looking smart, Mrs R+1 !!!!!

this is us on Richard and Erika's wedding day.



see, I can dress properly when I want to, or at least when I have to!

ahem, as ever, Michele looks wonderful. if I am not mistaken, this is the first time her image has appeared on this page of mine!

time for an update

hello everyone

well, once again, sorry for the delays. it's been busy days for us, as my last post or two hinted at!

first off, most important - baby talk. Michele has been for some tests, owing to her existing medical conditions, and everything seems 100% fine with the pregnancy. nice one! we have a due date of 15th December 2005, but I understand and accept that delivery dates for babies are not quite an exact science. ho hum, when he or she decides to turn up, we will try to be ready for it!

Michele next goes for a scan on 20th June. I will be with her of course, but I doubt they will want to scan my tummy! that should be 14 weeks into pregnancy, and I believe it is possible that we will be able to find out if it is a boy or a girl. I doubt that I will pass up on the chance to find out!!

Michele's cravings are getting more and more interesting - she absolutely needed fillet steak and tons of vegetables for lunch today, which was nice!

OK, our other major event - Richard and Erika's wedding. it went really well, and everyone had a fun time. the Elvis impersonator doing the singing was ace!!

some of our family came out for it - Colin, Angela, Christopher and Andrew to be precise. it was wonderful to see them all, and sadly we waved bye-bye last night. it sounds like they got home OK!

what other news do I have for you? well, I have been back at verk for three days, and it seems in my absence I was made employee of the month. nice one!

it's is Matt's birthday today - sounded like he was having fun when I called him, I trust he still is!!

oh, well, that's just about it all from here for now.

be excellent to each other!

not taken the pirates long....

the rather bad looking pirate copy of Episode III. you can clearly see that this is a time-encoded copy, with someone fading out the time stamp.

really, this is not worth the effort. the original DVD will be out by the end of the year. for such a special film, do not waste your time or spoil the experience with such a poor version of it.

seen it!

Episode III = ace film. go and see it as soon as possible!!!

Revenge Of The Sith and other news

well, I am a mere 14 hours away from seeing Revenge Of The Sith.

that does not seem to exciting anymore, considering Michele is pregnant!

totally out of the blue, and certainly unplanned, but there you go!

will endeavour to send more news and so on when the shock goes and it's all 100% joy!

No Way, Sis

well, thanks to a nightmare in the traffic this morning, I was able to hear the new Oasis album twice today.

it's not bad, but it is not great either. it's the quality of the b-sides for the singles off the first two albums - very good, but not quite good enough. ho hum, well worth a listen, and please go and buy it. I will as soon as they release it here - that could be a year or so, knowing now useless our CD stores are!

14 days today and Revenge Of The Sith hits the cinemas. nice one!

be excellent to each other!

a mere 17 days to go......

.....to Star Wars Episode III : Revenge Of The Sith. nice one, hard to believe that this event is barely two weeks away! wahoo!

anyway, I have been having a look at some other, lesser films in the mean time.

Sin City, picked up mainly because Matt was after a copy, is not a bad film at all. I have no idea at all about the graphic novel it is based on, but it may well be worth a look on the basis of this flick. Mickey Rourke yet again proves he is one of the most underused sources of talent in the galaxy, and Bruce Willis stands around a bit doing Bruce Willis things.

Constantine I have not watched, but Mrs Ricketts has. she seemed to enjoy it. well, she was impressed with the special effects, hence me hearing "holy s@#$" every few minutes as she saw it. me? watch Keanu? I don't think so, my dear.

Hide And Seek is yet another entry into the world of Robert De Niro's "look, give me the cheque and I will mumbe a few things and then shout a bit" works. oh dear, what a shame to see the great one constantly slumming it. which leads nicely into.....

GodSend, featuring more of the De Niro as painted above.

what the hell else did I watch? oh, Ring 2. well, the first one was OK, this one is kind of more of the same and yet not more of the same. see it and figure it out.

back to verk tomorrow after the long weekend. no doubt a chaotic morning ahead, no surprises there.

anyway, be excellent to each other!!

excellent!

check out this web page :

http://darthside.blogspot.com/

hello

not even sure if I have regular readers, thanks to the irregular nature of my updates!

well, what can I tell you about? not much, really, plodding along as usual. Michele is getting ready for her exams, we are all counting down to Richard & Erika's wedding, and of course there is the small matter of Star Wars Episode III very, very soon!

read Dan Brown's first novel, Digital Fortress. not bad, I guess, but not the most brilliant book my eyes have cast over.

ho hum, if all is well, and nothing dramatic has happened, I shall leave you to it. I have no doubt that many, many posts will accompany me seeing Star Wars :)

be excellent to each other......

