Bomber's blog

2009-01-10T10:30:00.001-08:00

Bloody cold ride in the ardennes

fun though.... <- pictures there

Crazy Kiwis

2009-01-07T08:11:00.001-08:00

Some Kiwi dudes are going to cut open a 3m long Great white shark in front of the public tomorrow. Hopefully the remains of several missing surfers won't slop out all over their shoes. Or maybe they will, depending on your perspective on the whole "Surfers are a waste of fucking oxygen" debate .... and, they're posting a video on the internet for us poor saps who can't make it in person.

Either way, too good to miss

http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/Default.asp?t=913

2009-01-01T06:27:00.000-08:00

Don't get excited, I probably won't post anything more for another 6 months. just found a site called Map My Ride though which seeems cool so I'm testing their imbed map thingy to see what it looks like. This is my commute to work.

Antwerp commute
Find more Commutes in Antwerp, Belgium

2008-12-23T05:47:00.001-08:00

Hopefully this will link to a slideshow of our pictures from the black forest laast month.

Canada is snowier and christmassier than those pictures and has less germans in.

Off last minute shopping now then to ottawa for xmas with the outlaws. Junior world chapionship hockey game on boxing day promises to be bloody good fun. I tell ya, the puns they just keep a comin'

Black Forest '08
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77706826@N00/sets/72157611556282644/show/

A selection of things from the set

(By the way, if the set link doesn't work, try copying and pasting it from this email into your browser's address bar.)

Flickr is almost certainly the best photo management and sharing application in the world. If you'd like to see what I use it for you can check out my profile page or browse my photostream.

2008-05-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

Sparky nuptials photos

Album of Jules' photos here

Some one please, please p-shop minime BNP Sparky for me...

Bomber out

2008-04-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

More pictures

thought I'd posted the second set already. nvm, here they are;

Week 2 Bonaire
Underwater pics

2008-03-31T04:29:00.000-07:00

Pictures from week 1 in Bonaire. Must dash, beer to drink

2008-02-21T11:12:00.000-08:00

Will There Be Blood? Fucking Right there will!

We got tickets to the Belgian premier of There Will Be Blood . Sounds all glitzy but, frankly, it wasn't sold out so whatever,really.

The reviews all make this film sound great and given the title especially in that old gothic font, I just knew we were in for some great times. No trailers this time, I suppose if they'd had them they would have been 30 days of night, 28 weeks later and some other stuff, but nvm, I knew what to expect. Cue 20 minutes of dialog free intro, in which we see our hero digging holes in the dessert, breaking his left foot (huh? huh? ... see what I did there?) and generally prospecting about the place. I'd been told to expect this and was a bit apprehensive but it didn't seem as labourious as it sounds. That soundtrack though ... the rising discordant strings seem to render even open hillsides claustrophobic ... I just knew I was going to shit myself when the vamps finally showed up. Afterall, Daniel day lewis in a vampire movie is something I've been waiting for for, like, ever. He's so picky about the projects he's in that I just knew this was going to be special. OK, OK so Gangs was a load of toss, but he tapped his eyeball with the tip of a kitchen knife in that so I let him off.

So, he digs some holes, breaks his ankle and that, then ..... nothing. Huh? what's with all the daylight and desert and that? I've got something wrong here. I was sure that with the title and the font and everything that this must be a modern interpretation of Nosferatu eats the fuck outta Texas. Seems I was wrong. Must be a monster movie. That's right, he's going to dig a whole too deep and unleash some oily terror. Like A historical fiction version of Cloverfield, only no cities or annoying teenagers and that..

Second bit (act, what?) and he's just moved into a new area and is digging more holes. As he gets more cash the holes get deeper. Sooon prescious. He's mucking about in the bottom of the hole and chiping away at the side and .... and .... here it comes .... and ... nothing. WTF? Where are the monsters? The chick who gave the speech at teh beginning of the film said 2 things; it's three hours long and one of the greatest movies of the decade. Greatest movie of the decade and not one vampire, zombie or even an oilsoaked megamonster? 3 hours with no CGI? I started to panic. Bubble calmed me down with a can of Stella (one reason to love Belgian cinemas ... now just sort out the fucking seat numbering you tossers) and I resigned myself to some sort of arty character driven whotsit about prospectors and the locals that they shaft to get at what's under the desert in Texas. 3 fucking hours and no monsters.....

DD Lewis plays this guy Daniel Plainview (I like it when the help the actors like that. DDL has a shit short term memory apparantly). He certainly earns his crust. He stomps around in this strange trouser / boot combination that is supposed to be just sooo last century and gives him huge comedy feet, kind of like they all used to have in Halo Jones way back when 2000AD and I had similar mindsets. He commands those around him like some sort of one man industrial revolution, which I probably would have recognised as the metaphor was I not weeping into my beer over the complete lack of an undead hoarde. He's got this son who doesn't really do much (at one point I thought he might be the antichrist, if he was he kept damn quiet about it) and then there's this preacher who you see DDL slappnig in the trailer so you just know that he's bound to go toe to toe with this bastard, although while I'd definitely lay my life savings down on an Angelus/DDL a non undead version I'm not so sure of. These are evangelists afterall, a tough bunch of bastards and when you don't believe in evolution, you could be forgiven for fighting like you've nothing to lose. Most of the battles between the 2 are passive/agressive jibing, however, there's not much actual mudwrestling or knife fights and absolutely no neck biting, but it has given me a few ideas to use on the cunts at work.

