Copies of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and a Criterion of Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well arrived today and that was awesome. If you’re not aware of the awesomeness that is Darkplace (a believable, yet fictitious 80’s horror/drama by the well fictitious Garth Marenghi), then shame on you, or more likely shame on me for not spreading enough word on it.

Woke up with the modem and router completely missing from the house and the kitchen rearranged around and smelling of wet paint. Always hate being severed of a connection to the net. People wonder whether they’d survive living a hundred years ago. I wonder how I’d cope with twenty years ago before the internet boomed as we know it. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting on the asshats who’ve now held my phone hostage for two weeks and still no real garuantee they’ve actually fixed it yet. Heads will soon roll.

Gonna be in Auckland this weekend for a mass screening of Tarantino’s new film Inglorious Basterds and while I’m not holding my breath for it to be awesome, what I do hope to go to and experience awesomeness of is a sneak preview screening of the first 15 minutes from James Cameron’s new film Avatar. For free and in 3D. Further details on the event and session times can be found at https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0908/S00244.htm.

So I’m back in Hamilton now. Friday was a day of still recouping and hanging with friends, especially Tanya’s goodbye which was both emotional and a very drunken time for me. Which was great and completely what I needed given how intense the whole week has been.

So great I spent the next day recovering from my hangover with a friend trading and buying DVDs which totally goes back on my plans to spend nothing this month, but screw it, there were a ridiculous number of deals and specials going around and so I ended up buying about eight DVDs, two comic books and came home to find packages containing nine more DVDs and all have been re-arranged on a new shelf I also acquired in Auckland, but still provides not enough space for all my DVDs, so its back to finding and buying another shelf (which would make for a fifth) and hoping that by the time I do, I wouldn’t have bought so much more stuff that it wont fit.

But yeah, totally failed on the whole not buying things, but screw it, I’m a consumer whore like that. Actually, come to think of it, there’s still about five more DVD’s coming in the mail… mega fail.

So along with not smoking (two weeks now), I’m attempting to spend August on not buying things. Well, non-essential things. Last month turned out to be quite the spend spree for me with four to five trips back and forth from Auckland, the watching of many movies and buying of many many DVDs and books. Hell, I’ve still got about fifteen to twenty ordered from amazon and ebay shipped in from overseas (and overseas shipping sucks these days). So yeah, the rest of the month is dedicated to spending only on bills and food. And not junk food either seeing as I’m also trying this whole ‘healthy thing’ now. Something that would make “2007 Chris Tan” sick.

So that kinda leaves August with the cause to finish reading and watching all the books and DVDs I’ve bought and borrowed rather than stockpiling them like a cultural nuclear winter is on the horizon, which of course is bollocks as we all know the no-culture stupid virus already hit us during the mid 90s.

Oh and part of not buying ‘non-essentials’ includes the buying of alcohol. You’d think this would be something horribly drastic and a little bit of a stretch for me, but no. With how much I’ve stockpiled of that and reserved. Big no.

So yeah, that’s about it. Here’s a video/article on the blowing up of a WW2 bomb in London. Awesome.

And I’m late on this, but this is a super cool video series by this guy and his site Where The Hell is Matt? and it’s smile inducingly great.

Mammoth magazine interview with me regarding our 48 Hour film and the finals is now out. Did the interview late last night, or early this morning via the sensual Matt Scheurich, where we had a general gander on the film and general stuff and he pretty much printed it as I said, which made for a more ‘personal’ interview and hopefully one not too offensive or weird. Pick up a local copy now or check it online here.

Meanwhile, I’m still recovering from this annoying as fuck flu that just wont go away. It’s not crippling and I’m not bed ridden, but it’s dropped my energy levels and everytime I think it’s going away, it comes back, throws up a banner, blows some really annoying loud whistles and then kicks me in the nuts for good measure. Doesn’t help I haven’t actually been resting much or drinking over the weekend, but hey… I got nothing. Almost nothing. Bought several seasons of Arrested Development, the Neverwhere TV series (score!) and the Tarkovsky box set which is pure awesome and will provide lots of good viewing when I get the time to.

Several film projects coming up, and quite a few that need finishing as well, but that’s for a later post. In the meantime, here’s Michel Gondry following up solving a rubiks cube with his feet, with solving it with his nose.

God I love him. Oh, and just to end on a hilariously gross note… Clitter!

Came to work to find my limited edition copy of Tekkonkinkreet finally arrived in the mail for me. Very happy.

Anyway, onto the internet, which is far more interesting at this point…

Article on a Japanese sect was raided by 400 police officers on suspicion of murder can be read here.

The awesomeness of nano technology has unveiled the world’s smalled radio, details here.

Stuff about Archinect but really cool writings on Russian futuristic architechture can be read here.

