Take the What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be? Quiz

Christmas
Well, it's the 28th December and Christmas has been and gone. As you get older Christmas loses some of its pizzazz and this year was perhaps the first year when it really didn't feel special at all. Even though we've got both our Christmas trees up and all the usual festive decorations, Christmas just wasn't the same. I didn't really get much in the way of presents (I am 18 so it's not like I expect much). I got some clothes and something I found very amusing was the fact that my mother and Nan both bought the exact same T-shirt. I don't think they saw the funny side of it. I got a rocket-shaped lava lamp, which is pretty cool, but I don't know whether I'll take it back to Uni with me. I got the obligatory socks and high street vouchers for the usual stores but nothing particularly interesting or noteworthy. No PlayStation2 games either, :-( so I've had to take the liberty of purchasing a couple myself off the Internet.

Christmas Day was just as it usually is, seeing my brother and his kids in the morning and then going round to my Aunt's in the afternoon. It was good to see all of the family again but since I don't see them that often anyway, even though I've been away it didn't really seem like I hadn't seen them for ages or anything. My Aunt is pregnant again and she's 42 so it was a bit of a shock for her but she seems really happy about it. If there's one good thing about Christmas time, it's getting to be with your family. Getting presents is all good and well when you're younger but once you get past a certain age you begin to see Christmas as more of a corporatist Godsend than a celebration of the birth of Jesus.

New Year
The New Year is approaching and I haven't decided what I'm doing for it yet. I know I'll end up going into town in some form or other but where, and who with is still undecided. I don't really see New Year as a time of huge celebration, more an excuse to get drunk with your friends and start afresh. I know for certain I'll make some New Year resolutions, and, as ever, I won't stick to them. This year I really am determined to make some resolutions that I'll keep for the year. I have said this pretty much every year and yet I've never managed it. This year will be different though. Probably.

Tipping the Scales
I can't remember if I've already discussed this but if I have then I apologise. I assumed before I went to Uni that I would put on weight while I was there. I assumed this basically because most people do and it's down solely to the incredible amount of drinking that goes on. Alcohol is full of calories and regular consumption can lead to a "beer belly". For the first five or six weeks I was having 3 or 4 drinks a night, every night. This was just excessive on reflection and for the last few weeks I cut down a lot. However, every cloud has a silver lining and I miraculously didn't put on weight. I attribute this down to not eating as much as I did at home because I had to all the shopping and cooking myself. It's not like I starved myself or anything, but I'm not a whizz in the kitchen so I was mainly eating microwave stuff and oven-ready meals - not exactly a staple diet. Anyway, even though I didn't put on any weight I would still like to lose some and that is pretty much going to be my main New Year's resolution. I haven't done any exercise at Uni so I'm going to take some of my weights back with me and maybe join the gym if I can be bothered.

Halliwell's
One of the best things about Christmas time is that you get loads of films and premieres over the festive season on TV. So, to this end, I have decided to give you a taster of what's been tickling my fancy:

This week, I have mostly been watching...
- 12 Monkeys
- Wag the Dog
- Night of the Living Dead
- Father of the Bride
- Toy Story
- Back to the Future Part II
- Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
- BASEketball
- Good Will Hunting
- Antz

There's probably more but I can't remember any off the top of my head. Some good ones up there and some average ones. On the subject of films...

Lord of the Rings
I don't want to say too much about this film but I would like to say that it was excellent and well worth seeing. I was surprised how much of the book they managed to cram into 3 hours and it just left me wanting to see the next movie. Much better than Harry Potter, The Fellowship of the Ring is epic in imagination and execution. I cannot believe the Tolkien family has completely distanced themselves from the movie because I feel it is a good and true representation of the novel. You just can't please some people.

Quote of the Day
"The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little. " - Porterfield

[don't get confused, it's me publishing a post for Al again]

Merry Christmas
Just wanted to say I hope everyone has a nice Christmas and gets what they wanted. I'll be back in a few days, hopefully with lots of presents and full of Turkey.

Who's that sexy guy?
Yes, the picture below is indeed me. It was taken in my rented tuxedo before I went down for my Christmas dinner. Let the offers from single beautiful women start flowing...

You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar...

5 Gold Rings
The anticipation for the new "Lord of the Rings" films is just about at fever pitch now. I'm looking forward to it, and although I haven't read the books for about 10 years I think I can pretty much remember most of it. But instead I'm going to talk about some of the films I saw while I was at Uni. There's a cinema on campus that shows all-time classics and there's a couple in York itself. I saw quite a few films actually and here I offer my opinions of the ones that caught my eye:

Harry Potter
Ah, like "Lord of the Rings" fans of the books and novices to the series alike eagerly awaited this movie. I've read the books and I have to say I think they're good but I wouldn't say they've changed my life or anything. Anyway, the film. Harry Potter was pretty good without being exceptional. The special effects were great and I thought the Quidditch sequence was excellently done. I really wasn't sure how I imagined it on the big screen but they actually did a good job. The story was of course pretty much the same as the book with a few notable exceptions - Peeves anyone? I thought Daniel Radcliffe as Harry was, er, well let's just say I hope he improves with age. The actors that played Ron and Hermione though were very good and Alan Rickman gave what we've come to expect from him. Overall I liked it and thought it was good, but it was by no means the epic that we were all led to believe it was. One for the kids and fans of the series definitely.