So, Plainview is our very central character. He has two relationships outside of work, one with his son and one with this preacher dude. Both have tremendous potential to be great stories in themselves and I don't think either of them are carried to satisfactory conclusion. The preacher is definitely the more polished of the two characters. The son, well, maybe I'm just stupid, but I never felt I got to know him at all and so couldn't sympathise with the situation. There is plenty to sympathise with aswell. You know with a movie like this that you're not going to get a happy ending and this certainly delivers on that front. The camera work is that side of quirky that makes critics cream themselves (LOTS of off subject refocus stuffs) and the music fit the film perfectly while seeming incongruous at the same time, which I supose is a good thing. Unlikely that the CD soundtrack will beat out X-factor for No. 1 any time soon though.

All in all, worth it for DDL's performance. I was left cold by the 2 other central characters, although the preacher had his moments, but perhaps I was working through the dissappointment of no vamps.

Oh, and there's no-one .... NO-ONE ... in this movie that you will want to see neked so it's a bonus that everyone keeps their clothes on.

Bomber out

2008-02-17T03:34:00.000-08:00

No Country for Old Men

I hate the very idea of going to the cinema in Brussels. I hate it because you can't reserve seats. Anywhere. This means you need to be there an hour before or accept sitting in some obscure fucking corner behind the tallest dutch bloke you ever laid eyes on and 2 seats across from some french prick intent on spending the whole movie on his pissing mobile phone or texting .. while eating popcorn and smelling. This mixed with the fact that I have a projector at home and that Amazon have most movies on DVD before the Belgians have even scheduled a release explains the fact that I have only been to the cinema once since I got to Belgium (except for the BIFFF, but that's a bit different) That was to watch Little Children and that was rubbish, despite full frontal Kate Winslet having bottom sex, thus justifying my continued policy of being a home movie watcher.

My list of movies to watch has been getting longer and longer of late, though. Mostly this is due to the fact that there seems to be just so many good movies being released in the first half of this year. Some of them even being released in Belgium before Amazon has discounted them on DVD! I needed a plan. Thinking about it, I realised that there are 2 options other than those I outlined above, either of which might make the Belgian cinema experience bearable; Go at a time when no one else will be there (matinées) or choose a movie unlikely to get the movie watching public excited (complete lack of dancing Penguins). I had needed a plan, now I had one. For a fuller chance at success, I decided to do both.

So, on Saturday afternoon after my morning bike ride Bubble and I went to see No Country for Old men. No singing Penguins and a matinée, we were sure to be alone ... and so we were. I really hadn't expected it to work, I felt sure that the critical acclaim circling the Coen Brothers "return to form" and "best movie since Fargo" would have them flocking to the theaters for all showings. I needn't have worried, there were probably 30 of us, everyone else was in Rue Neuve shopping or watching the penguins on the other (bigger) screen next door. Their loss, the pricks. As such, Bubble I and 25 or so other people sat in a small theater (capacity probably about 200) with a feeling like we were at some sort of press screening. There was something about the crowd too. Many of them were alone. None of them (NONE) had popcorn. These folks didn't come here to be entertained, they came to watch a Movie, they came to experience Cinema. If they got some confusing shit like Oh Brother or some story about a guy being so boring he disappears, there was going to be a (small) riot. The Coens must have been shaking in their boots.

The previews ran and I knew we were in good shape. Of course the previews at the beginning of any movie are pitched at the projected audience of the main feature so one would expect them to give you an early insight into what you are about to get. I'm sure there are several instances where this rule has been broken to hilarious end, like showing a trailer for Ken Park in the opening sequence of whatever Pixar movie came out that year but I can't remember one so I'd be making it up if I gave you an example (erm). The previews that ran before NCfOM (as I shall call it from here on to save space and prolong the onset of RSI) were right on the money; This is England, There will be blood, The Savages. All were on my movie list (Except I admit, the Savages, but that gets there under the general "everything with Philip Seymour Hoffman in" rule).

And so to the movie. Look ... frankly, if you're interested in this film and were underwhelmed by the Coens two last outings then you will have been paying attention and heard some of the critical hype already. In short, it boils down to the two quotes I mentioned above plus stuff like "Javier Bardem is magnificent", "Javier Bardem has the scariest haircut in movie history", "Has an unconventional ending that will leave some viewers wondering what happened but only if you're not seriously into movies" (sort of thing) and on and on, lots of it about Bardem.

Most of this I actually agree with, although you'd have to do better than put a big bloke in a medieval bob to get the scariest-haircut-in-movie-history Oscar nod from me. Of course I am now bound to research the issue, but I feel confident we can do better.

