Personal – Page 65 – Fooyah

March 18 2014March 18 2014

Super Licence S-5

The last of the Super Licence tests and it’s to Ronda in Spain and the Ascari race circuit in a Bugatti Veyron. A big heavy car with loads of power.

Times required:

Gold 2:14
Silver 2:16
Bronze 2:20

Here’s the car at the start line [I’ve been playing with the photographic settings within GT6].

A map of the track:

The start line is inbetween KZ1 and Rafael.

Progress was as follows:

Lap 1 – 2:30:848
Lap 2 – off 1/4 of the way around (Copse).
Lap 3 – Off at Rafael.
Lap 4 – Off 2/3 way (Sebring).
Lap 5 – Off KZ1, too fast on exit.
Lap 6 – 2:18:833 Bronze.
Lap 7 – 2:16:873.

Corner 1 and 2, Veyron, Ascari — Rafael, Veyron, Ascari

Lap 8 – Off at Copse.
Lap 9 – Off at Senna S.
lap 10 – Off at Copse.
Lap 11 – Off at The Screw.
Lap 12 – Off at Oulton.
Lap 13 – Off at Sebring.
Lap 14 – Off at Brundle.
Lap 15 – Off at Senna S.
Lap 16 – Off at The Screw.

There now followed 6 laps where I didn’t record my progress. I was getting frustrated and just wanted to keep trying rather than write down everything.

Veyron, Ascari, a bit of drift, The Kink

Lap 23 – 2:14:526 Silver.

Again, there is a recording intermission of 6 laps of frustration.

Lap 30 – 2:13:583 GOLD.

I have all GOLD for all my Super Licence tests. Good job.

I did get some reward cars, but didn’t note them down. The next time I turn the PS3 on I’ll have a look and try to remember to write them down here, because you care about that sort of thing.

All the pictures on this page came from my fastest lap. I do like how I got airborne at Rafael (the first corner). After watching the replay I can see plenty of apexes I missed and areas to improve my time if I so wished, but I probably don’t.

March 15 2014

Super Licence S-4

Part of the continuing series in trying to develop a parameter as an example to use in teaching a topic I might not teach for a while. It’s an extremely feeble excuse, I know. This is a record of my attempts to pass the S-4 Super Licence in Gran Turismo 6.

This test is a timed lap of the Brands Hatch GP circuit in Kent, UK. The car to be used is the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4. The only car adjustments that can be made are to the TCS and ABS systems.

GT6 needed to perform an update before I could play. It was a “light” one coming in at 100MB. I had to wait a short while before I could start the game.

The required times were:

1:34:5 Gold
1:36 Silver
1:39 Bronze

Lap 1 – 1:43:258.
Car seems stable in the corners and not too much oversteer on exit when putting the power down. Now time to find where I can increase corner speed, especially exit speed on Surtees and Stirling’s.
Lap 2 – Hit cone on inside of Hawthorn’s trying to cut corner and get power on along the Derek Minter Straight.
Lap 3 – 1:38:825 Bronze.
Lap 4 – Off at Paddock Hill Corner.
Lap 5 – Off at the exit of Druids, too wide.
Lap 6 – 1:37:999
Lap 7 – Off at Hawthorn’s, lost rear of car on inside of corner.
Lap 8 – Off at the exit of Hawthorn’s, too wide, too fast.
Lap 9 – 1:36:428
Lap 10 – Off the exit of Sheene.
Lap 11 – Off at Paddock Hill exit.
Lap 12 – Off the exit of Hawthorn’s, oversteer on the entrance of the corner.
Lap 13 – Off at Hawthorn’s entrance.
Lap 14 – Off at Westfield.
Lap 15 – 1:35:599 Silver.
Lap 16 – Off at Hawthorn’s, oversteer.
Hawthorn’s appears to be my plague corner. It’s a high speed entrance, just after Pilgrim’s Drop and a good exit speed is needed to keep at low time along the Derek Minter Straight. It’s no coincidence that this is the corner I get wrong the most.
Lap 17 – Off at the exit of Graham Hill’s.
Lap 18 – Off on the entrance to Paddock Hill.
Lap 19 – Cut the corner and hit a cone at Hawthorn’s.
Lap 20 – 1:35:241 I was one second ahead until Sheene Curve where it went a little “scrappy”.
Lap 21 – Off along the Cooper Straight [can’t remember what happened there, but it would have been hilarious to watch!].
Lap 22 – Off at Graham Hill exit.
Lap 23 – Hawthorn’s again.
Lap 24 – Sheene Curve caused an exit from the tarmac.
Lap 25 – Hawthorn’s.
Lap 26 – Paddock Hill Corner.
Lap 27 – Sheene Curve exit.
Lap 28 – 1:35:006 a very scrappy lap.
Lap 29 – Druids, the *force* was used to push my car wide.
Lap 30 – 1:33:970 GOLD. Job done.

