I saw this Build Your Own Stonehenge kit in the shop yesterday. A miniature Stonehenge. How Spinal Tap is that?
And on Amazon: “20 used & new available” … does anyone want a second hand Stonehenge?
ObWargames: Not sure of the scale but I suppose it would work quite well with 6mm or smaller figures. Or with a 28mm rock band…
amusedWent down the Croydon yesterday, bought two mauve shirts (what was I thinking?) and then went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – not a lot to say about that, a did a fair job of making a decent film out of a book that’s more teenage grumpiness than actual plot. It’s now quite clear that some of the teenagers simply can’t act and that some of the veteran thesps can’t be bothered to do anything except ham it up. Excellent special effects with the exception of the CGI creatures which still look like they’re made of plasticine.
But before the film they showed a trailer for the film adaptation of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising.
Oh dear.
You see I don’t care what sort of changes they make to Harry Potter, or how they redesign the Transformers, but when you start messing around with The Dark is Rising you’re messing with something very important from my childhood.
The miniature in some shots is Captain Nathan from Heresy Miniatures (adds to potential shopping list foir Salute tomorrow) and he’s “heroic 28mm” scale, so 30-35mm tall. That makes that paper model of the Serenity quite big.
impressedWhich of the following characters from the following science fiction movies/ programmes do you think is the most attractive?
- Seven of Nine (Star Trek Voyager)
- Princess Leia (Star Wars)
- Rachael (Blade Runner)
- SuperGirl (SuperGirl)
- Barbarella (Barbarella)
- LeeLoo (Fifth Element)
- Padme (Phantom Menace)
- TX (Terminator 3)
- Lt Uhura (Star Trek)
- Sil (Species)
- Don’t know
- None of these
Having watched Vengeance on Varos last night I read Sil and had a very different image leap to mind than the one they intended. Has anyone see if there’s an equivalent question about the boys?
Sign up with YouGov and get paid to do dumb surveys.
amusedI must post the conclusion of the City Link saga and an unexpected piece of good customer service from another company that happened soon afterwards, but for now it’s enough to know that I got my new computer and have been busy installing software.
First thing I installed was anti-virus (that’s a lie, first thing was Opera to make downloading all the other things less of a pain). But so far I haven’t installed a firewall, so I’m running with AVG Anti-Virus and Windows Firewall. I’d like a better firewall but I don’t know what to pick.
On my old laptop I’ve been using Kaspersky Anti-Hacker which is a bit old but reliable. This came as part of System Mechanic which I’ve found to be very handy. But, Iolo have produced a new version of System Mechanic and I get a spam pop up everytime I start it. I e-mailed them asking where I could a change log for the new version and they haven’t replied, but from the web site it looks like Kaspersky is no longer part of the package. I’m not sure whether to buy the latest Kaspersky product, or the latest version of System Mechanic, or both, or something else entirely. Any advice for a free or cheap firewall for a Windows XP machine?
I also have installed a BitTorrent client yet. The one built into Opera downloads much slower than the standalone ones I’ve used before. Which have mainly been Azureus, but that seems to have a memory leak in it somewhere ‘cos even when I shut it down completely the system is still clogged up until I reboot (or use System Mechanic to reclaim the RAM). I keep on hearing about μTorrent, is that any good? What’s your BitTorrent client of choice?
Finally, is there a site out there that could be described as LibraryThing for DVDs? I’ve found DVD Spot but it’s not really tickling my web 2.0 fabcy in the way that LT does. I could use Squirl, indeed I could use Squirl for just about any collection, but I’d like to see if there’s anything a bit more specialised first.
curiousBut why is it opening a day late?
curious
I saw 300 yesterday. Is it historically inaccurate? Yes. Does it illogically put modern notions of freedom and democracy into the mouths of the Spartans? Yes. Does it look like a montage from Braveheart, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings? Yes. Does any of that really matter? No, ‘cos it’s just a damn good heroic action movie in its own right.