Of course I can only say so much without going into spoilerz and I fully intend not to because you should go and see this movie. I really struggle to think of the type of individual who would get less than the 2 hours of their life and the cost of admission is worth from it. Sure you will find those who need to have exploding helicopters handed to them on a plate and singing animals in the background but I severely doubt that any of them would ever read anything I wrote so I think I'm on safe ground when I say go see it. Just incase though, suffice to say that the following do not appear in this movie

Sex
Helicopters (blowing up or otherwise)
Aliens
Large rocks heading at breakneck pace towards a terrified earth
Kiera Knightly

What we do have, in contrast are;

Characters big and small, central and periphery
Subtle meandering plotline
Good acting
Desert ... More Desert
Loads of dead Mexicans (not that I'm against mexicans per se, but there are lot of dead ones in this film)
The best ever border crossing into Mexico made by a man with a gunshot wound

The movie starts with our hero stumbling across a deathly tableau in the desert. Ton of mexicans, all dead and a truckload of brown packets, probably full of something not very legal and a whole bunch of cash. Our hero does the only sensible thing and makes off with the cash. So far so formulaic. There have been dozens of films which start of this way and move on to be cautionary tales about how money ruins you. You'll all have seen at least one, but A Simple Plan stands out as one of note that starts in an almost identical way while also not being shit (if you haven't seen A simple Plan, I really recommend it, make sure you're not having a depressing week though, you'll need the buffer). Such a movie can go a few ways from here, ours goes to the chase. Our hero is soon under persuit by the haircut himself, Anton Chigurh (Bardem) and separately by a bunch of very alive and heavily armed Mexicans. Transamerican chasery ensues. In the background, the local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) is following the events, always one step behind the action and feeling it.

The acting is all on the superb end of things. Bardem really is as good as the critics say. There's a very small scene where Chigurh is sitting on his quarry's couch, having just missed our departing hero and a mite before the sheriff gets there, with a glass of milk in his hand. His face is rock, all you can hear is his breath. It's terrifying.

The Sheriff, TLJ, is .... well .... TLJ, just 10 years older and without the swagger that we all grew to know and love on the Fugitive etc. The older comportment brings with it a gravity and world weariness that could probably only have been topped by Clint Eastwood, but then you wouldn't have got the dry humour and southern drawl that TLJ brings to the party which would probably have made the whole enterprise unbearably depressing. Plus Clint would have killed everyone with a very big revolver and then had bastard children with all the women. Probably.

Llewelyn Moss (our Hero) is played by Josh Brolin who I don't remember seeing before and looking at his filmography I can see why, the last movie he was in that I've seen was The Hollow Man, although American Gangster and the Grindhouse stuff is on my ever lengthening list. He's good in this, it's far from Genius but he carries a major part amongst an ensemble cast with aplomb, mostly I suspect by acting it very honestly straight, but it's no mean feat for that.

In fact, and I really hate to say this because I love his stuff, but the biggest let down (a very relative statement in this film admittedly) was Woody Harrelson. I was really pissed off that he didn't get more time in A Scanner Darkly and he probably gets less here, but I have to say I'm less sad about it. His character is somewhat of a guardian angel interlude during after a climax in the chase, he opens the movie up and allows us all a bit of time to breath. Perhaps then it's not fair to lay into him for propping the movie open but after he was gone, I just found myself thinking "meh ... now what's Chigurh going to do next?"

As far as the plot is concerned, that is provided by the book of the same name written my Cormac Mac Carthy. He's apparantly some famous writer dude , but you could have fooled me, I've never heard of him. Anyway, this is a departure for the coens (their first adaptation) and the first reason why I don't agree with the critical comment "a return to form". True, previous stuff has been influenced and laden with references to other stuff etc etc but, if the pundits are to be believed, this is a faithful retelling of the book, almost word-for-word. The other reasons extend to the fact that, while yeah there's cops and some dead guys, just like Fargo and Blood Simple (although, thinking about it, Blood Simple had no cops in it, not even one) and this one scene where you know the Deputy is desparate to say "and then you got this execution type deal" this movie is different in one very important aspect. It is not farce. While there is some wry humor from the Sheriff, our linchpin to the tale as a whole, this is a full blooded thriller with dramatic underpants on. Actually I did hear one critic, just today, saying that the difference is that in the past the Coens have dealt with violence and death lightly, here they bring weight to the subject, which I think is half right. Actually, my take is that the Coens have always wanted to make this kind of film but found they couldn't write it themselves. Look at Blood Simple.

Here is a very stripped down tale of a dude's wife running off with one of his employees. Said dude hires a guy to kill the both of them, but the killer has a better idea and takes the money then kills the client with the wife's gun, framing her. Coincidence ensues and the barman arrives on scene, makes the same conclusion that the cops are supposed to and proceeds to clean up after his lover. Of course the killer was incompetent (I'll get to this in a minute) and the husband isn't actually dead. On the way to the burial site he manages to get out of the car and is crawling down the road with the barman lacking the balls to finish the job. Instead he buries him alive in the middle of a potato(e) field so neatly ploughed that Neil Armstrong coiuld have looked up from the moon and seen where it had happened ... 50 feet from the farmhouse. Here a dramatic premise and what could have been a very short simple story descends into farce (in a good way). I don't think the Coens could help themselves. The structure of using someone else's work, though, probably kept them in line and what we have is NCfOM.

