Happy Halloween 2012!

Happy Halloween everybody! Not that I really noticed until I went on Google's homepage to remind me what day it was because it isn't very big out here in Copenhagen. I saw a couple of pumpkins on the way to a fairly tall tower we climbed and towards a hippie commune where people openly smoked cannabis, good day overall. Not very spooky though...

Greetings from mildly nippy Copenhagen

Arrived in the city yesterday afternoon, the first thing that struck me about Denmark is how modern everything seems. The traffic lights are all flat and the supermarket we visited had digital price codes. All this modernity comes with a literal price though as everything is rather expensive here. But we are staying in a lovely apartment, Louis bagged the only bed in my room so I get to sleep on the floor mattress. We have seen some pretty impressive stuff so far although it has been quite a lot of walking and while its not cold here, I am certainly glad I brought along my awesome coat to keep me warm and looking badass. 

Filmcast Episode Four!

Ungodly

Setting off on holiday to Copenhagen tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of 3:30am, already charged up my 3DS for the trip and man oh man, am I gonna play a lot of Mario tomorrow. Went into town on my bike as well, popped into GAME to see if they had anything good. Bit weird me going in there nowadays, with digital distribution and Steam I don't really go into high street game retailers anymore but sometimes they have some good deals. While queuing behind the typical screaming child who's parents won't get them the new first person shooter or My Little Pony Adventure game I felt mighty proud of myself to be holding a copy of The Binding of Issac Unholy Edition! Certainly put everyone else's choice to shame. It came with a sweet art book but possibly one of the most hideous posters I have ever seen, which will be kept in the box at all time methinks.

Hopefully there will be Wi-Fi where I am staying but if I don't then that's the only reason I'm not blogging, I shall try my best. Might even get some pictures up.

Daylight saving lie-in!

Had my second driving lesson today, getting to grips with the basic functions of the car while struggling vastly with roundabouts, whenever I approached one memories of Mark making a big deal of them in the past came to mind so I panicked when that happened; thank goodness for duel control cars! Mark Lucy and I all went into the highstreet to sort out some banking bits and bobs today, it was only after spending 15 minutes looking for a parking space we remembered that most banks shut after mid-day so we left home nearly empty handed, a trip to the pasty shop returned our morale to neutral levels.  

In the evening we headed off to an amateur comedy act venue in Reading. I was talking to Mark on the way there how I have never been disappointed by a comedian in my life and tonight definitely changed that. We saw 4 acts and the first 3 were just woefully unfunny, I was really up for a nice evening full of laughs but I ended up just feeling bored and losing faith in humor in general; as if nothing would ever be funny again. Luckily the 4th guy was quite good so that bought me back around. 

Chilly Willie

Got up to greet my chilly bedroom first thing, so I decided to put on my penguin onsie to keep me warm, I was rather snug indeed when I was huddled up on my chair. Mark and Dan came over to record a podcast before taking me to work, everyone was quite relieved to see me as the kitchen was one hell of a bombshell when I went in but we sorted it all out relatively quickly. I helped out a bit after hours putting up the Halloween decorations for tomorrow's big kids party, fake spider webs and paper ghosts ahoy! Looks pretty good too, the kids will surely have an awesome time but it is bound to be busy for those working tomorrow.

WOW! New play area!

Long old day of work, had some major construction work done for a new play area which came out great and we went back out to the woods to film the other half of Louis' music video getting some amazing shots of a campfire; hope to get that one out soon!

Untouchable

Had a nice little day to myself to play a few games and talk to my girlfriend on Skype, it was refreshing to be able to have a vocal conversation that was instantaneous rather than a daily email conversation we had going before hand. Mark and I also helped film part of a music video for Louis' band: The Runways. They were really easy to work with too, the whole thing took under an hour and we are going to do some additional stuff with them tomorrow. I also went to see the film Untouchable which was excellent, I am saving a mini review style thing for the podcast this week so stay tuned for that, until then I want to get some sleep for work tomorrow.

