We’ve been promised a Referendum, so we can choose between various alternative voting systems. There’s one thing that’s really making my head hurt though, regardless of whether it’s a Single Transferable Vote, an Alternative Vote, an Alternative Vote Plus (does that contain caffeine?), or whatever.

The idea is that you pick a “second choice” (or a third, fourth, etc in some cases). If your first choice doesn’t manage to get more than 50% – thus securing a majority – then your vote transfers to your second choice, and so on and so forth, until someone gets a majority. So, if you vote Green Party as your first choice, and they don’t get in, your vote transfers to the Liberal Democrats to see if they get a majority… and so on and so forth.

It gets more complicated than that, of course, so lets just focus on the three main parties. Lets say that the Conservatives and Labour are sat on 40% each, while the Lib Dems are sat on 20%. Obviously, Mr Clegg won’t have won based on that, so the second choice of all those Lib Dem voters kicks in… and hopefully more than half of them will have picked one of the other parties. Sounds reasonable, right?

But hang on. What about the second choices of all of the people that already voted Labour and Conservative? What if everyone who voted Labour and Conservative actually picked Lib Dem as their second choice? Surely, that means that they’re universally more popular than either Labour or the Conservatives… but that doesn’t actually get taken into consideration at any point.

It gets worse, too. They’re toating this kind of situation as bringing an end to tactical voting… but at best, it just displaces it. In an ideal world, everyone will definately vote for their first choice. But then, their second choice becomes the tactical vote. Lib Dem voters might be so determined to ensure that the Tories don’t get into power in their constituency, so put Labour as their second choice. Conversely, every Labour voter might similarly put Lib Dem as their second choice to avoid the Conservatives getting in. If neither party gets 50%, then those second votes kick in, and it all cancels each other out, and ugh. Headache.

Surely it’d be better to count the second votes from the beginning… maybe make them worth half a vote? Going back to the earlier example, if we’ve got a 40 / 40 / 20 split, but all of those Labour and Tory voters picked the Lib Dems as their second choice, then those votes would add up to give the Lib Dems an extra 40% (40 + 40, divided by 2), which pushes them to 60%. Well, 60 points, since it’d add up to 150% in total. That demonstrates that they’re the “least unpopular” option… even with all of the Lib Dem second votes, the other parties could only earn an extra 10 points.

It all sounds squiffy, anyhow. And these “top up” MPs for larger areas… if you look at the geographical map of voting from the last election, look at where the strongholds are, and think about where these larger areas might be: looks to me like it’s a really easy way for the Tories to worm themselves a load of extra seats in a bunch of places.

Obviously, it’s more complicated than all that, and I’m sure some really boring person who has intensively studied politics could clarify things a lot better… but all of the options sound pretty flawed to me. Maybe I should get in touch with Nick and Dave and suggest some of my ideas, eh?

Anyone know the number for No. 10?

I work on Old Street; as you can guess with fairly simple logic then, I frequently find myself travelling through Old Street tube station. Any of you who happen to be stalker fans of mine, and have the uncontrolable urge to go and lick things in places where I have been – it’s the stop just after Angel on the Northern Line, heading outbound from Kings Cross. I usually take the left-hand escellator (and touch the hand-rail on the left side, lickers!); as with every other escallator in the underground network, there are a series of posters in frames on the walls.

It’s probably worth throwing in a brief aside here: I am constantly confused and disorientated by semi-conscious attempts to work out whether or not these posters are in fact perpendicular to gravity (ie. parallel to the “ground”), or if they’re at a slightly wonky angle. While riding the underground escallators, I do tend to feel like I’m leaning back slightly – some optical effect of the sloping tunnel they move through, perhaps? – and do spend a lot of time looking up the escallator; having the posters angled would make a certain amount of sense. Unfortunately, it is nigh impossible to tell, since the only lines nearby are diagonal, following the slope of the incline. I may have to take a spirit level to work with me one of these days.

