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January 30, 2004
Mixed Messages
Not really been a good week so far for the rogue one... between the runs, puking and the headache from hell I'm pretty down. Even getting down to XIII and finally being able to play Prince Of Persia between bouts of pain haven't raised my spirits. oddly enough, though I have never suffered a real hangover (the nearest I got was when the lovely Helen, a friend from a while ago who (grr) ended up with someone from Blackburn (spit) despite really wanting a Burnley boy (!) decided to go through the vodka drinks alphabetically, and dragged me into it too... I wonder if they are still together?), this feels like one big hangover... maybe I'm getting too uber-sober again!
So, I have one day off work on Wednesday - just one as I couldn't walk due to being so dizzy (laugh all you want, Jamius!) - and I went back to work yesterday (Thursday, for certain min-RC vehicle fans who probably have trouble following the logic!). I get called into the manager's office for my return to work interview. There I am told to take vitamins (I rattle I take so many - in fact I spent Thursday feeling like throughing vitamins up all day!), and to take care of myself - my health is the most important thing (and should I really be at work anyway?). Oh, and by the way, you are now back above the trigger level of absences, just to really piss you off. Despite this, I spent the day out driving very carefully round Accrington and Oswaldtwistle visiting clients, and throwing up in the loos in Accrington town centre. I even had to call off my physiotherapy with the lovely Catherine this week too!
I also get the boss unhappy as I went in this morning (and immediately booked this afternoon off before she sent me home anyway). I can't win at the moment - either I get nagged for being in work when I really shouldn't be (I was nearly missing doorways again, and when that usually happens I'm pretty ill), or nagged for being off either at work or by Doof (who only works part of the week in his shelf-making factory anyway, which is convenient as he spends about 1000% longer on Galaxies than I do!). Hmm - I think I'm going to make a concerted effort, for the rest of 2004, not to be off sick at all. That should keep them happy. I'll still get sick, of course, but as I usually work until I start falling down because of it anyway, I'm sure I can keep going unless they call for the ambulance. The good thing is that I get a new boss one way or another from April onwards, so I just need to work out how to skip having leave at all - Linda, my current boss knows my little ways, and forces me to take time off... shame she also nags me to get my backlog of clients down at the same time...
Still, that's work, I suppose... unless I can get a regular gig writing books or something for shedloads of dosh, or finally win the lottery (though sadly you have to be in it to win it, apparently), or if by some chance the new RNP site (and this one of course!) get so popular that people start sending me money via Paypal...
The rest of the week hasn't been a barrel of laughs though, but at least I had a laugh at how eager James was to collect his latest Mini RC toy - a rather cute Mach 5 from Speed Racer! I think the next time a publisher is looking to push out a new magazine part-work to tear the money from our unsuspecting pockets, they should choose Mini RC vehicles - James would be totally bankrupt!!!
If I feel up to it I'll be in Manchester tomorrow, but it depends how I feel - I may just go for the hell of it!
Posted by Badgers at 06:38 PM | Comments (3)
January 24, 2004
A New Paradigm
And physio on Thursday was a bugger too!!! I hate all that stretching stuff - it means I can't walk for a week afterwards. Worth it for seeing Catherine, the lovely physiotherapist (who I would happily do anything she says, even my home exercises!), twice a week, though!
There - that should get James' attention, especially with that name involved!!! So, Thursday was annoying - It began late due to physio, amd got later due to having to see people in Knuzden, Mellor (over an hour for nothing - I'm glad I don't sell this stuff!), Rishton and Clitheroe. I got back time in the afternoon, though, as one person wasn't in. I also managed to hit the local Staples store and pick up a new DVD writer (now I can actually burn DVD rom discs at last - I can save room on the computer again!), and the A5 pen tablet I need for flash... The day wasn't a total washout, then!
Friday saw me battling to get a load of work done on the computer at work before Barbara came in and took it over for the rest of the day, and that horrible spectre of terror that hangs over us all, the supervision sedssion. I may have mentioned before that this is like an appraisal (we get those these year as well) but not half as interesting. I found that my caseload had risen despite clearing off over 50 cases, and she expects me to send case closures on Friday afternoons and Monday mornings - the very times when I find it very difficult to get on a bloody computer!!! Sometimes I check to see if she has grown pointy hair like the boss in the Dilbert strips! She's even made me (really!) take two weeks off - I'm having a week in about a months time, and then the week after my birthday (I may need it to recover). She even moaned that I havn't been taking long enough lunch breaks... in the same breath as telling me to work like a bugger to clear everything. Apparently, clearing the caseload is uber-important, but my health (!) and well being is of even higher iportance. Between that and the sickness interview on Wednesday (take more vitamins, try not to be ill as often)... When the dreaded lurgi atacks me (as it did last year far too many times) I spend at least a week at work while feeling terrible until she forces me to be off sick... and this on the week a study shows that most people go into work when they really should be off ill! Mixed messages for sure...
