Still Hanging Around

Last night was really quiet again, and I spent the time watching TV and reading my books.

My cold is still around but it is getting a lot better now. I had a fairly dull day at work, but tomorrow should be pretty eventful. I'm planning on getting into work for 7AM and doing a six hour day. Then I'm planning on going up to the comic book store and in the evening I'm going to the Vampire/Zombie/Horror group, which should be interesting.

Clearing Up

Last night was pretty quiet. I spent most of my time watching TV and reading my books. I was feeling pretty tired and dropped off on the couch a couple of times.

Today was another fairly dull day at work. My cold is still around, but it does seem to be starting to clear up now, which is good. I just really hope that it all clears up by Friday.

Youth in Revolt

Last night I was watching the 2009 movie Youth in Revolt, directed by Miguel Artega. The movie stars Michael Cera as a quiet, likeable, Californian nerd who is completely unsucessful with women, until he creates an alternate "bad-boy" persona for himself to win over the girl of his dreams (Portia Doubleday). At first I found it irritatingly quirky, but after a while I actually got won over by the movie and ended up enjoying it. I thought it was fun. It's very much a typical Michael Cera film in many ways. The movie is reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

My cold is still hanging in there. I hope it's gone by Friday. Otherwise, it was another fairly quiet and dull day at work. I left at about quarter past six this evening.

Trying to Get Over the Cold

I watched a bit of the Superbowl last night, not much because it was on very late at night over here, and I pretty much switched over during the half-time show. What I saw of it, it looked like a good game.

Today I still had the cold, but it wasn't as bad as it had been. I've been taking paracetamol tablets and also these really disgusting throat pastilles.

It was another fairly dull and ordinary day off work to start the week. One thing I''ll have to do this week is put in for my couple of weeks off next month. I've still got a couple of weeks of annual leave left and if I don't use it by the end of March then I won't be able to use it all.

Missing Issue

Last night was pretty quiet. I still had a really bad cold and pretty much slept for most of the time.

This morning I was feeling a bit better, although the cold still hasn't gone away. My Dad called around for me this morning and we went along to the Gyle shopping centre. We had some coffee and I had a cheese scone and a mocha coffee, then split up to look around on our own. I got a couple of books: Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

After that we went to my parent's house where the latest issues of Fortean Times and Sight and Sound. Actually the previous issue of Sight and Sound never came so I've e-mailed them to get them to send another copy.

Daybreakers

Last night I watched the 2009 movie Daybreakers, which starred Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill and was about a near future world where most of the population has become a vampire and the human race is practically extinct, forcing the vampires to come up with a solution before they lose their source of food. It wasn't bad and it had some pretty good action scenes in it.

I also watched They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, a 1969 Sydney Pollack film set in the 1930s about a dance marathon where dancers are forced to carry on for weeks in the hope of winning a cash prize. It was a pretty good movie and very intense. They are both reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

I have a really bad cold today, so the only time that I went out was to get my groceries for the week. In the afternoon I listened to a radio adaptation of The Big Sleep based on the Raymond Chandler novel.

The Corner

Last night I was listening to the second part of the radio adaptation of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, based on the novel by John le Carre. It was pretty good, and very faithful to the original book. I also finished reading The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighbourhood by David Simon and Ed Burns. It's a non-fiction book detailing a year that the authors spent following the lives of the residents of a tough inner-city area in Baltimore, in particular around a street corner which is one of may that are used as pretty much twenty four hour, open air drug markets. A large part of the book deals with a broken family of two drug-addicted adults and their fifteen year old son. The book also discusses the nature of drug addiction and the history and effects of the American drug trade and the resulting legislation in an inner-city area. It is a very good book, and very powerful. It was adapted into a six part miniseries for HBO, and Burns and Simon subsequently went on to create the TV series The Wire, which also deals with drugs in Baltimore.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch. The latest issue of Fortean Times had arrived, this month's main story was about an alleged UFO crash in Wales in 1974. Our lunch today was salmon, with peas and boiled potatoes followed with some more of my Mum's homemade raspberry ice-cream. Later on I listened to the third and final part of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

The cold is a lot better now, which is good! I just really hope that this coming week is better than the last week has been.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Last night I watched most of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, directed by David Lynch. The movie was released in 1992 and was based on the Twin Peaks TV series. The show revolved around the investigation into the murder of high school student Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee) in the small American town of Twin Peaks. The movie version is a prequel to the series, which opens with an FBI investigation into a similar murder a year previously and then goes on to depict the last seven days of Laura Plamer's life. The series was a kind of blend of murder mystery, soap opera, supernatural horror, surrealism and comedy with genuine warmth. The movie, however, pretty much takes everything that was dark, twisted and just plain weird from the show and makes it central, including making plain many of the darker subtexts of the show. It was a huge commercial failure pretty much everywhere, except for Japan where it was a huge hit. I've seen it many time before. I first saw it back in 1996 before I had seen any of the series, and so I didn't really understand the movie - although the movie is pretty obscure even for people who have seen the series. I've always liked it because it is scary, weird and genuinely moving at times. Watching it again brought back a lot of old memories from that time. I remember seeing David Lynch give a talk a couple of years ago, and he was asked if there was ever going to be any more Twin Peaks and Lynch replied that as far as he was concerned Twin Peaks was over, and he was finished with it.

On a side note, I really think that Twin Peaks had the best opening theme music of any TV series ever.

It was a really dull day at work again today. My cold is much better now, but it's still lingering slightly, so I didn't really have the patience for it all today, as I haven't really all week. However it should, hopefully, be all over with by the weekend.

I'm also still working on planning everything for the Canada move. I really hope that everything works out well with it all.

Starting to Get Better

Last night was really pretty miserable due to the cold. I barely slept at all. I've taken a few paracetamol tablets and that seems to have helped, as did a few extra strong mints. The cold is still around but it doesn't seem to be quite as strong as it was. It's still really annoying though. I think I might have a bit of hayfever, because I do seem to get colds every summer.

Today was another really quiet day at work, and it was pretty dull. I've got a dentist appointment tomorrow morning. It's my six month check-up, so hopefully it shouldn't take too long.

I also need to get back to my writing, because I've not really done much in the past couple of weeks.

Summer Cold

Last night was really quiet. I spent more time reading and listened to the first part of a three part reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving on the radio. It's a very famous story about a teacher who is pursued by a Headless Horseman. It was made into a film called Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton.

I was back at work today, and it was pretty quiet, as usual. I've got a cold at the moment. I seem to get one every summer. Hopefully it will pass soon.