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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
beingme89's InsaneJournal:
| Sunday, January 29th, 2012 | |
| 6:13 pm | Last night I finished reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. It's set in a medieval fantasy world where seasons can last decades and revolves around a powerful lord, Eddard Stark, who is promoted to being Hand of the King (basically the King's second in command). However, Stark is deeply suspicious, although the king is his oldest and closest friend, the queen is a member of a rival family who are his deadliest enemies. More to the point, the previous Hand died under very suspicious circumstances. Arriving at the court, the Stark family find it riddled with various plots and intrigues with danger everywhere. Meanwhile across the sea, the exiled son and daughter of the previous king are raising a fierce army with the intent of returning to reclaim the throne. The book is a very gritty and bleak story, with a surprising amount of violence and sex. It's a long book following a large number of characters and plot threads, so it never gets dull even though it is very long (over 800 pages). Today I went to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday. For our lunch we had roast chicken, roast diced poatoes in garlic butter, stuffing and peas, with bread and butter pudding to finish. It was really nice. The latest issue of Fortean Times had arrived. The main feature this week was about all the predictions of the world ending in 2012. |
| Saturday, January 28th, 2012 | |
| 6:37 pm | Last night was really quiet, once I got back. I was reading my new comic books, and they were really good. One comic series that I have been really enjoying is The Unwritten, which is about a shadowy conspiracy which is trying to control the world by controlling fiction and storytelling, some of the issues have nothing to do with the main storyline but are one off stories set throughout history about imagination and storytelling influencing the wider world. It is really imaginative. Today I went out and got my groceries for the coming week. Aside from that I've basically just been staying in today, so it's been kind of nice. |
| Friday, January 27th, 2012 | |
| 11:25 pm | Last night I was playing a bit of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which was really fun. The graphics were amazing. I was feeling a lot better today. Tonight I left work about half an hour later than I had planned. However, by sheer luck, I managed to get to the comic book store literally minutes before it shut. I get Superman issue 5, Batman: The Dark Knight issue 5, Justice League issue 5, American Vampire issue 23, The Unwritten issue 33.5 and Creepy issue 7. Afterwards I went and had a couple of drinks which was nice. |
| Thursday, January 26th, 2012 | |
| 8:27 pm | I am still not feeling too good. Last night I was watching the movie The Social Network, directed by David Fincher. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg the inventor of Facebook. It is a really good movie, even if you totally hate Facebook. Rooney Mara, who has a small role as Zuckerberg's girlfriend, went on to star in Fincher's movie of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, for which she has been Oscar nominated. I was doing some writing last night. Later on I watched an episode of Boardwalk Empire. It was a very quiet day at work. |
| Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 | |
| 8:10 pm | I really haven't been feeling good recently. I think it's a really bad cold. It came on last night and it's been around all day today. Aside from that it's been a fairly average day at work. On my way home I got the latest issue of Empire magazine. Hopefully the cold will be gone soon. |
| Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 | |
| 7:58 pm | Last night I was watching the 1943 movie The Ox-Bow Incident which stars Henry Fonda as a cowboy who arrives in a small town where a rumour is going around about a rancher who was murdered by cattle rustlers. A posse is formed by the townsfolk to find the killers, but the newly arrived cowboy soon realises that they aren't out to bring the suspects in but just out to lynch whoever they come across. It was a really good movie attacking mob rule and vigilanteism. It's more of a moral drama than a conventional Western action movie. I was in work all day today. I have decided to focus more on my creativity now (my writing, my drawing and so on) I think that will really help me. |
| Monday, January 23rd, 2012 | |
| 2:22 pm | Last night was pretty quiet. I got into work for half past eight today and was only in for a half day. After work I went to the Post Office and collected the package that had been misdelivered on Friday. The books that I ordered on Tuesday were there: The Creative License by Danny Gregory and An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Designers and Illustrators by Danny Gregory. They look like they should be really good. |
| Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 | |
| 6:11 pm | Last night I was watching a movie called The Ward, directed by John Carpenter. It stars Amber Heard as a young woman who is sent to a psychiatric hospital after burning down a farmhouse. Sent to a confined ward she is subjected to experimemtal treatments from a sinister doctor (Jared Harris), and discovers that the ward has a history of the patients mysteriously disappearing. She also discovers that there is a hideous, ghostly figure haunting the patients. It wasn't bad. Nothing really special, but it was okay. Today I went out with my Dad to the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre. We had coffee and I had a blueberry muffin at Starbucks. Later we spilt up and did our owen shopping I got a copule of books in the sales: 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die and 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. They were both half price. After that we went back to my parent's house and since it is coming up to Burn's Night (the annual celebration of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet) we had haggis, mashed potato, peas and whiskey. |
| Saturday, January 21st, 2012 | |
| 7:48 pm | Last night was very quiet. I read my new comic books which were really good. Today I did some cleaning and then went and got my groceries for the week. In the afternoon I went along to the movies and saw J. Edgar the new Clint Eastwood directed movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial director of the FBI. It was interesting, but it was kind of slow. It covers about seven decades so there was a lot that was just skated over or ignored completely. Also some of the make-up for the older versions of the character isn't very good. It was watchable enough though. |
| Friday, January 20th, 2012 | |
| 10:47 pm | Last night was quiet and it was a fairly average day at work. I did a six hour day at work today and then went up to the comic book store where I bought John Constantine: Hellblazer issue 287, Fables issue 113, Ultimate Comics: All-New Spider-Man issue 6, Batman isue 5, Batman and Robin issue 5, The Unwritten issue 32.5 and The Unwritten issue 33. I had some drinks and a Chinese take-out meal. When I got home I discovered that the books which I had ordered on Tuesday had been delivered but, because they were too big for the mail slot in the door, they have been taken away to the depot. I went and arranged for them to be delivered to my local post office on Monday. It's kind of annoying because I was really lookign forward to them for the weekend and I had specifically stayed later in case they came (usually packages are delivered before half past eight, but this one was delivered at about half past twelve). At least I should still be able to get them, that's the main thing. I'm thinking I might request a half day on Monday. |
| Thursday, January 19th, 2012 | |
| 8:23 pm | Last night I was watching another episode of Boardwalk Empire on DVD. I have been really enjoying that show. Mostly I was just trying to keep warm, because it is really cold right now! Today was a fairly quiet one at work. I got home at around seven. |
| Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 | |
| 8:24 pm | Last night I ordered a couple of books: The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist You Truly Are and An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers both by Danny George. I thought they would help me with my drawing and feeling better about it. Later on I was watching the 1961 movie Yojimbo, directed by Akira Kurosawa. The movie opens when a wandering samurai (played by Toshiro Mifune) wanders into a small village which is being torn apart by a vicious, long-running war between rival gangs. Initially the samurai plans to make some money by hiring himself out as a bodyguard (or "yojimbo") to one of the gangs. However, quickly realsiing that they are both as bad as each other, he decides to play the gangs against each other. It's a really great movie with plenty of tension and dark humour as well exciting action scenes. It was remade as A Fistful of Dollars, the movie which made Clint Eastwood a star. It was a busy, but fairly quiet day at work. I was happy to get home today. |
| Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 | |
| 8:17 pm | Last night I watched the third episode of Boardwalk Empire on DVD and I really liked it. It is shaping up to be a really great show. It was a pretty quiet day at work. There was a team meeting in the morning , but it was fairy uneventful. On my break I had a look at the Comics Alliance website where there was a feature about diary webcomics. Some of them are really good. I've often thought of doing one myself but the problem is that I can't draw. In fact, there are times when it makes me genuinely depressed the fact that I am so bad at art. |
| Monday, January 16th, 2012 | |
