At the moment, I’m trying to get more done here. I have more desire to do things through the non-summer months, mainly to keep people from getting bored. Summer makes its own fun and distractions, the rest of the time, it doesn’t help to lend a hand. Quality may not be stretching, but I hope at least to have some filler or things to stir up a little of something inside (amusement, anger, bloating).

I’m looking towards Halloween, which is where I think I’ll probably be better on track. I’m hoping to work out 31 days of posts (which is proving daunting to come up with 31 ideas), as well as a little thing that I guess could be said to be inspired by the concept of Box 23, House of Leaves and the virals for Dark Knight/Cloverfield. So, hope you guys will bear with me for that. I’m also looking to stir something up with the fellow writers - how do you all feel about writing short, pointless stories?

So, you may see filler frequently popping up where there should be content, but I’m sure it’ll lead to something decent.

So, a little filler for right now? Well, if you remember I mentined getting my own Hare and Hssxxlllo ( for the uninitiated, two Playmobil bunnies from the 2007 Advent Calendar on x-entertainment.com). This brought back floods of happy memories about the story and the Box 23 mysteries, and most obviously the friendships that grew from the Advent-urers community. It also rekindled so much love for Hssxxlllo, that adorable cottonbum, that I wanted to do something in tribute.

So, I made my first music video. A tribute to Hssxxlllo, Hare and Hare’s campaign, set (badly, my timing and Windows Movie Maker sucks) to Viva La Vida by Coldplay. Plus, bonus footage.

~~ Until later, keep with the Serious Sex Face ~~

28 July 2008 - The Grand Pier

This one I’m fairly annoyed that I didn’t write about before, but now it’s a month on I just can’t gather the steam or nostalgia to do this justice, so instead I’ll share it briefly.

Growing up in this town, Weston super Mare, and the surrounding area, there really isn’t much to do or see. We get holidaymakers visiting purely because they have never seen mud and salt water before (or they are Welsh and pray for even a day released from that torment, to act like normal people).

One of the things we had going for us was the Grand Pier, an amusement arcade in a pavillion on the end of jetty. It wasn’t fabulous by any stretch of imagination, in fact it was standard broadwalk affair mostly. There was ice cream and candy floss, ticket-rewarding gambling machines to help you earn hundreds of points for a golf pencil, ghost train, crazy house and dodgems. The video games were ever shrinking, as could be said for all arcades these days, with the main remaining as racers and shooters, with th old Robocop platformer and occassional other token classic.

You may notice that I’ve used past tense so far. Good eyes. You see on the morning of July 28th, as I walked to catch my bus with my brother, I looked to the sky.

“Whoa, what the hell is that?” “What…?” “the big smoky cloud of…smoke”

So, we walk a little further and try to work out what is burning so much, my first though was the Winter Gardens, a local conference and entertainment centre, but it was burning beyond that. It wasn’t that place that had the, as news put it, 100 ft column of smoke billowing from it.

Nope…

I Believe In Harvey Dent

The structure was aluminum and the exterior was PVC, the end result isn’t much of a surprise then.

Of course, someone on the radio said that ‘this is the end of Weston, we have nothing for tourists now’. Amusingly, the town seems a lot busier because people are coming to see the wreckage of a 100+ year old Victorian Pier that survived the war.

Burger King Dark Grill Sauce and Pepper Ketchup

I’m still trying to find out how to get this taste, maybe I’ll work it out for October amongst my hopefully frantic (and special spooky filled) Halloween blog frenzy.

Colouring In

Lets face it, the majority of you here know that Dio draws some cool and amazing stuff, this is hardly any secret. Her DeviantArt gallery is full of kick ass pictures, from sketches to paintings. In my duller moments, I chose to edit (read: ruin) these wonderful sketches by applying colour for her. If you want a laugh, you can see them here, for the originals check out her gallery. In fact, just check her gallery, it’s worth it.

Zombies

Working in a hospital makes me think and talk a lot more about zombies than ever before.

A Moment I Wish Was On Film

This morning. I was sat on the bus and up ahead was a well-known to the locals gentleman who sells the Big Issue, a magazine made for and sold by the homeless (or recently housed), as he left the bus at a following stop I noticed he’d dropped his keys. I rushed up the bus, scooped them off the floor and followed him to the door calling as he disembarked. I handed them over to him.

