well, i went to see it last night. midnight opening and all.. so i thought id better write about it now, whilst its still fresh in my mind. chances are what i say now i wont agree with after a second watching, but here it goes:
overall, it was a good film. it got an 8/10. i was asked what i thought about it as soon as we got out of the pictures and i didnt know what to say, so i just said eight. the storyline was changed in some parts. bits added, bits taken out, you know the drill. which was sort of annoying. there were some really cheesy scenes. like *SPOILER?* theres this scene of when aro reads alices mind to see bella as a vampire in the future, and seriously, this shot comes on of edward and bella running through the woods and she glitters a little. i mean wtf? no need for that at all. couldnt they have just shown bella in her dress looking all beautiful with red eyes and glittery skin? a dark shot. instead, edwards wearing a little cardigan. honestly they looked like hobbits. near the beginning they also added a scene were bella actually gets on some guys bike, for a ''spin'' ahh it just was not needed.
the acting was same as the first really. some bad bits, but overall not bad. i was surprised at how good jacob was in this film. i mean, this is his film, and he did it justice definately. he'll probably get annoying in the next one, for obvious reasons, but we'll see.
ok the volturi. wow. absolutely amazing. seriously well done. it was perfect. the scene where they look at that painting and it comes alive and then you see aro rip that guys heads off. seriously, those chairs!! and the long black coats and the red eyes. humans are boring.
favourite scene has to be the wolf chase. with the thom yorke song. it was amazing. couldnt have pictured it with any other song really. the tracks called 'hearing damage.'
i think im gonna go have to see it again. ill update this, this reviews poor.
new moon;
two films one day;
canada;
it seems the bbc, or Qi, have got something against canada. well not in a serious 'someone should sue!' sense, but more a 'what the hell, 2 days on the run, why?' yesterday, and today, the 'fact of the day that' i read on my bbc homepage every day has been about canada. not just canada as a country, but canada and their wars.
just read this:
The four Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan on 18th April 2002, were the first Canadians to die in combat for more than 50 years. They were accidentally bombed by an American F16.
In a national anthem survey, 79% of Americans know the first line of the 'Star-Spangled Banner', but only 37% of Canadians know the first line to 'Oh, Canada', which is really pathetic considering the first line of 'Oh, Canada' is 'Oh, Canada'. JAY LENO
ok, and im trying to find yesterdays one, but having no luck. anyways, it was of a similar subject. think it was to do with civil wars. what i want to know is why? 2 days on the run? seriously? its like theyre making out its a bad thing that canada is not particularly known for its wars. ISN'T THAT A GOOD THING? jesus christ, i know when im older, i want to live in a country like canada! i dont want to go to war. i dont want to hear about war. i dont want to see war. on the other hand, i find it interesting and humourous in the strangest sense of the word, the fact that it was an american war ship that shot them down. oh almighty america!
piggy;ralph;jack;
finished reading lord of the flies today! was one of those books that i didn't really want to put down, and with it only being 200 pages, you know the end is always near. anyways i thought it was great. really really interesting. i think its one of those books that you definately! should read when your at a younger age. probably want to introduce this to my kids when theyre about 10-11. i think it has important issues in it that may come up from time to time as your a kid. hope my kids dont get lost on a desert island though. i thought the characters were amazing. i like ralph, i liked piggy, i even like jack. they all had qualities in them that were likeable. i think i liked ralph the most, but he was a little blind at times to issues other than the fire. but i guess at the end of the book, he was right all along. i think it was very haunting the way the hunters became outright killers, especially piggys death, the visual image was not very nice.
i kept noticing links to the american tv series LOST. first the fact that theyre on an island, then that one is called jack. and then the relationship jack has with locke sort of reflected ralph and jacks relationship. especially with locke being a keen hunter. then there was the parachute that fell from the sky, this too happened in lost. very interesting. the writers of lost must be fans of the book.
its a book that will stay in my head for a long time. im off to start joseph conrads heart of darkness now, hope ralph doesnt keep popping into my head.
