so.
bristol city council are committed to reducing the amount of rubbish sent to landfill. this is very commendable, and i agree wholeheartedly with this policy.
the way they are doing this is as follows:
they provide every household with a black recycling box, for cans, plastic bottles, newspaper, plastic bags, glass, that kind of thing. collected weekly.
they provide every household with an organic waste bin, for leftover food, vegetable offcuts, things like that, anything compostable. collected weekly, goes to a giant compost bin somewhere.
then there's the main wheelie bin, for stuff that doesn't compost or recycle, collected now only fortnightly.
all well and good. there's a few problems i can see though.
like if people don't use the organic waste bin, their rotting organic waste is going to sit in their wheelie bin for up to 2 weeks, attracting vermin and causing a Smell. i would imagine the fortnightly collection of the main bin is probably in part to encourage people to use the recycling services, but still there's people (like my housemate James) who won't, just because it's easier to throw everything in the one big bin.

anyway, on to my main subject, which is our organic waste bin. the setup is that you get one small bin for your kitchen, and a larger one to keep outside. when the small one's full you empty it into the large one. so far, so good.
the other day i went to empty the kitchen rot-box into the mega-rot-box. i opened the mega-rot-box, and saw a number of maggots crawling around on the decaying shit inside.
"blech" i thought to myself, and shuddered. i tipped in the new garbage, and continued with my day.
yesterday i moved the mega-rot-box from where it had been kept (in what's essentially our back yard, although it's on a rooftop) to outside the street door, so that the bin men could collect it. i observed that a number of probably pigeons had shat all over the mega-rot-box, making it shitty and disgusting on the outside. out of curiosity, i opened the lid, from a safe distance, with my foot.
inside was a seething mass of maggots, filling approximately a third of the bin. i could see nothing else inside other than maggots. from the bin emanated The Foulest Stench Ever, it smelt of something dead, that had then been shat on by someone with dysentry.
i nearly vommed in the street.

later that evening, after i had asked both james and alex to empty the kitchen rot-box into the mega one, as it was full again, and after both had refused point blank, myself and billiam went to do it.
the smell had got worse during the day, as it had been quite sunny. also, the maggots were making some kind of exodus, and were crawling out from around the edge of the lid and plopping onto the pavement.
billiam opened the lid of the mega-rot-box with a stick. from within came the sound of thousands and thousands and thousands of maggots crawling over and over each others' slimy maggoty bodies. in case you're wondering what it sounds like, it's a sort of wet rustling sound. truly horrorsome.
i tipped in the fresh waste with a shudder, and we retreated into the flat, pausing only to throw the stick in the wheelie bin. as we left the scene, maggots covered the pavement outside the flat, crawling out into the night.

this morning i woke up at 6am, having had a nightmare about maggots.

the week of rehearsals went very well in the end.
it was a bit stressful sometimes having so many people in the flat, as i may have mentioned below, but it was all ok in the end.
i wasn't really around for much of the rehearsals, i thought it'd be best if i just let alex get on with directing the actors without me watching everything. i saw the last rehearsal before the actors left though, and it's looking really really good.

i also got the flyers back from the printers, and they look brilliant. 10,000 of them, which might be more than we can actually give out, but it's better to have too many than to have too few, i think.

also, last week a photographer came round to shoot some publicity stills for the play. his name is phil nicholls and he's a very nice man who did these shots for us for free. they turned out fantastic, we're really pleased with them.

in other news, i still have no job, and to be honest, i think there's very little prospect of finding one before edinburgh now. actually i realised we go up there in exactly two weeks..

maaaaan.
i've been doing some video work for my friend zac who wanted visuals for when his band played live. fine. except he gave me a week to do the work in. 40 minutes of visuals. they're playing tomorrow night. plus i've been busy with plenty of other stuff (the play, looking for a job, house stuff, writing) and well skipping to the end, i didn't really start until today. it's finished though! and it's fine as well.
composition is as follows: 50% video feedback, 35% psychelically false-coloured footage of the city of bristol, 14% the band's name on rainbow colour-shifting backgrounds, 1% black video.
the band's myspace page is here
i don't think i like myspace. i think it might be a sort of internet turd-pie.
hopefully the band won't completely hate the 40-minute acid trip i've made for them. zac said he'd sort me out with tickets to their gig tomorrow, but i might not go.
if i don't go, they can't lynch me afterwards.
if i can be bothered to do a compressed version, i might put it on youtube or something so you can see it.

production on the "the hood" is going ok. the flyers are ready to print, i got some quotes this afternoon. problem is that we need lots and lots of regular flyers, and then a much smaller number (like 700 or so) of special flyers which are exactly he same but also have a splash on saying "2 for 1 with this flyer". the actual cheapest way to do this is to print more regular flyers than we need, and have a rubber stamp made up with the "2 for 1" stuff on, and then i sit for an hour or so and stamp 700 flyers with the stamp. so i think that's what we will do.