Still, yesterday was full of incident! Early in the morning we heard a mass of sirens coming our way - a huge convoy (complete with armed police) turned up at the police station and unloaded a prisoner... quite exciting, and we watched them take him away later in the afternoon. Apparently this was a drug trafficker that had been brought back from the Netherlands and then brought here This wasn't all - at one point just before lunch we had a sudden surge of police into our car park. It turned out that a shop lifter had run from the police station and had been seen in our car park. The police dog could smell him, and wanted to go down into the river channel below - the policeman picked the dog up, lifted him over the railing and it went down... and bit the bugger as he hid under the building!
Ah well - the weekend is here... whoop de doo!
Posted by Badgers at 07:26 AM | Comments (6)
Snow and Hills
This is in fact a dream from yesterday night, but I had the sense to write it down before I forgot it...
I am walking down Colne Road towards Queensgate, but while the shops and houses are still on my left, to the right things are different. The old petrol station (now Burnley Tyre & Battery) was still there, and beyond, apart from a few houses, was hills and the moors, rising in a spectacular way - like something from Scotland ot or the Lake District. Or round here, for that matter! The hills were closer to town than they usually were, though. The ground was icy and it was hard to walk, let alone run (which I began to for some reason), and it felt cold.
I saw a friend from work who said "hi" before pointing to the hills and saying "Look - it's going to snow! And it's coming this way!". I look where she points, and see a lot of cloud forming and pouring through a small gap in the hills - I also see the ground below becoming white as snow fell. I then see a flash in the sky and spot a silver prop-plane flying low over the hill around the cloud, and realise that it is taking readings of the weather. Somehow this all seems important.
As it is a day-old dream, I can analyse it now while I burn a DVD! The interesting thing to me is that yesterday the Met Office declared that next week will be a winter snap with bitter wintery weather expected... Not that this dream is evidence of precognitive ability (I don't mention the dream about going to Manchester and finding it shut for some reason, then finding that the bomb that lead to the improvement of the City centre had gone off at the time I would have been there that morning if I hadn't overslept if I can help it!), but I do like it when dreams fit with real life like this. Except the ones whjere I find myself at work and then the working day that follows is very similar - I hate those! And the working day too!
Not sure where all the elements come from, but it recalls an older dream I used to have where I am walking back to Burnley from brierfield along Colne Road (again) and the view to Pendle Hill is uninterupted by houses, mills, etc.
Nothing much to add, sorry!
Posted by Badgers at 06:45 AM | Comments (1)
January 21, 2004
I Got a BOMB!!!!
To be honest, I don't know who is sillier - the girl who joked that she had a bomb in her bag, or the US authorities!
Samantha Marston, a 21 year-old student (figures!!!) told the security people at the airport in Mianmi that she had a bomb. And she was silly enough to do it twice more. Thsi lead to her being clapped in irons and marched to prison wihile looking at weeks or months in prison before her case came up. The US authorities set a bail of £2,700 (a little high, perhaps?) and no doubt considered sending her to Guatanamo Bay to be interrogate. The bail has been delivered by the British Embassy, allowing her to come home, but she will have to return... and no doubt the US will try to get her jailed and have her trailed by the FBI, CIA and probably wetworks teams, just in case.
So did they overreact? Maybe, but they did warn that they would ballistic on anyone who did this... but then, since the US think we are all terrorists in the UK anyway due to the visa problem...
Link to item on BBC site here...
Posted by Badgers at 08:35 PM | Comments (0)
Something Wrong With The Stopwatch...
So there I was on Tuesday in physio, my leg aching. This was the day that we had a kind of obstacle course - we started with two minutes on each of six exercises. These ranged from keeping a wobble board level (impossible!), stepping up onto a mini-trampoline, walking round a hoop etc. We started and the physio said "half-way there"... odd as about 30 seconds had passed. I was watching a clock on the wall at one end, and another th the side, and while the second clock was 3 minutes fast, I was able to tell that the second minute was in fact, longer. and from then on the two minutes differed by up to 30 seconds... To finish we moved onto another set of exercises on the same equipment, but just for a minute. Guess what? The minutes lasted less as we got to the end of the session. Odd, that...
Ah well. Sunday saw James not turning up, due to working (see his earlier comments, though he did take his Robotech lighters), but apart from a fantastic battle in Shogun: Total War (which I did rather well in - in fact, I won!!! Big time!!!) we discovered 'The Hunt' mode in XIII multiplayer... running round trying to shoot a singing (!) hooded Death was so much fun! Damn good game, too!
James did pop up here on Monday though to pick up his micro-submarine... his latest fixation (besides that one ;-)) is little remote cotrol vehicles - he started last year with mini cars, but is now going into subs, tanks, fire engines... He was really excited too. Disturbing...
