I’m not sure what I expected, I’ve been burned too many times by movies based on a comic/book/tv show. The trailer had looked pretty good, but that’s never clear indication (Spider-Man 3 anyone?). Needless to say, I was completely blown away. I think I was shell-shocked for like 5 minutes afterwards. From the beginning scenes with Blackout and Scorponok to the final fight between Optimus Prime and Megatron – the special effects were just amazing. And the storyline was actually decent with no major plotholes (I noticed one blooper on my second viewing… but eh!). To be honest, I hadn’t thought it would be as funny as they made it. There was a good sprinkling of humour with jokes and gags, almost poking fun at the idea of the Transformers without crossing the line into parody or spoof. Michael Bay did an excellent job of bringing these guys to life, and if you don’t expect the movie to be exactly like the cartoons and you’re not a fanboy with major issues then you’re gonna LOVE this movie. The amount of detail paid to seeing these robots transform from their vehicular form and back again is just staggering. You could literally see the little gears in Prime and the paint job that had been scratched off during his fight. To be honest, I love his new flames (= And just wait until you see Starscream’s manoeuvre in the sky against the other fighter jets. Possibly the BEST action sequence in the entire movie (although I may revise this statement on subsequent viewings), it was amazing to see him transform, shoot at a few jets, transform back, fly around.. transform.. shoot a few more. Absolutely breathtaking.

My main gripe was Frenzy. This character reminded me of ‘Jar Jar Binks’, and anyone would know – that is not a good thing! He didn’t seem very Decepticon-like and I think he was used as a plot device more than anything else. All of the others were cool. Sure, Bumblebee is no longer a VW, but hey… he looks hooooot as the Camaro. In the car chase scene with Barricade, I think it’s fairly obvious why they changed him and I’m glad now that they did. Quite frankly, Bumblebee is ‘da bomb’ :D I guess my only other gripe is that the Autobots seemed a lot smaller than the Decepticons, and the vehicles they chose were not as.. ‘cool’? I dunno – why do the Decepticons get to be tanks and fighter jets? And the Autobots get to be firetrucks? I just don’t understand.

So if you’re having reservations about seeing this movie – I will say that waiting for it to come out on DVD or whatever will not do it justice, unless you happen to have a projector and awesome stereo of some sort. I really doubt you could re-create the effects of a cinema though. And this is one movie that has to be seen in the cinema to fully appreciate it’s awesomeness. Now I’m off to find the soundtrack :D

Friday night was CNNN2. It was pretty good, except for the last bit. I will remember not to invite randoms next time. I enjoyed spending time with my friends outside of work. I think most of us are getting to that stage where we’re no longer just ‘work mates’ and we’re actually friends. Of course, you’re always going to be closer to some people than others, but that’s just the nature of friendship isn’t it? In any case, I like the way it’s going – because I’ve never really had that before and I hope that even if we don’t end up working together for the rest of our careers that we’ll still keep in touch and stay friends. It’s a comforting thought I guess.

Saturday was fun… went to dentist. Got another filling. Cost me lots of money :s Then met up with old workmates to grab lunch and see Fantastic Four 2: Rise Of the Silver Surfer. It was good to meet up, I haven’t seen them since I left in January, and I always enjoy catching up. Sometimes I think it always amazes me that life goes on. You go and do your own thing and everyone else does as well. It’s odd. Anyways, was rather impressed with Silver Surfer. I was under the (mistaken) impression that they had made Silver Surfer a bad guy… which, if you’ve read the comics, he is not! He is the herald for GALACTUS!!!!!!! Yeah ok. So only I’m excited about that. They kept to the comics, and the story didn’t turn out half bad. Although Jessica Alba’s makeover did. I think, like the other Marvel movies, the sequel is better than the original (=

