Wallace & Gromit - Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace & Gromit - Curse of the Were-Rabbit

This is an absolutely outstanding film and I recommend it to anyone. It's suitable for kids and adults, it's hugely entertaining and well worth going to see, I promise you you won't regret it! I found it hilarious, theres jokes for all ages and the storyline is suitably ridiculous without being too ridiculous. I went to see it with Viv on saturday night and although she feel asleep halfway through it wasn't because the film was boring!

Viv's Party Trick

Has now been established as being able to go from incredibly excited to asleep in a matter of seconds, normally taking the path along the lines of: "Woo! Yeah! Party! Guy, call a taxi. *SNORE*".

Needless to say this happened on Friday night. We did drink rather a lot and we were playing Sarah and Glen's new PS2 game, Buzz (which comes with four buzzers!). The game is brilliant, it's a music quiz where you answer question in several rounds, but it comes with the buzzers you need for the game, it's ace! It was a good night and I was just looking forward to getting in some FIFA 2006 when Viv collapsed on the sofa and requested a taxi.

On saturday we went into town early and put some money in my savings (first time in years!), then bought my dad an everton shirt for his birthday (apparently quite a while away), and got a Burger King. We had a look around some sports stores for running trainers, but it seems that no sports stores sell sports equipment.. Then we went to Jayne and Al's as Kat was making a visit for the day so we had a chat and picked up the car.

That night we went to see Wallace and Gromit - Curse of the Were-Rabbit and I wanted to see Nightwatch as well, but Viv fell asleep halfway through Wallace and Gromit, so I thought it wasn't worth it, she said we could watch it on Sunday. Although I later found out that was probably the last showing in Vue.

On Sunday we went to the designer outlet and got some trainers from the Reebok shop, then went to the gym. Then we went home and had showers, I carried on reading 'The Wastelands' and Viv went to sleep. Later we watched 'Hero' and I saw 'From Hell' once Viv had gone to bed.

Video game players strike back!

Anti-game activist Jack Thompson under investigation

I find this quite interesting. It points out to me just how stupid and selfish some people can be. Jack Thompson seemed to standing up for some people and made a promise which he should have honoured, it's not like it was a bet with anyone in particular, it was for a charity for god's sake. It just shows that some people can't accept 1) When they've lost, 2) When they're wrong.

I'm glad that gamers have taken a stand and decided to take some action against all the evidence free accusations that rain down on the video games industry. Violence may well effect kids, but games have warnings on, they aren't designed for young children, if parents can't keep them away from their kids, it's not the game designers fault.

Work's picking up

It's been quite a slow week in many ways. I havent done much really. I've been given a bit more work after finishing the Breeders' Cup site and all the syndications. Since then I've also done a small pop-up project for someone else, to register people for a free poker evening. That was ok. Now I'm going to be working on another vignette project, doing something with an audio centre for some more horesracing. Like before most of the code is already done and I just have to play around with it and convert it to this years site.

I don't think much is happening this weekend, I just payed for my 2 anime series from ebay, Paranoia Agent and Wolf's Rain, they should get here next week at some point. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few more next month, I'm looking at Full Metal Alchemist and Gun Grave as they're supposed to be quite good. Although I may get Gantz instead.

Not much else to say really... My DS has run out of batteries so I have nothing to do on the train. I'm going to the gym again as well, I went yesterday and did quite a lot. My shins are starting to hurt a lot more when I'm running, I need some new trainers. I hope I sort it out soon, or I'll have to switch to the rowing machine or something instead. I'm hoping to buy some more trainers on the weekend and maybe some jeans that'll be OK for work and dont have a hole in the crotch!

The Rest of the Weekend...

Viv was feeling crap, and so was I. I woke up at 09:00 (WHY?!?) then sat and watched TV till we had showers and decided to go to the Phantom for a fry up. Which, considering it was a 'Big Scary Breakfast' wasn't that big and certainly wasn't that scary. Tessa turned up later and we had a bit of a chat, she's going to live in Japan and teach kids English, which sounds cool, but I'd be terrified to do on my own!

Eventually we made our way back to Barry's and left about 17:00. We got home about 18:45 and had some dinner, Viv had a shower, then we went round to the dudes. I was still feeling crap though, and the drinks weren't helping. We played FIFA for a bit, and I scored! Only my second ever FIFA goal in general play, but it was my first in FIFA 2006, and it was only my second time playing. A sign of things to come? We left quite early as Viv was working Sunday.

Didn't do much Sunday except put some 2 year old films in to be developed and do a lot of washing. That's about it really...