A busy week at work, especially today. I was training (well talking with) the Occupational Therapy people at Clitheroe Hospital on what my job is, but was a little late due to being caught behind a tractor pulling another tractor on the road from Gisburn to Clitheroe. Then this afternoon was the dreaded First Stage Absence Interview... This terrible-sounding event was due to me triggering the absence level monitors (due to sickness and finally this bloody ankle!) - 10 days!!! that's almost all the time I have had off this year (including leave!!!) My boss explained how it was a formality etc, and I spent as much time as possible not listening (!). Y'see, the upshot is that to stop the virus hitting me (and so getting on my chest and making me throw-up all the time) I need to take lots of vitamins (I do!!! Any more and I'll rattle!!!) and also try to take more time off... she is worried that I still have three weeks to take off and I can't take it for nearly a month, and won't be able to have any at the end of March due to the reorganisation of Social Services... I have decided to have a week off in the middle of February and then another two weeks later to fit it in and keep her happy...
At least things in Galaxies are going well! If you see a Helise Truefoot (my usual RPG chara name) in either the Bria galaxy (on Tattooine at the moment battling damn froggy Sevorts!), or in the Scylla galaxy (on Naboo trying to get in on the entertainer business!). I just spent a few moments chatting with a marksman who was healing me while I healed him in the medical centre in Mos Entha... loads of XP gained, and purely platonic!
Link Spot:
People who know me know that I like fan-films (I gave the idiots a 9-disc set of Star Wars fan films for Xmas 2002 (mostly from The Force.net) in the Fan films section), and can also recommend Hidden Frontier (but be warned, there are some gay characters and b-stories!). For the classic series fans there is the superb Starship Exeter, but it has a new rival in the form of Star Trek: New Voyages! This series (raising money for the Space Shuttle Children's Trust Fund) continues the original series with a new cast, making a 4th season with Kirk (recast!) and the crew of the USS Enterprise. It seems to have been hit since the relaease at the weekend (1,000,000+ downloads so far!) and isn't bad at all. This episode is the pilot, with another episode due in July... Of course, if you like your Star Trek spoofed, full of swearing, and in Finnish(!) wait for the release of Star Wrek VI - In The Pirkinning which takes the Star Wreck series to a hole new level... and looks like the ultimate battle between Star Trek and Babylon 5 you always wanted! Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2004
AAARRRGGHHH!!! (And That Was *Before* the Physio!)
This week hasn't been too bad, but Thursday saw me getting the runs again (damned pills!) and also starting physiotherapy on my ankle! Standing on a wobbly rubber cushion thingy I was made to stand on my bad leg, pass balls around, toss bean bags into the air... if it wasn't for the nice young physiotherapist who saw me on Tuesday running the class, I'd say that things hadn't changed much in the 12 years or so since my last sessions! My ankle stood up to it well - I can put weight on it but balancing is still a problem - so I got through the exercises without too much hassle, but it hurt for the rest of the day - not surprising as I went straight from physio to see three people before dashing back to Burnley to go to a demo of some software the Social Services and Health staff should be using later this year... And after that my future boss (post-April) nattered to me and my colleagues for ages about stuff too. I really have to get home!
I got home to be given a little bad news which might just affect my financial stability (not to mention mean I can never afford to leave this bloody house!), though hopefully it will not come to that. Sigh. I finally got to see Angel though - stunning! And that was just Fred!!! Ah well.
Today has been a fun day - lots more visits (6 people in one afternoon, starting in Nelson, going through Burnley to Bacup then on to Accrington!) , and a morning of typing up 24 appointment letters, closing 30 cases (oh my current boss will have been so happy this afternoon!) and generally going gently insane.
Now I get home tonight to find that even more money is needed to stave off financial ruin for the parents... plus ca change!
Now James is here to bug me for real, instead of on Messenger!!!
Posted by Badgers at 07:24 PM | Comments (2)
January 13, 2004
Watchya Gonna Do...
...when old men go all Hulkamania on you? Today was interesting. Especially when the last client I saw today was religious and had been in the army and kept saying 'brother' a lot. You know what its like, brother? Wierd... All I could think of was Hulk Hogan (though this chap was quite a long way from being a pro-wrestler, though being in his 90s, not a lot older than Hulk...)
So, what has happened since the last entry? Well, the week at work didn't improve, thats for sure! The weekend was better, as I played Galaxies (I'm getting hooked!) and helped get Christmas stuff back into the loft again. Sunday brought Shogun: Total War at £5 each (though it took two trips - the first time we got one, but then had to return to get more... darn Gamecopy World! the majority of the afternoon was then spent battling with Mongols and Samurai and stuff - it originally came out when we had gone off real-time strategy, but it still stands up today... James should be getting us the sequel, Medieval: Total War this Sunday, if he turns up...
Sunday also saw me waking up early and redesigning the archives pages and making sure that it all worked on the update page... this will hopefully be what I spend most of tomorrow night doing to all the other MT-based pages. Soon I will set to on the pages at RNP, though the rejig over there will be far more extensive! I hope!
Monday saw me going to work, and spending most of it planning appointments for the next month or so around various meetings, demonstrations of new computer systems, etc. By mid-February I will only have 25 of my current workload to deal with. But then there is the next six weeks of new referrals to add on top... I really want out - but something tells me that when the job is disestablished, I won't have to be interviewed for the job, I will probably just get it. Bugger!
