"1001 movies to see before you die"

..is the title of a book I picked up there a couple of weeks ago. Since buying it
I have seen two of the listed movies that I hadn't seen before,
by virtue of them happening to be on telly. So I've decided as an ongoing project
that I will see them all.

Previously I was infamous for not having seen those films that everyone else had seen.
Alien, and The Crow being good examples ( both of which I have seen now).

Well I'm gonna those classic movies here as I see 'em, maybe I'll even say a little
something about em as I see fit. I'll also list off the ones I already seen until
I have all 1001 (or as close as I can get, some of the movies are REALLY ancient)

So without further ado the first two movies I have seen of the 1001.
1)West Side Story
2)Gone with the wind.

West Side story I can see how some people might like it. Micheal jackson ripped off
a huge number of shots and moves for his videos and some of the songs aint bad.
But the Musical just ain't a genre that does it for me. I ,somewhat controversially
I might add, cannot stand Moulin rouge, and would gladly take back those two hours of my life.

Gone with the wind is a movie I didn't think I would like at all. It being long and fully
of characters that you just plain can't like.. However I was pleasantly surprised. Its a
well crafted story and filmed very well indeed. And Rhett(?) Butler is 'the Man'!

right more as I see em'

(p.s I'm breaking my rule here and mailing from my work addy.. it seems like the only way
I'll ever update this site, I'll stick to doing it on breaks and after hours though. I'll
be good!)



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They're back.

wow october. has it really been that long?
Well I been busy and I can't acess gmail from work. thats all the excuses you getting from me.


To more important matters. I was at the prodigy gig in the olympia last night. they are well and truly back on form. Leeroy was on the Decks before hand keeping the beats coming.

The new material sounds great live, interspersed with the tried and tested old tunes. poison, their law, smbu, mindfields.

They're a fucking brilliant live act. Real theatrical, great energy.
Kieth and Maxim play off each other something wicked. They have these characters they slip into. Maxim is this taskmaster character cool beyond belief driving the crowd harder and harder... Keith is this barely restrained demented creature that at any minute could leap into the crowd in a frenzy.

But the minute liam walked on and turned on a small sign on his equipment rig the read "sex" I knew it was gonna be great!


I'm still deaf.

Gaelcon 2004.

Having recovered sufficiently from the exesses of the weekend. drink,games,sleep deprivation and fun I give you the Gaelcon weekend blog.

I had a ball at gaelcon. This year more than any other since I started going there it felt a bit like coming home.. Familiar faces all round many of whom did us the honour of coming to our convention way out west. Everyone is so friendly and I think I saw maybe one sad face amongst the 600 odd attendees and that didn't seem to last.
actually 2 if you saw my mate duane but that was after I broke the ear off his 1500 euro Batman statue, so you can see why he might not be singing "all kinds of everything" and blowing bubbles. I have already extended my sincerest apologies but I re-iterate them her. hope the damage is fixable...

Games wise it was the Year of Pirates of the Spanish Main ( or BOAT as it is known by some of us). But the other game to really make an impression was Star Wars: The queens gambit. really neat mechanism for having all 4 segments (gungan diversion, storming the palace, Jedi dual, and space battle) affect each other.

Alas I still have not aqquired a copy of the Call of Cthulhu card game. boo.

However I got to play plenty of Call of Cthulhu.. the fairly typical yet dead solid "The Great Game" and "Temporary insanity" which does exactly what it says on the tin...

What else. Karaoke in which Dave (gamer style third person reference not someone else) tries to sing in the Key of C#, fails by several letters then realises its not even the right song..

Pub quiz, which was fun. Club AGM which was actually fairly neat.
Charity auction in which money becomes something far less valuable than it really is and sticking your hand in the air becomes as addictive as crack cocaine.

dissapointingly my efforts to get everyone (including me) to go see AvP over the weekend failed miserable, And the Dang weather here prevented me from doing it today. I better get to see it before vegas, or I shall be very put out.

If I remember anything else I should mention I'll post it next post.

Dave.

Empire.

Have to say Empire's a top notch magazine. v. rarely does it fail to nail just how good a movie is. Imagine my dissapointment then, when they give AvP a mere 2 stars. Of course It was always going to be tricky to do either license justice... I'll still go see it. Forewarned is forearmed( and Four-armed is really handy in Mortal Kombat *groan*).

