My So-Called Life

I've been pretty busy this past week. Mostly in entirely good ways, although work's imploded on me, too, which is something I could have done without. It's all manageable.

So. It kicked off with a writing challenge and me actually making the deadline and delivering a pretty good fic. Turns out I can write to deadlines, even though it felt like I was squeezing words out of my brain at some point. Still, I delivered and people were happy.

The next day I met up with a friend from Canada and spent a lovely day with him exploring London and catching up. I've now got one more standing invite to come visit Toronto, which means I really have to get my act together AND GO sometime this year.

On Sunday I braved the snow and went to Bethnal Green to watch a friend of mine wrestle. Mexican Wrestle. Lucha Britannia it's called and it was pretty awesome.

Monday I helped another friend with a project on people with prescription glasses and 3D glasses. Spent a great evening brainstorming, eating tasty food and chatting. So great!

Tuesday I actually was home in the evening, mainly doing household stuff and getting myself organised for the rest of the week.

Wednesday I went to the National Television Awards courtesy of an agency who'd invited us to a suite in the O2. This meant free food and booze, so I ate way too much. I still don't recognize most of the British celebs, so the appeal of the evening was a bit lost on me. Didn't go to the afterparty because I didn't see the point and needed sleep.

Thursday I trekked into town after work to watch DJANGO UNCHAINED which was awesome. Tarantino's totally back on form.

Friday I met up with a friend for a massive catch-up and tasty, tasty (and insanely cheap) Thai food.

Yesterday was another friend's birthday, which meant food and the Rocky Horror Show. I've seen Rocky Horror before but never like this - Dr Frank N Furter was gorgeous and there was dancing and shout backs and everything awesome.

And today I went into town for a bit of shopping.

Next week's not going to be quite as busy, at least fun-wise. Work's probably not going to calm down for another month or so.

But all is good. Life is pretty awesome.

The Life Of... WHAT?!

That's what I felt like during most of the film...

This week's been relatively busy, considering it's January and my recent laziness.

Went to the movies on Wednesday with flatmate and some of her friends to watch Life Of Pi, because people have said it's a good film and it looked pretty shiny in the trailer. Looking back I should've known better to watch a film based on a book I wouldn't even consider reading because it sounded boring as fuck, but hey, you live and learn. And it's not entirely bad, really, just... well, it's not particularly good, either. It's very much in meh territory, which is not a good place to be for anything. It certainly is pretty, it even has moments of the Avatar-shiny, but mainly it's a rather huge pile of What The Fuck. I'm sure it's got a deeper meaning, it might be a philosophical exploration of whatever it is that philosophers explore, but to be honest, I really don't care. I didn't get it in the theatre and I didn't get it when I read the explanation of the ending on the internet. I'd make a really shitty philosopher, but to me philosophy is having an argument that no one can win because no one knows the answer which makes it pretty pointless to argue over in the first place.

So, 2 stars out of 5. I'm still disappointed the tiger didn't speak and/or eat the boy in the end. It would have greatly improved my experience.

On Friday I went out for drinkies with my flatmate and the neighbours. It was nice, I got out of the house and  collected some sociable points. Also found out that one of the guys spins staff and is not opposed to setting stuff on fire. There'll be FIRE in our backyard soon. I'm excited.

Saturday saw me trekking to Liverpool Street for combined birthday funtimes and iceskating. The beginning turned out to be somewhat of a fail because I couldn't find the pub we were supposed to meet at, mainly because I didn't look up directions before leaving. It all turned out fine in the end, though, because I located the ice rink, I located my friends and with a leettle bit of delay (one hour or so) we actually made it onto the ice. After a bit of flailing I found my ice feet again (it's like riding a bike, once you know how to do it you're sorted) and skated around in circles for 45 minutes. There were drinks afterwards, and food, and lovely conversations and it was a really great day. 

I probably shouldn't have turned on my computer when I got home and started writing, but I've signed up for a challenge and have to write a fic by next Friday and I'm worried that I don't get it done and disappoint people. Suddenly it was 3 am and I was still wide awake. Yeah. So today's been a bit lazy and I'm doing my best to procrastinate instead of writing that fucking story. Which is why I'm writing this. Oops. 

I'll get going now, then.

An Unexpectedly Good Movie

Went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last night. In the IMAX (although the one in Wimbledon, which is not quite as amazing as the one in South Bank but has the advantage of only being a lot closer to where I live), in 3D.

It was pretty, so fucking pretty. I might've squeed an awful lot.

The landscapes were amazing, the Elf city and the goblin underground city (I can't remember the names, I suck at names) had me breathless, they were so detailed. In terms of eyecandy, this film absolutely wins.

