This is cut ‘n’ paste from FU, so apologies if you’ve already read it.

Van Helsing. Spoilers follow.

This could’ve been really, really bad. Supernaturally poor. Happily, it isn’t.

I was pretty certain I was going to love it from the moment the Universal globe went black and white and a mob of scythe-n-torch wielding villagers stormed up to a castle. Then when the castle’s occupants turned out to be Dr Frankenstein, his Monster, Igor and Dracula… how could you not love it? “Look, he’s heading for the windmill!” – well, where else do monsters in peril go?

This bravura homage to Universal movies past is immediately followed with a more straightforward “Hugh fights a big CGI monster” heroic establishing scene. Though the monster is a cocky, incomprehensibly Glaswegian Mr Hyde and it takes place atop Notre Dame, it’s not really the funnest thing ever. And this sets the tone. Van Helsing is best described as patchy. You’re unlikely to be bored (except perhaps during the execerable scene between Dracula and his Brides, which consists of nothing but shouting and screaming in Comedy Accents), but there are few genuinely thrilling moments, Sommers instead going for “solidly entertaining”.

Plot-wise, it’s actually pretty damn tight. Each element has clearly been thought out well, everybody has their purpose and some strands are carried through with a courage not usually found in yer average summer blockbuster HUGE SPOILERS FROM NOW, FOR GOD’S SAKE, LOOK AWAY UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE FILM, THEN COME ARGUE WITH ME ABOUT THEM For example, it was an interesting twist to have Van Helsing bitten by the werewolf. It genuinely imperilled the hero, and was disappointing when the “cure” was revealed. Should it go to a franchise, how interesting would it be if Van Helsing was a werewolf? Oh, well. At least they had the balls to whack Kate – something I honestly didn’t see coming. HUGE SPOILERS END

Performances were variable. Support was fun, from Shuler Hensley’s great turn as the Monster (sympathetic, arrogant, angry – what more you you want from the Monster?) and Kevin J O’Connor’s sadistic Igor to the hysterical (not in the funny sense) Brides of Dracula. I was disappointed that the brunette wasn’t offed earlier, though, as she really got on my nerves. The leads were, well, leads in a blockbuster. Hugh is always watchable, Kate is all Comedy Accent and corset and Richard Roxburgh varies wildly between ridiculous and slightly less ridiculous. His “standing on walls/ceilings/whatever” schtick is great, though. David Wenham’s Q-ish monk is by turns excruciating and a joy – I think you need to get used to him, really.

Um. So, yeah. It’s not going to rock your world, but you’re also not going to feel cheated out of a ticket. A success, I’d say. And not a flop. So ha.

Standing in line? That’s for chumps. Soon we will be waltzing into van Helsing… Will it be rubbish? Will it be good? You’ll have to wait and see. Personally, I hope it’s chips.

When I said standing on my head in that last post, I didn’t mean it was easy. I just meant I could perform a headstand while filling out the forms. Because.. I like the world through a red veil. Uh. It’s not easy. I just got a bit overconfident there.

I’m dying on hold. This is difficult enough as it is without the Stereophonics. I don’t want to be calling a debt recovery agency on a sunny Saturday morning… I’d rather not be calling them at all, ever, but these are the holes into which one digs oneself, I guess. My hands are starting to smell metallic from the trumpet of the phone – a gorgeous 1930s candlestick with separate ear and mouthpiece.. ooh, through!

Okay, well, that’s the amount there. 267.10. Huh. Not much. I could pay that one with an IVA, standing on my head. It’s the other one. The loan. And the other loan. Oh, fuck, the other loan. IVA! Please? Hello, student loans… Time to use the computer’s touchtone dialler… saves the dial on the antique, y’know?

pfah. Answerphone. Oh, well… Time to leave details… Or the first five words on my details, what the fuck? How short must their tape be? Am I speaking too slowly for them in t’north? I’ll call back on Monday.

