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April 11 The Spirit
I love Frank Miller. I loved Sin City, The Dark Knight, 300. Okay, now that’s out the way... ...I hated this film. Those that know me know I hate not watching a film through to the end, however bad it is. This has resulted in me watching some real dross over the years. Occasionally though, I do pull the plug. I really tried to like this; it’s very stylish, shot like Sin City. But after being spoilt with a summer of blockbusters like Batman and Iron Man I expect a little bit more from my super hero adaptations. The acting is terrible, over hammy, the effects are now, in my mind, a little stale, and the story is just all over the place. Yes, I know the graphic novel and I know how it is meant to be portrayed, but the film missed the mark by several thousand meters. I fell asleep...twice! Sorry, Frank, I’ve worshipped everything you have done before, but I draw the line here. I don’t know how this film ends, and for once...I really don’t care. However, it does deserve a couple of points for the ‘boyhood fantasy’ looking women. Meh! Rating 2/10 March 10 JCVD
Having grown up in the 80’s, my staple diet consisted of larger than life action movies. I can remember watching the original Kick Boxer movie maybe 5 or 6 times in a row after convincing, an obviously unsuitable, adult career to hire it for me. Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of the great martial arts stars of the time, and one of the most prolific actors around this period for big dumb action flicks. Who would have guessed he could act? Or be willing to self deprecate himself so much that I would actually feel emotions, during one of his films, that were not based on pure adrenaline. The plot, not that it really matters focuses on Jean Claude Van Damme, playing himself, returning to Brussels. He has had a bad run of event. Down on his luck, out of money, in the midst of a difficult custardy battle for his daughter, and, ever worse, losing out to Steven Seagal for a movie role (Steven apparently agreed to cut off his pony tail to win the part!) Returning to his home to seeks out some peace and quiet, things go from bad to worse when he ends up in the middle of a post office robbery. The film is wonderful. I don’t want to say too much as to ruin what happens. The film shows a completely different side to Jean Claude. Don’t go in expecting an action film, this is different. It's a satirical documentary about his life, contained within a darkly comedic bank heist movie Meh! Rating 8/10
March 07 Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic First things first, I love this phone. To me, this is one of the best phones I have ever used and probably one of the best on the market at present (pound for pound – use see how I cover myself there) Remember these phones only cost, here in the UK, £250 off contract. What you get for this price is outstanding. First the bad, and there is one thing that I am a little worried about. Build quality. The phone feels sturdy enough, but this is my second device. I have already RMA’d one to Nokia because the screen housing started to come lose, and if you search the interweb you will see many stories about speaker problems with the first batch of these. I shall just have to wait to see if I am affected. Ok, now to the good. Before this I had a Nokia N95 8gb. That phone was almost perfect, but after owning an Ipod touch for a while, and playing with many iPhones, I soon realised I really needed the touch interface. A keypad is just too restricting. I need everything else too though, GPS, decent camera, media playback, etc. I thought about getting an iPhone on many occasions, but there were too many limiting factors. All the bits that are good about it I have on my Touch, everything else about it was too limiting. Obviously I could have gone windows mobile with one of the sexy HTC devices, but I have had several WinMo phones in the past and they have driven me to distraction. I really do not need to wait 5 minutes to make a phone call while my phone ‘boots’. As touchy feely as these 3rd party finger touch skins, the likes of HTC and Samsung have put on top of windows mobile, are the OS is still there always waiting to pop up and stump you. Enter the 5800. It has the s60 OS, which I really am a fan of, a decent camera, GPS, media capabilities, and everything else on my list. So the camera is not the best on the market, but, outside in good light, it takes a fine picture. The GPS is fast at locking onto satellites, much, much faster than my n95. I just need a 3rd party (Garmin come on!) to release decent navigation software. The screen is wonderful, video look lovely and crisp and the sound is top notch. A standard headphone socket is a boon. The Touch interface works really well. It took a while to get used to, but now I know my way around it is like second nature. Despite the screen technology chosen I find it extremely responsive. The phone size is just perfect. It has the typical candy bar dimensions and feels just right in the hand. Obviously, being a Nokia phone, the integration with my PC for synching and such is second to none. So, there you go, considering I splashed out and bought this offline at full price, on launch day, I am very happy. It will do me for a while (well, at least until the n97 comes along) Meh! Rating 8/10