Anyhow. There is a poster part way down the left-hand escallator, informing people of a particular cosmetic surgery company, and how having people cut on your face and put squeezy stress toys in your boobs can make you feel better about yourself. Someone has rather amusingly placed a sticker across this poster, advising people “Don’t buy this sexist shyte”, or words to that effect. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen sticker annotations on this poster, on posters in general, or indeed around escallators: I remember seeing a “Mind the Step” sticker on an escallator, that gave me a hearty chuckle. What impresses me here however is the sheer amount of thought and preparation that went into it. It’s on the down escallator, which is moving – as escallators do – so there would have been insufficient time to write the sticker while passing it. That suggests a degree of pre-meditation; I wonder to what degree. Did the person go past this poster day after day, and finally snap, preparing the sticker and slapping it on? Were they so overcome with rage at the implications of the poster that they worked their way through the labyrinth of tunnels, went back up to ground level, and rode down the escallator again, just to deface said poster?

I suppose I’ll never know.

Moving on, some of you may be familiar with the fact that I mishear things from time to time, often with amusing consequences – I misheard “Lesbian venues” as “Lesbian values” today, when finding out what people were talking about (I was somewhat disappointed to not end up talking about the philosophical nature of female homosexuality, actually). I’m not entirely sure why this is: whether it is a lack of concentration on my part, an indication of some sort of hearing loss, or just my brain being particularly weird. Whatever the reason, I’m constantly reminded of it whenever I board the train at Old Street. The tube lady always announces “This is Old Street. Change here for Morefield’s Eye Hospital.” The first time I went to work, I misheard that as Change here for Morpheus Eye Hospital. Consciously, I know that I’m hearing it wrong every time, but I don’t care: ingorance is bliss, and it’s nice to have something to smile about a few minutes before arriving at work.

I used to have a tradition of ranting in every blog post; on the theme of the London Underground I have two, though neither of them are connected with the staff, quality of cleanliness, or the timetabling and delays. Instead, I want to rant about my fellow passengers, and the little ticket barriers at the entrances and exits.

You can always spot a Londoner, a very drunk Australian told me as I came back from work just before New Years, Because they don’t smile. I think he was wrong. I think you can spot a Londoner by how close to the damned doors they stand while waiting to get on a train. Now yeah, everyone wants to get on quickly, so that they can squeeze into those seats with no elbow room, rather than stand like a penguin for their entire journey. I get that. But what seems to escape them is the simple logic that people need to get off the fucking train. And more importantly, they need to get off first else there will be nowhere for you to stand / sit / lie / levitate. Londoners, please: stand back a bit; leave a gap so people can escape – and the old lady that smacked me in the shin with her walking stick for trying to get off the train before she was able to get on: fuck you.

My other rant is with the ticket barriers. Now, as far as I’m concerned, Euston is a magical place where dreams are made; sometimes I bypass the shortcut from the London Overground to the London Underground, just so I can walk through the main… foyer? Concourse? Whatever. The big hall place where everyone stands, staring at the clock and the board with the train times. I’ve been to several stations in London now. Kings Cross has some fantastic-looking platforms, but the waiting area is cramped, claustrophobic, and shitty. St Pancras is awesome, but is more like an airport or a continental station – or, hell, a shopping mall – than a train station. Waterloo is just confusing as hell, and for some reason reminds me of the of the NEC in Birmingham. But Euston? The platforms are pretty shitty, but the foyer is grand, with a high roof, loads of natural light, and most of the time it has pleanty of space to weave around between people and pretend that you’re in some awesome movie, like the bit with the locker in Men in Black, or the scene at the start of one of the Bourne films, with the sniper behind the revolving sign.

So yeah. Euston is great. But they’re stupid with the ticket barriers. When you come off from Platform 9/10/etc, you go through a set of barriers, and can either continue to the epicness of the main station building, or can go down some stairs and through a little subway to the tube station. You then touch through another set of barriers, and get the tube. Why is that a problem? Well, aside from the fact that the barriers close so quickly that I’m scared they’ll break my arm if I don’t dash through them fast enough… as soon as you come out of this subway, all of the barriers near you are exit barriers. You have to fight your way through all of the people leaving the tube network, which is about as easy as swimming across a set of white water rapids; then you’re squashed in with all of the people buying tickets, and channeled through maybe four or five barriers.

