Wot No Updates?!

Were you starting to think that TWWOND had gone the way of many a blog and died a death? Or perhaps I myself had dropped off a cliff *?

Well do not fret dear readers, for Nobby lives and so does his blog. You just forgot that I had my CIMA Business Taxation exam yesterday and that I've been busy revising. How did it go? "OK" pretty much sums it up. Professional exams like these are notoriously difficult to predict how you've done, and the best I can say it that I might have passed. I'm not unhappy, but not happy either, if that makes sense.

Results are due at the end of January, so I'll just forget about it until then: No point in sweating on it or getting excited / depressed - what's done is done.

[Crack - tinkle, rattle]

That's the sound of my chains breaking. No longer a prisoner of revision, I am released back into the community.


* What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?


Falling Head Over Heels Into The Chamber of Secrets

Friday evening was Harry Potter 2. Read some amateur review of it here. Dark and sinister and great fun. Much better than the first one - which was 2 hours of character introduction and 1/2 of plot - and it actually featured Harry "Greatest Wizard Ever and he's only 13" Potter doing some magic. I recommend watching it in a cinema full of kids too: Their excitement rubbed off and the gasps, shrieks, wails, cheers and clapping made it feel interactive. Seeing the target audience react so positively to it upped the enjoyment and value of the film. And yes, despite Vic telling me off, I did clap and cheer too. I'm so down with the kids.

The shrunken heads, giant man-eating spiders, and pecked out eyes were cool.


Blade 2

...was watched alone on DVD on Saturday night, as Vicster had left me to do my revision earlier in the day and travelled into London to see Sara and Stashboy. She was very brave considering the threat of dirty bombs and poison gas. They always seem to do the best things when I'm not with them, and Saturday was no exception as they did a walking tour of Jack the Rippers East End haunts. Free piece of spleen with every ticket.

Anyway, Blade 2 is crap. If you're writing a book or screenplay about vampires or characters who play with swords (and who have the word "blade" in their names), watch this film to see what not to do. It was like watching MTV for 2 hours. Bad CGI, terrible plot, rip-off of Aliens, 2D characters, just awful. It sucked big time ;)

I loved the first Blade - very cool film, great atmosphere, nicely paced, depicted vampires as they should be. I was expecting more of the same, but like so many sequels - whether film or music or novels - it was a real let-down.

However, the DVD extras disk featured not only an immense Roni Size / Cypress Hill "Child of the Wild West" music video, but also a little story from the director about Michael Jackson:

Apparently MJ approached them about a cameo role in the film as he'd seen Blade and really liked it. So the director writes this little scene in where one of the Reaper Hunters opens a door deep within the heart of the vampire nightclub and discovers this weird drug-dealer type guy who is taking littlebags of entrails out of a suitcase. There is a dentists chair, strings of razor-blades and various surgical implements on show in the background.

For some reason MJ turned it down.


Darren Popstar

Darren Hayes is apparently "the voice of Savage Garden". Not only do I not care about this, but as Vic says "That's not right! Darren isn't a name for a pop star!".


Eye Test Voucher

I've got one and I'm going to use it on Friday. Unfortunately I can't read the small print.