4, A Musical Overload And A Doctor

With just a few days till I leave, I decided to raid the house of all its music. The recently added playlist in my iTunes now boasts a total of 1050 items, making a grand total of 2634, most of the new being from my parents’ collection. This way I’ll have all the music I could possibly want and more, and if I don’t want anything I can just delete it from the computer. Sure it’ll mean there’ll be a few moments when a song comes on with shuffle that I & all of my flatmates are plain weirded by, but being a fan of Phil Collins I’m sure I’ll be impervious to musical-taste-slagging-off soon enough.

   …

 Most importantly there was Doctor Who today. You can mess me about, forget my birthday, or steal my food and I’ll be understanding, but interrupt my watching of Doctor who and it’ll be… ooo entire DAYS before I forgive you. Anyway, today’s show was fantastic as usual – I’m loving the dark, psychological tone of episodes for this new Doc, very me. Had to leave watching Confidential (the behind-the-scenes) till tomorrow though. Shame. Anyway I don’t think I should review it – Doctor Who’s a marmite product, you love or hate it, and marmite products are meant to be tested first hand. It’s no good saying marmite’s yummy if it’s yummy for some and dog-lick for others. For the record, I think marmite’s alright, and I’m not alone in that. Now that I think of it, I know some who think Doctor Who’s just ‘alright’… I’ve ruined my argument haven’t I?

Well, the episode did have a couple of unexpected impacts of my life:

1. It ruined my 2nd experiment of the week. I was testing to see whether the fingernail strengthening & cuticle controlling products I was recommended actually worked by using it on just 1 hand. After 3 days of a smooth operation, I bit off 3 of my nails and maimed a 4th.

2. It gave me an idea to make a small difference at Uni. I’m planning on joining Cardiff’s Sci-Fi & Fantasy society, but thought I may not appreciate it or be appreciated so much being mostly only interested in Doctor Who. Now I figure – the society didn’t seem to have that many big events, and Cardiff is the home of Dr W – perhaps I could find a way to liase with or plead to BBC Wales to organise a visit to a Doctor Who set or something along those lines? I don’t know, perhaps I’m being hopelessly naïve, or perhaps they actually do this already. Either way it’s worth a shot.

Blah blah oox

Quiz Night, Cartoons and Lord of the Rings

Unfortunately the last couple of days have turned to admin, but today was broken by my brother arriving home from Amsterdam with shady details & a family visit to the pub for quiz night. Crappily I found out that I actually know nothing besides what the 7 sins are, and that I can still draw despite being out of practice a long while.

I think it’s fair to say that my brother had a fair bit of influence on the sillier pics & dialogues. As a general rule, his stuff’s in black & mine’s in red. I’m too tired to work out how the scanner connects to my mac, so they’re bad quality photos.

This one includes Professor Layton, the Cheshire Cat & above Chesh & to the left of Layton is my self-caricature. I didn’t know I was going to draw myself till long after the eyebrows were done, so they’re a little more Jack Nicholson than is reasonable, but then it is a caricature so it’s alright.

This next has my cartoon explanation of who Deborah Meaden is for my Ma & a cruel elaboration on an innocent drawing of hers of a man with sharp teeth eating a carrot.

And lastly some Doctor Who minis. It wouldn’t be a drawing session without them 🙂 I wish I could cartoon everyone so easily. Dear Rory isn’t there because he’s not so easily cartoonable…

During the day I managed to find a collection of behind-the-scenes videos from The Lord of the Rings films on Youtube, and by garr I never realised how incredible that whole team of people was. The amazing commitment they all had to the lifestyle, their characters, and MORALE! I never knew Viggo Mortensen was so dedicated or nutty. Just incredible, all of them. But poor Orlando Bloom, I don’t know whether he is hugely vane in reality or just happens to give off that air, but it stops him from being funny somehow 😦 Anyway, do have a look in at at least one video, there are many to be found on the tube and they are all worth finding, but here’s a good place to start:

Good night, or whatever according to whenever it is you’re reading this. oxoxo

Booster!

Well today was my dad’s birthday so we had cake after breakfast & a soundtrack of the Kinks to the morning – great, simple, pleasant day. My neck was fixed in the night & I dreamt of adventuring & saving everyone in the dream hotel who gets sucked into this scary parallel world at the end of each day. Why? Well while sorting through my room I found this old rabbit doll that I don’t ever remember having. He looks pretty grumpy in a sinister way, so I named him Frank (from Donnie Darko, love trippy weird films like that).

Ma & Dad had a spa day after lunch & bro left for Amsterdam (and to think we’re at the poor end of the rich kid spectrum – the hell do they do on a normal Friday?), so I had the house to myself for about 5 hours. I spent the time getting back into doing exercises again. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I’m living in Uni… all the constant inputs from everywhere & everyone will mean I’ll never get that bored to care about the future of my body. I’ve taken some photos to make a before & after and made a note to try to do exercises every day for the next 3 weeks so I’m in shape for trying out bunches of athletic societies at Cardiff.

Still, it is incredible what proper exercise does for your energy. I knew it was good, but I’d forgotten just how good it was – I’ve been racing around the house all day & getting little jobs done, quick shower, juggling session, more tidying, lots of singing, and my appetite’s exploded and I’m telling you; if you’re not a permanently lanky kid, you have no idea just how satisfying it is to find yourself eating much more than you normally do. Not to mention I Love food.

Oh, & I drove Ma mad this morn by finding her chosen card once and then making sure it appeared at every possible moment in the most improbable places. Very hard to describe but it’s very fun & surprisingly impressive. Oddly though I got tired of it before she did. Apparently she “misses” having the 9 of Hearts appear under her plate or on the door or where ever, constantly. I thought It’d piss her off. I’m not sure I want to keep doing these sorts of things now – I don’t want her to miss me too much. It was hard enough when bro left for Uni, but this time there isn’t another child at home. I want her to be proud, not heart-aching.

Next week me & Ma are hoping to go day-tripping in London, maybe find Davenport’s magic shop, maybe get into a TV audience if we can. I adore behind-the-scenes stuff, plus I could learn a thing or two. I’ll be involved in TV making one day – it’s my one true ambition – I just don’t know in what way…