Deipotent
26th June 09 — 23:44
I think this past week might have been the most hectic I've seen since I got back from university. I told somebody earlier that I didn't think I had ever done more work in a single week than this one. This week I've felt both rapture and anger in equal measure; I've felt completely unappreciated and absolutely vital alternately; I've also never gone from feeling so inadequate to so virtuous in such a short space of time.
I came from home work one day this week feeling angrier than I think I have felt for quite some time. It was the day that I regarded (and still do) as the worst day I have had since I began working at school.
I've also come home feeling more important than I've ever felt before. I'm at the centre of a very important venture which will largely affect an entire year of students, if not more afterwards. They have been my insights which have made easier large and sensitive plans; my hard work which has saved both time and energy; my resolve which has not only dealt with this but also the usual and unusual duties I'm expected to perform daily.
And at the end of it all, I'm so tired. So very tired. I sincerely hope that over the next two days I don't need to do any more thinking, or reading, or learning, or arguing, or lifting. I'm way over my quota for all of the above. I want nothing more now than to lie down and enjoy the rewards of a job well done and a rest well earned.
Fun with spoons
22nd June 09 — 19:43
I'm such a great terrible good bad son.
Okay, so I learnt from Lee last Friday that the then-upcoming, now-passed Sunday was Fathers' Day. It occurred to me that I should probably get my dad something; a small token to say thank you for being so great. I mean, he really is a star. Who else could ask their parents at 3AM to get out and find somewhere else to sleep because a drunk booty-call is coming over? Try it and let me know how it goes.
I was considering all this on the bus journey home and I decided on it: "I'll get him something nice." Now, my dad and I are pretty much the same so I figured that whatever I'd like, he'd like. So I thought to myself, "what would I like?" This is a dangerous line of reasoning generally because at any given point in the day there is a 4/5 chance that I want ice-cream.
"That's it!" I thought. "I'll get him some top-shelf ice-cream. That will tell him I'm grateful for what he does." So I stopped off at the Esso station on my way home and picked up two tubs of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie.
I'm such a great son.
Fast-forward three hours and I'm sat in the flat starving. I have eaten everything we have—with the exception of a jar of mayonnaise—and I can hear the ice-cream calling to me from the freezer. The tubs are speaking to me, telling me they want to be my friends. They won't hurt me, they say, they only want to make me happy. I want to be happy, right?.
I'm not entirely sure what happened immediately after this but the next thing I know I'm covered in ice-cream and holding an empty tub. I panic and realise that I have eaten half of my dad's gift. I worry further when I contemplate him coming home early to discover me looking sheepish with chocolate spattered all over my face. I shamefully bury the tub at the bottom of the bin and wash my mouth.
I'm such a terrible son.
The next day I decide that I should replace the ice-cream; he did after all deserve two and he should receive two. I bought a second tub from the garage, (which, for some reason, had hiked up the prices since the day before), and squirrelled it away in the freezer. "Ugh, what about a card?" I thought.
I couldn't be bothered putting my shoes back on and trekking in to Cleveleys so I decided to rummage optimistically through the drawers instead. I found a drawer full of cards that we'd received for Christmas/birthdays last Decemeber; "jackpot!"
I picked one card at random—incidentally it turned out to be the Christmas card that our landlady sent us—and opened it up. I crossed out all the shit she had written on the right page and wrote on the left in big letters "Happy Fathers' Day!"
I'm such a good son.
The next day my dad and I are sat in the flat and he is watching Formula One. He has eaten one of his tubs and he loves his card. I begin to feel hungry again.
Phil: So, uh, were you going to eat that last tub or what?
Dad: Why? Do you want it?
Phil: Yeah, pretty much.
I'm such a bad son.
I've just had to turn off Knowing, starring Nicholas Cage, 35 minutes in. Why? Because it's probably the worst film I've ever seen with him in it. I can't be sure it's his worst ever—because I haven't seen Ghostrider or The Wicker Man—but I'm sure it's one of the competitors.
Give it a miss. Even if you think "that might be interesting." It isn't. It's far too serious, too poorly scripted, too boring, too implausible and too goofy to be watchable.
Phil Lizzy
15th June 09 — 23:12
Tonight was a good night. I played some guitar, improving my rendition of Whiskey in the Jar, and I played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with Sam. For those that don't know, SDoKB is a game played on IMDb in which players attempt to connect various actors/crew members in as few steps as possible.
