Thursday, November 30, 2006

Local Short Films...

Me and Scott were surfing a lot on Google Video's last night and we searched for Pokesdown (cos that's were we live!) to see if anything has been posted. This is what we found....


That was episode 3. You can see the rest HERE. It was a bit weird to watch at first but we found that it actually made us laugh quite a bit. NSFW (cos of swearing)

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

...in other news...

Lisa's had a hair cut, yes it's a Pob!...




There was a fire behind the house at the end of the car-park at work. Somebody called the fire brigade but neglected to tell them that the fire wasn't actually here at work but in the road behind. 2 fire engines turned up!...





Lisa, Scott and myself went Christmas shopping in Southampton. They had one of those German markets like they have in Bournmouth. We stopped at the German bar to have a nice hot drink (I forget what it's called - sounds like blue-vine I think!) It was nice...




Me and Scott got talking about Tracy Emin and about how stupid some of her art was. Ooooh wow - a messy bed! Yawn! We decided to throw together some random articles onto a frame and call it art. It's called Headphonenumberpill...




On the Tuesday 28th November it was Lisa's Dad's birthday. Happy 61th Charlie!! We went to Ask for a meal. Me and Scott were saying how if you were really dumb you could have the following conversation for eternity...
Man 1: "So where did you go for your meal?"
Man 2: "Ask!"
Man 1: "Ok, I will. Where did you go for your meal?"
Man 2: "Ask!"
Man 1: "Huh? I just did! Where did you go for your meal?"
Man 2: "Ask!"
....... you get the picture! Speaking of pictures...




And now, headlines without pictures.
Lisa get's vertigo again! Is off work for a while to recover. Is seeing a specialist soon.

Kim invited us up to stay for the first weekend in December, but only if Lisa's feeling better. Lisa looked like she was getting better and then it's got worse again!

Our band is having some very constructive practices. It's finally looking like our work is starting to take shape. We have new tunes to fill gaps and old ones that looked like they'd be impossible to play live are starting to work!

Torchwood is getting better, gorier and scarier.

I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here is boring/annoying this year.

X-Factor is addictive just because the public are messing with the voting system! I mean are people seriously voting for Ray and The MacDonald Brothers because they are good? I think not! People are just voting for them to mess with the judges heads and money. The winners have to have a record contract. I mean, Ray is an annoying little shit that looks like he's been raised by wolves! And the MacDonald Brothers look like those creepy porcelain dolls that have come to life in some sort of horror movie! MAKE IT STOP!!




Oh and Me and Scott have rediscovered our worms!

Only 3 posts this months?!?

Yeah, I know. It has been a bit of a slow month really. Just trying to save money.
...although I did get a nice sum of money added to my wage this month cos of my shares in EMAP. So I've decided to allocate some money to myself for a lovely new Bass Guitar. The one I'm using at the moment is actually Glen's. He lent it to me about a year and a half ago and now he's itching to get it back. Fair enough. I should've bought one by now anyway.


Right, so I did a search on the old inter-web and found me a lovely Fender Squire black Jazz Bass that was just perfect for my price range (the only other option was Stagg - now they ARE cheapo!). The shop that was selling it was Sounds Live and I was actually really impressed with the very secure ordering process and rapid delivery. I ordered it on Tuesday afternoon and it arrived on Wednesday morning. Wow! When the delivery guy arrived in the van and handed the bass over to me he said "Ohh it looks like the box opened here" pointing to one end of the box.
I said "Ah don't worry about that it'll be fine." Signed on the dotted line and hurridly rushed upstairs to get me mitts on my lovely new instrument (ooer missus!). Everything looked in place. I tuned it up and started playing, then noticed in the corner of my eye a bloody great crater on the bottom. See pic (will be uploaded tonight). My heart sank! I've never felt excited and deflated at the same time before - it's horrible.

So after a bit of dicussion with Scott and Lisa and some of the guys at work I decided "I'm not having that!" so I rang up their customer support and they wewre really helpful. The problem was obviously when it was in transit. The glue on one end of the box had gone brittle and no longer stuck the cardboard box together. The bas must've slid out of the box when somone picked it up and it hit the concrete. Anyway, the customer service lady told me not to panic and just fill in the details on the website and within a couple of days they'll arrange for it to be picked up. I'm keeping an eye on my inbox and an ear on my phone!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Nintendo Wii


Lisa has put the deposit down for my Christmas present!! It's a Nintendo Wii. I honest can't wait and am so excited. At the moment I'm not interested in the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3 because they're both extremely expensive and being corporate bullys. Both of them are employing a non standard technology to store the games on (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) - it reminds me of the old VHS vs BETA days when video's first came out.

Let's look at the pricings for both using play.com: Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

As you can see, the 360 is retailing here at £279.99 with game and 20Gb hard-drive. The PS3 comes in at £549 with a 60Gb hard-drive, NO GAME. Now, the 360 has been out for over a year now so the price has come right down to a reasonable price for a new-ish console but in order to appreciate the games fully you need a HDTV... so that's gonna be another £400+ on top of that!! Same with the PS3. Also, I've seen comparison screenshots for the same game on both consoles and the PS3 looks so much better ... but it's much more expensive.

