EmiTown

Last night I was watching a few episodes of Red Dwarf from 1991. I could remember watching them when they were first broadcast. I can hardly believe that it was twenty years ago now.

I finished reading the book EmiTown by Emi Lenox. It's described as a "sketch diary" and basically covers a year in Emi Lenox's life, from May 2009 until April 2010, through text, comic strips, random song lyrics and sketches. It's a really fun book with some really enaging artwork.

Today I went along with my Dad to the Ocean Terminal shopping mall. We had a coffee at Starbucks and I bought some books: Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane, Kraken by China Mieville and Black Hills by Dan Simmons. Then we went along to my parent's house where we had whiskey, and then a Burn's Supper of haggis, potatoes and peas. Burns Suppers are celebrations of the life and work of Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, and are traditionally held on or near the 25 January, Burns' birthday. Traditionally, Burns Suppers include a recitation of some of his poems, and the haggis is cermonially brought in while someone plays the bagpipes and recites the poem "To a Haggis".I'm thinking of maybe stopping writing on here every single day, to give myself more time to do my own writing and so on. I'll still be on several times a week, but just maybe not every single day.

Endless Nights

Last night I was listening to another of the Sherlock Holmes stories on the radio. This one was called "The Retired Colourman", based on the 1926 short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and told the story of a retired art supply dealer who enlists the aid of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson when his younger wife runs off with another man, taking a large amount of his money with them. However Holmes soon suspects that the truth is far more sinister. A 'colourman', by the way, is an old term for a man who makes or sells paint. It wasn't one of the best of them, but it was pretty good. That's the last in the series, apparently. I wish I could find those Sherlock Holmes tapes that I used to have, but I think they've gone, and I've never been able to find them either in the shops or online. It often seems to be the case that you don't even look at something for years, and then as soon as you've thrown it out you suddenly realise you want it again.

I did some more of my writing and then I watched some of the sixth season of Red Dwarf on DVD, which was really funny.

Today I went out and had a look at the shops. I got the soundtrack CD of True Blood, the movie Antichrist on DVD and the graphic novel of The Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman. That's me got the complete set of The Sandman now! I went along to American Express to get some information about my planned holiday, but it looks like the flights will be too expensive so I might have to rethink it.

Red Dwarf VI

Last night I was watching three episodes of the sixth season of Red Dwarf on DVD. Red Dwarf was a British science-fiction comedy series about the last human alive marooned three million years into deep space on a run-down spaceship the crew of which had been killed in an accident, with only a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew, a humanoid creature which evolved from his pet cat and a robot for company. In the sixth season, set two hundred years later, the main spaceship - the "Red Dwarf" of the title - has been stolen and the crew are in a small craft trying to find it again.

Today was another busy day at work. It was also extremely dull, as it almost always is. I've not done any of my own writing for ages, not since the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) finished at the end of November. I really need to get back to doing it again. I really want to become successful with it and hopefully earn from it, because I do feel increasingly depressed and tense about work as I get older.

The Mask

Last night I was watching the 1994 movie The Mask, directed by Charles Russell, on TV. The movie tells the story of a shy bank clerk (played by Jim Carrey), who is constantly being walked over and pushed around by everyone because he is such a nice guy, until he finds an ancient wooden mask which, when he puts it on, transforms him into a green-headed, super-powered wild man, with the ability to manipulate his own reality and pretty much do anything, kind of like a live-action cartoon character. The movie was originally intended as a pretty violent horror movie, similar to the comic-book that inspired it, but in the end they decided to make the film as a comedy. The movie is very funny and features ground-breaking special effects.

Later on I saw the film Mirrors, directed by Alexandre Aja, which told the story of an alcoholic ex-cop (played by Kiefer Sutherland) who gets a job as a night security guard at a burned out derelict department store. While there he begins to see strange things in the store's mirrors. Before long the things become increasingly vivid and dangerous. The movie was an English language remake of a Korean film, although I have heard that the American film is very different to the Korean version. The movie was fairly predictable, but it did have a few nice shocks in it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Andrei Tarkovsky film Mirror, a surreal autobiographical film which mixes in childhood memories and Russian history.

