| Conversations with Martin part 4 |
[Mar. 25th, 2008|09:07 pm] |
Very short one this:
MARTIN: Dude I've just eaten so much cheese and crackers it's insane! I literally have eaten like 8 cows worth of cheese!
Recieved at 7:48 in the morning. It's worth getting out of bed for emails like that.
By the way, the reason this one is so short is partly because part 5 will be quite huge. It'll be up in a couple of days/weeks/months. |
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| Conversations with Martin part 3 |
[Mar. 6th, 2008|08:43 pm] |
A little one-sided this one:
Martin: "Well, just had I feel my most productive day in a long time. I juiced about 200-250 apples for the making of cider so in roughly 6 weeks I should be getting pissed of cider which I imagine will be something around 7-8.5%. I got the apples from my dads apple trees at a cost of zero to me and sugar and yeast bought at a cost of roughly £3 making the price in the region of 5p per pint. This means I should in effect be able to attain a reasonable amount of drunkness [sic] at a cost of around 20p. That truly is the miracle of home brewing. I just really hope it doesn't make me go blind."
5 weeks later:
Martin: "Well I opened my cider last night after going for a couple of pints with my mates and I can now definitely testify that it works. Even better, the ginger I put in it completely removed any alcohol taste so couldn't really tell how strong it was at first. After 3 pints we then realised that we were thoroughly pissed. Excellent work if I do say so myself"
Rory: "Nice. I've just made a very important discovery about Japan: this one restaurant makes really really good sangria. Strong as fuck and very tasty."
Martin: "That does sound nice. About a month ago I learned that you shouldn't drink 3 bottles of sangria from the local supermarket at a cost of £1.90 a bottle. To be fair most people would already know that. Also I found out today that I have a teapot in my flat and have done since I moved in. I'm now thinking of all the cups of tea I ruined by making them in mugs" |
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| Conversations with Martin part 1 |
[Mar. 3rd, 2008|12:24 am] |
I haven't been writing in this blog thing very often recently so I'm going to start a little feature here. It will consist of some random and what I think are hilarious email conversations I have with my friend Martin back home. They give a little insight into both our lives.
Here's a Part 1 and Part 2 to start off:
Me: "Just bought a can of hot coffee (from a vending machine nonetheless. One of my favourite things about Japan) and it says on the can "Georgia European - Less Sugar, More Coffeeness" The word coffeeness made me laugh so much. It's made my morning. Oh those crazy japanese and their often hilarious bastardisation of the english language! I feel it has adequately prepared me for a morning of getting kids to stick magnetic bananas onto a snowman (the snowman is also magnetic . Obviously. Otherwise it would just be stupid."
Martin: "What precisely is the conenction between snowmen and bananas? The only connection I could think of is that you might be teaching them how to use a Mr Frosty snow cone maker. Vital if they ever travel to Britain circa 1989."
Me: "Well, any lesson involving bananas gives the teacher the chance to do "one skin, two skin, three skin... what comes after three skin?" joke. Getting about 30 4-year old japanese kids to shout foreskin is quite brilliant. Seriously though, what's not to love about bananas? They're both phallic and tasty. And it's the only fruit I can think of which works as both a milkshake flavour and a sandwich filling. Although in Japan you can buy sandwiches with strawberries in them. I swear, the normal rules of sandwichdom do not apply in this country"
Part 2, later that day:
Me: "The man in front of me just kissed his reflection in the window of the train. I don't know if he's drunk or crazy"
Martin: "Or just damned good looking. Like Fonzie or Face from the A-Team"
Me: "Na if it was that I'm sure he would stop the driver and say something like "stop the train! there's an incredibly good looking man running alongside the - oh wait, it's just my reflection" Mind you he could also do that if he was crazy"
Martin: "He might just be very lonely. You could try giving him a hug"
Me: "No thanks he's got some nasty body odour and an incredibly irritating cough. I had to turn my ipod up to near-deafening levels to block it out. Only managed to block out the cough surprisingly enough. Increasingly the volume had practically no effect on the stench. But he's dead now."
Martin: "Oh you and your frenzied temper! You really should avoid slaughtering people just because you're nasally offended by them. A total ned girl sat across from me on the bus the other day, she must have been about 17 but with 2 kids and a crystal meth habit, and she kept asking me if I worked in a shop cos she pure recognised my face. I was ready to go at her fast like a flaming otter."
More to follow, on the subject of tea, Gorilla Biscuits, brewing your own cider, M.I.A, the abundance of chillis in Thai cuisine, and wondering why they don't sell cheese at the cinema. |
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| Public announcement |
[Oct. 28th, 2007|11:24 pm] |
To those of you who have ever refered to me as "Cloud", you may find the following images quite awesome -
That's right. It's Cloud In A Can! Casually known as "Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary Potion Limited Edition" |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 12th, 2007|06:42 pm] |
Want to listen to something genuinely interesting and more than alittle spooky?
http://www.archive.org/details/ird059
"For more than 30 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of Numbers Stations.
Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a one time pad is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.
Now you will be able to hear this unique and extraordinary phenomenon for yourself, as Irdial-Discs releases THE CONET PROJECT: the first comprehensive collection of Numbers Stations recordings released to the public.