This was a very satisfying test to complete.

Here’s a shot of the car coming around Graham Hill Corner on my fastest lap.

A Lambo at Brands Hatch, Graham Hill Corner

March 14 2014March 14 2014

Super Licence S-3

I’ve a feeling these communications will not prove interesting to most of my readership, but then again, I’m not sure what would interest my readers and this website isn’t for them anyway.

This is my progress through the Gran Turismo Super Licence S-3. The test is a lap of the Silverstone Stowe circuit in KTM X-Bow R. This is a picture of the track with the double blue lines showing where the start and finish line is. The chicanes circled in blue aren’t part of the GT6 circuit.

The challenge times were:

1:04:00 Bronze
58:50 Silver
57:03 Gold

The car is interesting. Here’s a shot as I headed down the long straight.

As this is a licence test adjustments can only be made to the traction control and anti lock brakes settings. My session went as follows:

Lap 1 – Off, first corner, oversteer.
Lap 2 – Collision corner 2, hit cones placed on inside to stop cutting the corners.
Lap 3 – Off last corner. No time set so far.
Lap 4 – Cut corner 1. Restart.
Lap 5 – Cut corner 2.
Lap 6 – 58:913 Bronze.
Lap 7 – 58:072 Silver.
Lap 8 – Off, last but 1 corner.
Lap 9 – Off at the end of the straight, too fast into the corner.
Insert here about 5 offs which I neglected to record.
Lap 15 – 58:137 Silver.
Lap 16 – 57:370. Close to Gold, 0.07 off.
Lap 17 – Off corner 4.
Lap 18 – Off corner 1.
Lap 19 – Off about half way around.
Lap 20 – 57:437.
Lap 21 – 57:121 Gold.

Job done. Here’s an arty shot:

March 13 2014

Super Licence S-2

This is a communication about keeping track of my attempts at timed circuits in Gran Turismo 6. This particular test is part of the Super Licence. I had already completed the first part of this before I started this record keeping and so this is licence S-2. Generally the Super Licence requirements in all the GT games is to complete a single lap within a certain time limit and without leaving the track or bumping into a wall or Armco.

This licence test was at night time (hate it) at Willow Springs Race Circuit in California. I have done some other stuff at Willow Springs in the dark and so kinda knew what to look for in terms of braking points. The time requirements were:

Gold 1:27:8
Silver 1:29:5
Bronze 1:33

The car was an Alfa Romeo TZ3 Stradale. The only adjustments to the car that could be made were the traction control and ABS settings. As it was a licence test there were no options to adjust the suspension or gearing ratios.

Using the standard D-Pad controller for the PS3 I recorded a time of 1:33:857.

The next day I used the Logitech GT Driving Force Pro steering wheel system. Progress was as follows:

Lap 1 – 1:31:548 Bronze.
Lap 2 – Off at Castrol Corner. Adjust the TCS to 1.
Lap 3 – Off at Sweeper about 0.5 seconds ahead.
Lap 4 – 1:30:109 even with a near off where I had to slow to correct the car.
Lap 5 – Off Rabbit’s Ear (-0.2 s).
Lap 6 – Off Budweiser Balcony.
Lap 8 – Off turn 3 (-0.2 s)
Lap 9 – Off, cut the corner at Budweiser Balcony.
Lap 10 – 1:28:802 Silver
Lap 11 – 1:27:692 Gold

Now, you only need a bronze to pass the licence but there’s no fun in that. I feel as though I have to get Gold in everything.

Here’s the Willow Springs S-2 Licence Glory Shot (remember it was a night run):

March 13 2014March 25 2017

Need For Speed

I rated this film on IMDB as a 4/10 using my new guidelines to rating films, discussed here.

This was a bad film. Let me try and explain my choice of words there. The script was bad, the acting was bad, the racing was comical, the plot was appalling and the geography was bad. The scenery was gorgeous and Michael Keaton was brilliantly over the top. Otherwise, this was in general a bad film. I wanted it to end after about an hour and it didn’t, it kept piling up the turds for another 70 minutes! Yes, this is a long, tedious bad film.

I shall now go into some more detail. Like most things in life we like to focus on the bad things and rant and moan and yet don’t commit the same dedication to the good things. My good reviews on this site are probably pretty short, while the bad ones just let the venom flow.

