Tag: penguin

Posted on

Pain and Gain

About halfway through this film you start thinking that these people can’t be this stupid, then the film freezes and it says:

Remember, this is still a true story.

Well, in reality, in reality it’s a film based on a true story with a number of things changed just to make it more of a film. See the Wikipedia page.

Also, you get to the end of the film and it comes up with Michael Bay and you realise what you’ve just seen.

I felt sad that society has bred thick people who believe it is their RIGHT to have money and be famous. This film is a commentary on the state of society given the modern age of the X-Factor and get-rich-quick. People, you need to understand you have rights to nothing. You have to earn everything you want. You don’t deserve anything until you have put the effort in. Hmmm, think my morality drifted a bit there, whoops!

Posted on

Headlights

I first drafted this communication after a couple of long drives around the country. I travelled to the Lake District for a fleeting visit and then to Cornwall for dinner! Give I live in Kent this was quite a way to go for food but the company made it worth it.

One day, whilst driving, the weather had turned from particularly sunny to showers and full on rain. I was curious to see the number of drivers who didn’t think it necessary to turn on headlights while driving in reduced light conditions. “Are they really all that stupid?” I asked myself. Then, of course, you remember that half the population is below average intelligence.

There were grey cars I could barely see without lights on. It wasn’t that dark but the fine rain and spray severely restricted visibility. I thought many people were being irresponsible on the roads with their inability to turn the lights on.

One excuse might be that some of the cars had automatic headlights. It possibly wasn’t dark enough for the computer to turn the lights on but the spray and rain made it a necessity. This could explain why so many people didn’t turn on theirs. I have had cars that have automatic lights but I turn that function off. I am perfectly capable of deciding when to turn my lights on. It seems that these additions to cars are meant to make our lives easier but they just make us more stupid. Automatic choke, synchromesh gears, power steering, ABS all make driving easier. I won’t deny the safety benefits of some of them, but it wouldn’t hurt the general population to make them

THINK

once in a while. Stop living in your cocoon for now and think about your actions and how to make your life (and others) as safe as possible.

Another reason for disliking automatic headlights is that they come on when driving under a bridge. If you are behind someone it looks as though they are braking and it makes you more hesitant as a driver for a short while.

It seems that most modern uses for technology are great at making our lives simpler but they also stop us having to think and understand what is going on. This is a dangerous trend for a stupid world. As Carl Sagan said (the gist not a perfect quote):

We live in a world more and more reliant on technology but where the technology is understood by fewer and fewer.

Posted on

Head

HEAD is the title of my current favourite playlist on my iPhone and Sonos system. I use the iPhone in the car and the Sonos system at home. If I ever get the chance to listen to music at work then I use the iPhone there also, I have some Bose headphones I plug into.

Anyway the HEAD playlist consists of the following songs (an eclectic mix!):

  • “Das Grauen” from “Hell Starts With An H” by Reaper
  • “TIP the DANCER” from “YOUR WORLD IS BURNING” by Panzer AG
  • “Get Out of my Head” from “Today We Are All Demons” by Combichrist
  • “Inhuman” from “All Beauty Destroyed” by Aesthetic Perfection
  • “Duality” from “Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses” by Slipknot
  • “Motherfucker” from “All Beauty Destroyed” by Aesthetic Perfection
  • “Surfacing” from “Slipknot” by Slipknot

I once owned “If You Want Blood . . . . You Got It” by AC/DC on music cassette and I think that whole album pretty much played the same role in my life as this current playlist. I played the cassette so much that the tape eventually stretched in various places and I had to upgrade to a CD as it sounded awful.

I’m grateful to Andy for helping chose the songs for this playlist.

Posted on

2 Guns

So, this is what I like about films, or rather, what a film needs for me to like it. Sympathetic Characters. It’s not that hard is it? To hook me in to a story I need a person I can relate to and feel for. The main reason I have walked out of one film and one film only was that I hated the characters and I didn’t care whether they lived or died (that film was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe). I would have walked out of Van Helsing but someone else was sitting in the row and I didn’t want to disturb his film.

2 Guns HAD sympathetic characters and a good script that covered the buddy-buddy aspect of working in a team (something Hawaii 5O does really well). It was funny and had some, reasonably plausible, action scenes. All-in-all it was a very enjoyable film. The baddies end up dead and the good guys win. Well done.

Posted on

Front Line Assembly – The Garage

I went to watch Front Line Assembly at the Garage in Highbury. It was a venue I’d not been to before and a band I hadn’t seen before either. The company I was keeping was delightful, although I did accidentally miss a tube stop. Started with drinks at the Porterhouse and then went on to Highbury and Islington.

