Tuesday? Is it really five days since I posted? I guess it must be and therefore this will more than likely be a long one made up of a few days notes. Hope you find something that puts a smile on your face:
I flicked the TV on last night just to have something to sit in front of while we ate and became instantly addicted to the women's downhill skiing and skeleton at the Vancouver Olympics. What awesome sports - I thought the propensity to become disgustingly injured at ju-jitsu was high but man, these takes the biscuit. Brutal. Thoroughly brutal... and tomorrow evening sees the start of the cross-country skiing. The superbly edited trailers make it look like a Bond movie, thus it is only correct that I give it some attention.
As usual, when my attention is diverted by something else, I had a great idea for a short story. Maybe I'll even finish it off this week. I have also been pointed in the direction of this years Bridport Competition and the competition being run by the Alibi channel for new talent - hopefully, I will become bored with this new winter sports fascination and be able to get back to normality, though in all honesty, it is possible to write while watching sports which is not the case with Supernatural, 24, Lost etc...
I'm hitting them out of the ballpark this week with finding great stuff to do instead of watch TV (although judging by my recent skiing addiction, this is now plainly a lie). First we had BigElf - now I have stumbled upon a fantastic book, The Learners by Chip Kidd, that each and every single one of you must read without doubting me for a second. Chip Kidd is the only man who can save the USA from bad book cover design. To see great examples of this, jump onto any of the big writers sites and see what nonsense they choose to dress their books in. From Dan Brown to Stephen King and Michael Crichton, without fail the US editions of all of their books (without exception) are dire in the extreme.
Anyway, The Learners is basically about a kid who gets a job as a graphic designer and then life kicks in... it's incredible - and I don't think you need to be a graphic designer to appreciate it. It's about nothing at all and everything, all at the same time. Not unlike Catcher in the Rye. Give it a whirl.
This afternoon I took Rhiannon and Ellie to see Percy Jackson - and I saw Percy Jackson kick Harry Potter from one end of the street to the other. This is probably not correct if you are to stack up valid critical reasons but it had a minotaur, a centaur, a hydra, Uma Thurman as Medusa, some other beasts and a plot we could follow. Sometimes, this is all you need.
Every now and again here, I feel it is my moral duty to point people in the direction of movies you may not know are happening because you have better things to do with your life. Being as it's going to be a long one anyway, take some time to check out this Robin Hood trailer - Crowe and Ridley Scott look like they've done a Gladiator number on it.
Hmm. Maybe it won't be so long as I thought - there is more but I'll drop that in tomorrow. To wrap up for today, you can look at this:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y73D9KvWgNY]
