The Ramblings of Adamicus the 3rd

Milli's Fairytale!

2011-09-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Milli's Fairytale

Once upon a time in a far away kingdom called Ireland, there lived a little Scottish lady called Milli.

Milli was a kind soul and loved children and sweet things, so much so that she had her husband Michael make her a house out of sweets.

On a sad day in October, her husband was having dinner when he suddenly exploded. This is how most Irish people die.

Milli was very sad and decided to stay in her house for the rest of her life.

The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months and the months into years. Before she knew it, Milli was now over one hundred years old.

One day, whilst minding her own business, she heard a scratching at her house. “What ever could that noise be?” she wondered aloud to herself and her little cat Mister Morris (who had been dead for some time now due to neglect)

Opening her front door she found two little children eating at her gingerbread walls.

Instead of being angry, Milli was happy to see two sweet little children who had obviously been abandoned and asked them if they wanted to come inside for supper. The children smiled and agreed, as if the lady’s house was made out of nice food; imagine what she had for dinner!

“What are your names?” Milli asked them. The boy cried “Hansel”. The girl cried “Gretel”.
"Well my children, you look very thin, let’s fatten you up with some nice grub”

And so Milli made them a massive feast, with sugar plum ice cream, treacle bacon and custard egg and IrnBru Candyfloss to top it all off!

The children were full to the brim and sat back with massive grins on their respective faces.

For the first time since her husband exploded, Milli was truly happy.

That’s when Hansel pulled out a gun.

“What are you doing?” Asked Milli

“You’re obviously a witch who will bake us into bread” replied Hansel

“Wait, I’m just a lovely old lady” Milli pleaded.

But it was no good, Hansel shot her through the front of the head and she bled out in seconds.

The moral of the story is this:

Don’t build a house made of sweets, or children will kill you.

The Truth about Matt

2011-07-22T03:51:00.000-07:00

18 - The Truth about Matt

It was nice being with Professor Humperdink again as I felt he was my only real friend in this new world I was living in. Every other friend I had was corrupted some way.
Now I was in The Gray Republic, under the "protection" of Emperor Elliot, who was literally a baby in emperor's clothes. My good friend (albeit loopy) Hagley had been disgusted by the fact we had just eaten her sister and had been taken away, where to? I had no idea.

So I found myself in the Emperor's mother's house, which had fallen into disrepair and looked like a house you expected to be haunted.

The inside looked as bad as the outside, there was a large hall with two sets of wooden stairs leading up, one of the set of stairs had collapsed and the other looked like it would go any moment. Cowebs were everywhere and even the dust had dust. JoJo bid us goodnight and went to her chambers upstairs. Luckily, I was situated on the ground floor. For some reason my spidey sense didn't like to be near JoJo.

Matt Warb, a pre-end 28 year old artist who post-end seemed to be pushing two thousand years old, showed me to my room, which had a four poster bed and various portraits of the Gray family.
"I hope this is to your liking Adamicus?" Matt croaked.

"Yeah, it's fine. But look, what the hell happened to you Matt? I mean, you're younger than me and now you're... well, a lot older."

Matt sighed, and leaned on his zimmerframe before telling me his story.

Matt had been celebrating the night before The End, as he had just sold a piece of artwork for a couple of hundred pounds. His comics were starting to pick up in popularity and he had finally met a girl who wasn't crazy, who he had fallen for. Things really couldn't have been better for Matt at this particular moment.
At least he had one last good night before The End. Which is more than can be said for a lot of other people.

The night before The End for me had involved me cleaning up after my wife and...

something is missing.

Where was I? Oh yes, Matt and the morning after the night before.

Well, Matt woke up after The End had happened, so was blissfully unaware of any change happening.
For all of five seconds.

He awoke with a headache but a smile on his face, he'd used the best moves that I'd taught him and pulled the girl he liked. She was in bed with him now. So he turned round and went to say good morning.

However when he turned round, it was no longer the girl, but his mother! I'm actually joking there, it wasn't really, but I still amuse myself with "your mum" jokes when it comes to Matt.
The woman in bed with him was indeed the girl from the night before, but she had inexplicably died when The End happened. Her face was inside out.

Matt rushed out of his room screaming, not minding that he was dangling all over the place as he ran naked from room to room, discovering the other party goers also inside out.
Matt told me he thinks he survived due to all the lead pencils he'd worked with over the years. I told him I thought that was a shit theory, but who knows, maybe he was right?

He went on to tell me that he had gone out looking for other survivors but instead was found by Ray on one of his food hunting missions. Ray and Matt exchanged stories and Matt told Ray about all the dead bodies in his house that could easily be served up to his ever-hungry wife as long as she didn't mind cannibalism. Ray told him that that wasn't a problem.
Matt left Ray and Shav's when he noticed Shav eyeing him up for an entree, and on his journey he bumped into my brother. Matt wouldn't say what happened, no matter how hard I pressed him on it, but just told me that I need to stay away from him at all costs as he'd gone bat shit crazy. I'd find this out for myself in person a little later on.

Shortly after he escaped from my brothers evil clutches he was set upon by rabid badgers. Matt should have died but was saved by Jayme Gray who was out testing his latest contraption (an anti-badger device) They were both overjoyed to see each other and Matt was welcomed to come back with Jayme to their home and he'd been here ever since.

It seemed that something was missing from his story... like where the hell Jayme was? What had aged him prematurely? How had Elliot gotten in charge of this "empire" they've created? But Matt was in no mood for answering questions as a clock struck the hour (which was odd as time isn't working anymore) Matt sighed and went out.

I looked down to Professor Humperdink and told him I had to know what was going on, so we both snuck out of our room and followed Matt. He took his sweet time to get to where he was going, what with moving at speeds a snail would consider to be slow, but in the end he climbed the one good stair case and went into a room where a familiar voice called out "Matt, you took your time!"

It was JoJo in there.

My stomach sank, what the hell was going on!? Was he... you know? I had to find out. So I slowly opened the door, and there they were. I was relieved to find out that it wasn't what I had thought initially thought it was, she was only draining his life force not... well anything else.

JoJo, it seemed, was some kind of Vampire now!

Did you see that coming? I mean, I kinda sign posted it for you with her floating and the way she looked at me like a piece of meat. I actually figured it out when I first saw her at the dinner table and can remember thinking "yup, vampire." If you thought that JoJo was a vampire, then you get ten points. If you get a hundred points you get a prize (I'll tell you where I hid the thingy)

I thought that I'd let them get on with the feeding, so closed the door and turned round to go, but someone was already behind me.

He was skinnier than me, tall and gaunt. His hair was overgrown and grey, and he had a beard that made the dwarves from Lord of The Rings look clean shaven. Behind the beard he had a manic smile and his eyes were wider than a kids on christmas day.

"Adamicus buddy! Elliot told me you were here! Now we can sort this whole mess out!"

and with that, Jayme Gray gave me a large hug and lead me down to his workshop...

Dinner with Shmucks

2011-07-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

17 - Dinner with Shmucks

Another thing to add to the list of things that I took for granted before The End, was depth perception. I used to be able to tell how close stuff was by just looking at it, now that I only have one eye however, it's a combination of guess work and luck.
The Emperor sent me away to get changed into something a little less "pantomime" as I had still been wearing the costume from the show I'd been in. I was taken to a "wing" of the Emperor's Palace which used to be a GAP. I got changed into my "Gap Apparel" and Humperdink lead me back to the table.

Emperor Elliot was strapped into his highchair and cooing to no one in particular. Not having had food with an emperor before I wasn't sure on the correct etiquette so just sat in the nearest mismatched chair.

There was silence for a while as my mind raced to think of something to say to a baby, some kind of common ground we'd have. My childhood came rushing back to me as I thought about what I had done when I was his age. I remembered my mother and father and my big brother and I realised how much I missed them all. I hoped they weren't here, in the post-end world I was living in.

Elliot broke the silence "So... you like sports?"

I didn't. There wasn't any kind of sport I enjoyed that wasn't a computer game version of the real sport. But to avoid the silence that would no doubt happen after I said that I didn't like sports, I decided to lie and told Elliot that indeed I did enjoy sports.

"Who do you support?" he asked, sitting up on his high chair a little and for the first time since I met him, I noticed he had a strange look in his eye. A look that seemed to be daring me to put a foot wrong, I shrugged off my interpretation of Elliot's stare as after all he was just a baby. But... he DID order Myke to kill all the "mutants", so this baby was far from innocent.

So who did I support? I tried to think what teams he would want me to support. I didn't want to say one team, only to find out that he hated that team and would have me killed for supporting them, then again I had no evidence that this was any kind of test where if I said the wrong answer I'd die.

I thought about what team his father supported, The Air Cyans. Maybe Elliot was raised to support them? Or maybe he rebelled against his father, as there was no sign to where the elder Gray was.

"Well?" he asked, sitting further forward in his high chair, raising one eyebrow at me in the process.

"The... Air Cyans." I replied in haste.

Elliot didn't look convinced and was about to say something when a sudden chill fell on the room and seemingly out of nowhere his mother JoJo appeared. She looked very pale, and had died her hair jet black. She looked not unlike Morticia Addams and when she moved, she seemed to float.

"Adamicus, I was so pleased when Ellibear told me you that were still alive" she said in a cool calm voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. I looked down at my cat Humperdink and all of his fur was on end, so at least it wasn't just me.

"Mother, please do not refer to me as "Ellibear" in front of... guests." Elliot replied in an angry tone.

His mother looked at him and laughed a sweet shallow laugh, then sat herself down at the table.

Next to arrive was a friendlier face, it was Hagley, who I'd not seen since I got her. She was on the arm of the disfigured Wolverhamptonite Myke and she couldn't take her eyes of him. She was so in love. Myke nodded at me, bowed before the emperor and then sat down with Hagley opposite me.

"Will father be joining us?" Elliot asked his mother. JoJo, was staring at me at this point, like a dog stares at unguarded food on a table. I had the distinct feeling she wanted to kill and or eat me.

"No, your father is in his workshop..."

"And what of the Godfather?" he replied, going a little red in the face.

"I'm here" said a croaky voice in the corner.

Matt Warb, a very talented artist before The End, walked into the room. He had aged significantly as he was about a hundred years older than the last time I'd seen him and now had a zimmerframe for support. Poor ol' bastard. My hopes of doing a "your mum" joke were dashed straight away as I felt too sorry for him in that moment.

"Well then, we're all here" Elliot surmised.

"Not quite all of us! Or are you forgetting me?" a female voice called out. I looked around and there was no one else in the room with us, well, no humans anyway. Looking down I noticed the Gray's cat Pom sauntering towards us.

She was a beautiful looking cat before The End, and looked even more appealing now. I noticed Professor Humperdink lost his cool and went over to sniff her, she swiped at him and he came running back to me.

"I think she likes me" Humperdink whispered.

Elliot asked me of my adventures so far, what had happened, so I filled him in on my plight. He assured me that I was safe now I was in his domain and that they'd send soldiers to try and find my long suffering lady wife Louise.

Things were perfect... until I complemented Elliot on the pork, to which he told me it wasn't pork, it was the remains of Hagley's half-arachnid sister who Myke had murdered in cold blood.

Nothing is ever what it should be after The End. You have a lovely meal and it's always spoilt with finding out that you're eating a loved one or worse.

Hagley, although happy to finally be reunited with her long lost love Myke, lost all her composure and began shouting at the infant. Elliot was not happy, not happy at all and rang a little bell.

Soldiers appeared from nowhere and dragged Hagley off into another room, I looked to Myke who simply stared at his empty plate. I couldn't believe he let them take her away, and so I demanded to know what was to happen to Hagley!

"She'll be sent to the Tower, and if you have a problem with that, you'll go there too. Now, I want to go in my jump-a-roo for a few hours, Mother see that our guest is properly housed." and with that the little emperor was lifted from his high chair by his mother and put in a bouncy play seat thing which played music and made him giggle.

JoJo floated over to me and told me that I'd be staying with her till my quarters were ready, Professor Humperdink gave me a glance that told me that I'd either wake up dead or not at all if I stayed with JoJo, but I had no other choice, she "insisted".

With that debaucle over, I left with JoJo, Professor Humperdink and the ancient Matt Warb, whilst Myke sat there staring into his plate... planning his next move...

What's App Doc? : Quiz Climber

2011-07-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of games on facebook since my notifications tend to be full of invites to random games that are the equivalent of licking the pavement and paying someone every now and again to put some sherbet on the spot you're licking to add a bit of something to the "game" you're playing.

I had a go of Frontier Ville and realised that it was trying to suck my soul through my arse like an Egyptian mummy in an old peoples home. (Where's Elvis and a black JFK when you need them!?)
However there's a game on the iphone that you can play with people on your facebook list. It's called Quiz Climber and it's a general knowledge quiz that has you (a squirrel) answering question after question to get as high up the (presumably) never ending tree as possible. To spur you on, it shows you were your friends are in relation to you, playing to the competitive persona inside of us all.

It's a nice looking game that reminds me of the cutesy graphics in a Happy Tree Friend cartoon minus the gory gory bloodshed.

The questions start off pretty simple, but get tricky the further you go up. There's no Phone a friend or ask the audience options on this, you have one life.... unless... unless you spend some money and buy yourself extra lives.
So, that kind of goes against the whole point of it surely? I mean, a smart person with no extra lives could get high, but potentially a dumb person with lots of lives could get even higher? Well, they've got to pay for their work somehow. Fret not however as each time you finish a game of this, your correct answers add to a bar that when completed give you a gift of a free life to use whenever you so wish.
You can pick up Quiz Climber for free (with adds) or for £1.49 without. It's a pretty good quiz game and the added competitive scores of friends will add some extra life to it. If you're on my facebook, expect an invite to this coming your way.

Emperor Gray

2011-07-08T01:58:00.000-07:00

16 - Emperor Gray

I'd been knocked out (yet again) by someone I used to consider as a "nice person". Myke, the Wolverhampton partner of my crazed companion Hagley, was no longer a "nice person" as he had killed Hagley's arachnoid sister and the other mutants that I'd been "performing" with in pantomime.

So what happened to him?

He, Hagley, Molly and Irish, had all been together when The End happened. For those who can't remember, didn't read, or can't be arsed to go back and read, when The End happened everything went dark and the four of them had stuck together to try and get out of town as everything had gone bat shit crazy.
On their way out of town they encountered gigantic insects that carried Irish off and stung Molly, making her head swell, her neck elongate and her skin to turn purplish. Also it made her really docile and odd looking. Myke, thinking he could use the years of survivalist skills he'd picked up over the years, decided to go after Irish whilst Hagley looked after Molly in a school they had found shelter in.

Myke didn't find Irish, but instead got caught in a "rain storm" and rain these days is made from fire. He lost half of his face (the good half) and now didn't looked more like Jeff Goldbloom from The Fly, then he did Ryan Reynolds from... any movie with Ryan Reynolds in.

(Jeff Goldbloom is still alive by the way, he's now the president of what was once called America and is now called Jeff Goldbloom Land, I don't know Ryan Reynolds fate but a pretty boy like him is probably somebody's bitch)

Myke became disorientated and wandered into some woods that were full of Badgers. (Badgers being the deadliest predator in the woods) It didn't take long for them to find him and surround him. Myke would have been a dead man had it not been for an intervention by Elliot Gray, the ruler of the Gray empire, and now my host.

I awoke to the feel of sandpaper against my face. I opened my eyes to see my cat Professor Humperdink licking me awake. I'd totally forgotten about the posh cat and was so glad to see a familiar face, even though it was feline. I hugged him tightly till he wiggled free of my grip

"I'm glad to see you too old chap, did you find the other mother?"
He was of course referring the my long suffering lady wife Louise, who was lost to me after The End. I felt ashamed, as the Panto had taken over my life, I'd not even thought about her since the first night of "Robinson Crusoe 2"
I told him I'd still not had any luck and he looked a little glum at that news. He was always very fond of Louise, as was my other cat Simba. Professor Humperdink, I noticed, was wearing a little grey cape and had a little grey cap on his head. The room I was in smelt of strong spices, and was decorated in black and red striped wallpaper that made me feel a bit queasy if I looked at it too long. I asked my cat what happened, where I was and how he got here.

He told me about the Gray soldiers finding them at the school and that Molly, he and Simba had been taken to see Emperor Gray. The Emperor wasn't fond of "mutants" but Molly made him laugh so she was appointed official Jester. Elliot allowed to the cats to stay as long as they joined his growing army of soldiers. Simba had been on the front lines at the battle of Daventry and Professor Humperdink hadn't seen him since.

Humperdink then told me that we were in one of the Emperor's many "houses", which used to be a Nandos, and that Elliot had asked to see me.
"What's he like, Elliot?" I asked. I hadn't seen Elliot since he was a baby so I guessed that since The End he had suddenly grown into a man, as time does all manner of things these days.

"Well, he's... It's best if you see for yourself."

So, I was lead, by my cat, out of the Nando's house I had awoke in, and out onto the streets of Norfamtonne.

Things had changed a lot since I was last here, as all around the high street there were large grey banners with "Long Live Gray" written on them. The streets were full of market stalls and people browsing. It seemed that "society" had survived after all!

We walked for a while through the crowds and after a short time we came upon the Imperial Palace, which was a series of shops all merged into one. The golden arches of McDonalds were still visible under lots of grey paint.

In the "foyer" there was amazing pieces of artwork that I recognised straight away as my friend Matt Warb's handiwork. So this looked as though he had made it through the end too, I was looking forward to meeting him, even if it was just so I could do a joke about his mum for old times sake.

We walked up some stairs and into a large room. There was a huge dining table stretched across the width of the room and several mismatched chairs around it. The table was piled high with various foods and it all looked and smelt amazing. The seats were all empty except for a high chair in the middle, and sitting in that little chair was a baby. A baby named Elliot, who somehow, was the ruler of all that I had walked past.

Humperdink who just shrugged at me. Cat's shrugging is pretty odd to observe by the way. I stood for some time looking at the little fellow before he decided to speak up.

"You were a friend of my fathers I seem to recall" His voice, by the way, was booming and very deep. He sounded not unlike Brian Blessed.

"I am, Elliot"

"Then you shall dine with me, me and my whole family. Please, help yourself to a change of clothes and come back after you've changed."

For a moment, I forgot that he had ordered the deaths of several "mutants" I had befriended. Anyone who is kind to me after The End, is usually wanting to kill me, enslave me, eat me or wear my skin as a suit, but I didn't fear the Baby Emperor, after all, he was just a baby.

That belief, that he couldn't harm me, or wouldn't, cost me my eye.

The Absurd Practical Joke

2011-07-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

My long suffering lady wife Louise and I were having a conversation the other day about baby photo books. We've got a lovely baby book off of our good friend Pope, but Louise was also wanting to get a photo album.

My brain is like god. It moves in mysterious ways. (and to an aethist, doesn't exist)

Louise had stated that she'd like to have a photo album that our child could look back at when my brain suddenly came out with an idea. I considered the idea for all of five nanoseconds before I dismissed it as ridiculous.

But I did share the thought with her however, and now, as my loyal reader(s), I shall submit the idea to you so that maybe you could use it instead or dismiss it as the lunacy that it is.

I proposed that we get a photo album and take lots of pictures like my long suffering lady wife Louise had suggested, however, at the same time we get pictures of an Asian family with a Caucasian baby and fill up another baby book.

Then one day, we tell them. We're not their real parents, and out comes the baby book with the Asian family. We then get them to pack up some luggage for a fortnight and tell them we're taking them to stay with their real parents for two weeks. Then when we get to the airport we tell them that we're all going to Disney World instead!

Price of a photo-album: £15
Holiday to Disney World: £600
The Look on their face as it dawns on them that you are the worst parent ever: Priceless
For everything else there's social services.

So yeah, really not a good idea at all, and honestly I'd never do something like that to anyone, but it does make me worry that somehow my brain fired that idea off to me. I think I need to get it examined.

Curtain Call

2011-07-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

15 - Curtain Call

The feeling you get when an audience appreciates what you've done is the best drug money can't buy. It's a high you can't feel any other way and it's more addictive than a packet of your favourite biscuits.

This "high" had entranced both myself and Hagley for some time. Those "happy" days of theatre life all mingle into one when I try and think about it now, probably as a defence mechanism that my brain uses to block out painful or just plane crazy sights.

So, we'd been working in the theatre day in day out, eating the grey gloop that was provided and getting a standing ovation from a crowd of floating faces and all those thoughts we'd once had about finding loved ones had disappeared. We were "happy". Except that was an act too. When it came down to it, we were prisoners, forced to do the bidding of the floating brains in jars or be vaporised for our insubordination!

Now Panto season comes to a close, and what a bloody finale I have for you.

It was a night like any other and myself and Hagley were oblivious to what was coming our way. You see whilst we were in the bubble of the Theatre, some other developments had happened outside our four walls.

My old pal Molly, the freak with the elongated neck, purplish skin and currently guardian of my two talking cats, had been discovered and "Rescued" by a powerful force that had arisen. They'd told their "saviours" what had happened (as Simba had seen us be captured, but was too much of a pussy-cat to do anything about it) and they reported this back to their leaders.

The new force decided to stage a rescue attempt as both myself and Hagley were known to their leaders from the before The End times.

It was the first time I encountered The Gray Republic, and I should have known from their no-nonsense approach to their mission to "save" us, that things weren't as "friendly" as they appeared. My god I'm using a lot of quotation marks.

Hagley and I were halfway through our performance of our Glee style mash up of "Gold Digger" and "Purple Rain" in the panto Aladdin and The Beanstalk when suddenly the lights went out. There was silence for a few moments and the audience started getting restless.

The silence didn't last long, as the left hand side of the theatre exploded and what I can only describe as grey coloured stormtroopers from Star Wars, came crashing through opening fire on the audience. The directors fought back of course, using the lasers that had vaporised so many cast members and hopeful auditionees in their time. It was a bloody battle, but the Gray's won it.

The Audience were dead when in walked someone I'd not seen in a long time. I noticed The End had not been kind to him as his walked over to me dressed in grey armour that had seen more action than a pretty prostitute. I didn't recognise him at first as the left side of his face was badly burnt, but when he smiled I realised to my horror who it was. He spoke with his Wolverhampton accent "Alrite Hagley, did yow miss me?"

It was Hagley's boyfriend Myke. I looked at her and she fainted, an effect that I have on women, but today it was down to it being the return of her long thought dead partner. I too was happy to see him but my happiness wasn't long lived as Hagley's sister scuttled over to see him with her freakish spider legs.

"Myke, you're alive! Thank god"

In one move he pulled out a pistol and shot her through the head. "Kill all the freaks, orders are orders"

"Who's orders?" I asked in defiance.

"Under the orders of Emperor Gray!" he replied.

I knew who he was talking about, my friends Jayme and JoJo Gray. I wondered what had become of the Grays to make them so Anti-Mutant.

"I'm sure Jayme wouldn't want you to go killing people he knows, he knew Hagley's sister!"

Myke looked at me gone out and then said "I don't work for Jayme or JoJo you fool. I work for The Emperor"

My mind raced, if not Jayme or JoJo, then who? So I asked him.

"If not Jayme or Jojo, then who!?"

"Why Elliot of course... their son. Our illustrious leader!"

The last time I'd see Elliot, he was but a baby, however now he was in charge of this militia who were systematically killing off mutants! One of the soldiers went to shoot Leo, I tried to stop him and got knocked out.

When I awoke, I was a guest of Emperor Elliot and all was not well...

Deadly Premonition : The Review

2011-06-29T03:00:00.000-07:00

Due to the fact that most of the people who read this blog wouldn't know what a Goomba is, I don't tend to write reviews on computer games, however today is an exception as I review Deadly Premonition.

I'd first heard of this title several years ago when it was called Rainy Woods. The trailer looked like a love letter to Twin Peaks and I couldn't wait to play it. Then I learnt is was an American release only, great sadness for Adamicus's Xbox 360 then!

However, they changed the name to Deadly Premonition and I got this game last year sometime.

I have tried to review this game for sometime now, but it's really hard to put my thoughts and feelings down onto paper or in this case on the keyboard. It's down to the fact that Deadly Premonition, isn't a game. Yet it isn't a film. It's a interactive experience that transcends what I would consider to be a mild form of entertainment to a work of art that absorbed me body and soul into it's narrative.

I can honestly say that I've never played a "game" like it. On completion of the game I simply turned off my console and sat there, processing the last few moments of the thrilling conclusion in both abject horror and biter sweet happiness. It was a few days before I played a game again as I really felt emotionally drained.
Just to be clear, as a game, this is far from perfect. But as an experience there truly is nothing else like it out there.

There won't be spoilers in this due to my respect for the source material and not wanting to ruin the journey for any of you who decide to play this.

So, what the hell is Deadly Premonition? Well I'd define it as a 3rd Person Psychological Horror.

The set-up is simple: In the town of Greenvale, a local girl has been murdered and the FBI have decided to bring in it's finest, Special Agent Francis "York" Morgan, to help solve it. But that truly is just the surface, and the idyllic town soon shows it's true colours as another girl is murdered.

The main character, Francis "York" Morgan, is an enigma from the get go. He breaks the fourth wall on several occasions referring to you as "Zach". The other characters in the game notice this but he always tells them not to ask him about Zach. When you're driving around in your car, York will begin to talk to you about films from the 80's. Even asking you questions about films and his opinion on it. It's not that dissimilar to American Psycho, where Bateman is talking about music seconds before burying an axe into a guys head. York is brash, impolite at points, untrustworthy of everyone and superstitious, he also has a mysterious past to add to his repertoire.

So he's a bit of an oddball, which is good news as the rest of the town is full of them. From Thomas a sheriff's deputy who is just a little camp to Sigourney the "pot" lady who is always worried that her pot will get cold to Harry Stewart a wheelchair bounded millionaire with a skull gas mask over his face. They're all weirdo's, except Emily, the lady police officer who seems to be the only normal person in town and also York's love interest.

The killer is known as "The Raincoat Killer" which is a pretty cool name and Raincoat looks pretty cool in a red raincoat, glowing eyes and an axe he takes around with him. He's not the only baddy you'll be facing as for some reason, when it rains and at night and in places where you're on your own, Greenvale becomes populated with zombies. Not just regular zombies, these guys literally bend over backwards like they're in the world limbo championships. They move slowly then suddenly speed up, also they have a weird blur surrounding which is a great visual effect when they appear. If they catch you, they don't eat your brains, instead they force their hand down your throat. It's pretty f**ked up. They can also take quite a beating, with several bullets before they finally go down. They can carry weapons sometimes and then there's the really annoying one that looks like the girl from The Ring. She's a bit of a mini boss and keeps turning up. She takes FOREVER to kill, which gets annoying when at one point, you're facing 3, one after another.

There's a lot to do in Greenvale and you're encouraged to take your time with the case. You can go fishing, play darts, take part in time trials, investigate Mystery spots where you can unlock new weapons, do side missions that reveal more about the characters and plot and collect cards that are scattered all over the place.
You've also got a map that has the location of everyone in Greenvale, so you can follow their movements. I had a particular disturbing discovery about one of the characters when I "peeked" through their window and found them doing something really really odd.

The game play is very much rinse and repeat. You goto a location, a cut scene happens, you investigate the location and then are on your own when zombies attack, here you'll also encounter Raincoat and have an on rails chase scene before uncovering the clues to lead you to the next location. The driving isn't great as your car feels pretty sluggish and the combat is dull. There's no multiple choice questions you can ask when you're speaking to someone either.

