The Human Centipede

Last night I was watching an episode of Spaced on TV, which I really enjoyed. Later on I watched a frankly bizarre 2010 Dutch horror movie on TV called The Human Centipede (First Sequence), directed by Tom Six. It's basically about two American tourists in Germany who find themselves at the house of a demented surgeon who plans to surgically attach three people together to form a "human centipede". Despite the horrific premise, it really isn't a particularly gruesome movie. Pretty much all of the horror is in the concept and the resulting creation, and it all loses it's impact long before the movie is over. Although there are some pretty good suspenseful and scary scenes. It's reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

I got to bed at about half past five last night and was awake at eleven this morning. The gas bill came today, and it was a lot, so that was pretty annoying. I went along to get my groceries for the coming week, which were four microwave ready meals, some bread, some potato chips, some flavoured milk, some chocolate and a bottle of wine, along with a TV listings magazine.

Back home I had some lunch and watched a couple of episode of The Big Bang Theory.

Comics and Bills

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching repeats of comedy shows on TV and doing a bit of reading.

I was up at half past five in the morning today and got into work at five to seven. It was a pretty quiet day although there weren't many people in and most people seemed slightly hyper due to the fact that it was Friday. We had some blueberry muffins brought in which were really nice and there was a baguette run. I had a panini with roast beef, English mustard, brie, savoury cheese, jalapeno peppers and onions. It was a really nice sandwich.

I left work at one today and went up to the comic-book store, where I got a pretty big haul this week: Hellblazer issue 276, Night of the Living Dead issue 3, Memoir issue 2, Fables issue 102, Daredevil Reborn issue 2, Superman and Batman issue 81, Wolverine issue 5.1, Wolverine issue 1000, X-Men: Legacy issue 244, The Suicide Forest issue 3, Let Me In: Crossroads issue 3, DMZ issue 62 and Batman issue 707. So, yeah, it looks like a good set.

There was an electricity bill waiting for me when I got home, which was slightly more than I had been expecting, but not by too much. Bills always seem to come at the wrong time, but then there isn't really a right time for bills.

This evening I'm off to see Carrie at the movies with the Horror Group, so that should be fun. This is only the second time I've been out with them, but so far it has been really good.

I've been thinking about my holdiay for this year. I had been thinking of taking few days in Amsterdam next month, but I haven't got round to booking it, and I'm not sure if I'm really all that hot to go. I've been to Amsterdam before and really liked it, but I feel like waiting and maybe doing something like I did last year when I was travelling around the US and Canada, but going to different places. Anyway, if everything works out I shoud be doing a lot of travelling this year.

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.

Bills and Games

Last night I was watching an episode of Hammer House of Horror in which a journalist is sent undercover to a kind of weight loss camp where the residents (which include a young Warren Clarke) have an unfortunate habit of dying off. It features a pretty good twist at the end.

Today I got my gas bill in the mail. It was pretty expensive, but I guess fairly average for this time of year - it's been a cold winter and so I've had to have my heating on quite a bit. Usually in the spring and summer months it's pretty low, so I guess it evens out.

Today I went out to the shops, and bought a couple of video games for the PlayStation 3 - namely Tomb Raider: Underworld and Dead Space. They were both pre-owned so they didn't cost too much. It's been a long week at work, so it'll be great to play those games over the weekend. I got some groceries on my way home.

It's Mother's Day tomorrow so I've got a card and some chocolate for her. I was also going to write a special story for her and put it inside the card. I think that would be kind of fun for her.

Bills

I was back at work today, and still in the old office. It was a pretty quiet and dull day and I was really happy to get away. At least there are only two more weeks to go before my holiday!

When I got home today I saw the latest electricity bill was there waiting. Which was kind of annoying because it was a lot of money this time, but it's better to get it over with.

I just ordered a CD set of the second series of That Mitchell and Webb Sound, a radio comedy show. I'm planning on putting it onto my iPod, because I do like to listen to comedy on it, and it would be fun to have some fresh stuff to listen to on my holiday instead of just the same Mighty Boosh episodes I've listened to about a hundred times each at work (although they are still good).

Music at Work

Last night was fairly quiet. I spent quite a lot of time watching repeats of comedy shows on TV, notably The IT Crowd, which is always really funny.

Today was another quiet day at work. I was listening to my iPod for awhile (I heard a couple of Bob Dylan songs, an episode of The Mighty Boosh radio series, the soundtrack from Juno and some Mary Chapin Carpenter). The iPod was working without any problems today.

On my way home I stopped off and bought some milk and when I got back I found that someone had been to read the electricity meter, but hadn't been able to since I was out at work all day and so I had to give them a meter reading over the phone. So I'll have an electricity bill to look forward to in the next couple of months, and it is going to be expensive, because it always is during the winter, even at the best of times.

I made myself a microwaved spaghetti carbonara meal and a glass of apple juice. I am really looking forward to my holiday. I am planning on going away for a few days but I'm not entirely sure where yet though.