Lastly I watched Day of the Dead, a 1985 film directed by George A. Romero, and the third of his Dead series of zombie movies. By the time the film starts human society has completely broken down due to the plague of flesh-eating zombies. However, a small group of scientists and military personnel have holed up in a disused missile silo. The scientists are trying to find a way to domesticate the zombies (teaching them to shave and read Stephen King books). However the rising tensions between the military and the scientists begins to pose more danger to both groups than the advancing zombie hordes. It is a good movie and quite interesting.

Today my parents came around to check my flat and make sure that everything was still okay, which it mostly was, and I went back with them for lunch. The new issue of Fortean Times ("The Journal of Strange Phenomena") had arrived during the week with plenty of bizarre and interesting stories in it. After lunch I walked along with my Mum to a shopping centre and bought the sixth season of Red Dwarf on DVD, which should be fun. I have seen it before several times on TV and I do think that it is one of the best seasons of that show.

Mind Wandering

Last night was pretty quiet, as usual, I didn't really do much at all, except read my book. It was the start of another week at work, and it was about as exciting as it ever is.

It's really strange because I always sit down at the computer with my head full of stuff that I want to type about but when I actually start to do it, suddenly my mind goes blank.

I had a weird experience last night when I was in bed, with my tape playing, trying to get some sleep. It's a habit of mine to put on a side of an audio tape when I go to bed, because it helps me sleep. Currently it's a tape of Red Dwarf: Better Than Life by Grant Naylor, read by Chris Barrie. Last night my boiler suddenly started making strange noises and then stopped. I had a second where I thought someone was using my shower (which is a far from pleasant thought when it's three in the morning and you're alone in your bed!) Then I thought I heard creaking floorboards and the boiler stopped. That was all, but it was kind of a scare. There can be a number of strange noises in my place anyway.

Massage at the Office

Last night I was watching the first ever episode of Red Dwarf on DVD. It was originally shown in February 1988 and is kind of crudely made compared to what came later, but it's still really funny. It's kind of interesting how shows change as they go along and Red Dwarf really changed a lot in it's time.

Work was kind of average today. One thing that was fun was that at work they were doing a free taster of the massages that they offer. They had people coming round the office and doing massages for people at their desks. I had a head and shoulder massage which was really good and felt really relaxing.

I'm still working away on the Script Frenzy screenplay and so far I'm doing pretty well, with 80 pages written.

Red Dwarf IV

Last night I was watching season four of Red Dwarf (all six episodes). I really remember watching those shows when they were first broadcast in 1991. I still think that season four was one of the funniest Red Dwarf seasons. Later on I was watching some of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, which I had seen before but was still pretty funny. I remember when I was working in an old part-time job about eight years ago, there was a guy who played the soundtrack for that movie at work (considering some of the lyrics they were pretty lucky to get away with it!)

Today was another quiet day at work. I was feeling really tired all day for some reason and I had a kind of headache so it really wasn't very good.

I also read the very sad news that the author JG Ballard (who wrote Empire of the Sun, Crash, The Drowned World and A User's Guide to the Millennium among many other works) died yesterday at the age of 78.

Unexpected Night Out

Yesterday I was listening to the latest episode of The Twilight Zone radio series. This one was called "Patterns of Doomsday", and was one which was written for the orignial series but never filmed for some reason. The story revolved around an asteroid that is about to destroy Earth, and a small group are rounded up by the US Government of which eight will be chosed to go on a spaceship to build a new life on an alien planet. However the decision is who goes on the ship and have a chance of survival and who stays behind to face certain death.

Yesterday evening I got a call from my friend Joe, asking if I wanted to go out for a quick drink. We met up at Tiles bar and had a drink there and then we went to some of the bars in the Omni Centre and had a few drink in a couple of the bars there, and we were going to go to another bar but it was only people over 21 and I couldn't get in because they didn't believe I was old enough and I didn't have any ID to prove I was 30!

