Inane Ramblings: Sponsored by Samsung.

Work again. Before going I sampled a Soya Cappuccino from a health bar tucked away in town. I felt all smug and hipster-like in ordering it but my self-appreciation soon turned to despair when I noticed pamphlets about Homeopathy; the bane of my existence. It turned out to be not the worst coffee I have ever had, not by a long shot, but definitely the strangest. I can't even describe how it was so bizarre but I offer my word that it certainly was. Work was one of those days where there was hardly anyone in but those who were wanted to buy things so I was kept moderately busy. During the periods of complete quietness we were playing around with the Samsung 3D TV, discovering that it upscales ANYTHING to 3D: something that none of the other 3D TVs do. It does so fairly well, creating depth in what you see as opposed to the "proper" 3D where you have depth as well as stuff popping out of the screen at you. We only have Monsters vs Aliens on 3D Blu-ray, so it was good to find this out as it meant I was able to see some of Harry Potter upscaled: it makes me very happy to say that I saw Evanna Lynch in 3D (Luna Lovegood). When we hooked it up to Freeview I was confronted by the mind-scarring image of David Cameron 3D; something I wish upon no human. The smoothness of his skin created by his inch-thick makeup and sinister, expressionless face when viewed in the third dimension made him look like a speaking globe emanating out of the screen like a demonic balloon slowly being inflated by the screams of small children. Back to my main point however, I realise that this post seems like an advert for Samsung but I'm not even given commission for stuff I sell, let alone stuff I advertise.

This evening was a disgrace as I got shampoo in my eye amidst washing my hair and in the bitter struggle to rectify the situation, managed to insert even more into the other eye.

I was horrified to hear about Darroch's dog being attacked by a manic Doberman yesterday: apparently Sirius is doing okay which is awesome and lucky judging by Darroch's account in his blog.

Tomorrow's an early start at work; the shift I actually prefer even though it means extracting myself from bed at unearthly hours. This is followed by another party in Drum; this time based around superheroes. It shall be incredible.

INTO THE OVEN OF SHAME, BOY!

Woke this morning after a terrible nights attempt at sleep. Nonetheless I was moderately optimistic about going back to work. After a couple of days off I usually dread going back in case there's been some major problem with the camera section while I was gone, leading to my vilification on my return. This time I had no such feeling, perhaps because I was simply too tired to consider anything beyond "What did I just turn around for?" and planning my next pedular movement in walking from one end of a room to another. Somehow I co-ordinated my body and mind into getting to the bus stop where the bus was 45 minutes late due to a crash. Fantastic.

Luckily I had ages to hang around anyway, so was by no means late for work. On my arrival I was greeted by the knowledge that major range changes tomorrow meant the entire shop had to be re-sorted today. This meant I spent a lot of the day completely overhauling my section. It was quite satisfying though as it does look a great deal better now. The big regional manager popped in today meaning many people were on high tension mode, but he wandered in, looked around and everything went fine. I spoke to him briefly, and he was fine: I don't see the major fuss about him making a brief visit. Major excitement was had in the form of a newly released Samsung 3D LED TV. I had the opportunity to watch some of Monsters VS Aliens in 3D, and it is undoubtedly just as good as the 3D effects at the cinema: it was incredible. In the future I definitely see myself being tempted into owning one. I ended the day lugging around 50" Plasma TVs which was ridiculously tiring after a while.

Tonight I heard about the big story with Gordon Brown winging about that woman. It is the best news story I've heard in ages. The report I saw showed the moment he was on Radio2 and the presenter informed him a tape had just been handed to him to be played. The second he realised he had been recording decrying the woman, complete shame fell over his face and he buried his head in his hands; it was hilarious.

Well, tomorrow I should be starting off well at work with a freshly tidied camera section and little to do. This seems idyllic but if yesterday is anything to go on there will be very few customers meaning I have literally nothing to do, so will be incredibly bored. Ah well, it's payday as well tomorrow which, after my tax finally being taken off of emergency rates, is going to be a very nice one.

Radio 1 *sonic boom*

Today was my second day off. After being unable to sleep last night, whittling away the early hours buying playing cards on ebay I got up strangely early feeling pretty good. Nonetheless, it was another largely unproductive day. The big achievement for today was completing Heavy Rain for the first time; it is a brilliant game and I will try and earn the other endings than what I got: I saved the boy and finished with three out of four characters surviving... not bad I feel for the difficult setting. As before I still think the graphics are the best I've seen in a game and the plot continued to be gripping. The gripes I had with gameplay settled gradually; the controls became very intuitive, even the initially awkward walking system whereby you use the analogue stick to "steer" and the trigger to "accelerate" essentially. My only criticism is not really anything to do with the game as a whole, more the production: there is an annoying glitch somewhere in the coding where sound sometimes drops out for a second or two randomly. It doesn't do anything to the game, it's just inconvenient. No doubt its related to the sheer power of the game: developers are finally harnessing the PS3's raw power, but as one of the early games to do so there's apparently a few bugs that need ironed out. I'm sure a patch will rectify this minor problem though. I now await Calvin flaming my facebook about Xbox 360 being better somehow with Fable 2 or something... GAYble 2???

I digress.

More Death note was watched today and even though I have read the comics I am once again hooked. I also love the theme tune; its great how Japanese Cartoons have amazing theme tunes like "proper" songs, rather than the catchy jingles they have in American or British cartoons.

Heston Blumenthal was on tonight, doing his general awesomeness with a gothic horror theme. What annoyed me was one of the guests; his name has been erased from my mind but he was billed as a radio presenter. I assume he was from Radio 1 as he was an annoying little prick. Upon entering the amazingly thought out, finely crafted dining room, laid out with overblown gothic architecture, dramatic candle lighting and graveyard setting, he proudly stated; "I'll bet this is what Michael Jacksons bedroom was like"." No, I doubt it was ANYTHING like this as a matter of fact you nonchalant waste of Carbon, you witless, moronic twerp. All through the show he offered his fatuous humor at every given opportunity, further heightening my hatred for Radio 1. All the presenters are like him; far too excited yet completely incompetent at talking in a coherent, interesting manner. Switch to classical fm and you'll have a well-spoken man reading the news or weather, or introducing the next segment. He makes sense and seems in control of what is happening. Go back to Radio 1 and you'll be confronted with a nuclear blast of sound: WOOOAAAAAAH RADIO ONE RADIO ONE RADIO ONE! KINGS OF LEEOOONNNNN LADY GAAAGAAAAAAAAA! Followed by someone talking far too quickly in accentuated London marketplace tones about how they are black and had a difficult life on "tha streetz". 9 out of 10 times this person turns out to be Dappy from N-Dubz. Lastly they take a phonecall from some dithering bint who through excitable screams and hyperventilation reveals the crucial information that she has no reason to phone at all beyond hollering down the line "big up to mah crew in 6th form". Little does she or the presenters realise that she would have been much better off to have phoned her friends directly to pass on her good wishes, thus preventing irreversible hearing damage to half the listeners and setting aside a considerable amount of time that could have been used to reflect upon the sorry state of the Catholic Church in recent weeks.

Now that I have ended my rant I shall be off to bed as I am back to work tomorrow; it really depends how the day goes as to whether I am pleased about this or not.

Humans are interesting.

Day off today. I spent it even less productively than I had planned. I spent the morning mucking about with a program I found to make songs sound like they're being played in an 80's video game, before watching the first four episodes of the Death Note anime. Having read the manga series I know the plot, and the anime is definitely sticking pretty close to it so far. There's a lot of stuff that happens so it is very fast paced in the program but that doesn't really bother me. I had heard it had a high production value, and this is definitely right: I love the way that many scenes have been made to look as though they were filmed with an actual camera, with sweeping shots going over people's head, around rooms and dramatic scenes having a strong shakiness to them. On a side note, I always complain about shaky camera, but that is when it is unnecessary; in Death Note they use it when it adds something to the mise-en-scene. Also the general animation is of a very high standard, remaining on par with the more technical elements of the appearance. I'm hooked to it again and will try and work my way through the whole series; according to the box it's 14 hours...