Now, I may be some crazy radical new guy who has only just moved to London, but would it not make sense to either a) flip a couple of the exit barriers, so that people heading from the subway can sneak through, or b) move the barriers at platform 9/10/etc, so that you don’t need to go through any to get to the tube station? I can swap from the Bakerloo Line to the London Overground at Harrow & Wealdstone without using my Oyster Card; why can I not do the same at Euston?

Okay. That’s my rant done.

And also my post it seems, since I can’t think of anything else to bore you with. Just as a final piece of information though: there will be a pool, so you can place bets on how long it will be until my next blog post. I will be accepting bribes in the form of money, chocolate or fruit pastels in order to fix the result of this pool, or in sexual favours: but only from attractive people.

* * *

Addendum:

Dude. That was totally 1480 words. If I’d realised, I’d have spun it out for twenty more to hit 1500. Oh wait. I just did.

Turns out that I suck. Some big box asked me to explain why I’d make a good freelance witty writer person, and to include examples of my experience and stuff. “Oh, bollocks,” was my reaction. Quite frankly, I haven’t got all that much to show for anything I’ve done. I don’t have any articles published. I haven’t written all that much actual content for any of my novel projects, and none of them are ‘funny’ – they’re all me trying far too hard to be artistic, poetic, and crap like that. I wound up having to stick a post from this blog up in the “writing sample” box.

I started wondering why I’m in such a sucky position. I mean, sure: finding yourself broke, homeless, and flunked out of university implies that you’re in something of a bad place, but surely, I must have something to show for the last four years of my life. It wasn’t all just University and Rosie. Right?

Well, that’s all going to change. First of all, I’m going to stop being so funny around you guys: specifically you guys who think I’m funny. Turns out that I’m wasting my comedy gold on all of you; I shall be erradicating humour from my personality entirely. For an idea of what that’d be like, imagine a straight version of Jack.

…wait, no. That would breach the laws of physics.

Second of all, I need to stall for time a little, because I said “first of all” expecting there to be a long list of example things that I could rattle off. Turns out that there aren’t. So… uh… talk amongst yourselves.

INTERMISSION.

Balls. Still can’t think of anything. Oh well. Guess that’s me done for the post, then.

* * *

OH! Wait.

Completely irrelevant, but I’m going to see Avatar at 00:20 next Monday. In 3D. At an Imax.

As Jesus once said: “Suck it, bitches.”

So, what has been happening to me since September, I hear absolutely none of you asking because you don’t really care? Mostly, I was just drifting around until the start of November. After a week in Norfolk visiting my mum, I was aiming for a quick recon mission to London to get some contact details and what-not for widening the net on my job hunting quest. On a fluke, I heard that the place where one of my sisters works was recruiting. I turned up in London on Monday, phoned the agency on Tuesday, got interviewed on the Wednesday and started training; by the Friday I’d passed training, and started work the following week.

What on earth could have had such a quick turn-around on recruitment? Have I been drafted by some sort of covert military organisation that wants to put my drop-out physics skills to better use? Am I in fact more than just coincidentally identical to an English version of Eli Wallace – am I in fact blogging from an intergalactic spacecraft some several billion lightyears away? Uh, no. I work in a call centre. You know those people who phone up on behalf of charities? Yeah, I’m one of them. (Insert derogatory comment)

I’m still getting settled in with work; today is the start of my fourth week on the job, and I only have pay for weeks 1 and 2 thus far, so I haven’t really been up to much aside from the actual job thing, and the lengthy bouts of sleep that fall in between. On the plus side, my shifts don’t start until 1.30pm on a weekday. On the downside, they don’t finish until 9.00pm, and I live an hour or so away, once you take into account all of the standing around waiting for public transport to arrive; consequentally, the days are long.

