The Lost Room

Over the last couple of days I watched The Lost Room mini-series and I have to say I was pretty damn impressed.

The show didn't have the biggest of budgets or an A-list cast but it had good solid acting and a fairly original story idea which was something that really appealed to me.

Why is it that when show creators come up with a good idea for a series and manage to produce a great product it's always cancelled before it's time or just not renewed ?, there are plenty of directions this show could have explored given the chance but at least there was a beginning, middle and end to the main storyline, these days a lot of shows don't even get that.

You really really should check it out.

The Dresden Files

Well my A.D.D must really be going into overtime at the moment as I've now started watching yet another TV series on DVD, this time around it's The Dresden Files based on the novels by Jim Butcher.

I've never read any of Butcher's Dresden novels ( or in fact any of his books ) but I've only ever heard good things about them and I was under the impression the show was supposed to be pretty good as well but after four episodes this show has really failed to impress, perhaps it's just that I've read an awful lot of books and comics in my days not to mention watched a lot of TV and movies but so far I've been left with the feeling I've seen it all before, in fact in terms of feeling ( not character just general feel ) this show seems to me to be like a lower budget version of Supernatural.

The Dresden Files isn't a bad show but it's not particularly memorable either, I think there are eight episodes left of the first and only season so I suppose it could improve over it's remaining episodes but as things stand at the moment I'm glad I got the DVDs on sale, I think I'd be slightly annoyed if I paid full price for this series based on what I've seen thus far.

*Insert words here*

Oops. Mind blank.


Not my fault! Listening to Pink's new song, and i've got that feeling that I get in my chest when I hear a great song, It's really distracting!!


Still, amazed at how many people are actually crying over this song!! Craaazzzyy.


Was watching this show in the morning... dunno if you heard of it, "The People speak" or something like that? It's where celebrities read or sing about people's experiences on topics such as gay rights and asylum seekers.


Was fairly interesting if I'm honest. There was this one scene that I felt fairly inspired by, it was about some poor gay guy who got murdered by a homophobic, and someone had printed out a sheet of paper that said "They can't kill us all" and hung it beside the place that he was murdered.

I thought that was pretty symbolic of the struggles that the gay community has had to go through over the years just to find acceptance in community.


I'm not gay myself, but I don't really understand why It should be considered an insult to be called one, it's not really a choice, it's in your blood, it's in your mind and, if you believe it exists, it's in your soul. Would you consider it insulting if somebody called you tall? What about if someone called you a brunette? Why should you? There just labels. That is how you are recognized in this huge jigsaw puzzle we call Humanity. Don't be insulted. Why should you give a damn about what others think of you? After school or work finishes, you're free to do what you want, wear what you want to wear and love who you want to love. Why should it matter if that person is a man or a woman?


Just saying.


I thought Linzie would make a good Prime Minister, turns out I was wrong. 


She said that she would just print out money until our debt is all paid back.


Doesn't sound too bad right?


Hold on, there's more.


She says that she would make everything free. Everything. BUT you'd still be made to work.


So I'm like... Urm... isn't that kind of Fascist? Like, semi-fascist or something?


She then went onto say:

LINZIE: I'd make sure that the Papers wouldn't print anything about the money being printed... I'd just stop everything that wasn't about celebrities actually.

ME: What about you?

LINZIE: Oh, they couldn't  print anything about me. I'd make sure of that.

ME: I take back what I said about you being a good Prime Minister, you're power thirsty! Wait... You're power hungry and blood thirsty! Like a Vampire Duracell Bunny or the Terminator, if he took an interest in Politics.

 Woo-hoo.


Haha, then she told me about the time Lauren made a hammer in Primary...

They were learning about Mythology, and Thor's hammer came up, so they all had to make jewellery of it. 


Which looks something like this:

But Lauren came in late and when the teacher told her to make a necklace of Thor's hammer.....

Ahhh that kid cracks me up.

P.E

People were actually doing stuff today!

Yeah. Kelly and Megan had to revise for a Maths NAB.

What? You didn't think we were actually doing P.E, did you?

Revising lasted around three seconds. Then me and Kelly went into business plans.

