Wrapping Presents

Last night I was watching the first part of the Red Riding trilogy on TV. They are a series of made for TV films based on the crime novels by David Peace. The first episode was based on the novel 1974 and starred Andrew Garfield as a young journalist who is drawn into a web of violence and police corruption when a child goes missing. It also starred Sean Bean, Warren Clarke and Rebecca Hall. It's good but unrelentingly grim and depressing. Not as depressing as the book, though.

Today I went out to the post office to pay a bill and get some more stamps and on the way home I got a sandwich, some sugar and the latest issue of Total Film magazine. This afternoon I spent my time wrapping Christmas presents.

It's my birthday tomorrow and so I probably won't be on much over the next few days because I will be very busy. It should all be good though, hopefully.

If I don't update befire then, Happy Christmas to anyone who is celebrating it.

The Green Monster

Last night was pretty quiet. I spent quite a lot of time writing and read a story called "The Green Monster" by Haruki Murakami from the book The Elephant Vanishes. The story is about a woman who is surprised when a small green mind-reading monster comes out of the ground in her backyard and declares that it loves her. It was a good story and pretty strange.

It was another really dull and annoying day at work today. On the way home I bought the latest issues of Total Film and Empire magazines.

Pygmy

Last night I finished reading the novel Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk. The novel is told in the form of reports written by an unnamed agent (who, due to his short stature, is nicknamed "Pygmy") who arrives in the USA from an unnamed totalitarian state posing as a high school exchange student. Taken in by an American family Pygmy is introduced to various aspects of American life which he views with total contempt, intermingled with flashbacks to his earlier life and training for his mission. It turns out that Pygmy and his fellow agents are planning a horrific attack upon America. This book, Palahniuk's tenth novel, is told in a dialect similar to what is known as "Engrish" (a kind of English originating in Japan and other East Asian countries). As usual with Palahniuk the book is kind of a satire of modern life and is very violent, rude and also extremely funny. It also has a level of heart that is quite unusual for Palahniuk.

Also, since I am determined to be successful I started writing a script for a TV show.

It was another very quiet and not particularly eventful day at work again. I am really looking forward to the weekend. On my way home I bought an issue of Total Film magazine which this month featured a list of 27 "mind-blowing" movies (2001: A Space Odyssey was number one), a big article about Inception, and a look at the life and work of Philip K. Dick (which was kind of a surprising coincidence for me because I'd been reading so much of his stuff over the past couple of weeks).

6,500 Years Earlier

Last night was pretty quiet. I watched a couple of episodes of South Park on TV and I started reading The Children of Hurin by JRR Tolkien. I read the first hundred pages of it, and so far it seems pretty good, and certainly very different to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The books are all set in the same fantasy world but Children of Hurin is set about 6,500 years before the other books, and is quite surprisingly dark and violent.

I was back at work today, and mostly it was pretty quiet and dull except for the constant moaning from some of the people. I listened to some episodes of That Mitchell and Webb Sound on my iPod. That Mitchell and Webb Sound is a comedy sketch show and a lot of it is very funny. I left work at around ten past five. On my way home I bought the latest issue of Total Film magazine, which this month was about the previews of the upcoming summer movies.

Another Week Closes

Last night was pretty quiet and fairly uneventful. I was watching an episode of True Blood on DVD and that was fun. I recently got a set of three of the books by Charlaine Harris which inspired the series, although I've not started reading them yet.

On my way into work this morning I stopped off and got the latest issue of Total Film magazine. It was really pretty good, mostly previewing the new movies that are due for release in the coming year. It was a very quiet and pretty dull day at work and I am really glad that it is the weekend now.

I've recently been reading the book Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin, which is a pretty good book so far about vampires in 19th century Louisiana.

Finished Shopping

Yesterday evening was very quiet and really cold. This morning I went out to the shops to finish off the Christmas shopping. I got my brother a book about walking holidays in the Lake District, which was what he asked for. I was also told to buy a book on King Charles Spaniels for his girlfriend, but I couldn't find any books about them and so I bought a book on general dog training, which according to the cover is suitable for all breeds, so that should suffice. For myself I bought a book called Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin. The shops were absolutely packed today, which is natural enough considering it's only a week until Christmas. I usually like getting my shopping done a few weeks before, but it is done now anyway.