macbeth;
finished reading macbeth the other day! really liked it. takes a while to get into shakespeare, but now that im into him, im into him. just finished reading 'shakespeare' by bill bryson. a biography ofcourse. but it was a great read. a great insight not just into the life of shakespeare, but also the times in which he lived in. the conflict between protestantism and Catholicism. the executioning of mary queen of scots. and the fact that before king james I became so, he had been king james 6 up in scotland. all interesting stuff. and as you'd expect, a book written by bill bryson is both enjoyable and never tiring. one interesting thing to take from the book is the fact that shakespeare not once spelt his name how we spell it today. all we have are six signatures, and these are the only pieces of shakespeares handwriting that we actually have. instead, shakespeare spelt his name: William Shackper, William Shakspear, Wm Shakspea, William Shackspere, Willm. Shakspere, William Shakspeare.
the other important subject came at the end of the book. doubters. since shakespeares death it seems people have found it hard to believe that this one man could create such a level of genius like work. i dont. some people are born with amazing talents. in fact i believe we all house something that we are excellent at, its just that some people have that extra drive, that extra help, that extra wanting and the knowing that you are good at something and can do something. this was shakespeare. its to be a well known fact that he collaborated with other writers and poets along the way. i think i remember reading that there is a guess at 9 hands being involved in shakespears first folio. nobody is denying that. i just dont see how people spend their lives trying to find a more creditable human being that shakespeare. if it wasn't him then what makes you think a different man is capable of such literacy?
anyways, its a great read. ive got a few more to read now, hamlet, much ado about nothing, the tempest. ill get through them all eventually. im taking time out to read lord of the flies at the moment though, will let you know how it goes!
life of pi; and inglorious basterds;
just finished reading life of pi, and today i went to see inglorious basterds. first i will talk about the book:
a really enjoyable read, finished it fairly quickly which proves my interest in it. must say i preferred the first half of the book to the second. the first few chapters touch on some interesting stuff, zoology, religion, and parenthood to name a few. i held the book in my hands and felt that here was a book i could learn a few things from. i started thinking about what being agnostic really means? and just because i dont feel the need to be a christian, does not mean i would not feel the need to be a Muslim.
i still don't know what to label myself, and I'm not in the right time of my life to have a serious think about it. for the past 5-6 years I've quite happily labelled myself as agnostic, but what does that even mean? i wont go into it. but i am aware of other religions, and would like to get to know a bit more about them, before i announce myself as a firm atheist.
learning about animals at pondicherry zoo was also very interesting. how piscine puts things into perspective. you should not feel sorry for animals at a zoo. they are not under any threat, apart from human visitors, they are territorial, meaning they like sticking to one place and having routine, not being under a constant threat of attack, and a fresh food source is dropped into their cage/pen/tank every day. why would they want to be out in the wild? i'd never thought of it that way before. i mean i wasn't one of these people wearing t-shirts saying 'free the animals' but just a week a two ago i questioned buying a rat because i thought it would be cruel to keep it in such a small cage.
i liked the book, just expected the bit where he was alone at sea (apart from the animals) to last a bit longer, but then i guess that was the whole plot to the book. maybe i just found the religion bit too interesting.
as for the film, inglorious basterds. what can i say? i feel like the only two words i can use to describe it are: f*%ck!ng amazing! and i hate swearing. but seriously, its that good, it'll make you want to say those words. its been a while since i've been to a cinema and came out feeling like i've just seen the best film ever made. (its not, i prefer other films) but its definately in the top 20-30, and thats something. it looks like tarantino is back on top. a fact that i am more than happy about. inglorious basterds; a complete and utter roller coaster ride of shock, suspense, remorse, and pleasure for every single emotion imaginable.
the reader;
ever buy a new book and then want to read it straight away? even though you've just started a different one. i started one flew over the cuckoo's nest, but then after 10-15 pages, had to go back to work. and then i couldnt read that night, and then on sunday i bought 'the reader' for like 30p from the car boot, and i was looking at it and realised i could read it in a day or two.
anyways i did, and i loved it! a really good read. i was a big fan of the film. still need to buy it on dvd. went to see it when it was out with alex emma and kirsty i think. this was when we had just signed the contract for fairfield road. anyways the film was great, if you havn't seen it, it is a must see! and before you watch it, try reading it! either way, the book is pretty short and very enjoyable. its actually probably better to watch first, as then you can picture that ralph fiennes, kate winslet, the young kid.. etc.
mentions quite a bit about james joyce's ulysses i think its spelt. so ill definately read that as soon as i get my hands on a copy. the question is, what to read next? still dont really feel like reading cuckoos nest, i dont know why. maybe i'll give life of pi a try!