Yesterday also saw me nearly knocking a lot of fools over - note to pedestrians - when you see a car coming along the road at the speed limit, and you want to cross the road, wait for it to go by if it is within 10 feet of the kerb where you have suddenly decided to attempt suicide! I can guarentee, no matter how good my brakes are, I won't stop. I might even reverse over you to teach you a lesson! Off course, I also saw a nicely trashed car yesterday afternoon heading up towards Harle Syke - not sure what happened, but it had smahsed into a lampost and the front of the little black car was bent round it! I arrived as the recovery truck was maneuvering to pick it up. Guess his brakes didn't work!
Today (after the dreams - yes - I finally updated the Dream Diary!) was visits again (including the man mentioned above, brother), but the big thing was the physiotherapy assessment. I arrived ahead of time, and watched other people get taken in by the physio therapists, then one nice girl came in, and I thought 'she won't be the one to check out my foot' - but I was wrong! Catherine, a nice brunette (not the one from the dream!) checked out my foot making sure to make it hurt, etc, and then gave me some exercises to do during the day to try and strengthen it (the same ones basically that I have been doing anyway under the desk at work, which explains the faces I sometimes pull!), and booked me in for the ankle class. Twice a week. Oh, my boss will just love that - 9.45-10.20 every Tuesday and Thursday!
Ah well, I got through today, and got home. The I was quickly given tea while Mum prepared to dash over to the meeting at 6.00... rush rush rush! I play a little Galaxies (I can quit whenever I want! I'm not an addict - I can always move onto Knights Of The Old Republic but a session of cold turkey!) then finally, I sit and happily watch Stargate SG-1, and folow it up with the first 20 minutes of Angel's 5th season opener when the parents return from the community meeting across the road and proceed to yell and talk VERY LOUDLY about it, totally buggering up my enjoyment. Now I have to watch it at the weekend in blurry-vision due to everything always being taped in bloody long-play. And with crappy sound (though at least I'll be able to hear what is said...!)
Sigh - I also seem to be being harassed by a certain white Sierra, driven by James' wife - every time I drive round Manchester Road it turns up! Talking of wives, do you think James should have mentioned certain things in his blog? Sadly it ruins the blackmail angle (bah!) but still has wonderful possibilities, though I think he's done it on purpose... full of ulterior motives, that lad! Still, I have recieved something from Bangkok that will keep him happy... a cigarette case with lighter, with a Macross picture on it for which I should get money from Nick/Andrew for...
Thankfully I'm at work tomorrow with the fun of telling my boss about the physiotherapy...! I'm heading off to sleep now - nite-nite!
Posted by Badgers at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
The Girl With Long, Curly Black Hair
Not much to this, though it seemed to be a serial dream or lots of little ones through the night (before the catapult one turned up).
Basically, all though the dreams, I kept catching sight of a pretty young woman with the hair mentioned above. Shopping meant she worked at the shop, at work, she was there, and finally I came home, and found the on the settee (!) playing wih Folly, one of our (many) dogs. She looks up, says "Hi" and goes back to being bitten by Folly. I hear mum say that she would be housesitting while they are away, and I remember thinking ""Whoa! Where am I going to be?" before this final dream ended.
Analysis
Not often I have dreams like this (not wierd enough for me, though James has them all the time), and it made sense. Kinda. No idea who the girl was (the only raven-haired beauty I'm hot on at the moment apart from Sophie Ellis-Bextor in the video for Won't Change You certainly wasn't the lady in question) Mayvbe she's someone who I've spotted while working, who knows?
I know I could fall for many nice girls who work in shops, etc (some especially!), but the odd thing is that she wasn't my 'ideal', though far from being someone I wouldn't, erm, jump at the chance of.
Still, goes to show I can dream like normal guys!
Posted by Badgers at 07:29 AM | Comments (4)
Catapults
Not often this happens, but I just awoke from a dream and it's staying with me! And it was a an odd one...
Y'see. there's this company offering the new thrill as far as scary but fun experiences go - kinda the next step up from bungie jumping. Thats right - being fired from a catapult! I watch as a demo firing takes place - a bundle is launched quite a long way into the night - it is caught by netting or something in the distance.
I get prepared to be fired by putting on a safety suit, and lie down on the catapult. It is a large siege-type 'pult, maybe even a trebuchet (thats a word for 7.15 in the morning!). There is someone else there, but his face is wrapped in a bag and has rope loosely wrapped round it - and the person with me (not sure who, possibly mum, possibly someone from work) becomes obsessed with the idea that it is Denis Norden (presenter of It'll Be Alright On The Night - interesting considering it was night and I was hoping it bloody would be!)
I manage to see under the face mask and lo and behold - it does look like him. The man from the company is starting to get worried though - they think that the paperwork allowing them to fire humans may be about to be overturned...
