Archive for December, 2008

This is it. My final day at work and we’re shutting up shop in about an hour to go to the pub for foodies and drinkies. I dunno whether i’ll be blogging over the Exmas period but no-one else is at work so bugger it as people only read this at work when they get bored of doing whatever it is they’re getting paid to do.

Then it’s full steam ahead for the wedding and more importantly, the stag weekend to Amsterdam at the end of February.

G#13 Haze and Chocolope is definitely on the order board for that place.

So there’s just enough time for me to say Merry Everything and a Happy New Time.

-Jim.

What a bizarre weekend. Went out on Friday night with the band to Reading and had the best evening I’ve had for a very long while. We got absolutely arseholed, talked absolute shite and listened to some of the absolute finest music ever made courtesy of the best DJ i’ve ever been in the company of.

So i spent all Saturday under the deep cloud of a hangover trying my best to entertain a 2 year old.

Then there was last night. We got invited around to the neighbours for drinks and nibbles. Did NOT want to go but at least we had the escape clause of the boy needing to go to bed at some point so the idea was, go around about 7ish, stay for an hour coz ‘he’s getting tired now so we best be off’.

You know that scene in Carry On Girls when Terry Scott goes to meet his blind date and it’s a Victorian house with the entire family sat there stony faced with everyone scrutinising his movements. It was like that. Didn’t help that the neighbour thought the best way to greet my boy was to give him a bowl full of chocolate buttons that i had to take off him after 10 minutes, that was greeted with ‘Awww’ as he got upset.

The house was spotless just right for a middle aged man on his own and completely inappropriate for an excited child hyped up on sugar.

The biggest problem was I had absolutely nothing in common with these people. They asked me what kind of music we played, i said 80′s metal, kinda like Metallica and Megadeth. ‘Mega-who’ was the response. They didn’t know their internet from the elbow and i briefly tested the water with my love of comic books; nothing. Never drank wine so fast in my life.

Tried to tell them stuff, getting married in March and couldn’t decide between France or New York hoping it’d develop into other conversations. It didn’t. No flow. Awkward pauses.

Run out of wine now. Do i get up and just help myself or wait to be offered. Fuck it, anyone want another drink, nope? No problem. I even hid in the toilet for 10 minutes picking my nails at one point.

They were nice, don’t get me wrong. They were just so… average. You know the type of people. Normal people that do normal things and don’t have any major interests or passions. They go to their boring jobs, come home to their boring house and watch boring telly then go to bed. Probably a boring bed.

We managed to do 2 hours then it was ‘he’s getting tired now, we better take him off to bed, see ya, bye’.

When did i become such an unsociable git? It used to be so easy to talk to people i don’t know. Now, it’s just easier to not be in that situation in the first place. Hopefully it won’t be the start of a lovely friendship. Thinking about it now, it’s probably because i was young surrounded by young people and completely hammered by the time i speak to them.

I’m getting married in March, but more importantly i’m going on my stag do at the end of Feb to Amsterdam and plan on spending 3 nights in an record-breaking stoned haze. The less I remember about it the better. So i’ve collated a bunch of information I’ve found so i can refer to it when i’m out and about sniffing tulips.

2008 Cannabis Cub Winners:
Cannabis Cup
1. Super Lemon Haze – Greenhouse United
2. Utopia Haze – Barney’s
3. Chocolope – The Green Place

Indica Cup
1. Mt Cook – Kiwi Seeds
2. Cheese – Homegrown Fantaseeds
3. LSD – Amnesia Seeds

Sativa Cup
1. Utopia Haze – Barney’s
2. Paradise Seeds – De La Haze
3. Cannatonic – Resin Seeds

Neder Hash
1. Royal Jelly – Barney’s
2. Greenhouse Ice – The Greenhouse
3. Grey Crystal – Grey Area

Import Hash
1. Triple Zero – Barney’s
2. Super Palm – Greenhouse
3. Shiraz – Amnesia

Product Cup
1. Be Chilling – Barney’s & The Party Spray – DNA
2. Bubble Bags – Bubble Bags
3. Glass Vaporizer – Herborizer

Best Booth
1. Barney Farm

My favourite coffeeshops – over the course of your trips to amsterdam everyone picks up their favourites. These are mine:

The grasshopper – Ok, it’s certainly not the best – but still retains memories because it was the first coffeeshop I went to. It’s just down the road from central station and the weed area is downstairs. I still remember the smile on my face when I saw the menu …

Kandinsky – They took over what was once my favourite coffeshop (cum laude). They consistently have very high quality hash – I strongly recommend the trans himalayan – not too heavy, sweet with a nice buzz. Kandinsky is actually a chain of coffeeshops and it’s a nice place to spend an afternoon

Barney’s – I include this, more for the breakfasts they do than the smoking experience. It’s a bit out the way, but a nice place to go for breakfast, sadly european’s don’t do breakfast as well as their UK and US counterparts – Barney’s goes some way to redress this.

Abraxas - Another cool coffeeshop, right opposite the secret entrance to the Supperclub – good for a pre-dinner smoke.

The Green House chain of shops, Barneys, and De Dampkring are also known for really potent weed and hash.

