Bad Day…?

Got up early, called HMV to make sure they had the new AC/DC album in. They said they did. I went down. Couldn’t see it anywhere - asked at the counter.

“Sorry, we still wait da stock ah.”
“Right. So when I called half an hour ago and asked and you said yes, that was just an outright lie, was it?”
“You come back later ah.”
“If I could come later would I be here now?”
“What?”
“The word you’re looking for is ‘pardon’. Will you have it tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Really? You said that this morning.”
“What?”
“Forget it. I see a brick wall over there that needs some frontal lobe love.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”

Get ont MTR. Get a phone call:

“Wai?”
“Hello?”
“Wai?”
“HELLO.”
“Wai?”
“Who is this?”
“Oh. You spee da Cantonese?”
[THINKS: Not for you, pal.] “No. Who is this?”
“Oh. I no spee da Engalish, vey sorry ah.”
“Yep - who is this?”
“Sorry.”
“Is this a sales ca--”
“Bye bye!”
[click brrrr]

Get to lunch with Goh Goh. The restaurant I insisted on going to cos the steak is fab has changed management. And every member of staff has lost all of their manners, not to mention brain cells.

Had to ask three times what our order was. Wrong soup. Forgot the bread. Steak done to wrong order. THIS IS WHAT FUCKING ORDER PADS ARE FOR! LOOK INTO IT!

Get to work, find I’m blah blah fucking talking shop blah blah teaching shite blah blah fucking blah boss blah blah teaching assessments blah blah fucked up finances blah blah blah not in for a good day - it must be National Slap Soupdragon Week. Decide I’ll be buggered if I’m making a special effort to get any of it sorted, as (1) I’m not the one who’ll get into trouble and (2) I have a personal training appointment I can’t be late for. And my own physical well-being is astronomically more important than work.

Not such a good day then. But then my training is put back by half an hour, so I pop out to get the AC/DC album. Now I have the deluxe version of ‘Black Ice’ and all evening to play it very, very loudly.

And then I check my mail to find some lovely reviews for the last chapter of my latest ‘Supernatural’ fan-fic:

Things can’t be all that bad, now can they?

Tags:
AC/DC ~ Black Ice ~ HMV ~ Hong Kong ~ gym ~ Supernatural ~ fan-fic

“Some people juggle geese!”

Danger! Danger! Spoilers Will Robinson!
Supernatural season four episode 5 spoilers are contained in the following post!

So where do we start? Oh how we rolled around howling, how we nearly cried with both laughter and upset - yes, it was ‘Supernatural’ again. Episode 4.5, imaginatively entitled ‘Monster Movie’, was a scream from start to finish. Never ones to take themselves too seriously, we have it all shot in black and white (explanation later) and presented in the style of a 1930s monster movie of the week. Excellent idea, fellas - comedy gold, in fact.

A late-night drive into Pennsylvania in the Impala finds Dean unimpressed with the horror movie mood music on the radio, and Sam unhappy with the fact that they’re not out trying to save the world. Remember, last time we saw The Boys, the sixty-six seals (no, not the live show at Sea World) were being systematically broken by Lilith in order to set Lucifer free. Dean couldn’t give a pair of foetid dingo’s kidneys, however, and just wants to get back to honest-to-goodness, by-the-numbers creature feature killing. And don’t we too? I mean, the first four episodes have been a little arc-heavy. That’s allowed, seeing as there are degrees of arcing going on, and it hasn’t actually been all doom and gloom. But this lightening of the whole situation, even in black and white, can only be a good thing. And, as previously discussed, it’s written by Ben Edlund, so it’s about to be a very, very good thing. I can smell it.

Dean tells Sam it’ll be “like the good old days! It’s about time the Winchesters got back to tackling a straight forward, black and white case.” Which, of course, is the death knell for all things straight forward - but not the black and white. See what they did there?

The Boys arrive in Oktoberfest-land, and it’s smiles all round for Dean’s Downstairs Brain, while Sam looks on in fond bemusement. What, he didn’t think Dean would be sniffing round anything in a short skirt the first chance he got? Indiana Jones and giant pretzel gags later, and The Boys (posing as FBI agents Angus and Young - get the AC/DC hook there?) are opening a morgue gurney on the first victim. Nice vampire bite marks there - except vampires don’t make marks like that - except in the movies. (Our first clue.) The Boys move onto the local tavern they’ve booked to stay in for the time being and encounter the lovely Jamie (again, for Dean) as they try to locate the eye-witness. Cue a very cute moment as Dean tries his hardest to get into the barmaid’s pants good books.