This evening I ventured into unexplored depths of the Internet: I plugged in my webcam and entered chatroulette. It is a terrible place. For those unfamiliar with such depravity, it is a site where you randomly connect with another used of the site; there's no logging in, moderation or "accepting" your chat partner; when you click connect you immediately connect to anyone anywhere before you have the opportunity to click "next". Due to this being the Internet it has horrible results. From my half-hour visit my estimated tally of "chat partners" would be as follows: 50 fat men masturbating, 30 bored young men who instantly clicked "next" as I am not an insecure 15 year old girl they can convince to strip; 1 hot Swedish girl who I spoke to for most of my time on the site about metal. I would say that this made it worth it, but I'm not so sure as there are certain things still vividly embedded into my mind; images that I should not be going to sleep with. However, I am extremely tired so that's what I shall have to do.

AAALLLVIIIIN!

I didn't start work until 12 today so I was able to recover from yesterday before dragging myself to work. Once there, it turned out to be another very quiet day; I had only two sales today, but am not particularly bothered because I have two days off so I'll not have to start working it back until Wednesday.

I debuted my Avatar T-Shirt today which came with my Blu-ray that I got in the post yesterday, two days before it's out! It glows in the dark. IT GLOWS IN THE DARK.

The best part of today was finally getting tickets for Marina and the Diamonds on ebay. The seller seems genuine so I don't think there's any risk involved. Anyway if he does turn out to be a con artist I paid with paypal so it's all good. I spent the majority of today being hugely excited whenever Rachel's iPod played her music whatever I was doing at the time.

This evening I saw Alvin and the Chipmunks 2, the highly imaginatively titled Squeakquel. I refuse to write a review as every analytical aspect of it was atrocious but I thoroughly enjoyed it because I love Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Finally I made an intriguing discovery that at the time Labyrinth was released, Lucasarts released a video game of it for the Commodore 64. I found a place to download it and got a Commodore emulator, meaning I can play the game. I haven't had a chance to properly get into it but based on the two facts that a) it is Labyrinth, and b) It is an old Lucasarts game, it will be awesome. It's interesting that it is one of the first Movie-based video games according to wikipedia.

All in all it has been a relatively uneventful day but I'm not too fussed as I was preoccupied with excitement for Marina. Two days off are coming my way, so everything is good.

Ricky GerGAYs.

I wasn't starting work until 12pm today. Fantastic you may think; a chance for a lie in and a relax, but due to the indescribable bus service around here I had to get the 9am bus into town and wander aimlessly for two and a half hours. Luckily I met Ian and Calum on the bus and went around town with them for a while, buying the complete Death Note anime series on dvd and playing an incredible golf game that has randomly appeared in eastgate. After they headed off to the cinema I went to Inverness Library where I had heard they held a book about Craig Dunain Mental Hospital's history; a book printed in the 1960's, the only one on the subject, and Inverness' copy is one of the last few in existence. They do indeed have TWO copies, but one has disintegrated beyond public use. It's called 1864-1964: A Hundred Years, and it's a recounting of the history of the asylum as it was originally called, published in commemoration of its centenary. I was hoping that the book would go more into depth on the controversial goings-on in the hospital but as it is a commemorative book, it seems to gloss over anything that would show the institution in a particularly bad light; it describes poor conditions that were reported but doesn't look into the experimental techniques that are reported to have been carried out there. Nonetheless gleaming over it gave an interesting insight into the hospital and the importance it held.

Work went pretty well today. I have no idea why but I was in a great mood to be there. It started well with our World Cup offers being released; as of sometime next week, if you spend 599 on any TV, you can enter a competition for free where you get a tenner sent back to you for every goal England scores throughout the world cup. Another deal is by Toshiba where you buy a 1080p Toshiba TV at any price, and if England win, the entire price is refunded. So you could potentially buy a Toshiba 1080p TV for 599 or more, and IF England win, you'll get the price refunded PLUS a tenner for every goal they scored. At the very least you're almost guaranteed some money back; apparently the experts think England will score 12 goals... no idea how they work that out but that's what they're saying.

This evening I saw Cemetery Junction with Danny and Darroch. I was mistaken in thinking that Ricky Gervais starred in it; he has only a supporting role. Still it was pretty awful. It is set in 1970's England in a run down area about three young men blah blah blah. The plot has nothing to set it apart from any of the numerous movies with similar subject matter, and the writing is so lazy and generic that it goes absolutely nowhere, offering not the slightest surprise at any point. It is billed as a comedy drama, but the tone is so askewed; it is too light to be taken as a drama but simply not funny enough to be a comedy. Again this is down to lazy second class writing; the first "comedic" moment after a plot-specific vaguely dramatic opening features the protagonist being pinned down on his bed my his two mates, one of whom farts on his face. Literally 75% plus of the jokes are unfunny, crude toilet humour as though the comedy writers were fourteen year old boys. Acting is dull, with the writing creating another barrier where the characters don't show any development, charisma or charm. The only merit of the movie is that it is very true to life on the theme of various people being "stuck in a rut" as it would be best described. However, it is not in the least bit entertaining, I felt no connection to characters, and I laughed at only a select few of the comedy moments. I give it 2/10.

I would like to defend my review as it is not simply because I don't particularly like Ricky Gervais; Danny is a huge fan of the Office, written by the same people as this movie, and he agreed with my opinion of it.

It's been a long day and I am completely shattered. I'm going to sleep now.

A thousand flames upon thee

Today at work was a disappointment as the important people we were expecting decided not to come. Thus there was no bloodbath and no entertainment. Again I comandeered the sound system; one day I'll sneak in Rhapsody or Sabaton and people won't notice. I'll strike when their guard is down. Currently if the music I put on features a guitar or talented vocals one colleague in particular hunts me down, inquiring "What's this cult shit you've got on?". This is because he seems to believe that I, along with Matt (a pagan), am in some sort of secret cult. Our liking of metal and having of long hair are the two largest contributing factors to this. I was vilified by Rachel today as yesterday I implied that the music was the only interesting thing happening at work; she too was responsible for a plethora of banter both yesterday and today.

On the bus home I had an amazing Costa Coffee and was listening to Scandanavian Pagan Folk Metal and Eluveitie (cult music). Due to this I began thinking about communism, having a major debate in my head about whether it is a good idea or not. I eventually came to the conslusion that is the same as my opinion has been for a while; that in it's simplest theory it is a fantastic idea with the equality. However in practice it can never work, as it would first require everyone's attitudes to free speech and free choice to be completely altered, which would be only possible through propaganda of some sort or by force. Straight off is a major problem in getting it going. Even if this was achieved, there is the point of everyone "playing their part" to society and getting equal reward for it, ruling out social segregation and such which seems great. However, consider two people; one is "chosen" to be a shop assistant and one a doctor. The doctor has to take 5 years of hard training with no reward at the end beyond the reward the shop assistant has earned for nothing. The only way in which people will follow the path of being a doctor without any personal gain to them is for them to be forced into it, meaning it becomes a dictatorship. So again, I see the ideology behind it, but it doesn't work in my opinion. The only communist country that has done well is China which is very loosely communist. The communist principles have over the years been moulded so much to fit in with modern social and ecomonic surroundings that it is unrecognisable in most aspects. There are far more liberties given to civilians nowadays, albeit strictly monitored, and there is no form of equality. Saying that, the CPC says that they are slowly building up the country into a state where everyone will have access to the cities and the wealth. Perhaps this is true; western culture expects everything immediately; maybe one day China will achieve what it says it will and prove everyone wrong.

