by 20 past we decided we couldn’t wait for Luke any more, so we dashed out to the car, Luke trailing behind with his laptop, yelling at it to render faster. We got to the uni and Luke’s laptop was still saying it had 10 minutes of rendering left, so me and Dave jumped out the car, taking Derwent's assignment with us and literally ran to the Octagon while Derwent parked and Luke swore at his computer some more.

Me and Dave got to the Octagon (you'll never guess what shape that building is) and pelted upstairs to the hand in place. The fist thing I saw was a massive crowd of people; the second was one of the office women stood in the crowd, who said, "you’re late..."
That induced a very sharp intake of breath, a look of horror and me wondering the best way to kill Luke and where to dispose of the body.
Fortunately the office woman continued "...so you'd better be quick". She gestured towards the row of tables surrounded by hastily scribbling students, and it took me a moment to realise we'd already filled in our hand in forms.
As I turned to the crowd by the hand in desk the woman said "ah...you'll be alright".

Despite this I still used the trick id perfected on my many visits to Loughborough where there’s always a big crowd of people trying to get on a very small train at Nuneaton.
Instead of joining the back of the crowd, you join at the side, as close to the front as possible. Then, as the crowd slowly thins as people get on the train/hand in their assignments, you slowly insinuate yourself further into the crowd and you can then get in before the people stuck in the middle who were in the crowd before you, and no one seems to notice.

As a result I only had to wait for two or three people to hand in their assignments before me and Dave were served instead of about 20. After that the relief was immense and I enjoyed a very pleasurable adrenaline rush for the next 15 minutes or so. Luke and Derwent showed up just after Dave had handed in his assignment. I'd already handed in Derwent's with mine, and Luke had attempted to burn his to CD while running with laptop. Obviously it failed, and he didn’t have enough time, or CDs, for a second attempt so he’s handed in half his project on CD (if that even works) and his logbook. Good luck to him.

Went into town with Derwent and Luke to celebrate. Ended up trying the new Chinese take away in town. It was very good, and they deliver too, so I may have to change that one to my regular instead of the one on Western Road.
In the evening I went back home and gave my housemates their Christmas presents. A film rental voucher for Phil and Luke (different Luke to the one earlier) and Rachel got a Lego boat and aeroplane.

Spent Saturday washing clothes, doing my washing up, generally tidying up and thinking about packing. In the afternoon I went back to Derwent and Dave’s to pick up copies of our films for this semester and play Dave at New Super Mario Bros. He thrashed me at the Mario Vs Luigi battles, but I got my revenge on the minigames.

Parents arrived about 1 the next day to take me home. Mum insisted on vacuuming my room (first time its been done since I moved in) and ended up doing the hall too. No idea how long the journey home took, although I don’t think I fell asleep at all. 5 minutes after I sent Andrea a text to tell her how bored I was we were back in Portsmouth.

Pretty much settled in now. Going back to work in the grease mines (aka McDonalds) on Friday. Apparently we've been sold to a franchise. Hopefully ill get my soul back, as I technically wont be working for McDonalds any more, although it’s not officially going through until the end of January.

Hopefully seeing Andrea tomorrow and Muscat's arranging a get together at the Manor on Thursday night so should be a good week.

Just a quick one...

im currently halfway through my assignments, or thereabouts. Visual Media Applications is done, finished and handed in (yay!), my head model for 3D Facial Modelling is finished and just needs to be textured and then my sketch book needs padding out, and for 3D Modelling for film im about halfway through modelling and walfway through finishing my log book.....hopefully ill get 'em done before the hand in....

in the meantime, heres a fantastic animation i found last night.
I love it. i could watch it over and over again. brilliant.

Ta-dah

As you can probably see, I've given my blog a facelift.

No idea why, I just fancied fooking around with the settings. I think it looks quite good. Let me know what you think. Even if you think its rubbish. I wont be offended. I'll just unleash the flying wombats and you'll never be heard from again.

