Monthly Archives: June 2010

The Collector

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Cheryl and I went to the cinema to watch The Collector yesterday. I’m kind of struggling to make my mind up about this film. The opening credits were pretty cool, and it definitely grabbed my attention. The rest was suspenseful and horribly graphic, which is what you expect in a horror film. Quite a few bits and pieces were very predictable, and just as frustrating and unrealistic as most horror films tend to be.

I found myself trying to solve the mystery of who the killer was only to find out that it’s not really anybody you’re supposed to be able to guess, and it’s not really significant in any way. Perhaps it could have done with a bit more of a story-line, but that would probably only serve to alienate the intended audience who are incapable of following a complex plot.

The whole film was similar to what I would expect from a Saw film, if I ever bother to watch one. It did make me consider that the protagonists name–Arkin–was some sort of homage to Saw… Like Arkansas, but then I don’t know if either film has anything to do with Arkansas, so it wouldn’t really make sense. No really good reason for the guy to be named Arkin though.

Oh well, if you want a random Saw-like gory horror film then go see The Collector. 🙂

Nice long weekend

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I booked Friday off work so that I could help Cheryl pack up and move to her new place over the long weekend. Most of her things were packed by Friday afternoon and so we began moving things by hand to the new place half a mile away. We got a couple of runs of help from her friend Peter who had hired a van with his friend, so that helped a fair bit. We decided to watch Shutter Island before going to sleep, but Cheryl was asleep inside of an hour, and I was falling asleep too, so we just turned it off.

On Saturday Gordon came and gave us a couple of trips in his car, which moved out the vast majority of everything that was left and his help was absolutely invaluable. I will be making sure he has a plentiful supply of alcohol next time we’re out. 😀

After moving that stuff we went to Asda in Hyson Green and when we got back we decided to just hang out and watch films. We finished Shutter Island from the night before, and then Cheryl made me watch Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. We then began watching Fearless, but I realised I’d seen it before, and it was pretty late, and Cheryl was pretty drunk. I made her some scrambled eggs because she randomly decided she wanted some, and then we went to sleep.

On Sunday we caught the train back to Mansfield. My next-door neighbour gave us a lift back to Crown Street, which was very nice and helpful. We watched most of the England vs. Germany game at my house. :'( From there we headed to my sister’s house because it was her birthday. We hung out there for a couple of hours and then it was time to head back to Nottingham before the trains stopped running.

Rather than going straight home we called Rik to see if he fancied some drinks. Turned out that he did, and was already in The Three Wheatsheaves. We went and met up with him, Mike, and Tom and were joined by John and Hannah (unless I got their names wrong). After a couple of drinks we headed back to Cheryl’s old flat to gather the last remaining items and then took them over to the new place. There shouldn’t be any more stuff to move now, and it’s just a matter of finding a place for a thousand pairs of shoes.

Cheryl finds out her uni results today, so I’ve got my fingers crossed for her. 🙂

Nottingham Uni and drinks in the city

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After work I took a walk up to the Jubilee campus of the University of Nottingham. It’s a pretty cool place because the buildings are all kind of futuristic and different-looking to normal buildings. Also, the Aspire Tower is there, which is a bit interesting. 🙂

Aspire Tower and Sir Colin Campbell building

Aspire Tower and Sir Colin Campbell building

I met Cheryl there and we walked to the main campus. We walked through one of the buildings and stopped off at a vending machine to get something to drink. The weather was absolutely perfect, so I made sure I got something refreshing, and then we left the university buildings. We took a walk down to the boating lake and sat down on the steps for a while and admired the view.

Over the other side of a building was a big field with people chilling out and kids playing games. We stayed there for quite a while enjoying the surroundings and chatting about stuff. It was basically the most serenely perfect way to spend an afternoon. I haven’t done that properly for so long. I think I could do that basically every sunny day from now on. 😀

Clear skies

Clear skies

We caught a taxi into town and then met up with Rik, Wasim, Kenneth, and Wasim’s friend Steve at The Canalhouse where we ordered food. Cheryl had some hot and spicy prawns and I had an awesome Texan pizza. After people had finished their drinks we went to The Social because we realised Rik definitely wouldn’t get into Tantra wearing shorts and sandals. 🙂 After one drink at The Social we were all pretty tired, so we left and got in a taxi. We dropped Rik off at work because he had his bike, and we went back to Cheryl’s.