However, the narrative truly is the star. I played Deadly Premonition and from the get go I was hooked. York Morgan was like an old friend by the end, and the final act of the game got me quite emotional. I was awe struck with certain moments, laughing along with others and truly gobsmacked with the finale.

All this and for a low low price. Deadly Premonition is a budget title and you can currently pick it up for about £12.00. Also it's coming to Xbox Games On Demand service, so if you have a big enough hard drive and the price isn't too bad, it's well worth the investment. Especially if you like Twin Peaks.

It won't be everyone's cup of tea but for those of you who it strikes a chord with, play it till completion then tell me if you agree. SWERY, the creator is hoping to make a prequel, and I for one am hoping that too. More mainstream games should focus as much on the plot and characters as SWERY did as I've not come close to playing a game that can beat Deadly Premonition's emotional investment.

Well there you have it. Only took me over a year to get some of my thoughts about this seminal game down on this blog. Your current program of randomness will resume soon.

What's App Doc? : Mos Speedrun

2011-06-29T01:29:00.000-07:00

Okay so for those of you who have the ability to purchase and play Apps to your hearts content, here's a little focus on a few Apps you may or may not know about that I would recommend.

Today, it's MOS SPEEDRUN (£1.19)

This is a cool little game where you control a character who looks like he's escaped Dr. Moreau's island unscathed. You control said mutant as you try and get from the start of a stage to the end (The end of a stage is a red letterbox... I'm not kidding) whilst avoiding zombies, bees, spikes, fireballs, drowning and other obstacles.

The controls are simple you have Left and Right in the bottom left corner and an Up arrow for jumping in the bottom right. The controls are quite responsive and your fingers don't obscure what's going on (like they can do in a lot of other apps)

Each stage has four medals to get. One for completing it, one for collection all the coins in the stage, one for collecting a hidden mask and one for doing it under a certain time (hence the title Speedrun) There are 25 stages in total split over 5 levels and become unlocked as you get medals for completing stages.

The music in the game sounds like what music will be like in the year 4000, when Japanese Robots have conquered the world, got bored and decided to organise a rave.

When you die, and you will, you start the stage again, however you will be joined by the ghost of your last attempt, complete with seeing your past self impaled on the same spike that killed you. The graphics fit well with the old school style of the game and each stage has a particular theme. One little thing I do enjoy is the zombies walk around with a sad look on their face, but if they kill you they smile, so at least they're happy. Your little ladybird mutant has four costumes to choose from, one is a bee costume which makes him look even more f**ked up so I tend to wear that the most.

Like most of these seemingly simple games, the difficulty does ramp up as you play, so be warned.

All in all it's a fun title that has a lot of replay value all for £1.19 or try the "lite" version for free.

Promises Promises

2011-06-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

There will be a new blog, relating to my Journal of A Post Apocalyptic Office Drone soon I promise you. I'm just spending the free time I DO have putting the final touches to Edward Lobe : Dead Before Dawn before it's sent off somewhere (a landfill probably)

I'll be a father next month and imagine that most of my free time will then be absorbed by family rather than random posts/films. It's been a busy few months for me hence why this blog is gathering dust. It makes me sad to think that there's at least 1 person who reads this and won't have anything to read for a while and I don't want to lose my one reader now do I!?

So when I get an hour to myself I'll write a few Journals in advance and stagger them like me on a Saturday night.

In other news I've finished writing a short film called "Mobius Man" that will be filmed this summer. It's the horror equivalent to Ground Hog Day. It reads like an episode from the twilight zone which is what I was hoping.

We've pretty much cast the next to Edward Lobe films, with the BRILLIANT Izzy Paige and Scott Noble coming on board.

And finally there are 3 new Stoopid Studios projects which I'm writing/have written.

Contingency - A comedy about an emergency contingency planning committee set in the same "world" as my post apocalyptic journal blog

Foley Falls - A psychological horror about four men searching for a missing girl, but whilst they search for her in the woods, something searches for them.

The Disappearance of Terrence Fledwick - Okay, this is going to be a mind-f**k. I've had some crazed ideas in my time, but this takes the soggy biscuit and everything that goes on top of it. In this film the fourth wall will be demolished and the whole thing will be a mess of plot threads, characters and intrigue.

Well, that would probably also go a long way to show you that I HAVE been writing... just not on my blog :(

With that, I should go and feed the cyclops in the cellar (not a euphemism for my penis) as he is getting hungry. I do promise I'll update this blog with something a bit tasty soon.

Ciao!

More Stoopid Studio News

2011-06-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

Stoopid Studios have a new website after our last website gained sentience and began to bid on ebay.

www.stoopidstudios.weebly.com

I'll be diverting my time between this page (which is gathering dust and I'm sure my readers no longer visit due to large gaps between updates) and the stoopid studios page.

We've got two more Lobe films coming and a slew of ideas that will hopefully come to fruition. I've also got back my good lady's laptop which had the only surviving footage of ENDLESS SETLIST which maybe someday will be compiled and aired, stranger things have happened.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Journal, which you've probably stopped reading now. It will be finished and will be worth the wait (hopefully you'll think so too)

In other news, I'll be a dad very soon and am very excited to be able to have a miniature version of me to annoy and plague with my pointless conversations.

Ciao for now homo sapiens!

16 - Opening Night

2011-05-27T03:04:00.000-07:00

16 Opening Night

We rehearsed for the Panto for 2 hours. That's all the time we had before the "audience" would arrive. To say I was a little under-prepared would be a down rite lie. I had never been so un-prepared for something since my GCSE's.

Before I knew it, it was time for our performance and I couldn't tell if the butterflies in my stomach were there because I was nervous about performing in front of an audience for the first time in a long time or if I had butterflies because if my performance wasn't up to scratch I'd be vaporised.

My Pre-End dreams were quite nice compared to the ones I suffer each night in this nightmarish reality, however one of the reoccurring ones I had in my past was about going onto a theatre stage with no idea of my lines or what I was doing. I always thought, in my dream, how has it come to this? How has the director let me get to this point? But here I was. About to live my dream, which was really more of a nightmare thinking about it.

I stood in the wings as music began to play from the pit, all coming from musical instruments that had no one playing them of course. The music they were playing, I'd never heard before, and then the curtains opened to reveal our "chorus" or "ensemble" if you're trying to give them a fancy name.

Remember, I'd not seen the chorus, I'd been in a room for two hours with a half spider, a man made of stone, a singer who couldn't sing and a transvestite, trying to come up with a show to perform. In reality we only came up with a loose plot as an hour and a half was taken up with Ben Orlock, the man of stone, regaling us with a story about when he played the King of Hearts. So these Chorus members, were all new to me. I didn't even know we had a chorus.

The chorus consisted of various lobotomised individuals, including Farren (who had been sitting in the corner of the rehearsal room) wearing his fancy Bermuda shorts. The curtain had been up several minutes before the chorus began to move. They did a little dance (if you can call it that) and then scarpered off.

For several moments the stage was empty. I looked into the other wings and saw all the other cast members looking both confused and scared, all thinking the same thing. Who would be the first to go on? I'd like to say that I had the balls to make the first move, but it was the guy without any balls who did. Leo East, the widow Twanky.

I've got to hand it to him, he was amazing. He had obviously been doing this for a long time and I think the fact he now believed that he was no longer acting, but was in fact the widow Twanky helped his performance. The Audience were laughing and cheering at the correct moments and it made me relax a little bit.

Next on came the hero of the piece, Jack. played by Izzy Book. Izzy, as I had stated, used to be fantastic. Used to be. This girl began her song and my brain nearly liquidized. It was the most shrill, awful, and downright spine tingling noise I'd ever heard. Ever wake up to hear cats having sex? They make a noise that is creepy and painful at the same time. The vocals that came from Izzy made me want to go out and buy a CD of cat sex noises, it was that bad.

But she was applauded! My god, they loved her! I couldn't quite get over this, and once again I relaxed. If they liked that, then I was sure they'd like me. But next came the daughter, played by Hagley's half-arachnid sister, Jaki. I heard someone shout "My god, what is it!?" before hearing a noise that was that someone being vaporised. (Audience participation is mandatory, but only at the allotted moments)

I had to take my hat off to Jaki, if I'd been wearing one I mean, as even though her spider legs were vomit inducing to look at, they made her a great dancer. The tap number she did would have made Fred Astair look like a drunk-hobo on a podium at a nightclub.

They cleared the stage and the villain came on, Ben Orlock. His first scene, lasted an hour. AN HOUR! As he repeated his lines over and over and over and over and over and over again. I was about to drift off when I realised it was mine and Hagley's time to shine (or die)

She squeezed my hand and smiled at me, this whole event had cleared her insanity for a moment it seemed, and we went onto the stage.

When you're on a stage, it sometimes hard to see the audience thanks to the bright lights from the lighting rig, but there were no lights in this production, so I could see the auditorium was full of smiling faces. No bodies, just faces. Scary scary faces, like something the BBC would have rejected for a Dr. Who episode as they were too scary.

For a moment, Hagley and I just stood there looking at them. Their smiles slowly dropped and the look of joy on their faces seemed to be being replaced by anger. We had to do something, and do it fast. Hagley began and before I knew it we had them laughing their socks (impossible as they didn't have them) off.

That's all I remember about that first night, the following nights all merged into one and Hagley and I had been performing for the best part of four months (pre-end time) before we were rescued from the trance we'd fallen into. But our escape wasn't easy, and a lot of good people died.

On that note, I'm heading off to bed. Hopefully I'll survive to continue this tale...

How I (nearly) died.

2011-04-22T03:24:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, I nearly died.

That's not an exaggeration on my part, it's an actual fact.

It was a sunny morning outside, birds were singing, children were playing and chavs were drinking. I could see all of it from the safety of my freezing cold house. It's strange but if you stay inside on a sunny day, in my house anyway, it's actually really cold! But when you step outside the front door it's boiling. Probably all those dead people that are buried under my house making it as cold as it is... anyway....

I was home alone and was eating the breakfast of champions, that is Nutella on Toast with a cup of tea. I love, by the way, how on the back of the Nutella jar it states that Nutella is actually good for you as it has 2 whole hazelnuts in each portion you apply to your toast. Yeah, Nutella is the corner stone of any healthy diet, any nutritionist will tell you that!

So as there was nothing on the television to zone out to, I went into my study and put on Youtube, and to my delight they had 10 O'clock Live one, which is something I enjoy to watch. (Except when they stumble over the lines they're reading off of their Autocue. Here's looking at you Mitchell!)

Men cannot Multi-Task, that's science! However I threw caution to the wind and decided to watch, eat and drink at the same time. I did however do an extra something, I decided to breathe. Which on it's own isn't a bad thing, but when you're simultaneously drinking and eating, it's not advisable... as I was about to find out.

A piece of Nutella laden became lodged in my throat, and I lost the ability to breath. Panic set in, as did the blood rushing to my head. This isn't the first time I've nearly died. When I was enjoying white-water rafting on a river in Turkey, I nearly drowned, so I'd already had the whole life flashing before my eyes but this time was different. This time I was thinking "Great, so this is how you die. This is how Adamicus the 3rd will go out. Choked to death on toast!"

There are worse fates I guess, however this was a pretty nasty one. My thoughts went to that of my Long Suffering Lady Wife and Mother To Be Louise, what of her and our little unborn child. What would happen to them? If I wasn't around, who would mess up that child's life!?

I staggered out of the study and decided to go seek help, I was thinking quite clearly for a man who couldn't breathe, which I'm impressed with if I do say so myself. If my front door had of been locked... I'd not be writing this blog right now, but luckily it had been left open when Louise had left for work that morning.

I could feel myself turning purple as I got onto the pavement and scanned the streets for people and luckily a random guy could see my particular colour wasn't quite normal and came over to help. With a few sturdy slaps to the back from the good Samaritan, that piece of toast flew from my throat and landed limply in the grass. The colour went from my face and I thanked the man who simply said "No worries" and walked off.

I'd like to say I have a different view on life now, I'd like to say I'm going to live every day like it's last. But instead I'm carrying on as normal. In fact after I nearly died, do you know what the first thing I did was?

I went up stairs and carried on doing what I did before, but this time eating smaller morsels of toast.

What an idiot.

Return of the Journal

2011-04-21T02:36:00.000-07:00

Return of the Journal

Well, hello stranger! It's only taken me what I can only guess was several months to get this flaming journal back!

I'd been sleeping you see, something that I don't tend to do much for fear of being eaten, killed, captured or eaten. Somehow I'd managed to sleep through the alarm, which consisted of a bottle of ketchup (there are loads of them littering the streets for some reason) perched on the top of a bookcase in my shack. I knock it over just before I go to sleep underneath it, and usually by the time the ketchup has run out the bottle and hit me on the face, it's morning.

So sleeping through the alarm meant that I was covered in Ketchup. When I awoke I thought I had been attacked, and it took me a few minutes to stop running around my shack before I realised that my blood smelt exactly like the ketchup that was my alarm clock.

Looking around I realised instantly that something was amiss, due to the fact that my things were missing. But they hadn't left me completely empty handed, oh no, they'd done a massive dump by the door. I swore on that dump that I'd have my revenge!!

Without this journal, my mind started to get worse and worse. I think writing about what has happened to me and my loved ones and my not so loved ones, is helping me to cope with the utter pointlessness of the situation... who knows?

I kinda blacked out and when I came too I was madder than a blind man at a strip show... It was then I realised I'd killed another person, but I couldn't, and still don't, remember who it was... I'm sure it'll come back to me. I think whoever it was, was the person who had my journal, as that was what I was holding in my hands!

My sanity, or whatever you can call sanity these days, seemed to return to me and I decided straight away to find a pen/pencil/chalk/blood/poo to write an entry!

Oh, I've missed you my little companion, and you'll be glad to know I found one of the former to write this entry in with.

Well, I need to look over where I'd got to so I can get you to where I am now, eventually...

Apologies from Adamicus the 3rd

2011-03-31T14:47:00.000-07:00

Well the title says it all really.

I've not been able to update this blog with any substantial info in some time, due to a million and one things going on with me at the moment. By the time I've gotten home and had dinner after work, I just want to vegetate, and my weekends at the moment are being planned out for me.

Fear not! Some more content will be shat from my cranium for you to mull over as soon as I get a free chance to brain shite.

Till then, I hope you're not dead.

Meet The Cast

2011-02-25T05:30:00.000-08:00

Meet The Cast

You may have noticed that I've not updated my journal in a while. It's kinda hard in this post apocalyptic wasteland, to find five minutes to collect your thoughts, let alone write down what happened what seems years ago.

I've been busy, surviving. That's really just an excuse though isn't it, I may as well be honest with you. The Panto season was a very low point in a life full of low points. It kind of depresses me thinking about back then, but at the same time it does make me feel a bit better about the situation I'm in now. Sure it's bad, what with my every waking minute being haunted by my past mistakes and failures, but at least I wasn't doing Panto.

So, I left it where I'd just listened to whatever it was The Directors had told me about their messed up sob story of what had happened to them after The End.

Hagley and I followed the snivelling Pally Arvin through a myriad of corridors before winding up at a rehearsal room.

"Now..." Pally started "I'd like to introduce you to the rest of the cast, be nice now." and with that, he flung open the door to the rehearsal room and in we walked, not sure what to expect. Of course I was pretty sure I'd know 90% of the people here, but I was wrong. I actually knew 100% of the people there, or I did before The End.

Including Pope and myself it was a cast of six people. Leo East, an intelligent and witty chap before the end, was now reduced to being Widow Twanky. I say "being" as he had been acting for The Directors so long that the lines between reality and pantomime had merged into one, as far as Leo was concerned, he was Widow Twanky. The others weren't as obviously effected by The End, but I would learn soon that they had their own issues.

Then the part of the lead male, who was always played by a woman (Panto was messed up before The End!) was being performed by Izzy Book who was a great singer before The End, but that changed believe you me. The villain of the piece was played by a brummy called Ben Orlock, whose skin had turned to stone, along with his personality, and he'd spend hours telling you the same story over and over again.

Finally there was the love interest, who was none other than Hagley's younger sister Jaki. As soon as Hagley saw what was left of her sister, her mind became clear once more and she ran over and embraced her. I think Hagley was there for a whole minute before she noticed that her sister was now part arachnid. Jaki's top half was as it used to be, but her torso went into a horrible spider body complete with eight legs spindly legs.

I still remember with great sadness Hagley and Jaki's reunion. They were both happy and in despair at the same time. Hagley moved away from her sister, a horrified look of dreadful comprehension filled her face, and then Hagley just held her sister even tighter and cooed that "everything will be alright" If only she had of been correct as everything would not be alright.

"Right!" Pally almost sung out these words "It's time for rehearsals!"

As if under mind control, the four others took there places, and waited for us to join them. Hagley looked at me, and I looked at her, both of us wondering the same thing.

"Where's the script?" I asked Pally.

"Well, they used to have a script writer, but The Directors found that each pantomime was exactly the same as the last one, that all the writer had done was change the characters names. This wouldn't do, so they vaporised him and then decided to get the actors to improvise. If it's not funny, or the story doesn't make sense, well, you get vaporised. It's pretty good theatre."

The last time I had been in a pantomime was when I was about eight, and I'd played Polly the Parrot in Robinson Crusoe. The highlight of my performance was sitting at the front of the stage picking a hole in my tights as I was in a world of my own. I'd seen the theatre's pantos over the years due to friends like Ray being in them, but never really paid attention to what happened in it, I was too busy watching that people didn't steal the dog's bone or clamoring for the thrown sweets. But at least we had rehearsals so we could get it practice and come up with something.

"Ok everybody" Pally bellowed "We're going to open this show up with a dance routine, so just follow me."

Pre-End music, as it's called today (Post-End music usually is made from human screams) began playing out of speakers hidden in the room, and Pally began to show us the dance.

I had thought he wasn't a very good dancer, but The End had changed him, or he'd gotten good since I last saw him, and I mean very good. He was the best dancer that has ever lived, but he was a lousy teacher.
He did a string of a thousand moves and then clapped his hands and the music turned off.

"Hope you remember that for opening night!" He chirped

"When's that!?" I replied

"Tonight of course!" was the response, and he walked out the door.

"Come along you two" Leo in his widow Twanky voice cried "We've got to get this spot on or we'll end up like poor old Farren"

With that he pointed to the corner of the room, where a plump kid in Bermuda shorts looked blankly back at me.

"What's a Farren?" Hagley asked.

Jaki's spider legs moved her to her sister as she said "That weird kid, that's Farren. He was supposed to be having tea with the Vicar before The End, but he got roped into doing a panto. He was awful, and The Directors thought he was so bad, that instead of vaporising him, they removed his brain and replaced it with sawdust. He just sits there... staring."

"Jaki" I asked "Why the hell are you a spider"

"Shud up" Orlock pitched in "Weev not got tyme fur all thiss, weev got yan audiance!"

"That handsome man is right of course" Leo as Twanky, interjected "let's make this the best panto ever!"

I couldn't believe, yet again, how my luck had ran out. My thoughts about my wife, family, cats and friends once again resurfaced. I couldn't spend the next who knows how long, doing productions of improvised mania! I needed to get out of there. Izzy Book put her hand on my shoulder and with the deepest voice you've ever heard, told me "Don't worry man, it'll be alright on the night"

Spoiler alert, but very soon, there's a lot of death.

Still no internetz

2011-02-13T03:00:00.000-08:00

Aloha, it feels like ages since I updated this blog and a lot has happened. I've started a new job, seen more films and written more Joapaod!

Hopefully I'll be able to sort out my internetz later on today and update y'all midweek :)

Hope you're well and not worried about the upcoming mass ejections from the sun!

The Brain's Backstory

2011-02-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

The Brain's Backstory

"Well I can only imagine what you must be thinking" a camp disembodied voice said to Hagley and I as we stared uncomfortably into the jars that contained the floating brains that were The Directors.

"Let me explain..." which the floating brain in a jar went on to do in a grand over the top fashion, but I can honestly say I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been, and certain tidbits of information may have been lost in the recesses of my brain somewhere, so I'll tell you what I can remember.

When The End happened, The Directors were having an emergency meeting at the Theatre, as the Theatre was going through a particularly bad spell. In fact it was hemorrhaging money due to the new 3D SuperPlex-Cinema that had recently opened in town.

After several ideas as to how to draw in a crowd, they were interrupted by The End! The Directors heads expanded until their brains exploded out of the top and began to float about. Floating around as a brain wasn't easy and they found that dirt and fluff started to cling to them, so they made the technical crew that were still about, make them large jars so they could float about without worry of attracting anything to their new soft forms.

They weren't just floating brains however, as they had discovered that they had gained psychic powers and began to use these powers to seek out other living beings and draw them to the Theatre. At first, these people were helped by The Directors, as it became public knowledge pretty fast that there was a group of Chavs abducting people (Ray and Shav's chavs to be precise), so the people who came to The Directors were allowed to stay in the relative safety of the Theatre.

One day The Directors thought of a great morale boosting idea. "Why not put on a show for these people?" and they did just that. They got everyone involved and they all had a great time to begin with... but after a few months, people began feeling safe again and wanted to leave the Theatre. The Directors had always wanted a captive audience and so they began to use their powers to keep the people there against their wills.

There were several escape attempts made, like Chris Haze (A small fella I knew) He had broken into wardrobe and made himself a pair of wings, got onto the roof of the Theatre and jumped off to fly to freedom. Unfortunately he fell to his death and his body was stuffed and mounted backstage to warn anyone else that if they tried anything, they would face the same fate.

Food became scarce, but the directors were able to secrete a disgusting substance from their brains, which was high in essential nutrients. So everyone had to eat whatever the hell that stuff was or they'd starve. Personally I don't know which is a worse fate, eating some unknown gloop from a floating brain or starving to death.
Fast forward a few months and most of the original people had become exhausted from the constant performances or dead, so The Directors began a search for new talent, and that had lead them to finding Hagley and I.

After that back story, we were brought back to the painful reality that three floating brains were forcing us to perform in their pantomime, like a couple of performing monkeys who could sing and dance. Any objection was futile, as they could and would kill us at any time they wished, so we both agreed to just go along with it for the time being.

"That's super, well you'd better meet the rest of the cast! Pally, would you be so kind?"

And with that, Pally Arvin lead us off to meet the cast, all of whom, surprisingly, were people I had known before The End, and a few of them would die.

Half Arsed Review: Dinner for Shmucks!

2011-02-02T02:34:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of Steve Carell, I think he is hilarious in Anchorman and his portrayal of Michael Scott in The American Office is inspired and Dan in Real life, if you've not seen that, make it your next movie to view as it's amazing.

So, as you can see, I really rate Steve Carell, which means my enjoyment of this film was probably pretty guaranteed but here goes.

I saw the trailer for Dinner for Shmucks and wasn't really blown away by it. A guy wanting a promotion has to bring an idiot with him to a meal that happens every month, where other business men bring idiots, and they have a prize for the best idiot.

Sunday night however, I watched it with my long suffering lady wife Louise and her family and was laughing pretty much non-stop. Carell's idiot is actually really endearing and he's not the same character that he was in Anchorman, the idiot in this was believably idiotic. He wouldn't be idiotic for the sake of it, he'd get into a predicament through a series of ill founded choices.

He also has a hobby of dressing up dead mice and making them into little works of art, which are amazingly cute yet disturbing at the same time. The fact he's made something as ugly as death beautiful shows actual brilliance despite his idiotic capers.

Paul Rudd who was also in Anchorman plays the main guy who's up for promotion and the chemistry between him and Carell carries over to this, making the friendship seem, once again, believable.

Add a whole load of cameos: Jermaine and Mel from Flight of the Conchords, one half of Little Britain, the Irish guy from IT Crowd and Zach Galifilanis or whatever his name is, who was the bearded weirdo from The Hangover.

This is the best American comedy I've seen for a while, there's a joke about finding the clitoris that just seemed really out of place, but apart from that, it's comedy gold.

If you like Steve Carell, this is one of his best, if you're not keen on him, skip it and go watch Lassie or whatever it is you kids like.

Half Arsed Review: Black Swan

2011-02-01T01:22:00.000-08:00

Black Swan is a psychological thriller about an unhinged ballet dancer whose given the role of a lifetime, but begins to crack under the pressure of an over controlling mother, her overwhelming feelings for her tutor and the rivalry between her and her american rival who reminds me of Cher from The X Factor.

If that doesn't tickle your fancy, then why don't you go watch Step-Up 3D you retard.

I know what you're thinking, or at least I think I know what you're thinking from some guess work and after hacking your facebook account. You're probably thinking that Black Swan is a ballet film with mild horror elements, maybe you're thinking that it's a chick flick? Well it is one of those rare films that has something for both sexes.

There's the ballet and bitchiness for the women and horror and sexy bits for the men.

Let's go to the bit you're most interested in: The Sexy Bits!!

Well Natalie Portman's crotch gets groped more times than a hot girl at a nightclub in Coventry, and there's some "steamy" girl on girl and man on girl action. No boobage though guys, so if you want to see boobs you'll have to take off your shirt and look in the mirror.

The horror parts are pretty well done, there are moments that will make you jump and some visually disturbing moments. The mother character in this isn't quite as terrifying as Carrie's mum or Mrs. Ganesh from Drag Me To Hell or David Cameron being in power for a few more years, but she is damned creepy so gets some kudos for that.

The whole thing of course rests on Natalie Portman's shoulders. If she was awful, this would be a lame goose not a black swan. In my humble opinion, Natalie Portman is an actress who is either pretty dire or pretty good. Star Wars she was pretty dire, Black Swan however she does pretty good. So even if you're not a fan of her, I'd recommend this.

As with all my half arsed reviews I don't delve to deeply into any plot, and I don't wish to for fear of spoiling this really interesting film, but this film will keep you guessing right till the end. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty good at guessing what's going to happen in a film, and most films are ruined for me due to their predictability, but this is one of those few films that I only figured out certain elements so ten points to them for that!

This film also has some great use of camerawork as obviously Natalie Portman is not an amazing ballet dancer, so when she's dancing you either see just her top half/bottom half or see her in a mirror where they've used a bit of the ol' movie magic, to make it look like it's her. This works well and didn't detract from the movie too much for my over analytical self.

I'd highly recommend going to see it as it's a very taut psychological thriller and is worth the price of the highly extortionate admission fee of your local cinema.

Happy Friday

2011-01-28T07:18:00.000-08:00

It's my penultimate Friday at my job, and thanks to no internets at home, I cannot update you all on the journal today.

So instead, take the time you would have spent reading my blog, to text a loved one how much you truly hate them to their core.

It's also my mum's birthday! Yay!

Mum said something about the Black Swan, so I was ready for a drinking session, but it turns out that it's a movie about ballet psychosis. I look forward to letting you know what I thought.

Ciao for Niao.

Have a glorious weekend and remember people. If their status updates piss you off that much, just delete them from your facebook/myspace/life.

The Baby Blog: My reaction

2011-01-26T01:29:00.000-08:00

Like most couples, we'd had our share of "scares" in the past, so when my long suffering lady wife Louise was telling me that she couldn't remember the last time Aunt Flo had visited, I paid it no real attention.

We'd been at a friends wedding, and I recall Lou had been complaining about how her bra's were too small. I blamed the tumble dryer for this (I also blame the tumble dryer if Lou comes home and the house is untidy, and it also gets the blame if the bin wasn't put out) and I thought no more about it.