Not much to report to be honest. My Lego advent calendar is amazing. Not many people can say they got an airport luggage x-ray machine in their calendar. I also got a hospital bench with a drip which a burnt Anakin Skywalker minifig (post-lava burnings, pre-Vader suit-ification) is making use of. Unfortunately the doctor minifig can’t attend to him as the airport staff minifig x-rayed his suitcase and found it to be full of scalpels and needles so he’s in a spot of bother. As soon as I get a policeman minifig he will be arrested.

Thursday night I
decided to watch the 1989 Batman film by Tim Burton and its put me in a really Batman sort of mood. I'm downloading the classic 1966 TV series staring Adam West (who is fantastic, I might add) and Batman Forever, just to see how bad it is. I think I’ve seen the start and seem to remember a vat of 'boiling acid' as if acid alone wasn’t bad enough. And since when could bank security guards recognise the acidity of a liquid just by looking at it, anyway?

Andrea's coming to visit this weekend. Its only a short one over one night cos she had to work Friday evening and we both have quite a lot of coursework to do. Speaking of which, our group piece was handed in yesterday! Glad to get it out the way. If Aidan youtubes it ill imbed it here. I might let you see our last too with me stuttering like a good 'un.

Looking forward to Andrea's arrival tomorrow (I’m writing this on Friday night/Saturday morning so I’m between days...). Cos its only a short visit we probably wont do anything other than curl up together and watch TV (we have the 7 episodes so far of the new series of Family Guy to watch!) but I cant complain.
I will also be inflicting my first ever pasta bake on her. It seems pretty easy.... just a case of adding the sauce to the dry pasta then bunging it in the oven. What could go wrong?

Slightly embarrassing moment earlier.... the bulb in Phil’s room blew causing all the lights in the house to go off. The switches are in a cupboard in my room. I accidentally turned off all the electricity in the whole house instead of putting the lights back on. Never mind. Its sorted now.

That’s all for now. If anything interesting happens over the weekend ill let you know. Hopefully my assignments won’t take over my life entirely....

The Awards 2006

review of the year

1) Drinking buddy of the year?
hmm....think ill have to say Andrea. was it three and a half big bottles of Smirnoff ice?

2) Lifetime Service Award - Longest friend?
think thats gotta be Muscat. been friends since primary school, though ive known him since preschool

3) High point of the year?
2nd April - Andrea told me she'd love to go out with me

4) Low point of the year?
now....so many assignments!

5) Best Holiday?
only holiday i had was to devon for a weekend for my aunts wedding

6) Anthem for 2006?
Dont Stop Me Now - Queen

7) Any regrets?
Should have gone as a ninja to the union halloween night

8) Best night out?
Andreas birthday. i was dressed as the Phantom but everyone thought i was Dracula.

9) Worst night out?
the Havant College Crew Reunion. not a bad night in itself, but Andrea got so roped into trying to save other peoples dead/dying relationships we hardly had any time to focus on ours which had just started. dont think we got to kiss properly til we were tidying up after everyone left.

10) Who did you spend your valentines with?
think i just stayed in, online. but i did send Andrea a big Tigger and Eeyore

11) Best relationship?
Andrea, of course!

12) Worst relationship?
Andrea. not cos its bad, its not at all, just cos its the only one all year....

13) First gig of the year?
The Mighty Boosh live in march. not technically a gig but what you gonna do?

14) last gig of the year?
see above

15) best decision made all year?
telling Andrea how i felt

16) Best new album?
bought would be the 70s musical version of War of the Worlds, downloaded.....Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell III - The Monster is Loose

17) Most proud moment?
see 3)

18) Most reliable person?
dont know really...probably Andrea

Musings on the universe

earlier today the lovely Paula sent me a handful of joke emails...and its got me wondering about how the universe works...

the exact email that started it all was entitled Irish Flat Screen TV and contained the following photos.





