Any day now...

This week I have been listening to Jeff Buckley quite a bit (mostly 'Hallelujah' as I'm sure my last.fm page will show), I've been wanting to listen to his stuff for a while and quite a few people over the years have said 'you'll like his stuff'. generally I'm quite stubborn if someone tells me what I'm going to like, hence why it has taken my this long to get round to listening to him. Another song that I enjoyed in particular was his cover of Bob Dylan's 'I Shall Be Released' from the 'Live at Sin-é' CD.

I couldn't find Jeff's version so here's Bob's. 

Give it a listen. Go on.

I also managed to get hold of the new EP from The Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice, anyone who knows me will already be aware of how big a fan I am of The Mountain Goats, well I'm also quite fond of John Vanderslice's music too so this EP promised to be awesome even before I heard any of it. Let's just say that it didn't disappoint at all. I really hope that The Mountain Goats come back to Scotland some time soon. 

The Mountain Goats & John Vanderslice: Moon Colony Bloodbath

The Bank Holiday weekend is going swell, I feel incredibly lazy but it feels like i've been due a little bit of laziness after being busy with work and whatnot. I managed to get my blog unlocked again after the people at blogger decided that 'A Collage of Senselessness' was not a spam blog. It's nice to be in the mood to blog again and spend some time doing stuff like that, and for once I did a little bit of a drawing. I am aware that it was only a header for this blog but it felt good to actually put something inside my sketchbook for the first time in a while. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of blogging and drawing now anyway.

501st Legion Insignia

STATUS REPORT: 'Begun, this Clone War has'. Having started watching Star Wars again from the beginning on Thursday night, I am now mid way through the Clone Wars series which I'm rather enjoying (I'm sure I didn't need to tell you that though), although at about 12 and a half hours of viewing time it is quite a challenge so I'm taking a break just now by writing up about this nonsense. I can't wait to watch 'Revenge of the Sith', just for Ewan McGregor's speech at the end. Powerful.

Keep it coming.

JAB

Glory, Glory Hallelujah.

Hey there y'all. Got the new Ryan Adams and The Cardinals album this week but yeah, to be honest that's not much to write home about...so don't know why I'm bothering to mention it at all. Besides uneventful musical findings I did manage to get ahold of the new Mountain Goats Ep 'Satanic Messiah' from here, now if you've not listened to them before much I'd give it a look in as it's free (well voluntary donation), it's only four tracks long and the last two tracks are sublime (albeit in my opinion which, okay...may be a little biased).

This week has involved already pretty bad weather getting colder, wetter and windier. Oh how I love Scotland's climate. Although reassuringly my dad informed me that the weather on Merseyside is pretty much the same at the moment. This week I will be working as per usual but for the first time in a while I have a Saturday off meaning I can spend a friday night out without having to get up in the morning and instead will just have a whole day to nurse a beautiful, well constructed hangover.

On Sunday I really felt like something from the 24hour bakery so I went and picked up a nice tuna and sweetcorn baguette and a couple of fudge donuts for me and jen. When I got back to Jen's flat I remembered that I had a few pickles left in the cupboard from the week before and to be honest nothing goes better with a tuna sweetcorn baguette than a nice bit of pickled dill, so I joyfully added it to my baguette, much to Jen's disgust of course (sorry Jen) and now there's only one pickle left in the cupboard...all alone. How saddening a story it is. Regina has a song about a Pickle so they must be awesome.

Jim, the loneliest pickle.

Last night I sat and watched 'The Big Lebowski', I'm a fan of all of the Coen Brothers work that I've had the pleasure of seeing and I suppose in saying that, it was pretty much sacrilege that I hadn't seen this one before. Anyway, it is a fantastic film and I just couldn't stop laughing at the character John Turturro plays (however small a part it actually is). He plays a rather flamboyant, cocky, die-hard bowler named 'Jesus' - 'nobody fucks with the Jesus...', so yeah this clip may be a little out of context for those who haven't seen the film but you see what I mean - pure genius.

