...its been a while hasn't it?

Thats pesky work blocking LJ for you, which was where i did the lion's share of my updatery before. I've actually got to write this from home (well, my Mum's house) - means i'm not even getting paid for it, pshaw!

( So, everything has gone a bit mental. )

Was just one of the whole slew of great lines from The Umbrella Academy, which turned out to be one of the best graphic novels i've read in a long time. Believe it or not (i do, cos its true and stuff) its written by the lead singer of Chemical Romance who clearly missed his proper calling. Write more dammit, and write it now!

Oh look, and Lily Allen has 'condemned the BNP'...well, thats them sorted then. For her next trick Lily will solve world poverty by proclaiming 'it sucks when people are poor'.

Heh, watching the news and writing this at the same time, it appears there may be some bleed-thru...

So yes, here i am, home alone for the next 4 days and well stocked with ice-cream. The Wife is visiting her Mum with The Tiny Person (and lodger/baggage handler/bodyguard). After work it was a trip to asda, an Amazon Prime order already have been made (that turned up at 8:30 this morning - w00t), and an agreement made for it to be nice and sunny, though not too polleny. All should be good. In fact so far - tick! After letting in my parcels it was back to bed with a cup of coffee to read the previously mentioned Umbrella Academy. MY first such lay in in...in...in...

*** Intermission for happy weeping ***

Wow, a Bristol museum is opening a Banksy exhibit with over a hundred new pieces. Bet that'd be a sight to see. To sort that out whilst keeping his anonymity, pretty good going Mr Banks.

So do i have anything planned?

Well there might be the cinema on Sunday AM with my Mum and my Brother-in-Law, with Angels & Demons or Terminator: Salvation looking the top two potential targets.
Al is round tomorrow afternoon/evening, maybe a return to the golden era of Naked Day in the offing there, who knows!
Got From Hell to read, courtesy of amazon as i've never actually read this Alan Moore classic. Have had a quick flick and the art, by Eddie Campbell, is a far cry from Dave Gibbons' work on Watchmen. Rather than having a traditional sequential feel it seems each grid layout shows more like a quick-fire series of stills. Promises to be interesting.
Eat ice-cream.
Watch bad films on Sci-Fi (can anything be worse than Cyclops???).
Could even play Fable II, only owned it for 6 months without touching it. Don't get me started on my record with GTA:Chinatown Wars, Chrono Trigger, Professor Layton, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates or Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings on the DS!
Oh yes, and there is always trusty Warcraft - come on guild buddies, get yourselves online - i'm back!!!

Also plan on doing some writing this weekend. I'm ahead by a couple of sessions on the Sunday Game but would like to sit down and fatten out a few bits, see if i can't make them a wee bit more interesting/different/novel. I've got Something Big planned for them hitting 20th and i want to have my passage there fully mapped out at least. The Wednesday Game is going well too, i've done much better than i thought i would juggling a non-linear (as best as i can make it) White Wolf game alongside a stat-heavy D&D. We're three sessions in on Wednesday now and i've got at least that much to go depending on how i decide the end game to pan out, though its going so well that i might fatten it out a bit. Seriously i could have easily turned this into a campaign, got so much material in me for this one that i could pour out and feed in, but that isn't how Wednesday are supposed to work. Adventures, not campaigns. Given how well running 2 games is going though i don't have many qualms about looking into Dark Heresy some more this weekend as it too is deeply inspiring. If i end up following myself on Wednesday's by going straight from White Wolf to Dark Heresy i shan't be too gutted.

Gosh, it seems that the 'picture of the economy' from one James Knightly is largely one of massive ears! Seriously, they're huuuuuuge! I'm really sorry BBC but all he's saying is 'blah blah blah EARS blah blah EARS blah bah'.

Quotes for all the work on our house are in, options chosen, people contacted. We're now in a nice calm period where everything just gets scheduled in before the upheaval hits again. Money has run out a bit with some paraphernalia still to source (ie labour for fitting kitchen sorted, actual gubbins to fit not so!) but we've got some time for fund-raising and so should be fine.

Miss not having Live Journal at work any more. Note to self: learn about email updating. Also, if i'm bothered, sort out Facebook on the mobile.

Mmmm, muffins with chicken & stuffing spread.

Now for more coffee.

And then i might put on some pants.

Might.

...When a man dressed as a panda fought a wrestling match against the man that killed his Pa;




(Courtesy of http://www.the-isb.com/)

So...hows it all been hanging you say?

Well mostly 'out' and sort of pooled around the bathroom.

