Only one and-a-half-hours to go

If you're writing in your blog, I hope you're mentioning that I managed to stay awake for an entire film last night.

I pointed out that if I did that, I would have to mention that Jen fell asleep about three and a half minutes into it, and that she snored like 'a warthog on speed'[7]. I pointed out that I wouldn't do that, because Jen would be upset, and that I'm a nice person who doesn't use his blog as a public forum to mock his housemates or their girlfriends. So, I'm not going to mention it.

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[7] Andy's words, not mine.

Only one three-day-week to go

Well, I'm finally into my last week at 'arwell. After 13 months of boredom, I'm finally escaping.

Never thought I'd be looking forward to going back to the Concrete Kingdom of Swindon, but there you have it. This job really has been that bad. Of course, this might be a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, but the grass on this side of the fence is so fucking boring that I couldn't care what colour the new stuff is.

Later . . .

Only one egg to go

Notes from my Easter break:

• Monday: almost kill a dog with the Silver Machine; thankfully there is no new damage to car or dog.
• Tuesday: people are generally more scared than amused or interested when they hear that I've been armed.
• Wednesday: the Silver Machine looks every bit as special as I'd thought it would with red wing mirror and grill.
• Thursday: I can still write; tackled the revisions I'd thought of to Christina. There's still some essential element of the plot missing (the ending isn't quite there yet), and I ramble far too much, but it's output so I guess that's okay.
• Good Friday: Tris gets really annoyed when I order Chicken Tikka Masala at the Mahabhara7. Getting a free-drink coupon at the nightclub is only a good thing if you remember to use it.
• Saturday: sambuca makes me sick.
• Easter Day: watched most of the sevens tournament. My resolution to stay sober fell apart after only two hours. I can still do three days on the beer without dying.
• Bank Holiday Monday: Easter weekend is still about rugby and getting 'aled-up' with your mates. Drive back east with no incident.

Only one day to go

Nine pints of wife-beater, and three bottles of sol (sans lime) do not a clear head make.

I knew that one already.

So it was six-nations final day yesterday. Whilst Andy was in Cardiff with one-or-two other jubilant Welshmen, I went to the pub to watch the matches. France beat Italy, Wales beat Ireland, and England beat Scotland. I was heartily cheering on Ireland in the tournament decider, but decided to celebrate the Welsh win all the same.

Fair play to them, I suppose. They deserved the grand slam the way they've played.

My only consolation is that Andy's head is going to be a lot sorer than mine this morning.

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So today, I'm taking it easy (because I am still on leave). Gonna tidy the house a bit, get some writing done. Need to pack some stuff up as well, because tomorrow I'm heading west again to spend Easter week with my folks.

Only one pair of socks to go

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

Another good book by Pratchett. Strong writing with a new setting and new characters. I did worry at first when Vimes and de Worde made an appearance, as I felt he was including them just to put something familiar in for regular readers, but thankfully they're used sparingly. In my honest opinion they probably don't need to be there at all, but there you go.

The book deals with war and masculinity (the pointlessness of one, and the occassional stupidity of the other). It's the book in which Pratchett best gets into the feminine mind-set, and his wit is mixed with quality writing and story telling in the usual fashion.

There are a couple of problems, though. The running joke about socks is perhaps over-used (the word socks appears on about every page), and towards the end you can spot the twists coming a mile off (mainly because the twists are in fact all the same twist).

Only one (well eleven) belts to go

Had my first grading last night, so I'm now a purple belt. Yeah, it's nice to have a bit of colour on me at last.

Grading was an interesting experience, as I didn't really know what to expect. It was pretty cool seeing the kids get their next belts, and seeing the pride on the faces of the parents. Coolest thing was seeing a four-year old kid doing one of the weapons drills with a pair of escrima sticks that were bigger than he was. Little feller got a hell of a round of applause.

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On completing my first SDS stage the other night, I was given a badge and told to make sure I leave plenty of room on my uniform when I sewed it on as there are 12 such stages to complete.

I feel like I'm back in the cub scouts.

Only one lie-in to go

Ah, there's nothing like a lie-in when you know everyone else who was out had to go to work this morning.

So, St. Patrick's Day celebrations last night. After tae kwon do, went out with Andy and Jen and an Irish girl who'd only ever drunk one pint of guinness in her life (there were others out, but they all flaked out at various stages over the night[5]). Good night.

Got told off by the couple because they've found the blog[6] and apparently I 'take the piss out of them as much as I do in real life'. What do they expect? Managed to not do my laughable Irish accent in front of the Irish girl, so that was well done, especially because I was drinking stout all night.

Right, now I'm going to go for a run, and spend the rest of the afternoon chilling. Got to love leave.

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[5] And I haven't name-checked them in here, so it's pointless doing so now.
[6] As you can probably tell by the sudden appearance of commments

Dude, where's my identity?

The Bourne Supremacy

I've been thinking about this the last couple of days, and maybe it isn't unusual. I recall a girl telling me last year that she fell asleep in the cinema whilst watching The Bourne Identity. Maybe it's just Matt Damon sending people to sleep.

No. I take that back. A three word review for the benefit of certain people: Don't Fall Asleep.

Because, I really enjoyed it (as much as I enjoyed Identity). Sure, it's more of the same, but when it's an actioner that is so far above the usual crop of spy-thrillers, is that necessarily a bad thing? Damon plays Bourne's internal struggle well, and he's a sympathetic character purely because he wants nothing to do with what happens, but knows that unless he does what he was trained to do he'll never get the CIA off his back.