Filmcast Episode 3

Work again

Didn't feel quite ready for work this morning, getting up before 8 was a strange thing to experience once again, and with it being so foggy and dark I just wanted to go back to sleep. Work itself wasn't so bad, legs begun to ache after a few hours but generally I was quite excited to be back, plus I got a chance to wear my sword umbrella to work, generally I got a lot of weird looks and people obviously trying not to look.

We used to wait

Woken up by an email from my girlfriend telling me that she could talk to me on Skype at 10 in the morning, seeing as I have rarely had a chance to speak to her I was very excited at the proposition, ate my breakfast quickly and sat on my computer while playing some flash games to pass the time. No sign of her at any point in the day though. Talking to Dan later in the evening (his girlfriend is also in Nepal) and asking if he had heard from her, but he hadn't spoken to her. We can only assume there was a technical issue with the laptop or the internet out there, so it was a quiet day of waiting for me mostly.

That and eating the Belgium chocolate I brought back with me, testing out my new wireless mouse and keyboard, sorting out my UCAS application and making room for my bedside table; I seem to get a fair bit done when I'm not at work sometimes...

Return from Eeklo!

Got back from Eeklo, the Belgium town that Newbury is twinned with and had an amazing time and a great roadtrip, granted we got stuck in a 90 minute traffic jam at first but after that we were sailing.

Upon arrival we were all introduced to the various residents from Eeklo all about our age around a massive dinner table with an even bigger dinner, which was just what we needed after the long drive down there. On the same evening we were shown a little bit of the Belgium nightlife in a youth club where you could get some very affordable and intrinsically excellent Belgium beers, most of which we purchased a few more of when we visited a supermarket along with a few other goodies to bring home to our families; obviously including the great chocolate.

A day trip to Bruges was also organized after a huge continental brunch along with a perfectly lengthed guided tour from one of our hosts, giving us the basic historical information of the main buildings, while also allowing us ample time to free-lance around the gorgeous medieval town for photographs and Belgium waffles dipped in chocolate sauce. Bowling in Eeklo followed after a group meal which was a great opportunity to talk to people in between turns. The next morning we were taken to a Bed-and-Breakfast where we were fed a real slap-up home cooked meal paid for by the Twin Town association consisting of traditional Belgium dishes, during pudding the chef even sat with us to eat while enthusing and explaining her cooking techniques.

After that we packed up our car, which was stuffed to the brim with the extra bits and bobs we got from the supermarket, and gave everyone a hearty farewell. In reality though, we wanted to stay longer, to spend more time with our wonderful hosts, to eat more of their delicacies and experience more of what Belgium had to offer us. A weekend to remember.   

The long awaitied arrival of the sword umbrella!

Today... 4 months after original ordering... the sword umbrella finally arrived! And it's a little bit meh to be honest. The handle feels a bit cheap while the strap on the sheath is far to small for me, going to need to do some home-made extensions I think! Otherwise, it looks like a solid thing that will definitively withstand the rain. Work was deader than a dodo today, which is cool because head office came down for inspection, since we had been cleaning all day they were very impressed with the facilities. We should have a new podcast coming out tomorrow too that we recorded in advance since we are all going on a car trip to Belgium tomorrow! Can hardly wait, just gotta pack now...  

Normally I am a tidy person...

With very few customers in today and with big boss arriving tomorrow it was time for one thing: cleaning montage! Except without the jamming tunes as all we had was our rubbish local radio station to listen too, but the cleaning did happen. Did a thorough sweep of literally everything, heck I was standing on the bar-top for half of it just to reach the various nooks and crannies otherwise forgotten. Everything at work looks all spic-and-span while my room is still the ugly mess it always is, some time tomorrow morning though, need to remove the deposits of crap from around the everywhere!

