In a Sheffield minute

I suddenly realised, in the early hours this morning, that it’s my middle-brother’s birthday in a couple of days. In an effort to stop him pouting like a small child, I ordered him a case of wine and a posh bottle of whisky. All this will either shut him up nicely or, much worse, make him more vocal. Even though I think he’s spending a lot of time at mother’s house at the moment, given her rapidly declining health, I still sent it to his address. Basically, I was worried that, should my now mentally incompetent mother intercept the packages, she might get confused and either send them back and/or urinate on them. So who knows what’ll happen now. Hopefully I’ll be far too drunk and mentally incompetent myself by the time it becomes an issue.

Just after putting that order in I heard, through our paper-thin dividing wall, my next door neighbour, “Angry Game Boy”, screaming in pain. I could even hear him muttering to himself about maybe having to go to the hospital. What with me trying to be a better neighbour and all that, I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and shuffled across the landing to knock on his door. This probably wasn’t a helpful thing to do to someone with agonising knee pain, but he still managed to hobble to his door and confront me. I asked him if he was alright and did he want me to call an ambulance or something. He said no, stating that he thought it was arthritis or gout or something similar (odd for a young man such as himself), but I still offered to give him some cash for a taxi if he needed to go to his doctor. After thanking me for my concern, It pretty much ended there. He seemed to recover swiftly, and was back to going in and out of the building a few times an hour as usual. Still, it kinda left me shaken, as what with my ex dying last year, my uncle dying this year, and my mother seemingly on the verge of passing away, the health of the people around me has actually started to matter. I sure didn’t see that coming.

So, yeah, those are my two good deeds for the, erm, decade.

I then got a call from the council, strangely early for that time of the day and week, wanting me to do a survey with them. It only took a few minutes, and the dude calling was nice enough, but it did take me by surprise. It obviously didn’t help that 9 am is my bedtime these days, so I must have sounded pretty out of it. At any rate, I didn’t end up drifting off to sleep until about 2 pm, which was annoying and, ironically, exhausting.

I had a really bad food day yesterday. Having few ingredients for s full meal in the house, I ended up just making a disappointing sandwich for lunch, then hydrating a disappointing packet of instant noodles for dinner. I’d make up for it today by ordering a lavish takeaway but, of course, when your “morning” is 9 pm at night, it’s a little difficult to find a restaurant that’s sill taking orders. I think that’s the only thing that really bothers me about an upturned sleep pattern - the fact that it screws with your plans.

I did end up watching Michael Mann’s The Keep in the end. What a bizarre film! It feels like one of those “lost masterpieces” that got royally screwed over by the studio. There are moments of brilliance in there, but also very noticeable signs of post-production problems, such as rushed special effects, non-existent sound mixing, a desperate need for ADR work, and butchery in editing by the studio. I don’t think there’s a director’s cut lying around in a vault somewhere waiting to be discovered, plus I’m gonna go ahead and assume the studio binned what they left on the cutting room floor, so it’ll just have to remain a cinematic tragedy, along the lines of Greed and The Magnificent Ambersons. Still, what a cast! Jurgen Prochnow?! Ian McKellen?! Gabriel Byrne?! Scott Glenn?! It’s a star-studded catastrophe!

I was also wondering whether the version available isn’t actually cropped, but accidentally “open matte”. This is (I think, as I’m certainly no expert) where the full scope of what the film camera captures is displayed, rather than the aspect ratio the director intended. This often leads to revealing mistakes, such as boom mics being in shot and great empty areas at the top and bottom of the screen. The film certainly doesn’t look grainy like a cropped widescreen print, so who knows. I’m sure the information is out there somewhere, but I assume the soon-to-be-released documentary I contributed to will explain everything. Still, the aspect ratio thing will just serve as another sign that the studio fucked the whole thing over. Poor Michael Mann. I doubt he’d get that treatment these days. Well, he manages to ruin his own films now by using that awful digital stock that makes his multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbusters look like shitty home movies.

Idiot.

Oh I tidied up my profile bio that you should be able to see to your right. It’s pretty much the same wording but, for some reason, I chose rambling bollocks over brevity when I originally wrote it. Hopefully this new version will be a little easier on the eyes and brain for new readers. So enjoy!

What else? Not much, really. I’m still waking up, having just finished my cafetière of coffee and slice of blue cheese. I’m just about to watch the most recent Astronomy Cast, which always cheers me up. I think my main meal today will be frozen chips and a tin of baked beans & sausage. Kill me now! Oh well, serves me right for prioritising booze over actual food with my last shopping order. Although, to be fair, I didn’t realise at the time that my sleep pattern would be so skewed by the end of the food supply week.

Right, I best go rustle up brunch, which will consist of uncooked porridge oats and soya milk.

Mmmmm!

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!