It is a minute past midnight as I start this blog posting and for the first time in months I feel I can blog “live”. Live for the moment, without the need for major notes (paper or electronic). It may lack some coherence, so just please bear with me. I want to cover so many topics and try and put into perspective the year that was 2006. Less than forty-eight hours of it left and fittingly it ends with a weekend.

Christmas is a time for movies. Television movies in fact, even with Sky Movies, there must be hundreds if not thousands of movies that are shown annually at this time of year. In addition to the big blockbuster that usually the Beeb buys at some expense to us, taxpayers. Nice for us to actually tune in our millions to watch Bloom, Depp and Knightly this year. So ITV instead concentrated on their fresh dramas and some reality television kickbacks. They did however, come up with a real treat. In the summer, the broadcaster screened the trilogy on consecutive Saturday evenings, (29th July, 5th August and 12th August). Here it was again but screened on consecutive days but along side the Jurassic Park trilogy. Could this have been better planning for a Spielberg fan? Having seen both trilogies more than double figures. Including parts both two and three respectively which I saw for the first time at the cinema (if my memory serves me correctly). In any case, forget Jurassic Park (which nevertheless is a fantastic movie experience in it’s own right). Back To The Future perhaps is one of the movies I could watch over and over again. I have the DVD box set and Mighty Mouse and myself watched the first chapter back in early June but aptly at a DeLorean weekend in Norfolk. However, as they were screening the episodes on television I decided to watch them again for the hell of it. I only really watched the first one completely, the second part (which is my personal favourite, most sequels of a three are usually the best, regardless of what others will tell you) I only caught briefly. My sleeping and eating pattern has gone haywire ever since I came off on holiday. I decided to “tape” the hover board sequence, even though perhaps I could have ripped them from the DVD several years ago. What would have been the fun in that? Plus I do not really know how to and have not got the patience at this current time frame to learn. However the television version was heavily edited and missed out key moments of the action. I have kept the mpeg file in any case but unfortunately it will not be uploaded to You Tube. Plus, I am sure there are plenty on there already. Talking of You Tube, someone else has already uploaded the interview with Richard Hammond and I am tempted to remove my clip(s). There is no need for duplication clogging up servers and leaving myself open for legal proceedings.

Talking of movie trilogies I got the Fast & Furious box set for Christmas. In this case I had only seen the original movie back in the PB days (no, not Personal Best but pre-blogging days, e.g. before 2002) at the cinema. I think it was the Odeon in Leicester, a stones throw away from my University campus. However, it had been that long since I saw the movie that I thought I had to do this professionally. So I would watch each movie on consecutive nights, (to coincide with the BTTF trilogy) however on, forgotten the day. Let me think for second. Wednesday, that is it. The day after Boxing Day I watched both the first movie and then after a ten minute interval, the second movie. I have still yet to watch the final movie based in the mean streets of Tokyo. However, I thought I would just say a few things about the movies series so far, if I may. The Fast & The Furious was just as good as I remember it, all those five years ago. The sequel is better than the first, and I know I am being highly controversial by making such a statement but I have my reasons. Plus it does keep my statement above that middle of any trilogy is always the best. Of course this is slightly unqualified as I have yet to see the final installment. Nevertheless, let me continue with my short review. Paul Walker returns which is great, continuity is an important aspect. Plus the prelude sequence does help put things in place (for those watching the movie standalone). The main draw for this movie is Tyrese. He steals the show playing the bitter black ex-con Roman against the backdrop of O’ Conner, the white cop gone bad whom fancies the pants Monica Fuentes (and who can blame him?). I really enjoyed the movie and was a bit disappointed when it headed. I wanted the action, the bickering between the two characters to carry on. If you have not seen this movie, you should. I am sure I have mentioned this before but perhaps for as much as the past year, I have seen the introduction segment (of ten minutes or so) on Sky Movies but never had the chance to actually sit down and watch the movie. If anything that was missing, it was the full home cinema surround sound and the comfy sofa. My PC is no true substitute but it does an adequate job. I will try and catch the final episode sometime before the end of 2006 or more likely on 1st January.

I could not sleep last night. Yeah I do tend to have my bouts of insomnia from time to time, usually when some stupid pointless worry is weighing down on my mind. In any case, apart from putting on old CDs on my stereo, I decided to go and clear up some of the old text messages on my 6230. I think it can only store around 150 SMS messages in the Inbox and I had been getting the warning that my “Message memory nearly full” for the past few weeks but never got around to housekeeping. It was breathtaking to go back and read text messages from Pav during the HiFi South music festival and other messages from our fantastic weekend at the Ring. I sat in bed, fully awake thinking of all the wonderful things I had done over the past 12 months. Just the thought of just a handful that came to mind, made me smile. Then I thought of the World Cup, yeah it was a World Cup as well. Although of course from a nationalist point of few, the less said about that the better. Other people will have photographs for sure and perhaps presents or mementos from the nights out, souvenirs if you will. I, however can take it to another level but just spending a few minutes (or hours) scrolling the archives. Even my magical FlickR account has albums every month from April until the end of the year. This perhaps would be the moment I quote some outrageous statistic like number of photographs uploaded, or number of individual posts on this blog over the course of the year but there is no need. I can summarize the year, 2006 in a music video.

Highlights, well there are plenty but I still think seeing Michael at the World Music Awards has to be my moment of the year. Being in the same room as a musical legend is an experience I perhaps never will truly be able to describe. Being at Dennis’s final swan song game at Ashburton Grove perhaps is second on the list. Hold on, actually being at the last ever game at Highbury? See, you think when Channel 4 (and other broadcasters) do their list shows it would be really easy but it is not. Even for someone like me trying to find a top five list of events of the year is difficult. Perhaps what will kill you the most will be the shocking fact that I did it all with a measley 1.5 days off work (the exact same number as last year, taking my full take up to 3 days over two years service). You must be thinking, are you MAD? No, my name is Teg but I am seriously considering rebranding to T In a similar vain to Pav’s friend Thomas, who was formerly known as Foxy and now wants to be refered to as T-Dogg. (I thought that was far too street for me, so opted for the singular letter.) You might notice it as my favourite icon (if you have saved this as one of your regular blogs).