Day Sixty Six: Site news, and what the hell happened to last weekend. I mean seriously what the fuck.

So, damn. That was a good couple of days.

I was still awake Thursday morning, having spent the preceding 24 hours solidly writing up two essays for politics and animation. Finally met up with James on campus at around twelve, and spent about an hour getting them both printed off and handed in. I also laughed at Karine and Scott, who had also both been up all night, but in the library. Scott was particularly amusing as his essay was about half the length of everyone else's, and Karine as she'd been in the same damn spot of the library for about three days in a row, or something completely fucking retarded like that.

A smart, rational person would have then left campus, filled with joy in his heart, and gone back to bed. My friends, you know me. I am not that guy. I went to the bar with James, and we drank beers. Several beers. I had Matt, who I believe talked to you Thursday, arriving, so I made him come to the bar, and have a beer. Then, bidding farewell to Nicki, Damien and Callum, who had arrived at the bar at some point, I went back with Matt. And there we continued drinking even more. Two crates of Budweiser gone before we left the house again. I was taking Matt to the Christmas LCR.

I think Kate, James, Emily and Camden were with me here as well. It's a bit blurry. I remember arriving at the LCR, and having to exchange tickets for a wristband which was our magic pass to everything that was there, the bumper cars, the spinning whirligig thing, and the LCR, which featured the magic of the one and only Vengaboys. Truly an exceptional evening. I drank an awful lot of Vodka Red Bull, I was rude to an exceptional number of people, I co-ordinated attacks against people on the bumper cars and I rode the whirligig thing so much that I nearly threw up. Somehow, me and Matt were able to walk home to sleep for a couple of hours.

Friday was my birthday, and I had Mike coming up. Or down rather, from his Uni and then catching a lift with us home. So, we head to the greasy spoon, get baconed up, and then wander to town to meet Nicki Callum and Damien for beer & burger at Spoons. It was magnificent, but it hurt. So much meat. Post-crippling burger, we grabbed Mike from the station, then went to Sainsburys to buy a shitload of beer. And some fake red bull. And vodka.

So, house party time, and Me, Matt and Mike have cleared off a case of beer before anyone else has arrived. At some point we played N64. My memory isn't entirely clear, but I'm pretty sure I kicked everyone's asses. later on, we were playing King's cup, and while I don't remember playing a whole much, I do remember being forced to down a dirty pint that was half filled with Thom's mulled wine. After that it all gets really fuzzy. I remember kicking a cat at some point. It was probably being a cunt. I'm pretty sure at some point I jumped up and down on Matt's car, because he won't stop reminding me about that. Then, towards the end, Callum, Mike and Matt came back with my birthday gifts, which consisted of a cone, a massive roadsign, and an advertisement for double glazing or some shit on a massive wooden stake. This was totally fucking awesome. As that evening wore down, I think I passed out, because I don't remember going to sleep watching Wayne's World, although I am assured that we did.

Saturday morning was not good. We woke up early, again. And we ate a shitload of bacon, again. It took me far too long to get packed up, and I'm sure I've forgotten several important things as well. When we finally set off we stopped by the co-op to get juice, and Mike found a half-drunk mug of Jack Daniels and coke in the glove box. I have no words to describe this.

We finally made it home after a deeply painful journey. I had considered updating my blog that evening, but I was so unspeakable tired that I ended up going to bed ludicrously early. Then, on Sunday, my aunt, uncle, cousins and grandparents all came round and were stubbornly nice to me, no matter how much I insisted that I was still the same horrible person. Then, to close out the evening, I got drunk with my cousins, my sister, and Mike, who had come round for reasons that I cannot recall at this time.

So, it's Monday evening, and I should be getting right back into my normal schedule of blogging every day, right? Well, no actually. See, I'm taking a break for the holidays. It's for a number of reasons, involving my home's shitty internet access and the fact that I need to use the family computer to type online, but the main point is that I don't want to be one of those guys who are blogging about their families and whatnot. I've been that guy. He's even less fun than the one I am at the moment. So, from now, consider The Useless Ambition on hiatus. I think over 1000 words should be enough to tide you over for a bit. I may post sporadically over the holiday season, but updates will officially resume when I return to university in early January, and I have actual things to talk about. Until then, good people, it's been real. A special shout-out to all those people who I saw over the last weekend period, including all Thursday and Friday, and everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Facebook. You are all especially lovely. I'll see you in the new year, when The Useless Ambition will be back, with even more daily aimless rambling and drunken chats about TV and movies. I'll talk to you all soon.

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Now playing: What the fuck, my computer doesn't even have this? Fuck this shit.

Day Sixty Five: Matt on deck!

Well...So here we are! I have travelled today for Hutton to Norwich in order to celebrate young Anderson's 21st...So far it has been highly enjoyable. I think it may just be the amount of beers consumed (18 bottles) or the fact it has been too long since our last outing!
What random shite should I write about???
It's a possibility that the one true reason I am here is to keep Jimmy in a non-stop drunken state...but its ok...it works for both of us!!!
Who are you anyway???
What are you talking about???
I don't even know anymore!
Maybe I should just stick to drinking beers and staying away from normal people!
Who is Clive?
This seems to be what happens when I am let loose on a computer...
I guess all there really is to say is that tonight i must drink to forget feelings!
Tomorrow...i must drink to forget feeling and celebrate a joyous day!!
Saturday....I shall live again!

How is it possible to write a blog everyday? And why would you want to?
Now to ramble!
Don't ya just hate it when you can't find a bottle opener...I KNOW I DO!!!
There is just so much to do....and so little time.....
I definitely do not feel drunk enough to write a good blog...so I should come back to it later!
A final piece of advice for you all!...don't get attached to anything!

She puts the lotion on her skin...or she gets the hose again!

FUCK YOU BUDDY!

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Now playing: Electric Six / Gay Bar

Day Sixty Four: A matter of urgent importance

This right here pretty much sums up why I could never live in America. I can visit, sure, and I'll always have a great love for the country I was born in. But holy fuck, an article in The Wall Street Journal dealing with the "controversy" that Obama uses a Zune instead of an iPod?

Yeah, fuck that shit.

And the fact that someone in the Obama camp had to release a statement to placate the rabid Apple fanboys who were presumably calling for blood over this hateful deceit is maybe the worst thing of all. Although, on second thoughts, Apple fanboys are maybe the most frighteningly devoted people in the world, worse than the Firefly fanboys, worse than the Coke vs Pepsi lot, even worse than the insane Harry/Hermione shippers. It's a worrying state of affairs.

So, I'm actually writing this from the past, because I won't be posting this until Wednesday morning at some point. That's right, my procrastination has reached the point where I am updating my blog purely to put off doing work. What a terrible situation to be in. At least I haven't started updating 4 times a day though. That'd just be sad.

So, hopefully at this crazy time when this will be up, I'll have written more than 500 words and actually be close to finishing. I can probably edit that in later. It's a weird situation this.

Anyway, onwards to work!

Edit: Yeah, not so much with the finishing of the essay. Still, it's Wednesday morning, I've got over half my essay done, and it's not due in until 3pm on Thursday. This might be some kind of record for me.
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Now playing: The Charlatans / The Only One I Know

Day Sixty Three: SPECIAL EARLY MORNING EDITION

Firstly, holy fucking shit yes! Man, this Christmas, TV is going to rock. We've got new Doctor Who, new Wallace & Gromit, and now new Shooting Stars. I'm not moving from the front of my telly this year.

Secondly, have I mentioned before how essay writing really sucks? It's even worse when you've just finished one, because you're suddenly confronted by this expanse of blank page, and you've got to somehow find a way to fill it.

Writers may talk about the joy of writing and how they look on blank paper as a challenge. Fuck that. Writing is hard.You've got to....um....fill up space.


With words.


Which can be tricky.


But still, it's always good to have something to motivate you. In my case, it's the promise of a shit load of beer and excessive partying at the end of this week. Hopefully starting Wednesday, I'll have my essays finished, so it's pub that evening. Then, on Thursday, I'll be drinking myself into a coma with one of my best buddies from home as the Vengaboys play at the LCR. I can't promise that I won't throw VKs at them. My instincts may just take over. And then on Friday, I'm having a wicked awesome house party with another one of my best mates from home, along with a load of other lovely people, and there's going to be 4-player N64, and 2 player wireless Frets on Fire, and so, so much beer that I will likely manage to collapse and pass out before we even reach midnight.

Just, y'know, gotta get past that whole writers block thing.

Fuck you essay.

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Now playing: The Lonely Island / Jizz In My Pants

Day Sixty Two: Oh right, videos don't count as posts.

So, I've "finished" one of my essays now, with a mere 4500 words to write by Wednesday. I've got the sneaking suspicion that I might overrun that slightly. I will almost certainly fall asleep in the Christmas screening as well, because if I haven't finished my essay by then, I'll certainly have stayed up all night before working on it just to try to do so anyway.

Anyway, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on youtube (because otherwise I'd have to actually concentrate, and I think anyone who's ever had an essay to do will agree on my sentiment of 'FUCK THAT SHIT'.) and getting generally freaked out at bizarre tribute videos. Some people have too much spare time. After all, I'm only watching weird tribute videos. These people have to sit down and edit them together. It's weird.