The action's genuine, and steers clear of the blow something up every five minutes formula that so typically resides in these films. The lack of a reliance on CGI was refreshing. I found the car chase, which has been much lauded, interesting, and I normally despise car chases and everything that is associated with them. The supporting characters are all acted with a depth of emotion and realism that was impressive.

Sure, you're not going to see anything vastly original if you've already seen Identity, but you're not going to be disappointed either. Definitely recommended.

Only one invitation to go

Extracted from 101 things you should never say to Kevin Jones:

1. I am going to be out of the office tommorow so please do not play tennis with e-mail while I am gone so that I come in on Thursday to 50,000 e-mails!

Because, let's face it, I'm a simple man and that reads too much like a challenge to me.

Only one technological disaster to go

My brother has a computer and is online.

Given how he is death to electrical goods [entry], it's obvious that his computer's days are numbered. It'll be a lifespan equivalent to that of a common fruit fly.

But the worrying thing is this: he's connected to the Internet. What if his techno-jinx spreads? World banks failing, planes dropping out of the sky, countries' defence systems being targeted at suspicious-looking flocks of geese. It could be a level of destruction previously restricted to the pages of techno-thriller novels.

The Y2K scare was nothing. This is YDJ[3] and the threat is real.

Start stocking up on tinned food and bottled water. It could be a long winter.

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[3] Because his name's Dan Jones. Jeez, do I really have to spell it out to you?

Dude, where's my gun?

Dude, where's my car?

Tried and failed to watch this film again when it was on five last night. Couldn't do it. Got further than last time -- as far as the Chinese drive-through -- but was forced to turn the television off in disgust. What a charmless piece of celluloid crap.

Only one revolutionary to go

The Dancer Upstairs

I watched this film on my housemate's gf's recommendation. It's not a film I would have watched; I'd never heard of it before, and didn't recognise any of the starring roles. The most amusing thing of note wasn't anything in the film, rather that my housemate and his gf both fell asleep before 10 o'clock on a Saturday night before five minutes of the film had passed.

I can forgive my housemate for falling asleep. After all he is old[2] and he does have past form. His gf is not so easily forgiven, and I feel duty bound to mock her at the earliest possible opportunity. She's a young woman (younger than me, at least). She should be able to do better than that.

Rubbish.

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So to the film. I rather enjoyed it. The story is that of a cop trying to catch the leader of a revolutionary group. Along the way he's got to deal with the threat of the military taking over the investigation, a personal involvement to the case and the associated feelings of guilt, and an attraction to his daughter's dance teacher.

The male lead is well acted by Javier Bardem, and his support is generally well-rounded and likeable. The attraction to the dance teacher is a little hard to swallow at first, but it evens up and towards the end you begin to understand his feelings towards this woman a little better. The dialogue doesn't shy away from switching to foreign language and subtitles when it's necessary, but it is believable and well paced.

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[2] It's a worrying trend because, as I have pointed out before, my dad finds it impossible to stay up late on a Saturday night. Does this lameness await all of us in old age?

Only one wing mirror to go

I'm becoming increasingly paranoid.

First the starter motor, then the grill [entry], now some bastard has kicked my wing mirror off.

Maybe I am cursed :(

Only one sword to go

I got my weapons in tae kwon do last night.

Be afraid. Not only are people willing to arm me, they're also training me in how to hurt people with my new toys.

Life is fun :)

Only one pint of brains to go

For a start, I wasn't even aware there was a Welsh beer until a couple of weeks ago.

I wouldn't normally go out to celebrate St David's day because, despite my surname, I maintain that there isn't any Welsh blood in me[1]. Yesterday however was a leaving-do for a girl at work, so my housemate and I went out for a pint or seven. When the leaving girl left her own party at 2100hrs (agreed all-round to be a disappointing show) we went on to the Prince of Wales pub which was having a Welsh night. This involved the afore-mentioned Welsh beer, as well as Welsh Cakes, Welsh Rarebit, and a Welsh pub-quiz. I got one out of ten in the pub-quiz.

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[1] My housemate, however, is proud to be from one of the colonies. Leek-wearing, pronunciation-correcting, stick-taking proud.

Only one calamity to go, part 2

So I reported the damage to the police [entry], who advised me to go all junior-sleuth when I returned home.

-- Did you look around to see if the driver left any clues behind?
-- Clues?
-- Yeah, sometimes the guy's number-plate falls off.
-- Well, I had a look around, but there was nothing really.
-- Without clues, we can't do much for you. You might want to have a look at your neighbours' cars, see if any of them are showing similar damage. You never know, you might get lucky.

Only one snowfall to go

The traffic report this morning warned us of 'Heavy snow in Oxfordshire'. I get all excited, especially when I look out of the window and see that the Concrete Kingdom has snow already. So, was there snow when I arrived in Oxfordshire this morning?

Not so much as a flake.

It's so frustrating to have all this snow and then not have any of it settle :( I want to go sledging. I want to become a menace to my community with an arsenal of snowballs. I want to build humorous items out of snow.

Instead I get to hear my co-workers say how relieved they are that they won't get snowed in.

Only one calamity to go

Because they say they come in threes. Following my adventures with the silver machine's starter motor [entry], I awoke this morning to find that someone had driven into the front of it, destroying the grill.

The Concrete Kingdom of Swindon is full of arseholes. Did he/she leave a note? Did they fuck.

The damage to property doesn't bother me that much. If it was an accident, I'll quite happily forgive that, as long as the person responsible owns up and apologises. I mean we all have prangs, right? But the fact that they hit the car hard enough to shunt it down my street a couple of feet has me incensed. The lack of courtesy here bothers me a lot.

Woe-betide this motherfucker if I ever find out who it was. I probably never will, but thoughts of taking them down are about all that's getting me through the day.