Dracula

Late last night I was watching the 1931 film of Dracula, directed by Tod Browning. In the movie, a young solicitor named Renfield (Dwight Frye) travels to the remote Castle Dracula in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, where the mysterious Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) is planning to move to England. The movie does not stick closely at all to the original Bram Stoker novel, and it hasn't aged very well by modern standards, but it is still a classic. Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi ended up forever typecast as Dracula and his performance has been imitated and parodied countless times since, but the perfrmance is still a really powerful one.

Today I went along and did some shopping. I got the film Choke, based on the Chuck Palahniuk book, on DVD, and a video game called Batman: Arkham Asylum for the PlayStation 3. I'm going to chill out and relax this evening until NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

The Chaser

Last night I listened to an episode of the radio series of The Twilight Zone called "The Chaser". The episode told the story of a young man who is madly in love with a woman who is oblivious to him, until he buys a love potion which turns out to work far too well. It was a pretty funny story and very enjoyable. After that I listened to a story being read in a series called Classic Tales of Horror. This one was called "Man in the Bell" and was about a man who is trapped at the top of a church bell tower as the bell is rung.

Then I finished reading the graphic novel of The Sandman - Volume Seven: Brief Lives written by Neil Gaiman. The comic book series of The Sandman ran from 1989 until 1996, and tells the story of Morpheus, more commonly known as Dream, and also known as The Sandman, the Master of Dreams. He is one of the Endless, a family of immortal beings, who also include Death, Delirium, Desire, Destiny, Despair and Destruction. In Brief Lives, Dream joins his sister Delirium as she searches for their brother Destruction who abandoned the family 300 years previously. It is a great book, and I really thnk that The Sandman is probably the greatest comic book series ever made, and probably one of the best fantasy stories ever published.

After that I finished reading A Most Wanted Man by John le Carre. The book is set in Hamburg and concerns Tommy Brue, the wealthy owner of a failing British bank based in the city. One night he gets a call from a young lawyer, Annabel Richter, whose new client is an illegal immigrant from Chechenya, who has the key and details for the largest account in Tommy's bank. Tommy has to find out how the man came by the information and also why he is being trailed by three of the world's most powerful intelligence agencies. It is a pretty good book, and a fairly exciting thriller, but not as good as the classic le Carre novels.

Today was a really quiet day at work. In the afternoon there was a meeting about a new rewards scheme being implemented at work, which involves giving people gift vouchers. The meeting itself could have just taken twenty minutes, but due to all the questions, comments and debate it ended up taking an hour and a half.

We also all got new chairs, and they have hired consultants to help teach people how to sit in them. Despite the fact that they are pretty much ordinary chairs, and I would have thought that most people would already know how to sit in chairs. On the way home I got a pack of blank VHS video cassettes.

There is also a vampire series starting on TV this week called True Blood, which I have heard of before but have never actually seen, and that is followed by a new series called Generation Kill, created by David Simon and Ed Burns (the creators of The Wire), so that should be a good night on TV.

The Zygon Who Fell to Earth

Last night I listened to the last in the current series of the Doctor Who radio plays. This one was called "The Zygon Who Fell to Earth". In the story, the Doctor (played by Paul McGann) and Lucie (Sherdian Smith) arrive in England, 1984, to visit Lucie's Auntie Pat, only to find out that Auntie Pat's husband, Trevor is in fact a Zygon Warlord named Hagoth in disguise. Also there are another group of Zygons (a race of shapeshifting aliens) along with a Skarasen (a giant cybernetic water monster the Zygons keep as a pet) who want to recruit Hagoth in their latest plan to invade the Earth. It was a pretty good story.

I went in to work today, but I was only working for six hours. I left at around three. Even then there was barely anyone in the office when I left. I had about two hours where I was the only person sitting at the table, which wasn't too bad because I just listened to my iPod, and luckily there weren't any telephone calls. It was really wet today so I had to take the bus, instead of walking.

When I got home I watched Twilight Zone: The Movie from 1982, directed by John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller. I recorded it on video last night. It's basically a comilation of four self-contained stories, bookended by a prologue and epilogue. Three of the four stories are based on episodes of the TV series. The first story stars Vic Morrow as an angry, bigoted man who is finds himself taken back in time where he finds himself on the receiving end of violence and prejudice. The second story, "Kick the Can", stars Scatman Crothers as an elderly man who rejuvenates the inhabitants of an Old People's Home with the help of his magical tin can. The third story, "It's a Good Life", featured Kathleen Quinlan as a school-teacher who meets a young boy with devestating psychic powers who traps people in a bizarre cartoon-like world. In the fourth story, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", John Lithgow plays a nervous flyer who, during a bad storm, believes that he is the only one that can see a monster on the wing of the plane, tearing apart the engine. Mostly it is a good, if very uneven, film. It is pretty faithful to the style of the series.