So that was my bus journey home. Once home I investigated furher into the Marina and the Diamonds gig; at work I tried phoning the venue who had no idea how to book tickets. Ticketmaster doesn't list it, and I can't find any other contact. It looks likely that I may be acquiring them from eBay before long.

Tomorrow is another day at work; I have little expectation of it being busy, but in the evening I am going with Darroch, Danny and co to see Cemetery Junction. I am not a fan of Ricky Gervais, but my companions are and I feel it is right to watch a full film of his to make proper judgement on him as I have in the past been quite vocal in my disapproval of him. I shall enter with an open mind. Expect a review tomorrow night.

Guess what? I'm not a robot.

It was an early start at work today, which was a shock being the first early rise I've needed to make for a while. I did "man up" in time to get to my bus though, and so to work. It was another horrendously boring day, but I managed to keep myself entertained, largely due to the fact that I got my iPod plugged into the shop sound system. I did so after two hours of the same music as yesterday, which I have found out is the Lighthouse Family. It got to the point where it was either a change of music or mass murder. What ended up was an interesting mix of musical tastes; starting with the Labyrinth soundtrack, through Meat Loaf, No Doubt, Little Boots and The Rasmus. Tomorrow's day is set to be... "interesting", as we have a visit from the regional manager and the company security manager; the cause of the tense atmosphere that has plagued the store this week. As I wasn't in on the day that certain things happened prompting their visit, I don't feel apprehensive of it, more a mixture or excitement and relief that there is some promise of something happening at work.

This evening Glee managed the unthinkable in dragging my opnion of them down even further. This was achieved by their "Highway to Hell" cover. On top of "Don't stop believin'", "Gives you hell" and who knows what other classics they have molested, it deserves a place only in a shortlist for the lowest points in musical history.

The last thing to happen today is incredibly exciting. I managed to convince Darroch to go and see Marina and the Diamonds in Edinburgh next month. There is nothing to be said against her; she is awesome, and her music matches. All going well, I'll be buying tickets tomorrow somewhere amidst the bloodbath that is touted to be occuring tomorrow at work. It is genuinely set to be a great day.

Forsooth! A day of boredom untold has been had! VERILY I SAY!

Today work was ridiculously boring. There were very few customers for the majority of the day and my 11-8 shift dragged so badly. The only bit of entertainment to be had was two colleagues who despise each other having an argument on the shop floor. Apart from this literally nothing happened to lighten the day and nothing came into my head to make it seem more interesting. Not even the music lightened the day as it was a torrid assortment of atrocious 90's filth and other stuff that wasn't actively terrible but mind-numbingly generic, arguably more boring than listening to nothing. Mumford & Sons appeared towards the end of the day but by this time I was at the point of boredom where my face hurt and I wanted to sleep, so I didn't really care that much. In the last couple of hours I sat down and did loads of training on the computers, meaning I have now been awarded a Bronze level certificate by Intel. Lucky me.

I got home, greeted by Jamie Oliver's incompetent drivelling, this week in Andalucia. First he offered his philosophical discussion on the ancient traditional role of matadors; "You've gotta be a bloody lunatic to do that!". He went on to assume the purpose of the program, trying his hand at cooking some of the local cuisine. This time it was Tapas, to which he gave us the informed insight "It's said that the term 'Tapas' comes from the Spanish word 'Tapas', what means coverin' stuff up. They used to cover food up wif stuff to stop flies gettin' at it." His words inspired me to go and make some pancakes; I considered this a much more productive use for the frying pan I was about to throw at the television.

I see you. Well, I will do in a couple of days.

It seems like a terrible day when I have to bulk out a blog post with discussion on the weather but today's was genuinely obscene. Waiting for my bus I arrived at the bus stop in bright sunshine. Soon snow started with the sun still beaming in my eyes. Five minutes later I'm on the bus and it's a full hailstorm with grey skies and fog.

I was back at work today; I didn't start until 2pm though for some reason so I didn't exactly have an early rise to contend with or anything. When I got there it turned out that during my time off all hell has broken loose with one event triggering off a whole load of madness. I can't really divulge any information because it's a very serious matter, but it's both worrying and exciting if I'm honest. This meant that a few people at work were very stressed so there was an odd feeling about the store but I had a fairly good time. This was heightened towards the end of the day when I commandeered the most expensive hi-fi we sell, plugging my iPod into it to play various genres of metal to an indie-poof. My music was far too good for him, as he voiced his opinions of the Gallagher brothers being much more talented than the likes of Sabaton, Rhapsody of Fire, Power Quest, et al. Poor man.

This evening I watched Heston Blumenthal being a general genius with his Edwardian themed feast, putting me in a good mood for an early night. I made the mistake of going on facebook however where I started speaking to Morven about Paranormal Activity. Due to this I'm currently sitting in my bed terrified like a little girl who thinks there's a monster in the wardrobe. Such a long time on, I'm still traumatised by that film.

Finally I got some amazing news this evening that play.com have sent my Avatar Blu-ray. I am fully aware that finding this to be great news is very sad but I cannot wait to see it again.

I used to rule the world.

Last night after blogging I got Viva La Vida by coldplay stuck in my head. Because of this I didn't sleep much because I got really annoyed at Coldplay for existing. My reasoning is because they are revered so much as being geniuses when in fact they are boring, both in terms of "I don't like them" and "They are con artists of song-writers". Take Viva la Vida (the album): when it was being made the music industry was a frenzy. They had become the greatest thing ever from their indie albums and now a full high-production masterpiece was in the works. For an eternity there was speculation until finally the album was released to storming acclaim; they had revolutionised music with a new direction that no band had ever taken. Along came the anthemic, instant classic title track as a single. Turns out that what they'd done was written an average mellow rock song with a simple riff made up purely from the chord progression of the song. Imagine the riff played on guitar with drums in the background; you are now listening to a boring, average song. What coldplay did was take this generic riff and PLAY IT ON STRINGS. And instead of having drums THEY HAD A BELL. Insert "whoaning" vocals (a mixture of whining and moaning) and you have a masterpiece. Give them a medal and every award going.

This morning I awoke to find that I felt horrific. Due to this I sat in bed on my netbook for a very long time not being bothered to get up. After this had gone on for long enough I got really annoyed at the state of my room so spent a couple of hours tidying it up. I then started playing Heavy Rain again which it turns out is actually an amazing game. Once you get into the storyline it is so engrossing that I finally switched the PS3 off after just under six hours. That is a ridiculous amount of time for me to be focused on one thing; I usually dart between different things in my room when I'm at home for a day. The plot is so immersive and the controls are so well thought out. The graphics are definitely the best I've seen in a game, with some characters appearing nearly photo-realistic at points. This evening I started watching Spawn for the first time but couldn't handle the power-rangers grown up cheesiness, eye watering visuals and unimaginable bad acting so switched it off after a very short time.

Back to work tomorrow, so I'll be off to sleep now. Assuming I haven't rekindled the Coldplay related rage too much and don't sleep again because of it.

These shoes are ill-fitting; MAKE ME A NEW PAIR!

Today had a very slow start which I was glad of. Again no hint of a hangover, I was just knackered. I feel Darroch's pain as he started work at 7am. After much recovering I went with my parents to town. My goal was to find decent shoes for work as my current Sports Direct ones are equal in comfort to shoes made of concrete, and after two months of ownership are literally disintegrating. Clarks was my first port of call where I was served by Caroline. This turned out to be one of the most awkward moments of my life. As my quest went on I slowly became very very irritable, despising everything within my sight. Finally I decided on Hush Puppies at Brantano which were unimaginably expensive considering I hate black, smart shoes. I grudgingly paid for them and ran to Blockbuster buying loads of DVDs and Blu-rays to console myself. These included a boxset of Kubrick's movies in order to build up a full opinion of him as of the two films of his I have seen; 2001 and A Clockwork Orange; I have had major grievances with both. Rather than ranting based on two films I want to see most or all of them to form a concise opinion.

