Night 4/31
Film of choice: The Phantom of the Opera
Starring: Lon Chaney
Year: 1925

On an opening note, during the opening days of this challenge I am yet to watch a colour film and last night was the third night running where I have watched a silent movie.

Being a massive fan of the musical theatre production of the same name this was a really interesting film to watch, as like the cinematic release of the musical, this film gives the viewer more depth into the story. Did you know that The Phantom's lair is a torture chamber the opera house was built ontop of? I didn't.
Whilst the musical, for obvious reasons, uses the opera performances as a focus point in it's story, this film focuses completely on Christine's relationship with the Phantom and Raoul and both are very different to what they are in the stage production.
One scene I really liked, and it is one of my favourites from the musical, is the masquerade party. One because it was the only scene in colour, and two because the stage show clearly used this film as inspiration for what the Phantom wears when he interrupts the party.
Overall I really enjoyed this movie but I would rather watch the stage/film musical version as I simply prefer how the story is told.

Night 3/31
Film of choice: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Starring: John Barrymore
Year: 1920

Once again this is one of those films you can watch and know exactly why it is considered a "classic". John Barrymore's performance is amazing, his expressions help tell the story in the silent movie format and the transformation appears simple - I am sure it wasn't - but it certainly is effective.
I really enjoyed how at first Hyde is just a drunk who likes going to a whorehouse, which is why Jekyll continues to transform as he obviously likes to do such things without the fear of having his reputation damaged, that is until he falls in love. Then after one more experiment we see the darker side of Hyde, as his aggression and malicious side come out.
One thing I did not enjoy about the film was the score, I did not feel it helped the mode of the scenes. Also, Martha Mansfield, who played Millicent - Jekyll's love interest - was a terrible actress and I found myself giggling during some of her expressions.
A nice subtle thing I enjoyed was the silent scripture, as they would have an illustration to go with the scene it was describing, or it would be a different layout when there was a change of scene/location in comparison to the standard black screen and white writing used during the script.
This is another film for classic horror fans and one that should definitely make it onto your remaining nights (or for next year). My favourite of the three I have seen so far.

Night 2/31
Film of choice: Metropolis
Director: Fritz Lang
Year: 1927

Once again this is the first time I have seen this film and I guess this is the point of the challenge; to finally see all those horror films I have been meaning to see.
This is certainly a beautiful film, visually and musically, and to have a two hour silent movie is very bold but it is a testimate to how stunning to the eyes and ears this film is. My only issue is that the quality of the cameras used were not able to capture the grand sets and I spent a lot of time wishing it could be clearer - I do not know if there is a remastered version where the image is a lot sharper, if there is I would very much like to see it. I would also love to see images of the model sets that made up the city scape.
The storyline in itself did not wow me, the concept was very interesting but watching it now (for me) it has a similar fear of technology like the Cybermen from Doctor Who meets Frankenstein in how the masses reacted to the mad scientist's creation.
I would recommend this film to any fan of classic horror and science fiction movies to see where it all started.

Night 1/31
Film of choice: White Zombie
Starring: Bela Lugosi
Year: 1932

Despite having the '50 Horror Classic' box set for almost two years, this is the first time I have seen this and I can see why it's a classic. Bela Lugosi is ofcourse fantastic and those moments where you just see him staring at you, as he controls his zombie army, is still haunting - no special effects needed; just that perfect stare from a horror legend.
My personal favourite member of the cast was the white zombie herself, Madge Bellamy, the way she falls into her co-star's arms in her death scene shows extreme trust as she let herself go completely limp. Then her performance as a zombie was superb, she came across completely lifeless (even when she moved) and her stare equals Bela's for the haunting feeling as she seemed to stare right through (where Bela's seem to stare right into you).
The plot left something to be desired as it did not start or end well in my opinion, however I very much enjoyed it and strongly recommend that those also taking part in the 31 Nights of Horror challenge should make it part of their remaining films.

It has been a long time since I last posted one of these and I fear an epic catch up blog would be long and quite frankly boring. So here is how my life is looking right now...

There are things I have strived to have in my life for many years now and they are:
-A loving girlfriend (who can I see spending the rest of my life with).
-A place of my own (with the above).
-To be content in myself to live a Straight Edge lifestyle and not require drugs and/or alcohol to enjoy myself.
and finally
-Several tattoos and piercings including: sleeve, chest and leg tattoos and lip, ears and nipple piercings.