I fully understand that this movie is based on a game franchise and I have played a version of the game [Carbon I think] which was quite good fun. I’m more of a circuit racer than street racer as I don’t like the unpredictable. It’s why I never really got on with Mario Karts as I hated being in the lead and then some crappy mushroom hitting me and making me last. If it’s a driving game then I like driving and not being t-boned from out of nowhere.

The characters were pretty one-dimensional. There was a successful racer, Dino Brewster, who had left town and raced at Indy but was a bit of a cock. Well, those people exist. The reason he left town was because he was better driver at the time than the main character, Tobey Marshall. There’s a race. There’s a failing company and a last chance at redemption and getting the company going again. It seems that Tobey isn’t very organised or clever. He wins a race. There’s a death. Tobey goes to jail. Tobey gets released and immediately jumps bail to enter a race on the other side of the country. Oh god, it’s bad writing this, making me relive the film. I’ll cut to the chase and keep it simple.

They don’t where seat belts while racing. Now, you can’t get decent feedback from the car unless you are tucked in nice and tight.

Every corner requires oversteer. This isn’t the fastest way to get around a corner. Yes it looks flash but to win you need to go fast and sliding isn’t fast.

Geography. One moment we are in Detroit and then we are in the Grand Canyon [looking remarkably like Pixar’s Cars scenery] and then they are flown by helicopter to the Bonneville Salt Flats a mere 500 miles away. Really? Maybe I’m being too much of a realist?

The cars were quite nice but let down by deliberately jogging the camera while racing to make you think they were going faster than they really were. You know the simple tricks to make you worry about the speed limit:

Camera down by the road
Shaking
Endless gear changes
Filming close to increase the pan speed
Smoke from spinning wheels
Noise

Curiously most of the cars in the final race were European. There was a Saleen and possibly another US car but it seems that we Europeans have the best aesthetic appeal when it comes to cars.

The Ford-Shelby Mustang was interesting but then if you are renovating a car you don’t fit it with a HUD or Recaro seats, you make it like as it was intended to be. Oh, and the JUMP!! The Mustang was clearly heading for a major front axle bend when it landed. It’s like the old Dukes of Hazard when their car would launch and then obviously land at such an angle as to break the car in half and then in the very next shot Luke and Bo (?) would be seen driving normally.

If you have a USA Police Car chasing a Koenigsegg then, let’s face it, the Koenigsegg is going to win and at the same time it will speed away from the police, especially around corners. The film had police cars easily keeping up with the Koenigsegg. That’s not really how it works.

I’ll explain the biggest problem. I didn’t LIKE any of the characters. They were pretty much all arseholes.

It’s interesting now that when I see a film I form sentences that will eventually appear on this website. I try to remember my thoughts as the film develops and then commit them to this website. How did this film go? I remembered a lot and I’ve had to try and stop myself from filling pages about how bad this film was. If you want a car chase watch The Blues Brothers.

March 9 2014March 9 2014

No Heart

I noticed this earlier in my cupboard while I was putting away some crockery. It remains from the days when I had an FM radio/cassette/CD player in the kitchen.

This tape is Mechanical Resonance by Tesla. It’s actually a pretty good album. I don’t have the heart to throw away any of my old cassettes, records or CDs. It’d be like throwing away books – wrong.

March 8 2014

NAS Drive Failure

On a list of things you don’t want to read [first world problems] is:

Drive 2 on this device is at risk of failing, please replace.

I guess there are worse things that this such as:

Drive 2 has failed.

Both drives have failed.

But still, it was enough to make me worry a little. My data on the NAS is organised in Raid 1 configuration so that both drives are exact copies, just in case one of them fails.

I spent some time investigating new NAS drives and making sure that I have space to expand but I think that will have to wait a few years. I would like a three or four bay device with two 2TB drives to start. I would only use Raid 1, but this configuration could potentially give me 8TB of data storage. I currently have used about 0.5 TB on the current NAS and that is after two years of ownership so I shouldn’t worry too much about needing the space until my sons get older.

I ordered a Western Digital 1TB Red drive as the WD website said that it was a suitable HDD for the ix2 series of NAS. I had planned for the whole operation to take an hour but in reality it took about 10 minutes and that was with me taking my time. Really impressed with how simple it was to replaced the drive.

Here’s the NAS.

Iomega IX2-200 CLoud Edition

After removing the two screws on the base of the device I removed the old disk 2.

Sliding out old drive

Unscrewed the old HDD from the plastic casing.

Old HDD in enclosure

Screwed the new HDD into the casing.

WD Red

Slid the new HDD and casing into the NAS enclosure and replaced the screws in the bottom of the device.

WD into NAS

Placed NAS back in its place in the “tech corner” of the house and turned it on.