Empire also have a top 100 sexiest movie stars of all time. Which is funny cause this is a discussion I've had several times in the last couple of weeks. Now they got the sexiest men in there and they're pretty much what you'd expect (although orlando Bloom is the top ranking bloke. I would have thought that a bit odd but what do I know.) so I'm just gonna list the top ten ladies ( in reverse order to build the suspense).

10. Grace Kelly - I never watched none of her movies so I dont know if she deserves to be in the top ten or not
She don't look like top ten material from the photo..

9. Rita Hayworth - She was v. sexy, so I won't quibble with her appearance in this list.

8.Natalie Portman - According to empire sexiest role was Amidala in Episode III. Emm. Nope.

7. Uma Thurman - Yeah I guess , to me Uma is a bit too tomboyish to be one of the sexiest. But I'll allow it ;)

6. Scarlet Johannson - I only really noticed her in Lost in Translation so the Jury is still out on her..

5. Jennifer Connolly - Ok wholehearted agreement here. She looked pretty fine in the Rocketeer and she's been
in some other stuff more recently. Hulk I think. Damn.

4. Marilyn Monroe - Nuff said.

3. Halle Berry - Can't stand her. Everyone else is off their rocker for placing her so high..

2. Angelina Jolie - Yeah she is hot, lips to die for but makes some pretty appalling movies plus
a bit of an oddball as far as I can gather..

1. Keira Knightly - I would have said forget about it. But the picture they got of here she's
all done up like some kind of 50's film star and she looks pretty good. But where are (as
a good friend of mine likes to say) the Norks?


Heres a couple from lower down on the list that I think are more deserving of being in the top ten
than some I have mentioned .
Kirsten Dunst, Kate winslet ( having seen her recently in a Beautiful mind) and Selma Hayek.


In other news I have finally got my own copy of "What evil lurks" even if it is a re-issue, and on
vinyl(I don't own a turntable..)

Later.

Do stuff.

Saw adds for The new pratchett book "going postal" made me want to read it. so I pops into easons to pick it up then realise its not available here yet. Howver I subsequently realise that I haven't read Monstrous Regiment yet and it is conveniently sitting on the shelf right in front of me, in handy paperback format. Ah I says to myself I'll get that then. Then I find out I've got the first discworld meetup coming tomorrow night. perfect says I. that'll give me something to talk about then..

Anyhoo. I went to a play on friday, Brian Friels "Faith Healer", I probably wouldn't have chosen to go see it myself but as it was Cap'n Vane suggested we go to the theatre for something different and it was on. It was surprisingly good for a play consisting of 4 monologues.. both Funny and tragic in parts. I liked it but it made me miss the fun we had doing stage performances while I was in sligo....

however I did see that there was a screenwriting workshop going on in the IFI.. Think it'd be interesting even though I shouldn't really be spending money coming up to Vegas (did I mention I was going to vegas next month? go me) and I should be saving money instead, still I think It'd be good to do. I haven't really done anything just for myself since I came to dublin.. I miss acting and Tai Chi and Capoeira and all the stuff I used to do (however erratically) in sligo. Theres definitely less Time here.

More at some point.

Penance

(what you do after you confess? no? anyone?)

Well its all over. And I for one bloody enjoyed it. great excercise...
I've already written a diary for the flat earth site so I won't repeat myself here.

Many thanks to those of you who made the effort get all the way to sligo.
And thanks of course to the other flat earthers who made it what it was.

Anyhoo. I'm still knackered so I'm not gonna rant here.

Although I am working on a little project with mr o'connor which I will post about
at some point that I think is gonna be a bit special. more later.

The tragic tale of Varl Bearclaws return.

At the last moment Varl was pulled from the jaws of death by his
good friend Boris the Cleric.

In a weakened state he chose to take a moment to summon his druidic healing powers.

He was then promptly lightning bolted back into unconciousness.

Varl was having a bad day.

Lightning Bolted to death

Thats what my D&D barbarian (/druid) has just been. He went out with a bang, or two to be precise.

Which is why I have a few spare minutes to blog, while the rest of the party continue to battle the forces of "almost as evil as they are". Anyway Varl is off to a better place...