Also, I didn't really discuss this at length yesterday because I wanted to sleep quite badly, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS AWESOME.


I've been following the Lonely Island dudes since The 'Bu, and the fact that they've joined SNL was some of the best news I'd ever heard, as I though Saturday Night Live was finally gong to start being funny again. You know, a return to the glory days, when they had actual good comedians and genuinely inspired writing and sketches. Essentially, I want Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray back on the show. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, but the dudes are still as awesome as ever.

Also, I still can't get over the way that Timberlake dances and mouths 'Jizz' at the camera. Cracks me up every time.

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Now playing: Cat Stevens / Wild World

I need to go to bed

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4

Also, holy shit, that was the Timberlake!

Day Sixty One: Hmm.

I've had a number of people nag me to check out Vitamin String Quartet now, so I've been doing that this evening. I've got to say, it was time well spent. (Youtube them, they are awesome.)

Vitamin String Quartet is the collective name for a group of tribute albums which reinterpret alternative rock by playing it in a string quartet. It's fucking awesome. I always really enjoyed it when rock took on classical music, so to have it come from the other direction was pretty damn cool.

That said, I cannot find any decent torrents for them. I know, to recognise work I like I should actually buy it, but I'm far too poor to be doing that at the moment. Christmas presents, on the other hand, would seem to be quite well sorted.

Also, I thought I'd put up an advance warning now for next week. Not only do I have two major essay deadlines for the 11th, but I also have to deal with the stress of turning 21 on the 12th, as well as having two of my best mates come up here to party with me. Needless to say, it's going to be a sleepless, drunken, and generally fuzzy couple of days. So, don't be surprised if my entries for next week are even less coherent that usual. It's probably due to the cocktail of substances that will be sustaining me through the next week.

See you on the other side!

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Now playing: Sweet Diss and the Comebacks / Dunder and Dwightning

Day Sixty: There may be trouble ahead...

So, this is kind of weird. James was good enough to talk about it already however, so go to his place.

Anyway, me and him have decided that we're going to get our shit organised for this final week of term. We both have two essays due for Thursday 11th, which is happily the day before my birthday, and the same day that my actual birthday celebrations begin. So, the pact was that we'd both get our essays done by Wednesday morning, in time for our special animation Christmas screening, where we'll be watching the Nightmare Before Christmas. Which, y'know, is pretty fucking awesome.

However, this means we need to get our shit together on a massive scale. I mean, this is working to get a pair of essays finished by Tuesday night or, let's be honest, early Wednesday morning. That's a grand total of 7500 words written over the course of the next five days. And it's not to say that we can't do that, given that we've both managed some pretty impressive feats in terms of essay writing over the two years, including a caffeine-filled sleepless night which eventually resulted in one of the better things I've written. It wasn't the essay, but it was still good.

However, this still requires intense dedication and hard work on both our parts. This is the third year now. We're being serious now.

And that's why I spent my evening watching I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, and cheering on George Takei. Because I'm retarded.

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Now playing: Eels / Souljacker, Part I

Day Fifty Nine: Oh hey, that looks interesting...

You know what the worst thing about Wikipedia is?

(There are a great many things, actually. The fact that anyone can edit it, the lack of citation for much of it, the insanely anal habits of the administrators, the schizophrenic nature of their relationship with pop culture and the bizarre ways in which they format templates, seemingly arbitrarily. Anyway.)

The worst thing is that you can jump onto the Wiki to look at, say, Samuel L. Jackson, and after about half an hour's worth of facinated clicking, end up on the page for Scots Law.

(Here's how it went: From Samuel L. Jackson to Snakes on a Plane, to Ronny Yu, to Hong Kong, to English Language, to The United Kingdom, to Scotland and then to Scots Law.)

This is an arbitrary example, because no matter what I intend to look up when I'm there, I immediatly get distracted. It's why, for example, if I get drawn into discussions about politics or world events I bring up weird pieces of information that I should have no business knowing, like having intimate detailed knowlege about The Act of Union, or being able to describe how crystallization works. These revelations often make people think I'm a massive dork/nerd, which, admittedly, is true, but honestly, I don't ever go online with the intention of finding out just what exactly Poynings' Law is, I'm just easily distracted.

Well, now you know why I know random and useless information. I was probably just looking up Iron Man 2 and I just got distracted again.

(Oh shit there's Sam Jackson again I am lost.)

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Now playing: Eric Clapton / Tears In Heaven

Day Fifty Eight: Holy fuck, Vampires and shit! Part 2

So, yesterday we discussed the gay and terrible Vampires from Twilight. Well, today, we'll be talking about the much more awesome kind of vampire as found in True Blood.

Now, just as a completely random aside, I've been burned by HBO before. They created Rome, one of the most asskicking and fucking awesome shows ever, with some of the best historical drama combined with some hardcore swearing and violence and absolutely brutal violence. Unfortunately, they decided to cancel it after the second season, rather than letting it play out it's original five season plan. And that really sucked.

Plus, HBO were responsible for both Sex and the City, and, of course, Sex and the City: The Movie, so it's understandable why I'd fear new things by them. I have the irrational fear that anything I see by them will either get cancelled, or turn out to be the most estrogen filled thing since the ovary.

However, True Blood has so far managed to avoid either by being completely fucking awesome. We've got boobs aplenty, swearing and violence and whatnot, and the main character manages to both be female and not a horrifying Mary Sue unlike a certain other franchise I could name.

Admittedly, I'm only three episodes in, but what I've seen so far is giving me extreme confidence, especially given the sheer amount of awesome that we've had so far.

Plus, Heroes has kind of been making me depressed by how crappy it's becoming, so this will fill a nice gap in the meantime.

Anyway.

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Now playing: Chris Isaac / Wicked Game

Day Fifty Seven: Holy fuck, Vampires and shit!

I first heard about Twilight this summer. My sister and cousin were reading these books which I surmised were about Vampires and stuff. However, that wasn't as important as Edward. Apparently he's the sort of main character in this series of books, and the writing is mainly centred around how dreamy he is. I didn't really care at the time, to be honest. I was more concerned with getting drunk than about the latest fad that was going on.

Okay, it took me a while to get over Harry Potter, and I wasn't ready to move on, okay?

Admittedly, I did try to read the first one (there's four of these fucking things? Holy shit that's insane.) but I stopped after about a chapter because it sounded like a bad FanFiction.net offering. Plus, I had Lord of the Rings to read. Priorities, man.

So, it's only recently that I've been hearing more about this film. It looks fucking awful. Dawson's Creek meets Vampires, and not even in a good way. Also, it's only since it became more widespread that I started hearing more about the characters and rules in this world.

When the Vampires are exposed to sunlight, they sparkle. They fucking sparkle? What the fuck is that? That's the most fucking retarded thing I've ever heard. Seriously? That's fucking terrible.

I mean, Jesus.

The only thing that actually makes me happy at the moment is the way that Robert Pattinson clearly had no idea what the hell he signed up for. Now I picture him trying to think of ways to get out of the sequel contract by, I don't know, getting really fat or growing a hobo-beard or something because, holy crap, the fanbase for this franchise is insane.

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Now playing: The Strokes / Heart In A Cage

Day Fifty Six: SPECIAL SUNDAY UPDATE OF DRUNKENESS

So, it appears a certain Mr Turner has taken on himself to dare criticize the shining beacon of perfection that is this blog.

Well, that's fine. After all, I welcome attacks on my opinions. Because my opinions are unique in that they are always, 100% correct. This is true. Because I said so. And, as we've discussed, I am always, always right.

James claims somehow that The Cable Guy is a bad film. He puts forward the idea that it is boring and "Jim Carey[sic] suck arse in it." Now, as much as I enjoy intelligent film criticism, I have to say that this really excels. I mean, it takes a true talent to say that a film is boring without ever being entirely clear on why. Especially given that the films tone of unsettling terror is happily counterbalanced by an action scene every twenty minutes, and dialogue that is truly inspired and perfectly satirical for the time.

Now, actual criticisms I could understand. The direction is sloppy, which is understandable given that it is Stiller's first film, but it's still a point to be made. Furthermore, we never really connect with out protagonist at work, and it's only outside that we are given the opportunity to engage with him. These are proper, intelligent criticisms.

But for James to simply dismiss it as boring?

Well.

I'm not going to say that he's fucking retarded for making this assumption. I'm not going to say that he is crappy and uninspired in making a blog, purely to attempt to compete with the sheer awesome that is this one. And I'm not going to say that he's a total loser for not going out tonight and instead staying in and writing on his blog.

I won't say any of those things, because I'm a lovely person. I'll simply say that the half-arsed, rambling post above is something that I managed in about ten minutes, and that James has no good taste in films. Any films that he might like in common with me are clearly products of his deluded mind.

Also, I'm kind of drunk and kind of angry. Not at James, but some other things. So.

Hopefully you'll now all understand that James is painfully wrong, and The Cable Guy is fucking awesome.

Goodnight.

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Now playing: Orson / No Tomorrow

Day Fifty Five: Hungover now.