Another major difference a major departure from a central tenet of the Coen's work (pointed out to me by Dave years ago) is that, in the earlier movies (especially Blood Simple and the big Lebowski and throughout most of Fargo) all the characters are irredeemably stupid. This is not true of NCfOM. All major characters are smart, resourceful (if a little tired, in the case of the sheriff) and quick on their feet. I'd have to read the book (as if) to see if this comes form there or whether the coens are making a point about their departure form their self imposed exile in the land of the stupid, but in the meantime I know what I'll chose to believe.

OK, that took longer to write than the movie took to watch. In other news, I went for a ride today and got a stick in my front wheel after about 10 minutes. I didn't get thrown off the bike (something that I could have dusted myself off from and carried on) no, I ripped 6 spokes from my front wheel. Thus I'm sitting at home writing this instead of mountain biking. Hope you enjoyed it.

Bomber out

2007-11-23T21:45:00.001-08:00

NEXT

saw this on DVD last night

it's a Philip K Dick short story movified with Nick cage, Julianne Moore and Jessica Beil.

OK. Stop. Why the fuck would I watch yet another PKD hashup staring none other than the Ghost rider himself, that waste of talent Nick Cage? Well;

- there's a chance that Jess might finally get them out
- I didn't know it was based on PKD when I picked it up
- It was a slow day in the office
- I have low standards

hmm, so let's just say I wasn't expecting much. Let's face it Nick Cage can shine in the right role, even when that role is involved in a plot as proposterous as having your face swapped with a really fat John Travolta, but frankly he's far more miss than hit. Like I said, it had been a slow day.

Synopsis of this movie is that our hero (Cris Johnson, played by Nick) has a special talent, he can see 2 minutes into the future. He uses this to live a low profile existence as a Vegas Magician and card sharp. Doesn't sound low profile? well, it is; he goes to pains to keep it so, being a bit shit at audience interaction and not being too greedy at the tables. Cue the FBI (huh?) and they have a terrorist group bringing in a nuclear bomb. They (somehow) get wind of NC's talents and move to recruit him. The terrorists get wind of the FBIs interest in NC and move to snipe his face off. Meanwhile, NC has found out something intriguing about Jess Biel and moves to get in her pants. Cue NC and JB chase scene as they run away from the FBI and terrorists, although JB doesn't know this yet, she just seems to think they're off teaching indian kids on a reserve (huh?).

Compare this with the synopsis I found for the book which this is apparantly based on

Quote:

The Golden Man
In the post-nuclear America, monstrous mutants roam freely. A government agency, the DCA, is formed to rid the world of mutants. But there is one of the new species that is not a monster: eighteen year old Cris Johnson. He is a perfect specimen of young manhood, an icon of masculine beauty. He is the golden man. But the DCA's fear that he might mate and produce a new race of golden men with survival skills far superior to ordinary men makes his destruction paramount

erm I think the phrase we're looking for here is "possibly very lightly inspired by PKD short story The Golden Man" or even "one of the producer's daughters once read the Golden man and thought Cris Johnson was a kinda neat name for a hero". Golden Man is one of PKD's stories that I haven't read, I'd be inteersted to hear from someone who has whether the FBI and nuke toting taroists figure in his plot.

OK, so let's move forward on the assumption that this isn't really a PKD hash-up at all and just that it's yet another almost-straight-to-video Nick Cage movie. In these terms I rather enjoyed it. Jess (yet again) completely fails to get them out and really is an awfully wooden, if pretty, love interest. The terrorists are your mean professional type and thankfully not your yashmak wearing mid-east stereotypes but instead seem to be mostly French, which was a nice touch. The ideology of their operation is never mentioned. Have a Bonus point.

The movie's plot is convoluted enough to have several commetators crying PLOT HOLE when they shouldn't have. Well, it does involve time, something which most of the viewing public wouldn't even recognise as a dimension. The plot hole that isn't involves our Jess and a spoiler so I won't tell you but it is fundamental to the movie and provides it with its ending, which I won't tell you either coz that would be spoilery too.

The really unexplained things for me are why in the hell the FBI, knowing that they have a nuke coming into the country, are concentrating on some loser in vegas who can see OMG... 2 minutes into the future ... and they have support and resourcing for this, rather than being told "WTF you cretins, get back on that fucking geiger counter and find the bastard bomb". The written movie backstory suggests that they had Nick in custody as a kid so perhaps they had a file on him, but that's not mentioned in the film and even then what are they going to do, wait until 2 minutes before the bomb goes off then ask him "what direction did the flash come from?" "sorry, I won't see it, my eyes were instantly vaproized along with teh rest of me" oops, 2 minutes up. Also, why would the terrorists know / give a fuck? Some explanatory footage missing here requiring a bit of

Acting. hmmmm. Jess is pretty wood. Nick does OK, but no better than normal, certainly not standout. Julianna Moore is very FBI, there's this one thing she does in the middle of the film which is wicked, but is more plotwork than acting so can't credit her really. Basically about as good, perhaps a bit better, than one would expect from a nick cage movie .. so not all that great really.