Then one fateful day, not long after the wedding, I was beckoned upstairs by my lovely wife, for her to reveal that she had done a test, and it had come up positive. All at once I was overcome with joy and disbelief and my face kept switching between two expressions: gob smacked and happy. I must have looked like I was having a series of strokes!

So as the test was a cheap ASDA one (the 11+ of the pregnancy test world), Lou took two more "more reliable" tests, and both of them, after only a minute of conferring with each other, came back saying that we were due to be parents.

It took me a few days to really get my head round the fact, and I just kept thinking "no way, the test's probably wrong". I just didn't trust the technology and wanted a doctor or someone official to confirm it, but the midwife just took our word for it and it wasn't until the ultra-sound till I had someone say "and there's the baby"

A load of worries dawned on me when I realised I'm going to be a father. There's so much I need to do, to prepare, to buy and to learn, before the little one arrives.

I always thought I've got a lot of love to give to a child, and I'm not the dumbest person in the world, so I've got a lot of knowledge to give (some of it useful) but things dad's can do, I can't. You think of your stereotypical father, and they're good with cars and DIY and you know, just manly stuff. But I didn't pay attention in Design Technology and was always worried I'd get a splinter or burn myself, like the wimp I am, and I'm far from manly.

But all my worries (and there are a lot) are overshadowed by the thought of having a mini version of me and Lou running around. I had joked with Lou from the offset that if we were to ever have children, they'd come out 3 foot tall, have claws and razor sharp teeth and they'd try and kill her. Hopefully this wont be the case, and it'll inherit Lou's good looks and my wit. If it's the other way round... god help us all!

Pally and The Directors

2011-01-21T01:26:00.000-08:00

Pally and The Directors

"Whoops! Wrong button" the camp voice called out, then the light turned green. "You guys were fantastic! Jayme and Bin, take them to the rehearsal room, we've now got a full compliment!"

"Wait!" I replied, mustering some courage from somewhere deep within myself "I haven't got time for this, I've got to find my long suffering lady wife Louise, my cats and friend are out there too and Hagley's better half Myke, he's still unaccounted for. We can't stay, we need to get out there and find them! So you'll just have to find someone else to do your show"

Silence. Then the voice spoke again in a more stern yet still surprisingly camp voice.

"You have a choice darlings, you can either perform in our pantomime or I can vaporise you on the spot."

I didn't really have to think too long about the options. I sometimes wish I had chosen to be vaporised, thus ending my pitiful existence, as things for me have gone steadily downhill since The End, but I chose the cowards way and agreed to do their show.

"Oh that's excellent. Well we'll just break for a quick luncheon and then rehearsals can begin. If you'd follow these two gentlemen, they'll take you to the tea bar for some lunch."

Lunch. I hadn't had lunch since before The End, and I hadn't realised how hungry I was until my stomach was reminded that it's main function wasn't to expel it's contents. So we followed Jayme and Bin out of the theatre and across the road.

The tea bar, was a rectangular room with tables and chairs laid out for people to enjoy a hot beverage and some cakes between shows. The table and chairs were laid out, but there were no cakes or drinks available. Instead in the centre of the middle table was a large pot with a grey substance bubbling inside and several bowls stacked up by the side with metal spoons in a messy pile next to them.

Jayme said something that only Bin could understand and they both left the room, locking it behind us. As soon as they had done this Hagley proceeded towards the pot, got a bowl and spooned in some of the unknown substance. She'd gone back to whatever world it was that she was living in, sat down and began to eat whatever it was.

My stomach was rumbling but I wasn't sure I trusted the grey substance, Hagley however had finished a bowl and seemed to still be breathing. The pangs of hunger took over and I decided to tuck into some of the unknown stuff, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but my god it was the most awful substance known to man. I can still taste it to this day.

The grey stuff looked like a mixture of porridge and diarrhea, and smelt like the devil's crotch after a three day sex marathon with various sea creatures. The taste, was like nothing on earth, a combination of burnt hair, the contents of a dead mans catheter and beetroot. I hate beetroot.

I put the spoon in my mouth, and as soon as the grey stuff had touched the tip of my tongue, my stomach went back to it's default mode and began to lurch. I had nothing to bring up however and just curled up in a ball hoping to die. Hagley on the other hand, helped herself to seconds.

"How can you eat that stuff?" I cried out to her, but she was too busy wolfing down the foul mixture to reply.

The door suddenly opened and the last person I ever wanted to see, bounded in the room. No it wasn't the devil himself, it was the only person I ever hated. One of the worst actors I'd ever been on stage with. It was Pally Arvin.

I had acted with Pally a while back in a nautical themed show and he drove me scatty. For some reason, when you acted opposite him, he always looked up at the ceiling. His face would be towards you, but his eyes would be in the roof. It was unsettling. This wouldn't matter if he was an alright guy, but he was up himself more than an elevator in an elevator shaft.

After that show I'd done at least one more with him, but tried to keep my distance and ignore invites to any social gatherings he invited me to.

Pally was unaware that I actually loathed him as was evident when he came bounding over towards me. The End seemed to be punishing me on purpose. How was it that my friends who were a lovely bunch before The End, had been turned into monstrosities or turned deranged, yet someone as annoyingly smug and genuinely full of shit as Pally had been spared?

Pally, for some reason using an American accent, bellowed at me "My gosh, if it isn't Adamicus. Why I ain't seen you since we did that show about Kansas!"

"Mores the pity" I replied, as I got up off the floor.

"I'm so glad you're doing the show, I'm doing the choreography!"

Pally knew less about dancing than I knew about Chinese Particle Physics, so I was just a little surprised. My hunger was replaced with anger when it occurred to me that he was behind all this theatre madness. I pushed him over one of the tables and put my hands around his throat.

"All I have to do is squeeze Pally. Why are you doing all this!?"

"I'm just doing what The Directors told me to do." He choked back, his eyes not looking at me like they used to when we acted together.

"I want to meet these Directors of yours" I replied, getting angrier at the lack of eye contact I wasn't getting.

"Sure, that's why I came down, to bring you to them... if you let go of me, I'll take you."

I let go of him, and he squirmed towards the door leading out, opened it and beckoned me and Hagley to follow. Grabbing Hagley's hand we left the room, following the despicable Pally Arvin as he lead us upstairs, down a narrow corridor, passing several doors before coming to a particular door that had never been there before The End.

"Enter" a camp voice called out.

So Pally opened the door ajar and ushered us through, closing the door behind us. I didn't quite know what to expect, but I can honestly say that I never expected to see enormous glass jars with floating brains inside them. These were The Directors, and they had plans for me and Hagley, theatrical plans...

The Baby Blog

2011-01-19T01:23:00.000-08:00

For those readers who choose to read my blog, and for those who are currently in a North Korean jail cell being forced to read the crap I write as a form of punishment, I'd like to let you know that I am about to embark on my most adventurous adventure yet (previous adventures being surviving puberty and climbing mount Snowdon)

As you know, I use this blog to offload the creative juices that ooze out of my pores like the poison those south American tree frogs secrete from theirs. Unlike tree frog poison, my creative juices won't kill you, in fact I'm always passing a mug of my secretion around for all to sip from... and on that note, my long suffering lady wife Louise is going to become a mother. Luckily, I too shall be becoming a parent!

These blog entries are usually full of my views on the world, or stories to raise a smile or cast a frown, but I shall be taking some time to write up what you humans call "thoughts and feelings" and will be boring you all no doubt with my journey to parenthood.

Computer Heartbreak AKA I got me No Internets!

2011-01-17T07:11:00.000-08:00

Ouch, my internet has taken a shot right to the groin.

You see, a while ago, I introduced Ms. Computer, to Mr. Dongle. They seemed to have a lot in common, and together they made beautiful internets together. However, the other night Ms. Computer must have checked the internet history and seen that Mr. Dongle had been viewing inappropriate material, which she considers cheating.

Subsequently, Ms. Computer no longer recognises Mr. Dongle, meaning I can't get access to my internet at home, meaning I can't update my blog for you three who read this.

I keep trying to remind Ms Computer that Mr. Dongle is actually an ok guy, but she just won't let him in anymore.

So I'm going to have to retire Mr. Dongle, and find something else on the market that Ms. Computer will be compatible with.

Casting Call

2011-01-14T01:39:00.000-08:00

Casting Call

Acting was a big part of my life for some time before The End, and I had spent quite a lot of time in theatres over the years. I'd even studied drama at college and had hoped that one day I'd be doing it as a profession, but life had other plans for me and I'd ended up being an office drone. Although I didn't act as a career, I still kept my hand in by doing plays, drama festivals and making short films with my friends. Was I dissapointed by the way my life had turned out? No, not really, as if I had gone down the acting route chances are I'd have ended up on a soap (the number 1 cause of actor demise)

I wasn't the best actor, or singer, or dancer, but I had good timing and a knack for playing character parts that landed me some good roles in my past. This would work against me in what was Panto Season, and after the events that happened I swore on the corpse of the dear friend I lost during that time, that I would never act again...

Bin Nutter and Jayme More had saved us from Chavs but had only done so, so that they could take us for their own. Hagley and I were once more prisoners. I could have made a break for it, but two things were stopping me. The first being that as crazy as she was, I didn't want to leave my pal Hagley with these guys and secondly Bin Nutter and Jayme More were built like brick shit houses and the years of playing Rugby that they had accumulated between them would mean I wouldn't get far before they tackled me to the ground.

The journey, from what I remember, was un-eventful and soon we were back in my hometown and at my local theatre. In some ways I was looking forward to going to the Theatre as my family might have sheltered there, but I was also worried about my long suffering lady wife Louise, my cats, Molly and what was awaiting me inside.
The Theatre itself looked normal from the outside, as if The End hadn't happend at all, but there were two large posters that read "PANTO AUDITIONS INSIDE! ALL WELCOME" pasted onto the walls. I'd seen an "all welcome" sign before and that was at the home of Ray and Shav who were eating people, so I wasn't exactly comforted by the welcoming welcome that welcomed Hagley and I.
Bin and Jayme took us through the lobby and into the Auditorium to where all the action was happening. The seats were all empty apart from the middle row where a single video camera was positioned facing the stage. The orchestra pit had a solitary piano, which was manned by someone but from where I was, I couldn't see the pianist. The Stage wasn't lit except for a single spotlight the shone down on the centre of the stage, and in that light was yet another person I knew.

I recognised instantly the figure standing in the spotlight, it was a guy called Dick who I'd been in a production of Half A Sixpence with (he was known for creating silence after he finished his lines, as the actors he was on stage with were gobsmacked by the lack of talent this kid had). He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and his acting really was atrocious. So Hagley and I watched on as he began to sing his version of Sex on Fire (which for a song about VD, I felt was highly inappropriate for a panto)

I can honestly say that I'd never heard that song played on an old piano before and there was a reason for that... it sounded awful, but at least it was drowning out a bit of Dick's awful singing.

Dick had gotten up to the chorus before the powers that be decided that he wasn't what they were looking for for their Panto. Usually in an audition the director would thank you and send you on your way, telling you you'd recieve a phone call, leaving you with a little false hope, but that was before The End, before insanity was normality and before mutated people made up 99% of the population. Dick was about to sing the start of the 2nd verse when the spotlight turned red. The Piano immediately stopped and a horrified expression manifested itself on Dick's face.

He had just enough time to shout "No" before a laser beam fired from the camera in the auditorium, and vaporised Dick into a cloud of dust. The spotlight went white again and a disembodied camp voice said "Next"

Jayme muttered something in his language, I turned to Bin for a translation. "Your turn" he said.

"I'm not getting up there!" I protested, but I didn't really have a choice as Jayme pointed this crossbow he'd used to dispatch the Chavs with, at my face.

Nervously I walked down the aisle, and slowly ascended the stairs till I was on the stage. I heard a noise behind me and turned round to see that Bin and Jayme were forcing Hagley to join me. So not only did I have to pull a musical number out of my backside from nowhere, but I had to do it with a slightly un-hinged teacher who not so long ago soiled herself in front of me whilst trying to teach a class full of dead children!

As we arrived under the spotlight, the disembodied camp voice spoke "Well, this is super, we had no idea that the pair of you were still alive. We really enjoyed you both in those Youth Projects you did. Well, looking down the list of characters, we need a comedy duo, so do a comical song and dance routine for us. We do hope for your sake that you're what we're looking for"

I don't know whether it was the familiar theatrical surroundings or not being in a room of dead children, but Hagley was suddenly lucid! She whispered to me. "If we don't do something good, we're never going to see Myke or Molly again."

Hagley suggested we do a number from Anything Goes called "Friendship", so I knelt down to ask the pianist if he knew how it went. The person sitting at the piano however had been dead for sometime, but the Piano was alive. You couldn't make this shit up!

So the music started and Hagley and I began to sing and dance for our very lives! It was one of the best performances I had ever done, and in true musical style, we both somehow pulled the choreography out of nowhere and although we had the pressure of death by ray gun hanging over us, for the first time since The End, I actually enjoyed myself.

At the end of the number we both knelt, jazz hands waving for several moments of silence that seemed to go on. Then the spotlight above us turned red!

Prisoner Transfer

2011-01-07T01:22:00.000-08:00

Prisoner Transfer

Well, I survived Christmas, so I guess I better keep writing this like I said I would.

To recap, more for me than for you, I had escaped Ray and Shav momentarily and bumped into my now crazed friend Hagley who believed the class of dead children were learning whatever it was she was teaching them. Unless she was teaching them to play dead, they weren't doing very well and would probably fail any exams she had planned to concoct.

Then my ol' pal Molly appeared, another friend who'd survived the apocalypse only to be more messed up than she was before it, she was heavily mutated and just plane weird looking. I tried to shake some sense into Hagley that her partner Myke was probably just like the children in the class room, i.e. dead. But she ran off, the crazy bitch.

As I didn't want her to do something she'd later regret, like killing herself, I decided to run after her, leaving my two cats in the care of a monstrous weirdo who for all I knew, would eat them both in an instant.

I had thought that Hagley would run out the school's main entrance and I was right, but she was stopped by the same Chavs I'd been trying to hide from. There was no point trying to get away from them as I was already out of breath from chasing Hagley, which was odd for a guy who was able to climb Snowdon before The End, with such ease.

So, I shall continue...

We were tied up in no time and the Chavs marched us out of the front doors, all the while Hagley cried and wouldn't respond to me trying to soothe her with false promises about how we'd be okay and that there was nothing to worry about. They were surely going to get revenge for me killing Ray and Shav even though it was actually Simba that killed them both by knocking Ray into Shav's mouth and choking her to death.

At this point I was totally oblivious to the idea that maybe they had survived, but ignorance was bliss.

The Chavs were silent all the while as they walked us down the long and lonely road back towards Ray and Shav's house. I recall that I was wondering what would happen to my cats, who had been left in the care of the weird entity that was now Molly. How long would they survive? And then I thought again of my long suffering lady wife Louise, was she even alive? I'd find out of course, but not yet.

My memory isn't what it used to be thanks to recent developments that I can't go into right now, and this particular time in my life is a little hazy, but I'll try and be as accurate as my memory allows me to be.

We'd been walking some time and Hagley was getting tired but the Chavs wouldn't let us stop as they were pretty much brain dead and had no needs apart from to fulfill whatever orders they had received from Ray and Shav. So in true girly fashion Hagley fell to her knees and the Chavs immediately moved to her to pick her up, which was when the people who had been following us for a while, decided to strike.

Arrows shot from behind two bushes, that I hadn't noticed (due to being in a world of my own) had been following us. My first thought was that the bushes were another thing that had been effected by The End and were going to kill me before Ray and Shav got a chance to, but these particular bushes were people in disguise.

Those Chavs didn't stand a chance and within a matter of minutes they'd all been dispatched and our would-be saviours revealed themselves. It didn't surprise me in the slightest that once again it was someone I recognised, and I do remember that that was the first time that I thought I had died and gone to my own private Limbo as everyone seemed to be people who I knew. This wasn't the case.

The two men who stood before me were older than I'd last seen them and had been affected by The End in yet another way. I'd met both of them at my local theatre when I had done Youth Projects in the past and over the years (due to distance and different lifestyles) I'd lost contact with them.

The first guy was Jayme More, who had been Scottish before the end, but after The End his accent was so thick that he sounded like Chewbacca from Star Wars after smoking sixty fags a day. The other guy was Bin Nutter, who was rocking an enormous Afro and whose eyes never stayed in one place for more than a second. It was creepy. He kind of looked like a Ghetto Chameleon

As Bin untied us, Jayme said something in his native language that neither myself nor Hagley could understand, but luckily his pal Bin was able to translate.

"He said, you're lucky we found you when we did, Shav's Chavs have killed some of the most talented people. It's such a waste for The Theatre."

I shudder at the very thought of that dark place, but I started so I need to tell you all about Panto Season and the horrors that I endured. So, where was I? Oh yeah...

I thanked the pair for saving us and told them that we had to go back and get my cats and Molly, but they weren't having any of it. For like the Chavs, this pair had their orders and they had to fulfill it or face the wrath of The Directors. (please feel free to insert a dramatic "dun dun dun!" everytime you read "The Directors")

"You're not going anywhere" Bin said, at no one in particular due to his eyes constantly shifting. Jayme then uttered something in whatever the hell language he was speaking, to which Bin replied "That's right, we're taking you to The Theatre, you're exactly what we need..."

Hagley smiled at me and said "Are they taking us to see Myke?" to which I lied and said yes, just to keep her fragile mind on something positive.

And with that, we had gone from being prisoners on their way to certain doom, to being prisoners on their way to un-certain doom.

God Bless us, Everyone!

2010-12-24T01:29:00.000-08:00

Well I'm signing off now so that I can finish up at work and get to my mum's house where there will be warm mince pies awaiting my arrival (cooked by my evil brother no less, so will probably contain poison)

I hope you all have a great Christmas or if you're not Christian, I hope you enjoy some time off at the expense of someone elses religious beliefs!

Good luck to all of you who get presents you don't want! I know I've been practicing all year to hide the look of utter disgust that can appear when you receive something that isn't what you wanted. I jest of course, I'm happy to get anything, even a slap in the face as long as it's wrapped, but I know some of you will be opening presents, dreading the thought that your family will be able to read the look of disappointment that will consume you when that 3D TV you asked for is actually another pair of socks, so good luck with that.

Also, remember whilst you eat your Christmas feast with all the trimmings that there are people all over the world suffering, who can't have a nice cooked roast. I always find it makes my dinner taste even sweeter!

Merry Christmas one and all

Surviving in a Winter Wonderland

2010-12-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

9
Surviving in a Winter Wonderland

I'm taking a break from writing about my pas exploits for the moment as I'm just getting to the horrible bits. So instead I'll tell you what I did today.

It's Christmas... well, at least according to the official Gray Republic Calendar it's Christmas, and it looks like it's going to be a White Christmas as it has started to snow (deadly deadly snow)

Celebrating Christmas, like any festivity, is usually not a good idea as it distracts you from all the things that are trying to kill you. I went to a wedding, and that ended stickily for all involved! But I've come to the end of my tether with the world as I know it so I figured I'd try and have as traditional a Christmas as I can get in a post apocalyptic land of death.

Of course, I'm on my own these days. The cats, my friends and my long suffering lady wife Louise (or what's left of her) aren't here with me, so I'm feeling pretty lonely. Now I know how the guy out of Mud was feeling!

Before the end, they used to say that the holidays are the most depressing time of the year. Now add to that fact that the world I now live in is depressing all year round, which makes the holidays even worse than they were before The End. But there's still a part of me that tries to add some semblance of normality to the ever confusing world that is now my day to day life.

As I don't have anyone to give presents to (they're either dead, insane, or held captive as of writing), I decided to skip that part of Christmas, and instead focus on decorating the abandoned shack that I am currently calling home. As most things that run on electricity try to kill you thanks to some strange artificial intelligence they have inexplicably developed (seriously, a toaster nearly killed me once) I didn't really fancy lighting my shack up with fairy lights, also lighting may advertise my presence to those who are after me, which wouldn't be a good thing.

Instead, I thought I'd start with getting a tree and maybe some tinsel to throw about the place, so I set off for some trees that I had passed earlier, armed with a fire-axe that I had found lodged in a friend's corpse not so long back.

Up to this point, I had thought the expression "Tree's have feelings too" was just something hippies used to say, however when I swung my axe deep into the trunk of a tree, it cried in pain and began to attack me. Not many people can say they've fought a tree to the death, but I can now add that to the ever growing list of things that I've done that should never have been. The tree didn't really have much power behind it, what with the huge gash in it's midriff, and it didn't take me much effort to finish it off with the handy fire axe.

After murdering the tree, I dragged it back to my abode and propped it's corpse against the shack's one good wall, whilst a pool of sap formed at the trunk's base. I'll be honest, the fact I had to kill the tree in cold blood kind of took away a bit of the magic of Christmas for me.

Thanks to Blue Peter (a person I met, not the old TV program) I knew how to make Tinsel from clothing, so used my last good pair of underwear (good is a great overstatement) to create some pretty dull tinsel. It looked pretty awful, so I used some broken glass for baubles and put a dead bird on the top instead of a star.

It was the worst Christmas tree in the history of Christmas trees, but it was my Christmas tree.

The tree brought me some happiness, but deep sadness at the same time. I shouldn't be alone, I should be with my friends and family, none of this should have happened, but crying about it wasn't going to help, especially as the scent of tears attracts the Darkness.

I was hungry, and no Christmas would be complete without a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Unfortunately turkey are one of the deadliest birds in the world as I know it, I mean, I've seen a Turkey take a man's arm off and then beat him to death with it. Poor old Jon.

So with that in mind, I took my hunting gear out and went in search of something to replace the deadly festive foul. After a few hours using all my hunting and tracking abilities, I was able to catch... a rat. Yeah, I'm still pretty shit at hunting to be honest. I was born without the ability to stalk and this particular rat was actually already dead.

I got home and prepared the rat, by skinning it and spinning it round over a cigarette lighter. When it came to the trimmings for my Christmas feast, Vegetables are all but inedible so I had to make do with a can of mushy peas I found. (when I say found, I mean took from a neighbouring hermit's corpse)

So there I was, sitting in front of the dead tree, eating un-dercooked rat and mushy peas, hoping the snow wouldn't gain sentience again and try to kill me like last time. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of one of the glass shards I used as baubles, and realised that this was the most depressing Christmas I have had up to this point.

If anyone is reading this, I hope that you aren't alone whenever you decide to celebrate whatever festival is important to you. Life is fleeting, and you can have all the tea in what used to be China, but you've got nothing if you've got no one to share it with. Grab a friend, grab a loved one, hell... grab a stranger as long as they aren't totally deranged, and revel in companionship, because that's all the counts at the end of the day, something I painfully realise now.

If I'm alive after Christmas, I'll continue my journal, if I died, then be happy that I'm at peace and with any loved ones that I had to put out of their misery. But either way, I wish you a very merry Christmas, and I hope you're safe and well.

Class Dismissed

2010-12-16T14:11:00.000-08:00

8
Class Dismissed

So there I was in a classroom full of dead children with their teacher, a close friend, who had no concept of reality or proper toilet etiquette, my two speaking cats and standing in the door was a creature so freakish that it would have made Pete Burns look normal!

The thing watched me from the door, as Hagley stood up from her desk and whispered into my ear.
"I know she doesn't look great but be kind, she lost Irish a while back."

My heart skipped a beat and my stomach sank as I realised that The End had somehow, like Shav, mutated another friend of mine. The creature that stood before me was Molly, one of my oldest and dearest of friends, who now looked like the result of some strange human-frog cross breeding experiment.

Of all the fates of all my friends I think that Molly had the worst of it. Sure, Hagley was "FUBAR", what happened to JP was pretty terrible, The Grays made the best of their situation and you'll be finding out soon enough about the horror that was "Panto Season", but Molly's fate was one of the worst.

Molly you see, was my Celtic friend, who'd been living in sin with her charming boyfriend Irish. He was called Irish as he was Irish, and it goes to show how un-imaginative our collective group of friends had been when it came to nicknames.

Irish and Molly had been going out for years and Molly had finally after years of trying, gotten Irish to propose to her. They were due to be wed at a large purple castle in Cork, however that was before The End, so the fact that Irish had been "lost" presumably dead, made things even more tragic for the weird purple-tinged monster that stood in the door frame.

Molly looked like she was happy to see me, but I couldn't tell if that was just how her deformed face looked normally or if it was genuine happiness, till she put her arms around me... those horrible leathery arms.

Her arms, like her neck, were elongated, and I knew then, what it would have felt like to be the victim of a boa-constrictor, as her arms wrapped round me twice and squeezed me into the small frame that was her body. I shuddered and kept my face away from hers for fear of catching something or being devoured, the same way a kid does when an aging relative wants a kiss.

"Master, what in the name of Kentucky Fried Chicken is that thing?" Professor Humperdink asked me, his voice a little shaky from fear.

Molly released me and looked down at my cats, who began to hiss when she approached them. They tried to run, but her long arms grabbed them and she began to stroke them both. I say stroke, but it was more like abuse. Their eyes nearly popping out of their skulls as her hands roughly stroked back the fur and skin on their heads.

Hagley turned to me again and whispered to me whilst Molly was distracted by the cute fluff balls that were my cats.

"After things went dark, Molly and Irish were staying with me and Myke... we tried to get out of town, but the roads were blocked by these large insects. A flying one... like a wasp... took Irish and stung Molly. She started to change... I know what she looks like, but she's the same... just... quieter. The kids here don't seem to mind her..." she looked back at the dead classroom and smiled.

"Anyway, Myke decided to go after Irish whilst I took care of Molly. He told us to wait at the school... that he'd come back for us when he found out where Irish had gone... but... but that was nearly a year ago now..."

I felt that someone needed to shake Hagley out of the insane funk she was in, and as her only non-mutated friend, I felt that that someone was me.

"Hagley!" I said, as I grabbed a hold of her "Snap out of it, the children are dead, Myke and Irish probably are too, and Molly... we'll she's as good as dead. Look, I need to find my long suffering lady wife Louise, why don't the two of you come with me, you'll stand a better chance with me than you will waiting here for whatever it is you're waiting for."

"But who will teach the children...?" she cried

"I'm sorry to have to break this to you Hagley, but not even the national curriculum can help these kids now" I replied.

Hagley looked sane for a moment, just a moment, and then ran as fast as she could out of the room, barging past the freakish Molly who dropped the cats and whirled round to see where her friend was going.

In the state that she was in I was worried that she'd do something stupid, so I decided to run after her, leaving my cats in the care of the repulsive Molly. So as I stated, I ran after her, thinking that she would go for the main door to leave the school and maybe try to find Myke and I was correct on my assumption.

I found Hagley in the entrance, being held by two youths in hoodies, and the rest of the lobby was full of them. Shav's Chav's had found me! It seemed they wanted revenge for what I had done to Ray and Shav and as Hagley was with me, she'd be included in my fate...

Edward Lobe in Dead Before Dawn

2010-12-16T02:02:00.000-08:00

Well last night Alex and I sat down and we started the editing of Lobe, which is a mammoth task! We're going to have to be very clever with some of the shots as people who aren't supposed to be in the scene are visible or the camera loses focus!

But it'll all be worth it in the end as what we've come up with for the start looks great!

Anyhoo, being a fan of Jap Horror, I cobbled another teaser together, this time in the style of said Jap Horror.

Nothing particularly scary happens, it's just the visual imagery and music have been altered to make it seem like it's not a comedy at all. My favourite bit in it is a bit with a character standing still then a split second before it cuts to black he goes to move, this is a technique I've seen in a lot of jap horrors.

