Alasdair Watson

Like everyone else, I’ve just been to see Van Helsing.

I loved it. It was the stupidest movie I’ve seen in ages. The script honked, the direction was uninspired, the CGI was laughable. There are plot holes large enough to drive a coach and a team of six horses through. Actually, I’m not sure it has a plot, so much as a selection of holes. And even the bits that might, charitably, not be plot holes, are just bloody stupid.

But I got to watch the Wolfman fighting Dracula. And I got to watch Hugh Jackman fight with everything. And Kate Beckinsale looked pretty. I got exactly what I was expecting out of this film, which was entertainment on a LXG level. Perhaps even better. The plot was made up of holes that justified the next fight scene and that’s it, and that’s what I wanted. And I got to watch the Wolfman smack the shit out of Dracula. I’m not sure how anyone could expect more, having seen the trailer, and knowing it was by the guy that made The Mummy, which is a shit film that seems to have fooled people into thinking it’s in some way good.

In other news, I saw another film today, and if The Saddest Music In The World is playing near you, you shoudl go and see it. It tries to be a little too clever in places, but nonetheless, it’s a interesting examination of the ways nations and families express grief and compete for symapthy, set in Winnipeg in the great depresssion. And Isabellia Rosellini plays a woman with no legs whose prosthetic replacments are filled with beer.

Can anyone out there tell me what “viaje” and “la mesilla” mean? I’m just curious, as I got Jason‘s latest album last night, and it’s a sort of mirror of his first album. Where the first began with “Prelude” and ended with “August Closing His Mouth After A Long Summer’s Yawn”, this begins with “February Relaxing Her Fingers After A Brief Winter’s Grip” and ends with “Coda”, and the tracks along the way mirror each other as well – “Without”/”With”, “Halloween”/”May Day” and so on, but I have no idea what if anything “Viaje” and “La Mesilla” mean, and I’m curious…

I was woken from my early-evening doze in a rather unceremonious manner, as the bus driver’s dulcet tones overrode my iPod’s rather more appropriate offering of Thelonious Monk, to inform me that my transport home was stopping about a mile and half short of my home, rather than more or less outside my front door, as had been advertised when I got aboard and paid my shiny pound for the priviledge of travelling by London Omnibus.

I was, as you might imagine, more than a little put out with this. It substantially cut down my chances of getting the dinner I wanted from M&S from one thing, to say nothing of having been stiffed out of a quid by London Transport. And it looked like it was about to piss down with rain, like it had all the rest of the day.

So it was with uncharitable thoughts about the world and everyone in it that I set off on my impromptu forced march – I had ten minutes to cover about half that distance, and get to M&S before it shut, and if it hadn’t started to piss it down by then, cover the same again to get home. Well, OK, if had started to piss it down, I wasn’t going to be in as much of a hurry, but it was going to be unpleasant.

Thanks to an astonishing turn of speed, I made it to M&S (undampened by rain) in time to grab my dinner, noting as I dived in that there seemed to be an awful lot of police about.

I left M&S, still in a foul mood – they hadn’t had what I wanted, so I grabbed a quick sandwich instead.

At that point, I saw the cause of the cancelled bus, and the police. There’d been an accident, and the police were sealing the road off in both directions. The accident had involved a motorbike and, I think, a bus. It did not look like the kind of motorbike accident that the rider walks away from with scrapes.

I made it home unrained on.

A little lesson in perspective, I think. If the worst I have to complain about is an unplanned brisk walk, and the fact that the rather nice dinner I had wasn’t the rather nice dinner I’d had in mind, I’m think I’m doing pretty well.

I hope that the poor bastard on the bike recovers.

Saw it. Loved it. Am inclined to agree with burge, although I didn’t find the ending sad, just really, really moving. Thus far, this and Lost in Translation are my favourites for the year.

For those keeping score, I fell asleep shortly after midnight, although I did wake up within the time period that redscharlach predicted, which would a lot creepier if it had been a smaller window of time. Still, I say we burn her as a witch, just to be on the safe side, as she clearly sent some kind of horrible demony-thing to plague me in my sleep.

Well, this is either going to be very stupid or it’ll answer a question for certain. I am sitting here with a pint of coffee, at seven thirty in the evening, because I’ve got quite a lot of work I want to get done. Anyone want to bet on what time I’ll manage to fall asleep?

You know, the one where everyone reaffirms what a trendy liberal they are

So, what happened to me this weekend? Well, I got an unexpectedly early night on Friday – I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, then retired to bed with a book. I didn’t get a lot of reading done, though, because while I remember retiring to bed, the next thing I recall is it being seven-thirty on Saturday morning, which was something of a shock to me.

Saturday afternoon, and coffee somehow turned into a quick drink, which turned into several more drinks with redscharlach, mrtreacle and elethe which was a good laugh, although I’d like to take a moment to echo other people’s amused remarks about plateaus and precipices.

Sunday anw, marysiak and I took a wander down to Merton Abbey Mills, since we hadn’t been down that way in ages. Somehow, I got talked into buying a walking stick/cane thing. I also managed to buy some of my favourite orange juice, that Sainsbury’s one that’s Fresh orange, with strawberry pulp. My local Sainsburys doesn’t stock it, which is really bloody annoying, as they could make an easy tenner a week off me from that alone if they did. (OK, it’s hardly going to keep them afloat, but still, I figure if I’m willing to buy four or five bottles of the stuff a week, there must be other people that like it well enough to make it worth them stocking it…) I have also investigated the price of flats in that development, and found them to be out of reach, I fear.

Then I got home, and I do seem to have been well and truly bitten by the urge to run a game again – I’ve started writing up the NPCs, which is ace, because it’s forcing me to stretch creative muscles I haven’t really used in the last year or so, and I’m quite happy with what I’m coming up with. Mind you, I’m pretty sure that half the interesting bits of the dozen or so I’ve already written up will never come to light, but it’s nice to know them anyway, and it does at least make me feel like I’m being properly creative again…

In other news, I should be seeing “The Black Rider” in early June, and it looks worryingly like I’m going to be going to Glastonbury this year as well. Haven’t quite made my mind up yet, as well, it involves camping, and I have Views on camping, but I’m certainly leaning that way. Other than davebushe and rockoctopus is there anyone else on my friends list going?

The topic’s come up a few times recently, my Mum has switched back into “Nag him about it at least twice every time I see him” mode, and my hairline is beginning to recede a bit. I don’t think it’s going to go much further than it already has, touch wood – my hairline pretty much resembles my Dad’s now, and his has been static for the last thirty-odd years. Still, I’m thinking about cutting my hair short, and I’ve got a family wedding coming up that would give me a decent excuse to do so. So, should I:

If you’ve go anything else to say, or just want to be particularly emphatic in your views, please leave a comment

Friday night in, it seems – the general consensus seems to be that no-one can be arsed with any of the clubs that are on tonight, so everyone is staying in. Conscience says “Go to the gym, you’ve only been twice this week”. Lazy bastardry says “Yes, but one of those times was last night. You can go tomorrow, or something.”

So barring the re-appearance of flatmates (and that’s not going to make massive difference, either), or a better offer in the next hour or two, I suspect I shall hunt out a DVD or two, and curl up with booze.