March 06 Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Poor. I guess I should write a little more. This third film in the underworld franchise is a prequel. Throughout the previous two films there is a lot of back story, discussed, narrated, alluded to, etc. This film tells that story. Unfortunately, the script is poor, the acting is subpar, the effects are dodgy and the whole thing is just too dark. I don’t mean ‘man this is a dark film; I need to go slit my wrists’, I mean what just happened? Some badly formed CGI just attacked some other badly formed Cgi and ripped something off and...oh whatever. Yes, I get this is a gothic setting and feel, and yes on paper this films tick many (many!) of my boxes. Who does not like the idea of Werewolves battling vampires in a gothic setting? But, This film is just such a letdown. To me it reeks of cash-in, and it shows. Meh! Rating 3/10
March 05 Defiance
A World War 2 holocaust movie starring James Bond, err, I mean, Daniel Craig, as one of three brothers who escape a Nazi raid on their family farm, Russia 1941. They take refuge in the surrounding forest, and survive in the wilderness by setting up a small community with others who had also lost everything to the Nazi invaders. It’s not what you expect; here the Jews are fighting back, so it is not an uncomfortable view, like other films based on the subject matter. There is one scene depicting, what can be described as, a mass grave, but it is shot in such a way that the result is not as unsettling as you would expect. There are scenes of action, but the film is more about the drama, the relationships that are established and evolve. When the violence does come, its result is only more shocking because of the investment you, the viewer, has made in the players. The film is very focused on this band of people, thrown together by the terrible atrocities afflicted on them by the viciously portrayed Nazi soldiers and informers. Although alluded to, you don’t really get a sense of the bigger picture, the war ranging all around Europe at this time and its impact on these people. The film, to me, was just a little hollow. When the credits rolled, there was no feeling. I was not upset about anything in the portrayal, The film is based on a true storry, and I belive the film kept to this, but I... I just felt nothing. I was not moved, which given the subject matter, I really expected to be. Not a bad film, but nothing special. Meh! Rating 6/10 March 01 Batman: Hush I finally got around to reading this two volume story arc, which was the big event of 2003, it’s been sitting on my shelf for a while. I had high hopes, most of the reviews on Amazon are very positive. Everything seems to be going for it, two great talents, Jeph Loeb (Superman) and Jim Lee (XMen), and the introduction of a new villain into the Bat universe. Jim Lee’s art is beautiful, every page, the characters jump out at you, big bold colour, not like the usual stuff I read which are much more, erm, arty, I guess. However, this is not like other stuff I read, and I think that is why I am disappointed. It’s like a big summer blockbuster movie, looks amazing and has everything going for it; big and brash set pieces, a story that twists all over the place, enough super heroes and foes to fill a whole library, etc... It is all just a bit hollow. You can leave you brain at the front cover and enjoy what you see, just don’t expect to be recounting it in the future. It’s worth reading for the art, it really is that wonderful, but if you want killer story and dialogue you will come away disappointed. Meh! Rating 5/10
February 28 Windows Home Server, Part 1 The BuildAfter living the last year with my ZyXEL NSA-220 NAS, the time has come to move up to the next level. This unit is great. I have not had one issue with it. It has just sat there on my desk purring away, being backed up to every day. The NAS is all well and good with its RAID 1 and largish capacity, but I need more control and more expandability. Welcome to the world of Microsoft Home Server: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx So, as is customary in these circumstances, I have spent way too much time researching kit and confusing myself further. I ruled out buying a commercial product (like the HP ex485 and ex487) since they don’t allow me to customise (read tinker) enough.
Also, I already had some serviceable parts lying around so I could save money by building my own. After great deliberation, I narrowed down my required components to these: Motherboard – M2N-VM HDMI -Something relatively cheap but reliable, low powered and able to work with the CPU I chose (see below). Asus have a good reputation price vs performance, especially in the mATX arena. . I wanted at least 4 SATA ports, onboard video and HDMI out (just in case this is a terrible disaster I can re-commission everything as a HTPC). Processor - AMD Athlon X2 5050e - Needed something relatively cheap, low powered and reliable, noise is an issue, this box will be on 24/7 so the cpu has to be able to cope with this and not rack up a huge electricity bill. Case – CoolerMaster Elite 340 – It had to me mATX form factor, it had to be able to cope with the current spec and be able to expand later as my needs grew, and it had to be a company I know. (And of course cheap! (ish)). The version I got also came with a CoolerMaster psu unit. So that was it, all I needed to build All parts were sourced from scan.co.uk – who, as always, gave a great, quick service. Added to the above I already had 2x Samsung 750gb SATA drives, 2 x Kingston 1gb Ram sticks , and an external USB DVD drive to install the OS. I put this all together this evening fired it up and it worked first time...woohoo.