After being awesome at Guitar Hero and Rockband, completing Pull me Under by Dream Theatre on expert drums, I watched Tropic Thunder with the family (including Kyle). It was excellent as I have heard from many people. I was amazed to see original ideas in a modern comedy, with a plotline that verges on genius and hilarious setups that still feel in place in the movie as a whole rather than appearing episodic. All the characters are very funny, with a ridiculously high profile cast all well suited even though bizzarely cast in some cases; Robert Downey Jr is particularly surprising as his politically incorrect character could have gone either way with people. Luckily for him, or perhaps through skill, it came across as intended rather than being offensive. The most surreal moments of the film came with Tom Cruise's character; seeing Tom Cruise swearing a load and dancing to rap music is such an odd experience. It seems that he is a little bit human, but he remains a scientologist so he is not redeemed. The whole film was fantastic with its massive production values giving it a really unique tone for a comedy. The endless movie references are great for a geek like me, but it still has conventional humour aplenty for those who "have a life". It's genuinely one of the best films I've seen in a while and I give it 9/10.

I just found a power metal cover of I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry. It is incredible, so must be included in this blog.

Nananananananana BATMAN!

After last night's raving splendour I was expecting to wake up to some sort of thronging hangover, but either I am too much of a man for such foolishness or Calvin's advice worked as this morning I was completely fine. I spent the morning recovering only from tiredness, not any headaches or anything. I watched the last episode of Lost which was incredible; I really like Hurley and Libby is possibly the most attractive Lost Female in the show in my opinion. Also the plot was good; I joke; obviously the plot was the best part - I'm getting properly excited with all the revelations and twists in each episode now.

This afternoon I watched Transformers 2 with my brother and Mum. I had already seen it at the cinema with friends, prompting reviews from them such as "Michael Bay? More like Michael Homosexual". Rewatching it confirmed that it is a very mixed bag; I can't say that it is genuinely terrible because at it's core is an entertaining, exciting action adventure, but they have added so much unnecessary bulk to the movie that it becomes a farce. The "comedy" scenes involving his parents are literally unbearable, along with the highest budget penis joke in movie history towards the end. The subplots featuring the "I love you" line and the briefly underlying theme of parents letting go of their grown up children are both thoughtlessly mashed into the film with absolutely no skill. I love the transformers though, and the main plot is intriguing and exciting, with spectacular (if hard to follow) action scenes.

This evening I went to see Micmacs at Eden Court with Danny and Darroch. It is a french comedy about a group of homeless people who have formed their own bizzare group and take revenge on some high ranking weapon-manufacturers. It doesn't sound like great basis for a comedy but it is very very funny, without a single gag falling flat. The plot is genuinely unpredictable and a lot of fun, with characters that you connect with. It is filmed in a very arty way, but the tone of the film is kept away from pretentious arthouse, remaining light and accessible. There isn't really anything I can fault with it, and I give it 9/10.

After the cinema me and Darroch headed to town. Our port of call was Hootenanny's but for some reason I was denied entry as I "only" had a young scot card to prove my age. I swallowed the rage and we headed off aimlessly to the centre. We decided to go to the bar next to the train station; it is very posh, so it seemed a nice alternative to godawful nightclubs like Love2Love. On entering we were confronted by a masquerade ball, with people, clearly wealthy, roaming around in full masquerade costumes ranging from expensive embossed velvet suits with hats and masks to kilted gentlemen wearing batman masks. It turned out we had gatecrashed a Rotary Club annual party. I say gatecrash but we did make sure we were not intruding. Nonetheless, this was without doubt the coolest thing happening in Inverness tonight. At the bar I sampled Darroch's favourite Whisky and then my suggestion was to have Vodka Martinis. It turned out to be very good and we left the bar somewhat tipsy, meeting Jamie and Amber at the stop. On the bus were other humans from Drum and in our slightly drunken state, the journey home went incredibly well. Now that I am home I am still consciously tipsy but also incredibly tired so I shall once again say goodnight.

Where oh where did my fish go?

Today was my first official day off work for well over a week. Not winging, but I was pleased to have it. First of all I was reading up on Politics following last nights blog and the surrounding debates, and I found that the Tories are very good at making nice words and powerful messages but once you read into these there is actually nothing promised or even fully suggested. For this reason, I'm out. I also have little faith in the Lib Dems because of Nick Clegg and the fact that our constituent MP, Danny Alexander; a Lib Dem; is offering Inverness to immigrants as we apparently have loads of jobs needing filled and loads of free houses. As someone who spent six months last year looking for a job and whose family is struggling to find a new home in the area, I find this horrendous. No offence at all to the immigrants themselves, I am purely against the system that allows and encourages people to take advantage of our welfare systems.

I went over my grandparents' house to set up their new tv and me and my Dad collected lots of logs from the forest they live in. This was very satisfying as it was a lovely afternoon; warm and sunny without being muggy and airless. Also the task was necessary so the exertion was worthwhile, a fact I was aware of when doing it. I got home feeling knackered but very satisfied. After a bath and such I went to what was being billed as a rave in Drumnadrochit. It was a major event as there is very few people I know to be in Drum who I did not meet there; I even met a couple of people I was unaware of being anywhere near here at present - a very nice surprise. The rave itself was pretty dire to begin with, with terrible music being my major gripe; it was generic dance music, often verging on the "happy hardcore" subgenre. However, upon my investment in a bottle of Vodka, my experience of the night slowly improved until I was having a great time.

My eventual walk home was not too enjoyable as I was completely shattered and was getting pretty sober towards the latter part of the trek. I eventually made it home and took advice I heard from a colleague of mine; Calvin Gill; he says that after drinking, have two glasses of water before bed. I have done so and expect there to be not the faintest glimmer of a hangover.

I shall end the post there, for a number of reasons; 1) In my mostly-sober state I fear that I may be making no sense here 2) I am shattered 3)My netbook's battery icon has a large red cross through it meaning power out is imminent. Based on all three, I shall end the blog here.

POLITICS ARE FUN XD LOL (Y)

Today work went very slowly as there was hardly any customers. The day was made much more bearable by the fact that my colleagues are capable of inimitable banter that can be carried throughout the entire day. So even though I spent the majority of the day doing very little, something I despise, I actually quite enjoyed myself. I bought a leather iPod case and Rock Band for the PS3, both in the clearance. I was distraught upon getting home to find that Rock Band is compatible with Guitar Hero's guitar and microphone but not the drums; the main part that I bought it for. Ah well.

On to the election debate of this evening. Up until today I have had very little knowledge of each party's full agendas and I plan on reading their manifestos in the coming days as well as watching these sort of things. However, my opinion based solely on tonight is that David Cameron would get my vote. I found Gordon Brown to be very stubborn with some of his points and rebuttals, often blatantly making the same point two or three times in a few minutes. He also seemed a bit like a bull in a china shop with his plans for saving the economy. David Cameron has a very annoying face, perched upon what appears to be a rectangular head, but negating his appearance he came out on top for me; the main reason simply being that he usually gave answers that I agreed with. I don't even feel that he was giving the "right" answers to get people to like him; he did that with his poe-faced sucking up to members of the audience, but a few of his actual answers were fairly radical and I know for a fact that some people I know disapproved of them, so I got the impression he was being pretty genuine. I have however heard that they have some awful ideas in their manifesto, so I will stand corrected if necessary upon reading it. Lastly was Nick Clegg. I had no idea what the Lib Dems wanted to happen, so was completely unprepared for his standpoints. It turned out that he didn't so much have a standpoint of his own, he was more there to try and belittle David and Gordon in an arrogant, verging on childish, manner, making out that he is Britain's one and only saviour. I found his delivery of answers very rehearsed and insincere. He made snide remarks towards both opposing parties, about the expenses most notably, which I was most amused to see turned back on him by the others within a few minutes. The true winner of the debate though was Alistair Stewart as moderator. I loved how by the end of the show he was screaming at Nick Clegg to get him to shut up and let someone else speak, and scolding everyone for making irrelevant or repetitive points. Alistair Stewart for PM; he'll shout at the bank managers until they forfeit their paychecks for three years, while the troops can return from Afghanistan and trident can be scrapped as no one will dare attack us when he's boss.

