Point of Attack

Buckled down for a good old writing session at the library and really made some stride on the next video review I'm working on. I found a good angle of attack for the article so that should make it feel a bit more unique and flavoursome. I'm also getting ready to head to London for a very quick chat about a long potential job coming up next month so fingers crossed that goes well.

Much later on in the day I got a job offer for a days shooting in Wimbledon, if they decide to definitely go with me then I'm in for a very hefty paycheck for it. Plenty of good news all round basically.

Deadpool 2

Took Rebecca out to see Deadpool 2 as part of our date night (her idea, honest) and it was rather enjoyable. If your a fan of the first one you'll very likely get a kick out of the sequel which has a bit more budget to fling around for the action sequences.
There were one or two moments that felt truly inspired, one comedy sequence I loved is clearly inspired by Mystery Men so that's an automatic thumbs up from me. I will say that the comedy didn't pack the same punch as it did in the original, maybe I'm just wise to the character now but I wished I laughed more than I did.

Snotty Work

My attempts to be more productive today were very nearly thwarted by my runny nose. I took off to the library without taking a hit of my hay fever nose-spray so I paid the price. I was sniffing and snorting for a fair old while before my worrisome side got the better of me and I decided to evacuate before my street cred with strangers was damaged any further. I left but ended up sending off an application shortly after, then a bit later I got a phonecall following up a CV I dropped to ITV about a days filming in Cardiff so I might be on the cards for that this weekend.

I also got a sudden burst of creative energy in that I got an idea for yet another video I wanted to do for Eyebrow Owl. I want to try and be a little more disciplined and speedy with my writing, my off the cuff stance often reads with a bit more personality than the stuff I try to polish to a mirror shine so I set myself a brief. I decided to play an indie game to completion and write a review of it as quickly as I could. So now I've got a recording of an entire play-through of Last Day of June followed by 75% of a review done for it. Not bad for a Tuesday.

Stay at Home Spiderman

Clearly we haven't been clubbing in a little whole because Rebecca and I were feeling very fragile this morning. Not that we were feeling I'll, just tired and unwilling to do much, the heat of the day made it hard be proactive too so we had a really easy going bank holiday Monday. We put on the latest Spiderman film in the evening, Rebecca hasn't really seen a modern Marvel film before so it was kinda nice to share that with her. Film was alright, just a good little romp with a semi-decent villain this time around but I still feel like he could have been pushed further. I think that's my recurring complaint for most of these movies, they need some slightly better or at least more interesting villains.

Coming back to Clubbing

Spent most of the day getting ready to go to Jenny's Birthday BBQ but because of the the torrential rain this morning it was changed to a 'drinks and nibbles' event - a wise choice. We chatted and drank for several hours and actually ended up going clubbing for the first time in two years and had a damn good time. Haven't danced that badly for some time.

Avengers: Infinty War

After going on my mini Marvel Marathon over the past week I at long last felt ready to go see Avengers: Infinity War with Mark and it was pretty good. We were both totally along for the ride and came out the cinema nodding our heads in approval.

Now a few hours have passed I will say that on reflection the whole film did feel like an extended action scene since the stakes were raised pretty early on in the film, it didn't even feel like it had a first act since it just dove straight into things. While that made for a pretty pacey movie (even at 160 minutes the film flew by) I do feel that no scene in particular really stood out, minus one or two 'epic' moments that were, in fairness, pretty epic. The action scenes themselves were only ok, we've seen better but I appreciate they had to juggle a lot of characters with this one so giving them all some ass kicking screen time was no easy feat.

Everything built up towards the ending which actually did something pretty unique for a Marvel film. It was easily the best moment too so it was worth the long journey to get there. Don't really want to spoil anything here, but lets say I approved. I am worried that the power of this film will be diminished slightly by the follow up next year. This is basically another one of those 'final chapter broken up into two parts' affairs like we got with the Harry Potter films. I don't know if this film will stand up on it's own this time next year it might just be viewed as yet another stepping stone towards the true ending we'll get later down the line.

Happy GDPR Day

Happy GDPR day everyone! Seriously, everytime I got the sound of an email come up on my phone I expected it to be a response to a job I applied for, but no. Subway giving me a courtesy update on their data protection. Dah well, I shot two applications off today to even the odds a little bit.

