Wednesday, June 30, 2004

We Went Ape last night with some firends form work. Its basically a high level adventure playground set in woodlands. Its about 1km long and took use 2.5 hours to do, the website disappointingly has no pictures, but there's lots of 'bridges' between treees to negotiate some are, for example, just a wire, others a ropw ladder with sides, others a cargo net etc etc. There are 5 stages and each ends with a zip ("death") slide. You get a harness and a safety briefing and then you're on your own, but its pretty straightforward the harness has two Karabinas and oyou start with both strapped to a wire on the platorm and then transfer them one by one to the 'bridge' and so its really safe.

However despite that you're still between 20 and 60 foot in the air, the patforms sway a bit and the bridges are wobbly and some are very nerve wracking (like the slatted tube which you crawl through face down 40 foot up!!!).

I was really proud of D. as she was really really freaked by the height and never felt comfortable at any point around the course. But she went round every bit of the course including a pretty daunting Tarzan Jump at the end. But she was really cool and showed her real hidden depths of strength and determination.

All in all a good larf and I would recommend it to anyone living near them :)
posted by Listener at 6:50 AM

Friday, June 25, 2004

I am so pissed off that Englost at the Euro Championships.....we were very unlucky to lose Rooney early on and then have that #**## Referee disallow a last minute goal......grrrrr...k we didn't play that well but it was still tough, very tough :(
posted by Listener at 7:01 AM

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

D'oh haven't updated for ages!!!

Weekend was pretty good, my boss had a BBQ which was totally ace - and considering four of us finished a bottle of Tequila towards the end of the night I felt surprisingly good on the Sunday.

Really enjoying the European Football Championships, have watched a lot of games (sorry D.!!!!) and especially of course England who had a good victory last night - roll on Portugal in Thursday.....Rooney, Rooney :)

Biggest news tho is......da da da daaaaaah.......I've got a new job....oh yeah, oh yeah :)

It took a while to come through but have a good offer and am just waiting for some paperwork to clear and I can resign. As for timing I have holiday at the end of July and because I loose the car when I leave am thinking of going back for the first week afterwards just to keep my life simple (ie keeping car and mobile phone whilst on holiday). I'd rather leave, do holiday and then start new job but then I won't have a car when I come back of holiday nor to start work with (as we get back on a Saturday).....

But I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt I am glad to have got a new job so I cna get out of here.....but also because this new one looks a really good opportunity for me :)
posted by Listener at 10:15 AM

Sunday, June 13, 2004

We had a top night last night. We held a murder mystery party. It had an Itlian theme and as you can see everyone entered into the spirt...D. was Mama Rosa the grieving widow and I was Marco Roni the son who wanted to be a football player.....we had great fun running through the script in dodgy Italian accents and even more dodgy acting and as the evening wore on we found it harder and harder to follow the plot.......hmmm maybe that was the fine Itlian wine!!!!




D. excelled herself with the meal, roasted peppers in balsamic vinegar dressing for starter, then meatballs in tomato sauce and baked aubergines with mozarella for main meal followed by tiramisu.....its was all gorgeous :)




We of course had loads to drink as well.......and then we got silly with the boa:






posted by Listener at 4:02 PM

Friday, June 11, 2004

Which make's me think of 'best endings to films ever'....now a few rules....films which are ace but the ending is entirely obvious in the context of the film don't count....eg Luke blowing up the death star in Start Wars...yeah t'was cool but you knew he was going to do it..........and 'Big Finishes' don't count either....like Armageddon or something....no romances where of course the guy get's the girl la de da de da.......no I mean films which end in a way that leaves you still kinda guessing how its really ended but within the context of the film and the story and the whole atmosphere of the film are entirely appropriate.....which actually discounts Sixth Sense which oddly has one of the best ends to a film ever(!)......confused.....well sorry about that.....here's a list of 5 films that are beautfiul and cool and .....have really great endings.....endings that kinda make them all a little similar in their very different ways!!!

One Night Stand
Donnie Darko
The Usual Suspects
Lost In Translation

Vanilla Sky (actually slight confession - can't quite remember the ending here and whether it ties everything off neatly or not....but its my list and I want it in!!)

As soon as I post this I'll think of some more so may revisit this list........
posted by Listener at 12:01 AM

Thursday, June 10, 2004

One Night Stand....awesome, pretty much my kind of movie....just watch it.....life's an orange y'kno :)
posted by Listener at 11:58 PM

Sunday, June 06, 2004

Roo found this on Karen's site (you're s'posed to psot answers in the comments box!!

1. Who are you?
2. Have we ever met?
3. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
4. Describe me in one word.
5. What reminds you of me?
6. If you could give me anything, what would it be?
7. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
8. Are you going to put this on your weblog and see what I say about you?
9. What do you love like a fat kid loves cake?
10. What makes you come back here? "
posted by Listener at 11:29 PM

Thursday, June 03, 2004

I hate waiting....especially when my current job is so shit. It never used to be shit but they re-orged and the new management are completely Dilbertesque.....I'm pretty certain the interview last week will lead to an offer - it just needs sign-off but that takes time. Its a bit frustrating, the wait, but tha's the way it is.....soon.....soon!!!

Went to see Troy at the weekend and was a little disappointed to be honest....it was ok and quite entertaining....and I didn't expect the sotrey to be too faithful to the classical understanding of the history of the event (which let's face it was preety sketchy anyway given Homer wrote the Iliad a few hundred years after it actually happened) but it just lacked.......something and I'm not sure what.....its easily the least favourite of Brad's films for me and he is one of my all time fave actors.