This morning I was up really early to head off with my Dad to the Gyle Shopping Centre. I had a cheese scone and a cup of mocha coffee in the food area and then looked around the centre for about an hour. I bought the DVD set of season four of Red Dwarf. Then I went back to my parent's house for lunch. The weather was really good today which was amajor plus, and it was nice enough to sit outside for a bit.

Warriors of the Deep

Last night I was watching a 1984 Doctor Who story called "Warriors of the Deep". In the story the TARDIS arrives in an undersea military base on Earth in the year 2084. At this point the Earth is divided into two power blocs who are threatening imminent nuclear war. The fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and his companions soon realise that the base is about to be attacked by The Silurians, an intelligent reptilian race who ruled the Earth thousands of years before humanity, with the help of their amphibious cousins The Sea Devils, and their ll-powerful secret weapon, a monster called The Myrka. The story was interesting and actually quite suspenseful but the show suffered from really sub-par special effects and production values (even by the standard of eighties Doctor Who). This was due to the production schedule being heavily cut at the last minute. The worst thing in the show was The Myrka which looked like a green, rubbery pantomime horse and could only move in a slow shuffle so all it's victims basically had to just stand and wait for it to get to them and swat them with it's stubby little paws. Although it was still a fun story. I have kind of a soft spot for it because it was the first Doctor Who story I ever saw, when I was just five years old.

I was also watching the third part of the three part Red Dwarf special, which definitely had it's moments, but suffered from obvious heavy cutting and also a lack of many real laughs (Red Dwarf is supposed to be a comedy after all). It would have really benefited from having full half hour episodes instead of just twenty minute ones (minus advert breaks).

Today I went out to the shops and bought some DVDs in the sales. I got a couple of Doctor Who DVDs (containing the stories "The Visitation" and "The Hand of Fear"). I also got a set of the three RoboCop films and a movie called 11:14, which to be honest I just got because it had Rachael Leigh Cook in it.

Easter Specials

I got to a total of 42 pages of the Script Frenzy script yesterday.

Last night I listened to a good episode of The Twilight Zone radio series called "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" about a future world where everyone is forced to have plastic surgery on their nineteenth birthday so they all look exactly the same. It was a pretty disturbing story that worked really well on the radio.

Following that I watched the Doctor Who Easter special. Instead of having a full length season this year, they are having four special episodes broadcast throught the year. It was a really enjoyable episode.

Later on I saw the second part of the new three part Red Dwarf special, which I thought was very funny. The problem is, because it's now being shown on a commercial cable channel, the new episodes are ten minutes shorter than they were on the BBC due to the advert breaks.

I went along to my parent's house this afternoon for lunch. We had roast chicken, roast potatoes, stuffing and peas, followed by marshmallows and melted chocolate. The afternoon was pretty quiet.

Scream and Scream Again

I managed to get to the top of page 38 on the Script Frenzy script yesterday, so it is going pretty well. Sometimes it does go really well, but there are days when it feels like trying to complete a complex jigsaw puzzle with no picture and no pieces.

Last night I watched a new episode of Red Dwarf. Red Dwarf was a British science-fiction sitcom set on a spaceship in deep space which ran for eight seasons between 1988 and 1999. It was cancelled and is returning, for the first time in ten years, as a three part Easter special. I watched the show regularly when it was on, and I really liked it a lot. It was fun to see it again, and it was good to see that they had gone back to basics with the show. It also brought back a lot of memories of watching it during it's original run, when I was twelve and thirteen and permitted to stay up later on Thursday nights to watch the show.

Later on I watched a 1970 film called Scream and Scream Again. It was a truly bizarre film in which the police are investigating a vampire serial killer (who looks a lot like a demented David Bowie) who may or may not have something to do with a sinister doctor (played by Vincent Price) who is conducting strange experiments at the behest of a group of fascists (led by Peter Cushing). Thrown into the mix is a spy (played by Christopher Lee as a cross between James Bond and Dracula) and a man in hospital who wakes up every morning to discover yet another limb is mysteriously missing. It's a blend of horror, science-fiction, police procedural and spy thriller. It's almost as if the film-makers decided to throw in anything they could think of that was quite popular at the time, including the band Amen Corner who turn up at one point to play a couple of songs. If the film made any kind of sense at all, it might have been quite good. In the end it doesn't and it isn't. However it does feature a good car chase, and a hilariously over the top performance from Vincent Price.

