283 words

Speedtest

1111 points, so you achieved position 324 of 1657392 on the ranking list
You type 1603 characters per minute
You have 283 correct words and
you have 16 wrong words

We had a lovely Christmas up in the North with Mum and Matt and a fun time for New Year down in Bristol at Becky and Dave’s house.

Since then, we have been really busy looking at houses to buy in and around Exeter. We have viewed so many but we have now finally found somewhere lovely in the hilly bit of St Thomas. We’ve been so busy because the whole process is going quite quickly. Obviously there is no chain our end due to being first time buyers, and there is no chain their end either because it is a second property for them. It’s a 3-bed semi with garden around 3 sides. It has a parking space and a garage so perfect for us with two cars now. The kitchen is the biggest we have seen in a house so it was perfect.

So far, we have arranged the mortgage and we’ve had the survey. I’ve yet to see the full survey but our mortgage company have and think that it’s ok to continue with the money lending so that is good. Our solicitor should now be continuing with searches and wot not so we’ll have to see how long that takes. Generally when I was at SWW we used to get them done within 48 hrs of receiving them but if there was any sort of problem, we had some kind of deadline of about 28 days or something so it could be longer. Let’s hope not!

Many animals were involved and my animal was a penguin. I don’t remember his name. I don’t remember much about my penguin except that the task of the day was to get your penguin to come to you from a few metres away. Eventually I trained my penguin to come to me and gave him lots of cuddles and strokings. I went to the other side of the training area so that he could come back to me, but he didn’t like waddling that way and wouldn’t come to me. I went to get him and he pecked me :(

At the end of the training, our leader / trainer took us inside for dinner. For some reason we had to sneak inside - maybe part of our training. It was all dark but you could see in the corner some spare ribs and some chicken frying. We managed to sneak past the people we had to avoid and later we ate some fried chicken and it was lovely.

Then I woke up.

YES! Finally. Let’s hope I can keep it going.

On Thursday, James and I went to the cinema with Mum and Matthew to see the new Will Smith movie, I Am Legend. I am quite fond of large-scale disaster movies such as The Day After Tomorrow, 28 Days Later and Independence Day and I Am Legend did quite well.

I quite like Will Smith. He’s a good actor and is quite versatile, doing action, comedy and serious drama all equally as well. I do hope he doesn’t go down the Tom Hanks route and get all serious for every movie though. I Am Legend would be a seriously challenging film for any actor because for the majority of the film, Will Smith is the only person in it! The down-side seems to be that not a great deal happens. Most of the film is just that - this one character going about his business. The movie’s sub-title could just have been “Will Smith does Acting“.

If you are really sensitive about spoilers, don’t continue reading this post but to be honest, there isn’t much to ‘give away’ because not much happens. Will Smith’s character is living alone in New York because he is immune to a terrible air-born disease that has either killed, or infected the rest of the world. The disease came about due to a doctor trying to harness the power of an existing virus (the measles), to enhance the immune system and therefore cure serious afflications such as cancer. This virus however, mutated and sent people’s metabolisms into hyper-drive to a point where their bodies could not sustain themselves without getting more blood. It spread massively due to also mutating to an air-born strain. Everyone who was infected became a bit crazy due to their body’s changes and thirst for the blood of others therefore even though there were quite a few survivors who were immune, they were all killed by the infected. All the senses of the infected were hightened, breathing became faster and skin became far more sensitive to UV rays forcing them to stay in the shelter during the day. Sounds all a bit vampire-like doesn’t it. Apparently in the book they are vampires however this isn’t expressly mentioned in the movie I Am Legend.

Anyway that explanation of what the hell is going on is all skirted over very quickly in the movie and you don’t really get enough explanation of what’s going on. I always think part of the true scariness of these types of movies is seeing the fall of the human race. In this film though, it is relegated to a few very short flash-back scenes. The scenes of the deserted city are very impressive though and are understandably used as much as possible.

My major gripe is one that I have with quite a few movies recently - the overuse of CG for characters that could have been played by real people. I am willing to admit that computer graphics are very very good nowadays and can be very successfully integrated into live action sequences. I do however think that some film-makers are deluding themselves into thinking that they can churn out anything in CG and it will look believable. Wikipedia notes that some reviews of the film said that “the infected just aren’t that scary” and they are right. The reason for this is that the depiction of the infected has lost all association with a recognisable human origin. I understand that the affects of the virus are supposed to have changed the body’s abilities etc but what was presented bore no real resemblance to the human it supposedly started as. The movement was very strange and the sounds the infected made didn’t sound anything like what would come from even a mutated human voicebox. There is no way that these characters could be truly scary in the intended manner unless you can look at them and have at least a tiny recognition of something human and be able to say ‘oh my god, look what’s happened to that person as a result of their infection’ rather than ‘what the hell is that? Oh, it’s another gross movie monster.’

The way that CG is executed is not yet good enough to have fully computer generated characters in my view but we see it all the time. It is good enough to add effects, but the characters just aren’t good enough alongside live action characters. The technology may well be there, but the people doing it haven’t got it yet. The close-ups should have been actors and CG used to complement this in wider scenes. In the context of CG, it was fantastic. In the context of trying to look real and scary, the movie bosses are deluding themselves if they think they’ve got it spot on yet. I still think we are years away from that.

I read this in The Times this morning. Online story here.

Molten cheese burns…eek! Get well soon Admiral dinner guests. Next time, you’d be better off going to the Ambassador’s reception and having Ferrero Rocher instead.

Can’t wait for the Christmas holiday!

Have decided to stick with Core Plan this week but try and reduce the amount I’m eating somewhat. Because I’m sticking with Core Plan for I think, the 4th or 5th consecutive week, I have boxed up my remaining Weight Watchers chocolate bars and put them in a cupboard. Of course, you are allowed to spend points on them, but I would prefer them to be out of temptation’s way so that I can stick to actual core foods as much as possible.

Here’s hoping this week is another successful weight-loss week.