The man beside gets up, and takes off his mask and oddly enough, it isn't Dennis Norden - it is a grey-haired, egyptian-looking man - and obviously rich. The person with me is worried that I had only been with them a day while this guy had been with his company for years and made millions... ( he said £95.6, million, and he only works 2 days a week!) they didn't want to lose me - odd logic or what?
While this is going on, a mobile phone rings, and the man form the company says that it is too late anyway - the paperwork is overturned - they can't do it anymore. It is a shame, but suddenly the catapult starts to move - a woman screams - but I just slowly go upright as the catapult had suddenly shrunk from the big one to having an arm just my height. Odd.
Analysis
Hmm - some of these elements I can work out, but why it came together like this, who knows... and why Dennis Norden?!? Or the Egyptian chap?
The idea of a catapult comes no doubt from watching the demo of Medieval: Total War, as it shows them in full flight, and someone being thrown by one popped up in The Scorpion King, which I saw a few weeks ago.
I think this has something to do with my current need to get out of my job... well, I say 'need', but actually I need to keep it - let's say my desire to get out of it! It explains a little about the bit at the end where they want to keep me (I think I felt like doing it anyeway - to heck with the risks! And I'm sure that the Egyptian business man (not the owner of Harrods, by the way - too young, if grey) would pay my bills (especially the hospital bills after missing the net!)
Out of nowhere, the odd ones come...
Posted by Badgers at 07:23 AM | Comments (1)
January 08, 2004
Enterprise Theme Tune. OMFG!
Okay, I admit, it took a while to get used to the theme to Enterprise. While the song, Faith Of The Heart, isn't bad at all, and the version by Russel Watson is good, the horror of the song being used as the uplifting opening to the latest official entry into the Star Trek franchise took some getting over. It was used in Patch Adams, for frell's sake! But I managed it. I agree that it sounds right looking at the images that run along with it (which are equally uplifting). I grew to like it. Well, a bit - it's better than the dull version of Archer's Theme that plays at the end credits! That soooo needs beefing up!
Then I heard that it had changed in the US as the show was now Star Trek: Enterprise at last. And I heard it was bad. The show itself seems to be crawling towards respectability,but it has a long way to go - how could Smallville have gone from gayest show on TV this side of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy to something at the lower end of Buffy's quality spectrum within the first series, and gotten better from then on (and has a song for the title theme), yet Enterprise struggles on trying not to be Voyager (nothing to rival Voyager's Year Of Hell yet, though), or anything else, for that matter, I just don't know. But Star Trek series usually take till the third series to get going right? Look at TNG and DS9 - even Voyager got going (but that was probably due to Seven of Nine and the decision not to bugger with Janeway's hair as much!). And with the new Xindi story arc and an apparent beefing up of the series into something a little harder, this could be the year the show starts to kick ass as much as the design of the NX-01 does.
Then the newly mixed title theme comes on. Its saying something that even those who hated the original version have pleaded with Paramount to get them to change it back! The tune is now light and feathery - the vocal track is the same, but the music makes it suitable for a nice sitcom about a guy who is gay living with a girl who is gay with their straight friends across the hall popping over to have coffee. The end theme is a relief as it is still the weak version of Archer's Theme. I thought they might have beefed that up a little, but compared to the credit theme its a breath of fresh air. When they beefed up the titles to DS9 it worked - i find it hard to listen to the version without the synth beat behind (not to mention the distinct lack of ships anywhere near the station - Babylon 5 sooo go the busness of such a station right, as does the fan-produced Star Trek: Hidden Frontier). In fact, Hidden Frontier is a Star Trek that has moved with the times - gay characters (sorry James), a part station/part ship-based series, an interesting premise, and the theme that is so Star Trek it hurts because it isn't - the New Galaxy Quest theme! I dare you to watch that film and not get that 'mmmmmmm' feeling every time the theme rises up! Hmm - if they had to rip a theme from elsewhere, why not appropriate the theme to Battle Beyond The Stars? Classic James Horner (in fact, every soundtrack he has done since sounds very like this, especially his Star Trek stuff!) Now that would fit Enterprise... or how about a version of the theme from Barbarella? Or even Jane Fonda as a captain... heheh... but I'm going off the point again!
Still, the music is possibly one of the reasons the series is getting low ratings... you need to draw them in, not make them flee in terror! Lets take a brief but illuminating trawl through music on TV shows, shall we?
Star Trek, TNG, DS9, Voyager - All good, all classic. Voyager has a great theme and a title sequence that made you wish the show was better.
Blakes 7 - What can I say - dodgy titles aside , the theme, especially the fiirst three seasons, just rocks.
Babylon 5 - Four seasons of top themes, all based on the same theme up to a point, but each season had a different identity. Many don't like the 5th seson theme, but it fits the season well.
Farscape - Like B5 above, a different theme each season - and no doubt a new one for the mini series - draws you in, you get used to it and bingo - you watch. Admittedly, not enough watched at the end, but it was made for the fans - a mistake, but it means your core audience is happy and gets what it wants and you don't need to go bland to appeal to as many people as possible (sorry to Enterprise, Voyager, and more modern shows than I have space on my site to mention!)