Yes, thats right, i've been sick again! This time a wonderful combo of bad food and labyrinthitus (that sadly involved very little minotaur action) that nicely ruined bank holiday monday for me. Sure, i was well enough to watch the next in my Tripe Films on Sci-Fi ('Warbirds', feathery pterodactyls vs lady mechanics pilots in WWII no less) but not a lot else.

Surely i must have something more to say about this last week...

...

I finally got round to re-speccing my Warcraft chappies in readiness to recommence playing?

Watched Iron Man back to back with Incredible Hulk (showing just how much better it is by comparison).

Saw Trailers for Sherlock Holmes, Surrogates and Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.

Oh yes, and caught my first look at the 09/10 tv calender. Get this V is coming back as a 13 episode series hoping to run for a total of 4 seasons! Morena Bacarin, the space-prozzy from Firefly (longest neck on tv outside of tribal programs) is playing the evil lizard-women-megalomaniac and has cropped all her hair off to play the role - dedication (though i do worry it'll make her neck seem even more prominent. I recommend roll-necks).

We also see;

Eastwick
"Three very different women find themselves drawn together by a mysterious man who unleashes unique powers in each of them, and this small New England town will never be the same. The series is based on the popular movie The Witches of Eastwick and on the novel of the same title by John Updike.

Cancelled before season 1 ends.

Flash Forward
"When a mysterious event causes the entire world to black out, humanity is given a glimpse into its near future, and every man, woman and child is forced to come to grips with whether their destinies can be avoided or fulfilled.

Cancelled after season 1 ends, internet campaign to get season 2 fails.

Happy Town
"Haplin, Minnesota, 'Happy Town', is approaching almost a decade of peace after being riddled for years by unsolved kidnappings. But in the wake of this small town's first crime in seven years, some dark truths are being revealed about some familiar faces. They say every town has its secrets... that doesn't even begin to describe Happy Town.

Seen it when it was called Twin Peaks.

Vampire Diaries
"a young woman who's torn between two vampire brothers -- one good, one evil -- who are battling for her soul, and the souls of her pals, family and the small town where they live."

...do i really need to say anything?

...

I do wonder if these ones will be all sparkly though.


Blimey, i really am counting a LOT on Stargate: Robert Carlyle aren't i?

Oh well, all i can say is;

By god what a terrible film!

In my defence i only saw it because i had the Rifftrax version which both me and Suse agreed would be the only way we'd ever see this movie fan-fic.

It all starts when a bland emotionless smile-a-phobe girl goes to live with her Dad in Rainville, a town perennially on the cusp of a downpour, without one ever actually occurring. This is very handy for the local clan on vampire catalogue models because it means they can all go to school here and be enigmatic and cliquey at the other stupid 'normal' kids.

On day one Bland Girl is given a truck for no good reason by native americans who are obviously werewolves and she goes to school to immediately fall in love with Bland Boy who happens to be one of the vampire catalogue models, albeit by far the ugliest (flat face, big stabby nose). Of course Bland Boy then misses the next few days of school which Bland Girl obsesses about endlessly, her life being so bland that stalking is now the only social option available to her in her spare time.

Eventually he comes back to school, they talk, she buys a book, he drives her home and when they both go for the car radio at the same time she, of course, realises that this means he is a vampire. Oh yeah, he does save her from being squished by a truck because her blandness prevents her taking one step to the right and thus getting out of the way but, frankly, its more Smallville then Nosferatu here. Still she goes with vampire (guess she has never heard about the classic 'daytime + vampire = bad' bit of the mythos before) and, fortunately for her ignorance he is! Well mostly a vampire. You see he is a vampire created by the bite of fan-fiction, which means he has all of the kewl powerz of vampirism but none of the drawbacks, like issues with mirrors or daytime. Sunlight, get this - you;ll like it, sunlight on this vampire's skin Just Makes It Go A Bit Sparkly.

Truly he is cursed by God!!!

At this point the film gets really bad, because Bland Boy is trying so hard to be angsty about his curse (oh i'm a monster!) when its quite obvious its just really neat. (He's also had oodles of years to deal with it too, so he's clearly got issues, or is just plain thick). I think we the viewer are expected to sympathise with his plight, but when his plight mostly consists of 'sparkling' thats pretty hard.

Oh, did i mention he's a telepath too? Yes? Oh, well, he is.

Truly he is cursed by God!!!

Vampirism naturally bonds our bland couple to death by...ah...hitting the girl with the plot stick, largely. Boy is vampire thus girl must fancy him, thats pretty much all the justification we get here and at no point is this ever further expanded. They then commence a bland courtship of lying around, staring at things and almost never actually speaking, especially not to one another in case, heaven forbid, one of them accidentally say something exciting and causing will saving throws vs death for all those within earshot.

