Category: Favourites

Don’t let the title fool you, last night we did massacre a poor defenseless bunny, systematically dismembered it and then eat it raw… Hey, it’s what married couples do on a Friday night.

Here is our bunny of choice, look at him just sitting there, without a care in the world. I’m going to enjoy this…

Enter the big guy weilding a big ass knive, you can almost see me salivating… Oh yes, I AM going to enjoy this.

The tension could literally be cut with a knive…

From the onset, it was clear this was going to be a messy, bloody affair. Good thing we were prepared.

Poor Bunny with a crimson mask…

After a little struggle, it was finally decapitated, but what was that strange smell?

Ewwwwwwwwww! The bunny’s bowels had let go, this required a bit more clean up then we first thought.

The perfect killer blow, a nice clean, straight cut… Bunny never knew what hit him.

Then you just yank the ears off and it’s good to go, we prefer to eat it raw like this, it keeps the flavour.

The kitties were circling like vultures, so we let Felix have a little taste…

Blood on my hands and a lot of mess to clean up… There is more to see over at Flickr, though it’s not for the faint hearted.

Bunny Massacre (Set)

Originally uploaded by FLC.

As I mentioned before, we drove to Charlotte on Friday to celebrate Jill’s 30th birthday, but for a while, it looked like we’d never get there. Traffic on I-85 was downright appaling when we got past the Mall of Georgia exit, now usually that’s when traffic tends to dissipate, so you know something was wrong. And I guess on a Friday afternoon people will do some crazy things, like driving up the shoulder when a Gwinnett County sherrif is 3 cars ahead of them… But alas, the major holdup was all caused by a severe case of rubbernecking, not even good rubbernecking either, just a minor spat on the southbound lanes. Dammit!

Anyways, we arrived in Charlotte around 8:30-ish so it wasn’t too bad I guess, plus since we had arrived the smaller family celebration could begin, that means cake. Now I’m not sure where they got the cake from, but Jill and Ryan brought a similar one down for our wedding rehersal dinner and they are so damn good. The next day was Jill’s birthday proper, and after calling my brother to wish him a happy 30th also, Ryan, Frank and I drove up to Hickory to pick up Jill’s present, an antique Volkswagen 181 (aka The Thing). Now this is a fun car to drive around in, though it requires a bit of work to it.

In the evening was the proper party as friends of Jill and Ryan came round to celebrate, Robyn and I most hung around in the back yard around the fire pit, talking to the people who would come out for a while. We left for home on mid afternoon Sunday, arriving home just in time for bed time.

And to wrap things up, we took Robyn’s parents to Turner Field for the home opener against the Phillies, but again, the traffic made it look like we’d never get there. It was an enjoyable game, one the Braves won 5-3 after homers from Andruw Jones and Marcus Giles.

We’ve also found Sally has taken an extreme liking to Charlotte (the kitten), he is now always trying to hump her! Well, at least he’s no longer trying to hump Felix now…

Inspired by Cable and Tweed’s post a few days ago about an early Guns N’ Roses show, I had to upload the 3 greatest music videos of all time… Guns N’ Roses “November Rain Trilogy.”

Prepare to rock out with your cock out.

Don’t Cry

Don’t Cry was the first of the 3 videos, and easily the most reserved of them, weighing in at a paltry 5 minutes dead, it’s also the shortest. I won’t even begin to tell the story to it, as it makes no sense to me, but the highlight of the entire thing is Slash and some crazy chick racing in a classic Mustang, which he eventually drives over a cliff. Then we see him at the barrier where the car left the road, playing a few wellchosen notes over the burning wreck below, before he throws his guitar over the cliff as well!

ROCK!

November Rain

Now, anyone who says November Rain isn’t the greatest music video of all time either a) hasn’t seen it, or b) is a filthy liar. This is an epic, all 9 minutes and 3 guitar solos of it. I mean, who doesn’t love the part where Slash walks out of the wedding and proceeds to lay down a solo for the ages in the middle of a prarie while cameras swoop around him? Not to mention the rarely noticed funeral section where the open coffin is actually a mirror… And the final solo when you think the song is over and Slash climbs on top of the piano to rock you for a few minutes more.

Estranged

To be honest, I had forgotten about this for the longest time… But this is rock and roll excess for the sake of it. Another 9 minute video thats part story/part concert footage and all rock. Slash, as usual, gets the best parts, be it rocking the Olypmicstadion in Munich with his 2 necked guitar, rocking a sweet solo on the street or the ultimate solo, rising up out of the fucking ocean while Axl swims with dolphins, rocking harder than 99% of mankind could ever aspire to.

Seriously, it’s that badass.

They certainely don’t make music videos like this anymore so enjoy the most rocking 25 minutes of your life.

As you could probably tell, Robyn and I were at Philips Arena tonight for Cirque du Soleil: Delirium and if one word could sum it up, that would be unbelievable…

Seriously, I’ve only seen one other Cirque du Soleil show in person and this one was just mind blowing, it was a huge, expansive stage setup involving multiple screens that projected a flurry of images in unison to compliment the action and music going on… I doubt anything I could say would do it justice, you’d have to see for yourself. It’s was a bit more theatrical than the other shows, but well worth the high (read $127) ticket price, especially as we scored some choice seats.

Seriously, go see if you can, it’s only got one more night here in Atlanta….

Yesterday we added a new furry face to our little family in the shape of Charlotte, a rescue via a friend of a daughter of one of Robyn’s co-workers… We were told she was about 2 months old but when we took her to the vet for an examination, shots etc it was revealed she was closer to 5 or 6 months old, and she had a few little problems, nothing that daily medication for a week or so wouldnt fix.

Of course, we were worried about how Felix and Sally would take to her since they run the place. There was a little sniffing around her crate when she first arrived, but not too much hissing. We finally let her out the crate when we got a little kitten friendly area set up, a fenced off part of the living room thet had a little bed, kitty litter, food and water. She decided to tuck herself into a corner for most of the night.

When I was watching Lost, she came out, sniffing around, eat some food, have a drink and use the litter before expanding her borders in more ways that one… The fence we errected was about 2′ tall, seeing as she’s a small kitten we assumed that would be enough, nope… In one leap she jumped over the fence and landed clean on an upper level of the neighbouring cat tower, some 5′ off the ground, so she prolly jumped around 8′.

Well, now she’s been out and about, we left a gap in the fence for her to get back to the litter and food and she’s managed to get there a couple of times today, but she’s mostly been hiding…

Sally and Felix don’t seem to mind too much, I think they are as scared of her as she is of them.

Charlotte

Originally uploaded by FLC.

As I might have mentioned, Robyn and I went to see the preview of V For Vendetta tonight and by all accounts, it was very, very cool…

I had read the graphic novel, so I knew what to expect, but the first change between this and the novel was the time shift, it’s now set about 15 years in the future, as opposed to “modern times” (well, 1997) and a few of the events are changed around slightly, but overall it has kept to the original novel very closely. Another change is the dropping of the nuclear war that brought about the totalitarian government in the UK in favour of the more topical “America’s War.”

To sum it up briefly, it follows V (Hugo Weaving, who I kept expecting to say “Mr. Anderson” or “Frodo Baggins of The Shire”), who plots a rather theatrical way to overthrow the facist government and kill all those who have wronged him in the space of a year, starting and ending on November 5th, aka Guy Fawkes Night in the UK. Along the way he rescues and eventually recruites Evey (Natalie Motherfucking Portman) to his “cause.”

Now, some people aren’t happy about the useage of a terrorist/freedom fighter/anarchist as a hero (more like anti-hero if anything) and that’s all fair and good, but c’mon now, it’s just a freaking action movie… An action movie I really enjoyed… Though I have to admit I felt somewhat indifferent when the Houses of Parliament were blown up at the end, most people around me thought that was a cool bit, but I guess it’s comparable to them seeing the White House blown up in Independence Day, it was kinda cool, but a bit scary at the same time…

I’ve been meme tagged by Gary… What else can a guy do?

What were you doing ten years ago?
10 years ago I was in 6th year of high school back in Scotland, that basically involved me not going to class, playing cards and listening to music in the prefect room. Outside of school was underage drinking, sneaking into nightclubs and smoking “recreational” cigarettes…

What were you doing one year ago?
Blogging about something like this I guess… Probably working on something too, whatever it is I forget.

Five snacks you enjoy:
Barbeque Pringles
Jaffa Cakes
Galaxy Chocolate
Cadbury Mini Eggs
Wendy’s Frosty

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
“Jump Around” by House of Pain
“One Week” by Barenaked Ladies (including the live version that adds “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’ It, The Boy is Mine, All About the Benjamins, Bittersweet Symphony & Ray of Light” into the mix)
“The Remedy (I Won’t Worry)” by Jason Mraz
“Lessons In Love” by Level 42 (I’ll thank my dad for this one, I found it out in Filene’s Basement a few weeks ago)
“I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That” by Cypress Hill

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
Buy a house in various locations around the world (New York, Monaco etc.)
Pay off debts
Give money to family
Buy every cool gadget going
Buy a lifetime pass on an airline, then the world will be my oyster

Five things you like doing:
Hanging out with my “ohana” (the wife and kitties)
Going for a walk with no predetermined destination
Messing around with computers
Going to Turner Field to see the Braves
Travelling

Five things you would never wear again:
Pass on this one… My wardrobe hasn’t changed that much style wise in the last 5 years…

Five favourite toys:
TiVo
Cell Phone
Computer
Digital Camera
Kitties (do that count?)

You’re it!
Mingaling
Bobafred
Dave
Duane
Barry

And we’re done…

This took place between Robyn and I tonight.

Me: Ohhh Premiership football [on TiVo To-Do List], check it… Ahhh Chelsea vs. West Brom, that sucks…
Her: What’s West Brom?
Me: West Bromwich Albion, thats the name of the team from West Bromwich.
Her: Where’s that?
Me: It’s in the Black Country…
(long pause)
Her: …. Africa?

I swear to god, that’s how it went… Here’s what WikiPedia says about the Black Country.

The Black Country is a loosely-defined area of conurbation to the north and west of Birmingham, and to the south and east of Wolverhampton in the English West Midlands, around the South Staffordshire coalfield. It is also known for its midland accent.

[…]

Places which comprise the Black Country include parts of the city of Wolverhampton, and the towns of:

* Aldridge
* Bilston, Blackheath, Brownhills
* Coseley, Cradley
* Darlaston, Dudley
* Great Bridge
* Halesowen
* Kingswinford
* Lye
* Oldbury
* Quarry Bank
* Rowley Regis
* Sedgley, Smethwick, Stourbridge
* Tipton
* Walsall,
* Warley, Wednesbury, Wednesfield, West Bromwich, Willenhall

The “capital” of the Black Country is generally considered to be Dudley, not Wolverhampton. The bounds of the Black Country. however, are controversial, and the whole of Wolverhampton is included by some and none at all by others. Despite the 1974 local government boundary, the northern border with Cannock Chase is also rather blurred. Birmingham is most definitely not in the Black Country.

So now you know…

EDIT: I must stress, she claims she was kidding, but I’m not so sure…

For the last few weeks now, I’ve pretty actively been looking for gainful emplyment while I wait on the immigration status to move forward, and after applying for a position at a large company (I’m not naming names right now) I’ve got a fair amount of positive remarks back from them in a very short space of time. And today was to be the much dreaded phone interview, so I needed some inspirational music to pump me up while I waited on the phone to ring…

Robyn chose stuff that she thought would be good, but in this situation only one thing will work… The Rocky soundtrack!