Now, to picture the scene fully…I was leaning out of a bus, a set of shining keys at arms length between pinched fingers towards his cupped outstretched hand, as he stood with his collection of homeless charity magazines under his arm…and dressed in an evening suit, white opera scarf and top hat.

The guy is actually really nice and known locally for his sense of humour, his notices to advertise the Big Issue has the rather tongue in cheek request for people to form ordely queues and he has a plush puppy alongside a message not to feed the dog ‘he’s stuffed’.

Was one of those surreal moments to me though.

eBay

I’ve had some great luck with eBay recently. For a future cosplay I hope to try, I got a hip bag that looks close to what Blue/Gary Oak from Pokemon wears. I’ve managed to secure at least one pretty nifty (in my opinion) gift.

Today, I took delivery of two packs of Playmobil 4456: Bunny Music Lesson, or as most of us know it better as “holy crap, the pack with Hssxxlllo Ussall and Hare Winningham in!” Yes, after bidding, praying and waiting for delivery, they are mine. As for the wait…said2beavirtue.

Halloween

Man, I’m Jonesing, as you might have noticed from past posts. I have Halloween plans for the blog, and I’ve had fun getting stuff ready, some of it has already been hinted at. Watch this space.

Random Other Stuff

Few things that have been on my mind, but not sure I’d stretch out much from:
- UK comedians that most Americans (and Canadians) might not have heard of
- Weight, fitness and appearance
- Yummy smells
- Fashion (I need a guru)
- Brawl and Wii
- Libido (yeah, that’ll be one you folk will probably not get to see)
- Monster Munch (I’ll probably wait until October)

Who can challenge that? Not me.

Today, I smell of chocolate and strawberries. I smell like this from Lynx chocolate-scented shower gel and deodorant and strawberry-scented shampoo and toothpaste (yes, that toothpaste, I use it occassionaly).

I taste of strawberries from lip balm, but with a hint of icy cool menthol from gum.

I’ve been dressed in my black suit with tie and a pressed blue shirt.

I have a pen in the shape of a hypodermic needle, the nib comes out when you press the syringe down.

I have got confirmation that my eBay wins for Hssxxlllo are being dispatched.

I’m not classy, but I feel yummy.

I know I’m not alone in my jonesing, so how about a bit of audience participation to get us through?

Share with the class scenes from books, movies or games that creeped you out (the kind that sees you putting on all the house lights afterwards) and/or multiple things you irrationally fear most and what it is that creeps you out about them.

Clowns are evil.

I’ve procrastinated a long time on this one, I admit. I’ve been rather pre-occupied with other things and random thoughts. Some of you, I know, have been waiting patiently; others have been waiting impatiently; and, some couldn’t really care less. The latter will probably find this most appealing because I’m not quite sure how to fill an entry about junk food and I’ll likely just use pictures a lot. Everyone likes pictures right?

So, a while back I had the Dark All-Knighter, where I got to watch Dark Knight, and consume junk food from Burger King that had been released to tie in to the movie. The main product was the Dark Whopper, which I’ll get on to later, but before I do I think I need to cover another item on the Burger King promotion and hopefully restore a certain x-ceptional blogger’s somewhat lost faith in BK’s child-orientated promotions of late.

Matt over at X-Entertainment, as you will all probably have read, had a very disappointing trip to BK during his Summer Mega-Party and though he scored a nifty Prinplup card and Manaphy card holder (which, as an aside, I got to watch Pokemon Movie 8 and 9 on Sunday, so I know a little about) he was ultimately miffed by how little the King had chosen to grace his young subjects with.

Matt, I bought you a BK kids meal, but I ated it.

BK Kids Club Meal - Batman Promo

One of the main issues that Matt picked up on was how lowly the packaging was for his BK meal in comparison with McDonalds. Whereas McDonalds would offer a cardboard self-contained fun-o-rama, BK shoved everything in to a brown paper bag. Now, I know that BK tends to only hold a limited number of theme bags for their promotions, and it’s not uncommon to see them run out, but usually there is the fall-back white BK Kids bag with maze game waiting in the back, like the fat kid waving his hand to be picked for the soccer team.

I didn’t have that problem though, as the promotion was fresh and the bags were still stacked flat on top of the little hot plate area where food magically appears from.

Ok, in fairness the bag hits the crap level on fun factor. The front features a simple Batman picture, standing there stock still as if waiting for a bus as much as ready to spring in to action, the sides feature the other toys in the range. The back is an advert for the mini-Angus range.

