I realised something as I was driving in to work this morning: I didn't post a blog entry yesterday.
I've no real excuse for not having done one - I just kinda forgot :/.
Also as I was driving in this morning, Chris Moyles made a spoonerism slip that lead to the title of this blog. It still makes me smile.
A spoonerism, in case you're wondering, is where you switch the first letters/syllables of a phrase - so fucking hell becomes hucking fell, for example. My family has something of a long history with the spoonerism. For some reason it's one of those things we just used to do.
One of the appeals is how it can both turn words into other words (in the above example, fell is an actual word) and words into nearly words ('hucking' sounds like it should be something, but isn't).
This weekend I am going to attempt a new cooking extravaganza: bread pudding! The recipe I have is really simple. Not that bread pudding is complicated in any recipe by the sound of things, but this one seems particularly simple.
The jist of it is "Put buttered bread and home-made custard in a pan and bake for half-an-hour or so." I've never made home-made custard before, but when I found out what the basic recipe was I was intrigued to have a go. It turned out to basically be egg yolk, sugar, double cream and milk. That actually sounds easier than instant custard.
I've never had much luck with instant custard if I'm honest. It's weird in a way, because it's so simple. I mean I can make the stuff where you just put water on it (though even then usually end up with a bit of powdery stuff that I've not dissolved properly) but the more complex version with heating milk, adding the powder and sugar I always seem to make a complete arse of, so we'll see how I get on with the proper custard.
The blogs pretty rambley today, huh?
I've watched two more eps of BSG in between my marathon Anno sessions. It was really depressing. It was meant to be depressing - that's not a depression brought on by the quality of the show or the impending end of the show. It's depressing in the sense that everybody is miserable - indeed, one of the characters actually kills themselves so that's what I mean.
I'm going to try very hard to abstain from Anno this weekend. My hope is that this weekend I'll go hell-for-leather and get loads of stuff ticked off and then next weekend I'll hopefully be clear to play it solidly.
How successful I'll be I don't know.
Friday, 31 July 2009
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull
Er... yeah.
I'm not sure quite what to say about this as I both really enjoyed it and got really annoyed by it.
I think I'll take my usual approach of moaning on about the stuff I didn't like and then undermining myself at the end by going "However, I actually kinda enjoyed it too".
So, stuff that annoyed me.
First off, although I don't expect an Indiana Jones film to be 'realistic', what I do expect is for the stunts to seem like actual people are doing them and they're not all CGI.
I've mentioned before that I've embraced GCI after some initial scepticism, but let's face it: Indi films are all about doing practical effects. As a film series they are a massive homage to early cinema - specifically the cinema adventure serials. Those films couldn't possibly have had a lick of CGI, so Indi should have as little as possible too.
Most especially in terms of stunts. I didn't mind them doing CGI for things like the nuke blast or the aliens, but to have bits where clearly CGI was used to make the stunts seem 'doable' or more dangerous than they actually were was not good.
The most glaring example involved a tree, a car and a river. It just looked so fake and so naff it was laughable, but not in a good way.
There were quite a lot of (often furry) critters in the movie too. Specifically some rodenty chipmunk/prairie dog things, some monkeys and some ants play fairly significant roles.
The chipmunks I quite liked - they were used for comedic effect only and it worked. The ants were a bit dodgy. It worked on some levels, but it was also a rather uninspired and flat sequence generally. It also seemed to have quite a few logical holes that made it seem a bit daft.
The monkeys, however, were really poor.
They made no sense, they lead to something that made no sense and was both daft and unrealistic and they seemed very cheesy. I mean, why the hell would these monkeys suddenly decide to help Mutt? It was just utterly random. Plus, of the three they looked the most obviously CGI.
What else?
Russians instead of Nazi? Fair enough, but they should have been emphasising they were Communists, not Russians. Just like they emphasised they were Nazis, not Germans.
The head Russian was a good evil character, but she seemed a little, I dunno, nice? It could have done with a few scenes of her heartlessly killing her minions or something to really make her seem nasty. Her death was a bit rubbish too.
Also, there seemed to be a weird relationship with Indi and the Communists. He didn't really resist them enough and seemed to help them out in too straight a fashion. Normally you'd expect him to help with an eye to setting up his escape route, but instead his escape routes seemed more improvised.
Indi having a son was good - that worked - but the return of Marion less so. She seemed very flighty and random - not how I remember her at all.
But lastly, the thing that really made me think the film was a big meh was the lack of humour. It just seemed to be playing things to seriously, too po-facedly. A lot of the gags miss-fired and too much seemed funny not because it was meant to be but because it looked daft or made no sense.
Where was the witty repartee between the good guys and bad guys? Where were the something happens to Indi that's both scary and funny? Where was the shoots the swordsman bit or the goes to shoot the swordsman but find he's lost his gun bits?
So there you go, it just leaves me to say that despite all that, I still kind enjoyed it. Indi firing on three cylinders is still Indi.
I'm not sure quite what to say about this as I both really enjoyed it and got really annoyed by it.
