Monday, May 31, 2004
That was kinda hard.Trying to fit in watching the grand prix, and an evening out at the movies while being in full-on night mode. Managed it on about 3 hours sleep... so not bad going.
The Day After Tomorrow is pretty good, though not what I'd hoped for. Fantastic effects, but the lack of a leading actor with any real oomph and the best set piece scenes coming in the first 1/2 of the film left me feeling a bit let down by the end.
Very good, but my fave film of the year so far is still Kill Bill Vol 2.
Next on the 'must see' list for me is I Robot.
Labels: movies
Steve 12:06 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, May 29, 2004
What on earth is going on with tv?So there's a clip advertising a show on channel 4, something like 'That Nation's Most Unpopular' or something like that, and Jamie Oliver says "Mark Lehmar... cocksucker."
WTF?
It's not that I disaprove of such language, and positively enjoy seeing it within a program itself... but in a promo clip by the station itself, it's rather unprecedented.
Steve 10:14 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, May 28, 2004
Argh!I can't believe I'm watching Big Brother again.
Brigitte, this is your fault :-P
Looks like it should be entertaining though... they've obviously picked a bunch of people who're gonna totally hate each other.
Steve 11:09 PM [+] (0) comments
I finished reading dead Lines, at last.
Interesting... very interesting.
It's not a horror, or even a chiller really.
Very thought provoking though. It ponders quite effectively the question of what happens to us when we die, where we go, how we get there, and what would happen if some new technology dissrupted that transition.
Unlike his best work though, it was hard to suspend disbelief. The idea was better than the execution, The visuals were good, if that makes sense when describing a book, but the bones of the idea poked through the flesh of the characters and story.
Still, if like me you don't conform to any recognised religion, don't buy the idea that when you die you go to heaven, but do think there's 'something' other than what we know in life, then it's worth a read... if only for a variation on an old idea to toy with for a while.
Labels: books
Steve 9:38 AM [+] (0) comments
There's very little to blog about at the moment... life's been very uneventful.
Gonna go see The Day After Tomorrow on sunday if all goes to plan, so I'll write about that then no doubt (no spoilers).
Still reading Greg Bear's Dead Lines. Would've finished it by now, but I keep getting distracted by irc, which is no bad thing in itself as it's been mostly fun.
Steve 3:47 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Good grief. I think I make more of a twat of myself when I haven't slept than when I'm drunk.Talk about talking a load of old bollox.
Steve 11:59 AM [+] (0) comments
Well... it has to be said, I'm absolutely knackered. Been up since 3pm yesterday and gotta go into town as soon as I've drunk this coffee, so don't expect anything meaningful (like there ever is) in this post. The world gets kinda weird when all you want to do is sleep.
I'm sure there was something I intended to say before I went, but I'm damned if I can remember what.
Labels: sleep
Steve 8:59 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, May 24, 2004
Got my head burried in Greg Bear's Dead Lines.As a rule he's sci-fi writer, but this appears to be an attempt at horror, or at least a chiller. He's done that once before with Psychlone, which to be honest I didn't rate at all, so I don't have especially high hopes for this.
Pity really, coz as far as hard sci-fi's concerned, he's the best there is.
Speaking of fave authors, it's about time Iain M Banks brought out something new. He seems to do two books a year, one sci-fi one straight fiction. Dead Air was a corker, so hopefully his next sci-fi effort will be up to a similar standard.
Additional...
Ok, so I'm a 3rd of the way through the book now, and it's really not that bad. Not ground breaking, makes some obscure use of the Bell Theorum in quantum physics, which is certainly unusual for a chiller.
Not scary, not mind boggling, not something that makes you go "Wow! That's clever"... but certainly interesting.
Labels: books
Steve 2:11 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, May 23, 2004
This is one of those 'I need to blog but don't have a thing to say' moments.It's been a mixed bag of a week really. Some good stuff, some bad. The only detail I care to share right now though is that I hope OPEC pull their finger out and drop the price of oil coz it's really hammering my finances in ways that won't be obvious to most.
Steve 6:17 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Ah... what a fun day.What could be better than spending an afternoon out in glorious weather and then going to see Van Helsing at the movies?
I'll tell you what could be better.
Spending the afternoon out in glorious weather, going to the movies to see Van Helsing and having *the whole theatre* all to yourself.
I was the only person there... not a single other soul. No kids chattering, popcorn being lobbed around, feet on the back of my chair, people with big heads obsucring the view... nothing... no-one... just me.
Good film too, by the way.
Labels: movies
Steve 9:13 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Having been asked for pics of me in my new clothes, here you go...
