I completely forgot to do a blog update yesterday.
To be fair I've been really busy at work, so I do have an excuse.
I've been debating whether to turn comments on for this blog. I originally turned them off because it's kinda depressing having a blog where no-one comments. By turning them off that's not a problem.
See if, as I'm pretty sure, no-one is reading this blog then having comments disabled kinda means I'll never find that out. Also, if some random people do happen to stumble across it and read it, but can't be arsed to comment (it's is a pretty dull blog, after all) then I'll never get the false impression no-one reads it.
Ignorance is bliss, in other words.
I guess I've been debating turning it on because it makes me feel a bit... I dunno, a bit like I'm one of those people at speakers corner who get on their box and shout at the trees and no-one pays them any attention.
Of course the flipside is that I may well be one of those people. Admittedly I'm not ranting and raving about any old random stuff... oh, no, wait... yes I am.
Hmm. I think I'll leave it off for the mo.
I'm getting swamped by telly programs at the moment - the hard-drive on my PVR is bursting with stuff. More than I can probably watch across the entire weekend. Certainly more than I can cope with without TV watching fatigue setting in.
Admittedly I've not got a whole lot else I need to do this weekend so I will probably watch plenty, but the problem seems to be there's a lot on at the moment. Especially in terms of documentaries - there's quite a few wildlife things on that I'm watching and also more random documentary stuff.
I've a feeling I may prune some stuff out.
Well the day away didn't make this any more interesting a blog, huh?
Friday, 5 February 2010
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
transporter 2
This week's DVD was Transporter 2.
I did one of these mini-reviews on the first Transporter and my basic opinion was summed up by my last line - "So yeah, silly, but an enjoyable kinda silly.".
So what about the sequel?
Well, the most important headline I guess is that I also enjoyed this one too. It's wasn't quite as silly as the first one, though it had a few silly bits, but still basically worked.
It also feels 'bigger'. It feels like they had a bit more money and that they wanted to expand the scope and scale a bit. It also feels a little less Besson-esque, although he is still credited as a Producer. In particular, the car chases don't have quite as much of that witty Besson touch, but they are more spectacular.
It's also set in Florida, rather than France, so the whole film has less of a fish a little out of his water feel that was noticeable in the first film.
There are quite a few interesting touches though. For example, this time it's a kid in peril, rather than a girl. Which isn't to say the film is without a female contingent, but being is it's the child's mother, this aspect plays out in an interesting way. I won't spoiler it, but lets' just say it plays out in a way that maintains Statham's hero status, but therefore doesn't conform to the usual action movie tropes.
Which isn't to say there aren't some problems with the film. Some of these are forgivable (the French police detective able to access a computer that surely would have had a password at the very least), but others are more glaring.
A good example is when the kid is found there's a bit where they literally just say "we've found the boy". How the hell they find him is totally unclear - there's no clue from the kidnappers or anything that would really give away his location.
Other examples would probably spoiler the story too much, but something I will mention is that in the film there's basically a virus and an antidote. The virus is bright green and the antidote is bright purple. It really gets on my nerves when they do stuff like that - bright green and purple. Yes, of course all medicines are brightly coloured....
Oh, and there's a chase involving the police that gets a bit Blues Brothers, in that hundreds of police cars seem to get trashed - many in slightly odd ways - just like in the Blues Brothers. You end up wondering if there are any police cars left in the entire state of Florida :/.
As with the first film, this one is suitably short and punchy, and you're never that far from a fight or a car chase. And despite reigning it in a bit there are also some good gags in there too.
So again, I would say a little silly, but an entertaining silly.
I did one of these mini-reviews on the first Transporter and my basic opinion was summed up by my last line - "So yeah, silly, but an enjoyable kinda silly.".
So what about the sequel?
Well, the most important headline I guess is that I also enjoyed this one too. It's wasn't quite as silly as the first one, though it had a few silly bits, but still basically worked.
It also feels 'bigger'. It feels like they had a bit more money and that they wanted to expand the scope and scale a bit. It also feels a little less Besson-esque, although he is still credited as a Producer. In particular, the car chases don't have quite as much of that witty Besson touch, but they are more spectacular.
It's also set in Florida, rather than France, so the whole film has less of a fish a little out of his water feel that was noticeable in the first film.