Then, during a baseball game which can only be played during a storm so we can feel even sorrier for the clan of goody catalogue vampires, some baddy vampires turn-up and a Pose Off ensues! The drama here is virtually...incredibly...utterly...absent. It definitely seems that a vampires no1 weapon in their arsenal is A Jolly Good Stare, possibly even followed up with Good Hair. The goodies are all fearful that the baddies might do bad things to Bland Girl (one of them made a sarcy comment about her!) so they absolutely have to protect her. As they already outnumber the baddies 2 to 1 they do the obvious thing; send her obviously off away from them with just a lone escort, in a vehicle even slower than a piggyback ride.

Fortunately the baddies really aren't all that fussed, and just wander off...except for one! For this vampire is especially bad, because he has a ponytail, and for no good reason what so ever appears to decide he needs to eat Bland Girl above and beyond every single other girl ever. So he stalks her. Slowly. And badly. And after being told he's the best baddy vampire vampire tracker ever he spends several days going in the wrong direction and then has to go bully Bland Girl's slightly more interesting mum in order to phone Bland Girl and get her to meet him.

Yeah, real fiendish. Great tracking.

Bland Girl, being some sort of idiot, actually turns up and just gets thrown around a bit because otherwise the baddy would win. His dallying gives Bland Boy time to turn up (um...telepathy? Even though he can't read Bland minds due to plot? Um...) and after he gets beaten up for being shit the rest of the goody catalogue vampires turn up to easily beat the ponytailed baddy (did i mention one of the goodies can see the future? That was rather handy wasn't it?). Bland Girl is a bit hurt but, thanks to her severed femoral artery being as lifeless and bland as its owner, she can bleed away happily for many minutes whilst the catalogue vampires discuss what pose to take whilst they...ah...sort of suck the dyingness out of her. Yeah, i didn't get that either. I mean she got bitten a bit but i'm not sure how 'unbiting' her (cause thats what they did!) sewed her up and put all that blood back in her...

Luckily she passes out so the plot doesn't need to feed us trivialities like that and can instead just tell Bland Girl's mum that her daughter just fell down the stairs. Oh, and why did she flee home in a panic? Um...nope, not dealt with, what panicked flight? No, nothing to see here, just go back home and back to school tomorrow. Tra la la, everything is normal.

The end?

No.

Because teenage vampire-sexed-wanabee audience-gooers demand more, dammit, and by jove they get it! Why you can virtually sense their panties dampening as our Bland Couple go to their Bland Prom and dance a bit. And we even get our obligatory scene where Bland Girl asks to me made a vampire, due to its complete lack of drawbacks, only for Bland Boy to refuse (I don't want you to be cursed by God!!!) because otherwise there won't be as much for him to faux-angst over in the inevitable sequels where she is bound to be on deaths door and turning her is the only way he can save her (i don't know, i certainly haven't read this shit, but i'd put real money on it).

Then it ends.

Mercifully.

But i can never forget...

(Bonus point to anyone who knows where that title comes from btw)

So, where have i been?

Well i've been at work of course where, annoyingly, they have recently decided to block LJ. Plus my head cold went away which led to me not getting better, oh no, but getting worse.

How does that work?

Well its all about sinuses you see. By Thursday by cold had mostly gone (apart from morning coughing fits) but my sinuses where completly blocked and the pressure inside my head just got worse and worse to the point where i staggered home from work and went straight to bed and this morning had serious problems opening my left eye due to the pain in my temple.

Thanks the gods for a good local chemists. Two (HUGE!) tablets of 'sinutab' and half an hour later and i'm finally actually able to function as a human again! Coughing still causes a knife to cut into my temple but its not the monofilament stabbing it was first thing and i can actual use the sense of scent again - a veritable revelation at Asda!

---

Finished Life on Mars season 1, upon which i committed the cardinal sin of unintentional punnery by proclaiming John Simm's performance as being 'Masterful'. It was an interesting last episode too as by and large i think the series is carried on the strength on Philip Gleneister as Gene Hunt, but the last episode really was all Simms and, frankly, he was amazing.

Brilliant shows. I almost don't want to watch season 2 as its the last season before it becomes Ashes to Ashes which seems to suffer by comparison according to most reviews.

---

Twilight. I haven't seen/read it yet but i bet some of you have - opinions?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Easter,
I will fear no child: For my Mum art with me;
Thy rusks and thy milk, they comfort me.
I preparest a table before me in the presence of thy nappies;
Thou annointest my head with dribble; My love runneth over.