Yes, it was long. 169 minutes of foreplay. Almost 3 hours of build up to the sequels. My ass actually went numb.

But FUCK it was pretty.

I've read the book, it's much easier to get through than the bloody 3 book road movie that is Lord Of The Rings, but it's been a while and I don't remember much detail and from what I gather Peter Jackson also added details from other Tolkien books that I haven't read, so I can't comment on how close the film is sticking to any of that, but I don't care, really.

It was just a really nice movie. 4.5 out of 5 stars, my hobbitses.

In case you're wondering who I went with, I've been getting a bit closer to the downstairs neighbours. We went out for drinks this week which was unexpectedly good and then we decided to go watch The Hobbit. Since Babs went back to Germany I've lost my movie buddy, my flatmate is a bit useless when it comes to taste in films (chick flicks, anyone?), but the guys downstairs seem to be up and interested, which is great.

I did miss a booty call while in the movies, so while I saw a great film, I didn't get laid.

You win some, you loose some.

Yoga, Penguins & The Discovery Of Clown Core

I've finished my 30 day Bikram yoga trial with 20 out of 30 sessions. Pretty awesome, huh? The sessions this week all went really well, no dizziness, no nausea. I seem to be working my muscles more, though, which resulted in some achiness but felt fine & relaxed after class. If it wasn't for my feet deciding to go into total icicle mode one night I wouldn't even have to report trouble sleeping.

I've bought a 10 classes in 6 weeks pass now. I'll be more busy/not available due to Easter & the Royal Wedding/Early May bank holiday weekend so the plan still is to go as often as possible but probably won't manage quite as amazing a ratio in the coming weeks.

Work's busy, there's currently loads of stuff going on behind the scenes which is causing huge amounts of trouble/unrest in my team. Shit is starting to hit the fan now, I'm not affected myself (yet) but in the long run I foresee a restructure. If all goes well I'll come out of this unscathed, but one never knows.

Never a dull moment, eh?

Babs & I went to the movies on Wednesday. The original idea was to watch Hop (the movie with teh bunneh) but Vue had spontaneously decided to not have the 7.50pm screening. Thank you very much. We settled for Limitless instead, which was alright & a nice light entertainment for a weekday night. Interestingly, the futuristic brain-function enhancing drug NZT and it's effects reminded me a lot of those of amphetamines, although it's less invasive & it made users smarter instead of, erm, not really that much more intelligent. Had a few internal giggles but didn't elaborate.

We now have confirmation that it's only going to be Frani & I on the Burning Man extravaganza. It makes things slightly more expensive (smaller RVs don't cost proportionally less money & we're splitting fuel costs by 2 instead of 4), slightly more stressful (I have to drive an RV. They're massive. I'm scared) but also a bit more relaxed for me (I only have responsibility for the welfare & good conduct of one BM virgin). We also are officially sponsored by the lovely Wulfie to join the Lost Penguin camp!!!! Very excited about this, the penguins are awesome & the location of the camp is conveniently central. I've booked a non-stop flight London to Vegas. Now we have to sort out motels/hotels & campgrounds and start saving to actually pay for all of this.

Yesterday I attended my first party for this year. Elysian Project was very enjoyable, DJ Fiend delivered a banging set & I got introduced to the questionable joys of clown core (brought to you by Ed Cox). Bounced, chatted to new people & old friends and spent a lovely Saturday in Seven Sisters.

Tomorrow, if I'm not too knackered, I'll head into town to support Ben who's running his very first marathon (the crazy bastard). He's raised much more money than he'd planned to & now all he has to do is cross the finish line & make us proud :)

Next week's outlook: sushi (Monday), yoga (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, it's going to be hard), Planet Angel (Friday), afterparty (Saturday), an undisclosed event featuring Babs & I being secret agents at South Bank (Sunday) and quite possibly sudden death on Easter Monday.

Go me!

Tron: Legacy

After quite a long time of abstinence (for my standards), I've made it to the movies again on Tuesday. The film I chose to start the a new year of movie going with was Tron: Legacy, and we went to see it in the IMAX, in sparkling 3D, because this is how this film should be viewed.

If at all.

I've seen the original Tron on TV, sometime when I was a teenager. I remember kinda being impressed by it back then, it was kinda cool & different & geeky. Don't remember much of the story, though, and the sequel seems to have the same issue. The story is just a bit naff, it tries to be geeky & technological, but it just never quite gets there. Basically, in summary, boy gets sucked into computer world ruled by an evil programme, finds long lost father, falls in love, then has to sacrifice long lost father to save himself & the girl.

Ahem.

Don't get me wrong, it's still extremely shiny, and the soundtrack by Daft Punk is impressive and just as 80s as it can be (not sure why anyone would try to be 80s, though).

