James's Birthday & Zombie Escape Plans

Over the weekend it was James's birthday and like all people turning 31 he has been thinking about his future, no peeps not pension plans, but what he is going to do when the inevitable zombie apocalypse comes...

As a special birthday gift to James I thought I would try to spread this as a meme (as he inspired its creation) and find out how many of us out there have zombie escape plans and also give it a little bit of structure by asking some specific questions to make sure everyone is giving this its due consideration and thought!

So when zombies bring about the end of the world in 28 Days Later/Dawn of the Dead/Shaun if the Dead stylee what are you going to do?

1. Describe your zombie escape plan (generally). Explain your choices.

I think that I will probably head for my work (Watts Building) as it is quite away from the city centre. However first I am gonna grab a bus which I will use to ram raid sainsburys (for food) and then b&q (for weapons). Then I think I will use to the bus to blockade one of the entrances... There are quite a few windows though so I'll need to board them up, but there is loads of furniture so that shouldn't be a problem. There is a kitchen in there too.

If society tries to rebuild itself the building is also close to the trainline and if the power stays on there is plenty of ways to contact the outside world (phones/computers).

2. Who would you choose to have with you and why?

I'll try to stick with as many mentally unhinged people I can find - they will either crumble under the stress and therefore keep the zombies off you for a few seconds or they will unleash their brutal side and go all redneck on the zombies.

3. What is your choice of zombie bashing weapon? Be creative - this is the UK, are you really going to have time to try and acquire a shotgun when the apocalypse comes?

I think I will adapt a scythe and add an extra blade to the other end so it can stab and slice.

4. Finally if your escape plan goes horribly wrong what will you do?

Hide in the toilets and hope it all goes away.

Anyway thats my plan! Kira, Joh, Sophie, Pzalem & Trev you are it! Spread this! And James maybe when your blog is online again you might share your plan?

Finally to get everyone into Zombie fear, check out this remake out of the original Resident Evil Intro...

Fear and Loathing in My Left Ear

Today I got a digital hearing aid. I was warned that it was going to be a big change and would take some getting used to.

Since I was 11 years old when I first got a hearing aid, I have assumed that if my hearing had been normal everything would be louder, just how things were with my hearing aid.

The digital hearing aid is far cleverer than a real ear I imagine, it adapts to my surroundings, it quitens in loud places and can make voices clear even with a lot of background noise.

But it feels really strange. Going to work straight after my appointment this morning was a weird experience. Certain noises were oddly loud and making my hearing feel very trippy. Plastic bags I don't like. Toilet doors locking sound really sinster, I felt as though I was in a horror film! And the first task I had to do at work, sounded so unnaturally loud. Stamping coursework made a horrendous noise that echoed loads...

I'm hoping that things will soon feel more normal to me, I'm struggling to get used the fact that although sound in my left ear feels really quiet, I can hear just as well as I could with my old hearing aid. I just need to have a bit of faith in what my new hearing can do.

One thing I do like though, is that with a analogue hearing aid when the battery ran it out, things would get slowly quiter and quieter. The digital one though bleeps at me :-)

Bleepy, bleep.

New Bookie...

Today during my lunch break I very excitedly went to amazon uk hoping to order Haruki Murakami's new book, After Dark. Irritatingly it seems that first edition hard back version was only on limited release and I would have to wait a month - a whole month to order the next edition which has a much less interesting cover.

"Fuck that" I thought and off I went to amazon dot com, thank god that either America gets more copies of the book or they have not yet discovered just how wonderful he is (me loves Mr Murakami, he is the bestest writer in the whole world... Ahhhhh.).

Sadly amazon dot com estimates that the book can take anywhere from 4 - 22 days to arrive.

If there is a book god out there, please make it arrive quickly.

Early Birthday Presents - Yay!

I have this year managed to drag out celebrating my birthday over several weekends. At first I was a little sad that I couldn't organise something everyone could go to in one go. However I am now seeing that are certain advantages to celebrating on different weeks, which are:

1. Being allowed to have birthday gifts early

2. Being able to have tasty birthday meals without any guilt (any excuse to break dieting - ANY!)

Last weekend I got a beautiful crystal ball - which I quite simply cannot wait to use! I am sure that some point in the future I shall write about it on my the Magician's Toilet, but first I need to finish reading the book I have on how to use it... Might do that in Malta at the end of the month as I have distractions until then.

Yesterday I spent day trawling the shops with my brother who loves shopping in Brighton even on a saturday because it seems that we have have superior shops to those in Surrey. And I got to choose my birthday presents as he was visiting! Was lucky to get another pair of new shoes (have got a few pairs lately - am developing a shoe thing!).

And I get to celebrate my birthday with a different group of people every week until the end of April! Having multiple celebrations is fun!

Baroque City in the Sea...

Yesterday whilst researching for some other information about Malta, I discovered this piece at The Register.

It seems that google maps thinks that Valetta, Malta's capital city is in the sea...

I can honestly say that whilst Valetta in my memory is near to the sea, it isn't actually in it. I will double check though on my next visit in a couple of weeks.

Catch Up

Apologies for my lack of posting lately.

