Big Update Part One.
I’m sorry, folks. I really do feel like a fairweather friend, as my appearances on here in the past months have been about as frequent as a good John Travolta film, and as any movie buff will know, that is not very often.
You see, I don’t have broadband hooked up at home yet, which means that I have to type up these epistles when and where I can: at my mum and dad’s house, at the AU office, in school. The latter isn’t very likely, as I have been totally snowed under with work of late. I have to say that I prefer it that way; I thrive on deadlines and being busy, and would much rather that than sitting about on my ass all day long being bored. But I do feel as if my day is spent running from pillar to post, then driving home, having a quick nap, and getting fired into some prep / homework marking etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining at all. I love my job, but it can be fairly intense. For example, last Saturday I woke up at 8.30, looked at my alarm clock, said a naughty word and jumped out of bed, thinking that I had slept in. After I had come to my senses and realised it was the weekend, I clambered back into bed and, when my heart stopped doing a polka, fell back to sleep. I guess it was because last week had been so hectic and so heavy in a lot of ways, but there’s nothing much I can do about that.
Anyway, I was talking about something else. I have wandered off on a tangent, as I am often prone to do. To rewind a little, we are planning to get Broadband hooked up in the New Year, so normal service will resume, and posts on here will become much more regular. Perhaps even obsessive…
Anyway, a load of cool things have happened recently (the timeline of this post will be more convoluted than in Back To The Future 2). One of the big events was going to see Bruce Springsteen play in Belfast. My father-in-law has been a fan of The Boss for years, so when the gig was announced he demanded that we all go. As soon as tickets went on sale (9am in the morning), we went online and grabbed them.
So, a few weeks ago, we headed up to Belfast to the venue. I have to say that I am not a huge Spruce Bringsteen fan. I like his stuff, definitely, and would go as far as to say that it is beezer, but it wouldn’t be on my iPod every day or anything (It’s far too mainstream for a geek like me).
I have to say that I was absolutely blown away by the gig. Bruce is not just a performer; he’s a showman, and him and his band were totally professional and energetic and entertaining. It was quite weird to be one of 10,000 people in a big venue, especially when you saw the Mexican wave of people standing up to sing along with ‘Atlantic City’. It was a pretty amazing sight.
(Allegedly, Gerry Adams was there too, though I didn’t see him. I did sit behind a z-list Northern Irish television “celebrity” who I cannot be bothered to describe here, so I will not waste your time with that).
The other big thing is that the bound copy of my PhD Thesis arrived in the post, thanks to my old friend Chris “Big Bear” Murray (I don’t mean the word “Bear” in the homosexual sense, if you know what that means in gay slang). It was kind of weird to finally get it, mostly because it is the size of a breeze block, and it’s funny to think that I spoofed all that out myself. It was also strange to have it, as my Viva was delayed for such a long time, and so much happened in the year that I waited for it, that I sort of forgot all about it. So, when it came in the post in a big jiffy big, it was pretty exciting, though somewhat melancholy as well. Chris wrote me a very sweet, heartfelt message, which made me feel a little sad and lonesome for the times I spent in Dundee with friends and loved ones. I have so many special memories of that city that will never be erased. Lots of bad ones too, of course, and they will probably never be erased too, but I don’t know if I would go back and change things if I could. I would go back and live it all over again, but I wouldn’t change it.
I feel a bit sad when I think about my time in Dundee, mostly because it was a fantastic period of my life, one which is locked in a time capsule in my heart and cannot properly be opened again. Sometimes, when I go back there on short trips, I can open the lid a little and have a sneaky peak, but I will never get to look at it properly…
But let’s step away from this morose solemnity. In total contrast, I went to see the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale (with cheese). I have never been a big Bond fan, and the last one was absolutely appalling. I reckon that a pretty reliable rule of thumb is that if your film features an invisible car, you have probably botched things up. However, I was curious to see the “new and improved” James Bond schizzle, and as it was Crazy Tuesday in Belfast, it meant that the ticket was only a couple of pounds.
And I have to say that film was pretty good. Well, about three quarters good. It was interesting and different and quite dark until about half an hour from the end, where (don’t worry: no spoilers here!) it all went a bit cack, for want of a better word. Compared with The Bourne films, any spy movie nowadays is going to look ridiculous, and Casino Royale definitely did its best to fight against that. I loved the whole poker thing (as I am a bit of a nerd where that sort of thing is concerned, and will sit up into the small hours of the morning watching fat Americans getting all serious over a fairly silly card game), and I liked the action sequences, and I very much appreciated the new bond girl, Vesper Lynd (ding a ling a ding dong), but (and this is a big but), there were moments where I felt as if I was watching scenes where characters had mistakenly wandered in from another film.
The first is a somewhat odd torture scene in which the unshakeable, unstirrable Monsieur Bond is stripped naked, tied to a chair and then whipped by a dodgy Frenchman with a funny eye. This was not too far from a scene from Hostel, for example; was there any reason that James had to be in the nip? I don’t imagine that this would be too pleasing even for the ladies in the audience, given that the romantic ambiance is spoilt by James Bond enduring the pummelling of little James Bond with a knotted rope. Hmmm…
The second is not quite as unsavoury, but just as painful to watch: the torture is followed by an interminably soppy interlude, with dialogue that is just dripping with Edam: “You have stripped away my armour, and you can have what is left of me”. By the end of what seemed like an hour of poncing about and gazing winsomely into each other’s eyes, I wanted to be tied naked to a chair and whipped with a knotted rope.
However, up until that point, the film is pretty good, so when the you might as well fall asleep or leave the cinema. You won’t be missing that much.
