Diary of an up and coming sociopath

The beeping in my pocket signifies one thing. My phone’s battery now lasts approximately 16 hours before shutting down. 16 hours it has been since I awoke, zombie-like, from the blissful sleep that was to be painfully interrupted by obligations unwanted. 7:30 in the morning never felt so vindictive.

It’s not that I can’t bring myself to get up, it’s just that in the face of all against me, why would I want to? I braved the cold to get changed, I weathered the walk to the bus stop despite my breath condensing on my face in the cold. I examined with a mild half-drowsy interest the strange bumps of South Park that I’m relatively sure are drainage channels, but I seem unable to confirm either way.

The bus was late. It’s always late. No bus to anywhere ever at this time of the morning manages to be on time. A £75 bus pass secured passage gratis to Wheatley, and the four of us managed to find seats upstairs despite the bottom floor resembling a cattle lorry. The journey to Wheatley is always a hard one to recall, between repression and semiconsciousness, but I briefly am cogniscent of a route change that adds some minutes to the already extended journey.

The lecture theatre was cold, I remember that much. We clambered over dess to reserve our seating for the next 2 hours, and fortuitously so, because as the minutes progressed more and more the room gradually filled up until I’m quite certain it became technically a fire hazard. Quite how someone makes a module compulsory for BCS recognition and then fails entirely to provide an adequately voluminous room, I don’t know. I remember little of the lecture itself. The assertion that “I don’t know what you think you know, but the pass rate for this module is…not good. You will probably not pass.” sticks in my mind, though the rest of the lecture becomes blurry and jumbled. I remember packet switching. Network Architecture. Trying to remember in the bleak mist of thought what the “TCP” part of TCP/IP stood for. And…some guy. The lecturer? He stood at the front and spoke in rhythm-timed English, scribbling strange boxes with no apparant meaning on overhead slides while trailing off sentences.

The next 2 hours were spent in a computer room. I remember a lot of debate as to whether we were actually going to stay at the Uni ending when we read the practical notes and they implied horrible things for those that dared to ignore the practical allocations, or something. I went on IRC for a bit, cirumventing the Uni’s rules by merely downloading and installing ViRC. When the lunch hour came we went to the newly remodelled Wheatley food hall and had, unsurprisigly, some food. They have, in addition to adding new tables and seating, franchised the hell out of the formerly university-owned eatery. Amusing, really, but it brings it in line with the rest of the stuff. And they now sell chicken and roast potatoes! I’m sorely tempted to buy, especially next week, when I’m going to be stuck there all day AND working.

After that, we attended the first half of the HCI lecture, which, now that at this point in the day I’m slightly more lucid, things seem a bit less ephemeral and I’ve simply ignored most of it, and thus have nothing to comment on. I vaguely recall the lecturer making an idiot of herself by failing to get something to work and then saying “oh, it’s maybe because I’ve run it before without restarting and the register needs to be reset.” I don’t know what planet she’s from, but on this planet, that sentence doesn’t make any sense towards computing. Anyway, we made a hasty exit after a short break around the 45 minute mark. By which I mean we waited until she was about to start, realised that there’d not be another chance and just legged it out of the room. It asn’t exactly stealthy, but she only saw the back of our heads ;-)

Afterwards, we went to do the practicals. The last practical involved making a “rocket launch simulator”, which I extended into a “challenger shuttle simulator” complete with explosion and “OH NOS!!1!!11!” caption. It was all in good bad taste, I assure you.

Got back in at around 5. Nikki had bought me the TRoT single I was complaining about not having the other day, and it turns out it’s good. I am pleased. I also hoped to have the Cheque from home, but it turned out to be a letter from the Warwick and Leamington Conservative association, basically asking for my money. Great. After, I ate, did the usual stuff, and then before I went to sleep, but after Nikki did, I spent some time talking to Nicky (RenegadeChic) who I’ve met a few times and spoken with a few times. It turns out we have much in common. Not least because we get mistaken for girls, perhaps? I’m talking more about the transformers/easyworld/war of the worlds interest. He was already on my list of easyworlders who aren’t medically insane anyway, but he’s doing himself many favours with his good taste and nature.

