Call me Chilli

My chili diet is not going well. I eat the chillies and my mouth burns. Then maybe one hour later I can feel my stomach bubbling. I am not sure that I am losing any weight.

Book reading jealousy

On literature

I like to think I am a little bit well read,
however when I read the list of the best books
in 2011 compiled by writers in the guardian, not
only had I not read any of those books, but
I had also not heard of them.

It doesn't help that they don't mention any science fiction books at all, I am cut off from literary culture - perhaps I should cut down on the 99p books from kindle.

Last night I watched Detective Dee - Mystery Of The Phantom Flame
via Itunes. This was a great martial arts film set in
ancient china -- with great wire and CGI stunts. Somehow
the acting in Asian films are better than in western films,
which somehow mix ultra-violence with cheesy emotion.



The amusing things is that there is some
propaganda message in the film. At the end
of the film -- the detective swears allegiance
to the Empress -- even though he had been a
rebel in the past.

13 assassins

So continuug our theme of movie reviews,
I watched the film "13 Assassins" over the
weekend. THis was directed by Takashi Miike,
who famously directed "Iche the killer" -- one
sick fuck of a film.




The film is about 13 Samurai who are ordered
to assassinate an insane Lord. Although I may tell
people it is world cinema, it is actually more
of an action film. The fight scenes are fantastic,
but the acting is good as well. The Hollywood action
thrillers annoy me with their cheesy emotion, but
this had more honest feelings, in a made up fantasy kind of
way.

The box

I am in fine ranting mode at the moment. I also watched "the box" by I think the same director who made Donny Darko. It was not the film I expected. A couple get a box with a button. If they press it, they get a million dollars, but someone that don't know dies.

Normally I like a bit of alien stuff thrown into a film, but it was not clear it helped this film. The acting was very good and real, but the story was so confusing to the point of randomness.

The green Lantern

Since I am in DVD reviewing mode, I also rented "The Green Lantern" from Itunes. The trailers for the film looked so good on TV, but what a pile of crap the film turned out to be.

Somehow it is annoying to hear an American saying "we are a young race". The film was trying to tell high school jocks that they are the future of the planet - rather than annoying bullies. I don't have much time to work up a lot of bile and rage for high school jocks, when I have worthier targets for my hate, such as Etonians.

When I used to live in Glasgow I would quite often rent DVDs from blockbusters, I used to actually buy DVDs when I lived in Liverpool. There was no shop close to me that would rent DVDs and at some stage DVDs became fairly cheap.

Although there is a shop in the center of Wuppertal that rents DVDs, but it is not so convenient to return DVDs. So I just rent films from Itunes -- which is a lot more convenient.

Last night I watched Devil's Rock a great she-devil film with Nazis. What more could a person want from a film?

Fallen leaves means sadness

As I have pointed out many times. I live on the edge of forest. Normally, the view is great, but when the leaves fall from the trees it looks very bleak. I see a road and some small buildings that look like garden sheds in allotments. Ironically, I can see the blue of an outdoor swimming pool.

I have tried to complain to people about this, but they keep talking about how beautiful it is with the colored leaves. No I say, fuck beauty, I want the green leaves back. They make me feel so peaceful and tranquil. I am now feeling stressed and angry. I wonder If I could use the excuse of "leaf rage", to explain any future random acts violence.

Reality 36

As part of my back lash at wimpy fantasy books, I have just read Reality 36 (A Richards & Klein Investigation) by Guy Haley.

This was a story about a crime agency with an AI and cyborg. Well I liked it - plenty of action.

Final days

I started to read a novel that started with a scene with an Unicorn. I got through chapter 1, but I thought "fuck fantasy -- I need some hard science fiction."

So I started reading Final Days by Gary Gibson. Actually I thought the book was by William Gibson, an easy mistake to make. Anyway the book was great - with time travel and the end of the world. Unfortuantely, I wasted an entire Sunday on. No work done at all. Now that I look at his wikipedia page I see that there is a Glasgow science fiction group. Umm, what would have happened if I was still living there.

On dreams and project management

Although I don't sleep particularly well, I have learned that it is fatal to worry about work. There is usual nothing you can do and the next day I would be tired that would slow me down, so I would do even less work. So a vicious cycle would begin. So now when I worry about work in bed, I try to move my thoughts in a more sexual direction.

So I was surprised, when I woke up and started thinking about what I had to do today. I remembered that I had to rerun some computer program on one data set. But then I thought, who ordered that? Given that the runs were done on Saturday. As I thought about it more, I suddenly thought that the project was from a dream.

Of course there is a history of people making scientific discoveries in dreams. For example the chemist who discovered the structure of the benzene molecule. But perhaps I have been brainwashed like in the film inception.

Zombie Diaries 2

Last night I watched "World of the Dead: Zombie Diaries 2" via itunes. Why, well it was a 1 pound rent. It was one of those films where it is meant to look as though it was filmed on a camcorder. This was a fresh idea with the cloverfeld film

The thing that really made me mad was that at some stage they were in a safe compound. The zombies got in because someone had left the gate open. But the film never explained who opened the gate? Then there were some nasty torture scenes.