There are quite a few interesting touches though. For example, this time it's a kid in peril, rather than a girl. Which isn't to say the film is without a female contingent, but being is it's the child's mother, this aspect plays out in an interesting way. I won't spoiler it, but lets' just say it plays out in a way that maintains Statham's hero status, but therefore doesn't conform to the usual action movie tropes.
Which isn't to say there aren't some problems with the film. Some of these are forgivable (the French police detective able to access a computer that surely would have had a password at the very least), but others are more glaring.
A good example is when the kid is found there's a bit where they literally just say "we've found the boy". How the hell they find him is totally unclear - there's no clue from the kidnappers or anything that would really give away his location.
Other examples would probably spoiler the story too much, but something I will mention is that in the film there's basically a virus and an antidote. The virus is bright green and the antidote is bright purple. It really gets on my nerves when they do stuff like that - bright green and purple. Yes, of course all medicines are brightly coloured....
Oh, and there's a chase involving the police that gets a bit Blues Brothers, in that hundreds of police cars seem to get trashed - many in slightly odd ways - just like in the Blues Brothers. You end up wondering if there are any police cars left in the entire state of Florida :/.
As with the first film, this one is suitably short and punchy, and you're never that far from a fight or a car chase. And despite reigning it in a bit there are also some good gags in there too.
So again, I would say a little silly, but an entertaining silly.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
go, go gadget show
A new series of the gadget show started last night. That meant my gradual return to my usual routine reached a bit of a zenith. I pretty much did the same routine last night what I do most every Monday and you know what? It felt kinda good.
I've mentioned before I'm a creature of habit and routine and with all the disruption that's been going on over the last few weeks (if not months) it was just plain nice to do the usual stuff.
The gadget show itself featured a bit on e-readers. E-readers are basically electronic books and for a while now they've been looming about, threatening to do to books the same thing MP3 did to music.
The idea is we ditch all our physical copies of things and we go electronic. You buy e-books via download and then they're stored on the e-book instead.
In a way, it's odd that books are lagging behind in this way. I mean, the vast majority of stuff you do on the internet involves reading, so why weren't books and magazines the first things to make that leap to being e-media?
I think a big part of it is that the other things were taken there by piracy. Music especially involves fairly small files that you can move about easily and there are loads of programs available for ripping CDs, etc. Books, how much of a pain in the arse would it be scanning in all the pages? I mean, I can't be arsed to scan a few magazines, imagine doing all the pages in all the books I own.
Another problem is that staring at small LED screens is tiring on the eyes. They're also very power hungry with their backlights. There's this e-ink stuff of course, but then I don't know how much that costs as a technology. Certainly e-readers all seem to be very expensive.
Yes, you're getting the capacity to store thousands of books, but those books also still need to be paid for. And imagine breaking it and loosing all of your books? I mean, you could back them up and stuff, I guess, but you couldn't re-sell them as second hand books.
And e-ink doesn't do colour, so that sort of goes against this idea that magazines and newspapers are part of the available content. And what about non-fiction books? And text books? And reference books?
Then you've got to factor in the tactical tactile joy that is reading a book.
I dunno, I'm guessing the day when it all goes digital is inevitable, but I won't be happy when it does.
And to cap it all off, in terms of the gadget show, the e-readers didn't fair very well in the reviews. Even the much-vaunted Amazon Kindle didn't do very well.
Of course the review couldn't look at this new iPad thing from Apple. I think they've kinda shot themselves in the foot with that myself. They've basically produced a tablet PC and given it something called iBooks, which is like iTunes for books.
But the problem is it's big and heavy and uses an LCD screen and so it's a hybrid beast where I think they should have focused more on doing a proper e-Reader and revolutionising that market.
Not that I mind, as I say, because I don't exactly want it to happen any time soon.
I've mentioned before I'm a creature of habit and routine and with all the disruption that's been going on over the last few weeks (if not months) it was just plain nice to do the usual stuff.
The gadget show itself featured a bit on e-readers. E-readers are basically electronic books and for a while now they've been looming about, threatening to do to books the same thing MP3 did to music.
The idea is we ditch all our physical copies of things and we go electronic. You buy e-books via download and then they're stored on the e-book instead.