2th;
not last night but the night before, i had a dream, probably the most graphic dream i've ever had, that one of my bottom teeth fell out. well, it was loose, n then i pulled it out. looked it up, and it says this is probably the most common nightmare people have. sorta annoyed me. but anyways, it was a good dream. it actually took me a day to realise i'd had it, n then i couldn't believe that it wasn't true. if that makes sense. this site said it related to caring about your body image, dunno if thats true. ive been thinking about buying really nice clothing an changing my hair, so maybe the meaning is true? i even remember pulling a face in the mirror and thinking how i'd always wanted to have a tooth missing, just to look a bit different, but when i actually looked in the mirror, i no longer wanted a gap in my bottom teeth.
i dunno what it is lately but i just cant think of things to write about on here. i really want to get back into blogging but there's just nothing going on really for me to talk about. work, work, reading, doing the dishes, work. and works still rubbish, but im closer to the end. the books still fantastic (american psycho) and ive got around 50 pages left, gonna finish that later. and what can i say about doing the dishes?
meteor shower last night, didn't see any of it. bluddy showers overhead like all of south england, just my luck. if i still lived in liverpool the north west woulda had showers. instead i just went on flickr and looked at peoples uploads of it, pretty nice!
i thought about what i might do after uni the other day. and i was thinking of going into teaching. well it has sorta always been my intention to do a teaching course after the 3 years, cause id like to teach when im older. but i dont really wanna teach when im like 25-30 (the children years) so i was thinking of doing a teaching course, and a night course in french, and then hopefully move to france to teach for a little while. i definately want to move out of the uk for a year or two after uni, and france seems like my favourite choice. hope blogger still exists in 3 years so i can blog when im in france.
thats all i have to say.
american psycho;
hey! i said i'd put a post up on here, so here it is!
so, im in winchester, im my new house at fairfield road, its all pretty sweet so far. its mainly me alex emma and tabreez at the moment, but lauren basically lives here aswell, an sometimes i live at her house just 5 minutes away. the house is nice. nice road, nice area, nice cats. the neighbours are alright too. so yea its goin ok so far.
im workin at beales, in the coffee shop. its basically like bhs. like an old persons shop. so the coffee shop is more or less full of old people, so you'd think it would be pretty quiet and nice. but lets just say its a bloody nightmare. i actually hate going to work. like, loads of people moan about their jobs, especially the english, cause we already like to moan. but seriously, i feel like i have reason to moan so much. it is awful. we dont stop, i go in at half 9, n literally dont stop til 5. i get a poor half hour break, in which i cant even read one chapter of a book, and its a crap lunch cause i know ill have to get back to makin coffees anytime soon. and thats another thing, im meant to enjoy my days off that i do get from work (i work 4 days a week, so i get 3 off) but when im off, alls i think about is 'ohh ive got work tomorrow.' its horrible. on wednesday, i just couldnt be bothered, was about to throw the towel in or whatever that saying is, but if i can just stick it out til my contract runs out (8th sept) ill have quite a lot of money to last me til christmas or whatever. i think i can do it, i just dont want to.
im really into reading at the moment. that list really inspired me to get going at the top 100, n then i bought a bookmark with the top 50 on. so thats another thing i do on my days off. basically just go round all the charity shops lookin for these top 50-100 books. got about 20 of em so far probably, its just findin the time to read the bloody things, in between work, tiredness, xbox and socialness. im reading american psycho at the moment ^ its really really good, would definately recommend it to anyone! its not in the top 100 or anything, but i really loved the film and have wanted to read the book for ages. eventually picked up a copy at cancer research ;)
i cant think of much else to write. other than both my neighbours have cats, and one of them seems scared of me, but it proper looks like one of my mates. i never know what to think about cats. they come across as quite intelligent. definately more so than the dog. but if theyre intelligent why does this one keep runnin away from me? took some pictures of them before anyways, up on me flickr if you want a look.
ill write something else on here when there's something good to talk about. this is twaddle.
one hundred books;
Instructions: Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
7 /100
As of todays date: 6th August 2009, i have only read 7 out of the 100. Thats pretty awful to be honest. Thought i'd post this up here though just to keep a reminder, and hopefully when i'll check again in a year the number of X's should be alot higher. I have a lot of these books in my collection, its just findin the time to read em!
