Today, I decided to take myself off to the cinema to see the film "Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel" as it seemed to contain everything I like in a film:
Sci-Fi (CHECK)
Time Travel (CHECK)
A Pub (CHECK)
Something nice to look at (CHECK)
Comedy (CHECK)
And it was well worth it. I know it's only a low budget film, and that by next weekend it will be being forced out of cinemas, firstly by X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and then after that by Star Trek (Both of which, it has to be said, appeals to much the same demographic) and I expect that FAQATT will never make any money and be forgotten about. Which is a shame. Because it's a well shot, well thought-out and well crafted little film that everyone who likes those subjects deserves to see.
I was alarmed, however, that when I went to see it this afternoon, I was the ONLY person in the cinema watching it. I really hope it makes money, because otherwise people will be even less inclined to fund small films in future.
So here's a plan. This week sometime, go and see it. I know it won't be on in every cinema, but I would imagine it's showing somewhere close to you (Yes you, I am talking to YOU blog reader, not any other blog reader, this is personal). If you have a significant other, go on Orange Wednesday so it's cheaper for you :) But go and see it. Support the british film industry.
Plus did I mention, it's rather good :)
Sunday 26 April 2009
Thursday 23 April 2009
Job Applications and Gluing Wonderland Together
So, I've applied for two jobs in the Poole/Bournemouth area today - One at the BIC and one at Bryanston School.
Ironically, they are both positions I have applied for before, and consequentially I do not hold out a great deal of hope (particularly at the BIC, as I know they tend to employ their own casual staff when a permanent position opens up)
But there we are.
Also - I've started the great Wonderland glue job.
What do you mean by that Brawny? I hear you ask....
*Listens expectantly, is disappointed when no-one asks, but decides not to pursue the point*
Well, I recorded a selection of wonderful studio singers to record Wonderland vocals for me over Easter, but as my wonderful Multi-track machine is dying, I had to do it the old fashioned way, recording a microphone to minidisc and playing the backing track through a seperate system. On the positive side, this has worked well.
On the negative side, it means I now have to seperate every take and glue each one into it's specific position in the song. And then record my own vocals.... It's gonna take some effort....
So I'm procrastinating and off to read a book :)
Ironically, they are both positions I have applied for before, and consequentially I do not hold out a great deal of hope (particularly at the BIC, as I know they tend to employ their own casual staff when a permanent position opens up)
But there we are.
Also - I've started the great Wonderland glue job.
What do you mean by that Brawny? I hear you ask....
*Listens expectantly, is disappointed when no-one asks, but decides not to pursue the point*
Well, I recorded a selection of wonderful studio singers to record Wonderland vocals for me over Easter, but as my wonderful Multi-track machine is dying, I had to do it the old fashioned way, recording a microphone to minidisc and playing the backing track through a seperate system. On the positive side, this has worked well.
On the negative side, it means I now have to seperate every take and glue each one into it's specific position in the song. And then record my own vocals.... It's gonna take some effort....
So I'm procrastinating and off to read a book :)
Wednesday 22 April 2009
Well, I is back in the London Town....
And working way too hard, and consequentially doing way too little when i get home.
But am still loving Biking goodness :)
But am still loving Biking goodness :)
Monday 13 April 2009
What an Easter - Dr Who, Red Dwarf, a Motorbike and Egg-Shaped Chocolate!
Hello to you all!
Reviews are below. Consider them spoilerful!
So... I know I didn't do one for the Christmas special, but here is: My Dr Who review.
Dr Who - Planet of the Dead
Well, I haven't written a review of anything for ages, so here goes. I liked this Dr Who, liked it a lot. Michelle Ryan was surprisingly un-annoying, I did think I was going to hate her, and the plot made, for the most part anyway, sense.
Lee Evans was almost good. If they hadn't given him stupid comedy falling over bits, he'd have been better, but such is life.
All the support characters were good actually, the bus people and UNIT... and the swarm also were brilliant.
One question though, did we really need the Tritovores?
If this had been old-school Dr Who I'd have seen the point, because you could have strung out the "they could be the baddies" idea for a couple of episodes, but in the fast-moving world of Nu-Who, they were just pointless, existing only so that the Dr could steal bits off their spaceship.
What annoys me more is they were quite good monsters, and I kind of feel they should have been saved for something more.
The flying bus? Well, regardless of the lack of science.. (how would turning the steering wheel cause the bus to turn when none of it has anything to push against?) which I know can all be covered with "the anti-gravity thingys work like that" it was pure RTD Dr Who, and fun. Although, given the rushed post-production of this episode, it was a bit ambitious...
On the whole? 7 out of 10. Maybe 8. Although I think the reason it doesn't get 8 is the ending. Maybe I know too much background information, but the end with the Dr and Christina seemed out of character, and seemed to have been written too much as a "we need to do something but we cannot use the TARDIS because the set is being re-built for HD work".
So, moving on...
RED DWARF: BACK TO EARTH
Before I write this, I would just like to clarify that I have only seen the episodes in 3 different parts, and I am sure that the whole thing would work better back to back, which I shall see tonight on Dave, so this may alter the rating.
