I had a hard time yesterday. I was on my way back home from BJJ. It had been a really tough class, so I was tired and therefor a little emotional. I was waiting for a train at Central Station and I got annoyed by someone’s cigarette smoke. There are designated smoking areas on the platforms that I was nowhere near of, so it bothered me quite a bit that someone would be so rude. I looked over and wasn’t surprised to see it was an elderly woman smoking. Usually when people don’t seem to realise how disgusting it is for others it’s an older person who hasn’t quite gotten used to the idea that there’s actually no vitamin C in cigarettes like they used to say there was, let alone get the concept of smoke free areas. And she was old; deep sixties, early seventies perhaps. And by the way she smoked and the way she held her packet of cigarettes, and the wrinkles around her upper lip, you could see that she’d been smoking for a lifetime. And in a moment of weakness, I caught myself thinking, why the fuck did she survive to live to an old age? Why her and not my mother?
0x5f375a86
| Some engineer out there has solved P=NP and it’s locked up in an electric eggbeater calibration routine. For every 0x5f375a86 we learn about, there are thousands we never see. |
20091116
This weekend was good; training on friday evening was great, even though halfway through someone pulled my arm off at the elbow. Two ice-packs later and I felt better. Throughout the class we focussed more on takedowns and throws, which is something I’m not particularly good at. I’m slowly getting better, especially at the takedowns. I guess what I’m doing now is more Greco-Roman Jiu Jitsu than anything else, but I’m getting better. I’m still a novice, have no belt worth mentioning, but I do get the drop on some of the more experienced guys, sometimes. I prefer the kimura from side-mount, and the figure four body triangle from the back, since they give me consistently the best results.
My feet are looking more and more mangled by the day. Saturday morning was so bad that I woke up as I ripped my blanket off my foot, which had become stuck to a wound on my ankle. Yeah, that was an interesting way of waking up, as if someone is yanking a big band-aid off of a hairy part of your body. My knees also no longer have hair on them, which, depending on who you ask, is a good thing if you consider the “the lesser hair, the better” philosophy that most of the women in my life seem to go for. But I can’t complain, even with all the bruises and the scrapes and the twisted limbs and mangled extremities, it’s still a lot of fun.
.: Laundry
I got to hang out at my sister’s place again on saturday, which I haven’t gotten to do in a little while. We’ve got this standing appointment that I come and do the laundry at her place on saturday afternoon, so we can hang out, and I don’t have to deal with the chaos of the place I’m currently staying at. My brother comes along most of the time, so it’s cool.
My sister is going back to work for the first time in a long while today, which is absolutely great news. It’s going to do wonders for her financial situation and her self-esteem. Being stuck in a house is no fun and having nothing to do can screw with your sense of self worth. Also, hopefully, she’ll be able to really quit smoking now. ;)
.: Eddie Izzard
As part of his European Stripped tour, Eddie Izzard had come to Amsterdam for two shows, one on friday and another on saturday. I had tickets to go to the one on saturday, and it was absolutely awesome. True to form, though less femininely dressed, Izzard was absolutely hilarious and all over the place. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my brother laugh quite as loudly as he did during the show. It was awesome. Here’s some quick pictures I shot during the two hour show.
.: Sunday
Sunday was quiet and easy. I went back to my sister to finish up the laundry. I had a lot of it, but I didn’t have a lot of time. We watched some UFC 105, which was a bit of a disappointment. The disappointment mostly came from the fact that there weren’t too many exciting fights scheduled, and the one that didappeal to me didn’t go the way I wanted it to. (I’m looking at you Denis Kang.) The rest of the fights were not very interesting, though some of them were exciting. I was impressed with Pierson, Winner and Hardy, though I think Hardy is going to get obliterated by GSP when they fight. He’s good, but he’s not GSP good.
Richard came to pick Robin and I up at around 15:45, and we drove up to D2’s. We immediately hit the local junkfood place for some fried beaks and asses and retired to D2’s apartment for some movie watching. We watched The Corruptor, Shaun of the Dead and Final Destination in rapid succession, at which point my brain had turned to pulp and I had the intellectual capacity of a retarded amoeba.