They move on to interview the witness and we get a few giggles over the aceness of the actor portraying him, and the whole set-up. (Catch Sam jump, while Dean just stares like the man’s off his meds.) We get introduced to a side-character who makes for interesting back-story and Fleshing Out Of Guest Stars. Cue another cute moment as Dean reveals why he’s on a mission - and we’re not talking about monsters. As he explains to Sam that he’s “back from the furnace without any of my old scars, right? No bullet wounds, knife cuts, none of the off-angle fingers from all the breaks - I mean, my hide’s smooth as a baby’s bottom” we all know exactly what he’s about to say next, right? Right? I mean, this is Dean Winchester we’re talking about, and he considers himself if not reborn, then having had a major physical reset. And he is determined to right the wrong of considering himself a virgin: if he doesn’t get laid in the very, very near future, there’s going to be Trouble. Sam just finds him, at best, amusing, and at worst, degenerate.

Cut to the next victim, and it appears to be a true-blue werewolf attack - complete with wolf hair at the scene. FBI agents Angus and Young pay the surviving young miss a call and then go to check out the remains of the kebab’d dude. With the heart intact and real wolf hair at the scene there’s no way it’s a werewolf - and Dean’s getting a headache. So they retire to chow down and discuss the myth of werewolves having actual wolf hair - and Dean’s persistence with the bar wench has paid off. They make a date and Sam is quietly amused enough to not tell him he has a hyowj beer-head moustache.

The next death is imminent (this is the end of act two, after all) and we get a sarcophagus complete with half-rotten, all-bandaged mummy straight from an ancient WB movie. Purr wee Security Guard gets squished in all the wrong places and the next thing you know, The Boys are investigating the crime scene Mulder and Scully style. Scully - sorry, Sam - finds it’s all bought from a prop store, and as such, “stoopid”, and Mulder - sorry, Dean - recognises it all for crazy talk. He splits to keep his date with the lovely Jamie. Cut to Jamie being stalked by the fabbest vampire ever to grace a modern TV show - except she maces the guy and make a run for it. Straight into Dean, who takes one look at The Crazy and attempts to punch his lights out. I say attempt - what he does manage to do is yank the dude’s ear off. Nice! A quick chase later and Dracula is making his get-away - on a Vespa. He even has the cheek to beep-beep Dean, stuck behind the wrought iron gates.

Then a moment of genius - the Intermission. Yes, a full-on, olde worlde style intermission card goes up for the duration of a strain of some vaguely familiar ‘Supernatural’ music, complete with curtains!

Then it’s back to the fun and frolics, as Dean has figured out the ear part of the case: shapeshifter meat ahoy! He pronounces it ‘buckets of crazy’ (no, not THEE Buckets Of Crazy site, but one of his most affectionate terms), especially since Dracula’s costume is also a movie prop, and the actual shifter underneath all these monsters is out to secure the lovely Jamie as his prize. The Boys quickly decide the best way out of all this is to have Sam find the most likely candidate for shapeshifteriness and shoot it with silver bullets while Dean chick-sits. Of course! (Oh, and the crack about The X-Files: “So you guys are like Mulder and Scully or something, and The X-Files are real?” - “No, The X-Files is a TV show. This is real,” was priceless, considering about 90% of the production crew of ‘Supernatural’ is actually from ‘The X-Files’.)

Cue Sam going off all gung-ho to shoot the critter before it pretends to be another great monster of Screenland while ganking someone, and Dean gets left talking to Jamie. Which could be a mistake, as he’s not exactly the most eloquent of people when it comes to talking to chicks. But there again, we’re in for a surprise - Dean’s not really season 1 or 2 Dean anymore, and he certainly is not anywhere near to season 3 Dean. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s All New Dean, but he’s definitely moved on. And we get some lovely, lovely background music - all new - to stroke Tragic Dean’s story into Heroic Loneliness territory. It’s working, too - until he comes out with the classic ‘Blues Brothers’ line and we all start giggling again. Purr confused Jamie is prepared to believe, but she’s not exactly comfortable with Dean’s admission of haring round the States killing creatures. Dean covers the awkward ‘Greater Good’ moment with a lovely crack (“Some people paint”) that I swear I thought was going to be summat else: “Some people juggle geese!”. There was just something about the moment that I found very Wash-like, and a ‘Firefly’ quote right at the moment (considering Ben Edlund was a series co-producer and wrote two bloody excellent episodes for the show) would have been hilarious.