You see, I don’t have broadband hooked up at home yet, which means that I have to type up these epistles when and where I can: at my mum and dad’s house, at the AU office, in school. The latter isn’t very likely, as I have been totally snowed under with work of late. I have to say that I prefer it that way; I thrive on deadlines and being busy, and would much rather that than sitting about on my ass all day long being bored. But I do feel as if my day is spent running from pillar to post, then driving home, having a quick nap, and getting fired into some prep / homework marking etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining at all. I love my job, but it can be fairly intense. For example, last Saturday I woke up at 8.30, looked at my alarm clock, said a naughty word and jumped out of bed, thinking that I had slept in. After I had come to my senses and realised it was the weekend, I clambered back into bed and, when my heart stopped doing a polka, fell back to sleep. I guess it was because last week had been so hectic and so heavy in a lot of ways, but there’s nothing much I can do about that.
Anyway, I was talking about something else. I have wandered off on a tangent, as I am often prone to do. To rewind a little, we are planning to get Broadband hooked up in the New Year, so normal service will resume, and posts on here will become much more regular. Perhaps even obsessive…
Anyway, a load of cool things have happened recently (the timeline of this post will be more convoluted than in Back To The Future 2). One of the big events was going to see Bruce Springsteen play in Belfast. My father-in-law has been a fan of The Boss for years, so when the gig was announced he demanded that we all go. As soon as tickets went on sale (9am in the morning), we went online and grabbed them.
So, a few weeks ago, we headed up to Belfast to the venue. I have to say that I am not a huge Spruce Bringsteen fan. I like his stuff, definitely, and would go as far as to say that it is beezer, but it wouldn’t be on my iPod every day or anything (It’s far too mainstream for a geek like me).
I have to say that I was absolutely blown away by the gig. Bruce is not just a performer; he’s a showman, and him and his band were totally professional and energetic and entertaining. It was quite weird to be one of 10,000 people in a big venue, especially when you saw the Mexican wave of people standing up to sing along with ‘Atlantic City’. It was a pretty amazing sight.
(Allegedly, Gerry Adams was there too, though I didn’t see him. I did sit behind a z-list Northern Irish television “celebrity” who I cannot be bothered to describe here, so I will not waste your time with that).
The other big thing is that the bound copy of my PhD Thesis arrived in the post, thanks to my old friend Chris “Big Bear” Murray (I don’t mean the word “Bear” in the homosexual sense, if you know what that means in gay slang). It was kind of weird to finally get it, mostly because it is the size of a breeze block, and it’s funny to think that I spoofed all that out myself. It was also strange to have it, as my Viva was delayed for such a long time, and so much happened in the year that I waited for it, that I sort of forgot all about it. So, when it came in the post in a big jiffy big, it was pretty exciting, though somewhat melancholy as well. Chris wrote me a very sweet, heartfelt message, which made me feel a little sad and lonesome for the times I spent in Dundee with friends and loved ones. I have so many special memories of that city that will never be erased. Lots of bad ones too, of course, and they will probably never be erased too, but I don’t know if I would go back and change things if I could. I would go back and live it all over again, but I wouldn’t change it.
I feel a bit sad when I think about my time in Dundee, mostly because it was a fantastic period of my life, one which is locked in a time capsule in my heart and cannot properly be opened again. Sometimes, when I go back there on short trips, I can open the lid a little and have a sneaky peak, but I will never get to look at it properly…
But let’s step away from this morose solemnity. In total contrast, I went to see the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale (with cheese). I have never been a big Bond fan, and the last one was absolutely appalling. I reckon that a pretty reliable rule of thumb is that if your film features an invisible car, you have probably botched things up. However, I was curious to see the “new and improved” James Bond schizzle, and as it was Crazy Tuesday in Belfast, it meant that the ticket was only a couple of pounds.
And I have to say that film was pretty good. Well, about three quarters good. It was interesting and different and quite dark until about half an hour from the end, where (don’t worry: no spoilers here!) it all went a bit cack, for want of a better word. Compared with The Bourne films, any spy movie nowadays is going to look ridiculous, and Casino Royale definitely did its best to fight against that. I loved the whole poker thing (as I am a bit of a nerd where that sort of thing is concerned, and will sit up into the small hours of the morning watching fat Americans getting all serious over a fairly silly card game), and I liked the action sequences, and I very much appreciated the new bond girl, Vesper Lynd (ding a ling a ding dong), but (and this is a big but), there were moments where I felt as if I was watching scenes where characters had mistakenly wandered in from another film.
The first is a somewhat odd torture scene in which the unshakeable, unstirrable Monsieur Bond is stripped naked, tied to a chair and then whipped by a dodgy Frenchman with a funny eye. This was not too far from a scene from Hostel, for example; was there any reason that James had to be in the nip? I don’t imagine that this would be too pleasing even for the ladies in the audience, given that the romantic ambiance is spoilt by James Bond enduring the pummelling of little James Bond with a knotted rope. Hmmm…
The second is not quite as unsavoury, but just as painful to watch: the torture is followed by an interminably soppy interlude, with dialogue that is just dripping with Edam: “You have stripped away my armour, and you can have what is left of me”. By the end of what seemed like an hour of poncing about and gazing winsomely into each other’s eyes, I wanted to be tied naked to a chair and whipped with a knotted rope.
However, up until that point, the film is pretty good, so when the you might as well fall asleep or leave the cinema. You won’t be missing that much.
posted by dr. ross thompson @ 10:50 AM
1 Comments:
Hey Rossius.
I too was at the Springsteen gig in the O. I really enjoyed the treatment of these songs and the obvious joy with which they were delivered creating such an effervescent atmosphere.
I was just to the left of the stage half way up in the stands. I was quite concerned at one point whether the seats would take the pounding they were receiving from people stomping along to the lovely tunes.
Seasons greetings to you.
M (the real 'M')
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