On my way home I stopped off at the supermarket to get some groceries and the latest copy of Total Film magazine. On my way back there was a very sudden, very heavy, but also very brief snow shower which was a real surprise.

Friday the 13th Part III

Last night I was watching the fifth part of Lipstick on Your Collar. After that I was watching the 1981 film Friday the 13th Part III, directed by Steve Miner. Escaping after the conclusion of the second film, serial killer Jason Voorhees (Raymond Brooker) soon sets out on another killing spree. This time around his main targets are a group of teenagers sending a weekend at an isolated farm. Mostly it's exactly the same as all the other films in the series as Jason hacks, slashes, stabs, and crushes his way through the fairly anonymous teens. It's probably most remembered now for being the film in which Jason acquires his trademark hockey mask for the first time. It was made in 3-D, which accounts for the amount of objects being thrust or thrown at the camera. The version I saw was in 3-D. It was being shown as part of a special 3-D season that is on all week. It was actually kind of fun in 3-D.

Today was really quiet. It was pouring with rain and so I only went out to get my groceries for the week, and the latest issue of Total Film magazine. When I got home I cleaned up in the kitchen a bit and watched the second part of The Singing Detective on DVD.

The Looking-Glass War

Last night I was listening to a documentary on the radio called Archive on 4: Self on Ballard, in which novelist Will Self talked about the life and work of his friend and fellow author J.G. Ballard who died in April this year. Ballard started out by writing science-fiction novels that dealt mainly with the psychological effects of futuristic technology before moving on to grim and controversial works such as High-Rise and Crash, which was turned into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg. He had his biggest success in the 1980s though with his semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, which was turned into a film by Steven Spielberg. I've read quite a few of the J.G. Ballard novels so it was an interesting show.

I also read the final story in the Just After Sunset collection by Stephen King. This final story was a pretty long one called "A Very Tight Place", and told the pretty gross story of a man trapped in a portable toilet by a maniac.

Today I went along to the corner shop and bought some milk and some sugar. I also got the latest issue of Total Film magazine. The main feature this month was the 100 movie-related things and people that are likely to be popular over the next year (including video-game adaptations, horror movie remakes, social-networking and Ellen Page).

When I got back home I listened to the second and final part of the radio adaptation of The Looking-Glass War based on the 1965 John le Carre novel. The story revolves around a small and forgotten section of the British Secret Service called "The Deaprtment" which sees a chance to enhance it's status by infiltrating an agent into East Germany, when it comes across weak evidence that Soviet missiles are being placed near the West German border. It was pretty good, and complex, with a very bleak conclusion.

After that I went and started cleaning my bedroom. It has been a really exciting day.

Twin Peaks

Last night I watched an epsiode of the old Twin Peaks TV show on DVD. I've got a box set of the first seven episodes plus the feature length pilot episode. I hope they bring out the rest of the show sometime. The show ran from 1990 to 1991 and is set in the small town of Twin Peaks just on the Canadian border, which is thrown into turmoil when the body of local prom queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) is discovered wrapped in plastic in a river. An eccentric FBI agent, Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) is called in to solve the crime. As he digs deeper into the lives of the townspeople, Cooper soon discovers the dark secrets that hide behind the town's pleasant facade. At the time it was really kind of a new thing, and it became a massive hit. Before long it was followed by shows such as Wild Palms, Northern Exposure, The X-Files and American Gothic.

On my way into work I got a copy of Total Film magazine. It came with a free copy of the book GoodFellas by Nicholas Pileggi, which was adapted into the classic movie by Martin Scorsese. I have read it before about thirteen years ago.

It was another really dull day at work. One good thing was that I did manage to get a ticket to see Richard Price and Clockers next month. Also my headache is better now.