Effects are quite ropey. As one might expect from someone who can look into the future (if only a bit into it) Nick is able to use his abilities to get out of scrapes and some of them (one in particular) is set up in grand fasion, with our hero carreening down a canyon side being followed by a couple of hundred tons of runaway mixed farm equipment. IMDB does say that the overall budget was about 70M so perhaps they had nothing left after they bought the farm. In the last act, they do take the gloves off a bit with bullet dodging and that, but the matrix this is not and frankly these days it bloody should be.

In the end, I think that the plot is interesting enough to make it worth a view. The explainations of some major plot points (especially the one which had IMDB critics crying foul) are not rammed down your throat, but they are there. Worth a rainy night in.

Quite frankly though, I want to see the original with mutants and monsters and everything. Maybe Jess would finally get them out then?

2007-11-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

The illusionist

I saw this last night on DvD.

Set in Germany or Austria, can't be arsed to look it up, let's call it Ausmany, it's about a carpenter's son (Aaron Johnson) and amateur magician who falls for a local barroness or somesuch (Elanour Thomlinson) and impresses her by pulling balls magically out of her whotsit, or something.

He's judged (and rightly so) to be not nearly good enough for such high class crumpet by the local fuzz and leaves town at the beginning of the film. End of prologue.

Now the film starts....

Returning as an adult, our male lead is now Ed Norton and our bit of stuff has grown up into that lovely Scarlet Johanssen lookalike Jessica Beil. Jess is, by now, shacked up with Rufus Sewell (who?) playing teh crown prince of Ausmany, who does a good impression of being a Jude Law stand in and general all round arrogant royal Danny Baker type.

Illusion based shennanigans ensue

OK. I've failed to mention the most important person in this film, but I'll come to him in a minute, however I need to set something straight first.

Jessica Beil is a bit of alright and her "young version" is aswell. Most importantly, one is believably the younger version of the other. Noe the young version is currently in production of a movie titled "Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging" which I shall be pre-ordering on DvD, but only for the thongs.

Ed and Aaron, OTOH are a different kettle of fish entirely. If one was, in fact, a fish the other would be a dog or a horse or something else with LEGS BUT NOT FINS. They look about as alike as when those characters used to leave neighbours to "go to uni" and returned 6 months later looking so different that the only thing they had in common with their previous selves was that they were the same sex (probably) which always left me wondering why all the other residents of the lane didn't stand up, point and scream "STRANGER" as soon as the resident shape-shifter walked in the room

I digress....

The prize in this movie is not, in fact, Ed Norton. As great an actor as his Edness is, you're really not getting value for nortonage out of this one. Further, the chance at good full-on frontal Jessica Beilage was sadly wasted (although I did manage to crack one out anyway). No, the prize in this film is Paul Giamatti. This dude is god, a humiliatingly unglamorous, possibly even ugly man (at least by Hollywood perfection standards) Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite actors on screen today. we really don't see enough of this guy. For a real view on what he's capable of, watch American Splendour (probably spelt differently by our Western cousins). He is superb in this film as the police chief, beholden to the Crown prince but from background similar to our hero's and so somewhat sympathetic to his plight.

****small spoiler****
For me, the thrust of this movie is that it is a love story and mystery told through the eyes of the Police chief charged with following our Jess about the place (for her "security") and later investigating Ed Norton when a connection between the two becomes apparant.
****end of small spoiler****

Thus, the "main characters", Ed and Jess, are infact secondary to the story teller ... or they should be. I would have preferred to see much more focus on the deliberations of the police chief (Paul Giamatti). The movie splits personalities between telling the story from Ed's perspective and from Paul's. This gets confusing, as the crux of the issue is the use of illusion and more to the point, the suspicion that it is more than illusion, in the prosecution of the plot so we can't be given too close a view on Ed's machinations or we'd work out what was going on. The difficulty, I suspect, is that Ed is just too big a star to "ignore" in favor of Paul Giamatti. My solution is simple. Don't fucking cast Ed bastid Norton in a role you really don't want a very strong actor in. The movie poster tells all. Ed is front and centre, Paul Giamatti is back left.

Slight schitzophrenia aside, the movie does manage to suspend disbelief and plays with the audience's (and the characters') willingness to believe in magic rather well. Paul Giamatti deserves more respect though.

for more illusion based shennanigans and a superb turn by another 2 faves of mine, Christian Bale and Micheal Caine, try The Prestige

2007-11-10T04:56:00.000-08:00

Congratulations

To Mr Collis on his marriage last weekend to Melanie. We heard about it *just* in time to send an email to the reception. Apparently it was a family only affair, which robbed me of the opportunity to step on the bride's dress, abuse the presents then throw up in the drive way, like I did last time.

The weather sucks balls here at the moment, biking is not enjoyable in this, but we're off to the Huy Downhill course tomorrow. It's my first time there and is apparently quite a short course but I'm sure I'll manage to do some damage. To myself. probably

It'll be a lot wetter and muddier than the sunny day in that vid

last but certainly not least, take a look at this news article from the Manchester Evening News about how good the GEP are at comparing negative numbers. Prize quote;

I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it.

