Tuesday, April 15, 2003

A different world

A friend, Simon, has been inspired by little me and has started his own blog here. Simon was in the Sixth Form with me, and is married with two children (one of them less than two months old). This will surely be the antidote to my blog. I’ll keep my eye on it, and expect great things since he works in IT and has free access to a PC (rather than having to pay by the hour at internet cafes).

One of his first posts sets out a day in the life of a man with two kids, and is very different to anything you’ll read here. He doesn’t even appear to watch any movies on the day in question. Odd, I know.

Simon’s clearly not so open-minded and tolerant as I am since he doesn’t allow his wife to post to the blog. Shame on him, the outmoded dinosaur. Having said that, I only allow Anne to post at weekends.

I’m thinking of banning Anne from visiting Simon’s blog, lest the baby photos distract her and she turns into a soppy fool.

Is He Dave Gorman? Yes.

We’ve booked tickets to see a show at The Sydney Opera House on Wednesday 23rd April. We’re quite excited about seeing a show there, as it’s such a cool building. Seeing it for the first time is a breathtaking experience, and I’m happy to report that I still get a funny feeling from laying eyes on it.

The show we’ve booked to see is that of British comedian, Dave Gorman. You may have heard of him from his book and TV show “Are You Dave Gorman?” in which he hunted down other people with the name Dave Gorman. He seems to be making a name for himself with comedy shows about obsession. He’s at the Melbourne Comedy Festival at the moment and is bringing his show, Googlewhack here for some dates from next week. It’s a comedy show about the Google search engine. That’s right – look impressed.

Search me?

Which brings me on, rather nicely to…

A fun thing about having a web-site is that I’m able to see what links people have followed to get here. Most people who read this site know us personally, and either come here directly to http://kent-taylor.blogspot.com or come via our homepage at http://www.stephenkt.co.uk. Some people, however, search for something on Google, or another search engine, and end up here by chance.

So far I’ve had a number of visitors who’ve come here by searching for information of limited edition ranges of Magnum Ice Cream. That won’t be so surprising to regular readers.

The other day someone came here after searching for a picture of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. Fair enough, but sorry to disappoint.

The top one so far though has to be the person in the US who searched for: gagged lisa kudrow . Blimey! That’s quite a specific request. It puts in my head a slightly worrying image of a man sitting alone by his PC thinking “Gosh, you know I really like that girl who plays Phoebe in Friends, and I like seeing pictures of her lovely face. However, what I’d really like to see is a picture of the blonde actress gagged -mmmmm. And just maybe, with the help of the interweb, I can find a picture of just that.” When he clicked the link and came here I reckon he must have been more disappointed than those who read this site and don’t like my film reviews (see below for this week’s round up).

Since becoming interested in this strange phenomenon I’ve found that these strange searches are a big thing in the “blogosphere” (the collection of people who blog). I can see why – they’re pretty amusing.

With all this in mind, and a tentative desire to become part of the seedier part of the interweb, can I just say: Jeri Ryan (actress who plays Seven of Nine in Star Trek Voyager) wearing a tiny bikini. And for the ladies: Ben Affleck all oiled-up and and wearing just a pair of Speedos. Let’s see who that turns up.

(Yes I know - that isn’t so much fun. The fun ones are where you write something perfectly innocent and someone comes upon your site whilst searching for smut.)

Approving moving pictures

Only three films seen this week – one at the local arty cinema and two on video.

At the cinema we saw Punch Drunk Love, a film by P T Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) starring king of silly comedies Adam Sandler. Unlike the director’s previous two films, which were very long and reasonably weighty, this is just over 90 minutes, a great length for a romantic comedy, which is what it is. It’s kind of like an off the wall Adam Sandler comedy done well, with interesting direction and classy cinematography.

Sandler’s character is an unstable, occasionally violent, lonely loser, and he meets and falls for Emily Watson. He needs to sort out a few problems with his mental state and some bad boys from Utah before he can settle down with her, and he does this in an entertaining way. The film’s score is worth a mention and at times reflects Sandler’s character’s confused state well. It’s hard not to like Adam Sandler, even when he’s in rubbish films, so it’s nice to see him in a quality movie. Four stars.

The next film was re-titled Joyride (or Joy Ride) in the UK, but I think the original title, Roadkill, is a more appropriate title. It’s about some youths who play a trick on a trucker using a CB radio. The trucker turns out to be a psycho and the kids spend the rest of the film being chased and harassed by him. Not much of a joyride! It’s Immensely silly, but quite good old-fashioned fun. Three stars. Late addition - apparently I got that wrong - it was Joyride in the US but re-titled Roadkill in the UK and Oz. Maybe this comments feature wasn't such a good idea. Thanks Tony!

Lastly, The Hard Word. This is an Australian film starring Mike from Neighbours. From looking at the video box it wants to be an Aussie Lock Stock and it does have quite a few nice moments, and some good characters. It all ends up being a little small and a bit silly though, so doesn’t entertain quite as much as Lock Stock did when it came out. Still deserves three stars though. I’ve no idea why it’s called The Hard Word.