I managed to connect Sam to Dame Judi Dench in three hops and then River Phoenix in five. He is completely losing his shit over it. I told him that we'd play How Many Clicks to Jesus? with me when I get my own Wikipedia page. I'm sure you can figure out how that game is played.
The ice queen
13th June 09 — 15:33
It has just occurred to me how easy my job is. Do you know those people who come home from work at the end of the day and are totally drained? What am I saying; you might be one of those people. The kind that finish work and get home and don't feel like doing anything, or who feel tired just thinking about having to go back in tomorrow and do it all again.
My job isn't like that at all. It used to be though, back when I worked at The Royal. There were so many Saturdays when I'd get in at 9AM and not leave until 10 at night. I'd be on my tram-journey home, aching, starving, smelling of food and feeling totally dispirited by the fact that I'd have to get up at 7AM the next morning and do the entire day again. And when during the holidays it was 6 days a week, (but easier hours Monday to Friday).
I wasn't miserable; it was just difficult and I felt drained. Drained and maybe a little fed-up. Towards the end though I learnt to deal with it better by reminding myself that the day was over and I didn't need to feel stressed any more. All of the difficult parts of the day were behind me and I didn't need to concern myself with anything except a nice shower, some hot food and a nice sleep.
My current job though? Forget it. I get home at 4:30 in the afternoon, sit on my couch for ten minutes while I mentally process and catalogue all of the things that happened during the day, and I'm done. I get back up and do pretty much whatever I want for the rest of the day. Maybe I eat ice-cream, or play the guitar, or read, or write, or go out. There's no stress or exhaustion or resentment of having to go back in the morning.
The hardest part is getting home with unfinished business; maybe there's a problem at work that I didn't solve during the day, which leads to me obsessing about it all evening until I solve it. These instances are pretty rare though because of how great I am at my job.
All of this has just occurred to me while I've been staring out the window and eating ice-cream. This wasn't nearly as creepy as it sounds by the way; the shades were mostly drawn and nobody could see that I wasn't wearing pants. Anyway, it's a shame I didn't realise this earlier; I've only got 30 working days left. After that it's a long Summer of rest.
Holy shit, I forgot to mention: at work this week a teacher actually went out to Tesco's during one of her free periods and bought me a half-litre tub of Ben & Jerry's (chocolate fudge brownie). How good is that? It was my reward for fixing her daughter's laptop. I guess that means that not only is my job easy but it's frigging delicious too.
It's with a strange (and vicarious) pleasure that I present to you the makings of my first famous friend: Sam, one of the roomies.
I might ask him to sign this for me in case it's worth a lot one day.
Yesterday at work I convinced Martin that Homer—the 8th century BC Greek poet and author of The Illiad and The Oddysey—was named after Homer Simpson—the cartoon character who was invented almost three thousand years later.
Ask The Cars
10th June 09 — 00:06
For weeks my dad has been begging me to watch My Best Friend's Girl. I haven't though because I've disliked everything I've ever seen Dane Cook do. I haven't liked his stand-up or any of his films. In fact, based on everything I'd seen and heard of him, I was beginning to resent having to hear his name.
For these reasons I ignored my dad's recommendation. Instead I opted to watch shit like The Unborn, The Accidental Husband, Friday the 13th. Today though I was in something of an indecisive mood as far a film choices went, so I thought "fuck it" and put it on.
And you know what? I liked it so much that I'm not even embarrassed to admit it. It was good. It was really, really good.
I didn't think it was going to go too well at the beginning. I was either prejudiced against the film as a whole or it started slowly, but I felt like I had to endure the opening. After it got going though I just couldn't look away.
I can take or leave the rom-com stuff, but what really captivated me was Dane Cook's character. If you don't know, he is paid by guys to take out ex-girlfriends and show them a really shitty time, thus making them miss their ex. I didn't think I was going to like his asshole routine at first, but oh my god... it's brilliant.
I don't agree with the way he treats women or any of his philosophies on relationships, but I have never seen a character like his in film before. There are womanisers and misogynists, sure, but Cook brings to the role an arrogance and cockiness most other chauvinists lack. I mean, when you get womanisers normally, they treat women like crap because they hate them. Dane Cook just doesn't give a shit; it makes for a great performance.
