Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

I’ve got a weekend in May that is shaping up to be pretty damn epic, and should be freaking amazing:


Chemical Brothers on the Thursday evening.
FAITHLESS!!! on the Friday (get a ticket at StarGreen, on sale today).
The Champions League final in Madrid, if Arsenal get that far, on the Saturday. Else the football league playoff final at Wembley instead.
A lunchtime drinking session at The Church with loads of mates on Sunday.
And rounded off with the Premier League Darts final at the Dome on Sunday evening.

It’s a good job I’m taking the Monday off work!

I’ve got a weekend in May that is shaping up to be pretty damn epic, and should be freaking amazing:

  • Chemical Brothers on the Thursday evening.

  • FAITHLESS!!! on the Friday (get a ticket at StarGreen, on sale today).

  • The Champions League final in Madrid, if Arsenal get that far, on the Saturday. Else the football league playoff final at Wembley instead.

  • A lunchtime drinking session at The Church with loads of mates on Sunday.

  • And rounded off with the Premier League Darts final at the Dome on Sunday evening.

It’s a good job I’m taking the Monday off work!

March is always such a stupidly expensive month for me. I’m the only one in my immediate family that doesn’t have something this month:

  • Sister’s birthday

  • Dad’s birthday

  • Mother’s Day

  • Mum and dad’s anniversary

  • Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the dog’s birthday too!

I genuinely have to plan ahead during February and save some money ahead of buying umpteen presents in March. Throw in some train tickets to go back seemingly every weekend, and it becomes very expensive.

When I was still at university, March used to cripple me financially, and I’d always be eating nothing but beans on toast by the middle of the month. Now I’m a bit more secure, I might add some cheese to that…

Selected winners of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, awarded annually by Bookseller magazine to the book published that year with the strangest title:

  • The Joy of Chickens (1980)

  • Versailles: The View From Sweden (1988)

  • How to Avoid Huge Ships (1992)

  • Bombproof Your Horse (2004)

Of these, I think “How to Avoid Huge Ships” is my favourite, and my vote for this year’s prize is “Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter”.

More at the Wikipedia page.

sabine asked: E-squared infected me. Tag. You're it.

1. What is your favorite word?
2. What is your least favorite word?
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
4. What turns you off?
5. What is your favorite curse word?
6. What sound or noise do you love?
7. What sound or noise do you hate?
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
9. What profession would you not like to do?
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

  1. “Onomatopoeia”, because it’s fun to say and because I like the group of words it describes, because they’re generally fun to say too.

  2. “Ugly”, because it sounds nasty and it means something nasty, which is untrue.

  3. I get excited and interested by the mundane, the minor details that are probably completely uninteresting to anyone else. I have the attention span of a gnat, except when something properly tickles my fancy, in which case I need to know everything about it. I then feel the need to tell as many people as possible about what it is I’ve discovered or investigated.

  4. I get bored by things that become ubiquitous, inescapable. They don’t interest me at all.

  5. “Fuck”. This could probably be my answer for question 1 as well. Seriously, I use this word on average every 30 seconds during my waking hours. It’s a verb, a noun, an exclamation, and it’s an infixation, particularly the way I use it.

  6. Call me sad, but I really love the sound of the girlfriend’s breathing as she’s asleep on my shoulder. It’s relaxing.

  7. The alarm clock in the morning. It’s something I still cannot get used to, and every morning I hate it a little bit more.

  8. I’d love to go back to being a journalist. The girlfriend tells me tales of her days, and it makes me fall in love with the profession all over again.

  9. There’s got to be something masochistic about wanting to be a politician, to be in the public eye so much. I don’t have enough of an ego to make that work, and couldn’t deal with that kind of scrutiny.

  10. a) It doesn’t. b) Erm, I’m at a loss here. I’m so totally convinced that heaven doesn’t exist that I can’t even imagine how it would be.

Ask me anything.

Things that got me through my workout at lunchtime today:

  • A Prodigy megamix, which may or may not have been The Dirtchamber Sessions.

  • The thought of a pulled pork sandwich immediately afterwards (which actually wasn’t particularly brilliant. We need a Brother Jimmy’s over here, stat!).

  • The realisation that Tuesday lunchtime is evidently “Ladies Day” in the gym, judging by the ratio of women to men. Hurrah!

Things that really, really annoy me:

  • Handles facing towards you on ‘push’ doors.

That is all.

Sunday:

  • 13.30hrs: Finally get out of bed after lounging around (and other activities) for a couple of hours after waking up.

  • 13.31 - 23.59hrs: Lounge around on the sofa, watching TV and DVDs, not daring to leave the house because of the cold. Re-heat yesterday’s leftovers for dinner, for added laziness.

Monday:

  • 01.15hrs: Go to bed, because the stupid NFL game lasted forever and went to overtime.

  • 01.16 - 02.30hrs: Fail to get to sleep, due to lack of tiredness as a result of getting up so late.

  • 02.31 - 05.29rs: Sleep, relatively well.

  • 05.30hrs: Get woken up by the girlfriend’s alarm.