I have no specific plans for tomorrow, but in various order, they include buying teh TRoT album, going to Toys R Us, and getting my £181 deposit back from the robbing bastards at Isis. Wish me luck.

So, I approach my first set of Lectures with some trepidation. I’m timetabled for a 9-hour day (I include the lunch hour at Wheatley because, frankly, even an hour off in that dank pit of hell is work) and it remains to be seen just how much of that I actually go to. I tend to favour skipping practical classes, if only because in most cases nothing gets done in them that’s actually of any worth. We’ll see how long I last.

Yesterday we went in to town, and I had planned to buy “Diary”, the new Chuck Palahniuk book, but instead came out of Borders with a print copy of “Diary of a Nobody”, which I read online, and “A Picture of Dorian Gray”, not least inspired by the references to him in LoEG. Total cost: £3. I have developed a new respect for “Penguin Classics”, though I can’t stress enough, the shite quality of the printing and binding makes them useless as anything but reading copies.

I also again failed utterly to buy the Rock of Travolta CD. Nice to see that Oxford supports its local bands. I also failed to buy the Placebo album, though this was down to the fact that I didn’t see it, nor did I actively seek it out, and besides, I’ll wait until I have my NUS card or something.

Anyway, I’ve not got much else to say, so I’m gonig to wrap up and consider going to brave the midday-afternoon Tescos rush that occurs on Sundays, when everyone has woken up, discovered they have no food, and then tries to squeeze in a week’s shopping into the tiny gap left before Tescos closes at 4…

So, despite my pessimism, I left the PC on overnight getting the Matrix game. I’m not sure how, but when I woke up, the game was almost finished downloading. Perhaps a midnight visit from the download fairy? Anyway. I burnt and played the game, it’s alright, not great, had I paid for it, I would’ve been disappointed.

Which brings me to the main thrust of today’s entry: piracy. There’s an interesting conundrum at the centre of piracy - By downloading something, by “pirating” it, am I preventing the profits from one sale being given to the respective owners? There was a time when the main concern about piracy was that people would mass produce their own copies and sell the often inferior quality reproduction, at reduced cost, to the consumer. This has since changed, obviously, with the topical example of the RIAA taking legal action against individual Kazaa users, which in a roundabout fashion brings me to my next point:

I would not have paid for Enter the Matrix, at any price. For a start, £40 for a computer game is too much to warrant it; I have better things to put my disposable income on, and computer games almost never qualify. Secondly, I wasn’t even sure my computer would run it. Additionally, I have no guarantee of the quality of the game. We should reiterate: I would not have bought Enter the Matrix. Ever. EVER.

However, in downloading it, have I demonstrated a willingness, however small, to pay? I can only argue “no”. I currently have the game because the price was right - nothing. A free source combined with an abundance of time and boredom lead me to get it. Were it not there, I would merely have done something else with my time, be it watching a DVD or reading a comic. I can live without playing the game - I was motivated solely by curiosity.

But things can become more complex than that. I originally had a pirate copy of Worms 2 - at the time, I didn’t like it enough to pay for a copy, and I didn’t play it in any serious fashion until Dave and I started playing online. Eventually, when I saw it had been re-released, I bought the whole game. My opinion of Worms 2 was changed such that, having played a pirated version, I was more than happy to shell out for the full game. There’s a whole tangent here about it subsequently stopping to work after Direct X got updated, but I’ll skip that for now.

This trend, of course, continues. I downloaded At The Drive-In’s album, Relationship of Command, and not only eventually purchased it, but one of ATDI’s previous albums, and also the Mars Volta album, off the back of it.

The ethic of “try before you buy” is just as true in piracy as it is in film rental and libraries. The former, of course, has a slight difference to the others, in that generally speaking you procure a complete copy, and perpetually, where the second two require you to take them back. But consider this: If you read a library book and you don’t like it, do you buy the book anyway so that the author makes money off you reading it? How, morally, is this any different from, say, downloading a game, playing it, and then deleting it if you don’t like it? The argument contains more parallels though - if I like the book I read, I go and buy it, or even another book by the same author. If I like the game I play, I buy it, or aother game by the same developers (”maybe written in the same engine”, or “in the same series” would be a more appropriate comparison). If I like the album I hear, I buy the CD, and more.