The sleeping bag, that is. Never have the other thing!

By Mari Kasurinen, google her out - she's done loads.

Dead Space
So far so good and i think its made me jump at least once each time i've played it, which has been in fits and starts over the past week (pretty much one save point at a time). I doubt i'll finish it, i almost never finish games, but i'm enjoying it for sure and it didn't cost me anything anyway (thankyou Lovefilm).

Graphics have surprised me too. See i'm playing this on the 360 but, because i owned it for about 5mins on the PC i've seen both versions and this one looks just as good as it did on my Alienware. Its defs a console game though, survival horror just works better on control pad, putting this on a PC made me try to play it as if it were a regular first-person-shooter which just led to frustration.

Empire: Total War
Too easy, sorry. I line up all my musketmen in nice solid formation. You charge me pathetically with a few cavalry, that i kill, and then dribble towards me in bits and pieces through my mortar fire until you limp into range enough for me to then just gun you down.

Sorry AI - must try harder.

Wednesday Game
Actually playing AD&D is fun! Not often i get chance to do this due to mostly just running it (this'll be my first time as a player in a good 5-6 years!), and its funny what rules i've had to re-learn as a result (things i just don't need to know/worry about as a DM). Shalls defs miss it when its done but, hey, that means i get to run my Hunter *scribble scribble cackle scribble*

Board Game Day
Gonna try and make this a regular monthly thing (at least). The regular Sunday/Wednesday crew get first refusal (we only have so many chairs! though if its a big group i will likely 'DM' whatever game it is rather than strictly play it), game to be decided, first date looking like Saturday April 4th (2 days after Suse's birthday!) when the Tiny Person is conveniantly at my Mum's between 11am - 4/5pm, so look for Core Game Time to be around those hours.

Mother's Day
Well i've-er, i mean Eva, has finally gotten what she's giving her Mum sorted (barring a slight wobble on postage times, but nothing i can brief her Mum on in advance of it turning up) though i'm still totally stuck on what to get my own Mum. Can cook for her on the day (which is actually a week Saturday) but pressie-wise i can only think of Big Things, birthday-esque ideas. Just what do you get a woman with no hobbies who can afford anything she wants anyway?

Engaging Panic Mode
2 x Mother's Days over the next 2 weekends
Susan's Birthday April 2nd
5th Wedding Anniversary May 1st
Eva's Birthday May 6th

Panic Mode Engaged
Maelstrom - Easter Weekend April 10th - 13th
This means that i am home alone for 4 days with the Tiny Person.
4 days.
Just me and her.
Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah!
(Sunday Game is off that weekend btw)

Took me nearly a whole week to get over my food poisoning, if that was indeed what it was. My Mum made me doubt my previous certainty on the ground that, no, now i think about it i didn't have any stomachy pains, only what i affectionately like to call 'bum wee' :) But hey, what does that matter? I spent over 24hrs pretty much just throwing up, a further two more days 'nil by mouth' and then a terrible acid stomach that lasted until late Friday. I managed to only miss two days of work but even so the week largely just passed me by.

In Bruge
Was lucky enough to see this on Sky the day before i was bed-ridden - blow me if it wasn't effing fantastic! Very funny indeed, especially from Colin Farrell, defs one of the best film scripts i can remember listening to.

Heartily recommended to all

Work
New job is...well, its a good job i'm in it for the money :) Frankly no way should this role be a whole band higher than my last one, i had way more variety, responsibility and needed far more skills where i used to be. But hey, i can take a bit more regimen if its gonna pay the mortgage better, cater for the Tiny Person better and generally take more care of us in the long run. I guess it really is just how you frame the wording on the job specification.

The training was...well, its a good job i'm a damn genius at picking things up :) What there was of it lasted one day, training me solely to do the jobs that needed doing on that lone day. The other four days? They just seemed to forget about me, chap i'm replacing was the same thing as the chap training me and he couldn't wait to get out of the door. Fortunately i know my way around a PC, was able to find out what jobs normally got done, how they did it, on what days they were done and then worked backwards from there to the point where, last Friday, despite still being wobbly, i was able to show them how to upload certain things in certain places.

I've taken much pleasure in, upon receiving emails from my crap trainer along the lines of "could you remind so-and-so that the such-and-such will need taking care of this week", to be able to respond "its okay, i've done that".

