I'm Back!

It's been over four years since my last post. Whew!

So what's going on? I still love movies and dogs so I'll keep writing about them. I also still love 80's music, play Vice City and go on about random stuff. My dog Helka is still alive and well, she's now 8 years old. I have another dog as well, Hippa. She's almost 5 yo and also a Shetland Sheepdog.

I spent some time studying film making in a UAS but recently quit that. I like doing movies, not sitting at school listening lectures. My friends and I have been making a few independent shorts and I'm constantly working on some screenplay ideas. Maybe some day we'll make a movie with an actual budget. I won't make any promises on how often I'll update this blog but I'll try not to forget this for another four years.

 

Here's a photo of my dogs.

Weird Dreams Are Made Of This...?

My sister (soon 13yrs) had a dream about my dog. That's not weird, but what happened in that dream was weird. Helka was growing tomatos and wore blue overalls and a hat. My sister drew a picture of it.


Click to enlarge this work of art (and weirdness).

Of course my sister isn't the only one to see dreams about my dog. My mom once had a dream that Helka wore brown pants. And I saw a dream that she rode a small motorbike but could not turn it. So I had a rope attached to the bike and when she reached the end of the rope, I went to turn her and the bike around. Weird...

Stuff On TV etc.

It's been a while since my last blog entry. So once again this is one of those ramblings on everything.

I watched The Hunt For The Red October and I thought it was an alright film with Sean Connery's funny fake Russian-but-still-Scottish accent. Most shocking thing about this movie was how young all the actors were (well, apart from Connery who has pretty much looked the same for at least three decades). Especially Tim Curry and Alec Baldwin (the best of the Baldwins).


See how young he is?!

Alarming news from the TV world. One channel is going to show Baywatch for the whole summer! They already showed a very disturbing ad where Hasselhoff takes off his pants and underneath he has the red trunks. And lots of hair... *brrr*

Yesterday I took my dog for a walk. There's nothing unusual about that, but I asked my little sister to come with me. She was against the idea until I bribed her. It cost me 1€ and the rest of my divine white chocolate (not much, maybe three pieces) to get her to agree. And so we walked for two hours. Then I got my sister to agree that she would go for a similar walk with me once a week. But we'll see if she will keep that promise.

As a comic relief, here's a photo of my dog looking stupid. Maybe it's because I have used too much Cheerios to train her and now she thinks nothing but round things...


She's looking at a Cheerio in this pic...

Doggy Update!

My dog turned 3 years on March 14th. On each of her birthdays I've taken an official birthday pose photo of her.



The reason why she looks so miserable in the photo is that her right hind leg is sore. And that is due to an accident in agility practice. My poor girl is now resting for two weeks and has pain medication. Hopefully she will get better soon for I am getting withdrawal symptoms from excersicing with her...

That Darn Cat!

And no, I'm not talking about the movie. I'm talking about our neighbour's cat.

Last week we got quite a lot of snow. Not as much as in London but enough so that I had to clear our yard. I put my little doggy on a long leash (about 6 metres) and started on the job. Not long after I had almost completed and stopped to catch my breath, our neighbour's stupid "I fear no dog!" cat appeared on our yard.

Helka, who hates cats (unless they are my aunt's), of course started sneaking up on the nuisance, who had by now reached the area where Helka still could barely reach.

Next what happened: Helka started running towards the cat. The cat fled and Helka reached the end of her leash. Snap. The lock of her collar gave up. I started calling her back and luckily the asshole cat hid under the stuff next to our outbuilding and Helka returned to me.

Stupid stupid cat!

This is an ex-collar

Complaining About Things

This is going to be a complaining post. Some positive things may appear.

Again I have to bring up the scheduling on TV.
On Saturday 10pm I watch Most Haunted (very stupid British show and that's why it's funny) and after that at 11pm it used to be time for Murder (very good show about regular people that are trying to solve real murder cases).
For two weeks now things have been different. Most Haunted is still in its regular slot but now I have to suffer through two unfunny programs before Murder. And do I have to mention that those two shows are fucking repeats!
So I have to stay awake until midnight to watch Murder. And after thet there is still Stargate (season 3 repeats) and The X-Files (season 8 just starting). If I wanted to watch all those (of course I would like to) I'd have to stay awake 'til almost 3am!
For me it's impossible to stay awake if I have to watch boring shows in the middle of the night just to wait for the good one. I better send some angry feedback...