I’m not totally dilligent in my purchasing, of course. I have yet to buy Weezer’s album - or indeed, any Weezer album. But this is as much due to a lack of income as anything. I am certain to buy Weezer’s back catalogue eventually, just because the one album I have on MP3 is so good. Before I got that album, I had no intention of doing so. This door swings both ways though, I downloaded Muse’s latest album, having purchased the previous 2, and I find it not to my tastes - I don’t really plan on buying it anytime soon.

So, from this all, we can draw the following conclusions about my “pirating” habits: 1. I download things I wouldn’t necessarily buy. 2. If something is found to be good enough, I buy it and/or related goods. I can’t prove that this applies to the whole population, but certainly it’s the way I do things.

So, my “solution” to piracy? There are two. The first, of course, is to not make crap product. If I download something and it’s good, I buy. If it’s crap, I don’t. Maybe one day all art and entertainment will be meritocratic. The second is just as obvious, to me, and it’s the make a legitimate, official copy something worth owning. In the case of music, the trick is not to make the CDs more mangled with crap quality software players that try to discourage piracy (but instead just make buying the CD even less of a good idea for those of us who don’t even own a stereo..), but to make the CD package more attractive, with, for a start, a decent lyrics booklet and interesting artwork, maybe some stickers or a mini-poster, and perhaps, god fobid, a sturdy custom case that isn’t going to snap if I look at it wrong. If the attraction to buying the CD is based around more than the songs, there’s one hurdle gone.

I have a firm belief that the trick is to work with downloading, rather than against. Offer selected songs, allow people to get a feel for te album, encourage people to share the music. These principles apply to other things, of course. One of my favourite games came with a star chart and “owner’s manual” for your spaceship, and even better, a booklet of stories set in the universe of the game. Another game I remember came with a comic detailing the lead-in to the game plot.

There are many things you can do to make buying a legitimate copy of something an attractive prospect, and to dispell one myth, it’s not all based around price. I bought the Battle Royale SE DVD despite having a DivX copy of the film, because the DVD came in a Tin case and with an original film cel (!) and that cost me a mere £35. Consider that - I essentially paid £35 for something I already owned, just to get the legitimate package and its extras. A film I grew to love through piracy, no less. And people say individual people pirating their work *loses* them money?

Another particular success story from the past would be King Adora. Downloaded 3 of their tracks from Napster, went to see them live, bought their singles, their album, their T-shirts, attended numourous gigs and indeed, through them, discovered Easyworld, literally totally off the back of 3 downloaded songs, which I would have not heard without the internet. I can’t say how much money I’ve spent as a result of those 3 downloads.

I’ll wrap things up now, I’m rambling a bit. There are just so many examples I could use. I’m interested to hear what anyone who’s read this thinks - especially if you think I’m completely out of my brain, because I respond well to debate.

Digest version, for people with no attention span: Piracy is ok if you buy the products you pirate and then enjoy. Offering incentives to make legitimate copies of things worth buying is the key, not to stopping piracy, but to making it work for the copyright holder.

Dear god, it’s cold. Cold enough to start whinging about how, meteorogically speaking, it was much better in Summer? Well, not yet. Personally, I prefer winter because to heat yourself up all you have to do is confine yourself to one room and eventually it becomes warm enough to become comfortable. Usually. I did put some meat out to defrost earlier, and it managed to remain in a state of cryonic suspension due to the lack of heat in the kitchen. In a thousand years, all that will remain is cockroaches and this frozen piece of meat. I’ll get microwavy on its ass, assuming Nikki hasn’t blown it up with her sponge pudding antics last night. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it if you ask ;-)

Yesterday I made one of my rare excursions to the surface. This time, I targetted the record shop to try and buy the new Rock of Travolta EP. TRoT’s CD (Single or album, I forget which I bought first) was probably one of the very first CDs I bought in Oxford, and it’s been a good while since they released a new one. I can tell you’re all waiting to see why there was the “try” in that first sentence though. Here’s the punchline: The Local Record Shop did not stock the Local Band. I don’t know why I even bother trying, sometimes. Is my custom not good enough!? I can’t complain too much though, because they are going to give me a phone when it comes in (that is, ring me, not present me with a complementary phone.)