Silent Office

Last night I was writing some more of my story. I was also watching repeats of comedy shows on TV and the first hour or so of a re-make of Night of the Living Dead, which I wasn't really getting into so I didn't watch the whole movie.

I got up later than I had planned and headed off to work. I've put in to take Friday off because that's when the booking opens for the Edinburgh Film Festival in June, and the popular movies and events sell out really quickly, so I like to be on-line and ready as soon as the box office opens. All the bosses in the office were off work so I wasn't able to get it signed off today, but hopefully it'll get signed off tomorrow. They are having one of their regular panics about too many people taking Fridays and Mondays off, so if I can't get that day off I'll just have to think of something else. It was a Bank Holiday today and so the whole office was almost deserted. There wasn't really much work in today, and so it was pretty quiet. I was listening to Neil Gaiman reading his book of short stories Fragile Things on my iPod.

I got out of work pretty late, because I got in late and on the way home I stopped off and got some milk and the latest issue of Total Film magazine. The main stories this month were a large feature about the up-coming Terminator film and a very large feature about the history and increasing popularity of 3D movies. When I got in I had some microwaved spaghetti bolognese and a glass of apple juice. This evening I'll be writing more of my story and watching the first episode of the second season of The Wire, which is on TV tonight.

Watching the Bags

Before I went out last night I managed to get to page thirteen of my Script Frenzy screenplay. I went out at about four and got home at around half past midnight. There were quite a few people out and it was mostly pretty good. One thing that did annoy me though, was that I was the only one there who didn't smoke, and so while they were out having a cigarette I was stuck looking after the bags and coats!

Today has been fairly quiet so far. I went out and got my groceries for the coming week. The supermarket had been completely renovated during the week and is looking a lot better now. While I was there I got the latest issue of Total Film magazine. It was advertising a free 3D preview screening of the film Coraline, but when I went to get a ticket it turned out the screening was already full.

The Pit and the Pendulum

Last night I was listening to a radio play called The Strange Case of Edgar Allan Poe, which blended fact and fiction by having Poe's fictional detective Auguste Dupin investigating the circumstances of the author's death. The play dramatises scenes from Poe's life interspersed with performances of his works. The play is very atmospheric and pretty interesting for fans of Poe, especially people who know about his life. It was followed by readings of two of his stories The Pit and the Pendulum (about a man awaiting a gruesome death in the dungeons of the Inquisition) and The Tell-Tale Heart (about a murderer who slowly goes insane). The reason for all the stuff about Edgar Allan Poe is because today marks two hundred years since his birth.

I was still working in my original department at work. It was okay, but kind of slow. Apparently, due to the fact there isn't much work at all in the buildign they are moving people into different departments. I might, or might not, be being moved to the customer service department in a different building. The good thing about that would be that it is still easy to get to but should be unaffected by the up-coming move thing. A bad point however, is that I tend to get very shy talking to people so it might be difficult for me, although I'd probably get used to it. Besides, I don't know if it is going to happen or not. We'll have to see. On my way home I bought the latest issue of Total Film magazine. The main feature this month was on the up-coming film of Watchmen. I loved the original graphic novel, but I am kind of worried that the movie will ruin it. We'll have to see though.

Back to Work

Last night I took down my Christmas decorations and put them away for another year.

Today was my first day back at work after the holidays. It wasn't really a bad day, just very average. It felt almost as if I'd never been away. The worst thing about coming back from the holidays is there isn't really anything to look forward to for months. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out some way to make this year better than the last few.

On my way home I bought some clingfilm to wrap my sandwiches in for work and the latest issue of Total Film magazine which this month were running a special edition to celebrate their 150th issue.

Time at Work

Last night I was watching a show where various TV comedians reminisced about their school days. It was pretty funny.

