23 Oct 2007
Posted in Comedy, Reviews at 10:28 pm by alby
Oh the magic of Charlie Brooker.
He’s just done a thing about elimination shows on telly and done a rip-off of The Apprentice. There was a wonderful bit of showing “the sidekick” (like Alan Sugar’s 2 buddies) as a high powered business person.
When doing the intro of the sidekick he used a bit of tweaked film with moody visuals and a nice and lovely backing tune and I quote
“Clubbed to Death – the most overused piece of backing music on telly”.
Well done that man. Ace show by the way.
Have fun.
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22 Oct 2007
Posted in Fillums at 8:14 pm by alby
Well guys here you are. Total Fillums Top 100 fillums of all time. Seems Scarface has dropped a little to number 58. But there’s very little there that I’ve not seen that I want to see.
Any thoughts?
[edit - ones I've never seen include:
- Fight Club
- Donnie Darko
- The Big Lebowski
- Annie Hall
- The Apartment
- City of God
Incidentally how the hell did King Kong (2005) and Pirates of the Caribbean get in there?]
New searches:
- oh so true
- radio week bbc4
- having 2 rottweilers
- heell
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Posted in Juggling, People, Reviews at 12:40 pm by alby
Ooh blimey a hectic one.
Friday was an interesting one as I wandered round to P&C’s for company and entertainment. Was good with both me and Clurb sitting with our own PCs while on the same chatroom. Made for some odd in-jokes.
Saturday was parents day. My ma’s birthday was in the week so I headed there to spend some time with them and buy them dinner. Nice fat and juicy steak was had. Nyum. Car behaved itself as well.
On Sunday the mother of my aunt was 84 so we headed to their’s for buffet and snacks. Spent a little time beating my cousin’s daughters at Brain Training, ha ha, pwned the 7 year olds! But then I was off as headed to Nottingham for the new season of Fundangos.
Car started vibrating again on the motorway. There’s definitely something odd going on. The MOT place swore that it was the timing problem that they mended. That hypothesis sounded wrong to me anyway and unsurprisingly it wasn’t fixed by changing the timing. Could it still be the clutch? Needs replacing anyway so I might do that soon, when I’ve the cash.
A subdued event though. We weren’t in the ballroom as usual but rather in one of the smaller rooms they use for workshops at NAJC. Not really enough space so we spread into the corridor and then another room. But then we got thrown out of there too. Not good.
By this time Nicky had arrived so I spent some time passing with her since Clurb wasn’t in a “can do” state of mind. But as the space was poor and the weather good the lot of us decided to go for a combined walk/uni ride around the campus instead.
My word but Nottingham campus is lovely. Huge lake, plenty of rodents and birds. Very nice. Lizzah, Rod, Jon and Robin (aka Paul Xenon) were on their unis, the rest of us walked. Was fun to see some people’s responses. Best comment of the day though was reserved for Nicky when she passed a 14 year old chav who came out with “Alright baby!” at her. Quite made us titter that did.
Pee pooed in the lake too which quite made C worried for him. Nearly had to leave him on the lake’s island.
Back to the event for more passing and chat and Wii bowling. But frankly we wanted food so we all shipped out to find pub food. The place we got to was pretty good actually except they gave Pee frozen pie instead of the more usual piping hot version. It did mean he got an extra portion but was thus unable to contemplate the huge £6 dessert he’d had his eye on. Damn, I wanted a photo of that.
And then home to realise that there was no way I could sleep. At about 2.30 I gave up and sat playing Zelda for an hour or so. I was still awake at 4.30. Ludicrous. Anyway I think I may have had a couple of hours and am utterly knackered today.
Tonight I’m supposed to be going to a work event and I really should go but frankly the thought of doing that instead of going juggling doesn’t appeal. In fact a third option is to go home and sleep. I may just do that instead. I’ll prolly go to the work do and leave early to head to the uni.
Have fun.
[Photos here]
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19 Oct 2007
Posted in Games at 10:48 pm by alby
Clicky
Woot.
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Posted in Self-indulgence at 8:50 pm by alby
My “monkeydetails” page is mainly full of old stuff and hasn’t been updated in ages. So I’ve decided to ask you lot to ask me questions. Don’t care quite what questions you ask but I would ask you to make it more Radio 4 comedy panel game than Chris Moyles Breakfast show.
Answers will go on the Monkeydetails page when I get round to answering them. Ask via email rather than comments that way people don’t get any warning of what might ensue.
Have fun.
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Posted in Life at 8:29 am by alby
Just got into work and was briefly sat behind someone who had 5, yes 5, nodding Churchills in the back of their car.
Disgraceful.
Oh and yesterday evening the RSPCA came round. “We’re trying to raise £2m, can you help?” As if I have that sort of money lying around. Tch!