Lufbra: Journey to Hell

Or so Viv thought anyway. Needless to say, the trip to Loughborough was not fun. I left work at 16:30 and got home by about 18:00, having caught a train and a bus. Viv was already there. We packed the car and headed off, it was dark and raining. Viv later said she had been in fear of her life for pretty much all of the drive. I did get scared in a few places, but I suppose driving inches away from a lorry on your left, and only a foot away from oncoming traffic on your right, while it's dark and raining so hard you can't really see will do that to you.

It was a bad trip, but we got there about 20:30, after stopping for Burger King and being slowed down by the crap traffic. But I think seeing everyone (Nick, James, Henry, Barry and Paul) and getting drunk made up for it and I had a great night. Viv on the other hand didnt. She wasn't feeling great about herself as we had to rush to get out by 22:00, then she got in a fight with a girl who insulted her during the Michael Jackson tribute guy (who I don't remember!). Then we had an argument later on the way home (neither of us can remember what about!) and she stormed off. I met her later and we got back to Barry's ok.

Nearly 200 RPG Cliches

This is a very funny and amusing list (if your into RPGs that is) compiled by a number of people who have obviously played a LOT of RPGs. I've played a fair number of RPGs and so I found most of these cliches very funny!

RPG Cliches List

I havent written much over the last few days, because, to be honest, not a lot has happened! We had a Team Meeting earlier, discussing what was going to be happening over the next 6 months. Apparently we're moving all of the rivals.net sites over to vignette and this is going to be our main priority, so it may involve a fair bit of overtime (but we'll be getting paid) and possibly bonuses! (SCORE!) I don't really mind either of these as I'm a bit short of money and that just means I can pay off my debts faster and make new ones! But we'll also be getting 3 more staff as well as a few other things to make sure the project is done properly, hopefully my job is safe then!

I've been going to the gym steadily still, about 3 times a week, I was supposed to once on a weekend, but that hasnt happened yet.

On Friday I'm heading to Loughborough with Viv to go out with all the uni people, as lots are turning up. Not sure if I'm staying saturday night or not as Viv has lots of work to do, Barry is working and we think lots of other people are leaving. If we come back we can go out to the dudes for the night and Viv can work Sunday.

I also got a text from Chris yesterday, asking if I was going to Old Boys in Dover. It would be nice to see my mates again, but it's such a long way to Dover from York, it's nearly Christmas and it'll be this month. I'm not really up for it, but I think Viv might be, although she seems to be flagging on the idea...

Curry, Metallica, Filey - in that order

Yep, this weekend was all about those three things. Firday night didnt have much to do with those three things as all I did was watch Hitch while Viv talked to her mum in Mexico for the first time in ages.

Saturday we didnt do much either. Viv went to work again, I read. Then I picked up Viv and we went round to Caroline's, as we hadn't seen her in about 18 months, and we hadnt seen her baby yet. Then we went home and went round to Kerry and Zack's for dinner and a piss up. We left our house at 7:30, waited 50 minutes(!!!!!) for a 4 buses which didnt come, so we got a lift from Kerry, then 2 buses turned up, one after the other!

Anyway it was a good night with a very nice curry and I tried some insanity sauce (DON'T!). Then we drank a lot of vodka, talked about a lot of stuff and watched a lot of metallica, including the MTV Idols show which I hadnt seen before.

Sunday was fairly uneventful. At 3pm we decided to drive to Filey to get some Fish & Chips. It's about 50 miles from York, so it's not like it's just down the road. But it was nice to be able to do something and not worry about money. The Fish & Chips wasn't really worth the drive though...

Specialist Schwarz

This post is mainly about a text file on albinoblacksheep.com, which I visit quite a lot, for various reason. The file included an introduction which is here:

"Once upon a time, there was a SPC Schwarz stationed with the Army in the Balkans. SPC Schwarz was either very clever or very bored; but probably both, since he managed to attempt or be warned about 213 things he wasn't allowed to do. He collected those things into a hillarious list and posted them to the web. "

The list can be seen here

Other than that, I'm not doing much. I'm happy with Englands 2-1 victory last night, it was a good game, with some downpoints and Sven still managed to make himself look like an idiot by taking off Wright-Phillips when he was easily the best player England had on the pitch. But still we played a lot better than we had done for a long time, without Beckham and Gerrard (coincidence?).