Only english tarts could be that thick.

Bomber out

2007-10-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

13 year old kid's snake bite so bad that his arm bursts .. so he posts pictures of it on the interweb

Ever seen those pictures of the dude with the bites form the Brown Recluse spider? that was for poofs.

You don't need to see this, no really, you don't. Oh, go on then

Oh, and look up Stanford Prison Experiment on wikipedia, remind you of anything?

btw, we were at the Marseilles 1/4 finals at the weekend. All those crying Aussies. Ahhhhhhhh :P

Bomber out

2007-09-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

Pavarotti dies, no the other Pavarotti

Gingerano Pavarotti was found dead today in his London residence, flat on his back with his trousers undone.

His wife, Juliana, told police that he was absolutely definitely not out at the curry house and pissed stupid the night before, because he'd called her and told her so. This despite the fact that an autopsy revealed the presence of a chicken Korma, 2 naan bread and 7 pints of Kingfisher Lager in Gingerano's distended gut.

Interviewed at the scene, DI Morse stated that the "lesser" Pavarotti, as he was lovingly known by his fans, would be sorely missed. "I was once privileged to attend a performance of his 'Park Life' many years ago. It was a small venue, the something-page. I don't think it's there any more. The rendition was breathtaking. It was the evening of his famous 'can't you see?' performance art piece, you really can't define experiences like that in a way that gives them justice. Honestly, I don't know why he is thought of as 'lesser' possibly his hair colour, but really a true connoisseur learns to look past such petty annoyances."

Later, DS Lewis more matter-of-factly stated "he was clearly some sort of poof, a real man would at least eat a Jalfrezi. All I can say is thank god he didn't have his pubes out when the police photographer arrived, imagine how that would have been for his poor wife. I hear it was a bit of a party piece of his, like."

A farewell concert is being considered, possibly in the recently re-opened "Elvis" venue. The family have requested flowers in the hue of orange, to suit the occasion.

Bomber out

2007-08-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

Possibly the best forum thread

...ever in the history of forum threads

I am no forum warrior, but read this through to the end. Starting from the seemingly innocent question "should I ride my bike while taking Pikolax" correspondent Blue Note jumps on the opportunity to take us blow by blow through his personal journey. For those unfamiliar, Pikolax is an industrial strength laxative taken by people preparing for colonoscopy.

Read on.....

Bomber out

2007-08-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

It's got no WHAT???!!!!111!!11one

We drove up from Toronto towards Montreal yesterday and today, staying overnight in Ottowa with Jodi, Andrea's sister. After getting to the wedding venue (well, the hotel, which is a coach ride from the venue itself) we decided to get some KFC greasiness inside us before hitting the hotel bar for a good afternoon's warming up. Of course KFC isn't KFC this side of the "border". Like the way they couldn't just call it MTB and had to come up with Velo Toutes Terrains (cuningly shortened to VTT) KFC here is PKF, wbhich I assume to be short for Poulet Kentucky Frite, although Petty Kunting French would be more like it, frankly. We had no cash so went to the local corner shop, coz they all have cashpoints in here, but it only had 20 C$ left in it so we had that. Luckilly a bucket of chicken was only 15.95. All greased up, we returned to the hotel. By this time it was a pretty respectable 5pm so I was a little surprised to see the bar unmanned, perhaps the indonesian slaveboy that they surely had working there 25 hours a day was serving cocktails by the pool. We sidled up to the reception and I volunteered Bubble to do the whole french speaky thing. I listened in horror, not needing her to translate for me that the hotel bar was only open for functions.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BUT WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?!

What a bunch of parochial (french) bastard sons of other french bastards

Luckily (unlike in Ontario) at elast they sell beer in supermarkets here so we quickly shot off to the IGA (local Tescos type thing) and scored some beer. On the upside internet is 6 C$ (about 20p) for 24 hours, so I'm drinking beer and amazing myself at how cheap fast cars are here (S2000 = 50k C$, about 10K cheaper than Belguim, the bastards)

Bomber out

2007-08-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Oh, Canada

Just back from 2 days biking in the Blue Mountains. Managed to get Andrea out on a downhill bike and she had a blast. Unfortunately she twisted her ankle on the first day, so wasn't able to ride the whole of the second, but all in all a good time. Blue Mountain is about 1 1/2 hours outside of Toronto and as such is overrun with kids. We did have to put up with a lot of arse piercing stories and kids who were totally, like, stoked in the gondola, while stretching up to try and see over the side. My favorite was a little kid with a Kona Stinky Jnr (perhaps the coolest bike on the planet; a fully specced 6" travel Freeride/DH bike, downsized to 24" wheels) who was covered in dust from stacking up on one of the runs. Didn;t care, just wanted to get back up the top and go again. I was relatively stoked myself that I was able to at least keep up with the average rider, something I had not really expected in such a place in such a country. I couldn't talk the rides up as much as they did in the lifts (I don't have the vocabulary) but once on the trail, it all seemed to even out....