I think I'll take my usual approach of moaning on about the stuff I didn't like and then undermining myself at the end by going "However, I actually kinda enjoyed it too".
So, stuff that annoyed me.
First off, although I don't expect an Indiana Jones film to be 'realistic', what I do expect is for the stunts to seem like actual people are doing them and they're not all CGI.
I've mentioned before that I've embraced GCI after some initial scepticism, but let's face it: Indi films are all about doing practical effects. As a film series they are a massive homage to early cinema - specifically the cinema adventure serials. Those films couldn't possibly have had a lick of CGI, so Indi should have as little as possible too.
Most especially in terms of stunts. I didn't mind them doing CGI for things like the nuke blast or the aliens, but to have bits where clearly CGI was used to make the stunts seem 'doable' or more dangerous than they actually were was not good.
The most glaring example involved a tree, a car and a river. It just looked so fake and so naff it was laughable, but not in a good way.
There were quite a lot of (often furry) critters in the movie too. Specifically some rodenty chipmunk/prairie dog things, some monkeys and some ants play fairly significant roles.
The chipmunks I quite liked - they were used for comedic effect only and it worked. The ants were a bit dodgy. It worked on some levels, but it was also a rather uninspired and flat sequence generally. It also seemed to have quite a few logical holes that made it seem a bit daft.
The monkeys, however, were really poor.
They made no sense, they lead to something that made no sense and was both daft and unrealistic and they seemed very cheesy. I mean, why the hell would these monkeys suddenly decide to help Mutt? It was just utterly random. Plus, of the three they looked the most obviously CGI.
What else?
Russians instead of Nazi? Fair enough, but they should have been emphasising they were Communists, not Russians. Just like they emphasised they were Nazis, not Germans.
The head Russian was a good evil character, but she seemed a little, I dunno, nice? It could have done with a few scenes of her heartlessly killing her minions or something to really make her seem nasty. Her death was a bit rubbish too.
Also, there seemed to be a weird relationship with Indi and the Communists. He didn't really resist them enough and seemed to help them out in too straight a fashion. Normally you'd expect him to help with an eye to setting up his escape route, but instead his escape routes seemed more improvised.
Indi having a son was good - that worked - but the return of Marion less so. She seemed very flighty and random - not how I remember her at all.
But lastly, the thing that really made me think the film was a big meh was the lack of humour. It just seemed to be playing things to seriously, too po-facedly. A lot of the gags miss-fired and too much seemed funny not because it was meant to be but because it looked daft or made no sense.
Where was the witty repartee between the good guys and bad guys? Where were the something happens to Indi that's both scary and funny? Where was the shoots the swordsman bit or the goes to shoot the swordsman but find he's lost his gun bits?
So there you go, it just leaves me to say that despite all that, I still kind enjoyed it. Indi firing on three cylinders is still Indi.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
at last
Had something of a breakthrough with Anno last night.
A big part of the reason I was playing it so much was that I was effectively flummoxed by the fifth chapter in the campaign. For some reason, the 5th chapter seemed to increase exponentially, both in terms of difficulty and time taken.
The breakthrough was that I finally completed it last night on my third go. Don't get me wrong, I've been enjoying it and I still like the game, it's just that it emphasises again the disadvantages of both the lack of a manual and the way the missions in the chapters aren't quite like tutorials.
The difficult was that it kept adding more and more stuff to do or achieve. This meant that were you'd gone all out to achieve the last mission, any errors or silly things you'd done to get it done in a timely fashion then became a bit of problem.
For example, you ended up finding that the wheat fields you'd placed to finish mission 3 where then right in the way of you completing mission 4. But there was now nowhere else to put them unless you removed all of your hemp fields. But you couldn't do that because you desperately needed ropes in order to complete mission 2 :/.
Since there were so many complex mission, as I was getting to the end it kept getting to a stage where it was an almost impossible task to finish. Well, without completely redoing all my towns and when you're faced with that option it seemed better to simply restart and plan better from the beginning.
Anyway, the point is I finished the chapter and I think there's a chance I may be happy to put Anno on hold for a while until I can knock some other stuff on the head.
I also discovered last night that two of the things I'd recorded and not had a chance to watch were actually totally unwatchable. Why were they unwatchable? Because of this bloody weather. The wind and rain is playing total havoc with my reception and it's getting beyond a joke now.
I just don't understand why it's so bad - it's like my normal reception is just on the cusp of being okay and any little thing tips it over. This would actually make some sense if I'm honest - the reception on normal terrestrial has never been that great.
Roll on digital switch-over. When they finally do that, the broadcast signal strength will be turned up (if it was on maximum now it would interfere with normal telly, apparently) and so it should get a lot better.
A big part of the reason I was playing it so much was that I was effectively flummoxed by the fifth chapter in the campaign. For some reason, the 5th chapter seemed to increase exponentially, both in terms of difficulty and time taken.
The breakthrough was that I finally completed it last night on my third go. Don't get me wrong, I've been enjoying it and I still like the game, it's just that it emphasises again the disadvantages of both the lack of a manual and the way the missions in the chapters aren't quite like tutorials.
