Been a busy couple of weeks

Hey my fellow followers, I must apologise for my severe lack of blogging but 50+ hours at work kept me from it. I finally have my camera fixed so expect some random pictures of random things to come, like this:

A 50 year old Italian man with a roll of blue roll on his head behind a bar.
Thing I'll be doing in the next couple of days are blogging my thoughts on community, board walk empire, spirited away and Spartacus: gods of the arena. Also Laputa - Castle in the Sky as it was recommended to me.

The Devil!

The foul smelling, fiery beast that taunts you until your will snaps and you converse with it, well not the devil pur-se but it does drain your money and ends up killing or in a way contributing to your death. That's right cigarettes, they had me hooked for 8 years since I was 16, in which I would have spend round about £7000-£8000 on them. They did feel good though I do have to admit that, the first cigarette in the morning felt good, it stopped that achy feeling I got in my chest, woke me up and prepared me for my second one, let me skip breakfast and gave me something to do for 10 minutes every time I had one.

I had tried to quit before a few times, once with the patches with my then girlfriend but the fact my then girlfriend  was there just made me want to smoke which I did about a day later when I bought myself a pack of 10.
When they list the toxins in cigarettes I didn't care, they may as well said there are tiny goblins in it and when you light the tab they get scared and run into your throat, setting up camp in your lungs. The pictures as well done nothing, you see more graphic things on the news and it's easy to get desensitised to it.
But as of the 6th of September 2010 I kicked it and became smoke free ( well as smoke free as you can get when 3 people who you live with smoke themselves ), I've saved a hell of a lot of money, I feel better, colds last not as long and not as bad as they used to be but the thing I find the best is being able to walk up the stairs and not be out of breath when I get to the top.
I'm not going to be one of these people who say quit or die because I know how hard it is and how good it makes you feel but I will say consider it, look at some of the benefits and if you find a reason to do it, go for it with everything you've got, none of this half hearted stuff.

COD:BO

Yeah I know it's been done to death but I haven't had a chance to comment on this yet. I like it but I find it lacking as well, I didn't really play World at War much and played MW2 instead where you had loads of weapons to choose from and where I knew where I was going on the maps. I think I'm still quite a noob at Black Ops for now but I have drastically improved since swapping my light machine gun for a nice little assault rifle, I'm starting to nearly get a 1:1 KDR.
I love the nazi zombies but hate it so much as well, well I don't hate the game but I hate some of the people who play it. I played with a guy the other day that just ran through opening all the doors until the place got flooded with zombies, it was a quick game to say the least. It's 100% better than the co-op multiplayer in MW2 that I played maybe twice.
The textures on small things and glass and walls just seems to look bad, it might just be me but when I'm camping ( yeah people hate it but I get kills ) i usually have a little bit behind a wall just for cover and my TV ends up with  horrible pixely block over 1/4 of it, kind of reminds me of counter strike.
Nearly forgot the single player mode, yeah it's an alright story but nothing that makes you think wow. I did like the voice acting though and the introduction to the crossbow, the actual gameplay I liked too. The end level though...I felt like I was playing a James Bond game but by far the funniest thing for me was when you come out the water at the end, I did think the song from Team America was going to start playing.

America, FUCK YEAH!

But all in all I like this game, I just need more practise. Also I hate attack dogs, so so much.

The most awesome tattoo I've seen

You know those days when you go to a festival and you have your camera on your person to take photos of the bands at said festival but something comes into your sight so awesome you need to turn your camera on, using the horrible digital zoom to get close enough ( I didn't want to get close to this guy trying to take photos of him without him knowing ) all to get a picture of a tattoo of the A-Team on the back of some random guys calf...well I do and this is the result. Also, yes I know there are hell of a lot better tattoos out there but I haven't seen them.

I love it when a plan come together, Text at the bottom

Motorbike in an action shot but fails compared to the A-Team.

 

Both these pictures where taken at download festival 2007 ( I think 2007 or 2006 ).

Chinglish?

Well because I'm moving to China this year for a job
( because I can't find anything here in England ) I thought I'd learn a little bit of the language, just the spoken though as the written is far, far beyond me at the minute. I'm using the Rosetta Stone program and it's so very strange to use, for one it doesn't tell you want you're saying, it will display a picture and you assume what it is in English. So I can say a sentence and assume it means one thing but it could mean another thing. I wish I had a Chinese friend so I could get some real time clarification on what I was saying and use Chinese more in real life so it would 'stick' in my memory better, he/she could also teach me swear words as well, which are always handy to know.
But 2 weeks in and I know some very, very basic stuff, 6 more months and I should be able to have a conversation...I hope or at least be able to point at things and say in Chinese what they are.
I also got a companion pack with it that's great as I've put it on my iPod and can listen to it on the way to work or when I'm out jogging. The only drawback is when a new word is said, I haven't the slightest clue what it means and by time I get back home to check it I generally forget what was said.
I can't wait to go.

Howl's Moving Castle

Well I've always heard that this film is really good, loads of reviews and stuff like that going on and on about how brilliant it is...and it didn't disappoint in the slightest. The story, the voice acting, the visuals, the music all came together to make a really enjoyable film that left me smiling at the end, very few films can do to me.
I don't usually stray away from watching these kind of films but I think this has changed my opinion and in the coming weeks I'll have to get the other Studio Ghibli titles to watch and hopefully enjoy.
If you like animation, fantasy or just losing yourself in a gloriously colourful world full of different characters then I recommended Howl's Moving Castle. check out the trailer below.

The other weird thing that happened to me

City centre, Amsterdam, I was high at this point so this photo is crap

Well this time I was younger, I think 18 at the time, and it was the first time I'd went to Amsterdam. So me and my friends found a nice place to admire some of the plants and smoke a couple of them too.
I remember it really well, It was a nice day so as we were very high we walked down the river edge, There were two guys in front of me but talking really loudly about this bar and how good it was, the cheap prices and where it was. Never before have encountered human advertisement but there it was, in front of me advertising away with their loud talking about this place I'd never heard about and....what the hell, the guy on the left had a plant pot on his head, no word of a lie. Being high made this quite strange to say the least and I did freak out a little bit.
After they had gone about a minute later we seen a cop beat the crap out of a tramp then point his tazor at him.
It's fair to say my first time in Amsterdam was strange but didn't stop me going again.