Chastised

Okay, so I was chastised into blogging once again. My good friend Martin sent me an email (which actually included the words 'hit me up') asking, among other things, why I hadn't blogged in a while. To be honest, I don't really know, it just kind of fell by the wayside and I'm regretting that a little. I am fond of this blog, but it does take a little time and effort that I didn't always have free in the last few weeks.

So, life at the moment. I'm still living in the same place, it looks unlikely I'll move now for the foreseeable future, despite the fact that this place has more problems than an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. So does my flat in southampton, it seems, since I moved out of it. Barely a week goes by without my friends/tennants down there don't call me up to tell me some new and interesting quirk that the place has developed.

This makes me sad, as it means that there are now three of my friends that I dread to get phone calls from.

In other news, the hours I'm working have increased at both of my jobs, so I barely have free time anymore.

Been doing some serious gaming in the brief windows that I do have, we finished the final battle of November's Children and have moved on to the sequal, November's Chosen. What with the success of Being Human and now this new show 'The Fades' (which is worth checking out, by the way), I think the BBC3 is going for some kind of fantasy horror vibe, so I'm considering writing up the opener for November's Children as a script (stripping out the obvious World of Darkness copyrights) and sending it in to the Writer's Room. You never know, it could work.

I'll resolve to write some more blog entries in the future, I've actually got a backlog from August and July that never saw the light of day, so I'll try and get those up at some point. It's not that I grew bored with blogging, it's just that there's been a lot on in the last few weeks. Including me getting a girlfriend, which was odd enough. I'm just trying to keep on top of it all, to be honest. Hope you didn't miss me too much!

HR GIGER MUSEUM

Now, while we were on holiday in Sunny Swissland, my brother and I noticed a rather odd thing. In the middle of a tiny historic tourist town called Gruyeres (pronounced somewhat like Gree-urrr to us English-speaking lot), we spotted a museum dedicated to the work of HR Giger, a name that movie buffs will recognise as the artist that designed the Alien from the legendary film Alien (as well as its sequels). So we thought after we'd done the obligitary walk around the castle and lunch consisting of over-priced fondue, my brother and I decided to visit the art museum. I mean, it's only an art museum, how weird can that be?

Weird.

So. Very.

WEIRD.

This man's head was not a nice place to be, I assure you. It's got to be one of the most disturbing experiances of my life, spending time in this museum. There are of course whole rooms dedicated to the Alien and the many incarnations that the design went through (it had eyes once upon a time), as well as concept sketches for the Bambi-Alien in Alien 3. But that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this guy. His sequences on The Spell and Corruption were both intensely horrifying and morbidly fascinating to behold, there were images in there that I'm hoping I don't remember too clearly, to be honest with you.

All in all, the appreciation I got from his work was a yearning for a deeper understanding of how humanity and machinery will blend together in the future to come, how the human body can be broken down and replaced wuth augmetics, cybernetics, hydraulics, all kinds of mechanics, how flesh is just another machine to be dismantled and put back together again. Combined with a clearly frustrated sexual tension underlying all of his work (there is an entire section of work that was off-limits to under 18's), this exhibit was both enlightening and disturbing. I came out of that museum slightly shaken and mostly numb.

On the plus side, there's a bar opposite with all of his designs incorporated into the chairs, tables and scenery, which is pretty awesome, as well as, in the lowest corner, kept enshrined, the Oscar he won for the design of Alien. Worth a visit, but take a strong stomach with you.

Next up: SUPER 8.