KELLY: I think they should name Pizza Hut, Pasta hut

We realised, after this comment, that no restraunt sold pasta exclusively. Like Subway makes subs, Pizza express makes pizzas, Burger King makes burgers but Pasta? Nope.


Okay. Let's make up a business... what shall we call it?

KELLY: Pastastic.

Well... that sounds fairly insulting.


I got kind of bored sitting around, so I got a boxing glove and tried to squeeze Kelly's cheek with it, in a Granny sort of way.

It worked. She did it to me. Really weird feeling.


I've learned my lesson, never give Michelle boxing gloves.


She went nuts. Really. John did not help the matter, he asked her to punch him in the stomach.

She hesitated, then, realising that she gets to punch someone in the stomach, she gives in and lightly punches him. 


He doesn't flinch.


Not content with John smiling and still standing upright, she punches him again, harder this time... and again... and again...


I swear she turned into Rocky Balboa for a moment.


Not even wincing, John smiled and then said "My turn."


She ran away screaming, then he asked her to punch a wall...


Which she did... she may have broke her hand. She was going to the hospital tonight.


Moral of the story? Don't punch walls.


Kelbie ended up hurting his hand playing Basketball, and as Kincorth is very poor, we can only afford one ice pack, so they ended up sharing, with Mr McLaren in the middle and off to the side of them. 


It looked as though they were getting married. Hilarious.


Megan got told to take off her Jumper from underneath her blazer by Mrs Murray today.


I had a problem with that.


Their always yabbling on about confidence and individuality but they don't want you to be an individual, not really. Noooo... individuality induces an anti-conformist attitude to the rules and social norms of our society. And that is NEVER a good thing.


Get a grip gal, it's just a jumper.


That girly makes me laugh though, all you hear is:

MEGAN: You're puppies are drooping *streches out to Jaye's chest to fix 101 dalmation badge*

Woah! What puppies?

ART

Art was good. Mr McDonald gave us all a good pep talk.

He informed us that the most time the SQA will spend with our years worth of drawings is a measly fifteen minutes.

I just moved pictures around a word document for the whole period if i'm honest. 

And talking to Kristina. She wasn't herself today though, poor toot. Need to remember to give her a big hug tomorrow.

I notice that the most emotionally affected people are all in one big room. Dangerous.

I swear, there are at least three depressed people and someone who stabs himself with a scalpel.

Scaredy-cat level? HIGH.

DOUBLE ENGLISH

Welcome to two hours of doing NOTHING.

I spy with my little eye....

Three people listening to their iPods

Five people whispering "quietly"

One person who has fell asleep

One person drawing an epic hour long doodle

And someone who has had a complete mental break and is now staring, intrigued by a blank wall.

I can't write in that classroom. People just read what you're writing.

I don't like the feeling of judgement.

So I just did a Teeny Tiny storyboard instead and answered some true/false questions.

And listened to this inappropriate convo.

They were talking about this boy called Struan, who apparently, stripped on youtube.

BILLY: *referring to stripping* I'd do that... but it would have to be snowing. Major Shrinkage eh boys? I'm speaking about a chipolata.

Hands up who will never look at a chipolata in the same way again.

BILLY: *cntd* Sorry... I wouldn't be a chipota, I would be more of a german sausage. You know those thing's that are wrapped around into a wheel?

MARIA: Oh yeah, those little things you get in chippers?

BILLY: Little? What sort of sizes have the guys you've been with like? "Oh yeah, he's TINYYYYYY" *Hold up index finger on both hands and leaves a 15 inch space between them* 

Eeeep. It gets worse though.


Maria is getting on at Stewart for saying something about his girlfriend, Adele.

SEAN: What did you say like?

STEWART: I said she was rubbish on top.

EVERYONE: Oooooh!

STEWART:  It's not that she's bad, she was just at the wrong angle...

At this moment, Miss Alba slowly paces through the door and stares at Stewart. The definition of awkward, right there.

BILLY: Yeah, so Scout did that? 

During this Double period, I also discovered that Billy's Animal impression is to die for. Wooow.


Don't really know what happened at lunch, I was kinda spaced out...


It involved an accord card, lots of groping to try hiding said accord card, several water bottles being chucked across the Hot bar and Chris....

CHRIS: *standing straight against the wall* Blend in!!!

Where this all originated from? You're guess is as good as mine.