After a lot of drive reading and writing it was ready for log in access and the control panel said it was rebuilding data protection [most instructions I read had said I would have to authorise this action]. I will amend this once the data rebuild is complete.

This whole process was pretty simple and I’m impressed with Iomega for the drive and am feeling quite smug at the moment.

March 7 2014March 11 2014

Willow Springs

This communication is about more research for my Poisson Distribution data, let’s see how long I can keep this going. For more information see this communication.

The next GT6 Seasonal Event to complete or participate in [there are some challenges where I have achieved a Silver Award but not quite the Gold, I might return to those] is to race the Plymouth XNR Ghia Roadster 1960 at the Willow Springs Race Circuit in California, USA. Willow Springs is a new track to Gran Turismo and I’m not that keen on it. There are a couple of off camber and over-the-crest corners that make it pretty tricky along with most of the races on the track being rear wheel drive because it’s in the USA.

Aerial Shot:

This is a diagram of the circuit with the corners named:

Here’s a picture of the car:

Right, here’s some information about the car and laps. It turns out that I already owned this car and didn’t need to buy it, I can’t remember when I won it but at least that’s some money saved. Once into the set up section I upgraded the following parts, which improve the car’s handling but don’t affect the power or performance points:

Uprated the suspension to “racing hard” and fitted racing brakes
Fitted a 5-speed close ratio transmission unit
Fitted limited slip differential and racing flywheel
Fitted triple plate clutch, carbon fibre driveshaft

I also increased the power by adding or improving the following engine settings:

Racing ECR
Isometric exhaust system
Intake tuning
Sports catalytic converter

These items took my Performance Points over the allowable limit and so I limited the engine output to 94.4%.

The lap times required were:

1:42:00 Bronze
1:36:00 Silver
1:33:00 Gold

My lap progress was as follows:

Lap 1 – off at turn 5.
Lap 2 – off at turn 3.
Lap 3 – 1:37:360 Bronze level achieved.
Lap 4 – off at Castrol Corner, outside of exit, too fast on entrance and understeer pushed car out.
Lap 5 – spun, lost control of rear at Budweiser Balcony.
Lap 6 – spun off at Castrol Corner, too much power on exit [restart entire lap rather than finish this one].
Lap 7 – off at turn 9 before I had even started the lap.
Lap 8 – 1:35:311 Silver Award.
Lap 9 – 1:33:889.
Lap 10 – off at Castrol Corner.

Bought the fully customisable transmission and changed the gear ratios to meet the top speed more efficiently.

Lap 11 – off at Castrol Corner.
Lap 12 – 1:43:338.
Lap 13 – 1:32:960 Gold Award Achieved.

Job Done.

Glory Shot:

March 6 2014March 11 2014

Keeping A Record

I made up an example for a lesson where we needed to approximate the Poisson distribution using the Gaussian distribution. I told the class that the average number of attempts I need to complete a Gran Turismo 6 Seasonal Event Time Trial was 20 [I needed a number greater than 10 because Poisson tables go up to a parameter of 10].

20 attempts seemed a reasonable value. I find the newer challenges on GT6 pretty hard and I’m not sure if they are meant to be or whether I am getting worse at the game. So, this is a record of my attempts to get a Gold Time on a seasonal event.

I chose to do the latest seasonal event using a Lotus Elise Race Car around the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit. The required times were:

Gold 1:30:00
Silver 1:33:00
Bronze 1:40:00

I bought the Lotus Elise Racing Version tuned by Gran Turismo.

I will state here that I don’t like racing the normal Elise. The car is light and mid-engined which means I have big problems with oversteer braking for corners and accelerating leaving corners. I find the standard Elise very “twitchy”, I can clear some of this behaviour by change the suspension settings but it is a challenging car to drive fast. I was quite careful on my first few laps as I learnt how stable this car is.

Here’s a map of the GP circuit at Brands Hatch so you can see where the corners are, note that Dingle Dell corner was straightened slightly in 1999 and so it’s not quite as severe as it looks here, more a sweeping right turn at the top of a hill.

Here’s my progress.

Lap 1 – off at Clark Curve coming to the finish line.
Lap 2 – 1:39:6 Bronze Time secured. Car doesn’t oversteer as much as the standard Elise. It’s slightly twitchy under braking but accelerates well. No changes to set up yet. Quite a lot of downforce and it squirms through the corners.
Lap 3 – 1:35:1
Lap 4 – 1:32:28 Silver Award secured. Good increase in speed, but now all the low hanging fruit has been taken. Need to find a 2.5 second decrease of time.
Lap 5 – Off at Dingle Dell Corner, outside on exit.
Lap 6 – Off at Hawthorn’s, cut too tight a lost rear on grass.
Lap 7 – 1:33:3 no increase in speed.
Lap 8 – Off at Druids, cut too tight and tyres on inside grass.