Steve 7:02 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, May 17, 2004
That's my clothes shopping sorted for the summer, I think.I wandered round town for an hour and nothing at all took my fancy till I stumbled into River Island and picked out 3 pairs of linen and canvas tousers in khaki, cream and white.
Then on to another couple of shops where I found this t-shirt with a very dodgy collar that wouldn't look out of place on a a columbian drug baron and a tan linen shirt with one of those funky chinese style round collars.
It probably requires a complete lack or taste or a very warped sense of humour to wear this little lot, but I rather like them, and what the heck... it's summer... might as well have fun :-)
Steve 4:10 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, May 16, 2004
An uneventful day in terms of doing anything exciting, but unsusual in terms of domestic activity.It's pretty widely known that I hate doing housework, so tidying up, taking out the rubbish, dusting, hoovering, mopping the floors, generally cleaning everything, and then doing laundry... it's every day stuff for most people, but for me, it's very abnormal.
It must be summer.
No doubt just as when I got my hair cut, some misguided people are gonna ask "so who's the new girlfriend?".... nope... not a chance. It's just part of my 'digging myself out of a rut' routine.
Now if I can just make this daft washing machine drain, so I can open the door, I'll do another load.
Steve 5:05 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Ok, I'm absolutely flabbergasted.I've been watching a lot of the uktv History channel, as you may know already, and the program I just watched has left me quite stunned.
Think you know about the Vietnam war?
Think again.
During WWII the Japanese held French Indo China (now Vietnam) with the consent of the Vichi French (French collaborationist govt allied to the axis powers).
After the war, the Free French wanted their colony back, but had no forces in the region. They sent a small commando force along with British forces who were sent in to take control from the Japanese forces in the south of the country.
The Americans were opposed to colonialism in general, and were especially opposed to the idea of giving colonies back to the French, who they saw as collaborators with the axis forces, and who had in fact allowed the Japanese to occupy French Indo China in the first place.
Thus, the americans gave weapons, training and support to the communist forces controlled by Ho Chi Min in the north, in an effort to prevent the French from regaining their colony.
What resulted whas a situation where French, British and newly allied Japanese forces (who still held allied forces from WWII as prisoners of war) were engaged in armed conflict against American supported communist guerillas in a fight for control of the south (The very forces the Americans would wage war against in the 60s and 70s when they decided a communist Vietnam wasn't such a good thing).
For anyone who's familiar with this piece of history, yeah, I know this is a seriously truncated and simplified version of what happened, but it gives you the basic picture.
So... how truly fucked up is that?
Steve 12:59 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
So today was movie day.Back when I still bought vhs videos, I'd go into Virgin or HMV when they had one of those 3 for £20 or 5 for £30 offers, and buy a shed load of movies. Then I switched over to buying DVDs and for a long time, the only cheap ones were a bucket of shite... so buying good movies meant paying full price, thus my movie intake dropped by a factor of 10 or so.
Now however, things appear to have moved on. There's a whole load of really decent films out on mid-price and budget.
Todays movies were...
Bullet Proof Monk.
I know, I know, the reviewers said it was crap. Everyone I know who saw it said it was crap. But hey, I'm a Chow Yun Fat fan, so I had to see it, and guess what?
It's crap.
One Hour Photo
I don't like Robin Williams. Just like Tom Hanks, he's too nice. I don't do 'nice', I like an edge.
This film then is the best thing he's ever done, from an acting standpoint at least. (Yeah, I love What Dreams May Come and prefer it to this film, but he's still 'nice' in that)
Chilling.... very slow, so not one to watch if you're an adrenalin junkie or have a short attention span, but very very edgy.
Ocean's Eleven
Straightforward slick hollywood entertainment. Enjoyable, nothing more, nothing less.
Solaris
Now THIS is maginificent.
I heard about the Russian original years ago, but never saw it, and was maybe a bit concerned that the hollywood treatment would create something of a farce.
Not having seen the original, I don't know how this compares, but never the less.... this is quite the most utterly brilliant film I've seen in a long long time.
Thought provoking, emotional, edgy and fascinating. George Clooney's at his charismatic best too, which helps.
A work of art. Why can't more films be like this?
Labels: movies
Steve 12:15 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, May 10, 2004
Hmm... this new blogger front end is certainly interesting. Not sure if I like it yet, but I guess I'll get used to it.Anyway, today's been kinda fun. Nice weather, so I went and bimbled around town for a bit.
I went grocery shopping later and on my way home bumped into my brother who I haven't seen in absolutely ages.
Now I don't normally see eye to eye with my brother... he has a tendancy to annoy me, but I was pleasantly surprised to find he was very good company today, so we came back to my place for coffee and sat chatting for a while.
Most enjoyable.
