Reports of my death as a blogger are greatly exaggerated.

Hi everybody

This is just a quick post to say that the lack of activity is not because I don't wanna post stuff, it's because they're nothing in my life going on right now that I feel comfortable putting on a blog for the world to see. That and most of the stuff I could talk about would just bore you readers to death.

I have debated starting a myspace account but I don't think I'd use it any more than I use this blog.

Anyway, no-one seems to be reading these post anyway. If any actually reads this could they just leave a hello comment, just I know that I'm not wasting my time.

Until next time, see ya!

Photos of me

Hi everybody

There are some good photos of me at:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gamestuff/heroclx2.htm

The 6 week catch-up.

Hi everybody.

Once again I'v realised that it's been 6 weeks since I last posted on here so I'll start with the usual forewarning of getting comfy and maybe a nice warm drink before settling down to read it. So here goes:

I haven't planned this so I gonna start by making a list and then doing a paragraph or so on each. Let's see the major events of the last 6 weeks of my life have been:

Winning my first heroclix event.
Losing the final of the megaday event to Little Dave.
Reapplying to Garlands and not getting hired.
Sweating my ass off in the heatwave.
Coming last in the pub quiz (twice).
New baby cousin.

I'll start with winning my first heroclix event.

This was about a month ago and as usual I headed down to games club to play the weekly heroclix tournament. As usual I didn't have a clue until I got to the pub over the road from the club, Dr. Brown's (possibly Middlesbrough's best pub), and Paul told me that it was doubles night. Basically 2 on 2. So I teamed up with Alex because he didn't have a team partner and neither did I.

We entered under the tournament under the confidant (and almost clairvoyant) team name of "the soon to be crowned winners of this here tournament" and promptly lost our first match. Not a good start.
Fortunately we were put against 2 guys palying their first tournament and showed them no mercy, wiping out their entire squad of figures. This gave us and outside chance of making the final if we won our 3rd match in a convincing manner. We did.

So we faced our opponents from the first game again in the final. However, this time the outcome was in our favour as we'd learnt how best to utilize our figures. All in all, a good night's work.

The second heroclix based event of the last 6 weeks came at the club's staurday June megaday. The format for the tournament was random object tokens had been placed on the map that any figure could use. I entered my team name as "Shake, rattle and reroll".

In the first game I played Jim and won comfortable thanks to the 3 figure that allowed me to reroll misses. The second game I played Alex's hive trooper army and lost the round but scored a fair few points thanks to the glory googles object. The 3rd game I played against Dale and the annoying green lantern with it's stupid 20 defence and won thanks to the reroll element allowing me about 3 or 4 cracks at hitting the damn thing.

So I played Dave in the final and got whupped. Again. oh well, there's more events to come soon so I've got win one of them.

Applying to garlands.

At the minute my bank balance is looking critically ill so I decided to swallow my pride and reapply to go and work for Garlands again. So did Paul Crosby. Neither of us got a job. I got rejected after a hr check for unspecified reasons and Paulk got told that them were no jobs in trhe department he applied for. So we're still chronically skint.
All donations greatfully accepted....

Coming last in the pub quiz (twice)

Me, Paul, Jim and Emma have recently found that our local pub, Dr. Brown's (which is nowhere near where we live but hey) does a quiz night on a tuesday night. We're fairly intelligent people so we thought we'd enter. An hour and a half later and we're not feeling so smart afeter coming last.

A week later we decided to have another go, and came last again. Oh well at least we got first choice of the sweets.

New baby cousin.

My aunt Pauline had a baby boy of Thursday the 13th of July. Her and uncle Michael have called him Sydney and I'll be going over at the weekend to see them.

All this to the backdrop of an unusually warm summer. I've been sweating my ass off for the last 3 months and it's gonna get warmer still apparently. Good help us poor brits who aren';t used to good weather. Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing.

Finally finished and now I'm off to see if I can afford a new phone. I'm guessing not.

Until next time, see ya!

Da Vinci Code: A review

Hi everybody

Well 3 weeks ago, I went to see the Da Vinci code movie, and I've finally found the time to do a review so here it is.

Basically if you liked the book, you'll like the movie. It's stays extremely close and even has moments of dialogue lift directly from the book. These are mostly the funnier lines like when Vernet offers to sell Collet his rolex for 30 euros.

Casting wise, I was a bit unsure when I heard Tom Hanks had been cast as Robert Langdon. However, within the first 15 minutes any doubt I had were gone. The way he played Langdon's claustrophobia convinced me.

Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu was again something I didn't think was right but damn having seen her in the role I couldn't think of anyone better suited for it.
Sir Ian McKellen as Leigh Teabing. A performance too good for words. Outstanding.

But the absolutely best cast character is without a doubt the murderous monk, Silas, played by Paul Bettany. When he first appeared on screen, I thought the casting team must have somehow been reading my thoughts. He's exactly the ghostly white half man/half zombie I imagined.

Story wise, a couple of added scenes (Langdon in the well being especially well shot) help to fleah out the thin parts of the story. The templar sequence is a highlight for history buffs looking for u=inaccuracies to nitpick over.

All in all, an excellent book to screen conversion.

Until next time,see ya!

A brief catch-up

Hi everyone

Apologies firstly. I'm becoming an irregular blogger at the moment. This is because my sister's had her internet taken out and therefore I can't go round hers and type this. This means I'm stuck typing these in the public library which I don't like as I get very self-conscience while typing.