So, yeah, I felt incredibly healthy this morning. Actually, I think I was still drunk. The hangover took about three hours to kick in, so I'm now dealing with that.

Here's what I remember from last night:

• Buying and downing a JD and coke in about 10 seconds to get to the screen quickly.
• Leaving the theatre about five minutes after that to buy some beer.
• Pierce Brosnan is a man who I have a great deal of respect for, but Jesus, the man cannot sing. At all.
• Hasn't Meryl Streep won something like twelve Oscars? What the hell happened?
• Colin Firth still has impeccable comic timing. Although, in the two most recent films I've seen him in, he's been gay. I'm not sure what to make of this. Maybe he keeps having a quiet word with the director, and somehow a scene where he has to get shirtless and hug a naked man makes its way into the script.
• The post credits scene where the cast sings 'Waterloo' was so, so brutally gay.
• After the film, I had a lot of difficulty standing. This did not stop me from being a charming motherfucker, as well as ordering a considerable amount of booze.
• I left with a hat that did not belong to me, and a poster that I'm pretty sure I stole just to hit people with.
• Finally, I found this on my phone this morning.

Hmm.

I have no answers for you. All I can say is that I'm listening to Dragonforce's latest album and rocking out with my new hat on. And I have a 21st birthday to go to tomorrow. It's going to be a good weekend.

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Now playing: Dragonforce / Reasons to Live

Day Fifty Four: DRUNKSS

disclaimarse: I am ver y fdrunks right about now, mkay.?

BUTTS

So, I suppose I'd best udate then.

I am, once again, feeling ver gay, having watched today the thing that is Mama Mia!. I mean, I am a film student and so should appreciate such monumenmenental films. After all, this motherfucker has sold more on DVD than Titanic, although Titanic was released in 2000 and so is working with a slight disadvantage/

Anyway, this film was not graeat. It wasn't bad either. The only problem was, throughout the entire thing, I kept thinking that this was a film that is totally not being marketed towards mee. Like, at all. I mean, jesus god, this film was terrible for someone like me.

However, things picked up a bit after thew film.

Given that I'd had a couple opf drinks before the screenign , hand snuck, (snook)? (sneck)? a fourpack of san migueal in, I was a leeeeeeetle bit drunk when watching this.ss And it was pretty bad.


And I say that SAS a man who got enjoyment out of Hairspray.

Quite aside from that, agfter the film, I got drunk, stole some things, anrd I lived haoppiky ever after. THE EDNDDDD,.

BUT WAIT.

SO, I finally get in , with trilby and stolen poseter, and I'm feeling pretty good.

I am listening to the TROPIC THUNDER soundtrack on Loud an it is the bestest thing ecverszszz.

,mans, I dont;y evrne knoe words weantmor.

I am dnot still drinkminfdddhg

honests.ss


EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeDQ"


Furthermore, Ia tbutss.........

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Now playing: The Crystal Method / Name of the Game

Day Fifty Three: Why The Cable Guy is the best film ever.

Yes, I'm aware that I've done one of these before. Let me explain something first.

I have a tendency to get, just maybe a bit hyperbolic about movies or TV that I like. Actually, that's not strictly true. I get a bit over the top when describing any single piece of media, good or bad. This is not a bad thing, it just tends to mislead people when I tell them something is fantastic. However, when I say that a film is, in fact, the best film ever, you can still assume that it's pretty damn good.

With that in mind here's why The Cable Guy is fantastic.

The film centers around Matthew Broderick (nicest man in Hollywood) who splits up with his girlfriend. Then, as he gets settled into his new place, he meets...The Cable Guy.

Given that this was the film that nearly killed Jim Carrey's career (that's now been replaced by 23), I was a bit worried when I first watched it. But man, does this film ever rock. Nowadays Jim Carrey plays against type all the time, but this was the first time that he ever did it. And seriously, if your expecting something along the lines of Ace Ventura, or The Mask (which is also fantastic), then you won't be happy. Carrey plays a dude who is completely insane, and not in a fun and happy way. The film just centre around the friendship that Carrey essentially forces onto Broderick, and Matt just becomes more and more freaked out.

Ah hell, you know what, just watch the clip.

If this doesn't appeal to you, then, well, you're probably a bad person.

Or you fear good things. Either way, you should probably watch it.

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Now playing: Jim Carrey / Somebody to Love

Day Fifty Two: An after action report on Day Fifty One

Whoa, wide-screen youtube! Thank god too, otherwise we wouldn't be able to enjoy things like this.

Actually, maybe that isn't the best example. Although it's still quite cool. (wide-screen youtube, that is, not the really fat kid.)

Anyway.

I felt a little fried Monday morning, having stayed up all night to write an essay. Apparently I posted something as well, but I'm at a loss as to where my rambling was headed. Although, I suppose all nighter essay sessions do lead to these things, so I shouldn't be surprised.

So, I wander onto campus, being terribly grumpy to Kate on the bus the whole way there, and headed to the library to print the essay, which, amazingly, had been sent without a hitch. Then, after correcting a couple of basic formatting errors that I hadn't even spotted a few hours ago, I printed it off. It took me about twenty minutes, as I had to try to print, realise I was out of credit, put credit onto my card, lose my card, find my card, and then use it to print out my essay.

As I was approaching dangerous levels of anger, I decided to grab some food from Blend, and then swear horribly into a panini on my way to handing it in. Seriously, I said, terrible things to that poor panini. I'm hoping it doesn't revenge itself of my digestive system, just because I said those things about it's mother.

Which probably says more about my own mental state more than anything else.

Essay handed in, I went home, and went to bed for eight hours while Independence Day played in the background, only to be woken once by Emily wandering through my room to leave the house. A conversation may have been had. I honestly can't remember.

Oh, and I think James finally got through to me after ringing my phone about eight times, and I had another conversation which I do not remember at all.

Anyway, woken up properly, I had a lovely meal which Kate made, and then watched a good bit of The Office with Callum, with him leaving at ten to do...something. Time then, I thought, to turn in. Get some sleep and have an early night for a change.

So, that done, I got changed, and then promptly went out to Optic and got raucously drunk on double whisky and lemonade for several hours, before finally turning in at 3am.

Man, I am really going to miss being a student.

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Now playing: Tim Cameron / Scientology Is Gay

Day Fifty One: Excerpts from my politics in animation essay (which focused on The Iron Giant)

- Has anyone ever noticed that Brad Bird seems to have a serious problem with redheads? Seriously, the villain in both The Iron Giant and The Incredibles is a ginger. I mean, Jesus, I think Brad has a serious hang-up on this.

- Man, The Iron Giant is totally about not fucking with the communists. The giant is all like, ‘be who you want to be’, and only acting in self defence, but when he thinks the military have killed Hogarth, he fucks their shit up but good.

- “Superman…” I mean damn, if you aren’t holding back a little tear there, then you officially have no soul.

- Did you know that Vin Diesels voice required absolutely no changes for his voice work? When he speaks normally, he actually sounds like a 50-foot robot.

- Oh, that Mansley dude is the definition of bureaucratic arsehole. Seriously. In the live action version, he would be played by the same dude who played Walter Peck.

- While it is obvious that The Iron Giant represents communism, and Dean the beatnik free spirit of America, it is less obvious but no less true that the fisherman represents the red states of America. And Mansley's Car is clearly a symbol for the crumbled military-industrial complex. Also, nukes just represent nukes. They don't need no symbols dude. They already know what they are.

- The American military is great, and actually super effective and efficient. Except, of course, when it has to deal with 50-foot robots.

- Jennifer Aniston is now fantastically distracting as a voice actor. I keep replacing her with Rachel instead of Hogarth's Mum.

Although, holy shit, she’s ginger too. Okay, so red-headed girls good, red-headed guys, bad.

- Do not play Atomo with the Iron Giant. He will melt you with his laser eyes.

-Rather than referencing, I choose to leave all footnotes and references blank until the end, where I put "GOD IS THE SOURCE OF ALL TRUTH AND LIGHT. ALL TRUTH IS FROM HIM, AND WE ARE ALL SUBMISSIVE TO HIS WILL."
Then I put a row of kisses, and a smiley face.

And a crudely drawn picture of a bear.

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Now playing: Pink Floyd / The Great Gig in the Sky

Day Fifty: Movie Rundown

So, this Waltz with Bashir film? It looks pretty fucking awesome to me. Very cool animation style, and nice to see some more stuff coming from the middle east nowadays. As Kate is at pains to tell me, everyone needs to be doing her Israeli-Palestinian politics module, and while I don't think that's entirely practical, I certainly think that more cultural things emerging from the region is a great step in that sort of direction.

But therein lies a problem. See, at the moment, we're entering into a slump in the cinema industry, quite aside from all this financial crisis nonsense. This period, from November until about May, is where films get dumped. Occasionally we'll get a big event movie, that's essentially designed to be the single cinema outing, but apart from that, we've got bugger all coming out. (By the way, this year it's going to be The Day the Earth Stood Still. I'm not saying it'll do it's job entirely well, I just think it's got more of a shot than say, Twilight. Or Punisher: War Zone. Although I would love for the latter to rock the shit out of the box office because fuck yes Ray Stevenson. Anyway.)

