xset

Harry Potter and the OOTP

// December 12th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

And no that does not stand for object oriented toilet paper.

Just finished watching this last night and my initial thoughts are – well done guys. I make no secret of my hatred for the first two films with sickly sweet themes, child actors that couldn’t and a general gloss of saccharine strong enough to induce diabetes in all but the most “awwww” hardened.

The Prisoner of Azkaban changed things for the better. A much darker world, better acting (mostly due to the slow maturity of the cast) and some fantastic realisations of key  Potter themes made for a much more enjoyable viewing experience.

So OOTP was a movie I approached with caution. Almost any Potter fan will agree the book was the worst of the bunch, slow, paranoid and generally unpleasant to wade through not to mention about 200 pages too long. The film was a triumph. They had managed to trim most of the rubbish whilst keeping the overall theme of them vs us and transform the lackluster pace of the book into a speedy romp through the most difficult phase in Potter’s life to date.

The only question I would have concerns the ending of the movie – it seemed a little rushed. Battle at Ministry, mandatory Potter semi consciousness looked over by his friends and then home for tea and war against the dark lord TBC …  That said, this problem is going to be present in the next movie as well, both stories suffer (benefit?) from a certain quantity of “Empire” in their lack of conclusions.

All in all? HP&TOOTP gets a pretty cool 4 out of 5… and it will look so much better on Blu Ray (more on that later)

Things I Can’t Help Doing

// December 12th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

Waving one hand (ala Jedi telekinesis) when approaching automatic doors… possibly with a sotto voce “Open Sesame”

It’s cold outside this morning

// December 12th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

“It’s cold outside every morning”*

Winter has arrived in style here in the Channel Islands. Cold crisp days with gorgeous sunshine mean for some pretty evilly cold nights and ground frost in the morning.

There in lies the root of my problem. Will some one please explain the difference between ice (which is indeed dangerous and requires careful driving) and frost … which is basically dew chilled out to the point of being slighty frozed and is not in the least bit threatening to any vehicle with more grip than a Robin Reliant.

I saw two people “gritting their paths”, followed another host at 20 MPH and did all of this on a fricking motorbike!

Jersey does not do winter well any more. I’m just wondering when my first call out is going to be due to Iced Roads that turns out to be a particularly resilient frost

* Random useless points to the first person to source the quote

Concerning the WGA strike

// December 7th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

Don’t know how many of you are aware of the current crisis in American TV and the impact on holiday scheduling (i.e. scheduling of TV over Christmas, not as you may have though the impact on your long awaited trip to Florida to go take in Disney World / Land … that’s still not going to happen).

Basically, the writers of TV shows in the States have decided that they don’t get anywhere near enough money for their genuis (they don’t by the way) and have stopped writing. Not a big deal for them as they didn’t get enough money anyway but a pretty major problem for most of the TV producers in the US who have had to stop production or worse, delay production, on many of our fave shows ever.

I have one thing to say the the TV industry in the states: “GET YOURSELVES SORTED OUT SO I CAN GO BACK TO BORROWING YOUR TV SHOWS”

I’m even getting hassle from the GGF regarding the lack of Wentworth Miller in her life … although that’s a separate problem that will need dealing with in its own special way. Plus it means 24 and others are way behind their release schedule. If I’m being frank, the last series of Heroes sucked really hard and I’m in need of something to take the taste away so please America – go back to making telly so the rest of us can watch it? Better yet, stick it straight on online and cut out the middle man

You are approximately 864,825,108 seconds old

// December 3rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

It’s always fun to take a spin through the history books. History is big man, I mean really big – there’s a pot load of it out there. So to ease your digging it can often help to specify your search to a relevant period or date. And what better date to start with than your birthday?

For example, I had never realised that on my birthday (8th July*) the U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game “Twister” (1969), the Wall Street Journal was first published (1889) and the longest recorded belly dance was completed by Sabra Starr – over 100 hrs (1977).

I’d also not realised how close I cam to having “Xanadu” by Olivia Neutron Bomb as my birthday number 1. Fortunately, I landed on the slightly more credulous “Crying” by Don McLean.

And what of all those famous people with whom I share my birthday? How about Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin! Huh!?! Or … KEVIN BACON!!!

All of this and more is available to you at the Day Of Birth website… but there’s no way you’re topping Twister and Kevin Bacon.

*Anybody who’s planning to shout at me for sticking my DOB on the net … seriously, you can already get it in about a beelion places including Facebook and other social networking sites. It’s not the breach of security you think it is, especially as I’ve been lying about my age for the past 20 years

New Theme

// December 3rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Tech

Or rather a return to an older one. I was having a chat with a good (and not particularly techy) friend of mine on Friday and he expressed an opinion (opined?) on my 4 column uber layout – it was too confusing.

Personally, I agreed with him and have found a number of short comings in the 4 column idea. It was a fantastic exercise but not necessarily the best idea for me at the time.

So I’m back to running on Sandbox until I can work out what I want to do for my next theme. I’ve had an idea bubbling round the back of my mind for nearly 2 years now and think it’s finally time to dust it off and get it online. This will, of course, probably take a few months and will be launched in the semi finished, half arsed fashion you’ve come to expect from XSet themes

Night Driving

// December 3rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

I had the misfortune on Wednesday evening, just past, to be working late. If fact working very late would be a more accurate portrayal of my working hours. I finally managed to leave the office at gone 03:30 in the morning and drove home.

Nothing particularly exciting about that I’ll grant you but what did make me sit up in wonder is the simple fact that, over the course of a 10 mile journey, I didn’t encounter a single other person or vehicle on the roads. It was as if the island had been deserted.

I know my drinkables

// December 3rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

Thanks to J for this oppourtunity to prove my knowledge of all things alchofrolic:

98%ALCOHOLIC

Go and see if you can do better than THAT!!! Of course if you can then that makes you more of a drunken idiot than me so be very careful who you tell …

If you can spell it you can have it

// November 28th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

For 24 years I’ve been happy in the knowledge that the Baby Jesus was brought 3 gifts.

Gold I’m ok on,  Frankinsence I’m pretty sure on but Myrrh? WTF is Myrrh?

Well here is my community contribution to you on the run up to the festive period… So now you know!

2 bottle of fizz: 6 months later

// November 28th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

Last night was lovely. The GGF and I headed out to Bently’s (a rather snazzy new resteraunt in Jersey which seem to specialise in oriental fusion) to celebrate.

We’ve been trying to get at least one “nice” dinner in every month, not the easiest task given our respective workloads and extra curricular commitments. This dinner was special as it marked our 6 month aniversary

Of course, being the hopeless romantic that I am (honest) I’d made sure that when we arrived at the resteraunt there would be a bottle of champagne on ice waiting for us. Sure enough, upon our arrival the bottle was chilling nicely and, upon seeing it, GGF burst out laughing and giggled her way into such a state that it was several minutes before I could get any sense out of her.

It transpires that I don’t have the monopoly on romantic, boozy gestures and she had spent most of the day trying to get through to the resteraunt to arrange for a bottle of fizz to be waiting at the table. She hadn’t managed to although I wonder if the maitre’d would have complied and given us two bottles?

The rest of the meal was amazing, I had soy squid followed by king prawn yellow curry and the GGF had sushi to start with “Funky Seabass” for her main. And the deserts … ginger hinted creme brulee, indian kulfi, honeycomb pots and chocolate brownies all washed down with a half bottle of late bottled muscat.