Anyway, we knew The Boys would balls it up and go after the wrong suspect, and we were right - cos otherwise the show would be over in ten minutes, right? Where’s the fun in that? And, lest we forget, this episode is all about the movie pattern - so let’s have the actual monster being the one person Jamie has been pals with all this time, and purr wee Action Sam about to shoot the wrong man. Action and giggles ensue as the ‘shifter turns up unexpectedly (as said pal), interrupting Dean finally getting to first base, and spikes the drinks of the damsel and hero. The next thing Dean knows is he’s waking up dressed like an Oktoberfest regular (dig those socks, dude), strapped into Dr Frankenstein’s lightning board. Looks like he’s all ready for an overly-elaborate and easily escapable death routine. Aceness! Except Dean is saved by the bell (literally) and we have a very funny moment at the front door (the old ‘I have a coupon’ moment never fails to make me laugh). Meanwhile Sam is already adding two and two and coming up with secret monster lairs. Sharp boy, that one.

But then we have a lovely performance that really goes for the heartstrings in a big way. Aww, purr wee shapeshifter - I did actually feel sorry for the guy, hearing his story. I loved the exchange between the ‘shifter and Jamie the Victim - the old “You’re lonely because you kill people” - “No, I kill people cos I’m lonely” did raise a smile. But then, he did murder those people. So hey-ho, say The Boys, let’s go shapeshifter-killing. And Sam getting his foot stuck in the door was excellent.

But all good things must come to an end - it was an excellent chase, a merry dance, a wonderful roller-coaster of giggles, gasps and guilty sympathy. And this end came not through the two boys, but the damsel in de dress. Quick-thinking she may have been, but no fibre in her being felt sorry for him, Sam-style? Or did she just know that there was no way round what he had done and she had to end him, Dean-style? Who knows. But she did well. Well, I was thinking that right up until the purr wee ‘shifter’s last moments. He was so eloquent, so tragic! (Quoting some good old fashioned movies, too!) Awww! Come on! No! Can we just have The Boys think he’s dead, so he gets away with it? C'mon! Booo! I were so upset I actually watched the camera on him, and totally ignored Dean in his shorts on the floor (well, the first play, anyway).

An excellent parting scene later, and we’re fading to a retro Fin card that just made me grin. We leave The Boys thick as thieves, back as they should be, and the end scene makes a good point: it’s all about the monsters, not about story arcs. Blessed are the writers, for they know what fans want.

This was such a fantastically classic episode, in more ways than one, and it’s a definite keeper Big Time. The comedy episode of season four? Or the funniest damn playing about with the genre we’ve seen in ages? You be the judge. I just laughed my arse off the whole time - until the end. But then, that was quickly and neatly bundled to one side by the sight of The Boys actually being normal mates again - back as they should be. Bloody marvellous.

Well, that’s about it - got to go to bed. Gruelling day at work tomorrow, followed by a personal training session from Hell. Kinda.

Peach and lube, everyone. Lots and lot of lube.

Tags:
Supernatural ~ Dean Winchester ~ Sam Winchester ~ Jensen Ackles ~ Jared Padalecki ~ X-Files ~ Firefly

Oooh, interesting…

Seen the new ‘Max Payne’ trailer? Want to see that 13th November, love me some valkyries and the film looks fab. And so does the trailer for ‘Burn After Reading’. Except I can’t seem to find a release date for Hong Kong yet. Bastards. Neither can I find owt about when ‘How To Lose Friends And Alienate People’ is coming to our shores. It’s just not fair.

Watched episode 4.4 of ‘Supernatural’ Friday night, and thank you Dean Winchester for finally giving Sam what for! I’ve been hoping someone would inflict shakabuku * on him since the end of episode one, so now I’m feeling much more satisfied. Other than that, it was a slam-bam-thank-you-Sam episode, and I have to say, excellent. While I’m still staggered by the genius of the first episode, and numbers two and three were definitely great, this one is winning cos of it’s stand-alone story. No, we don’t need the new guest stars popping up in every single episode, and no, we don’t need the current story arc rammed down our throats during every other scene. This was a nice breather - and judging by the trailer over on The CW site, it looks like next week’s is going to be the ‘Bad Day At Black Rock’ or ‘Hollywood Babylon’ of season 4. As it’s also purported to be penned by Ben Edlund, who gave us the aforementioned golden oldies, and God of Screenwriting, and man who invented ‘The Tick’, can’t wait for that, either.

