My landlord told me last week sometime that he was off on holiday (again).
This holiday was supposed to start on the 1st of July, which was yesterday. But when I came home his caravan was still there.
Don't you just hate when people don't do what they say they're going to?
To be totally fair to him, I think he may have cancelled it because of the weather. The holiday was in North Wales and there was heavy rain forecast for there for last night and today.
But still, it's a pain in the arse. I guess a part of it is because he's retired, so he's got that leeway to just change his plans as he wants. If it was fixed holiday off from work, he wouldn't have that freedom.
You might be able to tell I've sort of run out of stuff to say this week :/.
No real plans for this weekend - bit of cleaning and other domestics are needed. I'm not really sure what the weather is up to is part of the problem. It's been horribly humid this last week and I understand that's going to clam down, but I dunno. So far today it's looked like it's about to rain all day, but there's not been a drop.
Friday, 2 July 2010
Thursday, 1 July 2010
doctor whoisit
So last week marked the end of the latest season of the revamped Doctor Who.
The season has been a pretty good one. There weren't any proper stinkers as there have been in previous seasons. There were a few things I was disappointed about, though.
First off they buggered about with the theme tune in a totally unnecessary and, frankly, rubbish way. It sort of took on a drum-and-base feel at the beginning and in my opinion ruined it. I can understand wanting to tweak things to signify the beginning of a new era, and I can see that a tweak to the music is a lot cheaper than tweaking the visuals or totally revamping, but they really should have left well alone.
Also, I have to come down in the camp of not being a new fan of the new Daleks. The new ones are bigger, which is okay, but they're also colour-coded. I can't remember what they're supposed to mean (this is part of the problem - unless the colour coding 'makes sense' based on what they are you're likely to forget it) but the idea presumably is that each colour corresponds to a type of Dalek.
Which is another part of the problem - part of what the Daleks are about is that they're meant to be a reflection of that part of Nazism that was concerned with racial purity. Daleks see themselves as the best race and a pure race, so they want to exterminate all other races. But surely that means genetically they're all nearly identical, meaning specialisation should essentially be un-necessary - they're all equally good at everything.
But also, the Daleks are now a veritable riot of rainbow colours (taste the rainbow indeed) and a bright yellow Dalek is just not as scary as a utilitarian metallic one.
One thing I think has been a struggle this last year is the relationship with the companion. I think there was a decision to be made about keeping the idea of the companion and Doctor loving each other (or unrequited love) and going back to the old days where it was more about a platonic friendship.
So you ended up with a bit of an odd situation at one point where Amy basically threw herself at the Doctor... on the very night of her wedding to Rory. The problem with this is I'm not sure that really reflected very well on her. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for complicated relationships, but did it really fit with how she was depicted throughout the rest of the series? I'm not sure it did.
My last niggle was the whole paradoxes thing. The eventual conclusion of the story played a fairly typical trick of making it so that 'none of it had ever happened' but the problem is that just creates even more paradoxes.
I dunno - I kinda didn't mind that in the RTD era, but I think I was expecting a bit more in the ways of reliable hard-SF chops from Moffat. I guess the real point there is that it's a Saturday teatime entertainment show, not a proper hard-SF show and never has been.
The season has been a pretty good one. There weren't any proper stinkers as there have been in previous seasons. There were a few things I was disappointed about, though.
First off they buggered about with the theme tune in a totally unnecessary and, frankly, rubbish way. It sort of took on a drum-and-base feel at the beginning and in my opinion ruined it. I can understand wanting to tweak things to signify the beginning of a new era, and I can see that a tweak to the music is a lot cheaper than tweaking the visuals or totally revamping, but they really should have left well alone.
Also, I have to come down in the camp of not being a new fan of the new Daleks. The new ones are bigger, which is okay, but they're also colour-coded. I can't remember what they're supposed to mean (this is part of the problem - unless the colour coding 'makes sense' based on what they are you're likely to forget it) but the idea presumably is that each colour corresponds to a type of Dalek.
Which is another part of the problem - part of what the Daleks are about is that they're meant to be a reflection of that part of Nazism that was concerned with racial purity. Daleks see themselves as the best race and a pure race, so they want to exterminate all other races. But surely that means genetically they're all nearly identical, meaning specialisation should essentially be un-necessary - they're all equally good at everything.