The point is that I think I've been far too spoiled by this years summer season. First we had Iron Man, then Dark Knight, and then finally Tropic Thunder, three films that utterly rocked my socks off, as well as being surrounded by other, slightly less awesome films, like The Incredible Hulk, and, um, well, The Incredible Hulk. Now we've got to go back to sitting and waiting for next summer to roll around before the awesome films. It's just not right.

I mean, admittedly, the line-up doesn't look fantastic yet. But still. We've got Watchmen. That certainly looks pretty face rocking to me.

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Now playing: Focus / Hocus Pocus

Day Forty Nine: So, yeah.

Man, I'm looking forward to The Office tomorrow. So many good things are coming. The wedding is getting closer, and Michael is pushing getting fired. Personally, I'm hoping they spend some time developing the Andy/Oscar relationship that was being pushed in last weeks episode. Exciting stuff.

As for what else has been going on this week in TV, Heroes was pretty rock and roll, although I'm glad we've finally started bringing some characters together and having them talk as opposed to the rest of this season which appeared to be sending them all off in different directions and meet more and more new characters. That just doesn't seem like a financially healthy way to operate a show.

Although, the writers really are determined to push this whole "Sylar is now actually a good guy we think" angle, aren't they? I don't personally have a problem with that, because I think Zach Quinto rocks the house in every scene that he's in, but I can see why some other parts of the fanbase have been dropping out.

Still, it was all worth it for that shot where Elle electrozapped the shit out of him and we got this fantastic, Watchmen inspired shot of Sylar dissolving under this massive blast of energy. Great stuff.

Oh, and South Park wrapped up their season last night as well. While it was a weaker episode, it's still fantastic stuff, and brought back the Goth kids, who are always lovely. So, here's looking forward to The Office tomorrow!

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Now playing: Dirty Vegas / Days Go By

Day Forty Eight: Ugh.

I did not feel healthy this morning. Not at all. A great deal of beer combined with a great deal of Purple People Eaters did not do nice things to me, especially when I'm out with Callum, who shows a similar lack of restraint in terms of his drinking.

So, I arise in the morning wearing a hat that doesn't belong to me, and feeling like I wanted to die. It was pleasant. However, I've discovered that the best cure for a serious hangover, short of some exquisite bacon, is a quick blast of Futurama, followed by a hardcore session of Mario Kart.

(As a sidenote, I'd just like to point out that me bringing up my N64 this year was a monumentally bad idea. It is an even worse distraction that PC gaming, because I don't feel the urge to tinker with the game settings every ten minutes. And, of course, I learned all the levels back to front when I was ten, so it's also really fucking easy.)

Still, feeling like absolute hell as I roll into my screening, and remembering that all we were watching was The Simpsons and Family Guy was pretty good. Just the thing for a hangover. And it was early seasons, good Simpsons, which is always good as well, as the later ones make me sad.

Yes, I did do not actual work today. So what? It's not like I'm breaking with tradition!

Also, Lauren said she wanted a mention today. So, here goes: Hi Lauren!

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Now playing: Keith Forsey / Reggae [Instrumental]

Day Forty Seven: Simple Things

So, I play this game called Frets on Fire. It's a free ware version of Guitar Hero for your PC, which is a nice way of saying that I'm totally stealing Guitar Hero. Anyway, it's exceptionally fun stuff, especially given the fact that every song that's been in Rock Band, and every Guitar Hero game is on there. And really, the only thing that's lacking is the whammy bar, which could be resolved if I actually bought the PC version of Guitar Hero 3, and got myself the ultra cool fake plastic guitar. But really, this is all nothing but groundwork.

I bought a wireless keyboard today. It is fucking fantastic. It now means that I can play Sweet Child O' Mine on my bed while righteously rocking the fuck out. It's damn beautiful. It's also extremely dorky, but fuck you, I'm rocking and rolling, and there be nothing you can do to stop it.

In other news, I think I'm going to be heading out to gay night tonight. Again. I'm not sure what the deal is with me, considering it ended so well last time, but oh well, I am sure it will be fine. Here's hoping to another glorious hangover!

....

Dammit, I just realised that I'm going to have to get a bigger monitor so I can comfortably browse the internet from the comfort of my own bed. When people talk about a vicious consumer cycle, I'm certain they were not even considering this.

QUICK, BRING ON THE BEER!

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Now playing: Jimmy Cliff / The Harder They Come

Day Forty Six: Things from the Intertubes

I did not have a productive weekend at all.

Admittedly, I did go out for a rather good night on Saturday for Terri's birthday, although the exact details are somewhat fuzzy given the copious amounts of booze that I consumed. I do remember berating Emily at length for taking so long to get ready, whhile playing some good Frets on Fire with Callum, finally leaving, and then on arriving at Terri's, realising I didn't have a couple of important things. Like keys. Or my wallet. Because I'm an idiot.

I did remember my beer, however. I might get drunk and stupid, but I never forget the important things.

So, waking up on Sunday, hungover and tired, I find myself unable to do anything of value.

Right. Bottle of water and internet. It's a well travelled path, but it works.

What did I find? Well, THIS.

It's a webcam that looks at five puppies. That might not sound too impressive, but damn, those be some cute puppies. And I kept that tab open for a good five hours while I pottered about my room, doing pretty much nothing at all. It was very nice.

Then, I stumbled onto this.

Have I mentioned before that PETA seriously piss me off? I mean, I might disagree with vegetarianism on a personal level, but I don't create entire spoof flash games to better illustrate how evil thanksgiving is. I mean, that's just insane. Besides, eggs that bleed? I think PETA are so far away from reality that I want to eat even more meat, just to annoy them. Fuckers.

Of course, we've learned that cows and such are actually responsible for a whole quarter of methane emissions, which actually makes eating meat bad for the environment. Which is really fucking annoying, but luckily, the answer to this pressing issue has come from Australia.

We'll eat Kangaroos instead. Fuckin' A. That'll do nicely. Fuck all the hippies, we'll keep eating meat, and save the environment at the same time!

So, here I am on Monday night, watching Barack Obama's post-election interview on 60 minutes, still with absolutely no work done.

The internet is a harsh mistress, but damn if it isn't a good way to waste time.

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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix / Voodoo Child

Edit: Okay, I just beat the game, and I still disagree with it, but man, this picture is lovely. While still being horrible, of course.

Day Forty Five: Lovely Evening

Just finished watching Casino Royale with Emily, and I have to say, I think I do prefer this to Quantum of Solace. It helps, of course, that I can say Casino Royale without thinking that it's a fucking retarded title and I hate it. I mean, Jesus, really? The fucking Quantum of fucking Solace?

Shit makes no sense.

If anything, I think that watching Solace actually improves watching Casino. It sorta helps you when you can see the eventual arc that Bond is meant to be following, as opposed to the film just meandering along.

However, both of these films pale in comparison to the might that is GOLDENEYE.

Bond fighting evil Commies? Check.
Nerdy Russian Hacker dude? Check.
Hot Russian Chick? Check.
Richard Sharpe Sean Bean? Check.
Awsome Casino Scene? Check.
Car Chase involving a motherfucking TANK? Check.

This film has everything you could want, and more. It's basically a highlight reel of all that is glorious about old school Bond, the puns, fast cars, hot women, and, of course, Alan Cumming.

Plus, it's the début of M as played by Judi Dench, a performance that I love so fucking hard, and that was apparently so well received that she was the only one allowed to carry on in the reboot. Because she's Judi Dench. You just don't fuck with her.

The point is that I vastly, vastly prefer cheesy and fun Bond to the Bourne style that we are apparently going for now, which I think is a mistake. I love the corny Bond.

Of course, I'll also be the first to dismiss the later era Brosnan films as being cheesy shite as well. Because I am a man of mystery, fickle choices, and also inhibited by an unhealthy love for Sean Bean.

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Now playing: Big Brother & The Holding Comp / Piece Of My Heart

Day Forty Four: CAPITALS

Seriously, what's up with that? The last two entries have been in all caps. That is not cruise control for cool, no matter what anyone says.

So, anyway, I think I'm actually gay now. I spent last night watching Jeffrey, a charming drama/comedy about gay men in New York. It was, um, unusual. There were bizarre breaks of the forth wall, and Scrubs-esque fantasy sequences. It also had that charming mid-nineties thing where things have become slightly offensive now we've gotten rid of notions of proper political correctness. Like this, for instance.

It also features one of the greatest performances ever by Patrick Stewart as Jeffreys best friend, and also the gayest man to ever gay a gay. It's superb, better than as Xavier. Or even as Picard. Absolutely fantastic stuff.

Although I went into this film on the basis that, holy shit, Picard is gaying it up to the max, it surprised me by how well it deals with some of the issues in this film. AIDs, for example, becomes the focal point for why Jeffrey is swearing off sex, but the films deals with it in an incredibly sensitive way.

Eventually.

I mean, if you watched the opening ten minutes and been terrified and stopped watching, you'd probably come away from this film with a far different opinion that me. But still, holy shit, gay Picard!

Also, in the second "My God I'm gay now" theme, Callum decided to update my status yesterday evening as "Andrew is a huge homosexual. Yeh, damn right." which promted about seven responsed within the hour. Which concerns me. Holy hell, how many people are worrying about me being gay?