This Quadruple CD is an important historical reference work for research into this hitherto unreported and unknown field of espionage. The CDs contain 150 recordings spanning the last twenty years; taken from the private archives of dedicated shortwave radio listeners from around the world."
Seriously, check it out. It's fantastically frightening |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 30th, 2007|11:02 pm] |
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RIP Ingmar Bergman. Your work has changed my outlook on life more than any other individual filmmaker. You will be greatly missed. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 14th, 2007|10:18 pm] |
It's been a while since I reviewed a movie, so here we go:
Paris, Je T'Aime
18 of the worlds finest directors and take turns delighting the audience with this multi-faceted exploration of the true city of love. Each scene is between 5 and 10 minutes long and focuses on a specific district of Paris, the end result of which is two hours of heart-warming French intimacy, American indie dark comedy and some truly heart-breaking depcitions of love throughout.
( Read more... ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 7th, 2007|02:57 pm] |
I have returned. Training was pretty awesome. The city of Fukuoka is famous for it's beautiful women, and most of these beautiful women seem to hang out in the area known as Tenjin which is conveniently enough where my office was. Damn. I've never seen so many drop-dead gorgeous women in one place. Even in Paris or Rome or the south of france. Last night I went out to an English pub, yes that's right, with the trainers and we all got a bit drunk. The main trainer Scott spent most of the time thanking me for being the only normal and cool student of the training group. This wouldn't have been hard though. One guy, well, he had a girl's name, a high nasal voice, grew up in Tennessee and wore a three-piece suit and a fedora hat to work every day. The other guy was from New Jersey. And you could tell just by talking to him for two minutes. Enough said.
Pretty good time though.
Now I'm back in little Iizuka and ready to start work on Saturday.
Salmon eggs are really tasty. So is chopped raw octopus in wasabi. Sea urchin however, is the single most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. Worse than earwax.
Also, it's mad hot out there. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 3rd, 2007|01:43 pm] |
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Right folks I'm heading through to Fukuoka for my training. I'll be back thursday. Doubt I'll be online till then. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 1st, 2007|01:15 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  happy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | White Stripes - Jolene | ] |
The vending machines here sell cans of ice-cold coffee. They're quite brutal but surprisingly delicious. The latte-type ones are just like a coffee flavoured milkshake. I haven't dared try the black ones. A can of cold black coffee... damn. That'll put hairs on your chest.
I had to go into the centre of Shiniizuka today to fill out some forms for my Alien Registration Card. That was fun. Getting the train there was a bit nervous because even though it's only one stop and I knew which direction to go I couldn't work the machine to get a ticket. Nothing was written in English at all. Even the words written in the roman alphabet would have helped. But I finally got the train. Ticket was only 160 yen which is like, 60p. I found the office ok and was quite amused to find that only two people in the whole City Hall building spoke English. Everyone in this country is so unbelievably friendly and they try to do anything they can to make you more comfortable in conversations. This guy was asking me lots of questions about Glasgow while he told me what to write on my form. It was quite cool.
Right next to my apartment is the most awesome supermarket ever. I spent about 3000 yen on awesome looking food and drink. They have a surprising amount of non-asian food as well. Spaghetti, pasta sauces, cookies, cakes, french bakery products and british tea. It's brilliant. As you know I do love my tea and even though Japanese Green tea is fantastic it's not the kind of thing I'd drink several cups of each day. Besides, this Earl Grey is delicious. I bought myself some sushi for dinner tonight. It looks awesome. About 8 or 9 pieces. One of which is definitely salmon eggs which I didn't try the other night. I think tomorrow I might go through to Fukuoka, the nearest really big city and spend the day there. I'll try and find my temporary accomodation which I'll be staying in from Sunday till Thursday next week for my training.
I'm really happy here. I obviously haven't started work yet and haven't really been anywhere. But the apartment and the area I live in has made a really good impression on me. And you gotta love that ice-cold coffee |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 31st, 2007|04:49 pm] |
For dinner last night I had raw squid foot, fried eel, crab salad, some other delicious raw fish that I can't remember the name of, a shitload of rice and some seaweed. I love sushi. And it was so so cheap. Like, the equivalent of less than $5 for a really delicious and pretty substantial meal. It was awesome.
Spent most of today blasting through the mountains and along the coast on the bullet train. Did a 600km journey in just over 2 hours. Got off the train at Hakata and our group split up and we each went our seperate ways.
I am now in my appartment in Iizuka. My appartment is really nice and the area is very beautiful. I'm the only one here at the moment and I might not have a flatmate for a couple of months. I'm in a quiet suburban and residential area. The train station is a ten minute walk away and from there I go to the next stop and then walk to the office where I'll be working.
This country is quite strange. The cities are really industrial and really ugly during the day. At night the all just explode in all this neon light. The streets of the cities are so busy it's insane. There are advertisements and billboards everywhere and people shouting at you to welcome you into their restaurant or bar or dog-grooming service. When the train was going through the mountains we would pass all these reasonably small mountain towns with traditional pagoda houses and acres of soggy rice fields. I kept seeing bits of scenery which look familiar as if this part of the country isn't that different from the small towns you would find in Europe, but the cities are like nothing I've ever seen. I can't exaggerate how ugly Japanese cities are in the daylight. Also, every available inch of space is used.