But also, the Daleks are now a veritable riot of rainbow colours (taste the rainbow indeed) and a bright yellow Dalek is just not as scary as a utilitarian metallic one.
One thing I think has been a struggle this last year is the relationship with the companion. I think there was a decision to be made about keeping the idea of the companion and Doctor loving each other (or unrequited love) and going back to the old days where it was more about a platonic friendship.
So you ended up with a bit of an odd situation at one point where Amy basically threw herself at the Doctor... on the very night of her wedding to Rory. The problem with this is I'm not sure that really reflected very well on her. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for complicated relationships, but did it really fit with how she was depicted throughout the rest of the series? I'm not sure it did.
My last niggle was the whole paradoxes thing. The eventual conclusion of the story played a fairly typical trick of making it so that 'none of it had ever happened' but the problem is that just creates even more paradoxes.
I dunno - I kinda didn't mind that in the RTD era, but I think I was expecting a bit more in the ways of reliable hard-SF chops from Moffat. I guess the real point there is that it's a Saturday teatime entertainment show, not a proper hard-SF show and never has been.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
saw v
Is it me, or does it feel like the saw series has been going on forever?
In reality, the first film came out in 2004 and they've been releasing 1 new one each year since then. Saw 5 was therefore last year's entry in the series.
I came quite late to the saw series - I obviously knew about them, but I hadn't seen any of them until fairly recently. I think part of this was because of that label of being 'torture porn'.
I mean, it's a brutally descriptive label and I'm not sure I fancied the idea of watching torture done in an appealing way. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy a good horror movie and torture is a suitably horrendous thing to feature in a horror movie, it was just that porn tag that made it seem like something I wouldn't like.
However, a while back I thought I might as well find out what they were really like, so I put them on my rental list. Now sometimes, the way the rental list works there's a real risk of getting the films out of order, but I was lucky enough to get them in order, and also to get them in fairly quick succession.
So in other words, I watched 1, 2, 3 and 4 in order and within a short space of time. As it turned out, I think this helped quite a bit, because the torture porn label was not quite accurate.
What I mean is that the films turned out to have much more in the way of story than I'd anticipated. The torture was actually a result of the bad guy putting people into lethal games where generally they (or someone important to them) had to endure some sort of physical pain in order to win the game. If they lost, then they (or the someone else) would be killed in generally quite nasty ways.
So to start with, the central gimmick of the film is already pretty complicated. Normally the central core of these horror franchises is quite simple, but here you have an interesting basic premise - I mean, as Jigsaw himself points out, he never actually kills people, unlike every other killer in these horror films.
Also, as the series progressed there were more than a few twists that actually worked and it was revealed that there was a proper back-story and that there were accomplices and copycats and all sorts. They also tended to play about with the timelines, so sometimes it turned out you'd seen things in non-chronological order, of things you thought were simultaneous were actually far apart.
It was also pretty much the case that everyone that died was - how to put it? Deserving? Generally, these people were nasty criminals or had escaped justice or whatever. And in Jigsaw's traps they also had a genuine chance - if they did what they had to and what they were told to, then they would survive.
However, this seemed to change in the fourth film - some of the people that got killed were not given a chance, or they did not really deserve to die. Or at the least, the justifications changed gear - where previously they, I dunno, got away with a hit-and-run, in 4 some of the people were being punished for things like not getting over their grief. Also, some of the traps became fiendishly complicated, or over-complicated.
Unfortunately, 5 seems to continue this trend. Some of the people in the traps haven't necessarily done anything particularly bad. There's a world of difference between someone who escaped justice for a proper crime and simply not doing what Jigsaw says.
On the upside, the plot of 5 is simpler than it was in 4, where it became incredibly complicated. Unfortunately, this simplicity is also at the expense of it being interesting. Although it reveals a bit more depth and gives some back-story, the problem is that this back-story isn't hugely interesting.
What doesn't help either is that the franchise is now almost totally impenetrable to the outsider. I mean, given the gap between me watching this film and 4, I was rather lost myself, and I've seen all the films.
The only real saver is that the actual traps themselves are still as good as ever (well, excepting that aspect of fairness).
In reality, the first film came out in 2004 and they've been releasing 1 new one each year since then. Saw 5 was therefore last year's entry in the series.
I came quite late to the saw series - I obviously knew about them, but I hadn't seen any of them until fairly recently. I think part of this was because of that label of being 'torture porn'.