DOUBLE BIOLOGY

Was quite fun.

Milton and Aaron were doing a classroom poll...

MILTON: Who do you like better? Me or Aaron?

Claire didn't answer that question. I didn't want to pit the two against eachother, I liked 'em both.

So what was their solution to our quietness?

Hand us a bit of paper and ask us to right down a name.

Haha. That did NOT work.

Linzie wrote down a Y on one piece of paper, a O on another bit and on the last bit she wrote down a U.

Y.O.U.

But we handed it back to them and they had difficulty re-arranging the letters...

Yeah. This is a higher class and they've proved they can't re-arrange a three letter word. It's alllll good.

Abbie tried to stop everyone from using the shortcut to our other Bio class as well.

She held the door handle, or was at least reaching for it, when Dr Robertson burst through the door.

Fail.

ABIE: I was going to hold the door so you's couldn't get through

DR ROBERTSON: Good job you didn't or you might have heard me swear.

If you know Dr Robertson, you will understand the sweetness of this statement.

 He's one of the good guys, I remember when I was left lonered in his classroom cause Linzie, Claire, Abie and EVERYONE else I spoke to went away,  he came over and spoke to me until the bell rang. He never really shouts, or even tells people off, he just asks them to stop or make a comment that drinking is bad for your health and moves right on.

But he gave us homework.

Boo.

With a word bank.

Yay!

Mrs Duncan thinks that he has gone soft. Hahaaaaa.

Just having little chats with Abie, Abie noticed that Mrs Duncan had a frog in her plant pot, she was like "WOAH! That's cool Ms!" and then Milton told Abie that it starts to ribbit if the plant is dry.

Abie didn't believe him, but right enough, when Mrs Duncan pulled out the frog, it started to ribbit.

Was awesome.

Lauren xxx

Get a Life !

I've just started reading Get a life ! by William Shatner ( with Chris Kreski ), it's a book about Star Trek fans and fandom and so far it's actually been a pretty interesting read.

The book goes back to the mail campaign to save the show at the end of it's second season and provides some detail on those events and at the moment I'm reading about some of the early conventions.

I don't imagine this will appeal to everyone and truth be told the only reason I have it is because I recently won a bunch of books on eBay and it was included in the bunch I won but it has been a fun read, at the rate I'm going I'll probably be finished in a couple of days

Smell Le Bush

I've said it before, but oh my god, I mean it, so I'm gonna say it again...


I love my friends.


Linzie had on photos from her Halloween party, wow. Her family are nuts.


Don't know if you guys have ever heard of this, but it's a game where you have to pick up Marshmallows with your mouth.... from a dish of flour....


I've never heard of it in my life, but hey, you learn something new everyday.


Gotta say, Linzie suits being a goth.


Her family looked pretty hilarious in their costumes. 


We talked about New Year and holidays... And One Tree Hill... John interupted this conversation and called it stupid.


I snapped at him and told him that no-one asked for his opinion.


Sorry hun but no-body slags of One Tree Hill and get's away with it if they are not one of my bestest buddos.


Utah.


Utah is one of the places me and Linzie want to head to on a holiday. Would be epic!

P.S.E

Best Period of P.S.E ever?


Quite possibly.


That's kind of like saying, "Chickenpox, best disease ever" but I digress.


We got our school's business partners, Ernest and young to come in and give us a presentation...


Why?


I don't know. It was something about business and industry, however, the actual point of the presentation went over everybodies heads.


We just saw that we were meant to making egg holders and selling them for fake money, that' it.


So we split into teams of six or seven and had to make up our own name...


Wait for it.... *Pause for effect*

Scrambles.


Kaaaah ching!


That sound you hear is not the sound of tills opening...


It's the sound that our dignity makes as it falls flat on it's face (and if you drop the "Kaaaah", it's the noise that Lauren makes)


Seriously, we were shouting at ourselves, shouting at eachother, shouting at the teachers, shouting at our eggs.


Mrs Mckay even joined in. She kept shouting "Crackers" at us, the more we ignored her, the louder she shouted...

MRS McKAY: Crackers.... Crackers! Crackers!! CRACKERS!!!!

It's like Jeezo, we'll make a cracker if that really makes you happy!


