mentalrage

The Damned & The Hopeless

So I thought I'd update you with the latest goings on at my delightful place of employment, 'cause I'm sure it's a source of constant amusement or disbelief or possibly both for some of you folks besides it's far more therapeutic than putting my fist through the wall and cheaper than replacing the plasterboard too . So current developments include someone walking out whilst I was on holiday , we got 3 new staff at the start of August ,1 has left already to go live in Dubai! another has just handed his notice in and says he's off to join the army. I think it shows how bad things are when your staff would rather go to Iraq and get shot at by insurgents at least you know they're being honest about things when they're firing an AK-47 at you, they're not pretending to be your friend and throwing paperknives at you when your back is turned. . So my manager has been off for like 4 out of the last 5 weeks so it's actually not been that bad. Go to work, do my job, have a laugh with a few people, go home. Which is as it should be regardless of the job your doing in my opinion but no that's not good enough for my manager. I got a roasting the other day for having the sheer nerve to go for my dinner at the same time as someone else! ! I know I should be crucified for such a blatant display of hubris. My friend Jay is now looking for another job 'cause he's sick of working with "that cunt". It's hard to believe a little over a year ago our bakery was winning awards for "best bakery in the region" and "best bakery of the year" , I got to go to some horrid awards ceremony hosted by Patrick Kielty and was in the company journal, I can still remember the photographer having a paddy 'cause none of us would smile for the photo's. There's a new Marks & Spencer food place opening not 5 minutes from the store and apparently the management are "looking forward to the competition" I expect this is corporate code for SHIT! what are we going to do??!!!! I saw a funny thing the other day on the noticeboard there was a big notice saying "sales are down, targets are being missed, do You care?" someone had scrawled "NO!" on it in big black letters .

Reunion

So this week I actually had a night out go pretty much to plan shocking I know. I met up with a friend of mine who used to work with me but is now working in Wakefield after he got a management job (which just shows you don't have to be a cretin if you're a manager) He's one of the few people I really click with despite our differences. It was good to hear that it's not just my store that's falling to pieces due to management incompetence. We ended up going on a bit of a pub crawl in Leeds we started
off in the Angel Inn then went to Joseph's Well which was rather bizarrely closed at half seven, rather displeased with that we ventured on to the Faversham, The Pack Horse & The Fenton. we spent the latter half of the evening piling money into the jukebox at The Fenton and chilling out to sounds of The Cure, Joy Division, Dead Kennedy's, Pantera, Foo Fighters, MC5 and a bunch of others that I can't remember. I would have pictures but my friend is a little on the camerashy side. He said "when did you turn into the paparazzi?" when I tried to take his picture

Robots In Disguise



I went to go see Transformers the other week here's my general view:

(contains spoilers!)

The whole premise of this film ( giant sentient humaniod robots go to Earth searching for an ancient artifact whilst continuing a centuries old war) falls into the "you either get it or you don't" category. For those of you out there that do "get it" especially guys about my age (26) this film will probably have you sat there entranced with a look like someone's just shot you up with valium for the duration of the film 'cause that's what happended to me . Even mentioning "Optimus Prime" will have a strange effect on some people. The very idea of a "Tranformers" film lives and dies on it's effects. Making a camaro change into a humanoid robot isn't exactly easy I'm guessing, doing it in a convincing way is harder still but injecting said robot with humanity and character that connects to the viewer has got to a fairly herculean task in itself.Thankfully the film more than succeeds in this respect.The opening scene has the best start to a film I've seen in a while with Blackout destroying a military base singlehanded. On the human side of the cast I personally liked the fact they cast relative unknowns ( the only person I recognised was John Voigt as the secretary of defense) it makes things a lot more believeable and engrossing. I think director Michael Bay was in his element with this film since he clearly has a fetish for explosions and big action sequences . Despite the fact that this film is mainly an excuse to watch big robots beat the shit out of each other and smash up buildings in a Godzilla fashion I thought the plot revolving around the human characters was also pretty good (it could've been a lot worse). The love story of a sort between Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf) and Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) has some good comedy moments in particular a scene after Sam & Mikaela have just discovered that sam's car can change into a humaniod robot and then have to escape the wrath of Barricade after a rather intense chase they reach sam's home and go through the window into his room. After hearing strange noises sam's parents barge into his room at which point his mother notices he's out of breath and says "have you been masturbating?" it seems a little out of place with the tone of the film and will undoubtedly lead to awkward conversations with little Timmy but it is undeniably funny. At which point the previously hidden Mikeala emerges to be greeted by sam's mum saying "you didn't hear that little family talk did you?". It might take a while for Optimus Prime to show up but it's well and truly worth the wait, the later fight scenes in the streets where he takes on Bonecrusher with a sword are brilliantly realised. I think it's one of the best of the "summer blockbusters" with plenty to entertain the kids, people like me and parents. It's one film that really deserves it's undoubtable sequel.

The aptly named Megan Fox




Transformers in the film are:

Autobots
Optimus Prime (Peterbilt Semi Truck /18 Wheeler)
BumbleBee (1974 Chevrolet Camaro & modern version of same model)
Jazz (modified Pontiac Solstice/ sports car)
IronHide (modified GMC Topkick 500/ pickup truck)
Ratchet (Hummer H2 Search & rescue model)


Decepticons
Megatron (cybertronian jet)
Barricade ( Saleen 5281 Mustang/ Police car)
Starscream (Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor/ Jet fighter)
Blackout (Sikorsky MH53 Pave low III/ military attack chopper)
Devastator (modified M1 Abrams Battle Tank)
BoneCrusher(Buffalo H Mine-Protected Vehicle)
Frenzy (2-speaker CD player, mobile phone)
Scorponok( mechanical scorpion- no humanoid form)