Anyway, here's our youtube, take a looksee!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Addyace#p/u

Xmas Break!

2010-12-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

Well it's nearly Christmas and apparently I enjoy stating the obvious. I hope you're enjoying the story on the blog and sorry that there's been a lack of half arsed movie revies, but due to time I've not had chance yet.

There are only 2 more JOAPAOD's before Christmas! Then you'll have to wait till the 7th of Jan!

Also, tonight will be the beginning of the editing for the Edward Lobe remake, it's going to be tough, but hopefully the end result will be worth it all and Friday is my last Cracker FM show! 87.9 FM if you get a chance to tune in!

I'm not really in the Christmas spirit this year, well not as much as normal, but I think that will change by Christmas Eve!

This year has FLOWN by, I'll be dead before I know it! :(

On that cheery note,

Ciao for now

Adamicus the 3rd

Teaching the Dead!

2010-12-10T01:30:00.000-08:00

Teaching the Dead!

The classroom full of mummified children stared back at Hagley in silence.

I wont lie, it was a very awkward moment, probably in my top 10 awkward moments of all time.

Hagley however, didn't sense this awkwardness and instead believed that the children had responded to her asking them to say hello to me, the crazy bitch.

Before The End, my friend Hagley was a bit of an enigma. She was both quite posh yet at the same time quite common. I try to remember my friends as much as I can, like they were before the terrible circumstance befell them all. Hagley wasn't deformed so it was easier remembering her as she was before The End, and she didn't try to kill me after The End, which was a nice change of pace.

"Thank you class" she replied "Now, open your textbooks to page 20, today we'll be learning about..." she trailed off, and simply stared for a few moments at the children's corpses propped awkwardly up at their desks, some of them missing limbs (some didn't even have a head), but she didn't seem to mind, then her gaze returned to me.

There was something in Hagley's eyes, a pitiful look of a woman who'd lost something dear to her, it's a look I recognise in my own eyes these days when I happen to catch a glimpse of my reflection in something... reflective.

She sat on her table, which had a thick layer of dust on it "I can't believe you came to see me, shouldn't you be at work?" Hagley asked, her eyes focused on me intently

"Um, somehow I don't think they'll mind" I replied, remembering what my father had told me on my wedding night about never telling a woman that she's crazy. That was good advice.

Hagley smiled at me, a smile that went from comforting to sinister in a matter of seconds "Hey, actually would you mind watching my class whilst I go to the toilet?" she asked me.

I simply nodded, and waited for her to leave. She didn't leave the room: instead I heard a dripping noise and realised that she was indeed going to the toilet right in front of me, on the desk, all the while her eyes were fixed on me. I stepped back as the pooling liquid approached me.

As I backed away I glanced down at where Professor Humperdink had been standing, he was now up on a bookshelf giving me a look that signalled he thought she wasn't just one sandwich short of a picnic, but she'd forgotten the whole picnic hamper and just turned up for a picnic with a plastic bag full of dead babies.

"So..." I began "how's your fella Myke, these days?"

Myke was Hagley's better half, and he liked two things. Cooking and Quantum Physics. Two things that go in hand in hand. He'd trained to be an archaeologist, like most people who got sucked in by archaeology's poster boy Indiana Jones. Myke had dreamed of discovering ancient treasures, fighting off Nazi's and wearing a fedora indoors, however it didn't work out as planned and instead he worked as a manager for Dynamite, a logistics company that if you asked him, he wouldn't be able to tell you what they actually did, as it bored him that much.

Out of everyone I knew, he was the most likely to survive due to a vast knowledge of survival techniques, that unlike me, he hadn't learn off of Fallout 3. (A computer game for the un-initiated)

As I asked her about him however, her smile disappeared almost instantly, and tears began streaming from her eyes that I realised hadn't blinked once the whole time I was there. She was all kinds of wrong.

"Myke will... be back any minute now. He'll meet me after class"

Another awkward silence, the kind you'd get if you farted really loud in a lift full of strangers.

It was obvious at that time, that something horrendous had happened to Myke. I wondered if he had gone the way of Shav and turned into a gluttonous mass or if he, like Hagley, had slipped into a mental minefield of wrongness. He was one of the only people I've met so far who had blossomed due to The End, but that's another story for another entry.

Suddenly, Simba (sans sick) rushed into the room in a panicked fashion. "Guv'na" he panted in his high pitched cockney voice "I just saw something coming down the apple and pears, and it doesn't look friendly"

Amazing, not only could my cat talk, but he had some concept of cockney rhyming slang, something he didn't pick up from me that's for sure. The doorway that he had ran from was suddenly masked by the monstrosity that Simba had just ran from.

Whatever it was it had a regular sized body for an eight year old girl, but it's neck was elongated ending in a very large head with bulging eyes and a mouth the size of a baby deer. The face had a tint of purple to it and the creature's skin was wrinkled like some kind of hairless cat. All in all the, creature looked like what I expected Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy's demonic offspring would look like.

I expected that this was the end for me and my two cats, that I would never see my long suffering lady wife Louise again (with what happened to her sometimes I wish I never had) I waited for the inevitable.

School Daze

2010-12-03T01:11:00.000-08:00

School Daze

Sleeping isn't the same as it was before The End; for one thing I now sleep very lightly due to being worried that something is creeping up on me waiting to kill me and use my skull as a urine cup. Also, since The End people don't tend to dream.

I heard somewhere that dreams keep us sane... oh who am I fooling? I heard it off an episode of Star Trek : The Next Generation! A TV show from my past that my long suffering lady wife Louise used to say was "Boring, as it's just people talking in front of a screen". So was there any truth in dreams keeping us sane or was it just something they said on a TV program for shits and giggles? I doubt I'll ever get a definitive answer, but if the TV show was right, the next person I met was proof that no dreams add to craziness!

I miss TV, now if you see a TV set, you'd better start running (They're fast). I'd say I miss theatre, but theatre after The End has left a bad taste in my mouth, especially what was known as "Panto Season"... sorry, spoiler alert!

I had sheltered in the staff room of a school, one that I was not familiar with, as the sky had decided to rain fire (one of the nicer things it decides to rain these days) It had been a good nights sleep after the events that had happened on Monday, and when I awoke I had that glorious 5 seconds of blissful ignorance where I presumed the world was how it should be, but that soon departed when the unfamiliar surroundings of the staff room and the smell of stale coffee seeped into reality.

Professor Humperdink was feeling a little worse for wears thanks to all the punch he'd consumed at Ray's house, and was throwing up all over the place. I felt a pang of guilt remembering what had happened to Ray and Shav, but quickly swept that aside when I remembered they tried to eat me.

Simba was holding Professor Humperdink's hair back for him, as he vomited into a makeshift toilet that to my horror I realised was what used to be me left shoe. The combination of stale coffee and cat sick started to make me queasy.

I couldn't stand the stench, so walked out the staff room to escape it. As I did, the school bell rang out, echoing through the empty corridors, making me jump which was not a good thing to happen when I was standing in the middle of a door frame.

This had happened to me at school once before, and I'd gotten a scar from it. But this time, there was no Mrs. Jackson to apply first aid: this time the blood that had begun pouring from a gash on the top of my head would have to be stopped by me and my first aid training, which incidentally had run out two years prior.

I grabbed hold of the wound and felt the warm claret flowing through my matted hair, and tried to think back to my first aid training. My first aid training was useless in this situation however, as all the training consisted of was making sure your "patient" was comfortable and safe, then you'd call an ambulance. This was a post-apocalyptic world where I couldn't get safe or comfortable and there were no emergency services, so icks-nay on the first aid front... I was on my own... well I had two cats.

Coming back into the staff room, the smell of stale coffee mixed with cat vomit and the shock of the blood gushing out of my cranium, finally sent me over the edge and I emptied the contents of my stomach over Simba.

He didn't look impressed, especially after I said whilst looking at him covered in my puke "I don't remember eating that." Despite my pathetic joke, Simba and Professor Humperdink noticed the blood and came to my aid.

"Quickly" Professor Humperdink cried out to his sick covered buddy, "Master is injured, we must act post haste to remedy this situation" and with that, he sped out the room, followed by me, followed by a skulking Simba.

It took us a while to find a first aid kit, but when we did Professor Humperdink sprang into action. Don't ask me how he did it, but somehow that cat was able to bandage me up. I mean, it's actually impossible for a cat to do that isn't it, well it was before what with them not having opposable thumbs, but now anythings possible it seems.

I recall that I began to think I'd hit my head harder than I thought, when I heard a distant woman's voice speaking. But Simba had heard it too, as had Professor Humperdink. There was someone else here! Without thinking, I sped off down the corridor towards the voice, with Humperink closely behind me. Simba, had stayed behind to clean himself up as when I next saw him, you couldn't tell I'd thrown up all over him.

The voice was getting louder as I skidded down the highly buffed corridors, Professor Humperdink was sliding all over the place, his claws not quite getting traction. (A little fact for you, some schools are now used as impromptu bowling alleys, but the balls are usually people's skulls, and the pins children. )

The voice was coming from classroom 2C and sounded more than familiar. It was the voice of my dear friend Hagley, who had been a teacher before The End. Maybe I was in her school... which was a bit odd as she was based in a town a long long way from where I'd started. However, travelling after The End is a lot quicker, and I had gone for longer than I had thought. I was indeed in Hagley's school.

So, hoping to see a friendly face that WASN'T trying to kill me, I opened the door to classroom 2C and indeed there she was.

Hagely had seen better days, her hair was a mess, her makeup was smudged and her clothes were filthy. This was totally unlike my friend as before The End she was usually a well turned out pretty lass. The End had not been kind however, as I was about to find out.

She looked up from the class she was teaching and her eyes widened at the sight of me, then she turned to look at her class.

"Class, we have a very special visitor. This is Adamicus, he's a friend of mine. Everybody say 'hello Adamicus'"

Silence.

I looked, for the first time at the room, and was horrified by the sight of the class she was teaching.

CHRISTMAS MOVIES!!! Half Arsed Review: Disney's A Christmas Carol

2010-11-29T06:48:00.000-08:00

Last year I put up my thoughts on a selection of Horror Films around Halloween time, so this year, as I've nothing better to do with my time, I'm putting up my thoughts on a selection of Christmas movies.

Today's entry is "Disney's A Christmas Carol" which is the CGI adventures of one Ebenezer Scrooge AKA Jim Carrey.

The first thing I've got to say about this film is the graphics are amazing. Not quite Avatar, but they're really impressive, the characters look like the actors (in most cases) and at points (maybe due to me having lost my glasses) in the darker lit parts of the film I could have sworn that they were real actors. On the flip side of this was the party scene where Mr. and Mrs. Fezzywig did a dance that was physically impossible destroying the realism the rest of the film so far had built up and reminded you you were watching a modern day cartoon. Poor move Disney.

Lighting in this film was a bit of a problem for me and all of my family agreed that when Scrooge was knocking about at the beginning, there were parts you didn't know what was going on thanks to the screen being near pitch black. Sure it saved a bit of money for the studio, as nothing was happening, but it spoilt the first part of the film as I wasn't sure what I was looking at.

The horror element from the story was higher than I had expected, due to this being Disney and all, but really added to the whole atmosphere and the characters were all faithfully recreated in this adaptation.

There was a chase scene near the end that was entirely pointless and I fear that 3D was the culprit. It detracted from the story as there seemed no reason why Scrooge would run away from the ghost of Christmas yet to come, but because they wanted to charge people an extra few quid at the cinema, they added it. Another poor move from Disney.

If you want to watch a pretty faithful (except said chase) adaptation of A Christmas Carol, this is a great film. It's more adult than I imagined and think younger children could get bored. However for me, if you want to watch A Christmas Carol, even though I love Jim Carrey, I'd have to say you need to watch A Muppet's Christmas Carol, which I will talk about in more detail in a later update.

So, I'd give this 3 out of 5 baubles. It would be 4, but the chase scene and Fezzywig party really detracted from the overall atmosphere.

The Ultimate Gob Stopper

2010-11-26T01:19:00.000-08:00

The Ultimate Gob Stopper

So there I was, standing in front of what used to be Ray's wife Shav, but what was now, a slobbering mass of gluttony. Ray was determined that I would be next, that by consuming me, Shav's hunger would be appeased yet again.

This is where that small gooey mass that lives in my skull suddenly sparked into life and I came up with a few ideas of how to get the hell out of this basement of death!

To begin with, I simply tried to convince Ray, that due to my scrawny stature, that I would not be a sufficient enough snack for his wife Shav. This didn't work.

Then I pleaded with Ray, saying that my long suffering lady wife Louise was still out there and that I just wanted to know if she was ok. So if he let me go, I'd come back as soon as I'd found her. That didn't work.

Finally I tried to convince Ray that if he didn't feed me to his wife (I never thought I'd utter that sentence) then I'd help him lure in more people! However, he wasn't falling for that either.

The mush that I called a brain had failed me again and I would surely have been done for if it wasn't for the quick thinking/actions of my little cat, the ginger ninja Simba, who'd come into the basement the same time as Ray, unbeknown to any of us.

Simba had been watching me try and weasel my way out of my fate for sometime before he decided to interject. The good thing about Simba was that Ray didn't see him as a threat, which would ultimately be Ray's downfall, for the moment at least.

Ray had gone into evil bond villain mode and had started to tell me that nothing could stop him from taking care of his wife. That was untrue however, as Simba decided to prove to him.

Like a flash of ginger lightning, he struck without warning! Leaping from his curled up position at the bottom of the stairs, he launched himself at Ray, hitting him with all his force in the chest, and causing Ray to lose his balance.

What happened next happened in a kind of strange slow motion. Ray staggered back, and turned as he did so to face his wife. Shav opened her mouth in horror, a bit of humanity still remained it seemed, and she uttered two words in a deep voice that was no longer recognisable as her own.

She simple said "Bad Times", as the front half of Ray vanished inside her gob. Ray had been the ultimate gob stopper and Shav began to choke on her husband's torso.

Ray Screamed as his face, that was now in the pits of his wife's stomach, had began to be slowly digested, Shav gargled and tried to pull Ray out, but with her feeble arms that looked like they belonged on a T-Rex, she couldn't get a hold of him, and as this happened I couldn't help but feel sorry for the pair. They never wanted any of this, but here they were.

Suddenly, the door to the basement burst open, and the mutant youths came to their master's aid, leaving the door wide open behind them, which was my cue to get the hell out of there.

I raced for the front door and was about to escape when Simba reminded me that I had left my stuff, and more importantly, Professor Humeprdink, in their living room, so I sneaked back into their lounge.

The bag was where I had left it, and luckily everything I had packed was still intact, Professor Humperdink however was a little worse for wear. He was sitting in the punchbowl that I had last seen him lapping out of, and was now drunker than I had been on my stag night all those moons ago.

I scooped him up in one arm, bag over the other shoulder, and pelted it out the house, with Simba in tow. I honestly don't recall how long I had ran for, but by the time I had stopped, I was lost.

Everything seemed strange and unfamiliar and it wasn't just me, the cats had no idea where we were either (Professor Humperdink didn't have a clue about anything, he was too busy singing a sea shanty at the top of his voice) I rested under a tree for a moment, when the heavens decided to open and the tree caught fire.
Rain used to be an annoyance in the past, when things made sense, but since The End, even Rain tries to kill you. This wasn't Acid Rain though, it was Flame Rain! So I had escaped the clutches of a crazed couple intent on eating me, only to be rained down upon with... well, rain from above.

I pegged it with the cats, trying to avoid the fiery death that plagued us and all of a sudden I found myself outside a school, which I could use as shelter from the flame. The doors weren't locked and the teachers lounge was the perfect place for me to hold up whilst I got my breath back.

The school wasn't familiar however, and certainly wasn't a local one. Either I'd been running longer than I thought or things had moved since The End. It turned out the latter was the answer. Things had moved, just because they could. For instance, The Eiffel Tower, which used to be in a country called France, now resides in Skegness where an Irish guy called Barry charges you a can of coke (a rare commodity) for a ride on the elevator. (That's not a euphemism)

Night had fallen and I decided to spend it in the staff room resting up with my cats, wondering about my long suffering lady wife Louise and how she was coping. Hoping she was safe. My thoughts through the night went all over the place and I began to wonder about the fate of my other friends... hell, to the fate of everyone I ever knew, and I wondered then, how long it would be before things went back to normal, not realising that normal would no longer be achievable.

I kinda wish my friends had died at The End, along with most of the world, as 9 out of 10 of my friends had become bat shit crazy or freakishly mutated! I wondered, back then, how long it would be till I ran into another friend... it wasn't long before I did, in fact it was the following morning, god rest her crazed soul.

As for Ray and Shav you ask? Well, I hadn't seen the last of them. Rule #1 in the survivalist guide book. If you kill something, make sure it's dead.

Whatever happened to Ray and Shav?

2010-11-18T01:11:00.000-08:00

4
Whatever happend to Ray and Shav?

When the world ended, Ray was at the supermarket getting some medicine for Shav, who had been in bed all week with a cold that he'd inadvertently given to her. She'd been nothing but a perfect carer whilst he'd had the bug and he wanted to repay the five star treatment he'd had, by giving her the same if not better.

He'd gotten a basket full of various remedies and was headed towards the checkouts, which for a weekday, was surprisingly full. Ray had wanted to get back to Shav as fast as possible, so weighed up his options. Did he risk going to the self service checkout and get stuck behind a pensioner with no comprehension of how the machine worked or did he risk going to the ten items or less checkout with the sixteen items he had? What's the worst the ten items or less cashier could do when he'd already loaded the conveyor belt with his stuff, refuse to serve him?

Maybe if he got rid of some of the items, then he could use the ten items or less queue with no kind of remorse. Ray studied his basket; did Shav really need a "facial soothing mask" or an "anti-flu body balm"? Half the stuff in there was unnecessary, but Ray didn't want to look like he didn't care by just turning up with a pack of Lemsip and a tub of Vic that he could offer to rub on her chest for her, so he decided to throw caution to the wind and go in the ten items or less queue, even though he was six items over.

Just as he approached the end of the queue, by chance, he noticed a free checkout with a nice looking lady sitting behind it, staring out into space. Now he needn't break the social rules of the supermarket! Ray was over to her in seconds and tipped the contents of his basket onto the belt, which brought the woman back into reality. She smiled at him and greeted him as he went to the end on the conveyor. Then she asked if he needed help packing, to which he usually said no, but for some reason today he decided to ask for help.

She looked at him, without the pleasant smile that had been there moments ago. It had been replaced with a deep sadness and a shocked expression like no one had asked her to before. Ray then happened to glance around him and the woman on the checkout behind was giving him evils, along with a tutting old man who was being served. Ray was really confused until he watched his cashier struggling with the carrier bags and then he realised that in his rush to get back to his ailing wife, he had completely neglected to see that this woman had a really small hand.

That wasn't the worst thing that would happen to Ray, but it was still a low point in his life that he felt really awkward about.

Whilst Ray had been out, Shav was snuggled up on her sofa under a duvet watching re-runs of old television shows. She’d had colds before, but this was unlike anything she’d had before and she knew deep down that it wasn’t what Ray had had last week; it was something much, much worse.

The television was a blur to her, the whole world was spinning and her nose was running like it was sprinting for the gold medal at the Olympics. Her only comfort whilst Ray was out was her cat Lilly, who was keeping her company.

Then The End came and everything suddenly went dark. Shav thought the illness had blinded her till the lights went back on. Then Lilly started talking and Shav thought the illness had made her crazy, so much so that she picked up the phone to call for an ambulance, but all she got was a dead tone.

Ray thought there had been a sudden total eclipse, like most people, until the lights came back on and the cashier in-front of him had been reduced to a skeleton. In-fact, he was one of only a few people left alive. Everyone else had collapsed on the floor in a pool of congealed blood.

Ray’s only thought was for the safety of Shav, so he ran outside, got in his car and sped off to his house. The roads were chaotic, with abandoned cars, people driving the wrong way, and bodies littering the road. But Ray made it back in record time, raced into his house and found Shav.

They were reunited and nothing else mattered as long as they had each other.

The laws of time were no longer in effect, for everyone experienced time differently after The End. For me, it had been a day, for Ray and Shav, by the time I found them, it had been several months... and things had gone from ok to horrific in that time.

Shav wasn’t right after The End. Whatever illness she had, had been amplified, and Ray was desperate to make her better again. Shav had developed a sickening hunger, and her appetite couldn’t be appeased, which was ridiculous as she had such a light frame, in-fact there was nothing of her!

Over the next few weeks, Shav had eaten everything in the house, and everything Ray had brought home for her. He was beginning to despair when who should turn up at his door but the youths he had taught. They’d been affected by The End as well, and had all taken on monstrous features, that they were hiding with their hoodies. Also, any form of independent thought had been wiped clean, and they’d come to Ray to ask what they had to do.

Ray told them to gather food for Shav, which they did without question. They scoured the supermarkets, picked clean people’s pantries and culled the cornershops, bringing back as much food as they could carry. Shav grew from quite thin, to quite fat, and kept growing. During this time Ray had smashed all the mirror’s in the house to stop her from seeing what she was becoming; a bloated monstrosity of her former self.

No matter how much food they brought back, it was never enough. Then one day, Ray came home early from one of his searches to find Shav sitting on the sofa (which had begun to strain under her weight) with a cat’s tail sticking out of her mouth.

She had eaten Lilly, their cat. But Ray wasn’t horrified, he just told her he loved her and that he’d look after her “for better or worse”

As the food around the area began to get sparse, Ray told the youths to bring back animals, and then when the animals eventually became sparse, he told them to bring back anything else, including people. Shav’s humanity had been replaced with an insatiable hunger for everything, but Ray still loved her. He moved her, with the help of the youths, to the basement, and that’s where I had just found her.

For some time I had wondered how my mind would cope with seeing something as monstrous as the site that had befallen my eyes in Ray's basement. With all the horror films I'd seen and video games that I'd played over the years, I had expected to be slightly or majorly desensitized to gore or horrific imagery, however this wasn't the case.

I stood staring at the creature that simply looked back at me with its hungry eyes. I believe I would have fainted if it had not been for the light-switch cord I was hanging onto. A large part of me was screaming for me to turn the light back off and for me to run back out of the basement, but I was rooted to the spot with fear and confusion.

I’d expected something pretty wrong had happened to the world, what with talking cats and the deserted high streets, but I never thought I'd find something quite as wrong as the creature that squelched before me. I of course didn’t realise it was Shav till Ray appeared behind me and told me what had happened to them both since The End.

Ray added.
"Of course, I can't possibly let you leave here alive, after all... you were supposed to come over for dinner, and now's your chance.

The Party at Ray's

2010-11-12T01:47:00.000-08:00

The Party at Ray's

My watch had stopped working when The End happened, so my concept of time and how much of it had passed at any given moment wasn’t reliable. What seemed like an hour to me, could have been half of that, and visa versa. It wasn’t just my watch however, as all watches, clocks, anything that could tell the time, had stopped working after The End, and I’ve yet to find a working timepiece, so as far as I know, time died on Monday along with the rest of the world.

So I’m not sure how long it was before I had packed some personal belongings in a rucksack, locked up my house and began walking down the road with my cats, but it seemed to be no time at all before I had gotten close to where some of my friends lived.

Professor Humperdink and Simba were keeping an eye out for anyone or anything, but all the way there we didn’t see a single soul, however that was about to change as when we approached our destination we heard music. Cheesy pop music to be precise, and there was only one person with an eclectic taste like that, my old buddy Ray.

I sighed a sigh of relief when my brain connected the music to him, as surely he must still be alive if his music was blaring out? So I ran, with my cats ahead of me, to the home of Ray and Shav.

Ray had been a hardworking bloke who was a bit of a jack the lad back in the days when life had a meaning, but as he grew older and wiser he mellowed out, met the beautiful Shav and settled down with her. His day job was helping troubled youths become valued members of society, which was a job he loved and one he was good at.

Shav was a highly intelligent motivated pretty lady who you couldn’t help warm to as she was as clever as she was funny. I helped her get a new job with my CV writing skills just before The End and the four of us (my long suffering lady wife Louise being the 4th) were going to go out for a meal sometimes that week, but the world ending kind of scuppered that idea. Ray and Shav were very much in love and everyone was happy for them, but thanks to The End, like most of us, their happy ending wasn’t quite what anyone had expected.

As soon as I saw the house, I was surprised, as there were large balloons outside, and a handmade sign which read “All Welcome” hanging over the door.

Simba spoke up “I’ve got a bad feeling about this Gunva!”

I ignored his cockney apprehension however. I was just glad that there was other human life, as much as I had enjoyed talking to my cats, their interests and mine weren’t really the same. Apart from living together, we didn’t really have much in common, which was a bit of a shame.

It was only a few moments after knocking the door that it opened to reveal a overly happy Ray. Before I could say anything he put his arms round me and gave me a massive hug, which lasted just a little too long. You know when hugs can go from nice to creepy, well this hug was just about to go into creepy territory when he let go.

“I can’t believe you survived Adamicus, I mean, no offence, but out of everyone you have the survival chances of a slug on a salt flat! I expected Hagley and Myke, and the Grays to survive, but you!?”

With that, he ushered me in to “the party” past several of the troubled youths who he’d worked with. As I past them, I thought I noticed something odd about them under their hoodies, but I thought that my eyes were playing up. More fool me.

His house was full of people, people I’d never seen before, and people Ray didn’t know either. They were all having a massive party. Professor Humperdink went straight for the punch bowl, but Simba went looking for his sister Lilly who lived with Ray and Shav.

The booze was flowing and the cheesy music was playing, I put my bag down for a moment and took a beer from a cooler. It was the tastiest beer I’d ever had, and the last one I’d have for a very long time. If I’d known that then, like a lot of other things, I would have taken my time with it.

I then put my foot in it by asking the overly merry Ray, where Shav was. The music seemed to suddenly stop and everyone looked at me. Ray sighed, looked me in the eye and told me that Shav died when The End came and that she’d always said

“Ray, if the end of the world comes and I die, please have a non-stop party and invite everyone and anyone along to it”

It was one of the crazier things that Shav had always said apparently. In retrospect, this was a lie however, so just know that before The End, she was as sane as most people.

Now as I’ve said, I had no concept of time, and I could see Ray was upset so I didn’t want to leave his party too soon to find my long suffering lady wife Louise, as that would just be rude. So I agreed to stay for a bit.

Simba came up to me and told me that he couldn’t find Lilly anywhere, and that he was worried. I told him to chill out and enjoy himself, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I should have listened to him really as cat’s hunches are usually right it turns out.

Some hazy time later, and after several long chats about the old days with Ray, I noticed that the room had thinned out quite a bit. I decided that that was my queue to use the toilet. As I went to use the facilities I saw Simba scratching at the door that led to their basement.

“What are you doing Simba?” I asked him.

He looked up at me and told me that he’d seen some of Ray’s work youths take people down here, and when the youths came back up, they came alone. He was sure there was something going on and that we should investigate. I reminded him that curiosity killed the cat, so he should be careful, but he insisted, so I opened the door and stepped into the darkness.

I’d only ever been down in Ray’s basement once before, to watch a transformers marathon and when I got down the stairs it was pitch-black. I recalled that there was a cord for the light hanging down near the bottom of the stairs so I felt my way blindly to it and pulled.

This is what I found.