SCORE = 7/10

Apocalypse Now Redux
Three words: Oh My God. From the moment I found out this film had been given a director's makeover I knew I had to see it. To my dismay I found out it was only being shown at 11 cinemas across the country. However, one of those eleven just happened to be York City Screen. Ooh yeah. Presented in 5.1 Dolby EX Surround Sound and with an extra 45 minutes of footage taking the running time up to 3 hours and 15 minutes Apocaypse Now Redux is simply stunning. A masterpiece. Epic. Think of a superlative usually reserved for movies and apply it to this.

There's just so many great scenes in the movie. The opening sequence is one of the most vivid in cinema history where Martin Sheen gets drunk and starts going mental in his room. Then there's the legendary sequence where the American helicopters bear down on the Vietcong with Ride of the Valkyries playing in the background. This was just amazing on the big screen. Quote of the film (so many to choose from) goes to Robert Duvall with "I love the smell of napalm in the morning".

Based on Conrad's "Heart Of Darkness" Apocalypse Now tells the story of how a man is sent to hunt down another officer who has amassed his own army of soldiers deep in Cambodia and is committing atrocities against both the Vietcong and US forces. Along the way, the true impact of the Vietnam War is felt but the war only serves as the backdrop to a deeper story. As director Francis Ford Coppola said, Apocalypse Now isn't about the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now IS the Vietnam War.

Of the added scenes there were 2 that really stood out. The first tells us what happened to the Playboy girls and the second adds some historical perspective to the viewer about the war. Both of these scenes didn't really add anything new to the movie and the part where Martin Sheen and the crew go to stay with the French people was, to be quite frank, incredibly tedious. But, despite this, Apocalypse Now Redux was without doubt one of the best films I've ever seen. In the cinema on the big screen and that phenomenal 5.1 Surround Sound, Apocalypse Now is more of an experience than a movie. It probably isn't to everyone's tastes but nobody should miss the opportunity to see this film. Classic.
SCORE = 10/10

Croupier
A little known British film made in 1998 was well liked by American critics and is undergoing something of a revival here on video and DVD at the moment. Clive Owen is a struggling writer who gets a job at a casino as a croupier and uses his experience and interactions with punters to write a best-selling novel. It sounds simple and I guess it is but this is a brilliant film. I went into the cinema with no pre-conceived notions about what to expect and I was completely blown away. Clive Owen is really good in his role (although I think Martin Kemp could have done a job as well) and Alex Kingston of Moll Flanders and ER fame gets her kit off. Er, I mean, she's really good in it as well. No special effects or computer generated characters - just a good storyline and a script to match it. The ending threw me as well, which was completely unexpected and just left me thinking what a great film it was. The film makes working in a casino look really glamorous and if being the next WWF champion doesn't work out for me I may just become a croupier. Not all British films are crap you know.
SCORE = 9/10

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
This was released over the summer and although I really wanted to see it I never got round to it. However, it was shown on campus and thus I got to see what all the fuss was about. Final Fantasy, loosely based on the games of which I am a huge fan, is the first attempt at a completely computer generated film with virtual actors. I mean this in the sense that unlike Toy Story and Shrek etc., Final Fantasy is trying to pave the way for the future of the film industry. It took 5 years to make and made a massive loss at the box office (unfortunately) but I think Square and Sony Pictures can take some solace from it. The computer graphics in this film are utterly unbelievable. You'd have to convince yourself at certain points during the movie that it wasn't real. The only sour points animation-wise were the movement of the people, which looked a bit artificial at times, and the lip-synching, which was almost as bad as watching a DVD on a PlayStation2. However, with practice and advances in technology these could be rectified soon. However, for a first attempt I think the audience can forgive this.

