Today, for the first time in many, many years I was sent home from work as I did not feel very well. Migraine, mostly, interspersed with some sickness and diarrhea. The funny thing is that the guy who sent me home, who is Jennifer's boss, is normally a total ass, but sometimes he suprises me with casual acts of kindness. We were understaffed at work, and what with Jennifer being off work this week on leave, I was prepared to hang on for today. Jennifer's boss wouldn't hear a word of it and even arranged for somebody to give me a lift home.

This has been such fun. Illness started last night, which accounts for the fact that I did not post last night. Whatever it is has probably been caused by Jennifer trying to kill me with her cooking.

I was back in the house by 10am. I retired to my bed with a bowl in which to be sick and anti-shit tablets to stop the... er... shit. I slept a lot and dreamt massive sex dreams. Some girls are very naughty...

I am up now and feeling much better now. Waiting for food.

Hungry.

There are some evenings when the frustration gets so acute that you just want to undress, wash, clean your teeth, go to your room (the front bedroom, which is my room, as opposed to the back bedroom, that used to be our room), grab your MP3 player and lie in the dark listening to music for hours on end to shut the world out.

That was last night. I don't think that Jennifer even knew I had gone to bed.

I turned my MP3 player off after listening to this song by the Seekers. It was my Gran's favourite song. It was played during her funeral service. I always find this song very emotional.

Yes. I will love my Gran until the day I die.



Today was a much better day.

Hmm...

OK, then. As the Suburban Hen said on the comment on my last post, "Kung Fu Panda" is OK. Sadly, though, when you are talking a broad appeal animated movie, 'OK' really isn't enough to cut it, now is it?

It is not a disaster, but I thought that "Kung Fu Panda" was a bit disappointing.



"Kung Fu Panda" is big, bright and colourful (and, by the way, looks wonderful in an IMAX DMR print). It does have wonderful animation, some nice comedy sequences and good characters, but "Kung Fu Panda" is not nearly as funny as it could have been, and is severely lacking in character.

I think the worst crime of "Kung Fu Panda" is the waste of a potentially top class voice cast. Half the fun of modern animated movies, especially for adults, is in the spotting of various celebrity voices having fun. "Kung Fu Panda" manages to leech all of the character and idiosyncraticness out of the voices of fine character actors like Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and others, that you may as well have used a cast of unknowns.

A real shame, then, but not a total waste. My Nephew (12 years old) liked it. My Niece (11 years old) thought that it was OK.

Great minds think alike, eh Hen?

"Hellboy II: The Golden Army".



I took my Nephew to see this on Sunday afternoon. He used words like 'sick' (which apparently means 'really, really good') and 'awesome', to describe it. I don't think I would disagree with one word of that.

I really enjoyed "Hellboy II: The Golden Army". I thought that it was better than the first "Hellboy" movie.

It is action packed and very funny (great slapstick), and as far away from the brooding and dark comic book hero as it is possible to go. Hollywood take note. It is possible to make a good comic book movie without having to go 'dark' on the material. I read recently that, with the success of "The Dark Knight", it is believed that a 'darker' take on the next Superman movie, and other movie adaptations of DC characters, is the way to go. Rubbish. Horses for courses. 'Dark' will not work for every adaptation. Here is a crazy idea. Try making the next Superman a not boring film. That is the way to go.

Anyway...

"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" would be nothing without it's cast. Ron Perlman was perfect as Hellboy, and so was Selma Blair as Liz Sherman. Nice to see Doug Jones this time being able to use both his body and his voice as Abe Sapien. I also really loved Seth McFarlane's ectoplasmic scientist Johann Krauss and the 12A rating pushing German pronunciation joke. My Nephew especially liked that one.

It is extremely important to point this out. "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is a stunningly beautiful looking movie. Imagine the creatures of "Pan's Labyrinth" multiplied by a thousand and you will get some kind of idea of the range and variety of creatures that fill the screen during the Troll Market sequence. Amazing. Really amazing.

It is such a shame that a lot of movies have been squashed during this Summer of "The Dark Knight". According to IMDB "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" only just made back it's budget on it's US release. Hopefully worldwide "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" will do well enough to give us a 3rd movie.

I know, I know. I said that I was going to write about work yesterday, but I didn't. The weekend has been frantically busy. I am really tired, so this will be short.

Jennifer and I were at work on Saturday morning. Jennifer, desperately trying to get certain things completed before her week off, drafted me in to help. I think we were successful enough, but her boss will still moan on Tuesday morning that we could have done better. Bollocks to him. I have no respect for a man who is a brown nose and an arse licker, with no concept of the difference between really easy problems, more difficult problems and really difficult problems. He thinks that they are all the same. Total ass.

Nicer things.

Yesterday afternoon I met Niece 2 for the first time. Niece 2 has lots of black hair, hazel eyes, is more Mediterranean coloured than pink, and is already working on a pretty good pout. She is very small, but weighed a ton when I picked her up. We made a little bit of a connection. Niece 2 looked straight at me, gave me a serious frown, yawned and then fell asleep. It is hard work being a baby.

The treat for my Nephew (Niece 2's Brother), was to take him out to see "Hellboy II: The Golden Army". Just him and me. We had a good time. Nothing in the world like seeing a film like that with a pre-teen boy. I will write about what I thought of the film, next time.

Yesterday evening. Mostly we dossed in front of the TV. "The X-Factor". "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". "The Thomas Crown Affair" (Brosnan and Russo version).

Today, haircut for me, shopping with Jennifer for hours. "Casino Royale" in the evening. Food in between.

Tired, tired, tired.

Tomorrow we are taking Niece 1 and my Nephew to see "Kung Fu Panda" at the IMAX. It is not a film I was bothered much about seeing, but Jennifer insisted. She wanted us to do something together with the kids. I think she just wanted to see another film on that huge screen.

Desktop change day! (Actually yesterday, but I was too tired last night to turn on the computer to report Thursday's momentous decision.)

What was it to be this time? A pop group? An attractive lady? A stunning piece of architecture? A bacon sandwich?

No. A cartoon character.

Muttley.


Cohort of the evil Dick Dastardly. Driver, pilot and collector of medals. Sneaky and untrustworthy. Possibly asthmatic. An all round thoroughly bad egg.

Muttley was portrayed by... er... Muttley in two classic series: "Wacky Races" and "Dastardly And Muttley In Their Flying Machines" . Still worth a look.

There has been a change at work. I will write about that tomorrow.

Gary Glitter refuses to return to the UK without his new girlfriend.

He's at the hospital right now, awaiting her birth.

**

Sorry.

**

Bad night.

Jennifer deleted an extremely important phone message, meant for me, by accident. Jennifer was embarrassed. Then she got angry, saying that it wasn't her fault and that something was obviously wrong with the answerphone. Then I got angry.

Then Jennifer called me names. I decided to avoid the poison and come up here to surf the net and play music.

Indeed.

I think I will have an early night. It will do me good.

I have excellent news. I am an Uncle for the third time.

Sister 3 gave birth by C-section this afternoon to a little girl. New Niece is 7 pounds and 2 ounces, very pink, has lots of black hair and, according to my Mom, the Cornelius nose. True, I never knew that there was such a thing as the 'Cornelius Nose', but I stand corrected.

Other than that, I know nothing. Jennifer and I will be seeing Sister 3 at the weekend. Must make a note to buy my Nephew (New Niece's Brother) a little gift at the weekend.

Really brilliant! Another Cornelius on stream for visits to Christmas pantomimes, circa 2013 through 2025.

Changes to the blog: Niece is now renamed Niece 1. New Niece is now renamed Niece 2.

Got to keep these things in order.