Super Movie Making!

Saturday was a very busy day of film making, with a Jenni's Angels team assembling to create a superhero origin story. There is much to be said about this, but I must keep my comments brief as I have muchos work to do: - Superhero costumes were beautiful - Garage set design/dressing was genius - Spidey-cam was an inspired idea from our wonderful director - Much fun can be had in spite of pressure - Misbehaving watches are an unexpected way to boost confidence (we still have time!), but not a good way to actually stay ahead of the sun - The montage is pure genius. Now we need to find montage music that we can actually use - Our friends are incredibly helpful and accomodating, and the efforts of everyone present were hugely, massively appreciated! It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun, and I am damn glad to have been a part of it.

Short Films-a-go-go

It's been a busy holidays. I think I have finished editing the first of the short films we made last week. It's a teacher-student short for Moviefest about getting a date for the school ball. It was planned on Tuesday (I was there for about an hour towards the end), then shot on Wednesday. We used Norman's very nice camera to film it, and shot in and around the school. Everything was shot inside, as it was raining very heavily on Wednesday. The editing process started on Wednesday night, then was interrupted by filming on Thursday. We had scripted another short film for the Moviefest competition about a woman getting revenge. It had a cast of 3, and a crew of one and a bit - me, with a little help from actors when they weren't in front of the camera. Fraser helped out with sound, and Debbie did makeup. I was director/camera/sound/lighting guy. There's a rough cut of the film on the hard drive, which Debbie and I put together on Thursday night and Friday morning, before we headed off to Christchurch to visit family. Since we got back I've been beavering away at the school based film (now finished, barring obvious fixes that may crop up), and helping Debbie get ready for the school production which is looming. Paint shopping, painting set stuff, designing posters, that kind of thing. We may be off to buy fabric later today, but I've inconveniently booked a guy to put in a cat door this afternoon. Hopefully all will go well timing-wise? We also had a crack at writing a version of the script for the Jenni's Angels Moviefest entry - Jenni sent out her first draft, and several people were riffing on it to feed her ideas. I am pretty excited about short film number 3 for this holidays. Again I'll be technical guy, which means I don't get to play a superhero. If I was going to play MENTOR I'd want to attach a cape to a tweed jacket, and get a pipe and monacle. Heh, that'd be cool. So, busy holidays. Three short films in 2 weeks. Writing, directing, camera-ing, sounding, editing. I have improved my Premiere-Pro Fu considerably already, and a superhero story should provide some interesting challenges. Better get back to tidying!

Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way

Whilst on a recent trip to Christchurch (where we ended up hanging out with family rather than going to BoD) I picked up a 6 CD recording of Bruce Campbell's book Make Love* *the Bruce Campbell Way. It's a radio-play style recording of a book about Bruce being cast in an A-list movie with Rene Zellwegger and Richard Gere. He got a bunch of his friends to join him in recording it. He does the narration as well as playing himself - the book is written in first person, so that works pretty well. Brief Review: It's frikkin awesome. Hilarious. Genius. Longer Thoughts: Bruce Campbell is a very funny guy, and has a great voice for radio. The book is a straight-faced send-up of what might happen if Bruce Campbell ever did get his B-grade hands on an A-grade film, with a light romantic comedy devolving into gags with dummies being thrown out of windows and shots using 'shakey-cam', a camera bolted to a 2X4, with handles on each end. It made me very keen to construct my own shakey-cam - it allows you to film running chase scenes, and rise up over cars and other obstacles. Groovy. The book is filled with (presumably real) anecdotes from Bruce's career, and with highly fanciful scenes of Bruce 'researching' for his new role. One of my favourites is when he impersonates an old Southern gent to infiltrate a gentlemen's club, in order to learn more about how to portray his doorman character (who is a Southerner, and needs to be 'more of a gentleman'). There's also a very, er, prurient section involving an SUV that vibrates at a... stimulating frequency. There are of course complications that arise, and Bruce faces each one head-on. It's a pacey, entertaining, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable downward spiral. Well worth every penny, and sure to be listened to many a time. Nice work Mr Campbell, nice work indeed.

The Wheels on the Bus Go WTF?

Some recollections and reconstructions from the recent celebrations. Please feel free to add more - I'm sure there were many more hilarious moments that I did not witness or do not remember.

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Fraser: Nick speaks in sound bites.

Nick: I'm not your SUV of alcohol consumption.

Fraser: Don't worry Nick, we think of you as our Astin Martin of alcohol consumption, with rockets under the licence plate

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Gino and Steve: Wait, was that a boy or a girl? The entire cast dies in episode one - there goes our idea for a reality TV show. [explaining why 'Platypus Humpers' would never work as a TV show - the male platypus having dangerous poisonous spines on the back of its rear legs]

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Nick: You can tell your vegetables from your fruits.

Matt: Yep, the dirty stinking vegetables live underground, unlike the clean, noble fruits.

Nick: Except for, like, lettuce. Which is a vegetable. But not as low class as, say, a potato.

Matt: Yes, the filthy underground vegetables are the peasants of the fruit and veg kingdom, the dung shovelers and village idiots…

Nick: And the above-ground vegetables are more the skilled workers and merchants…

Matt: While the lofty tree-fruits are the nobility. But what's a coconut? Is it a nut, or a vegetable, or the mighty king of the fruit and veg kingdom?

Luke consults a dictionary.

Luke: It's a seed.

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After inspecting the stove, the conclusion is reached that the names on the dials would make an awesome A-Team style group: Fan Force, featuring Max Grill, his brother Turbo Grill, and… many more?

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The idea of a jigging lane, much like a moving footpath or travelator, was discussed, however it would only move if you were jigging. Such a lane could loop around Kapiti and allow people to move more quickly, in a jigging fashion. The jigging highway would be a multi-lane version of the same, with fast lanes for people breakdancing or rocking out Kevin Bacon style.

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A short competition of running down the corridor going AAAAAAHHHHH! Takes place. Nick walks down the corridor sans AAAAAHHHHH!.

Matt: Nick, do it again, that was totally lame.

Nick: I'm not even in your competition.

Matt: Dude, you got a D minus. You can so do better than that.

Nick: I'm having no part of this.

Matt: You just got downgraded to an F.

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Nick: Those hotdog sticks are too hot. If I tried to eat one my oesophagus would totally rebel, and choke me to death.

Viv: Your own oesophagus would betray you?

Nick: It so would, that slimy bastard.

Matt: Don't worry Nick. I'm totally ready to cut your throat open and stuff a broken biro in there for you to breathe through. I've always wanted to perform an emergency tracheotomy. Eat all the hot-dog sticks you like.