Late at night I did watch a genuinely good horror film, Night of the Demon, directed by Jacques Tourneur, and based on the short story "Casting the Runes" by MR James. The story involves an American academic (Dana Andrews) who has made a living debunking paranormal phenomena. He is due to present a paper at a conference exposing the activities of sinister occultist Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). However Karswell secretly gives him a scrap of paper with Runic symbols written on it, which basically means that in three days time he will be made off with by a giant firey horned demon. Tourneur originally didn't want to show the demon at all, and leave the film more ambiguous, but the film's producer took the movie away from him and included footage of the monster in all it's rubbery, puppet glory in the first scenes of the film, as well as in the climax. However the film remains a classic despite this due to Tourneur's talent as a director and a clever script. The movie manages to be scary without including any blood or gore, because Tourneur was very skilled at using the interplay between light and shadows, often making it feel as if the real threat was looming over the characters in the deep shadows or just outside the frame. The original story is brilliant as well. Apparently a props man working on the film was asked to supply a set of Runic symbols. He came back the next day holding a couple of orchestral cymbals and said "I couldn't find any Runic. Will brass do?"

Today I went out and got some groceries for the coming week. Also it is quiet around here today, which makes a change. I was woken up early yesterday by the people living upstairs doing DIY, and I could hear the hammering throughout most of the day. They seem to not be doing it today, but my kitchen still reeks of paint. They are the same people who are in the habit of blasting out the Rolling Stones at about 1000 decibels at eight o'clock on Sunday mornings when I am trying to sleep! Another thing that annoys me is the people next door throwing parties every weekend and having sex very loudly, which I can hear very clearly through the wall (although that only lasts a few seconds so it's not too bad). I don't complain, I just try and ignore it, but I do feel like I've skipped forward twenty years and become like a grouchy, reclusive old man.

A Couple of Books

Despite getting back very late last night I managed to write a page of Script Frenzy. it's below my usual target, but I have a long weekend, so I should be able to catch up. I'm still ahead of their recommended page count for this stage anyway.

I went out today to the city centre and got some books. I got a book called The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19 edited by Stephen Jones, it's like an annual review of the horror genre along with some of the best short stories published that year - this volume contains new stuff from Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill among others. I also got a book called Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, one of the creators of the TV series The Wire. The book is a non-fiction account of a year Simon spent with the Homicide Department of the Baltimore Police.

I'll be doing some more of my script, and also watching a new episode of Red Dwarf, the first new one for ten years. It really doesn't seem as long as that, actually.

Medieval Mind

I've been watching a season of shows on BBC Four called "The Medieval Mind" about the world of the Middle Ages. It's been pretty interesting. I've always liked history. Although as the name suggests it's more concerned with the psychology and beliefs of people living at that time rather than just the history of the Middle Ages.

I watched some of the special features on my Red Dwarf season one DVD. One of the more interesting features was the Japanese version of the pilot episode. It was like a heavily edited, re-mastered version of the episode dubbed into Japanese, with captions popping up at various intervals. It was quite funny actually, seeing the familiar characters speaking in completely different voices, in a completely different language.

It was another fairly average day at work again. It will be the weekend soon, at least.

Torchwood

I was watching the latest episode of Torchwood last night. I think that this season has been better than the first one, and certainly this episode was really enjoyable.

Work was pretty much the same as usual. I ended up staying much longer than I had intended too, with the result that I was late to my evening class (although the bright side is that I have built up a lot of time at work recently which means that tomorrow I should be able to leave a bit early).

The class was good this week. We were mostly concentrating on dialogue. The course finishes next week. If things had been running to schedule this would have been the last class in the course, but the tutor had to cancel a class because she was ill, and so they added on an extra week at the end. It's a pity really because it's been a really good class.