How can that not pump you up? Shit, even writing about it makes the hairs on my arms stand up…

But it gets better…

Good god, how can Bill Conti wrap so much emotion into a song under 3 minutes long? Follow this up with any orchestral theme (see, Wagners “Ride of the Valkyries” or Ryuichi Sakamotos “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”) and you’re good to go… Alas my interview was postponed at the last minute, but I’m prepared for next time.

It was such a gorgeous day today, as the last post proved, and originaly I set out just to go to Kinko’s to fax something to the UK, but once I was out in the pleasant sunshine, I really didn’t want to go back home to be couped up in front of the computer all day…

So I headed to the Apple store in Lenox, as I have a gift card from Christmas that’s just begging to be used, I was looking for the wired headphones remote/radio reciever as the lack of the remote on the video iPod bugs the crap out of me… Alas they didn’t have it so it was kind of a wasted journey but as I walked back to Buckhead MARTA I decided that since I got this far, I should just go downtown to walk around, soak up the sun and take a few pictures with my phone…

A few hours later I had walked from Peachtree Center to Centennial Olympic Park, then to the Georgia Dome, past Philips Arena, through CNN Center, along to Woodruff Park and all the way up Peachtree Street to Midtown MARTA snapping as I went. Great exercise I must say, and with the sun shining down on me, it was most enjoyable…

Weird how on Sunday and Monday it was “snowing” and the temperature was barely above 40° while today it was bright, sunny and up in the mid-70’s…

Gotta love the “winter” in the south.

CNN Center

Originally uploaded by FLC.

Yesterday was a pretty boring day while we waited for the non existant snow to come, Robyn ended up napping for a few hours in the evening which meant one thing for me, boring Sunday evening TV…

But no, there are the Winter Olympics to enjoy…

To be honest, up until Friday I had completely forgotten about the Winter Olympics even being on this year. But last night was some great viewing with the crazy Ski Jumpers, insane Lugers(?), super Speed Skaters, gnarly Snowboarders and crazyinsanesupergnarly Downhill Skiers!

As a side note, why is it called Downhill Skiing? What else are they gonna do? Uphill Skiing? Now THAT I’d pay to see…

Robyn woke up as the Speed Skating started and immediately made fun of Apolo Ohno’s name, but then came the Snowboarding halfpipe and the antics of “The Flying Tomato” Shaun White.

Seriously, this kid makes me feel way too old, he’s like 19 and has more gold medals in various competitions than I’ve had hot dinners during my lifetime. I think Robyn liked it too, she was cheering for the tomato, and I tried to impress her by spewing stuff like:

Ohhh, frontside fakie 360 grab into a McTwist

(What can I say, I was a wannabe skateboarder back in the days before skateboarding was cool and I’m an X-Games addict)

Alas we didnt see if White won the gold as we turned over for Grey’s Anatomy, but I found out he did (and shit, this wasn’t even live programming, so I could have known in advance). The other main talking points were Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves losing out in the Downhill and Ohno bailing out on the last few laps of the Speed Skating short track semi (hehe, ohno! he didn’t!). I was kinda cheering for him, which got Robyn asking if I was now following the US or the British team… To be fair, I don’t see NBC showing much in the way of the British Olympic team during primetime.

The British team isn’t well known for Speed Skating, but in Curling, the womens team rule! Led on by Colin Hendry lookalike (seriously) Rhona Martin, seriously, they are separated at birth, they are the defending champions… Who else do they have? Ummm. Skier Alain Baxter who won the bronze at Salt Lake City but was eventually DQ for taking a Vicks nasal spray… I’m sure there are others.

