Second Shot

Today marks the completion of one year at my Building Services engineering company, and the beginning of my second year of work. It’s been quite a ride, and I’ve certainly felt that I’ve learnt loads in the past few months. Things seem to be clicking together that little bit better. And I’m looking forward to the future; there are a load of projects coming up – quite big ones, too – and I’m currently working on a fecking huge building to be built in Doho, so that’s something very different from the UK-norm of homes, homes and more homes.

The thing I really need to do now is knuckle-down on getting my Chartership, which I’m currently doing but need to produce four quarterly reports and an annual report by the 8th (back dating work for the lose!).

Anyway, I best get on and save the world and whatnot.

I’ve a new-found admiration for street dancing. Or at the very least, now understand the difference between it and break dancing. A trip to Hammersmith Apollo today showed just how much thought has to go into these shows in order to make them griping and entertaining.

The choreography of some of the dance groups was absolutely amzing, with the over-18s group Diversity winning outright with some fantastic body-popping. In fact, the fine choice of backing music totally reinforced their movements and really made them stand out beyond every other group (which included 8-13yrs and 14-17yrs, and some of the younger ones really showed up the elders).

It was a rather long event starting late at 3:30pm and finishing around about 9pm, although it wasn’t helped by the crap management causing the delay in opening the doors for seating (which was supposed to be at 2:30pm). And then it seemed like trainees day with the stage lighting as spotlights and stage lights weren’t on at the right times, didn’t turn off when necessary, and it was just generally quite poor.

But, the displays of body movement made up for those problems. We were also treated to free-styling groups, and that really showed how different street dancing and break dancing are. Again, some amazing feats but they just didn’t seem as clean as the dancing (which I guess is to be expected).

So, Diversity are off to battle against the best of America, which will be interesting and something I, if remembered, will definitely be watching (on the internet, no doubt). As for going to see another live showing, not too sure really. Well worth going the once and sitting away from the stage so that you can see the whole entourage jump around, though. You’d be forgiven for think dancing is easy, until you see these guys.

The weekend just gone was full of frightening surprises; it was Chris’s stag-do weekend. Officially to start on Saturday, it inadvertently turned out that Friday was going to be an adventure too.

Amazingly picking the most rain-filled weekend of the entire year (or should I say, for a number of decades), a friend of Chris’s was stuck in Birmingham after being told that that would be his best bet for travel connections when he stuck at a remote train station. Unfortunately, they (and we) hadn’t reckoned on practically everyone in England wanting to get into Birmingham at 9pm, as we went to pick him up from the station. What should have taken 40 minutes took over 2 hours; not really knowing where we were going, stuck in traffic jams, stuck on sliproads trying to get into traffic jams, dodging traffic jams and cutting in right at the very last minute, shouting and verbally abusing random drivers, calling 118 118 to get directions, considering pizza orders to the middle of the traffic jams, more random shouting at drivers, driving single file through what must have been at least 1-foot deep flood, looking and laughing at 4×4s and fancy cars stuck on the hardshoulder for not getting through the flood (but Chris’s VW Polo being able to) and finally getting to the station. Boy, it was one hell of a journey. Luckily, the drive back was so much easier and quicker, but it was all good as it made the curry and beers we had all the more tastier. (As an aside, we were at Asda at about 11:40pm, 20 minutes before the sale of the final Harry Potter book. There were quite a few sad, sad people dressed up in Potter-related rags. In all honesty, they were going to be able to get a copy in the morning as apparently Asda had four palettes of books. Why would you stay up that late for a book. Sad bastards.)

Saturday came and so did the rest of the gang, and then it was off Alton Towers for some screaming fun. I hadn’t been before (although I’d been to a few theme parks a number of years back) so it was going to be interesting, and I had kinda forgotten what it was like to be on a rollercoaster. But it soon came flooding back, again and again and again. With the on-and-off light drizzle, there was hardly anyone around and queues to all but a couple of rides were no more than 10 minutes (some as short as three minutes). Nemesis, Air, Rita, Spinball Whizzer, Flumes, Hex, Duel, Congo River Rapids, Runaway Mine Train, Oblivion. All of them frightening, all of them fantastic, all of them a bloody great laugh. (The Flume’s 6-foot duck flasher was particularly shocking and obscenely funny at the same time, along with getting a soaking.) There has never been a day where I have shouting so many obscenities in 30-second bursts, getting huge adrenaline rushes, and wanting to put my life on the line continually. I couldn’t believe how much fun it was, absolutely superb! And I never felt at all queasy, not one bit.

It’s pretty exhausting screaming your face off, straining against the G-forces and generally getting thrown about. And I think we were all pretty glad to find a decent pub/restaurant, sit down, chow down and drink up. The four mile walk back to Chris’s was probably a grand idea what with the amount I ate. Stuffed to the brim.

And Sunday was a relaxed affair; a few left for their journey home while the rest stayed for a spot of country pub lunch. Sunny and windy was the mix of the day, but at least it wasn’t raining.

And that more or less wrapped up a rather spiffing and seemingly long weekend. It was good to meet some of Chris’s other friends, and it’s only a few weeks until the wedding so it’ll be good to catch up with everyone again.

Chris had a great time, and I hope everyone else did too. I know I certainly did.

I’d just like to say well done to Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic on winning the Winbledon 2007 mixed doubles tournament. Really, more so for Jamie as he has become the first British tennis player to have won a Wimbledon title in the last 20 years.

I have to say that both of them looked like they were having absolute fun throughout their tournament, always with the smiles and seemingly joking, as if they weren’t playing a big tournament but just a few knock-around games with friends. It’s a wonder if they really cared whether they would win or not, and maybe that was the key to winning.

They’re teaming up for next year’s Wimbledon mixed doubles, so that’s certainly something to look forward to.

Games of films – and equally films of games – have never been a forte of the games industry. There are times when it’s alright, passable, enough to while away a couple of hours. But more often than not, they are usually complete trash. Scarface is a little different; it doesn’t try to be the film, more that it just takes the ideas and environments of the film and applies them well, without referring you to key scenes. Have a read over at Gamesrant.

Also, off the record and all hush-hush, there’s whispers that the site is in for a change. Keep an eye out.