I had the sudden urge to tidy my bedroom at 2:30 AM this morning. So I got out of bed and did just that. Admittedly I didn’t get it finished, but it wasn’t looking too bad in the first place.

This morning-this morning, I was up and about before 7:00 AM, pacing the floor in the hope that my advanced copy of the Red Dwarf VI DVD would arrive through the post. And it did. Hurrah!

Since then, I’ve been watching it and taking notes, as I’m going to be reviewing it for this film website later today, and for my website tomorrow - both ahead of general release on Monday.

I’d better crack on, actually, as I’m going out in the evening too :-S

Today I had a day off of Racodac to fulfil my lazy desires. Okay, that makes me sound really lazy. What happened was (I saidth!), the Moving Image Design students had tutorials yesterday. So other than going in to work with our partners today, there was no need to go in. And from what I’ve heard, not many people did bother going in.

A visit from my aunt and cousin Zoë saw me entertaining when I finally arose from my slumber at around midday. Later on in the day, I helped my father with his erection - that’d be the conservatory that entered construction in August 2004:

“For a couple of weeks I got up considerably early to work on a building site. Never have I seen so much sand, cement and water in my life. Apart from at the seaside, of course. Though I don’t remember seeing much cement at Herne Bay - not that there’s much sand there, either.”

And now I’m going to see if my parents fancy watching Shaun of the Dead, as none of you lot wanted to join us. Well, apart from *you*, obviously.

My tutorial with Steve B. went swimmingly this morning, and the rest of the day was spent doing further research for the illiteracy project with working partner, Zehra A.

For whatever reason, the afternoon saw a group of us sitting around a computer reminiscing about our childhood. Conversation soon turned to toys, to which I recalled saving up for a WereBear for myself, and one for my big-little brother. Only I was accused of making the whole thing up, as nobody else had a clue as to what I was talking about.

Surprisingly, finding any reference to said bears on the Internet was difficult. But I eventually found a website here which even sported a picture. (Be sure to scroll down when the page loads to read my comment.)

A wee while later, and Johnnie ¿, Jordan A, Ned M, Rex McW, Rod ¿ and myself attempted to break the world record of piggybacks on a single person. And as you may or may not have gathered, because of my large (or “fat”) physique, I was at the bottom.

We did pretty well, but sadly couldn’t get past having four on top of each other on top of me. Still, it was a laugh.

I went in to Racodac for 12:00 PM today, as I’d arranged to do a bit of research with Zehra A. for our illiteracy project before the Context Studies critique at 2:00 PM.

The critique was okay, not that my group’s work was even looked at for more than two seconds. (Everyone else had produced posters, you see.) Ah well.

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Another cracking episode of The Bill tonight. And on a completely different note - with any luck, I’ll be getting the Red Dwarf VI DVD on Friday ahead of its release date this coming Monday.Fingers crossed, eh?

I *was* asked out last night for Valentine’s, but I declined the offer because I wasn’t really in the mood. Instead, I ended up on MSN Messenger because Tommy C. emailed urgently wanting to talk to me. At least that’s how I ‘read’ the email - turns out it wasn’t urgent at all.

Still, it was good chatting to the lad and I got to talk to Zoë B, Paul B, Liz K. and James N. too.

Today has been quite a laugh, although I did arrive late for a project briefing at Racodac this morning. Not that I care, mind - the time the briefing started was ONLY stated on the project brief distributed in the actual briefing session. And I’m no mind reader now, am I?

The new project is to produce a sequential campaign that encourages illiterate adults to learn to read & write. Ironically, the only thing we’ve been properly ‘taught’ so far is typography.

Also, up until now the Moving Image Design students (of which, I am one) have been working with the Graphic Design students - the same timetable and everything. But this project sees us working apart; the project is to be done working in pairs, but the pairings aren’t mixed between courses.

And this project oddly makes up 50% of the Graphic Design students’ unit, whereas the Moving Image Design students have half the time to work on it and it’s worth the full 100%. A bit backward, I’m sure you’ll agree.

After what I heard of the briefing, I worked on a storyboard with Zehra A, Danny P. and Wes R. for a couple of hours for Context Studies tomorrow. Among our ongoing funnies, Wes suggested setting up a website with printout BigBlake masks (that’s masks of my face) called FakeBlake.com.