After last nights few hours, I’m wondering if a season pass for the Olympics is a good idea…

Inspired by Dave’s little take on House, here comes the definative 12 step list of every episode of House…

1. Something bad happens to someone, it’s usually a very dramatic seizure of some sort.
2. That awesome Massive Attack song “Teardrop” plays.
3. Commercial.
4. They bring the person in. House gives reasons why that patient shouldn’t be his but takes him/her in anyway.
5. Initial diagnosis, it’s usually a simple one so they think they know what the problem is. Patient gets treated.
6. Patient has another dramatic seizure. Dammit, the diagnosis was wrong…
7. All the doctors go to the meeting room to sit around the whiteboard and think of other possibilities. House verbally abuses the person who made the original diagnosis.
8. Patient is retested, treated for something else. House goes to the clinic against his will to verbally abuse some patients while playing his Nintendo DS or PSP.
9. House makes some asshole comment to someone, usually the patient or patients family… Meanwhile Foreman and either Cameron or Chase break into the patients house to look for clues.
10. Patient is near death, they need to REALLY figure out what the problem is.
11. They figure out what the problem is just in the nick of time… Patient goes home happy.
12. The show ends with House proving he has a heart of gold somewhere where no one but the audience can see him.

But it’s still great…

Today Robyn and I headed down to Turner Field for the Braves Winter Fan Fest in what could only best be described as blustery conditions… Strange weather, mid 60’s one day then 40’s the next… On the way home we stopped off to see the highly acclaimed, and indeed Oscar nominated Capote.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the plot revolves around Truman Capote (excellently played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and his non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, a true story of multiple murders in small town Kansas. A pretty dark story from the start, it delves into Capotes relationship with one of the killers, and the conflict that brought about as he basically had to wait for the killers to die in order to finish his self proclaimed masterpiece…

What we got from the adaptation of these events was that Capote was basically manipulating one of the killers, Perry Smith, into telling his events of the night of the crime, aiding and assisting him with the help of lawyers to get stays of excecutions, but as the years (about 5 or so) went by it became clear he couldn’t finish this great american novel while the killers remained alive which drove him to a mental breakdown, or near enough. The classic case of his ultimate triumph being his eventual downfall…

I found this to be a great movie, Hoffman is superb as Truman Capote, and even though it’s only a shade over 90 minutes, it doesnt feel rushed in anyway. I know all the hype is on Brokeback Mountain for the Oscars, but if this doesn’t pick up at least 1 award (preferably best actor for Hoffman) I’ll be most disappointed. It’s well worth a view, but as it’s been on general release for some time it’s probably best to wait on the DVD release next month.

Over at Lussumo, Mark has unearthed a great Deep Thought by Jack Handy… Which got me thinking about my own favourite Deep Thought.

A good way to threaten somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you call the guy and hold the burning fuse up to the phone. “Hear that?” you say. “That’s dynamite, baby.”

That’s DYNAMITE baby!!!

As my previous moblog entry showed, I was awake at an ungodly hour in order to make an 8am meeting in a graveyard, bizarrely I wasn’t even sure if I was going to go right up to last night…

At the AFPG meeting on Tuesday, an idea of a photostroll in Oakland Cemetery on Saturday morning at 8am was thrown up, now I’m just getting out of bed at 8am, let alone being in Atlanta at that time, so I said maybe… Maybe with intentions to pass. But for some reason I passed out while watching the Phoenix Suns at Atlanta Hawks game on Fox Sports last night (no, the Hawks werent that bad (besides, I’m a longtime Suns fan)) and woke up at 3am after a most bizarre dream, the details of which I wont go into… By bizarre coincidence, this was the time I jokingly said I’d have to be awake at in order to make it in the planning thread on Flickr.

So at 3am I had nothing better to do than kill some time, so I left home at 6:45 and made it to Oakland at around 8, no thanks to MARTA (a theme from the last photostroll). A good number of people, around 23, also made the early morning pilgrimage to the cemetery to walk about, chew the fat and take some pictures of the gravestones and sights surrounding them, and at 8am it’s a fantastic place… Very peaceful, a million miles away from Atlanta as we know it, even though the skyline looms large. Anyways, I tried to avoid taking pictures of headstones and headstones alone, so I amused myself with the vistas afforded to me by the cemetery, but I did hunt down Gone With The Wind author Margaret Mitchell’s marker, which is hidden away round the back of the Mitchell/Marsh plot.

Oakland Cemetery Photostroll

Originally uploaded by FLC.