front:
rear:


looks good, no?

the bad news is that one of our actors has a problem. he's in another play, and he was originally told this other play was on at 7pm, but it turns out it actually starts at 1.15pm, which is exactly when our play will finish. giving our actor 0 minutes to remove some fairly heavy makeup, run up the street to the other theatre, and get into costume ready to appear in this other play.
hopefully he can do it. we can try to make sure we start on time/early, and he's got about 10 minutes from the start of the other play.. plus their get-in time.. so more like 20-25 minutes. it ought to be ok, but it's a worry.

still unemployed. still spending more than i ought to be. particularly on t-shirts.
and drink.

on friday last i went out with some friends to a place called the bierkeller, it's a dirty rock club (they also have gigs there) full of weird people and under-age kids. i realise this generalisation of mine forces me into the "weird people" category, but fuck it.
anyway, i saw a man dancing like a robot. this entertained me all night. then we went and danced with him, but i think he was in too much of his own world to notice.

animal crossing on the ds is brilliant, although i wish i could make it work with my wireless network. i've messed with it quite a lot, and so far no dice.

HAHAHAHAHA alex just came home, and i put the dvd of the visuals in for him to see, and i've made a critical oversight on the dvd menu. where it should say "play visuals" it says "fuckmyass" because that's what the actual video file is called, because of the number of times i had to create a new project.
did i mention i had to edit in iMovie? i had to edit in iMovie. my copy of final cut pro doesn't work for some reason, and as for editing a 40 minute video in premiere pro on my old pc.. no chance.
anyway, fucking iMovie kept starting projects in NTSC format, and then weirdly changed my PAL projects into NTSC ones while i was working on them. hence "fuckmyass"
fuck shit fuck. i really can't go to the show now. they're going to put the dvd in, and my super-funny menu is going to appear, with it's scrolling banner of these images:


and underneath, it says "fuckmyass".
HAHAHHAHA i'm slightly hysterical.

the other day i bought a nintendo ds lite, and two games: animal crossing and trauma centre - under the knife.
so having played both games a bit, i am going to ramble on for pages and pages about them. well, mostly about animal crossing actually.
to be honest, i shouldn't have spent so much money, as i'm still unemployed, and haven't managed to find any kind of job, even a crap one. all the job agencies are useless. today i went round loads of shops, and offloaded some copies of my cv. tomorrow i'm doing cafes.
i'm getting low on funds because i've been forking out so much money on the play. more on that some other time.

( ds lite, animal crossing, and trauma centre - read all about it! )

i finally got round to uploading all my photos from weston-super-mare, the crazy seaside resort near bristol.
most of them are pictures of arcade machines on the pier.
check them out here

i went to the dentist.
i need 4 fillings and something called a "fissure sealant".
plus i had a "new patient's check-up" (twice the price of a regular check-up, and "clean & polish".
total cost: £465.
i'm getting the first two fillings done on monday, before the party. my face might still be numb and full of painkillers, causing me to slur and dribble my drink down my front, which should add something extra to the event.

toby the actor has a friend who's publishing a magazine during the festival, and we're getting some space in it, i think basically it's a small article/advert. i'm unclear on the details of this at the minute, hopefully i will find out more soon.
plus this friend has a flat we may be able to rent a room in for the week, though it depends on whether some other people want it for the whole festival, or something. we'll see. it'd be better than the campsite though.

today i went to the job agency, and they offered me a job in bristol prison working with paedophiles and rapists. if i don't get on this tefl course, i may take it.

i just sent out the invitations (read: text messages) to the people i'm asking to my birthday drinks tomorrow. if everyone i invited turns up (unlikely) then it will be a rather odd eclectic mix. there's at least one combination of people who actually have problems being in the same room. and, unusually, i'm not part of that combination. anyway, it might be alright.
before we go out for drinks, me and my flatmates plus one or two (most likely one) others are having a big dinner at home. we were planning to go out, but billiam and james have no money. so i'm going to spend all afternoon cooking a massive meal for everyone.
it's a bit strange, cooking your own celebratory birthday dinner, but i will quite enjoy it, plus none of the others can cook, so if i want a good meal, i have to make it.

i can't bloody sleep. and i need to sleep tonight because i have to actually get up tomorrow and do stuff. i have to go to the dentist for a check-up. i'm really not looking forward to this, because i last went to the dentist in 2002, and i'm convinced there's some stuff wrong with my teeth. at least 2 fillings, i reckon. maybe they'll want to remove a tooth or two.. hell.

this evening we had a read-through of "the hood" with toby, the lead actor. he's the only one who actually lives in bristol, which is why he was the only actor present. i read the other two parts, which was great fun. anyway from hearing the script read aloud it's become clear that some stuff needs to be changed a little, but overall it's pretty good.