I also spent some of the day finishing off a website for Rob’s band. I’m quite proud of it because it’s the first time I’ve used image maps, which took a little bit of learning because I was totally unable to find a program that can make them in any reliable fashion, and also because it’s the first time I’ve written a totally XML/CSS page that uses no tables. There’s a preview at http://www.jrhunt.co.uk/stc/ but it’s not finished yet and I’ll be deleting that directory when it is, so if you care, have a look now, and don’t come whinging to me when, in a week or however long, this link breaks entirely.

Since Ian loaned me his GeForce4, I’ve lacked games to play on it. I’ve been considering black and white, but while watching the Animatrix last night, it ocurred to me that I should try and download the matrix game. I’m not even convinced my processor can handle it, but at least, for a change, the graphics won’t pose a problem. Though, the 2.5gig download might. I have 1.1%. Expect either me to go “Finally finished Enter the Matrix download!” or “Gave up Enter the Matrix download.” in the next few days.

I also got new ZIM yesterday. 2 completely new series 2 episodes. “Voting of the damned” contains my new favourite Zim line: “As president, I will ensure that all mankind HAS IT’S LEG SAWED OFF!!” These new discoveries just twist the knife though, each new episode is like another bite of the rapidly diminishing pie. I don’t even like pie.

I re-read all of LOeG volume 2 this morning, seems as it’s now complete. I don’t really have much to add, but it is just a great story. You should all buy it, and the first one, actually.

I hope you’re all keeping up with Josh’s antics, too. I linked him on the right when his blog went live, but I forgot to mention it. I put a lot of time and effort into helping him get it up and running, so the least you people can do is show some moral support.

Well, I did write out a nice big entry, but I done gone crashed my PC and lost it. The second time that’s ever happenned, and naturally, no matter how abstract and arbitrary an excuse it may seem to the reader, it’s customary to whinge about it, so consider me whinging.

And now, as the surgeon must reconstruct the car crash victim’s skull to a passable facsimile of what it was, I must reconstruct this blog entry, even though it may be a shadow of its former glory.

So. My entry was, and is, about my last few dreams. I’m leading an exceptionarily unremarkable existance right now, but in 2 nights I’ve had 3 dreams that have had me thinking, so here they are.

Dream the First:
I befriend somehow, a girl who is a few years younger than Nikki and me. She spends a day or two hanging out at the video game store I own, playing on the demo console I have set up (possibly an X-Box or PS2) while I sit behind the counter with my feet up, reading comics. On the third night or so, I invite her to come and have dinner with me and Nikki at home. At some point, I am telling Nikki not to get jealous, because the girl, while a friend, is just a kid. She overhears this though, and runs out of the house upset, and gets abducted. Nikki and I run out to find her, but we only see her getting in the car and being driven off, at which point she is never seen again.

Now, after this I was woken up by Nikki going to Uni for guider training. I got back to sleep, and immediately, had this dream.

Dream the Second:
Myself, Sam, Josh, Sam’s Friend and Tom were all crashing in a big room with patio doors. I was laying on one of the sofas, relating to everyone the dream I recently had (the one above). Everyone except Josh, that is, who was asleep throughout the whole thing. About mid-way through my explanation, it started to hail really large hailstones outside. Tom said he’d never been hit by hailstones before so Sam and I opened the patio doors, made ice-snowballs and threw them at him. After that, I finished explaining my dream, everyone agreed it was very weird, and we all went to sleep.

Finally, last night, I had this:

Dream the Third:
I arrive in New York, in my new flat. Well, first the landlady gives me the key and I go up the stairs to the first floor where it is. The hallway is dark grey (or is that gray? ;-) and the stairs are stone with ventilation holes in the wall. Inside the flat, it’s mostly wooden, for some reason. It’s also above a video game exchange shop. There are 3 main rooms in it, a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom with a window that overlooks the backstreets and, obviously, a small bathroom. For some reason, I have moved to New York as part of Uni, a year out or something. I’m there alone, nor do I know anyone. I was visited, a few days in, by Josh, Paul and Si, who have come for the day. I show them around a bit and they all think my place is pretty cool. I decide to take them out shopping and stuff, so we go outside. Josh has his bike lock, but we don’t need it but we have to wait a while because it’s stuck on his foot, though Si eventually gets it off. We walk around the main street a bit before getting to a big open market. Walking around that for a while, we suddenly realise we’ve wandered into the chinese bit, and all the chinese people start shouting at us. We try and get back to somewhere we know, but we always seem to end up in the same bit, so eventually we take a taxi back to the game shop. Paul, Si and Josh then have to leave because they have other things to do in America, and I go back up to my flat and phone Nikki to say ‘Hi’ and she tells me she’ll be visiting in 2 weeks, then I sit and watch the traffic out the front.

Okay, that’s it. Feel free to interpret them however you like, but they’re mainly just so I can remember them, rather than for you, the viewing public, so don’t bother too much. I hope this entry was a nice break from your normally linear thought patterns, anyway. I know there can be nothing so boring as reading about someone else’s dreams, because they’re the one thing that is always really interesting to the person who has them, and almost universally uninteresting to anyone else. Time for bed, it is now, so maybe I’ll have stuff to add to this tomorrow!

1. Who is your favorite singer/musician? Why?
Today, I’m going to go with…Pete Vuckovic. He really seems to enjoy what he does, believe in it, he comes up with good lyrics but doesn’t let the pretentiousness get in the way too much. Also, he’s currently involved in an uphill battle to get 3CR back off the ground and I respect his drive in the face of adversity.

2. What one singer/musician can you not stand? Why?
One?! ONE?! I guess then, it’d be one gestalt entity comprising the Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Gray, Avril Lavigne, JJ72…christ, the list is near endless. All these artists share a couple of qualities, such as horribly annoying voice, shitty lyrics and over-exposure. In my opinion, of course. Your mileage may vary. [Side-steps repeat of Muse thread]

3. If your favorite singer wasn’t in the music business, do you think you would still like him/her as a person?
Almost an irrelevant question, but as it’s been disclaimed with “do you think” I can probably have a valid stab at answering it. Assuming Pete Vuckovic still wrote songs and stuff, I would say that I would still respect or admire him - however - would I like him necessarily? It’s hard to say. He has qualities that I dislike in people, but then, many people I know do. I can’t see any reason I’d like him less, shall we say? If he were not in the music industry, as in, didn’t write songs, I’m not sure I would like him, but I doubt I’d hate him. I don’t really know what he’s like as a person, so this question becomes a bit baseless.

4. Have you been to any concerts? If yes, who put on the best show?
I may have attended a few. Flip a coin and choose between 3 Colours Red at the Mean Fiddler, Placebo, or Muse at Reading 2000 or Radiohead at Shephard’s Bush. Then give me the coin you used, something that can flip in that many dimensions must be worth some serious cash.

5. What are your thoughts on downloading free music online vs. purchasing albums? Do you feel the RIAA is right in its pursuit to stop people from dowloading free music?
I think you should download an album, listen to it a few times and then buy a copy if you think it’s worth it. That’s what I did with At The Drive-In, King Adora, and many other of my favourite bands. Creating a meritocratic industry seems like a good idea to me, that way manufactured music will have a harder time selling and genuinely worthwhile music will find its niche. I think the RIAA is demonising music downloaders because it sees a failing industry that it has over-saturised and over-priced and is now desperately trying to lay the blame at someone else’s feet, even if that means the consumers. The music industry should work with, rather than against downloaders. It’ll never stop. While you can listen to music, you can pirate it. I, for one, fully intend to make it as easy as possible for other people, as well.

