Things I miss of late:

I miss my tank of tropical fish that we had to leave behind when we moved back to the UK. Particularly "Iceman", the Siamese fighter who had a real grudge against my headphones.

I miss flying kites with friends. Which leads me to conclude that I must get some of my friends flying kites around here.

I miss regular gaming, but need to wait until after we get back from our holidays before I can crack on with that again.

I miss going out for breakfast at the Chinese equivalent of Ramones, or the original for that matter.

I miss being in the shop to see the new goodies coming in on a Wednesday.

However, these are all positives as they keep me looking towards what's coming next. I still have projects on the go and just need the time to bring them to fruition (or occasionally back to fruition).

In other news, Ting passed her driving test with flying colours first time out and we've bought our first car (which has not received any kind of cute name as yet). So Ting has been showing off her newfound skills all weekend leaving me to try and discover new, maintenance based skills (replacing the antique stereo is high up the list).

Still, plenty to keep me occupied at the moment, like traipsing off to Manchester to sort out my travel visa and counting down the hours until I finish work for our holiday.

18 days, 16 hours and 39 minutes.

Not content with stealing huge chunks of my life post-Christmas, Guitar Hero III is now sucking in Tingwen and I've gone and bought a real guitar which I'm slowly getting my head around.

I'd say "Like I needed another hobby" but as I have hardly done any drawing or miniature painting of late I suppose there's a window of opportunity.


and in other news...

if you feel like listening to some rather silly bits and pieces, head on over to maltoncityzoo.podomatic.com and try some of the very silly podcasts I've been doing for my group in Urban Dead.

music: Ode to Joy - slowly and quite badly. tags: guitar, guitar hero, podcast, urban dead

...no more.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/15/news/obits.1-407992.php

Woolworths sale be praised... Tingwen bought me Guitar Hero III.

I suppose I can say goodbye to my life for a short while.

mood: geeky music: Welcome to the Jungle tags: guitar hero

Today I was visited by the ghost of Christmas past. I didn't like him very much as he kept raking over a handful of Christmasses that I'd rather forget, shaded by pain, misery or melancholy. I'm expecting another visit tomorrow and that one had better be in a better mood or I'll be reaching for the Positron collider.

Strangely enough, I have video.

Will be trying to make the retrieval run again this weekend after being forced to abort last Saturday due to matters beyond our control. Kind of looking forward to getting my stuff back, less thrilled about trying to fit it all into the house.

That said, making the journey will prevent us going to Manchester's Christmas market again, having made the trip twice in the last fortnight. I was always kind of happy with Cardiff's Christmas market but this thing is awesome. Of course there's the usual mix of crafty/gifty/presenty stuff to be found (Purchase 1: New necklace for Ting's Christmas) but an awful lot of good international foody things. So whilst wandering round and enjoying a mulled wine / hot chocolate and baileys / spicy German sausage inna bun we seem to have spent an awful lot of money on food whilst still thoroughly believeing that what we bought is immensely good value for what we paid.

Each visit we have brought home a well packed bag of spiced continental sausages to which we have added Swiss Chocolates, Dutch Cheeses and other wonderful goodies we are banking for Christmas.

We also acquired a rather luxurious rug which we're both pleased with (especially after Tingwen deployed her fearsome negotiating skills).

I'll have to go back soon though, I need to get some more of those cheeses before the family comes 'round for Christmas. And possibly some more sausage. And maybe that Wooden toy crossbow...


Meanwhile....listening to...

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Always%20the%20Moon

For some reason a month after the JoCo gig (was it really that long) this song has surfaced in my head.

music: Always the Moon - Jonathan Coulton

Woke up this morning to a centimetre or two of snow, which was nice. What's nicer is it's still snowing in a not-too-heavy way which meant that I had to take the camera with me when I walked Ting to the station this morning.

Some may remember that a few years back I ran a series of Sci-Fi top tens on this journal (much to the annoyance of a certain someone who felt that Farscape should have been in everything).

Others may remember the Fanboy Deathmatch polls I ran on the Does My Geek Forums.

Well, they're back...

http://fanboydeathmatch.blogspot.com/

Last week whilst on the weekly shopping a Spent a not unreasonable amount of time drooling over the new Indiana Jones box set containing all 4 movies only to discover that Tingwen had not yet seen a single Indy movie.