Went to Manda’s for Korean BBQ dinner afters because her friend Ying was visiting. There were quite a few of us there. I always love going to Manda’s. There’s always more food than you can poke a stick at, and I leave feeling like I’ve eaten enough for the week. We watched a little bit of ‘Full Metal Jacket’ which I’d picked up on DVD for $10 from the cheapo CD store on Pitt. Apparently Kirsten’s never seen it! And was amazed that ‘Full Metal Panic’ fully ripped off half the scenes LOL. Didn’t get to finish it (had to turn it down cos it’s weird eating to gunshot sounds…). We watched ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ after dinner. I have never watched a ‘spoof’ horror movie before. I was pleasantly surprised :D It wasn’t scary, and I laughed like I haven’t laughed in a long, long time. There was one part I had to look away (too much gore >.<) but besides that, awesome! I might have to re-adjust my thinking on scary movies. Of course, knowing me, I’ll go watch one and not be able to sleep for a week again. I also have to check out ‘Hot Fuzz’ now.

I’ve spent the last two days at home cos I’ve got the flu. I was happy yesterday though, because the games I ordered from Play-asia arrived. Only took them a week, I’m so impressed. Anyways, I got Dialhex and Boundish, both by bit generations and for my GBu. Travis intro’d me to Coloris last weekend, and told me that they have like a whole series of games, so had a look at their site and thought I might try a couple. Dialhex is a bit like hexic, and Boundish is like a warped sort of pong. Both very addictive, and means I will now pop my GBu into my handbag so I can play on the train. Went back to work today, but took it relatively easy. Think I should be able to finish my stuff on time. Just need to make sure I get lots of rest. So yeah. Gonna go rest.

I don’t really remember what else I did last week. I had my work’s Christmas ‘picnic’ which due to the weather ended up being held in a pub. It was a nice pub, with pool tables in each room and lots of space to sit or stand. Definitely a good place for a party, so I’ll have to remember that for next time. Not sure that the hamper was worth $35, as we hardly ate half of what was in there – but it was better than having to bring our own food or cook anything. I met up with Mike for dinner afterwards, we ended up going to St. George Leagues Club, cos I joined ages ago but haven’t actually eaten there since joining. The food was ok, considering it was club food and we had a go on the pokies too. I only lost a $1! Considering my track record with pokies, this was pretty good. I must remember to play Wacky Walrus again next time :D

I spent Saturday having a much needed rest and practising my driving. On Sunday was Mike’s work picnic… which was rather boring. I kind of expected it to be as I didn’t really know anyone and there wasn’t much to do. Plus he ditched me to go play soccer so I was sitting by myself for an hour. Hum. Oh wells. After that we went to see Eragon. I’ve heard a lot about this book, penned by a 16 y.o. home-schooled boy, which is now set to become a trilogy (as all good fantasy novels are). I didn’t really have high expectations for it, I just knew that there were dragons in it and it looked pretty awesome. I wasn’t surprised then at the storyline or the outcome, nor the obvious set up for the next movie. The CGI dragons were pretty awesome though and it was definitely nice to see a fantasy movie that wasn’t part of a huge franchise with an already fanatic fanbase (a-la LOTR/Narnia). I’ve always wondered if they would make any of the Eddings books into movies, cos I’d love to see that, but this is probably as close as it gets without actually being D&D or something (which was awful from what I hear). So yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. John Malkovich always makes a good villain, I think it’s something to do with his voice – it’s so distinctive and he does the cold tone very well. If you’re a fantasy fan, I suggest you see it. If you’re not, I suggest you see it anyways :D Obviously, I’m biased because I love the fantasy genre in general, but I think the stories are universal and even if some of the dialogue is a bit dull you can forgive it when you see the dragon.

I think this birthday sort of just crept up on me, I wasn’t really prepared for it. Like, obviously I know when my birthday is but usually I’ll have it in my head and I’ll sort of ‘feel’ older I guess. This time I sort of turned around and there it was and now I’m 22 even though I don’t feel it. I wonder if you get to an age where it just goes past and doesn’t mean much anymore. Nevertheless, I did lots of birthday things. Went out to ‘lobster dinner’ with parents and Mike last Sunday week, which was yum… though we didn’t end up finishing everything. I met up with Manda for drinks on Thursday. We haven’t done that in a while and it’s nice to just sit and talk.