Anyway, in the past few weeks I've been letting my beard grow. Only in the past week has it finally grown into the sort of beard that joins up with the sideburns. No one seems to have noticed so I'm gonna just leave it and see how long and bushy it gets before it annoys me.

On the jobs hunt, I've had brief success. For about 2 days, I was a door to door salesman for a new company founded by my brother's amte called Adeptio. It didn't work out though because I was too shy to knock and when I did knock and get an answer, I invariably screwed up the sales pitch. So I'm still unemployed.

There won't even be the chance of getting taken on by Alan full time any more as on Saturday, he packed up his shop without so much as a word of forewarning. Oh well, it was good being a part time computer games salesman while it lasted.

On the plus side though, roll on tomorrow. The Da Vinci code movie opens in the U.K and me, Paul, Emma, and Jim are going down to see it. Already got tickets thanks to pre-bookingand everything. I'll do a review for my next post.

Until next time, see ya!

Recommended! 005

Hi everyone

It's been about 3 weeks since the last post and about 10 since the last recommended, so this seems like a fiting way to (hopefully) get back in the post typing groove.

New Tune: Nature's Law by Embrace (Alternate rock)

A terrific comeback by one of those bands I've always quite liked but never enough to go out and buy their album. Nature's law however, well at the moment this by far and away my favourite song. Rousing chorus, deep meaningful lyrics and soaring strings add up to the best alternate rock track of the year. Even better than last year's Gravity.
5/5.

Old tune: Once in a lifetime by the talking heads.

One of those tunes that everyone knows when they hear it but few people know what it's called or who it's by. It's the one that goes:

And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

It's been getting alot of radio play recently and I've just begun to realise how good it is.
5/5.

New Game: Heroclix.

Yes, I've become hooked to yet another geeky, fanboy game. The difference with this one is that it used figures and not cards.
Basically, me and my opponent make a team of superhero out of our figures and figh it out for some reason, usually pre-agreed scenario based. Each model has a points value so we always predetermine the size of the game before deciding on the teams.
So far, I've played 3 tournaments and came mid table in 2 and last in 1 of them, winning 1 limited edition figure so far, for sportsmanly behaviour (and beating a very difficult/annoying fantastic 4 based team).
I've even entered the 'boroclix' league and after 1 tournament, I' in 14th place out of 17 but there's a tournament tonight so hopefully I'll do well and go up a bit.

New Tv series: Dr. Who (BBC1, Saturdays, 7pm)

I hated the last season with a passion. Namely due the cockyness of Christopher Eccleston, aka Mr. I've yet to star in anything that proves my supposed acting talent. However, I watched the first episode of this season begrudgingly (I was at a friend's house) and was surprised at just how good David Tennant is as the doctor. He's given the doctor the underplayed humour that he had when Tom Baker played him.
And the idea of a hospital run by twisted cat-nurses, give who ever came up with it a pay rise. Absolutely genius. All in all, a show on the mend after being on the critical list under Eccleston.

That'll do for now

Until ext time, see ya!

Random thoughts bouncing around, crying to be let loose.....

Hi everyone.

Apologies for the lack of posting but I've been struggling for something to type about. Kinda like a writer's block for the 21st century. I've even struggled to come up with a title for this post. The fluidity which used to flow like a river of thought whilst I typed previous post has unfortunately gone. 10 minutes to do one paragraph for god's sake!

Anyway, I guess the creativities gone elsewhere as in my gaming life, I've been alot more creative thanm usual. Vs. system's seen the greatest gains (the x-men deck is now combotastic) and the boring curve sentinel deck has been ditched in favour of an underworld themed deck. Couldn't resist basing a deck around Dracula.

Also I've notice that the stimulus for this new found creativity seems to be everytime I think about my birthday coming up. In two short weeks, I will be the ripe old age of 19. Where have the years gone? If we really are only as old as we feel, then I'm not a day over 12, which is when I think I was probabaly at my smartest in relation to my peers. Or am I just having a second childhood like most people go through during their mid-life crisis? If so, then I'm screwed royally and I'm probably gonna die at 25.

Doesn't matter anyway. The mayans (the second smartest ancient civilisation after the babylonians) say that the earth's 5th and final cycles due to end in 2012 (when I'll be 25) and that the world will come to an end. Given recent/(ish) events, I'm a tad concerned. The boxing day Tsunami in 2004? Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Earthquakes in Birmingham, England in 2005? How about Iran developing nuclear capabilities? A country with a mentally unbalanced president (calling for Israel to be wiped off the map.....literally) having nuclear weapons unnerves me more than a little.

Of course, as with all prophecies, it's open to interpretation. For all anyone knows it could mean that just my personal world will end in 2012. Like in Donnie Darko, when Frank tells Donnie the world's gonna end and then Donnie dies at the exact moment Frank predicted.

I told you this was random. On a lighter note, I've been mostly chilling out with mates. Been spending more time with Paul Crosby, Emma, Alex (mate from games club) and Jim (aka JP, see entry about the superbowl). This has been good because it's relaxing after the heavy d and d sessions in Ollie's campaign, which are fantastic fun but usually fairly serious because at the minute one slip up or one session of bad rolls in likely to get us into a making a new character because the old one just died scenario.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Until next time, see ya!