Fortunately my sister has V+, so there’s always TV around for me to watch when I’m around at the flat. I’ve had an injection of shows that my sister likes into my regular watching, so on top of Stargate Universe, Sanctuary, FlashForward and House, I’ve started watching NCIS, NCIS:LA, Bones, Lie to Me, and then whatever happens to be on the time: there’s usually either a Stargate, a CSI, or Two-and-a-Half Men on at any given moment, so I usually have some sort of colourful moving pictures in front of my face. Oh, and there’s Smallville, thanks to the wonders of the Internet.

As an aside, I watched “Robin Hood: Beyond Sherwood” recently. It stars Robin Dunne (Sanctuary) as the eponymous hero – hence his archery-themed twitter avatar – and Erica Durance (Smallville), and also features awesome people like Julian Sands, Bill Dow, and a bunch of other people you’ll probably recognise because they’re in loads of the Vancouver-made series.

On the previously mentioned subject of public transport, London has been pulling out the stops recently. Had I written this post two weeks ago, I’d have complimented them for how smooth, punctual, and easy to use they are. Unfortunately, in the last fortnight I’ve been forced to take a detour a number of times due to technical screw-ups, or people throwing themselves in front of the train: just to spice up what would otherwise be a boring and uneventful commute. Usually though, I just manage with the small glimmer of happiness that I derive from the fact that my Bite card gets me a 20% discount at the Cornish Pasty Co at Euston Station, and thus provides my lunch at work.

I’m sure that isn’t everything, but I a) want to save stuff for other blog posts, and b) need the loo, and can’t be bothered to just stop writing and carry on in a few minutes.

So yeah: this is me, Captain Untouchable, signing off.

*bleep!*

Anyhow. Here are the shows that I am / will be watching, and some comments. They’re organised by US air date because… uh… no comment.

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Monday

Heroes – I’m still watching this. It may just be a knee-jerk reaction, but from what I’ve seen so far of this season, I have a glimmer of hope. Syler and Matt Parkman seemed a bit off last season, but the way they’ve smashed the two together has the potential to be intreguing, and compelling. And they’ve fixed Peter Petrelli, so the character seems tolerable again. I’m not that captivated by Hiro’s storyline, unfortunately; I think they’ve played the honour-bound hero card a little too much, and I just don’t care about his fate anymore. I miss the naive, slightly clumsy and lame Season 1 and 2 Hiro. As for everyone else… HRG having the Haitian with him briefly made me clap with happiness, but I don’t really care about what happens to anyone else. Just give me the Matt/Syler/Peter show, damn it!

House MD – A lot of people accuse the show of being formulaic. The Season 6 opener went and kicked them in their sorry faces. Granted, it was a double-length stint where the only non-House character from the regular cast to appear was Wilson, for about two minutes over the phone. Instead, they spent their time sewing a compelling, interesting, and rounded story, that they actually brought to a satisfying conclusion. Its drawn a line under a lot of the stuff that has been going on the last few seasons – the Vicodin, the hallucinations, etc. It’ll be interesting to see how the team reacts to the new House and, more than that, how long it takes for Greg to turn grumpy again.

Wednesday

CSI: NY – Once I got past the initial “Ick! CSI!” gag reflex with this show, I actually became attatched to the characters. Okay, so Stella still annoys me, but Gary Sinese more than makes up for that. The Season 5-6 cliffhanger actually had me on the edge of my seat (I fortunately forgot to watch the last couple of episodes, so I was only wating weeks rather than months), and the way they’ve developed Danny’s character really wrenched for me. Maybe I’m just a sucker for “Dantana”, or whatever the hip and trendy internet phrase for their relationship is. I’m hoping they do something with Flack beyond what happened in the finale; they spent ages emphasising the Flack-Angel thing, so I hope he has some ghosts and demons. I also hope he doesn’t cry again though; much as I like the character and actor, that scene was a little painful to watch (not in a good way).