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Giffy sings 'sexy' version of Rubber Ducky. It's all in the intonation (and duck-stroking)

Things to Do

A list for Matt: - teach 4 lessons - run 1 detention - finish cleaning / emptying the old flat (not much left to do) - get garage door openers installed - change 2 light switches - new light fittings for lounges - bank some cheques - get bill from lawyer to bank - redirect mail, pick up big stack of change-of-address postcards - book a video camera for the holidays - have a beer (at the end of today) - pick up last curtain from Lower Hutt - go home promptly for phone connection - enjoy holidays - duck home to pick up apples for shared morning tea period 2 Better dash!

We are in

We now live in our new house - complete with nice carpet. There's a bunch of stuff still at the old house - probably in the neighbourhood of a carload of stuff in the kitchen area, plus lots of old boxes in the garage that we didn't use for packing. Hopefully we can get clear of the old place tonight - we have until Sunday, so there's no panic, but it would be nice... Lots of unpacking to do at home. The good news is that there are only 2 days between us and the holidays! We should have the phone on at our new place tonight - same number as before. So once we set the computer up, we'll be all internetty again. There are a number of audiobooks that are in the public domain (creative commons recordings of texts that are in the public domain, like Sherlock Holmes) that I am interested in downloading, so that's likely to be on the menu for the near future. Icy window on the car today - had to scrape it off with a kiwifruit spoon.

Burns, Curtains, Aches...

Our house has curtains now, thanks to the combined efforts of Debbie, Barbara, Luke, Sam and myself! And a little over $1000. The curtains look good. Hanging curtains is tiring work, especially with nothing to stand on (there is no furniture in our house yet). Holding your arms over your head for extended periods of time is less than fun, and for some odd reason has made my jaw ache. I also changed a light fitting (yay me!) which again involved much arms-over-head action - though this time I was standing on a chair (brought over by the wonderful Luke and Sam). So our house has one piece of furniture in it. Disregard my earlier lies. Our house also has about 80 - 90% of our kitchen stuff in it, plus sundry other bits and bobs. We are waiting for the $5000 worth of new carpet to go in before taking anything over that has to sit on the floor, like furniture or guitars or bean-bags (which are furniture) or... stuff. A less-than-fun fact about the curtain hanging is that it hurt my poor finger. I kept banging the back of my finger very gently against the railings or the wall, which would have been fine except that I burned myself on the iron on... Thursday? Friday? One of the days near the end of last week. I merely brushed my finger against the iron, and it hardly hurt, but I noticed a small red patch on the back of my finger an hour later, and today have had falling-off-skin and banging against tracks and walls, and it has been minus-fun. The amount of skin that fell off was smaller than my pinky-fingernail, and my finger doesn't hurt as much as my jaw (except when I wash dishes in hot water and my finger says ouchee), so really I can't complain. Any more than I already have. Until tomorrow. When I may post further complaints. Other people post interesting things on their blogs. Honest. Maybe you should... go... read... one of them?

28 so far (Grumpy, old Debbies)

 Well, I have been 28 for one week now. There is not a great deal of change between 27 and 28 but I have noticed a couple of subtler changes. 1. I feel grumpier. I guess it could be the stress of moving house and end-of-term* pent-up rage but I feel really grouchy. Seriously, I'm considering moving into a trash can on Sesame Street and being surly and sarcastic at children and muppets. 2. I feel more vulnerable to the cold and whinge about the weather more. I caught myself joining in one of those conversations that more mature ladies at work have about the cold. This isn't just one of those polite quick chats about the weather. This was in depth analysis and complaining about which joints and bones hurt more in the cold, the lack of proper heating, cost of electricity and thermal underwear, a pessimistic view that the 'worst was yet to come' and a general agreement that winter nowadays was not as good as the winters used to be in the old days. The thing is that I couldn't stop. I have continued to blather and bitter lament the cold weather for the duration of most days. I don't even know if I can have a conversation about topics other than the cold weather anymore. 3. I have become more forgetful. I am added to my reputation with my form class as 'senile' with my continually calling students by the wrong name. I also say the wrong words in sentences all the time. 4. I crave tea and gingernuts. Ok, it's not really a symptom of being old so much as a sign of being cold. * Students lighting fires in bathrooms on cold, rainy days really doesn't help. Evacuating in bad weather really sucks.** ** It also sucks when the fire alarms manage to short a fuse in the scool's wiring and we have a power cut for most of the afternoon!

Best Associate Principal Evah!

I have only taken 3 days off work this year, if I recall rightly. One was a course I was sent on (about Media Studies - interesting stuff which will prove valuable later this year). One was the Monday after the 48. I now have permission to take another day off - moving house day. It will be awesome to have a bit of time to get unpacked and sorted on the day we move. One thing I really appreciate this year is that we have a wonderful gentleman as AP who is retiring at the end of the year. He's a very quietly spoken chap, very polite and friendly and all-round great. In fact, he's the kind of teacher I should quite like to be in a few years. One of the things that I enjoy about having him as AP is that he's very approachable, he remembers when you've done him a favour (like covering a class when there aren't enough relievers), and I don't feel like I have to be disingenuous when dealing with him. I wanted a day off to move, so I asked him a week in advance and told him the reason. He took a day or two to check how feasible it was, then approved. One of the reasons I like to get this sort of thing sorted up front is that I then have zero guilt about 'throwing a sicky', the school knows in advance and can get a releiver sorted, and it helps build my personal loyalty to the management of the school. The flip side of this I guess is that if he'd said no, and I threw a sicky anyway, it would have been pretty obvious and detrimental to my reputation and the working relationship. I'm not sure I would have asked if someone else was in his position - someone I didn't both hold in high regard and trust. On balance, it's clearly to my advantage to have such a person in the position. I'm not sure whether it's to the school's advantage: maybe more people take days off if they know the person they have to talk to is going to be a gentleman about it? On the other hand, I haven't heard many people grumble about being asked to help cover a lesson, and if the Ministry funds relievers anyway, it may not cost the school anything. I'm glad he's there, and am happy to have been given the day off. So I say hooray and huzzah! Note to self: check sick day allowance in PPTA contract. I've only taken about 6 sick days in the last 2 and a half years, moving included, so I'm sure I have a bunch left over, but it's nice to know exactly.

Masses of debt!

We bought a house today. We owe the bank $250,000. It is imaginary money, and a real house, so I'm fairly happy :) It's a little sad to see our wee savings account looking so low - and it will continue to get sadder as we pay for necessities like moving and carpet and garage-door-openers and such. Still, our mortgage is small enough that we can afford to both spend and save while we're on 2 incomes, so that's all good. We can pay for what we have to, and still be putting $ aside for future stuff like further renovations and funding Matt and Debbie junior and such. We are both very tired, and are looking forward to the holidays like crazy.