Just installed MSN Messenger at work so I'm chatting away, and I'm arranging to get to Loughborough in two weeks time to see everyone from uni. Viv isn't too impressed as I said I didn't want to go to Old Boy's in Dover in November, but it's further away, I don't have a mate there who's house we can stay at and the night out is going to be more expensive and A LOT busier. As in 'oh my god I can't get to the bar' kind of busier.

Pretty much finished the site at work, it's getting checked over, so any final changes can be made today or tomorrow before it goes live. So I'm sat twiddling my thumbs for a bit until I get something else to do, I don't think it'll be long though, I should get to help someone with something soon enough.

England Vs Poland

I'm not especially hopeful about this game. Our recent games have been poor, our midfield is pretty much gone, what with Beckham and Gerrard out for this game. Or maybe that could be what really gets us going? Maybe we needed a challenge? Well last time we had even a reasonable challenge we lost 4-1, not a good sign...

I think it is Sven's fault though, our players need someone to shout at them and get them motivated, they've become lethargic and unenthusiastic, and Sven's calm and controlled approach to the game is not really helping. While he may be a good manager and be tactically brilliant, although the recent games against Wales and Northern Ireland makes me doubt this quite alot. We need to pull our fingers out and damn well play with some pride, or we might as well not bother going to the world cup.

Other than that though my website for the Breeders' Cup at work is nearly finished, it's supposed to be done by friday, but I've got most of what I can actually do done, the rest Ryan is working on at the moment, I can't really help as it's to do with live shows and stuff like that.

The gym is going well, I've gone Monday and Tuesday this week, I'm starting to push myself a bit more and I'm gonna start upping my weights and stuff like that to help myself along. No gym tonight though footballs on, Viv said she may be going though, if she can get in and its not too busy, otherwise she'll go home and come and pick me up in the car, which'll save me a bus trip.

Not much to do at work now, I'm trying to think of some websites I can visit while I'm waiting for some updates to do on the site, as I think I'm pretty much finished other than that.

Music to work to - suggestions welcome!

Another day at work, but this time I remembered my headphones! As far as I can tell though, they're quite poor, considering I spent £12 on them. The bass seems awful, but that could be the quality of the music I'm listening too... I don't really know either way!

It's definately better working with music, I get less distracted as well bizarrely. I downloaded 50 free MP3s from eMusic, they have a very poor selection though, it's not a mainstream supplier, so not many bands I know or like. I ended up with Kerplunk from Green Day and Mastadon's first album, as well as a few other songs, and some Bill Hicks, which is very good. Inspiring stuff when your listening to it and coding :P I'm gonna bring in a bunch of CDs tomorrow as my bag will be empty.

Off to the gym again today, so I can watch England in the football tomorrow, we're gonna do badly though, I know it.

I ordered a couple more CDs from Play, Prodigy's greatest hits, which is out on the 17th, and looks great, I love prodigy! Plus it has a bonus second CD with lots of remixes and live stuff, sounds great! I also bought an album by a fat hawaiian guy who plays the ukalele, he had a song on Lost as has been recommended by a few people as easy listening stuff, so I got it anyway.

Serenity

Now this was a cool film, it was, in the words of Jonathan Ross, what the new Star Wars films SHOULD have been. If you liked the old trilogy, go and see this, you wont be disappointed. It's a great little film, nice effects, a decent story, good characters who have some great lines, even Viv was laughing at some places, I was laughing much more :P

It's a sci-fi space flick, but not your standard space flick. It's kind of wild westy, with no lasers or aliens, just humans in space and guns that fire bullets, like the future probably will be like. The crew is filled with good characters, and they dont always get along. The storyline isnt exactly outstanding, it's not gonna win any awards, but it is interesting and well thought out, with a good point to it. And the final battle in space is mint, in fact all of the action is pretty mint!

Overall, I loved this film, it was right up my street. I love sci-fi, especially sci-fi with a decent script, none of this new Star Wars crap, which I felt was truely awful and lacked everything the first trilogy, and this film, has in bucketloads.

Uneventful Weekend

Didnt really get up to much over the weekend. We went out Friday night, I had quite a lot of vodka while watching Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, then Viv and I got a bus back into town and went to O'Neills to meet up with Jayne, Al, Martin and Jim, and to see Viv's work mate Kerry's husband's (Zack) band. They were pretty good, they did lots of covers of otehr bands, but did them well and it was a good choice of music, Nirvana, Metallica, Foo Fighters, Green Day, all the favourites :) After the band we went back to Jayne and Al's and drank some more before going home very drunk.

