I’ve just watched AVP: Alien Vs. Predator and have to say that I’m disappointed. The actual versus bits were excellent, but the rest of it didn’t enthral.

So as cool as it looks, the poster is coming off of my door.

Adobe Premiere wasn’t playing fair again today, so I decided to move production over to a Mac and start from scratch using Final Cut Pro.

I’d never used Final Cut Pro before but found it ridiculously easy considering it was supposed to be a tricky piece of kit.

During production, which saw me sitting in the hot seat for the whole day, my name changed from “Captain Blake” coined by Ben W. last week to “Captain Flash” then finally “Captain Deviant” by Dan R.

Anyway, the final piece was shown to tutor John L. in our tutorial at 3:00 PM and impressed. So much so that he - okay, he didn’t take off all of his clothes, but he *was* impressed.

The critique for my Luis Buñuel broadsheet was from 2:00 PM today onwards. So I had a lie-in this morning and left home to arrive at Racodac for 12:00 PM.

When I got there, I bumped into a good friend leaving the site. (They shall remain anonymous at their request.) We stood talking for a good twenty minutes before moving to a brick wall which we sat on for another forty-five. Conversation ranged from Super Mario Bros to electric shocks - the both of us laughing throughout.

Inside, I arranged with Lucy F. & Dan R. to gather at 4:00 PM (after their critique) with the rest of the group to work on our tree project. But having waited an hour after my critique for theirs to finish, nobody really felt like doing any work.

So I mooched about annoying other people, most notably Zehra A. & Sam W, for an hour or so before making my merry way home. And what a struggle it was to stay awake on the bus.

You know, I’m sorely tempted to put a five pound note in a food bag, tape it to my hand and hold a sheet saying: “In the unlikely event that I fall asleep, the five pound note secured to my hand will be presented to whoever wakes me up at such-and-such landmark.”

But a) I don’t much trust other people to wake me up - reward or not; and b) if it does work, the method could prove to be quite expensive.

I managed to finish my Luis Buñuel piece last night/this morning so went to Racodac today JUST to print it. But because of the long printer queues and the time it took to actually print, I had to wait six hours before I could go home.

Two good things did come out of this, though:

• Someone recognised me on the bus from my website(s) and praised my online (& offline) efforts.
• The poster tube that I use to transport large pieces of work made my Darth Vader shadow look all the more convincing.

Also, Kill Bill: Vol 2 arrived today but I’ll be saving it for the weekend.

Software training at Racodac was a bit hectic today. Okay, it wasn’t really “hectic” by definition. But we did have to move rooms a couple of times because of double-bookings and issues with software licensing. Oh, and there was a fire drill too.

The tutorial itself was really good. The morning session covered background information into video formats, compression, frame rates, blah, blah, blah, which I already knew. But this afternoon was more hands-on; I even managed to get a flaming lava planet to interact with the sweaty palm-print of Kate Winslet in Titanic’s love scene.

Why? - Why not?

Writing the text for my Luis Buñuel piece (which has taken the best part of the day), I forgot to record/watch the final episode of My Life in Film tonight. Dammit.

I did remember to watch Columbo, though, which gave me a great surprise-laugh when the dishevelled detective tumbled down a hill. Observe:

And I had turkey risotto for dinner, so all was not lost.

I’ve had a brilliant idea for a feature film but sadly can’t do anything with it because Disney would sue me. Not that anyone at Disney HQ should be watching adult themed films to notice the parallel, mind.

Also film (and in fact, Disney) related: I was rather hoping to watch Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2 back-to-back later. Only Vol. 2 didn’t arrive in the post as it should’ve done, so I’ll probably make a start on my Luis Buñuel broadsheet instead.

…houten an hashen nak den den.

I don’t often get annoyed with technology, as most of the time I know what I’m doing and it therefore goes tickety boo. That said, I knew exactly what I was doing today, but the computers simply were not having any of it.