We're off to Ottowa this evening then on to Quebec for a dose of french baiting at Sophie's wedding. She's marrying some cypriot guy. I'm guessing very hairy chest and the sexual stamina of a bull elephant in musk. That or she's pregnant. Can't think of anything else that would get her to the altar.

ttfn, I'm off shopping

Bomber out

2007-07-26T04:12:00.000-07:00

Bike and movies and that

The bike is aces. The fork is adjustable and at it's shortest setting turns faster than an italian who's just realised he's losing. The problem with this bike may be that it is too good. First time out I meet a group on the trail and tehy all dribble on my frame. Words such as "awesome" and "Sweeeet" are used. It's a bit like the stinky that way. When we were in the alps, people would look at our 2 bikes and think "Bloody hell, she's riding a cannondale XC bike down the alps, that can't be easy". They'd look at mine and think "Sweet bike, let me see you jump it off that shed, like they do in Roam".

It seems I now own 2 bikes more capaple than I am. Actually 3, if you consider that at least one individual world cup championship was won on a bike almost exactly the same as my (and Bubble's) Cannondale, but no-one remembers that these days anyways. Meantime I'm concentrating on how much fun the new bike is. I've been riding it in the Don Valley, which is a forested valley running right through the heart of Toronto. Local yout have developed a trail there, with small jumps and Northshore (dude) sections. Thankfully, I can do at least as much of it as the average rider in the woods, even if my bike could piss on all of it with a more capapble pilot. Practice practice.

If you've been following the tour you'll have heard that Vinikourov got caught vampiring (doping by giving himself a blood transfusion to increase red bloodcell count, as well as controlling the Thirst. Probably). Looks like the plucky Dane will take the race after surviving a severe bullying by the other contending team yesterday in a great diaplay of "you showed me all of your cards 2 days ago Contadore, now see a couple more of mine". I watched this with my father-in-law, who is a doctor. He can't understand how they do it, so I explained. "Ah, drugs, that'd help, i guess".

On to movies, and we've seen a few in the last days...

Natural City. A Korean flick about a swat team going after a group of renegade cyborgs. One of the team is in love with a cyborg himself and is working to the same aim as the dudes he is chasing, to cancel or otherwise circumvent the built in 3 year cyborg lifespan.... -HOLD ON- any of this sound in any way familiar? You're supposed to wait 50 years (or something) before using someone else's plot line wholesale and selling it as your own. At least our main prtagonist's name is R and not D. Visually (very) nice, otherwise bollocks

Last King of Scotland. Young, naive horny scotsman doctor type goes to Uganda to get away from his parents. Tries to shag everything that moves, mostly succeeding except with a very skinny Gillian Anderson (preferred her with a bit more meat on her bones, personally) who blows him off (meaning rejects, not.... oh never mind). Chance meeting with Idi Amin leads to further shinannegans. Amin turns out (*shock*) to be a total nutcase. What a very intense movie. The acting achieves all the heights that the media hypes it up and more. James McAvoy (horny naive Scots Doctor) who is generally ignored in preference of the all to believable Forrest "Get a proper name" Wittaker but portrays the innocent libido fuelled idealism of yout very well. Well worth a view

Borat. You know the plot of this one by now. Let me say I was expecting a lot and didn't get it. The Rodeo scene was a pearl, if the movie was 2 hours of Borat getting yanks to act like that then I'd say the premise of the movie was well served, but it isn't really. Falls way short of what it set out to do in my opinion. It is pure coincidence that Kermode happends to agree with me, we watched the film separately.

Zodiac. Retelling of a series of actual killings back in the 60's and 70's Yooess-of-ayyy, the taunts made by the killer to police and press. It centers on one man's obsession with solving the puzzle, a cartoonist played by the Donnie Darko dude. Plot is dictated by life so that's in the bag. They never caught the Zodiac killer so there is a lack of closure in the whole thing, which I do think was underplayed in the whole "Fuck, I spent my whole life on this thing, ruined my marriage and the bastard got away" kind of thing. Performances are all good, although I would have liked to have seen more from R Downey Jnr. All in a good movie this one, well worth a view. I especially liked the soft spoken cop (not the one who was Goose in Top gun, the other one)

Right, coffee, toast, bike. Have fun

Bomber out

2007-07-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

Behold.

....Sweet Bike... It's got pegs*, it's got shocks, bet I can get some sweet air** on this thing

/edit; cfb seems not to work so click here for glorious bigness

Off out riding. Catch yer.

Bomber out

*may not be true. About the pegs.

**or the air

2007-07-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

Bollocks are a denial of fact ... unless we're talking about music

We're off to Toronto today, the new bike should be available early next week, so we'll be trotting off to the local trails to have a blast. I'll let you know how that all goes.

Meantime, something I've been planning to pimp for a while is the NYUB podcast. The webpage, blog stylee, is here although I haven't looked through it much. The podcast's niche is that it only plays music in the public domain, the website seems to have a broader "the mainstream is shite" agenda. Our protagonist is one MK (yeah, I know) a Kiwi living in London (cue bar hop jokes). The podcast concept may sound quite pikey in a "I want to do a podcast but not pay for anything" type of way, and indeed it would be if the music was all pub band trot as one might expect, but it's not. The quality of the output is in fact consistently high. Of course, mostly it's stuff that you won't have heard of in the mainstream (but then ... you will have head it already in the mainstream...) and some of it can sound somewhat pointedly obscure at times, but if you can handle the odd track that doesn't ring your bell (He covers a wide genre of musical styles, some of it severely bleepy) then it's well worth your time. You will occasionally be treated to names you recognise, when you do, it will be gems like the Shins and Tom Waits. By the way, If you don't have the Shins' Wincing The Night Away yet then you don't know what you're missing. Really.