Now I just have to wait for the postman to bring the software. BTW, the cheapest place I could find to by the OS is Novatech. I also have to decide how I am going to configure the drives; RAID or just let the OS decide, shall I put a smaller SATA drive in just for the OS or just the two 750gb and leave room for later expansion... Decision, decisions... February 22 Superman: Red Son I don’t really like ready Superman graphic novels. He is not one of my favourite characters. I just struggle to connect with a ‘super’ man who is seemingly indestructible. However I really do like alternate versions of super-hero stories especially those that add the extra excitement of alternate-reality versions of real, famous figures. Red Son is a series is split into three parts and spans roughly 1950-2000, with a future set epilogue. What if they young baby from that dying planet landed on earth 12 hours earlier? Instead of landing in the good old US of A, he instead landed in communist Russia and was taken under the wing of Stalin himself. How would the cold war have changed? This and other interesting questions are covered in this TPB. It really is a great read. I enjoyed every page, the art is very good, the story engrossing and the plot twists and turns all over the place. There are several cameos from other super heroes / villains, all with a slightly different slant on them.
Highly recommended.
Meh! Rating 7/10 If you like this kind
of thing, I really recommend the character Hyperion, from the Marvel series Squadron
Supreme (Supreme Power). This alternative take on the ‘Superman’ stories has
the super child falling into the hands of the US military, rather than a loving
farm base couple.
February 21 Punisher War Zone - I still have tears in my eyes.
This evening I have had my heart ripped out and handed back to me all soggy and limp. Growing up, Punisher was my favourite Marvel Comic’s character. I loved the premise; he was no super mutant, just a regular guy pushed over the edge with a huge arsenal at his disposal. Three times I have now had my hopes raised by Hollywood; three times they have been dashed. First there was the camp Dolph Lundgren version in 1989. After that flopped we were given the troubled Thomas Jane version in 2004. Now, we have this 80’s violent action film throwback. The phrase 3rd time lucky is not one we can use here! Let’s start with the positives, it won’t take long. There is a lot of well choreographed, over the top, violence. ..and erm, that’s about it. Negative? Well let’s keep this short; I still have a bad taste in my mouth. There is a lot of well choreographed, over the top, completely unbelievable, violence. The acting was more wooden than a wooden spoon convention in the middle of a wood on hug a tree day. The story was more limp than a soggy newspaper a fed up delivery boy has tried to push through a stiff letterbox on a wet Sunday morning. Agghhh, it is no good, I can’t write anymore, it is too upsetting for me. At least my other favourite character from my childhood (and still now) is being looked after (apart from Christian Bales gruff gravelly voice – what is it with that?) Meh! Rating: 2/10
Blowing the dust of the PS3
Recently I have really been getting back into my PS3. For months it has sat there under my TV mocking me. If I want to game I use one of my Xbox 360s, if I want to stream video I use my Popcorn hour, you get the idea... It all started when my youngest was driving me mad one miserable Sunday afternoon. I did not want him to touch the 360 because he might break it. I know, I thought; let him play on the PS3. No big deal if an accident should happen. So we started working through my PSN purchases. Remember he is only 2 years old, but he loved it. Wipeout HD (which he calls RACING! – yes he shouts), Burnout (bikes!!), Super rub a dub (DUCKS!!!) etc... He can’t get enough of them, and when he gets stuck, or leaves the room, I pick up the controller. And when he has had enough, I carry on playing. I have just done 2 hours on Wipeout. As a father of 3 (including a newborn) the thought of spending 2 hours playing any game in an afternoon was unthinkable even up to yesterday. I really am enjoying it. It is a very different experience to the 360. Here I mainly seem to play big, loud first person shooters. On the PS3 it just seems more sedate. The console itself is much, much, much quieter for a start. I have even started to stream from it. Well, it’s on, why bother changing inputs. (You must try: http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/) I am also playing a different range of games on the PS3, driving, puzzle, family. But there are some big exclusives coming up... who knows, it’s been a while since I gamed on my 360, at this rate it might be a while longer until I do again. Ok, now off to start Kung Fu Panda for the kids – on the Xbox 360, hey, if they break it, it’s no biggy.