Perform some setting changes. Lower car by 50mm front and rear.

Lap 9 – Off at Hawthorn’s on exit, too wide.
Lap 10 – Off Paddock Hill Bend, outside exit, lost car and went across track to RHS.
Lap 11 – Off Paddock Hill Bend, cut corner too much, spun car.
Lap 12 – Off Druids, late braking, didn’t make corner.
Lap 13 – 1:32:199
Lap 14 – Off at Dingle Dell Corner, too wide on exit of corner and spun [lots].
Lap 15 – Off at Paddock Hill Bend, turning while braking, ended up cutting corner too much.
Lap 16 – Off at Surtees. this corner is key to a fast lap as there is a long straight after it. It is also off camber and nearly a blind entrance. I spun after the steering gripped while braking.
Lap 17 – Off at Stirling’s, too wide on exit and lost rear on grass.
Lap 18 – Off at Druids, on inside.

Perform some setting changes, stiffen the spring settings.

Lap 19 – Off at Hawthorn’s after being 0.5 seconds ahead of ghost lap. Too wide on exit, taking the corner at high revs in 4th.
Lap 20 – Off at Clark Curve, annoyed.
Lap 21 – 1:31:531
Lap 22 – Off at Stirling’s. This corner is key.
Lap 23 – Off at Paddock Hill, too wide on exit.
Lap 24 – 1:30:773
Lap 25 – 1:30:643
Lap 26 – Off at Dingle Dell Corner, lost rear on inside of corner, ended up in RHS barrier.
Lap 27 – Off at Druids.
Lap 28 – 1:30:563
Lap 29 – Off at Graham Hill corner, too wide on exit.

Looked to see if settings for power could be changed. Tuned engine to 200 b.h.p. with stage one tuning. Performance Points still below limit.

Lap 30 – Off at Hawthorn’s while ahead by 0.4 seconds.
Lap 31 – Off at Paddock Hill Bend. New power means faster and I haven’t adjusted braking point into Paddock, just going too fast.
Lap 32 – Off at Paddock (again, same problem).
Lap 33 – Off at Surtees, while ahead by 0.5 seconds.
Lap 34 – 1:29:939 GOLD time.

I have finally beaten the GOLD required time by 0.061 seconds. This is perfectly good. I’ve won.

If I left the track near the start of the lap I would restart the lap unless I had just changed some settings in which case I carried on with the lap to see how the car behaved in the corners, it would effectively be a free tuning lap. I think this challenge took around 80 minutes for me to complete, including time for writing down my progress.

Now, if I knew more about suspension and had the time to gradually play with the settings and see how to improve the handling of the car (power is limited) then I should be able to find another two seconds (I like to think). I just don’t have the time to do this.

The online time record is a good 6 seconds faster than me. I had a look at the replay video of the person in first place and they are using more of the track than me (I am too safe in corners) and they also slide the car a little more than me. I like to think that with more practice I could get there, but I have other things to do. As much as I love the game, I also enjoy spending some of my time doing other things.

Some Extra Thoughts – 6/3/2014

I described the Lotus Elise Race Car as “squirmy” in the corners. By this I mean that the tyres grip too much and I think I’m losing time in the corners through the tyres not wanting to turn the car. I *think* I could resolve this by adding some toe-in to the wheels and maybe a little extra camber. I am not going to test this remedy I am just mentioning it because that would be the next adjustment I would make to the suspension settings if I wanted to improve my time further.

This picture is me taking Paddock Hill Corner in the Lotus Elise Race Car tuned by Gran Turismo. This photo was taken using the photo feature in recorded replays. This was the start of Lap 14.

This photo is me a little later in Lap 14 where I didn’t get the exit of Dingle Dell Corner correct and lost the rear of the car on the grass. I spun wildly. I haven’t counted how many times I span but it’s around 10.

It looks as though I am still in control but I am not. There were still a few more complete turns to go after this photograph was taken.

March 5 2014March 5 2014

Trap Door

Amazon have upgraded their Prime membership [and charge more at the same time]. I think this has something to do with them buying LoveFilm and then rebranding the who shebang. Fair enough.

The streaming video service is now called Prime Instant Video. If you have a Prime subscription it now includes a number of free films and videos over the internet to a device with the right software. My television has the right software and so I can now watch this streaming service using the following devices in my house [if I wanted]:

Television
Tablet PC
PS3
PS4
iPhone
Tablet

It seems ridiculous that so many devices can be used to bring entertainment to me. What a wonderful world.