The real problem with Final Fantasy lay not with its animation or computer graphics, but its story. Taking its cue from the game series, Final Fantasy deals with the idea that we all have a soul and this then returns to Gaia when we die. Although the makers obviously tried to hide their Japanese background and cater for the Western audience, it came across as too clichéd and predictable. I just thought they could have done something a little less Hollywood-ish. The cast was pretty stellar including Ving Rhames, Donald Sutherland and Steve Buscemi but even they can't save the film from some dire scriptwriting. Over used action movie lines like "Oh my God", "Noooooo" and "Something's not right, this shouldn't be happening!" were used once too often. I think Square were hoping that it wouldn't just be fans of the games would come to watch the movie but sadly I think this is pretty much what happened. Final Fantasy was merely an average movie but with some extraordinary features. Hopefully movie producers won't be put off by its mediocre success and Final Fantasy could be the first in a trend of "virtual" movies.
SCORE = 6/10

Other films I've seen since I've been away:
? The Others (not bad, good ending and Nicole Kidman as a blonde. Hmmm)
? Miller's Crossing (gangster film, Coen Brothers and Gabriel Byrne. Good)
? 101 Reykjavik (foreign, OK, not great)
? The Mummy Returns (again - come on, The Rock is in it for the first 5 minutes, how can I resist?)
? Highlander (classic, pity about Christopher Lambert. Surely they could have got The Rock instead?)
? Full Metal Jacket (fabulous Vietnam film, not for the faint-hearted)
? It's a Wonderful Life (another classic, probably the best Christmas film)
? Meet the Parents (not as funny as I was expecting but De Niro and Stiller make it worthwhile)
? Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan tries to recreate the tension and suspense of The Sixth Sense but fails. Bruce Willis is pretty good but the shock ending isn't really that shocking)

'Tis the Season to be Jolly
Well, only 6 days to go now and I don't really feel excited about Christmas at all. I guess after having been away and only just getting back I haven't had the X-mas vibe eating away at me for the last month or so. In mind of the fact I will get loads of money off people (much appreciated of course) I've been thinking about what to buy with my soon-to-be-acquired wealth. I won't spend all of it naturally, I'll need some money to take back to Uni with me. I think I'll probably buy a DVD or 2 (I bought Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition and Star Wars: Episode 1 while I was away) and I'm thinking along the lines of The Mummy Returns (and we all know why) or maybe the Godfather Trilogy.

Gaming wise I've already bought Smackdown: Just Bring It and I'm looking at Half-Life, Devil May Cry or Grand Theft Auto III. I've rented GTA3 and it's very very good. Such fun killing people for money and then picking up a hooker. The stuff you do in the game is cool as well. (Joke) Decisions, decisions.

One thing I won't be getting for Christmas though is a computer or laptop. I managed well enough without one and my parents have dissuaded me out of getting one... for now. It does mean however that once I go back my blog will once again only be updated irregularly. Phew, that's a hell of a lot more than I was planning to write but I guess I deserve a rant about films after not doing anything for my site for like 2 years. Anyhoo, back soon with more inane ramblings.

Quote of the Day (I'm back and so is this)
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" - Bertrand Russell

[this is Mike posting because Al seems to be having connection problems]

Hey everyone, this is from Saturday but stupid blogger wasn't working...

Where to Begin
Well, here I am, back at home after my first term at University. The reason why I haven’t updated my blog at all in the 10 weeks I’ve been away is because it’s not always easy to get onto a computer and you get absolutely no privacy in the computer rooms so it wasn’t always ideal to talk about a day’s events in full view of everyone else. I don’t really know exactly what I’m going to write here, nor how long it’ll be and I don’t have a set plan or structure. I’ll try and tell you things in a relatively chronological order but I may go off on a tangent at some points.

In the Beginning
The first day was quite nerve racking meeting everyone down my corridor and just generally getting to know people. Being the social animal that I am I found it quite easy to make new friends and now I know more people than I can shake a big stick at. I’m down a corridor with 6 girls and 4 boys (great odds I thought) which actually provides quite a nice mix. Everyone gets on really well and we always do stuff together. The first night we all just went down to the bar and got to know one another. It seems like ages ago now. Living with 9 strangers for 10 weeks is a hell of an experience and I feel closer to the people down my corridor than I do with some of the friends I’ve known for years. I was going to tell you about each of them but I think that might be a bit unfair on them so instead I’ll just drop their names in every now and again and you’ll just have to bear with me OK?

Fresher’s Week
Ah, Fresher’s Week, the infamous first 7 days of university life where friendships are forged and every morning is greeted with a sore head. For me, Fresher’s Week was just a non-stop roller-coaster ride of drinking, laughing and just generally getting to know everybody. We had bar quizzes, pub crawls, drinking games – the lot. My college at York, Derwent, has the best social life (naturally) and they had a “Green Death” night. Green Death is a Derwent secret, only the Junior Common Room Committee (JCRC) knows what gets put into it and its recipe is passed down from one JCRC to another. It’s a green drink and a vat of the stuff has £800 worth of alcohol put into it. Green Death is so alcoholic it’s illegal to sell. Playing drinking games with that proved lots of fun. This wasn’t just downing the stuff to see who could drink it quickest, this was full on doing an assault courses and then downing it or seeing who could say the alphabet backwards the quickest after downing a pint of the stuff. Legendary. I spent way too much money during Fresher’s Week but it was worth it. Fresher’s Week for me lived up to its reputation.