Oh yes, I saw ‘Casino Royale’ on Wednesday too, at a preview screening organised by my employment agency as a thankyou to the staff and clients. It was a well organised event, they had sandwiches beforehand and a small bag of snacks for everyone inside the cinema. I didn’t have very high expectations for the latest Bond movie. Probably because I remember Daniel Craig from his stint in “Tomb Raider” and honestly, it was pretty poor. Nevertheless, I was impressed. I’m glad they’ve decided to re-do the Bond franchise this way and make it slightly more realistic and more believable. Less reliance on gadgets is cool, although I did always enjoy those gadgets. And the cars…. but the Aston Martin in this one was awesome as always. The movie goes for 2.5 hours, but doesn’t drag at all. Plus, I enjoy watching poker games. There is one scene that was kind of brutal, but was done with enough comedy that I actually laughed despite the obvious pain of the character onscreen. I believe that was the desired effect (everyone else laughed…). So yes, I would recommend people go see it if they’re into the spy genre as I was pleasantly surprised and I’m sure others will be too.

As Mike was busy on thursday night, he planned a birthday outing for me for Friday. He wouldn’t tell me what we were doing, but I guess that’s half the fun. We went to City Tattersalls for a drink and a bite to eat after work. I haven’t been there before and there was this weird ‘the universe is acting oddly’ feeling because just the day before I had remarked to Manda that we should go to Tatts one day as I’d heard good things about it. Odd, I say. Very odd. Anyways, after that… we ended up going on a bit of a walkabout down George St. Mike had gotten tickets to the Whitlams concert (wooo!) at the Metro Theatre, but he didn’t actually know where it was. Suffice to say, we walked all the way down George St. and then had to walk back up (for me to discover we’d actually passed it the first time) LOL. It was a fun adventure anyways, although next time I’m just going to make him tell me what we’re doing :P The Whitlams were AWESOME. There were two guest bands (James Cooper and someone else…. the someone else was good, James Cooper wasn’t -_-) but I was just waiting for Tim to take the stage. It’s a shame they didn’t play Chunky Chunky Air Guitar as I think that’s a great song, but then I wasn’t really expecting them to. They played a few of their old songs, but mostly songs from their new album (which I didn’t even know had been released). I got a copy of the new album at the end and even had it autographed by Tim, along with my ticket. Yeay! Haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, so can’t compare it to their other stuff.

I hadn’t actually been to the Metro before, and never to an over 18′s gig either. I really enjoyed it, although my feet were numb from standing up the whole night – that’s the price you pay I guess. In any case, Mike did a great job of organising the night out and surprising me (:

So after the late late night on Friday, we went paintballing with the graduates from RailCorp. We had to get up early on Saturday morning to be at Rouse Hill by 9am, and I must say we were practically deaded by the time we got there. Seeing as we’d been before, Mike and I thought it’d be a good idea to upgrade our guns. A $20 upgrade allows for accuracy up to 40m with a 8 ball/sec rate of fire. I thought that was reasonable enough. However, if you pay $40 you get accuracy to 80m and a 25 ball/sec rate of fire (apparently). This basically means you can shoot from one end of the field to the other… Not fun if you’re on the other team. Somehow, the teams ended up really skewed and my team was the more inexperienced so we got hammered pretty hard the whole day. My war wounds include a shot to the knee, thigh, wrist, upper arm and three shots to the back of the head. Joy. They’re bruising really nice at the moment. I really can’t complain as I signed up to play. However, next time I’m only playing if everyone is an amateur and uses crappy guns. Somehow those $40 upgrade guns hurt like 10 times more. I think it’s the velocity of the paintball, coupled with the fact that most of the ones that hit me didn’t burst on impact (which hurts MORE). I thought that after going to the gym for so many weeks I’d be fairly fit to play as well. I was wrong. It turned out to be really really hot on Saturday and added to my sleep-deprived state I pretty much died after lunch. I must also remember not to buy so many paintballs next time as well. We had so many left over we had to donate them to everyone just to get rid of them. Somehow, I had more fun pouring the paintballs on the ground and stomping on them than I did shooting them. Bit of an expensive habit though I must say.