I’m not sure I’ll spend a lot of time watching streaming video, but if I do I will let you know. My boys, however, will watch this and we found ourselves browsing the free kids’ section over the weekend. The usual kids stuff was there:

Peppa Pig
SpongeBob Squarepants

We also found that the programme Trap Door was available. This was good news for me. I can remember watching it when it first came out. It was, for a while, my favourite programme and I really enjoyed it.

I have just checked and this show first came out in the mid-80s and so this fits in where I thought it did in my life [I was slightly worried that it might have been an early 90s thing, which would mean that I loved the show when I was at university, quite likely but worrying].

This show is worth watching. It’s short. Funny. Well scripted. Apart from the resolution I don’t think it has aged.

Give it a go.

March 5 2014March 24 2014

Water Ice

I find the water ice crystals on the roof of my car yesterday morning rather attractive.

This photograph isn’t a brilliant representation of what I saw, so, I shall try again to take a picture next time the car is covered in a beautiful blanket.

#nerd

February 28 2014April 11 2014

IMDB Ratings

I am considering re-adjusting my IMDB ratings. When I see a film I tend to give it a rating on IMDB [btw – I remember IMDB when it was a little web project at Cardiff University]. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I need to change my scoring system for these films and I am actually considering using even numbers only.

I have been worrying about what the difference between a 5 or a 6 might be. Also, Restricting the scoring to just the even numbers will mean that I have to consider the film and try to be more realistic. If I currently give something a 6 or 7 what does that difference show? What would be the difference between a 3 or a 4? I just don’t know. The scale of 0 to 10 seems too big for these things [especially as I’m not taking the mean of lots of scores].

I also think there is a human tendency to give middle of the road scores when we think something is average or even below par. If you have seen Come Dine With Me, you will be aware [or will be after this] that when the contestants don’t really know how to score a meal or want average then they tend to plump for a 6 or 7. Their words describe an evening that is probably below par but their score is one that is not meant to offend [6 or 7] but is really rather damning. I want to call this the “Come Dine With Me Fallacy”, which would mean that sub-optimal experiences receive scores that are perceived as “average”, rather than risk offend or come across as a nasty [but realistic] person.

So, at some point in the near future I am going to adjust my IMDB ratings. I will only use the even numbers [thoughts: I need to check if I can score a zero].

Have returned: I can’t score a zero on IMDB. That is not good. So, the default scoring system means that even the poorest film ever made will receive one star. This causes some problems. But I shall try to get around that. So, my new system goes:

10 Stars – I loved this film, I would pay to see it again in the cinema and maybe buy it to keep [Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, The Fifth Element].
8 Stars – A good film which I ~~certainly~~ probably will watch again [The Rock, Independence Day].
6 Stars – While it was enjoyable at the time it is not a film I will spend the time to watch again [The Railway Man, Hunger Games], this might include films I think were really good critically but not ones I’d see again.
4 Stars – I only got to the end of the film to see what happened but I’ll admit it was poorly made and rubbish, maybe this is a good “bad film” [Titanic II]
2 Stars – [lowest possible score] I gave up watching this film before it had finished. I hated it [Sharknado]. I left the cinema [I would have left the cinema had someone not been in my way – Van Helsing].

I shall update this or write a new communication once I have updated my scores using this crib sheet and let you know which films I struggled to pigeon-hole.

Addendum

I have just started looking at my IMDB ratings and have decided that I will use the above scoring system BUT please understand that I am now using the “Will I watch again?” criteria and this is a personal thing, very subjective. I am able to spot a “good critically acclaimed film” but think my ratings should reflect my intentions about the film and not what I think the wider world will think (1st March 2014).

Further Addenda

I have just realised that this means that any film I enjoyed but won’t intentionally watch again ends up being scored a “6”. Oh, the irony, given I complained about the “Come Dine With Me” fallacy earlier. But, in my favour, I have declared that my scoring system will be 2,4,6,8,10. This means that a score of 6 is the mean and median of the scoring values. When reading my film scores you need to understand my system which I have at least tried to communicate here.

Even More Addenda

These are my latest (updated) scores using the system explained above. I don’t care if you think otherwise about some of the ratings.

Human Target appears twice because I rated an individual episode as well as the whole series.

February 23 2014February 23 2014

Rock Identity

For practically all my life I have been a fan of heavy metal. See this communication about my descent into metal.

For me the 80s were filled with early flirtations with pop, from Madonna to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and then into Heavy Metal and Rock. I love Iron Maiden and AD/DC following on from Bon Jovi and Def Leppard in 1987. Come the very late 80s and early 90s I descend into thrash with Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. I see these bands regularly along with new British metal bands such as Wolfsbane and The Almighty.