There could easily have been a maze or some deductive game thrown in, instead we have an advertisment for burgers on a bag that already contains the food the kid will eat. At least, I got a bag with a theme.

Opening a BK kids bag is always slightly disappointing, as McDonalds usually builds boxes that are small enough to make everything seem crammed in, BK gives everything plenty of room. Looking inside always seems to raise the question of “is this it?”. For some reason, I thought it apt to have chicken bites before seeing Dark Knight, seeing as the kids options were chicken, breaded chicken, grilled chicken or burger, I was kind of limited on options. Those chicken bites sucked.

Who cares about the food though, no adult buys kids meals for the food, we buy it for the toys. The BK Dark Knight range consists of a Bat Signal which lights up, the Tumbler Batmobile, a teeny-frisbee throwing Batman bust, a mini-frisbee (about the size of a cup lid) with Batman statuette, a punching Batman figure and a Bat Scanner disc thing that you look at pictures through.

It is pretty much the standard - half are cool, half are sucky - ratio of free toys, and I’m sad that there was no Joker related toys available. Obviously, I wanted one of the good ones, the Tumbler, Bat Signal or, last resort, Punching Bats. I delved in to the bag, ever hopeful.

Score! The Tumbler was mine and what’s more, the little booklet included told me that it was one of those pull back and release deals. I actually spent ages playing with the damn thing, until it shot off my desk and is currently patrolling the seedy underbelly of my bed.

Mozarella Sticks

I’m not sure if these really are tied in to the promotion, but they appeared on the posters with the Whoppers as well as on their own posters, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ll even playfully rationalise that their inclusion is that the insides look a little like the Joker’s face, if you squint and imagine the Joker being made of stringy, melted cheese.

It had a nice pizza taste, but there was no mistaking its cheese contents and there does seem to be a maximum cheese intake that a person can consume. Four seems to do it.

The Dark Whopper

Before I start on this, I want to moan about something. I would like to moan about the advertising of the Dark Whopper as being a load of crap. Let’s just see this, shall we?

First off, Batman is a goddamn hero with issues, but his ‘dark side’ isn’t being a dick. Secondly, how the hell is the Dark Whopper inspired by Dark Knight when it’s the same burger, with the same name, that was launched as a promotion for Spiderman 3? Grr.

As for the Dark Whopper itself. Mouth sex. Quarterpounder in a bun (I’ve had it served in both sesame seed and that powdery-floury bun), all the salad, pepperjack cheese, black pepper ketchup (tomato ketchup and black pepper for the win) and ‘dark’ grill sauce. The pepper isn’t overwhelming, but does give it an extra kick and adds spice to the deal. The mouth gets a lot of added warmth and theres a nice creaminess to the taste.

I’ll always pick a Whopper over a Big Mac, but a Dark Whopper is the daddy. The Dark Whopper takes the Whopper roughly from behind while telling the Big Mac to not move, because he’s next.

The Dark Whopper is Dark. The Dark Whopper is King.

Will you take the trip, past the dilapidated and derelict structures of the old Hannah Mills, and then follow the tree-arched road through the dark Winnicott Woods, where the long fox stalks and slinks through the shadowed growths?

Will you join me at the house on Gardiner Hill and not look back on the view behind?

Will you hear what I see and see what I feel?

Will you come with me to play in the darkened halls of the house on Gardiner Hill?

Yes, like a lot of people, I went to see The Dark Knight and came away, again like a lot of people, suitably impressed by the movie.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, let me just say that it’s very hard to actually discuss the story and even the major characters without spoilers, so to protect those who haven’t seen it yet, my review is going to be very brief and only mention elements that are either common knowldge, opinion or excruciatingly vague.

I loved Batman Begins as a restart point for the franchise, it took the gritty darkness of the Burton films and spiced up with a dash of realism and simplicity, everything about the movie was toned down to an industrial, everyday aspect. Villains were simple, believable, and the arsenal was streamlined and practical, being what was available and not a sudden wide range of toys.

Granted, I was slightly disappointed about the under use and playing down of Scarecrow and Zsasz, but mainly because those are two of my favourites from the DC universe and comics in general, however, the sacrifice of those characters did aid in setting what degree of realism we were dealing with. Villains were everyday people, with similar limitations to normal people, and with personalities that were recognisable, and therefore allowed for a Batman closer to the people.