Big Brother's back and I think it looks really interesting this year - at least they have some personality to them (that with a smll p not a big P). I don't expect to see them having extended TV carerrs or becoming major celebs....in fact am more than happy to see them fade from our screens as the credits roll on each of their eviction nights....but I do think the whole 'concept' of BB is fascinating and the group dynamics etc are interesting to watch. I want Shell to win at the moment ;-)
posted by Listener at 6:36 PM

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

We watched Derren Brown hold a Seance on TV last night and it was fascinating. For those of you who don't know him he does a lot of mind tricks - y'know hypnotism and guess what you're thinking or writing the same name at the same time as you and all stuff like that, he generally admits that its all a trick but never gives the whole game away and performs so very well it all looks utterly convincing.

He also played Russain Roulette a few months back on live TV tho this was later proved to be using blanks not real bullets which took the edge off it.

This prog was compulsive viewing tho. Firstly he took 12 students (early 20s) to an old run down college where 12 students had performed a suicide pact in 1974 (drinking bleach on the behest of their leader - who then survived it!!!!). Firstly he introduced them to the 'spirit chamber' a small frame (about 6' by 3') with a chair table, paper, tambourine and a curtain round it. He put someone in then gave them a mild hypnosis and shut the curtain. A few seconds later the tambourine was knocked on the floor but the girl swore blind she had nohing to do with it so the replayed it on a TV using a camera they had over head and sure enough she had moved it. You could tell she was shocked by this. They then put a bloke in and he seemed quite relaxed, no hypnosis this time but as soon as the curtain was drawn he totally freaked and was screaming and shouting.

The 'scene' set they went to a different room and he showed us the 12 photos of the people who died, they were a mix of B&W and colour and he laid them out in 3 rows of 4 and asked everyone to look at them and let themselves be drawn to one, he then went through a look at the nearest colour photo to the left or right etc etc until you finished on a photo and you had to remember the name. He then did some 'ghost wriiting' giving a board and pen to two of the gorup and letting them write out 'whatever the pen wanted' and they both worte London, where two of the 12 vitimes were form!!! Dah dah daaaah!!

So next onto the Ouija board. First one girl went to the 'dormitory' area and chose a room to sit in (on her own with no lights on poor girl!!). He then asked three of the group to touch a wine glass and see what happens. He had to change one group member before anything happened but then the glass moved in answer to the question 'Is the are a spirit there'? It move to Y.....then he asked the spirit its name and the result was very interesting.

Intersting because D. and I, at Derren's suggestion had set up a little Ouija board with hastily scribbled bits of paper and a wine glass and were doing it at the same time. And we got the same result as the group on the TV. D. and I did not believe that we had pushed the glass in any way it just started to move....however I'll come back to this later.

It spelled out the name Jane. This incidentally was the name that 10 of the 12 people there were thinking of, plus both D. and I had ended up selecting her, plus it was the girl who had stayed in the room that one of the group had 'randomly' chosen and was sitting in now!!!

So next up was the Seance proper. They all went to another room with a large table and a bell, a light wicker ball (both for the spirit to use to show its there) and a cup (used as a sports trophy by the school and so the spirit feels 'familiar with the group!!). They then lowered the lights and blew out the candles one by one, all holding hand Derren chose one to be the medium and called for the spirit of Jane to show she was there. After a few minutes of this it all kicked off, the cup knocked itself over, the ball floated in the air and the bell started ringing. The girl chosen to be the medium then answered Derren's quetions in a voice that didn't quite sound like her own, claiming to be Jane at the age of 6 and then a little later at the age of 15. She gave some dtails of her life and then Derren said thank you and called the seance to a halt. The whole group were totally bricking themsleves and highly freaked out (naturally). Derren then retrieved an envelope that had been prepared before the show which had details of Jane in it (there had been one for each of the victims) and showed them a letter from the girl's bro in which he mentioned several things that Jane's spirit had mentioned!!!!!

So there you have it? A live TV seance, if they were actors they were bloody good ones but I don't think they were.....but then I still don't believe in it all as such.....for two reasons:

Firstly, the use of mild hypnosiss, and putting 'hidden' suggestions into people's mind is well docuemnted, and Derren has a whole TV series on it!! Also the Ouija board has been shown to be based on subconcious 'pushing' that the users are not aware of....for us the glass sudenly felt lighter as if it was moving towards the Y which was away from me, probably in repsonse to this I leant forward slightly, this felt to D. like it was moving towards her so she eased off her touch slightly and voila the glass moves!!! As for the seance that was harder to explain but the very first part of the show had shown the way people react under extreme 'anxiety' the girl denying she had move the tambourine etc. Maybe in the dark one of the gorup had knockjed the cup over but they were all so highly agitated they hadn't realised it had happend, that they'd broken the circle or somehting?

And the second reason: Well Derren expalined throughout the show that this was an experiment and an exploration of Victorian seances and the what he believed 'charlatanism' of them. It was like he didn't really believe in it all but was showing what it was possible to make people think was happening! So the second reason....at the end of the show he left the group saying he'd be back with something in a couple of minutes and then he walked out the building to the camera crew....wehre a lady was waiting, the lady who was in the photo, whose name was supposed to be Jane and who had allegdely killed herself with 11 of her friends 30 years ago....and whose spirit of course, the group of friends still in the seance room were currently convinced they had just met!!!!

So it was all a hoax, at least the pretext for the seance was, and somehow enough people in the group convinced themselves of the legitamcy of it all that the created subconsciously the events of the evening to back up what they thought could happen.

Like I say compulsive TV!!!!
posted by Listener at 7:03 AM