During university I don’t really expand my musical tastes a great deal. My major discovery (via Smith) is Senser and their cross-over political rock and rap. This sustains me for a few more years along with Alice In Chains.

My music buying diminishes as I start my career and I don’t really get into new bands for a few years. I don’t have a network of friends who can inform me of new things and I don’t live in London. I spend a number of years sustaining myself on the stuff I already own. I still see bands like Iron Maiden and Slayer when they come along, but nothing small or new.

In the early 2000s someone gives me her Rammstein CDs (Sara T) and I find the sound fascinating and new. It’s exciting. Along with seeing Slipknot perform on the TFI Friday television programme I have found something new. Something a little scary and something that seems dangerous. All the music I have grown up with seems rather tame in comparison to these new sounds. I played them over and over. Until around 2009 not much happened until Smith returned from abroad and he and I started attending gigs and concerts together again.

In 2009 I saw two bands. AC/DC at Wembley Stadium and I loved it. They were brilliant and I their music has brought me so much pleasure over the years [so much so that I wore out my musical cassette version of “If You Want Blood, You’ve Got It”]. The other band I saw that year was Rammstein. Their stage show is just absolutely brilliant. If you don’t believe me then just search YouTube for “Buch Dich”, it is quite brilliant, a little bit dangerous and something to cause moral outrage amongst the leading classes. The support band for Rammstein was Combichrist and that is when the trouble started.

After hearing Combichrist and being impressed with their sound I ordered a CD.

Today We Are All Demons

This music was exciting, different, morally dubious, scary and just damn brilliant. It made me want to dance (something I just don’t do). The big problem was that there were NO GUITARS and it was all SAMPLES and DRUM MACHINES. For someone who likes his music live and reproducible without machines this caused major issues. Why did I like this? Was I going insane? How can I like music with a complete lack of heavy guitars and bursting riffs? I was at the tip of the mountain staring down a great big slippery slope to the valley of “not real” music [as far as my metal head would tell you].

I bought more Combichrist stuff and started to look at their influences and associated acts. I bought more. Bands like:

Aesthetic Perfection
Reaper
Suicide Commando
Funker Vogt
Hex-Rx
Panzer AG

Pretty much all of this is what I would now call EBM, Aggrotech or Hellektro. These names are good because it means I am back on the edge of society and seeking to be different with my music. When Metallica took the world by storm in 1992 or so I was done with them. Their sound had changed and I didn’t like it any more. The “edge” had gone. This new music I had found has an edge. It makes me feel uncomfortable [sometimes] and it is different.

I have tried to describe it to friends and I say:

It’s heavy metal without any guitars. The lyrics are nasty and the tunes are awesome.

It’s kinda dance music but without the nice lyrics and happy stuff.

I have leant this stuff to friends who like the same sort of metal as me and they don’t really get on with it. They apologised and handed back the USB stick. That’s fine by me because it means I can carry on feeling “on the edge” and liking the music. This stuff ain’t ever going to be mainstream. It sometimes sounds like it should be playing in a night club on a Saturday night but then I have no idea what sort of stuff these people would play. I’d love to be in a club and hear this stuff come on and the crowd just freak out because it hurts them.

I am struggling to come to terms with my new found musical taste. It irks me that I’ve gone for samples and drum machines. I’ve been to see these people play. I’ve liked their music. I’ve had a great time. Yet still the 18 year old me is somewhat miffed at this odd turn in my ear pleasures. As an extreme I have seen a “band” with three Apple Macs on stage and a few leads and then they danced around pressing the odd key here and there. I loved it. There’s a tiny part of me that isn’t sure it’s music but I like it anyway. Over time I’m sure I’ll heal this mental riff. Much like I’ve got used to being a university snob when at the age of 17 I hated that person!

If you want to try this stuff then have a look for the following tracks:

190 – Reaper
X-Junkie – Reaper
Hit The Streets – Aesthetic Perfection
In The Pit – Combichrist
God Bless – Combichrist
Tip The Dancer – Panzer AG

I am now listening to more industrial stuff. The following bands are on my current active list:

Faderhead
Eisbecher
Rotersand
Front 242
VNV Nation

My metal taste buds are still there. I watched Mentallica last night. I went to Download last year. I’m going to see Therapy? and FFDP soon. However, this Hellektro is here to stay and just wonderfully stunning: suck on that 18 year old me!

February 23 2014January 29 2022

Mentallica – The Intrepid Fox

Went with Smith to see Mentallica play last night at The Intrepid Fox [there used to be a link here, but the pub/venue is demolished for railway, it is no more] in London (St Giles High Street).

