EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

The FIRST cool Captain Jack
thanks to Darren at LMG for this one.

One of the more unexpected side-effects of the new flight security measures…

Tried these bad boys out with some simply grilled chicken. Fantastic. I’m after any way to use up the burgeoning glut of courgettes coming out of the garden at the mo, and this way of cooking them could quickly become a favourite. Not too greasy, and really good with some plain yoghurt on the side.
Oh, any idea why they’re called zucchini in the States?

I appear to be on a 2000AD obsessional!
It’s the “Gaze into the fist of Dredd t-shirt for me, then!

» Here
is a post at the relatively new Forbidden Planet blog, that sums up a lot of my feelings about the best British comic of all time. Good blog in general, with a lot of juicy links to merchandising opportunities.

This is the closest I’ve come to understanding Donnie Darko.

Fortunately, these tasted a damn sight better than they looked. I think there must be more stones in the beds than I thought, and the roots are finding their own path through.

Who needs Turkey Twizzlers when you can have Curly Carrots?

The overextension’s been kicking in, plus I’ve been doing the social life thing.

A couple of films worth mentioning, although lord knows i’m well behind the times on catching movies as quickly as I should. Capote was great. A quiet, simply filmed piece designed as a frame for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s deservedly Oscar-winning performance. It’s un-nerving just how accurate the portrayal is, although one has to wonder how his performance would be viewed if he tried putting those mannerisms onto a ficticious character. Truth is clearly stranger than fiction.

I also enjoyed Brick, again a simple piece with an incredibly good central performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Definately a film that’s polarising opinion, it’s use of noirish hoodlum speak coming out of high school students either captivating or irritating the fuck out of audiences. There were a couple of walkouts at the screening I went to.

However, I thought it worked really well, and felt like street argot rather than something forced on the characters as a conceit. I can see Californian high school kids talking like that.

Music news. I missed the Foo Fighter’s Hyde Park gig (drat) but managed to get into the Apollo Victoria for the acoustic set earlier in the week, which was utterly splendid. An eight-piece version of the band (actually 9 at one point, as head roadie Joe Beebe popped up for a solo on “Virginia Moon”) crused through a set including a lot of stuff from the second disc of “In Your Honour” along with some oldies, and a hammering solo blast of “Best Of You” from the Grohlster. A top, top night. One big fat hug of a gig.

According to the papers, it’s any two-day period where the temperature goes above 26C.

I have my own definition…

OVEREXTENSION: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE

So, I’m writing a feature film, which I’ll be co-directing in October. I’m blogging about it, too. That first draft needs to be done by the 15th.
Also, I’m working on a documentary project with my mate Dominic, with some shooting to be done at the end of the month. In Manchester.
And of course, a full schedule at work, including the long awaited refurbishment of the suite and general massive changes in working practices.
And I’ve got a cold of extiction event level proportions.

Still, it’s better than being bored, eh?