Author Archives: tony

And another thing

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While I’m moaning – why the hell did the previous owners of this house put different light bulbs in every damn room, I know I’ve moaned about that before.  The kitchen lights are really pissing me off though – 50w halogen spotlights, two sets of 4 (we run them with 1 or 2 in a most) and the lamps last about 8 weeks before popping.  They blow the old fashioned ceramic fuse wire in the old fashioned fuse box, and we have to power the whole house down and re-wrap 3amp fuse wire in the dark.

Yes, one went again this evening.

So, I need to 1. replace those damn lights, the sooner the better and 2. see if I can find a resettable fuse thing to replace the cermic ones.  I need to go to B&Q.

It’s March

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My birthday is in March, and the NHS gets me the same thing every year – a set of annual diabetic check-ups.  I get some retinopathy checks (they dilate your pupils and then photograph the back of your eyes).  I can’t see very well for a while after that because everything is too bright.  I get a visit to the nurse who checks my feet to make sure I can still feel them and that I didn’t cut a toe off without noticing, she tends to also nag me about not losing weight, having high blood pressure, and then asks me if I’m depressed.  Before all that I also have to have a blood test and provide a urine sample, did those today.  Bled pretty easily, was awkward last time but the nurse suggested it was because I hadn’t had a good breakfast.  This time I made sure I ate early and I sprayed the inside of the two tubes quite happily when she stuck the needle in.

Then I get to wait and see how my average blood sugar was over the last three months.  I’m not expecting a good result this time – I’ve had bouts of being ill on and off which messes with my control and emotionally I’ve not been strong enough to exert enough control either, so I suspect I’ll be having a talk with the doctor.  I’ll resist attempts to change my meds – I can control my sugar when I’m strong and I just need another kick up the arse.  I guess his concern will be that after too many kicks I’ll be blind and missing a foot.

On the virtual move

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I’m tired of Gradwell’s slow performance, sloppy change management, undelivered promises and apparent change of direction.  The final straw oddly though, was an unsolicited sales call, only days after total failures of their infrastructure.  I may have stuck around longer if not for that call.  In an attempt to not store my eggs in the same basket, I’m moving domain registrations to gandi.net and hosting to a virtual private server with 1and1.  I’m sure their support is no better than Gradwell, and the net result is that it actually costs me a little bit more per month, but I get full control over the server where my sites are hosted, can host as many sites as I like and don’t have to put up with being told ‘things are fixed’ when they’re clearly not.

So far, www.bookthing.co.uk, www.onelinemoviereviews.co.uk and www.gemmellmania.co.uk have moved across.  The .com’s are a little more annoying, for various reasons so they’ll be going more slowly.  I’ll be moving darkstorm last because there’s a lot of mail forwarding happening on that domain and I don’t want to mess it up.

I’m really happy generally with gandi.net and 1and1 are ‘ok’.

Criminal Minds – Finally!

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Criminal Minds is finally back on in the UK this week on Living!  Normally I don’t look forward to TV programs this much but CM is just excellent.  Really looking forward to the opening episode after the cliffhanger at the end of last series.

Rain

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Feels like it’s ages since it rained, where-as when we first moved to Nottingham it rained for almost the whole of February and most of March, non-stop.  Personally I don’t mind a bit of rain although the cats clearly disagree, but I think it’ll be good for the garden and the water table.

Rocknrolla

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Much like a surfer who spends a long time waiting for the right wave, only to have it vanish beneath them just as they’re about to rise and finally reach the sky, Rocknrolla never gets a stable footing despite several attempts and misses the crest too often.

The Sunday Tree Massacre

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I picked up a book earlier and nearly made it into the lounge to do some reading, when on a complete whim and mostly because the sun was out, I dragged my lumbering body outside and pruned our two biggest trees.  By pruned of course, I mean heavily chopped back.  And by heavily chopped back I mean massacred.  They do look a lot better though – hopefully I got them before they expended too much energy waiting for spring and they’ll survive.  I suspect they will since the huge tree at the bottom of the garden was ‘removed’ and it still manages to grow back each year.  Grabbed some photo’s of the trees, the pile of wood we now have to get rid of and our troll, who’s settled into the garden nicely.  Click for full size pictures.

