Diary of an up and coming sociopath

I was surprised to discover earlier this week that my suspicions the weather was about to become warm enough for me to stop wearing my coat to work were justified, in spades. Today it was almost too hot to be wearing more than a T-shirt. Three weeks ago it was snowing. Just what the hell’s up with that? It’s not making me overly optimistic about the chances for a clement summer, but then on the bright side if that’s the case, then going to Reading should at least be a pleasant enough experience. Nothing ruins a festival like rain, it has to be said. I have the money for tickets secure. Let’s just hope the announcement on Monday is sufficiently good, and I’ll be getting a pair for me and my woman. If not, i’ll blow the money I saved on useless crap. Hurray!

(or credit card repayments)

Speaking of buying stuff I don’t need, I’ve been watching Red Dwarf VI with meals, my latest purchase of superfluous pop culture effects. I’m starting to understand why there are people out there that dislike Series VI. It’s not holding up for me as much as the others did when I rewatched them. It’s almost as if they had a large whiteboard (blackboard, back then?) which had a list of mandatory joke sto include, namely Cat’s “We’re deader than…” Rimmer’s insulting of Kryten as “something-head,” The Space Core Directive back and forth which seems to occur twice in every episode, and other such observable patterns. That’s not to say it’s bad by any means, there’s still some good character stuff in there, but for the first time I’m sensing that series VI really was the start of the decline which leads to the 90% horrible series VIII. The DVD package itself is an improvement on the previous, as is ever the case. They’re really hitting all the right notes with the DVD sets, it’s practically the model to follow for any self-respecting TV show. If only the animated menus were avoidable, they’d be damn near perfect.

Series VII will be a good test of what they can do though. I remember series VII being bad at the time, but since VIII came out I’ve been looking back on it with rose-tinted fondness. I don’t think I’ve had the chance to rewatch it practically since it came out on VHS, so I’m quite looking forward to it. I wonder if they’ll put the extended versions of the episodes they did for one of the VHS releases on, because while they’re bound to include the scenes, it’d be nice to have them in the actual episode. Cat’s speech about how he’s the most important guy in the universe is probably the best thing I’ve seen which didn’t make the cut, and it’d be a shame to hide it away in the features section when they already put it back in the episode at least once.

We’re considering going to see Contantine on Saturday. Apparantly it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, but probably only in the sense that it’s not a bad film, just a bad hellblazer film. One thing I’ve read about the ending [one large-ish plot spoiler if you’ve not read the comics, and another tiny yet character-destroying spoiler for the film]where, after his cancer is cured, he reaches into his pocket as if to remove a cigarette and…takes out a stick of FUCKING GUM…[end spoiler] makes me shudder in disbelief that they would be so insane as to hideously rape the work like that. It might be a good film, but it’s not going to be John Constantine on the screen. That said, I’m going into it with an open mind. Ish. Far more concerned about the imminent release of hitch-hiker’s guide to be honest.