Dziękuję bardzo

Today I was back at work. Perhaps it was because I was still a little bit of a wreck from yesterday, but I had a very negative attitude for the first half of the day. Everything was completely stressing me out, annoying me or depressing me. It did occur to me that I wasn't actually having a bad day by any means, and maybe this made me "man up" a bit and the rest of the day went pretty smoothly. Late afternoon I went to the Police Station to collect my wallet. Sure enough it was there with all my money and cards present; I don't get to find out who handed it in to thank them personally but I was told it was a Polish girl. That really put things into perspective for me; everyone cries about the influx of Polish people in the area and they're demonised as leeching lowlifes but when one of these people has the opportunity of getting well over two hundred pounds for nothing, they take the honest option and hand it all in. I obviously did the standard procedure of leaving 10% for them, but it was amazing that they handed it in at all.

This evening I made a lot of progress on my Waking the Demon piano cover; it's totally cheesy but that's what I'm aiming for. I'm actually quite pleased with how it's going. I then started watching Pineapple Express with my parents; after ten minutes they declared it unfunny and it was terminated. We then opted for Iron Man. Even though I've seen it a couple of times I still love it and the parents agreed. Seeing it again makes me really excited for the sequel coming out in a couple of months; I really hope they keep the tone the same, with a perfect mix of light-heartedness, excitement and depth. It goes without saying that Robert Downey Jr will be great, though.

I'm really in the mood for something exciting to happen tomorrow. I'll be at work so I highly doubt this will happen, but I thought I'd just put that here in the hope that fate's paying attention. Just for the record, I don't believe in fate. I'm clearly far too tired as I'm rambling now. I'll end the post here.

HERO.

This morning I was all ready to go out the door for work, when I discovered my wallet wasn't in my pocket. Further investigation revealed it wasn't in my coat, or lying around the house. I looked everywhere but it just wasn't here, and walked up and down the hill, still not finding it. Once it was evident that it was not within the vicinity of the house, I had the biggest panic attack I have ever had; it was so genuinely unbearable that after about twenty seconds I blacked out briefly, coming round with a migraine. I was understandably gutted at my loss as it contained all my cards; debit, store cards and ID's; and also well over two hundred pounds. I don't usually carry such money around but by sheer sod's law I was only the other day paid back for a TV I bought my grandparents. Phoning Stagecoach to no avail, I had started to come to terms with it when the phone rang; it was the police who had just had a wallet handed in with my name in it! I was relieved beyond words, and genuinely surprised to hear that there was still loads of money in it too. I'll be picking it up tomorrow; apparently there's a scheme where 10% of the money is given to the person who handed it in as goodwill, but that's certainly acceptable; whoever handed it in has temporarily restored my faith in the human race and I am so grateful to them.

Moving on, I did not go to work after the events of this morning; it wasn't until mid-afternoon that it was sorted and the migraine cleared so I'm glad I didn't go in. I'll be back in tomorrow for the early shift, so I'll try and get the rest of this done quickly to get to bed. Not that I'll sleep however, but the thought counts.

I watched Machine Girl this evening; it's an ultra violent Japanese movie. A schoolgirl's brother is killed by a gang of bullied lead by a Yakuza boss' son. In trying to exact revenge on them she is captured by the Yakuza, escaping after her arm is cut off. She meets a mechanic who builds her a machine gun replacement arm in order to complete her mission. It is definitely the best of the crazy Japanese movies I've seen; the action is fantastic, filmed and choreographed very imaginatively, and the gore is ridiculously extreme, exaggerated by the really low-budget effects used. It has a dark edge of humour to it with the geysers of blood emerging from any wounds and ridiculously extreme violence verging on slapstick. The story is genuinely good though, albeit fairly standard Japanese b-movie/revenge fare. I give it 8/10 purely on entertainment value and imaginativeness.

If only real life was in 3D like the movies

Work was even quieter than the last few days. I had very little that needed done meaning I spent the whole day doing nothing. To many, the prospect of standing around doing nothing with people you get on with and getting paid for it is bliss, but I get easily bored when I have nothing to do, so I'm finding it pretty frustrating. This evening saw a Samsung representative visit us to plug the upcoming 3D TV's and teach us about them. I have been keeping an eye on the vague details online for months now, so I was reduced to screaming fanboy, especially when we were given freebies in form of a Lanyard and a pen, each emblazoned with the Samsung 3DTV logo. I am not being paid to say this, but they do sound incredible and apparently we will be getting them in the next few weeks. One thing I didn't know about was that they can "upscale" 2D video to 3D, meaning literally anything can be viewed in 3D, even a VHS. I will remain sceptical about the success of this until I personally view it, but the potential is very exciting. I use the word exciting to express my own opinion; probably not most other people's...

This evening the bus driver was very pleasant. Just to make it clear that I don't have something against them.

Just before writing this, I was sent a link from Matt to samples from Rhapsody of Fire's upcoming album. It sounds like the album is going to be incredible. One full song is very good but quite weak, while the short sample of another track is mind-numbingly awesome.

It seems today has been a day of intense geekery; heightened by my pleasure at catching a Pikachu on the shop floor using the Pokewalker. Long may it continue.

If only real life was in 3D like the moview

Enough of these shenanigans

Today work was unimaginably quiet. This is probably because, being such a lovely day outside, people had much better/more enjoyable things to be doing than browsing around an electrical store with no air conditioning. Along with the mind-numbing boredom induced by the lack of customers I spent the day very annoyed with particular people who consistently thwart my enjoyment of the job with varying levels of insanity. I did what I needed to then lost all interest in doing the little extra that I usually feel compelled to do. I only do so because of pride in what I do, and today I was reduced to complete unsaturated apathy. Despite all this negativity I did manage to have somewhat of a good time for a lot of today due to most of the people I work with being awesome.

This evening I caught up on Lost, as I have committed the inexcusable offence of missing the last two episodes and not watching them online ASAP. This meant I spent two hours effectively having my brain raped by Damon Lindeloff et al. The last episode especially was incredible; I am so excited about the ending but will be gutted when it does happen that it will be over. It also occurred to me that I haven't missed a single episode of it; a fact that I am quite proud of but also find shocking as it accounts for over 100 hours of my life.

I ended the night on deciding to try and create a classical piano cover of Waking the Demon by Bullet for my Valentine. It will probably not work in the least but in my mind it seems like a funny idea, so I'll probably spend the next few evenings tinkering with Sibelius to see what I can do.

Huzzah

Work again today; this time it was ridiculously quiet. Most likely due to the fact that the weather was excellent today. I wasn't doing a particularly long shift today but it still managed to drag a fair bit.