Everyone seems to want to read some sort of modern political message into this film. As the heroic Spartans are shown both supporting “modern western” values against an eastern religious tyranny and as supporting native defenders against overwhelming foreign invaders, it is hence seen as both supporting the US against Islamic fundamentalism, and as supporting the Iraqi insurgents against the US occupation. Considering these contradictory interpretations it seems that if the makes intended it as a comment on the war against terror/war in Iraq then they didn’t do a very good job of getting their message across.
Screw all that, this is a movie about violence, heroism and warriors. It’s visually stunning and full of blood and guts and thrills. The first battle scene, with the two forces pushing and shoving, shield-to-shield, stabbing and slashing, is one of the best depictions of pre-gunpowder warfare that I’ve ever seen. After that things stray into heroic fantasy territory, rather like a big budget Xena with lots (really, lots) of blood splatter.
Not going to be everyone’s taste, but if you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably love this one.
relaxedSo, there’s big project X at work, that’s eating up all available time for the next few months. Them emergency Y crops up and the solution to that could easily be incorporated as part of X, but it will probably need to be fixed sooner. And then long standing problem Z raises several of its hydra headed forms at once. Gah. I just know I’m going to be in a bad mood all weekend even though I’m going to be trying hard not to think about work at all.
This afternoon we’re off to see Hot Fuzz. It had better be bloody funny.
grumpyThis popped up on my Word Press dashboard today: Web 2.0 or Star Wars. I got 35 out of 43. Not sure which side of my geekery helped the most.
cheerfulHad a fantastic long weekend, four days of relaxing and enjoying ourselves.
Thursday night, left work and headed down to Croydon where ate at Wagamama’s (the Salmon Ramen is very good) before going to see Mitchell and Webb at the Fairfield Halls. I think this is the third time I’ve been to that particular venue – the first was to see Victor Borge some twenty years ago, and the second was to see the Rocky Horror Show about eight years ago. Anyway, Mitchell and Webb were just as good live as on the telly – some familiar sketches (taken to new extremes in a few cases) and some I didn’t recognise from the TV series.
Friday, we went up to the British Museum to see The Past from Above exhibition. Really breath taking stuff that really brought home just how vast the extent of human history is. Most parts of the world have see who knows how many lifetimes lived, with not a single line in the history that most of us know.
Also at the BM, was a (relatively) recently reopened gallery dedicated to the Enlightenment and hence the birth of the museum itself. It does a very good job of emulating what the BM is like in our secret thoughts – all book lined walls and eclectic displays.
Saturday, ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
pink_weasel went to play at the Tate whilst I stayed home and read comics. But I did find time to visit West Norwood’s first ever farmer’s market (it’s going to be a regular event every two weeks) where I picked up some cheese and some welsh dragon sausages (pork and leek and chili). In the evening I left a very knackered Lettice in bed and went to Giroscope‘s birthday bash in fitzrovia – Duke of York, for beer Palms of Goa for curry; and finally The Fitzroy Tavern, for more beer.
Sunday was a quiet day at home – my dad brought the second of two leather chairs, Lettice poured dye all over a book (on purpose) and we started watching Doctor Who – The Invasion (with the missing episodes filled in by animation). Though not the best animation in the world it captured the likenesses of the main characters well and was, of course, cleaner and smoother than the surviving ’60s live action episodes.
Today, we lay around in bed and then went to Croydon again to see Casino Royale. Possible the best Bond film ever. Certainly the best since the ’60s. Having a actor who can actually act certainly helps. It will be interesting to see what they do next time, now that they’ve done the whole “how Bond becomes Bond” bit, will they find something suitably interesting for Craig to get his teeth into for the sequel?
Phew. Back to work tomorrow where with any luck I’ll be holding second interviews for my assistant. With luck we’ll be able to make someone an offer at the end of the week and have them start very early in the new year. Which will mean that I should be able to take more than two days off next time.
satisfied