Been bowling this evening for the first time in a while; my crap form from the last few times continues.... Mike won conclusively.
Best part of the evening, however, was watching Dave and Mike playing Dancing Stage EuroMIX. This is the kind of event that camcorders were invented for....
So I was at a clients' this morning to do the presentation I was working on at the end of last week, and I found myself in the middle of what is obviously a Monday morning ritual in the reception of the building they're in: The sorting of the temps and new starters. There were hoards of them, and they looked, to a man and woman, uniformly younger, smarter, generally more anxious, than I.
It was quite entertaining sitting there trying to work out which was a temp and which a new starter. But it was far more entertaining to know that they may be younger and generally more attractive, but I have maturity, gravitas, and the sure and certain knowledge that I'll never be that young and insecure again....
So - The Golden Globes: What a mixed bag they are this year:
I was glad to see Jim Broadbent getting what must be seen as extremely surprising recognition for Iris, though the more I hear about the film, the more ultimately unfulfilling people are making it sound, despite the apparently great performances.
I'm really looking forward to A Beautiful Mind - Russell Crowe has always seems better to me in smaller, more intimate films than in the showy stuff like Gladiator and Proof of Life - I loved The Insider and LA Confidential, and I suspect I'm one of only a handful of people who ever saw The Sum Of Us (back before he was a star when he was willing to show his bottom on screen....).
Plus, Moulin Rouge!, I think I'm increasingly forced to the conclusion, was the best film I saw in 2001, The Royal Tenenbaums, Gosford Park, and in The Bedroom all look absolutely excellent arrivals over the next couple of months, and they all got some kind of recognition.
The TV winners, on the other hand, look about as predictable as ever, including once again no recognition for Buffy. Ho hum.
On a totally atypical note (at least since I last redesigned this place), I thought I'd mention some of the music I'm listening to lately.
I've gone a bit retro, and am listening to a bunch of CDs that I haven't for a while, so:
Home by Deep Blue Something
Sense by The Lightning Seeds
The It Girl by Sleeper
Pocket Full of Kryptonite by The Spin Doctors
and
The Sensual World by Kate Bush
What does this combination say about me? I throw the subject open to the floor....
I almost never take part in the National Lottery, but every now and then I'll be in a shop that does it and I'll stick some random numbers onto a ticket and have a go. Yesterday was one such day, and having had the whole Lottery Extra thing explained to me (it's the one where there's a jackpot payout for matching all six numbers and nothing else) I thought I might as well give it a go, so I just ticked the lucky dip box for it.
So just now when I was checking whether I'd won anything, I turned on Ceefax, and the page with the Lottery Extra numbers was on, but flipped to the next page in the sequence after a second, so all I saw was the fact that one ticket had won the 10.1 milion pound jackpot, and that the first three of the numbers were 1, 11, 15. So while I was waiting for the page to come round again, I was looking at the numbers I'd got in the lucky dip, and they were 1, 11, 15, 21, 27, 45.
I swear that my heart stopped.
Anyway, when the numbers came round again, the last three were totally different than mine, but what a freaky moment that was....
My word, but I'm manly!
Well, not really, but I was at Chris's this morning, and as we left and came back, about an hour apart, we heard the same plaintive cat meowing. Turned out there was a cat stuck up his neighbour's tree. So of course someone had to climb a ladder and fight through the dense pine foliage to reach this extremely ambitious cat, which was easily five meters up this tree.
Obviously, it was extremely loving and grateful to be rescued from this precarious position, and didn't scratch me *at all* on the way back down.....
One of the (few) good things about insomnia is that every now and again, it gives you the opportunity to watch a truly gorgeous sunrise. Like this morning, when everything was grey, then the sky started to lighten, and the colour came back into the world, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. It's going to be a beautiful day by the look of it.
And I intend to make the most of it.
Mad day today - I've been working on some reports that I have to present to a client first thing on Monday morning, and I haven't so much as looked at a weblog or a news site all day. Time for a catch-up, I think. What has been happening in the world?
New Buffy and Angel Spoiler warning Don't say you weren't warned.
So now we know what at least some of the price was for bringing Buffy back. The Scoobies thought they were rescuing her from hell, and the reality was that she was in heaven, and they dragged her back to a world that's bright and harsh and violent. But they won't ever know. Good drama - it's a slow start to the new series so far, but I remain confident - after all, it's only five weeks to the musical episode....
Over on Angel, meanwhile, what an odd episode. Angel comes back from his retreat, still disturbed by Buffy's death, but apparently no longer grieving. Meanwhile Cordy and the others have been fighting the good fight, and Fred has pretty much exchanged one cave for another. And in a slightly heavy-handed parallel, Angel encounters a vampire couple he knew in the bad old days and calls his own ability to love in comparison to theirs. Oh, and Darla is pregnant, which could prove interesting. I know some of what's coming up here, and it sounds like quite the year they have planned, especially for Cordelia....
Cool little perspective on the Sundance Film Fesival (or more specifically on not getting into Sundance but going anyway.....)