After work I went to Matt's house with Matt and Gavin before heading to the cinema to see Whip It!. We were joined by Danny, Catriona, Florence, Kim and Claire. It was great to have this "reunion" as spending time with friends is the one thing I miss about high school. I personally enjoyed the film; it does take a while to get going, really stumbling along to create a foundation for the characters and plot, but this can be attributed to the fact that it's Drew Barrymore's first directorial movie. Once this awkward first section passes it has likeable characters and a fun plot. They style of the movie also takes a while to establish, with the first section sometimes trying too hard to look like an indie movie, but again after the first section it levels out, being filmed in a low-key yet fairly mainstream style with a soundtrack that I assume is basically an insight to Drew Barrymore's iPod, as it is made up largely of existing famous songs. All the cast are great, with Ellen Page doing just as well as she did in Juno, and Drew Barrymore playing a comedy relief character that could so easily have stolen many scenes, but has been carefully controlled to ensure that Ellen's character remains the focus throughout; a decision that is certainly for the best. The final movie stumbles a bit at the beginning but soon develops into an entertaining, engrossing, enjoyable movie with no major gimmicks or special effects, relying solely on character and plot to carry the comedy and entertainment value. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and give it 7/10.

I made a friend...

This morning was my appointment at New Craigs; I absolutely hated being in the waiting room and my appointment was mucked up, but once I got into the room with the psychiatrist it got much better; I'm going to be having fortnightly sessions now for a few months and see how it goes. It certainly looks like I'll be able to gain something from them. Having these regular sessions is extremely cool, partly because it should help the problems I have been failing to overcome since Autumn 2008, but also because I feel like Donnie Darko.

Work was interesting today, as it was Nick's last day. He's worked there for five years so everyone was gutted at his departure. He is genuinely a great guy and infuses a high quantity of banter into work. I'm not going to be too gushing as it's not like he's died, he's just found a job that should hopefully be much better.

The latter part of work became a tale of excitement; firstly Panasonic sent me a load of posters and such for my cameras, including Plinths for the camcorders. On further investigation, I also found some promotional packs of playing cards thrown in too. This brought me untold joy. As I was skipping merrily about the store, playing cards in hand, I received a phonecall from Angus informing me of Bill Bailey doing a show in Drumnadrochit next month. I was stunned momentarily before making the split second decision that I had to go. So he was kind enough to book me a ticket; I am really excited about this; he is a comedian I have been a fan of for a good few years now and have wanted to see him live most of this time.

The wonder and joy of the day was quelled somewhat by the bus driver I had the misfortune of encountering this evening. I get the impression that he despises everyone younger than himself as Hollie got on first, to whom he was obnoxious towards her request to get the bus to Drumnadrochit, before making a fuss over her payment method of handing over two pound coins for a ticket that costed one eighty-five. However, my turn came and I wan't expected for the battle of wits that ensued; I requested a single to Urquhart Castle, presenting my young person discount card, as I do every single day. This lead to some sort of argument about where I was headed, which went something like this; "Urquhart Castle??" "Yes." "URQUHART CASTLE??" "Yes." etc etc. Once this was affirmed, he shouted at me for having my discount card as it wasn't in fact a single OR a half; it was a student fare which is not what I had requested. By this time I felt deserving of releasing a little of my frustration in form of arrogance, informing him that it was in fact a "young person discount" fare that I get, not a student, as I am not a student meaning that if I was to pay a student fare I would be defrauding the company that he works for, something I did not want to do. He put the young person discount through and I gave him the correct change, to which he replied by not letting go of the ticket for the first few seconds of my attempt to receive it. His reason for doing so is still unclear to me. It was during this bus journey that I decided to lodge a complaint to Stagecoach, as he continued to be obnoxious, not to us, but to other young'uns on the bus; refusing to stop at some bus stops, screeching to a halt 100 metres along the road instead and so on. Once my stop came along, I requested his name, to which he snapped "No, get off, I'm in a hurry." I am not one to take kindly to such disregard as a paying customer, so I explained that he should be wearing a name badge and that his service towards me had been disgraceful. His response was "BYE! BYE! BYE!", repeating this in a hugely condescending tone; it was as though he knew how to anger me and was making a conscious effort to do so. I was making my way off somewhat slowly due to still registering my displeasure with him when he shut the door upon me. I yanked the door open and told him "Don't you dare shut the door on me", as this, I should imagine, is one of the top things a bus driver does not do to passengers. He replied to this by once again shutting the door on me and driving off with me suspended halfway between on and off. I managed to free myself by which time the bus was tearing away. This whole thing started off as involving an unfriendly bus driver which annoyed me, but at the castle he took it to a whole new level. I want to be clear that I did not swear at him or threaten him, so I feel that he deserves to be fired for the way he treats many of the passengers on the bus, including myself. I'm still in disbelief that he actually tried to drive off with me trapped in the door; suffice to say that stagecoach will be hearing of it in the coming days.

Ah well, it was a mixed day; hugely excited about Bill Bailey, very optimistic about the psychiatrist, gutted about Nick and furious about the driver. I guess that all this makes for much more interesting reading than my usual posts, so that's surely a good thing. Tomorrow is a shorter day at work followed by a cinema trip with the usual suspects and Catriona which will be awesome.

Actually, my name's Mari- erm, Cameron.

Work today was not very busy but I managed to be kept occupied either by customers buying something from me or by the numerous complaints that came in today; it seems that everyone's machines have suddenly broken in the last few days. Other than this I bought a TV stand for a penny. I think one thing that really lightened the day was the music; Marina and the Diamonds' album was playing on a constant loop all day. It is a rare time that I was able to listen to the same songs many times in a day without getting sick of them. I have now decided to learn to play "I am not a robot" on piano.

I am extremely nervous about tomorrow; I've finally reached the top of the waiting list for a specialist psychiatrist which I am obviously pleased about; hopefully he/she'll be able to figure out what's causing the panic attacks and such that are bugging me to say the least. The downside that makes me nervous is that I have to go to New Craigs Hospital to see them; I have been there once, very briefly, and it is a horrible place, both in terms of what it signifies (being referred to a mental hospital is a little perturbing), and the fact that it is such a harsh, cold, grey building to be inside. Luckily today went well so my fears about tomorrow were quelled for most of the day.

Lastly I would like to have a rant. I haven't done so for a while and it seems necessary. Walking to work this morning I witnessed three people spitting onto the pavement. Why do people think this is acceptable? It is surely in the same vein as walking down the high street, suddenly answering a call of nature by urinating in plain view of everyone. It's vulgar and inexcusable; those who do so are in fact subhuman, apparently failing to have evolved to the standards of modern civilisation, and each globule of mucus that is cast to the ground is a bitter reminder of this fact.

What does HTC stand for?... "Apple is gay".

Work today was a day of extremes; I was either raging at small grievances or ridiculously excited and running around trying to win an incentive that was set; I backed off when I discovered the 150 pounds of vouchers up for grabs were in fact for Marks and Spencers. I don't believe I have ever bought anything from that shop so have no idea how I would spend 150 pounds there. Although it was very busy for the first half of my day, the evening was dead. This lead to us debating on music after my commandeering of the store system to play classic rock. Everyone was moaning that "my music" was playing until it was discovered that "my music" included songs that suited everyone. Another debate was had about iPhones; the basis of the debate was me arguing that they are highly overrated and inferior technology to many other smartphones, backed up by a couple of people. The opposing team, also known as the wrong side, were rabid iPhone owners, probably just angry because they're trying to pay off the mortgage they took out to afford one. I also heard beautiful news today that a vast number of iPads may be recalled due to poor quality wi-fi antennas meaning many people are unable to achieve an internet connection. Also I read reports that they are clunky and tend to crash if you have more than one app running. I accept that it is arrogant but the possibility of me being right brings me untold joy.

This evening I got home at five to nine then watched a three hour show about movie mistakes. It was hosted by Robert Webb, whose every sentence was filled with sarcasm. It did last a very long time but some of the mistakes they showed were hilarious. My favourite was the opening of Jurassic Park where a man falls off of the crate towards the camera, where a cameraman's hand reaches in front of the lens to break his fall, guiding him away from the expensive equipment. This somehow made it into the final cut. The program featured hundreds of clips like this, which I found extremely entertaining. I understand this is highly geeky but oh well.