Doctor Who - The original is a classic, the Tom Baker era the best, thugh things trailed off rapidly - not that Peter Howell's theme was bad, it was just too much. And the McCoy era had its problems until his second season storywise, but it was saddled with terrible music and a horrible title sequence. The movie had the best orchestral version, but it still fails to gel with me... maybe the last theme was the true arch enemy, rather than The Master or Michael Grade...
The A-Team, Knight Rider, Airwolf, Battlestar Galactica, Hill Street Blues etc - What was it about the 80's that brought us good title sequences and such classic tunes? all the above are fantastic and drew you in with the images and music (Enterprise has the images alone as you have pressed mute when they start!) - even little shows and sitcoms had good memorable themes... Hart To Hart (surely on for a remake soon!) is superb! Of course, not all 80's themes were good...
Star Cops - A superb series - realistic in a way few series ever had been - about police based on a moonbase. Nothing earth shattering, but it definitely deserved more episodes than it got - great cast, strong stories - probably ahead of it's time. Its time being 1987. The thing that buggered the series up, apart from a stupid timeslot that saw it starting before another show ended and ending when others had started, was the theme. Sung by Justin Hayward, It Won't Be Easy was just wrong. I know I can write a better song (go here to check out Romantic Night, a song fairly contempory with this, what I wrote and used in the otherwise horrid I.T. tale Attack Of The 50ft Idol Singers! Truly a show scuppered by the theme tune!
It is possible to do this - many people try to forget ALF, but they can still hum the tune...
Remember - draw the people in with your music (see my I.T. animation(s) - using music from The Day The Earth Stood Still sooo works!). And make sure it manges to reflect the show it is attached to - the first version of the Enterprise theme worked up to a point, but the new one just doesn't fit with the image of Archer beating seven shades of latex forehead off a prisoner... sort it guys... or else!
Gah - this was only supposed to be a little rant!
Oh, and George, a note for the newly fiddled (yes again) DVD editions of the Original Trilogy - HAN FIRED FIRST!!!!!!
Posted by Badgers at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)
NOT IN MY BACKYARD!!!
Sigh. I may be slightly biased on this subject, but what is wrong with people who don't want us to build wind turbines and other green power options? I know there are many people who don't want the things sticking out on Saddleworth Moor here in the UK. I agree that it is a nice view and all that, but what about our views here in Burnley? While I would object to them being placed on Pendle Hill (not that it would work there anyway as the wind would in fact blow them clean over!). Here in Burnley you can look to the north east (if I remember correctly!) and see a large wind farm on the hills. They are even part of the directions to the toilet on the crag, and as you go further along the road towards Blackshawhead you can see another big one in Yorkshire! They don't look horrible - in fact, they are quite scenic! Gently turning in the breeze (sure it's not always windy, but up on the moors in Lancashire/Yorkshire it is always windy!) they look nice - I feel happy that they are there providing power and that the eco-horror that was Padiham Power Station was demolished!
The same argument for the proposed off-shore turbines (much bigger I admit)... I'd like to look out from Southport or Blackpool and see them turning in the sun. They could even be strung with lights and be a part of the illuminations! Everyone agrees that we need cleaner power, and more nuclear/coal/gas stations are not the answer. Nuclear because the generation of the power may be clean, but the crap that is left to be disposed of is far from that. Coal and gas for obvious reasons. Stations that burn garbage are a good idea for getting rid of the trash, but still shove the dreaded greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Personally, I think wind turbines and the like are a good use of the countryside - we all know that agriculture is going out the window (even growing rapeseed is going downhill) so something needs to be done. It's not as if we are talking mobile phone masts! They may cause harmful effects, but no doubt the people protesting on the news today include a fair percentage with mobile phones (!). Power lines have definite harmful effects (try living under one for a while) and people don't complain and pull them down... not that it would be easy!
Perhaps it is time for my favourite (if devastating) solution to these problems... I havn't mentioned it here before, buit this may be a place to start! Basically, allow fox hunting until they are all dead, whales and dolphons too. Chop down the trees. All of them. Burn them, make them into paper, whatever. Be like the US and totally ignore the Kyoto agreement, build more power stations that belch crap into the air (what will be left of it when the trees are gone). Pull down unsightly turbines, power lines and those nasty phone masts. You'd better stop people using wi-fi and bluetooth devices as well. If possible, everyone should be able to take up smoking so as to prove there are no bad effects (like cancer, death, etc), though with no air, this might be a bit of a bugger. Sunbathing in the blazing hot sun (aided by the radition let in by the now non-existent ozone layer) should be compulsory. Course, with no power apart from the few buildings round the power stations, we will need something else to do - after we've eaten all the fish in the sea, and we can't even eat fox baked in ale as they are all hunted to death, no electric lights, smog and a lack of breath due to the lack of air, we wouldn't be able to call anyone on our mobile phones... And we wouldn't be able to see that nice scenery, especially as there are no giant wind turbines to blow away the fog that is the only thing that is stopping us from frying in the sun (though the radiation is still cooking us from the inside anyway). It could be worse, though - we could be French.