Let’s see, what else… Er… oh yes, had my personal training as planned. And confirmed our joint suspicion that I am indeed the unfittest of the unfit, and am going to struggle for the first month. But that’s ok - that’s what it’s all about, right? If it were easy, we wouldn’t want it, as the phrase goes. And anyway, I have a huge incentive… end of March next year is the ‘Supernatural’ con for which we have tickets. Can we wait? Can we bloody hell as like.

Think that’s it. Have to get ready for a battle to the death tonight. Well, a pub quiz, actually.

Soopytwist.

* Shakabuku: A swift, spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever. Thank you, Minnie Driver and ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’.

Tags:
Hong Kong ~ films ~ Supernatural ~ Dean Winchester ~ Sam Winchester ~ Ben Edlund ~ shakabuku

Busy week

Joined a gym Saturday, had my introductory personal assessment thing Monday, have been put on a plan to lose 40lbs in 6 months. My personal trainer has arms that make The Rock’s look like that weedy lanky streak of piss from the old Mr Muscle ads, and the power showers are, if you’ll forgive me, AWESOME. Ahem.

Caught the pilot episode of ‘Reaper’ last week on Star World. Yeah, they’re that far behind. Anyway, wasn’t expecting much, and to be honest I’ll only turn over to watch it if I’m in cos Ray Wise is the acest Devil since… er… Al Pacino, and Sam’s dumbass mate ‘Sock’ is hilarious. It’s that kind of lowest-denominator fun. Well, it should be, but there are moments when Ray Wise elevates it to actual proper evening TV. And Sam working for him to collect escaped souls to send them back to Hell in amusing kitchen items can be… er… amusing.

Speaking of Sam sending escaped souls / demons back to Hell, of course sat in and watched ‘Supernatural’ episode 4.3. A very ace guest star turned up in the form of X-Files regular Mitch Pileggi, and he was really really good. Scarily so. He should have been ee-vil (like fru-its of the Devil) in The X-Files, too. Anyway, it was really well done - and I were laughing at the ‘Hey! McFly!’ moment in the diner (and Dean’s ‘What, you lot got DeLoreans now or what?’ had me giggling in me cup of tea). Weird thing is, the dude at the counter already reminded me of John before I realised what were going on. Which shows excellent casting, I think.

Got the new Oasis album, ‘Dig Out Your Soul’. Listening to it right now. No surprises so far, but likin’ what I’m hearin’. We’ll see how it grows on me.

Got tickets for ‘The 39 Steps’, coming to Hong Kong end of this month. Apparently one of the funniest stage adaptations ever, and having a cast of just four people, it’s going to be a fab night out.

Got tickets for Billy Joel - coming to Hong Kong in November. Can’t wait.

Got tickets for Soler, also November. (Their official myspace page is here, but looks a little weird on my set. Have to scroll right about fifty years to see owt. Very odd.) They were bloody excellent show-openers for Stereophonics, so I can’t wait for them, neither. Got a few of their albums, so this should be too cool for school.

And so to fan-fiction. Yeah, it’s ‘Supernatural’ again. My longest ever SPN fic is finally over with:

Not what you might think (don’t do angsty-angst-angst), and I hope it made a few people giggle. Well, apparently it did, if I believe the reviews people have left for me. I’ve started a new story, and this one will definitely be shorter. Seeing as I’ve been spending all my time over at the world’s premier ‘Supernatural’ fan-fiction site, SPN Ville, and the shiny, shiny new writers’ forum The Vaults, I think I’ve packed quite a bit in here this week.

That’s about it, really. Going to crash out now. Right now. Well, after I’ve pressed ‘publish’, obviously.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
Hong Kong ~ gym ~ Reaper ~ Ray Wise ~ Supernatural ~ Mitch Pileggi ~ Oasis ~ 39 Steps ~ Billy Joel ~ Soler ~ fan-fic

Klaatu barada nikto!

I am being stalked. In a very weird way.

Or maybe not. See what you think.

It started a few weeks ago. Me and Big Sis were yakking about the guest stars we’d like to see in this season’s ‘Supernatural’. Top of my personal list was Bruce Campbell (of course). I also mentioned David Duchovney - as a demon, Marc Alaimo as some kind of nasty human or helpful Hunter, and one more name - the one person I would dearly, dearly love to see in an SPN episode. In fact, if he turned up and The God Who Is Bruce Campbell did not, I would still be quite happy.

