Monday 25th January
The start of another soul crushing week. I’m getting quite fed up of the cold and dark on a morning, my first day off of the year on February 15th can’t come soon enough. It was back to the diet as well after the weekend’s excesses. I’ve got quite good now, none of the usual week on it/weekend off it forget to get back on it routine that I’ve managed in the past. It has to be said as well, that I’m much more sprightly in the morning and my T-shirts hang off me now instead of clinging like a badly static-y sheet.
I’m tryng to walk the dog about a mile on a morning, maybe a bit less. I find this wakes me up quite nicely for the day ahead, and gives me time to think about new ways of passing the time when I get to work. Today’s plan involved finding a very slow responding remote access server and working on that for most of the day. Time consuming, but very easy.
It being so cold and dark makes night time activities a bit of a chore, but we (me, the wife and the dog) donned hats, gloves, scarves and lead to take a quick walk down the hill to my Mam’s, and then a quick walk back again when the dog stunk the house out with a well-digested fart he’d obviously been saving for special occasions.
Sunday 24th January
I spent some of today wrestling with the wozbox website, trying to make one standard sidebar that would appear on each page, so in the event of changes I wouldn’t have to change 7 sidebars. Can’t do it though, for the life of me. Anyone?
Next door offered us further filmage. We tried to watch Rise of the Footsoldier, but it was possibly the worst film I’ve ever clapped eyes on. You know that short, incisive montage at the start of Trainspotting? Three minutes to introduce the characters and their respective relationships and you know, by the end of it, exactly where you stand?
Not with this. After 31 minutes and montage after montage (hooligan, bouncer, steroids, drug deals) I still didn’t know who was who, when was what, and didn’t give a fuck either. They try to fit in twenty years of a life in twenty minutes and it’s such a shock to your brain that none of it goes in. Plus, the film starts with the characters all dead. So you know it’s going to turn out a bit dodgy in the end, so why watch?
Nobody can act, the story goes nowhere, the leading character is a hate filled shitpot, the soundtrack is all wrong, the comedy moments would only be funny to a mindless nutcase and it was in HD but still had horrible speckly film.
Avoid. Turned off at the 35 minute mark.
As it was Sunday, we rescued the other half of the chrimbo turkey from the freezer (raw, you understand) and had a bit of a roast dinner. I say a bit, it was actually loads and it nearly fucking killed me. With my stomach growling from the dinner and my brain complaining about the film, it was time for bed.
Saturday 23rd January
Saturday meant film night.
The wife chose 27 Dresses, a rom-com about a woman with severe mental issues that caused her to be addicted to weddings. She was always the bridesmaid, but never the…ah, you might as well not watch it now.
My pick was Be Kind Rewind. I featured one of my least favourite actors, Jack Black. He basically played Jack Black in it, but failed to spoil one of the most inventive, creative, clever films I’ve seen for a long time. It was quite affecting too, a perfect Saturday night film.
We had curry as well. Mine was tasty and filling, while the wife went beserk and ordered something new. It burnt (almost literally) the living shit out of her. She will know for next time.
Friday 22nd January
Fuck you Tumblr. Where are my posts? Eh? Eh? Give them back, you shit, you know that those words were the best words and you stole them. Stole them! I want them back! I know they made little sense and were grammatically suspect. I realise that I beautifully split my infinitives. But why? Why? On a Monday? Why?
Well, bollocks. Friday was spent doing very little, it was a short Friday at work and it’s hard to get hyped up to work on a short Friday. So I came home, got my hair cut and collapsed in front of the telly. It’d been a hard week.
Thursday 21st January
I’ve done this one already. It was about not playing football. It was about the Southlands Centre having a ludicrous ten till eleven court time. It was about not being that bothered about it because I was quite tired. I am quite tired as I type this, because Tumblr, in it’s infinite wisdom has lost the posts I’ve just spent at least 30 minutes each on. I am not a happy bunny. I can’t even remember Thursday now, I have purged it from my memory.
I’m reading a big book at the moment. It’s nearly a thousand pages long. It’s hard to read. I have no idea what is going on, whether it’s all a dream or not, if it is a historical document or what. I shall persevere though. The book is Gravity’s Rainbow. Has anyone else tried to read it? Should I persevere?
Wednesday 20th January
Wednesday, as you loyal readers know, is boxercise day. Yes Glen, I do go to boxercise, it’s very enjoyable. Or it was.
It would appear that the boxercise woman had had a very poor week. She decided to take it out on us. We punched, we ran, we crunched, we ran, we skipped (not me, I can’t), we ran, we punched again, we ran, we ran, we ran. I haven’t exerted myself that much for years.
Wednesday also let me have a more considered listen to the new Vampire Weekend album, Contra. It’s really quite special. I really like their debut album, and would have been happy with more of the same. But it’s so much more than that. They’ve taken all of the good bits, and attached them to even catchier, cleverer songs. It runs such that you think, no, that’s it, they’ve run out of ideas and then a killer moment will grab you firmly by the throat and not let go. I can even forgive them rhyming ‘horchata’ with ‘balaclava’. Try it, you’ll love it. Album of the year for me, already.
Tuesday 19th January
After a superb full english brekky, I made my way to the office. Following a hard day’s work (something I’m certainly not used to) I was delivered to the airport in style in a Range Rover. Sitting in the back, I received all manner of startled looks (who’s he, he’s too fat to be a footballer) from other road users, which made me feel special and important. Bristol airport was almost as deserted as Newcastle had been, so i whizzed through check in and security and set about demolishing a Burger King meal. I hadn’t checked the price first though, and was astounded when asked to stump up the best part of seven quid for my medium meal. Luckily, somebody else was paying.