also we recieved some more stuff from the theatre, just stuff for our flyer design, and a lighting plan, which will be useful. plus we now have a date/time for our technical rehearsal. it's at 11.30pm-1.30am on the friday before we open. as it stands right now, me and alex don't have any accommodation sorted for the friday, but i expect we can extend the campsite booking if we need to. we're hoping to stay with a friend of toby's though, in a flat. it's probably not actually going to cost any more than camping.

it's my birthday on thursday. i was originally intending to organise a big event to mark the occasion, but now i don't think i can be bothered. i think it's likely to end up with me and a limited number of close friends going out for a meal, then meeting anyone else that wants to go out at a bar or something.
then on friday a friend of mine is having a house party, which apparently is a formal, black tie function. ho hum, we'll see how it goes.
and on monday we are actually having a party in our flat! this is by no means a common occurrence - we last hosted a party on the 24th of september last. this party is in honour of alex's television appearance, on the channel 4 show "the play's the thing". it's like pop idol, but for playwrights.
a busy social week.
plus i have to get a job this week, it's becoming rather urgent.

i applied to do a celta course at the bristol uni language school, however all their places are provisionally filled, i'm waiting to see if anyone basically drops out. i'll know on wednesday what's going on. i hope someone drops out and i get on the course, i really do.

i need to go to sleep

on the coffee table are:
1 large plate, holding some cheese fragments, 2 chocolate bar wrappers, and a smear of brown sauce.
1 small plate, holding some crumbs
3 glasses, all partially filled with water
2 mugs, half filled with cold tea
1 fork, used
on the floor next to the coffee table is:
1 bowl, half filled with pasta/tuna/sweetcorn mixture
1 fork, dirty
on the kitchen floor are:
1 carboard box, containing clothing (black)
miscellaneous carboard
1 box of "frosted flakes" cereal, contents removed
on the kitchen worktop are:
1 ovenproof dish, containing some water
1 small saucepan, containing dried-up rice
1 sharp knife, dirty
7 mugs, 2 containing unidentified liquid
1 dirty chopping board, on which are the insides of a pepper
7 large plates, 2 caked in dried gravy
1 sieve, used
4 bowls, 1 containing dried cereal particles, 2 holding some kind of tomato dinner remains, 1 half filled with what appears to be gravy
2 saucepan lids
1 cheesegrater, crusty
3 glasses, 1 containing unidentified white powder
1 small frying pan, soiled
2 plastic glasses, 1 half filled with water
1 large coca-cola bottle, containing a very small amount of flat coke
1 large frying pan containing white fat and bacon fragments. a spatula is welded into the fat
1 sweetcorn tin, contents removed, upturned
1 jar of "chicken tonight" stir-fry sauce, contents removed
every remaining item of cutlery in the flat, excepting 3 forks, 1 spoon and 1 knife
on the cooker are:
one medium saucepan, containing pasta/tuna/sweetcorn mixture
1 wok, containing glutinous chicken stir-fry
4 mugs, tea-stained

i would like to point out that i am responsible for none of this. except a very small amount of the miscellaneous cardboard. and that's only because the bin is full.

on the coffee table here are:
2 small plates
1 large plate, holding some orange peel and an apple core.
2 spoons
1 sharp knife
4 bowls, 1 contains the remains of cereal, 1 contains what looks like gravy, 2 contain dried-up dinner fragments.
5 glasses, 1 containing coke, 1 water and 2 empty
5 mugs, 4 of which are half full of cold tea
on the floor next to the coffee table are:
1 large plate
1 spoon
1 plastic glass, lying on it's side
on the kitchen floor are:
1 spoon
1 used teabag and some kitchen towel
1 trashbag, full of trash
on the kitchen counter by the sink are:
1 frying pan full of white fat and bacon particles. a spatula is welded into the fat
1 jug full of gravy and dirt
2 large plates caked in gravy
other miscellaneous

it should be pointed out that out of all this, i was responsible for one empty glass.

tonight i went to see X-Men: The Final Stand. it was alright. i didn't especially like X-Men 2, but i quite liked the first film. anyway i liked the third one more than the second, and probably not as much as the first. i'm hardly a big fan though, i've only seen each movie once i think, maybe twice for the first X-Men..
anyhoo.

also i've nearly finished sorting the mac out after it's disaster yesterday. i managed to salvage my iTunes library by copying everything from my iPod. also tonight i finally got round to downloading "If You're Feeling Sinister: Live At the Barbican London" by Belle & Sebastian. it's good, i'm only about half-way through listening to it at the moment, so far the standout track has been "Like Dylan In the Movies"

i've also been listening to Nouvelle Vague. they're a french group who do acoustic bossa-nova versions of punk/new wave songs. they're really good.

also, yesterday i made really good food. beetroot and goats cheese tart. with chili potato wedges.
( how to cook like me )

this weekend i plan to make The Ultimate Pie. i plan for it to contain vege-sausage, mushrooms, and hazelnuts, in a port wine sauce. as i said, making pastry (and using it in pies, quiches etc) is my New Favourite Thing.