Did I mention it's shiny?

 

There's an awful lot of light-cycling, light-fighting, light-anything around. It's very, very stylish. It's actually a bit like The Matrix at times, only it's trying too hard and The Matrix did have more of a story (we don't talk about the sequels, really, we don't) and slightly less shiny-ness.


There was some eye-candy around. I definitely appreciate eye-candy.

Olivia Wilde, of House fame (she played "Thirteen"), was tasty. I want that hair. I also want the shoes. Not sure about the suit, but if I had her figure I'd probably go for it as well. I spent at least half of the film wondering where I know her from and then the other half following her every move. Jeff Bridges, on the contrary, was less impressive. Let's just say that CGI still has a long way to go before it looks anything like the real thing and his acting as the father was more like the Dude but in a glow-in-the-dark bathrobe. Not sure who played the son & really don't care that much.

All things considered, it's about 3 out of 5 slightly blue-glowing movie stars. I'd like to be more impressed, but I simply wasn't.

Despicable Me

To distract myself from flat woes & spent the evening in a warm environment, I went to see Despicable Me on Tuesday.

It's awesome.

It's well made & actually has humor for grown-ups as well.

It's incredibly, insanely cute.

It made me giggle quite a lot.

I want a minion.

Go see it!!!!!

(4 out of 5 little yellow stars)

Adventures In Flatpack Land

I went to IKEA & bought things last Tuesday. I then spent Friday evening & Saturday afternoon assembling my purchases, helped by John who turned out to be astonishingly skilled with the (electric) screwdriver. It actually was kinda fun & strangely rewarding to build something that I can now use to put stuff into. Also, John & I were a good flatpack assembly team.

This means that my new room is now more or less ready for me to move in. Well, it still needs a proper hoovering which I'll hopefully be able to do on the coming weekend, provided Lynn has managed to fix our hoover.

After spending quite some time in the new flat it has somewhat grown on me, I feel quite positive & happy about the move & I think my room might be about the same size as my current one, which means I should be able to fit all my stuff in it unless I randomly buy more things in the next few days (not planning to do that).

Other than dealing with move/flat related issues, not that much has happened. I've been to the movies twice in the past 7 days. I've traveled all the way to Wood Green to watch Inception with Stu, Benjy & some others last week Wednesday. Unlike the others, I wasn't too impressed. Not sure about everybody else's dreams, but mine are a lot more surreal, exciting & weird than the ones they were dealing with in the film. I was expecting more mind-bending landscape action & some weirdness. It was rather bland & boring instead.

And I went to see Toystory 3 (in 3D) with John last night. It was good, I'm not (& have never been) a huge fan of the Toystory franchise, but the story was gripping & it was well executed.

This week so far is looking rather uneventful. I'll have to start sorting out stuff for the move soon, I'm planning a trip to the Hayward on Sunday for the Ernesto Neto exhibition. Might hit the park or the shops (depending on weather) on Saturday. I'm really quite happy not going out for a month or so, September will be busy on the party front again & after all what my body went through in the past month I think I deserve a bit of rest.

Oh, on that matter, my arm's healed now & is 99% functional again. My tooth now has a temporary crown, which will be replaced with a full gold one next week. I had some sleep issues lately which seem to have been sorted out by taking some 5 HTP before going to bed. Now all I need is to get my weight back to a pre-London figure.

Catching Up, Catching Down

My last update was when?! I think we agree that I've been somewhat busy/preoccupied/stressed out.

But now I'm back, and I'm bringing good news indeed! First of all, I GOT THE JOB! Hooray! It came with lots of kudos from my now-boss & stony silence from my colleague who obviously didn't get it. I'm now working full time on the movies channels & premiere/free cinema tickets were mentioned somewhere along the meeting. Since then I've been working my ass off, apparently they're in the budgeting process & not very organised in their research requirements. But work is still fun, which is surprising as I've been there for what, 4 months now, and the honeymoon period is definitely over by now. Some rough patches were to be expected, but all in all I weirdly enough do kinda enjoy going to work in the morning. Although the commute is a proper drag...

Then there was Planet Angel last weekend. It was a very quiet party, the dancefloors didn't fill up until late & then emptied out pretty quickly again. The music was absolutely banging, though, I danced through the full set of Jurrane & had another boogie to Celladore. None of my friends who aren't working for Angel were there, so I was on my own most of the time. This was a tad strange for a while, but then I made new friends & had a good time. Seeing that there wasn't an afterparty planned I stayed sober the whole night, turns out I do natural highs pretty well, but I did get tired eventually. So I made my way home around 4.30am & collapsed into my cosy bed. Subsequently there was still a lot of weekend left over when I woke up. I took it easy on Saturday, only went down the shops & otherwise lounged about.