This morning I went out early and picked up the latest copy of Total Film magazine. The main story this month was a profile of the new Frank Miller adaptation The Spirit, along with a countdown of the 150 greatest movie performances, an article on screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and an interview with Clint Eastwood. It also came with a 2009 calendar featuring iconic movie posters. I got into work for half past eight, which is an hour earlier than usual. The upshot was I got to leave an hour earlier. We have flexitime at work and the way it basically works is that the office opens at seven and closes at nine and we can more or less come in and leave whenever we like during those hours. However, when you start you get a time credit of zero and if you work late you have time automatically added to the credit and if you leave early you lose time from your credit. We're allowed to be no more than fourteen hours above the basic level at any one time and no more than fourteen hours under the basic level. If you work the basic eight hours for the day with a half hour lunch, then you don't make or lose any time. There are other elements to it, for example at a certain point every month you can be bo more than seven hours below the time limit. I'm hoping to make a couple of hours over the next week so I can leave early next Friday, seing as it's my last work day before my two week holiday. If I go on the way that I have been for the past couple of days I should easily make a couple of hours for next Friday. Also I am having a half day on annual leave on Wednesday anyway because I'm going out for lunch.

I got home at around five today and had a microwave spaghetti carbonara meal. It's the weekend now and at some point I'll be putting up my Christmas decorations.

The Meeting

Last night was fairly quiet again. I was watching a couple of the comedy shows on TV, along with some of the deleted scenes and commentaries on The Office DVD set. The commentaries were fun, and the deleted scenes were really good. I assume they must have been cut for timing reasons rather than anything else, because a lot of the stuff was as good as the stuff that made it into the episodes.

It was a quiet day at work again today. I had the meeting about the office video news thing this morning. It was held in the main boardroom, which I had never been in before. It was on the top floor of the building with a great view, with a large widescreen plasma TV screen and very comfortable leather seats. The plan for the news thing was that they were installing plasma screen TV sets throughout the company and they were going to be making weekly news bulletins about office events and business news to be shown on the TV sets. We were, apparently, brought in to gather news from our particular sections that would be put into the show. It sounded like it might be quite fun, but I really want to actually present the thing, when I got back to the office I e-mailed them to say that I would like to present the thing, and also I could be involved in filming, editing and scripting the thing. It's just a kind of office thing but I am interested in film-making and it would be good experience. Also it would be something for my resume and would look good at the next performance review (God knows, it needs it).

The rest of the day was pretty quiet, as it always is on a Friday. From my window I could see people in the outdoor smoking area of the pub next to my office, although not for long because it started to rain really heavily, and continued, off and on, throughout the afternoon.

I picked up the latest copy of Radio Times, for next week's TV listings, and the latets issue of Total Film, which had a brief story about Chuck Palahniuk due to the release of the film Choke, based on one of his novels. I've heard some bad things about the movie, but the book was very good, and I really like Palahniuk, so I'll probably check it out anyway.

Books and TV

Last night I was watching Russell Brand Live, basically it was Russell Brand performing his stand-up comedy. I'd never seen any of his stand-up stuff before and, although his style took a bit of getting used to, I thought it was very funny. Later on I was watching a repeat of the final episode of the first season of Life on Mars, in which Sam Tyler (John Simm) comes to believe that he may have be getting close to escaping his 1973 dreamworld and waking up in 2006, when an investigation into a vicious crime gang leads Sam to his own father and some disturbing secrets. It was a really entertaining show. I don't know if they'll be repeating the second season, but I hope that they do. I'll probably try to get it on DVD at some point anyway.

Today I went out to the shops and bought some books in the sales: Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker (the back of the book claims that it marks Barker's return to the "classic horror tale" and the plot of the book, apparently being the autobiography of a demon trapped inside a cursed book, sounds interesting), Duma Key by Stephen King (Stephen King's later books don't seem to be as good as his earlier ones, but I've been reading his stuff for a long time now so hopefully he'll get back to form) and Miracles of Life: An Autobiography by JG Ballard.


It's hard to believe it has been fourteen years since I first started reading Stephen King. I got interested in his work after I saw It (the one with the scary clown) on TV, and the first book of his I read was The Tommyknockers. I got interested in Clive Barker when I read Cabal at age twelve, while I was off school with a broken leg. I've met Clive Barker a couple of times at book signings and he's always come across as a very likeable guy. I've been reading JG Ballard for awhile now as well. His autobiography is likely to be his final book.