After the fun and games, we went out to dinner at Ribs and Rumps at Manly. Food was ok, although maybe a little expensive compared to other ribs places. Not sure, just didn’t feel very impressed with the meal in general I guess. I think maybe I expect a certain level of service that just doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Or I’m going to all the wrong restaurants!

On Sunday, Mike and I went to a birthday party for Mike’s cousin’s daughter who is turning 4. It was a small beach party up at Gosford, with mainly family in attendance. There’s a mild sort of panic that sets in when you have to meet family of your partner. I guess it’s this sort of pressure that you have to impress and you worry they won’t like you or whatever. But then there’s this sort of thought that really, you’re not dating them and you’ll probably only have to see them once or twice a year anyways so even if they don’t like you it’s not the end of the world. Luckily, they were all really nice and I enjoyed myself. I was too sore to really do anything but sit though. It was quite amazing to see the amount of energy a 4 year old has, as well as how loudly a 5 year old can scream. I suppose that’s something for me to remember when I get older. Heh.

All in all, a very busy week! I feel somewhat ‘stretched’ at the moment. I haven’t had any time to myself for like a month and no real time to rest. I feel somewhat pressured to keep going out and meeting up with people. Not that I don’t enjoy it, I do. Partly I think it’s because a few of the recent outings have left a little bit of a bitter taste in my mouth, for various reasons, and people complain to me about stuff like I have any control over those situations. Moreover, I’m sick of people guilt tripping me. Even if they don’t realise they’re doing it. It’s bloody easy to do it to me and whilst I may get pissed off about it, I will still feel like I let someone down or I should have done more or whatever. I feel bad for the things I was directly responsible for, and I apologise for those. Everything else, you’re on your own. Don’t have unrealistic expectations and then be upset when they aren’t met. I know that I’m not doing a very good job at balancing at the moment and there’s a lot of conflicting pressures and I’m feeling a lot that I have to choose between people and/or responsibilities. Really, it just pulls me apart at the seams. We’ll see, hopefully the 10 day break over Christmas and New Year will go some way towards resolving this.

The following song lyrics are for Mike. He knows why (=

If a boy had a chance
A chance with someone like you
Are you gonna break his heart?
Let him cry for the moon?
Are you hiding somewhere behind those eyes?

I just freeze
Everytime you see through me
And it’s all over you
Electric blue

On my knees
Help me, baby
Tell me, what can I do?
Electric blue

Oh, I had a dream
For a moment I believed it was true
Oh, I’d have given anything
Just to be there with you
Are you hiding
Somewhere behind those eyes?

I just freeze
Everytime you see through me
And it’s all over you
Electric blue

In too deep
Standing here waiting
As I’m breaking into
Electric blue
I can see
Can see that it may be just a vision for you
Electric blue

On my knees
Help me, baby
Tell me what can I do?
Electric blue
Icehouse – Electric Blue

Didn’t do much else on the weekend besides some housework and uploading more photos from my trip. Hosuework is so boring, but at least I’ve got most of it out of the way. Should stop my mum from nagging me for a few weeks.

Oh yeah, I watched the first Indiana Jones movie as well. I remember when I was younger and I used to watch Indy on the TV I thought he was so cool. But watching it now, I don’t know. It wasn’t as good as I remembered it to be. And the sound quality in certain parts of the movie weren’t very good. Like, the music was really loud but the dialogue was too soft. So it was either go deaf or miss what was going on. This is somewhat annoying and rather like watching shows on TV, where the ads are twice as loud as the actual program. I really don’t understand why they do it either. Music is generally there to set an ‘atmosphere’ in a movie, or to enhance whatever’s going on onscreen. When it stands out in such a way that it detracts from that then I think it’s being used in a way that it shouldn’t be. I don’t think that this is the reason I was disappointed with Indy though. I think I just found some of the parts too ‘convenient’. Like, of course he was going to find this and of course said prop would be in just the right position for that to happen. Maybe I expect more out of my movies these days? Although, I highly doubt that. I tend to be one of those people that will like watching just about any movie. Except horror.