Yesterday Tom arrived. We went to Templar’s Square, because Nikki needed an eye test, and while TOm and I wandered around looking for something to do for the 15 minutes she was gone, we chanced upon the business card machine…

A mere 6 minutes later, we were posessed of 20 business cards with subtle off-white coloring and a tasteful thickness. No watermark though.

Besides that, well, we dragged a broken trolley around Tescos, and in the spirit of neoanarchistic urban deconstruction, once it had been emptied, we dragegd it around the car park with the sheel bracket scraping on the ground to try and make sparks. We failed, but produced nice lines on the floor.

Sunday was, as ever, mostly uneventful. Cooked a chicken for Me, Tom and Nikki, and Ian sat in with his food and we had a civilised and witful dinner, set to the sounds of “Hail to the Thief” by Radiohead.

Which, Worms: Armageddon games aside, brings me to now. I used to be able to write volumes about this kind of thing but sometimes the motivation just isn’t there. I don’t even have a cool link to share because I appear to have forgotten them all.

I guess I could do some more ranting. Yeah. Ranting. What’s the deal with…Tuc biscuits. I dunno. I seem to be low on Ranting subjects too. I’ll tell you what though, off the back of “talk like a pirate day” I was considering finding like minded people to start “talk like someone who has actually been taught English day”. This is partially inspired by my whole Muse fiasco, which while calming down of late, has still left me with a huge amount of comments that don’t resemble English. I tell you, actually, that whoel debacle has taught me one thing. The illiterate are on the internet, and they really REALLY like Muse.

I guess I’ll do the Friday 5, actually. Usual reverse-order posting rules apply.

Yaaaar! It be international talk like a pirate day, and avast ye swabs! I have taken this salty test in honour.

You are The Cap’n!

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any man that stands between them and the mantle of power. You never met a man you couldn’t eviscerate. Not that mindless violence is the only avenue open to you - but why take an avenue when you have complete freeway access? You are the definitive Man of Action. You are James Bond in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. Your swash was buckled long ago and you have never been so sure of anything in your life as in your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off their head if they show any sign of taking you on or backing down. You cannot be saddled with tedious underlings, but if one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones’ locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed - a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.

What’s Yer Inner Pirate?
Brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site.
Arrrrr!

Inspired by Mike’s Top 50, my top 21 films. I had intended to do 25, but, well, I couldn’t justify including that many. My basic premise was “If I could only watch a limited number of films for a limited numbers of hours, for the rest of my life, which would I choose?” Thus, Transformers: The movie being great, would not be worth losing 90 minutes during which I could watch, say, Happy Gilmore. The films are presented in alphabetical order, though for those who care, I’d say FIght Club is my most favourite film.

28 Days Later
It’s everything I hate about Danny Boyle. British films that are self-consciously “Gritty” and filled with Cockneys. I can’t say I like Alex Garland’s novels, either. But this film - it’s excellent. Zombies in London. The latter half becomes slightly dubious though, once they make it to the army base, and it slows down a little too much before the big action, but still one of my favourite films.

Alien
Suspenseful sci-fi horror. Even made as long ago as it was, it still contains some of the most memorable scenes in Sci-Fi, and Geiger’s aliens are just excellent. I may go and see it, now the re-release is in cinemas soon.

Aliens
And, what better to expand upon the original, than this? High-octane action. This was the first Aliens film I ever saw, and likely the first James Cameron film. Caertainly, in my eyes, one of the definitive movies of it’s genre.

Almost Famous
I’m not sure whether I prefer the original or director’s cut, the latter is almost too long, but this film really appeals to me. Maybe because the social side of gigs is part of how I live part of my life, and that kind of culture is identifiable in this film, and therefore speaks to me.

American Beauty
A brilliant satire/comedy about middle-class life and the neuroses surrounding it.

Battle Royale
I have a thing for subtitled Japanese films, and films where teenagers go insane and kill each other. Battle Royale lets me combine my two obsessions.

