down to business

Right, this isn’t gonna be a delicate piece of work but if I don’t blog it now I never will because tomorrow I’m off to Paris for the weekend (because I can) and after that all this will be redundant. I should warn you guys, millions of ‘arty’ pics of the Eiffel Tower will be inflicted upon you.

I don’t really know where to start and due to lack of time I can’t babble on at length and be all D&M about things (so annoying, I hate passing up the chance to think that I’m appearing insightful and knowledgeable. Nope, all you guys get are lots of quirky links and pics. And parenthesis. (There’s nothing like having to negotiate a whitewater of parenthesis to fuck you up when you’re trying to mind your own business and just get through a paragraph.)) so I think I’ll just wade in at the middle and flai around a bit. That’s always fun.

At the weekend Sarah (not my flatmate), Kez and I went to see Superman Returns at the iMax. Dude. Or rather dooooooooooooooode. That thing is just absolutely bloody massive. We were right at the back and I honestly don’t think I could have coped with any closer. I think the big screen made what is probably an average movie seem pretty damn fly. You feel so much sorrier for people when you see their faces 30ft high.* It had 3D bits that I thought worked really well and at times made you want to flinch or reach out and grab stuff. I also thought that they did really well with the whole mood to the Superman thing. I mean Superman is different to other comic characters. He’s the one that dresses down for everyday life. And there just isn’t that Batman WHAM KAPOW element to it. Improbability yes, cheese- not so much. I liked it- but I am totally willing to place 80% of my appreciation on the big screen. I am converted, from now on I shall worship at the temple of iMax whenever possible. I shall leave offerings of popcorn crumbs and empty drinks containers as a sign of my devotion. Oh yeah- and the crazy pics, they are of us modelling the supersexy 3D glasses you get given when you enter. Such a shame you have to hand them back at the end…

In the weekend I also had my first sushi in ages- I don’t tend to buy sushi because it’s expensive and doesn’t taste fresh. But on Saturday I happened to stumble (physically, not cyberly) across a sushi place called Samurai and had to pole my nose in. I was a girl with a craving. I had to post this photo because it was just weird man- they were all individually wrapped and you could buy two for the price of one… But there were lovely Japanese girls at the counter so I gathered up a selection and they boxed it up for me. I found a bench outside and actually quite enjoyed it. (They had me at the fish-shaped soy sauce containers.)

It’s a small world after all
On Monday I went to the climbing wall for women’s climbing evening- except no women turned up. So I had a wander around to try to find them and then watched some impressive lead climbing. Then I turned around and this guy waved at me and I nearly dropped dead from surprise- it was Jaap, a Chch fencer (yep, I seem to choose strange recreational activities: fencing, fire poi/staff, jujitsu, bojitsu, climbing. Normal is so overrated.) that I haven’t seen in like 5 years. It’s be cool enough to bump in to him back home, let alone on the other side of the world. So I ended up climbing with him and his friend and had a really cool evening. It was kinda surreal though. I think the only person who understands the true surreality of this story is my sister.

speaking of surreal…
Anyhue- last night I went climbing with Graeme, who did the beginners course with me, and we had a really productive time. Climbing with Jaap is good because he’s a tonne better than me and can give advise but climbing with Graeme is nice because we’re around the same level and I don’t feel so pants when I can’t do stuff and it’s more of a joint problem-solving thing. The highlight of the night though was to greet me as I walked in to the entrance to Latimer Road Tube Station. This supercutie little guy was sitting in the entrance with a soft toy crocodile sitting in front of him. I was about to take out my camera when this lady sitting outside asked me for the time. She smelt very strongly of cigarettes and she sounded drunk/drug fucked but was nice enough. So I asked her if the dog was hers and if I could take a photo of him. It turns out that Milo (the dog) gets a new soft toy every week because he shags them. Hahahahahahahahahaha. That’s right. That supercutie little dog that you see sitting there so innocently will take that croc home and over the course of a week shag it so much that Mummy has to buy him a new one next week. Things like that will make me smile for days.

THINGS STUMBLED UPON

http://flashface.ctapt.de/
This site is AWESOME. It’s a drawing based one and you can cobble together faces from the different elements. If you’re having a slow day, like I was when I stumbled across this site, the handy hints are:
1- you can click and drag around the various bits when they pop up on the canvas
2- there’s a button down the bottom to scale the features so you can get the style of what you want and then make it fit

http://distractiondomain.com/media/animation/yes_and_no.swf
Animation again, it’s another one that gets better as it goes along.

Is it a dog?

And finally, because you guys deserve nothing less than the truly surreal, you have to check this out. I mean what the f***?!

*I don’t know the actual size of the iMax screen and a quick googling got me nowhere. It’s big I tells ya. B I G.