A sign of the times...

I used to watch a lot of television as a kid, but it wasn't until I lived purely off TV, movies and the internet around the time that I was at university that I truly immersed myself in the wonders on show.

During this time we watched pretty much everything that we could, and it was prior to the explosion of the shit that clogs up our screens these days...reality TV, but let's for the moment live in Utopia and pretend that type of shit still doesn't exist.

During these days, we'd get a group of guys together, head down the local video store and hire 10 movies, then proceed to lock ourselves in a room and drink copious amounts of booze watching some of the most bizarre movie combinations - and indeed movies - in history.

To this day, I can still remember some of the absolute beauties that we watched in those days, two of which spring directly to mind...

1. Mutronics,
2. Robot Jox.

I doubt there's more than a handful of people that have seen both of these movies, and yes, there's a reason why.

I also recall - with both fondness and embarrasment - that we watched Rocky I - Rocky V in rapid succession, only pausing to change the tape or to take a piss. Many will argue that Rocky V never happened, but I can assure you there were five movies watched on this bizarre night.

Why am I reminiscing about some weird and wonderful times spent in front of the box? Simple really, I watched the second film in a row starring Leonardo Di Caprio and managed to finish my viewing without a) vomiting, b) wanting to punch him in the face and c) offering my soul to the devil to take me away from the viewing pain.

To say that I've never appreciated Leonardo's work would be akin to saying that Hitler never appreciated the Jewish people, and although I never thought to commit genocide - or indeed to use such an inappropriate analogy - it's fair to say that I usually avoided any movie with 'Leo' in it. I mean, have you even seen 'Titanic'? I'm not sure which was more disasterous, the original ship or the movie.

When I heard that 'The Departed' was coming out, I was actually checking the movie listings daily to see when it started at my local cinema - even though Di Caprio had landed a leading role. And you know what? I was impressed! However, after the film had finished, I rationalised that I was impressed because he hadn't totally sucked, and because everyone else in the movie was so bloody good, that it was easy to overlook his shitty acting. I mean really, even Mark Wahlberg was entertaining!!!! Yes, read that last sentence again, and no, I haven't actually sold my soul to the devil.

So I recently see a trailer for 'Blood Diamond' and it shows Di Caprio as a bit of an action guy, and although I giggle to myself, picturing him standing at the bow of a computer generated boat, I'm willing to check it out, because being a cinema member, these are the types of risks we take. I was also interested in the actual backdrop of the movie along with the main plot and a few sub-plots.

Now this isn't the first movie that I've seen in 2007 (I've seen Smoking Aces, Miss Potter and something else that I've already forgotten), but I've got to tell you that 'Blood Diamond' is something that I rate. Really enjoyed every aspect of the film.

So there it is in a nutshell, I'm now able to enjoy a film with Leo in it, but perhaps this is just yet another reason for me to go and add to a post from many months ago listing a number of reasons that could indicate that I am gay.

And no, because I've got a rainbow coloured bumper sticker that says, 'I love having balls in front of my face' does not make me gay! Referring to Di Caprio as 'Leo' however, well that might just be the straw that broke the Camel's back....... I'll let you decide.

Check the movie out though, it's well worth it.

Australia Day Eve...

Have had a pretty shit week at work; one of the deadlines that I've been working for (Feb. 12) was 
unexpectedly brought forward to January 31.  This did not make my week, and it's one of the reasons why it's taken me so long to put something on the blog this week, that and the fact that I'm a lazy and unmotivated smeg, for most part.  So I've decided to give you a quick insight into my day, as I'm already trying to forget the earlier part of the week.

The day got off to a pretty sloppy start, and because I'd been up half the night helping my mother out with computer stuff, I was dead tired and consequently hit the 'snooze' button a few too many times.  Fortunately, my first meeting was 9:30, so my 9:28 arrival to the office was - amongst other things - timely.

The first meeting was about training, and unfortunately my general "how fucking hard it is, why do these muppets need training" approach doesn't quite wash it, and I need to at least attempt to be a little more professional in these environments, but my meeting scared me, and after it at ended there was more apprehension as to our ability to deliver what's required.  Fortunately - for everyone - I'm actually not going to be training people.  Perhaps with this in mind, we do stand a chance after all!!!

A nice curveball was thrown at me, getting quotations for housing servers and applications and these types of exciting things, but since I was getting nowhere fast trying to obtain quotes from the various groups I'd spoken to, I was forced to engage in the help of 'google' and then start ringing people asking about there services.

Now generally speaking, i don't like talking to people unless I know them, they're interesting or I'm really, really drunk and there's a chance they might know of a party somewhere else, so calling a bunch of people and discussing server co-location and begging for indicative costings was not something that i really wanted to do for a minute, let alone the two hours that I ended up doing it for.

Because I'm such a good bloke and karma is always positive around me, the following task was a 3 hour site visit inside Wembley stadium, where I had to not only discuss the operational environments of the hospitality areas, but attempt to map out where things had ended up, and contemplate suicide given their actual locations versus their expected locations.  As Dennis Leary so aptly put it, "this is gonna suck!"

Yeah, three hour site visit.  Good one!  Sometimes I love being me!

Finished the work-day off by organising my transport to Norwich for tomorrow's festivities.  I'm heading up to visit my cousin, whose organised a night out with some of her friends.  Should be a good night, will be great catching up because she's a cool chick, will get to see another city and also meet some more people.  It's good to keep busy now, and given that work is almost all consuming, it will be one of the last times for awhile.