It's a very very strange country.
Fuck. I'm actually in Japan. The other side of the world. I've never been this far away from Scotland. This is immense. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 22nd, 2007|03:46 am] |
Sectorseven.org right, it's this website which has been designed for the marketing of the forthcoming live action Tranformers movie. Essentially it occassionally updates with small teaser pictures, audio clips and the like. In the recent and absolutely brilliant trailer for the movie there was a hidden code and when you type it in to the website you get access to a series of easter egg videos. Now, I'm pretty sure these aren't actual clips from the movie. They're designed to look lik either CCTV footage or home movies, suggesting that these are sightings from around the world of the robot alien invasion. But still, whether the characters feature in the movie or not, this is a very very important trailer.
In it you will see what appears to be Laserbeak, an Insecticon, Bumblebee in his original form of a VW Beetle, and most pant-wettingly... a Dinobot... motherfucking Grimlock.
I couldn't possibly convey how loud I exclaimed "No fucking way!" after I watched that video for the first time. My god.
http://jalopnik.com/cars/robots-in-disguise%27%27%27in-disguise/
Seriously, Grimlock?? No fucking way! |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 21st, 2007|08:27 pm] |
Apparently the race to be the director of the next James Bond movie has been narrowed down to four people:
Marc Forster (director of Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland. God, how earth-shatteringly great was that movie?)
Tony Scott (director of such predictable Hollywood crap as Domino, Man On Fire, Enemy Of The State and Top Gun)
Alex Proyas (director of I Robot and The Crow)
Jonathan Mostow (director of, oh dear, Terminator 3 and U-571)
Thankfully, Marc Forster is the current favourite. The mere thought of Tony Scott making a Bond movie makes me feel quite ill. I thankfully can't picture just how bad that would be. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 20th, 2007|07:20 pm] |
Heath Ledger as The Joker in the forthcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight. After weeks of crappy hoaxes and fakes, this is finally an official picture.
I've never seen a scarier depiction of the Joker.
http://www.batman-on-film.com/TDK_I-believe-in-harvey-dent-too_5-18-07.html
He's not grinning and you can't see the green hair, but wow. Seriously, just wow. I really like the look they are going for. The scarring in particular is quite scary. It really fits in with the dark, realistic and ultimately believable look and feel of the world of Batman Begins. The Joker of The Dark Knight isn't a manic clown, he's a terrifying and dangerous psycopath. Of course, he's also criminally insane, so there will still be a lot of laughing from him.
Also, the reveal of this image was quite brilliant. During last week there was a mock website made up in support of Harvey Dent's run for District Attorney in Gotham. Everyone thought, Oh that's quite cool, but didn't really pay that much attention. On his campaign posters is the slogan "I believe in Harvey Dent". Then a website appeared called www.ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com which featured another of the campaign posters. No difference yet. The thing is, visitors were asked to type in their email address and type in the code that they were given. Then X and Y coordinates were emailed to them, along with a link to enter the coordinates. When entered, these coordinates removed a small pixel on the campaign poster and revealed that there was another image underneath. Intriguing eh? After about a thousand people did this the original image is almost completely gone and you can now see the image that lay underneath... The Joker.
Seriously, the internet is one of the greatest marketing tools ever created. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 20th, 2007|06:15 pm] |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz6YExufb1k
take me now baby here as I am
pull me close, try and understand
desire is hunger is the fire I breathe
love is a banquet on which we feed
come on now try and understand
the way I feel when I'm in your hands
take my hand come undercover
they can't hurt you now,
can't hurt you now, can't hurt you now
because the night belongs to lovers
because the night belongs to lust
because the night belongs to lovers
because the night belongs to us
have I doubt when I'm alone
love is a ring, the telephone
love is an angel disguised as lust
here in our bed until the morning comes
come on now try and understand
the way I feel under your command
take my hand as the sun descends
they can't touch you now,
can't touch you now, can't touch you now
because the night belongs to lovers ... |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 18th, 2007|09:15 pm] |
You know what's quite funny, people say that this film 'Belle De Jour' is Luis Bunuel's most easily accessible film, but seeing as he was the master of surrealism (and that's not surrealism of the ridiculous and hallucinagenic-laden american kind, but surrealism of the artistic and psychological european kind) this movie is quite a bit far from normal cinema. It could be described as "surrealist-erotica", which is obviously a good thing. Also, Catherine Deneuve at the height of her power/fame/ability/sexiness. Probably the best performance of her career. This was after all how she made her name in cinema; playing these brilliantly sexy and tense icy maidens for Luis Bunuel and Roman Polanski. Watch this movie, Repulsion and The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and it'll be very hard not to fall in love with this woman.
Every movie I've seen by Luis Bunuel I've been really impressed by. I will definitely be checking out a few more. I really want to see The Exterminating Angel about the dinner party guests who dissolve into animalistic chaos when they discover that they're inexplicably trapped in the dining room. Good stuff. |
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