The difficult was that it kept adding more and more stuff to do or achieve. This meant that were you'd gone all out to achieve the last mission, any errors or silly things you'd done to get it done in a timely fashion then became a bit of problem.
For example, you ended up finding that the wheat fields you'd placed to finish mission 3 where then right in the way of you completing mission 4. But there was now nowhere else to put them unless you removed all of your hemp fields. But you couldn't do that because you desperately needed ropes in order to complete mission 2 :/.
Since there were so many complex mission, as I was getting to the end it kept getting to a stage where it was an almost impossible task to finish. Well, without completely redoing all my towns and when you're faced with that option it seemed better to simply restart and plan better from the beginning.
Anyway, the point is I finished the chapter and I think there's a chance I may be happy to put Anno on hold for a while until I can knock some other stuff on the head.
I also discovered last night that two of the things I'd recorded and not had a chance to watch were actually totally unwatchable. Why were they unwatchable? Because of this bloody weather. The wind and rain is playing total havoc with my reception and it's getting beyond a joke now.
I just don't understand why it's so bad - it's like my normal reception is just on the cusp of being okay and any little thing tips it over. This would actually make some sense if I'm honest - the reception on normal terrestrial has never been that great.
Roll on digital switch-over. When they finally do that, the broadcast signal strength will be turned up (if it was on maximum now it would interfere with normal telly, apparently) and so it should get a lot better.
Monday, 27 July 2009
time management
Guess what I did this weekend?
It's not as interesting as you may think. I played Anno 1404.
This was not entirely a good thing as it means I didn't do a load of stuff that really I needed to get done. So basically I've essentially created a whole bunch of problems for myself.
One of these could be a big problem, but isn't at the moment. The others are minor problems that represent my total inability to control my own life on some level.
That sounds massively dramatic and it is in the sense that I've massively over-dramatised some minor niggles. But the thing is I'm actually kinda annoyed at myself for doing this.
If I'm honest, part of the problem is that I didn't predict I was going to do it. If I'd thought about it properly I'd have made an attempt to clear some of these to do things before the weekend, leaving the weekend free for some guilt-trip free entertainment.
Ah well. One day I'll get the knack of things.
This weekend saw something of a bizarre Grand Prix.
First off, things went rather badly on Saturday with Felippe Massa being involved in a bit of a freak accident. He was hit on the crash helmet by a rather heavy metal spring that had fallen off the back of Rubens Baricchello's car after his suspension failed.
It was a weird convergence of both good and bad luck.
Obviously it was bad luck to hit the spring - if he'd been slightly further up or down the track it wouldn't have hit him at all. But equally, it was lucky it hit him where it did - if it had struck him on the visor of his helmet, then at the least it would have blinded him, if not killed him outright.
Having hit him it's likely he blacked out )his skull was apparently fractured) and his car continued straight on, running into a tyre wall. This represents another weird piece of luck - he could have hit a concrete barrier or Armco and that part of the accident would have been a lot more severe. But then equally it could have happened in a slow part of the circuit and he may not have even lost consciousness.
I ended up recording the MotoGP race - as mentioned my current Anno obsession demanded more of my time - but I've heard it was really good. It was wet, apparently, and they were falling off all over the shop :/.
It's not as interesting as you may think. I played Anno 1404.
This was not entirely a good thing as it means I didn't do a load of stuff that really I needed to get done. So basically I've essentially created a whole bunch of problems for myself.
One of these could be a big problem, but isn't at the moment. The others are minor problems that represent my total inability to control my own life on some level.
That sounds massively dramatic and it is in the sense that I've massively over-dramatised some minor niggles. But the thing is I'm actually kinda annoyed at myself for doing this.
If I'm honest, part of the problem is that I didn't predict I was going to do it. If I'd thought about it properly I'd have made an attempt to clear some of these to do things before the weekend, leaving the weekend free for some guilt-trip free entertainment.
Ah well. One day I'll get the knack of things.
This weekend saw something of a bizarre Grand Prix.
First off, things went rather badly on Saturday with Felippe Massa being involved in a bit of a freak accident. He was hit on the crash helmet by a rather heavy metal spring that had fallen off the back of Rubens Baricchello's car after his suspension failed.
It was a weird convergence of both good and bad luck.
Obviously it was bad luck to hit the spring - if he'd been slightly further up or down the track it wouldn't have hit him at all. But equally, it was lucky it hit him where it did - if it had struck him on the visor of his helmet, then at the least it would have blinded him, if not killed him outright.
Having hit him it's likely he blacked out )his skull was apparently fractured) and his car continued straight on, running into a tyre wall. This represents another weird piece of luck - he could have hit a concrete barrier or Armco and that part of the accident would have been a lot more severe. But then equally it could have happened in a slow part of the circuit and he may not have even lost consciousness.
I ended up recording the MotoGP race - as mentioned my current Anno obsession demanded more of my time - but I've heard it was really good. It was wet, apparently, and they were falling off all over the shop :/.
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