I'mm pretty miffed just now because it is late (a.k.a very early in the morning) and I have work tomorrow; I acknowledge that I am very tired but I seem unable to sleep. Hello there, insomnia, haven't seen you for a while.

Did you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

I had a day off today, which I was very pleased about, having worked 6 days in a row which I don't feel entitles me to winge about but is enough for me to say the day off was well deserved. I actually used some of the time productively, getting my tax sorted out, as Revenue & Customs don't believe I am working just now, meaning I have been paying a ridiculous amount of emergency tax. It's sorted out now and sometime in the next month I should be arranging a massive repayment as I shouldn't have been paying ANY tax, with me earning less than 6k in the financial year.
I watched the 1989 Batman movie this afternoon; I hadn't seen it for many years and thoroughly enjoyed it; Jack Nicholson is fantastic as the Joker and I now understand why some people suggested the praise for Heath Ledger was overblown, with many traits being borrowed from Jack's performance. The Tim Burton styling of the movie was vague enough to appeal to the masses, but noticeable to a fan like me; there's hardly any of the spirals and such that he's well known for nowadays, but the horror movie style cinematography and art nouveau / gothic appearance of Gotham City are all clear indications of his inspirations. I really like Danny Elfman's score; I'm a huge fan of his music, with his band Oingo Boingo being one of my favourite bands and his scores including some of my favourite movie music. It is clear that the film as a whole was made in the 80's, but I still think it is very good. 8/10.

This evening I experienced the deep despair associated only with watching And & Dec's Push The Button on ITV2. In all fairness I don't really blame Ant and Dec as they try hard to make it entertaining, but it's the moronic hordes that swamp the show; referred to as the contestants and the audience. The audience annoys me in all of these shows; they are like well trained guinea pigs, making loud OOOOH noises whenever the opportunity to win something presents itself, even if aforementioned prize is something terrible. They laugh wildly at any misfired attempts at humor, be it from the host or contestants, and they insist on screaming and whistling if a male bares a forearm with a hint of a muscle on it. On to the contestants; game shows have always had dimwitted contestants, even the godlike Crystal Maze, but this took the mickey; the final challenge required a woman to memorise a colour/music pattern consisting of 7 notes from a selection of 5. If she was to accomplish this beginner Simon Says task her family were to be awarded just shy of 30,000 pounds. She was shown the sequence and immediately given the opportunity to begin recreating it. She promptly screamed that she couldn't remember it and pressed the wrong button for the first note of the sequence, forefitting the prize. How someone can be so inept at a childs game when being offered tens of thousands of pounds to complete an intermediate level is beyond me, especially when it was her who volunteered to be the one to carry it out.

Nonetheless, I managed to move on from this dark moment and watched Snow White on Blu-ray. I was slightly cynical about watching a 75 year old cartoon in high definition but I was totally wrong to be; the obvious enhancement of the colours went without saying but the clarity did add so much; along with amazing restoration, you could see sketch marks around main characters in a lot of scenes, making out each and every pencil line and brush stroke. Seeing it like this brought home the immense work that went into animated movies back then; it was clear that what I was watching was hundreds of individual drawings flying past me every minute. There is still a lot of work put into animated movies these days, but with the exception of stop motion it is incomparable to what the artists did all those years ago. I have been 100% converted to HD for all mediums now, and seeing how beautiful a classic Disney film can be makes me truly excited for the Blu-ray release of Fantasia, reportedly later this year. Fantasia is in my opinion one of the greatest movies ever made, and seeing it in HD will be like seeing it for the first time again.

Last thing for today was Heston Blumenthal's feast where he created a whole variety of Willy Wonka inspired dishes. He is a genius and his programs always fascinate me. Enough said.

Just as this finished I was heading through to my room when I stepped on a rose thorn on the carpet with bare feet. This was most unwelcome and I informed the thorn of this on the strongest possible terms. It still hurts and I fear that it may have to be amputated tomorrow if infection gets into the wound. On that I am feeling faint due to blood loss so shall be off to bed ready for work tomorrow.

By the power of greyskull!

Today was a bank holiday, meaning I was pretty happy to be at work in place of Jonathan, as I got time-and-a-half pay. In addition to this, it also meant that for a few hours it was much busier than it has been for weeks. There was a strange air about the store today, though, in the quieter times, with Matt and Nick constantly fighting, and the three of us having really heated theological debates: something that is always guaranteed to go badly when the three parties are Christian, Pagan and borderline Atheist/Agnostic. It did briefly lean towards blasting Matt's pagan beliefs, but I soon realised that I far more agree with those than Christianity. Not so much to blast Christianity; I don't like religion at all: I feel it has done much more bad than good, with wars being fought all over the world from hundreds of years ago to present day because of it. I also don't like the way you are told what to believe and simply have to accept that; I am unable to simply accept something without proof/evidence which immediately rules me out, but I also strongly believe in individual ideas and such; I personally see that most religion forces people to blindly conform to a set of beliefs rather than letting people have their own thoughts and feelings on topics. This approach leads to a lot of ignorance, such as people in developed countries, with access to anything they desire, saying without any irony that people starving in Africa, or dying in Haiti for example, are all doing so to pay for our sins. I know this is not the belief of every single Christian in the world; likely even a minority figure; but it is for such extremists, but things like this are prevalent nowadays and completely destroy my views of religion. One point that "normal" Christians, if you will, tend to make is that it's core foundation is as a set of morals by which to live your life, i.e. the ten commandments. There's no way of disagreeing with this, but to me the commandments are basic common practice for me, and I don't feel that anyone should require a religion to make them comply, with the promise of some sort of overlooking presence which will decide their fates based on whether or not they obey these laws. I think religion is one of those things that are great in theory, but once it is in practice, people corrupt it and askew it beyond recognition until it achieves the polar opposite of the original intention. Much like Communism, but I'll save that for another day where I have little to write about.

Back to my trivial anecdotes, I watched the Comedy Gala on Channel 4 tonight; it was fantastic. Obviously there were a few people who missed the mark, such as Shapi Korsandi (sp) whose segment was barely watchable, and Patrick Kielty's Michael Jackson jokes going down a treat in the 02 arena he was set to perform in, also making the connotation of Sick Children being the two most outstanding legacies of MJ. I have always been a fan of Jackson, but I was rarely offended by the jokes surrounding his death; these however missed the mark of being humorous and went out for 100% malicious shock value. It was nice to see Patrick squirm to regain control of his set before making it entirely nosedive by jokingly attempting to launch a Christian 9/11 retaliation targeting the towers in Dubai. As sick as it sounds, he had a discernible talent of removing what humour there is in this thought, replacing it with material that made me uncomfortable; someone who has an extremely dark sense of humour. Bill Bailey was great as usual, Noel Fielding had me crying with laughter, and there was so many other great sections of the show. Well Done, C4.

I think this post has become long enough, so I'll look forward to my day off tomorrow (well earned I believe), and shall bid the internets a good night.

ಠ_ಠ

It was Easter Today, apparently. Nothing in my day was connected to this however, as having left school my annual Easter experience of trudging down to the church to hear Rev. Watt instructing us to be Christian and singing dull hymns has sadly passed.

/sarcasm

Work went fine today; I was only doing 12-5 so it passed quickly and it was fairly busy. I've forefitted my day off tomorrow so Jonathan can visit relatives which works for me as being a bank holiday it should be really busy and I'll be paid time and a half. Win win.

I spent the evening fixing iTunes; it took me a system restore and a couple of hours to reinstate my library. I hate how iTunes takes pretty in-depth computer know-how to fix when it has a tantrum; I have no idea how a basic user manages to keep an iPod running, because I have had countless problems with iTunes that have lead to me spending a couple of hours fixing.