  • 05.31 - 06.00hrs: Awake, due to girlfriend coming and going in and out of the bedroom.

  • 06.01 - 07.00hrs: Sleep fitfully, waiting for my own alarm to go off

  • Rest of the day: Wonder why I’m so damn tired.

One of these days, I’ll learn.

Well, it’s that time of the year decade: best of lists are ten a penny, endlessly discussed and criticised. By their very nature, they are subjective in the extreme, and also limited by what that person/group has actually seen, heard and read.

Nevertheless, in no particular order, here are my favourite films of the noughties. In compiling this list, I’ve realised that I watched a lot of films this decade, and I’ve watched a lot of good films in that time. Whittling this list down has been difficult, but I’ve tried to really pick the ones that have stayed in my memory for years since I first saw them, and/or have stood up to repeated viewings.

There are some obvious choices, but also some not-so-obvious films too. My tastes range from fairly juvenile comedy to heavier, wordy dramas, and via most places in between. As I said, it’s a hugely subjective list, but in no particular order:

  • Anchorman: Probably the funniest film of the decade. Ferrell and the ‘Frat Pack’ at their peak.

  • Battle Royale: Ultra-violent, yes. Powerful message, definitely.

  • Infernal Affairs: So much better than the Hollywood remake, The Departed.

  • Elephant: Exquisitely crafted, and gloriously understated.

  • City Of God: A fine exploration of how paths differ from the same background within Brazil’s slums.

  • Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind: Sci-fi taking on relationships, with Jim Carrey’s best performance of the decade.

  • Closer: The rise and fall of interweaving relationships, really capturing human interaction, and how we can be so cruel to one another.

  • Zoolander: Effortlessly funny, camp as fuck and absolutely hilarious.

  • No Country For Old Men: An action film with brains and insight.

  • Shaun Of The Dead: Invented a new genre: zom-com. Britain’s funniest moments on screen.

  • Sin City: Hyper-stylised, hyper-violent, with a great ensemble cast.

  • All Or Nothing: A melancholy study of a British family, coming apart at the seams but somehow holding together. Massively under-rated.

  • Vexille: A random little CGI-anime vision of the future in Japan.

  • The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy: Does this even need an explanation? Epic in every sense of the word.

  • Mulholland Drive: Twisty, turny, suspenseful, gorgeously shot with one of the best scores I can think of.

  • 28 Days Later: The other side of British zombie films: bloodthirsty and rampaging. Worth it for the shots of a deserted London.

  • Bowling For Columbine: One of the most important films of the decade, a documentary with a shot aimed squarely at America’s right.

  • Solaris: Slow-burner that is stunning visually and has some great performances.

  • The Grudge (Japanese original version): Scared the living crap out of me for days afterwards.

  • Kill Bill Vols 1 and 2: Tarantino’s peak, and Uma Thurman at her best too.

  • Thirteen: What does it mean to be a teenager nowadays? Again, under-rated.

  • Timecode: Experimental cinema that also works in terms of the stories shown on the four screens.

  • District 9: 2009’s best film, for my money. Apartheid in a truly xenophobic setting.

  • Dear Frankie: A single mother’s lies to her young deaf son are in danger of being found out. Moving, and brought tears to my eyes.

  • Der Untergang (Downfall): I’ve never heard a cinema so quiet as at the end of this film.

  • Night Watch: Matrix-inspired Russian vampires and fantasy in a techno-action-thriller.

  • Team America: World Police: Puppets featuring in the hardest-hitting satire of the decade.

  • Good Night, And Good Luck: A history lesson in celluloid form.

  • Superbad: I laughed constantly throughout this film, even on the fifth viewing. Ridiculously funny.

  • In The Loop: British politics and spin satirised ruthlessly, and you have to feel quite accurately too.

  • Avatar: A massive technical leap forwards, even if the plot was a touch weak.

  • Waiting: Practically ignored low-budget comedy that had one of Ryan Reynolds’ best outings.

  • Death In Gaza: An absolutely haunting end to a documentary about Gaza.

Of these, I’d say that the ones that really stand out as my favourites are Battle Royale, LOTR, Anchorman, Der Untergang, and All Or Nothing.

Inspired by hipsterdiet and sabine, here’s my list of cities visited in 2009:

  • Paris, France

  • Newcastle, England

  • Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt,

  • Edinburgh, Scotland

  • Cardiff, Wales

  • Swansea, Wales

  • New York, USA

  • Washington DC, USA

  • Richmond, USA

  • Reykjavik, Iceland

As well as living in the best of them all, London.

Holiday Nirvana
  • Smells Like Christmas Spirit
  • O Come As Ye Are
  • Wrap Me

pterodactyls

  • Inn (No) Room

  • The Man Who Saved The World

  • PS3-Shaped Box


Reblogged from: pterodactyls
Originally posted on: Pterodactyls

About

Londoner, thinking and writing far too much about far too many random things. Wannabe photo-/videographer of my life. More likely to be found propping up a bar somewhere.

I also write about football.

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