Conversing with Cats

2010-11-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

2
Conversing with Cats

Professor Humperdink and Simba, pre-The End

The world had ended, and so had the laws of the universe it would seem, as my ginger cat Simba had just spoken to me. My mind could just about cope with all the oddness that had happened so far in my day, but the talking cat in front of me was the straw that broke the camel’s back, or in my case it was the cat that made me faint.

I awoke some hours later, in my own bed, with my ginger cat on my chest purring. I seem to recall that I had foolishly thought it was all a dream, and that I’d be laughing with my long suffering lady wife Louise about it later on.

My first clue that everything wasn’t ok was when I turned over in my bed to see my long suffering lady wife Louise was not present, leaving an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. My second clue and a more obvious one was when Simba, in that same high pitched cockney voice spoke again.

“Professor, he’s awake!” he cried out

I rubbed my eyes like someone out of a Disney cartoon did when they couldn’t believe what they were presented with, but no amount of rubbing was going to rub out the fact that my cat could speak. I stared at him gone out; he then began to lick my cheek with his sandpaper tongue, purring whilst he did it.

The familiar sound of a low pitched bell jangled up the stairs leading to my bedroom, and my other cat, Professor Humperdink (the one I got to name, and the oldest), jumped onto the bed, landing gracefully. Like always, he looked happy to see me. Then he began to talk, but not in a high pitched cockney voice like Simba, but in a very dry English accent.

“Hello to you master, I was hoping you were still alive. We’ve not seen Other Mother since everything went terribly strange, I do hope she’s ok”

I stuttered for the first time in a long time, still not quite sure if I was dreaming, and as if they were reading my mind, Simba scratched my face to show me I wasn’t dreaming. I then stated the obvious.

“You... you can talk!?”

The cats looked at each and rolled their eyes, then turned back to me. Professor Humperdink spoke

“Master, we’re as surprised as you are over these events. I had been stalking a few tasty birds when it all went terribly dark, which isn’t usually a problem for me as I can see in the dark, but even I couldn’t see. When the light returned, I found I had cognitive speech! We were waiting for your return Master, and that of the Other Mother, but she’s not been back since she left this morning. Incidentally, you must be famished Master, would you like something to eat?”

It was true, I was hungry, so I agreed, and followed my talking cats down the stairs, still shell-shocked from the events of the day.

They sat me down at my dining table and then Simba placed a small half dead bird on a plate in front of me.

“There you are Guvna!”

The bird looked at me with half conscious eyes.

“I can’t eat this!” I protested, which I could tell hurt the cat’s feelings. “Where’s the human food?”

Professor Humperdink, jumped on the table and reminded me that I was supposed to go shopping at the weekend, but had spent that time instead playing on my Xbox and that there was no human food in the house. I was starving, and looked back at the bird.

It was a young bird, but not a baby, he had feathers and a puncture wound through his chest where Simba had carried it to me. Its chest raised and lowered slowly, then its beak opened and in a weak voice it cried “Pleeeeasee... kill meee...”

I was hungry, but not THAT hungry, so I knocked it onto the floor and told my cats to have it and to make sure they finished it off quickly, which they did in no time at all.

After they'd eaten the morsel that was that poor talking bird, I asked the question that had been on my mind since I learnt my cat’s could talk. “Is it just you guys, or can all cat’s talk?”

“Well, I’ve spoke to a few cats, so it’s not just us. In fact, I spoke to a fine young cat not ten minutes ago, he was telling me that a lot of the Masters have disappeared and that the cats were all heading north for some reason, he wasn’t sure why.” The Professor replied.

“So Guvna, What’s next?” asked a curious Simba.

“Next?” I replied “Next we find your other mother Louise, but if she was with the horse, she’s all the way out in the middle of nowhere... I have some friends who lived on the way, maybe they’re still alive, or their car’s there. I’m sure between the three of us we can figure out how to drive a car.”

I paused for a moment, and realised that I was talking to two cats about driving a car.

That wasn’t the maddest thing that’s happened to be since The End, but it was still an odd moment. Not as odd as the fate of my friends Ray and his wife Shav; who were the next people I encountered on my journey.

Monday, the last day of the rest of my life.

2010-10-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

1
Monday, the last day of the rest of my life

One possible theory about what happened!

I’d like to say that when the world ended, I was doing something important. In a way I was. It was about ten in the morning and I was sitting down in my work’s toilet squeezing something sordid out of my behind. This was something else that I had taken for granted, being able to have a number 2 on a nice toilet, with real toilet paper and a sewage system that would take away the unwanted waste as oppose to poisoning you.

These days, if I need a number 2, nine out of ten times I have to go in a hole I’ve dug in the ground, whilst constantly looking out for things that are trying to kill me, sometimes even from the hole! And as for toilet paper, well... I’ll use whatever’s to hand; hence why some of the pages at the back of this journal, are missing.

I had just finished my business, and as I flushed the chain, the world as I knew it, was no more. I still hope to this day that I didn’t inadvertently cause the end of the world, with my expelled waste and subsequent flush. I know there will always be a small part of my brain that will wonder “what if I did?”

As I flushed the chain I heard a strange noise that sounded like a million elephants falling on a million monkeys from a million miles above, and then everything went as dark as that delicious substance that is sadly (or happily depending on your tastes) no longer available to us, called Marmite.

I was alone in the darkness for what seemed like an eternity, before someone decided to turn the sun back on. I waited for a moment, then picked my mobile phone out of my pocket and automatically went to update my status on Facebook (being the social networking site whore that I was); however my phone couldn’t access the Internet. That was because; there was no Internet, not anymore. There would be again, a very crude form of Internet, but I’m getting way ahead of myself, I hadn't encountered that strange individual just yet.

After a few moments (trying twitter) I opened the door to the toilet, and walked out to see that my office was no longer there. All that remained was a large crater, with the work’s toilet in the middle. My initial reaction was "Wow, that was some shit I did" but this wasn't the time for joking to myself. My so called work colleagues had ceased to be, they were all missing, along with the rest of the office. The other buildings around where my office once stood, were piles of rubble and the roads nearby were empty of any signs of life. I felt like I was the only person left in the world ... sometimes, I wish I was.

Slightly happy that I didn’t need to continue my work day, I decided to explore for survivors. Some time had passed, and I couldn’t find anyone, not even any bodies. My happiness for having work off indefinitely was short lived as despair had started to set in. What if I was the only person left? Why would I have been spared this unknown fate that had befallen the rest of the world? What of my family, my friends, my cats and of course my long suffering lady wife Louise, what had become of them? Would my Xbox still work? All questions I needed answering!

I decided I would find out, so began the short walk home to my house in hopes that I would find everyone I cared about round there with similar stories of how weird they day had been so far. As I ran down the road I kept my eyes peeled, but didn’t see a single person or car on my journey. I heard birds singing, and a dog bark as I got onto my street, but that was it. Unlike my office and the buildings around it, all the houses here looked the same as they had on the way into work, with no visible signs of damage, but one thing they did lack, was any human inhabitants that I could see.

I turned onto my drive and saw that my long suffering lady wife Louise’s car wasn’t there, I hoped that she was either at work and safe or seeing to her horse and safe, but mainly that she was safe. Loosing no time, I quickly went into my house, straight into the living room to the television, in hopes that the idiot box would have something to say that would explain the strange occurrence. However, the television didn’t work, which meant my Xbox wouldn’t work. Looking at all my games I realised just how much money and time I’d wasted on my hobby.

There's a lot of other things I now wished I had had as a hobby or learnt to do. In-fact, if I had a time machine, I'd go back and tell the school body to forget about teaching things like Science and Drama, and instead focus on lessons in wilderness survival and how to kill various monsters. As far as I know those subjects weren't on the curriculum when I was at school, but even if they were, chances are I wouldn't have listened anyway.

Actually if I had a time machine, I'd probably go forward and see how truly messed up things will get. Sorry, I seem to be going off on one again, where was I. Oh yeah, I was in my lounge, the telly didn't work and I'd realised I'd wasted time/money on computer games!

That was when I saw something moving out the corner of my eye, I turned just in time as a ginger ball of fur leapt through the air, claws first at where my head had just been. If you'll pardon the pun, it had missed me by a whisker.

I looked at to where it had landed and there was nothing there. Something was trying to kill me in my own house and I had a sneaking suspicion that it was the ginger ninja Simba, one of the two cats we had. It turned out that for once a man was right.

Simba waited for me to turn my back on him, then scrambled out from under the sofa and nicked my shin with his claws, causing me mild discomfort before he scrambled under another chair and out of sight.

“Simba, it’s me you Pratt!” I shouted at him

And that’s when someone turned the dial on the weird-ometer all the way to 11.

Simba’s little head poked out from under the sofa, and he went to meow... but instead, in a high pitched cockney voice he said “’Ello Guvna!”

Cracker FM

2010-10-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

Some exciting news for anyone who enjoys my particular comedy stylings.

My good friend Polly has invited me to co-host a local charity radio show for 2 hours every Friday starting from the end of November. I am looking forward to trying out this medium called "Radio" as people always tell me I've got the face for it. What a nice compliment! :)

So if you're a rugby-ite, and have nothing better to do on a Friday from the end of November, tune your bad self in to Polly's music and my mouth. More details when I have them.

Remember to come back on Friday for the first entry proper of JOAPAOD!

Wait a minute... face for the radio... sons of bitches!

Ciao for now!

Journal of a Post-Apocalyptic Office Drone

2010-10-22T01:20:00.000-07:00

Journal of a Post-Apocalyptic Office Drone

Unlike everyone else’s story, my story doesn't begin with the beginning; my story begins with the end, which in the
end became my real beginning.

The Mayans predicted the end of the world with their calendar, but nobody believed the Mayans. I mean who’d trust the predictions of a race that didn’t see their own demise? I half think that the guy who was in charge of the calendar died suddenly one day and that’s the reason the calendar ended when it did, in 2012, or maybe I’m wrong, maybe they did see it coming, but as I said, no one believed the Mayans. We were much more trusting of the desk calendars on our computers that seemingly had no end date, than a thousand year old prediction of our demise predicted by a dead civilisation.

The world as we knew it, ended on a Monday. Maybe that's why the collective masses had always hated Mondays as much as they had for so long, maybe it was some kind of sub-conscious knowledge that the world would end on that day or maybe we all simply just hated our working after a nice weekend. One thing I am certain of, is that I hated my job.

That was one of the few benefits of the world ending when it did; I could finally quit my job. I'd wanted to for some time, but always found a reason as to why I couldn't. It was a shame though, as "The End" robbed me of the pleasure of telling Mr. David-Smythe-Smegwell exactly what I thought of him and his office politics, as he'd died like everyone else in my office had... mysteriously.

Other benefits of the world ending were things like: no debt, responsibilities were out the window, you could wear what you wanted and do what you wanted whenever you wanted to!

Unfortunately there were things to counterbalance these benefits, like mutants, psychopaths, hunger, thirst, disease, killer robots, rabid animals, vicious fauna, no TV, no beer, no computers that didn't try to kill you and the constant brushes with death you get living in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. But at least I didn’t have any debt.

Half of me wondered if that was what the world governments brand spanking new plan to get rid of debt was... by ending the world as we knew it. But as all official channels no longer exist, not in any sane capacity anyway, I guess that one will remain unanswered for the time being.

I'd read somewhere, when reading like so many things was taken for granted, that you should keep your mind busy, so that's why I decided to write down what I've written here. (Reading’s still alive, but grammar as you've probably already noticed, died with society and common decency I’m afraid)

If you find this journal, then I'm probably dead. I hope I died painlessly, and that you've not had to kill me because I became mad as trousers and tried to wear your skin as a suit, or steal your shoes, or attacked you because you were French or something!

I also hope that you don't do anything “odd” with my corpse. Please bury me, and if I did attack you, I'm sorry.

If you however are a crazy person, you no doubt have already or are planning to eat me, if that is the case I hope you choke on me and if you use this journal as toilet paper, I hope you find these pages extremely coarse.

There's always the chance that this has been found years after my death and is being used as a historical insight into what these nightmarish years were like. That'd be nice.

I’ll keep writing in this till I eventually die, so if I suddenly trail off, you know what’s happened.

Yours ever faithfully,
Adamicus the 3rd.

New Theme

2010-10-21T03:15:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the fact that I'm actually doing something with my blog, I have changed the design in preparation of tomorrows first delve into a post-apocalyptic fictitious world that my brain has come up with.

I accidentally posted a chapter last night that's not due till next Friday, so if you read it you got a sneak peek, you sneaky peeker!

This time I am writing in advance so there should be little to no delays in updates, unlike the Zombie Survival of last year.

I'll still be updating my blog with other stuff like half arsed reviews and random musings, but mainly focusing on the random writing that is JOAPAOD (for short)

Adamicus the 3rd presents...

2010-10-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well, some of you asked for it, others didn't ask for it but are getting it anyway, and still more people won't even realise this exists, (so tell them!)

For some time now, I've been secretly planning another piece of creative writing, but something that includes a lot more people than the Zombie Survival blog of last year.

This new piece will be (hopefully) out every week, for your perusal. If I know you, chances are, you are in it at some point.

On Friday, the first part will be up for your reading pleasure (disgust) so I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

"Journal of a Post-Apocalyptic Office Drone"

Available Friday

Hello Reader! :)

2010-10-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

Hello to you all, it's been a while. How are you doing?

Really?

That bad?

Sorry to hear that. Can I cheer you up maybe with some creative writing like last years Zombie Survival?

No?

What... you didn't like my Zombie Survival blog?

Well do I care about your opinion?

Of course I care about your opinion, please calm down!

Okay, that's going too far, put the puppy down!

Alright then, I'll go. I just wanted to inform you about a new creative writing project winging it's way to my blog. A post-apocalyptic journal of sorts, with humor and horror, in that order. So, maybe once you've stopped having a hissy fit, I can put the first chapter up on here?

Ok, well, get some rest, and I'll put it up later.

7 ways to improve the sport - Cricket Edition

2010-10-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

I don't like sport. It's not because I'm not psychically apt or because I was sexually abused in the showers of my high school PE class or something. It's just because I find it boring.

I'm sure that people who love sports would find sitting in front of a computer playing a game for hours on end boring, but one man's Super Mario is another man's ET: The video game. If you don't get why ET : The video game is awful, congratulations, you're not a nerd. Or not as much of a nerd as I am.

Out of all the sports in the world, there's one I find the worst. That'd be cricket. I just don't get the "thrill" of a potentially endless game that's about as exciting to me as spending an hour in a lift with a certain work colleague of mine.

So with the current murmurs of fixing in Cricket, I thought that they may need to drum up some more support for their sport. So here are 7 ways they could improve the sport to get a bigger or newer audience.

1 - Sexy Cricket: Get rid of all those musty guys, and replace them with super hot women. When they run down the (green?) they go via sprinklers, making them wet all over and the replays would be immense. Loose a stump, loose an item of clothing. Everyone's a winner!

2 - Speed Cricket: 90 minutes and it's over. It works for a lot of other sports and they seem to be popular. Get rid of endless days of endless play and replace it with 45 minutes for each team. Then it'd be over and everyone could get on with whatever it was they were doing before being dragged to the Cricket. Also, poison the team members, if they don't get the antedote before 92 minutes are up, they die. Keeps the pace going.

3 - Full-Contact Cricket: Cricket balls can be lethal, so why not make them even more so. Get rid of the current teams and replace them with dangerous inmates on death row the world over. The batter has an explosive collar attached to his neck, so if it hits the stump, kapow. Instead of trying to hit the ball as far as possible, he has to hit a fieldsman with it. The ball would be spiked and the game would be gory.

4 - Themed Cricket: Forget England and Pakistan, how about Pirate's and Ninjas? Each team picks a theme and dresses up as said team. That'd make it a lot more entertaining for sure. Each team could have entrance music and cheerleaders.

5 - Moon Cricket: Blast all the cricketers up to the moon, there they have space suits on and jet boots to help them get around. Miss that ball and it could end up knocking the international space station out of orbit! Or if they mistime a jump, they'd never be seen again. Till we land on Mars, probably.

6 - Paint Cricket: A combination of Paintball and Cricket. Where the fielders would have paintball guns and just pummel the shit out of the batter with paint. It'd be hard, and it'd be painful, but it'd be different enough to warrant going to see. Oh and the crowd have paintball guns too, why not?

7 - Motor-Cricket: It's cricket, but on motorbikes! Nuff said!

Well there are just seven suggestions I've sent off, hopefully they'll take them into consideration. Till then, I guess I'll just have to put up with ignoring the regular kind.

[REC]athon < It's happening baby!

2010-10-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

As Danny DeVito sang to his "twin" in the aptly named "Twins", "tonight is the night bro" or maybe he sang tonight is YOUR night. I don't know. It's been a while since I've watched Twins, the movie I mean, not dirty pornographic twins. Not that I watch dirty pornographic twins. Oh dear.

Anyway, tonight, is the night, for my long awaited [REC]athon. The first film [REC] being one of my favourite horror films since The Grudge, I have high hopes for the sequel, which some genius named [REC]2.

Joining me for this will be my evil brother Kristofus, my thoughts on [REC]2 and the whole [REC]athon will be up sometime in the near future.

Ciao for now

Eurogamer Expo!

2010-10-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend is the Eurogamer Expo. It's a big ass gaming thingy at Earls Court in London.

After years of wanting to go, this year I actually am. So tomorrow, I will be playing games I wont be able to afford till I sell another Kidney.

If anything fun happens, I'll let you know. :)

The Cube

2010-10-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was wearing a wet suit, due to the ammount of channel surfing I was doing, when I stumbled across "The Cube". I thought I was going to be watching the excellent horror film, until Phillip Scofield's near white hair appeared on the screen.

I realised my error and was going to continue catching the waves, still keeping with this surfing theme, when I saw that it was an awful awful gameshow. So I put my board down, and watched in awe at how bad televison has become.

The Cube, for those that have been fortunate enough to not see it, is a gameshow where a contestant has to do various skill games in an attempt to get £250,000, whilst inside the titular cube. The players have 9 lives for the duration of their program, and once they're in their glass case of emotion, they have to complete whatever challenge they're doing or they lose a life, and once their 9 lives are gone, all the money they've won up to this point goes into Scofield's back pocket. They get the chance to simplify the game if it looks to challenging and they have the chance to give it a trial run.

This all sounds interesting, until you see the actual skill games they have to play. One of the games, the contestant had to catch a ball fired at him from the other side of the cube. Sure there's a certain amount of skill involved in that. Another game a woman had to roll a disc through a narrow gap. Also, there's some skill involved in that. Infact It's not the skill of these games that I'm putting into question, there is a certain element of skill involved in these games, and I'm sure I'd fail miserably at most of them. However to me this show seems like a bunch of games you'd find at a village fete. What's next in The Cube, hook the duck? Knock the cans over with the baseball?

The producers of the show, obviously knew that these games aren't that thrilling on their own, so instead decided to employ camera techniques from The Matrix. At one point the camera will almost do bullet time effects to increase the intensity of the game from nil to "a tow-sand percent" as Louie Walsh would say.

The ammount of pomp and circumstance that's added to this gameshow is cringeworthy!

Check this out and see if you agree with me, or tell me I'm talking shit. Of course you'd have to find me to be able to tell me that, wuhahahaha... ahem.

Good Neighbours

2010-09-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

Even if you don't live on Ramsey Street, it's important that you have good neighbours, perhaps with a little understanding.

When my long suffering lady wife Louise and I moved into our home, we were convinced that the neighbours connected to our semi detached house were either Vampires or growing drugs, or a mixture of the two. this was because we never saw them during the day, their curtains were stapled shut, and we heard strange noises from them. Having watched the brilliant film "The Burbs", I was more than a little concerned we were living next door to the Klopeks.

2 years on and we were wrong about them being vampires. They're actually a nice "foreign" couple (they're eastern European, but I don't know quite where) and haven't exploded when I've seen them in daylight. Are they growing drugs? Probably, but who isn't these days?

Well, I'm not. But in my sleep deprived brain I imagine most other people are.

On the other side of our house however, are two old ladies. I wasn't around when they introduced themselves to my long suffering lady wife Louise, which is more the pity as she was unable to tell me which is which. One of them is Beryl and one of them is Babs. As far as I'm concerned they are interchangeable, and it's been so long since we first met them that too much time has passed to stop proceedings and just say "I'm sorry, but which one is Babs?"

Also, I wonder what exactly do I know about my neighbours? I mean, what do I really know about my neighbours? I'm sure the people living next door to Fred and Rose west thought they were maybe a little odd, but never suspected they'd have bodies under the patio!

Thinking about it, as I tend to do, I don't know anything about Beryl and or Babs. The one time we invited them over for coffee they snubbed us, stating that their arthritic dog couldn't be left alone for seconds (perchance for fear of Goblins?)

My long suffering lady wife Louise said they were sisters, but are they? Maybe they're lovers? Maybe they were cell mates and escaped from a mental asylum prison twelve years ago?

They are old, live together and have a dog. This is all the information I have discovered over the past two years.

So this weekend, I decided I'd find out a bit more about them. I was about to leave my house to break into theirs, when one of them was at my door. I wondered what she wanted and at first thought that maybe she'd killed the other one or wanted help milking her dog (she could be crazy after all)

In the end, it was the exact opposite of milking her dog, she'd come over to ask about Professor Humperdink, my injured cat, as she'd not seen him for a while and was concerned. It actually touched my blackened heart that this lady took time out of her busy dog milking schedule to come over and ask about my cat.

After she left I put my "breaking in to discover their true identities" idea on hold, at least till Christmas.

Liza & Huey's Pet Nation

2010-09-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, I was watching drab television with my long suffering lady wife Louise and on came a program I try to avoid, but like a car crash, I can't help but watch, it is of course the lovely "Liza & Huey's Pet Nation"

It’s by far the worst television has to offer. The presenters are awful, Liza and Huey, with the guy being some weird metro-sexual Hispanic weirdo whose shirt was open pretty much down to his belly button and if he’d moved to his left, his nipple would have said hello. I later found out that he is the lead for The Fun Loving Criminals, which makes me cry inside.

Usually each week is filled with weird British people and their pet fetishes.

This week, was no different, when we were introduced to a Welshman (Careful), who was a farmer who lived with his wife and his sheep. No word of a lie, this man, let his massive sheep wonder through his house. I watched in awe as this couple sat on their flea-bitten sofa, laughing about how odd they were, when out of nowhere, the biggest sheep I’d ever seen, came in and knocked over a tin of custard creams off a table, and began gnawing on them. The people’s reaction? They smile and laugh to each other, probably about how eccentric they think they are, but really, we all know they're probably dying from a sheep related viral infection.

This is exactly how the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family started... by letting a sheep live with them. As I watched transfixed at how truly messed up this pair really were, I found myself wondering what the sheep did regarding it’s toilet habits... then the program answered my question, well the wife on the show did anyway. She smiled as she said “You can’t house train a sheep, he just goes where he wants”. I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming this. After learning this fact I noticed that their carpet, looked like death.

If you get a chance to watch this abomination car crash television, I suggest you do. The hosts are awful, the “jokes” are followed by the sound of crickets and the whole thing stinks as bad as the sheep’s carpet does. I had to wonder if the producers intentionally made the show this bad? How else could you justify serving up this honking pile of dog turd to the public.

Where are they now? : The Scooby Gang!

2010-09-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

If you, like me, grew up, then you would have probably watched Scooby Doo on television.

It was always a good little cartoon, where you'd try and work out who the monster really was, and 9/10 times I would get it wrong. (I was a special child)

But whatever happened to the Scooby Gang? Well, I took time out of my pathetically free schedule and caught up with the gang. I just need to warn you that things aren't as rosey as you'd have hoped they'd have been for these poor poor people.

Using my investigatory powers, I was able to track down Fred Jones, leader of the old gang, to a trailer park in Nebraska. Fred hasn't aged well, he was deshevelled and drunk when I found him, lying in a pool of his own puke on his trailer floor.

After helping him clean up a bit, he told me what he'd been doing since the gang stopped solving mysteries.

"The gang split and went their own way, except for me and Daphne. Man she was a beauty back in the day, butter wouldn't melt in that mouth, but I didn't realise that she was a she-harpy! I tells ya, I spent my youth un-masking monsters and finding people underneath, but with that banshee, it was the other way round. I dunno if marriage changes you, but she, she bled me dry. We were happy for the first few years, then the flirting started. Some guy called Adam turned up on the scene, some kinda prince... well, it wasn't the best divorce, she took the money, the condo in beverly hills, and worst of all she took the money!"

It was clear that Fred had turned into an alcoholic after Daphne left him for He-Man. I decided that I should leave, but he pleaded me to help him solve the mystery of where he'd put his shoes. Fred Jones, lady and gentleman is a hollow shell of the handsome investigatory sleuth he once was.

Daphne was un-available for comment, due to her being on the planet of Eternia, but the royal palace issued a statement saying the Daphne was very happy and wished nothing but the best for her ex-husband Fred. So I went to see Velma, and she was in an even worst state than Fred.

Velma's dead.

She was spotted by a high ranking employee at microsoft and spent several years rising through the company before she was appointed as Bill Gate's right hand man. Not long after that there was a scandal publisised over the internet that Velma and Mr. Gates had been having an affair. She denied the allegations, but stepped down from her job. Her maid found her body days later, holding a copy of Microsoft Office in one hand and an empty bottle of pills in the other. Tragic.

So what of the beloved Shaggy and Scooby. Well, after the gang split, Shaggy began taking Scooby all over the country in the Mystery Machine. However, one fateful day in October, Scooby was admitted to a vet, and it soon became clear that he had gastric torsion due to Shaggy overfeeding him. An ex-ray showed several enormous sandwiches that hadn't been chewed at all, lodged inbetween Scooby's stomach and his anus. Shaggy was arrested for animal cruelty and upon searching the Mystery Machine, they found copius ammounts of heroin.

Scooby Doo was put down on the 1st of november 2008, and he was buried in a paupers grave. Shaggy, after the death of his beloved dog lost his mind, and was stationed at a mental asylum on a remote Island. He refuses to believe that Scooby is dead and believes that he is on the island to find him. I learnt recently however that his radical treatment on the island was made into a film called Shutter Island, but they changed certain facts and names to protect his identity. Something I just ruined by telling you that.

So there you have it, two dead, two divorced and one mentally unstable, who said cartoon's were for kids?

Half Arsed Review: Inception at the Imax!

2010-09-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

Before watching Inception, I believed that Leonardo Di Caprio was a wishy washy (yes I just used that phrase) actor, with good looks, but that’s about it. I don’t quite know what I based this opinion on... maybe the fact that during my childhood all the girls pined over him and not me, had something to do with it?

Anyhoo, I went to the IMAX, for the first time, with my pal Polly. The screen was bigger than Clifford, alarmingly so, and I honestly thought I’d have a seizure if there were any flickering lights (like the lights over my desk as I type this) and the sound, to quote Jim Carrey “would make George Lucas cream in his pants”.

I’m sure this film looked amazing in a regular cinema, but the IMAX experience would shit on it from a great height. So... I should probably talk about Inception:

Before going to see this film, I was told by several people that it was complicated beyond recognition. In fact at one point in the film even one of the characters was confused! However, I don’t know if it’s my sci-fi addled brain, or the fact that I live 90% of my life in other people’s subconscious’s, but I was never lost at any point in the movie, and...Drum roll please, although there were some plot points I figured would happen, I didn’t predict the twists!