This could cause some concern when dealing with the Joker, who is pretty much established throughout continuity as the most extreme larger than life character, however the Joker in The Dark Knight skillfully avoided this. A lot of people will go on about Heath Ledgers performance, rightly so, and it is with good cause.

The Joker is portrayed in a way that I never really would have thought of seeing, he’s a darker character and yet that darkness comes from how normal, how average he is. He’s not really insane, not truly, but he is portrayed with degrees of slightly off tendencies. At times, he speaks timidly and neurotically, with traces of some sadness and weakness, whereas others he has an almost manic fire in him. There’s displays of stoic determination and the hooting, bouncing Joker of old. Joker acts not as some crazed lunatic, but as a force free from rules who spreads disorder because he can.

Thats not to say he isn’t evilly funny, because there are some extremely funny scenes involving Joker. The entire hospital part of the movie is testament to the portrayal, with a mix of laughter and edge throughout, interweaving in the character.

He’s a different Joker to what has gone before, but that’s good because he’s the Joker that fits with that Batman series, and that series is right for the audience. We aren’t talking the travesty of Bane here, where one of the most successful villains gets a treatment so bad it’s almost by Uwe Boll.

From the opening caper, the movie hooks you, and you get a feeling about what the character is like and how the rest of the film will feel. It has an intensity and a grittiness to it, a darkness that just flows through the entire experience and capitavates from scene to scene.

Tim and I were discussing it afterwards, and it suddenly became clear how easily Batman Begins and The Dark Knight could have so easily been made in to a season of a tv show each, with Begins as the first year where he’s starting out with Highlander-esque flashbacks, building up to the finale with Ra’s Al Ghul and Scarecrow over 13 episodes, and then with the spacing and level of plot in The Dark Knight, how easily the Jokers campaign and the life of a certain DA could be played out. There’s a lot going on, but never too much.

My only two gripes, which are very slight, was the ‘true human nature’ issue that seems to plague movies a little much - for those who have seen it, I mean the boats - would have actually been nicer with a larger, more devastating twist; the other is the suspensful build-up ‘buzz’ noise, used in a similar way to building up with incidental music, but anytime we had to feel danger, there was a growing buzz, to be honest it got overdone - I know when I’m supposed to be nervous, if I have to make out words over a buzz, I’m likely to get annoyed.

One thing I focused on too much? Ledger licking his lips after every sentence, that just seemed so perfectly right of a nervous affliction.

The movie rocked. Seriously.

My hope for the next is more of the natural-style psychopath. If it’s a Riddler, make him a twisted sicko but not an over-the-top prancer, just some guy who sends disturbing, threatening, vague clues to something like bombs or murder. If it’s Catwoman, make her naturally good at what she does. I’m still holding out for maybe a Mad Hatter, Cornealius Stirk or Deadshot cameo.

Well, ok, I almost pulled a Dark All-Knighter last night, except I got a little bored and lonesome so slept for two hours, but I nearly pulled a Dark All-Knighter.

I also wasn’t furiously active, but I did get towards writing up some blog posts which I should hopefully get up today, maybe even before a few regulars wake.

Taking the day off also helps, because I’ve been missing people I care about and just to be able to spend a day, or at least a few extra minutes, is worth so much more.

So, I’ll be trying to churn out a few posts this long weekend. Definately expect something Batman related!

Oh, and yes, The Dark Knight is so much the kick ass movie.

The majority of British hotels, restaurants, canteens and cafes usually offer a Full English on a breakfast menu, usually served up until 10.30 in the morning - unless offered as an All Day Breakfast - and these are mostly served either as a set menu with options or a served buffet.

So, I hear you ask - or at least Dan did - what goes in to a Full English?

Well, this is both an easy and hard question to answer, there isn’t really a definitive guide to the traditional fry up, but there are some common elements, for example they nearly always feature bacon and eggs, whether these be fried, scrambled or poached.

Accompanying pieces usually include toast or fried bread, sausages, black pudding, tomatoes (fried, grilled or tinned), mushrooms (fried, grilled or tinned; whole or sliced), baked beans, sautéd potatoes or hash browns, and a range of condiments (most commonly brown sauce or tomato ketchup).

For the longest time department stores and some supermarkets have served breakfasts in their cafes that usually work on the basis of serving to a set limit of items, and allowing the customer to choose. For example, our local BHS shop has a restaurant that allows you to choose a breakfast in four sizes 3 (childrens), 5, 8, and 10 items, all served with an extra piece of (usually burnt) toast.

Their list tends to offer: