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'My Corduroyed Life' - Mark A's Journal
On time for once!
WORK
Work has slowed a little, but not as much as I’d like. However it is at least verging on practical and tolerable.
My pet project, Languages For All, eventually got over 200 signups. Last year there were only about 30. So obviously, I am really pleased.
JOB HUNTING
I keep telling myself that I was unlucky, but it all boils down to laziness. What is true is that it’s exceedingly difficult to get a job in Nov/ Dec, and even if you do, it’ll disrupt your holiday period. Better luck next year, I guess.
MONEY
Nothing majorly good or majorly bad with money this month. Have been meaning to put some tat on ebay to finance Christmas presents, but I kinda got distracted (many times – damn you World of Warcrack).
LOVE LIFE
All good!
NINJA
With the newbies still getting used to the idea of being smacked around twice a week, we’re still only doing the ‘basics’. Not that that is a bad thing: it’s always good to revise the old stuff, because then the new stuff becomes easier!
HEALTH
I’m not eating very well if I’m being honest, and as tragic as it is, the reason I’m not is that Rob isn’t. When Rob eats well, he ensures that I do; when he doesn’t I just end up eating nothing but the wrong things. I just suddenly noticed that I haven’t eaten healthy stuff much recently.
BOOKS
I’m still reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but have also started Jennifer Government by Max Barry. Quite why I thought it was a good idea to have two books on the go when I’ve read pretty much nothing recently I don’t know. However, I have strangely made progress with both! I also read the first, third and fourth volumes of the Sin City graphic novels: The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller, and they were fantastic! I got the three novels that the film was based on with the special Amazon Sin City Box set.
MUSICA
Déjà vu: I’ve managed to get a couple of gigs of new music off friends (via my lovely memory stick), and then listened to nothing but old stuff recently.
FILM
Not seen many films over the last two months (remember, I didn’t do film reviews last month), and have mainly been watching telly programmes. I’m sure that, considering this is two months worth, I’ve missed some off, but meh…
Nightwatch
Really good psychological horror, morally ambiguous, weirdy shit! Many have said that this is what Constantine should have been, and I’d have to say that they were right.
****
Coffee and Cigarettes
Loved the concept and was expecting it to be quite brilliant, but ultimately, it was really rather dull and disappointing.
*
Lion King II: Simba’s Pride
As with any Disney straight to DVD, the quality was noticeably poor in comparison to the original. Short and limited, but quite cute and with some fun songs, this was worth it as a curiosity.
***
Shaolin Soccer
A fun and silly martial arts film that was hilarious and badass all in one. Nuff said really.
****
TELLY
Still halfway through a load of programmes, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t watched an absolute load of telly series on DVD…
The Shield - Season 1
Tense, dramatic, dark, graphic, and just bloody riveting TV! I’m not really a cops show kinda guy, but this was simply wonderful!
*****
Miss Marple – The 4.50 From Paddington
Another loveable Miss Marple adventure in the latest set of adaptations. This was fun and light-hearted, but just not quite as much fun or as light hearted as the Margaret Rutherford version of the same story.
***
Tru Calling - Season 1
The concept suggests that this is going to be rubbish, but it’s so damned good! It’s helped by really interesting characters, humour, and some really tense, edge of your seat stuff. And Jason Priestley’s character’s introduction was a stroke of pure genius!
*****
Tru Calling - Season 2
Nooooooooooooooooooo! How could you cancel something this bloody good?! Damn you Fox!
This was so hot and had a great unresolved ongoing story that meant it had so much potential to stay hot and just rock, but it was cut short.
*****
Charmed - Season 1
A great telly show with cool characters and a cool concept. I felt it started a little weakly, but then snowballed into a really enjoyable series.
****
Chocky’s Challenge
Not as good as the previous Chocky stuff, and horribly badly acted in the majority, this was perfectly passable, but a little disappointing.
***
Wonder Woman - Season 1
I had fond memories of WW, but sadly, halfway through the pilot I’d had enough…
*
RPG AND GAMING
Am still loving the Ars Magica that I’m playing with phee and Oli. All three mages are getting quite, quite badass and powerful now. Santiago is working on his Terram magic and has created three spells now including one which fills a person’s stomach full of beer and makes them instantly drunk (this is purely for selfish reasons too). The magi managed to save the local lord from the clutches of a witch in one session. They also managed to rescue a kidnapped girl from some misguided Fae in a session run by yours truly. And last week, a friend was killed and we had to defend ourselves against his headless corpse!
World of Warcraft wise, I’ve been playing Santu (my original character: the troll priest) a little more and have got him up to level 53: he has also started making obscene amounts of gold from selling items he’s gathering with his skills. All this money has been ploughed into my newer character Pizzak, the Orc Warrior who is now level 27. I am having so much fun with both characters right now that it’s really difficult deciding who to play!
BLOGGING & T’INTERNET
Strangely WWE’s America only stuff now seems to be working for me. For once a random and inexplicable thing on my PC that I don’t understand was actually to my benefit!
My friend Chris passed on the often hilarious Spamusement which involves deliberately poorly done cartoons inspired by spam email titles: classic!
Blog wise, well, I’ve had worse months, but like most bloggers I know, you just don’t quite update as much as you used to when you’ve been doing it for three years!
BLOGROLL
As usual, here are more geeks’ blitherings for your perusal:
Alley Katt
Bowch
Big Fat Man
fishmonger malarky
Gribble The Munchkin
Monkeys and Pirates
Microsatellite
Nathaniel Westbury
Picture of Flowers
Pickled Pixie
Prince Gaz
Shooting Parrots
ANYTHING ELSE INTERESTING?
I’ve started learning Japanese (Languages For All!) which is proving really difficult, but great fun. It’s been 10 years since I did any language learning and it shows!
Also, in a rare ‘get off your arse and do something’ moment, I have signed up for a writing course. An expensive writing course. A writing course that will bloody well better see me get published! It’s always been a deep, deep ambition of mine to get myself published in magazines and then build up to a novel, but I’ve always put it off or found something else to do. However, this month I said balls to years of procrastination, and have embarked upon something I really want to do. I rock!
The return of me bro at the start of the month saw me go down to visit him and my parents for a really pleasant weekend. It was so great to see D, and we had a bloody great time in Blast Off too.
Later on in the month, Rob and I went to Hull to visit Alfie, and so did loads of other Wolvey people. ‘Twas quite the reunion and we had such a fab time: we all got extremely drunk in the wonderful, wonderful Spiders. Sunday morning for all of us, obviously, was a non-event!
I am also in the process of heavily feng shui styling my flat (or in plain English: getting rid of loads of junk I don’t use). I flogged some old books to a random book shop for £15 t’other day…
THE WHOLE MONTH IN A FEW WORDS
Seem to have got the ball rolling on sorting my life out and fighting my eternal procrastination: that has to be a good thing!
Have fun,
M x
Current mood:
hopeful.Current music: Empty Affections by The V.