Think I've just about hit my endgame point with my Marvel Marathon as I caught up with Thor: Ragnarok late this evening and I had a blast with it. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the first Thor movie and this one disregards all of its Natalie Portman baggage to focus up on what makes the character tick. All with plenty of humour that didn't feel as tone-deaf af it does in some other Marvel films. So, I'm just about caught up now. Mark and I have set a time to go see Infinity War tomorrow and now that I've done my homework, I should get maximise my enjoyment. 

Live for Liver

While I did everything in my power to ensure I had a good driving lesson before hand (yes, I even did the Superman pose) I had one of those inexplicably bad lessons where I managed to get nearly everything wrong. Chalking it all up to experience, but it was still frustrating to mess up a lot of things I'd previously nailed.

Took a stroll up to Mark's pad this afternoon to do a bit of hedgehog sitting. I topped up her food and water bowls, gave her play area a little wipe down and even did a bit of poop scooping - hope Luna appreciates it all.

I came back starving so I rustled up the cheapest animal product I could get my hands on: pig liver! Never cooked liver before and it's highly likely I overcooked it to hell, luckily I whipped up a lot of gravy so that covered up any of the dryness and general overdoneness, made for a tasty treat overall.

Kooky Chicken

Figured I needed to get out the house a little bit so I went out to visit Louis and Rachel for a cup of coffee at theirs. I shared some of the free cakes I got yesterday and picked up a kooky little porcelain chicken which I still need to find a home for in our flat. 

After that I Knuckled down and finished up another application when inspiration for my next video very suddenly struck me. I spent a few more hours planning the message of the video and even started writing and structuring the script, with any luck the turnaround for this one should be a little bit faster than usual.

On more thing, I booked my driving theory test today, date is set for the 14th of June. Mark it in your calendars.

Back on Track

So in the midst of a few more job applications (found another good one today) I realised that I hadn't really heard anything about the upcoming shoot I was meant to be working on tomorrow in London. Around 4pm I shot off a quick email asking if the job had gone cold and sadly it had. Annoyingly though, they forgot to tell me so I had to cancel driving up to London with Rebecca this evening which was a bit of a shame. She's off to Poland until the weekend and it would have been nice to spend a bit of time together before going away.

I was pretty miffed this afternoon, and also a lot more available in the evening than I had expected. So I decided to do something a little bit productive to get the aggression out, by going for a run. I plotted a route and headed out for the first time in about two years. All things considered I did pretty well too, I ran just under 4K which is great for a first session.

My evening got even better too. While I was in ASDA, the woman at the checkout just point blank offered me some free cakes to take home. Of course I said yes.

After Effects Part Deux

I took it upon myself to try and catch up with all the Marvel movies I've missed so far so I can watch the latest one with Mark this weekend. I found out the hard way that there's just so bloody many of them! I put on Captain America: Civil War this afternoon and I was a little bit nonplussed by it. It was remarkable just how little of Captain America is actually in this film and how little time is dedicated to his character. Marvel films are always a bit of a mixed bag.

Tried my hand at a bit more of After Effects too today and followed some YouTube tutorials on how to do some simply, but nifty effects. First one is a smoother version of the one I posted a few days ago, with the text coming out from behind an object... but now with added motion blur!

That one didn't take too long to do. This next one though caused me a bit of grief since every tutorial gave me a totally different way to do it, but I kept looking until I found one that worked for me. This is a reveres version, where something swoops in to cover the text. It's imperfect, but it's serviceable: Enjoy some more doughnut footage.

Dan in Bristol

Whipped up some breakfast pancakes for our guest Dan, I tried out the OJ batter mixture that Dad introduced me to and it never fails to make a lighter, fruiter pancake that goes down a treat. We played games and a very tense match of Left 4 Dead before we parted ways and sent him off to catch his train home. Really good to see Dan again and actually have a chance to hang out, he's one of the easiest guests we've had stay with us so he can come again!

Royal Wedding BBQ

In defiance of the Royal Wedding, we all went up to the Bristol Downs to have a lovely BBQ with Mark, Lucy, Jenny and Daniel. We grilled up some burgers and played Kubb in the gorgeous sunshine and just generally had a jolly old time in each others company. We even cracked the Frisbee out, you could tell we were each slowly getting better at throwing as the session went on.