September 25 ...It’s what you do with it that matters!Two weeks now with my new bundle of joy. The latest addition to the family, a little white Acer Aspire One. http://www.acer.com/aspireone/ Why did I get one, you ask? Was it because I needed access to my data on the move? Was it because it was a convenient way of carrying a backup of my data around with me? Was it to get around the archaic security measures introduced at work recently? Or, was it because I just had to have a new toy to play with? I will let you decide.... haha First impressions - it small, light, and looks very, very nice. I thought long and hard about which of the current selection of netbooks to buy. There are an awful lot out there. I was actually holding off to see what the Dell offering was. A let down is what the Dell offering was. But that is another story. The Acer was cheap (£229, which just happens to be the price I sold my Wii for, coincidence? You decide...) Powerful (relatively speaking) and light enough to carry around every day (nothing to say here, but needed another set of brackets to even up the sentence) I had loads of memory lying around, and a spare XP licence so was able to bring it up to the £270 model spec relatively painlessly. Saying that, the memory upgrade involves a complete tear down of the unit – several heart stopping moments I can tell you (just to a search on youtube to see how hard this is) and I still have a spare screw? Bugger... It runs XP without a hitch, in fact I see rumours that it runs vista very well. Just not something I have a need for yet. Office 2007, itunes, firefox, etc; everything I bought it to do, it does well. (even streaming a 720p HD rip over wi-fi did not cause it to break a sweat!) The only problem is the battery life. 2.5 to 3 hours is not really enough, however the new 6 cell battery should be available soon which should take battery life up to nearer 6/7 hours.
Now the real test....let’s see how long I keep it for! September 22 Yes, but don't tell anyone, OK?I admit it, I am really loving the new beta of Windows live
messenger; http://download.live.com/ Now the only problem I have is my Mac. The main machine I use at home. Here, Msn is catered for with Adium; http://www.adiumx.com/ (one of the greatest multi protocol chat clients ever released, period) Unfortunately this is not compatible with multiple sign on (nor is Microsoft’s own Mac messenger client – although this is so far behind the curve I did not expect it to). Obviously, as soon as I log in to OSX all my other session get ended, what a pain. Hopefully this will be catered for eventually, I must remember this is still very much beta. As for the other betas releases in conjunction with messenger, I have been using the outlook plug-in to sync to hotmail (or is it live mail now?) and also playing with the new mail client. Windows live mail is actually very good. Well, it has to be, it reminds me very much of Apple’s own mail client bundled with OSX. Much better than the previous incarnation, shame it has taken them so long to get something that is, in my mind, actually usable. September 20 So depressed.Those that know me are aware of my constant moaning about films recently. I am tired of seeing all these wonderful, at first film, that just have to cop out with the standard feel good Hollywood happy ending. Not so tonight. I am just recovering from watching ‘The Mist’ (MGM, 2007). Have been told by friends it was good, but I was not ready for this. Now I have a love hate relationship with horror. I grew up watching Freddie and Jason get gradually more and more extravagant with the body count, graphic kills and all out grossness. For every Saw, there is a Saw 2 and 3. For every Alien theres is an AvP 1 and 2. I see the horror genre get reborn again and again, but I really struggle with finding those that effect me on a psychological level. Now I don’t know whether it is now because I have a young family or just I am just different, but this film got to me. Got to me in away that I have waited a while for. It’s not big budget, we are in decidedly ‘B’ movie territory here, but I loved it. It had just enough to keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. It’s dark, tense and creepy. The set pieces, when they come are brilliant, and the ending, probably some of the most depressing cinema I have seen in a very long time Brilliant (I think) September 10 Phew, ok, I'll let you off this time. So, after my little Apple rant yesterday it turns out that if you already paid to upgrade to firmware 2.0 the new upgrade is free. That’s better. Still not that impressed by any of yesterdays announcements. Nothing ground breaking that makes me want to part with any cash...which is actually a good thing, so, thanks Apple. September 09 Hey Apple, stop it will you!Yes I have a 1st gen iPod Touch. Had it since launch and absoulutly love it. Really I could not survive that hour and a half journy to work each day without it.
BUT...
I really am sick of paying for these firmware upgrades. It seem that i only just payed for the 2.0 firmware with app support and now I am expected to pay again, for 2.1, another $10! (£5ish I assume). Thats 3 additional payment in a year.
Why?
please tell me, and I am sick of hearing about some obscure accountancy rules. FFS, I already paid a premium for an Apple device, stop 'Taxing' me further every couple of months.
Hey Steve, I buy music from itunes, I buy apps from the app store, you get enough of my money.
/rant The saga continues...Oh well, it's all change again.
I missed the Xbox 360.
Damn you Microsoft. You have terrible hardware on the reliabilty front. But you have just nailed online play and the whole, next Gen gaming thing.