Nearly there

It's a nice feeling to be getting close to moving in to our house. There are still a few hurdles to get over - the actual packing and moving being fairly significant ones - but it's all getting close and getting exciting too. I am also getting close to a couple of very positive things at school: *Holidays! They are always great (and very necessary - nobody would be a high school teacher if you didn't get sufficient down-time to unwind). *Reduced workload. I am actually working more hours than is contractually permissable at the moment, as well as having a TIC responsibility. It's only one extra hour, but it does mean that I have a 5 lesson day that is sometimes also the day I have to do detention duty at lunch-time. I will be reducing my workload by at least 4 hours a week next term - 4 hours less that I have to teach, 4 hours more preparation time. Bliss! I should also be dropping the study class that I have once a week, but I suspect that I'll end up stuck with it as the teacher I'm class-sharing with is teaching a Year 9 class that period. I've been good this year, and I've taught all my extra lessons in the first half of the year. If I do manage to get that 5th hour of reduction, I'll be extra happy! So, I'm generally feeling very positive and hopeful and busy and cold. In exciting consumer news I bought myself some big chunky padded headphones, and they sound awesome. Only $20, but very nice sound quality. They're especially good when I'm working in my office, which is attached to my classroom, and there are Year 9's in there making the kinds of noise that Year 9's make. So much easier to concentrate on the not-work (or, on rare occasions, work) when there is music and reduced sound from outside. They will also come in handy if I'm junior editing again for the 48! Lastly, big Happy Birthday to my Papa, for today, to Debbie, for tomorrow, and to my nephew, for Monday (must get card in post). June is a busy birthday month for my family!

Last night of 27

 Well, tomorrow is my birthday and I still don't feel grown up.

I remember as a kid getting all excited the day before my birthday. I often became so hyper about the impending birthday that I couldn't sleep and started feeling sick and squirmy. A lot of the excitement was admittedly about the prospect of cake, presents and parties. I generally started planning my birthday party theme and birthday cake* a good 6 months in advance (as soon as Xmas was over, it was time to start thinking about the birthday). Dad used to make these incredibly cool customised games for whatever theme the birthday party was. There was usually an adventure game which was kind of like a LARP meets a pick-a-path now that I think about it. There would be illustrated booklets stuck on the walls over the house with numbers. All the kids had characters and you can to read the story and then there would be a choice about where you had to go next. Quite often there was a puzzle you had to solve or a challenge. Victory results in candy prizes. It was so good.

The theme was generally extended through other more traditional party games like pass-the-parcel, the mask or outfit you had to wear for the chocolate eating game and the musical chairs variant we had 'Here comes the keeper'.

However, I like to think that my love of birthdays was not purely mercenary. I loved the idea of growing up - getting physically bigger, becoming smarter and wiser, learning more about life and the world. I felt impatient to get older and become better. I think I associated aging with 'levelling up' (I guess I did start playing D&D at the tender age of 5). It was as though having a birthday meant that I should get to roll a +1D6 more hit points and become more powerful.

I would always run to the mirror on the morning of my birthday to see if I had noticeably changed. This continued through my teenage years, the thoughts were maybe a little more sophisticated but it was the same idea. That somehow turning a year older would make me a better person.

Somewhere in your twenties that notion starts to fade. I don't feel appreciably smarter, wiser, tougher or more powerful in teaching-fu than I did a year ago. If I try to look back objectively to say 2 1/2 years ago when I started teaching, I can see that I have improved in that I feel more confident and relaxed about it. Maybe the whole process slows down as you age - it takes longer to progress to the next step in your development.

Hmm, distracted by husband comments from the other side of the room. Random. Sometimes statements made by your spouse as he works at a neighbouring computer can be unexpected.

Example: "Awesome. You can download Tony Blair speeches."

Ok, it turns out he was only wanting them for sample speeches for school but it was unexpected nonetheless. At least it wasn't Tony Blair images he was excited about downloading. That would be freaky and gross**.

* Our family had this excellent Children's Birthday Cake Recipe Book and I would spend countless hours pouring over the pictures and selecting which cake I wanted. There were animal cakes (I had the rubber ducky and the pig), candy store shaped cakes, fairytale castles cakes and gingerbread houses, and lots of other amazingly pretty yet delicious cakes.

**More disturbing than having a pin-up of Margaret Thatcher even. At least she had balls. He is like a neutered Thatcher.

Believe it or not

 Hmm, Matt just received notice from the Game Chef folks that they were short-listed for the Diana Jones Award. For a second I thought that the Monster Hunter phenomena had spread further than I had even imagined.

However, reality kicked back in and I discovered that Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming is in fact so named after a rubbed off engraving.

"Who is Diana Jones?

Nobody. The only visible part of the Indiana Jones logo within the trophy has been burnt away so that it reads Diana Jones, and the award takes its name from that." Source: http://www.dianajonesaw
ard.org/

So did the writers in fact name the Monster Hunting Action Heroine after this? Am I the only one who didn't get this as Gamer in-joke? Is it just a coincidence?

Boys Up the Rear

Regan's party was a lot of fun, and there were many random moments:

Nick and I performing the world's lamest shady underworld exchange - transferring 'the package' (Mighty Boosh audio files) from my ipod to his. We did have the technological challenge of getting the computer turned on, which was harder than we anticipated. We discussed whether we ought to hit it with sticks and bones (male model styles) but triumphed in the end using our massive, massive brains.

The boy band! Morgue, Svend, Erik, Jarratt and myself were dubbed 'Boys Up The Rear'. Our first single was going to be called 'Rear Up'. I think I was the one who could actually play an instrument (though wouldn't on any songs on our first album. I was allowed to strum a guitar on a ballad on the second album). I was the most likely to leave and do a solo project.

Nick had left the band just before we went big to pursue a screen career, and I was his replacement. Morgue was the bad boy. Jarratt was the soulful one. Erik and Svend were the brothers. I think Erik died in a tragic gasoline-fight incident, and his ashes were placed in an urn. He lived on the edge, and continued to be on the edge after death on a specially made mantel that would allow him to be simultaneously at the rear and on the edge.

It was all a little silly. Debbie was our manager, and Jenni signed on as our stylist. We had Sock Dreams sponsorship, and were going to pose for a RHCP tribute photo - with extra long socks.

Then there was the Morgue and Svend show, which viewers enjoyed but found hard to hear at times. The fan base grew pretty quickly, and there was lively discussion on the boards about the tension between the characters, the possibility that all of season one was going to turn out to be a dream sequence, and the odd fact that Nick seemed to be in the background of every shot.

Lastly for today: Swooning. For the safety of ladies, a couch should be handily placed to swoon onto. Morgue dubbed this a swouch. For those situations where no such furniture is available, indentured servants may be employed to catch you: swervants. It is an expensive affair swooning, and may indeed require its very own swudget.