Daniel is back with us tonight, staying on our floor, we were all pretty shattered after we got back from the BBQ so after a few quick rounds of Mario Kart we decided to retire. Games and pancakes are on the cards tomorrow morning!

Meaty Hijinx

Tomorrow I'm gonna help Mark rustle up some stonking good burgers for his Birthday BBQ, and to do that you first need to start with good meat so I called upon a local butchers for some chuck steak. I havn't really been into a butchers since moving to Bristol and I couldn't have found a more traditional place. It was a classic family butchers, complete with chatty staff who wanted to know all about my weekend. Brought a hefty portion off them and if it makes for some tasty burgers then I'll definitely be leaving them a good review on Google Maps.

Outside of my meaty hijinx, I've taken it upon myself to start learning After Effects, not only will it make me a bit more employable, but it's just a good thing to teach myself. Just about got my head around how to move text about and create masks, so I put those skills to good use to make this delicious bit of subliminal messaging:

I'm still very new to it but the software already feels less intimidating. If I make anything else witty I'll share it here.

Also, I did do a blog post yesterday, for whatever reason it didn't fully publish - it's down below now in case you wanna catch up.

Worthwhile Videos

For a few years now, I've kept a little webpage about game journalism jobs bookmarked in my browser. Today marked the first time I plucked up the courage to apply for one of those positions. I wrote up a lovely covering email and linked them to some of my written and video work - the role was purely voluntary, but it's still good exposure and experience.

A few moments ago, a member of the team got back to me and told me they already had a pair of writers on the cards but then asked if I would be interested in joining as a video editor for them. They still needed to iron out some details, they weren't initially looking for a video guy but they were fans of my work and I guess they saw some potential. Hopefully I'll have some good news on that end to report soon.

The Red Turtle

Lotta good things happened along the ride that was today. First up, our new kettle arrived! No longer do we have to rely on our nespresso machine to slowly pump out hot water for our morning coffee - I even tried making a brew under the hot tap this morning... Never again.

Secondly, my driving lesson wasn't half bad. Towards the end my instructor slapped me with a little post-it note and said 'Turn up the pressure and push yourself a bit by booking your test.' That was probably the most encouraging thing he's ever said to me.

Last up, I pinged off yet another application to an impromptu job I saw on Facebook. Sometimes these ones can be quite lucky and I wrote a really solid email to them so fingers crossed, once again.

The only real let-down of the day was The Red Turtle, a film I've been dying to see and tonight all the stars aligned and we decided to watch it. The film just didn't connect with me whatsoever, even when I really tried to go along with it I just felt some barrier between me and the message of the movie. Maybe I just don't have the life experience for it to truly resonate with me? Who knows. May have to give it a re-watch in a few years time.

Jogging for YouTube

Spent the day running about on yet another day filming job. This time I was down at the YouTube space in London, a rather trendy little studio location where there's a barista who make you whatever you want... For free. We all took advantage of that while working on a short video raising awareness for tourettes. A famed YouTuber interviewed a handful of young people with the condition, everyone seemed pretty chuffed with what we got so it'll hopefully end up being a nice little film.

I was mostly running about getting lunch orders for people and later an emergency supermarket sweep for a specialist hard-drive. All the while, I jogged between shops and totally hit my stride, more than ever now I believe I can start running again.

Fahrenheit 451

Locked myself into an unbelievably naff rut while working on my latest covering letter. Even though I locked myself away from games, YouTube and other means of distraction, I just found myself daydreaming rather than cracking on and writing it, and that really made me feel rubbish. It'll get done one way or another, but today was an usually bad day for applying.

Found myself being a lot more motivated on the coach though as I powered through the last half of Fahrenheit 451. Rebecca lent it to me while we were in Exeter but it kept ending up on my backburner after I picked up a few books from the library. Really enjoyed it though, good sci-fi which is well paced and has some really well written sections, bring on some more Bradbury I say!

I'm in London tonight and tomorrow working on a project in the YouTube filming space, more on that tomorrow though!