When I looked on Amazon I see that the reviews for the first Zombie Diaries film are mostly poor. Perhaps I should not watch any more films about zombies.

I still have to red the Jane Austin and zombie mash up I have on my kindle. I will not be well read unless I have read this.

dreams and kickboxing

I had a strange dream last week. I was with a friend looking for something -- but what? I was in a pub looking for what ever I wanted. I think it was a photograph of some kind.

Then I was in a pub. The landlady of the pub was someone I knew in Knutsford, when I was growing up and starting to succumb to demon that is drink. The pub had a Thai kick boxing demonstration.

What does it all mean? I have eaten two Thai dinners in the last week and unfortunately I have not had any further dreams of kickboxing.

Spinning elbow shots are cool!

kindle and walking

I love my kindle. I have nearly 100 books on it -- obviously I have not read them all! It is so small and compact. Soon there will be no problems with carrying the weight of books on trips.

Of course some people take their love of kindle too far. I assume that there is less of risk of street crime for kindles, than there is for smart phones, partly because I don't think that crooks are too keen on reading, but mostly because kindles need to be registered.

Casino Royal

When I was a teenager I used to collect the James Bond books by Ian Fleming from second hand shops. I am not sure why. I don't think I actually read that many of them. I was forced to sell them when we moved to the first of the ever smaller houses we used to live in.

The only story by Fleming I remember was a man who kidnapped a Gypsy women for some reason. He chained her somewhere and fed her red meat. When he unchained her, she didn't want to leave him. In the few times that I have an intimate conversation with a women, they often say "tell me what you are thinking." I am mostly think that it is not wise to tell them about the Fleming story.

Anyway a week ago I read "Casino Royal" by the Ian Fleming. The book has a certain power, even without knowing the prehistory of the films. I had forgotten about how big a viscous shit he was.

Mystery man

Last week I finished reading "Mystery Man" by by Bateman. THis was a amusing detective story set in Belfast. An owner of a bookshop -- who has some cute mental health issues and is a big coward solves some minor and one big crime.

Not that it mattter but it was a real physical book as wel.

Vinegar addict in Germany

I don't want to criticize German people but sometimes I find what they do a bit strange. Today I was in the queue at the Mensa to pay for my lunch. A student in front of me had two bowls of french fries and one bowl of raw carrots. He picked up a bottle of Balsamic Vinegar and poured it over the carrots only!

What the fuck I thought. I have noticed that I am the only person who puts vinegar on their french fries. I pour it on, point to it and say "lovely" in loud commanding English voice. I will introduce the joys of Anglo Saxon cuisine to this country.

Some time in Heidelberg

I have wanted to visit Heidelberg for a long time. Essentially I want to grow a big black mustache and get some dueling scars that women like. I payed more money than I normally do for a hotel, so that I was staying in the interesting bit. So since Darmstad is fairly close to Heidelberg, I thought it was time to visit. I took a slow local train so that I would have more time for reading my Parker book. I was expecting that Heidelberg was old fashioned but the view from the train station was the standard concrete that greets every visitor by train While I was waiting for the tram I saw a modern sculpture.

As I go I got off the tram and saw a Woolworths shop, and after some confusion I found the hotel. So Woolworths lives on in parts of Germany, I didn't buy any pick and mix sweets for old times sake. I didn't get to the hotel until about 5, so I didn't have much time to explore in the light. There is a huge main street that stretches for miles and miles. All the good bars were a long way from my hotel. There was a shop that sold many different types of absinthe, but I decided to buy any, because they were all expensive, but I wanted to buy a lot.

I went for meal in a Korean restaurant. The food was really great -- with 8 vegetable side dishes. As far as I could tell all the other people in the restaurant were Americans. Somehow Korean restaurant attracts Americans.

Sandman Slim

In the last couple of days I read Sandman Slim: A Novel: by Richard Kadrey. This was an urban fantasy book, that starts with a man coming back from Hell to seek revenge on the magicians who had sent him to hell and later killed his girl friend. Well I enjoyed it. Do I need to read the next novel in the series. Hell yeah.

A quick tour of Darmstadt

After the workshop at GSI I thought I would explore a couple of close by German cities. I walked from my hotel in Darmstadt to the railway station. It is a fairly long walk from the hotel to the railway station, but I missed a turn and I walked too far down a long road. My rucksack seemed heavy, but perhaps I was weak.

When I got to the railway station, I thought I would give Darmstadt a better look over. I left my rucksack in a coin operated locker in the railway station. It amazed me that such things still existed. In UK train stations there are no rubbish bins and it costs close to ten pounds to leave luggage in left luggage, because they want to Xray everything and market efficiency means that customers get ripped off. But enough complaints about the UK. There was a coin operated locker and I left my rucksack in it

I walked into the center of the city. My body got tired, but luckily I found a nice park. It was threatening rain, but I the bench seats were dry enough to sit on. I started reading "Point Blank" by Richard Stark. This was the basis of the great film: Point Blank

It started to rain so that stopped my reading. I walked around the city center a bit and had fries for lunch. I took the bus back to the railway station, where I worried that my rucksack had been stolen. At the station I took the train to Heidelberg.