That is my account of Saturday night, loosed like an arrow from a bow, whose target is random.

Delicious Breakfast

The Year 9 form teachers at my school had a pre-school breakfast at a local cafe today. The cafe was kind enough to open early for us - we rocked up at 7:30am. There were all the usual cafe breakfast things on the menu, and they looked pretty good, but I decided to go with a Cajun Chicken Salad as my breakfast food of choice. Several people seemed weirded out that I was eating salad for breakfast, but, y'know, cajun. The other options that appealed were a kumara and chicken curry, and oddly nachos. I know that my breakfast tastes are not necessarily average, but I suspect that if more people tried eating full-on hot food for breakfast they'd be less scornful of freaks like me. The cajun chicken salad was awesome, by the way. Very delicious, and a great pre-school meal. We even made it to school more or less on time for the 8:30am staff briefing (I was one of the less, getting stuck at the school entrance waiting for 2 buses to get out).

Too grown up?

I have just acquired a copy of Watchmen, which I felt compelled to purchase from my school library. I recommended a bunch of graphic novels (they put out a form asking for recommendations), and they diligently bought several of them. All was going smoothly until this morning, when the concerns of one of the school librarians were brought to my attention: *KKK references *Sexual content - specifically rape *Violence They haven't read the book, but it's easy to flick through a comic and look at the images and get concerned. It's a little while since I read Watchmen, and I hadn't looked at any parts of it in isolation when I made the recommendation. I merely looked at the fact that it's a classic of the genre, and is actually meaty enough to be usable for a Y13 theme study text. I wasn't about to recommend it to juniors, but if you put a book in a school library, you can be sure that a junior student is going to pick it up some time - especially if it's a graphic novel. So, much concern and alternate plans hatched to house it in the staff section, and I decided that, since I don't already have it, I'd offer to buy the book for myself. Unfortunately they'd already stamped the inside cover before flicking through it, so couldn't return it to the bookstore. I don't mind picking up a copy of it at all - it's been on my wish-list for some time. It's just a little sad that it can't live in a school library. There are solid reasons, and having fielded complaints from parents about very 'clean' fantasy books (Wizard of Earthsea) I know exactly how it feels to have a book challenged, or a parent offended, and no librarian needs that. Now I just need to bring some $ to school so I can pick up my near-pristine copy of Watchmen!

Grammar Geek Goodness

 Warning: Content may be boring to people not interested in Grammar (please comment with your cries for mercy and pleas for me to NEVER write about grammar again or more may come...)

I am so in love with AsTTle at the moment - a sentiment not shared with many teachers at my school. For the non-teachers among you, AsTTle is a standardised test gives really detailed and specific feedback about your writing and reading levels (at least in English this is what it focuses on). It breaks your writing into 7 separate categories. Firstly the deeper features: Audience Awareness (how much do you write for the needs of your audience and purpose), Content (is what you are writing relevant and useful), Structure (paragraphing, sectioning and also how logically you link and order your writing), Language resources (the sophistication of the vocab, diction and relevant technical words you use). It also examines the surface features of Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. For each of these categories the writing is put not only into the correct level of the curriculum but also into an appropriate sub-level: Basic, Proficient or Advanced.

It is pretty cool. It means that you can get extremely exact data on a student's strengths and areas needing development. Often in marking the mechanical accuracy (spelling etc) will bring down the overall grade or you might assume that accurate writing is more sophisticated. I love the breaking down of the different aspects of writing and separating out the 'what you write' from the 'how you write'.

It also has the cool nostalgic element of reminding me of level checking English students in Japan. Part of the signing up process involved you assessing the student's ability in both written and spoken English. The process was pretty speedy but you became quite really fast at picking up certain features of different levels in English. For example, if someone could answer basic questions in simple sentences but struggled with verb agreement in present perfect tense, they were a 7b.

As instructors we became pretty gun-ho about throwing around grammar terms and making up silly comments and/or games with them. One day a week I had to work in Shin-yabashira (the suburbs of Chiba) with 2 Canadian guys. In between crass comments about their sex lives or, more frequently, the lack thereof*, we had some random grammar slang and smack talk.

"Your type 2 conditionals are strong but you're weak in the ways of the type 3."

"Dude, I _own_ non-defining relative clauses."

"This is the non-defining relative clause that won't be owned by a *!@#$."

There was also the future perfect progressive tense game. Future perfect progressive tense is the most unnatural tense to try to cram into a conversation, therefore it was fun to see who would run out of FPPT things to say first.

"By the time I finish writing out this lesson feedback, I will have been working for 3 and 1/2 hours."

"By the time you finish writing that, I will have been sitting here for 5 minutes."

"By the time you stop talking, I will have been not listening to you for 6 months."

"By the time you finish that coffee, I will have been spitting in your drink for 6 months."

And so it went. What I have noticed at my school is that the terms for grammar are not consistent - the names change over the years and most of the ones I know are actually the American terms. I also do not think I have ever heard an English teacher make a joke about grammar. I kind of miss it. I like it when people have an awareness of language and enjoy playing with it. I like breaking language down into its different elements and looking at the different ways different people use it. It seems like even most English teachers think grammar is boring or take it seriously. They can't understand why I volunteer to check mark other classes. It just really interests me.

I'm fascinated that you can get thirty kids to write a description about their bedroom and what their dream bedroom would be, and each one will unique, not just in terms of content but also in the way they way they write their descriptions. The way we express ourselves and our ability to communicate through language is truly individual like a fingerprint.

* For some reason if you are a married female friend with a liberal attitude to binge drinking, guys assume you are fine with hearing their locker room drivel that can be pretty damn misogynistic. I guess they don't consider you an available female, so they don't care about being unattractively graphic or disrespectful in their discussion of females. That aside, they were lovely guys and a lot of fun to work with.

Well, we would have got the teen vote

 Oh dear. Some people have posted their vote for the Wellington finalists (not judges but people who have seen all the heats) and we're not on the list. I'm trying to prepare myself for the disappointment of not making the finals when they are announced tomorrow. I still hold out hope that our movie will make the cut but I also know that it might not.

This shouldn't really matter because the experience of making it was awesome, we worked so much more efficiently than last year and I think we learned heaps. Also we have made a movie that I'm pretty darn proud of.

I have shown it to all my classes at school, even my alternate Year 12 English class which I had planned not to as I'm not very good at taking criticism of the non-constructive variety.

I've got to say the reactions were overwhelmingly positive, especially with the juniors. We have made a film that would very popular with the 13-15 year old boy demographic. My year 10 class spontaneously starting applauding wildly during the closing credits. It was actually pretty moving because enthusiasm does not come easily to teenagers and they are not going to clap out of politeness or to spare their teacher's feelings. These kids are downright honest when it comes to telling you that a book or movie that you chose for them is "boring" or "stupid" so when they are positive about something, it is pretty nice.