I didn’t end up meeting Manda for drinks on Friday as she decided to stay home. Instead, I was invited to drinks with the first year RailCorp graduates. The undergraduate that replaced me at North Strathfield met one of the grads at a training session and he invited her, but she was too shy to go by herself LOL. Not one to turn down drinks or the chance to meet new people I went along anyways. I now know one more person in this building (his name is Moscow, which is rather unusual I think) and one of the other guys was an undergrad when I started as well. It was an enjoyable afternoon, although I felt a little out of place but it was good to test out my meagre social skills and meet more people my age working in this organisation.

Saw another movie on Saturday – “The Covenant”. Admittedly, I didn’t know anything about this movie. Mike said it was about vampires, which it isn’t. I didn’t bother to read anything about it before seeing it, as it seemed both Manda and Mike wanted to see it. Touted as being by the people who made ‘Underworld’ I figured it would be decent enough. Suffice to say, lucky it was the cheapo movie of the week. I would’ve felt really jipped if it wasn’t. The premise of the movie was decent enough, although probably more interesting to those who did ‘The Crucible’ in high school as I did (twice) but it’s not necessary to get into the story. I just found that it dragged on and on. Considering I thought it was ultra short when hearing it only went for 1.5 hours, it seemed to go on forever when we were sitting in the theatre. Too many of the scenes were just fluffy filling, and some scenes weren’t needed altogether. The best line was right at the beginning, and said by a boy that I reckon would do well as a grown-up Draco – “Harry Potter can kiss my ass!” hehe. I will have to find a decent picture of him. Ah. It was all downhill from there. So verdict? Don’t waste your time. Or your money.

We headed off to the James Squire Brewhouse for dinner after that. I was quite impressed with the food, although it was a little bit pricey. Considering it’s at King St. Wharf though, can’t expect too much. It was a shame that all the specialty beers had run out, but that couldn’t be helped I guess. Not sure if I would eat there again, but I’ve had my fill of steak now so that’s good :D Went to karaoke as well, which was amusing as always.

Hrm, currently waiting to see how much of my ‘junk’ Travis sold at Supernova… I need to pay off my credit card. Not sure what I’ll do with the stuff that didn’t sell – maybe wait till next year otherwise I’ll try to sell it on eBay I guess.

I’ve been debating on whether or not I should go to the Motorshow this year. The last time I went was two years ago, and it was really disappointing. But the ads I’ve seen for this year look promising and it seems like there’s a lot more concept cars as well. Plus there was that ad for the SAAB (I think, else it was Subaru) car where the doors and the windscreen lift up and that looked particularly awesome. But then, I’m not sure if it justifies the exorbitant entry fee and I’ll probably pick up a bunch of useless pamphlets/magazines/advertising that I don’t need either. Maybe I should just wait for the next motorcycle show to roll around and just go to that.

Mike and I are doing well. It’s still all a bit new, I guess. Obviously there’s familiarity there – considering how long we dated before. But it’s also very different. I can see we’re both putting more effort in, and we’ve both matured a bit during the time we spent apart which makes it much easier to communicate and put things into perspective.

We went to see ‘Children of Men’ on the weekend (I LOVE Clive Owen… he’s not like uber-hot, but there’s something about his gruff voice and the accent). It was a pretty good movie. Different from most futuristic movies. I think because of the way it was shot, it felt very gritty and realistic. In one of the fighting scenes, some blood splatters on the camera lens and they keep it there whilst Clive Owen is trying to not to get killed in crossfire. I thought that was a nice touch. It was kind of obvious what was going to happen at the end, but I did think it was a different take on the future. Usually there’s some sort of view that all babies will be genetically engineered a-la ‘Gattaca’ where as this explores a world where no babies are born. Scary. I like Alfonso Cuaron, although I have seen that movie that made him famous (I will…), he is the one that directed HP: POA so I think he’s brilliant.

