…this is Earth.

To end my uneventful weekend on a high, I watched Spider-Man 2 for the first time late last night/early this morning. And boy did it impress! If only I could throw sticky, stringy white stuff from my hands. Oh, right.

Software training today has been less structured than usual, as we’ve been set a project due two weeks today. In short, we’ve been given some stock footage of clouds moving across a sky, and we’ve got to make it look virus-ridden, with some kind of computer user interface blipping & loading all over the place. (Basically a computer read-out of ‘infected’ clouds for a science fiction thriller series.)

So something actually Moving Image Design. Excellent.

Just thought you might like to hear some hot off the press, official insider information:

Typing the word “coal” on a mobile phone using predictive text messaging gives the options “anal” AND “cock”.

Keep it under your hats. And I’m not talking about your penises.

Some munchkin has only gone and copied MY website design and passed it off as their own. The cheek! Whilst this is highly annoying, it’s also quite flattering. You know, the fact that they’ve bothered to copy mine.

Legally I’m covered, so that’s not a worry. But this is the excellent bit: They’ve only gone and left MY name and MY copyright information on the page. What a twat, I tell thee.

I mean, if you’re going to plagiarise someone’s work, you do it properly - removing all references to the original author and/or copyright holder. Not that I’ve ever done it myself, as I haven’t. But really - how did they not think of that?

Knowing of my MMR vaccination this morning, I ‘fixed’ it at Racodac yesterday so that I was in the Thursday group for Programme Making instead of the Friday group.

The injection went as well as could be expected, although I particularly enjoyed the time beforehand in the waiting room: Humming the tune of The Stripper and pulling my trouser legs up in the right places to expose my legs for everyone else to see. My Wookiee groans made a welcome appearance too.

A brief visit to HMV in Brommers High Street afterwards very nearly saw me purchasing The Goonies for £6.99 despite what I said earlier in the month about not wanting it to lose its magic:

Sunday, February 13, 2005
“It’s also the only film that I love so much but, other than the novelisation, I don’t actually own. This is so that between airings on the tele, I can build up to seeing it again. You know, allowing it to keep the same sparkle it had when I first saw it some fifteen years or so ago.”

I did resist the purchase. But before returning home I did some shopping with my mother in Orpo High Street - where I picked the film up brand spanking new for £1.00 instead.

A bargain - it’s almost as if I was supposed to get it today.

After my late arrival at Racodac yesterday, I made an extra-special effort to get there on time today. And I got there early - too early, for I was the ONLY bugger there. It’s really not a case of bad judgement on my part. It’s those damned buses. Still, I did have good company on the bus, as both Pete B. & Ed G. from the RWS days were also on board.

Forgetting all of that, Racodac was excellent - quite possibly my best day there (from an educational/Moving Image Design point of view) so far. The tutor spoke VERY passionately about the art of filmmaking, which was a joy to listen to. He even got his equipment out and let us look & touch it. It was pretty big.

In the afternoon, having been split into a Thursday group and a Friday group, I got to take part in some actual filming - taking on the role of co-director. Well, that wasn’t my official title, but I was the only one quibbling & offering suggestions to the tutor/director’s decisionings, which he clearly loved to see.

I also think that I’ve had a proper conversation now with everyone on my course. And other than a hairy lanky twat who doesn’t appear to get out much, they all seem fairly normal.

This evening’s episode of The Bill was absolutely this: Incredible!

I had to be in for a Programme Making tutorial at Racodac at 9:30 AM this morning, so got up & left rather early to make it there on time. But because of the heavy, slow-moving traffic (caused by a bus crash further down the route), I didn’t arrive until gone 10:15 AM. Bugger.

The tutor didn’t seem to mind, as I got a message to him saying that I’d be there “shortly”, and apologised upon arrival. Plus, I didn’t enter as a bumbling fool, but as cool as a [cool] cucumber.

Annoyingly, though, the information that he was covering I already knew in great detail. Mind you, I suppose it’s better that I missed bits that I already knew than missing bits I didn’t.

After a game of Scrabble, those of us who’d turned up despite the heavy snow went to the Lecture Hall to watch Dark Days: A documentary about a Brit who goes to live with a ‘family’ of squatters in America’s underground tunnels.

I wasn’t expecting much from it, but was pleasantly surprised, as were most of the other students in attendance.

After the film (and Making of documentary), I went back to the Graphics Studio to discuss ideas for the illiteracy project with Zehra A. We’ve established a good sense of direction, it’s just a matter now of putting our creative thoughts into something - anything.

And it’s still snowing.

My CGI cogs were the envy of the academy today - not only because they looked damn good, but also because it started snowing shortly after they began to turn.

I am therefore a magical being. So now remove your bras.

It’s been a weird weekend, but I do have two great things to show for it:

1. The first published review of the Red Dwarf VI DVD in the world.
2. The second published review of the Red Dwarf VI DVD in the world.

Unfortunately, I did miss Columbo yesterday and Panic Room tonight to achieve this. But all in all, I feel it was time well spent.