The Times, They Are A-Changing

Some minor excitements at work today. We changed our normal green top milk for blue, apparently this brings out some extra flavor and is easier to froth for cappuccinos, not sure if that's true but we will see. My boss and I also cleaned out various parts of the office, removing a dozen cardboard boxes full of flyers in what appeared to be the most convenient method possible but we ended up with about 80% of the fliers spilt out of these boxes as we learnt that chucking cardboard downstairs tends to break the boxes. Walking to and from work I got through all of Bob Dylan's 'The times they are a-changing' which was really excellent in my opinion, my first proper Dylan album and certainly not going to be my last. Dad and I also played a bit of an Ipad game called 'The Room,' not to be confused with Tommy Wiseau's "masterpiece." The game offered up a nearly hour long puzzle in a single chapter where we were solely tasted with opening a single box, easier said then done; I wouldn't be surprised if Dad has already look at a walk-through to help the cause.

One small jump for man

accomplished very little today minus another, easy day of work. Been booked into another full week of work, minus the weekend and Friday where I am going to Belgium on a small holiday getaway thing. We plan on making a brief stop in Bruges on our way back home where we will get a lot of photos to compare with screenshots from the film so we can pinpoint where they filmed key scenes. All very exciting in that respect but now I just need to get through another busy week.

I did get around to watching the Red Bull 'diving off the edge of the world' stunt thing live on youtube however. Essentially a man broke the world record for highest ever freefall at about 38-39 miles above ground level, he could see the earth's curvature basically, and it took him about 7 minutes to fall all the way back down to earth. I would very much recommend watching the highlights of this on youtube or somewhere similar, the actual jump part especially, that part really set off Dad's acrophobia,

Action packed day off

Was driven down to Devises this morning to test walk a hike for the 2012 Bone Hike which I help organize with two other people. We need to walk through the route to make sure its safe and easy enough for scouts to traverse, and especially since the planned hike we did around Salisbury had this sign posted firmly at the start of our planned route.

About halfway around I got a call frim Chris and Mark who offered me an old coffee table/TV stand for my room. Once again I had a major shift around to get the damn thing in (it was twice as long as my old TV stand!) But I will admit it does look bloody good, finally got a place to put my lavalamp. Now though I am thinking that a bedroom sofa would really finish off the room, need to head back down to the furniture project and see what I can scout out there.

Invited Dan along to see Frisky and Mannish. For me, this was my second time watching the excellent duo and they were even better this year with a tighter performance with some returning classics, brilliant show overall almost broke off from our group to say hello to the pair but I didn't quite have the courage; maybe next year...

Now with jingles!

In case you haven't noticed, a new podcast episode is out, it is considerably shorter than the last episode as our first one was really just us testing out what worked and what didn't, we stripped out all the fluffy and rubbishy bits to give you a more refined experience overall; ow with 100% more catchy sound clips!

Otherwise today was another Friday, we did make an effort to watch a Bond film though since we were so impressed with the Skyfall trailer, so we went back to see Goldeneye, my personal favorite Bond film at the time of writing (Haven't seen them all yet!) It was quite nice to re-watch it and actually gauge how well it stands up to my glowing fondness of it bred from nostalgia of re-watching it repeatedly as a child and great memories of the classic N64 game, and we were all quite impressed. Although it wasn't as flashy or as brutal as the Daniel Craig films, those one was certainly the bridging point between the older films and the action packed flicks of the 21st century. Bond made a hilarious amount of innuendos while always keeping it classy. Possibly the highlight of the film was the St. Petersburg tank chase scene which is ridiculously boss, it was also quite a testament to special effects in the present because all of the explosions and destruction were genuine and very satisfying to watch; I turned to Dan and Mark and said 'It's so nice to see some real explosions again!'