Work’s pretty ok at the moment too. I’m still worried that I will become disenchanted with the rat race and after 5 years of slogging it out I’ll just quit and move to the country. Except I can’t move to the country because everywhere is drought affected. Anyways, work is alright. Nothing to complain about as such and I am looking forward to next year as much as I dread it being too challenging.

Parents have been pretty good lately too. It’s been good since I finished uni. I think they’re just relieved that I’ve finished and I’m now on my way to having a career and all that sort of thing. They can sort of sit back and relax. Which they are, as they’re planning for retirement now. (Gosh, retirement seems like a lifetime away from here…) I think they’ll start berating me to clean my room, play violin, go for more driving lessons.. etc etc soon but I kind of accept now that they’re just like that and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Met up with Manda for a coffee on Monday. Felt like a yuppie, but neither of us really felt like drinking. Or maybe that was just me. It was definitely great to see her though, catch up, check out her short hair :o and see how well she survived Animania. I was a bit worried things would change, but they haven’t and we easily just slipped back into our usual chat-chat-chat. Going for drinks tonight at the Arthouse so that should be fun too.

I thought I would really miss LJ, e-mail, ICQ and the like while I was away. Which I did, but I’ve found that since coming back I haven’t really felt the urge to go online much. It’s kind of odd. Like, I’ll go online to check my mail but I don’t read any of the groups that I’ve joined and I skim alot of the community posts on my friends page. I don’t think that I’m losing interest in them or anything, I’m still as avid a fan of x, y and z as before just that reading fanfic for hours on end isn’t very appealing at the moment. Maybe I just need a break from all the fanbitching and fanboying. In any case, once I get back into VM, GA and OTH we’ll see if I go scouring for stuff. I also have to make time to watch the ORIGINAL SW trilogy, cos the DVDs arrived while I was away. I have already recruited Mike to watch them with me, but maybe I’ll see if I can convince people to come and watch a marathon of all six.

I’ve decided that Tekken: Dark Resurrection is the best game on PSP. I haven’t played it since I got back but I was playing it religiously in HK. Unlocked a few bonus games like Tekken Bowl (ten-pin bowling with your Tekken character) which is rather hilarious. Trying to only work on one or two characters, and become proficient in them, before trying others. It’s too hard to remember all the combinations otherwise. Also finding it hard to use the directional keypad in fighting, but I don’t like the analog stick on the PSP, it’s too small and in an awkward position for my thumb. Plus my thumb muscles hurt a lot if I use it for too long. Current fave character is Steve Fox. He’s a boxer, so he can’t kick, but he’s amazingly fast at repetitive punching. It’s cool that you can buy different clothes and things for him with the points you accumulate.

Went to the gym yesterday. I’m not particularly unhealthy after my trip, although my legs seem to have lost some strength. That or they’re not used to being stretch the way my trainer stretched them. I was doing some lunges (2nd set) when my right leg caved in. It was a bit scary trying to walk down the stairs at Central station, cos I kept feeling like my knee would buckle and I’d fall down but I managed to get home in one piece so that’s ok.

The categories on here are very easy to use, so in the next few weeks I might be adding a few more just to make it easier to tag my entries. We’ll see. I don’t want to add too many though as it might become unmanageable.

On the Sunday, I went to see the charity screening of ‘Hoodwinked’, which I enjoyed immensely. The movie is hilariously funny (especially Twitchy the squirrel – “I don’t drink coffee”) and quite well animated I reckon. I love the style it used with telling the four different stories to give you the full picture of how the scene happened and the jokes were funny without being crude. Ben Folds did a great song for the soundtrack as well, which Manda and I found thoroughly amusing. This was probably one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, considering the number of flops/disappointments this year I guess I’m not too surprised. There’s nothing coming out soon that I really want to see. Although I’ll likely end up seeing ‘Snakes On A Plane’ just for the hell of it.