At the time i just thought it was mildly amusing and moved on.
but then....a couple of hours later, i got exactly the same email from my good friend Katie.
now that got me thinking. through what chain of people did this email get to me? does one of Paulas friends know someone who knows someone who knows someone, etc, who knows Katie?
or has someone emailed it to loads of friends whos emailed it to loads of friends whos emailed it to loads of friends, etc, until it reached both Paula and Katie seperately?

i also mentioned that id got the same joke email from two seperate people to Andrea without telling her it was the irish flat screen TV one and then she sent i to me too.

Andrea got it from her mum.

Mugging Update

Mr CID came round yesterday. apparently they tracked down one of the guys who did it from the car registration number and arrested him. hes admitted doing it, but his story is slightly different (he originally asked to buy the fireworks and it was the other guy who did all the punching). i think hes on bail for 4 weeks or something and they're trying to get the other guy.

also, my uni work is coming along nicely. i made massive progress with my 3D Modelling for Film assignment (i actually started modelling!) and tomorrow i plan to get as much of my VMA done as possible. go me!

busy time.....

started monday last week. About 8.45 there was a massive bashing on the front door. i opened it to find Luke on the doorstep saying 'ive just been mugged. we've got to find Rachel'

you can imagine the sort of images that comes up with. we all rushed out and we eventually found Rachel sat on the floor in the petrol station shop. while we were waiting for the police to show up it turned out they were cycling back from tesco and Luke had the tips of some fireworks sticking out the top of his backpack.
some guy came out of the petrol station, saw Luke and said something like 'are those fireworks?'
Luke just said 'no' and they both sped up. the guy got into his car with his friends and started to drive after them.

they rode into the park to try to get away but the guy followed them and rammed Luke off his bike with the car. he got out, pushed Luke over the knee high railings by the path and started punching him in the face. at this point Rachel rode back to the petrol station to escape. another guy got out of the car, took the fireworks out from Lukes bag and hit him round the face with them.

they tried to steal his phone, but luckily they believed him when he said he didnt have it so they took his wallet instead. fortunately there wasnt much in it. after that they drove off, and luke rushed back home, dumped the rest of his shopping and round us up to go find Rachel.
we asked the shop owner about the CCTV footage considering the mugger had just left the shop but apparently the camera was turned off. personally i think thats just an excuse to avoid lots of paperwork...

the police finaly arrived after about an hour and Luke and Rachel went off with them to show where the mugging happened and to go back to the station to make a statement. Luke got the car regestration number so hopefully something'll happen. the guy from CID came round saturday evening to talk to them, mainly to introduce himself and find out a bit more detail on what happened.

wednesday i had to be a russian with a stutter. we were recreating a 2 minute scene from Mirror for our Digital Sound and Image Manipultation project. if it gets youtubed i may post a link to it here....if my stuttering isnt too embarassing...
there was a bit of a panic on friday. we had to hand in our 2 minute sequence and Avid decided to mess us around. it took us about an hour to copy the film (which was only 2 minutes long, remember) to a DV tape and we just got it in with half an hour to go before the deadline.
in tomorrows DSIM tutorial we're doing a peer assesment to grade each other depending on how well we pulled our weight. if i slacked as much last year as Alex did for this project then im surprised the others didnt boot me out.

Andrea came for a visit at the weekend and we had a fantastic time as usual. didnt really do much as theres hardly anything to do in stafford, but spending the weekend wrapped up in a duvet together in front of some good DVDs is nothing to be complaining about.

had an amazing breakthrough with Visual Media Applicatons. i actually came up with an idea for my assignment!
im going to do an animation to advertise an Anime season for Film4. something involving giant robots in a Neon Genesis Evangelion stylée and ive found some good music from the .hack//SIGN soundtrack that i think will be suitable.
will have to rough out my vague ideas to make them more usefull this evening.

think thats about it for now. have to start coming up with ideas for our next DSIM assignment. a 3 minute film based on either a poem or an original 'experimental narrative'. i think Derwents idea from last years scriptwriting module involving invisible lammas and questioning reality would be experimental enough but we'll have to see.

