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I'm crying with laughter having just watched this alternate trailer created for The Shining.

How smart are you?

I never failed to score perfect marks on maths quizzes at school so it didn't surprise me that I scored 20/20 here. I still don't understand why people just don't see mathematical equations the same as me, the answers appear so obvious to my eyes. My mathematics teachers would always tell me to put my 'workings out' on the exam papers when answering the questions as I'd score marks up to the point I made the mistake, seemed irrelevant to me.

Still my beating heart.

My fellow Straight to Hell forum member Abhimanyu Das has started a blog, Soft Places. He's a good writer with great taste in movies, music and books and hopefully will keep up with his blog and enlighten us all with erudition and wit. I won't explain why he is a cinematic romancer, even though the term was used to desribe another individual it equally applies to Abhi in my opinion. Why he has the following quote as a description of himself god only knows.

People from the north of England pronounce it BASStard with the 'bas' bit rhyming with ass. People from the south of England pronounce it Baaaastard with the 'bas' rhyming with 'arse'. The people in the south of England are, ive been told, "shandy drinking ponces" but its all the same really.

I'd just like to point out that this particular Southerner ain't a shandy drinking ponce and rumours of the consumption of a Bacardi Breezer by said southerner are much exaggerated.

It's been a couple of weeks now since I moved house and I think I've just now truly settled in to my new place. I don't think it has helped that I've been working too damn much at the cinema and on my new business and so haven't had enough time to really just get sorted.

This website/blog thing has been neglected a bit also and there were a number of things I wanted to write about thi spast month but never got around to doing. I've also been wanting to sort out the photos on the site and over at Flickr but have quite clearly failed to that as well.

So to finish this off with something a little more interesting that my travails and inadequacies I shall direct you to the following Wikipedia entry.

Bloop

The Bloop is the name given to an underwater sound, first heard in 1997, that is occasionally heard by sonar equipment. The source of the sound remains unknown, but is thought to have originated somewhere around 50ºS; 100ºW.

The sound, detected by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array which uses U.S. Navy equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines, matches the audio profile of a living creature. There is no known animal that could have produced the sound, however, and if it is an animal it would have to be huge: much larger than even a whale, according to scientists who have studied the phenomenon.

Some postulate that the sound may come from a huge and as-yet undiscovered species of octopus or squid. Others dispute this, pointing out that no known species of cephalopod have the physiology that would allow this type of sound to be produced. To date there has been no explanation for what it is, exactly, that could have produced the sound and most seem unwilling to rule anything completely out.

Perhaps it is an avanc.

Simon Pegg interviews George A Romero
The writer/star of 'Shaun of the Dead' discusses zombies with the daddy of the genre.

My favourite bit of the interview was the following.

Simon Pegg It was the greatest night. Me and Edgar flew over and met a lot of the cast of Day of the Dead. I remember just after the film Quentin Tarantino – who George hadn't met before – was going on and on, being very flattering, and George just turned around and went 'Oh, grow up.'

Time Out You and Edgar pop up briefly in Land of the Dead as zombies. How did that come about?

SP I think we said to [Romero's make-up supervisor] Greg, 'Can we be extras?' And, you know, the internet is terrible now for leaking things. Some interviewer said to George, 'Is it true the Shaun of the Dead guys are going to be in the film?' And George kind of went, 'Okay, I guess so.'

George A Romero Cool with me! I was flattered.

TO How did you rate them as zombies?

GR Well [laughs] one woman got too close! Simon actually got to her!

SP I'm not gonna hold back! It's Land of the Dead, I'm not going to be a pussy zombie! Her shoulder was in my mouth range and I bit it. I'm sorry. I've got to keep it real, you know.

On a similar theme I've discovered a great online game called Urban Dead which is described as A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse.

Labels: Games

It's funny what you discover when you have a day off and see television programs you don't normally watch. I learnt today through Newsround that Scotland have won the World Elephant Polo Championship for the second time running.

I never knew that there was such a thing as the World Championship in the sport of Elephant Polo let alone that Scotland had a world beating team in it.

I think it is wonderful.

The England cricket team were worthy winners of The Ashes having outplayed the Australians in each match since the first one at Lords which they lost. We musn't forget the England women's team either who also triumphed over the Australians in their Ashes Test series earlier this summer.

Both teams were celebrating their wins in a parade through London.

England's cricketers were given a rapturous reception in Trafalgar Square at the end of the Ashes victory parade to celebrate their win over Australia.

Captain Michael Vaughan thanked the "fantastic" thronging crowd and admitted: "This is beyond a dream."

The team later enjoyed a Downing Street reception and went to Lord's to hand over the Ashes urn for safe-keeping.

England beat Australia in a series for the first time since 1987 after drawing the final Test at The Oval on Monday.



"It's been a long night," said Vaughan, who clasped the replica Ashes urn throughout the celebrations. "We've celebrated in true English fashion and this is incredible.

I almost wish it wasn't over I'd love to see many more matches of the quality we've had this year. In fact given that the matches will no longer be shown on terrestial TV following Sky buying the rights I wonder if I'll ever watch test cricket again.

Labels: Sport

In Affectionate Remembrance of AUSTRALIAN CRICKET, which died at the Oval on 12th SEPTEMBER, 2005, Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances R.I.P.

N.B. — The body will be cremated and the ashes will be taken back from the Aussie bastards."

It's all over the match was drawn and the Ashes were won by England for the first time in 18 years.



Such a small thing it is to get so worked up over ain't it.

Labels: Sport

I think that the Aussies chances of retaining the Ashes have been scuppered by bad light and the bowling of Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard. They failed to turn they excellent 277-2 into a decent score and the bad light allowed the England batsman to choose not to play.

So into the final day and Australia are faced with the daunting task of bowling out England quick enough that they have enough overs remaining in which to beat the Enlglish run total.

They have the bowlers to do it certainly but will their drive to get wickets cause them to give away runs and thus increase the total necessary once they're into their batting innings to take the victory. It is a fine balance they need to take, as it is for England also who are faced with the decision of batting carefully but not getting runs or getting the runs but risking their wickets.

The Guardian newspaper has changed it's format and updated the way it presents the various sections in the paper. It is now in the Berliner format that is popular in Europe that is a midsize between Tabloid and Broadsheet, curiously no newspapers in Berlin are printed in the Berliner format.



I'm usually quite wary of change but I like this new format and I think the new masthead is far better than the old one which appeared very eighties to me. Now I feel that the print edition has caught up with the excellent Guardian website.

Here we are at the Oval for the fifth and final test match of the Ashes series and Australia would seem to be in a dominant position with a score at the start of the fourth day of 277-2 in reply to England's 373 all out.

But the Australians still have a lot to do in order to win this match. They are still trailing by about 100 runs and so would need to be scoring another 300 runs in this innings in order to get a decent total in which to bowl England out in.

I think it will ultimately come down to a lack of time to finish the job, what with the interruptions by the weather. But there is still a lot of cricket to be played here in the final two days so anything could happen.

Labels: Sport