The Godfather

Over the past few days during free time I've watched the Godfather trilogy and read up all about the films on Wikipedia. The first of the trilogy still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, it's that good. The second is brilliant, and the third kind of rounds everything off nicely.

Admittedly The Godfather Part III isn't as good as the preceding two, it was filmed some 16 years after the Part II in 1990. After reading about the films individually and collectively I found out that Francis Ford Coppola actually didn't want to make Part III, it was just that he was in a financial crisis after a big-budget movie flopped. Paramount had a long-standing offer to make a third film and he eventually relented.

Insofar as favourite films, this does rank highly - very highly. I think I've got the next series of films lined up to watch over the coming days and weeks of an evening too: The Big Lebowski, Get Shorty, The Three Amigos, The Usual Suspects. Quality shining through the whole lot.

jumpcut

A while ago I got a shout from a mate of mine to have a look at jumpcut a site that enables you to upload/edit/recut and share movies. Very cool, it's also free. I came across a rather entertaining definition of jumpcut on urbandictionary.com - apparently jumpcut is a video editing term referring to a large hop in the timeline of a movie. So the site's got a natty name, it's easy to use - I created a movie a couple of months ago to try out the software.

So it all looks very funky indeed. In fact after talking to one of the lads here we came up with a fantastic idea of doing a video blog. So I'll hook this blog into that video feed and hopefully be able to pop out a 2 minute segment at the end of the day in Chamonix with a bit of amusing or at least interesting news on the events and rigours of the day. Very cool!

I like the idea of doing this for a few reasons - Chris from listingslab already has a highly amusing blog about quitting London life to live in Chamonix and I'd like something slightly different. Also there's the benefit of being able to send a more interactive environment back to friends and family so they can see any phsyical differences (suntan, black eyes, stitches, etc). A bonus is that the chamonix valley website also has been exploring video content. Plus there's the added oppertunity for elaborate practical jokes which can't be understated.

I'd recommend having a glance over at jumpcut and I'll post up on here whenever there's a video update. In the mean time, if anyone's got any ideas for a good lightweight camera for taking bursts of video then please give me a shout!

Dreamy love

Have been laid up in bed ill yesterday and today. Got man flu. Hence have been living off lucozade and dvd's - notably crappy romantic comedies. My lovely housemate procured some of the most meaningless film to gush forth from the window of knowledge and rather worryingly have enjoyed much of it. In fact, there's a few tips and tricks left in there to the wooers and wooees - limited notes below.

Observations of successful courting strategies:

Knock the person you are courting clean out.
Saw this in Hitch amongst others, it appears to be a favoured strategy generally. In fact causing some sort of physical distress seems to be a really good idea as the target will inevitably forgive and forget. I'd guess that this could be a precursor to domestic violence at some stage in the future but all the other tell-tale signs seem to get swept under the carpet. On the plus side tho, I do like sporty, adventurous girls and so counting the recovery time may well certainly lend itself to helping "weed out the minnows" when looking for Mrs Narg.

Sleep with someone else when drunk/vulnerable/drunk & vulnerable.
A little more emotionally charged than the physical aspect of above. Plus the sex is inevitably never as good with the third party. They are always cast aside at a later stage for the main characters to reunite, but it would certainly make it a more difficult decision for the hero/heroine to go back to their main partner if the third party had introduced a bucket of soapy frogs into a lively bedroom encounter. There's a lingering feeling that the potential Mrs Narg might be put off by the combination of Imperial Leather and amphibians however so this one's going to be put on the "maybe" pile.

Don't buy flowers/chocolates.
It's gonna take waaay more than that apparently. Save your money. The guy with the private jet inevitably has a girl at some point - that should speak volumes for the value of money. I'm hoping that Mrs Narg will prefer flowers over jets - preferably a wild flower on the heather highlands in the middle of Scotland to an EasyJet flight to Magaluf at least.

Be really attractive.
No seriously it helps a lot. Boy next door look seems to work very well. The investment banker in a suit is almost always the bad guy (so why do virtually all girls like men in suits?) whereas the guy in the jeans and shirt ultimately always gets the girl (and later sponsorship from Gap). However an underlying sense of style and buckets of confidence also feature into this quite heavily. There's 30% off at Gap at the moment, so Mrs Narg will be happy. Might even have a shave on our wedding day to really smarten up.


I guess that despite all the jokes and whatnot mentioned above - the only thing you can do is open up enough to someone else for them to love you for who you are. It's happened once before to me and it was all I could do to stop standing on top of everything and shouting it across the land. The most exciting, adventurous, happy, sharing, adrenaline filled, emotional trip ever. Once she fell in love with the mountains and snowboarding too, it was like the air had been filled with crystals everywhere you looked.

The unequivocal love of the mountains is one of the reasons for going to the France. Decisions become easier with less clutter and distraction (ie London), and life is much more pure both spiritually and physically. The interim stalling period to get out there is almost unbearable - waiting to be able to get stuck into programming at the foot of the Aiguille du Midi in the high clean air after a few hours riding the mountain in the early morning each day. This love for the mountains is unconditional, much like the love of the past. The chance to programme, to ride, to enjoy the mountains and to have a fulfilling life is too much to walk away from. I guess if I meet Mrs Narg out there, then the chance to follow my dream and have it merge with someone elses. Well that would just be too cool.