Running in the Sunday Sun

Cheered Dad and Louis on as they passed the finish line for the Bristol 10K. Got me thinking about getting back into running too, never hurts to do a bit of exercise. Since the family was all together we went out to lunch at, you guessed it, Mezze Palace (now called Beirut Mezze) and then just relaxed in a nearby park, it was a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Rebecca and I just finished watching all of Over the Garden Wall which is possibly one of the best things I've seen all year. And because the whole thing is structured as a mini series it meant there was a wholly satisfying resolution after the heartwarming, humorous and occasionally creepy journey.

Eurovision 2018 (Chicken Winner)

The marinaded chicken came out as an absolute winner! In celebration of Eurovision being hosted in Portugal I decided to prep some Nando's style chicken bits that went down a storm. Louis brought some nachos over that made for some ideal snacking material during the main event, overall we ate very well.

The Eurovision threw multiple curveballs to make for a hugely entertaining watch. While I did manage to guess the winner, all my other estimates were WAY off, here I was thinking I had a decent Euro barometer. No matter though because it was still an excellent night! Best of all, I got chatting to an old coursemate during the show and we provided a running commentary to each other - we are both avid fans of Eurovision and hadn't spoken in ages so it was good to touch base with them.

Just Sauce

Another driving lesson under my belt and this one didn't go as well as some of the previous ones. It was frustrating because I kept making several small mistakes, even after I tried to focus up and get things right.

One thing I did get right and sorted today was another application, shot it off early this afternoon, just in time to tick the last box in my weekly 'to-do' list so now I can enjoy the weekend a bit more. One thing I am really looking forward to tomorrow though is dinner since I started prepping for it this evening. I've never marinated chicken overnight but the extra effort should really pay off, especially after I got right under the skin to spread on the sauce. If it turns out good tomorrow, I may even put a picture up! 

Thor Dark World

Finished up yet another application, this time for a paid training scheme with Channel 4. Wrote them a really nice covering letter which I think is one of my best so I've got some high hopes for this one. To celebrate, I watched the second Thor film: Dark World. I was chatting to someone the other day about all the Marvel films and I realised I was a little bit out of touch seeing as I hadn't seen a contemporary one for about 4 years after Winter Soldier. I still stand by my dissatisfaction at that film and I think that's what put me off watching them for a while. Thor Dark World however may be my new least favourite only because its overwhelmingly boring. I seriously don't know what filled up the two hour run time, there was some very tame action sequences and characters talking, but it all felt so passionless. Superhero films are meant to be a bit of fun and this one just felt like it was running through the motions.

Breaking Around me

Got increasingly grumpy as the day went on as seemingly everything was going wrong around me. First up, our kettle has broken. Granted this actually happened yesterday but we didn't have to deal with the consequences of that until this morning when we were forced into boiling water in a saucepan for our coffee.

Much later I was applying for a job and they wanted me to make a vlog style video. seeing as I don't have a camera I have to use my webcam, which has worked fine in the past, but for whatever reason this time round it just wasn't playing ball. After recording the whole video the video file corrupted immediately, undoing all the work I put into it.

Feeling miffed, I decided that a quick game would help me blow off some steam. Booted up a game and noticed something was off with my controller. For whatever reason, one of the analogue sticks became loose so the camera in games keeps on drifting. To fix it, I'll probably have to crack it open, but only after I receive a special screwdriver I need which will take three weeks to arrive in the mail.

And lastly, while making my batch of over-night oats for the morning, I noticed the milk started to 'chunk' it's way out of the bottle. Had to throw away all the other bits which was a shame, but now I'm worried about that white russian I had earlier...

Moana

Back to applying for jobs today and a production training scheme with Channel 4 is at the top of my hit list. I've filled out all the boxes so far but they hit me with a little bit of a curveball and asked me to make a small vlog style video answering some questions. Been writing the script for that for a part of the day while doing all the other odd jobs that surfaced over the weekend.

This evening we went up to visit one of Rebecca's friends for a little BBQ get together, there was meant to be a slightly bigger group of us there, but lots of people had various other commitments and it ended up just being the three of us. I whipped up a tasty salad to bring (very adult of us) and after eating we tucked into Moana, the latest Disney film which I really enjoyed. Lot of feel good vibes and toe-tapping music, it didn't push the boat out too far (pun intended) but it was wholly entertaining with some amazing visuals.