Nine coming on ten months ago I believe I have found the first one on that list (brackets included). Ok, we did not meet in the most romantic of places or in the most romantic of ways but the key thing is we met. My life has improved in so many ways since she has become a part of it. Unfortunately we do not get to see each as much as either of us would like to, but this makes those times together even better, and there is very rarely a time when we do not spend time speaking to each other over the phone or online - yes, I know .

Now having a good paying full-time job, with genuine good promotion prospects, and being 26 years of age (and having someone in my life I want to take the new next step with), I felt it was finally time to move out on my own.
I have been raised with the hatred of renting - as it sucks so much of your income that unless your lifestyle changes dramatically you won't be able to save up and afford to get out of renting and get a place that is truly your own - so I have had to wait to get enough financial backing to afford those initial fees to get myself a mortgage.
Right now I am in the middle of getting all the necessary paperwork completed and by March next year I will be proud owner of a mortgage and a one bedroom apartment in Belvedere. This has been an extremely exciting point in my life but I can also vouch that it is certainly one of the most stressful things you will EVER do.

If you have read previous blogs of mine, to which I know there has not been one since November last year, you might remember that I have said several times how I wanted to change my lifestyle as I am fed with those foolish drunken nights. Obviously as I am still saying it now I am yet to have achieved this. However, I feel now is a great time to start as my life seems to be changing dramatically and all for the better, so surely I won't need to drown any sorrows in a pint (or five), also now I have the support of a loving girlfriend to help me not give into the temptation when socialising with friends.

The last one is certainly not as a big as the others, and with the introduction of a mortgage I do not know if it is financially viable, but I have a lot of ideas for tattoos and I want to express my creative side by having these designs on my skin (even if they will only be seen by a few people on rare occasions).

For those interested I hope to post a month by month update on how all these things are going. Or I may just have no spare time again and then not want to spend ages writing an epic blog and leaving it for another nine months. We will see.

ttfn

Anonwhy?mous

So..."SGUK Amsterdamage", kind of sounds like the members of SGUK were going to damage Amsterdam with their craziness but instead I feel as if it was us who got damaged.

I have not had that much fun in such a long time. Everyone and everything was awesome!

Day One was quite intense. Waking up early, making sure you have everything when you are not awake enough to really remember what you had for dinner the night before is pretty difficult but everyone seemed to manage it. The plane was delayed but I think this worked in our favour, because when we landed it was late enough for us to start checking-in to the hostel. There were a few room issues but in the end I think everything worked out. When we got settled we went to the nearest coffee shop, called Noon, where we ended up smoking too much of too many varieties of weed too quickly and got fucked WAY too early. After a well-needed rest, while we waited for everyone else to arrive, we headed off to Wagamama and luckily found a nice coffee shop nearby, called Cookies. Afterwards I ended up having a cool chat and drinks with Causy and Snowy. Later that night I locked myself out of the room, could not wake my roomie, gwtr and ended having to walk down to the reception / bar In My Pyjamas to get a new key.

Day Two started a little earlier than I would have wanted but there was free breakfast. However, despite the early wake up, I started the day as I wished to continue it as we had a few joints / pipes in the hostel's smoking room before getting ready to go out. As Umeko and I were already dressed to go out we went for a bit of a wander, trying to get used to our surroundings and to look for local canal boat trip companies, the canal boats were easy to find and when it came to getting used to the surroundings the now named "Human Compass" (Umeko) got to grips with it all scaring quickly. We all then made our way to the red-light district, taking pictures along the way, as we hunted down a couple of museums. The Hash And Weed museum was so poor, so much random crap with no English information, but there was this awesome purifier that filled a ballon with smoke and it was SO good. After this we had a great lunch in a little Italian restaurant where we got bread and garlic butter, which made me giggle, and the pizza base was so nice - very crispy base. We separated into two groups after this, one group heading to see a Van Gough exhibition, the other group going to see the sex museum - I was part of the second group. Umeko (aka The Human Compass), Snowy, Prawn, Causy (who prior to this was in coma after day one) and myself had such an awesome time looking through the Sex Museum. This museum was so cool, not only was it cheaper than the first museum but it was MUCH bigger too, full of some really funny pictures and moving models. The five of us then went to see a Two-Minute for Two Euro peep show, which I must be honest made me feel awkward but I gave into peer pressure and it was pretty funny, but I did feel screwed over as my Two Euro went on mainly seeing the lady setting up for her show however I did see the lady spank her arse at Causy which was SO funny. In the aim to see The Red Light District at night we went to a very cool coffee shop just behind it, after we had some weed and started to make our way back through the district it began to rain, so we braved the rain taking pictures but as we continued to walk in hope to find a tram the rain became too much and those without umbrellas bought one. Now as practical as this sounds sadly it did not work out as it stopped raining pretty much as soon as we left the store . Snowy went her separate way to grab her bags from the other hostel, as she originally could not get a bed with the rest of is but the large room now had a spare bed after randoms left, and the remaining four of us got changed out of our wet clothes so we could go out for some food while the others did mushrooms. Without much persuasion I got the guys to go to Hard Rock Cafe, so I could get another HRC T-shirt for my touring collection and you cannot buy a T-shirt without eating/drinking there, well I don't think so anyways. In the restaurant one of the waiters came up to me and congratulated me on my sideburns, I just wished I asked him to take a picture with him stroking my sideburns in awe, as that would have been so awesome (to me). By far this day was the best day as I had a whole day with awesome people doing awesome things.