Work?
Yep, that’s perhaps the worst thing about Uni; sometimes you actually have to do some. I’ve done 5 essays and an exam this term but so far I haven’t found the work too difficult. Part of this is because the 2 Politics modules I did were just basically what I did at A-level. However, Philosophy and Sociology were very interesting. We covered Knowledge and Perception in Philosophy which was essentially asking how do we know what we know and how do we know that we are perceiving what is in fact real? How do we know, for example, that the world was not created 5 minutes ago with all of your memories and knowledge? How do you know that you’re not just a brain in a vat somewhere being controlled by a mad scientist who is responsible for all of your perceptions and experiences through a computer? Interesting stuff.

I read a book in Sociology by a man called Ritzer called “McDonalds and McDonaldisation”. He was basically arguing that through McDonalds’ standardisation of products and the service industry it was leading towards a global homogenised society. Drawing on my vast experience of McDonalds and their products I decided to write an essay on it arguing that McDonalds and McDonaldisation are paradigmatic of modernity and globalisation. Of course, this essay required extensive research of McDonalds, which I happily grudgingly but duly carried out in York city centre.

Societal Shenanigans
Part of Fresher’s Week is signing up to loads of societies. There’s over 100 societies at York and I signed up to a few of them. I signed up with the York Student Lib Dems (yes, sad I know), the Cinematography Society, World Cinema Society, York Student Cinema and the Beer & Bar Crawl Society. To be honest, I haven’t been very active with my societies except for Cinematography. The Cinematography Society is about making films. Obviously we’re not talking epics like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings but they have a budget and make some small films. I starred in a short film called “Fear” and making it was perhaps one of the biggest laughs I’ve ever had. I had one scene where I couldn’t stop laughing and it took us 16 takes to get it right. I watched the out takes and they were hilarious. The film is being edited at the moment and I can’t wait to see it and attend the premiere in Derwent College.

The Life of a Student
Even with my limited experience of being a University student I have to admit that it IS the life. Not getting up until midday and then walking by the lake to buy a paper; having competitions on Gran Turismo 3 and Mario Kart64 in the afternoons; going out at night and being with your friends; - this is what I enjoy. The independence I have is unbelievable. You’re not told what to do or where to go. You get up when you want, do what you want and go where you want. Lectures aren’t compulsory (tutorials and seminars are though) and tutors won’t shout at you when you don’t hand in an essay on time. Everything is up to you. My timetable is 12 hours a week and technically I should do 28 hours a week extra reading “independently” (pssst, this is bullshit) so it should be a 40 hour a week. And it is. Sort of. I can’t imagine not having gone and I feel sorry for my sister and brother, both of whom missed out. Everyone should go. The typical image of a student is someone who lazes about, eats junk food, doesn’t do any work, has no money and gets drunk every night. Well, blow me down with a feather but I think that about sums it up.

Any Other Business
Ok, that’s enough about Uni for now. While I was away I did manage to get on the Internet and I just want to say that Larissa’s blog was an absolute must-read and I implore you all to put it in your favourites now. I said “now”. Done it yet? Good. Rissy, you are funny, witty and I love you. Keep up the good work honey. I also better say thank you to Mike, Si and Robin for keeping me company on MSN Messenger while I was away and for making sure my blog didn’t become totally extinct. Thanks guys [group hug].

The Important Things
While I was away I was deprived of 2 of my favourite things: football and wrestling. I took a TV with me but I couldn’t get a reception and so only used it to play on my PlayStation2 (God, that’s all I’d ever need on a desert island). So I didn’t get to watch the demise of The Premiership on ITV (and Manchester United’s capitulation) or my weekly dose of WWF. The Internet alone had to suffice. Manchester United lost the title race before it had even got going and Chris Jericho became wrestling’s undisputed champion while I was away. Damn. Plus, I missed all-new episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Hmmm, Buffy) so it wasn’t all good. What was interesting though is that despite missing 10 weeks worth of Neighbours whilst watching it yesterday nothing had changed at all. It was kind of like when Home and Away came back after a 2-year absence and everything was exactly the same. Anyway, tangent, me, off on one. So there you have it.

I’m back, refreshed, and with a liver that is a lot less healthy than 10 weeks ago. I’m only back for 3 weeks over Christmas but I’ll try and make up for it. Stay tuned folks.

Finally...
Hey everybody, it's me, I'm back and ready to unleash my ramblings back on the blogging community once again. First, I need to catch up on a few things, settle some business ventures, kill some gangstas etc. so my long awaited blogging return will commecne tomorrow. Until then, you'll just have to wet your lips in anticipation.