Filmcast Episode Two

Story time

First thing that happened when I got to work involved me immediatly putting on the Eddie suit in preparation for the new 'story time' activity we offer on Thursday mornings. Basically it involves a person reading a children's book while someone (in this case me) dresses up as the big cat  and listen to the story with the children. I attempted to inject as much personality as possible into my Eddie, making him mime along with any action in the book even hugging the children at the end who wanted one. I felt a bit like a Tweenie or something similar while it was happening but I really enjoyed the experience. For anyone unaware of what the suit looks like it looks a little something like this. (This is not me in the suit but it would be identical if I were)

Looper

Me and the usual suspect went down to the cinema to see a sci-fi film that we were very much looking forward to, purely based on the premise and the actors alone. For those of you who are unaware of the basic plot, a man in the modern present (Joseph Gordan-Levitt) is a contract killer for thugs in the future, one day a man he's meant to kill turns out to be his future self (Bruce Willis) and the rest is a game of cat and mouse, or so the trailer leads you to believe. In reality though this is only one half of the story as most of the second (and best) half of the film is focused on a very different thing with Emily Blunt, one which I won't go into too much detail now but it reminded me very much of Stephen King's 'Firestarter' while the time traveling premise feels like a nice throwback to Terminator. But the plot is very original and the setting is nicely shown to us through some modernized looking environments that look familiar but its just the little things which look flashy like the cars and other technology. Strangely all of the weaponry used by the Loopers were more reminiscent of the wild west with over-sized revolvers and steam-punk shotguns which was very cool.

The actors did a good job on the whole, with some emotionally charged or tense scenes peppered intermittently. One mild distraction at first was the make-up on Gordan-Levitt's face to make him look more like Willis. Essentially they gave him some bolder eyebrows, puffed cheeks and a stoney complexion, which did a convincing job but it makes you find yourself constantly doing double takes on Levitt's character because he looks so unfamiliar. Camera angles were varied and involving while the sound design could be very tense at times, especially in the many slow motion sequences.

A very enjoyable Sci-Fi film and the first sci-fi blockbuster to attempt something original while using the familiar element of time travel. The cinema was unexpectedly packed tonight so it has definitely interested a lot of people. While not a classic it is certainly one of the best modern science fiction films made in the last five years and is definitely worth checking out; especially if you are a fan of time travel like me.   

Beer and Baby Food

Got up at the crack of dawn after dragging myself outta bed. When did it get so cold? It was difficult to leave my duvet as I knew that the precious bubble of warmth would be gone forever if I left. But after putting on a dressing gown and a scarf I was warmed up again and ready to hit Tesco, until we got bogged down in early morning traffic due to an accident. We got everything we needed from the shops, getting some odd looks as we piled up the baby food up with the beers, both items we sell at Eddie Catz. We even got a Birthday card for my Boss' Grandad so success all round really, especially since it gave me an excuse to see the dark mornings I so love now that it's Winter. Something about the twilight streets and lamps that makes me feel very humble, if only I could get out of bed earlier in the meantime.

I wanna be with you everywhere

Admittedly, in the morning, I was having a bad day. The weather was miserable, everything was going wrong for me at work and I just felt a bit hollow on the inside. Then I got an email from my girlfriend whom I had been without contact for a week which cheered me up to no end, literally, everything suddenly got better after I read it, particularly after reading the second one which was just a transcript of Fleetwood Mac's 'Everywhere'. Everything except our blatant lack of stock at work, it was pretty bad so now I have to get up to go into Tesco with my boss at 7:30 tomorrow morning, admittedly that does sound like a bit of fun but it means no lie in... 

Code Red

This evening I stared at myself in the mirror, long and hard. I had a haircut recently so I am getting used to how I look once again and also because I feel absolutely knackered. Work really took it out of me, especialialy after we suffered from, what my boss lied to call 'Code Red's' The first was after somebody had a toilet accident, the second was introduced rather ominously as he said 'follow me.' Silently we ran up the stairs to the managers office (in great haste mind, as this was a 'code red) he sat down at his desk and said:

'Theo, what do you think of this song?'

And he put on Turn Around by Conor Maynard, a song so naff I couldn't make it through the first chorus. At least the absurdity of the request was a welcome change of pace considering the manic day we had; and I have a sinking suspicion that tomorrow is gonna be worse.