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17 Oct 2007
Posted in Work at 6:12 pm by alby
Oh dear, oh dear. Have a look here and the “Lucozade Sport Science Academy’s” bod’s response.
Shocking. He’s just wrong and how come a commercial organisation gets to comment on this story? I’ve posted links to a couple of dozen articles on this subject and they generally fall down on stretching before exercise being utterly futile at both injury prevention and improving performance.
Link here for the articles I’ve looked at in the past (well some of them).
Grrr.
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Posted in Rants, Self-indulgence at 4:07 pm by alby
Possibly my last post on GatFor. On the “Christian or what?” thread. Someone was doing the idiotic “The bible’s right ‘cos it says it’s right” argument. My reply:
Ah so you’re saying that the Bible is true because it says it is? Some healthy reasoning going on there and not at all circular argument.
You’re convinced the Bible is true in every word. I hope you shun your mother during times she has her period, I hope you shun women for longer after they have a daughter than after they have a son, I hope you never wear clothes made of 2 materials, I hope you are circumsized, I hope you avoid seafood (except fish). If you don’t then you’re basically yet another mouthy hypocrite.
The reason they call it “practicing” christian is because no-one really knows what the real path is. Lots of people say they do, lots of people gain different ideas from reading the same book. And somehow they’re always right and the others are wrong; how is that?
How about we all be nice to each other and that way you don’t actually need a book, whether badly translated or not, to rule your life. You could do something useful with the spare time you free up from “bible study”. You know time you could learn a language, do some charity work, hell even juggle. Then you could have useful knowledge rather than being able to bookmark pointless passages that mean nothing in modern english.
One thing I’ve always wondered: When you’re in your heaven enjoying the fruits of your piety how are you going to feel knowing that good and decent people, who have lived lives of giving, charity and love, are burning in hell simply for not believing the message? Sounds like an evil and malevolent diety to me. How could you love something that would do that to so many people?
Alan
Not anti-Christian but I just hate the blinkered imbecility of the mouthier ones.
Fun fun fun. And I’ve had a “Beautifully expressed sir” from someone. Now waiting for fan/shit interface event.
Have fun.
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16 Oct 2007
Posted in Games, Life, Reviews at 1:30 pm by alby
The post strike had slightly annoyed me by denying me a parcel from the states for a bit but it came yesterday. Non-games fans can leave now as the parcel was the new Zelda DS game.
Oh indeed it’s a thing of beauty. The controls work well in the main with a bit of fiddle to some of them. So this afternoon may pass in a blur of Zelda and sorting the car out.
Yes the car is in for its MOT today. I told them that if it passes (or fails with cheap corrections needed only) then I’d ask them to do the new clutch and a full service. Hopefully things will work out. I don’t feel like spending a grand on that car and the clutch is a good chunk of that grand (but really needs doing).
So a fun and horrible day alternately.
[edit: car failed the MOT but only on something they reckon will cost a tenner to fix. Sound.]
Have fun.
Search terms: (which will go on a “page” soon)
- pictures anita anand wedding
- humorous answerphone message
- bg babes
- photo insanity
- eritrean lingo
- a lady singing
- put your itunes windows media player etc on shuffle
- kings lynn juggling club
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14 Oct 2007
Posted in Juggling, People, Reviews at 7:21 pm by alby
So another convention come and gone. This one was a good one and deserves to be more busy next time.
We started the weekend of real life on Friday when Tom came over from Brum to join us all for a curry down Belgrave Road. We found a storming curry house called “Curry Fever“. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area (and like curry).
Home to bed and an early start up to Wolsingham. The car lived long enough to get us there and it wasn’t too difficult to find. And Tom took a photo of the most appalling corporate catchphrase ever. Do please mail me that one Tom.
Good site too. A local school with a large clean gym, good playing fields (although the weather meant the outside wasn’t used so much), a canteen which I’m told was pretty good for a school canteen, and a spare gym for unicycling. The show was in the school hall and the facilities were good, the bar was cheap and had a variety of beer, wine and canapes. The Durham lot do do a lot of decent prep work and severe kudos to the lot of them. First class.
Jugglewise me and Clurb got some nice patterns sorted including 8 clubs and 7 club ultimates. This latter has eluded us for some time so was particularly sweet to get down. Still rubbish at back to back though.
I got a good stack of photos too. I spent some time playing with the camera settings and eventually landed on using a longer exposure time so that I got motion blur and so I didn’t need to use the flash in the gym. And you can see the results here.
And the afternoon went quickly with me and C doing far more than usual at one of these dos. DB and Suzanne were there so Clurb got her first meet of her. Spent time chatting to loads over the weekend too. Hello to you all.
Then for food. We’d heard that the canteen was ok but we chose to dash off to the local village centre and hoped to find a pub that served food. As it was the pub we found did do food, but not until 7pm (the start of the show); the local Chinese takeaway was shut, the chippy was shut too. We found a cafe and hidden inside were Lizzah and Jon who’d buggered off on their own earlier. It was a small place but the food was ok enough.