oh, and im now using the post Google take-over BloggerBeta so if you have any teething troubles posting comment etc that will probably be why. apparently i cant post comments on non-Beta blogs at the moment but they're working on it and will be able to soon....at least thats what they say.

hopefully ill have something interesting to blog about sooner this time :P

blooooooog!

first things first: from Muscats blog

If you comment on this post:

1. I’ll respond with something random about you
2. I’ll challenge you to try something
3. I’ll pick a colour that I associate with you
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on yours

To which Muscat's reply was:

1. You're no longer shorter than me
2. Try Linux!
3. Green (no idea why)
4. You bought me a lightsaber
5. Vague memory of you at Highbury...
6. Rats (you know why!)
7. Will you forgive me for the slight delay?

so there you go.

i had a good birthday. Andrea got me Count Duckula series 1 and the Back to the Future box set, so at the moment im going through a bit of a BttF phase......
ive decided i want a delorean as an incentive to learn to drive. it'll only set me back £16000.
any donations welcome...or you could just buy me the car :P

uni life has been quite fun so far, although the amount of work required is quickly expanding to ginormous standards.....ill survive though. hopefully ill pass :D

im too out of practice with this blogging lark....ill write more later.....

one of THOSE ideas....

you know the ones i mean.
they usually come when youre quite tired.
they are initially met with great enthusiasm but eventually end up dead on their arses.
and yes.
ive had one.

i was watching CSI: Crime Scene Investigation earlier while musing over my current addiction to late 19th century science fiction novels when it struck me.....what happens if you combine the two...?

ive done a bit of research and had a think, and come up with the following:

Criminal Investigation Department: Victorian London or CID:VL for short.

its pretty much CSI but with less of the technology and more of the sideburns. it'll probably be a webcomic.

lets see how it goes...

im not quite that bad...

greetings human worm-babies

yep yep, im back in stafford.

and just like last year, here are some pictures of my room.
its bigger than my room in halls last year. speaking of which, Aidan from my film group is this years warden for Norbury house in the halls. apparently my old is empty this year.
apparently when aidan went in he was expecting all my random crap to be in it. he was disapointed.

not got round to putting up my posters yet. may do that today if i can be arsed.

enrollment went quite smoothly yesterday. i should be getting my loan in on monday, so woo and indeed hoo. i wont be going mad on expensive geekery this year. just reasonably priced geekery :P

seriously though, i wont be buying any lightsabres (the only one id consider getting is Obi-Wan and as far as im aware theres no plans to make one) or expensive replica coats or fake toasters once thrown by Simon Pegg.
i dont know what i will get but it wont be as much/expensive as last year.

it was good to see all my friends again, although apparently James has switched courses so hes technically a smelly first year. dont know if we'll be seeing him again. annoying really as he was the lead role in both our films last year :P

not really much else to say. may put up some more photos later. theres a free stuff fair at uni and i gotta go into town today so id better go get ready.

speak soon

im in a real mood to watch Star Wars...

...but i cant.

because its in a box in the car.

and so is my DVD player....and TV....and computer. and lots of my other stuff.

thats right, im going back to uni tomorrow.
doesnt really feel like im leaving again. im sure it will once ive been squashed in the back of the car for 3 hours though.

looking forward to it (being back at uni, that is, not being stuck in the car for 3 hours), it was a good laugh last year and hopefully will be this year too. should be more interesting too, what with living with Luke, Rachel and Phil instead of a bunch of malaysians.
i hope Phil is in tomorrow, or ill have to sit on the doorstep.

oh well, as Charlie Chaplin once said "im leaving! and i wont return until i have come back" or something along those lines....Buster Keaton is much better. but now im rambling. been a while since ive had a good ramble, might keep this one going for a bit just for a change, but no, it better not.

ill blog again as soon as im settled in and with an internet connection. probably with photos of my room, just like last year.