It does seem odd when you think that even things that weren't much fun at the time always seem a lot better when you look back on them after a few years.

On my way home I stopped off and got my groceries for the week. I also got the latest issue of Total Film magazine, which came with a free mouse-mat featuring Quantum of Solace, the latest James Bond film.

Quotations

It was another fairly quiet day at work again today. I left at around half past five and bought the latest copy of Total Film magazine on my way home. The main features were about the new James Bond film.

It was funny because last night I was looking at some of the old Doctor Who books that I had rescued on Sunday and I couldn't quite believe that it's been twenty years since I bought some of them. It's weird because some of the things I can remember really vividly. I was feeling in an odd mood when I got home and so I was having a look at quotations on the internet, which does sometimes cheer me up when I'm feeling depressed. Here are a few:

"What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your present circumstances seems more likely, consider yourself lucky that it won't be troubling you much longer."
-The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

"We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."-Charles Bukowski

"...nothing is desperately important and the joy of life is just looking at it."
-Alec Guinness

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
-John Lennon

" The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art."
-Chuck Palahniuk

"What's success? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."
-Bob Dylan

Magazines

Today was yet another fairly uneventful day. On my way in to work I bought the latest issues of Radio Times and Total Film, which featured a double-sided poster advertising The Dark Knight and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Work was really quit today, as it almost always is on a Friday, and, as usual, by afternoon there was barely anyone around. I had a sore throat all day as well. I got back home at around half past five.

The Apprentice

Last night was fairly quiet. I was watching the latest episode of The Apprentice on TV. I just think that shows extremely funny. The contestants in it are all so full of themselves it can be really entertaining to see them getting shouted at at the end of each episode.

Today was pretty much the same as usual at work. It was all pretty quiet. Although they are updating the systems tomorrow afternoon, so with any luck we might get to leave early. On my way home I stopped off and bought some milk and the latest issues of Radio Times and Total Film magazines.

She's All That

Last night I was watching the film The Aviator, a 2004 film directed by Martin Scorsese, about the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). In the film Howard Hughes, who made his money from his family's tool manufacturing company, travels to Hollywood in the 1920s, where he indulges his principal interests of movies, aviation and women. His main interest becomes designing, building and piloting revolutionary test flights, and performing daring aviation feats, as well as his romances with some of the most glamorous women of the age, including Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani), Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). However, before long his personal eccentricities, such as his obsession with cleanliness, and extreme perfectionism, start to take their toll. The film covers Hughes' life from the 1920s to the 1940s, before his notorious final years, which were reportedly spent sealed up in a Las Vegas penthouse. The film is always entertaining, using pretty much every cinematic technique under the sun, including altering the film stock to indicate the changing time periods. Despite being nearly three hours long, the film is very fast paced.

I was also watching She's All That, a 1999 film directed by Robert Iscove. It's a comedy set around a Los Angeles High School. When the senior class president and Most Popular Guy in School (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is dumped by his girlfriend during Spring Break, he makes a bet with his friends that he can turn any girl in the school into the Prom Queen. His selected target is an unpopular art student (Rachael Leigh Cook). It's a fun film that I have seen a few times before, mainly because I do have a bit of a crush on Rachael Leigh Cook.

I also was listening to the first episode of an eight part reading of the book The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson on the radio, which was good. I've not read the book, but I have seen the first of the films that was based on it, and that was really good.

It was a very quiet day at work today. There was hardly anyone in the office at all. Mostly it was as dull as ever. I stopped off on my way home and bought a bottle of Coke and a copy of Total Film magazine, which included a feature of "The Top Twenty Maddest Directors". The top ten were:
1. Werner Herzog
2. Stanley Kubrick
3. William Friedkin
4. Francis Ford Coppola
5. Tim Burton
6. Ken Russell
7. David Lynch
8. Roman Polanski
9. Terry Gilliam
10. David O. Russell