Sport

Sport has figured quite prominently for me this weekend. I played football for 2 hours on Friday evening, 2 hours again yesterday and I'm planning to play badminton this afternoon (this was/is all with the Japan Society at my university). That might sound like no big deal, but over Easter I hardly did any exercise whatsoever, and I'm kinda feeling the effects right now.

I used to be really into sports, especially football, when I was a kid. Like most boys I wanted to become a professional football player, but growing up my lifestyle has changed. I'm nowhere near as interested as I once was and it usually bores me to watch sport on TV. However, I do like to play sport whenever I get the chance, partly for health reasons, but mainly because it can often be a fun activity. Team sports are good social activities, especially at places like universities.

During this past week at university we just had a mid-semester test, which everyone found really tough. The results came back OK for me, but it's not that long before I have to start preparing for the end of year exam. A friend and I are also actually planning to go over to Japan this summer to do some work and gain some language experience. We still need to contact hosts and book our flights, but I'm totally looking forward to it.

Toy Story 2

I watched Toy Story 2 on BBC One last night. Years ago I caught a few minutes of the film and logged in my brain to watch the whole thing at some point. I remember the first Toy Story being released in 1996 in the UK. Toy Story 2 was released in 2000, over 7 years ago - it really doesn't seem that long ago - and the film is miles better than the majority of animated films that I've seen more recently. A lot like old games consoles didn't need the powerful graphics to make great games, a lot of the good animated films were made earlier on, almost exclusively by Pixar. I haven't seen the more recent Cars, but I've seen just about every other Pixar film, and I'm amazed at the high quality of pieces such as Finding Nemo. It's a shame Pixar have now been bought by the evil empire of Disney. Hopefully they'll still carry on making great films. Toy Story 3 is actually down for a release in 2010. I hope they don't sequelise and ruin Toy Story here.

The Toy Story 2 storyline is quite clever, involving a toy collector who steals Woody to sell him as part of a collection to a museum. The difference between owning toys for fun or for a collection is interesting to watch (I guess the latter is for adults who still wish they could do the former). There are nice humorous references to this kind of behaviour and "toy culture" - one of the toys is left in his original packaging, and as a result is constantly bitter.

I believe one of the reasons for the success of the Toy Story franchise is that the whole concept is just so much fun, and really captures the imagination. Toys, an obviously childish theme, are taken and given personalities and character. This attracts kids who want to see their toys come to life, and adults who wished their toys would have come to life. It's great to imagine that all the toys in the world have their own secret world when they're not being played with. This is one of the most interesting features - seeing real toys such as Mr. Potato Head or a cowboy figure come to life and interact with the real world. It's quite ironic how the characters of Toy Story went on to become high-selling toys outside of the films.

Toy Story 2 is filled with great humour and one liners (it's probably the most genuinely funny kids' film I've ever seen), there are Star Wars references and I love the animation style too - really vivid and smooth with a slight 50s tinge. There's just so much going on in this film, so many parallels and clever situations.

I personally enjoy anything with bright colours and memories of childhood and so I really enjoyed Toy Story 2. Definitely recommended viewing if you haven't seen it already.

Toy Story 2 official webpage

Drummerworld

Today I took a break from studying. I went out with the family for lunch at a gastropub in town and in the afternoon I browsed around on www.drummerworld.com. On this site there are individual pages for many famous drummers and on the pages of the more well known drummers there are sound files and videos. I can spend quite a while on this site just reading, watching and listening.

In fact, I've really been enjoying drums lately, even more than I did already. I've started listening to an audio podcast called Drummer Talk, which is presented well by a drum teacher and his students from the US. The show keeps me up to date with the latest drum happenings and products, as well as educating me on quite a few aspects of drumming. Having never really taken lessons I learn quite a lot from the show and I've started to do a few things differently since listening - I've changed my choice of drumsticks and I'm now more conscious of listening to more varied styles of music in order to improve my ability. There was a great show released recently called "Tunes every drummer should here!" in which the hosts explored listener song suggestions.

Music is everywhere these days, but I feel that drummers sometimes don't get enough attention. I kind of like this situation though, as it makes you feel part of a secret club. But as the internet is great for finding information and media on niche subjects, I guess drummers don't feel so alone any more.

Another podcast I've just subscribed to is unirunner - Video Drum Lessons. This podcast has short instructional videos which are simple and easy to follow. I've also subscribed to a video podcast called HOW TO: Record Drums, but haven't watched any of the episodes yet. Podcasts are great.

Filming

We did some more filming today for the documentary I'm working on at the moment. We went to a bingo hall in the city centre to speak to some older folks. I did all the filming while my friend asked the questions. We're hoping that we'll have the bulk of the filming done in the next two weeks, then we can start editing and doing the more fun stuff like voice-over work. We're going to try and get the film finished in time for submission to the Sheffield Doc/Fest. Having the film played there would be ultimately amazing.