Chasing Amy
The best of Kevin Smith’s films, by far. All the others lack something, but Chasing Amy has it all. Initially my least favourite, as I’ve grown up I’ve come to realise why Chasing Amy is so much better than the others.

Fifth Element
It’s practically Art-Haus, what with all the french design, but it’s got some great music and action, and retains a real futuristic feel throughout. I await the special edition DVD.

Fight Club
One of the most inspiring and thought-provoking films I’ve even seen. It’s brilliantly directed, and brilliantly acted. Every aspect of this film is just, perfect.

Good Will Hunting
Another low-budget yet well written film. The only time Robin Williams has been a convincing actor, as far as I’m concerned, and clearly the definitive affleck/damon collaberation.

Groundhog Day
Bill Murray’s finest hour. The man does deadpan better than anyone, in this film. I identify most with the main character as a bemused and sarcastic man ;-)

Happy Gilmore
For some reason Adam Sandler commands a hefty paycheck, but let’s be fair, he can only act one role: The very angry man. In Happy Gilmore, he does it best. There are some films that just appeal directly to my sense of humour, and this film is just one of those. My favourite exchange? Grandma: “Sir, can I trouble you for a warm glass of milk? It helps me go to sleep” Old Folk’s Home Owner: “You can trouble me for a warm glass of shut-the-hell-up! Now, you will go to sleep or I will put you to sleep. Check out the name tag. You’re in my world now, grandma.”

Highlander
I’m not into swords and sorcery much, and while the concept is still better than the execution, I think Highlander is great. The sequels dilute an otherwise good film.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
I’m not a spielberg fan, but I enjoy watching this film, if only for the opening minutes and the scene with Hitler. I’m not a fan of the other two - Temple of Doom is painfully bad, and Raiders of the Lost Ark has its flaws, but Last Crusade? Can’t get enough. Also gains points for having River Phoenix as young Indy. Such a waste.

The Matrix
I know it’s stereotypical, and derivative and clichéd and gimmicky, but I can’t deny, I love watching this film. It’s probably because of my computing-based lifestyle.

Parenthood
Steve Martin is one of my favourite comedians-turned-actor. It was a hard choice whether to put in this or “Father of the Bride” because both films combine genuine comedy (the kind that is observational or heartfelt rather than slapstick, grossout or plain insulting) with emotional resonance. Parenthood wins because, in addition being written by Joss Whedon, it contains many small sub-plots - the whole film is almost a collection of vignettes - and each time I watch it, I see a new way of interpreting each storyline back to the theme of “parenthood”.

Planet of the Apes
Charlton Heston + classic twist = Proper Sci-Fi. The many sequels were actually almost justifiable, as each tried out a different concept. I watched a documentary on the impact Planet of the Apes had on pop culture a couple of years ago that was almost even better than the film itself. I’d love to own the DVD set.

Spider-Man
In my mind, the best and most direct adaption of a comic to date. It overuses the CGI, but I think it just about gets away with it. The non-hollywood ending also endears me to it. The whole essence of the Spider-Man comics is that even when he wins, he loses. In the film, he defeats the enemy, but can’t have the girl and loses his best friend in the process. Watching it at the cinema just blew me away, it was literally like seeing the comic come to life.

Terminator 2
One of those instances where a sequel improves on the original. Every time I see Arnie in a film since this one, I can’t help but think that he’s just parodying himself in T2. One thing that I always regret is that I never got to see it as intended - it occurs to me that it’s supposed to be a twist when Arnie turns out to be John’s protector, and every time I’ve seen the film, I’ve known that to be the case, even though the script is intentionally ambiguous. It’s held up pretty well too, the special effects being almost entirely believable still. There are about 3 scenes that look a bit crap through age, and for a decade, that’s good.

Unbreakable
M. Night Shyamalan might not be the best director in the world, but he has a unique style that I like. Unbreakable is hard to watch because the emotions of it bear down on you and it becomes difficult to continue viewing, and is ultimately a draining experience, if a rewarding one. Everything about it is subdued and depressive. It also contains the least subtle piece of foreshadowing ever - “They say this one has a surprise ending.”