I get the feeling that we are a long way from the point I started at, but that's the sign of a good Rant! Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)
Wanna Go To Disneyland?
If so, go NOW! or at least make sure your passport has been issued before 26 October, or else there is a good chance you won't be going! The security-crazy US has now decided that unless your passport has all kinds of futuristic biometric data (retina scans, DNA, samples of hair from your ancestors going back ten generations, sort of thing) you need to pay extra and get a proper Visa.
Not a problem I hear you say?
It wouldn't be, if you didn't need to go down to London on a weekday, stand que at the US Embassy and have an interview! And as this could affect up to 20,000 people a month, this is not going to be good for business! how are they going to get through so many interviews? Will you need to be vetted before you get into the line? After all, you might have a bomb to blow up the embassy (you'll want to after waiting for six hours in the rain with the rest of your family, as you need to be there in person, and get told no because your grandfather was Welsh!)
After stopping BA223 for so long, and the first stage of this new policy (fingerprinting all new arrivals from such rogue states as the UK) I wonder about the Americans... they are rapidly becoming as Rant-worthy as the French... Sure, they don't want terrorists, but didn't they watch season 2 of 24? Some terrorists are American, you know... or maybe there's been too many reruns of Die Hard movies lately? Maybe they think they have enough crazies over there with the National Rifle Association!
Link to BBC story here...
UPDATE: I just spotted this on that page - a link to a story that Brazil is retaliation by doing the same to US citizens, though whether this is in fact related to The Simpsons episode set in Brazil, I don't know... and of course, the French have been anti-immigration for ages...
Posted by Badgers at 07:33 PM | Comments (1)
Four Days of Work...
..and I wanna go to bed! Between chaos (I get back to find a number of urgent jobs (mostly involving swapping a light bulb or, in one case, turning the damned thing on!) and my ankle, its been fun. Not. :angry
Today wasn't too bad - my ankle aches from the driving, but I was over in my old stomping grounds - Longridge/Clitheroe - and found it to be full of less annoying people than in Burnley. Quelle surprise. :biggrin Rained like a bugger, though, which put a dampner (sorry!) on things! The rest of the week was just plain annoying - if anyone else remarks "you're still limping then?' or 'foot still hurting?' I'll go up to :angry4:angry on them! Well, apart from one person, but my foot doesn't seem to be the thing she's interested in!
I also found out a little bit more about what will happen in my job after April - basically it will be disestablished and I will hopefully not have to be interviewed for the job coming to replace it (as I'll probably blow it intentionally). Troubling times are a coming... no wait - they are already here. Good thing I'm a Grand Master in t'Ecky-Thump! :rofl:rofl
I have also ordered more things on Ebay than should be legal for James - basically if it is remote control and two inches long :biggrin (and worth more in it's packaging) :biggrin I've ordered it and paid from my dwindling Paypal account (the money was going into my bank account to help pay credit cards, etc). Expect him to be writing an entry on little RC tanks, cars, bikes, tanks and submarines... I also bought him 2 Christmas/birthday presents from Nick and Andrew. They will pay me the money (along with the dosh James now owes me!) and I hope to be back in pocket... we shall see!
I also spent some time today planning the future of I.T., Rogue Noid Productions, and other stuff. Basically I will be drawing I.T. as a daily strip retelling the old stories with new ones, while updating them and using them as storyboards for the new animations... and the big RNP revamp will happen in March, as long as nothing terrible happens (in which case it will be sooner!!!) Somehow, this last bit has made me very happy (in fact, as happy as only one other thing briefly mentioned above has).
Ah well - I must be off - I fear James is about to come back online and bug me on Messenger!!! Later, freex!
PS - visit Poets Of The Fall and tell them that they NEED to get a single of Late Goodbye in the shops! Sure, its the track that plays over the credits at the end of Max Payne 2, but it simply rocks! Especially since the Max Payne 2 site doesn't look like it will be hosting the download...:sad
Posted by Badgers at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2004
There Goes One Resolution...
Well, Manchester was fun, though again, not enough 2000ADs... I really am going to have to subscrbe this year! I picked up the whole of Farscape Season 3 (and the last set of Season 5) which kept me happy :smile, along with The Goodies ...At Last DVD (which includes Kung Fu Capers, the episode that killed someone (but not by using t'Lancashire martial art of Ecky Thump!)... A few books too, including the half-price Doctor Who - The Legend.
