My, it's been a long time, hasn't it? Let's blow off the cobwebs and try and maintain some sense of regular updating before my Oriental excursions! How's going out there? Good? Good. Here are some photos!
This is Nate P. Barker. It were his houseparty I went to t'other weekend. This is him obviously practising his tabloid pose - give it time and he'll be on them!
Look! It's me! The author!
This is Nate P. Barker at his houseparty! I took my camera, but didn't want to be that dick with the camera at a party. So it was promptly put away.
On the right is a French man named Pierrrrrre.
Finally, this is Jonny Hatfull, King of the Spag Bol, Earl of Spooky Stories, Duchy of Cowering behind a Kronenbourg.
Good God, today has been stressful! We're (me and my housemates minus Rob plus Laura II) in the process of looking for somewhere to move in September, which is very stressful at the best of times. On top of that, I'm working a lot, not only studying but also fiddling around with Access at work. I am a novice at Access. I hate that program. Grrr. Other stressful things that have happened. So I had cake and red wine for tea instead...because I rock. So, anyway, point is that I need to de-stress. Thank goodness that I have a nice bottle of red wine, a DVD of Howl (fresh from LOVEFiLM) and Jenny Owen Youngs' record Transmitter Failure on my speakers. That is such an incredible record. I used to be able to write record reviews, now I just fawn over the ones I like. I definitely really like this record.
A record that I don't like as much is The Suburbs by the Arcade Fire. I have an odd history with the Arcade Fire (well, not that odd, just up and down). Like most people, I discovered them around the time Funeral came out. I heard them on Later......With Jools Holland, they played Neighbourhood #3. I was completely hooked. One of my best gigging experiences was going to see them on that tour. Owen Pallett sold me a t-shirt! Then Neon Bible came out. Shitttttttt, that is a dull record. One of my housemates tells me that the record really comes alive on headphones. Lots of random noises. That doesn't stop the songs from being incredibly boring however. I started listening to the Suburbs at work (via Grooveshark.com - try it, it's incredible!), both halves were better than Neon Bible, but one half was fantastic. It didn't sound like the Arcade Fire, it sounded like Wolf Parade. It then got me thinking about writing an article about inspiration and where that ends and ripping off begins, especially given the context of the success that the Arcade Fire have enjoyed. Then I found out that the half I liked wasn't the Arcade Fire at all, but some band called Wildfire. They were much better. Here is a song:
Now to work out how to hear more of them.
As we've already touched upon several times, I like my films. So, I've drawn up several potential marathons (so far, mostly genre stuff), but I've got a starter introduction type one designed to show her some great (not necessarily classic or favourite) films that encourage discussion and what to lead on to. In order:
Pulp Fiction
Star Wars: A New Hope
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The Prestige
The Exorcist
Casablanca
Thoughts?
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Other Musings
Films watched recently - Wild Strawberries, The Haunting (original). I think that's about it. Been slacking some what lately.
Devils have a new coach. What an intriguing decision!
I finally bought Portal 2 - my excuse was that it was less than half price (pre-owned £24). Stephen Merchant doesn't annoy me as much as I thought he would.
Hello, it’s been a while, has it not? This is mainly due to my life becoming equal parts very exciting and very dull. Shall we start with the dull parts first? Well, the lack of sleep from Rome/Death Cab/Big Lebowski caught up with me in a big way. Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday last week were completely written off through illness. And instead of just trying to look after myself and enjoy the time off work, I tried to study! Dear God, what have I become? My life outside of work seems to have really hit study mode hard. I had to turn down offers from distinguished writer Jonathan Hatfull (you can read his new blogging venture here: http://jonathanwriting.blogspot.com/) to see Tree of Life AND Hobo With A Shotgun.Obviously something is wrong with me.
So, what am I doing with most my time?Reading through my notes very slowly.Notes about statistics.Statistics that I should already know and have no trouble with.Oh actuarial exams, how you overestimate me.The plan is to get through CT3 by Sunday and then I can hopefully get through CT6 before I go to Japan (two weeks on Friday).This is almost do-able (I’m on Chapter 3 of 14, CT6 is a similar size).Just have to knuckle down more, which is difficult considering my current social obligations.