Tonight I was that sick of scrounging around the kitchen trying to create a masterpiece with the likes of an onion, some plain flour and some sesame seeds, that I decided that I'd head down the local High Road to my favourite London Indian establishment.  The place is called 'Kurdiris' and they do probably the finest Rogan Josh that I've ever sampled.  Sure, I paid £9.20 for take away, but at the end of the day, when you love food as much as I do, and it tastes as good as this curry, it's well worth the expense.

DJD decided to have some Chinese duck dish, and no, that's not a euphamism.

Actually, try saying that ten times really quickly.....

Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish

I cut'n'pasted it, so that's really not a substitute.

Anyway, we're having dinner in the lounge-room and we're talking about stupid old television shows, movies and bad things of the 1980's and I remember Alby Mangles.  Alby Mangles was that dumbarse that used to make the 'World Safari' 'movies'.  If you don't know of him, then maybe you should.

Now I'm guessing that my mate DJD never had the fortune of watching any of the 'World Safari' movies...

"Wasn't she in 'Neighbours'"?

Now for those of you confused as the the identities, i've thrown something below for you to consider.  The not-so-great man, Alby Mangles.



I'm still somewhat unclear as to why he wasn't considered one of Australia's greatest sons, but he's a little different to the following hottie....



I guess you had to be there.

Needless to say, given yet more insight into the frightening individual that DJD, I definitely showed some bravery letting DJD cut my hair.  

At this point you'd think that I've hit rock bottom, but the fact that I'm sitting on the toilet typing this would probably usurp it.  The only thing worse would have been if I titled this 'Blog of a log', but I have some class..... obviously.

Have a great Australia Day.

Sunday recovery

Massive weekend has just come to an end, and part of me is welcoming the sobering prospect of work and a week of healthy living, because the last few days have been, in a word, hectic. Kicked off Friday night catching up with some mates for a birthday dinner. It all started off fairly soberly, with a few quiet ales in Clapham, but that soon changed later on in the evening due to a rendezvous with some other mates and a trip to a local Cricklewood establishment. After many beers, the final result was a 3am souvlaki and a bit of a sleep in.

Saturday afternoon brought some delirium in the form of a Liverpool victory over Chelsea, which aided the recovery process no end. By 7pm we were back into the swing of it, exchanging the beers and snakebites of Friday night for vodka and some horrible 58 pence soft drink that DJD has a tendency to buy from Sainsburys.

It wasn't too long before we found some effects, and we headed off to another mate's place, smashed down a few more bevvies, and headed to Piccadilly, to a high class establishment just off of Shaftsbury Avenue.

Prior to entering, we played as American tourists, getting some photos of Eros. Happy days.

We got ourselves in and began to get what is probably classified as 'very fucking drunk'. There was some fantastic dancing, including the crowd favourite, 'The Fruit-picker' which was once again an out and out success.

Ordering drinks was perhaps the toughest thing to achieve effectively, but we didn't let that stop our purposeful march towards inebriation. No, sir! We most certainly didn't.

There were countless interesting occurrences, although the one failure we will not omit here is the distinct lack of mathematical acumen within the place. People didn't even know their 15 times table. It's a crazy world that we all live in.

In the end, we all ended up back from whence we came at around 5am. Yet another successful sortie into Central London.

After some heavy slumber, bed was the scene for the recovery, being vacated at around 6pm, just in time to enable us to head to catch a movie. 'Which movie?' I hear you ask.... It was Balboa, or as some people know it, Rocky VI.

A big slow, a bit gratuitous, but hey, it rests easier than Rocky V, that's for sure.

A new beginning of sorts....

I doubt that I'll be able to get into the second paragraph before I start trivialising important things in my life and get aboard the self-deprecating train and castigate myself purely for the sake of it, but anyway, here are a couple of thoughts - and serious ones at that - which have been circulating in my head for the last few weeks.

Now, without getting into any personal or explicit details, it's fair to say that the last month has probably been the hardest of my life, certainly my adult life. It's been by far more mentally and emotionally draining than it has physically, but as anyone will tell you, the pain of the mind and the soul hurts far more.

I'm pretty much out the other side now, and although there are going to be some scars there for the rest of my life, I'm actually thankful - to a degree - that I've been through this. It's really confirmed so many things that I thought I knew about myself and others, and it's taught me countless other things, not that I'm trying to be philosophical in any way, I'm just trying to move on.

One thing is for certain though, when you have friends and family around you of the calibre that I have, there's never any doubt that things will right themselves in the end.

This is probably a weird post, given that most people wont have any clue to what I'm referring to, but I'm sure I've written weirder. If not, then I've got something to aspire to.

-Me

Expressing yourself...

Since the Ashes whitewash, and the following 20-20 massacre, I keep hearing/reading of the media, former players and critics putting a lot of England's recent putridity down to one thing; the failure of their players to 'express themselves'.

Now, if I was to say that this is one of the biggest loads of shite that I've ever heard, I'd hardly be exaggerating. I think everyone's got it wrong here. I actually think that they are expressing themselves, and it's actually the expression that's the problem.

Each and every English player are screaming out "we're fucking rancid" and I think that is the problem.

Let's face it, when you give someone like Michael Vaughan an OBE and the rabble that follows him MBEs for winning two tests, maybe you need to look at the forms of expression that are evident within your society.

The English and their cricket team make me laugh.

Fortunately, I don't express myself.