'It don't matter to Jesus! You don't fool Jesus'

Tonight, I sat and watched the football to wind down after work. The Manchester United fans always sing 'Glory, Glory, Man United' and for some reason I couldn't stop thinking that the Weakerthans have a version of 'Glory, Glory, Hallelujah', now I may just be going crazy and I know it's a long shot but if anyone happens to be reading this and knows that they did infact do a version please let me know that I'm not insane. Cheers.

Right now I'm enjoying a fantastic cup of smoky Lapsang Souchong tea before I head off to bed. brilliant.

JAB

These Aren't the Droids You're Looking for...(A Review of this weeks Films and DVD's)

 So the week is drawing to a close again and I'm thoroughly exhausted after an exceedingly crazy day in work today. In advance, I'm sorry for posting so many youtube videos on this particular blog post but as the title states I've just been watching films and stuff when not in work and this is what I think of them all...take some time out to watch them if you will, you may find something that you like. This is how I've been entertaining myself this week.

Running my mum's shop hasn't been quite the walk in the park that I had imagined it may be...typical really. At the beginning of the week I mentioned that a bunch of Illustration folk did the Art Bar pub quiz, anyway I was kicking myself on not being able to get the Star Wars question, so when I was reminded of the scene referring to the question by a friend, I remembered the answer...too little too late. My embarrassment at my absolute lack of knowledge about Han Solo using Luke Skywalker's Lightsaber in Episode V has pushed me back into Star Wars mode as it must be oh, I don't know, three months since I last watched them all?...I was intending to do some work this evening but after such a mad day I'm going to sit with some beer and a pizza and watch Episode 1 (Not my favourite of the Star Wars saga...but where else is there to start?). The following scene isn't the scene that was mentioned in the question but simply a classic original school Star Wars scene.

Classic Alec Guinness. 

'These aren't the droids you're looking for'

Generally when I have a busy day I can't be bothered doing too much drawing or illustrating, and this week was no real exception - I finished up my answer to the Illustration Friday brief to illustrate the word 'Clutter' here, which was my main illustration goal for the week. The first film I watched this week was one that I discovered through my good friend Redd, now I'd never heard of it before and I'm not a huge Sci-Fi fan (apart from Star Wars of course...) but I remember he had mentioned a film called 'Man from Earth'.

Man From Earth

Now I'll admit it's an odd film but it's one that get's the mind racing. I'd say that it's the most intriguing film I've seen this year without a doubt, due mainly to the style of the film. When I first began watching I must admit i was thinking 'Well...this looks fairly low budget...' and as a result I had fairly low expectations, usually something like this may make me want to switch a film off or not give it any real attention but I must admit I was glued to this one after a short while. I couldn't have switched it off if I was forced to. I'd say to give it a watch if you want something thought-provoking to view. I liked it anyway. I'll not give anything of the story away incase anybody does decide to watch.

On thursday I took charge of mum's coffee shop, it's been okay in general I'm just pretty tired. Oh well I have two days off now anyway. 

A pink Danny Wallace style car that I saw 

on the way home from work on Thrusday.

I've also been getting back into Black Books again. On Thursday evening, lets just say I wasn't much in the mood for a film so I watched this.

Bill Bailey - Pure genius.

Last night's film was 'Waiting', a rather comical take on life working as a waiter. I'm not really a huge Ryan Reynolds fan, and I don't act like this as a waiter but this film does make me laugh.

Waiting.

...and then tonight I watched Star Wars Episode 1, but I already told you that though right?

Weird Al Yankovic sums up Star Wars:Episode 1  perfectly.

I also forgot to mention that due to this week being the 7th anniversary of the World Trade Centre attacks we watched a programme about the hotel next to the world trade centres, anyway, that started me off thinking about the whole 9/11 conspiracy thing. I'm not saying that I believe it as both sides have such a great supporting argument, but I know that I'd like to believe that the American government couldn't possibly do such a thing to their public. But no one seems to have a definitive answer. Anyway, I don't know, i'm the king of sitting on the fence I guess. What are your thoughts? I haven't posted any videos here simply out of respect.

Ciao

JAB