So, it was a tiny venue and packed with metal fans. Brilliant. The music was loud and heavy. All in all it was an enjoyable evening. I wanted more kick from the bass drum and “Hetfield”‘s guitar was rather quiet. The snare sounded quite “St Anger” and that can’t be good. So, apart from some minor points I rather enjoyed the whole thing.

The big problem is that Metallica or any other band of that type are rather safe nowadays. They used to be rebellious and dangerous but I don’t think they hit the mark any more. Slipknot and Rammstein filled that bill for a little while but now my allegiances have moved towards EBM and Industrial. See a future communication about what I feel about this.

It’s quite weird going from a small quiet leafy village in Kent to the bustling metropolis of London and seeing how busy everything is all around the clock! I used to live there and have forgotten what it’s like.

We had a Chipotle burrito for dinner and I really enjoyed mine. Seemed good value and vaguely healthy. Smith suffered with his! Oh dear.

February 17 2014February 17 2014

Chimney Balloon

I’ve lived in my house for nearly ten years. It’s an old house (built 1880) and a Victorian terrace. The back of the house overlooks fields and woods all the way to the paper mill at Aylesford. There’s always steam (or smoke – less pleasant but it’s probably steam because a lot of water is used in paper stuff) of some kind spewing from the mill.

Mostly the wind comes from the south to west in the South East of Great Britain. This means it travels freely over the open area at the back of my house and then strikes my house nearly front on.

In the map the long thin blue bit is a river (tidal section of the river) and the big blue bits are quarry lakes.

The wind hits the back of the house. This causes high local pressure while over the house the wind continues moving creating a low local pressure (Bernoulli Principle). Most of the gaps in my house are at the back of the building. This means that the wind flows through these gaps and exits through the largest hole in the house which is the chimney, which has a lower pressure at the top!

This situation caused draughts and noise even when there was a slight wind.

One day I got “Google happy” and just searched for a chimney balloon. I don’t know what prompted me to search for this, I may have searched for “chimney draughts” first and then found the chimney balloon. Who know? Google and Chrome but I’m not going to spend my time looking through my history.

I ordered a chimney balloon from Amazon. It’s a plastic bag that I inflated in the chimney pipe. It blocks the chimney. It stops the draughts. Simple. I’m impressed with what a simple solution it is.

The one draw back is that it has also made the dining room really quiet. I can no longer hear the outside world. This is very strange but something I’ll get used to. There were some serious winds recently and I only knew about them when I went into the bathroom (it is at the back of the house), the dining room was that quiet. Also, my feet no longer get really cold when I sit in the dining room as there is no draught (or rather minimal draught now).

February 16 2014February 16 2014

The Monuments Men

A Nice Little Film

These are the words I text Smith just after seeing this film. I really enjoyed it. If this film had a purpose then it showed man’s duty to protect culture and the importance that should be placed on it. It also showed camaraderie and dedication to a cause that is “just”.

You quickly forge the cast and the “big” scenes seem to just fit but I can see that they took a lot of work. The film had scenes from the Normandy Landings to Paris, the Battle Of The Bulge, St. Lo, etc. To get the “look” of the film right was a huge amount of work and probably un-noticed by most.

There were no overblown heroics and I had expected some time spent on “basic” training with the laughs thrown in but this was avoided too. As I said earlier:

A Nice Little Film

I now have some more places in Europe to visit. I have been to Bruges but I didn’t know that the statue of the Madonna and Child was there. Time to return I think. I will say one thing and I have to blame the culture of the 1980s: I was half expecting some of the cast to find or say they were searching for the “Fallen Madonna With The Big Boobies”. Such was the influence of ‘Allo ‘Allo on my childhood. Damn!

I did watch a trailer for this and I’m pretty sure that there were a few lines in the trailer that weren’t in the main film. That’s good. I hate seeing all the “big” bits of a film in a trailer and then the actual film fails to overcome my expectations. Comedies struggle with this, they put the funny lines in the trailer and then there’s nothing left for the main film. An exception to this was The Heat with Sandra Bullock. I didn’t see this at the cinema because it looked as though they had put all the funny bits in the trailer. I was wrong. This film had me laughing out loud ALL the way through. It was far better than the trailer.

Rant:

I really should try and avoid films the first few days that they are released. People in the cinema with loud sweet packets are REALLY ANNOYING. I nearly turned around and told these people to “fuck off”. Any food taken in to the cinema should be something that is quiet to eat or access. There is no need to take noisy packets of food into a cinema. It just shows what anti-social pricks you are. If you want to eat food while watching a film do it at home. You are probably too fat anyway and so shouldn’t be eating more food anyway.

End of rant.