Progress!

I had my tenth driving lesson this week! It was also I feel, my best performance. I was shifting gears smoothly and in time, wasn't scared to go fast and was consistent with my steering technique. My instuctor says I'm doing well but thinks I need a bit more work on roundabouts, a run through of everything and a mock test before trying a real test. To me, this sounds exactly right which is good!

On the job hunt front, I went around town and handed out 13 CV's last weekend, then made a list of all the shops in town and will keep going until I have applied at everywhere I can think of!

On Wednesday, I got a phone call from one of the cafes I applied at asking if I would go in and get an understanding of what work there would involve. I did and have got a foot in the door definitely, although there is no job there at the moment, going in and doing this will put me top of the list for when there is some work which is great!

After going there on Wednesday, I went off to Wrexham and watched Broken City! It was a solid and entertaining film, nothing special but a good watch and more Odeon points! I also got two more Fast and Furious films for £1.75 which I was very pleased at and my Die Hard boxset has finally come! Exactly 3 weeks from when I won the competition is how long it took which is disappointing but I can't really complain as it is free!

I have discovered that the last week of March is a review week which basically means I get a three week half term! Fantastic news and the days are definitely being counted down.

Thanks for reading!
-Andy.

Gear shift

Sorry for the late post! I have been a little busy and a little forgetful these past two days!

So, on Wednesday I had my ninth driving lesson. This means I have one left, as ten were booked. The lesson was good, going around a lot of roundabouts and using mainly fifth gear on long, open roads was fun! The more I think about it, I feel that after my next lesson where hopefully I will practise a few manoeuvres, I will be ready for a test.
Passing my test and getting a car are very high on my list of priorities right now and because I would not be able to insure a car, job searching has begun! If there are any part time jobs going in and around Oswestry, please let me know by leaving a comment or e-mailing andy.smith10@yahoo.co.uk. Thanks!

Also I recently saw the trailer for the new Fast and Furious coming out this summer - which looks a must see - and thought how bad it was that I hadn't seen any! So, a trip to the ever useful DVD market stall in town resulted in getting the first Fast and Furious. One watch and I'm excited to see the second and am still in disbelief at myself for never seeing these films before!

Next week I'm hoping to go see the new Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe film Broken City! I am now halfway to enough Odeon points for a free film ticket and am keen to continue this progress!

Thanks for reading!
-Andy.

Half term!

So it's half-term! This is a welcome (as always) week off college. A week so far spent relaxing and expanding my film experiences.

On Saturday night me and Dad went to see The Hobbit at the Attfield Theatre. I hadn't seen it before and quite regretted missing it at the cinema so did not pass up this chance! It was not as good as the Lord of the Rings films, but it was definitely worth a watch and was a good entertaining film.
Bangor were poor at the weekend again and only managed a draw while United progressed in the FA Cup with a 2-1 win over Reading.

Yesterday, I did what I so often do on Wednesdays and ventured to Wrexham. I went with Tom and planned to watch Wreck-It Ralph, but last minute spontaneity saw us watching the new Die Hard! I think it was a solid action film but was not at all a Die Hard - if it was just the new action film starring Bruce Willis I think it would have gone down a lot better. Again a good watch and I'm now halfway to a free cinema ticket with my Odeon points!
Also, Skyfall came out on DVD on Monday! I undoubtedly got it and watched it with the family last night, it was as good as I remembered it and fits in nicely with my DVDs!

This weekend I'm not really sure of what to do, I'll probably see some friends and watch the England rugby!

Thanks for reading!
-Andy.

Lucky number 13!

