Update- Christmas and other things.

Hullo Cryptors!
Here is a christmas themed update.
I trust you have all noticed the delightful christmas tree up there by the title. I will leave it to Olly to format the page so this looks OK and not just dumped.

I encourage you all to play Grow Ornament, because it is marvellous, and highly christmassy.

And now i can;t think of anything else to say.

Jon is on the road!

Yup! From this weekend folks i will be the proud owner of, well, driving lessons. I have my first one with a chap called Pete O'Neill (i just love the name) on Saturday at lunchtime. So stay off the roads is my advice. It has been long enough so now i am really going to get down to it!

Speak to you all later, hope all is well

Jon

My Weekend

So, a while since an exciting post on here. Let's change that!
So, on Thursday, I joined the mountain sports club here at Southampton Solent University. I went along to the climbing wall at calshot, and had a goodly evening's climbing.
Then they invited me to go to Kendal in the Lake District this weekend. I accepted!
So Friday afternoon saw me trudging through the torrential rain to the student's union. Once we were all assembled, we set off.
It took 45 minutes to get out of Southampton, but then we hit the real traffic.
It took 9 hours, broken up by a brief KFC break, and offering the toll collector on the M6 toll a gummy bear.
When we eventually hit Cumbria, it was to bitter cold and a sprinkling of snow on the ground, and even more on the tops.
We went to Alasdair's house in Kendal, where he had kindly agreed to let us crash (Alasdair is a member of the climbing club).
On saturday morning we arose with the dawn and headed into Kendal. I bought Kendal mint cake, and some whisky for my dad for Christmas. From this point on I will stop going into incredibly esoteric detail.
We went out on Saturday night, eating at Wetherspoons and playing by Mountain rules, which are like international rules, but you are allowed to swear.
We made merry and sang and things and got very, very drunk.
Sunday morning saw us arise with the dawn and hangovers. We headed out, after a breakfast of lovely porridge and sausages, to Langdale, where we went for a very pleasant stroll, punctuated with lots of group photos. We then headed back to Ambleside, outdoor capital of the country, to do a little shopping, before heading home (another 9 long hours on the road, even though it was downhil all the way).
Here is a lovely group photo of us all in a cave:

From left to right, top row then bottom:
Lee, Me, James (awesome driver) Betsan, Alasdair, Holly, Rachel, Darren and Jo.
I had a good weekend. What did you all get up to?

Casino Royale

Oh My God! What a film. Amazing. Spectacular. Fan-diddly-doodly-tastic. This film puts the two last bond films in the shade by absolutly miles. The settings - fantastic. The Bond - Brilliant. The Ladies - Stunning. The Plotline - Slightly believeable and very interesting, yet still un-complex enough to follow in one sitting. All round it was great to watch, and see it again i may do. I will definatly get the DVD when it comes out.

The final setting, in Italy was an immensly good choice, and the final view it showed was absolutly amazing. The House HAD A WATCHTOWER! There were limited special effects, or at least ones that i noticed, which is a good thing, and those i did see were immaculately done.

Craig makes a really good James Bond, and a better one than Brosnan and Moore. Obviously also better than Lazenby, and although it is a shame Dalton didnt get more films, he is better than him as well. Not as good as Connory I must admit, but if he keeps this up, and isnt just a "one film" Bond he will definatly carry his second place forward.

There were just two slight downers i could pick out of the film. The villians were not particularly memorable, a problem there has been with the recent films since "Tomorrow Never Dies" with Elliot Carver. But the rest of the film obviously compensates for this. The other was Bond's over-commercialisation. Where in the past the corporate sponsorships were slightly subtler, this time round it was far more noticable. He says "Bollinger" when he orders champagne, he has a short conversation about his watch, indicating it is not a Rolex, but something else, the name i have momentarily forgotten, which isnt great news for the company that paid for it. Now I can just about put up with Sony being the sponsor for all the electrical equipment - sony/eriksson phone, viao laptop etc, but the one really poor show was Ford. He was driving a Ford for a short part of the film. (Fear not, the Aston did come back later on). Now this is simply not on. A) It is not English (now i know i am not a massive patriot of the UK in any way shape or form, but when it comes to Bond, it pays to be British) and B) It is a Ford. And it looked completely pants. Not even a "souped-up" Ford. Poor show there, but i guess thats the way filmaking is going nowadays.

But nevertheless, the films supreme-ness makes up for these minor glitches. If you have not yet seen it, see it.

By the way, i also wish to repeat my usual rant about how long you have to wait until the film actually starts.

Hope everyone had a good weekend =)

P.S. One of the train video's on YouTube is up to 100 views! Just search "Lego Train", and my user name is Jon1866 or something like that.

Chocolate Head

So today, whilst watching tv with my sister and her friends, i smeared a load of molten chocolate in my eye, and into the shape of a beard. Probably the most active thing I have done today. Quite. In other news, i shall be back later to write a long boring article that will satisfy me, but probably produce little or no comment. I have not yet decided what subject on. I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Jon :)

It's a Beautiful Day . . .

. . . blared out as Nancy Pelosi took the stage to congratulate her fellow Democrats in finally taking back the House of representatives after a 12 year republican majority. Needing a net gain of 15 seats accross country with all of them being contested, the Democrat party took a grand total of 19. Finally the party that got used to loosing in recent years have rediscovered what it feels like to win. My god it is good.
It doesn't just stop with the house either. The Senate race which was less likely to fall from the republican grasp may just do that. With a net gain of 6 of the 33 contested seats, 5 have been taken, leaving the final battle state of Virginia to declare a winner in a race which is "too close to call" and where a re-count in underway. It would be nice for the Democrats to benefit from a re-count for a change.
All in all it has been a fantastic day of democracy, where common sense has finally prevailed and the final two years of Bush's term are going to be a whole lot harder for him than the first 6. Woo!

Jon