One Man Lord of the Rings on YouTube

According to Charlie Ross' Twitter he's added a YouTube video with some footage of his show. Its slightly strange without any audience reaction but good nonetheless.

One Man Lord of the Rings at Theatre Royal Brighton

I've been searching and waiting for this news and just by luck I found it today! Charles Ross did his One Man Star Wars show last year (see my previous blog entry) and now he's back for his One Man Lord of the Rings show.

The Hawth in Crawley seem to be first in the queue for his local appearance in February 2010 but I've just bought 4 front row tickets for the Brighton venue, Theatre Royal on 24th March 2010.
 
One Man Lord of the Rings Tickets - tickets for One Man Lord of the Rings at Theatre Royal Brighton, Brighton

Shared via AddThis

Cadbury's new advert

I always like being the first to share new things but never chocolate - its all mine, mine, mine! Mixing two passions of mine, chocolate and marketing, this is going to be everywhere very soon. The tune sounds quite good and the video entertaining all for a semi-shameless plug at Cadbury's Fairtrade chocolate. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Elite

This is going to be a schizophrenic blog entry as there hasn't been any major events going on at the moment. Last week started with another win of the Pond pub quiz but a shallow victory with only three teams entering then one too drunk to care. Friday's TV experiment by Derren Brown was a mixed result though I don't think I was really concentrating. I was more insterested in the Twitterfall of people talking about him. I nearly got caught with a nasty PC virus thanks to some evil Tweet and short URL. Lesson learnt: never click on a short URL unless you know its reliable.

Saturday night was at a very local pub on Lewes Road, Brighton called the Gladstone. Go-Bang and a few other local DJs put on an all-dayer. It was a refreshing change not to need a taxi but the drink prices were still steep. Good to meet a few new people and the neo-disco sounds were quite cool. Alot of remixed old classics catching my attention. We stayed until the end dodging the Gladstone regulars. There were alot of warning signs to keep dogs attached to their lead (or string looking at the normal clientele). Back to ours (for a change) for more cocktails and chat.

Sunday was a day of TV managing to lower our standards by watching the whole of Cannonball Run 2 film which despite the million famous people starring in it, its still corny sh*te. This was followed by watching Back to the Future which a little better but perhaps we could have done something else. With Sukey's restaurant recommendation, our laziness continued by trying Pompoko, the Japanese restaurant in town. The food was very tasty and quite cheap in comparsion with service quick and efficient. We forgot they didn't serve alcohol so went on to the Life bar where Maxxi Soundsystem (Go-Bang) were playing. Lucky we did turn up as it looked like we were the only ones.

Monday's news is featured in the headline. Elite was 25 years old this day which was launched on the old BBC Microcomputer. I never had a BBC but they released it on the ZX Spectrum 48k about a year later which I was hooked on. Another (sad?) memory was doing an English Literature project comparing the short story book of Elite to Blade Runner and Empire Stikes Back. Geek naming starts here.

Last night we looked at some local cat rescue websites as we're starting to miss a furry friend being around. Brighton's City Cat Shelter and RSPCA websites were a sorry state to read. As well as the stories behind the abandoned kitties, it was their web design that brought a lump to my throat. Quite whether I can bring myself to visit these places without wanting to adopt them all is one thing but I may look into creating a better website for them using WordPress (for free) just for the experience.

Daft Punk in DJ Hero

Forthcoming music game shows Daft Punk characters mashing up Robot Rock, Da Funk, Around the World, Short Circuit, Technologic and Television rules the nation.

DJ Hero - Daft Punk Trailer
by Activision

Marriage at Moyvalley

Started the day in a very, very tired state. It was a late one singing and our room flooded with dawn sunshine only hours after we got to bed so our breakfast appearance was slightly subdued. Apart from the previous night's happenings conversation was about how we were getting to the church. George, who turned up looking ten times worse than all of us, forgot to mention the mini-bus organised for us. At least we could recover our energies for a few hours with a 3pm ceremony. We went back to the room for a mid-morning nap.

Yesterday's fine weather had extended for a perfect day for the wedding. We all met a 2:30pm with some of us driving to the church a few miles away. We took our places and waited for the bride and a traditional Roman Catholic ceremony. Another surprise from George was discovered as I forgot where I was with the instant reaction of shouting out 'bloody hell'. After browsing through the service pamphlet I saw my name printed to read out a section of the service. A quick chat with George and I was indeed supposed to come speak to the congregation for part of the holy vow. Trying not to think about the TV series, Father Ted, the minister endearingly forgot his point halfway through his speech but mentioned his relationship being uncle to Dee having christened her all those years ago. A lot of hymn singing and some prayers later, they tied the knot.

Back at the hotel, the meal and champagne went down well as well as the company of relatives and new friends. All the speeches went without a hitch and instead of a traditional cheesy disco we were entertained by a live jazz band. By midnight, the remaining party-goers were on the SingStar in the basement bar including Dee's older family members who hadn't been around for the previous evening. We left it to them with Patsy Cline 'Crazy' being belted out.

Sunday was just about the travel. Dublin airport left a bad taste in my mouth and an ache in my stomach. Ryan Air mucked us about changing the queue three times, their staff lost it a few times with complaining customers and our baggage had gained a kilo even after packing it lighter at Gatwick! Luckily a bloke behind us suggested we take on an extra hand-luggage bag as they wouldn't notice. The other cause for sickness was my first Burger King for years - never again!