My morning routine was badly interrupted today
Here's what I do when I wake up.
1. Get dressed
2. Put the kettle on
3. Take the dog out
4. Feed the dog, make tea and sandwitches
5. Open computer and check mail
This morning I got to the 4th point. My brother woke up and went straight to the computer. I was just making the sandwitches. So I went to Plan B (sort of from outer space, just read on): I watched a movie. From 1985. Morons From Outer Space. It was funny and just what I needed to get my spirit up.

My dad doesn't know how to use the Internet
This happens every so often. He and I are at home together and of course when he has to do the simplest thing: check his e-mail (which there isn't any) I have to do it for him. So annoying!

My dog is fine
Now here is some positive news. During the last week of her heat she got a diarrhea. After that she was constipated. At some point she didn't eat well.
Things are different for her now. She eats well (I got her back on Nutro), her droppings are normal (a vital fact ;) and her nose is cold. And we're going to agility practice on Wednesday. Our last practice went well and Helka is becoming a master weaver (not quite yet but we're getting there).

I use too many brackets (in case you didn't notice)
This is something that I do a lot. Those darn brackets! I can only guess how annoying it is to read my text and I can assure you that it's pretty annoying to write too. All those brackets! Get me to the bracket rehab (is there one?)!!!

Happy New Year!

A little update on things now that I remember what to write about...

I got my much expected DVD's and you can read the review of Crank below this thingy.

Dog
My dog still has eating problems. And E my friend, I fed Helka some James Wellbeloved earlier but it wasn't right for her. She got fed up with it in less than a week and I'm not wondering, the portion size was huge! Compared to Nutro it was at least twice as much per day. Currently I'm feeding her Royal Canin and I found out that Nutro is still available in one pet shop in this town so we are hopefully saved. If she refuses to eat Nutro, I'll take her to a vet. But at least I've become an expert in dog foods...

Spielberg, Lucas and Ford
This should in a way be in the "They look the same" section but other people have propably noticed this also.
I was reading an old issue of Empire as I tumbled on this picture. (It's blurry, I know...)

Lucas and Spielberg have always had somewhat matching looks. At first you could tell them apart for the reason that Spielberg wore glasses. Now you can tell them apart because Lucas always wears a flanel shirt and Spielberg wears a baseball cap (imagine if they swithced those!). But look at Harrison Ford. He's becoming one of them! He even has the same squint! (enter Twilight Zone music here)

Happy New Year...?

My Christmas Is Ruined!

I waited for my DVD package to arrive on Monday. It didn't. I thought that maybe one more day. This morning: nothing. Today was the last possible day for the package to arrive so that I could get it before X-Mas. Damn post office!

Possible reasons why my DVDs haven't arrived:
1. The Post office has really fucked up and sent my package somewhere else.
2. Gremlins. They have stolen my package thinking that inside there was Snow White movie. Since It wasn't, they just threw my precious movies away.
3. Everything else in my life sucks so of course this one little spark of happiness had to be extinguished too.


They stole my DVDs!

Another reason why my Christmas will suck is that my dog hasn't been eating well for a long time and she's had diarrhea too. I think that her food is partially to blame. I want the old food back (not available in this town anymore, damn!)

Anyway, merry Christmas to everyone. I'll just spend mine watching stupid movies on tv and eating chocolate until I puke.

Review: Hide And Seek (2005)

Director: John Polson
Starring: Robert De Niro, Dakota Fanning, Famke Janssen

This movie was a pleasant surprise to me. I was expecting solid performances from De Niro and Fanning but not much from the plot. However instead of being a "thriller" it really was a thriller. Not many scare-you-shitless effects spoiling the tension built with small but meaningful things and what's more important, no underlining things with a musical score that is so loud that it will blow you a new hairdo.

One thing I got to mention: Just before the movie started I took my dog out. After we got back inside she went straight on my bed. I asked if she wanted to come with me to watch Robert De Niro and she came running. I guess she really likes Bob because usually I have to really tell her to come watch tv with me.

Anyway, stars for Hide and Seek: ***

The H Is O

Meaning that my dog is in heat. No agility for now. We were dogsitting last week and in was a close one. Saturday evening we left and on Sunday the heat was on. The boys started to show signs of what was to come so it wasn't a total surprise.