Thursday

Supernatural – If you don’t watch Supernatural, and haven’t done so through choice, rather than by accident or because you’ve never had the opportunity, never heard of it, whatever; frankly, you can fuck off and stop reading my blog, because I don’t like you anymore. We can all than Liz for getting me to watch it in the first place, but frankly it didn’t take even the entire Pilot to get me hooked. Brian and Jack can both attest that I’m not the only one with a succeptability. What strikes me as awesome about it at the moment is that they’ve taken on the apocalypse, and rather than aim high and miss because of budget, they’re being really restrained, and also respectful towards the “source material”. Their portrayal of angels isn’t out of character with certain Biblical accounts – it also reminds me vaguely of how the angels were portrayed in Dogma, without so much of the piss-taking (they’re disheartened, just want to go home, and it drives them to do terrible things, etc) – but it has a new enough spin to make it interesting, engaging, and dramatic.

They reference the Book of Revelation in particular (I actually sat through and read it, Gods help me), but they do so in subtle, casual ways; it demonstrates that they’ve done their homework, but they aren’t ramming the Bible stuff down your throat. It makes for a great story. They’re also doing some awesome nods to the scripture as well. War, for example – one of the four horsemen – is cited in Revelation as being mounted on a red horse; in Supernatural, he drives a cherry-red Ford Mustang (geddit? Mustang is a horse pun!). Everything about it impressed me. I may have to duct tape James to a chair and get him to watch enough to view it, just so I can get a religous perspective on how tasteful it is… but I was impressed.

Give it a shot, anyway. Satisfaction guarenteed, or your money back.

Friday

This is a lengthy list…

Dollhouse – Joss Whedon had his hands tied a little at the beginning of last season, and was forced to make the show a little more episodic. Now that season 1 has been successful and he’s been able to tell the network to go fornicate with themselves, he’s aiming more towards the arc-driven stuff from the latter few episodes. If you didn’t make it more than half-way through season 1, please try again. It may not be your cup of tea; or it may be the network’s fault. I totally fell in love with the show, though, and think you will too if you give it the chance. The cast is incredible – Amy Acker who you might know as Fred from Angel; Tahmoh Penikett, aka Helo from Battlestar; Eliza Dushku from Buffy, Tru Calling and Bring It On; and Harry Lennix, who was Commander Locke in Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. Great cameos lined up for season 2 as well, if that floats your boat: Apollo and Colonel Tigh from Battlestar; Wash and River from Firefly; and Westley from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is bound to be awesome.

Smallville – Yes, I watch Smallville. The Green Arrow is awesome. I have no further comment.

Stargate Universe – This doesn’t start until next Friday (following Tuesday on Sky One), so please please please: I emplore you to watch. You don’t need to have watched the previous Stargates to enjoy it. The series is in a new style, both in terms of filming/production and setting/characters/story. Its less about a team, and more about a crew; and if Joe Mallozzi is to be believed, their ensemble cast could well be on a par with shows like Battlestar Galactica. Its still gonna be Stargate though, if you like that sort of thing. Watch it for Robert Carlysle playing an evil Scotsman. Watch it for Ming-Na being gorgeous, and being a lesbian. Watch it for David Blue effectively being me, but cooler, better looking, and better at computer games. Watch it because Jamil Walker Smith did the voice of the black kid with the really tall hair on Hey, Arnold! Watch it because it premieres on my birthday, and I fucking told you to. Or, hey: just watch it becuase its going to be awesome.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Also premiering on my birthday is season 2 of The Clone Wars. If you made it past the movie and watched season 1, kudos. If you didn’t, I suggest giving it a try. I wasn’t impressed with the movie, but the episodes won me over. This season, we’re having lots of bounty hunters from the sound of it, including Mandalorians, and a couple of familiar faces. General Grevious will show up. Anakin Skywalker will somehow not be a whiny, moody, teenage bitch and will instead be a rounded and compelling character. And, well, I keep expecting the voiceover dude to say “Would you like to know more?” (congrats if you got the cult reference!).

Sanctuary – This doesn’t premiere until the 9th – a week on Friday – but should be worth it, especially if you watched season 1. If you didn’t, you have a week: watch two episodes a day, and you’ll be caught up. Its a really cool concept, well executed, with a terrific story, and a fantastic cast. Amanda Tapping is as incredibly talented and gorgeous as ever; Christopher Heyerdahl will pour honey in your ear as he speaks, and melt your innards to jelly; Ryan Robbins is great whatever he does, and while he was awesome in Battlestar and Atlantis, this is definately my favourite roll of his; Sarah will castrate me if I don’t say something about Robin Dunne being sexy/awesome; and from what I’ve seen of the trailer, Emilie Ullerup is going to be way less teenage kid and much more whoopass awesome.