As if this idea wasn’t amusing enough, he then suggested getting the important people of London to rename Big Ben “BigBlake” and having them project a mahussive photograph of me up the side of it. Madness.

Once the storyboard was finished and printed, Danny kindly gave me a lift home - dropping Zehra off at the station on the way. From the car, we also got to see Wes cycling home in his poncy shorts, which gave us another laugh.

But enough of that - I’m going to watch Neighbours now for the first time in ages. I wonder if Harold’s still lost at sea.

I hadn’t seen the new Golf GTI (that’s a car if you didn’t know - I didn’t) advert until friend Matt J. mentioned it on his blog. Since then, I’ve seen it twice on the television.

If you haven’t yet seen it, you can watch it here (requires QuickTime). It’s a great little advert - Ned M. was playing it in software training at Racodac today and nobody had a bad word to say about it.

Which brings me neatly to my point: Am I the only one who remembers this?

I know that most of the time I’m a bit of a moany old git. But truth be told, I’m not actually that old. (I’ll put my hands up to the other two, though.) In fact, other than when I’m feeling tired I do feel rather youthful. Thinking back some months now, that’s probably what this was all about.

Anyway, watching films like The Goonies earlier, which brings childhood memories flooding back, I do end up feeling significantly older than my years - but young at the same time.

Where most people use songs to mark points in their lives (think: “they’re playing our song”), I have always used films. This has probably got something to do with the fact that, other than film/tele soundtracks, I’ve never really liked music.

Whatever, I know that everyone marks memories in some form or another; aside from watching films, this here blog does exactly that for me. And more often than not, I include ‘hidden’ messages as undertones to trigger even more memories when I read my posts back.

Coming back to The Goonies, a film released the year I was born, it is one of few films that successfully represents a general overview of my young memories & values - as opposed to marking a specific event. I’ve not even seen the film more than five times, yet to even think of it creates a magical sentimental feeling.

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.

When the film started today, for example, hearing the first opening notes of the soundtrack really got me going. So much so that I’ve treated myself to a listening of it whilst typing this post. For inspiration, like. And it worked, only what I wanted to say hasn’t come out as clearly as it appears in my head.

That’s memories for you, I suppose - unless they’re shared, they’ll never mean quite the same to anyone else.

We’re old enough to vote. We’re old enough to do things to girls.

As soon as I was up, washed & dressed this morning, I started cleaning my fish-filter. The reasoning behind this early start was to allow myself the bulk of the day to tidy my bedroom ready for Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2 in the evening.

You see, now that I’m out and about so much more than I used to be, items of clothing, print-outs, books, video cassettes and the likes end up strewn across my floor, desk and bed. I’m pretty good with it in the sense that I know where everything is. And it doesn’t actually look *too* untidy. It’s just that I like everything to be in its proper place. Pants belong in the pants drawer, and socks belong in the socks drawer et cetera.

That said, I didn’t actually get around to neatening up my room, as reinforcing the stereotypical view of students seemed like a better way of spending my Saturday.

I.e. I was a lazy bugger.

After a successful critique with tutors John L. & Keith G. at 11:30 AM, I went down to Convergence to help Laura C. with her video project due in at 3:00 PM.

Having abandoned the PCs for video editing yesterday, production took place on a Mac. But that too was being a bugger and wouldn’t let us export without nonsensical perseverance.

Still, by the end of the day I’d burnt my first DVD. At least I think it was my first.

Whatever - I didn’t leave until late and walked to my bus stop with Laura C, Wes R. and John ¿ The bus driver excellently remembered me from earlier in the week, greeting me as I boarded with: “Hello again, mate. How’s it going?”

At one point during my journey, the bus got caught in a traffic jam, which saw the vehicle moving at a VERY slow pace as you’d no doubt imagine. Despite this sluggish movement, a lad not too much younger than myself still managed to fall down the last couple of stairs.

It wasn’t a dangerous fall - he landed on his feet. It just looked a bit tossy, as did the way in which he recovered.

The force of the giggle loop could then be felt in the air, and as soon as the doors had shut after the lad got off, the two girls in front of me, the two to my right, two chaps towards the front of the bus and myself all burst out laughing.

To be honest, I’m surprised we managed to hold it in for so long.