Right now we have a better winter than last year. Lots of snow, roads are wet and slippery and temperature is around zero. I've had my share of shoveling the snow and now my back and shoulders ache like hell.

Good news from the tv world. The Lost Room still seems promising after three episodes. And tomorrow I can watch Stanley Kubrick's The Killing. For some reason I watched Miami Ink last night and it was quite interesting. I watched it also when I was dogsitting. My aunt has so many channels and for some odd reason there's nothing interesting on for the most of the time. This time was exceptional since I got to watch SpongeBob SquarePants marathon. It is a good show! Though for some reason I have seen the Karate episode three times. Every time I'm dogsitting that episode is always on. Please!


I too want to live inside a pineapple!

Update on everything

Because I feel like a lazy bastard (this is a non-censored blog, live with it) I will put updates on everything right now. Let's get to it.

Movies:
* I watched last night Kubrick's Paths Of Glory. Nice film although I constantly kept thinking that I've seen it before. Or have I...?
* The Godfather; I can watch this movie over and over again.
* The Great Dictator; My little sister wasn't too pleased with me spoiling all the time. And I wasn't even in the same room, I just heard the soundtrack! (=seen this film too many times)
* Romero's Night Of The Living Dead; Had to show it to my sister. It's a classic and it was about time for her to see it (she's 12).

If you look closely, they are always coming from exactly the same spot as before. This is how you save money.

Dog:
We had a competition at the end of the summer season. My girl and I finished second in the "not-competing officially" class.
Now I'm just waiting for her to "get the heat on" but not too soon. Next weekend I'm going to look after my aunt's dogs and if Helka is on heat she can't come with me (sorry boys).

TV:
The first episode of Lost Room seemed promising. It replaced Dexter and if Lost Room goes downhill, I can watch Farscape, which is one of the best scifi-series ever.

This guy will kick Darth Vader's ass anytime

Thankfully House is still on. But we need more quality shows on tv! All current ones come on Thursday.

Music:
I have found the light! And it's called Phil Collins. I got his cd yesterday and before that I've been listening to Genesis. I have to add this link here which leads us to our next subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HprVBFYP70M

Games:
My love for the Grand Theft Auto-series has been renewed. I've been playing Vice City for a week now and it seems a lot easier now than when I played it through the first time. And I love the city. The colors, the recemblance to Miami and all the references to Miami Vice and Scarface... Yey! My absolute favourite city of the series is Liberty City but it's always nice to go for a holiday in Vice City.

Such a friendly place!

That's it for now folks!

First Truly Cold Morning, Hooray!

I woke up this morning a bit after 10 am and when I looked out the window there was frost on the ground. Tempeture was one degree below zero (celsius that is, in case someone is wondering) and there was an eerie mist floating around. I have nothing against the mist and certainly nothing against dropping a few degrees under zero. It's been raining so many days that my little doggy-woggy has brought at least a ton of sand inside with her paws.

This is what my dog looks like when it's raining:


I just hope that the rain will stop for now. Snow would be something that my dog would like to have but it would soon melt away and then the ground would be all muddy again. Good thing that our agility practice continues indoors from this week on so no more running in the puddles.

Wil there be snow this winter? Dunno. Last winter was mostly crap. Very little snow and when it finally piled up it melted away almost immediately. The photo on the sidebar where Helka is sitting in the snow was taken on the same day it had snowed. The next day the snow was gone. At least she got one happy day playing with it...

Dog update!

It's been a lomg time since I last wrote here about my dog. We are still practicing agility and we were in unofficial contest on 10th of September. We had very fast time but unfortunately we had 15 points so the result was 6th place.

Yesterday we were in our agility club's championship contest and we finished 5th in our class. Again 15 points from the track but a fast time. If we could just have a clean run...

My little girl is preparing for winter and really shedding her coat. I've always thought that she doesn't even have that much hair but my mind is beginning to change. Last two weekends I gave her a really thorough brushing and I was amazed how much base coat there was.

I got a cooling collar for Helka (ordered it by mail and of course it arrived when the weather is cooling) and I'm using it currently as a bark control collar. She has had a real bark collar maybe once or twice around her neck and now she seems to think that the cooling collar is a bark collar! Well, me and my mom had a really good laugh out of it.

Below a picture of Helka with the "bark collar". See how depressed she looks and notice the tail between her legs.