still cant watch Star Wars though, can i? grr

tiddly pom

not really anything that interesting happening at the moment.
last night i went for a meal with andrea and both sets of parents so that they could meet each other, and i think that went quite well. both our houses are a building site so they had lots to talk about :P

i only have 14 hours of McLabour left before returning to stafford...and thats happening this saturday! quite looking forward to it. have a couple of early starts though, and im not just across the road from campus any more. ill have to get up slightly earlier than quarter to 9....

in the mean time, other than those last two shifts at McDs, im pretty much just packing while working my way through my DangerMouse box set. slightly puzzled about that though. on the front of the box it proudly shouts 'Every episode ever made!' and on the back it says the show ran for 161 episodes, but if you count the episode titles printed on each disk, it only comes to 90. wheres the other 71?

ive sent Mark a text asking if he wants to go to the pub thursday night, but that almost certainly wont happen. probably wont even get a reply. but never mind.
Hopefully seeing Andrea one last time before we both head back to uni on wednesday, although im sure it wont be long before one of us visits the other once we're both settled in up there.

thats about it really. back to packing i suppose. hopefully ill get a reply from my landlord about the keys to the house tomorrow....

WOOOOOO!

this afternoon im gonna see Andrea for the first time in aaaaages! its been two whole weeks! im meeting her down Gunwarf and we'll probably be getting a burger king (the enemy!) before going to see Snakes on a Plane. looking forward to it :D

so whats happened in the last two weeks?

well last week was just pants. i was working every afternoon til evening except thursday so i couldnt really do anything during the day, and on thursday i was planning on going to the cinema on my own just to get out of the house, but Andrea complained because i was going to see Snakes on a Plane because i didnt think she would be interested when it turned out she was. just realised it might be because of the plane, what with her studying Aeronautical Engineering an' all.
instead i just ended up watching DVDs all day.

the week before was slightly more interesting though. i went to devon for my aunts wedding. i was expecting lots of drama because no one really likes Julian that much, but in the end it went quite smoothly.
i was right about my grandma getting drunk though. i have an entertaining video of her singing Delilah with my cousin. if it somehow finds its way onto Google Video or something i might have to post it on here ;)

i think thats pretty much it. id better go finish getting ready so that im not late for Andrea.

not blogged in a while....bout time i did...

its august already! when did that happen? i'll have been going out with Andrea for four months tomorrow. woo! :P

McDonalds has been quite interesting recently. Wayne has been in for at least 3 of my shifts since ive been back from Stafford. Mark is the big store manager boss bloke, and Wayne is Marks boss, so hes quite scary, although i did actually see him smiling yesterday, so that may have been an imposter.

i suspect hes been around because of our last Gapbuster. no idea why its called that, but its basically a mystery shopper who comes in twice a month and rates how well we do. anyhoo, last time we only got something like 57% for quality (apparently it was only cos of the chips. it was Marks shift too, i bet he was pissed off).

now that Waynes been in a lot, instead of packing the production bin full of food and waiting to cook more when one of the burgers is running low, we just cook a handfull of each and then do another handfull when things run out.
i think its better like that, because instead of standing around being bored and pretending to clean things for most of your shift youre standing around and cooking stuff for most of your shift....at least thats how it works on quiet shifts. not looking forward to my next friday shift....

ill stop talking about McDonalds now. mainly because youre all bored and partially because i just dug out my employee handbook and the bit about non disclosure of information is a bit vague :P never mind. no one from McDs'll read this anyway.

OH! we've been giving away cars from Cars in the happy meals and theyre great! ive got the first four and im planning on getting the rest. the VW camper is the best one :D im not stealing them....its just we cant sell the ones with damaged packaging. its surprising how often you find one with a big hole in the bag....*cough*

what else have i been up to?