After the class had finished I went and had my usual cup of mocha coffee at Beanscene, where I read some of the book that I had brought with me. The book was The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath by Ronald Hayman. I have read it before and I really liked it. I hadn'r much to eat during the day so i was really hungry on my way home. I bought a fish supper, which was quite nice, but it was filling, at least.

I'm watching a 1991 episode of Red Dwarf called "Dimension Jump", in which a complete loser meets his counterpart from another dimension who, to his horror, is a smart, heroic, popular test-pilot. The idea is that there are an infinite number of parallel universe in which every alternative is played out. It's an interesting idea actually.

On the way home I came up with a little riddle:
I am the seed of all life
I am the source
of all strife.

There is no lock
There is no key
That you can use
To open me.

I am strong
But have no bone
I am just a rolling stone

What am I?

Evening Class

On my way into work today I bought a roast chicken and salad sandwich and today's copy of The Independent for today's Great Poets booklet which was about Alexander Pope (or should have been but for some reason my copy of the paper didn't have the booklet in it, which was annoying). I also bought a copy of The Guardian because that was also featuring a free booklet, this time on Great Poets of the 20th Century (today's booklet was about WH Auden).

Work was pretty much the same as usual. After work I went along to my evening class. We were reading our attempts at so-called "flash fiction" from last week (flash fiction is a story written in under 150 words), as well as our longer pieces. Apparently a couple of people didn't like my story because it was deemed as being "too scary". I didn't get to have the individual tuition tonight because the class overran. However the tutor said that she would e-mail her comments.

After the class I went to the Beanscene coffee shop to get a mocha before heading back. Today was also Michele's birthday, so I sent her a text message to wish her happy birthday, even though I've not seen her for ages. As I was walking home, I saw this large brown rat run across the pavement and cross at the lights, almost frightening the life out of some poor girl on a bike.

Back home I've been watching a repeat of Red Dwarf, it was one of my personal favourite episodes, where they hit on a plan to increase the intelligence of the ship's computer at the cost of drastically reducing her lifespan. However there is a miscalculation and the computer's intelligence is increased to an IQ of 12000 but her lifespan is reduced to under four minutes, and so she switchs herself off. The crew have to survive on a spaceship with no power, and an outer space phenomena starts causing time to go haywire. It was a pretty funny episode.

Red Dwarf

Last night I was watching a few episodes from my Red Dwarf DVD set that I got on Sunday. The show changed a lot as it went along, and the special effects and production values improved. The episodes were still very funny though.

It was a very long day at work today, but I've got quite an eventful weekend planned, and I was also planning to go along to the University on Saturday to book myself on one of the evening classes to learn screenwriting, because they start next week.

Superbad

Yesterday took a turn for the unexpected. I had been planning on a nice quiet evening after Friday's adventures when I got a phone call from my friend Alan, who was really upset because he had just split up with his girlfriend that afternoon, and he wanted someone to come out with him. So I went up and met him at McCowans bar where we had a couple of pints of beer and then we went to the Cineworld cinema next door to see Superbad, which was quite a funny film. Then we went our seperate ways.



Today was fairly quiet. It's my friend Joe's birthday on Saturday and so I went out to get him a birthday present (I bought him a film called Man Bites Dog on DVD). I bought myself a couple of cheap DVDs in the sales: Red Dwarf season one and Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks.



I'm off work tomorrow so that should be fun!

Yesterday took a turn for the unexpected. I had been planning on a nice quiet evening after Friday's adventures when I got a phone call from my friend Alan, who was really upset because he had just split up with his girlfriend that afternoon, and he wanted someone to come out with him. So I went up and met him at McCowans bar where we had a couple of pints of beer and then we went to the Cineworld cinema next door to see Superbad, which was quite a funny film. Then we went our seperate ways.

Today was fairly quiet. It's my friend Joe's birthday on Saturday and so I went out to get him a birthday present (I bought him a film called Man Bites Dog on DVD). I bought myself a couple of cheap DVDs in the sales: Red Dwarf season one and Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks.

I'm off work tomorrow so that should be fun!