In fact the lads in my form class started calling me Diana Jones for the next couple of days and excitedly told their science teacher that I was in a movie and could shoot guns*. I guess if you ever want some teens to think you are cool you should stroll about looking angry and wielding weapons.

It is nice that our film appeals to those who aren't part of the 48 hour film competition - it stands up well outside of that context. I explained after the class had seen it that it was made in a weekend for the competition and that it had required elements but they didn't need to know them to get the film. I had to explain to several what an optimist was and then one young lad nodded thoughtfully and said "ah, that's what the hippy guy was." Hee hee. They thought that Robin Slade was a hippy apparently because he was happy, didn't want to shoot anyone and wore a Hawaiian shirt.

* The only criticism I received was that I didn't shoot the monster. They couldn't understand why I didn't shoot melty man when the gun was right there. Some of them were yelling angrily at the TV "just shoot him!" towards the end. The bloodthirsty wrath was abated slightly with the 'cool' neck-snapping. One even asked, "did that guy really break his own neck?"

48 Hours - Then and Now

I thought I'd just write up a quick comparison of last year's 48 experience and this year's - very quick: Last Year We had a sizable team (around 20 or 22) with varying levels of experience. Most of us had very little experience, and none of us had done the 48 before. The writing team consisted of 6 people, the editing team consisted of Norman (who was also the on set technical adviser), and we had an at best nebulous idea of who actually wanted to act in the film. We stayed up writing until 4am Friday, at which time Hix took the 14 page script (already hacked down from 22 pages) home to cut it down to 7 pages by 8am. Meeting at Jenni and Lee's, 8am Saturday. Big huslte to get costumes and props sorted, then meet at first location at 10.30am? Filming at first location until about 12.30pm. Shift to second location, lunch provided by Luke and Sam, filming at second location until 5pm. Break for dinner and LARP. Post-LARP, one hour to shoot a scene at Turnbull house. Many extras to wrangle. Chased out by security guard ata bout 12.05am. Sunday meet up at Botanical Gardens for more shooting. Norm editing on set. Wrap shooting at noon Sunday, back to Norm's. Norm, Jenni and Steve disappear downstairs with very strict instructions not to be interrupted. Time passes. Promised rough cut does not appear. Deadline looms. Output to tape begins around 6.40pm? Deadline missed by 2.41. This Year Slightly larger team (mostly the same). Most of the team now have one 48 under their belt. Writing team = 3 people. Editing team = 2. Post-production team = 4 people, which is very cool. Script finished at a similar time, but looks like it was meant to be 7 pages, not a cut down 22 page idea. Slight chaos at Indigo City in the morning, but enough people knew what to do from last year for it to work out. It would have been easy for some things to slip through the cracks - I think a more organised meeting with public read-through of the script would really help here. At location by 10.30. One location for whole shoot = GOOD. Rain + outdoor shoot = suxxors. Filming commences, hampered by rain. Progress before lunch is slow. Junior editor on set ready to run tape back to Indigo city, but this doesn't happen until 5pm. Filming after lunch is good, though I wonder whether we could have worked faster. We certainly picked up the pace on Sunday morning. Tape run back to Indigo city at 5pm. Shooting stops when light fails, around 5.30pm. No LARP. Matt and Norman capture footage and assemble the beginning and end of the film. Some work is done on the credits. Credits should be finished and viewable by the end of Saturday, so errors can be picked up and fixed on Sunday. Sunday morning features shooting on location in three stages: 1 - First shots, taken back by Matt at 9am (regardless of progress). 2 - remaining dialogue shots, brought back by Jenni as soon as they're done (before noon). 3 - stunt sequence, brought back by Hix as soon as it's done (before 2pm). Simultaneous editing taking place at Indigo city - Svend and Norman working on music (very successfully) and sound effects. This continues while Matt captures footage and assembles scenes, then hands them on to Norm. Rough cut complete by 3.30pm. Jenni and Hix view and make suggestions. I think a safety tape or .avi back-up at this point would be awesome - or even plugging the camera output into a vcr so that it can be recorded to vhs while Jenni and Hix are watching it, then taken upstairs and watched. This could take zero minutes (the vhs option) or about 5 minutes (save to avi) or longer (up to 30 minutes - backup to tape). Probably the avi option would be best? If someone has a dvd recorder they could plug the camera into that and make a dvd in real time. The other possibility is to backup to usb hard drive, which could then be taken to another (non-network) editing station and viewed/rendered/output. Fine tuning continues until 4.30pm. Pressure applied to Norman to get him to output safety tape - 5pm is the deadline. Norman still making changes at 5.10pm. Threatened with stick. Bribed with food. Eventually relents, safety tape complete around 5.40pm. View safety tape, make notes as to fixes needed. Final adjustments, export to tape at 6.15pm. Computer crashes. Back on line by 6.30, output to tape complete by about 6.37. Tape checked and dispatched. Relax, celebrate. Mammoth Improvements Made (Pimp my Pachyderm) The tape was on time. We had a safety cut. We had an assisstant editor. The music was awesome. We knew what needed to be done most of the time. The script was tighter. We had t-shirts (neat but not essential). NZRaG was great as a communication tool, and Svend's fly-on-the-wall updates were brilliant. For Next Time I'd like to see a cut of the film released to the cast and crew as early as possible. They know the script, were on set, and have worked damn hard. They might give valuable feedback (via suggestions box), and deserve to see the fim ASAP regardless. Finding a quick way to achieve this would be boss. Organised Saturday meeting, whiteboard of shooting schedule, public read-through of script, scene summaries on the wall. A practice shoot, any time during the year. I'd love to see our team tackle one or two of the really tough genres - musical, war etc. I know I learned a huge amount from each of the 48 experiences, and would love to learn more.

Still Obsessing

Watched the tapes through last night (with Luke and Sam). There are a couple of cute moments, but the blooper reel is going to be very short - it was quite a focussed shoot, and Michaela didn't record anything uneccessary (which was awesome when we were editing - wading through extraneous footage would have been painful). Mortgage meeting with bank straight after school today, then a long weekend! Bliss! Actually, both Debbie and I had a 3 day weekend last week, what with the sick-day, but this weekend we will be just a little bit less busy :) Now I must do photocopying, and see if the library is free period 3...

Screening was Awesome!

Last night's premiere screening of Monster Hunter 4: Beyond Repair was excellent. We were without technical hitches, we got a good audience response, and the MC commented that as Angelina Jolie was out of action for a while, we had a replacement ready to go :) It was fantastic to see the team again (with a few sadly missed), and it was neat to be able to deliver a DVD to Jenni, and a CD of photos to Wayne (in exchange for a DVD of his photos). People seemed to like the DVD cover that Debbie and I put together. Tonight I think the plan is to take a look at the footage and start assembling some blooper reel / out-takes stuff. Should be lots of fun. Man, I'm loving this obsession.