- – -

Other Stuff to Look Out For

The Guild – Because I’m a noob, I only got into this recently. Its been going a couple of years, and is basically a story about a bunch of people who game together on World of Warcraft, and then meet up in real life to tackle various social problems. Felicia Day – who you may have seen in Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog – writes it, and stars as Codex, with a sort of webcam style intro each episode. The rest of the cast is brilliant, and how she came up with the idea… I dunno. But it is abso-flippin’-lutely fantastic. Each episode is about 5 minutes, each season is 10-12 episodes (so, an hour), and Season 3 has recently started, featuring none other than WIL WHEATON. In a kilt, no less.

Warehouse 13 – If you like Sanctuary, you may well like this. If you’ve not seen that, try to imagine what would happen if someone took the X-Files concept, and sprayed it with the campness that made Buffy the Vampire Slayer such a popular cult thing. There’s no “science” in their fiction, but it doesn’t matter. The main characters have the job of hunting down artifacts that do freaky stuff that can’t adequately be explained by science, and they lock it away because its safer there than out in the real world. The cast is great, the banter is chuckle-worthy, and if my recommendation isn’t enough, how about I tell you that Tricia Helfer (“Six”), Joe Flanigan (“John Sheppard”) and Michael Hogan (“Colonel Tigh”) all have cameos over the course of the first season?

First of all, I am in love with Rock Band. I have neither the requisite console, nor the game itself unfortunately, but have a good friend who not only does, but is also willing to harbour me at his house on occasion, in order to indulge. One such occasion was Saturday, which happened to coincide with a celebration of his birthday, and – coincidentally – International ‘Talk Like a Pirate’ Day, apparently. We arrived somewhere around half-four, and were more or less set up for Rock Band at 5pm. We stopped at half-midnight; the only interruptions came from a brief bacon sandwich interlude, a stint of buying new songs, an an attempt by a somewhat intoxicated Jamie and I to teach a somewhat intoxicated Jack how to play Yu-gi-oh. That works out as somewhere in the region of seven hours, more or less non-stop. We crashed out around two (Jamie has an amazingly comfortable sofa), and woke up for more bacon sandwiches at around half-8 / 9… and yeah. Went on Rock Band for another five hours. The game is, to use my current stock phrases: ‘badass’, ‘awesomesauce’, and ‘made of win’.

The other development is a little more creative. I have recently begun to dabble into the world of webcomics, as a means of passing the time while I waited impatiently for my exam results (which I still don’t have). It started out as mostly reading, but after a random encounter with 8-Bit Theater – which I must’ve last read when the comic was about a year or so old – I was struck by how much Black Mage looks like a Jawa. After trawling through a thousand or so pages and not finding a single reference to that, I decided to rectify the oversight on my own, and threw together a stupid little strip thing. About a week later, they’re now up on a blog, and I’m expecting to be uploading a new page on every “even” date – next one on the 24th, then the 26th, etc. Please check it out, and if you find it funny (or don’t, and just want to throw abuse in my direction), leave me some love/hate in the comments section, just to help keep my paranoia at bay. You can find the blog here, or you can click this handy link to jump straight to the first page.

The other thing I’d like to do in this post is rant; specifically, about those “get whiter teeth” adverts. To start with, they were just annoying. But now they’re everywhere, on near enough every website I look at, and they always have some hideous photograph of the “before” shot, which is usually taken from the mouth of some hygene-retarded homeless guy called Dave, who drinks whiskey from a brown paper bag and spends his days shouting at squirrels. I do not want to see that. I would not want to see that while I was out and about, let alone while I’m at home, trying to go about my business. I don’t care how effective your chemical is. I don’t care that acid errosion is making my teeth translucent. Fuck off, and let me read the damned website!