PART ONE:
I both loved and seriously disliked this episode, mostly for reasons of "not much happens". There feels to be very little plot in regard to old Dwarf episodes, and I don't think it was the best thing to start the return of the show with.
However, I loved the sets, the acting, and most of the script. Some VERY funny gags.
Once I had watched the third part, part one made more sense.
Things I didn't like? No explanation of how Rimmer died and became a Hologram again, not enough for Cat to do (although that is a running problem in most of Red Dwarf!)
Rating - 7 out of 10
PART TWO
Ironically, the bit I was dreading, Them ending up on Present Day Earth, really gave it a bit of a kick up the arse. Doug Naylor obviously likes writing Rimmers opinions on 21st century culture a little too much though ;)
Some properly laugh out loud funny bits in this.... Rimmer and Katerina on the roadside, priceless! And I liked the Kids on the bus
Rating - 9 out of 10
PART THREE
So, hows it going to work?
The third part, starts with the dreaded Corrie visit, which actually worked quite well, and Craig Charles meeting Lister was priceless.
Visiting the Creator, and the entire typewriter sequence was hilarious.
Loved the Chinatown street run.
In fact, I loved it all, until the revelation about what caused it...
But then, they saved it for me again. Firstly with the appearance of Chloe Annett :) And secondly with the wonderfully funny corridor scene at the end.
Rating - 8 out of 10
TOTAL TRILOGY RATING - 8 out of 10
This may change once I have watched them all back to back.
Other good stuff - I have a motorbike! YAY! May put pictures up soon.
And I'm eating easter eggs. Mmmmmmm. Tasty.
Reviews are below. Consider them spoilerful!
So... I know I didn't do one for the Christmas special, but here is: My Dr Who review.
Dr Who - Planet of the Dead
Well, I haven't written a review of anything for ages, so here goes. I liked this Dr Who, liked it a lot. Michelle Ryan was surprisingly un-annoying, I did think I was going to hate her, and the plot made, for the most part anyway, sense.
Lee Evans was almost good. If they hadn't given him stupid comedy falling over bits, he'd have been better, but such is life.
All the support characters were good actually, the bus people and UNIT... and the swarm also were brilliant.
One question though, did we really need the Tritovores?
If this had been old-school Dr Who I'd have seen the point, because you could have strung out the "they could be the baddies" idea for a couple of episodes, but in the fast-moving world of Nu-Who, they were just pointless, existing only so that the Dr could steal bits off their spaceship.
What annoys me more is they were quite good monsters, and I kind of feel they should have been saved for something more.
The flying bus? Well, regardless of the lack of science.. (how would turning the steering wheel cause the bus to turn when none of it has anything to push against?) which I know can all be covered with "the anti-gravity thingys work like that" it was pure RTD Dr Who, and fun. Although, given the rushed post-production of this episode, it was a bit ambitious...
On the whole? 7 out of 10. Maybe 8. Although I think the reason it doesn't get 8 is the ending. Maybe I know too much background information, but the end with the Dr and Christina seemed out of character, and seemed to have been written too much as a "we need to do something but we cannot use the TARDIS because the set is being re-built for HD work".
So, moving on...
RED DWARF: BACK TO EARTH
Before I write this, I would just like to clarify that I have only seen the episodes in 3 different parts, and I am sure that the whole thing would work better back to back, which I shall see tonight on Dave, so this may alter the rating.
PART ONE:
I both loved and seriously disliked this episode, mostly for reasons of "not much happens". There feels to be very little plot in regard to old Dwarf episodes, and I don't think it was the best thing to start the return of the show with.
However, I loved the sets, the acting, and most of the script. Some VERY funny gags.
Once I had watched the third part, part one made more sense.
Things I didn't like? No explanation of how Rimmer died and became a Hologram again, not enough for Cat to do (although that is a running problem in most of Red Dwarf!)
Rating - 7 out of 10
PART TWO
Ironically, the bit I was dreading, Them ending up on Present Day Earth, really gave it a bit of a kick up the arse. Doug Naylor obviously likes writing Rimmers opinions on 21st century culture a little too much though ;)
Some properly laugh out loud funny bits in this.... Rimmer and Katerina on the roadside, priceless! And I liked the Kids on the bus
Rating - 9 out of 10
PART THREE
So, hows it going to work?
The third part, starts with the dreaded Corrie visit, which actually worked quite well, and Craig Charles meeting Lister was priceless.
Visiting the Creator, and the entire typewriter sequence was hilarious.
Loved the Chinatown street run.
In fact, I loved it all, until the revelation about what caused it...
But then, they saved it for me again. Firstly with the appearance of Chloe Annett :) And secondly with the wonderfully funny corridor scene at the end.
Rating - 8 out of 10
TOTAL TRILOGY RATING - 8 out of 10
This may change once I have watched them all back to back.
Other good stuff - I have a motorbike! YAY! May put pictures up soon.
And I'm eating easter eggs. Mmmmmmm. Tasty.
Tuesday 7 April 2009
Bleeding Apples!
OK, just so we are clear. This post is somewhat of a rant. And I don't expect many of you to agree with me. But if one more person tells me how brilliant Macs are....