Lee's Belt and Pants

Lee selflessly gave his belt to Debbie to wear for the weekend, because it looked awesome. I think he was already wearing someone else's pants, having swapped with a mook. He's so dreamy.

On-set Saturday

Set-up at location
It took a while to get set up at the location, but we were very lucky to be able to work there (thanks Fraser!). We had a cottage to work out of, varied hilly woods, and power in the garage. We were very well set up. I helped carry things, find things, and generally try to spot where people needed help. Fraser was awesome at leaping up to help people in all sorts of ways (including donating his belt). We didn't start filming until close to 11.30ish? Nick and Luke were up first, while Debbie got her last costume elements sorted out.

Awesome costumage
All the costumes were kick-ass. Debbie looked fantastic in her professional monster hunter attire, the uniformity of the mooks was excellent, and the two male leads certainly looked relaxed and optimistic.

Rain
It was raining a little when we arrived, but the forecast had been for it to clear. Sadly, this did not happen, and it got worse as filming continued. I headed down to set and collected umbrellas from various people's cars, then donated my warm jacket to Michaela and switched to a bright yellow fisherman's rain slicker. Then I stood in wet bushes holding a polystyrene board for light reflection (flecky?). Branches were poking me in the back of the knees and making my legs both wet and sore, but it was nothing compared to what the cast was going through.

Mud
When vast quantities of water fall onto dirt, then lots of people walk over it, it turns into MUD! There was a lot of this around, very treacherous under foot. Actors were sinking ankle deep into sludge, and had to hide their fear of slippery-death. I didn't have to hide my fear, as I wasn't in front of a camera. I'm fairly good at falling over in relatively normal conditions, so was petrified that I'd fall whilst holding something important (like my camera). Fortunately I stayed on my feet, and only saw one fall (which did not produce injuries).

Monster-Makeup
When we broke for lunch, we headed back to the cottage to get as warm as possible, and have some munchables. When we walked in, Morgue was getting the full Melty-man makeup treatment. It was awesome to see, and looked highly impressive. Having people chatting and eating lunch around melty man was slightly surreal, but was neat.

Mooks!
The mooks were neat. Uniform and organised and cool. Dobby was great with giving guidance to the actors on a variety of things.

Mud
It got worse.

Rain
It kept going. People got wet.

Flecky boards
I held a flecky board for many takes. between some of them I used it as a rain shield for actors, as I was rain-slickered and they were in light-weight costumes.

Seaworld/Wet'n'Wild
Luke and Nick kept cracking jokes throughout the morning. One of them was during a shot where they had to wade through particularly deep mud. The conversation went something like:

"Dude, we are so wet."

"We're wet'n'wild."

"We are SEA WORLD!"

"We should mud-slide through this shot."

"Yeah, and there should be sharks swimming in the mud."

The shark comment might have been me. I have a very fond but fuzzy memory of much of the weekend.

Slippery Bank
The final scene took place just off the road, next to a slippery bank that kept getting closer and closer to the action as more of it crumbled and collapsed under Morgue's monstrous onslaught. It was terrifying seeing Morgue throw himself around so close to a slippery fall. He is a well balanced monster.

Monster death
Morgue's death scene was chilling. He really sold it.

Awesome Acting
I'd seen the rehearsals, and Debbie and Luke's performances on the set were their best. Fantastic!

Back to base
At about 5pm the first tape was done, and I packed up and headed back to Indigo City, base camp. It was great to have been on set and seen and helped out with some of the filming. Next job? Editing.

Mud, monsters and Mayhem

 Well Matt and I have taken the day off to recover and rest our tired bodies. It is actually both of our first days off school this year and it is nice to spend a day at home feeling tired and snuffly but not the "I feel so bad - kill me now" kind of sick where you don't actually enjoy spending the day in bed or wrapped up in warm blankies. I'm glad we grabbed a copy of the movie "Monster Hunters 4: Beyond Repair" because we watched it a couple of times last night and commentary style narration which was cool. I was able to reveal the funny anecdotal stories of the craziness of shooting. Mostly it was the smack talk/banter between Nick and Luke. I also did the actor ego-centric thing of asking "why did you use the take where you can see me ripping out my hair and hitting myself with the headset cord?" He was then able to point out editorial reasonings like "it was the best take for everyone else and the sound etc". It is really the "it's telling us to carry swords" scene and Nick's delivery and expression are so awesome. Such a Nick moment. However, as tradition generally dictates in Monster movies the quirky sidekick's best moment is swiftly followed by being thrown to the ground by a monster. I still can't get over that the movie is 6 minutes and 40 something seconds. It plays so swiftly that it feels like no time. This pretty much means the writers/director/editors and others nailed the story really well, I guess, as there are no dull points or parts where it drags at all. It is a romping action-monster movie. I think the story is told really clearly though and the characters come across well (especially Robin's optimism with lines like "ritualistic deaths are something you'll get used to" and "now that we don't have weapons, I'm positive everything will be fine" - Luke's wide-eyed perky expression is awesome and I love it when he cheerfully pats Frank's corpse hand). It has got me thinking about two different types of monster/action films that I like. There is one where the threat is very real and tense, things keep on getting worse and more people die. It has the audience sitting on the edge of their seats and it is all about the thrills and adrenline of the action. The other is when it is more focussed on character and making the audience really care about the hero and/or monster so that when they die or are in danger, it really worries you. I think our film really nails the second category. As the audience I was quite upset that the monster dies and Nick kind of might be dead too. I personally want a version of the film where after the credits we have a shot of Nick looking around all alone and saying "hello?" (it's on one of the tapes somewhere). Actually, I'd quite like the same shot with the monster as well - although he did break his own neck so it seems less believeable that he still lives. Although that would be good for Monster Hunter 5. I loved the experience of acting in this film. So much fun. I have so much respect for the crew who were standing around in the mud and rain holding flexi boards and other vital but not particularly fun tasks. Some people stayed so lovely and supportive throughout the entire process it really amazed me, and I'm friends with most of them so I already knew they were nice. I'm just blown away at how amazingly nice, cheerful, considerate and fun to be around people can be with very little sleep and physically pretty tough conditions. I would have liked to have been one of the people who kept others' spirits and energy levels up but I guess I wasn't majorally unpleasant or anything. I didn't throw coffee at anyone's head in a fit of "that's not a non-fat latte" actor rage so that's good. The list of individual acts of kindness, talent, memorable moments of awesome, fun and huge amounts of respect I have for team members old and new is too impossibly long to even consider starting to mention, so suffice it to say well done everyone. You all rock! We made a kickass movie AND made it by the deadline! Roll on Wednesday for the big screening of our glorious achievement!