Turns out that we ran outta time, Sorry Mrs M!


But you know what made US happy?

Everyone got a Kinder egg for free...


For those who are not in the know (and have therefore have NEVER LIVED!!!) Kinder eggs are a hollow, egg shaped piece of chocolate with a small capsule in the middle, and inside that capsule?


No. Not drugs. Something better. A mini toy!!


That usually comes dis-assembled, hey, lazy bones, make your own damn toy!


These toys were the highlight of our day.

HUMAN BIOLOGY

Abie was helping me with my Design folio.

Would you really buy a perfume that was called "Le Bush"?

Break was fun, we were all playing/assembling with our Kinder toys, Kelly's was the best

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na GOATMAN!

Which brought us onto the topic of....

KELLY: I need to show Mr McDonald my goat.

Time and place Kelly!

ART

Don't you just LOVE how much we do in art?

It has to be one of my favourite subjects, but it's mainly because we don't really do anything, which will now change cause I've just been informed that you need Higher Art to be accepted into a Photography course in college.

EEEEP!

Kelly spent the entire double period trying to figure out what she was going to design. Swear she has changed her mind around six or seven times now!

She asked me:

KELLY: *discussing Recycled material* I could buy a teddy bear from a charity shop, rip off the head and put it onto a bit of jewellery.... what do you think?

ME: *In shock at Teddy Bear brutality* Ummm... well you'd get an A... the SQA would be too concerned about you coming down and sorting them out, or waking up to find a horse's head lying next to them if they gave you anything less!

 Speaking of A's... I am screwed.


All these amazing works of art came back from the SQA, all the Higher and Int 2 folios from last year's class were there, so me, Kristina and Kelly decided to have a nosey... Well... that's a lie, we were looking for Kristina's and then we decided to have a nosey.


Wow. NONE of them got A's but they were all amazing.


Brighter note? Sophie was modelling most people's creations... Including her own.


What did she make?


Hippie clothing.


What was written on her Pink sheet as her inspirations?


"Inspired by Hippies, Flower Power and Hallucinations".


Ahhh I had to laugh.


It was her pictures that cracked me up.


She wore a waistcoat, all tie died and pimped with peace signs. She hid from behind a tree and hung onto it as she spun around.


It has literally, made my month.


It was only the second day of the month but the laugh will continue for much longer.


I LOVED Kristina's creations... Earphone... with a difference.


I'm going to ruin the surprise and say that "The Difference" is that they look like Lollipops! So cool!


Sweet inspired earphones, epic! 


I loved her little gummy bear earphones too, they were cute. I would definitely buy a pair.


Went back to my seat, Kelly had moved on from the Teddy bear head idea, onto shrunken crisp packets. Mucho cool. She's trying to make a bit of jewellery from recycled material, so she was planning on creating a flower out of the shrunken crisp packets.


God knows what's up with my Art class and Shrunken crisp packets, they seem to have a love affair with them.


Also, Lauren hugged me around the neck... Which, as most people will realise, is basically a strangle.

I was hugged tightly, I lost oxygen and I collapsed onto the table.

They thought I was "dead". They laughed as they said it.


LOVE YOU GALS! *rolls eyes* ;)


Claire managed to have a complete fail at Lunch.


The Korma at my school must be AMAZING cause every week Claire buys it and every week, without fail, it spills all over the place.


However, she made a new personal best yesterday.


She managed to spill:


All over her blazer.
All over her tie.
All over her trousers.
All over her shirt
Annnnd... most surprisingly, in her bag...


I asked her if she smothered herself in it, she said yes.


Sarcasm. Gotta love it.


Linzie told me today that they were joking in Geography with her.

LINZIE: *Sniffs* Do you smell something? 

JENNIFER: Yeah, smells like... Korma?

CLAIRE: Shooooshed.

Poor wee toot.

DOUBLE MATHS 

Ahhh my nemesis. This double period comes by so fast.

Dougal wasn't there either.

But that was okay, Power of the Kinder eggs were strong.

Stewart and Jinky were trying to catch the capsule in their mouths by throwing it at eachother.

Maturity is over-rated.

Jinky came really close. Stewart?

Not so much, I initially thought they were doing headers.

I told Sophie that her Art project was back, she seemed to be well chuffed at that. She should be, it was amazing.