Because whatever the number is, I guarantee it's gone up by a couple since yesterday.

Day Forty Three: DEAD SPACE

HOLY SHIT EVIL SPACE ZOMBIES

I realised that I've been playing this game obsessively for the last week or so now, and I still haven't managed to eloquently state why exactly I really love this game. So, what I'm going to do is ramble a bit about it, and hopefully I'll be able to distil what eactly about this game sets it aside from everything else vying for my attention at the moment.

Firstly, it's a great riff on the original Alien movie, a crew of dudes who really are not capable of fighting forced to improvise against a clearly superior adversary. And, oh boy, do they figure out some interesting ways of fighting them. No start off with a pistol and work your way up nonsense here, no sir, because the first gun you get can slice limbs off. This is not gratuitous or just gore for the sake of gore, it actually becomes necessary to blow arms, legs, and indeed heads off of aliens in order to kill them.

Okay, yes, you do get a pulse rifle thing, but I'll allow that into the unconventional weapons group because the alternate fire mode plants the gun on the ground and makes it fire in a circle, which is always handy when things are trying to eat your face.

Secondly, the monsters themselves are fantastically designed, all requiring a different way to deal with them . Although, it does usually involve blowing arms off. But that shouldn't matter. Because any solution that involves arms being blown off your enemies is awesome.

....


Sorry. Callum's just walked in, and obviously we need to watch Jeffrey. Some things just need to be done. So I'll close by saying that Dead Space is fucking awesome, and you should buy it.

Or pirate it. I hear it's really easy to do.

Day Forty Two: CARNAGE!

Wasn't fantastic, to be honest. I mean, it was okay, but it's always going to be hard to pull off a decent pub crawl in Norwich where we have about three decent cheap pubs, and the crawl involves us visiting none of them. Still, I did manage to sell my T-Shirt for more than I paid for it, which is fucking awesome. Truly, being drunk is a wonderful thing, although I'd did mean I was quite cold on my way home.

Anyway.

I'm back on the internet, and it feels fantastic. It may have only been one day, but I could feel myself changing. I talked to people more, engaged in human contact, and smelled fresh air. It was not healthy. Now I'm back online, I'm getting back into the game by downloading the shit out of the new Heroes, as well as few dozen other things, just to prepare myself for the terrible eventuality that I lose the 'net again. I just can't take that.

Anyway, a couple of people have been asking me "Hey, Andrew, what's up with your blog? Did you know that it fucking sucks? Because it does. Your blog is terrible and you should feel terrible."

Which, I mean, isn't really a question, but it is, I suppose, a point that needs to be addressed.

My answer is that, well, I never really intended for this to be the paragon of epic literature, with beautific descriptions of life and musings on philosophy intended to blow your mental and physical perceptions away, causing some kind of irrevocable revalation about life. You can all find that at better places that this. After all, this is self described as being a dumping ground for my pointless, drunken ramblings. Truly, if you are expecting something more than this, you might be searching in the wrong place.

Also, I can't really hear you over all the BALLS YOU HAVE IN YOUR MOUTH.

FUCK YOU

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Now playing: David Bowie / Ziggy Stardust

Day Forty One: Technical Difficulties

So, you might have noticed that there was no real update yesterday. Or rather, there was, but it was simply titled "Wait" and had a picture of Brad Pitt from Burn After Reading. That is because when I got back to university on Monday, I realised that for some reason, my internet wasn't working.

Shit.

Okay, so I try doing a System Restore. Despite me not having touched the computer over the weekend, something has gone wrong, so I'll take it back to before the weekend to change whatever crazy shit happened to it while it was turned off.

Nothing. And this is after waiting about half an hour for the Restore to take place.

Shitballs.

Alright, let's reinstall some drivers, that is generally a pretty standard fall-back. Only problem is, my CD drive has a habit of being a bastard and not working whenever I need it for something, which is pretty much every day, so I copy the CD onto my portable hard drive via Kate's computer, and do the driver thing.

Still nothing.

Cocking Shitbastardballs.

It's at this stage that I give up, and go out to Carnage, which I'll tell you about later today.

So I wake up, very hungover in the morning, and try plugging the computer directly into the modem, because holy fuck, I need Internets.

I'm currently writing this from the floor of my living room. The entire computer is in here with me, much to the disdain and horror of Emily. But, it's working wirelessly! I have no idea about the technical reasons for this. Maybe my network card was having an existential crisis, wondering if that mythical wireless network it was always connecting to was truly real. Indeed, is this not a beautiful metaphor for each of us, spinning through the void, desperately hoping to connect?

No, it's not. My PC just decided to be a cunt to me. The Bastard.

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Now playing: Nothing. My speakers aren't plugged in.

Day Forty: Wow, Day Forty? Really?

So,I think we've all agreed that the episode of South Park that came out not even a day after the presidential race was over was facerockingly awesome, right?

I mean, not only was it hugely impressive from a technical standpoint, given that they were using direct quotes from speeches delivered twenty hours before the air date, but it also had the clear advantage in that it was absolutely, ball-flatteningly hilarious. Palin, switching from her Alaskan accent to a British one? Great. McCain, dressed as a footballer for no reason at all? Fantastic. Hell, Obama and McCain hi-fiving after the magic and historical speech? Pure genius. Best of all, though, was Randy, and his yelling of 'Looooosers!', across the street. The longer this show goes on, the more likely I think that Stan's Dad is heading towards being the main character. Which is no bad thing. Because it's hilarious.

Also, I'm looking around online after the latest episode of the Office, and some people don't seem to be feeling sympathetic for Dwight. Which is insane. I mean, sure, technically he's cuckolding Andy, and is actively attempting to sabotage a marriage, but god-dammit, Andy is fucking crazy. He punched a hole through a wall. I think I know where this particular arc is headed, and since the location of the wedding has been revealed, it's making me very excited about where the rest of the season is headed.

Anyway, I'm going home now. Actually Home home, not to my house at university. Because it's been far too long, and I'm actually starting to miss Home, sad and lame as that might be. See you all after the weekend!

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Now playing: David Bowie / Life On Mars?

Day Thirty Nine: And now, back to normality.

Yay!

So, yes, on Wednesday I felt a bit unwell. Rumours that I stayed up drinking until 4am and then danced around my room like a mad fool because Obama had crossed the line are completely untrue. But man, that was a fantastic night. Drunk as fuck by the time I got to the LCR, watching the election coverage on the big screen, watching the states roll in and seeing the lead grow higher and higher was deeply surreal. Getting a free sambuca shot and then having an epic battle with Chris for a fucking wooden spoon even more so.

Yes, rolling in home at 2am (after leaving abusive voicemails on more than one phone) and then tuning into the BBC's live coverage was good. More beer made it even better. I did attempt to compose my thoughts and feelings on this historic event as it was taking place, and the sad results can be found here.

Man, that feeling, at 4am, as California and a few other states were called, pushing Barack Obama over the line and making him the next president? Can't beat it. What a fantastic moment. And especially nice, as I'm even more proud of my country. Obviously Obama won't be a cure all. Rainbows and magic will not happen. The economy is still in a hole, and foreign relations need a fair bit of patching. But this is where I have faith. I don't think Barack is likely to waste this fantastic opportunity he has, and the amount of international goodwill that the whole world has for America should prove very, very useful for the future. Let's see how the next four years go.

After all, the only way is up!

And, just as a final note, I don't think we really saw the real John McCain until his concession speech. Now, if that McCain had been running, this race might have been very different. An extremely gracious and classy move. And seriously, McCain supporters? When your guy is trying to praise his opponent, DO NOT FUCKING BOO. Good lord.

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Now playing: Sigur Rós / Milano

Day Thirty Eight: Liveblogging some election, or something.

Obama is at 195, McCain at 76, because Obama has just won Ohio.

So, to reiterate a point from the 2004 election, OHIOWNED!

Jesse Jackson is laying down the challenge. If America can elect a Black president, where the fuck is France's black president. What about Britain's Black prime minister?

Holy Shit, the Murdoch just kinda endorsed Obama. This is insane.

Also, Oprah just jumped on the bandwagon. Which is less shocking, but still.

Uh oh, McCain just won West Virginia.

Okay, so, the BBC, home of awesome, non-biased journalism, just comapared the odds of McCains chances to the existence of the tooth fairy.

Wow, the BBC actually just took a short break to talk about just how shitty a president Bush was. Not bad. Not bad.

Wisconsin has just gone to Obama. Hey, remember that time that Colin went to America in Love Actually. Motherfucker went to Wisconsin. Oh yes. You can't buy that kind of political analysis.

McCain just took Texas. Least shocking news ever, reflected in the BBC's five seconds worth of coverage on the matter.

Holy shit, did that dude say "economic shit"?

Oh, Economic Ship. Right.

That makes more sense.

Palin, while good for the Republican base, was unable to win over Joe Sixpack.

JOE SIXPACK, PREZ FOR 2012.

An actual quote from the BBC live coverage: "0243 How disappointing; I had harboured vain hopes of using some quotes from former CBS news anchor Dan Rather about the race being as tight as "a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach" or tighter than "rusted lug nuts on a '55 Ford." But the race isn't even close so far."