Purple Haze....................

just what is eminating out of General Grevious' head????? I can only imagine that he is getting lamped here.

bye bye Ani, hello Darth............

Anakin Skywalker in a textbook definition of what "being lamped"actually is and looks like. this boy looks like he has taken one hell of a beating. go Obi go!

Oasis return! oh dear............

OK, I have heard Lyla, the "comeback single" from Oasis. oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.

I love this band, man. they just wanna rock and have fun. but this thing? part Street Fighting Man, part Jean Genie. imagination has really left.

I just hope the album, Don't Believe The Truth, is a lot better.

how that Queen reunion should look......

QUEEN and DAVID LEE ROTH!

well, i think it would be excellent, and i bet you my mate Spiros would agree!

ROSES RETURN

the original King Monkey givin' it some!

IAN BROWN was joined by former STONE ROSES bandmate MANI last night (March 24) at the scene of a legendary gig once performed by their old band back in 1989.
The pair performed Roses classic ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ together to an ecstatic crowd at the end of the opening night of King Monkey’s UK tour at Blackpool Empress Ballroom.
At the end of his 90 minute solo set, which was in support of his current album ‘Solarized’, the singer said: “Let’s have a big clap for Mani. Mani everybody,” before the Primal Scream bassist kicked off the legendary track.
Speaking to NME.COM before the show Brown said: "It was the first big Stone Roses gig of '89 when I first played there. It was my Dad's birthday that day and I think him and my mum were the only people in the crowd who weren't Eed up. It was a fantastic day. It's a great venue there and inside the architecture is knock out.
“It'll be great playing the Roses songs again as well because they're just alive those songs. It's the best feeling in the world knowing that I wrote those songs on the dole and years and years later there's kids that were probably at toddler groups back then crying when I'm playing them now. They are bled into English culture now, not that there is an English culture. I think the Beatles are the only ones who have got closer to English culture than we (The Stone Roses) have.”
Earlier in the night Brown performed six Stone Roses classics much to the joy of the crowd who screamed and danced to every track, along with a series of hits from his last four solo albums including ‘F.E.A.R’, ‘Love Like A Fountain’, ‘My Star’ and recent single ‘Keep What Ya Got’.
During the show, the singer, who was sporting a black leather Adidas jacket and shades, was showered by his adoring fans with t-shirts, messages and fluffy blue elephants.
The gig brought to a close a difficult week for the singer who recently became embroiled in an onstage bust-up with a member of the audience at a gig in San Francisco.
Brown will go on to play Bridlington Spa tonight before finishing his off tour with dates at Brighton Centre on March 26, Edinburgh Corn Exchange (28) and Birmingham Academy (29).
He played:
‘Longsight M13’
‘Destiny Of Circumstance’
‘(Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister’
‘Waterfall’
‘Made Of Stone’
‘Gravy Train’
‘Love Like A Fountain’
‘If Dolphins Were Monkeys’
‘She Bangs Drums’
‘Sally Cinnamon’
‘Golden Gaze’
‘Corpses’
‘The Sweet Fantastic’
‘Time Is My Everything’
‘Lovebug’
‘Keep What Ya Got’
‘My Star’
‘F.E.A.R’
‘I Wanna Be Adored’

Zombi 2

Zombie vs Shark, as promised. well, sort of. this is not the best shot from the film, but it is the only one i can find for now.

back to verk..........

hello all

well, back off to work tomorrow morning, after a mostly lazy and chilled leave. well, an expensive leave, too, considering how much work had to be done on my car. basically, if it ended in the world "belt" it needed replacing.

with a bit of luck, my many parcels from the UK and USA will arrive via the courier tomorrow. some courier - tomorrow will be nine days from date of order! ho hum, i guess i did order them all over a stack of holidays.

i am feeling somewhat nauseous - perhaps eating an entire caramel easter bunny was not the wisest thing i have ever done!

managed to watch two rather trashy horrors today - The Beyond, which my mate Bevs rates highly and i do not, and City Of The Living Dead, which was OK. both are made by the same fella that made Zombi 2, which i am most eager to see again for the infamous shark vs zombie scene. hmn, wonder if i can find a pic on the net to post here?

anyway, hope you are all well!

be excellent to each other!

on holiday

hello much-ignored readers,

well, I am on leave at the moment. that's almost a good excuse for not doing many updates, isn't it??