Then Calum was telling me about his trick and treater fail...

He only had three trick or treaters, and he had bought a whole costco cake for them.

Problem?

The cake wasn't for Haloween, actually, the only one left was one that said "Congratulations!" 

So they just had to scrape that off.

Coco Cabana was in his head too. Mwahaha, you're turn!

Was talking to Andrew on the way back home, was good, we got talking about Watchmen and Sin City

CONFESSION OF A MOVIE GEEK

I love Comic Book/Graphic Novel movies. Majorly. If I could marry Batman than I would.

ME: It would be awesome if you could dress up as Rorsharch for Haloween... Too bad you can't get the mask.

ANDREW: You can!

ME: No, I mean the one that actually moves.

ANDREW: No, you can get that, it's awesome, they put projectors in the mask, and it starts moving. But obviously, it doesn't look as good as the character.

 Think I have found next year's Halloween costume.


Moved on to...

ME: Surely if you had a costume THAT awesome, you'd wear it every year? "C'mon, you've been wearing that costume every Halloween, give it up, you're Ninety two Grandma!!"

ANDREW: "And Granda should stop being Mr Manhattan too! He's Eighty nine!"

ME: Ewwwwwwwwwww!! Thanks for that, I'll NEVER get that image out of my head...

For those who have not watched Watchmen:

Notice something missing? 

Hint: It's not his hair.

That is Rorschach.

His name originates from the Ink blot tests that are a common association made with psychology.

But his mask moves about.

Cause the FX crew had enough money for that to happen.

Last bit of news for yesterday, Me and Kyle and now calling eachother Meek and Teek, He is a Tech Geek (TEEK) and I am a Movie geek (MEEK)

But his name means something else...

Say hi to Kyle!

Lauren xxx

Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist

Right up front I should probably admit I'm not a fan of these types of movies, it's not that I find them confronting or upsetting but if I were to be truly honest with the exception of Richard Donner's The Omen I find these sort of supernatural / occult thrillers to be pretty silly and that includes the first two Exorcist films, I did see the third film when it was first released on VHS to rent and seem to remember liking it but if asked I couldn't tell you much about it.

I was always curious about seeing Dominion, not because it was a prequel to The Exorcist but because of it's place in film history, Paul Schrader was hired to a prequel to The Exorcist and if memory serves me correctly there was to be no gimmicks like spinning heads and little girls vomiting green pea soup but as the film was nearing completion the producers saw a rough edit of the movie and hated it, the decision was made to bring in Renny Harlin to virtually remake the movie from scratch with the idea of making a much more commercial film, I've only ever seen the first half or Harlin's movie so I can't fairly compare the two movies.

Eventually Dominion was screened at a number of film festivals and received an eventual DVD release and while I have to say the quality of the print used to master the DVD was disappointing with evidence of dirt and some scratches which is pretty shocking for a recently made film I rather enjoyed the actual movie.

Basically Paul Schrader wasn't going to make a traditional horror movie and he was open about it, the movie's producer knew that and at the last moment he changed his mind about the type of movie he wanted to make, it seems odd to me that Morgan Creek were ever interested in producing a movie that was so stylistically different to the other Exorcist movies to begin with but at great expense he went about trying to create a movie that was more appealing to traditional horror fans than Schrader's movie.

What Paul Schrader delivered was a thoughtful movie with well realised characters, the kind of characterisation you almost never see in a Hollywood produced horror movie or indeed in most recent Hollywood productions in general, add to the fact there is virtually no gore or action and I can see why the powers that be at Morgan Creek were worried that the movie might not find it's intended audience but what I can tell you is I enjoyed the movie, the ending was a little weak ( but not silly like most similar themed films ), it was a joy to watch a movie where characterisation mattered over jump cuts, CGI and buckets of blood.

I'm sure Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist isn't to every ones taste but I think it's well worth checking out if you get the chance.

I wish I knew how to quit you.

So after a couple of days worth of moderate play I've finished Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, in terms of story it was fairly predictable right down to the twist ending but that didn't make it any less enjoyable.

This really needs to be developed into a full length game and with The Walking Dead being adapted into a TV series I wonder if this might receive a film or television adaptation as well - I can always hope.