What.

Holy shit, this is better than the fucking election: http://www.conquerthislife.com/

You know what, fuck the fucking election.

This is better than that. So much better. Oh yes. Thanks go especially to Ryan for giving me this glorious thing. The BBC coverage is on mute now, because, holy shit, the Hoff is talking to me about Red Alert 3. Life could not get much better.

Wait.

Wait.

Eddie Fucking Izzard is on the BBC commentating on the election. What ho?

This is fascinating.

NEW AMERICA!

THE WORLD WILL BECOME FILLED WITH FLOWERS AND RAINBOWS AFTER BARACK OBAMA IS ELECTED.

Well, Fox News just called the election for Obama. I think this is now over. Even the vast right wing conspiracy has backed the next Prez. Gosh.

Republicans; Frighteningly defiant to the end.

HAHA, Media Bias from the BBC is evil and made McCain lose. You heard it here first. On the BBC.

Oops.

Man, that crazy ass dude with the moustache commentating on the election for the BBC is actually fucking crazy. Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

The man in the Camo Baseball camp thinks that Obama is Satan, and he hates both Nancy and Barack. Gosh. McCain is the last great hope for the country.

THIS IS UNPRECEDENTED. SINCE 1992. OH YEAH.

(As an unrelated rambling note, I nearly took a wooden spoon home tonight. And the motherfucker was broken and stolen. I hate everyone. EVERYONE.)

Apparently McCain will concede within the hour. Christ I hope so. I'm fucking tired.

Hah. Doodies. Or, y'know, 'duties'. Crazy ass 'mercan accent.

IT'S ALL PALIN'S FAULT!

Man, fuck this. I'm moving to the bed. Since I have no wireless keyboard, I'm going to throw this up as it is.

***

But, I'm calling this for Obama. Seems like the safe bet.

Also, FUCK YES, OUR REPRESENTATIVE FROM SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA IS THE FUCKING VICE PRESIDENT.

WOO YAY.

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Now playing: F-Zero X - Mute City

Day Thirty Seven: Really Important Issues.

My only comment on this Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/BBC are now Satan/NO, HOLY SHIT IT'S A JOKE/NO FUCK YOU IT'S COMEDY/YOUR MUM IS COMEDY nonsense is that every single person commenting on it is retarded.

Every. Single. One.

Anyway. There are more pressing matters in the world. An election or two happening, probably. People being exploded in the Middle East. Starvation and poverty in the third world. Hell, how about the global recession for something that actually affects everyone?

But no. Instead we'll whinge back and forth about how either its just comedy and how you fucking prudes should lighten up, or how Ross and Brand and the BBC are evil bastards who should be burned at the stake for this moral filth, and every single retarded viewpoint in between. All both sides have managed to do, with their endless petitions and facebook status updates in support or against either side really manage to achieve is to annoy the fuck out of people who disagree with you, or prompt a load of people going "Yeah, right!" and circle-jerking each other into furious oblivion. It's the opposite of good, and, holy shit, any possible comedy effects that could have been had are sucked out by the absolute moral convictions of each side.

Honestly, it's enough to slightly distract me from Red Alert 3. And that is what is truly important today. I mean, have I mentioned that George Takei is in it? If that's not a reason to get passionate about something, then I don't know what is. Certainly more worthy than some sketch on a radio show.

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Now playing: The Great Kat / Rossini's William Tell Overture for Symphony Orchestra & Band

Day Thirty Six: A Good Day.

Red Alert 3 was the thing that woke me up this morning. Literally, as it dropped though our letter box. And, well, it's good. Damn good. Based on the C&C 3 Engine, but infused with a certain love and joy. The only kind of love and joy that comes along with Armoured Bears. And Tesla boats that turn into tanks. And japanomechs. And, of course, George Takei in the cutscenes. That cannot be understated.

So I plow a few hours into that, and then get a call from James, to go and see the new Bond flick. And we do. And it is quite awesome. I mean, yeah, James Bond is now attempting to be Jason Bourne, which is probably a bad thing, but my God, I'd still watch this film if it was renamed and called "The Wacky Adventures of M" because Judi Dench is just that fucking awesome.

And then. Beer and Burger at Wetherspoons. Which hurt. Because it was no regular beer and burger. This is burger, then doubled, then with cheese and bacon added. And a beer. The whole terrible lot is still sitting in my gut like a solid rock. It's going to do terrible things to me when it leaves.

And THEN! I head over to see Callum and Nicki at there place, and we drink beer, eat pizza, and watch Love Actually, and become very soppy towards the end. Except for me, because I have a heart of iron, dammit!

And now, I'm back home, and playing Red Alert 3 again. It's been a good day.

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Now playing: MGMT / Time To Pretend

Day Thirty Five: Halloween

Red Alert 3 will be here soon. I can feel it. It teases me, my Amazon package tracking page. Red Alert 3 is on its way. It's been dispatched. And soon, it will be mine. I'm excited.

So, anyway, its Halloween today. I was never really someone who got into Halloween, at least in the traditional sense. For the most part it was just chucking eggs at houses and then coming back home and having to give sweets to other people who would no doubt be returning shortly to throw eggs at your house.

But still, tonight promises to be a very fun night. I'm Ninja'd up, again, because it's a nice and cheap costume. Man, if only I had a labcoat, then I'd be going as Dr. McNinja, but sadly that geeky dream will not pass. I've got a crate of beer to drink, along with whatever else I come accross at the LCR, and I'm going there armed with various plastic ninja weapons that I got in a set at poundland. I'd never before quite embraced the beauty of pound shops. I'm going to start doing all my shopping there dfrom now on.

Anyway, as tonight promises to be extremely drunken and fun, expect a lovely after action report this Monday. Expect it to contain rambling and overly frightening topics, such as just how many people went as the fucking Joker from Fucking Dark Knight. Seriously people, be a little creative. So, you've got that to look forward to on Monday.

Unless I'm busy playing Red Alert 3. In which case, expect a post about just how fucking awesome Red Alert 3 is.

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Now playing: The Band / The Night They Drove Old Dixie

Day Thirty Four: Here is something that you will like.

We all know that roughly 95% of internet web comics are shit, right? Sure as night follows day, sure as eggs are eggs, sure as every odd numbered Star Trek film is shit.*

However, there are a few bright shining stars out there.You've got your XKCDs, your Penny Arcades and the like. However, the one, absolutely unquestionable best webcomic ever is The Adventures of Dr. McNinja.

This is a fact. I will explain it to you. And, if at the end, you do not agree, then we simply cannot be friends anymore.

This comic stars Dr. McNinja, a doctor who is also a ninja and therefore torn between his desire to kill and his desire to heal. His receptionist, Judy, is a gorilla. He occasionally dreams about being Batman. His ward is Gordito, and 11 year old Mexican bandito who grew a moustache through sheer force of will. Gordito also rides a velociraptor. Just because.

The problem is trying to treat this as a webcomic. A webcomic is something that you visit once a day, laugh and move on. With Dr. McNinja, you want the story to keep going so that you keep on getting the awesome. This feels much more like a full-blown comic, one that would, and indeed should be stocking the shelves alongside the big names from DC and Marvel.

So. Visit, and read around. The complete issues in the archive include Dr. McNinja fighting a Giant Paul Bunyan, and fighting hundreds of zombies. Oh, and punching out Dracula. Finally, the final phrase that will seal the deal, and decide whether you love or hate this comic.

"CHAINSAW NUNCHUCKS"

Check it out. I can absolutely promise you won't regret it.

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Now playing: The Fifth Dimension / Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In

*That's actually not true anymore, as Star Trek X: Nemesis was so awful that it broke the curse of odd/even numbered Trek films. But that's a subject for another day.

Day Thirty Three: Dear me.

I'm still hungover as I'm typing this today. Last night was quite heavy. Extremely fun, of course, as the LGBT socials generally are, but still, my god. I was feeling it today. Jesus.

So, anyhow, have you been watching Dead Set? You really should be. It's fantastic. My drunken blogging aside last night, it truly is a fantastic show, and I wish that it was going to last longer than just this week. Imagine it, a fullblown series charting the zombie outbreak in Britain. Someone get these guys a miniseries on HBO.

The American election is worrying me. The polls and whatnot have Obama up, and he looks set to win this by a quite nice margin in the electoral college, but I'm still fucking nervous. I was worried back in '04, in my happy-go-lucky, Michael Moore tells me what is right state of affairs, and I'd have been glad for anyone to replace George, even though Kerry would have been a fucking terrible president.

The worst thing is, I'd have been happy for either McCain or Obama to become president up until recently. The problem with McCain is twofold, firstly, he hasn't really been able to run as himself, given that Obama far better represents change then he does, even though they've both broken ranks inside their individual parties.

Secondly, we have Sarah Palin. Jesus. Sarah Fucking Palin. The woman terrifies me more than George in his worst moments. Her public interviews terrify me. The woman does not read papers. When pushed, she couldn't name any. I like to think that even (still!) President Bush would be able to tell you what the fuck the New York Times was. Plus, admittedly, I do the tiniest crush on Joe Biden. Motherfucker is from Scranton. He seems genuinely passionate about politics. In short, he seems like he gives a shit about what he does, while Palin just cares what she can do with power once she has it.