Didnt do much on saturday, I started reading 'The Drawing of the Three' the second book in the Dark Tower series, which is pretty good. Viv went to work during the day to do some overtime as she is very busy next week. Then we watched Elizabeth and that's about it.

Sunday we drove to the Designer Outlet, to get some bras for Viv but couldn't find any she liked, then we went to Monk's Cross and Clifton Moor to have a look there as well. Viv didn't get anything, but I got some ear phones (which I forgot to bring to work today) and then we went to the cinema, which cost us £6! And they wonder why fewer people are going to the cinema nowadays. It's not because of piracy you dumb bastards, it's because the ticket prices are ridiculous! I can watch as many films as I want, less than 6 months after they are released, for £15 a month, OR, I can go and see less than 3 films at the cinema for the same price, what are you gonna do? Yeah, I'd save up for a decent sized TV and just watch them at home as well...

Which is a shame, because I like going to the cinema...

I'm in pain!

Yes I am! I went to the gym for the first time in quite a while yesterday, and I'm in pain today! My elbows, well technically my triceps, are really sore and tight, I can't bend my arms all the way. The top of my chest near my shoulders has only just started to hurt, and strangely my legs are ok. I'm going again tonight though, YAY! I'm not looking forward to tomorrow...

Works still going well. The site is much closer to completion and it's supposed to be done by the end of next week. I put a big bit in today, that I copied from the old site last year, and it 'should' be working fine, although we have nothing to test it with at the moment.

We're all going for chinese tomorrow apparently, I hope it's not too expensive, but I like chinese. Jayne and Al may be going out tomorrow, but things are a bit tight at the moment, so I don't think me and Viv should go as well. I'll see what Viv says, but I don't want to go out anywhere, I always end up paying more...

Six years together

Yesterday was officially mine and Viv's six year anniversary. We had gone out to Old Orleans to celebrate, but our anniversary was fairly uneventful. My present to Viv isnt released till the end of the month and Viv can't afford to buy my present till the end of the month either. But I got a card from Viv, I didn't get her one...

I went to the Drs to have my rash looked at on my back, turns out it's a 'fungal infection'. I have some tablets for it. My health check was OK, I have to give another urine sample as I may have a possible ear infection, you get blood in your urine apparently if you have an ear infection. Go figure...

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, tidied the house a bit, Viv carried on arranging photo albums, I played on my DS as I got Advance Wars: Dual Strike that morning, it's ace! I love the AW games, I played the first one for ages, and this one seems like it's gonna last a looooong time. Hopefully it will anyway, as there still don't seem be that many great DS games around. I am gonna order some more of the Dark Tower books as well, so it's not like I'm gonna have a shortage of things to do on the train.

We also watched Sin City, it's much better on the big screen, but still cool. Not much else happened. Viv watched CSI, I played on my DS. Work tomorrow...

It's been a long time, Baby

It has indeed! I havent updated for 5 days! Well I have been on holiday...

Friday was the usual getting drunk, although this time it was at my house. Blizzard was stressing me out. He was upset as he was getting left out, but I wish he would just calm down. After a stressful hour or two he calmed down and we left him in the kitchen to chill out. The rest of the night was good, me being the first to go to bed, just before everyone else left.

Saturday we weren't going to go out, but ended up doing a bit of pre gaming and then leaving around ten to meet up with Jayne and Al in the Lowther. Jim and two girls he knows where there as well when we got there and Martin and his girlfriend turned up later. We had a few drinks then got a taxi to Jayne's, which took ages as the que was huge. Then we smoked and drank and listened to Queen, Blur and various other old bands, till we got another taxi around five. I then made tuna toasties as I was starving, they were goooooood...

Sunday was uneventful, we didnt do much as everyone was at work and stuff and Viv had an interview on Monday. Most of the day was spent reading (me) and sorting out photo albums (viv). We did go to ASDA though to get more albums and I got Projet Rub for my DS as it was on sale. It's pretty cool, uses the touchscreen and is amusing.

Monday Viv had her interview, which she said was OK. I went to the Dr, got registered and got an appointment for Tuesday. We joined the gym, I got a bodystat done. I'm pretty big at the moment, can't wait to start going and getting fit again! Gayle came home from Barcelona and Viv picked her up from the station, cleaned the house. Then me and Viv went out to Old Orleans, which was good, lots of cocktails, ribs and bruschetta for a starter, I had Chicken Jambalaya, which I thought would be bigger, and Viv had a 8oz steak. We sat at the bar for a bit and had more drinks, then nearly got the meal half price, but they sorted the bill out eventually. Got a lift home from Gayle.