| 7:52 pm | Last night I was watching the last in the current series of Sherlock. I thought it was a really good show. It's a pity that the runs are so short (just three episodes per season and this has been the second season). Basically it's a series updating the Sherlock Holmes stories into the present day. It actually works really well, the show only follows the very basic premise of the original stories but manages to keep true to their spirit while still making the stories work in a contemporary context. It was a fairly quiet day at work. I got home at around half past six. |
| Sunday, January 15th, 2012 | |
| 6:03 pm | Last night I was watching a documentary about the life and career of the movie director Ken Russell who died last year. It was quite interesting, especially when it was discussing about how his reaction to criticism that his movies were far too excessive and over the top was to make them even more excessive and over the top. I went along to my parent's house today as usual for a Sunday. It was a nice, quiet Sunday afternoon. This evening it's the last in the current series of Sherlock so I'll be watching that. |
| Saturday, January 14th, 2012 | |
| 7:11 pm | Last night I went out for drinks with the Horror Group at the Jekyll and Hyde bar. Partly because it was for the New Year and partly because it was a Friday the 13th. It was a good night out. Today I did some cleaning and then went to get my groceries for the week along with an issue of Uncut magazine which this month had a large story about the history of the band Creedence Clearwater Revival, and a free CD of fifteen songs inspired by Creedence. This afternoon I went to the movies and saw The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius. It's a new black and white French silent film set in the 1920s in Hollywood about a big silent movie star who has to contend with the coming of talking pictures which threaten to destroy his career. It's an absolutely stunning movie. it's very stylish and funny. |
| Friday, January 13th, 2012 | |
| 6:55 pm | The DVD set of Boardwalk Empire season one came yesterday in the mail. Last night I went out to the Cameo Cinema and met up with the Horror Group. We were there to see the 1932 movie Vampyr, directed by Carl Th. Dreyer, in which a student finds himself involved with a family who are being targeted by a local vampire. It's a very surreal movie, concerned mainly with creating hazy, dreamlike images, a lot of it doesn't make much sense but it is very powerful. It wa s asilent movie and was being shown with a score written and performed by Steven Severin, one of the founding members of the group Siouxsie and the Banshees. It was a really good show. Afterwards we had a drink. When I got home I watched the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire. It looks like it will be a really good series. It's set in Atlantic City in 1920 at the time when Prohibiton is just being enacted, and it stars Steve Buscemi as the city treasurer who comes across as being a fine, moral, upstanding member of the community and fiercly opposed to drink, while in reality he controls the city's bootlegging operations and rackets. The first episode was directed by Martin Scorsese, who serves as executive producer for the series. I did a six hour day at work today. On my way home I got a Chinese take out meal. |
| Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 | |
| 9:04 pm | Last night I was watching the first episode of a two part adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood on TV. It's based on Charles Dickens' final, unfinished novel. The thing is that it's a murder mystery thing and no-one knows what Dickens intended the resolution to be, because there is no clue in any of the manuscripts or letters he left, except a hint that there was a clue on one of the covers of the magazines it was serialised in. Afterwards I saw a documentary about the history of Charles Dickens adaptations in film and television. It was interesting. It had clips from the very earliest silent movies to the present day. It was a really quiet day at work today, but it was fairly busy. |
| Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 | |
| 8:50 pm | Last night was pretty quiet. I was reading more of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and so far I have been really enjoying it. I am definitely going to try and read more this year. It was a pretty quiet day at work today, but fairly busy. When I got home I ordered the first season of Boardwalk Empire on DVD. I've not seen it, but I have heard a lot about it and it sounds as if it would be exactly the kind of thing that I would like. |
| Monday, January 9th, 2012 | |
| 8:57 pm | Last night I was watching the latest episode of Sherlock, which this week was an updated version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was really good. The show manages to be faithful to the spirit if not the text of the original stories. Today I was back in work for another week. Pretty much everyone was back today after the holidays. I'm thinking of taking a holiday to Prague this year for a few days. |