Be Afriad, Be Very Afraid…

This person is the head of science at a school in the UK:

http://www.darwinwars.com/lunatic/liars/layfield.html

Who let him in then?

Red red wine…

Roll on the weekend and roll on payday, I cannot wait.

I had a beautiful red wine hangover this morning, after an impromptu trip to the pub with my sisters last night. It was really good to be out and not stuck at home worrying about surviving til the end of the month, I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of social stuff since I started being more frugal.

Various people were out, Jon turned up with a mate of his, both dressed in red and white from head to toe, singing England til I die and other patriotic tunes at the top of their voices. They’d been drinking since 1 in the afternoon and were quite, quite drunk. Various other people arrived and somehow I ended up wearing a plastic bowler hat with the England flag printed on it.

After some serious pubbing, a little dancing from my sisters to some tunes they put on the duke box, and a lot of natterings we all headed to Eddies for a little while where we discovered that Lando had left 18 cans of beer. A few of us nicked one then we hid the rest so that when he turned up some time later he had to go foraging to find them all. I wonder if he actually found them all in the end or if Eddie will be discovering beer cans in odd places for the next month. We watched the big bang theory then myself, Vikki, her Alan, Jenni, America and Dopey John all headed back to mine.

At mine we played some GH3, watched a few youtube videos, Vikki and America disappeared into the loo for aaages to sit in the bath and chat, then eventually we all realised it was stupid late and we had work the next day so everyone made their way home and I went to bed.

I woke this morning about half an hour before my alarm went off with a mind-splitting headache. I stumbled to the kitchen and got a cup of water before crashing again and then pressing the snooze button repeatedly for half an hour. When I finally did get up I had barely enough time to get ready, rushing like a nutter here and there, then somehow managing to knock a half bottle of red wine all over the floor and my jeans 5 minutes before I had to leave the house. Somehow I managed to change my jeans, put the soiled ones into the washing machine, and scrub the kitchen carpet (god knows why there’s a carpet in the kitchen) before belting it out the door.

My haste was unnecessary however as the bus was 15 minutes late and then took a convoluted route to Brentwood because of some massive traffic jam, so I got here about an hour late for the second time this week, the last time I was actually stuck in a massive traffic jam and it took me 45 minutes to get round one poxy roundabout. My head really didn’t need the hassle.

When I finally stumbled into work this morning I really felt worse for wear, I’m still a little groggy now but I had a sausage in a bun and a lucozade for brekkie so I’m starting to feel a little more chipper. America (Paula) met me for lunch and tuna sarnies which was cool. Tonight I’m gonna go home and have a really nice quiet night in, followed by a massive lie in tomorrow morning as I have no work, then it’s off to London for Eddies birthday!

Just need to get through the rest of today…

stuff

It’s been a fair few days since my last update, recently I’ve not felt the motivation to do anything even vaguely energetic. This really needs to change today or I fear my carpet may be lost forever beneath the layer of mess that’s accumulated.

So… what have I been up to? Well the film unfortunately didn’t get handed in on time, which is a real shame. It was great fun to make though, and we have learned some important lessons for any future projects… the main lesson being to get a decent microphone sorted before you start filming. Hopefully we will get a master copy of the whole thing made up and put on youtube, I will post the link up here if anyone ever gets round to doing it as it’s quite daft!

Not a great deal has happened since that weekend. I’ve been to the pub, visited friends, played poker, I started line dancing again… that was pretty cool. I haven’t been in around 3 years and was actually a little nervous as I walked back into the hall. The first person I saw was an old friend, little Gary.. Who is now 20! He still looks very young though bless him. We had a catch up and gave the abridged version of all the changes that had taken place in both of our lives over the years. He’s now in a full time job and with a lady that seems to be making him very happy, long may it last! I have realised just how unfit I’ve let myself get this past few years now, I am getting out of breath just a couple of sings in and I actually can’t remember any of the dances! I’ve printed off a load of sheets to practice with so hopefully next time I’ll be better.

Soon things should start to pick up again on the social front. This Friday I will be going out in London with various other people to celebrate Eddie’s birthday. It should be the first time we all meet his new girlfriend too so I look forward to that The following weekend we’re back in London again for my sister’s birthday at Sin in Tottenham Court Road… loadsa clubbage!

Getting creative

 

This weekend I have mainly been doing this:

 

http://www.sci-fi-london.com/festival/2008/48hour/

Hayley and Jon went to get the brief Saturday morning and Alan, Gilley and Eddie all gathered at mine so we could start brainstorming as soon as we got our instructions. A little later Mike turned up with half a tonne of computer equipment and software for editing.

Jon rang by about 11 with news of our title: Back Alleyway, our one line: ‘OK, this is weird, I just typed your name and you appeared’, and a prop: an A4 piece of paper which someone needed to write N, S, E, W pm and rip into 4 pieces. I won’t tell you what we came up with because I’d like to post the youtube link up on here at some stage when it’s been uploaded.

We bounced a few ideas around then wrote a few down each for fleshing out. Hayley and Jon returned and we discussed our ideas and eliminated any that weren’t good enough, that were too complicated for a 5 minute film, or that we didn’t have the resources to pull off.

Once we had an idea of where we were going we started working on a script, it all seems so long ago now it is hard to remember the process we went through! I know we were all very awake and enthusiastic at the beginning, Jon was recording ‘The Making Of’ on his little handheld camera and there was lots of laughing and joking.

By early afternoon we had scripts and we were running through our lines and actions until nightfall. Hayley wanted to do all our filming in the dark because the ambient lighting was less likely to change. Cue a montage of us running around dressed in outlandish garb on the streets of Romford until the wee small hours and that’s Saturday gone!

Sunday I woke late to find people still going. I didn’t have much work on the second day but Hayley and Mike worked pretty much non-stop, as they had since it all kicked off the morning before. When it got dark we had to film a couple of scenes again because the lighting didn’t work for everything, or because we didn’t have time the night before. We had to dub a load of stuff too because the microphone didn’t pick up everything.

This morning I awoke to find Hayley still sitting at the PC after an hours sleep, Mike had finally decided to get some kip too and Hayley was going to give him half an hour before waking him for the last push. All they had to do was get the music sorted and get it onto DVD to hand in.

A few minutes ago I found out that they were still trying to finish it. There was a mini power cut at the house and now it won’t do the final render, I’m so worried it’s not going to happen all because of one stupid little thing right at the end, and I can’t do anything to help, all that work… it’s awful

Hopefully I’ll update this very soon with news it all worked out OK…

 

READING!

As of yesterday, after an hour of clicking refresh with one hand and redial with the other, I have Reading Festival Tickets!! The line-up this year is epic:

http://www.readingfestival.com/

I’m so glad I’m all sorted for tickets now and don’t have to worry anymore. Though I didn’t manage to get early entry tickets so I need to try and get them on the second wave.

Also, I have a new piercing