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I’m looking for help proofreading my dissertation. If you’ve been invited to, or you’d like to help, please go to https://danq.me/diss/, download the latest version, and post any
comments here.
You will need a password. To ensure that only invited parties can get hold of the password, you’ll need to prove your identity. The following groups are permitted to log in:
Members of Troma Night: go to the Troma Night web site and log in: the password will appear on
the front page, underneath the words ‘Upcoming Events’.
People listed as LiveJournal friends of Fiona: go to this LiveJournal post by Fiona (you’ll need
to be logged in and on her Friends list).
People who can guess the password – it’s the second half of the name of the project of my dissertation, in lower case, with the final letter replaced with the first vowel in the
word that is the name of the logo of the organisation that benfits from my project.
[this post was lost during a server failure on 11 July 2004; it was partially-recovered on 13 October 2018]
Another couple of weeks of academic nightmare coming up, followed by the Easter Break (during which I’ll be working, ho hum). I’ve got to do my second “poster session” presentation for
my dissertation a week on Wednesday; next week I have all my pracs *and* I’m helping out backstage with the Student Skills competition. Oh; and I managed to get myself persuaded to go
into the office at the weekend, forgetting that my mum’s visiting. D’oh.
Oh yeh; my mum’s visiting this weekend. She’s bringing Andy (the BF1) and Puddles (the KCS2) along for Troma Night. Which is nice.
And, while I’m on the ball – other shiny happy news – I’ve managed to grovel to the bank and secure myself a dramatically increased overdraft, interest free, until September. Which
means I can afford to pay for my ADSL subscription. Oh; and the …
This is the worst movie I have ever seen. It is far, far worse, even, than Barb Wire.
It is truly abysmal. Awful filming, meaningless plot, impossible-to-understand ending, crap acting, discontinuity, shitty clipping… apparently three members of the cast committed
suicide shortly after filming was completed. Almost none of the rest worked in film again.
My Internet: Architecture And Operation exam went well this morning. I could waffle on about Aggregatable Global Unicast
Addresses in IPv6 for hours. But then I ran out of time.
Troma Night tonight – yay. The flat’s a tip. Must do some tidying this afternoon. All help welcome.
The new Troma Night website is now up and running. All existing Stars are requested to go and
register for the new site to retain their Star status. And give suggestions for Saturday’s films while you’re there, using the new “What Shall We Watch?” feature.
The following post originally appeared on the then-newly-revamped Troma Night website. This archive copy is copied back
here for posterity:
This document was originally published on the first Troma Night web site. Changes made during this re-posting are shown in italics.
What happens at ‘Troma Night’?
The weekly ‘Troma Night’ is organised, rougly, by the following stages:
Hype
The first stage of any week’s ‘Troma Night’ is the build-up of hype amongst the stars. It usually starts three or four days in advance, and is characterised by
people suggesting films and generally getting excited about what they are soon to experience.
Claire getting excited about the prospect of watching ‘Caution: Children at Play’
Cleaning
Dan & Claire’s flat almost always looks like a bomb has hit it. As a result, one of the first things that needs to happen is a good tidying session. Kit’s
always good for this, as he’s pretty much treated as slave labour all the time and being allowed to watch DVDs in exchange for his help is the highlight of the week.
Kit tries to start the vacuum cleaner without also starting a fire – Claire and Dan’s vacuum cleaner is a little unsafe…
Booze
Alec undoubtedly arrives later than everybody else, having phoned-in from the off-license to check if anybody wants anything while he’s there. Kit mumbles that
he wouldn’t say no to free beer. Sometimes, other people place requests. Once everybody arrives and the drinking and conversation have begun, the party is underway. Adam brings
another six pack of Fosters and drinks four cans of it, thereby slowly adding to the stacks of the stuff in Dan & Claire’s fridge, which nobody but him drinks. Either everybody brings
Pringles, and we’re all stuffed before the pizza arrives, or nobody does, and we complain at their absence.
Pringles and beer
Pizza
We usually get as far as the first DVD menu before somebody suggests that we order pizzas. Unfortunately this means that we have to listen to the theme music
from some Troma film (which, almost without exception, is tacky) on a loop until we’ve all agreed what pizzas we’re getting and ordered them. This track then remains embedded within
our brains for all time, clogging them and preventing more valuable information from entering, in a similar manner to carbon monoxide in red blood cells
Stacks of pizza boxes after Troma Night VIII
Eventually the pizzas arrive, and we eat them. This is a good thing. Paul, despite being a vegetarian, eats the pepperoni one.
Mmm… pizza…
Movies
Kit and Dan show their appreciation for good beer and bad films
With the DVD player(s) hooked up, we begin the screenings. We typically watch two or three movies in a single sitting, back to back, seperated by a 15-minute
break for those who wish to go to the toilet or engage in idle chit-chat. A third movie tends to put us at about 1:30am, by which time we’re usually exhausted. And if not… there’s
always more alcohol!
Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m about two-thirds of the way through the development of the new Troma Night
website (between bouts of revision). Should be ready within the next 12 hours. Fab.
If you’re a Troma Night person, go visit www.tromanight.co.uk tonight (Wednesday night).
I’m working (at long last) on updating the Troma Night website. Going OK so far, about a third of
the way there. Am contemplating pulling a long, late night and seeing how much of it I can get done at once. Ideally I’ll have it all sorted for next Troma Night, on Saturday –
including the new webcam feature! We’ll see…
In other news, Claire’s looking a lot happier now that she’s put the revision to bed for the night.
We watched three Studio Ghibli flicks – Spirited Away (hadn’t seen this before: really quite impressive, but not quite a Totoro-beater),
Tonari no Totoro itself, and Princess Mononoke. Everybody and his dog brought beer, so we all got pleasantly
sloshed; the pizza was great, we still have mountains of Pringles (mmm… revision food), and altogether the night was just fab.
Ruth brought her boyfriend: GBH, or TNT, or something like that. I’m pretty sure we called him every three letter acronym under the sun during the course of the evening. He’s now the
third Troma Night Partner to be brought along: let’s see if he ever comes back (none of the others – Kit’s …
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As most of my fellow Aberites know, I’ve actually been back in Aberystwyth for a few days, but have been typically drunk (celebrating getting back, then celebrating Kit’s engagement to Fiona, then celebrating New Year, then having a video night –
and it’s the first Troma Night of the new year tonight: can my liver take it?).
When I’ve not been drunk, I’ve been playing Sim City 4: Rush Hour (good,
but don’t buy it just for the U-Drive-It features, they’re not so good) and Civilization III:
Conquests (very good; adds a lot of great new features to the game – slightly pissed-off that I bought Play The World and Conquests supercedes everything in it; ah well). The former I got with Christmas
money, the latter a present from Claire (For Christmas, or my birthday? I’m not sure, but hey!)
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And a good Troma Night it was, too. The usual people came – surprising how few of them had gone back to their families for Christmas, yet –
although Liz didn’t bring Tom, and, as we decided last week, this
undoubtedly spells the end for their relationship. Maybe Troma Nighters should only date other Troma Nighters. Perhaps we should fix Liz up with Bryn (I would suggest Adam, but based on a conversation I had with Liz on Tuesday night, I don’t think that ‘Strokey’ Adam could handle her).
Totoro was fantastic, as ever. We also watched Pitch Black, which was cool for a
virtually unheard-of Hollywood title, followed by another of Miyazaki’s fantastic animated films – this time one I hadn’t seen (but had wanted to),… [the rest of this post is
lost]
TromaNight rolls to a close in 2003 with three excellent offerings. Tonari no Totoro, Pitch Black and Kiki Delivery Service. The first and last were excellent. Pitch Black was a good
middle film without doubt – but perhaps easier to forget because the other two were so charming.
The music in Kiki is really rather special. It was a joy to watch and listen to – and the cat! The cat (played by Phil Hartman, of Simpsons fame (Troy Maclure and Lionel Hutz)) was a
joy to watch. Very *very* catlike in behaviour and commentary…
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People keep getting together. Kate and Leu, Tom and Liz (now with a journal!), and now: Sian and Andy. Must be something in
the water. The latter pair (and the one I most recently heard about) is the most unexpected, and the middle one the most blatant. Sian and Andy???
Well, best of luck to them anyway: a long-distance relationship isn’t necessarily easy, but I’m sure that Sian knows that by
now anyway.
I’ve challenged Paul to find the link between Tonari no Totoro, which we’ll
be watching next Troma Night, and Troma. There is a link, and it’s a lot less complicated than he’s
looking for. He has until Saturday before I tell him anyway.
I tried to send an e-mail to a load of people the other day, telling them about something I’ll later tell to one other person. Unfortunately I accidentally emailed the other person at
the same time (was thinking about them … [the rest of this post, and one comment, are lost]
[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]
Ran out of food, ran out of alcohol: a disgrace from a planning perspective.
On the other hand; we watched…
“Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell”, in which a girl (who wasn’t really Nymphoid or Barbaric – perhaps she’d be better named “Anorexic Hairdresser”) tries to rescue her boyfriend
(apparently) from a nasty man with a bigger pointy stick, in the aftermath of a nuclear war. There weren’t many dinosaurs, either. But those that appeared were done quite well with
stop-motion camerawork. Better than “Rabid Grannies”. Argueabley better than “Alien Blood”, but still rather disappointing. And only one shot in which you can see her nipples.
After this, Liz and her new boyfriend Tom left. Just like Probably Bob, the last boyfriend she brought to Troma Night did, also before the end. It’ll never last.
“Beavis And Butt-Head Do America” – surprisingly funny; some hilarious immature humour. And it had Ruth – a guest star for tonight’s Troma Night – in stiches, which I think says a
lot about her sense of humour.
“Cannibal! The Musical!” Director’s Commentary. At long last, a night at which everybody present had already … [the rest of this post has been lost]