Baba
Warmoesstraat 64
in the Red Light District

I’m a huge fan of trance music, but I don’t blame you if you can’t stand it. Baba is a comfortable little shop with great views from its many windows on a busy corner of Warmeostraat in the Red Light District. They open around 8 each morning and close at 1 a.m. every night, and trance and vocal house is blasting out of their excellent sound system all day every day. Even if you aren’t a big trance fan, you might be surprised at how nice it sounds after a few tokes. Baba also sells very good spacecakes and other space items.

De Rokerij
Lange Leidsedwarsstraat 41
near Leidseplein

The original location of this 4-shop chain is mixed in between all the restaurants in the Leidseplein area and I’d have to say it’s my favorite coffeeshop in Amsterdam. It’s actually hard to find unless you are looking closely for it, but once you find it you’ll discover that it’s usually packed inside. There is a really classy Indian theme in the place, and live DJs playing chill tunes on weekends. They used to sell booze and the wait staff always consisted of stunning women, but it’s still really nice anyway.

Hill Street Blues
Warmoesstraat 52a
in the Red Light District

This place is about a 30-second walk from Baba, and they used to have an excellent happy hour deal from 6 to 9 each evening, back in the days when coffeeshops could also sell booze. Hill Street Blues’ dumb name comes from the fact that it’s next to a police station, but don’t hold that against it. The cozy room in the back of the main floor has a great view of the little harbor that sits in front of Centraal Station. There is a game room downstairs that never seems to get much use, and they also sell a variety of space muffins and cookies and such.

Homegrown Fantasy
Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 87a
behind the Kalverstraat shopping area

This place feels a modern art museum inside, and the pieces on display always somehow become a bit more interesting the longer you are there. It’s much bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside, and it’s easy to miss if you don’t know where it is. They are known for high quality weed as well as a black light in the men’s room that is a frequent topic of conversation among patrons. This isn’t on a really touristy street, although it’s very easy to reach from either Centraal Station or Dam Square. It’s really one of a kind and I highly recommend at least peaking in if you are in the area.

Tops Coffeeshop
Prinsengracht 480
just off Leidsestraat near Leidseplein

You might consider this an Amsterdam coffeeshop equivalent of a dive bar because it’s a bit out of the way and rarely crowded. But people who find it are rewarded with the only coffeeshop with an excellent canal view (the lovely Prinsengracht in this case) in the whole city. The sound system is good and the staff are usually very friendly. Their internet café area in the back used to be the biggest and best in the city before Easyeverything moved in. This place also used to sell booze, which made it even cooler, but the canal-side location still makes it great. During summer the front doors open up and the outdoor seating can feel epic along this beautiful canal.

but the Watchmen game looks pretty wank if i’m honest…

But let’s face it, was anyone actually expecting it to be good?

You were?

Oh, bless…

I need to get back into movies, i’ve been slipping a lot within the last year and it’s not good. There was a point where i’d pretty much seen everything that anyone mentioned. These days i’m terrible. I’ve seen nothing until it comes on Sky Movies. And I need to watch movies that aren’t full of explosions and “loadth o’ killinths”. Things like Frost/Nixon and even W (Dubya).

Lakeview Terrace looks bloody good n’all.

Although i think i’ll give The Day The Earth Stood Still a miss for the time being. It’s apparently shite.

Of course, saying all that. Here’s a link to Empire’s website where it’s got a scene-by-scene breakdown of the Wolverine trailer, and jolly interesting it is too. Didn’t realise Emma Frost was in it.

And Frank Miller is going to direct Buck Rogers. And Stephen Chow isn’t directing Green Hornet any more, but he’s still playing Kato.

There’s actually a good movie made about Rasslin, it’s called ‘The Wrestler’ and it stars Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei in a mock documentary about over-the-hill wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson. So far on Rotten Tomatoes it’s got 96% with 54 positive reviews and 2 bad ones.

And it sounds really, really gurd!

Here’s the link to Rotten Tomatoes and more interesting, here’s a link to an interview with Mick Foley just after he watched the film

Yup, they’re remaking The Crow…

And that’s all I have to say about that.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117997365.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Not really, but some artist has imagined the posters for the sequel and I must admit, the David Tennant one especially looks fantastic…

http://io9.com/5040178/meet-the-stars-of-the-next-knight

I’m getting wound up as the morning progresses. The cause: Adobe Flash CS4.

It’s frigging stupid. Adobe, in their infinite wisdom have decided to revolutionise the way that Flash works, the consequence is that i haven’t the foggiest fucking clue how to use it. All the simple stuff like Motion Tweening and even selecting specific things have now changed and it’s just winding me up.

It’s not intuitive and it’s not easy to use. It’s supposed to have all these wonderous new things like 3D and complex motion tweening but when I’ve been trying for half an hour to move a rectangle from there to here and it’s fucking about and not doing what i want it to do, then I’m just getting annoyed.

Aaaaaaarrgghhh!

Apologies for the amount of trailers at the moment but they’re all worth it.

Here’s the latest trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine and it’s giving me a bit of a bonk-on, I don’t mind admitting.