But that said, the original Playstation was £499 when that first came out and that too was a huge leap in console technology. I didn't get my first Playstation until about 2 years after it came out. I'll probably do the same here. In the meantime, though, the Nintendo Wii is a great console that doesn't demand you have the latest TV to play it. It's not a 'next generation' console like the other behemoths, it's more of an 'in-between generation' console. Besides, it's gonna have Mario and Zelda on it! Check the vid...



Now, in case you were wondering why the people in the video were flailing their arms around like novice gamers the Wii has a very unique control system with it. It can detect motion! So, if you're playing a game where you have a sword you can swing your arms around to swing the sword. This is a huge innovation with gaming technology, much more than just higher resolution graphics and the ability to throw billions of polygons around the screen in a fraction of a second.

Nah, I'm really happy with my present. I haven't had a Nintendo since the day's of the Super Nintendo. I missed out on owning an N64 and the GameCube - played them both and loved them but never actually owned one myself. I can't wait for Xmas.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Quiet times

I know I've not posted anything sinse November 1st, but to be brutally honest, Not a lot has happened. I've just been trying to save money these last couple of weeks - y'know tryin to get the ol' bank balance back in the black. Which ultimately means not going out and not buying DVD's, Games, Music, Magazines.... basically ANY type of media. I've been trying to keep food shopping and clothes shopping down. By that I mean not buying sandwiches during lunch everyday and make my own food where-ever possible. And why do I always think it neccesary to buy new clothes every month?.... saying that I have bought some new clothes but only a scarf and a beanie - last year's scarf shrank in the wash.

Since the last entry we've had fireworks/bonfire night. Me and Lisa went to Poole Quay to see some. It was pretty good fun, lots of festivities such as kiddies rides, bands and DJ's, jugglers, stilt walkers and lots of food and booze. Not much to say about this except the fireworks were pretty and there were massive queues at the bar. You woulda thought the pubs woulda put more staff on seeing as it's November 5th. Bad pub management all round! (also, the firworks didn't look as impressive as they do on the official link above. In fact they've super-imposed those fireworks in - they're not even in the right place!)

Also, we went to see The Prestige at the ABC Cinema last week using some free cinema tickets that my mum gave me a couple of months ago. The film was absolutely amazing and I thoroughly recommend you go see it. It's got lots of drama and intrigue and keeps you guessing right up to the end... although, being the clever soul that I am I worked it out about 30 mins before the end but hey, there were still some surprise bits at the end. I've got a feeling that it will be a love-it-or-hate-it type film. I'm in the love-it camp! I good movie for smart people - a confusing one for the dumber half of the population. Extra information for the fact finders: the film was directed by the same director as Momento and Batman Returns. Below is the trailer...

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Halloween

So last night was Halloween. Or, to use a more traditional term, All Hallows Eve. Lisa, Scott and I weren't up for any parties this year (we're all trying to save cash) so we cooked up a crackin' curry and watched these two films...

Texas Chainsaw Massacre


Slither


They were ok. I mean, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was kinda unintentionally funny. It was just silly. We were ticking off the horror movie cliches as we went along. College students (check), pick up a hitcher (check), someone does some drugs (check), killer has some sort of disfigurement or limp (check), thunder (check), they think it's the killer but it's just an animal in the cupboard (check), a shadow flicks across the screen in the foreground (check), everyone dies except the bimbo (check), the car won't start (check), freaky kid (check), running in the woods away from the killer then fall over (check).... I could go on but I won't. In fact the only thing that made the film interesting was Jessica Biel's tits!...


After that we watched Slither. Now I though this film was great. It had that same sort of B-Movie feel to it that Tremors had. The film doesn't take itself seriously, it's has one liners and lots of outrageous gore. The special effects were amazing. The little alien slug things are really creepy and were really well done. And, yeah, of course there were some horror cliches in it too but, although this is supposed to be a micky-take of the horror genre, didn't have as many cliches in it as Texas Chainsaw Massacre - a film that's supposed to be a proper serious horror movie.

Maybe I'm just getting older and just don't find scary films scary anymore. I remember watching classics like Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween and absolutely shitting myself. But then when I watched these I was still at school and was about 14 or 15. We used to all talk about them in the playground as if we'd all seen something we're not supposed to see.

But then saying that I still haven't seen The Ring. I can't bring myself to watch it cos it freaks me out. I own The Grudge on DVD and that's a wicked film - totally freaked me out when I first saw it. And I s'pose The Exorcist still creeps me out a bit. The Shining is s'posed to be one of THE scariest films of all time but it never scared me - I just though it was a good little film with great ideas and great camera work.

Oh well, next year when it comes to choosing a scary film I'll have to do a little bit of research!