She may end up costing McCain the election, and that's unfortunate, as this is something that he's tried to do several times, and it's just never worked out. Imagine if he'd won the nomination in 2000. No George. Just John.

So, we'll see. Popular opinion seems in favour of Obama. But, it's politics. Who can tell what'll happen in the next 5 days?

Day Thirty Two: BLAH

So, Dead Set appears to be the spiritual prequel to 28 days later then. That is fucking awesome.

I mean, Davina McCall as a fucking manic zombie is awesome, but dammit, this is great.


Anyway, I spent tonight at an L G B T social, whic was facinating. LGBT stand for lesbian gay bi and transgender by the way.

I think it might be easier being a dude who fancies dudes. As far as I can make out, the guys I was with had absolutly no problem pulling dudes who they found. I do not have any clue why some of these guys had to ask me later on "hey, am I boring?" given that they had some random dude attempting to lick their face. SO, damn, I should probably turn gay then. Seems to be fun enough. Except I don't really like having sex with guys.

Heh, "I'm a normalite."

Sorry, I'm liveblogging this as I'm watching the latest Dead Set.

"Merry fucking Christmas"

My god this shit is awesome.

So, at gay night I was able to decide that it doesn't matter whether you're straight or gay; making out in public is disgusting, and you should go home to fucking do it.

I mean, jesus christ, just go home and get your sex on.

"It's not a submarine you specimen, do you know how air works?"

This show is fantastic and I wish to make love to it very much.

SO.

The point is that I wndered over to gay night, watched dudes make out with each other, then had Callum steal some kind of head dress and then j'accuse me of stealing it.

I feel slandered.

And drunk.

Well. Mostly drunk.

Right.

So...

Day Thirty One: A couple of points.

Firstly, fuck yes to actually getting my essays done last night! I even got sleep, which I don't think I've done ever on an essay night at uni. So, woo yay me.

Secondly, holy shit, did you see Dead Set tonight?

Man, that was not only one of the best opening episodes to any series ever, but it also managed to combine some quality satire with brainsplosions. And that is something that I am all about. However, watching it did raise an issue that I have with Zombies in the media.

WARNING, THE REST OF THIS ENTRY WILL BE DEEPLY NERDY AND LAME. ONLY READ ON IF YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAR THE GEEKINESS, OR IF YOU REALLY LIKE ZOMBIES.

Dead Set cheats here a bit, I think, by using fast zombies. Now, there are a couple schools of thought on this, but generally fast zombies are really, really fucking easy to make scary. Whereas, the art of making the traditional, slow and shambling zombie is, well, just that, an art. Slow Zombies aren't scary because of their individual nature, you need a massive crowd of them, so that you get wave after wave of the fuckers. While fast zombies are dangerous on an individual level, you need a group of slow zombies to freak you out righteously.

So, yeah, I'm not saying it's bad or anything. After all, 28 days used fast zombies and it was one scary motherfucking film. I'm just saying, it'd be lovely to have a shambling horde of slow zombies attacking the Big Brother house.

Anyway.

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Now playing: Liam Lynch / Rapbot

Day Thirty: Hah, the one month anniversary!

Gosh. This is far further than I expected I'd get. Thirty fucking days, of nonstop churning out retarded crap is all well and good, but when it's me attempting to stick to a regular schedule and I actually achieve this goal, well, I think that allows me a little moment to reflect on just how fucking awesome I am.



FUCK. YES.

All right, admittedly this blog does tend to just be aimless ramblings about me, or about TV with a level of critical analysis that would make my lecturers vomit if they were to read it, and tends towards long, rambling entries about nothing much in particular. However, I'm just happy about the fact that I've managed to keep this up for as long as I have. The point of this blog was never to produce works of soul searing quality; precise and beautiful lines of prose that make the reader humble and weak, inspiring men and awing women.

I mean, it does that already, so that's not really an issue. The point is, that I'm just happy that I was able to stick to a schedule without cheating...for the most part. I've bent the rules on a couple of nights, but I've always had an update, every weekday, for over a month now. And the fact that I was able to stick to that, pointless and stupid though it may be, still makes me very happy.

Also, I still have an essay to do. So, fuck you, I'm going to go write some more of my essay, and then weep uncontrollably because I just. can't. finish. it.

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Now playing: Guster / I Hope Tomorrow Is Like Today

Day Twenty Nine: Just a Placeholder

I'll be throwing up a larger update later on tonight/early in the morning.

The reason for this is that I'm determined to finish my politics essay tonight, and taking a break to ramble incoherently for 250 words about South Park would distract me from rambling incoherently for 1000 words about The Office.

So, stay tuned. Also, I've no idea what the fuck this will do to my facebook feed, so I've got that to look forward to.

Edit: So, fresh from the wave of absolute bullshit that was my (finished!) essay, let's launch into a rambling bit about South Park. The latest episode was pretty fantastic. The inclusion of Craig into the group as a way to criticise the main four boys was a great way to actually pick apart these guys, and their place in the school. Then, later on, we got a Cloverfield parody that was absolutely inspired, taking the fear that film evoked and taking it a completely different way, made all the better thanks to it being in the hands of the most retarded character within the show, Randy. I'm pretty sure Stan's Dad is moving closer and closer to being another central character, as opposed to a character that makes up part of the background scenery, as most of the other parents do.

However, there is one pretty strong criticism that I'd make of this episode, which is that, around the middle of the episode, the plot pretty much stopped moving. When you realise that this is going on, the immediate reaction is to become annoyed, because you just know that this is going to be a two parter, and the rest of the episode is filler. Don't get me wrong, I think Parker and Stone are fucking brilliant at what they do, and they've done some fantastic multiple episode plotlines, including the frankly wonderful 'Imaginationland', which was actually a three parter. The problem is that while that felt that it had enough plot for three episodes, this just feels like a one episode concept that is going to be stretched out far too much over two.

Anyway. Now on to the next essay. Which is longer. And about four times harder.

Fuck.

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Now playing: Lou Reed / Walk On The Wild Side

Day Twenty Eight: Goddamnit.

I have two essays due in on Monday. I am going to London for the entire day on Saturday. I have done maybe 200 words on each essay, which are 1000 and 2500 words. That's not including referencing, research, bibliographies and other words which all basically mean 'padding'.

I often wonder how references are justified. We reference shit in our essays, and that reference will refer to another essay, and so on, and so on. Except, for some reason, once you've written enough, the it just becomes fact when you say it. So, essentially, all essays are just massive, frightening circle jerks stemming from "That guy said it, so it must be true."

Anyway, I'm too tired to be doing any of this nonsense. And, my (admittedly, illegal) copy of Assassin's Creed has decided to start playing up and run in spectacular crappy mode. I know it's nothing to do with my system, because my system is fantastic. So, as a compromise, I decided to dig through that pile of Rockstar Games I bought the other week, and fired up GTA3 instead.

Rather than doing work.

Because I hate myself.

So I'm plugging away quite nicely, remembering all the old spots around the map, where to get the best cars and stuff, and I've done about half the missions when the game crashes on me. No popup, no warning, not even a helpful windows popup informing me that the game has crashed. Nothing.

Shit.

Ah well, these things happen, it's a game that was made in 2001, (Holy shit, 2001? Thats fucking insane, this game is near 8 years old. Holy hell.) these things happen. As the proud owner of Windows systems since I've been using computers, I'm used to these things. I cut my teeth on Windows ME, a system that takes all of the worries, unreliability and annoyances of Vista, and then compresses them into the finest, most painful user experience ever. The fucking thing once decided to wipe the entire hard drive, seemingly as a recreational excercise one day, which provided a good week of excited trawling through illegitimate forums and nigh-incomprehensible system analysis.

So yeah, I'm used to crashes.

No big deal, I just boot up the game again, prepared to confidently resume from where I left off, only to discover that no, no I can't. Because GTA3, and indeed all it's succesors appear to hate the idea of quicksaving. It's just a crazy idea to them. For me, unfortunatly, it's two entirely wasted hours. I don't even have fake progress on a computer game to show for it. Fuck.

So, if I seem a little annoyed tomorrow, it's just because of a couple of things that I've got going on. No worries.

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Now playing: David Bowie / Ziggy Stardust

Day Twenty Seven: This post is about Heroes.

If I don't post something tomorrow, it's because I've been arrested. For murderin'. The facebook raping that I underwent will not be mentioned again, other than to say that it hasn't taught me to turn my computer off when I go out, just that I need to remember to lock it before I do.

Bastards.

Anyway, once Heroes finally downloaded, I watched it. And it rocked my socks. I'm pretty sure that Parkman's turtle is going to be the biggest player in the new season. Also, every single scene with Ando and Hiro was brilliant, and I loved that they solved the whole Hiro stabbing Ando thing in exactly the way I thought it would be, but the absolute best thing was when Hiro was tracking down the African Mr. Isaac. Don't fuck with someone who can see the future, because he will wang you over the head with a shovel is a moral, I think, that we can all appreciate.