The person in question is referring to them specifically as replacements for the PC's that the Music department have here at work. Now admittedly, these PC's (whilst they have the nice E-MU404 Soundcards in) are old, and slow, and starting to fall to bits. Since they were factory built education machines and are at LEAST six years old, this is not amazingly surprising.
The argument starts with the statement "Well, Macs are industry Standard nowadays" which for Music is probably true, and if this was the crux of the argument, then I would have no objection to attempting to replace these PCs with Macs. However, the cost of replacing all the PCs with Macs is (approx) £17,000.
That's a lot of cash for 15 machines (& Software licenses)
All I suggested was that it might be worthwhile looking at the cost of upgrading the machines, and keeping the best bits (like the soundcards) whilst replacing motherboards/processors/RAM to make the machines go faster and work better.
I might have well suggested we all go out and shoot babies for the shocked look I got.
"But Macs are better" came the response. To which my answer was, "Why?"
"Because they're better for Audio"
"Why?"
"Because they do all the audio stuff we need"
"So can PC's"
"Those ones can't"
"They're six years old. A six year old Mac would have trouble doing what you want"
"Well Macs are better"
"They're harder to fix though"
"But they don't break"
"Yes they do."
"No they don't"
"And you can't upgrade them"
"So?"
etc. etc.
I'm not typing out the rest of this conversation, because it would take all day, and I have better things to do like eat my lunch. However, my point is this. I never said that Macs were a bad idea, I just said that you might be able to get reliable machines cheaper if we used PC's. I was then bombarded with statements like "Well I've had my Mac for over two years and it never goes wrong"
So what? I've had my Audio/Video PC for 7 years (and bits of it for longer than that) and it doesn't go wrong. Because I set it up right.
Don't get me wrong. If you like Macs, get a Mac (like my ranting would have stopped you anyway). But don't tell me they can magically do things that PC's cant. Because that's rubbish.
Oh, and never buy a Mac just because it looks nice, or I will have to hurt you.
My last statement on this, is that I swear this is all Microsoft's fault. By progressively creating versions of windows which eat up more and more processing power and RAM, they make all PC's (as bought by normal people) seem slow and sluggish. If the Mac continues to rise and the PC continues to fall, I shall blame Microsoft.
To clarify - I am not against Macs. Personally I'm not a huge fan of them, but I don't think they're bad for any specific reason. However, this culture has now sprung up where people maintain that if you are doing anything with any Media, video, audio or graphic, you should do it on a Mac. And that, my friends, is pure and utter bollocks.
End of rant.
The person in question is referring to them specifically as replacements for the PC's that the Music department have here at work. Now admittedly, these PC's (whilst they have the nice E-MU404 Soundcards in) are old, and slow, and starting to fall to bits. Since they were factory built education machines and are at LEAST six years old, this is not amazingly surprising.
The argument starts with the statement "Well, Macs are industry Standard nowadays" which for Music is probably true, and if this was the crux of the argument, then I would have no objection to attempting to replace these PCs with Macs. However, the cost of replacing all the PCs with Macs is (approx) £17,000.
That's a lot of cash for 15 machines (& Software licenses)
All I suggested was that it might be worthwhile looking at the cost of upgrading the machines, and keeping the best bits (like the soundcards) whilst replacing motherboards/processors/RAM to make the machines go faster and work better.
I might have well suggested we all go out and shoot babies for the shocked look I got.
"But Macs are better" came the response. To which my answer was, "Why?"
"Because they're better for Audio"
"Why?"
"Because they do all the audio stuff we need"
"So can PC's"
"Those ones can't"
"They're six years old. A six year old Mac would have trouble doing what you want"
"Well Macs are better"
"They're harder to fix though"
"But they don't break"
"Yes they do."
"No they don't"
"And you can't upgrade them"
"So?"
etc. etc.
I'm not typing out the rest of this conversation, because it would take all day, and I have better things to do like eat my lunch. However, my point is this. I never said that Macs were a bad idea, I just said that you might be able to get reliable machines cheaper if we used PC's. I was then bombarded with statements like "Well I've had my Mac for over two years and it never goes wrong"
So what? I've had my Audio/Video PC for 7 years (and bits of it for longer than that) and it doesn't go wrong. Because I set it up right.
Don't get me wrong. If you like Macs, get a Mac (like my ranting would have stopped you anyway). But don't tell me they can magically do things that PC's cant. Because that's rubbish.
Oh, and never buy a Mac just because it looks nice, or I will have to hurt you.
My last statement on this, is that I swear this is all Microsoft's fault. By progressively creating versions of windows which eat up more and more processing power and RAM, they make all PC's (as bought by normal people) seem slow and sluggish. If the Mac continues to rise and the PC continues to fall, I shall blame Microsoft.
To clarify - I am not against Macs. Personally I'm not a huge fan of them, but I don't think they're bad for any specific reason. However, this culture has now sprung up where people maintain that if you are doing anything with any Media, video, audio or graphic, you should do it on a Mac. And that, my friends, is pure and utter bollocks.
End of rant.
Sunday 5 April 2009
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