Saturday morning brought an email from James saying he wanted to go out... by 7.00 he rang up after not hearing from Nick by email (Nick had collected some email last year - he doesn't go online often!). Eventually he rang and we were set to go out at 9.00 - a little later for a change! I told him that if I didn't go out now, I probably wouldn't be going out at all this year (see resolutions below) which is, sadly, true - I don't really consider last night a breaking of my resolution though, as it was really the last gasp, and was meant to replace the night out that didn't happen on New Year's Eve!:drunk
So, what what is like? Well, we started at The Swan (where James did quite well on Junkyard), moved to Paradise Island and then (predictably) went to check out Lava. We met a friend who works as a bouncer (sans his lovely wife, sadly!) on the way in who said it was a little 'rough'. Can't say we found it too bad, though some of the women, as usual, were a bit rough (not that such things worry Nick!) but this is Burnley, after all. James enjoyed himself all night (he pulled a few faces at rounds not being bought by him) and we managed to wander round both Lava and Ignite. Ignite upstairs looks good, is loud etc, as you would expect a club for the young ones to be - the music was crap too! Nice lasers though.
Lava downstairs was good though - there is less floor space than when it was The Rock, but the music was the same (old stuff and decent new stuff!), there was still a high ratio of good looking ladies (often half hanging out of whatever they had chosen to almost put on last night) and a good night was had basically. During one me and Nick's wanders, James had a nice lady called Julie (8 months pregnant, though he didn't notice!) who sat down and chatted with him, and us when we returned. A nice girl, who proceeded to tell us about her mad friends - one of which was (I have to say this) just Nick's usual type (man - I wonder - when he goes off to the pub in Colne on Sundays to see his mates from work (including the apparently very nice ladies I wouldn't mind seeing sometime!) can I trust his description of the girls... ah well!) - lets just say she wasn't quite as nice as Julie IMHO... Still, Nick didn't care as he got to dance for ages on the much larger dance floor... Julie couldn't help but be worried for Nick though - she wondered if he was 'slow' due to the constant rictus grin on his face... we explained he was always smiling, but when in the company of the opposite sex the grin became fixed. Terror, I think it is... James expained how he was married (notice he got that in) and explained how Nick was okay with people he knows (he grins like a loon at other times... well, all the time really) and that I was coming out (hey!) of myself... We chatted, had fun, and stuff. Not that kind of stuff, though. :smile
Sadly, the night seemed to pass really quickly (Julie and her friend had to go before 2.00, sadly, in Julie's case (!) as they were meeting someone else, though they are regulars and may be there again (but not, obviously in a month or so's time!)). We took James upstairs and showed him upstairs, by which time there were more young'uns upstairs despite the influx of us oldies from downstairs, than before, and the music had taken a turn for the worse...
So, we headed home (after finding to go out you had to go up to the balcony first in Ignite when Lava had shut) and headed home. Headed home vitually sober - we hadn't drunk much (I had maybe 5 Smirnoff Ices and a J2O which is nothing - this morning I'm tired from not sleeping long, but fine otherwise - even my ankle behaved itself, though I didn't dance (or whatever it is I do) on it. In fact, last night was a good night out - James was interested in making it regular (ie every 6-10 months!), and even I might consider going out a little more often than I planned (maybe in July), especially as the drinks were no badly priced in there (James didn't even whinge once!). I managed to get away with a total spend of £12.50 (including cloak room charge and popping a quid into Junkyard) which worked out well for me. Ah well - if that was my only night out (still possible) it was fun enough. Lots of blackmail opportunities, too... we shall see! :biggrin
One thing I noticed last night was the zombie dance - or that is what I call it. To do it, to have your hands in front of your chest, either near or far, and sort of shuffle/swing from side to side. A little like Ozzy Osbourne when he's trying to get the TV off whatever channel he's got it stuck on today. Popular amongst the girls, and the boys (makes a difference from the male 'sway from side-to-side dance I suppose). Calling out "Braaaiiiiiinnss!!!" is optional.
Right - I'd better be off - things to do and I have to prepare for what should be the final bout of Dungeon Siege this afternoon...
Posted by Badgers at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2004
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! WOO-HOO! Etc.
Well, its been 2004 for 17 hours or so now, and apart from my leg feeling like I went out and danced on it last night (I didn't) things are not going too badly... I've sat down and done the flash menu (and it works!), managed to watch the final episodes of The Office last night before I went to bed early, and generally got on with life!
I know from his email today that James didn't go out (awww!) but I wasn't expecting him to - I couldn't as my leg decided to be a bugger last night (I was in bed by 10.15 and didn't wake up till 6.00 this morning - what a way to start a teetotal year!) I didn't even spend time on Tatooine!
I did however have to spend some of yesterday travelling to my Aunt's house so her husband could get Hornby Virtual Railway 2 working (apparently there is a problem that stops it working on most computers without a patch)... and while he has had the (Time) machine for over a year, he isn't online yet (thankfully) and has trouble finding how to look at the content of CDs with Windows Explorer...
Sigh. All I can say is that so far I haven't broken a single resolution, which has to be good going. Boring going, but good going! Thankfully it is Manchester shopping day tomorrow, and I have lots of vouchers for Waterstones and HMV... I just hope Forbidden Planet has my 2000ADs!!!
Posted by Badgers at 05:08 PM | Comments (7)