Furthermore, Arthur Petrelli is a stone-cold badass. I mean, absolutely hardcore. Adam I could never really take credibly as the big bad given that he was English and drunk (and therefore reminded me of myself) and Sylar is just too fucking cool to be the bad guy.

It's like, you remember that time they tried to make Hulk Hogan a bad guy, and you were all like, hey, I can't boo the Hulkster, he's just too awesome, and plus, when he hulks out after getting knocked down good it pretty much defines the best qualities of Pro Wrestling.

It's exactly like that. Plus, this episode, we also got some Peter/Sylar fighting, which panned out in a way that probably won't end well for either of them.

And finally, I think Mohinder is actually turning into the fucking Fly. I'm waiting for the next episode where he breaks someone arm by challenging them to an arm-wrestling contest, and then vomits on some dude's hand for shits and giggles. Things are certainly looking up.

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Now playing: The Chiffons / One Fine Day

Day Twenty Six: So. Zombies.

Ouch. That's just nasty.

Anyway, yeah, have you seen the previews and stuff for Dead Set? A zombie invasion takes over Britain and contestants in the Big Brother house are forced to survive? Not a single part of that sounds bad to me. Not one single part.

I've been on a bit of a zombie kick recently. In my first week, as well as buying a single textbook, I also bought World War Z, which proceeded to rock my socks so hard that I have actually been left sockless ever since I finished it. Holy hell, it's just fantastically well written, but what made it even better is the way that I came into it. I thought this was going to be a nice comedic novel, with maybe a bit of zombie 'science' thrown in. I mean, the book has a review by Simon Pegg on the cover. This has got to be hilarious!

Well, in the opening chapters we've got the most unnerving scene developing as the zombie plague spreads worldwide, like a freakier version of bubonic plague. Countries become overrun, economies collapse, and international relations break down further and further with OMG SPOILARZ ETC ETC. Needless to say, the shit really starts to hit the fan later on, as the armies get called in, and this is how the book really excels, putting across not an American centric view, but a true, global view of how the war is going down.

The genius lie in the fact, however, that this book is set in the aftermath of the war, post zombie outbreak, in a completely changed world, with all the old geopolitical realities changed and the makeup of humanity irrevocably changed. And man, I just ate this shit up. Fantastic.

So, when I hear that there's a movie being made, I have two reactions.

1) Holy shit, this is awesome!
2)Fuck, I really hope they don't screw this up.

It's still in the air. And hopefully, it'll come out, be a massive success, while kicking serious ass at the same time. And it's at that point, my friends, that you'll point to your copies of World War Z, and say "Pfft, the movie? I had the book before this shit was cool.

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Now playing: The Long Winters / Pushover

Day Twenty Five: False Advertising works better than expected.

Emily: "Can you really see famous naked people at your site?"

Animation seminar today was great. We saw the horrors that corporate capitalism unleashed on The Flintstones, and latterly was a formative part of much of Saturday morning programming. This course is fascinating, but I get the feeling that it might be destroying my faith in humanity.

That said, we did get to watch not only Voltron, but also the mighty He-Man. I mean, Voltron is about Robot Lions that transform into a giant Mech that wields an enormous sword in order to DEFEND THE UNIVERSE. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's what people had in mind when they were redefining the word 'awesome'.

The seminar was also successful in that I managed to be labelled as a Communist, Fascist and a Socialist. Admittedly, this was because James was extolling the joys of Capitalism a little too hard, and I kind of get the urge when people are so committed to an ideal that I like to be contrary, just for its own sake. Ryan also expressed fear about my early essay starting, but I reassured him, as out of the two essays, I've only started one, and it's not the film one. I couldn't start that early, its just traditional that I do all my film work at the absolute last minute. That's just the way that the world works.

Also, I only realised today that Joe Biden is actually from Scranton, Pennsylvania. This is awesome enough to warrant my unquestioning support for the Obama/Biden campaign, because I'm hugely gay for the office, and all that surrounds it.

Plus, Barack is actually Superman.

Finally, I'm going to go off and enjoy Burn after Reading, and also get myself a beer and a burger. God, university life is fantastic.

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Now playing: John Murphy / In the House-In a Heartbeat

Day Twenty Four: A revelation that will destroy your mind.

So, today in Politics and Popular Culture we discussed how all art, entertainment and media products are ultimately a product of the corporate machine, propagating an endless lie that we are happy and content, while not realising that ultimately, there is no creativity, and we'll eventually be absorbed by the corporate miasma of absolute crap.

After hearing about, seeing trailers for, and eventually seeing the box office results for Beverly Hills Chihuahua, I'm convinced. The world is doomed. God, I love my course.

But anyway, enough of the media controlling us all as mindless sheep, let's talk about something important.

I have started an essay that is not due in until the 27th of October. You must understand, that I have never done this in my entire University career. I've made an effort, in fact, to never start an essay until the last possible minute, then wait for an additional two hours, and then finally start it. So for me to actually be writing things down about this essay, that I intend to use, as well as doing some textual analysis on the subject of my essay, is nothing short of wrong.

Can you seriously believe that the fucking Chihuahua movie has been at #1 in the US Box Office for two weeks. That's so fucking awful.

Anyway. We've got an animation seminar tomorrow that will be dealing with 'limited' animation. The screening on Wednesday was really weird. I'd always considered things like Hong Kong Phooey and the Flintstones to be classic animation, but man, when we were watching them in the screening they dragged. I mean, they dragged a lot. Neither compared, however, to the might of the Star Trek Animated Series, which I believe was actually the result of a bed between a pair of producers over who could make a cartoon series for the least amount of cash. I think there were only about 5 minutes of moving animation in a cartoon that lasted for twenty. Even as an unabashed nerd, this was really fucking painful.

Also, have you seen the latest pictures from the new film? It looks fucking awesome! Spock should totally be using telekinesis and interfering with brains.

Anyway, the screening was eventually saved at the last minute by the healthy addition of Ren & Stimpy, which is awesome.

Finally, I'd like to leave you with this. It says more than I could ever say.

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Now playing: Ritchie Valens / La Bamba

Day Twenty Three: Senseless rambing about not much in particular.

Today, I will talk about drinking.

I'm a fan of drinking, I will admit. It's fun, it's easy, and it enables me to better discuss matters of deep social importance with people I barely know. This is an important skill. Too often I have been trapped with people, unable to enlighten them with various eloquent and watertight reasons on why their particular stance on taxation is wrong, or how their chosen government is a terrible choice, and that they should feel terrible for choosing it.

Anyway.

I find that the most likely thing that I will discuss, while drinking of course, is just how drunk I, and everyone else is. It's fascinating, the way that we're drawn to arguing about how totally drunk one person is, or how another person is totally faking it, and they haven't had anything to drink, and, dude, I've totally had more shots of vodka than they have, man.

The point that I'm laboriously crawling towards is that drinking is a great activity. It reveals the true nature of a person, and more importantly, the true nature of the self. If you've ever had the experience of being by yourself while completely drunk, either walking home, or just unable to sleep, you'll know the feeling. It's a fabulous amount of introspection that goes into this, and it's at a level unprecedented when you're completely sober. Fuck all this Buddhist meditation and shit, what a person who is desperately seeking intuition into their soul really needs is a good night on the piss.

Basically, what I think people should do, rather than follow religion or politics or any of that, is get completely and horribly drunk instead. I think that everyone will feel a whole lot better for this. Also, we should all get naked.

Really naked.

Just better for everyone, y'know what I mean?

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Now playing: Dirty Pretty Things / Bang Bang You're Dead

Day Twenty Two: Youtube will be the death of me.

I was originally going to post something completely different tonight.

My copy of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut had finished downloading, and since it's been ages since I've last seen it, I thought I'd do a comparison between my current response and my fifteen year old response. The twenty year old one would have been a long, insightful and thoughtful analysis. The Fifteen year old one would have been "Hur, they swore a whole bunch of times. Also, Boobs."

Yes, I plan my entries around single jokes, and then hopelessly twist a whole mess of words around them. Leave me alone.

Anyway, the point I'm laboriously struggling to get to is that about 10 minutes into the film I'd shifted it up into the corner of my screen while I clicked around on youtube for random stuff, and that's where I ended up spending about two hours watching Boris Johnson in pretty much all his guest appearances on Have I got News for You, Room 101 and that sort of thing, and laughing myself silly.

Now politically, I may not agree with Boris. As a filthy lefty centrist whatever it is you pick when the two main parties horrify you, I generally am turned off by much of what emerges from Westminister. Politics, and all the media, spin and shit just irritates me. That's why I like following it so much. Like anything that infuriates me, I keep wanted to understand the hows and whys.

Boris, in this respect, is quite refreshing. A healthy departure from all the lovely soundbites and shiny-facedness of Cameron, and far more cheery than Gordon. Have you seen Gordon smile? It's fucking creepy.

What's more, it's clear that he's got something that very few UK politicians have, which is actual charisma. Holy shit, it's just nice for a politician to crack a joke! I'm not advocating that we go to the American system, which is all about personality, but guys, let's have some fun in politics!

Although, seriously, Clegg is the fucking man. No, really.

Now, back to youtube!

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Now playing: Graham Coxon / Standing On My Own Again