So, A 360 joind my line up again.
So, guess what, yep, the Wii had to go again. I mean, I played every game worth owning (Wii sports and...err...erm...)
and now, it just sits there.
the PS3 you ask?
Well, thats my blue ray player, that happens to play games sometimes (think NUON). lets see what Home has to offer. something please!!
so those keeping score
Console Owned Now Total times owned
Xbox 360 yep 4 (two were referbs from MS!)
Wii nope 2
PS3 yep 2
quite sad. April 01 Next Gen Gaming. My story so far....First there was the Xbox 360. Bought at launch. So desperate was I to get one that I order two to cover my bases. My brother thanked me for that one.
Next came the Wii. Also bought at launch. Hours of fun with Wii sports, and..erm..and.. The PS3 so tempting, that big black sexy thing... I had to have one, but the wife needed to be appeased. Bye-bye to the Wii, off to Ebay you go, caught the Xmas rush though, got my money back. Helloooooo Ps3, all £400 of you. Show me what you can do!!! But wait, all these killer titles on the 360, the time of my life...Halo 3, Bioshock, COD4... they just kept coming. What was the point of the PS3, it was just sitting there, gathering dust (very well I might add). Oh dear, I’m not the only one, the market for these seems to have dropped. Here comes another price cut from Sony. I don’t want to lose money on this. Why was I seduced so easily? Look at the Wii, those owners are having so much fun, and wow, that 360 Elite looks mighty fine. Surely it will be nice and quiet, unlike this current monster. Hang on, Sony have discontinued the 60gb model, wayhey, watch those prices shoot up on ebay! Bye Bye Ps3... Oh no, what have I done, the games, they are starting to come. All I have is this big, loud, ugly monster (Number 3 I might add – forgot to mention the two returns to tower Microsoft for RROD!) Hang on, my spider sense is tingling – cheap deal at an online retailer – a misprice on a PS3 40gb, bing, in the basket and bought. Welcome back PS3 I missed you and your many tricks.
All was well for a while, but I kept feeling something was wrong...
Maybe it was the onset of tinnitus, maybe the house shaking when I went for a quick blast of COD4 online, maybe the perpetual fear of the next RROD. It has to go, I can’t deal with you anymore. You are just so... ...well American – big, loud and no longer welcome (it’s a stereotype joke – don’t flame me) Ah look, on a forum I frequent, someone want to trade his Wii for a 360, now’s my chance....
And here we are, present day.
A nice PS3 for gaming and media and blue-ray and whatever...
A little ickle Wii for a quick bit of mindless fun – and hopefully introduce the kids to this wonderful world of gaming.
And the ringing in the ears... you know what, I can hear myself think again.
March 14 2 Weeks inWeek two with my MacBook. It just gets better and better. I have found this great blog: http://www.davidalison.com/ Worth a read, it pretty much sums up my experience so far. Why do I like the Mac so much...just because. It is hard to explain. It just works, and it is so much fun. So far I have added Fusion to my list of apps and installed XP and Vista as VMs. However, apart from just playing with VMs and learning how to expand primary boot drives I have not really used them. Trying Office 2008 for Mac, but honestly it is not as good as Office 07 on Windows, but do I really need it? The investigation continues. March 01 The forbidden fruit
Well, despite Tom’s best effort convincing to me to the contrary, a bargain appeared on the Apple refurbishment store and I just had to have it.
Fast forward one day and I am the proud owner of a sexy little white macbook.
But, alas, there is a saga (stop sniggering at the back!)
Every time the little fella tries to make a noise i get this ghastly ‘white’ noise emanating from the rear right speaker.
Have I upset the Gods at Bill tower?
One call to technical support where I try an explain the problem to some Greek chap. I am given the number of some local service centre to phone. They, I am assured will sort it all out.
But no, said service centre appeared to be an apple reseller who cannot help, although were very friendly and helpful. This can’t be right I think, this is the other team, they look after you, surely? Back to customer support. Ah, an English guy. Very sorry to hear of my problem, must be very upsetting. Puts me through to after sales. I very nice lady took all my detail, again apologised. Started talking about arranging for the courier to come a collect my damaged machine, they will be in contact within 48 hours to arrange a pick up. Oh, rather deflated I said, bit upset about not being able to play with my new toy (Tom – that one’s for you
Oh no, she said, we shall get a new replacement out to you priority, you will probably get that before the courier arranges to pick up the old one.
So far very happy with Apple, but let us see how this develops..... February 22 FlickrFinally got around to setting up a Flickr account. |
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