I had a pint to pass the time, and wandered down to check the departure board. The flight was delayed by twenty minutes. This wasn’t a problem, I could sink another pint, I like the sound of that. So I went back to the bar, another pint, and was just debating if I needed a piss or not when the flight was called. Oh shit, I thought, I better get down there; if it’s as deserted on the flight as the empty airport suggests, then they might fuck off without me. No time to piss…I can hold it in.
But there were hundreds of people waiting for the plane (I assume they had been hiding in Tie Rack) so I assumed my position near the front of the queue. I didn’t want to lose my place, and therefore the pick of the seats, so the piss went on hold again…I can hold it in.
I got on the plane, the swaying steps not helping my bladder based difficulties. I took a seat at the rear of the aircraft, near the toilet. This was a masterstroke. Not only would I be first to the bog, but I would be first off the rear exit when we landed. We’ll be taking off soon…I can hold it in.
The doors were sealed. Surely the nice pilot man will want to be in the air ASAP to make up for lost time? To be comfortably back in Newcastle with maybe only ten minutes delay? No. This pilot decided that what he quite fancied was a twenty minute sit on the tarmac. Presumably while he read his ‘Big Book Of How To Fly Aircraft’. It was painful, even critical by now, but…I can hold it in.
After what seemed like 15 years had passed, we finally trundled onto the runway. Remember the swaying steps? If they did that to some stairs, imagine what the did to a big airplane. Yep, you’ve guessed right, straight into turbulence, so the seatbelt light stayed on. I CAN HOLD IT IN.
The light went off. Before the accompanying ‘bong’ finished, I was up and over the person sat next to me (they know little of the disaster that may have befallen them) and into the toilet. I reckon the soothing, satisfying ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah’ might have been heard all the way down to the cabin. I fully expected a round of applause upon my exit.
Piss based disaster averted, we landed safely in Newcastle. Into the waiting taxi, to meet the grumpiest man alive. ‘Any chance of having the match on the radio mate?’ ‘I don’t watch football.’ ‘Could you turn the heater down mate?’ He turned it up. Didn’t he know the trauma I’d been through? Couldn’t he understand?
Sunday 17th January
I arose from my slumber to inspect the wall. It had been basically kicked over, invariably by the kids who hang round outside it. We called the police, who sent round what appeared to be an eleven year old boy in a policeman’s uniform. They say you’re getting old when the policemen are young men, but this was taking the piss. I doubt he’s even started shaving yet.
It was marked down as criminal damage, so the insurance will have to pay out. Y’know, so they can knock it down again. I get the feeling this may be a recurring thing.
We went to ASDA, home of the most spastic shoppers in Teesside, as the wife needed hangover food. As usual, the store was filled with unbelievable cunts.
Saturday 16th January
The wife went out drinking, leaving me home alone. I made good use of this free time, watching some films that I received for Xmas, or others had received for Xmas. First up was Star Trek, the remake by JJ Abrams. Hopes were high.
It was OK. And I mean OK, in the most average, forgettable sense of the term. The relationship of the characters was never really developed, and the way in the original series that McCoy was the devil on one of Kirk’s shoulders in opposition to Spock’s angel on the other. McCoy was forgotten about after about an hours running time, Spock was made out to be a bit of shithouse and the other characters were just shoddy photocopies of the old 60’s version. The special effects were nice (apart from the skydiving in space bit, yeah you heard), the little touches were well done (the red costumed away team member dying, as they always did) and it bodes reasonably well for a sequel now that the introductions are out of the way.
I tried to watch Terminator Salvation, or Terminator 4 as it should have been called. But my Blu Ray player decided that it needed an upgrade/update/life prolonging surgery but I’d had a few cans by now and arsing about with discs wasn’t my idea of fun. Blu Ray is truly the future.
Back to old school DVDs then, and I tried the long owned but never watched Big Lebowski, as I’d heard good things about it. It’s a cult classic, which I presume means it’s only watched by total cults. Switched off after half an hour.
After much wrestling with the Virgin Box (ooh-er missus) because ‘On Demand is unavailable at this time’, I watched episode one of Skins, series 3. I’d avoided Skins for a long time, thinking it was for arsey teens, and was therefore immature, childish and full of shoddy fart gags. It was. I loved it. Hopefully the rest of the series continues in the same vein.
Oh, and some cunt knocked my garden wall down, but more on that tomorrow.
Friday 15th January
Christ, I hate Friday nights sometimes. Yeah, OK, there’s no work the next day, but the telly offerings are shocking, and nobody ever goes out on a Friday these days.
To reduce the boredom I decided to have a bash on the Xbox. I’m sort of between games at the moment, having finished the very average Modern Warfare 2, and with the quite-good-but-would-be-infinitely-better-with-4-humans Left 4 Dead 2 to come next. I need other people (i.e. Mikey) to but L4D2, so I’m reluctant to play it yet.
Then I remembered I had some Microsoft points lying round, so I had a quick look round the marketplace. I fancied one of the classic beat-em-ups, and found Marvel v Capcom 2. After consulting the Eurogamer review (9/10), it was go! Go! GO!
It’s fast. I’m used to the slower and more considered Street Fighter IV, and in comparison this is incredibly quick. But you can see the potential technical aspects to it straight away, the use of off screen assists and aerial combos being of particular note. With a staggering 56 characters on offer from the start, and their respective strong/weak points to learn, it should be a grower. The 3 on 3 gameplay is taking some getting used to, but offers a fresh set of strategy options to a somewhat tired genre. Plus you can have Ken fighting Wolverine. That’s why it’s awesome.