Oddly he is slowly dying by bleeding to death but in about a rounds time his rage effect is going to wear off and he'll lose a whopping 16HP which puts him in the "very dead" category. I would have expected the rage to wear off as soon as he fell unconcious but in the end it makes little difference.

"Ode to Varl BearClaw"
Grrr. Rarrrg.
Grrr. Raaarrrg.
Zzap.

Grrrr RRRaaarrg
Zzap.
Thunk.

A bunch of stuff.

I'm astounded to find that(accroding to the counter) people are still looking at this blog even though I have sorely neglected my updates. I guess folks found something they liked, or are at least curious as to what the hell I'm doing with myself these days.. Either way its good by me.

As for stuff you like well.. Jesse Ventura got some feedback.. I'd guess Uber is the contributor of the interesting facts. correct me if I'm wrong. Well I just finished watching the making of predator and have learned that Jesse Ventura was a Navy Seal and according to the wardrobe department records has bigger muscles than arnie. though Arnie claims it was a deliberate ploy on his part to psyche out Mr. Ventura. Anyhow the guy is certainly larger than live and seems to be his own biggest fan, but I can't help but like him.

I got some feedback from Saucy Monky clearing up the accents issue, much appreciated!
they are on tour in ireland at the mo. check out www.saucymonky.com. for details!
playing whelans soon if I'm not mistaken.

Confess is practically upon us so I'm trying to focus my attention on making sure everything is going to hold together on the day(s). Which ain't easy.
its amazing the difference that having to commute for an extra 40 minutes to and from work and having to change out of work clothes makes to your free time...
But its looking good.

Xaosseed got his masters which is brilliant and is confirmed for Confess (and running his infamous IOU campaign) which is even better! Hooray.

I just finished putting together the Con Directors round for the Confess Table quiz. Which I think would perhaps more fittingly be called the Confess Table Inquisition! The table quiz is looking like fun actually the "Dynamic" format is a bit cool..

So 15 days and counting. yikes.
better go do chairmanlike things...

More Gmail.

Got more Gmail invites.

if ye want one, shout.

Hours and hours..

This is very strange. I've nearly worked up an extra day in overtime this week. 6 hours depending on how things go today. I arrive early and leave late. Sometime in the next few weeks I'll probably be working 10-11 hour days.. In all my time at my previous job there was only one occasion when I worked days as long as these.And that was serious crunchtime with a manager (an ex-army major with the attitude to match)looming over my shoulder as I frantically tried to make all the bits dance together in swan lake style ( they ended up doing more of a cossack dance...) and for that effort I ate like a king and lived in the finest accomodations. This isn't like that. This isn't an exceptional situation. This is just how it is here...

Anyways I hear good reports about AvP looking forward to it. Especially after watching the original predator on monday night.. Bloody good movie, eminently quotable.

"Bunch of pansy ass faggots we got here. This stuff will make you a sexual Ty-ranno-saurus, just like me!"
Good man Jesse Ventura. he was a mayor of some town wasn't he? its a strange world we live in.

Anyways back to work now..






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everything is ok.

For those of you who were worrying. Everything is ok.

I got my prodigy ticket ;)


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Prodigy

Prodigy playing the Olympia this December. How wicked is that. Been hearing it advertised on the radio (which is weird cause I haven't listened to the radion in absolutely ages) and it brings back memories of how cool it was to hear the new years point gig advertised in 1995. I even recorded it.. in fact I remember a bit of it there was silence and the DJ says " the prodigy are back!" and then "No Good" kicks in. that gave me shivers when I first heard it. Yes I know thats daft.So sue me.

The new single "Girlz" is getting pretty good airplay at the moment. I like it.
you can find the video if ye fancy it on the xl website. Its like the evil twin of some old eighties hiphop tune. The video is growing on me too.

Another thing thats been brewing in the back of my mind every time I go to text someone. I reckon at some point new slang terms based on dumb predictive text is gonna slip into our vocabulary.

I give you some examples.. all of which will no doubt be familiar.

" You heading down the sub for a shot?"

"wow, thats really book!"

and my fave

"Iowaya?"

WooHoo.

Just finished my first task in my new job. After weeks of blundering about trying to get set up I finally got to DO something.

