New Michael Moore project gives drug companies a sick feeling.
I heard about this at a party on Friday night, and I must say I saw it coming a mile off. I'll be interested to see how he handles this, though the comment by Rachel Bloom about portrayals that aren't fair or balanced rings true to some extent. We all know that pharmaceutical companies have been guilty of some fairly substantial misdeeds, but a documentary that merely highlights these wrongs isn't going to cut it. Insight needs to be given into why these companies have never directly held up their hands and admitted their faults and mistakes.
While in this vein, I have applied for placements with two community pharmacy chains for next summer, Lloyds and Boots. I can posture in due course about how I'm above their philosophy, but for the moment I need experience and the guarantee of summer work. Hopefully these places won't stick me out in the middle of nowhere when the time comes around.
While I'm on the subject, the paycheque I got from my summer work has taken the heat off for the time being, but I can't afford to be complacent. In short? I need to start jobhunting again. YUK!
Monday, October 24, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
The last few days in brief
Last Friday I had a test (they don't waste time getting back into it around here), and I think it went OK.
That night, I met up with Phil and as is always the case when I meet him, there was debauchery. I heard that Schwartz, the bar I went to before, is closing down for renovations for quite some time. There were many encounters there this time, surprise surprise, though some of them were a bit clumsy thanks to my drunkeness. I ended up back at some guy's place for a while for some fun anyway, before heading home at about 4am.
Saturday saw me meet up with Danny for an all-day drinking session.
Sunday saw me go over to Danny and his girlfriend June's place for a nice roast dinner. I went straight there after doing my shopping at Asda, so I had to lug that home after the dinner, only to discover that the eggs I had bought had broken and flowed very nicely all over everything else. This is the second time this has happened. Reminder to self: Pack eggs separately from now on.
Yesterday saw me meet up with Phil again for drinks, food from an all-you-can-eat Chinese menu, and the cinema. A link was posted up recently by another blogger I know, pointing to a location where you can see the first nine minutes of 'Serenity' for free (as luck would have it, the opportunity has now passed). Once I had seen that, I was sucked in. It strikes me as a good idea for getting people to go and see a film, reel them in, and then watch them queue up to see it. In any case it was good, and I recommend.
After that, we went on a tour of Brighton's legendary cruising ground, the Bushes. I'm not sure if I'd venture down there myself though, it's very dark and secluded and there have been assaults down there before. I'll see. One rather memorable part of it was when we walked down a narrow pathway, passing a group of six people. Two of them were locked in an embrace that was, to say the least, rather passionate, and the other four were engaged in, wait for it, a foursome. I wouldn't have minded stopping to look, just out of curiosity to see how the hell one co-ordinates such an encounter from a mechanical point of view alone, but I thought better of it.
We finished up in a Mausoleum watching a jazz band at around midnight, which was a pretty cool way to round off everything.
After that we went back to Phil's for a short while to watch porn on a large plasma TV (the only way to do it, really), where a German guy with loads of tattoos had everything but the kitchen sink put up his arse. I think I need to research the long-term medical implications of this. It can't be good. That tattooed guy was hot, though.
Today I did nothing.
Not feeling renewed with energy today, so off home I go now.
That night, I met up with Phil and as is always the case when I meet him, there was debauchery. I heard that Schwartz, the bar I went to before, is closing down for renovations for quite some time. There were many encounters there this time, surprise surprise, though some of them were a bit clumsy thanks to my drunkeness. I ended up back at some guy's place for a while for some fun anyway, before heading home at about 4am.
Saturday saw me meet up with Danny for an all-day drinking session.
Sunday saw me go over to Danny and his girlfriend June's place for a nice roast dinner. I went straight there after doing my shopping at Asda, so I had to lug that home after the dinner, only to discover that the eggs I had bought had broken and flowed very nicely all over everything else. This is the second time this has happened. Reminder to self: Pack eggs separately from now on.
Yesterday saw me meet up with Phil again for drinks, food from an all-you-can-eat Chinese menu, and the cinema. A link was posted up recently by another blogger I know, pointing to a location where you can see the first nine minutes of 'Serenity' for free (as luck would have it, the opportunity has now passed). Once I had seen that, I was sucked in. It strikes me as a good idea for getting people to go and see a film, reel them in, and then watch them queue up to see it. In any case it was good, and I recommend.