On the subject of Apple, there has been more buzz over the iPad today as it was released in the USA. I personally find it both hilarious and heart-breaking that people flock over something purely because it has that little Apple logo on the back. I say this because the spec of it is horrendous; on the good side, I am guessing the touch screen will be very responsive as the iphone's screen is very good and the battery life is more than acceptable with up to 10 hours video. However, on to the downsides; it has a pitiful hard drive, with the "top of the range" model having 64GB: a figure I would expect on an entry level model; it runs on a 1GHZ processor which is fine on my XP netbook, but for a cutting edge gadget it is a let-down and I guarantee it will cause hang-ups on the multi-touch screen; it doesn't have support for 1080p high definition, as the screen is a disappointing 720: also there is no dedicated graphics card, instead relying on the inbuilt capabilities of the Apple A4 processor, meaning even video at this resolution will probably be unstable if something is happening in the background; there is no camera, meaning there can be no skype video calls, and no augmented reality; something that is becoming a great tool and would have been excellent on the 9.7" screen. They have chosen to omit a USB port on it as well, meaning no external devices can be connected to it, negating any possibilities of USB drives to transfer files; a feature which should be expected on a "tablet PC". Also the current release has wi-fi but no mobile internet such as 3G or HSDPA: this is a feature that will be available on the model coming out in a few months. This brings me on to my next point; Apple are seemingly going to do their old trick of releasing a saught-after product, then after 6 months or so, re-releasing a higher-spec version of it, meaning the die-hard fans are forced to buy it again.

Suffice to say that if we get the iPad at work I shall not be buying one, even with my staff discount.

Clash of Tit

Today work was much quieter than everyone expected. That was a bit of a let down but I seem to have gotten back into fairly enjoying working there now that the last week's annoyances have passed. All the customers I dealt with were great, so it went pretty well if a bit slow when it was really quiet.

In the Co-Op car park I encountered my daily loon; an old man pushing a bike along. Crossing the dual carriageway, he was bellowing at the cars driving by, before including me in his conversation explaining to me that he recently spent a week in Dochfour where he was undisturbed by traffic. He continued questioning how so many people can have cars as there is "no way people can afford all these cars". I was just agreeing with him with awkward laughter of empathy until he asked me if I drove. My honest reply was "not YET", to which he dealt me the advice "Don't! There's already enough bloody cars around without MORE people learning to drive". Thankfully at this point we were already going our separate ways so this was the end of our chat.

After work I went with Danny to see Clash of the Titans. The evening went off to a great start as the tickets from the machine had the film's name abbreviated to "Clash of Tit". The film itself, however; I was dreading it being an awful remake of a film I really like, hoping it would be not as good, but stylish in a 300 sense. It turned out to be brilliant; Sam Rockwell was oddly cast as the lead, Persius, with his fickle accent and crew-cut, but everything else was very good. They retained the fun tone of the movie, not making it too serious, also balancing thrills, plot and the odd moments of sadness, romance and comedy just like an action fantasy from the 1980's. There was a lot of CGI effects, but where possible they did use Practical Effects, especially with the make-up; there are some intricate character designs and these were all done with Prosthetics rather than computers which I really liked. The CGI was all done well, with action scenes favouring large scale excitement rather than gritty realism, a choice that I really feel fits the movie. The relatively short 106 minutes goes past quite slowly, but it is always immersive and I didn't feel like it dragged, rather there is just a lot that happens and it is a mini-epic of a movie really in the scale of the plot. I was thrilled to see a cameo from Bubo the mechanical owl from the original as well. My only real criticism is the 3D; it was hurriedly added at the last minute and it shows; the most part of the film has limited depth, with many scenes having little more than a foreground and background plate. The only scenes at all enhanced by the 3D are the opening in the stars which was incredible and the final kraken scene. These two scenes however didn't really justify the extra cost. Overall, I would give the movie 8/10 as it is very entertaining but has little "film school" merit that would really be required to push it much further. As for the 3D, I would consider deducting a point for it, but in all fairness its the studio trying to cash in at the last minute, not the director or anyone else's fault so 8/10 is the movie on it's own.

The bus home was largely uneventful except for a chance meeting with James Redmond who has developed a terrible throat infection. My thoughts are with him.

INTO THE BLENDER!

Last night was horrific; I laid awake with panic attacks for no reason for most of the night. Due to this I woke up at 9:15 to find that I had managed to dress myself and get on the bus whilst in some sort of comatose state. Walking to work I was confused to find that it was really sunny but incredibly cold. On my arrival, a strong coffee was very much welcome.

Work started off very badly; it was brought to my attention by someone sensible that what I had spent most of the last week doing to my camera section under instructions from someone else, albeit less sensible, was completely wrong and would have to be redone. I was pretty gutted about this as I had put a lot of work into what I'd done and today is well-known as being a really busy day in retail, so I had to spend a couple of hours slogging away at my section again rather than serving customers. However, rant over, I was fairly fortunate that it wasn't particularly busy until I had done what was required, so I ended up near the top of sales for the day in the end. It seems to be becoming a daily occurance that I witness someone moaning that really sticks out in my mind; today's was a lady I helped look at TV's. She had a good idea of what she wanted and I showed her one that fit this description. She liked it and asked the immortal question "What's the best price you can do on that?". Upon my explanation that I was unable to offer any more that the 200 pounds that is curently taken off of it in the easter sale, she instantaneously turned from friendly and cheery to stroppy and condescending, informing me that she was "very disappointed" with her service and stormed out in a mood. It is times like this that I really wonder what people expect of me; I guess it's just part of the job of being a salesman that I agree to being considered as the lowest form of human life, to be treated with the utmost contempt. Ah well, never mind. At least I'm getting paid for it.

After work I was getting a lift home from Jonathan along with Gavin, who decided to go to B&Q. This was an odd trip, an oddness heightened by Gavin's presence and his negative banter. Having said this, he is an incredible human being and I shall hear nothing against him. Moving on to Tesco, I discovered a drink made from rice, which turned out to be much nicer than it sounds.

The day ended well, as I watched Jonathan Ross and Heston Blumenthal; two "celebrities" I really like; throwing liquid nitrogen at each other, proving that there is no need to ever properly "grow up" and become a boring sod.

I'm pleased the day ended up going well, and tomorrow is set to be another really busy day at work, so with my tasks accomplished correctly this time, I should have another good day tomorrow. Even if work goes badly I've just booked tickets for Clash of the Titans 3D; cannot wait for it; I have been following the making since around 2008. I think it looks great while Jonathan's review of the trailer was "gay".

I'm not going to do a blog today... APRIL FOOL'S!!

Today turned out to be much less annoying than yesterday, which is very much what I was hoping for. I have however been shattered all day, so everything that needed done at work seemed like a major trial and took me twice as long as it should have done. I bought a netbook today; something that I have been considering for a while, and as I am planning on travelling in the very near future it will come in extremely useful for photos and such. It's an Asus Eee PC and I really like it. I've installed Google Chrome instead of the horrendous Internet Explorer it came with, with it's seven toolbars blocking up half of the screen. I'd never used Chrome before, but it IS as good as I've heard; it runs really quickly and is laid out so clearly. It has decent features but doesn't clog up the limited resources of my netbook. I am pleased.

Today was Ekans' turn in the Pokewalker; apparently he had a great time, and he assisted me in capturing a Staryu and a Poliwag.

In the Co-op in town I overheard a woman with rapier wit commenting on the small number of boxes lying in the aisle; "The shelves are where stock's meant to go!". The way she seemed so pleased with herself as she said it set me into a momentary rage but I abstained from destroying her.

The day as a whole was pretty inconsequential, but my purchase made it much better. This blog has taken a little while to type as I need to get used to the small keyboard, but all seems good just now. Easter weekend starts tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be really busy at work; there are some pretty decent deals going on so I would be surprised if we are quiet.