Quote of the 'Week'

"Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all."
Voltaire
Discovering that someone has commented on one of my blogs is such a joyous feeling. Hint, bloody hint!

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Well. Here I am.

So, what's happened to me recently?
I'm afraid not a lot has happened to me recently. The Summer Holidays are underway, and I have done precisely nothing since I left those school gates on Friday 16th June. This is the main reason for the lengthy space of time between the last blog post and this one, for which I can only apologise. Alas, I am the type of person that, artistic pastimes aside, does very little of any interest until something of interest comes my way; in other words, I don't go out looking for interesting things to do - I don't actively seek them.

Well, it just so happens that something of interest - of considerable interest - came my way last night. Well, the night before last, as it is now seven in the morning (yes, insomnia, you win this time) and so the past few hours now officially take the place of Sunday night as being 'last night', so... I'm sorry, I digress. Sunday night. Something of interest came my way. 'Sherlock' came my way; it's the new BBC series, written by Doctor Who's Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and it's absolutely marvellous. Sherlock Holmes, set in the 21st Century, done magnificently.
Benedict Cumberbatch: a man whose name is only equalled in terms of awesomeness by his acting.
So yes. I'm no television reviewer. Watch it, if you haven't done so already. If you did watch it, watch it again. I did.

Right. Elsewhere in my memory banks...
Oh! I'm currently animating the first series of The Milnesy & Wivell Show, which is the secondary reason for the aforementioned lengthy space of time between the last blog post and this on; I have been working constantly for the past week - more than is healthy for a typically productive person, let alone my good-for-nothing self - making the most of the lack of school to get as much animating done as possible.
The thing is with animation, the better you do it, the longer it takes. This goes for most things in life; a rushed cake may taste unsatisfactory, or a car made in a hurry might shed its wheels at an inopportune moment and unexpectedly introduce its driver to a nearby wall. Slow and steady wins the race. Good things come to those who wait. And so on, and so forth. I've been animating the M&W Show to quite a high standard of quality (if I do say so myself), and it has therefore dominated my life this past week. I have done loads, though! Episode one is nearly complete, which, for animation, is pretty speedy. So well done me.
Here is a little preview picture for you. Please note that the actual series is in colour - I made the photos in the picture sepia because that's how I roll (anyone who has seen my Facebook profile picture can vouch for that). So sorry if it's misleading in that sense.

Okey dokey then. Good day.

Tuesday 6 July 2010

The funny blog entries are back!

Hello. I use italics to make my greeting sound dry and edgy. Nyah.

Right, on with the blog thing. I was asleep a moment ago. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking 'I bet he didn't do much if he was unconscious', and you'd be right. Unless I not only had an amazing dream but am also able to recollect it, how could I turn the concept of having a nap into a narrative worth reading? The answer, dear readers, is I can't. But it padded out the blog a bit, didn't it?

No, the interesting thing, the thing worth blogging about, happened before I was enveloped by the numbing duvet of slumber. I was laying on the bed (so you can see how close this event was to my falling asleep), and I could hear the self-loving strains of some young American band radiating from my sister's laptop in the other room. She doesn't, in my humblest of opinions, have a very good taste in music. She'll listen to music she likes the sound of (usually awful), but most of the time she'll spend every waking hour listening to tunes that are popular with her friends (usually suicidally awful).
You know the sort. The singer is invariably a bratty girl (that Lavigne lass falls under this category, fans of shit music) or a boy that sounds like he's been kicked so hard in the testicles, they have re-entered his body, are bouncing around in between his internal organs like a couple of Super Balls, and he's singing to keep himself from going mad. They sing about 'love' and 'emotions' and 'miscellaneous hormonal misdemeanours' (I made up that last one for comedic effect, by the way - I'd take my hat off to a group that managed to successfully place 'miscellaneous hormonal misdemeanours' into a song), and some occasionally burst into a tirade of shouting, accompanied by squealing electric guitars and whatnot. I suppose this is what constitutes 'music' nowadays, eh? Hm.

Anyhoozle, I was listening to involuntarily overhearing the music, too tired to do something about it but too awake to immediately evacuate myself to the Land of Nod. And then it happened.
There was a part in one of the myriad of endless droning songs that actually sounded good.
It was only brief, mind. Perhaps a line or two. But somehow, the music, the lyrics, and dare I even say it, the voice, seemed to fall into place and fit together into something quite nice. Almost immediately afterwards, naturally, the inanity commenced. But it rattled me somewhat.

TWO REASONS WHY THIS RATTLED ME
  1. One of the artists on my sister's play list produced a moment of aural professionalism.
  2. I noticed that one of the artists on my sister's play list produced a moment of aural professionalism.

The second point, despite its numerical status as the secondary point here, is actually the key point, and the point that will drive my narrative further.
If I was just hating my sister's music because it was my sister and it was her music, as I have long suspected, I would have shrugged off that fleeting moment of musical mastery, and thought nothing more of it. But I didn't. I sat up (well, almost) and took note.
I can only conclude from this that I am secretly wanting my sister's music to be good. I am subconsciously listening out, in optimistic hope, for some good sounds to emanate from her speakers.

Now, not only does this mean that I'm not the stubborn, curmudgeonly bastard I had secretly suspected I was for so long, but also that her music, overall, is genuinely terrible. It's not just me.

So there!

Saturday 3 July 2010

Cursed to a life of aero-apathy

It's the Waddington Air Show today. I'd go, as I have done most years prior, but... meh. Just meh.
I'm not an aircraft buff. All planes look the same to me, and people who can identify a plane by the shape of its nose cone, or whatever, nearly bore me into unconsciousness.

The only real appeal the Waddington Air Show had, for me, was the challenge of getting in without paying. Every year, my dad and I would devise a brilliant scheme, each one wackier than the last. I don't know why, but it's just lost its novelty now. And I don't give a crap about aircraft, so that was never going to be a redeeming strength of the show to lure me back.

I assume the Red Arrows will be their, doin' their thang. They practise over my village and have done for as long as I can remember, so they're of no interest to me. Seeing a group of professional aerobats creating a heart out of smoke, and then piercing it with a smoke arrow, is an everyday occurrence to me, which is a bit of a curse. I can't ever appreciate the Red Arrows in the same slack-jawed way the rest of the country can.
Ho hum. Might just slob out today. Or animate. Whatever.

So sorry, Waddo. No offense, but I think you're boring. And I suspect I always shall.
I write like
Cory Doctorow

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