So last weekend, I went to a houseparty.As a result of said dinner party, I am now going on dinner date to Browns on Friday with a lady I’ve known for a while.We left to party early to play Monopoly.That is not a euphemism.We stayed up until 6am playing Monopoly.Because we are that cool.So obviously, Sunday was spent recovering.Monday was study day.Monday was not productive.I got through 1.5 chapters, but only starting seriously after 5pm.Because I’m that special.So the serious work started today.Got to the office at 7:30am to do an hour and a half of study (so all of Chpt 3), armed with lots of fruit.So you’d like to think that I’ll be getting home promptly from the office to do more tonight right?If so, you’d like to be wrong.Jonathan Hatfull is cooking spag bol for myself and Nate P. Barker (host of Saturday night houseparty).I’m expecting lots of probing questions about Monopoly.
Wednesday, Thursday are par for the course, lots of studying.Friday is study in the morning, and then on to delightful company with a rather attractive lady in the presence of good food (seriously, don’t tell her, but I’m quite excited – our tastes are well suited, she’s a laughter riot and gorgeous).Saturday isn’t study focused either.Saturday is my buttnumbathon with Mr Hatfull.Given how much I’ve been turning him down for the Cinema, we’ll be watching three to four films on the theme “rogues with a heart of gold”, because obviously, that’s how we live our lives.Video game hockey may be involved.Sunday then!Surely I must be studying like some calculus hell demon on Sunday?Eeeh, kinda.Sunday is the only chance to combine my forces with my housemates with a good clean.Hopefully though, with all of us working together, it should be done quickly.It is important to clean the house because the letting agency want to take photos of the property.
What else is there to comment on?I watch Sherlock Jr and Fermat’s Room t’other day.Sherlock Jr cemented how much I love Buster Keaton.Guy had moves.I seriously wish a tenth of the films released today were half as inventive as that film (ooh, fractions of fractions!).Fermat’s Room was rather fun too!Some clunky plot points and lines, but on the whole rather entertaining.I must confess to never really appreciating Agatha Christie, but considering how much I enjoy films like this and Identity, I probably should give ‘And Then There Were None’ a go.
So radio silence until I complete CT3 on Sunday? Deal?Deal.Just to sweeten it a bit more, I promise photos next post too.
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Other Musings
I discovered the most amazing chocolate t’other day.Green & Blacks dark chocolate with espresso infused type stuff.Nom nom.Would go well with a bottle of red and some Brahms.
I’ve curbed my drinking, but not as much as possible.Last week there were drinks on Weds/Thurs/Fri/Sat.This week, I’ll probably have a drink tonight and not another until Friday.No drinking Saturday.I find it odd when people cut things like alcohol out of their lives – surely moderation is a healthier and more productive ability than abstinence?
Another week, still no Devils coach. Or Parise signing. Thank goodness the Avs drafted Skog is what I say!
Hello again world! I am very much still alive! Both my flights took off and arrived in their destinations without a problem. Though, to be fair, I was far too dazed to noticed anything on the return flight. I think I totalled 6 and a half hours of sleep over four days. Not much in the way of excitement to report I'm afraid. If anything sordid happened (and I'm pretty sure it did), then it happened to someone else. Here's a brief (haha) rundown of the trip:
Sunday 3rd: So I arrived at a colleague's flat (his name is Andrew and he's rather pleasant) in Teddington/Richmond in the hope that it would be easier to get a taxi as he lives fairly close to Heathrow. The night was spent with two other colleagues (Nick 'the Shadow' Everritt and James Fielding) eating pizza and playing all manner of bizarre racing simulation games (definitely not arcade games). It was very nice reminding myself which one the accelerator pedal was. Anyway, it gets to midnight and we still haven't booked a taxi...for our 7:05am flight...which requires us to get there for 5:30am. We try some numbers and it becomes painfully clear that we're not going to get a taxi. On the plus side, it sounded like a couple of these taxi businesses were home run, so I was personally responsible for ruining a couple of people's Sunday night. We decide to forgo sleep in order to successfully get a night bus to Heathrow and therefore we played poker to stay awake. I now owe Andrew £5. Actually, I owe him a bit more for pizza as well.