seen Andrea a few times. went to the beach at west wittering with her and her mum last wednesday. that was a good laugh, and the sea was surprisingly warm. just remembered i was planning to make a sand Isengard so that when the tide came in it would flood, just like in Lord of the Rings. oh well :P
went with Andrea to see Superman Returns and thought it was really good. it was made better because they carried it on from the old Christopher Reeve ones, editing in old footage of Marlong Brando as Jor-El and having Kevin Spacey, who looks scarily like Gene Hackman, as Lex Luthor, Lois Lane not being able to spell, etc.
my only problem with it was that it was set 5 years after Superman IV, and in that short time there had apparently been HUGE advances in technology, like laptops and mobile phones. especially as i think its meant to be set in the 50s... other than that, though, fantastic!

ive also been rejoicing at the wonders of free FilmFour! brilliant films, all free! ive now seen three Marx Bros films, something ive been meaning to do for years, and i think theres a Charlie Chaplin one on tonight. not as good as Buster Keaton, but still funny.

am working my way through some H. G. Wells books. just finished the Time Machine, which was brilliant and im now on the Invisible Man, which isnt quite as good as TM, but i think its just cos its a bit slow to get started.

i think thats pretty much everything for now. got a day off today, so im gonna loaf around doing bugger all.

I'd say thats about right...

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 85% The Flash 65% Superman 60% Iron Man 55% Robin 55% Batman 50% Supergirl 45% Hulk 45% Catwoman 40% Green Lantern 35% Wonder Woman 25%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

birthdays and mystery pants

saturday was Andreas birthday. great fun!

we all met up at Hayleys house in fancy dress, me as the phantom of the opera, Andrea as a birthday princess, Muscat in his fancy oxford stuff, Hayley as a fairy princess and Amanda as a sailor princess (shes going out with someone in the navy :P)

there we had a couple of drinks, took dozens of photos (each photo had to be taken on 3 different cameras too) and Andrea blew out the candles on her cake, athough they were more like candle stubs. they must have been in the family for generations...

we also gave Andrea her presents. she was very happy with her Phantom of the Opera book (the original novel by Gaston Leroux. she even forgave me for reading it first considering its one of the few classic horror novels i hadnt read and id got it for her months before), accused me of trying to 'keep her fat' (although she isnt) at the loads of chocolate, but then was extremely happy with the chocolate fountain (and then she realised why i gave her so much chocolate :P)

shes said shes going to save the fountain for a party or something cos you need quite a lot of chocolate to run it. i hope she invites me to that party :P

after that we went down to guildhall walk for a booze up! we started in weatherspoons for a couple of quiet drinks and a chat. Andrea told me i had to snog Hayley, but Hayley said she wasnt drunk enough so i got a kiss from Amanda instead.

then we headed off to Walkabout where we had a couple of loud drinks.on the way back from a toilet trip i did a double take at someone who was on his way to a toilet trip and he did a double take at me....and it turned out to be Darren. he told me Katie was over in a corner so we all went over and said hello. she reminded me of the last time i went to guildhall walk with her and had a bad reaction to my first blow job (the name of a shot in V Bar). then i said something that i think shocked her slightly....she spent the rest of the time we were with her telling me i should still be sweet and innocent like i was when we were still at school.

we left Katie and Darren (and their friend Wellsey who Katie completely failed to set up with Hayley) in Walkabout and headed to V Bar (much to my horror) to meet Katie (Katie Goble this time, not Katie George). however, there was a mile long queue outside so we decided to wait outside for Katie and head straight to Bar Me (much to my relief).
we were waiting for katie for about 5 minutes, then i turned round and saw her standing in the V Bar queue at exactly the same time as Hayley received a text saying she was in the V Bar queue.

we pulled her out of the queue and all went to Bar Me for an even louder drink. everyone thought i was Dracula and one bloke told me "i dont mean this in a queer way but you look really good". the funny thing is i made him say it 3 times cos i couldnt hear him the first two :P
at one point Andrea, Hayley and Manda all disappeared to the loo and seemed to be gone for quite a long time, but eventually they returned and Andrea stuffed a couple of smallish boxes into my pocket (i later found out that theyd been looking at the vending machines and the boxes contained a glow in the dark condom and a wind up jumping cock)

we left there at about half 12, because Manda and Hayley were getting headaches and everyones feet were hurting from their heels (except mine...i didnt have heels) so we tried phoning for a taxi, met Katie (George) and Darren again who had just come out of Route, and eventually just went to the taxi rank and got one there.
about 20 minutes and £14 later we were at Drayton shops. we all got a chinese and headed back to Hayleys.