Our little troll (by the shed) Tree at front (down to 1/3rd height) Apple tree at rear, seriously pruned Apple tree at rear, with house in background Pile-o-wood (with bright sunshine) Long shot of the wood (and sunshine!)

Kung Fu Panda

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A lowly noodle chef dreams of being a mighty Kung Fu champion, turns up during the selection of the Dragon Warrior and ends up joining the Five Kung Fu heroes he has idolised for his entire life.  It’s a common enough story (down and out turns good and saves the world) and it needs a strong cast and some solid writing to really give it any life these days.  Kung Fu Panda comes close to nailing it but falls short at the final bout.  Everything is flawless, the animation, the voice acting, the humour is excellent, the story is interesting enough.

But there’s something missing.  Some heart, some soul and a huge act from the second half.  Where is the scene with Panda and the Five taking on the enemy together?  Where is the scene of them training together and finally coming to accept each other?  Where is the team work?  Instead we are left with the Five setting out on their own to defeat the enemy and Panda training in their absence, becoming the Dragon Warrior while they are away.

It feels like something was left out.  Which is a true shame.  I really enjoyed watching it, I laughed, and it was suitably touching, but it was too short, and subsequently too hollow to be a classic.

The Mutant Chronicles

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Mutant Chronicles has Ron Perlman in it, so it has to be good right?  Actually it’s got Thomas Jane, Sean Pertwee, John Malkovich and Steve Toussaint, as well as Ron Perlman.  All I knew before renting this on DVD was that I’d seen one trailer which looked half decent, it has Ron Perlman in it and it’s called Mutant Chronicles, it was enough for me!  The film tells the story of a future earth, where four corporations who run the place war constantly for possession of the remaining resources.  It’s got a steampunk edge, and the start shows us the ongoing war, heavy on the World War I trench warfare imagery.  We get a brief introduction to a few characters and a voice over from Ron.  Eons ago a machine was sent to earth, with the sole purpose of subverting humans and turning them into killer mutants.  Inevitably, the war breaks the seal behind which the machine was locked by an order of priests (Ron being the head guy now), and all hell breaks loose in an already hell-ravaged world.  The corporations evacuate to Mars and Ron is left looking for a bunch of soldiers to help him shut down the machine and save those people left behind.  He finally puts his band of heroes together, from all corners of the world, and they head out to save what’s left of earth.

Visually the movie is great, it looks to me like it’s shot using the same technology as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but the shots are put together better and the technology isn’t so apparent.  The steampunk look and feel works really well and the opening moments in the trenches are suitably depressing and set the scene well.  The story arc is predictable, but the actors manage to keep us interested and there are a few interesting moments in the dialog.  The action scenes are ok, although some of the actors look a little uncomfortable it has to be said.  Anna Walton looked both great and terrible in equal measure which is a real shame, since her character had a chance at having the most depth.  Overall the writing doesn’t give any of the characters much depth, and it certainly betrays the roleplaying game background material.  Despite that, the movie was entertaining enough, and managed to avoid being entirely cheesy.

What I think really let it down overall was the pacing and editing.  The introduction was just too long and didn’t offer any character depth, the middle section in which the band of heroes is put together and descend into the catacombs is just too short, some of the heroes die within the first moments of setting out, with barely a line of dialog.  The end is ok, but feels bloated compared to the introduction.  There are odd threads which feel like they’re part of a greater movie but don’t really fit in.  Near the end we see Jane ‘saving’ Pertwee’s character, who is taken captive at the start of the film.  But where has he been?  The section where he saves him is either wasted space, or an excuse to keep Jane alive during an encounter which sees many of the heroes die.  Pertwee brings his character to life more than anyone else in the movie and it was a shame to see him used to little throughout.

Generally Mutant Chronicles is ok, but could have been much better.  I wonder if the best movie is on the cutting room floor or still on the storyboards, and maybe a more confident director would have delivered a more cohesive action adventure.