Well, shocked and stunned I explained them to her (No Indy - No Mummy or National Treasure) and the box was duly purchased. So Friday night brought Raiders (which she liked) and Saturday brought Temple (also on the approved list).I reckon we'll polish them off over the course of the week. But so far it's all going well.

However watching the opening to Temple brought up a name I'd heard a few times during my stay in China, Nurhachi. As it had been a while since I'd seen temple the connection never established itself but then it all fell together.Nurhachi, the emperor whose ashes Indy passes to Lao Che is actually buried in Shenyang, also home of his first palace and I visited said tomb on my first visit to Shenyang.

Strangely I found this connection quite satisfying.

In other news...

Ting and I bumped into my youngest sister and the twins in town. Ting spent some time bribing them to say "Auntie Tingwen" with the aid of smarties. As we left my sis prompted them to say goodbye to which W said "bye bye Auntie Tingwen" and J said "bye bye smarties". I only just found this out off my Sister whilst writing this but felt it worthy of mention.

mood: amused tags: indiana jones, nurhachi, smarties, twins

I'd just like to post counter to the current tides of doom and gloom and say that everything is fine. Sure, there's things I need to plan and amend but all things considered things are going strangely well.

Should be getting my head back around the revitalised Project:Shadow in the near future and have plans to do a bit more focussed blogging both to support P:S and to carry on a tradition I stopped on here some time ago.

Went to watch the Christmas Lights get turned on tonight and was surprised that we actually had some decent fireworks to accompany the event (though not as ear-destroying as those experienced in Shenyang) and slightly weird entertainment in the form of a Girls Aloud cover group who finished their set with Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you".

Meanwhile I've been flexing my podcasting muscle by recording a special wind-up for a work colleague who absolutely hates the new Jason Donovan single (and with no small amount of justification).

Re: Your recent move, Quantum of Solace

You/have/some

/of the/

/greatest technical/

/film-makers and/

/most talented/

/stunt/




/performers/


/in the world/ /at your/ disposal.


STOP JUMP CUTTING EVERY TIME YOU DO AN ACTION SCENE!

Oh, and another exclamation mark for good measure!

Seriously, some of the stunt work in Quantum of Solace looked to be immense, but you never actually get to see anything happen clearly. Now I really like it when a film-maker implies things rather than shows them, but to only show tiny bits when you obviously filmed much more is a waste of time and talent.

For the record, I genuinely liked the movie but the action scenes gave me a headache quicker than the neon-striped drawing pad I saw in a shop today. Can we have a director's cut by a different director please? Or is this just a tactic to make us buy the 2-disk DVD so we can see "full length - unedited" action scenes?

mood: grumpy tags: bond, james bind, jump cuts., quantum of solace

Next up in the JoCo concert footage, Paul from Paul & Storm is back onstage an a well placed 20 pound note encourages him to go a bit Minelli...

Another clip from Last Thursday's concert...

I'm slowly uploading video from Last Thursday's concert (which has been taking some time), so no Coulton yet but here's a little ditty from Paul & Storm...

OK, as promised here is my recap of the Jonathan Coulton gig from Thursday Night, but first - for those who don't know about him, here's the background.

I was first introduced to Mr Coulton's work by my friends over at Does My Geek back in 2005 (I guess), starting with a little song called Skullcrusher Mountain (Think of it as a love song told by a Roger Moore era Bond Villain and you'll be well on your way). From there on in I became a regular listener to his stuff and even played some on my own podcasting forays.

So when I found out he'd be playing in the UK I had to get some tickets. With Ting working I was accompanied by Sarah from DMG and off we went to the Shepherds Bush Empire to visit catch him live.

I was quietly impressed with the Empire, it's a very nice old-school concert venue with some great acoustics and a great (if a little worn-down) look.

The evening kicked off with Support act Paul & Storm, who launched straight into their first song, "Opening Band" which set the tone for a very funny first set that the audience forgave carrying on for too long, mainly because we're the reason that it kept going. Among the songs they played were Live (Itself the product of a challenge to write a song in JoCo's style, whilst he wrote one in theirs - Coulton's song "Big dicks farts a polka" won), Nugget Man, Nun Fight (Both inspired by true stories) and The Captain's Wife's Lament (A two minute song that lasted over 8 minutes thanks to wayward audience participation).