(In fact, although guest stars would be all kinds of excellent bonus-ness, that doesn’t mean we have to have them. I’m just happy watching Sam and Dean run around doing what they do. If we never have another guest star again - other than Jim Beaver - I’ll still be very happy.)

So anyway, there we were, chatting away. And because I’d mentioned Marc Alaimo, I decided to recap on a few classic ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ episodes. And lo and behold, there was the man I really really want to guest star in ‘Supernatural’. It was funny, really, in a ‘that’s weird, we’ve just been talking about him’ kinda way. Just a coincidence, right?

And then the next night I stopped by HMV in Central to pick up a copy of ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ (1951). I’ve heard there’s some remake on the way with that useless bloke in it… what’s his name? Keanu Reeves? Anyway, suddenly realised my DVD and VCD collection had more holes than the ‘plot’ of ‘Lost’ and my copy of said film was missing. Cue me walking into HMV and finding the DVD. Got it home, slapped it on Sean the DVD player, and away we went. Lovely time. Ah, Michael Rennie. No-one says those immortal lines like you. It was as good this time around as when I was weeny and my dad made me sit on the sofa and damn well watch cos it was ‘a good film’. He was right then, and he’s still right now. I’m slightly worried about this remake business - but then, I probably will not be arsed to go see it anyway, so it hardly matters.

Anyway, what does matter is my stalker theory. So after the film had finished and I’d thrilled at Gort the robot and wondered how long resurrected Klaatu would survive, I turned on nowTV to have a quick flick through the channels and see if owt interesting came up.

And there he was again - the man I want in ‘Supernatural’. Now, I thought, this is amusing. The film was none other than ‘Re-Animator’. (Now I just know that that wee piece of info, coupled with the photo above, is making half of you lot go ‘aaaaaaaahh! I know who it is!’). But it was halfway through, and in need of another does of the ghoulish, freaky actor, and wanting to watch it from the beginning, I rummaged around and pulled out my special two disc set. Watched it, howled with laughter and lifted my feet off the floor at certain moments, and generally had a bloody ace time.

The next night I was again flicking through channels, and came upon an ad telling us some channel was about to start re-running ‘The 4400’. And guess who popped up in the trailer? Oh yeah. The very same actor.

Quite unnerved now, and thinking perhaps it really might not be in me head, I decided that I needed to turn off real telly and go do something else less boring instead control what came on the screen. So I went to my bookcase (my lovely shiny new one. Except it doesn’t shine. Cos it’s made of wood. Ahem.) and pulled out an all-time favourite: ‘Evolution’. Out slides the VCD - and another few, too. Seems the plastic on one has kinda suctioned itself to the back of the other. So three or four fall to the floorboards. I’m tutting and crouching down to pick them up, and then I notice the top VCD. It comes with the tagline: ‘No rest for the wicked’ - little SPN trivia, there... Yup, you know what’s coming next, right? It’s ‘The Frighteners’

It took all of my self-control not to run screaming from my front room.

So am I being stalked by The God Who Is Jeffrey Combs? Are his works of film following me around? Does this mean that he will indeed pop up in ‘Supernatural’ at some point? Cos if we’re not going to get Bruce Campbell, we deserve him. I think whoever they get for their guest stars this season (and hopefully the next) are going to be ace choices. And again, we don’t really need guest stars to help it along - it’s already doing way more than fine. But if either Mr C could be tucked in there too - it’d be so much more devilish fun.

* P.S.: I do believe that Klaatu’s relayed message to Gort, ‘Klaatu barada nikto!’ meant something along the lines of: ‘Bollocks, told you this lot couldn’t be trusted. Oh no! I’ve been shot! Come claim my corpse, re-animate me, and let’s put this whole sorry-ass place in our rear view mirror - and remind me never to come back here!’

Kinda.

LATE EDIT:
Just turned on AXN Beyond on nowTV and guess what's on? 'The X-Files.' And who's the guest star? Bruce Campbell. Yup - it's the episode where he's the demon. Speak of the devil...

Tags:
Supernatural ~ Bruce Campbell ~ David Duchovney ~ Marc Alaimo ~ Star Trek ~ DS9 ~ TDTESS ~ Keanu Reeves ~ Michael Rennie ~ Re-Animator ~ The 4400 ~ Evolution ~ The Frighteners ~ Jeffrey Combs