Quite an impressive setup they have here development-wise. The design documents are detailed right down to the level where they blur with implementation. The tools and infrastructure in place for testing and development is pretty hardcore, I'm gonna have to brush up on my old unix sKillz if i'm gonna keep up.
Still tis good to be here today.




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Plan B.

Updating my blog is proving difficult these days. What with being in the office under the watchful eye of big brother for most of my day and usually having something to do that supercedes the blogging in priority in the evenings I have decided I'm gonna try emailing my updates for a bit. Its far less conspicuous( and requires less logging in and such) in work so it should work out.

Last night I sat in on a Dark Ages Vampire game and put together my character while observing the goings on. Met some nice folks, Oli,Baz,Meg,Greg,JP and of course Colin who I already new. In fact most of the folks were at least familiar faces from Gaelcons past.

Tonight is AD&D and yet more character generation, But location wise it is next door and not 45 minutes walk away like last nights game.

Gaming during the week is a pretty new experience for me. I understand its kind of a necessity here as people like to have their weekends for whatever else it is they do apart from game, I know I'd be hard pressed to find time to game at the weekend.

The other thing I'm having to get used to is gaming without background music. The last time I would have gamed without and music was back in the days of the Game soc meetings in college. Since then we always had some music, specific mood music or otherwise. On thinking about it I suspect that most gamers don't have music during games. Anytime I've played with other groups certainly seems to indicate as such. I guess I didn't really think about it before.

Rambling a bit now so I figure heres as good a place to stop as any...



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The suit.

Tis policy in the insurance firm where I'm based to wear a shirt and tie. I don't like it. And am wary of falling into the suit trap. Y'see way i see it is everyone starts out the same. you wear the suit because you got to. After a while you start to forget yourself and become one of those guys who wears a suit even when you don't have to.

I gotta run. will finish this later.

"I aten't dead."

I've no excuse. I really haven't got a clue why I didn't get round to updating this last week.
I must have been busy. yeah thats probably it. Anyways I'm here now.

Its been an eventful weekend. Friday brought late night poker and the D&D cartoon nostalgia fest much fun at the expense of the Bow of Complete Brokenness +20 .

Met lots of the native gamers and got beaten at cards by em. Actually I did ok-ish only Doc Dev and Ger (card sharp extraordinaire) managed to outlast me..

Saturday morning was Dragonlance, good fun even if I was half zonked from lack of sleep. Our motley crew of adventurers stumbling from one perilous situation to the next and somehow still managing to achieve all objectives and then some...

Saturday night was the Quartermasters birthday. Guy and Wayne turned up for the celebrations. Good to see the folks again. Everyone seemed in good form the food was good and the beer was a flowin'. Middle names were revealed.

Alan *chortle*.

An expedition of the flat earth extended family to Galway was decided upon. More beer and laughs galore no doubt.

Now I must go to work, where hopefully things are getting into gear...

Human Resources eh?

Today I was meant to find out where I'd be working, go there and get filled in the project details and me my new co-workers.

Today what I actually did was wait. Nothing else. Just wait. Reallly realllly boring.

Y'see I came in and laid claim to my "hot desk" and waited for the person in charge of scheduling to contact me as I had been instructed. After 30 minutes of this I grew tired and took it upon myself to contact this scheduling person, her phone was busy. 15 minutes later I manage to get through.

She is surprised to hear from me. This is not a good start. She says she will try and find out why I wasn't put in touch with the right people yesterday and get me sorted.. half an hour later she calls me back and tells me that I am going to be working for one of their insurance clients. however the manager she ususally deals with there is in a meeting until after lunch but she will arrange a contact for me then.

I abandon my now useless "hot desk" and go hang out in the canteen where a couple of the other newbies are in a similar state of limbo. however by 2 o clock they have all gone their merry way and I was still in limbo. So I call her and get her voice mail. I leave a message asking her to page me if she hears anything. I try to call her an hour later. Her line is busy. I finally get through to her at 3.30 and she answers the phone like she never heard of me in her life.
I ask her if there was any progess and she says no.

She then tells me to contact this guy myself.
I am at this point somewhat dubious that she has even tried contacting him.
anyways she gives me a name. I ask for a number she says get it from reception.
At this point I am almost certain she ain't tried to contact him.
she hangs up.

