New Decade

So I normally try to avoid the month of December, perhaps by burying my head in the sand (in this case, snow) or maybe covering my ears, closing my eyes and singing 'LA-LA-LA' really loudly until it's gone away. There's something insipid about the buildup of X-mas lights at the end of November that makes me want to hurt things with a considerably sized machete.

My December passed in a blur of rehearsals, vauge illness, panto shifts, screaming children, pointless cards that hit the recycle bin at the first opportunity and classes that were clearly winding down for the holidays. Tragically, I did not get to see Sabaton again on the 13th, as I was working. However, I did get a brand new spanking laptop for my 25th Turkey Day celebrations.

Go me.

Despite all this, however, I've always loved New Years. I wear a black Santa hat with BAH HUMBUG stencilled on the front for the 25th and I glare at people who try to give me X-mas cards, but I like New Years. Something about new beginnings, the passing of time and marking it, considering where I was last year and how this year's going to be better... dunno, just strikes a chord in me. Roll on 2010. New Decade and all.

Oh, and I see that Tim found me. Blast, now I'm going to have to move blog-sites.

SA-BA-TON!! SA-BA-TON!! SA-BA-TON!!

Awesome night tonight. Me and my undersized buddy Matt attended a gig headlined by Dragon Force in the Southampton Guidlhall, which was pretty amaing. I can't say as I cared too much for the first group on, so much so that I can't even remeber their names, but after that Sylosis were as much as any headbanger can ask for and then the real glory came on stage.

SABATON.

For those of you don't know (who am I kidding, nobody reads this thing!) Sabaton are a Swedish heavy metal band that theme themselves around WW2 and other memorable conflicts. They are immensely respectful of their subject matter, which makes them even more frickin' AWEsome. They rock harder than I have ever known any band and they genuinely seem to be having a good time.

Anyway, should get some sleep now. Hope to see the crazy Swedes on the 13th of December as well, all going to plan.

You Are My Enemy

... Which'll be the name of my Drama-Doc script if I ever get the damned thing finished. I'm 20 pages done out of a possible 30-45, but it just seems to trickle. Young Will has already done his first draft and got it to me for my unrelentingly harsh judgement. It's alright, needs a trimming, certainly, but does the trick. Some of the dialouge seems a bit... off, but we can deal with that.

So should get mine done. It's not due in until January, but I want to get a second and maybe a third draft out of it before then. Maybe, see how it all goes.

Was back in Newbury for the weekend, mostly to work and meet semi-famous Comedians, but saw many of my friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in months.

Also got to play the second session of the irregular Hunter: The Vigil game I set up with Andy, Marsh and Dave, although no Dave this time but Ade instead. I continued to shamelessly rip off horror films in order to put together the plot for this one, but I think it worked pretty well. At least, there was a dark cave and they all got seperated. Hilarity ensuse. And bodies. Lots of bodies.

Back to Southampton then.

Just under a week from now I shall be at Southampton Guildhall, raising both fists in the air and screaming "SAB-A-TON! SAB-A-TON!" over and over, for my favourite WW2-obsessed crazed Swedish heavy metal band will be gracing the stage in support of DragonForce, who I'm not a major fan of, but it's decent enough music to hurt teenagers too. Ah well.

Shooting Script

So we've got the shooting script for the short pretty much done, that's nice and all. Soon we can actually begin filming, as soon as we've got our final cast member. You'd think that finding someone to fit the bill as 'Hot Girl' wouldn't be so hard...

It's really taking on life now, it's not just an idea we were kicking around a few months ago. It's gonna happen, we're gonna make a film and it's gonna be frickin' sweet. Attack of the mutant pig people, on your screens! Coming soon!

I hope.

In other news, something happened today that's never, ever happened before... both of my housemates were in the flat at the same time as I was. I've never, ever seen the two of them in the same place at the same time. Random, I know, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Maybe I should have a commemorative plaque made or something...

Having To Look Productive

You know when you've done what you were going to do today (specifically, finish my sodding essay), and then decide that the best plan for the remainder of your day would be to sprawl yourself across the sofa in your underwear and watch dvds all day? Yeah? Then you know how your Dad turns up to finish off the painting he wanted to do and that's it. Day scuppered. No sofa, no underwear, no dvds. Have to acknowledge that there is sunlight outside.

So in order to escape from helping with the dreaded manual labour (which delicate creative types like myself find akin to Kryptonite), I have to sit in front of my computer and attempt 'to look productive'. That's harder than it sounds, as I'm discovering. I've checked my banking, I'm up to date with my webcomics and I've already finished the damned essay! So now what? Break out the reserve essay? The one I was saving for a special occasion?

Pah.

Besides, I'm fast running out of Stargate SG1 again and will have to get round to watching the things that I'm supposed to be watching, the ones that people have leant to me and are metaphorically tapping their feet, waiting for me to get it back to them.

I suppose that I really should get round to watching the rest of Season 1 of The Wire, since it's apparantly the best show ever (feel the skeptic in you arise, see as it pours scorn on such claims), although I wasn't completely convinced by the first few episodes.

Also got 'Brotherhood' to watch.

Oh, and Kat leant me 'Identity'.

Not to mention that I have to watch 'Deathwatch' again tonight, for the assignment due in on wednesday, then write 1,500 words on how good/bad it is, depending on how I'm feeling at the time. I really should actually get down to doing that, but I refuse to watch horror films while there is daylight. And I have to acknowledge the daylight, because my Dad needs it to do his painting!

So now that I'm about to embark on this voyage of pointlessness that is 'having to look productive', I suppose I should continue the script for my Drama Documentary, so that it can be torn apart by my fellow students at our next workshop. I should also wonder if there's any way that I can cut out the middle man and absorb SG1 directly into my bloodstream... maybe if I hooked up my TV to a drip...

Trying New Things

So it turns out that I've been persuaded by absolutely nobody that I should give this blogging thing a try. I mean, I gave it a go a while back, but that was back when myspace was new and interesting and hadn't been overtaken by whining teenagers. Or more accurately, when I was a whining teenager.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of it all is, but hey, I'm here now so I might as well make the most of it. I like to think that I've chosen the most pointlessly pretentious layout and font and socks for this little exercise, but if you think it can be improved upon (like my spelling), feel free to never contact me.

So I'm starting out.

The weekend so far has been pretty fun for me, I got to spend several hours in the university library researching the recent history of Iran and the theories of television cultivation. Which is exactly as exciting as it sounds. Then I proceeded to the main city library to discover...

The bloody thing was closed! How dare they. No I have to go home, eat cookies and watch Stargate SG1 again, rather than more tedious hours of research.

Or, you know, start the essay for which all this research will eventually contribute too. Which is exactly as exciting as it sounds. Oh wait...

So now, blogging.

Yep. Pointless.

So I'm sure I'll persevere with writing my thoughts down (since writing pointless things is what I spend about ninety percent of my waking time doing anyway), but if I suddenly stop it's only because the sugar has run out or I suddenly hit my head and came to my senses (which, incidently, is exactly what I theorise happened to the last young woman who was seen anywhere near me).