think i got to bed about half 1. i was in Hayleys bed and the girls were downstairs in sleeping bags. i slept quite well, but got woken up at 7.15 by a recording of a cockerel crowing. it took me a few minutes to work out that it was coming from Hayleys alarm clock and turn it off. after that i went back to sleep and had a strange dream. all i can remember from it is that i was walking home from Springfield school, back to my old house, and....John Cleese was in it. i think i had to keep up with him all the way home.
id just got to the bridge over the railway when i dropped my bag, so i went back for it, then there was a TARDIS sound effect which woke me up. it turned out to be my phone ringing (yes, the TARDIS is my ringtone) and it was Andrea telling me to come downstairs for some cake.

we left Hayleys at 11 cos she had to go to work, so Andrea came back to my house. there we watched Anchorman (the second film in Andreas bid to work her way through my entire DVD collection) before she had to go home.

after she'd gone, the Mystery of the Mystery Pants began...

mum told me she'd found and washed a pair of knickers that werent hers or my sisters.....hidden under the dust sheet on the coffee table in the living room. she thought they were Andreas, but i wasnt so sure because Andreas hardly ever been in the living room and had no idea how they would have got there even if she had.

later in the evening mum brought them into my room with a pile of my washing. i didnt recognise them, so i texted Andrea and sent her a picture message of them, and it turns out they arent hers either.......so whose are they?!

perhaps they just appeared due to transperambulations of pseudo-cosmic antimatter......

when Andrea gets her camera developed ill scan and upload some of the pics from saturday. and possibly one of the mystery knickers.....

back again

i have to say, now im over my tonsilitis, i am enjoying working at McDonalds more. not completely enjoying it, its just not as bad as it was when i had tonsilitis.

my main problem with McDonalds at the moment is Colin Owen.
i was going to have a massive rant about him but ive decided hes really not worth it. im just going to say that he likes nothing more than to boss people around, even when he doesnt have the power to, he acts like everyone is beneath him, and he seems to think im some form of retard.

for example, this scene from yesterday.

Gay Phil: [calling over from front counter] only 2 doubles left
Me: [calling back] thank you, they'll be after Big Macs
[I carry on dressing the Macs and, about 10 seconds later:]
Colin: do doubles next, yeah?

i cant tell you how infuriating that is, and he does that ALL THE TIME. other examples are reminding me that ive got a special order on a mac AFTER ive done it and have started dressing the normal macs.

when i went on my break Sarah was in the crew room so i had a bit of a rant about him then. then she told me that shes been talking about starting the Colin Owen Assassination Squad, and EVERYONE shes mentioned it to wants to join :P

anyhoo, thats enough about him.
in the end i decided not to apply in that toyshop round the corner, but i am still looking for a different job.

spent the last couple of days with Andrea. on sunday we saw the remake of the Omen, which was very good. some great jump moments and possibly the best decapitation ive ever seen.
cant really compare it to the original because ive only seen it once so i cant remember it that well. i just had a vague feeling about what was going to happen next when watching the remake :P

still...its very good.

also Andrea has decided that she wants us to work our way through my entire DVD collection, so i added them all up and, including TV series and copied DVDs, i have 205 and it comes to about 20 days of non stop watching. should be fun :D


in other news, Shari has finally returned to the world of blogging, and her brand new blog can be found via the link to the right there ---->

i did have something else to say, but i cant remember what, so never mind. im gonna go get some lunch and then look into a free messageboard service to reunite the original IMDb Green Wing Community...