*cough* Anyway, that’s all for today. READ MY WEBCOMIC!

Its not an action thriller. It isn’t exactly your standard scifi movie, either. Its really hard to describe it in the context of a comparison, because there are very little things like it. Weirdly, I suppose it reminded me of the Office a little bit – the movie starts in that sort of candid documentary style, and the characters being focussed on are pretty much just your average guys. It goes behind the scenes in District 9 – an alien refugee camp on the outskirts of Johanesberg (which I have probably just spelled wrong). This average guy goes into the compound on behalf of the business that he works for, so that they can serve the residents with an eviction notice: the local populace is getting unruly over having had the aliens living there for the last twenty years, so the aliens are getting moved to District 10 – somewhere nice and far away; out of sight, and out of mind.

Then everything goes wrong. While usually I’m a major spoiler enthusiast, I flat-out refuse to give anything away. The plot is so innovative and compelling that I don’t want to ruin a single second of it. All I can do is urge you to go and see it for yourself, and to be patient with the first 20 minutes or so while they set up the context: its really worth the wait. The story is just beautifully crafted. And the CGI is astounding: how they managed to achieve what they did on such a small budget is mind-boggling. Its got the same degree of quality to it like $200 million movies like Wolverine and Star Trek, but was made on a budget a tenth of that scale. Star Trek is still my movie of the year so far, but I think District 9 may be the surprise second, at this rate.

Oh, and enjoy the accents. Between District 9, and Ba’al from Stargate SG-1, I’m beginning to feel that South African accents may well be a cornerstone in science fiction awesomeness.

* * *

Last week (Wednesday, in fact) I also caught the movie Funny People. In truth, I was hoping to see District 9, but I’m a bit of a ‘tard and wasn’t paying attention to the cinema website properly. Given the selection of movies that were showing when we arrived, and the fact that we weren’t 100% sure that my wingmate for the evening would make it into Inglorious Basterds, we decided to go and see Adam Sandler’s latest offering.

To provide some context, I should point out that I’m not really an Adam Sandler fan. I’ve seen – and enjoyed – a few films with him in (Big Daddy, Little Nicky, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry), but I never really caught the “Oh my god, Adam Sandler is hilarious” bug. Upon reflection, what I think worked about those movies in particular – and indeed, what works about Funny People – is that Adam Sandler is fantastic at playing characters who, in themselves are not funny: its the situations they’re put into that make you laugh.

Funny People is certainly no exception. Sandler plays a comedian, who basically recieves the news that he is dying. He decides to do more stand-up comedy during his final days, and hires an aspiring stand-up comic to help write his material. Again, not wanting to give two much away, its sort of a new twist on a friendship story. The aspiring comedian is there for Sandler’s character, doing whatever is needed to support him through his illness, and they almost become friends… but every now and then you’re reminded (usually by Sandler, in a fit of bastardness) that the other guy is just an employee, and that they aren’t really friends. There is a load of extra funniness in there, especially during a party scene that features cameos by all kinds of people – including Eminem, and the line “I thought everybody loved you” directed at Ray Romano (as in, “Everybody Loves Raymond”, you uncultured idgets!) – and an absolutely astounding and mind-blowing performance by Eric Bana as an Australian who, for want of a better term, is a total dick.

It was certainly an enjoyable way to accidentally spend a few hours. From what I knew in advance, I wouldn’t have chosen to watch it; and I probably won’t be buying it on the day it comes out. But, its certainly the kind of movie I’ll pick up in a 3 for 2 deal in HMV at some point, and hold in reserve when I fancy a bit of amusement of an evening.

* * *

Ignore almost everything you have heard about the movie Gamer. Just find and watch the trailer that ran before District 9 last night. From those, you will understand why Jamie and I will be sitting there in the first screening it is humanly possible for us to attend.

Fouzia: for values of t > 0, the increase in my loathing for you increases at an exponential rate. Probably defined as Lo = (Fu . k) / U^2. To the power of bitch.