Watership Down
The animated film, of course, if there were ever any others. For a kid’s cartoon, this is bloody and violent, but it’s stayed with me ever since I first saw it. I skipped a lecture in my first year of Uni because it was on TV, that’s how much I like watching it. Because of this, Watership Down was one of the first proper novels I ever read.

Yesterday I went to the post office. Really, that’s it. It’s hard to do anything at the moment that doesn’t involve spending money, so I tend to fixate on the “sitting around” aspect of life. I’m currently downloading Outer Limits episodes. I loved that program. Last night, I started making my “top 25″ of films which I’ll post here soon enough. Mike did a Top 50, but to be fair I haven’t seen anywhere near as many films as he, so I did a truncated list.

About 1am last night, I was disturbed to hear the front door being knocked. I considered that it might just have been my imagination, especially at this hour. Then the doorbell rang. Now, I’m not paranoid, but there was an increasingly likely chance that this guy attempting entry was a murderer or something, so I secreted away my pen-knife, and went to answer the door. Standing outside was a guy in a blue shirt looking shifty. I went to say “Yes?” but he said “Oh, sorry mate. I must have the wrong house.” and turned to walk. I said “Okay.” and closed the door. What a brush with death. I hate dealing with the public.

Today I hoovered. Again, that’s pretty much it. In the course of hoovering, I sucked up about 5 dead wasps. Ian related to us that, during the holidays, he had found the small toilet room full of many dead wasps. Last year we had a giant nest in the loft, so I guess they returned there and, as the weather gets colder, are all dropping dead. VICTORY FOR JAMES AGAIN! No insect yet built can best me (except the Camel Spider. Look it up. Then fear.)

Christ. This entry must’ve been as boring as my day. How about some whinging? Excellent, I knew you’d enjoy it.

First, the Canterbury Tales remake. I mean, why? The only argument I can see /for/ it is that it brings the work to a new audience, but then, my sole argument against that is that once you remove the context of the Canterbury Tales, you entirely destroy any relevance they’ve got. They’re surely as much about linguistics and middle-english society than the actual content, I mean, why? The only positive thing I can see coming from this is that they might spur some people on to actually read the originals. In a perfect world, they’d have dramatised the originals, using the original language. That would’ve been something worth seeing.

On BBC2, there’s “QI”. Clearly, it’s trying to be a kind of HIGNFY/They Think It’s All Over/Never Mind the Buzzcocks style Quiz show for “intellectuals”. Putting Stephen Fry on to host pretty much sells that image as much as it can be sold. I watched it last week and was pretty underwhelmed. Obviously, the questions were pretty high-brow, but then, the majority of the show seemed to be taken up by the various contestants laughing at their own wit. I’ll watch it again because they’ve got Bill Bailey and Rich Hall on tonight (Rich Hall being the generic American comedian you wheel out to make fun of on every game show going, it seems.)

I haven’t really mentioned David Blaine yet, have I? I should get down my thoughts on this momentous public event, I’m sure. I mean, what an idiot. It warms my heart to see all the people trying to sabotage his attempt and generally making things as difficult for him as possible. Finally, a solid target for us to ridicule as a nation. I hope he fails. Fails and dies. If he’s still there in 2 weeks, Nikki and I are going to go and have a look before the Skin gig. I’ll think of some way of adding to the general demoralisation of the man before then. And while I’m on the subject…”Above the Below”!? How fucking pretentious can you get? Not to mention, er, self-evident. Above implied below. That’s like saying “left of the right”. I bet the name of this stunt can’t have endeared people to it either, really. I mean, Blaine is “above the below” and, well, he’s above the people of London, so the implication is that the people of London are beneath him, and not just positionally. Have I mentioned how much I want him to fail and die? My sole interest in this whole affair is to simply see how long it takes for him to give up, and, if he doesn’t, see what he thinks about trying another trick where the people of London can get at him..

And he’s wearing sodding nappies! Maybe he can get a pampers sponsorship deal.