Eventually Paul & Storm got off stage after thoroughly entertaining us and waking me up to another musical act that I'm going to have to keep my eyes on. I would thoroughly recommend heading over to www.paulandstorm.com and listening to some of their stuff because they are rather good.

Then, with the excitable audience off for drinks, toilet breaks and merchandise we awaited Jonathan Coulton himself. Given the amount of money certain mainstream artists throw on tours for someone to come onstage with a guitar and nothing else (for the most part) yet provide such solid entertainment for two hours is pretty impressive.

Fan favourites such as Code Monkey, Re: Your brains and Skullcrusher mountain were delivered with aplomb and Paul & Storm came back on-stage to help with some of the songs. Bonus entertainment was provided when someone in the audience ponied up 20 pounds to encourage Paul to perform a spot from Cabaret on stage, Cunning use of a very clever shiny-looking synth device for one of the songs and somehow delvering a rendition of "Mr Fancy Pants" accompanied by nothing but an I-Phone (And managing to Rick-roll the audience as well.

Gentler songs such as "Soft Rocked by Me" and "Always the Moon" were also wheeled out as was the excellent "Still Alive", all wrapped up with a super-secret encore and a rendition of Sweet Caroline (Bah Bah Baaaah).

If you haven't listened to his stuff head over to www.jonathancoulton.com and do so now.

Overall the show was great, well worth the journey to London sitting next to Mr Elbows and having to do some serious running to get to the coach on time to get home before heading to work with no sleep. If I had to do the same thing to go and see him again I certainly would without hesitation.

Yaaaarr!

music: Coulton Paul & Storm, concert, SHepherds bush empire

I remember sleep, Those were the days...

It has been a very busy couple of days, served mainly on the back of going to watch Jonathan Coulton (With Paul & Storm) at the Shepherd's Bush Empire on Thursday night, getting home, going to work and finally getting home to prepare the house for halloween.

So, as my brain finally accepts that unconsciousness would be an interesting experience once more I just want to point out that Jonathan Coulton is absolutely superb live and well worth seeing if you get the chance, especially as Paul & Storm are also rather excellent in their own right (Getting the audience to "Yaaarrr" to accompany a piratical song, then cajoling them into giving then a yaaarrr, giving them 2 yaaarrs and then giving them pi yaaarrrs).

I'll post a proper report on this and other things soon, but I think my fingers are typing without any assistance from my brain so I don't end up writing anything ... well ... silly.

Whilst finishing off yesterday's shopping I paused for a while to listen to the rants of the local Evangelical Church on the high street. Now don't get me wrong, although I'm not religious I appreciate a bit of free street theatre as much as the next man (unless its mimes, of course) but a couple of the chaps involved seemed to be going a bit too far, one by engaging in religious slurs and the other by foaming at the mouth as he got into his subject.

And lo it was that as The Kevolution walked away from the preachers he heard one say to the passing throng "and brought about the greatest event in history" at which point the rebellious part of my mind quietly asked "Wrestlemania?"

And so, to the future.

As I'm going to see Jonathan Coulton on Thursday and that trip will be an all-dayer (almost exactly a 24 hr round trip) preparation for Friday's Halloween spectacular will probably start tomorrow.

We picked this up whilst shopping yesterday...

tags: halloween, singing dog

It all started many years ago. Whilst at University I got carried away a little and carved three pumpkins - each of increasing complexity - for a Halloween party we were having.

Pleased with my results they were brought before my housemates, one of whom laid down a challenge, that was to carve a Jack 'O' Lantern out of a carrot.

Well, being brought up of the swede carving tradition I thought I'd give it a go, after all carrots are a bit softer then swedes so the only challenge would be the miniaturisation.

Well, the end result was a vampiric carrot lantern that was begrudgingly congratulated. I was then told that next year the challenge would be broccoli.

Well that challenge never emerged, but since then at the back of my mind I always wondered, "can I do broccoli?"

Well... Behold




Brock 'O' Lantern

I still need to fit him out with a suitably small candle (I'm sure I have some cake candles knocking around) but I am hoping he'll look cool in the dark as I did put in air-holes that lead up the the tree-like tip. Hopefully he should have a nice glow.