In a way, it's odd that books are lagging behind in this way. I mean, the vast majority of stuff you do on the internet involves reading, so why weren't books and magazines the first things to make that leap to being e-media?
I think a big part of it is that the other things were taken there by piracy. Music especially involves fairly small files that you can move about easily and there are loads of programs available for ripping CDs, etc. Books, how much of a pain in the arse would it be scanning in all the pages? I mean, I can't be arsed to scan a few magazines, imagine doing all the pages in all the books I own.
Another problem is that staring at small LED screens is tiring on the eyes. They're also very power hungry with their backlights. There's this e-ink stuff of course, but then I don't know how much that costs as a technology. Certainly e-readers all seem to be very expensive.
Yes, you're getting the capacity to store thousands of books, but those books also still need to be paid for. And imagine breaking it and loosing all of your books? I mean, you could back them up and stuff, I guess, but you couldn't re-sell them as second hand books.
And e-ink doesn't do colour, so that sort of goes against this idea that magazines and newspapers are part of the available content. And what about non-fiction books? And text books? And reference books?
Then you've got to factor in the tactical tactile joy that is reading a book.
I dunno, I'm guessing the day when it all goes digital is inevitable, but I won't be happy when it does.
And to cap it all off, in terms of the gadget show, the e-readers didn't fair very well in the reviews. Even the much-vaunted Amazon Kindle didn't do very well.
Of course the review couldn't look at this new iPad thing from Apple. I think they've kinda shot themselves in the foot with that myself. They've basically produced a tablet PC and given it something called iBooks, which is like iTunes for books.
But the problem is it's big and heavy and uses an LCD screen and so it's a hybrid beast where I think they should have focused more on doing a proper e-Reader and revolutionising that market.
Not that I mind, as I say, because I don't exactly want it to happen any time soon.
Monday, 1 February 2010
busyness
I was incredibly busy this weekend, and yet I didn't get everything done that I needed to.
I did a lot of stuff, though. I got my hair cut, did some food shopping, did a massive pile of ironing, cleaned my bedsit, burnt a bunch of watched anime shows to DVD, watched my rental DVD and watched loads of telly. And on top of that I even baked a bread pudding and made my super-bolognaise sauce.
And yet I've come out of the weekend with four unwatched TV shows and a bunch of things like updating my website, getting some stuff on e-bay and reading all of the pile of unread comics (I read about half a dozen, leaving a dozen) either not even attempted or hardly dented.
Plus I've still not got my life sorted out in terms of stuff like scanning or watching the huge pile of unwatched DVDs that still seems to be growing, even though I've tried to reign myself in a bit. I mean I've even somehow managed to enlarge my unread manga pile, even though I read loads of stuff over Christmas.
Plus I didn't get around to looking at buying some new clothes or booking someone to fix my windscreen (I got a chip before Christmas when I was going down to Devon to see my Dad) or the other stuff that I've been putting off because it'll cost me money.
I dunno - it was like there just weren't enough hours in the weekend, and I didn't bother going out or anything.
I really need to come up with a proper plan for some of this stuff.
I did a lot of stuff, though. I got my hair cut, did some food shopping, did a massive pile of ironing, cleaned my bedsit, burnt a bunch of watched anime shows to DVD, watched my rental DVD and watched loads of telly. And on top of that I even baked a bread pudding and made my super-bolognaise sauce.
And yet I've come out of the weekend with four unwatched TV shows and a bunch of things like updating my website, getting some stuff on e-bay and reading all of the pile of unread comics (I read about half a dozen, leaving a dozen) either not even attempted or hardly dented.
Plus I've still not got my life sorted out in terms of stuff like scanning or watching the huge pile of unwatched DVDs that still seems to be growing, even though I've tried to reign myself in a bit. I mean I've even somehow managed to enlarge my unread manga pile, even though I read loads of stuff over Christmas.
Plus I didn't get around to looking at buying some new clothes or booking someone to fix my windscreen (I got a chip before Christmas when I was going down to Devon to see my Dad) or the other stuff that I've been putting off because it'll cost me money.
I dunno - it was like there just weren't enough hours in the weekend, and I didn't bother going out or anything.
I really need to come up with a proper plan for some of this stuff.
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