Basically, my group wanted to add some content to the video that we showed to tutors John L. & Steve B. yesterday after their creative input. But Adobe Premiere was being annoying on four different computers, and the help desk chap was on a long lunch break. So we didn’t manage to get anything done.

At least we’ve another week before the final critique and we should be able to bop the whole thing out in a single day.

And I’m not too bothered, as I’ve had a great laugh with others. But three of my group (the other two went home) left for lunch saying that they’d be back shortly. That was a couple of hours ago.

Must’ve gone to The Fatbastoria or something.

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I’m going home in a bit - just waiting for Emma K. to finish up and I’ll walk to the bus stop with her.Oooh, and I got a valentines card earlier. ’twas from a bloke who was handing them out to everyone at computers, but I felt compelled to mention it.

So another year where I have to send a valentines card to my hand then.

I finally managed to export both the audio & video tracks of that file today, which meant my group could show tutors John L. & Steve B. in our tutorial at 3:30 PM.

And our work was, for the first time in this project, received remarkably well.

Onto more personal ‘developments’ now.

I feel that I should point out that, although you’re probably used to my weird ramblings by now, the rest of this post has the potential to do _something_ - I wouldn’t say “confuse”, but there’s a quality about it that I can’t quite put my finger on. Let’s just say it ‘feels’ a bit odd…

Since starting at Racodac, I’ve had difficulty understanding how & why so many people there have warmed to me as much as they have done - and so quickly at that. At first, I dismissed it as everyone trying to get along because it was something new. You know, like in Big Brother where everyone enters the house and is everyone else’s best mate straight away.

That’s not to say that I haven’t clicked with various people, though, as I clearly have. It’s just (and without meaning to sound big-headed), a fair few of them there continuously sing my praises, which is particularly disturbing upon my first encounter with them, as they’ve nothing yet to base these praises on.

Because of all this, I have been wary of settling in too quickly. It’s not as if I have any enemies, but fitting in so easily has been hard to grasp. I’ll even go as far as to say that instead of helping me to feel settled, it’s done quite the opposite.

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The previous three paragraphs were a bugger to write because of confusion with the English language. (Mixing the past perfect & present perfect progressive tenses, I believe an English teacher would say.) To clarify: I WAS wondering about it all and WAS feeling wary of settling in too quickly.The last week or so, however, I have felt *really* settled. But this only became a conscious realisation today. In short (as I don’t want to completely bore you), I was talking with someone whom I do consider a close friend, then they had to go somewhere, and I was left with a whole group of other people. I’d spoken to them before, but it felt different. Not as forced, if you like.

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I’ve kinda lost my sense of direction in this post. I *was* building to a point but my current ending seems somewhat anticlimactic.So drawing to an alternative close to the one you were probably expecting, I didn’t leave Racodac until rather late tonight, as I was waiting for the aforementioned close friend to finish their work for the day to walk back with them.

And this ultimately saw me sharing a seat with Paul B. on the bus home, which was a fine touch to a fine day.

You may stop reading now.

When I check the time on my watch, I extend my arm rather dramatically. Not quite so dramatically as Atul K, mind, but dramatically nonetheless. I’m also prone to getting static-electric shocks on a regular basis. (Bear with me, the link will become apparent.)

I often get a shock when touching door handles, stair railings, light switches and the likes. I’m no physicist or even electrician, but maybe something in my body conducts electricity more effectively than in others. Either that or I’m a bit of a freak. My money’s on the latter.

Anyway, as a result of this prone-to-shocking, I have to alternate which wrist I wear my watch on during the course of the day. The metal backing of it creates a dull ache in my wrist and a tingle in my hand, you see.

So, coming back to the subject of dramatically extending my arm: I often look a right twat when I extend the wrong arm to check the time. And I do this quite a lot - particularly at crowded bus stops - all because I’ve swapped wrists and instinct tells me to check my right wrist because I’m right-handed.

I’m glad we’ve had this little talk. It’s always better to have things out in the open.