Monday 4th: Turns out Heathrow Terminal 5 is rather nice. Very clean looking. The flight was as comfy as a flight could be. I was expecting a pleasant breakfast, but was severely disappointed. A ham and mayonnaise roll does not a good breakfast make. I was also expecting no one to leave chewing gum on the way were I was resting my leg by way of my rolled up jacket. My black suit jacket is now a write off. Huzzah. Time for a new three piece? The coffee was awful too, in fact the coffee was awful on the whole trip which caused me great pain given the amount I had to ingest to stay awake. Anyway, a 2 hour chat to one of my managers and a half hour snooze later, we were there and the conference began. Logistically, it was an absolute nightmare. Trying to move 400 actuaries around several hotels and conference rooms is not easy, especially given the early flight and some speakers inconsiderately going over their allotted time, causing us to miss some shuttle buses (this was a frequent occurrence). Grr. Basically, the majority of the trip was spent listening to people talk in dark rooms. On note of room, my room at the hotel was incredible (as evidenced by the following pictures - ooh, multimedia). I wish I had spent more than twenty minutes conscious in it.
Compare this to my room currently:
The evening was spent at the Marriott (I drafted this on their stationary). Terrible food but plenty of free drink. Bed time at 3:30am.
Tuesday 5th: Wake up time 7:00am, 3 hours and a half sleep. More talks. Lunch was the previous night's dinner reheated. Watered down coffee was hurriedly consumed between sessions and before you could blink, the evening's festivities were upon us. We had been promised a two hour gap, but due to the previously mentioned speakers, this turned into half an hour, thus ruining my chances of using the gym and the swimming pool. The dinner was much better than the night before, but the "networking" event planned was ruined by an incredibly loud band playing in the rather cramped social hall, so the majority of people stood outside in the heat than face that awful racket (gosh, I sound so old!). The night then descended into the same sort of mess as the prior night, except I didn't drink as much. That didn't stop me from being the last person standing. 5:30am, everyone else went to bed. I decided that this was the perfect time to hit the gym (well, small exercise room - nice equipment though, even though I couldn't work out the treadmill) and then after that, the swimming pool. Nothing like an early morning dip. I went back to my room, packed and looked at my watch. The time was 6:45. I was elated. An all nighter and I'll make the morning's first session. That'll show my far drunker colleagues. 15 minutes until breakfast. "I'll just sit down for a second" I remember thinking and probably saying to myself (my brain had more than likely turned to drool at this point). Bam. It's 10:30am.
Wednesday 6th: Taxi across (no shuttle buses after 8am). Nothing else worth commenting on except I wasn't the only late comer and I was far better dressed than some people (most of my shirts were wrecked from leaky mouth wash in transit - thankfully I'd saved my awesome fitted CK shirt, non iron and it makes me look like I work out far more than I do). After seminars there was plenty of time for pool action (my flight departed Roma at 9:15pm, the seminars finished at 4pm). I had a gelato at the airport. Highlight of the trip. One incredibly sleepy flight and one scary taxi later, I arrived home at 1am Thursday morning.
It's not like I got a good night's sleep on Thursday night either, I had tickets to Death Cab For Cutie! Which I went to! With my good friends Mike Hewitt and Iain McGibbon (both med students)! And also Paul! A colleague on secondment from Chicago! I was a big Death Cab fan back in my High School/Sixth Form days, but after/during Plans, I kind of lost track with them. The set list was a nice mix of stuff I knew and new stuff. I'm tempted to pick up the albums I've missed after that show. No Brothers On A Hotel Bed, but apart from that, there wasn't anything else missing that I was dying to hear. So the show was good, only great because I knew all the words and was standing in the second row, centre stage. It got me thinking about a conversation I had with a housemate about the band Feeder. He said they were amazing live and I was skeptical. I couldn't see them doing anything incredible that would make a great live show except be generally amiable and play a fan friendly set list, which is exactly what Death Cab did. Not going to bring over any new converts, but not going to lose them fans.
The big surprise from the gig was actually the support band, the Head and the Heart. I've usually had good experience with support bands. Even if they're fantastic, there's a less than favourable chance of support bands making it big, so I like to jump in quick, grab some EPs and then these songs become staples of my mix tapes (well, back in the day, I don't go to so many shows these days). I can honestly say, the Head and the Heart were one of the top two support bands I've seen (it's tight between them and Owen Pallet - he might edge it given he sold me a t-shirt personally in a flirty manner). They reminded me why I enjoyed playing music so much. I wish I could have joined them onstage so much! Looked like they were having a whale of a time. I'm a big fan of fuzzy lo-fi music, so seeing them battle against their road weary equipment added to the quality of the performance. I shall be buying their records and t-shirts shortly, but in the mean time, enjoy this youtube video!