It's not just Dane that does a good job either; I think the direction is superb. The brilliant cuts-away and flashbacks stand out in particular, as well as some particularly great scenes.
You know how I'm always going on about how films now don't have those scenes that you remember; those really great scenes you can enjoy out of context? I don't know if I've written about that but I talk about it to my friends all the time. I think that films recently have been awful and just a series of scenes that you wish would end so the next would begin (and then that one is uninteresting also).
Well in this there are some really good ones. There was one scene in particular in which Dane's character has had something of a revelation while at a wedding. As you see the idea pass before his eyes, and the frown across his face, When the Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash begins to play. I was awestruck. This is a song about the Book of Revelations; it's some serious, biblical shit.
As the song plays, Dane walks down the aisle of a wedding in slow motion, he brings a cigarette to his mouth and he lights it. During this scene I could absolutely not look away; I knew that shit was on.
Honestly, who could have expected this kind of reaction to a Dane Cook/Jason Biggs rom-com? If you don't like this film then that's fine. I honestly have never seen anything quite like it though and it really grabbed me. I'm back to shitty films tomorrow though; I think I have a copy of New in Town around here somewhere.
The fast and the terminated
8th June 09 — 19:17
I just finished watching Fast and Furious and it is rubbish. It's just horrible.
Firstly, Vin Diesel is a terrible actor. What can the man do? He has absolutely no charisma whatsoever. The only emotion he can emulate is annoyance and his every sentence sounds identical (and by that I mean they're all equally difficult to understand). Every role he plays is the same as the last. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the role was good, but it isn't.
I would much rather have seen a Fast and Furious with that black guy from the second film. He was more fun to watch. I don't remember his name though, which might show either how much I pay attention to films or how good the films are. I'll tell you what though, you could have cast Lawrence Olivier instead of Vin Diesel and this film would still have been rubbish.
You know what my biggest problem was? The way they portray the police as a group of bumbling dickheads. The exact same thing happened in the second film, and a similar thing happened in pretty much all of the Die Hards. It pisses me off when a high-ranking official comes on screen and starts talking out of his ass, disregarding facts and acting making calls that get everybody on their side killed.
Why do people make films featuring these types of people? Are we expected to believe that Sgt. Indecisive has had a long and lustrous career, only to lose all his tactical acumen the second that the camera begins to roll? What a joke.
Speaking of a joke, pay close attention to the film's script. I mean, I don't advise you watch it, but if you do then try to listen every now and then to what the characters are saying. The dialogue is so poor that I actually find it frightening to think of a screenplay writer sitting around somewhere, writing some of these lines and thinking "yep, job done."
Like, this is somebody's work; are they really happy with it? The stan-dard of writing is on par with some of the worst television you see. I mean, this is some seriously poor sitcom shit.
I have nothing good at all to say about this film.
Also, if you're interested, I saw Terminator 4 this weekend. It was pants. I think that's the only word I can use to describe it: "pants". If you're not aware, it means "not good". You can achieve roughly the same cinematic experience from re-watching the first two; most of the same characters are in them and so are most of the scenes. Watching the first two also spares you the agony of seeing another franchise finally ruined.
EDIT: Does anybody else look at upcoming films for the rest of the year? Being released in December is a remake of A Christmas Carol. Gary Oldman appears in it; he plays Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. Tiny fucking Tim! Tiny Tim is a child! I can't wait to watch this.
Jurassic Brother
6th June 09 — 22:59
Did you ever love something as a child only to grow up and realise that it's not as good as you remember? Like a TV show or a film, or a song. Then when you're older and you've got some sense you see that perhaps it wasn't actually good?
That is the exact opposite of Jurassic Park. It's on ITV now. I watched it a bunch of times as a kid and it's still brilliant. I never noticed before though how dark and cynical it is. When I was young I used to think "dinosaurs, sound track, fuck yeah!" Now though I'm seeing that it's actually quite grown-up.
I think it's even more fantastic now then I used to.
At the opposite end of the entertainment spectrum, I had to endure an episode of Big Brother this evening. Big Brother this year is apparently based the popular but woeful Saw franchise. In this one episode—I think it's the second day of the show—I saw people being tortured by special forces and asked to bleed in order to escape eviction.
Needless to say, I won't be watching.