Anyways, its been too long since my last post. I'll post on here tomorrow, fill you in on whats been going on. See you tomorrow.
heaven or hell;
you know that little riddle question about the gates to heaven or hell, well its been doin my head in. the riddle goes 'there are 2 gates, both identical, each guarded by an identical man. one leads to heaven, one to hell. obviously you want to get to heaven. one man always tells the truth, and the other always lies. you have one question to ask. what dyou ask?' ... now i was first told about this when listenin to ricky gervais, n after finishin listenin to it, i thought i understood it. but ive been thinking about it again lately, and i havnt got a clue! its rackin me brains (is that the sayin) i dunno. ive looked it up, and apparently the answer is this..
'you ask either one, if i were to ask the other man ''which way is heaven'' which way would he point'
right, now the problem im having with that is, lets say i ask the one who tells the truth, he's gonna know that the liers gotta lie, so lets also say that the truth guy is guarding heaven, so i ask the truth guy, and he knows the lier is gonna say that heaven is behind his door (the liers door)
right! so! if i ask the lier what truth will say, he'll be forced to lie, and point behind him again. so what the hell?!? do you just go for the door that doesnt get pointed to? yes!! thats it!!! is it?!?!
berlin, berlin;
so depressing they named it twice. nah, it werent depressing. just a little sad for the first day or two. we didnt get there til about 12, which meant we hadnt got any sleep the night before. think i slept on the plane for bout half an hour, which was nice. i loved the plane journey btw, i didnt think i would. i thought id be terrified. i even bought big earphones so people knew i was listening to music and wouldnt disturb me. but these ended up being a nuisance and just gettin in the way, im sticking to my little ones. but yea the flight/s were sweet. i seemed to get a good buzz from it which was nice. do something that scares you once a day, i wish i could afford to go on a plane everyday. duno where id go though.
but berlin was nice. when we got there we went to the jewish museum, straight to the point. and to be honest i was a bit dissapointed. we had to pay to get in, which is a bit rubbish, n then there wasnt really anything in there. just a few photographs and old singer sowing machines. if i had to open a jewish museum it wouldnt look like this. i duno what i would want. just something a bit more, painful. it all felt very pleasant walking around. there wasnt a lot that shocked me, or made me feel sad. there was one room that was just a big open black dark room with the light frm outside shining through windows above. n this woulda been nice, but people kept openin the door and coming in, so it was never fully pitch black. annoyin. anyways the next day we went to typography of terrors. now this was sad. sad enough that it actually made me cry. and in a way, this is what i wanted out of the whole experience. we get to this place, and see part of the berlin wall still standing, which werent too sad. but then there was a building absolutely covered in bullet holes, or just damage from nearby expolosions. but it was horrible. the whole thing felt wrong, very wrong. i couldnt help but picture people being lined up and shot against this wall. typography of terrors was were the gestapo and ss were based, it was their headquarters. jews were tortured here, killed. its still something i dont even like talking about. i think itll play a big part in my life seeing this. i can only guess that its something you have to experience for yourself.
the next day berlin started lookin a lot more rich. the areas id walked around hadnt looked too posh, and this was another reason which gave that depressed feeling. but we went to an art gallery, which only had classical art in. its not really my thing. it seems only old people like it now. i was wondering if in 100 years there'll be no classical art in the galleries, itll all just be chopped in half cows and unmade beds. i hope not. there was a few rembrandts and a few carravagio's, so these were nice to see. after that we were free to do what we want so we pottered about. the metro system worked very well, although there was these stupid men down there tryna sell you tickets for 1 euro. they stay there all day, i duno how they make a living.
the last day a woman shouted 'are you english?' to me an lauren. so we turned around, thinking that finally we were about to be useful in berlin, n then she just shoves this postcard in my hands. n the first line i read was 'im from bosnia and i have no money...' n i just thought, bluddy hell. cause then i had to stand there n read the rest of the postcard, knowing that she just wanted to money, and wondering how i was going to get out of this one. anyways i only have like 80cents in my pocket, i got lucky. but then lauren gave her like 3 euros n i was like :O and then! as we said our goodbyes, she friggin smiled at me with gold teeth! gold bluddy teeth! about 4 of them. i couldnt believe it. i well and truly got done. by probably the smartest tramp in berlin.