TV Comedy

It was a pretty quiet evening last night. I watched an episode of Mock the Week on TV. It's a popular comedy panel show that pokes fun at people and events in the news, and can be very funny. The episode I was watching was a repeat, though. I also watched a series of repeats of episodes of South Park, which was pretty funny.

I went along to work and it was a really quiet day again. Somebody had already started putting up Christmas decorations around their desk. My gas bill arrived in the mail today, it was kind of high because it has been freezing cold for the past few months.

DVDs

Last night I was watching a couple of episodes of Dawson's Creek which was entertaining. I have the second season on DVD, which was probably my favourite season of the show. After that I was watching an episode of Life on Mars. That was a really good show. Later on I was watching television and I must have fallen asleep on my couch, because next thing I knew it was five in the morning and I felt like I had wasted most of the night.

My gas bill came today, which luckily wasn't too high. I went out to the city centre and bought a few DVDs in the sales I got the fourth and fifth seasons of Peep Show (I have the whole series on DVD now and I think it's my favourite comedy TV series) and the film Juno (which I saw at the cinema and really liked). On the way home I stopped off to get my groceries for the week.

It's shaping up to be another fairly quiet weekend, but I've got the DVDs to watch, anyway.

The Fog Horn

Last night I was reading some more stories in the American Supernatural Tales book, including "The Fog Horn" by Ray Bradbury (which was probably most famous for inspiring the film The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms). The story concerns two men on a lighthouse, whih comes under attack by a prehistoric sea monster which mistakes the sound of the lighthouse's fog horn for the cry of another of it's species. The story treats the monster in a kind of sympathetic way, in that it's not inherently destructive just lonely and confused. Again it was more science-fiction than really supernatural. Another sea monster story in the book was "The Call of Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft, about a powerful and ancient creature living in a city beneath the sea.

My electricity bill came today. I was quite please to see that it was less than I had feared. I also went out to get groceries for the week.

I'm out to see Chuck Palahniuk this evening. I'll have to decide which books I want to bring along to get signed. Apparently he is going to be reading a story which he has written specially for this event.

More Christmas Shopping

Last night I was watching the film Christine, a 1983 film directed by John Carpenter and based on a novel by Stephen King. 'Christine' is actually a car (a 1958 Plymouth Fury) which is bought in 1978 by a nerdy teenager. Although the car is little more than a wreck when he buys it, he soon manages to get it fixed up as good as new, however the teenager soon starts to show drastic changes in his personality and the car itself seems to have a disturbing mind of it's own. By and large, the film is relatively faithful to the book and is pretty entertaining. It has to be said as well, that the car in the movie does look pretty cool, and I'm not really into cars.

I also watched Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, which is a fairly average slasher film in which masked psychopath Michael Myers returns to finish off his young neice who now seems to have a psychic link with her murderous uncle, who manges to still find time to hack and slash his way through the usual party-loving teens. The trouble with so many horror sequels is that after you've seen one you've more or less seen them all.

Today has been pretty quiet. I went out today to finish off some Christmas shopping. I bought the DVD of Dirty Dancing for Jackie, and the book of The Star's Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry for my mum. I also bought some cards. The streets were absolutely clogged today, to the point where, at one section of the street that had been narrowed by half due to scaffolding, there was just a solid mass of people who could barely move in any direction. Also it was absolutely pouring with rain so many people had umbrellas, which made things worse. I really hate crowds and so I was starting to feel quite stressed, but I managed to get what I wanted and that, I hope, is my shopping done for this year. On my way home I got my groceries for the week.

When I got back I found a letter addressed to me, containing an electricity bill for around £7, apparently for an unmetered TV amplifier (I don't have a TV amplifier, unmetered or otherwise) covering the dates 31 December 2004 (six months before I moved in here) until 31 December 2007 (which is still three weeks away) so I don't know what is going on with that.

Ordinary Day

Last night I watched a bunch of old episodes from The Twilight Zone: I saw "A Passage for Trumpet" about a suicidal jazz musician who is given a second chance at life, "Mr. Bevis" about a likeable eccentric who is fired from his office job, has his car wrecked and is evicted from his apartment all on the same day, and is given the chance to become successful but at the cost of losing all the goofiness from his personality, "The After Hours" quite a scary episode about a woman locked in a department store after closing time who is stalked by manniquins, "The Mighty Casey" about a failing baseball team helped by a robot pitcher and "A World of His Own" in which a playwright finds he can control reality with the help of his dictation machine, including Rod Serling's usual epilogue. It was kind of a mixed bag of episodes ranging from the genuinely frightening, to the likeably quirky, to extremely corny (which was a trap The Twilight Zone did fall into frequently).

It was a quiet day at work. My friends Joe, Alan and myself were trying to work out what each of us wanted for Christmas. I was very tired at work, actually, because I had practically no sleep last night. It was one of those nights when I just couldn't fall asleep for whatever reason, and lay awake for what felt like hours.

Back home I had an electricity bill waiting for me. It was quite high, but at least I managed to get a discount on it for prompt payment. I always make a point of paying bills as soon as possible, otherwise I would just forget.