I mean, it's a brutally descriptive label and I'm not sure I fancied the idea of watching torture done in an appealing way. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy a good horror movie and torture is a suitably horrendous thing to feature in a horror movie, it was just that porn tag that made it seem like something I wouldn't like.
However, a while back I thought I might as well find out what they were really like, so I put them on my rental list. Now sometimes, the way the rental list works there's a real risk of getting the films out of order, but I was lucky enough to get them in order, and also to get them in fairly quick succession.
So in other words, I watched 1, 2, 3 and 4 in order and within a short space of time. As it turned out, I think this helped quite a bit, because the torture porn label was not quite accurate.
What I mean is that the films turned out to have much more in the way of story than I'd anticipated. The torture was actually a result of the bad guy putting people into lethal games where generally they (or someone important to them) had to endure some sort of physical pain in order to win the game. If they lost, then they (or the someone else) would be killed in generally quite nasty ways.
So to start with, the central gimmick of the film is already pretty complicated. Normally the central core of these horror franchises is quite simple, but here you have an interesting basic premise - I mean, as Jigsaw himself points out, he never actually kills people, unlike every other killer in these horror films.
Also, as the series progressed there were more than a few twists that actually worked and it was revealed that there was a proper back-story and that there were accomplices and copycats and all sorts. They also tended to play about with the timelines, so sometimes it turned out you'd seen things in non-chronological order, of things you thought were simultaneous were actually far apart.
It was also pretty much the case that everyone that died was - how to put it? Deserving? Generally, these people were nasty criminals or had escaped justice or whatever. And in Jigsaw's traps they also had a genuine chance - if they did what they had to and what they were told to, then they would survive.
However, this seemed to change in the fourth film - some of the people that got killed were not given a chance, or they did not really deserve to die. Or at the least, the justifications changed gear - where previously they, I dunno, got away with a hit-and-run, in 4 some of the people were being punished for things like not getting over their grief. Also, some of the traps became fiendishly complicated, or over-complicated.
Unfortunately, 5 seems to continue this trend. Some of the people in the traps haven't necessarily done anything particularly bad. There's a world of difference between someone who escaped justice for a proper crime and simply not doing what Jigsaw says.
On the upside, the plot of 5 is simpler than it was in 4, where it became incredibly complicated. Unfortunately, this simplicity is also at the expense of it being interesting. Although it reveals a bit more depth and gives some back-story, the problem is that this back-story isn't hugely interesting.
What doesn't help either is that the franchise is now almost totally impenetrable to the outsider. I mean, given the gap between me watching this film and 4, I was rather lost myself, and I've seen all the films.
The only real saver is that the actual traps themselves are still as good as ever (well, excepting that aspect of fairness).
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
toe-day only
I whacked my toe at some point on Friday morning or Saturday night. I don't really remember what time it was as I'd woken up in the middle of the night and was wondering about without turning the light on - hence why I whacked my toe.
It hurt when I did it, obviously, but it was only when I was getting back into bed that I realised I'd done some proper damage. As I slid my foot into bed it felt strangely wet, so I turned the light on and saw I'd left a streak of blood on the duvet.
We're not talking pints of the stuff here, but an inspection of the toe showed I'd actually broken the skin and it was all bruised and angry looking. It wasn't really painful anymore (well, it smarted when I poked it) but it was a bit of a mess, so I whacked a plaster on it and went back to bed.
When I got up on Saturday morning, it was a much less comfortable experience. I had to take the next load of stuff down the recycling place, and that meant putting some trainers on, which put constant pressure on my poor damaged pinky.
I plastered it up again, as it wasn't in any way healed and when I got back and removed the plaster it was a bit of a mess. It looked like it was mainly plasma that had leaked out, rather than blood as such, but it was definitely a mess.
It's not doing too badly now - I still get a bit of a twinge if I bump it, but nothing too bad. Certainly I'm not hobbling while I walk :/.
The Valencia Grand Prix was on over the weekend.
Well, actually, if you're a sports fan it was a bit of a mad one - Wimbledon is ongoing of course, and the world cup is in full swing (I'm not really interested in either, but understand that that manically depressed Scot is still 'in it' and that Eng-Ger-Land received a trashing from the Germans and so are very much not) but it was a bumper crop for us petrol heads as well, because the Assen (Dutch) MotoGP was on as well.