And an even cooler thing, though for how long it’ll be available, who knows? Is you can download a complete copy of Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Was made into the excellent film Stalker and probably my next thing to read. Even if its an eBook. You can try grabbing it here

It was my first weekend off from any filming commitments and it was awesome. Not so awesome was the fact I didn’t really end up doing anything else. But hey, I’m not complaining.

Finally had a haircut on Friday and now my hair is like all tidy and shorter. It was actually a shock to the system as its pretty much the shortest its been all year and I’ve been systematically avoiding going to get haircuts because everything I go in, I always seem to ask for more cutting to go on than I usually intend. Probably because I can’t see shit while their cutting and I have to have my glasses off, but meh… it’s tidy. At least my mum will be happy.

But yeah, not a lot going on. This is one of those dull periods where I’ve really got nothing to blog about and it’s hard to consistently come up with something to post about. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go poke a wasps nest with a stick with a pissed off wolverine tied to the end. Maybe that’ll spark something interesting to blog about.

In the meantime, WIRED did an interview with my personal jebus Ridley Scott about his final ultimate rerelease of one of my all time favourite films Blade Runner and have you seen the Ultimate Collector’s Edition coming out? I’m like omgwtfbbq awesome. Anyway, interview can be read here.

Currently at work and it is a quiet night for a change. Which is good, considering today’s is a ten hour shift and I’ve been in need of a little down time from the past few days of madness.

This afternoon saw me with a minor brain numb and a house full of empty beer and wine bottles. Turns out what was meant to be a few drinks with friends and such at the end of the Wintec shoot I’ve been helping out on and off on for the past week, became what I guess is the semi-official wrap party. Strange how they can evolve like that. All I provided was a venue.

But yeah, was a most interesting shoot and I’ll say that tensions were high at times, which fed into a very interesting night for me last night to observe the looks and thoughts between people and drinks. Then again, I was drinking a lot, so maybe I’m looking too much into that.

Oh, but Friday morning, I should be recieving a prize from the Waikato Times newspaper as I’ve won some thirty odd DVDs from them for a competition I didn’t even enter. Funny and awesome.

Still going and several more days of ridiculous amounts of video store work to do. Still got Pictures of You to finish rough cutting. Next week uni starts and I’ve got a fresh batch of students to corrupt. And the week after that, production starts on Paul’s youtube series The Orb of Ra, where again, I’m whoring myself as a DOP plus an actor this time. I’m such a cheap date.

More DVD goodness, this time in the form of Last Life In the Universe. One of my favourites from last year, I’m gonna be flaunting this onto people to watch and bask in it’s glory. There’s not much features on this region 1 disc, but I’m currently in the middle of listening to the Christopher Doyle commentary track and it’s like the vestal virgins making love in my ears. The man is a genius with a camera and this is such an invaluable track to be listening to I’m digging it. Totally digging it.

It looks like I’ve got the consumer whore bug again. Starting to float around more and more online stores everyday and at this rate, I’m quite possibly gonna hit 400 titles by the middle of the year, but that also has to take into account the several dozen DVDs of my own that are being borrowed and floating around the country somewhere… actually, come to think of it, one of my DVDs is in Japan… that Naoki bastard. Where the hell is he these days anyway?

Anyway… here’s Osama Team Hunger Force… have I posted this before? I can’t remember.

Again, posts getting infrequent. But then again, not much going on.

Some lovely bouts of drinking over the weekend. Had some ‘last’ drinks with some uni folks and got nicely drunk with Malcolm, who flies out next Monday, for quite an indefinite time. He shall be missed.

But the hangover was awesome and today is my third day off work and not much has been achieved. Editing on Spit-Takes became quite a scary task and though there is probably enough footage, at this point it’ll be debatable if anything worthwhile will be usable for Paul to take down on to Wellington. But in saying that, the current edit of Pictures of You is looking quite nice. I’ll be doing some basic colour corrections on the footage before its taken down tomorrow and hopefully be able to make it to a cheap Tuesday viewing of Black Sheep afterwards.

Also got caught with the consumerism whore bug and bought my first DVDs in a long time… actually, seven movies… Children of Men, Desperado, El Mariachi, Jarhead, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Sonatine and The Wild Bunch. Plus a random look on trademe and I’ve found an auction for a CD/DVD rack exactly like the ones I’m currently using. Which, like when the last one (the second) was purchased, it was due to a demand to get new shelf space for the huge overflow of guilty purchases. I’ve actually had this problem for about two years now and to actually find a third one is insanely good fortune (cause they were really cheap things to buy, but are reliably good for DVD storage) and by the looks of the pile that’s already built up, I’ll be need a fourth one really soon.

Who’s looking forward to 300, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Illusionist this week? The thought of all those movies has got me so turned on.