Today, has definitely been a good day:

First and perhaps strangest of all was the snowfall which was quite heavy and fell for hours - if only it had waited until tonight so the possibility of college being closed could be considered!
Also, Man United got a decent result against Real Madrid in what was a fascinating game - a 1-1 draw. During this' game on Twitter, the Die Hard Twitter account were running a competition - the best Die Hard referenced tweets about the match were rewarded, and for my efforts tweeting about the United goal, they have rewarded me with all 4 Die Hard films which they're sending in the post! (follow me @aandysmith)

Keeping on the subject of films, today I have watched two good films, Source Code which was quite good and Inception which raised the bar and blew the roof off. It is a film I had previously ignored it without giving it a chance but saw a trailer for it a day or two ago and realised how foolish this was! If you can grasp it, it truly is mindblowing stuff!

Most importantly though, I passed my driving theory test! Getting iut of the test room and receiving my results was more of a relief that I hadn't failed than anything else! I just about scraped it but that doesn't matter, the fact is I'm halfway to my full UK license!
On my 7th driving lesson this morning in deteriorating conditions I practised reversing and got another step closer to taking my test! Oh and passing this test meant my dinner was elevated fron vegetable soup up to a jalfreezi curry!

Because this day has been full of success and just overall a good day, perhaps the number 13 is to be a good omen for me? I certainly hope so!

This weekend Bangor City are live on S4C again so I will most probably watch that and hope they can avoid conceding a last minute equaliser like last week! On Saturday night I'm again venturing to the Attfield Theatre with my Dad to watch The Hobbit. I'm quite looking forward to it as I haven't yet seen The Hobbit and am interested to see what the experience of a full house is like there!

Finally, next week is half-term! This is welcome news as always and will probably be spent watching films!

Thanks for reading!
-Andy.

Fanatical!

This past weekend was the beginning of the six nations rugby union tournament, where I was and will be of course supporting England! With a group of friends in my back room, we witnessed England start the campaign with a cruising win over Scotland!
A few hours later the lot of us went off to the Attfield Theatre for the first time, to watch their screening of Seven Psychopaths! I was impressed overall, the film was entertaining and quite mad, the screen was a good size and the sound system was brilliant - the whole thing was a good independent cinema style experience.

United won while City could only draw and United are now 9 points clear! Bangor still can't get any good form together as they drew at home with Port Talbot.

On Wednesday, I had no driving lesson as my instructor was away in London so I had a lot of spare time! I did a bit of revising for my theory test which is next Wednesday(!!) and went with Connor to see Bullet to the Head at Odeon! We decided to try getting to Wrexham via train for a change and didn't have the best of experiences as both the going and the return trains were delayed. We got told off for having bought child tickets and missed the return train by about a minute so had to spend another hour waiting. However, the journeys were 20 minutes each way which is a lot faster than the bus!
So I quite liked the film, there's some good action, it's quite slick, Stallone is enjoyable to watch and it's well put together. It's not going to be a gamechanger or massive awards winner like Django but it certainly was worth a watch. Also, I signed up for an Odeon premiere club card and will eventually have enough points for a free ticket!
This week I have realised about myself that since the beginning of college (most probably due to film studies and media classes) my interest in films has absolutely shot up! For example, on Saturday night I went out and saw a film, on Sunday night I ordered two modern western remakes - True Grit and 3.10 to Yuma, on Wednesday I saw Bullet to the Head and bought Gran Torino, For a few Dollars More and Che (Part one and two). Right now, I'm thinking about my next cinema trip!

Later on and back to football, England claimed their first win against Brazil in about twenty years, which was very pleasing to watch! This weekend, I am planning on staying home and watching the Bangor game on TV with some friends - similarly to last weekend! England (rugby) and Man Utd play on Sunday so I'll be staying in then too!

Thanks for reading!
-Andy.

Django Off-the-chain!

So again this is a day late post, but, again I have a good reason!

Yesterday was like so many of my Wednesdays; brilliant. It started with an early driving lesson (my 6th) where I started doing some reversing and a lot of turning, gear changing and cruising round. Clearly, I can see that clutch control is what needs to be mastered. After my lesson, I zoomed over to Sainsbury's to meet Connor and catch a bus to Wrexham. When the correct bus drove straight past us without stopping we didn't know what was going on but luckily a stroke if genius decided we go to Morrison's bus stop and thankfully the bus there did stop!