Unofficial agility contest

We were there on Tuesday. It rained a bit but it was warm. The track was very fast, not many turns, and of course since it was a practice contest there were some obsticles missing (weave poles, seesaw, closed tunnel and tire jump were missing).

Helka and I finished fifth place with over 16 seconds left to spare. We got 20 points for missing two jumps and Helka went to the tunnel when she was supposed to jump.

I am very happy with the result. Last time we finished 7th place with 215.22 points. But at least we finished (two earlier contests we dropped out in the middle since Helka didn't concentrate but ran around without listening any orders):

So we keep improving and maybe some day in the near future we will even get a price.

Update: Agility Progress

It's been a long time since I updated my blog. I think it's time to tell what's going on with my little hobby, before I let everyone know what I think about The Dark Knight.

So. Agility is going well. Our team had an agility showcasing day and it was voluntary to take part. Of course I volunteered since my dog and I have very little experience on doing agility in different places and it was a grass base of which we had no experience at all.

I was afraid that Helka (my dog that is) would run away since there was a lot going on at the same time. Horses, cars, kids... But everything went fine. And after the day my little girl knew how to weave fast and with only a little guiding.

Her behaviour was different when we had an unofficial competition and she didn't listen to me and ran around. We didn't finish last and that is our best result so far.

Last week's practice went well. We had little courses to practice turns and handling. I was surprised of how fast my dog was but how well she listened to me anyhow. Mistakes were my fault except for one, but we are still in training and just having fun.

Today is pur weekly practice day and it looks as it's going to rain today. We don't care, we just want to have fun together.

Have A Nice Weekend!

During this weekend there is a big festival in my home town. I hate it.

So many drunken people during the evenings and daytime isn't much better. It's crowded, noisy and messy. Some people become real pigs during the festival. Even now as I write this I can hear a siren of an ambulance or a police car. And I'm not even in the central.

What do I do to get away from all the hassle? One of my favourite jobs... Dog sitting!

I have been a trusted dog sitter for my aunt for almost ten years. She is the reason why I my dog is a Shetland sheepdog and she is also to blame that I even own a dog. My aunt (let's call her S) owns five lovely shelties that live at her house and she partially owns a few more. So now I'm surrounded by six beautiful little dogs who occasionally bark at some noise coming from outside, but I still like it better here than in the stupid festival.

Of course the main reason why I'm a dog sitter this weekend is that S went to the festival. My friends asked me to go there but I had already promised to watch the dogs. And to be honest, I'd rather see my friends outside the festival. I like peace and quiet.

If I would go to a festival, it would be the one where I was last summer. It was clean, people were happy without pouring gallons of alcohol down their throats and there was good music (me and my friend went there to listen to the blues concerts).
Rock festivals are of course a completely different thing than city festivals.

Bottom line: I am currently enjoying very much of my weekend.

Running In The Rain Is Fun!

On Monday, me and my little girl went to our weekly agility practice. The weather was ideal: it was raining heavily and the whole sandlot looked like a lake.

Wearing raincoat I took the challenge to make my dog do what she was supposed to, and to my surprise, she did! She followed my orders like a dream. There are two possible reasons for that:

1. The rain cooled her down
2. Due the rain, many dogs were absent (and my dog can concenrate better when there are no others around)

Also, I have to mention one more thing. When there are puddles on the ground, my little doggy goes around them, never through. I think she has picked the habit from me. It reminds me of the dog in the Jack Nicholson movie As Good As It Gets, where the little pooch doesn't step on the lines since Jack doesn't. I thought first when I saw the movie, that the dog had just been trained to do that but when I saw my dog go around the puddles because I did so... It made me so proud.

But during our practice my dog ran through the puddles. Maybe since I ran through them too. And when we got home, she again made sure that her feet won't get wet.

Oh, so bored!

For a few days now I have tried to watch Hot Fuzz. I really want to see that movie, but I'm just not in the right mood. You know what it's like... You need to be on the right mood to watch an old classic or a western or a scifi movie. I hate when this happens.

Anyhow, I'm ok. My dog's in heat and she can be really boring during that. She sleeps most of the day (maybe she's charging her energy reservoirs so that after the heat she will be back to her usual self) and she is much more calmer in general.

When I finally watch Hot Fuzz, the review can be found here.