Back to the show – almost certainly in the wrong order:
- Compere: Matt – jolly and cheery and introduced the acts well enough, some silly little tricks that fat well enough but he also committed a cardinal sin by trying the synchronised clapping business. It’s so old and tired it really should be put down now. I’ll clap where I feel it necessary, not because the bloke on stage tells me to. He also allowed me to get a heckle in, first time in years for me and I’m geet proud, I got a laugh and a clap. Tee hee.
- Dreamscape(/state/space – delete as appropriate) Circus: As seen at the BJC earlier this year. An Anglo-Oz duo doing juggling and acro. Nice tricks and personable enough but this routine seems too much a street act to me. 6 club, 4 count is a nice easy trick to show joe public but complaining about not getting a clap for this at a juggling convention seems a bit grumpy to me. I can’t believe they deem it sufficiently difficult to impress a roomful of jugglers. The acro was swift and impressive afterwards though so thumbs up in the end.
- Diabolo guy – can’t remember his name but this was the guy who won the “Perform at Durham” award at BYJOTY this year. When seeing diabolo acts recently they’re almost always high speed rips through of the most insanely difficult tricks the performer knows. They’re getting a bit boring. But for this one he slowed it down to a nice rhythm with some slower music and demonstrated some gorgeous one diabolo moves with nice suicides, duicides, grinds, throws and more. Lovely. And he didn’t scrimp on the multi diab stuff neither. Very skilled indeed.
- Zyllan – No Guns and Roses!!!! Yay for that man. He was prolly being nice to me as I supplied him with tape earlier in the day to stop his ear phones constantly falling out when he was practicing his routine. Again lots of skill and a different routine. Some smiles there too. We need to see more of that from our young performers. Standing around for a bit and ignoring the audience is getting too old now as well.
- Vodka and Orange – neutered by the need to use age appropriate language, voice neutered by not using mikes to project and accent neutered by not being able to understand the few words that got to my ears. Staff and stick spinning and manipulations with a frankly masochistic, bondage thing going on at the beginning what with the handcuffs and the cage. And I didn’t quite understand the clownfish thing. Some ok enough spinning though culminating in a nice spinny thing on the head from Megan.
- The raffle – ho hum a raffle. Best prize ever in a raffle though – someone won a set of pedals. Literally a pair of pedals.
- Chinese pole act. An act of wonderfulness indeed. Very nice character, tricks and moved oh so well. Nearly ruined it by putting in a pointless hat trick bit. This turned out like every hat routine ever (except Kris Kremo’s) by fumbling and dropping much to all our embarrassment. But the pole work was of an order beyond what you normally see at a regional, effectively one day convention. Top notch. This should have been the finale of the show but logistics (they had to set up the pole) meant he had to start the second half.
- Megan (aka Vodka or Orange) doing her chinese pole spinning thing again (as seen at the Britishish show at BJC this year). She does have some good moves going for her but this (and Dreamstate) reminded me of Aaron Gregg’s “Show fatigue” thread on rec.j. A shame ‘cos she’s good enough at what she does.
- Josh “flappy wrist” Turner up next with his ball routine of death. Actually just a normal and hard run through of some very nice tricks with up to 6 balls. Most notable however was his flappy left wrist (for me) and his errant tongue during the harder tricks (for everyone). Still raiding his dad’s CD collection for his backing music.
- Ady Pole. Rings with added vigour and humour. Ady being Ady would be the easiest way to describe it. He’s getting more confident and he’s plenty engaging for an audience. Better music as well. Finished with a flash of 7 rings.
- Ture. I saw this routine at the Circomedia Showcase at Bodmin last year. It was clearly the stand out routine of that show and still holds up well. He kept up his character well despite a badly timed (but funny) heckle and showed us some nice stuff with balls and a bucket. Decent end to a good show.
So there you have it. Some of the show fatigue evident but the atmos was good and the acts were generally entertaining.
I spent the rest of the evening hurting friends and eventually getting a massage from Dr Helen and then Lynne (ta). Actually I got a few requests during the day for “sort me out please” starting with Mini about 10 seconds after I stopped the car after arriving. So that was nice.
I slept well in the car this time and managed a good few hours. We then found out that the main gym had been double booked and so we couldn’t use it. Harrumph! The small gym previously used for uni’s was the new venue and it wasn’t going to be big enough. As it was a lot of folk weren’t there for the second day and it wasn’t too busy. But tiredness and a long way home conspired to leave us keen to leave. And home now.
Sleep will be sound I’m sure.
Anyone who didn’t go missed a good one. I’ve heard bad things about their previous site but this one is ideal for a small convention such as this. Don’t let previous sites inform your decision as to whether this is worth a trip. It is.
Ta to the orgs.
Have fun.
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