Monster Hunter IV: Beyond Repair

We made it. Film handed in on time, having been played through to check sound. Whew! I am now very tired, as might be expected. I've learned a hell of a lot from the experience, and we have a pretty kick-ass film as a result of our efforts. I'm hugely looking forward to seeing it on the big screen. Debbie has blogged about the 48 here Matt's Experience: Pre-48 I signed up to be the assisstant editor this year, as it was something I was keen on, and I felt like having at least 2 editors would really help speed up the post-production process. I decided not to try out for the writing team this year as I figured having the editors fresh would be wise - last year was pretty ridiculously hard, going from writing to acting. Friday Night I prepared Monday's relief lessons before leaving school, then headed home. We watched the start of the 48 on Campbell Live, and got quiet excited. Luke and Sam came over, and we regularly checked NZRaG for updates. Svend was being a fly on the wall at the writer's meeting, which was fantastic. We did ask him to post photos of the writers' snacks, but I guess he had other priorities... Debbie found out that she had the lead part, which was cause for much excitement, and we found out that we needed several special forces type costumes, so plans were made for black cargo pants and skivvy buying in the morning. We got to sleep around 11pm? Saturday Living up here, and having the meeting down in Kingston, meant a very early start. I think we were in the car by about 6.30am? Meeting at Norm's, where people rushed around getting stuff done. We learned that Luke was cast as the male lead, and that Nick was in there too. I started pushing the title Monster Hunter IV: Old wounds, fresh salt but I'm not sure I made much headway. I worked on the credits a little in the morning, updating last year's names. I took behind the scenes photos, and picked up my (nifty looking) t-shirt. I tried to look like I confidently belonged wherever I was, and that seemed to work OK - nobody questioned my presence at read-throughs or rehearsals. I was to discover later how important it is for an editor to have a clear idea of how a scene was envisaged when written and work-shopped, so this was time well spent. As there was nothing much for me to do until there was footage to capture, I went to the location to help out, and then run the first tape back to base. The plan was for that to happen at lunch time. To be updated later, when I have less pain in my head:

• Set-up at location
• Awesome costumage
• Rain
• Mud
• Monster-Makeup
• Mooks!
• Mud
• Rain
• Flecky boards
• Seaworld/Wet'n'Wild
• Slippery Bank
• Monster death
• Awesome Acting
• Back to base
• Batch Capture?
• Rough assemble
• High Spirits
• Sleepy ride home
• 4 hours' sleep?
• Back on set
• Nettles!
• Back to base (via Pak'n'Save)
• Batch capture
• Assemble edit
• Repeat
• Looks good!
• No rough cut to tape?
• Past the deadline!
• Render NOW! Stick!
• Ahhh, emergency tape done
• Work to deadline, prioritise
• Computer failure during final output!
• Back on line
• 17 minutes early
• Celebrate
• Home
• Shower
• Sleep
• Obssess

48 looming

Just 6 lessons to teach, plus one detention to run, then it's time for the 48 weekend! I'm sure that as soon as the bell rings on Friday I'll feel relaxed and enthused. Right now I'm mostly exhausted (and a little hungry - it might be time for a snack, methinks). I have obtained permission to film at school - we probably won't need it, but it's good to have it there just in case. The t-shirts are being made today, and will be couriered to Indigo City tomorrow. A little last minute, but it's all good as long as they get there :) In other news, I've been editing a video of a wedding, which has been both interesting and useful in terms of familiarising myself with Adobe Premier Pro. I hope the result is not too shabby (the people whose wedding it is were very generous with vouchers - to the point where I'll feel pretty guilty if the final product isn't what they hoped!). Now to eat a plum (very woody - verging on inedible. I do like fruit that's crunchy, but this is pushing it) and maybe do some work. Or look at blogs. Or take photos of the school for the writing team :)

Larp, Cthulhu, Ong Bak, Fire

Whew, that was a busy weekend. Probably not as busy as the 48 weekend is going to be, but nusy nonetheless. Friday Recovery day. We stayed in and watched TV and it was great. Saturday Replacement bank card obtained, dropped off lunch at mother-in-law's, saw Mission Impossible 3 (very cool, many similarities to the episodes of Alias we've been watching), curry for dinner and then Guild Council larp. Sunday Call of Cthulhu followed by Ong Bak. Both very cool. This is a minimalist post, bereft of detailed description. I will try to add more: MI3 assaults the senses like a relentless barage of spy-themed tennis balls shot from a ball-launcher into the clamped open eyeballs of a prone delinquent named Alex. Guild Council was a robust juggernaut of tension and conflict which simmered away over 4 hours, with spicy infusions of video goodness at regular intervals to keep it going gently on and off the boil. The investigators tackled the mystery like a Harvard educated line-backer with a specialty in computer sciences taking out an elephant one leg at a time. Ong Bak was a glorious celebration of the ability of exceptional stunt men to do hooribly violent looking things to each other without causing any fatalities (I hope). Lastly, this post about things going on fire is a piece of post-modern genius that peels away layers of linguistic chicanery and social programming to reveal heart-rending truths about the human condition. Of going on fire.

We would hunt and kill you

I just remembered, in a discussion of the book Lord of the Flies last week the topic of how people gain authority, and how they hold onto it came up. As a way of relating the book to the class, I asked them to imagine what it would be like if we, as a class, were stranded on a desert island. Of course the students are a lot older than the characters in LotF (17ish), so they mostly thought it would involve lying on the beach getting a sun tan, and not studying for NCEA. I mentioned the idea that, as their teacher, I might manage to act like an authority figure for a short time, but as I'm not the most outdoorsmany it probably wouldn't last more than a day. "You so wouldn't be in charge that long," pipes up the kid in the back row whose hobby is steel sword fighting. Less than a day. I suspect the kid in question would have a coup in the first 10 minutes, and I'd be smoked jerky snacks by lunchtime. It's nice to know that students who are highly polite and cooperative (and call me Sir of their own volition) are so sure that they've got what it takes to depose me. I should totally aim for 'island guru' if we're ever in that situation. In fact, if I ever have to go on a boat or plane trip with students, I might abdicate authority for the length of the journey just to make sure I'm not killed in the inevitable uprising :)

Irresistable Brownies

Mmmm, Debbie baked brownies last night and I could not resist them. It was a mighy hit of sugar late at night, delicious and awesome. They were birthday brownies, which is awesome as it makes my birthday last even longer! I have totally had enough of this week. I pretty much want to stay in bed and eat brownies and sleep and watch TV. It's a shame that being jobless is pretty inextricably linked with being penniless. I have never found the thought of a life of leisure a daunting one. People occasionally make glib comments about getting bored if they didn't have a job. I don't think I'd suffer from that. On the cup-half-full side of things, it's only 35 years until I am of retirement age! So a life of pottering about on a ride-on lawn-mower and waving my walking stick at whipper-snappers is just around the corner. I just have to survive the rest of today first. In unrelated exciting news, I have lunch-time duty four times this week. FOUR! But someone covered me on Tuesday for no reason, so now it's only 3. Wow, this is so trivial that I am tempted not to post it, but then, it fits so well with all the other posts...