I have not been up to all that much thus far, to be honest. mostly messing around with Jurassic Park : Operation Genesis, and ordering many, many fine DVD's from around the world. verk very kindly gave me a hefty bonus, and thus I have done all that I can to spend it on most smart films. the first of them should arrive tomorrow - and that includes Army Of Darkness Boomstick Edition, as well as Zombi 2, bought more or less only because it has a zombie lamping a shark in it. no, seriously, it does.

as for the other stuff on the way, I have somewhat lost track. some most class films, that much I remember. like The Prisoner complete set on DVD - ace series, that was. and loads of birthday presents for people as well, and as they may read this, obviously I cannot release too much info!

my car is in for a service, the first for about 18 months, possibly longer. the damage is two and a half thousand South African Rand notes, thank you. basically, if it ended in the word "belt", it needed replacing. ho hum, rather this than having it blow up one day, a la THE MAGNET, still a very missed vehicle.

Michele's wheels go in tomorrow, and the outlook for hers is somewhat bleak. at least my car starts without a push!

I see my beloved Ian Brown has fallen foul of the law again - oh, dear. this time he appears to have joined in with the lamping of a security guard whilst on stage in the States. not as impressive as his attempt to comandeer a British Midlands flight (a few weeks in Strangeways for that one, lad), but interesting all the same.

anyway, kids, that will do for now. sigh, will try to be writing more soon.

be excellent to each other!

Episode III - image from trailer

Lord Darth Vader and Darth Sidious, checking something out. I must say, it's rather odd to see Vader doing something as casual and mundane as crossing his arms, is it not?

apologies again

hi readers

sorry once again for the irregular updates. in my defence, i have been somewhat ill again. i know, it's like a perpetual thing at the moment. on top of cold/flu/sniffles symptoms, i've had to contend with this "temporal arteritis" flaring up again. for most of the past week i could have happily replaced my own head with something else. anything, really, as long as it was not quite so painful. it seems to have cleared up, i am pleased to say, and so nothing stands in my way of updates!

happiest news of the week is the arrival of Duncan & Linda's baby. born on the 10th March, clocking it at 3.7kgs - no idea if that is good or not, i assume it is OK as mother & son (Robert Arthur) are due home on Sunday. nice one guys, looking forward to seeing you!

saddest news of the week revolves around my beloved Boro and Sporting Lisbon. i have no comment that i consider suitable to print here on that one.

we watched an "odd" film last night, The Butterfly Effect. it revolves around Chaos Theory, something that has interested me possibly before, but certainly around the time of Jurassic Park. it has one major plot flaw that stops it from being a classic - alas, cannot reveal that here as it would spoil the film. worth a look, but be warned there are seldom pleasant or easy images on screen. as for the lead, young Aston, well, the film is no Dude Where's My Car?, and he at least seems to translate from dumb comedy to "proper" films than Keanu has.

ego problem of the year? read this :

Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe said he may have been a target of an al Qaeda kidnap plot in early 2001, part of a bid by the militant network to "culturally destabilise" the United States

this is even better than David Hasselhoff being upset about not being mentioned for his "contribution" to the fall of the Berlin Wall (he was playing a concert there on the night they tore it down). well, we have had warnings - do you recall Russell consdescending to recite his poetry to a bemused audience when he won a BAFTA for A Beautiful Mind, and then starting to hit people when they cut him short?

anyway, that will do for the moment. Michele needs to log into UNISA to check something, and as I am downloading the latest Episode III trailer, too many browser windows crashes the system :)

for a change, Still Ill

Hello

well, this flu/cold thing just does not seem to wish to go away. at the moment, I feel like nails are being rammed into my head at several points, whilst someone attempts to glue my right eye up. all this, and it is Monday too.

Michele has some classy new Ferrari stationery to play around with for her studies. I had every intention of just picking up a pencil, but this expanded somewhat.

finally got the class Rolling Stones Live Licks CD I won in that competition. the mix on it is somewhat odd - Keith Richard's guitar seems to be placed in the background, with the percussion at the forefront. not all bad, just not what I expect from the Stones. ho hum, it has Monkey Man on it, and thus in my world it is class.

hope all is going well with you guys, wherever you may be!

be excellent to each other!!!!