Had another session with my personal trainer… and he’s started me on these squatting exercises (“The King Of All Exercises”) which left my legs totally killing afterwards. I spent most of the Wednesday hobbling around the office because I couldn’t walk properly without my thighs hurting LOL. Hopefully tomorrow’s session won’t be as bad. I guess it’s good to know that I’m getting some exercise though and that I should be getting fitter. I have noticed that my breathing seems more regular when I run, and I’m not feeling as short of breath now either which is definitely an improvement. I should try to go swimming some time but I don’t like the chlorine or having to shower afterwards and there’s no pool near me either.

The weekend just past was pretty good too. Went bushwalking (bushbashing) in the Royal National Park with Alan on Saturday. It had been raining a couple of days beforehand so everywhere was rather muddy and it did sprinkle a bit while we were out in the bush. The river was flowing nicely though so I think it was good to go after the rain. I haven’t been bushwalking in YONKS and I thoroughly enjoyed being out in nature lol. Sure, the gym is great for training but you can’t really beat seeing real trees and hearing birds and things like that. I did however complain about the mud every 5 minutes or so, and Alan said I should’ve just been happy that I conquered the mountain which was really a hill… :P I’ve got some photos which I’ll have to post up later when I’ve resized them down from the 3MB files that they are now. We were going to go tenpin bowling afterwards because that’s what I wanted to do but the bowling centre was totally packed when we went (damn kiddy parties) so ended up just going home.

I ended up going to a show with my dad on Saturday night because my mum was sick and dad didn’t want to waste the ticket. I’m really glad I went. I don’t know what the show was called, but it featured accordian players who did versions of well known classical and pop songs. It was really awesome, some of the songs they played. It was quite interesting for me cos I can play some of the songs and hearing them on a different instrument is quite amazing. Some of the songs they had a singer as well and she sang really well! All in all, I kinda left wishing I could play the accordian even though it looks really heavy and I don’t think it has the same finesse as a violin. It does however, look like lots of fun and would certainly allow you to play a wide range of songs. I wonder how much one of them costs?

Didn’t really get up to anything yesterday. I got up late and had to cook breakfast because mum was sick. It turned out better than I expected although the bacon was a little dry and I forgot to put the olive oil on the tomatoes. Guess I’ll know for next time. I was supposed to clean up my room, but I kind of got distracted listening to music LOL. Pulled out all these classical CDs that I have and was listening to some songs I haven’t heard in ages. Also had The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ on a few times which is a totally awesome classic album. Might have to get their other album as well and have a listen to that, I did like “Rock the Casbah” which I’d heard but didn’t actually click that it was a Clash song LOL.

Oh yeah, also was the last time I went to Dtecht. I met up with my supervisor to return some of his texts and he took me out to coffee. It was pretty nice, and it was good to speak about things not related to the project. He asked a lot about choosing courses and stuff, apparently IT is not popular this year, and there’s only like 30 students or something. Not sure if that’s strictly IT or BCST, but compared to when I was doing COMP1001, that’s a big change. It’s not too surprising though, I was doing those courses when IT was at its peak. I guess it’s a cycle and in a couple of years IT will re-invent itself and become necessary again.

Kind of went on a movie spree too. On Friday, I saw The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift because I had four hours to kill before Su’s goodbye dinner. Honestly, I never walk into a movie like that with any sort of expectations. I know it’s going to be shit. I don’t expect a plot, good acting or anything. I do however, know that the cars are going to be awesome and the racing scenes will be impressive. So I guess that’s why I can walk out of a movie like that and say it was good. Maybe this is why I can say quite a few movies are good LOL.

