UnorthodoxY Archive It's wasn't what you thought

I’m going to interupt this semi-regular lull in posting for a quick movie review.

In particular, “The Day The Earth Stood Still” the remake of the old 1950’s classic. 

I was expecting a train wreck, most of the normal crowd who join me at the cinema stayed home due to the same fear. But, you know what, it’s not half bad. 

Sure, the whole things a bit one-dimensional and a little shallow all round but I see what they were aiming for. It’s nice that they can do a aliens-on-earth film without going all Independance Day and it’s also nice to see an American film just develop at it’s own pace without having to resort to the Sledgehammer-Of-Plot where somebody needs to explain everything for the thickos in the audience. 

I particularly liked the ending, understated, open-ended and nicely abrupt. Very much not what I expected. 

Worth seeing, probably not worth going to the cinema to see but certainly a DVD rental if ever I saw one, I’m curious to see if they had other endings in mind/filmed. 

Expect some posting about what’s going on with my life, travel and career after I’ve aligned a few more ducks …

Most places, even the hottest places I’ve been, have the common deceny to cool down a bit at night. 

Not Manila tho’, it just keeps the dial cranked up. 

It’s a weird city, a complete culture shock as I expected something a little different. I was expecting Hong Kong, Manila is much more like Mexico City — if that comparison means anything to you.

It’s a good place tho’, my overall impression has been favourable so far. It’s massive so getting around takes a while, and I’ve not had much change to explore many areas. But being massive means that there’s always somewhere else to explore. 

Plus I’ve already lost money playing poker so I know I can do that as sucessfully as I can anywhere else. 

I’ve no real idea how the interview process is going, I think I’m putting a good impression of myself forward, but we’ll just have to see how it all goes.

… the night before a big business trip.

One, go to bed three hours before you need to get up (after copious amounts of booze) and manage only one hour sleep due to the general worry about the next day.

Two, lock yourself out the flat while putting the bins out and have to do a twenty minute walk/run to the nearest friend that has a spare set.

I’m impressed by my lack of panic when I discovered what I’d done, glad I did it last night and not this morning …

Now I’m in the airport and generally calmer since that’s the first hurdle done. Although the reality of what I’m doing, interviewing for a job on the other side of the world, has only just started to hit.

Never mind, the wine will calm that down.

I’ve already been scolded by airport staff for drinking at 7:30am in the morning, she was gone before I could explain that somewhere else in the world it’s half nine at night

I’m just back from another trip around bits of Europe, which was OK even if Bucharest is a complete hole. 

And I’ve just finished prepping for a trip to Asia, I leave tomorrow. 

I’ve had four days in Edinburgh between trips, it’s been a little hectic. 

So don’t expect too many posts for the next week or so. 

All of next week is a bit of a two-way job interview for the position in the Philippines, there’s a proper sit down interview on Tuesday too. After that I’m stopping off in Hong Kong to catch my breath before heading to Guangzhou to spend a few days with one of our big customers. 

Eeeek.

Hopefully after that I’ll be back in Edinburgh and I’ll have time to post about my experiences. 

Unless my boss decides to divert me to see someone else, since I’m in the area …

rent a car bulgariaBaconnaise

Mmmm, bacon.

Well my travel request got approved, in record time apparently. 

So I can now reveal where I’m going. I’m going to Manila. 

In the Philippines. 

For a job interview. 

Eeeek. 

It’s with my current company which is why they’re shelling out for the flights and hotel. And the fact they’re paying to send me must be a good sign. 

But still, eeeek.

I’m not normally a font nazi but …

I’ve just noticed that the travel authorisation request form for my division, a huge global division of a massive global company, is written in Comic Sans. 

Come on, this is a form that people use to request permission to spend thousands of pounds of the companies money and it’s written in a font more suitable for a ten-year olds birthday card. 

I know I’m disproportionately annoyed by this. Hey, at least I’m posting. 

I’ll post about why I was filling in a travel request form if it gets approved …

There is very little new information regarding the recent employment bombshell. We’re following the government procedure for these things and following it at a glacial pace. It’ll be Friday at the earliest before we have any more information and even then the consultation period will probably keep us all in limbo for another month. I’m ignoring it and pursuing some interesting leads, I need to get my CV up to date. 

I’ve returned to the land of the loner, having lost my flatmate over the weekend. So I now have to play the lifesize equivalent of one of those slide puzzles where I shift all my furniture around to create enough space to redecorate the bits that need done. Still, it’s all looking possible. 

Before the decorating (but after the CV updating) I need to do some planning for my (probably) final holiday this year as next week sees me head off to the furthest away parts of the EU. 

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that posting may be a bit light over the next month or so. I’ll try not to leave a multi-month gap but we’ll see.

I should have some job losing/hunting info once I get back from my hols and there’s still a ton of outstanding country posts but I’m way behind with my photos.

So, the figures are out and the UK economy shrank in the last quarter. This post isn’t about that. 

This is about the BBCs reaction. They’ve unveiled a special page: bbc.co.uk/downturn

Easy to remember URL, snappy graphics, special fonts, lots of content. New graphics are already on News 24 as well.

Eh, could you at least pretend you’re not beside yourself with glee that we’re “on the brink of recession.” 

How long have they had that ready to go? You just know they don’t have an equivalent ‘upturn’ page. 

It makes you wonder what they do have ready, lots of pre-done obituraries I imagine, but do they have terror attack pages, nuclear strike, alien attack?

“But what about your ‘visit the EU’ resolution, how will your job turmoil affect that?”, is a question that no one has asked.

The closest they’ve come is “Bet you regret spending all that money jetting around the EU now!”

Which is nice of them. I needed reminding.

I have only a few countries left to visit and the flights are all booked. So I’m confident that by the end of the year I’ll have visited every country in the EU in 2008.

I may have to cancel a planned trip to Dublin, but I’ve been there before and I spent a night in the airport this year which is probably enough to calm the completeness freak in me.

I’ll post more about the whole experience once I’ve got the separate country posts up, hopefully before the end of the year, but maybe not.

It’s easy to think I would have been better off, financially, if I hadn’t been doing this but I doubt I would be. Past experience proves that I’d have just done something else with the money anyway. I’m not really a saver.

I’m in the happy position of having a few months, at least, of employment to sort out my finances. It could be a lot worse.

All this does mean that there’s unlikely to be a new resolution for 2009 … unless my life becomes much more settled before then.