I have no idea who this guy is. I am assuming it is the manager she was trying to contact.
So I get the number from reception and try calling him.I get his voicemail.
I leave a message with my mobile number on it.

I wait. some more.

One of the girls who had previously been in limbo came down for a tea break with some of her new colleagues . show off ;)
anyways I get chatting to them and explain my situation. Really nice folks. they tell me to go home. I concede that this is a bloody marvellous idea. It is 4 o clock and even if I did get a call back by the time I actually got there and got introduced to people I'd not have time to blink 'fore hometime.

So I dawdle a little longer.I Leave another voicemail telling the guy he can contact me anytime this evening and that I'd really like to have this sorted for tomorrow morning.
then I go to reception and they give me the guys mobile number and inform me that he is indeed a project manager in RSA.

and I go home. still in frickin' limbo. what a waste of a day.

I'm afraid I don't hold much with HR. I haven't had good experiences with em so far.
I'm sure there are talented and helpfult HR folks out there ( I actually know one, but not on a work basis) and maybe I just been unlucky with the places I worked so far. Maybe this Lady was having a bad day. she had been out the day before and she did sound a little hoarse or something and she seemed to be in a lot of meetings.. Still I'm sure she could have delegated so I'm not sure I buy that.

Anyhow thats enough moaning from me. The good news is that the accenture staff I have chatted to have told me that RSA is a good place to be based some real nice folks there. Also I think a couple more newbies are based there too. So I'm sure It'll all be good tomorrow.
touch wood.


As an aside. I don't feel so good these days. I think its the change in routine + stress. hopefully I'll settle down when the work starts.

"This is the first day... of my last days"

..Well the first day of my new job anyways.

Today was induction day. Me and eleven (only 2 of whom would be working on the same project...) other newbies were sat in a room and had an array of people attack us with powerpoint slides. And The company HR squad dazzled us with their professionalism. we all got funky 'induction' folders. ( aside: I always think induction sounds way too much like Injection for my liking).

We had everything from useful stuff like how to fill out your timesheets to standard stuff like their various policies(holidays, disciplinary procesdures and stuff) to absolutely useless stuff like what the company branding is (their font and layout for presentations and stuff.).

Todays blog entry is brought to you by the word stuff. Apparently.

Anyhow its great we learned all about the great perks and stuff. they got insurance, assurance, shares,pensions, credit cards, cheap travel,masseuse, laundry service and even a service where you order a meal and they give you a home cooked meal to take home with you and pretend you're a great chef to all your friends..


At lunch we were assigned to some folks we would be working with. This was the bit where you found out what you would be doing over the next while. I found out I would most likely be working on a forestry project. but not tomorrow or the day after. in fact the guy I talked to seemed to think I would know when I was starting. So 4 o clock rolled around and I still didn't know who I was working for or where I'd be doing it. ( My situation was further confused by the fact that I had been called last wednesday to inform me I would be working on an insurance project.)

Turns out the person who's job it is to schedule us newbies work is away today so I won't find out till tomorrow. In the mean time I've been told to commandeer a desk and wait and see. Yipes. Still I'm not as bad as the guy who found out today that he is going to manila tomorrow!
he didn't know where exactly he'd be working either.

To top it all off I wasn't feeling the best. Very hard to pretend to be listening to the recommended colours to use in presentations when your stomach is doing cartwheels.

Still thats the worst bit done (maybe) . I'll feel better once I get my hands dirty.

The last man.

Been reading Y: the last man on Dr. Devidents recommendation. The Quartermaster has kindly given me access to his significant graphic novel collection. Y, Fables, 100 bullets, hellblazer and the like.  Y is pretty dang good, I have to say I'm hooked. calling the monkey Ampersand is a stroke of genius..

Just got me a new telly. Unfortunately It don't come with an aerial or a.v cable for hooking up to the cable connection. I think thats a bit odd but then it was v. cheap.

Met Mr.E for pints and a chat last night. Spoke at some length regarding the Dark Ages Vampire game they got going on. Have a mission to put together a character for the next session.. I got games coming outta my ass these days (metaphorically speaking) the Savage one has offered me a place in his D&D and there is an opening in next doors D&D too.  I'm not sure how many games I'm actually gonna be able to play and still keep my job and my girlfriend and put together a convention on the other side of the country... should be fun finding out though ;)