Jack Ain't Coming Back

Popped round to Mark's for some spicy pasta dining and to get a little bit further in resident Evil 7. Last time we played, which was a few months ago now, we got stuck in some very nasty basement section which culminated in a shirtless chainsaw death-battle with a bad man called Jack. Mark and I took it in turns to fight the boss and multiple times the biggest enemy turned out to be the batteries in his controller, shutting off at some really critical moments. But after a lot of swearing and tense moments, we put Jack to sleep for good, Mark did the deed and he looked pretty smug when it was all over.



Headed back to be with Rebecca since she was feeling especially gloomy today. I took her out for ice-cream and then to Brandon Hill to take in the sights on this especially warm day. We watched the sun go down in Victoria Park with a picnic by our side and books in our hands. Rebecca just needed a little bit of extra loving today since she was really down in the dumps - she's much better now though and is currently falling asleep behind me while I write this.

Balderdash

Went through London to Newbury for a nice cooked lunch with my folks followed by a walk round the bluebell forest, aka, the best kept secret in Newbury. Just this really quaint little nature that's full of bluebells this time of year, it was fairytale like at times.

We headed back to Bristol in the evening to play Balderdash with friends, I'm pretty sure I lost by the end but it was all good fun.

Chicken, Wine and Friends

Drank coffee with breakfast, coffee again meeting up with Rebecca's friend and then wine while having dinner with some old uni friends. We ticked a lot of social boxes today and it never once felt like a chore. It's always a pleasure to catch up with old friends... especially when your friends are cooking you a whole chicken for dinner and don't stop pouring the wine.

Florence

I crunched mega hard to get my new video all done and dusted before Rebecca drove us both down to London and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. So below, I proudly present 'Florence and Ken Wong's Approach to Mobile Gaming'.

I read up about this little game called Florence that was coming to mobile a few months ago, since it's made by the same guy behind Monument Valley I figured I had to check it out. It turned out to be one of the best gaming experiences I've had on mobile and it painted a big old smile on my face. Even if you don't try out the game down the line, seek out the soundtrack because the music is so good too. This is probably my most researched/journalistic video I've made so far, and as I said above, I am super happy with it so I hope you enjoy:

No Fee VR

Took an extended lunch break to meet up with Mark to take advantage of some FREE VR! We cashed out our little '1 Free Play' tokens we got last time and opted to play a bit of a minigame called Longbow where you use a bow and arrow to defend your castle from little minions. Arms got a bit sore after a while, but it was a fun little archery game.

And because they know us both so well in there, they decided to give us a not only a free game, but a trial playing a fun little beta for a flying / shooting game which was pretty groovy. Absolutely trashed Mark at the game too. After saying goodbye to Mark I hooked up with Rebecca and took a little midday walk with her in the sun.

In terms of work, I shot off yet another job application and begun work on editing my next video. Finished up the script this morning and I've recorded and cut the speech all together, only thing left to do is put a bunch of visuals to it which will take most of tomorrow to do I reckon. After that's out in the world though I can really dedicate my attention to my job hunt.

Bay Park Wonder

Just about nailed the bay park maneuver during my driving lesson today, really pleased with myself in general now as I can start to see myself doing more complicated bits more instinctively. I still get a little flustered at times when there's a lot going on, but again, this is exactly what driving lessons are for.  

Continued working on some applications and confirmed a filming job in about two weeks time. With a bit of time to spare on the clock I even decided to turn back to the script for my next video to sharpen it up a bit, and now I think it just needs a fresh pair of 'tomorrow eyes' and I'll start recording it. Very much looking forward to getting some new content out.

Informal Formalities

Rattled through a few more bits on this weeks to do list at the library today. In particular, I think I have developed a slightly sharper writing style for covering letter. The tone is my more relaxed, and that gives me a bit of breathing room to change up the pace a bit to deliver something that actually reads really well. I don't feel the same pressures of writing a super formal letter either so I can churn them out much faster, the speed of my writing has always been a bugbear of mine and I'm always looking to improve that aspect.

In addition to that I got round to finishing up the new Deus Ex game which I've been playing on-and-off over the last month, feels weird not having a go-to game in the evenings now though, guess I need to find something else to play. I also opted to stay up a little later to read Charles Burns' recent book Last Look which was pretty damn good, one of the better graphic novels I've read for a long old while.