Murder at Moyvalley

Whether it was the excitement of winning the pub quiz the night before or the alcohol, it was a bleary eye start for our trip to Ireland for my cousin's wedding. Getting to Gatwick was no problem by train though our first experience of cheap-skates, Ryan Air raised our eyebrows at the baggage over-weight cost. We shifted some stuff into our hand luggage to get it under 15kg.

Touchdown in Dublin and we quickly realised that time had not allowed any potential sight-seeing with the logistics of the car hire. The airport is expanding with a new terminal so its roadworks everywhere. Still it was nice to hear everyone talking like Boyzone. We got slightly lost driving our under-powered Pug 308 trying to find the M50, twinned with the M25 as everyone in the local area decided to leave work early and enjoy the roasting sunshine.

We avoided the toll roads for Moyvalley admiring the grass which is proven greener than the UK and arrived at the hotel's enormous grounds and golf resort. After fighting the rushhour traffic. a mile's worth of driveway and the scheduled start of 6:30pm we were keen to have some sort of rest and get ready. So being told at check in that our room key had already been taken and no way to contact whoever took it gave the start of the eveving a bit of stressful start. Eventually we found Dee, George's soon to be wife who found us the proper room plus news of the delayed start of the evening.

Everyone had made the effort with perhaps a little more enthusiasm from our side of the family. George introduced me to his mate who was playing the inspector who would lead the murder mystery. George's character was due to be arrested by myself, PC Coppit but escapes us. We play act trying to find him then he 'dies' in front of everyone. We all pretend that we can't lift his 'corpse' then crack up in the other room before returning to finding out who murdered/poisoned him.

Here, the real challenge of The Last Gasp starts for a perfect ice-breaker between the two families and set of friends. My character seems to be hassled by everyone and their dog being the policeman and people try to either bribe me with clues or information as a second level of game to earn money as well as the whodunit aspect. My two aunts throw themselves into their role, there's Dr. Hammer who seems to be the main suspect due to the drug element, whilst Kerry finds out she was the deceased's ex-wife and having an affair with the soon-to-be father-in-law.

After a couple of announced clues to help us along and an excellent 3 course meal, everyone is starting to flag from the complicated rules. My partner in detection compares it to the Dusty Bin's 3-2-1 TV show which rings true when the solution's read out with only Ted Rogers himself would understand. Still, everyone had mingled sucessfully and had got themselves tanked up for the singalong in the downstairs bar.

George had brought along his brand new Slim PS3 and plugged in SingStar for some duet fun. The teenage twins Alex and Chloe were first on whereas only Moloko's 'Sing it back' and Pretenders 'Brass in pocket' could get Kerry and me sing at out top of our voices (as well as the dozen so vodkas inside us).

Assassin's Creed 2

Loving this trailer for the forthcoming Assassin's Creed 2 from Ubisoft. They've used a Justice track, Genesis I think. The graphics looks amazing, as you'd expect with Renaissance Italy as the backdrop. Enjoy!

Venture Brothers 4th season preview

I don't often check Jackson Publick's blog (creator of the Venture Brothers) that often as he doesn't write that regularly but today I noticed an exciting entry of Season 4 preview. There's a great quote of "I love Hitler and Hitler loves me!" with some Nazis featured in an episode. With a key character leaving in the last episode of Season 3 (won't ruin it for those haven't seen it) there are some clues as to who will replace that person.

Long weekend

Thursday night was another quiz and unfortunately, another failure to win. With Donna joining our over-subscribed team we were split into two but both of us came in last place. Friday was a family day with 7 year old niece Morgan being the centre of attention. Shame the weather couldn't repeat last weekend's roasting. Instead we introduced Morgan to some quality anime, Spirited Away - hopefully she'll go off that Hannah Montana and turn to some quality merchandise!

Saturday, we turned our attention to getting some costumes for my cousin's wedding in two weeks. He's arranged a murder mystery with an 1899 theme. Kerry didn't have much luck but has arranged a visit to a costume hire place next week whereas I've got a 'steam punk' look using existing wardrobe items, a bowtie and Sherlock style pipe. Just need the bushy ginger moustache to complete the look.

The evening was a night out at Audio where the Schtumm! DJs were joined by Jon Kahuna. There was also a surprise guest DJ from the Beachdown Festival aftermath. Wild speculation ranged from Laurent Garnier to Midfield General. In the end it was Caged Baby. The club was free to get in and certainly filled up better than the paid-for Crazy P night. More randoms met in the bar including a lad who'd just been fined £80 for urinating in the Laines. By 3am we were heading back to Paul's Disco Dungeon for some afterparty action.

Sunday was a write-off with sleep non-existant but felt bad we didn't attend the Maxxi Soundsystem night at Life bar. Instead we saved our energies for Monday for a long bike ride across the South Downs. The weather was stunning for our 20 mile round trip stopping off at Juggs in Kingston near Lewes.

We ended our extended weekend on Tuesday with a shopping mission in London. Covent Garden is still our favourite with a good Urban Outfitters store and Full Circle around the back in Floral Street has some good value designs worth looking. Selfridges is still worth visiting for the main brands but you get the feeling they've gone either too safe or just slightly tacky in places, even Littlewoods catelogue in places. Finally, we headed over to Carnaby Street ending up in Beyond the Valley.