Yes, you read it here first. This movie kept me guessing, then, like a bully in a playground, it pulled my pants over my head and posted a video of it on Facebook. (I’ll get you yet Stuart McGreg!!)

(Read this in a Nazi voice) Zis review vill contain Ze Shpoilerz! You hasv Been Varned!

The plot is simple (not simples, as the Meer-cat’s would want you say, the bastards!) and involves Di Caprio’s Cobb (not a corn on the) and his 3rd Rock from the Sun buddy, being able to infiltrate people’s dreams and steal their secrets. Instead of using their powers for good, like learning what exactly they put in KFC, companies hire them to commit the ultimate form of industrial espionage.

It starts off with Cobb washing up on a beach, and getting discovered by some angry Japanese people, I had a similar experience at Bournemouth one year. Anyway, they bring him to a wizened old Asian guy. He seems to know Cobb, and spins a spinning top that they found on Cobb... then it rewinds to Cobb and 3Rd Rock trying to steal a secret from the same old wizened Asian guy, but now he’s a young Asian guy, called Hanzo (I don’t remember if that is his real name, but that’s what I’ll call him) but he gets wise to their treachery thanks to Cobb’s wife. (bitch)

Anyway, it soon turns out that they’re already in a dream, and they wake Hanzo up and threaten him in the “real world” which also turns out to be a dream. So it’s a dream within a dream, and they’re actually on a train.

They all go about their own way, and are later apprehended by Hanzo, who tells them he has a job for them, but this is different. Instead of stealing an idea, he wants them to plant an idea. That’s Inception baby. The film get’s 10 points, just for having the balls for saying the title of the film, within the film. I love it when that happens. I just wish that he’d looked at the camera and said “Inception” that would have been hilarious, but Nolan’s too good for that, bless his Cotton Joker Socks.

Well, Cobb accepts so he can see his kids, because for some reason the American’s don’t want him back (possibly because his dad is Michael Cain). Anyway, Cobb gets a team together, consisting of Juno, 3rd Rock, Indian Dude from Drag Me to Hell, Hanzo and a guy called Eames, who totally steals the show. All the actors in Inception are great, even 28 days Later Cillian Murphy, (or however you spell that silly name) but Eames honestly lights up the screen whenever he’s on it.

Fast forward past a tutorial into world building with Di Cobb, it also becomes clear that Cobb has a dark secret that could jeopardize the whole mission! And then a few montage’s later they’re going in for the Inception. They mission, to implant an idea in Murphy’s head to dissolve his father’s (Pete Postlethwaite’s) company when he inherits it.

Special mention goes to Pete’s nose in this, which took up 60% of the screen whenever he was on camera.

So, as Inception is especially hard, they have to make a dream, within a dream, within a dream! Sounds complicated, but the film eases you into it so as not to fry your puny human brain cells.

Upon entering Murphy’s head, they are set upon by his subconscious, and Hanzo is wounded. Usually, this wouldn’t be a problem as it’s just a dream... however; something Cobb didn’t think to mention was that if you die in the dream, you end up in Limbo. Not the fun Caribbean dancing game, but an endless world with collapsing buildings.

So, after some really cool stuff, that I can not reveal due to this only being a half arsed, and not a fully arsed, review, they have some great set pieces, you learn of Cobb’s dark secret, and before you know it you're back at the start (which is technically the end) and Hanzo is trapped in Limbo along with Cobb. They both realise where they are and Cobb convinces Hanzo to kill them both, thus waking them up from their dream..

The ending, was amazing. It left it open to interpretation, which is the best kind of ending in my opinion.
The lady in front of me, actually said “NO WAY” out loud. Now that would have brought a tear to Nolan’s eye I’m sure, that his work touched someone that deeply. The problem with that of course, is that Nolan’s tears are made of Unicorn blood, and as we all know, Unicorn blood didn’t do much for he who shall not be named. The dirty bastard...

SAITO! That’s his name, so forget everything I’ve said as if I can’t even remember his name, I obviously can’t be trusted with a half arsed review of something.

Ciao for Niao!

The Three Thousand Five Hundred Pound Sterling Cat

2010-09-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

Whilst washing up (the only job I actually do around my house with any form of effort) I happened to glance out of the window. To my horror, limping across the overgrown jungle that is my garden, was Professor Humperdink.

I dropped the cup I was holding, in slow motion (so that I could sort the cat out, come back and catch it just before it smashed on the floor) and ran to the utility door. I fumbled with the single key, in a blind panic, before I was able to force the door open and approach my injured cat.

There he was, meowing at me, with his limp right front leg. I called my long suffering lady wife Louise over, using my voice (If she hadn't been at the house, I'd have used the large spotlight in the garden with a symbol of a horse on it, that usually summons her)

Within seconds she was at my side, prodding and poking the poor professor as he looked at us gone out. My first thoughts were that the ginger ninja Simba, his adopted and evil half brother, had something to do with this, but it was apparent that Simba had been in the house the entire time, and upon thinking about it, he doesn't have the mental capacity to create a devious plan to attack Professor Humperdink. His plans are just to wait somewhere dark and pounce when anyone gets near. The fool.

It was the weekend (of course) so we were very aware that the vets would be charging as much as humanly possible for us to get him looked at. But that didn't matter, for without Professor Humperdink, our house would be almost defenceless!

The vets told us it was a fracture, that it had probably been caused by a car! I asked the money grabbing Vet and my long suffering lady wife Louise to leave for a moment whilst I spoke to Professor Humperdink about what happened.

If you didn't know, cat's are the only thing that stop Goblins getting into your house, and not the good kind of Goblins! Professor Humperdink and the Goblin King (not David Bowie) have been at war since he first got to our house. So far, the Professor has been able to keep the Goblins at bay, however, they lured him, in a similar way how they lured his brother Merlin, onto the road. Luckily, Admiral Ackbar was passing by and shouted "It's a trap" to Humperdink, just in time.

I would have told this to my long suffering lady wife Louise, but she'd have thought I'd not taken my tablets again (I think I've lost them). Anyway, Humperdink was air-lifted out of Rugby and taken to a specialist center, where a team of three experts were able to put his leg back together, using the power of Science!

I spoke to the vet on the phone, who told me that we couldn't afford the bionic limb I'd asked for (plus it didn't exist apparently) so he told me that they just put a metal plate, some screws and a pin in his leg to help him out.

Humperdink is now at home and on the mend, but what of the Goblins you may wonder? Well, yesterday I found one of their spies on the staircase. Goblins, a fact that you may also not know, use Spiders as spies, the larger the spider, the deadlier. It was just me and the spider, Humperdink was in his recovery tent.

I thought I was done for, until my ginger ninja Simba pounced out of no-where. Teasing the spider, before ultimately killing it.

I left it's mangled carcass on the stairs to warn all the other spiders that although Humperdink's out of action for the next 6-8 weeks, there's still another ferocious animal that will guard us from the ever present Goblin threat at the bottom of our garden.

I just hope nothing happens to Simba, or I'll have to put our horse in our house! And no-one, bar my long suffering lady wife Louise, wants that!

Deadly Premonition

2010-09-06T02:19:00.000-07:00

You know by now if you've read my blog, that I'm a fan of watching bad movies. I'm also a fan of playing bad games, and seeing just how bad they truly are.

I'm also a fan of survival horror games and the two genres of bad gaming and survival horror have spawned "Deadly Premonition" a twin peaks style abortion of a game.

I thought it was only destined for foreign shores, however, as of 17th Sep, it'll be over here, and I intend to get it and tell you just how awful this game really is.

I'm actually realising that my life is a survival horror, this morning I had to walk to work, all 4 miles, and am now sitting under a flickering light that I doubt will get fixed anytime soon and I'm having to listen to my work colleague drone on about her dull life. If I didn't have bills to pay, I'd walk right now!!

The Great Rambling - Nemesis

2010-09-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Where would Sherlock Holmes be without Moriarty?

Where would Peter Pan be without Captain Hook?

Where would God be without the Devil?

All the cool people seem to have a nemesis, some form of person that is everything they oppose. I decided, as of five minutes ago, that I needed to get a nemesis.

I already kind of have a nemesis, who I shall codename Pearl. Pearl, is the dullest person on earth. If you were to look up the definition of dull, there would be just a phone number, which would put you through to her and one of her boring stories.

I have to listen to these stories day in and day out, and it's gotten to the point that I try to leave the room if she so much as opens her mouth, for fear she will bore me to death.

I decided, that enough is enough! I had to banish this she-harpy to hell before she drained all of the colour out of the world (a feat she is adept at) So I hired Ninja assassins.

This seemed like a good idea, because even if she wasn't killed, at least she'd have a story to tell me that didn't involve her boring life. However, the following day after the assassination attempt, I found that she was still alive and even she, could make a story about Ninja's un-interesting.

I however, do not count Pearl, as my true adversary, for she is too dull to be my true nemesis. So I have begun to search for someone who will stand against my plans. What my plans are, I don't quite know yet, but I feel if I had a nemesis that my plans would probably be more nefarious, so that's why I need one.

If you'd like to be my nemesis, please go ahead and drop me a line.

If not, I shall have to scour the earth to find them... until then, I shall have to do with Pearl and her Dementor style soul-draining abilities.

WORST DAY EVER

2010-09-02T06:41:00.000-07:00

I was watching a car advert the other night, through laziness, not by choice...

There's some kid in a car, who picks up a cow using her hands and places it on top of a petrol station's roof. Irresponsible!!! If I was her father, I'd stop the car and make her take it off again.

So, put yourself in the petrol station guys shoes. You're working in the middle of nowhere, you've been called in to work even though it's supposed to be your day off in a typical Clerks moment, at a petrol station which seldom see's any traffic.

So you're helping yourself to a sly Slush Puppy when all of a sudden you hear a "Moooo". You open the door to see on top of your petrol station roof, there is a cow.

You immediatly realise that someone in a vauxhall has driven past and irresponsibly let their child use the god like powers that the car gives them, to put a cow on your roof. You're now tasked with getting the cow down, then your mobile goes off, it's the hospital... your wife was attacked by rabid wolverines and they need you down there asap. But... there's a cow on your roof.

These car adverts never think of the little people, and that's why I don't drive...

Murder Misery AKA Mourning Jo

2010-09-02T03:01:00.000-07:00

Some might say that Stoopid Studios is a one trick pony, being that most if not all of our films have a supernatural element which involves some/all of us dying.

So, our next feature will be a different bag all together, sure someone will die, but there will be no essence of supernatural entities or bananas from outer space in this venture.

It's working title is "Murder Misery" and it'll involve a few of us improvising a gathering, where we're all playing strange individuals like a door to door salesman who sells doors or an alcoholic Farmer who is convinced his animals are talking to him. Anyhoo, it'll all come to a head when one of us dies.

Then, Alex will be coming to join us in the evening as an investigator, who, as he won't be present during the filming of the murder, will have no idea as to who the real murderer is! Let the hilarity commence!

Anyhoo, hopefully this will be up on our website sooner rather than later, we've still got 2 projects filmed and awaiting the editing, so watch this space or indeed www.stoopidstudios.com

Stay tuned for more nonsense.

GUYS!! 6 ways to Spice up your relationship

2010-08-26T06:53:00.000-07:00

Do you think your better half is getting fed up with “your version of cleaning” or the fact you always want the football when she wants to watch "Help, my house is falling down"? Then try one,some or all of the following:

#1 – Take her out for a meal in the most expensive restaurant you can find, then tell her that you can’t afford it. Just make sure to bring some trainers for her to aid in your escape

#2- Fake your own death. We have all thought about it for tax reasons, but if you fake your own death, then turn up years later, your partner will be so glad to see your not dead that it’ll be like having a second honeymoon.

#3- This one is a bit tricky, but sell your house and buy another one without her knowing. Let the first time she is aware of the move, be when she comes home one day to find another family in the house. The look on her face will be priceless, and then you’ll get brownie points for using some initiative!

#4- Build a bomb shelter in your back garden, then create a false news broadcast announcing the end of the world. Wake your partner up at silly o'clock and present her with the news that the world is over and take her to the safety of your bomb shelter. She'll be impressed with your forethought and it'll also help you convince her to have children if she has been adverse to it before hand as you have to repopulate the planet.

#5- Kidnap her from her workplace. Leave her in a cold dark room for a few days, then turn up as yourself and rescue her from the clutches of these imaginary kidnappers. You'll be a hero!

#6 – Borrow money off of the mafia and don’t pay it back. If you don’t pay it back, the mafia tends to get a bit angry, and you and your partner will have to flee for your lives, bringing you closer together and giving you a lasting memory before they finally catch up with you and bury you alive.

I am [REC]2-less, hear me roar!

2010-08-23T03:08:00.001-07:00

So my plans to have a [rec]athon were cut to ribbons when a series of unfortunate events befell me.

First off, I forgot my pin number. My brain drew a complete blank when I got to the cashpoint and after my 3rd failed attempt I had to call the bank and get it un-blocked. I tried again later and another 3 failed attempts blocked my card and I have to wait 5 days for a reminder, the bastards! I don't see why they couldn't tell me it over the phone, after going through more security than a Hogwarts vault to even speak to someone!

In the end though, my wife gave me her card and I went off to my local Asda, to find that they didn't have [REC]2 in store. So I traipsed over to Blockbuster... they too had no [REC]2. Unfortunately, I had exhausted my options as Rugby is THAT shit.

I was angry, angry that you could pick up the latest entry in the tired franchise that is saw, but you couldn't pick up a copy of a horror that truly tried something different... then I realised, thanks to a tweet, that it is not the 20th of August, but the 20th of September that [REC]2 is released... So, my bad.

However, my weekend wasn't all bad, I did see Blood Diamond, which is a fantastic film and I highly recommend it, also I saw Inception at the Imax, so await for the half arsed review. :)

[rec]athon

2010-08-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you who like horror films, I urge you to watch [REC], a Spanish horror film about a news reporter and her camera man stuck in an apartment building with a bunch of tenants who quickly become infected by a demonic virus. It's claustrophobic, scary and just a great film.

When I heard [REC]2 was coming out I was apprehensive at first, due to the quality and the nature of the ending from the first. However, I've heard nothing but good reviews for it, so I thought I'd go see it in the cinema on release. But as it's a Spanish film and has subtitles, it only got shown in remote locations in the country.

So I had to wait for the release of the DVD, and it is out today! Yay!

As the 2nd film is set 15 minutes after the first, I thought it'd be a good idea to watch them back to back, so tonight I will pick up the DVD on my way home and am having my evil brother and his friend over to peruse the visual horror.

Expect a half arsed review if I survive the night.

Sharktopus

2010-08-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

I have a certain affection for bad movies.

Sometimes the bad movies are actually more fun to watch with a group of people than the good movies are. I don't know about you (as you could be anyone) but I tend to comment on the action that is unfolding in front of me.

This can be annoying as I tend to reveal my thoughts on the plot and 9 out of 10 times I'm right and probably spoil the movie for anyone who's not trying to work it out from the offset. I also tend to point out the plot holes and put words in the actors mouths.

Now when a group of people get together to watch a movie, people naturally talk. This can irritate even me if it's a good movie and people are talking over the important plot points. So I tend to like to watch bad movies with people, as that way, it doesn't matter if they talk over it, as the plot doesn't matter and you can spend the next hour and a half ripping the movie to shreds.

There's a certain culture growing for bad movies, and Syfy are the kings of making them. From the offset you know you'll be watching something pretty ridiculous yet genius at the same time. They were the guys behind Giant Shark vs Mega Octopus, and now they're bringing out the ultimate cheesy bad monster movie.

Sharktopus.

Half shark, half octopus! It's got Eric Roberts in it as a scientist who creates a creature with the front half of a shark and tentacles for it's back half. He's made it for the military and put a flashing mind control device on the sharktopus's noggin. However, the mind control device isn't as resilient as you'd like it to be and before you can say "Holy shit, it's a shark crossed with an octopus that seems to have be genetically engineered by the military for god knows what purpose and it's coming this way!" Sharkypus goes on a rampage.

[Somehow I doubt this guy's gun will do any damage.]

It looks terribly good. This is a movie that has to be seen to be believed, a bit like The Human Centipede. So, when it comes out, expect either an invitation from me to come watch it, or a half arsed review about it.

But before I watch an bad movie, I will be watching [REC]2 and Inception this weekend. Wahoo!

Ciao for Niao!

Half Arsed Review : Predators

2010-08-18T03:42:00.000-07:00

You're not technically a man, until you've seen Predator. That's not a lie, that's a fact. The first question a potential father-in-law should ask to his daughters chosen mate should be "Have you seen Predator". If the answer is no, that means his daughter is either a Lesbian, or this man has no balls.

It's not too late for all you guys who haven't seen it. So get onto Amazon, or wherever it is you kids do your shopping these days, and pick up a copy. Hell, even if you're a woman, you should see this film, as it's based on a true story about an invisible alien.

Predator is a seminal classic, which even on re-watching through rose tinted glasses, still holds up and doesn't have to rely on CGI to shoot it's adrenaline and machoistic thrills straight through your eyeballs and out of your scrotum!

I wouldn't say it to his face, because me and Arnie don't see eye to eye ever since that winter in Aspen, but Arnie was never an amazing actor. However in Predator, he does a grand job. He plays Dutch, a bad ass squad leader, and is believable in every second he's on the camera.

The dialogue in Predator is straight to as macho as you can get and amusing at points. One of my favourite lines is in this movie. One soldier is cut, his friend turns to him and says "Hey, you're bleeding"... the soldier, pulls out a grenade, blows up a machine gun nest and then quips "I ain't got time to bleed"

I want THAT put on my gravestone, not the whole quote, just that last bit "I ain't got time to bleed" because anyone walking through a graveyard, would think twice about pissing on that guys grave!

Anyway, the film is true 80's brilliance, check it out.

After the success of the first film, they decided to make a sequel, and some bright spark thought that it'd be a good idea to put the Predator in a different kind of jungle... a concrete jungle! He also thought that Danny Glover would kick ass like he did in the Lethal Weapon franchise!

He was wrong. Unlike Lethal Weapon 2 which rocks, Predator 2 sucks. This time it's about a cop whose after the alien crab-face, and it's just cheesy. Avoid this, like you would the 2nd and 3rd matrix films.

Next the Predators resurfaced in the Alien Vs Predator films, which I didn't think were terrible, but the Predators themselves weren't anywhere near as threatening as they were in the original movies they were borrowed from, or maybe that was because they were up against the truly terrifying Aliens? It'd be pretty hard for anyone to look bad-ass against the Aliens unless your name is Ellen Ripley.

Then I heard Predators was coming out, and that it was returning the dreadlocked deadlies to their natural habitat. The Jungle. Plus, it had Adrian Brody playing the titular role, which was an odd choice making me think, this film was trying something different yet staying true to the original films brilliance.

The film starts off with a bunch of random people falling into a jungle, mistrusting each other due to not knowing how they got there and all thinking that someone in their group knew more than they were telling. The fact that all these people were killers of some variety was obvious from the offset, and the play on the title that these people were predators of a kind was spoon fed to the audience which disappointed me.

The film started off great, even borrowing heavily from the music out of the original movie and a hint of the Alien soundtrack appeared at one point raising a fan boy smile from me, but when the CGI Preda-dogs turned up, my heart sank. They looked fake and really weren't needed.

The only interesting characters in the film was Adrian Brody's character "Royce" and the lady, who I can't be bothered to google to find out her name, so she shall be known as "the lady" from this point forth. The others were all stereotypes, you had Danny Trejo playing a Mexican enforcer, some Asian dude playing a yakuza, a Russian playing a thick Russian brute, Shane from The Shield playing a convict, a black dude playing a member of an African death squad and the guy who played Venom and ruined Spider Man 3 for everyone was playing a "Doctor"

You have to be pretty stupid when Royce is detailing that all of them are killers except for the doctor, not to guess that Venom is lying about who he really is. The pay-off for his character is disappointing to say the least.

Lawrence Fishburn turns up half way through as a deranged bastard, and his character's screen time is a bit cheesy but helps move the plot on. One thing he does say, makes no sense whatsoever. He explains that the predators come down to hunt, and if they lose they adapt their tactics and learn from their mistakes.

Which is bull shit. These Predators are using the same heat-vision that Arnie managed to dupe back in the jungle. Surely with all their technology they would have made a decent vision mode that couldn't be fooled by mud?

There were some cool moments, like the nod to the first predator film when someone talks about Arnie's character's encounter, Danny Trejo's final scene, the free fall at the start and the score as a whole was pretty good.

Anyway, apart from some gaping plot holes here and there and some predictable twists, the film isn't half bad. It's a lot better in my opinion to Predator 2, but still not quite using the Predator as well as he was in the first film. Maybe the obligatory Predators 2 which I'm sure will come out, will be able to learn from past mistakes?

We shall see...

Stoopid Studios DOT COM!

2010-08-18T02:43:00.000-07:00

Well howdy doodee!

At long last Stoopid Studios has got a webpage... there's not much on it at the moment, but in the following months it will be home to all things Stoopid.

Please go check it out, or I'll be forced to shed my skin and hide in your attic. Nobody wants that to happen.

www.stoopidstudios.com

Ciao for Niao

You're call is very important to us...

2010-07-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

I was quite excited recently, by the prospect of getting a new PC, as my last PC decided to die on me (the coroners report suspected foul play, but it was generally considered a suicide)

The place I rot at 9-5 decided to give me my old work PC, so I took it home and installed it, but alas had no speakers, so BBC Iplayer would have to wait till next payday... next payday came and I went out and got speakers, set them up, and then... my Internet died.

I got on the blower, and then the phone, to Talk Talk, in a desperate attempt to restore my computers Internet, and had to wait ten minutes for a guy to pick the phone up... which brings me to the subject of this particular rambling.

Hold Music!

I don't mind hold music per say, in fact sometimes I sing along to it with glee, however, when the song is the same song, repeated again... and again.... and again... and again... and the only break you get is a soulless computer recording telling you that someone will pick up if you just hold on a few more moments, it gets pretty annoying pretty fast.

Case in point: Talk Talk.

Now, they've spent a certain amount of money to secure the song "Neon Rainbow" for their advertising. So I can appreciate that they want to use it as much as possible. But tell me where the logic is in putting it on a loop to customers who will be calling with a problem or complaint?

I mean, these people are already going to be annoyed before the phone call starts. The service they're paying for isn't being done and now they're going to have to waste their time and money contacting the technical support. So some bright spark, who was the guy who secured the rights for the song, thought "I know, let's play that music over and over whilst they wait, that won't annoy anyone right?"

It's not just Talk Talk, Lloyds play their "oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oooooh" music on a constant loop, and believe me the song gets pretty crazy halfway through.

So surely the constant repetition of the same song over and over will exacerbate the situation? Or maybe that's what the company wants? To screw with you even more? I intend to infiltrate one of these organisations and find out. But until then, I suggest singing along at the top of your voice to the music!

I just hope Talk Talk sort out my internet soon, as I don't think I can take one more round of "Neon Rainbow", I think that'll be what pushes me over the edge and sends me on that killing spree that a gypsy warned me about when I was ten.

Wales Week : Adventure Golf

2010-07-19T03:44:00.000-07:00

Last week I was in Wales, with a limited edition collection of friends. I will be putting up a few of the tales from our week in wales, because, nothing else happens in my life now I've killed my arch-nemesis... I mean... now he's disappeared without a trace...

Anyway, this brings us onto my Welsh adventure to Rhyl or Rhyll as the street vendors spell it, the dirty bastards.

Royston, who had lead the expedition into the wilderness that was Wales, had stated that his great Aunt Confucius, always went to the legendary land of Rhyl on holiday. I joked that perchance this was due to it being a swingers resort... he was not amused. So we went off in search of Rhyl, with it's beautiful sandy beaches, and rivers of gold.

It turns out that there are rivers of gold, but that gold is urine. Ryhl is a classic British sea-side resort, I.e. it's shit. There are more penny pushing arcade machines than there are people, something that I raised with a local policeman as something he should keep an eye on in case of Robotic Rebellion!

As we walked around this picturesque town, we happened upon a crazy golf attraction... entitled "ADVENTURE GOLF!"

"Hazar" I screamed with glee, as I enjoy golf in it's crazy variety, and with a name like "Adventure Golf" I was sure I'd have a good time!

The very name "Adventure Golf" sent a thousand ideas through my head as to what to expect. I thought, that I would feel like a fabled knight, journeying through distant lands, over perilous monster infested swamps and jungles, to strange cities populated with crazed magicians and riddling witches, then finally my journey would end when I slay the fiendish dragon and rescue the damsel in distress.

My idea of adventure was a little off the mark compared to Rhyl's imaginative imaginers! There idea of adventure was to put a rock in the middle of the course, or add a hump, or two rocks.

So yeah, it was... pathetic. However, we still had fun, and I made it a little more interesting by hitting the ball as hard as I could, and then spending the next five minutes routing through a bush (Careful) to find my ball.

So, if you find yourself in the wonderful land of Rhyl and fancy some adventure golf, I propose that you pay the admission fee, then hit the ball at one of the employees and try to flee over the course. Now that would be an adventure!

More on the Wales Week to follow!

The Shambling Man of Rugby

2010-07-07T05:17:00.000-07:00

I've come across some strange sights whilst walking places in my time, but Rugby has recently produced something very odd indeed.

A few weeks back, I was on my way home from my daily toil, when I came across this strange fellow. As I was walking through town, I saw a man, in a dressing gown with a cooler box.

The cooler box was on the floor, and the man was pushing it forward. It must have been heavy as he was moving at speeds of 3! Shambling along with the box for a few minutes then stopping and resting.

I watched him for about fifteen minutes, before I set back on my long journey home. I thought to myself that this strange man must have some form of mental health issue or was doing some invisible theatre, but I thought no more of it afterwards as this kind of stuff happens to me a lot.

However, the following week, I was nearing my homestead, when what should I see in front of me?! The Shuffler! This time shuffling past peoples houses.

I crossed the street as I wasn't sure if he would lash out at passersby, and watched as he pushed the cooler till he tired out, then he sat on it. The creepiest thing about this however was he was sitting on the cooler facing some one's house, and would have been able to see straight through their front window.

I went home and told my long suffering lady wife all about this strange man, but she dismissed it as here say! The fool!

So, this brings me to my last sighting... yesterday, he was waiting for a bus, sitting on his cooler.
I wondered how he'd get the cooler on the bus, as it seemed so heavy that he wouldn't be able to lift it. I mused with the prospect of asking him what was in the cooler, but then I thought, what if what's in the cooler is the last person who asked him what's in the cooler? So I left it alone.

I've asked a few people if they've spotted The Shuffler, but so far, I'm the only person I'm aware of who's seen this odd fellow... I'm beginning to think maybe he's in my head, a sign that my already fragile mind is imploding, or maybe it's me from the future!? That's his time machine he's pushing around??

I intend to investigate further, hopefully finding out that he's just a sorry soul who has mental health issues as oppose to a future version of myself, or a serial killer. If I can snap him on my camera, I'll put up a picture!

Stay tuned for more info :)

my T4 on da bee-atch

2010-07-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

Well, anyone who knows me (who isn't imaginary) will know my music taste is a little old fashioned... I like cheese and classic rock. So imagine how out of place I was expecting to feel at T4 on the beach when I went down on Sunday?

It was a good and a bad day at the same time, I enjoyed myself, yet had moments of "wtf".