Assen was on Saturday and I have to say, it was a bit dull. This is a remarkable turn-up for MotoGP, where it's almost always a great race with loads of overtaking and daredevilry. But as they hinted at on the commentary, the layout of the circuit doesn't lend itself to overtaking and while it wasn't processional like F1 can become, it wasn't as exciting as usual.
What made this even more bizarre was that Valencia is usually incredibly dull. This is it's third year and in both previous years there have been only a handful of attempts to overtake, most ending in failure. Well, bizarrely this year the race was actually quite interesting. I mean, I don't think I'd go as far as to say it was up there with the likes of Canada, but it was a lot better than usual. And Mark Webber had one of those horrible moments that the drivers must dread - check it out on the BBC site if you haven't seen it.
Next up is the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The bikes seemed to do well around the new arena circuit (it was apparently designed with bikes in mind) so now we get to see if it adds anything to F1 as well.
And speaking of petrol heads, a new series of Top Gear kicked off on Sunday. Mixed reaction from me - the bit with Jezza in the Reliant Robin 3-wheeler was funny, but had that overly set-up thing going on. The joke was he kept rolling it, which was good, but every time he did some celebrity just happened to be there to flip him back over, which was odd.
But then they got a new reasonably priced car and did the thing of inviting a bunch of celebs to come and have a go, in order to put some times on the board. This was good and funny, but felt oddly rushed - like they'd only decided to do it at the last moment. When they last changed the reasonably priced car I'm sure more celebs turned up to have a go.
There was also a bit on James May driving up the Iceland volcano, which was good, but seemed a bit short. The news was better - the last few series it seems to have weirdly veered into being the TG boys try their hand at stand-up, where it's better when it's actually about cars and proper news and then they can make funny comments.
It hurt when I did it, obviously, but it was only when I was getting back into bed that I realised I'd done some proper damage. As I slid my foot into bed it felt strangely wet, so I turned the light on and saw I'd left a streak of blood on the duvet.
We're not talking pints of the stuff here, but an inspection of the toe showed I'd actually broken the skin and it was all bruised and angry looking. It wasn't really painful anymore (well, it smarted when I poked it) but it was a bit of a mess, so I whacked a plaster on it and went back to bed.
When I got up on Saturday morning, it was a much less comfortable experience. I had to take the next load of stuff down the recycling place, and that meant putting some trainers on, which put constant pressure on my poor damaged pinky.
I plastered it up again, as it wasn't in any way healed and when I got back and removed the plaster it was a bit of a mess. It looked like it was mainly plasma that had leaked out, rather than blood as such, but it was definitely a mess.
It's not doing too badly now - I still get a bit of a twinge if I bump it, but nothing too bad. Certainly I'm not hobbling while I walk :/.
The Valencia Grand Prix was on over the weekend.
Well, actually, if you're a sports fan it was a bit of a mad one - Wimbledon is ongoing of course, and the world cup is in full swing (I'm not really interested in either, but understand that that manically depressed Scot is still 'in it' and that Eng-Ger-Land received a trashing from the Germans and so are very much not) but it was a bumper crop for us petrol heads as well, because the Assen (Dutch) MotoGP was on as well.
Assen was on Saturday and I have to say, it was a bit dull. This is a remarkable turn-up for MotoGP, where it's almost always a great race with loads of overtaking and daredevilry. But as they hinted at on the commentary, the layout of the circuit doesn't lend itself to overtaking and while it wasn't processional like F1 can become, it wasn't as exciting as usual.
What made this even more bizarre was that Valencia is usually incredibly dull. This is it's third year and in both previous years there have been only a handful of attempts to overtake, most ending in failure. Well, bizarrely this year the race was actually quite interesting. I mean, I don't think I'd go as far as to say it was up there with the likes of Canada, but it was a lot better than usual. And Mark Webber had one of those horrible moments that the drivers must dread - check it out on the BBC site if you haven't seen it.
Next up is the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The bikes seemed to do well around the new arena circuit (it was apparently designed with bikes in mind) so now we get to see if it adds anything to F1 as well.
And speaking of petrol heads, a new series of Top Gear kicked off on Sunday. Mixed reaction from me - the bit with Jezza in the Reliant Robin 3-wheeler was funny, but had that overly set-up thing going on. The joke was he kept rolling it, which was good, but every time he did some celebrity just happened to be there to flip him back over, which was odd.