After that, we went on a tour of Brighton's legendary cruising ground, the Bushes. I'm not sure if I'd venture down there myself though, it's very dark and secluded and there have been assaults down there before. I'll see. One rather memorable part of it was when we walked down a narrow pathway, passing a group of six people. Two of them were locked in an embrace that was, to say the least, rather passionate, and the other four were engaged in, wait for it, a foursome. I wouldn't have minded stopping to look, just out of curiosity to see how the hell one co-ordinates such an encounter from a mechanical point of view alone, but I thought better of it.
We finished up in a Mausoleum watching a jazz band at around midnight, which was a pretty cool way to round off everything.
After that we went back to Phil's for a short while to watch porn on a large plasma TV (the only way to do it, really), where a German guy with loads of tattoos had everything but the kitchen sink put up his arse. I think I need to research the long-term medical implications of this. It can't be good. That tattooed guy was hot, though.
Today I did nothing.
Not feeling renewed with energy today, so off home I go now.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
WTF?!
Comfortably esconsed on the couch last night, I was flicking channels and noticed that 'Lost Highway' was on at about midnight. As I didn't have any classes today, I decided to settle down and get into it.
Everything in it was trademark Lynch, lots of foreboding music and weird flashes, and it was the first time I'd seen Bill Pullman in a role as edgy as the one he had in this. Unsurprisingly, Patricia Arquette's character was nutso.
I'd heard it was a bit of a headfuck though, and just as I thought, halfway through the film everything was turned on it's head, with Pullman's character suddenly being replaced by the one of Balthazar Getty, only for the latter to revert back to the former toward the end. This revelation won't spoil it for you, in fact it'll give you foresight that most people will need when taking on this thing.
Lynch pulled a stunt like this with Mulholland Drive as well. As soon as Naomi Watt's character looked into the cube thing, everthing went pear-tarte-tatin and the viewer was left going ".....errr.....", but at least that one happened towards the end, so you had a chance to enjoy a relatively linear plot up until then.
My take on that cube incident in Mulholland Drive was that Betty Elms was offered a glimpse into the future of her relationship with Rita, but that's not one on which I would stake my life by any means. As for the metamorphosis in Lost Highway, I would really need to see it again. People may have thought that Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, and even Eraserhead were out there, but at least they made sense.
Still a good movie though. The saxophone playing kicked ass and the other stuff by David Bowie, Trent Reznor, and Billy Corgan's nifty 'Eye' was good too. But if anyone wants to enlighten me further on it, and indeed on Mulholland Drive as well, feel free.
Everything in it was trademark Lynch, lots of foreboding music and weird flashes, and it was the first time I'd seen Bill Pullman in a role as edgy as the one he had in this. Unsurprisingly, Patricia Arquette's character was nutso.
I'd heard it was a bit of a headfuck though, and just as I thought, halfway through the film everything was turned on it's head, with Pullman's character suddenly being replaced by the one of Balthazar Getty, only for the latter to revert back to the former toward the end. This revelation won't spoil it for you, in fact it'll give you foresight that most people will need when taking on this thing.
Lynch pulled a stunt like this with Mulholland Drive as well. As soon as Naomi Watt's character looked into the cube thing, everthing went pear-tarte-tatin and the viewer was left going ".....errr.....", but at least that one happened towards the end, so you had a chance to enjoy a relatively linear plot up until then.
My take on that cube incident in Mulholland Drive was that Betty Elms was offered a glimpse into the future of her relationship with Rita, but that's not one on which I would stake my life by any means. As for the metamorphosis in Lost Highway, I would really need to see it again. People may have thought that Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, and even Eraserhead were out there, but at least they made sense.
Still a good movie though. The saxophone playing kicked ass and the other stuff by David Bowie, Trent Reznor, and Billy Corgan's nifty 'Eye' was good too. But if anyone wants to enlighten me further on it, and indeed on Mulholland Drive as well, feel free.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
At last...