There were thousands at T4, and we all had to queue on the beach to be let in. When we were halfway to the entrance and surrounded by excitable teenagers, one of them decided that it was all to much and fainted, hitting her head on the way down. So being the respectable gentleman that I am, I decided to help out and try and signal a first aider... however, there were none to be seen. I turned round to the throng of children behind me and shouted out "Can someone shout for first aid" hoping to get some form of Chinese whispers that would bring a first aider. However they just stared blankly at my feeble attempt to assert myself.

So it was up to Adamicus the 3rd to save the day, using my expert ability of getting through crowds, I barged my way through the masses until I was free of the crowd. Then I ran to the only man I could see who had a walkie talkie to get him to get help. The man, who was standing on a wall filming the throngs of teens looked at me distastefully when I told him someone had fainted and then half heatedly called through the walkie talkie to some first aiders to come help, then he went back to filming the kids... he might have actually been a paedophile on 2nd thoughts.

Anyway, I was able to get back to the girl, but by that time she was already dead. OK, she wasn't but that would have been a better anecdote.

The festival had N-Dubz, Professor Green and Jedward... so you can imagine my joy at the prospect of seeing them perform. However, I did get to see Louie Spence, who was amusing as always, then saw The Hoosiers who's old stuff was good, but there new clubbing mixes were just bad. The musical highlight for me was Plan B, who I've enjoyed for a while now and proves some chavs can sing! But seriously, a great live performance even if he did get PWNED in Adulthood.

The weirdest moment for me was when I went to use the toilets. There was a large amount of porta-loo's about, and in the middle of a square of them were make-shift urinals. So rather than being enclosed in an AIDS ridden Tardis, I decided to frequent the outdoor urinal. It would have been okay, but halfway through my useage, I happened to look up and made eye contact with a couple who were watching me... creeped me right out.

The way out of the festival was BULL SHIT AND MATCH! Basically, you park on the beach when you get there, and have helpful attendants showing you where to park... but when T4 is over, it is a cluster fuck to get off the beach before the tide comes in. There were about 15 lines of cars trying to get out of one tiny exit, with no help. It took us probably 2 hours to get off the beach, before even attempting the journey back.

The saddest sight I have ever seen was on the way home, where I noticed a young teens car had broken down, and as we drove past, he stood there with puppy dog eyes holding a piece of paper that read "Mechanic ?"

I did the only decent thing and murdered him before the wolves got him. It was the perfect end to a so/so day.

Karate Kid

2010-06-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've got love for you if you were born in the 80's is something that Pineapple headgear man Calvin Harris would say to you. Personally, I agree.

If you were a kid being raised in the 80's not only did you get the best kids shows, music and TV series, but you got the best films too.

Which brings me round to the subject of this particular ramblingation.

My long suffering lady wife Louise, (who doesn't read these ramblings by the way, so I could write anything about her without her knowing, but know my life isn't worth living if she found out) was born in the late 80's so missed out on a lot of the stuff that made my childhood bearable.

I don't mind so much that she doesn't get certain references I get, as I can re-watch the classics (which sometimes aren't as good as I remember them) with her and re-live my childhood, complete with cola flavoured chewits and ghostbuster toys.

So I picked up Karate Kid from those rent boys known as Love Film! I was actually amazed at how well the film stood the test of time. Mr. Miyagi is as Yoda like as I remember him and Daniel-Son is the perfect model of teenage Angst.

To my horror then, as I loved that film so much, I learnt that the powers that be had decided to make a remake. Now, I'm all for remakes, if the original was made in the 50's or was an idea not fully realised due to the technology of the time or the directors lack of vision, but for me Karate Kid is still a great movie with some surprisingly touching moments (and not in a creepy way)

So Hollywood... why remake it!?

CHA-CHING! That's why. Sponduli, pesetas, yen.

Accident prone Jackie Chan, who is a crazy bastard but entertaining none the less takes on the role of Mr. Miyagi... except his name is Mr. Han this time round. Good job too, as there truly is only one Mr. Miyagi... and he's dead.

Daniel Russo is replaced with Dre, who's played by Will Smith's spawn. I thought the kid was great in The Pursuit Of Happiness, but the trailer for this looked really really bad. It doesn't help that he's 11 in this movie as oppose to Daniel being about 16.

But my main point of contention dear reader is the title itself. Jackie Chan, is a Kung Fu master, not a Karate Guru. So in this film, he teaches Dre, Kung Fu, not Karate...

SO WHY... OH WHY!?!? Is this film called Karate Kid?! I know WHY, but surely it should be called Kung Fu Kid?

I'll probably rent this out, just to see how badly/goodly they do, and will fill you in. If there's no Crane in this, I'm going on a spree.

Waxing off for now, Ciao!

Banana Men From Feline V : Directors Cut & Other Filums

2010-06-10T01:15:00.001-07:00

Good morning, or as they say in wales "Khhhheee Khaaaa"

Last night I spent half an evening re-editing "Banana Men from Feline V" with Kristofus and John John the Potters Son, and have got to say that although it's lost a bit of the B-Movie feel to it, it's actually got some interesting new additions and some footage that we didn't use has been included.

It's great going back over this film as the first time around, I was left to it and edited the whole thing together myself, usually Kristofus sits in and helps out but on that instance he was going through a weird phase, where he believed anything he wanted to happen would happen if he thought about it hard enough. So he wasted an evening trying to materialize popcorn.

The reason I'm going over this is to try and get it polished enough to send off to a film festival. I'm also sitting down at some point and going over Magic Bean Man, editing both parts into one and lighting up some of the darker scenes now that I have a better knowledge of the package (careful) I'm using.

Also in the pipeline is a re-make of Edward Lobe, which is being scripted this time round by myself and Alexis, and of course our main project this year The Dark Spirit, has been moved back till October so that we can have more time to prepare and get a cast that doesn't keep dropping out like a BT Internet signal.

On another note, it's my birthday this time next week... maybe I'll develop superpowers on my 27th birthday? I live in hope.

The Life and Times of Adamicus the 3rd

2010-06-09T03:18:00.001-07:00

Greetings fellow randoms, I hope that you're enjoying the shit crazy weather we're having right now. I know I am.

Thunderstorms are great aren't they? I mean, now they are, in 2010, but back in the cavemen days it must have been a pretty scary experience... also Edward Scissorhands probably doesn't relish thunderstorms... he must be a pretty good conductor (for electricity, not for a concert)

I've found myself becoming more and more of a recluse on this blog, thanks partly to some stellar xbox 360 games recently and the fact the only computer I can use to type on, is at work. And usually I'm working when I'm a... sorry... I couldn't lie to you faithless readers. We all know I do some work, but the kinda work that I get paid to do isn't the work I'd be doing. I tend to write screenplays, or work an idea out like you do with a particularly hard poo using a pencil.

I do intend to keep you updated about certain thoughts and events that are happening at present or in my future(present at time of writing) and random stories and so forth. But at the moment I'm finding hard to get time to do it, what with a bigger workload, the fact that I now have to wrestle alligators on my lunch break, and my evenings are taken up with xbox 360 and fighting crime.

Greece, by the way, should have won the Eurovision song contest with their amazing "Opa!" song. I mean, that was one catchy tune and better than the Germanic entry by a long shot. You'd think people would remember World War II and not vote for Germany at all... ah well.

Next year, I may compose an entry to Eurovision. I reckon we'd win. :D

Ok, well, I've gotta go check my pulse as I seem to have stopped breathing. Ciao for Niao!

The Adventures of Cup the Duck - Part 1

2010-05-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

The Adventures of Cup the Duck

Cup the duck, was a duck called Cup. He lived on Willow Tree farm on the outskirts of Daventry, an insignificant blight on an already overcrowded map that makes up the midlands.

Cup loved to spend his days swimming in the pond, and playing with his friends Pizza the Pig, Watch the cow and Keys the chicken.

One sunny day, Cup the duck noticed that Farmer Candle seemed a little poorly, so he waddled over to see what was wrong.

“What’s up?” asked Cup the Duck

Farmer Candle looked down at his faithful duck
“Hello Cup” he said “I’m not feeling too well I’m afraid. It’s the worst possible time as well, what with the new fiscal year starting, and I’m already behind with the rent. But there’s always this years crop to think about…”

What an unusual conversation thought Cup as he waddled away. He decided he’d talk to Pizza the Pig and see what she thought.

“Hello Pizza, I was just speaking to Farmer Candle and he…”

Pizza was dead.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling chapter in The Adventures of Cup the Duck!!!

Half Arsed Review : The Cradle Will Fall AKA Baby Blues

2010-05-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've seen some pretty sick movies in my time, but this film, takes the biscuit, gets a bunch of it's mates round gets them to cum all over it, before force feeding you it whilst it murders your parents.

Let's get on with this horrendous piece of cinema/sickness.

I put this film on my Lovefilm rental list as it sounded like a good horror/thriller...

"With her husband gone and the stress of family life rising, Mom suffers a psychotic break due to postpartum depression that compels her to exterminate her four children, aged between 10 and 3 months.

Now hope for the family's survival rests on the shoulder of eldest son Jimmy, surrogate man of the house. Using his wits and intricate knowledge of the farm, Jimmy must try to protect his siblings while fending off the woman he has always known and loved as his mother. Thus, it comes down to the most epic of battles, Mother vs. Son, in the most horrific of scenarios. "

Okay, so from that I kinda figured it was a cross between Home Alone and Halloween, and in a good non-sickening way, right?

I mean, it makes it sound like the mum tries at various points to kill her children, but her cunning son Jimmy is one step ahead of her? Right?

Wrong.

Fifteen minutes in... you're staring at a dead baby.

It's not hidden like most baby deaths in film, this baby is lying motionless on a bed as it dawns on the son Jimmy that his mum has just murdered his baby brother.

He confronts her, gets knocked out, wakes up to find her trying to drown his kid sister as she's "Evil", he stops her by hitting her with a hand mirror, and tells his younger brother to get on his bike and go get help.

Five minutes later, that same young brother is outside the house next to his bike, with his crazed mother telling him to get inside the house and his older brother shouting that she's sick and he has to get help... one minute later and that young boy is stabbed to death over the porch by his mother, as the girl looks on and wets herself.

I wanted to turn the film off at this point, but it was one of those instances where you were just too horrified to move.

So mum chases the other two kids through a field of corn, in a combine harvester of all things, before they loose her and end up in a barn. The young girl's leg isn't great so she can't climb onto the 2ND level with the brother and instead hides in the hay.

Three minutes on, she's been killed by her mother.

By the end of the film, she has killed her baby, her youngest son, her daughter, a pig, a dog, a few chickens and a stoned neighbour... but all is not lost as Jimmy manages to contact his dad via a radio (he's a truck driver) and blows the house up.

Cut to some random time later and the boy is in some kind of clinic, recovering from the vast injuries and psychological trauma he had gained from his run in with mum. Only for his dad to come in and tell him that his mum is pregnant (the boys, not the dads) and that the doctors have explained that none of it was the mum's fault as she was mentally ill, so he wants the mum to come and live with them again as she's pregnant with another one of his children.

So not only does this film have some of the sickest imagery I've ever seen in a movie, but it also has the most ridiculous ending I've seen in a film for a long time.

I mean, in this weird bizarro world, if you've killed your children, a man, and several animals, it's quite likely that if it was caused by a mental illness that you'll be released back into society as long as you've got some medication.

At that point, I shouted "Bull shit" at the television due to my complete disbelief at the stupidity of the ending.

So, a sick movie with a pathetic ending, the only saving grace is the acting of the children in it, but I wouldn't expect to see them in anything else soon as they will need to spend the next forty years in therapy.

Do not see this movie, it's horrendous and upsetting.

Sick of Adverts

2010-04-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a pretty grizzly time of it, being very sick and generally unwell.

So what better way to keep my stomach settled than to watch an episode of Heston’s Feasts where he gets people to eat blood? Usually my stomach is pretty okay with stuff on TV, but I did have a bit of trouble with this particular episode.

But it wasn’t the blood that really sickened me… it was the advert break sponsored by Bing.com

For those who are unaware, Bing.com is a “decision engine” from those soulless bastards at the Microsoft Corporation, so it’s basically Bill Gates’ version of Google.

This advert break started with a Bing.com search, where an unseen person (most likely a corporate zombie) typed in a subject and then the following advert would be relative to that.

It kind of spoilt the fun of Advert breaks, as I knew what the next advert would be about. Granted, the adverts are never that different, you always know there’ll be an advert for a sale at a furniture store, or a supermarket’s “family” will be going through something that ends with them all enjoying a meal for under a tenner. But there was something almost sinister about the search engine looking up adverts.

Also, there was this whole spiel from Jamie Oliver about sausages and how one bite tells you what Sainsbury’s stands for. Really? Is that what they do to potential investors? They don’t have a presentation, they just give them a banger in the mouth and call it a day.

I’m sure that the recent party political broadcasts have been shorter than Jamie Oliver’s war and peace speech about Sainsburys. There was another advert he did in the same vein, but it was shorter this time and had him with a basket of new potatoes which I can only presume he scoffed after the shoot was done.

I just wish adverts would be adverts again. Cut out all the “meaning of life” crap and just tell you the deals they’ve got on or how much their product is. Car adverts are always the worst for these, but it seems that all adverts these days are either telling you about the values of life and how you can live a better life with their product or the advert is a soap that tells a story each time.

Well, be sure to write to your local MP about this, I know I will be.

Ciao for now, I gotta go before I vomit again. Man I'm sexy. :D

Half Arsed Review - Wrong Turn 2 - dead end

2010-04-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

I try to avoid the bastards at the local super-hyper-ultra store that they call ASDA, as I go in for milk and come out with the cow. This time, that cow came in the shape of a Wrong Turn box set on DVD.

I'd seen the first Wrong Turn a while back, which stars the ever loving Buffy wanna be Eliza Dushku as a happy camper against some crazy hill-billys that are a cross between the guys from deliverance and the mutants from The Hills have Eyes.

It was an enjoyable little gore fest and when I saw the box set at a dirt price I picked it up, expecting the direct to Doovd sequels to be below par, but I was pleasantly surprised with the 2nd film.

The plot is simple, a reality TV program about surviving an apocalypse begins filming in the same forest that the crazy hill billy bastards live, and as they split up they get picked off one by one.

The old "reality TV" angle has been done in the past in horror films, working well in "My Little Eye", so I wasn't sure how this would work, but it's a decent excuse to get some bodies into the woods.

I was a little disappointed that I guessed who would have survived, but there was one shock death in there for me so that made up for it. This film, is pretty gory, with one person in the first few minutes literally being sliced in half. So if you've got a queasy disposition, don't check this film out. If you don't mind the gore, you'll enjoy a light horror with some decent effects and decent performances from all involved.

I'd give this film 3 severed fingers out of a possible 5.

Vlogs Indeed

2010-04-20T07:51:00.001-07:00

After recently conducting an experiment where I could move my consciousness into other peoples bodies, an idea I had gotten from Tv's Quantum Leap, I decided to write some more movies.

I sat down at my long suffering lady wife's pink laptop, and began typing away until I had indeed written an Edward Lobe script which will hopefully get filmed the back half of this year.

As 2010 is the year of The Dark Spirit, a huge undertaking for Stoopid Studios, and hopefully we'll get it into some film festivals. So you'll have to wait for another film till that's compiled.

But fear not fearful fearers! I am hoping to put up some videos of the process of our filming and have some interviews with the cast/crew. Of course they wont be one of those boring things you get as a dvd extra, they'll be funny, intentionally I hope.

Alexis and myself sat down the other night and did an update on Stoopid Studios, (part 1 is on our Youtube page) and I think it was quite good. So I am thinking about moving into the world of Video Logging or as the degenerative youth of our world call it "Vlogging"... when I first heard of Vlogging I thought it was a form of Dogging, but was pleased to find out that it was something entirely different.

So I am hoping to put some Vlogs up, please feel free, all 2 people who read this, to let me know if you think this is a good/bad/ugly idea.

Well, I've gotta dash, I've got an appointment with various world leaders regarding what I can do about this volcano problem we're having... wait till they find out that it was no accident!

Ciao for now fluffers!

COME ON!

2010-04-05T02:27:00.001-07:00

I've now got to the point where I'm thinking that maybe I've seen too many movies as I can easily predict the most complex plot twist three minutes into a film, or I'm thinking that films are trying too hard to put twists into movies and as a result signpost them way before hand.

Out of the two films I got from Lovefilm this weekend, both of them were thrillers and both had a twist, and I guessed them both (one of them from pretty much the offset!). My problem is that I'm a social film watcher too, so if I have a theory, I share with whoever I'm with, which as my long suffering lady wife Louise will tell you, is pretty annoying.

My fatherly figure that I refer to as my dad, suggested that to circumvent the event of giving the game away to other people who aren't as clairvoyant as I am, I should write down the twist on a piece of paper.

So I'm taking this to the next level as I usually do, by dusting off the board game Cluedo, and using the little pouch you get to place the murderer/room/weapon in as my film twist guessing pouch! (I now am enjoying the word Pouch, I don't think it gets used enough in conversation... well human conversation anyway, I mean I bet Kangaroo's are always on about pouches, or maybe not... what's native Australian for pouch? Do Kangaroo's even call them pouches? Mental note: ask a Kangaroo next time you see one what they call a pouch.)

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, my-pre pouch spiel. So to take my predictions to the next level, I will in future write down my prediction and any relative information (i.e. a murder mystery prediction will be who the killer is, motive, that kind of thing) and place it in the Pouch, to be revealed at the end of the movie and claim those 10 points for getting it right.

I've now decided, this minute, whilst I'm writing this sentence that you may or may not be reading (cus I'm reckoning I may have lost some people at the pouch ramble) that in one of my next Stoopid Studio films, I'll put in a twist and see if anyone gets it before it happens. But of course, I wont say which film it's in as that would aid all 3 people who watch the shorts we make.

Well, I'd better get back to whatever it is I'm paid to do 9-5. Oh and wish me luck as I'm still battling with my long suffering lady friend to see whether or not I can put a poster of Halloween up on the wall. I'm wining so far, using stubbornness and determination.

John Carpenter

2010-04-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

It's rare that I get a chance to talk to anyone famous, let alone one of my favourite directors. Last year I got a five minute chat with John Carpenter:

Me: Thanks for doing this interview Mr. Carpenter

John: Call me John, Mr. Carpenter's my father.

Me: Okay John, so out of all your movies, I gotta say Halloween is by far my favourite

John: You didn't like Assault on Precinct 13?

Me: Yeah, it's a classic, but I prefer Halloween

John: You're one of those, I see. I've done a slew of work, but you people only want to know about Myers.

Me: Don't get me wrong I do love all your work, but Halloween blew me away... So, what did you think to the remake?

John: Well Zombie did an interesting job with it, but you can't beat Donalds's performance as Dr. Loomis. I mean, you watch that film and he's scarier than Myers!! The bit where those kids go up to the house and he does a freaky voice... that wasn't in the script, that wasn't even on the set... we'd followed Donald home one evening and that's what he liked to do with his time. In fact, between you and me, Donald never even saw the script, he just made it up as he went along, he believed there really was a killer and that he was actually Dr. Loomis. Method acting fruitcake. When Michael disappeared at the end of the first film, Donald locked himself in his house for months, for fear Michael would come back for him.

Me: That true?

John: The last man to call me a liar was John Romero, and I killed that son of a bitch twenty years ago.

Me: John Romero is still alive

John: That's Stan Lee! You ever seen the two in the same place? That's why the last few "of the dead" movies sucked, what the hell does Stan Lee know about Zombies?

Me: Um... The music, from Halloween, you composed right?

John: Composed is a strong word for what I did. You even listen to that music. I was off my tits on crystal meth at the time. Debra, Debra Hill that is, was with me at the time and she'd puked all over a keyboard after she realised we'd just eaten her cat and put the Chinese takeaway outside. So I was cleaning up the mess and in my drug addled state came up with the tunes you heard in the movie.

Me: So... Michael Myers's mask, is it true that it's a Captain Kirk mask painted white?

John: Yup, it's all true.

Me: Why William Shatner?

John: Well, a lot of hippie's and commies will tell you that I didn't have a budget to get a decent mask made, but that's baloney. You see, you've gotta understand, that back when I made Halloween, people were scared of Bill Shatner. You think people watched Star Trek for the Sci-Fi? No, they watched it because they were scared of what would happen to them if they didn't. Shit, we were all scared of Bill. My original concept for Halloween wasn't about Michael Myers at all, it was about Bill Shatner killing people. When I went to the studio with it they were too scared to do it, so instead suggested I make up a character. But I made a compromise and used a Shatner mask, painted it white so he couldn't recognise his mug. I mean, Shatner's a scary looking bastard as it is, a pure white Shatner... now that's creepy. The amusing thing is the writers of Star Trek the next generation came up to me and wanted Michael Myers to be in it, I told em to go screw 'emselves, but they made Data anyway! Well kid, I gotta go, I've got a fight with Wes Craven in a pub car park in 3 minutes.

Me: Right, well thanks for talking John.

John: No problem, which magazine are you with anyway?

Me: I'm not, I do a blog

John: Oh for fuck sake, I've wasted precious Carpenter time on a wanna be fuck like you, get out of my sight before I write a film about killing you.

---

Sometimes the people you most respect the most are the ones that deserve it the least.

Ciao for niaow.

I got me a trophy :D

2010-03-30T06:26:00.000-07:00

Howdy to all 3 people who read this!

I know it's been an age since my last update, but please remember that I have other things to do during my day. Work? No, nothing as foolhardy as that, I'm speaking about my plans to destroy Coventry entirely, using an elaborate scheme involving several helicopters and a cunning plan that Shakespeare himself wish he'd come up with, if he were still alive, and if he had planned to destroy Coventry, which as far as I'm aware, he never had that particular ambition... he hated Slough.

But I'll save that for a day when I'm not as busy as I've been.

So, you ask, what HAVE I been doing recently? except for my long suffering lady wife ;)

Well I have been rehearsing for a play that my father wrote from his padded cell, and last saturday we performed it at the Tamworth Drama Festival. Along with my evil brother Kristofus, who you may recall was last seen impaled on Royston's shaft if you followed the Zombie Blog :P

Well, we had a good run at the festival, and in the end, out of the ten possible awards we could have won, we won five of them!

The awards we missed out on were "Best dressed nun", "Most likely to become a prostitute", "Will do anything for fame", "Best use of the word 'Oxymoron" and "Best sex scene"

We however picked up Best Male Lead (me), Best Female Lead (Cheryl), Best Supporting Actor (Kristofus), Best New Play (my pa) and Best overall play of the open festival (my pa)

So finally all that money I invested in mind control paid off, and I was able to jedi mind trick the adjudicator into giving me the trophy! Hazar! :D

Indian Restaurants

2010-03-02T02:51:00.000-08:00

Out of all the cuisines you can dine upon on a night out with a beautiful lady or with some good friends, an Indian Cuisine is low down the list for me.

Top, would be Italian as I lurve pasta, pizza and most things begining with P. I like to try new things at an Italian Restaurant, sure I have my favourites, but I'll be experimental now and again with the food. Getting a side order of bread with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dip is just a great treat for my pallet and the wine and deserts are always top notch.

An Indian meal however is a different experience alltogether. Firstly, the encyclopedia that they call a menu, only has two meals I am interested in. Korma and Massala, and I'll always get a chicken version of those meals. Starters? Well, I'll have a popodom, but I'm not that fussed about them, it's just a giant crisp with dips.

I can never finish an Indian meal, my plate always looks like I've not touched it! No one likes to spend 30 mins mastercating and have nothing to show for it. I'll always have a beer the size of a small rocket, and be drunk after my 2nd sip, meaning any food I do taste I won't appreciate.

The main problem I have is that I am aware that I am whiter than the tablecloths and am very paranoid of being seen as racist! What an absurd thing right? It's just one of those really odd things to add to the assortment of odd things I have about me.
But because I try overly hard to not be racist, things I say sound wrong, or could be interpreted as racist!

So, in short, if you ever bump into me and want to go for a meal... please please, choose anything other than Indian, as it makes me more akward than Luke Skywalker getting off with Princess Leia only to have Chewbacca walk in and say "Raaaar Raaaarrr Raaaarr, dude... that's your sister."

Movies of Games

2010-02-18T05:58:00.000-08:00

Uwe Boll, the man is a pestilant piece of shit on the world of cinema.

This man singlehandedly destroyed any hope of a decent Alone in the Dark movie or a good Bloodrayne film. He sucked the life out of those franchises and delivered very poor movies, Alone being one of the worst movies I've seen, and I've seen a lot of bad films.

Movies of computer games are generally shit, as are computer games of movies, and some games and movies of the same franchise are both shit.

Not all are bad, for instance Silent Hill was a great adaptation in my opinion, and although I didn't like the stories, the Resident Evil films are pretty good.

Now an old franchise will be out soon on film for the first time, and that's Prince Of Persia. Now it's helmed by the same guy who did the Pirates movies, so that gives this some credibility... however the badguy is played by Ben Kingsley... shudder...

It's not that I don't rate Ben Kingsley... it's just... he's done a lot of bad movies. His portrayal of The Hood in Thunderbirds will always ruin anything I see him in. So his villanous status needs a proper overhaul in this movie or I just wont buy his performance.

I'm not sold by the trailer for the film, and I just hope that it does a decent job and not do a Super Mario Bros. < Worst. Game. Film. Ever!

Jeremy Kyle

2010-02-03T03:03:00.000-08:00

For anyone who has ever skived a day off of work, or who has been ill or unemployed, there's a 93.6% chance that you've caught a glimpse of The Jeremy Kyle show. For those who've luckily missed this show, let me explain.

The Jeremy Kyle show is a talk show, where people can and do air their dirty laundry. The type of people that go on this show are one strand of DNA away from being an Amoeba, and would not look out of place being the monster of the week in an episode of Doctor Who. Infact I think some of the guests on this show went on to star in The Hills have Eyes.

A typical show has one of these mutants wheeled on stage, where they will complain that their partner has cheated on them with their sister/father/dog, or that they're not sure if they're the father/mother of their partner's son/daughter/dog for example. Next the mutant's better half comes out to a torrent of boos/cheers/claps from the audience and will tell their side of the story.

At any point Jeremy Kyle can and will shout at them about anything and everything. Other talk show hosts try and help their guests, but Kyle goes crazy and attacks anything that moves, like a foaming dog in Mothercare.

Watching Jeremy Kyle is not unlike going to a zoo... if the zoo contained only brain dead gorillas and a smug c**t of a zoo keeper who believes he is king of the apes!

The great unwashed love this bastard, and he knows it... and the thing that worries me the most is now he's got to the top of his field in talkshows... what if he sets his sights on 10 downing street!!

With his legions of supporters he'd get voted in no problem, and spend his time shouting at the UN or anyone and everyone else... we'd be nuked 3 minutes after he'd take the office, by everyone who owns a nuke... and even countries that don't.

Food for thought.

Half Arsed Review - The Un-Invited

2010-02-01T08:24:00.001-08:00

I watched the Un-Invited last night, which after 5 minutes seemed really familiar, and after a quick look on IMDB my suspicions were confirmed that it was an American "re-imagining" of the Korean mind-fuck "A Tale of Two Sisters".

The Korean movie, was great. Had some pretty disturbing imagery in it and had an awesome twist I didn't see coming, and was a total mind-fuck to boot, as I mentioned above.

The Un-Invited has elements that are the same as the Korean movie but it's not identical like "Funny Games" or "The Ring". So I did enjoy it as a film in it's own right but certain things did seem predictable... and that was before I realised I'd seen something similar before.