Su’s goodbye dinner was alright. Bit pricey cos we went to tapas restaurant. But I got to have meatballs and sausages and fried potatoes so you know, as if I’m going to complain. Went to French Riviera ice-cream place afterwards and got this mountain of ice-cream to share. I really should have taken a picture as I’ll never be getting that by myself. It was kind of sad, cos I know Su’s gone for at least three months, and by the time she’s coming back I’ll probably be going overseas myself. That’s if she comes back. But you know, everyone has to move on with their lives and go out and do what they want or need to. I never pegged her as being one of those people to go overseas to work. Oh wells, there’s always the phone and internet so it’s not like we’ll lose touch I guess.

On Saturday I ended up going to see Da Vinci code by myself. I’d heard mainly bad things about it, and for once they were warranted. I’ll admit right now that I have not read the book and I’m kind of glad I haven’t. I’ve read two other books by Dan Brown (Angels & Demons and Deception Point), and I found them both enjoyable but I think there’s only so much Dan Brown you can take at one time. So yeah, Tom Hanks’ Robert Langdon is not the Langdon I imagined from Angels & Demons, and I doubt the character changed that much in Da Vinci Code. Mostly I was just disappointed that the whole Sophie story arc was blatantly obvious about one-third of the way through the movie. It was a surprisingly L-O-N-G movie. Paul Bettany was pretty amazing as Silas, and Ian McKellen was brilliant as ever, but it just wasn’t enough to carry the movie. So yes, it was fairly bad.

Also saw ‘The Break Up’ right after that. Definitely not what I was expecting. I was sort of expecting some romantic-comedy or something, but definitely not. I’m not entirely sure what the point of the movie was. It didn’t leave me feeling anything, and I half believe the moral is “some relationships just don’t work out”. Well… that’s great. The acting wasn’t bad, and some of the stuff was rather funny but yeah.. I think the ending was just flat.

I finally found ‘The Boondock Saints’, took me a little while to find it as it’s a fairly old movie. But damn it was awesome. It’s gritty, it’s kind of funny and it’s rather gory. It’s a bit like Lock Stock, although not as fun. Billy Connolly at the end was magnificent, and the prayers that the boys say are thought-provoking. The entire movie was thought-provoking even though it’s based around a bunch of vigilantes.

After my exam I’m going to find the time to re-watch 12 Monkeys (my favourite time-travel movie) and Primal Fear, both of which I bought on DVD last weekend. I love 12 Monkeys because it’s probably the only movie where time-travel actually makes sense and doesn’t screw the story line. It also shows Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in some of their best roles I reckon. I also love Primal Fear. The movie’s a bit of a mindfuck, because you never really know who the bad guy is or what’s going on… Ed Norton was awesome in this movie and the ending is so chilling. Definitely have to re-watch this.

Other than that, I’ve been spending all my time finishing One Tree Hill season 3, Gilmore Girls season 2 and then I started Grey’s Anatomy and I’ve finished season 1 and half of season 2. So much for study huh.

So yes, no more watching stuff until I’ve done some proper study. I’m working two days next week as well, so I really should do as much study as I can now.

Read two movie reviews, am tempted to make sure I get to see them when (if) they are released here. The first one is Hard Candy. It sounds extremely depressing in some ways, and yet should be thought-provoking, although the subject matter may be squeamish? The second one is Love + Hate. I like British films, generally. They’re usually not as showy as Hollywood films and tend to have a different narrative style. Looks like I’ll be spending some time in Dendy eh?

King Kong arrived by mail today! Well, the DVDs at least. I took advantage of their pre-order deal and got the one with the free copy of the production diaries. Pretty good! I don’t really like these ‘tins’ EzyDVD has, they kind of look ugly actually. Which is kind of annoying, because I pre-ordered the Final Fantasy VII – Advent Children tin edition as well. My main gripe is that the tins don’t stack nicely with the other DVDs cos they’re bigger.

I have a mid-semester tomorrow which I really should be studying for. And damn, isn’t it dinner time yet?