Cheryl put on Dear John so she could see her favourite scene and by then it was about 1:30 in the morning, so we went to sleep. 🙂

An awesome weekend

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On Saturday morning I caught the train to Nottingham to meet Cheryl. The weather wasn’t very good so we didn’t end up going to the park to read. Instead we went to Starbucks for a drink and then caught the train back to Mansfield and a taxi up to my house.

We started out by getting drinks and then decided to watch a film. We began with Gamer, which wasn’t too bad, but was obviously very violent. After that we put on P.S. I Love You (yes, another Gerard Butler film). That was pretty good too. I can’t get over how much Hilary Swank looks like Julia Roberts at some points in that film.

We decided to go to the shop to get some wine and Strongbow before people arrived for the fire party/barbecue. While we were away people turned up at my house just over half an hour early. When we got back they’d gone down the road to talk to Paul, so we had a bit more time together before they turned up.

We all went outside and started trying to light the barbecue. This was taking so long that Dave, Helen, and I decided to nip to Tesco to get some barbecue lighting gel to put on there and some other little bits and pieces. When we got back we discovered that it had caught properly and there was no real need for any more help.

When the barbecue was being lit people had decided to start the fire in the fire pit. It took a little while to get going, but soon enough we were all sitting around the fire with barbecued food. 😀

Hayley had a fair bit to drink and started being a bit silly after a while. It ended up with Dave and Hayley having a bit of an argument (big shock!) and then everyone left at the same time. I spent a few minutes tidying up outside and then gave up and went in to see Cheryl instead. We decided to stick Book of Eli on, but only got a little bit into it before Cheryl was too tired to watch any more.

Sunday was spent watching films and eating take-away food. Pretty much the perfect way to spend a Sunday in my opinion. 😀

I really didn’t want to get up for work this morning, I want the same weekend all over again please.

Half-day well spent!

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Yesterday I took half a day off work because my shoes were falling to pieces and I needed new ones ASAP. I mentioned shoe shopping to Cheryl and she jumped on the chance, so we met by the lions on the market square at just gone 12.

The first stop was lunch at Café Rouge, and then the shoe shopping began. I picked out a few pairs that I liked in a few shops, and then we went to Schuh. I picked out some fairly plain black Vans and tried them on. I liked them and was going to buy them. Cheryl had wandered off and found some other nice K-Swiss ones while I was waiting for the right size and so I tried those ones on as well… They were way more comfortable so I bought them. I went outside and changed into them and threw away my old ones in the nearest bin. 🙂

We took a trip to Waterstones where Cheryl bought 3 books including one of my favourites: Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. Then we wandered through the Victoria Centre and I bought some A&W Root Beer, and some Gobstoppers for Cheryl (with the obligatory joke)!

After that we just generally hung around for a while. It was nice and sunny most of the time, so that was good. It was so much better than being stuck in an air-conditioned office all afternoon. There’s plenty of time for that when it’s raining outside. 🙂

Once I got back to Mansfield I went over to Dave and Hayley’s new house. I helped Dave carry some heavy things like the washing machine and stuff and then we decided to have a bit of a barbecue. Unfortunately the charcoal wouldn’t light, so we resorted to the disposable barbecue that Dave had discovered from before they moved in. He lit it and waited while smoke kept coming out. It didn’t really get hot enough to cook on in the amount of time they were willing to wait, so Dave cooked the burgers under the grill instead. He made the mistake of putting the barbecue on top of the dustbin…

While we were inside eating the burgers Hayley jumped and pointed out that she could see fire through the curtained back window. Dave ran out to extinguish the bin and Hayley shouted at him for being stupid. Such is the life of Dave and Hayley. 🙂

They kindly gave me a lift back to Crown Street and picked up some more of their stuff while they were there, and then I went to bed and fell almost straight to sleep.

A good day! 🙂

Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums

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For a few years now I’ve had a goal to listen to Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums in full.

When I discovered Spotify I realised that it could help me out a lot, so I listened to a few albums here and there to start increasing my count. Then, for some reason, I stopped listening to them. I think I got a bit disillusioned by all the albums I didn’t like, so I just stopped.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve restarted my efforts. When I first started I could only definitely remember having heard 13 of the albums in full. I have now heard 158 of them! It feels good to be making progress, and I don’t seem to be getting too bogged down with albums I don’t like.

I’ll get there one day!