I have no excuse, I have just been plain lazy, enjoying relaxing evenings surfing through ebay and watching:

Heroes
Ugly Betty
Battlestar Galactica
24 Season 6

I have also spent a fair amount of time cleaning and decluttering my house and I now also have a new housemate, all of which has made my home a much more pleasant place to be. It is still not perfect, but so much better than it was.

And I found another job to apply for - I have an interview on the 17th April, 2 days before my birthday - I do hope it goes well!

To be honest, I have also struggled lately with what to write here, I certainly don't want to give this blog up, but right now my priorities lie in sorting my weight and bitching about all the bollocks written about obesity in the news. But I've been slack about that too!

However I am very much looking forward to a time in my life when getting to a healthy weight won't dominate my brain and I'll be free to mull on other things. I'm very glad that I have finally managed to face up to my weight problem and how to resolve it but I am frustrated by the amount of mental energy it requires, perhaps writing a blog about it wasn't such a great idea…

But equally so it has been good to have a place to vent, rant and moan, this certainly doesn't seem to be the place to have a blow by blow account of my weightloss and I like having the seperation between certain areas of my life…

Anyway just needed to get that all out of my head :-) I will write here when I have something to say.

Brain drain over with.

Filmage...

Well I kind of stole this idea from James a while ago, but never actually got round to writing about it...

During January my life felt quite sad and empty, because I was completely deprived of films that I wanted to see in the cinema. The line ups in the odeon, ugc and duke of yorks, just made me want to cry, quite frankly they should have shoved their gritty/'real' dramas up somewhere, ur rude!?!

However there is quite a few films in the near future that I cannot wait to see! And this is where I steal James's idea and write about the films I am very much looking forward to in 2007. Thanks James ;-)

Anyway here is my list:-

The Foutain - It has got some awful reviews but I want to see it anyway.

Notes on a Scandal - going to see this on Sunday - you can't beat a good film about someone's messed up obession!

Epic Movie

Hot Fuzz

Science of Sleep

28 Weeks Later - Some of my friends didn't particularly like the 'army' section of this 28 days later, but I didn't really have a problem with it, as surely, at the end of life as we know it - some people would go a bit loopy and alpha male on you... Looking forward to this regardless.

Sin City 2 - Loved the first one - so hoping this sequel is great too!

I was also looking forward to seeing Bobby - which I watched last weekend, it was a little cheesy in places but overall quite good, an interesting mix of stories and Sharon Stone was great - I didn't even realise who she was until she glammed up at the end.

Five Things

Uh-oh I'm it, Joh got me.

Well, urr, so five things that people here are unlikely to know about me...

1. I was a weird child, being imaginative unfortunately for me meant that I developed some wacky ideas. I wanted to be Indiana Jones, not a princess. I wanted to be pasta so that I could fully understand the human digestive system and become a scientist - who knows why? Who cares! I wanted to be PASTA! I also wanted to be water, I some how got the romantic notion into my head that if I was water and went down the plughole, at some point I would be part of waterfall.

2. I have two brothers (I'm in the middle (middle children are meant to be messed up) which may explain point one) who I have very little in common with, but love to bits. I am to this day convinced of my childhood belief, that my older brother is the funniest person on the planet. I wish I could see them more often.

3. I wear a size 6 shoe. Fascinating. And I have freakishly small hands - just compare them to yours, next time we meet...

4. I wrote my first book when I was 11, it was called What's Wrong Doctor and was about my hearing problems (I am partially deaf) - I still have it around somewhere. It was used to raise various bits of money for a disability charity and my junior school gave me a book of puzzles because they were so pleased of my achievement.

5. I have three tattoos, 2 dolphins, one is on my arm, the other on my left hip. I also have the chinese symbol for peace on my right hip. I would like to get a forth and final tattoo when I get to my target weight.

I now have to pass this on, but I don't have masses of friends who maintain a blog - so those of you out there who don't have a blog - hurry up and get one, all the cool kids are doing it! Instead I am going to pass this on via the social whoring webiste, myspace... So Kira, Magic Pete, Marcus, Trev and Thea - you are it!

Happy New Year

Hello!

Happy New Year!

Had a very relaxed Christmas, only marred by occasional moments of hyperventilation and panicking about my job interview next wednesday. Santa was kind enough to drag me around various shops in Malta to buy lots of new clothes. Sadly however I also discovered, that one shop I visited, called Promod - has an english on-line shop, this could be very bad because I want to buy all of their clothes... Anyway I have now made the resolve not to buy any more new clothes because if I am going to carry on losing weight, they'll soon no longer fit me and once again I'll live in fear of exposing myself ;-)

Maybe I'm getting old but I can't really remember much about the start of 2006, but the summer of it was horrible, too hot and I thought I was going loopy from time to time thanks to some horrid medicine I stopped taking. And from September onwards its just been the GI Diet and a lot of joy from discovering that I can actually shrink. Plus I no longer care that everyone might know how much I weigh - I have lost all shame about that one and now I feel real pride in my achievements so far. Unexpectedly it also has taught me that I don't need to keep a smiley face all the time, that it is quite okay to let people know you are human and hurt too.

I hope 2007 is going to be a good year for me - I certainly don't feel that I need to make any resolutions as I have already been slowly working on fixing all that need to be put right...