This film, however, does get the coveted 10 point prize, of having the BEST opening line in any movie I have ever seen so far up to the point of me writing this sentence...

The main girl (who is played by the older girl from A Series of Unfortunate Events) is kissing some Emo kid on a beach, and they're getting a little hot and heavy. He looks at her and then uses the best line I have ever heard.

"I love you... I've got a condom"

Wow, this guy was doomed to die a virgin!

Anyway, check it out if you've not seen the original or if you have and want an american comparrison. It's got some decent acting in it and some jumpy moments. There are moments where you'll shout at the television due to stupidity of the central characters, but no more than any other mid-tier horror.

For a hardenend horror fan like me, it didn't bring anything new to the table, but differs from the original movie to become a film in it's own right.

If I had to give it a score then I would, but as this isn't Nazi Germany I wont.

Epic Fail Kelloggs

2010-01-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

A while ago, I asked my long suffering lady friend Louise to come up with an idea for a breakfast cereal. It was actually one of the most serious conversations we had, and she came out with a great idea, including an idea for the design of the box and what the advert would entail.

I was suprised with how easy she came up with the idea, and thought that the breakfast cereal industry would be hard pressed to find someone with better ideas than her.

However, she has been trumped, by a guy working at Kelloggs who is thinking so outside the box that he's living in an underwater apartment on Pluto... I know that makes no sense to me either.

Pitcure if you will, a board meeting in early January. Mr. Kelloggs sits at the head of the table, looking at the sales figures for his various cereals for the previous year. He spots a problem, one of their products sells well all year round, but dips in december... he asks his idea men what they can come up with.

After months of research and development the top idea guy comes back to Mr. K and tells him that the best way to increase sales in decemeber is to incourage people to put HOT milk in their coco puffs.

What... the... F**K?

I jest you not, they spent millions on advertising that you put hot milk in coco puffs. What is the world coming to? Next they'll be telling you to try eating un-cooked chicken and to shake hands with french people!

I refuse to do any of the above!!

Never trust Kelloggs... their cornflake advert is voiced by the villain from lethal weapon 2, and that guy was a racist even if he did have diplomatic immunity!

New Year, Same Ol' Shit

2010-01-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

Well it's 2010, and we're two years away from the end of times according to the Mayan Calendar, which if I'm honest is the worst calendar ever as their picture for January this year was a Llama. Thanks.

Last year there were certain big developments in my meaningless exsistence, one being that I got married but more importantly I managed to film a few shorts and started/completed the zombie survival story arc!

I spent new years in London which was a nightmare thanks to the thousands and thousands of people that had the same idea as myself and my long suffering lady wife Louise. It was fun, but I wouldn't mind if we didn't do it for another 26 years.

So what have I got to look forward to this year? Well, I'm hoping on getting my zombie survival story compiled and maybe published, the Endless Setlist series will be completed and shown on "The Gamer Scene" and there's a chance that I will be travelling Europe for a month, but this time not in disguise!

My new years resolution was to eat healthier, and so far, I'm doing ok. Instead of my usual bowel-cancer inducing sugar fest, I just had a sandwich, a packet of crisps and a spring water drink, although the last one nearly poked my eye out when it uncoiled.

What will be going on in my blog this year? Well, if I do travel, you will be finding out firsthand via my iphone (god bless it) what antics I'm up to. Plus I'll be doing some more film "aftermaths", some reviews and maybe another story arc.

Well, I'd better get back to pretending to do whatever it is I do for a living. Ciao for niao! :D

Happy Christmas

2009-12-22T01:03:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm signing off for Christmas, I hope you have a good one and I'll be back after the new year! :D

Zombie Survival - Finale

2009-12-04T02:17:00.000-08:00

Alexis and I hurried down the corridor towards where Royston had gone, shotguns in hand, ready to pump a few shells into some undead. It was still darker than an episode of the Moomins, but I felt we could take on anything we came across as now we were fully armed and so close to the end of our journey.

At the end of the corridor, we came across a large door. It had some writing on it, but it was too dark to see what the hell it said, so naturally we opened the door and went in. It was pitch black inside the room we'd just entered so I felt along the wall until I found a light switch.

I whinced at the bright light, but as soon as my eyes had become adjusted I saw where we were. The holding pens. This is where all the scientists had been experimenting on the islanders, and a large ammount of zombified subjects were now looking at us from the other side of their cages, moaning loudly with their arms poking out trying to grab onto us. I imagine that that is what it feels like to be a woman on a night out up town.

At the far end of the room was a large computer monitor and a doorway with a bar across it. Infront of the door was Royston lying face down. We hurried over to him and prodded him with our shotguns. He was out cold.

Alexis pulled out the blueprints for the facility from his coat pocket "That door leads to the roof, I wonder why it's been closed off?" Curisoty killed the cat, I reminded him as I saw to Royston... by seeing to him, I mean bringing him round... as in arousing him... from his slumber! As I did this, Alexis took the bar off the door, and Royston woke up and had just enough time to shout "NO!!" before the door opened outwards and the familar claws of Pope grabbed onto Alexis's head, twisted and pulled away.

His headless corpse floundered for a moment then hit the deck like a sailor in a storm. Royston and I rushed the door and put the bar back across. "I.. I fended her off, and locked her out there, but I slipped and banged my head as I couldn't see where I was going in the dark. But, I was speaking to Polly... he's on this monitor!"

Sure enough, after Royston had a bit of a fiddle... with the monitor... the familiar crazed face of Polly came up. "Ahh, you're back! I managed to summon a rescue! A helicopter is going to pick us up. It'll be here really soon! I also found this failsafe, I'm about to press it. I just hope those scientists who placed this failsafe system knew what they were doing"

They didn't.

Polly pressed the fail safe button! At last, all those undead monstrosities would be dead for sure... well not quite. You see the fail safe system that the scientists had put in place was useless. They'd hidden toxic gas cannisters all over the island, and when the fail safe button was pressed it released the gas... however, it didn't affect the un-dead as they don't breathe. Great! So now, not only did we have the regular undead, the irregular undead like Pope and my bro to deal with, but now we also had deadly gas all over the island. At least Alexis had killed Bray, that was one less thing in the encyclopedia of things to worry about.

Polly, confused by the lack of zombie death, looked up at the camera and shrugged, but in that split second he was looking at the camera, my brother had appeared from nowhere and bit into his neck. Blood splattered over the camera lens and then it went dead. Just like Polly.

Royston slammed his stump onto the wall in anger, and then immediatly regretted doing it. "What now!?" he asked, rubbing his stump. The only thing on my mind was escape, escape from this disaster of an experiment. What the hell had I been thinking!? This was worse than that time I tried being a politician for a week and ended up starting the conflict in Iran!

"It's over" I said "We just have to get out of here". Royston nodded, but then looked at me and slowly muttered "What about Milli?" I'd forgotten all about that scottish bundle of energy in the last few moments, but now that the toxic gas had been released, if she was still on the island, she would be dead for sure, or un-dead if the zombies had gotten to her. I shook my head in regret and Royston understood. With his good hand, he grabbed the blueprint for the facility from Alexis's headless corpse.

"Before Polly died he signalled a resuce, the helicopter should be here soon and will be picking us up from the roof, so if we go up these stairs, get to the choppa, we'll get the hell out of here and be home in time to watch X-Factor." Royston summarised. I shuddered at the thought, I didn't know what was worse, spending more time on an island with the shambling dead, or watching X-Factor.

I opened the door and had a look for Pope, she was nowhere to be seen thank god, so Royston and I ran for it up the stairs as fast as we could. At last the nightmare would be over... Sure enough, it wasn't as easy as I thought it'd be. It never is. There, standing on the heli-pad, in his best gloat stance, was my evil brother, Kristofus.

"Well done, well done. You've made it this far, and you've brought me some transport. I intend to take my virus to the mainland and make everyone into my children." For a gay man, he seemed to like the idea of being a dad quite a bit. Is that odd? I digress.

So there was me, Royston and Kristofus on the roof of the facility. He was now some kind of superzombie, but superzombie or no, surely he'd be no match for the shotgun I was wielding. I raised it up and just before I shot tried to come up with a witty line, the only thing that came to mind was "merry christmas"... I don't really get why, and it had no relevance to anything that I'd been through, and there's wont be another moment where I get to say a pithy one liner before firing a gun. That's my biggest regret so far.

I'd never fired a shotgun, and it was obvious when I shot, as I flew backwards and landed on the floor. I scrambled to my feet to see that Kristofus was un-harmed and now Royston was un-armed... by that I mean, I'd taken off his arm with the shotgun blast.
"You stupid C**T!" he screamed, as I tried to reload. But my brother wasn't having any of it.

Using what I presume was his mind powers, he lifted me in the air and started choking me Darth Vader style. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes, and was depressed to see that 70% of it was spent watching tv or playing computer games, but it did remind me of some old tv shows that I'd not seen in a while which I thought that I must really pick up on DVD.

I was about to die, when I noticed Royston pick himself up, and run full pelt at my brother, he made contact and they both went over the edge of the building and I was released from my brothers grasp.

My whole body ached (for the 25th time that week) as I stood up and walked over to the edge of the roof. Peering down I saw Kristofus and Royston impaled on a flag pole... both of them dead. I went back for my shotgun, reloaded and kept an eye out for Pope, or any other un-dead that would be after my saved bacon. In a matter of minutes I heard the helicopter, and I also saw the islanders. Running from all directions towards my location.

I heard them coming up the stairs, and unloaded a few shells into the crowd. The helicopter landed and I heard a familar voice "Addy, get in!!"

It was Milli. How the hell had she done it? The scottish power house had managed to get a helicopter!?!? I ran for it and clambered inside the helicopter... but not before another familar face got on board... It was Polly. I was kind of happy to see that like me Polly hadn't taken on any special abilities when he'd turned undead.

"Hold on to something" Milli shouted as she lifted the helicopter off the ground and tilted it, so both Polly and I started sliding out the side. I managed to grab on at the last second and Polly went falling to the ground with a confused look on his face. "Sorry about that, had to get rid of the dead weight." I was slightly annoyed at her quip, but buckled myself in the co-pilot chair.

I asked Milli what had happened, how she had managed to get a helicopter. She explained to me "Well, I had managed to get off the island in a boat, but out of nowhere a missile came and blew it up, I managed to get off in time. So there I was in the ocean, and I'm not very good at swimming, being scottish and all... well anyway, a helicopter came over as they'd tracked the missile launch and wanted to investigate. They found me, and took me back to the mainland, which isn't that far away. Well when I got back I told them about what was on the island, and they laughed at me. I decided I had to get proof, so stole a helicopter and a camera and was coming back to take pictures when I got Polly's message. Oh and I'm not very happy with you you big gay blade! You're going to have to explain to everyone what happened on this island, and that you were responsible for it all! You're going to hell you know that right?"

She was right, I didn't feel like I deserved to get off that Island in one piece. I turned to Milli and asked "what now?" she opened her mouth to say something, when she was ripped out of the cockpit by zombie Pope. I grabbed onto Milli's feet, but Pope was too strong, Milli was took off by Pope and left me holding onto Milli's shoes, and with a helicopter to pilot.

So I'm going down... in the helicopter. I don't know how to pilot it and I'm going to die. Maybe this is for the best, I just hope someone gets this message so that they can blow the shit out of that island. I was so stupid to mess with the forces of evil, and subject my friends to abject horror. It seems years ago since I first got to this Island with my friends, and one thing I want you to all know is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I've done and I hope that

[Transmission Lost]

Merry Christmas Everyone

2009-12-03T02:30:00.000-08:00

The funniest, and also most frightening music video for Christmas is Shakin Steven's "Merry Christmas Everyone"

Every year, I pray that I'll get to see this messed up music video. I love the song, but the video is just plane creepy. I'll put a link down the bottom so you can check it out on YouTube to see if it's just my warped brain that finds this so disturbing.

Okay, so it starts out ok, a nice shot of Lapland? Then you see Mr. Shakin, and he's all cosy in his little red scarf. After attacking a Christmas tree, he then gets onto a sleigh pulled by a mentally disabled elf who takes him to meet "Santa". Or at least a man who claims to be Santa.

This is where it really begins to go downhill, for as soon as Mr. Shakin's arms are in shot, they begin to show they have signs of life, and he points to a reef across the door when he talks about kissing under mistletoe... The guy dressed as Santa seems to enjoy that idea.

Now Mr. Shakin has infiltrated Santa's workshop, and his lower arms begin to move separately from the rest of his body. This is how I'd imagine a T-Rex would dance.
Next is the first of several uncomfortable moments, as he puts his arms on a kids shoulders and holds on to him as he sings about how he wishes every day was Christmas, then looks into the camera and says how "what a nice time to spend the year". Am I the only person who is now thinking that Mr. Shakin is dodgy??

Next we're treated to a montage. A kid with "Santa", several ugly children hitting things with tiny hammers or laughing, shots of animatronic elves with soulless eyes watching the proceedings and then we see a conveyor belt with the worst toys ever made. If any kid received one of those presents on Christmas, I think they would have killed their parents in their sleep.

Anyway, onto the next disturbing shot, as we see Mr. Shakin standing next to a Christmas tree with a little girl sitting uncomfortably in front of the tree with a poorly wrapped present in her hands. Mr. Shakin proceeds with his dinosaur dancing impression, points at the girl and kisses her just before it cuts. Now I've watched this video several times, and you NEVER SEE THAT GIRL EVER AGAIN! In fact, you never see the first kid he was with again either... hmm...

Next it goes to some children having a snowball fight, having a good time... but you know it's not going to last for two reasons. The first reason being that the snowman they're playing around is blatantly a person in costume, so there are even more sinister undertones as to why someone has dressed up and is watching the children without them being any the wiser. The second reason being, that the Peado sledge arrives over the ridge, bringing with it "Santa" and Mr. Shakin.

Mr. Shakin soon joins in with the frivolity throwing his balls at the children... snowballs I'm talking about. Sensing that their is another sexual predator about he hits the snowman with a snowball, and the snowman chases him as best as he can in a large snowman suit whilst "Santa" keeps a lookout for the police or the children's parents.

Mr. Shakin falls over, on purpose of course, and one kid gets a shot in. Then he's knocked over by the Snowman, before we see him escaping downhill... probably to get the police.

"Santa" and Mr. Shakin are next seen at nightfall, looking pretty pleased with themselves, and obviously on the look out for more children. At this point, I'm thinking that Mr. Shakin is actually scarier than the child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang. We then see the pair inside "Santa's" house, where Santa has a child on each knee and uses some dodgy hand movements which makes me think he's talking about the size of his cock, Mr. Shakin looks on with one hand in his pocket as he ruts back and forth like he's in mothercare. {Shudder}
However everything ends well. The children have organised themselves into a mob, complete with flaming sticks! And make sure that Mr. Shakin is extradited, where as "Santa" and the snowman will no doubt face criminal charges and some serious prison time there in Lapland. We last see him as he's being taken away by the mentally handicapped chief of police elf woman and it fades to black.

IS it just me? You decide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_mJyJ83dt0

May Contain Nuts

2009-11-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

Upon inspecting most foodstuffs nowerdays, you'll find a warning. No it's not that government "salt awareness" campaign... all though. I'm just waiting for the Government to get together with the people who make the "THINK" adverts.

I can imagine that advert now... you see a garden... and a voiceover comes on "Sidney, knew his killer"... then you see some kid throw some salt into the garden and it hits Sidney who is a slug... the word SALT comes up in big letters. "The biggest killer since the invention of the bear"

Anyway, I digress, as per usual... The warning is this. "MAY CONTAIN NUTS", and you'll find it on everything from chocolate bars to beef burgers and even on packets of nuts!

I'd hate to be allergic to nuts, 90% of all the products out there have that warning that they may contain nuts, as they're made in the same factory as nut products... so why are all these products being made in nut factories? Why can't all the nut products be made in one factory, and then all the other sorts of products made in seperate ones. Like an apple factory for all apple based foods, or a milk factory for anyting that has milk in it.... I'd say Chocolate factory, but they tend to be run by paedophiles... Charlie found out that the hard way bless him...

What worries me the most is the fact that these people don't know IF there are nuts in their products... what are these factories like that they can't guarantee non-cross-contamination? Do these factories have all their nuts on a large conveyor belt with holes in it, suspended above all the other conveyor belts with the other products on them? Or are these workers in the factories sadistic people who slip nuts into 1 in 10 products? Or is it more sinister...

Lady and Gentleman that read my ramblings...

I reveal the truth behind the May Contain Nuts conspiracy...

I have found evidence that the nut companies run everything, from the prices of oil to what music is released. They're behind every political assassination ever, and why? You ever hear of the New World Order? Well these guys are the Nut World Order, they have created a chemcial that makes people allergic to nuts, and have slowly been putting into various countries water supplies... turning average people into non-nut eating folk. Then the companies have been placing nuts into every food stuff on earth. Their goal? To kill off a percentage of the population so that they may control the remenants! They've been doing it for years, slowly killing us off one by one.

I'm putting myself on the line just saying this... please, you must unite against the nut companies for they are evil... oh shit... they've found me... they're coming up the stairs... oh no! They're in the room and instead of running or doing something I am writing everything that is happening... even putting in extra full stops and exclamation marks to make this more dramatic! I'll probably stop halfway through a word to make it look even wo

[Editorial Note: None of these events happened, please return back to your regular mundane internet browsing, everything is good in life. Eat Nuts.]

Dr. Who? No.. really? Who?

2009-11-16T07:14:00.001-08:00

I'm a fan of Dr. Who, let me just put that in writing so that I may be mocked like any time that I put DJ Hero on when my wife is around.

The Waters Of Mars, the latest yarn provided for our enjoyment, turned out to be, in my opinion, as wet as the villains. Now if you've already read any of my ramblings, then you know I'm an idiot, so feel free to disagree with me... but remember, if you disagree with me now, I'll remember... and when you need me to agree with you when you need it most, I may just have to disagree to spite you.

The premise is simple, The Doctor decides to goto Mars. Why? Because he's lost everyone he ever cared about and is fed up of the porn the Tardis picks up I guess. So he happens to be on the planet the same day that the first human colony on mars blows up.

Two of the colonists are in the botony part of the colony, growing vegetables, when one of them decides to eat a carrot. So the BBC have just undone countless years of parents work to promote vegetables as being good for you... instead children who watched that last night, will believe eating carrots can cause you to become ludicrous water based parasitic zombie things. Thanks Russel T Davies... thanks a lot.

When The Doctor meets the colonists, what follows is the laziest plot device ever. He learns the name of one character, then we see a shot of a BBC webpage with the character's profile on it... which then zooms in to a deep DOO sound three times. This happens for each character, and there are about six people in the room. It was comically bad, and each time I expected the DOO to go into the Eastenders theme tune... infact it was the exact sound they use at the end of an episode in Eastenders.

Plus there was a guy who operated a robot, so why did the Captain call the robot by a name as oppose to by the name of the guy who is operating it? Surely if a robot is being piloted, you'd speak to the operator, not the computer. That'd be like me going up to someone at work and talking to their computer, and waiting for their computer to e-mail me with the answer.

So the villains were laughable, and the direction terrible, however the Doctor had a dark turn at the end which was an interesting devlopement for the character as Tennant's Doctor has danced across the lines of good and bad.

My main problem with this who at the moment is that it doesn't know WHO it's trying to appease. It tries hard to make itself credible with large story arcs and drives home messages or plays with emotions so that the adults will be impressed, but then goes the other way and downplays the horror or drama so that the kiddies wont get scared.

Dr. Who has always been a program designed for young adults in my opinion, I used to be scared of the baddies in it, and I'm sure it does have the effect on the kids today, but I feel that because it's trying to appease both adults and children it's not capitalizing on what is a great character and an amazing franchise!

Ah well, if the BBC didn't have a restraining order on me, I'd tell them to their faces, instead of writing it here.

The Soldiers and friends...

2009-11-16T06:58:00.000-08:00

If you ever read a paper, or turn on the news, or have anything news related sent to your iphone/email/carrier pigeon, then you'll probably know about the lacking funds in our military.

It seems that our troops who are out there in the deserts of wherever country has the oil at the moment, have less funding than your average field mouse, and take it from me, field mice have very little in the way of capital these days...

Well they must be hard up, as it seem that a new vocal band comprised of soliders has come out, hot on the now artic heat that is the heels of Robson and Gerome... who for all intenses were not really soldiers.

They chose to call themselves simply "The Soldiers" to avoid any confusion, and it seems to have worked. I've heard a song of theirs, but just can't take them seriously. I mean, they sing a soulful song about soldiers lives... but I can't seem to actually sympathise as at the end of the day, these guys are trained killers. I look at them wondering, hmm... how many people have you killed.

I'd hate to be up against them in the charts however, as I say these guys are trained killers. If you cross them, they probably know at least eight ways to kill you.

Inspired perhaps by these guys, the most famous man on the planet next to Jack Bauer, is releasing a christmas song... I'm talking about the guy who makes bears shit in the woods. Yes the Pope.

He's releasing a song for xmas. So this is a bad bad time to be in the music industry. If you want to release a song, you have to go up against The Soldiers who could kill you, The Pope who could damn you and Simon Cowell's army of stooges who could destroy everything you held dear about the music industry!

Zombie Survival : Almost there...

2009-10-29T03:34:00.000-07:00

Being hauled up in a small room whilst hearing the relentless moans of the undead makes you really appreciate the little things in life that you wouldn't have appreciated before hand, like walking in the rain, or hot dinners or not hearing the relentless moans of the undead whilst waiting your inevitable demise.

Last you heard from me, my diabloical brother had taken control of the Laboratories and blown off poor Royston... sorry, poor Royston's hand. I had wondered how my brother had gotten to the laboratories before us, but it seems that he rode my zombified friend Pope (careful)... who had devleoped wings. Royston came too and was in agony due to a lack of hand, Polly was slowly loosing any composure that he had had thanks to the constant moaning and grunting coming from outside... it was like waking up in the middle of the night to wonder if daddy was hurting mummy again.

I was at the end of my tether, and was growing increasing rattled by the sounds outside. I suddenly lost my temper and kicked over a bin... which conviniently was hiding a hatch... yeah... convinient wasn't it? We sprang into action, like a... sprang, and opened the hatch, sure enough it lead to the sewer system... which if my knowledge of Sanitary Systems was correct, would lead us to the Laboratory! and from there we could pull the switch that was the fail safe for the island.

If you've ever seen the shawshank redemption you can appreciate what Polly, Royston and myself had to go through... no not prison life, or being soddomised, I mean crawling through shit and god knows what, till we finally reached our destination.

We came out in a shower cubicle, which thankfully was un-occupied. All the lights in the place were out, and if we had dropped a pin you would have heard it... drop. The eerie silence was split by Royston letting out a nervous fart. Outside the cubicles were several corridors, Polly suggested we split up, which in hindsight was a pretty bad idea, but at the time sounded good.

So we went our seperate ways, I chose to go down the darkest of the corridors, as I thought that if I couldn't see the zombies then they couldn't see me. The laboratories were empty of zombie life however, there was nothing remotely shambling in sight. I felt my way along the corridor till I came to a door with a sign on it. I couldn't quite make it out, but I opened the door anyway.

I had made my way into a control room! There were various different pc's monitoring things, and then it struck me... not an idea, I mean, Braymachine. He had been following me up the corridor. I flew over to the other side of the room as the hulking hulk of a zombie beared down upon me. I thought that my life was surely over and that you my long suffering readers would never know the fate of the island, if you indeed still cared.

But as Braymachine raised those enormous fists, to pound me, he gasped as a steel rod flew through his head. He slumped down ontop of me and nearly crushed me, but I wriggled free in moments.

Standing over the corpse was Alexis. I couldn't believe it! He told me that he had lied about being a zombie when he bit my brother... which made no sense, as he had actually turned my brother into a zombie... but Alexis told me he had not ime to explain.

He pulled out a chair and began to type at the keyboard, suddenly a radar turned up on the screen, and we saw the island, and a small blip moving away from the island.

"It must be some kind of a boat" Alexis said "We can't let anybody leave this island!!"

So Alexis pressed a button, which he told me had just launched a missile at the boat... at this point I didn't know what to believe, he was obviously unsure himself what was the truth anymore... I just hoped that if anybody WAS in that boat that it wasn't anyone I knew.

Alexis managed to bring up a floor plan... somehow!? and it showed that Polly had gone the right way to the fail safe switch... but Royston... Royston had gone straight into the heart of the facility... where all the zombies were.

Alexis opened up a cupboard and chucked me a shotgun. This time, it was time, to save Royston, before he became something other than human. Hopefully Polly would be able to pull the fail safe switch, and my brother would be none the wiser... then again... he's psychic now, which at the time, I'd forgotten...

Halloween Horror Films : Boo

2009-10-29T02:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is one I've been meaning to talk about for sometime.

Some horror films are bad, but so bad that they are funny, and there's a sick part inside of me that seems to appreciate bad horror films as a unintentional comedy classics.

However, some horror films, are so bad, they are terrible. Which brings me onto Boo, which is probably the worst horror film ever made.

The premise, a bunch of kids go to stay in a haunted hospital overnight, a friend of the boys has already gone inside to set "spooky" traps to scare the girls, so the guys can get laid I guess. Plus we get the story of an ex-cop/movie star (I kid you not) and some long haired guy who's sister has gone missing. The only decent character in the movie is the ex-cop/movie star, and he's under-used.

The plot is stupid, the scares are non-existent, and for some reason everyone keeps melting. Oh, but the main gripe I have is the continuity. One scene a guy gets shot in the arm, the next few scenes after he's just walking around as if nothing has happened. Now, I'm not sure what happens when you get shot in the arm, so maybe that IS how you react.

To find out, I've purchased a gun and will try to continue the rest of this short take on the film with a bullet wound. Here goes.

Holy shit that hurts. I'm typing one handed at the moment... ohh feeling dizzy...

The cast are unlikeable at best, and the story is really... really predictable... One thing that really pisses me off about this though is there's a bit with the ex-cop/movie star guy right near the beginning, where you see his (film?) and in it he lights a match and kicks it at "Blackula" killing him.

Then, there's a bit later where he has the chance to use this move on a villain, only for the match to fizzle out. What a waste of film!

My eyes, are a bit blurry so sorry for spelling... jeeze this hurts...

There's a ghost dog bit that probably cost them more to do than the whole film which is an ok special effect but doesn't do anything for the overall film.

If you're going to watch a horror film, there's a similar but highly superior film "House on Haunted Hill" which has a similar premise and a bit where a guy gets pencils through his eyes... awesome... and unlike this shit, he's not walking around the next scene as if nothing happened!

Yeah so don't watch this movie... I'm off to the hospita...

Zombie Survival - Milli's Entry

2009-10-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

Ohh dearie me... I don't know who will get this message in a bottle, but my name is Milli and I was part of a sick experiment by my so called friend Adamicus. He's turned Braymachine and Pope into scary things and I have no idea where they are now. The whole Island is over run by horror movie cliche's.

As I'm scottish, I'm usually lured to remote Islands by friends in hope that I'll be killed, but I never expected something like this to happen.

Luckily, after I lost Adamicus, I came across a jetty, and there was a boat. So I've finally found a way off of this Island, just in time really as I'm running low of Irn Bru!

I've decided to get in the boat and go for help, as I'm sure Royston and Polly are still on the island... as for Adamicus, I hope he's dead or worse.

Love Milli x