But then they got a new reasonably priced car and did the thing of inviting a bunch of celebs to come and have a go, in order to put some times on the board. This was good and funny, but felt oddly rushed - like they'd only decided to do it at the last moment. When they last changed the reasonably priced car I'm sure more celebs turned up to have a go.
There was also a bit on James May driving up the Iceland volcano, which was good, but seemed a bit short. The news was better - the last few series it seems to have weirdly veered into being the TG boys try their hand at stand-up, where it's better when it's actually about cars and proper news and then they can make funny comments.
Monday, 28 June 2010
return of the aircon
So this weekend I rediscovered the sheer, unbridled joy of running my air conditioner.
Over the last 3 or 4 years my aircon unit has pretty much just sat there, taking up space, because we've not had the weather to justify using it. However, last week it was rather warm and then all forecasts pointed to it being properly hot over the weekend.
After I got back from the shops on Saturday morning I therefore attached the hose and its fitting, which take the hot air outside, and fired her up on Saturday morning. God, it was glorious.
I ran the aircon continuously all day Saturday and Sunday and was super cool. On Saturday it even got to the stage where I was turning the temperature setting up, because I was actually starting to feel a little cold. I think this was because, while was pretty warm, it wasn't as hot as it can be.
When I bought the aircon it was because it was consistently into the mid-to-high thirties and it was staying warm all night. It was also horrendously humid, which is the thing that really kills me. However, this last weekend I think it only just got into the thirties, which is hot, don't get me wrong, but it's not the sorts of temperatures where my aircon struggles to keep my bedsit cool.
Indeed, I was able to keep the internal doors open and keep the entire bedsit cool, where I remember when I first got it I had to close all the doors just to keep my main sleeping/living room cool.
I also remember that as soon as it was switched off, the room instantly heated back up, whereas this last weekend, the room stayed fairly cool for quite a while afterwards.
That's one of the downsides - as soon as you turn it off, the room starts to warm up again. I think a big part of it is because the bricks heat up in the sun during the day, so in the evenings they release a lot of heat. Certainly it's warmer than outside temperatures would suggest it should be.
So why don't I leave it on overnight? Well, it's extremely noisy. I always find it difficult to sleep when there's noise - the small fan in my PVR can keep me up, so think what it's like when I've got the aircon going. And it's also very drying - the cooling also comes with dehumidifying effects, and while I don't like humidity, that sort of extreme drying can give me very dry eyes, which is very uncomfortable.
Still, I'm more than happy to put up with these effects while I'm awake, especially when it makes my room so pleasantly cool.
Over the last 3 or 4 years my aircon unit has pretty much just sat there, taking up space, because we've not had the weather to justify using it. However, last week it was rather warm and then all forecasts pointed to it being properly hot over the weekend.
After I got back from the shops on Saturday morning I therefore attached the hose and its fitting, which take the hot air outside, and fired her up on Saturday morning. God, it was glorious.
I ran the aircon continuously all day Saturday and Sunday and was super cool. On Saturday it even got to the stage where I was turning the temperature setting up, because I was actually starting to feel a little cold. I think this was because, while was pretty warm, it wasn't as hot as it can be.
When I bought the aircon it was because it was consistently into the mid-to-high thirties and it was staying warm all night. It was also horrendously humid, which is the thing that really kills me. However, this last weekend I think it only just got into the thirties, which is hot, don't get me wrong, but it's not the sorts of temperatures where my aircon struggles to keep my bedsit cool.
Indeed, I was able to keep the internal doors open and keep the entire bedsit cool, where I remember when I first got it I had to close all the doors just to keep my main sleeping/living room cool.
I also remember that as soon as it was switched off, the room instantly heated back up, whereas this last weekend, the room stayed fairly cool for quite a while afterwards.
That's one of the downsides - as soon as you turn it off, the room starts to warm up again. I think a big part of it is because the bricks heat up in the sun during the day, so in the evenings they release a lot of heat. Certainly it's warmer than outside temperatures would suggest it should be.
So why don't I leave it on overnight? Well, it's extremely noisy. I always find it difficult to sleep when there's noise - the small fan in my PVR can keep me up, so think what it's like when I've got the aircon going. And it's also very drying - the cooling also comes with dehumidifying effects, and while I don't like humidity, that sort of extreme drying can give me very dry eyes, which is very uncomfortable.
Still, I'm more than happy to put up with these effects while I'm awake, especially when it makes my room so pleasantly cool.
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