Background Footage

Last night was pretty quiet. I managed to get to 40,185 words on my NaNoWriMo novel, so that was really good. It has a title now as well: Beyond the Shores of Midnight.

It was another pretty uneventful day at work. This afternoon the people making the news video came down to the office to shoot a few seconds of background footage to the thing I did yesterday.

Presenting

Last night I managed to get to 38,020 words on my NaNoWriMo novel, so that was good!

I was also watching a documentary film called Kurt Cobain: About a Son. The film consisted of taped recordings of interviews Cobain gave with music journalist Michael Azerrad for the book Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, which are played over images of the cities and towns where Cobain lived, alongside some often surreal animation. In the recordings Cobain discusses his life and career and his opinions on a wide variety of topics such as life, family, art, music and fame. The film is alternately funny, disturbing and moving, but always interesting. It is definitely a must-see for any fan of Kurt Cobain or Nirvana.

I was feeling a lot better today, although I still have a cough and a sore throat. At work, I went up to do the presenting bit for the video news thing. I was filmed against a blank green background and had to read three paragraphs of text from an autocue. I had a microphone clipped to my clothes. They did say that I was great on camera and read the thing perfectly. I wasn't allowed to improvise or change the text the script or anything, though. Afterwards they wanted me to record a Christmas greeting, which involved me wearing a Santa hat, which will provide a perfect opportunity for me to make a fool of myself in public, which I ought to be used to by now. I left with a slight sinking feeling that it all might come back to haunt me one day. They did say that they would definitely use me again. It was nice to do something that I was good at for a change.

The Start of Another Week

It was a very quiet evening last night, which I spent mostly watching TV. I saw the first episode of a fourteen part adaptation of Little Dorrit based on the Charles Dickens novel, which was pretty good. I'm going to try and watch the rest of the series. One thing that was pretty distracting was the amount of famous actors in the show.

Today I was back at work for another week, although it is a short week due to the fact that I am taking Friday off for two reasons: One, I need to get something ready for my mum's birthday, and two, I want to see the new James Bond movie. However I did find out that there is going to be yet another strike at work over pay, which will make at least three strikes this year. The union at work is involved in a long-running dispute over pay, and there have been several strikes already. So that is happening on the 10 November. However I did get a reply to the e-mail I sent on Friday about presenting the company video news thing, and they said that I would definitely get a chance to present, since they needed all the presenters they could get. Also they've put my name down to help with the behind-the-scenes film-making work, if required. So that is good.

With all that and NaNoWriMo, alongside all the usual stuff, it looks like the next few months are going to be very busy for me, but I'm not complaining about that.

Trial of a Time Lord

Last night I was watching the first couple of episodes of the Doctor Who story "The Trial of a Time Lord" on video. It was one of the ones that were rescued from the loft yesterday. The story was technically the longest in Doctor Who history (running fourteen episodes) and involves The Doctor (played by Colin Baker) being put on trial by the Time Lords for the crime of meddling in the affairs of other planets. It is actually three seprate stories with the trial sequences serving as a framing story. I've not seen it since 1994. It is quite interesting to see videos when you've got used to DVDs, because the difference in quality even between a good quality video and a DVD is so different. One of the cool things about the "Trial of the Time Lord" video edition is it came in a cool TARDIS shaped metal box.

At work today we had our first days in the new rooms, and so the first hour or so was taken up with taking stuff out of the big plastic tubs and arranging it on our desks, and kind of personalising the area. My desk is pretty full of trays full of elastic bands I have never gotten rid of, overstuffed files and folders, and sheets of paper. I have a document holder beside my computer screen but that is covered with a picture of Rachael Leigh Cook. Beside my desk is my locker which is covered in posters from movies I had cut out of magazines.

Lunch with Alice

I went out today to have lunch with my friend Alice. We ended up at a pub called the Conan Doyle, where I had some fish and chips with mushy peas, and a couple of pints of beer. I went to the toilet at one stage and it was absolutely packed of drunk guys puking. I couldn't believe it really, because it wasn't even three o'clock in the afternoon.

When I got home I watched a film I had recorded called House of Usher, a 1961 film directed by Roger Corman and based on a short story called "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe. In the film Philip Winthrop (played by Mark Damon) travels to the gloomy, crumbling, family mansion of his fiancee Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey). However, when he arrives he is not exactly welcomed by her hypersensitive brother Roderick (Vincent Price), who can't abide noise, light or being touched. Roderick is determined that the couple should not be married because of the Usher family 'curse', and will go to any lenghts to keep them apart. The film is very atmospheric, but is quite slow by modern standards. It's all very stylised with bright, lurid colours.