So, did I get a good night's sleep on Friday? Well, yes, but not early by any stretch. I had tickets to see the Big Lebowski at the BFI as part of their Jeff Bridges season! So I went with Iain McGibbon (my medic friend), Jonny Hatfull (my writer friend) and his brother Nicholas Hatfull (my artist friend - remind me to put up a photo of his work for a gander soon). Good times were had by all. There really isn't much to say about Lebowski any more. I remember finding the ending 5 minutes much sadder than previously.
So what does the next week bring? Hopefully nothing as hectic. My immune system couldn't cope.
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Other Musings
My jogging mixtape is finished!!! Get in touch if you want a link to it. I'm a huge geek so it's not like 30 tracks, it's two tracks 45 mins (roughly) each. I usually add a load of film quotes and the like, but I struggled to find anything good on the concept of jogging. Maybe when I get a new laptop, I'll get back into this mixtape malarky.
Look! It's a letter! It says that most of my road is being closed off for filming a film with an internationally known cast. Quick research on t'interweb tells me that the cast includes Dakota Fanning and Paddy Considine. In your face Hollywood. Personalised letters! I think I'll move one of my study days to that day and have a good perve on camera equipment. Expect a report back.
British GP has just passed. Was rather good. Still don't understand the new track though.
Less than four weeks to Tokyo, less than eight weeks until moving to a new flat, less than nine weeks until exams.
Hi all! Just a quick one today! Today is Sunday, tomorrow is the day I jet off to Rome for a work conference for three days. Not going to have much time to see the actual Rome, instead I'm spending much of my time in a (thankfully air conditioned) hotel room listening to people talk about regulatory necessities for insurance company. Riveting. Thankfully, I've visited Rome previously, so I don't feel like I'm missing out. I'm taking my camera, so expect a post with pictures soon!
Personally, I dislike flying, but can stomach them so long as I have a nice selection of books. For this trip, I've gone with the Moviegoer by Walker Percy, NHS Plc and Shepperton Babylon (haven't got them to hand right now, but will update with authors in a later post). Only one fiction this time. NHS Plc is about the privatisation occurring within the NHS (which interests me, big leftie that I am) and Shepperton Babylon is a brief history and "what-ever-happened-to" regarding the early British silent film industry. Hopefully they can distract me sufficiently so I can forget I'm in a big metal tube, eight miles high. Anyway, if I don't make it back, I feel happy to say that, if I had the chance, I'd do most things differently - makes it more interesting the second time round.
Not much has been going on, not much seen in the way of films (my LoveFilm delivery seems to have got lost in the post somewhere). I wanted to enjoy some war, Michael Caine and glorious Welsh baritone in Zulu, but the internet connect has been somewhat sketchy here as of late, so online streaming is impossible. Had to settle for Brief Encounter on DVD while I ironed some shirts last minute - first time I've seen it. Relationships are a funny thing aren't they? Sure, we want to be treated with romance and lavished with attention by someone we love, but surely the whole point of a relationship is that these sort of actions can be turned down without feeling insecure about your partner leaving? I do sympathise (to an extent, I'd like to stress) with Laura's husband. I've been in his position, but with the unhappy conclusion of my lady leaving (she now lives 10 mins down the road with her Dr Harvey - though I have to say, if he seemed as nice as Trevor Howard, perhaps I wouldn't have minded so much). But on the other hand, love is love, and storybook love doesn't come around much. But what is the etiquette in this situation? Nothing seems binding any more, so I personal feel very pressured into lavishing people with dinners and attention. Trust is a difficult concept.
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Other Musings
I've just sat down to watch the Wimbledon finals. Prediction - Nadal in four sets.
Jogging mixtape is still unfinished - my non-work laptop and I are having disagreements.
Jagr in Philly is such a tantalising prospect.
Ah well, time for a bit of last minute packing and exercise before I'm off to Rome via Heathrow via Richmond. Radio silence in 5...4...3...