The point of our trip was to experience the very much acclaimed new Tarantino film: Django Unchained. At the very least, it met all the high expectations. There are a number of things that make this film a success, these are the big performances - Jamie Foxx begins as an unintelligent and angry-as-hell slave and morphs into an expert bounty hunter with brains but still humanely gets overcome by emotion. Christoph Waltz is a joy to watch, charismatic, frequent use of big words and an excuse for all situations gets him by. DiCaprio plays the villain, he is a villain that apart from all the racism and cruelty is a likeable guy! Finally, Samuel L. Jackson, playing the equivalent of a white man in a very interesting role, manages a crucial impact.

Something this film does excellently is blending. The amount of different genres and labels that could be stuck on it is limitless - there are scenes where all the seriousness drops and it temporarily turns into a full on comedy, then there are scenes where the levels of tension soar and its almost a period drama.

Overall, it is an easy 10/10 and a film that I'd recommend to anyone. After the film at home I was treated to some quality football in the form of Real Madrid vs Barcelona - El Clasico! Also, my Dad was out at Old Trafford for the evening watching Man United open up another 7 point gap at the top of the table against Southampton, in a box!! I was indeed quite jealous!
The weekend saw Bangor's first win in over a month as they beat Connah's Quay 2-0 in the Welsh Cup and again my social levels leapt up as I saw some old faces.
Upcoming this weekend I am to hopefully see England rugby start the Six Nations with a win and check out the Attfield Theatre with 10 friends watching Seven Psychopaths!

Thanks for reading!
-Andy.

Let it snow!

So, this past week has been filled with film. Starting a week ago today when I saw Gangster Squad, then on Friday I went to the DVD exchange stall at Oswestry's indoor market and bought Public Enemies and Alien vs Predator. I also got Cowboys and Aliens from B&M bargains. Cowboys and Aliens is a brilliant hybrid of Western and Sci-fi where Daniel Craig teams up with Harrison Ford (not a bad pairing) to defeat aliens!

Public Enemies was hard to understand at the beginning but once I got it, it really took me! Aliens vs Predator was rather boring at the start and slow to kick off but is good when it does!
Because I'm very much looking forward to seeing the new Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained, I decided to watch some of his films and on Sunday saw Pulp Fiction for the first time. Start to finish I was hooked. It was such an unusually styled film and yet this worked really well! Add a mad story to an A list of stars and it's a method for success.
On Sunday I also made a fantastic discovery when my Dad told me about the Attfield Theatre in town. This is situated by the indoor market and has started showing some recent box office films - on Saturday they showed Skyfall! I am really glad of the discovery and will definitely be utilizing this great tool soon.
Finally, today I went to the DVD exchange market stall again as temptation got the better of me and returned with Tarantino's debut film Reservoir Dogs, RocknRolla and a waste of space Inglorious Bastards which I foolishly mistook for Tarantino's Basterds. Annoying!

Also in this past week the overdue snow has hit, and it packed quite a punch! Because of the snowfall, I've had Friday and Monday off school and there are signs (and hopes) of more downpour!
Of course, the snow wasn't entirely beneficial as Bangor's game was called off! United did play and succumbed to a last minute equaliser against Tottenham to drop 2 points but are still 5 clear!

I have recently finished reading Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and would definitely recommend it. A total masterpiece and worthy of all it's praise. Yesterday I started re reading Brian McGilloway's first Inspector Devlin novel: Borderlands. This is a great book and beginning of a series that I wanted to refresh my memory of.

This weekend my social levels have hit a recent high as Friday night I participated in a shed party with a group of friends I hadn't seen for months and on Saturday I went sledging and saw one or two more that I hadn't done for a while!

Thanks for reading!
-Andy.