Right, must finish packing and get dressed. Bathrobes are not currently acceptable travel attire, or so I'm told.

Bomber out

2007-07-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

Best Die hard trailer evah

4.0 verse is a peach

bomber out

2007-07-15T03:20:00.000-07:00

Pics from the last postage

Altogether too much sitting around and boozing in Sunny Spain

Told you the new hat was sexhei

At 2100m

Then the route down.... (I've traced the rough route in red, but you may need to click for bigger to see it)

foot relaxation therapy at the hot springs in Ax-Les-Thermes

Full body lying on the grass therapy in Ax

Sitting by the river in the evening sun, 5 feet from the tent

Back in Spayne. View form the resteraunt

The "private" swimming pool

2007-07-14T13:44:00.001-07:00

More montaingnes! in which Bomber and bubble overshoot the mountains and get fried in Southern Spain, fail to post anything and end up....

Well, part 1 is all over, we just got back to Bxl after a 1300km drive, having left the pyrenees at 9 this morning.

Pyrenees part 1, we were in Ax-Les-Thermes, very near the Andorran border. Not nearly as well set-up for downhilling (DH, Rich) with only 2 lifts open and no "prepared" DH pistes but the runs we did were really nice, all forested single track. We rode for 3 days and then headed South to hook up with Marla, a friend of Andrea's from Hong Kong and the other lynchpin in the drnken double act that was Tequila Thursdays. Andrea managed to fall off her bike quite a lot, proving that her mad skillz, while definitely there, are still in development. Of course I hooned and will be chalanging Steve Peat for the WC DH crown next year (assuming he wins it again this year of course)

Gah, fekkers, still can't get pictures to upload, even from home. Too late, I'll try again in the morning

Bomber out

The South of Spain was too effing hot, pretty much as advertised. Also it was stuffed with fat chicks and chavs, exactly as advertised. My east-london-meets-Essex-generic-working-class-tosser-accent got a good polishing. Innit. What was not advertised, and certainly came as unexpected, was the frankly shite internet access. I tried for an hour to upload some shots of us in Ax but finally gave up in frustration and necked a bottle of chilled rose-ay instead. luvleyyy. Highlights were sitting around a lot, sweating more than a lot, feeling ripped off when others turned up to use the "shared" pool, thereby lowering the tone I had set in my leopard skin thing and finally finishing Judas Released, which I have been half way through for nearly a year... Also Andrea's bruises from the biking had time to heal in preparation for Pyrenees part 2. Oh, and I bought a cowboy hat. It's wickid, innit.

Pyrenees part 2 and we went all resorty and stayed at "pyrenees 2000", a ski station above the town of Font-Romeu in the Western Pyrenees, about an hour's really fun drive from the coast at Perpingnan. This was a bit of a let down on the DH front. Their website is all full of there being lifts open and tons of DH pistes and a bike park but the truth is that there are 2 lifts open oferring about 200m vertical lift each, no bike park (perhaps they meant carpark, we saw some of them) and no, but no, prepared bike runs. That said, like Ax, their were literally hundreds of kilometres of xc (cross country, Rich) trails some of which included superb single and double track descents (roughly speaking, single= tight and twisty, double = 50 mph, Rich) I'll post the photos from Spain and P2000 tomorrow or the next day.

2007-07-01T02:53:00.000-07:00

a les montaignes!

We've just finished 4 days in Morzine, where it pissed with rain the first 2 days, so no pics (too wet out for the camera) but believe me, much mud was swallowed. The 3trd and 4th days were nocer though and I managed to get one DH run in as well as riding most of the XC in the area. Pics from Morzine;

YT looking fat and happy for 2nd breakfast

A chute at the end of one of the XC runs. Was a LOT steeper than it looks (honest)

Bubble crests the mountain pass

The Stinker was pushed up to here (mostly)

Bubble again fails to gain height

The view of Mont Blanc

the air was a bit thin....

A groovy viaduct we went over in the middle of France

Having made the questionable decision to cross France on the day of the Grand Depart (when all the french leave the desks that they slave at 35 hours a week 40 weeks a year to drive to the coast and be, if that were possible, more french than normal) we're now safely in Les Vallees D'Ax in the French Pyrenees for the second stage of our trip. 3-4 days here and then off to Southern spain to get a good English sun tan and catch up with Marla.

Oh, and Bubble sends thanks for her birthday greetings. In true husbandary style, she got a dive computer and disc brakes from me :D

Bomber out

2007-06-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

One for DJ Cheezy

That's how much of a hardcore dirtjumper I am (ie, not much)

we're off today. Should be in Morzine tomorrow and plaster by Wednesday

Bomber out