On Sunday I went into town as I hadn't been to Oxford Street for ages. I'm not that much in the mood for shopping as I feel too fat, but I thought I have a look around what's up & coming for spring/summer. Turned out, nothing much. Bought a long blue sweater but nothing else.

Wednesday saw me heading to Waterloo after work to meet up with Babs & Stu for dinner at Wagamamas (tasty) & then hook up with a few more people at the IMAX to watch Alice In Wonderland. It was one of the more successful Facebook events I've organised & great to see everyone outside afterparty boundaries. The movie itself was alright, some good ideas, some nice visuals, but overall it felt a bit flat & uninspired. Still, watching 3D stuff in the IMAX is rather awesome.

3 out of 5 disappearingly grinning movie stars, by the way

This weekend will be quiet, I'm staying in tonight & I'm meeting up with Cherelle tomorrow for a bit of culture at the V&A. The flatmates are out for the coming 10 days, which is nice for a change. I'm also trying a one-compliment-a-day approach, in which I make someone (friend/random stranger) an honest compliment. It feels really nice, the world would be such a better place if everybody did it.

It seems I have amazing job, money & bus fu and I'm totally intending on expanding this to being lucky in love. Just watch me!

Shiny Day-Glo Forests On Massive Screens

 

Ok, I've promised to do a proper review of my AVATAR experience, haven't I? Let's go...

OMGIT'SSHINYPRETTYGLOWSUPERPRETTYSHINYSHINYSHINY!

That about sums it up :)

A bit more seriously, it's extremely pretty. Full of wonderful pictures, fantastic landscapes, ultra-day-glow forests, dragon-like creatures & blue, pretty people.

Story? Yes, there is a story. It's actually about at least 3 storylines rolled into one big over the top Love/War, Let's Save The Planet & Get The Girl thing. There's a lot of your average hippy shit (& I mean that in the nicest possible way), the earth is our mother & we have to save her, there's an inter-species love story (I still claim that tails are incredibly sexy *rrrrr*) & there's some random let's just blow shit up action. The characters are pretty flat & one-dimensional, but nice to look at & love/hate. You can guess the ending about half way through.

It's somewhat better if you just forget about the story or just pick out the bits you find interesting & indulge yourself in the scenery, which is absolutely amazing. It's a bit like Myst, a bit like a giant rave (well, how a rave should be), a bit like Amazon explorer. It's just shinyshinyshiny.

Watching AVATAR in the IMAX & in 3D was the best decision ever made. This movie was made for the giant screen & I can't see it working in anything else but 3D. Despite the schizophrenic story I was duly impressed. Everybody should go see it!

4 out of 5 giant blue stars wandering through a day glo forest (it didn't get the full 5 because of the story, sorry)

The Breaking Of The Day

photo credit

We've been to the movies.

I've probably mentioned that my expectations for Daybreakers weren't particularly high. After seeing the movie I think I should've started expecting much lower.

It's not that the film is absolutely rubbish. The premise - a virus turns people into vampires, human blood supply is running low after a decade of feeding on them (& subsequently turning them, should they survive), a giant corporation is trying to develop a substitute & is not at all interested in finding a cure but only wants to make more money, some cute scientist finds the cure and is subsequently hunted - was all great, interesting & deserved to be made into a gripping movie. The execution of this premise, however, was shoddy, listless & rushed. There were some great ideas, like day-proof cars & subterranean walkways & human "blood farms" & the cure they came up with, which made it even more of a shame that all this genius didn't translate onto screen.

Don't get me wrong, the film is perfectly watchable. It just leaves you with a stale aftertaste that it could've been so much better if they'd just tried.

2.5 pale bat-winged stars. I hope someone picks this up to do a re-make that does the story justice one day.

On another, much more cheerful note, I've just finished watching 2 back-to-back episodes of Big Bang Theory, which was excellent. It's a bit scary how much the protagonists remind me of my friends & that I get most (maybe not all) of the geek in-jokes. The new season of Skins starts next week. I'm making Thursday my stay in & watch TV day. Well, unless something more exciting is going on.

I've also been contaced by one of my recruitment agents who sent me the job description of a maternity cover at MTV. It sounds interesting enough, I can do what they're looking for, it pays decent money & they're based in central London. Unfortunately I've never gotten as far as first interview with any job I've applied for at MTV so far. My applications just vanished in the sand. Let's see if this one's any different. Anyway, I'm still entirely happy working at Sky & won't abandon them that easily. It has to be worth it & I definitely won't leave before the girl I'm covering for is back. I love my team too much (& Sky is a huge company you don't want to get on wrong terms with) to upset them. If there's any way I can stay after finishing my contract, I probably will.