On the plus side, this means that one way or another, my “second” year at university is officially over. My fate now hangs in the balance of the results of my exams from today and yesterday, and the coursework that will be submitted via post on Tuesday. In the event that I have managed to muster sufficient marks to continue with my course, I will be met by such wonderful modules as Applied Quantum Mechanics, Micro and Nanotechnology, and Quantum Solids and Quantum Fluids come 12th October (if I’m honest, I don’t really want to hear about any of my lecturer’s “Quantum Fluids”, but oh well). If not, then I have no idea. I may just decide to call myself an out-of-work actor, and carry around a few audition scripts all the time; maybe a towel as well. And maybe a copy of a book that could well be an autobiography of Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army, judging by the cover.

If you didn’t get any of the above… you fail at cool. If you did; congratulations – you win an Internet.

Alternatively, I guess I could just move to America, tell everyone that I’m an aspiring novellist, or screenwriter, or something; and then spend the rest of my life working in a ‘call center’. Oooh, or maybe a journalist.

Hmm. Anyone want to pay me to write my blog?

But no. Nature, fate, the Force, or whatever it did conspired to actually give me something worth posting today. Well, yesterday. I just fell asleep, so I’m doing it now. I was tired, okay? God – if women ever use that excuse, we’re expected to just accept it no matter how lame it sounds. *eyeroll*

Anyhow. Having spent the journey to Nottingham in the morning cooped up on one of those non-table seats, trying to revise with a notebook on my knees and the laptop on the chair beside me, I made an effort to secure myself a table on the way back. My laptop battery had unfortunately died, but I wanted to do some planning, or doodling, or something. So I bagged a table, and got comfortable. Immediately, my claimed space was invaded by what I can only describe as “Chavettes”. For those of you who aren’t from England, and don’t understand the parallel… I suppose the equivalent would be either Trailer Trash, or slutty Soeriety girls. Basically, three clones of Megan Fox from Transformers.

I was asked if they could sit at my table; being the generous guy that I am, I said yes. Figured they’d talk amongst themselves, and leave me to stare awkwardly out of the window. However, they made a concerted effort to engage me – and the rather cute-looking girl sitting across the train that, if I hadn’t overheard talking to her boyfriend on the phone moments before, I would probably have tried (and likely failed) to chat up – in conversation. I did the whole awkward nerd thing initially, but eventually gave up, and spent the next half an hour chatting with these random dregs of society.

As an aside… I was asked that “How old do you think we are?” question. Seriously. How the hell are you meant to answer that? Do you say that you think they’re old enough to drink? Do you go younger – err on the side of caution, and flattery? I bailed, strugged, and said: “You look about student age.” That seemed to be the correct answer, apparently; one of them was 29.

It seemed that the three of them – two drinking beer; the other abstaining because she was pregnant – were on an important mission to obtain some illicit substance or other. This involved phoning pretty much everyone in their respective phone books, speculating loudly, badmouthing the people who failed to have what they wanted, etc. I looked on in amusement, answered whatever questions I was asked, etc. The hillarity came when after asking me the “So, what do you do?” question, they turned and presented the same query to the cute-girl. Her response?

“I’m an in-training policeman.”

Panic would be the word, given what these Chavettes had just been spending their journey doing. Then one of them came out with one of those punchlines that you wish you’d been able to come up with your self: “I guess we’ll be getting to know each other a lot better soon, then, Officer.”

It was funnier if you were there, more than likely. But damn; I wish every train ride could have amusing in-carriage entertainment like that.

http://www.cracked.com/article_17445_6-best-2012-apocalypse-theories-are-all-bullshit.html

I believe it was the line “the Earth’s poles will shift and every horrible natural disaster imaginable will come together to form a Megazord of planet crushing assbeat” that made me decide that y’all needed pointing in this article’s direction.

Anyhow, enjoy. Tootles!

Edit:

In a similar vein, I point you towards:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16817_5-cosmic-events-that-could-kill-you-before-lunch.html

and,

http://www.cracked.com/article_16583_5-scientific-experiments-most-likely-end-world.html

Because when people use terms like “clusterfuck” and “ninja galaxies”, it is both big and clever.