Steve 4:16 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, May 07, 2004
I had to chuckle when I went clothes shopping again today.The way fashions come back in after a couple of decades is common knowledge, but they tend to be slightly modified... usually sanitised.
So I was wandering round NEXT thinking how crap their clothes are when I spotted a rack of these grey trousers with some rather unusual seem patterns on them. Lemme tell you, there's absolutely nothing modified about these trousers, a friend of mine wore the exact same style 20 years ago when we were in school. I wouldn't be surprised if they were from the same batch and NEXT held onto them when they couldn't sell them all, waiting for the 80s revival.
Personally I wouldn't be seen dead in them, even though I always liked 80s fashion as much as I like the music. As it is, I've settled on a style that falls somewhere between futurist and hippy.
Quite an odd combination.
Post modern retro?
Steve 5:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, May 06, 2004
I did something else rather out of character today and went clothes shopping.Scary.
I came away with one shirt from Envy and another shirt and a jacket from Monserrat.
Now I dont buy clothes very often, and know absolutely diddley about fashion... so I dunno if those shops are considered good or not, but I do know these 3 items wound up costing a damned site more than the jeans and t-shirt from the market kinda stuff I used to buy.
Good job I don't do that very often.
I've changed the pic in the previous post so you can get a small glimpse of what I bought. You can't see it very well from that shot, but too bad.
Steve 1:42 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so this should save me a lot of typing...
Now, time to bury my head in a book.
I picked up Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil today. Never read any of his stuff before, but I keep hearing his name mentioned and figured I should find out what all the fuss is about.
Steve 1:49 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
If you're one of those people who doesn't install Microsoft security patches on a regular basis, you absolutely *must* install and run a firewall.There's a new worm virus called Sasser that spreads much like the Blaster virus. It doesnt require you to run any email attachments, or download itself... if you're online and unprotected, it can get you.
I've known there was somthing odd going down for a while coz I was getting scanned an abnormal ammount for a week or two... but my firewall kept them out. This was probably systems infected with Sasser tying to get into my pc to infect me too.
So, if your system starts to crash all of a sudden for no obvious reason, you're probably infected. No doubt there are removal tools out there, though I haven't looked.
Seriously though, if you haven't already, go to your IE tools menu and select windows update, and install all the critical updates (though I wouldnt personally recommend installing SP1, but thats just me), then get yourself a firewall just to be sure.
Labels: computers
Steve 5:18 AM [+] (0) comments
Utter tedium.
I need to get back into being awake in the daytime. Night time is turning into an endurance ordeal of extreme boredom.
Strange. It never used to be this way.
Steve 3:18 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Weird.I just watched a Clive James doccumentary about a Formula One Grand Prix held in the grounds of the Cesars Palace Hotel in Las Vegas.
Why was it weird?
Three reasons.
1: The US Grand Prix is currently held at Indianapolis.... this doccumentary was shot in the 70s.
2: Seeing all those legendary drivers, some of whom I only have the very vaguest memories of, from when I was a kid. Saying that, Jackie Stewart and Bernie Ecclestone were there, which was amusing, as they're both still very much involved with F1.
3: The doccumentary wasn't on the history channel, where you wouldn't be too surprised to find it, but on Sky Travel.
I don't get it. Are they selling time travel tickets now?
Go to your travel agent and pick up tickets for Las Vegas in the 70s, Woodstock in the 60s, and for the truly adventurous, Berlin in 1945.
Steve 9:20 AM [+] (0) comments
I'm bored.
Hell, I'm so bored I've even gone into my own chatroom.
Just lately I've become rather disillusioned with the #england scene. There's still a few people who make it worth going there and are very good company, but when they aren't around, fankly, it's pretty crap. Who'd have thought it eh?
Doubt I'll fare much better in my own room, but what the heck.
Steve 4:55 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Okay, I know it's just an advert for a hi-tech teddy bear, but honestly... Magic Touch and Crawl Pooh?!!Be sure to lock the bathroom door when you're done.
Steve 9:32 PM [+] (0) comments
I've been a lazy git, it has to be said.
Midnight shopping trips and long and bizarre phonecalls aside, I've been something of a couch potato since getting digital tv.
This comes mostly from being alseep in the day.... every one's in bed and all the shops are closed when I get up, which leaves very little to do but watch tv and chat on irc, so that's what I've been doing. No haircut yet.
This uktv History channel really is very good. I've been watching it all week, and though it repeats itself a lot, I've learned loads of stuff.
It might be better names uktv History of War, but even so.... for the first time ever, I have the slightest inkling of what the troubles in Northern Ireland are really about, not to mention the English civil war. Fascinating. Why didn't they teach us this stuff in school?
Steve 6:51 PM [+] (0) comments
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