Well. Ok. Progress, then? Amounts known – Student loan, credit card. Amounts unknown – bank loan. People spoken to – four. Machines spoken two – one. Not too bad. For some reason, speaking to Elaine at Capital One has made me thnk seriously about IVA… Could it possibly be the way to sort this out without going bankrupt? I hate the idea, because defaulting is such a big deal it’s scary, but… in practice… it might just be my salvation..?

So I didn’t do it at work. Sue me.
Anyway. As flapjack44.net might tell you, the ground floor is all but finished. The decor is fixed, the furniture is out, Space Telly is a-ok… The only missing component are curtains, fish and the storage unit. And my GameCube, which remains, cruelly, in a box in Wembley. I miss it like a limb. Sure, there’s a PSone, but it’s not the same, is it?

I know, I been bad. It’s been so long and…what? Battery low? Oh, man. I’ll try this again at work. Sorry. Love you all! Mwah! Mwah! Bye bye now..

Space Telly arrived. I’m tired again. All this TV is bad for a person, I’m sure. But not so bad that I’m going to stop, like. I think I should just, well, give it a rest. Maybe I won’t switch the TV on at all tonight. Okay, not back on after The Simpsons, anyway. Yeah, that sounds fair. Doesn’t it? No more!

Woah. I’ve had TV for less than two weeks and already I’m talking like a determined smack addict going into rehab.

I scribbled this in my notepad last night. Don’t know why, exactly, it’s not useful, but it is accurate. This was me, last night.

“It’s a fine evening on the Northern Line. I alight at Warren Street and push through the late-night crowds I have followed from Leicester Square. Most of them are foreign – I pick French, mostly, from the clamouring air about me. I smile, feeling like I could be anywhere. The black and white tiles at this station make me think of the Metro and I realise – Underground, we can be anywhere. Moorgate feels American, like New York, and for now Warren Street is France. I’m connected. Down on the Victoria Line platform, a breeze picks at my hair. After the swelter of the passages, it lifts my already lofty spirits higher. Paris on a spring night. London. Home. The train is here. Off we go.”

The world is crazy! Snow! Then no snow! Then snow again. My train was cancelled this morning, and the Victoria line was broken. The driver said over the intercom “I apologise for the more overcrowded than usual overcrowding..” which made me forgive them a bit for not having platform announcements.

Anyway, real news. I got home, well, we got home on Tuesday, and there was a box waiting. I say I, because she knew it was there already, and grrr argh! But not. Because it was a box containing happy. It was a box with 23 widescreen inches of pleasure. A TV. Oh, and what a lovely, lovely, shiny, thin, flat TV it is, too. And! And! Sky! On the 20th, Mr Sky is coming over to kill us and eat our puppies. Sorry, install Space Telly. Auto-response, used to work for OnDigital, nevermind.

So, in summary, I’m taking a day off tomorrow. I’ll probably spend most of it re-honing my Tekken 3 skillz, or watching Futurama, or or.. wow, there’s a lot of stuff to do. TV! How cool is that?

Also, lights are up now. There are 2 broken shades (one only a sixth of the entirety, one half of it). But that’s ok, these things happen and I’m confident things will sort themselves out somehow, things usually do. Easy for me to say. Anyway, the kitchen (mostly finished!) looks surprisingly extra-slinky with its new light-sources.

Farewell for today. I have your chickens, losers!

Today, no-one died.

Sunshine. You have to love sunshine. If you don’t love sunshine, you’re probably me as a teenager, affecting to love the rain sooo much more. Which, let’s be honest, I didn’t really. Because sunshine just makes you happy, doesn’t it? It’s like free prozac.

Agh! Man in long leather trenchcoat! Good god, when will people learn? Heh, saw someone in one of those in Maplins yesterday, actually, looking at computer components. And a book about how to build a robot. Dude! Do you ever want to get laid? I mean, in this life?

Anyway, will you look at the time?

[runs away while you’re looking at the clock]