.: This Morning
This morning I woke up to find that my World of Warcraft account had been hacked, all my items sold and disenchanted and all my belongings sent off to be sold by gold farming hackers. The week is shaping up quite nicely!
District 9
District 9 [2009]
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Actor: Sharlto Copley
.: Introduction
I was really surprised at the premise of this film when I first learned about it. Relatively inexperienced director. First time actor as the lead role. Aliens come to the planet, but they are relatively retarded and without guidance. It’s set in Johannesburg. I’ll let that sink in for a second. Let me repeat; it’s set in Johannesburg. Did you get that? Sometimes you’ll see a film that picks one of these and manages to achieve critical acclaim and then that’s all that’s being talked about, how the director had next to no experience besides some music videos or how the actor turns out to be the hottest new breakthrough prospect out on the market. This film was pretty ambitious down to its amazing marketing gimmick of putting up anti-alien posters all over major U.S. cities with no further explanation. I’m rambling a bit but I think I’m getting across just how unusual this film is and that if things had gone just a little differently, the delicate promotional equilibrium would’ve been disturbed and we would’ve never been able to see this film. Especially in the era of mega-budgets hardly anyone really wants to take a chance with something out of the left field (out of the far, far, faaaar left field) and hope to see some return on investment.
.: Set up
Aliens have come to earth in a gigantic craft that eventually settles above Johannesburg, South Africa. For long months nothing happens and unrest pressures the South African into action. They contract a private security firm called Multi-National United (MNU), a la KBR and Blackwater, to breach the craft and see what’s going on inside the craft. They do so and it turns out that the aliens inside are actually the “worker” aliens, not too bright, with under-evolved intellects, who are severely malnourished and neglected. There’s no sign of the leadership and the aliens are taken off the ship and put in internment camps on the outskirts of the city.
Years later aliens are given a limited form of citizenship and are treated as degenerates, the symbolic nod to apartheid is unmistakable. Communication with them is difficult and they seem really primal, concerned with few things like procreation and food. Nigerian gangster have taken hold of almost all trade within District 9 as they provide prostitutes and cat-food, which apparently is like a drug to the aliens, who, due to their appearance, are referred to as “prawns.” In return, they will accept almost all alien technology, especially weaponry. Sadly, the alien technology can only be used if the wielder has prawn DNA, so it’s useless to humans, something MNU has been researching from the moment their soldiers breached the craft and found the aliens inside.
.: Wikus
Queue Wikus van de Merwe (Copley), a bureaucrat at MNU, the company who has been charged with the welfare of the prawns but are secretly only interested in their weapon technology. He is the subject of a documentary on the move of the prawns from District 9 to a different camp outside of Johannesburg after growing disapproval of their presence from citizens of the city. The documentarists follow him around as he prepares to head out to District 9 to deliver notices on the move to the prawns. They can’t just move them, since that would be illegal, so they have to deliver notices to each of the inhabitants of District 9. At the same time, they’ll do a sweep for contraband like dangerous alien technology. Wikus seems inept and is disrespected by the mercenary units under the MNU employ for what they consider to be weakness.
While delivering the notices in District 9 he stumbles upon what he thinks is a cache of alien weaponry. He tinkers around with a small device that accidentally discharges and sprays him with a strange black mucus. Because he’s being filmed for the documentary he shrugs it off and tries to get the documentarists to cut that part from the film. They continue with their mission and while not everything goes according to plan, it went well. Later, he starts to feel ill and a strange transformation starts to take place… Oooeerr!
.: Verdict
This film is absolutely awesome and I recommend everyone who likes science fiction films to have a look at it. It’s new, it’s refreshing and the production is superb, especially consider the relative inexperience of the film’s makers. I’m looking forward to seeing where the careers of the director and main actor are going to go. I’m hoping that Copley will pick up the reigns that Christopher Lambert left vacant as his career degenerated into nothingness as the go-to-guy for kind of out there science fiction leads.
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| Wikus accidentally discharges an alien device. |