...and then possibly see if i can get any COAS tshirts made up cheap :D

UPDATE: ive remembered what else i was going to say:
i got a letter from stafford University yesterday....ive passed my first year at uni so they're going to let me back next year :D cant wait!

also, ive now set up the GWC message board and could get 35 COAS t shirts for about $11 plus postage.

tonsilitis. rah.

went to the docs this morning and yep, ive got tonsilitis. joy :P

apart from the sore throat, lots of pain when swallowing, the occasional need to spit out a glob of greeny-brown gunge and a general slight 'bleugh' feeling, im not too bad. still using it as an excuse to get off work for a day or two :D

just phoned to say i wouldnt be going in today. i was hoping for someone like Donna who would be quite sympathetic, but nope. i got Mark the big boss manager man himself.
he didnt sound too impressed, but i dont really care.

Me: hi, its Matt. im meant to be doing a 4 - 10 shift this evening, but im not going to be able to because ive got tonsilitis...
Mark: tonsilitis? well you seemed alright yesterday [he pretty much says 'hello' to me when he sees me for the first time and thats it for the shift]

he asked how long id be off for, so i said my next shift is on wednesday so id let him know how i felt in the morning. he told me to let him know tomorrow. ill probably be the same as i am now tomorrow, so looks like ill be having wednesday off too.

now, though, im going to go round the corner and see if the collectable/toy shop has any jobs going....

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!

its too hot.
im fed up of living in a house thats half filled with boxes and half in need of plastering.
i miss Andrea.
being back at McDs is hotter than working in the centre of the sun. the novelty of being back, which lasted several shifts last time, wore out about half an hour in. and THEN i have a 30 minute walk to get home. i hate it.
my throat hurts. it hurts every time i swallow or yawn. i think my tonsils are a bit swolen too.
i havent slept well in a while and get woken by the sun when it rises at 5 am every moring.
i keep getting headaches.

but!

Andrea is on her way home today, so ill be able to see her the first day McDs lets me have off.
next week im planning on trying to find a job in Drayton which doesnt involve hot grills or a 30 minute walk and does involve air conditioning.
ive moved my bed to the opposite wall so the sun doesnt wake me up any more, just the throat.

seriously though: i just looked to see if there was a maximum temperature that people were allowed to work at. i couldnt find one, but it turns out that on my shift last night i did have half the symptoms of heat stress.
they could at least get someone in to fix the air con.

im going to collapse on my bed with another pint of cold water and a couple of paracetamols for half an hour before i have to go back to McHell for another 5 hour shift.....

home, sweet.....home?

yep, im back in Portsmouth.

my last few days at uni were horrible. barely anyone left in halls to talk to, and all my stuff was packed so i was just sat in a bare white room with just the internet for company. i couldnt get home soon enough.

now im home....and im feeling much the same as i did my last few days at uni. the whole house was ripped out for re-wiring and only half of it has been plastered. im using my sisters bedroom (and shes home from Bangor tomorrow so i dont know whats happening after that) and all my stuff is still packed, including my computer, so i can only use my parents with its very tempremental modem.

on the plus side, my bedroom HAS been plastered, and i cant use it cos its being painted, its just that i only picked out the colours i wanted yesterday, the paint hasnt been bought yet, and im going to get kicked out of my sisters room tomorrow....
but one it is finished, ill be able to unpack some, if not all, of my stuff, get my computer out and wired up and hopefully itll start to feel like home again.

in other news ive just got back from McDonalds. I should be back grill monkeying friday next week. oh, what fun. and to be honest, i think it will be....for a week or so....catching up with the people i know from before, trying to convince the newbies that im not a trainee and am above them in the pecking order....and then the novelty will wear off and ill be back on the same old slog, waiting for my shifts to end as soon as possible. never mind.
at least im not doing closes any more.

this friday i may go back to Loughborough for the weekend. im just about to see how much it would cost and how long it would take on the train.

thats about all for now. speak soon!

What do you do when your uni turns off the network so youre stuck without internet for 32 hours?

me? i turn myself into a character from a 2D sidescrolling computer game!

its not finished yet, but you get the idea. no idea if im gonna actually do anything with it or not :P

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!