Big Shammy

"Imagine if I jumped out of those cupboards? How good would that be?" "If Jesus was going to jump into the room, he'd come out of those cupboards." "Dude, if Jesus was going to enter the kitchen, he'd totally come through the microwave. Sandals first. Imagine that." "So the microwave is like a womb, and he's being born." "And there'd be afterbirth." "And cup-o-noodle." "Imagine that, Jesus and placenta flavoured noodles." "They'd definitely have to come in separate sachets - add a little placenta, and a dash of Jesus, and hey presto - the best noodles ever!" "Dude, write that on the wall. You have to."

House Buying

Debbie and I just bought a house. I think the legal-beagle wrinkles have been smoothed out now, and we are all on track to own a house by the 2nd of June. Neat. Things to do: *Sort out insurance *Pack *Give notice (by Wednesday next week) *Look at carpet samples (we may recarpet before we move in) *Investigate the cost of garage-door openers: they are way too convenient not to have *Clean flat (it's in pretty good shape already, as we had it all clean for a flat inspection last week) *Meet with bank and decide on loan-structure And, I'm sure, a whole bunch of other things. But most immediately, enjoy the weekend :)

A Sophisticated 30-Year-Old

"I fashion the glow-stick belt into a giant phallus and strap it to my head, then run towards the naked women."

Still 29!

Thanks all for the excellent shenanigans over the weekend, and the lovely presents. As you probably noticed, I had a very good time. Sunday was less fun, with the feeling poorly, but Debbie took wonderful care of me and I survived. I even managed to get out to see the set in L&S's garage, and look at curtain material with Debbie. Admittedly, I mostly leaned on furniture while she was looking at curtains, but I rapidly realised that I have no particular agenda when it comes to curtain patterns. Our offer on a house goes unconditional today. All is looking pretty good, with one minor exception - the curtains actually belong to the tenant, not the vendor, and we can't get a quote in time for how much it will cost. I guess we can just throw down a figure and see if it's palatable. Problem is, having never had curtains made, I'm somewhat in the dark. The helpful person I spoke to at Radfords said it would probably be something less than $9000. Probably less than half that, depending on what we got. That seems like a lot? Then again, I think she was talking 'worst case scenarios' and, having heard what our situation was, was avoiding under-quoting. Anyways, last thing for today: Character Name Matt C Traits Evil Laughy Cetacean-friend Boils things Goals Be elected Prelate Frame Norman for the murder Bring about Luke's downfall Age 30 You were raised by chickens on a lard-infested farm. To this day eggs are your closest friends. You keep one with you at all times, its name is Barry and you have drawn a face on it. It has a goatee. Power 7 Fame 9

Weekend Fun

I am greatly looking forward to the weekend's shenanigans. We have a flat inspection on Saturday morning, which is not exactly fun, but is not quite so daunting since Green Acres cleared the garden for us yesterday. It was in a pretty shocking state of neglect, but they did a wonderful job of cleaning it up. After that, it's bowling and beverages and hanging out, which should be a lot of fun. It's nice that a few work peeps are coming, as well as gamers. They're not my workmates, as I tend not to talk to people at work all that much, but rather Debbie's workmates who we have become good friends with over the past couple of years. It should be a fun afternoon/night! It's cool that we can use the garden if we want to, though the weather is getting a little chilly for outdoorsiness after 6pm. For those interested, the price of having a hilly garden and cobbled area cleared after much neglect was $380 - and well worth every cent. There is other exciting news in the pipeline, dependent on builder's report, title search and such. I shall post details once it's settled :)

sarumata

Shake a spear?

Unfortunately I won't be gaming on Thursday this week because of a Shakespeare festival. It's a bummer that they clash, but Thursday seems to be a popular night for school activities (parent teacher interviews, meet-the-parents nights, prizegiving etc.). It's always a joy to see students getting up and giving the bard a try, and there are usually several great performances. Debbie and I went to the national finals a couple of years back, and they were very impressive. Debbie has suggested that I should assemble and train a team of students to be the school's video team - a group with the know-how and enthusiasm to record and edit together videos of significant events. It's a great idea, and one that I may give some time to once I've waded my way through the mountain of marking I seem to have scattered about my desk. Oh, and I should put a notice into the daily notices about original music too, for the 48. Better dash and get some of this stuff done!

Birthday Presents!

I've been meaning to make a list like this for quite a few years, and keep forgetting: Perennial Gifts: Alcohol of yummy varieties (d'you like Baileys?) A4 drawing pad Cool stationery, like pens and mechanical pencils and... twink? Book/CD vouchers Audiobooks that are not Artemis Fowl/Supernaturalists - YA or classic or Terry Pratchett... Dice, especially d4's, d8's and oddly d12's One-offs Pith Helmet Furry Russian Hat LCD Monitor (17"?) Internal DVD drive Kingdom Come graphic novel V for Vendetta graphic novel Watchmen graphic novel Equilibrium DVD (I'm teaching it to my Y13 class this year!) Adaptation DVD Basic, Old School RPG books for the bookshelves at the back of my classroom. Preferably with kewl art so kids will want to pick them up and take a look. I did have external hard-drive on the list, but then I bought myself one as a birthday present. It's nifty - 40gb and quite small (notebook drive in a 2.5" USB enclosure). There are much more capacious drives to be had, but for the $ and size it's cool. I also received a rockin' ipod video (30gb) from Debbie. It's awesome. She gave it to me early, since my birthday's not 'til the 11th. So, there's some stuff that I wants. I also like simple birthday greetings and the company of friends, so Saturday should be awesome. I don't expect presents from anyone at all (well, except my parents - they'll pretty much never be off the hook on that one). In fact, I might find it awkward to receive presents in a public situation. But for next-year Matt, when loved ones ask "what do you want for your birthday?", I can at least look at this list for some ideas. Except of course I'll be over 30 then, so the answer will always be powertools. And a shed (or sheds) to keep them in.

Back in the Saddle

Ahh, 'tis a fine thing to be back at work. All that free time and sleep was really getting to me :P We watched Deadwood season one over the holidays (courtesy of Luke and Sam) and it was very, very good. Now I should be working, and kind of am in the background (assembling a wedding dvd for a work mate). Better dash!