Well, I'm back in Brighton a week now, and as one would expect, it's been a return to form. Dublin was cool while it lasted, though I never got to see the play A View from the Bridge, with crazy fucking hot Meloni in the main role, as it was booked out for the entire run. That was my one disappointment, but I went to see Wolf Creek in the cinema, which kicked some horror butt.
Having got off the plane on Monday morning, I met the venerable Danny in a boozer at about 4pm and stayed out until about 4am the following morning. Registering the next morning at 9:30 in the college was a barrel of laughs, I can tell you. In the course of the 12-hour bender, I lost the microchip for the electricity meter Dan had given me (I've taken on his apartment for £55 a week! Happy days...), and so I had to put up with an apartment without a power supply for a few days until I got a new one in the post. I got around this by heading to north London to visit my brother for a while, only getting back yesterday, engulfed in the fog of a hangover. It was a good few days, just lying around drinking beer and eating food. I have also acquired a new addiction: a cop show called The Shield. I always felt that there was a glut of police dramas around, what with CSI and Law and Order, and God knows what else, but this one I like. The first two series were at my bro's pad, on DVD, and I ended up watching about 9 or 10 episodes in two days. My only regret there was that I didn't bring the rest of them back with me, but that's for another time.
Lectures start tomorrow at 9am. This year looks rather more taxing than the one that has gone before it, and the department still haven't lost their irritating habit of running one subject across 3 or more consecutive lecture hours, thus making sure you stop absorbing information after about an hour. Tomorrow is a full day of lectures, but only one subject is covered: Therapeutic Aspects of Neuroendocrinology and Pharmacokinetics. I imagine we'll all be hanging over the desks by lunchtime, and there'll still be another 3 hours to go. At least I'll be catching up with more people throughout the day.
In other news that no-one could ever see coming, and that has the potential to tip the earth on its axis, I must announce that I am broke again. My grant cheque had better have arrived while I was in London. As it is, it'll take 5 days to clear into my account when I lodge it. Oh, this is all sounding strangely familiar.
Also, I'm having a crisis of faith with this blog at the moment, and am not sure whether to continue with it, move it to livejournal (or somewhere where you can password-protect some entries), or end it altogether. I've decided to keep going for the moment, though the future feels precarious. We'll see...
Having got off the plane on Monday morning, I met the venerable Danny in a boozer at about 4pm and stayed out until about 4am the following morning. Registering the next morning at 9:30 in the college was a barrel of laughs, I can tell you. In the course of the 12-hour bender, I lost the microchip for the electricity meter Dan had given me (I've taken on his apartment for £55 a week! Happy days...), and so I had to put up with an apartment without a power supply for a few days until I got a new one in the post. I got around this by heading to north London to visit my brother for a while, only getting back yesterday, engulfed in the fog of a hangover. It was a good few days, just lying around drinking beer and eating food. I have also acquired a new addiction: a cop show called The Shield. I always felt that there was a glut of police dramas around, what with CSI and Law and Order, and God knows what else, but this one I like. The first two series were at my bro's pad, on DVD, and I ended up watching about 9 or 10 episodes in two days. My only regret there was that I didn't bring the rest of them back with me, but that's for another time.
Lectures start tomorrow at 9am. This year looks rather more taxing than the one that has gone before it, and the department still haven't lost their irritating habit of running one subject across 3 or more consecutive lecture hours, thus making sure you stop absorbing information after about an hour. Tomorrow is a full day of lectures, but only one subject is covered: Therapeutic Aspects of Neuroendocrinology and Pharmacokinetics. I imagine we'll all be hanging over the desks by lunchtime, and there'll still be another 3 hours to go. At least I'll be catching up with more people throughout the day.
In other news that no-one could ever see coming, and that has the potential to tip the earth on its axis, I must announce that I am broke again. My grant cheque had better have arrived while I was in London. As it is, it'll take 5 days to clear into my account when I lodge it. Oh, this is all sounding strangely familiar.
Also, I'm having a crisis of faith with this blog at the moment, and am not sure whether to continue with it, move it to livejournal (or somewhere where you can password-protect some entries), or end it altogether. I've decided to keep going for the moment, though the future feels precarious. We'll see...
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