Stargate
More and more its looking like i won't be able to make it. Firstly it was changing jobs, which meant that a full Fri - Mon was no longer possible (no flexi-time here...yet). Now its me also realising its Mother's Day that weekend. I mean i know its not really, but my Mum is away on actual Mother's Day visiting her Mum, meaning that 'my' Mother's Day becomes the Sunday after, last Sunday of the month when i would normally visit for dinner etc. Especially given her relatively recent single status this just feels plain wrong to bum out on. This, on top of travel looking significantly challenging for that event, just doesn't make it seem all that plausible.

Wrestlemania
Just doesn't grab me this year. Virtually nothing feels like it lights up the card, the sole exception being Undertaker vs Shaun Michaels. Does one lone match make me tempted to spend the £25? Hell no! Its a shame too, that and the Royal Rumble are the only two i ever think about paying for (all i watch now even) and the only two stars who now even get me interested are the two who could literally retire any time now.

Bedtime
Is now i think. Ironing can wait until the morning and i don't need to shave.

Night night folks.

The Man With The Golden Gun - Lulu
Fight on the Golden Gate - View to a Kill soundtrack
Suburbia - Pet Shop Boys

Earworms eh? They're funny things.

ffs...Lulu...seriously?

"Elton John's Rocket Pictures hopes to make the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends.

Will Clark is set to direct "Pride and Predator," which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.

Shooting will begin in London later this year. John exec produces, and his Rocket partners Steve Hamilton Shaw and David Furnish are producing."

Pride & Predator...what a great title...


Saw Outlander the other day too, which is sort of The 13th Warrior meets Aliens vs Predator. Not half bad i have to say, though Jim Caviziel seemed like a man in desperate need of a good hug. Sophia Myles and John Hurt were quite good in it too (Hurt was great actually), unexpectedly good casting.

I should really blame the success of the Wednesday Game though. The fact that its adventure rather than campaign based means we get to see a lot more ideas and systems than usual, which is great because its given some of us chance and a good reason to dust off various systems and ideas we had but figured we'd never get to run due to all the other sessions being Big Campaigns.

But thinking about running games can be dangerous, especially when you have an Idea. A Good Idea. Not only can you then not wait to run it but you also can't see yourself wanting to stop running it! Also, because its an idea you're chuffed with you mention it to some people and now they are really looking forward to it to!

My subconscious must agree with me its a good idea too because it'll be a three week gap between my D&D Sunday sessions come this weekend but all i can think about gamey-wise is this pesky Idea. This is not good, i need to be writing Mind Flayers, not White-Wolf set in Wisconsin where the PCs are starting out as the personnel of the County Sheriff's dept in a lovely peaceful townstead when suddenly, one sleepy day, a call comes in...

Gah - away with you Idea! Sunday is D&D and has a while to run yet. Monday is taken (and is elsewhere so Suse couldn't play now anyway) and so Wednesday is your slot and you're jolly well going to have to wait your turn!

...

Even so, its still kinda nice to be cock-punched by the fist of inspiration :)

I'm sitting at home watching Bette Midler, on live tv, playing the ukelele and singing 'Thats the Glory of Love'...

I love snow - which is probably why i'm such a miserable sod much of the time as, this week apart, when was the last time we had any? I mean a proper amount - years ago, right? I know i was back at school which makes it...well...longer ago than i care to count :)

But this was made all the better by the fact that i was totally unaware that we were due any, making it an awesome surprise to wake up to!

So work was promptly blown off (advantages of flexi-time with no core hours) and fun in the snow commenced! Baby was bundled, wife was gathered and it was off for a long walk in the blizzardy snow into Sherwood, where a gorgeous french dinner was consumed and then burnt off by, yes, another long walk home in blizzardy snow.

Brilliant. Inner kid duely entertained (see you again in a decade) so i put it you that if you didn't feel the slightest pang of 'snow?-Wheeeee!' then your inner child has long since died and you clearly watch far too much Eastenders/The Bill.

Having said all that though i'm not sure that our actual child was too amused by it all!

Okay, so there's this farmer who keeps sheep and he's been having a spot of bother from foxes. So what does he do? Yep, he does the logical thing and buys a llama as protection.

...

Of course then, yes, foxes stop eating the fluffy ones but only to have their place taken by the llama, who starts taking bites out of the little fellas!

The llama was fired.

True story, was in the paper today and the logic chain amused me.

---

Also in there was a simple story about a pet albino wallaby that, because of the recent weather, went missing as its owner just couldn't see it out and about on his farm!

Now that things have thawed a little and he's found the bounder it has been fitted with a cow-bell.

That too amused me.

---

Oh, and Torchwood is nearly back!!!

...

No.

Me Neither.