Clothes are everywhere

Went through my chest of drawers to see if I actually knew what was in there and if I recognized any of it, chucked a few bits away and the rest will be coming to a charity shop near you.* Louis was in a bit of a down mood today, especially after his bike broke so I got him some Skyrim DLC to keep him happy. There was also a bit of experimenting going on with our coffee machine as I attempted to create an awesome cappuccino, what I got was a big mess; guess I just stick to mochas in the time-being.

*Only in the Newbury area and that IF I get round to taking them down to Oxfam

Happy 2nd Birthday to the Blog!

As soon as it came to the beginning of October I knew that something special was around the corner, it felt like something had to be given a ceremony of some kind. Shortly later I realized that it was Cafe Studio's Birthday. This time however we shan't burden you with another rush video like last year! No no! Instead we bring you the first of the Cafe Studio's Podcasts, or as we like to call it, the Filmcast! So if you have even been walking to work, doing the ironing baking some scones and thought to yourself 'Damn, I wish I could listen to 3 lads have witty banter about films' then now you can! You can download the sound file in the link below so you can listen to it on the go or save it for later when your are curled up with a nice cuppa coco in your nest of a duvet with your headphones; at least thats our serving suggestion.

Podcast can be found here!

As also mentioned it has been 2 years since I started blogging and what a fun year it has been! Writing these things have certainly made me take a little bit more pride in my life and have hopefully brightened some of yours. Certainly doesn't feel like 2 years, seems like we were only filming 'The Unprepared Dead' yesterday, about time we did a commentary on that video methinks...

Thanks again for all the readers out there who take their time to have a good read about my life, I know often it ain't great but I often try to think of a high-point of my day and recall it in in a vaguely humorous manner; it's great to be an optimist! 

Another work load

Work again today. My kitchen hand went home a few hours after I got there because it was so un-busy. In this time there was a bit of a mad panic to clean out the fridges as we were suppost to get a repair man to check on it, but he never came. I also tackled a lot of food orders solo today to train myself to do it effectively. Remember to check out the Facebook page and the website tomorrow for more details on our podcast.

'Bad-Ass Indonesian Action Film'

Another limbo day for me, just some time to myself in between shifts at work. Plenty of time to read Maus which is just as good as I remember it the first time. Got a message from Mark asking if we wanted to do anything this evening so I suggested watching The Raid; our conversation was a little something like this:

Theo: 'Wanna come over and watch The Raid? It's a bad-ass Indonesian action film!'

Mark: 'Hmm, I dunno...'

Theo 'Empire gave it 5 stars'

Mark 'When can we come over?!'

While round we were in full swing to sort out plans for the Cafe Studios Podcast. We plan on making this a weekly segment thing where Mark, Dan and myself talk about our latest efforts in creating original content for our viewers and we also enthuse about films we have seen and really want to see. Top 5's, classic film reviews and even a small quiz will be done every week and rotated between the three of us and we are very excited to be recording our first podcast this Friday!

A night of entertainment

After a pretty standard day of work and washing my bedsheets I went over to Mark's house with the usual crowd in a 'Dan and Theo miss their girlfriends so lets give them some form of entertainment evening' thing. Really nice actually, got locked out of Eddie Catz as I thought Mark would be ready to pick me up, turns out the traffic was awful so I had to wait for a bit in the pouring rain. When he got me though, there was pizza with Total Wipeout and a viewing of Down With Love, a film destined to cheer everyone up. Told Mark that it was a guilty pleasure film and he just replied 'There is nothing guilty about watching this film!'

Adrien Brody Double Bill

As stated yesterday, I got around to watching a couple more films today that have been on my radar for a while now. The first being The Pianist which was very good, especially at the end when you got the sense that you had seen a great film. I did spend the first half thinking about Schindler's List and what a great film that was, but The Pianist was very good at creating a sense of desperation and destruction as one man hides for survival so they are very different films despite the similar subject matter. Adrien Brody was also very good in it, and he was also very watchable in The Darjeeling Limited a neat and quirky little film from Wes Anderson. All his trademarks are here but this film felt a lot more spiritual than the others, there is a lot less dialogue than in other of his films and what we get is a very beautiful and visual film with a very satisfying journey.