Day Three was a sad day as the majority of people, minus "The Human Compass", gwtr and myself were heading home. Minus "Team Vegan", we all had an awesome breakfast at a local pancake restaurant. Afterwards we once again split into separate groups, some headed to the torture museum and the others making a second attempt at go to the Van Gough exhibit (I have no idea what went wrong on the first attempt). The Human Compass, Prawn, Causy, gwtr and myself headed to see Dutch torture through the years and had a nice wander around in the new sunny day via the coffee shop that was featured in Ocean's Twelve. When everyone said their farewells the remaining trio, gwtr and "The Human Compass" - who now joined us in the private room rather than stay on her own -, tried to smoke everything we had left and The Human Compass decided to consume a mushroom some guy left in the hostel's smoking room as he was going home. That night will forever be known as "The Night of the Blue Shoes". Despite Umeko being the one who took mushrooms I was the one of our group who would be sick that night, I think it might have been down to the insane amount of munchies I had, others say it was the McDonalds - Golden Arches Haters! haha

Day Four was a very chilled out day. We woke up, got ourselves packed and checked out pretty easily, then got some 24 hour canal boat tickets so we could leave our bags at the train station lockers and see Amsterdam in a different way. When stopping off, in hope to see the Anne Frank House (and seeing the massive queue), we got some lunch in a small Indonesian restaurant and bumped into a bored Ms Zombie who was taking part in one of the free walking tours that they do throughout the city. After that very tasty lunch we popped into one last coffee shop, which at the time seemed like a good idea, to smoke one last pipe. On the journey to the airport and going through Dutch "security" the quick smoke progressively seemed like a bad idea, as we were all feeling pretty mashed and we had somehow fly home feeling this bad...well I say bad, it was pretty good, but not when you have to get through passport controls. Luckily the three of us started to level off before our flight and it actually made the flight fly by *giggles at one's own pun*. Then we went our separate ways because we were all heading in completely different directions. As much as wanted to avoid going to work, there was no trains to London Bridge so I was forced to get the Gatwick Express (for free ) to Victoria then I snuck onto my train home without any of my colleagues seeing with possible pink eye.

I had work the next day, luckily late shift but I still felt slightly stoned throughout the shift, which made me crap myself because if I made one "out of character" slip up I would have had to take an alcohol / drugs test and when I was found positive I would be fired...luckily it was a good day and I still have job - Despite this nervy day I still think that farewell pipe was a good idea haha. After my second day back at work 'Dam just felt so long ago but I won't dwell, I will just look forward to next outing, which was Doctor Who Live at Wembley Arena…

It was AMAZING, it was like being part of an episode. Nigel Planer was superb as the lead/host "The Magnificent Vorgenson" and the clips/scenes with Matt Smith were like The Proms but SO much better. The bits with the monsters were brilliant, pretty much the same as The Proms but it was great to see them walking around in front of you, then as part of the climax there was even a flying Dalek - I would spoiler this but my friend has told me it is on the website - and this gave me a little nerdgasm. I was very impressed that we had Ben Foster conducting, sadly not with his full orchestra but the band who performed the scores gave an interesting twist to the already great music of the Doctor Who series, there was also operatic singers like the performances at The Proms for added levels to certain scores. Yes Matt Smith did not appear live on stage but how the video clips and the plot itself were put together you did not find this annoying in the slightest.

My view:

A picture of me (in my very own Doctor outfit) and my "companion" :

The programme is pretty cool, details about the monsters and our host, I also got this amazing t-shirt and my friend got this one

Next thing I have lined up, as long as I can get someone to work my Sunday, is volunteering at the all-nighter event of Sci-Fi-London’s Oktoberfest.

That is all for now

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Anonwhy?mous