The venue was nice and small-medium sized. Bigger than the Underworld but smaller than Brixton Academy. The sound was good and the drinks prices seemed reasonable to me. There was only one main area and it was pretty hot in the room (it was a hot day outside too). There didn’t seem to be any form of air-conditioning which was a bit of a shame (the Underworld beats you there!).

First band on were (as far as I can tell) iVardensphere. I really liked them, probably not enough to buy any of their stuff but enough to watch and enjoy. Heavy electronic music. Pretty good, nice and upbeat too.

Second band were Haujobb. Their songs were probably better crafted than the first band but their pace was a bit slower and I didn’t like it as much. They were still pretty good at the music they make though.

Headline act were Front Line Assembly. The latest album is more electronic than some I have heard and a bit slower. They were very good and had a live drummer, which is becoming more important to me as I watch more of these EBM bands. Quite clearly they were the best band last night and it was good to tick them off my list. I probably wouldn’t see them again, I think I’d rather take a punt on an unknown band and see what happens (much like my restaurant-food-choice policy).

Overall, a very enjoyable evening.

Haujobb
Haujobb
Front Line Assembly
Front Line Assembly
Posted on

Now You See Me

I went to see this film to kill a few hours one evening. I’ve just signed up for unlimited films with Cineworld and so I aim to go at least once a week from now on.

This film was a slight disappointment. The premise was really good but the tricks were just too fanciful. I’ve seen some big stage magic before but linking that in with real criminal activity just pushes it beyond the acceptable. This was one of those films where everything seems to have been planned including how everyone will react. I don’t think this is possible and I don’t like it in films. The super-criminal is able to predict exactly how everyone will make their next move and so can perform wondrous tricks and activities. BS. Life just doesn’t work like that. Ultimately people are a little unpredictable and so I don’t like these sorts of films.

Look, it killed a couple of hours and I spent most of the time trying to recognise the Hulk in the film. I’m rubbish at recognising films and so have to rely on IMDB (or the Cardiff Movie Database as I first new it!).

Posted on

World’s End

Went to see this “British” film in Croydon with A Smith. Sometimes I go to the cinema with A Gunn, so you make your choice about names.

Had a nice curry before the film and some good Indian lager. I don’t think this affected my judgement as Smith thought the same as me.

The film had some nice touches and its funny parts were quite funny but it wasn’t great. “Alright” was just about as far as I could stretch. The lead character was annoying and I just didn’t care much about him. He could have been much more interesting and sympathetic and the film would have been better.

I think they tried to do too much with the film. They’ve done cop films and zombie films and this attempt at sci-fi/horror didn’t really work. The “aliens” could have been much creepier and the gang should have discovered these things a little slower in the film.

It was alright.

The town where it was filmed looked very pretty. Damn, that’s quite a middle-aged thing to say!

Posted on

Red2

Saw Red2 this morning at Cineworld in Rochester. It killed a few hours after my run. It also was very nearly not Red2 that I watched. I sat through adverts and trailers only for the wrong film to start. We all left the screen and the management said they’d put on the correct film.

Did have to sit through more adverts and trailers though which was a bit shit.

The film itself is funny in a few places and full of crazy action, but overall enjoyable. It’s nice to see old stars doing the action thing. I particularly loved Helen Mirren shooting cops and general up-to-no-goods from a Lotus while it was spinning along the road. Also, the pick-up of Bruce Willis into an Aston (?) driven by Zeta-Jones was excellent and laughable. Great fun. The plot was pretty poor and very “early Bond” but then they made loads of money.

Overall, worth a watch. Not as good as the first.

Posted on

Pacific Rim

The trailer for this made me worried. It looked pretty poor but it was a hot day and a few hours in an air-conditioned cinema seemed to make sense.
Overall I really enjoyed this film. Yes, it was full of cliché and at times a poor script but overall it’s an excellent example of a crappy kinda action film. It’s a bit like the Iron Man movies but just with larger robots (or whatever you want to call them). It’s also amusing to think that atomic bombs are, once again, the saviour of man-kind. Don’t we have any other ideas for stopping portals from other worlds? We should have some seriously nerdy ideas and make it a “clever” solution to the portal rather than one of brute force, but I guess the general population couldn’t cope with that.
This was a good film in its genre. Worth watching. And, remember to stay through the credits as there’s a lovely little coda that made me laugh out loud in an empty cinema.

Posted on

Antithesis – The Ivy

Went to see a few bands at The Ivy in Sheerness last night. I was most interested in the band called:

The Antithesis

I’ve seen this band a number of times and really enjoy their music. I thought they were good. Also saw Where’s Billy? who were ok. It was an enjoyable evening. Thanks Dave.

20130803-182110.jpg

Posted on

Bridge

Took this picture while waiting to go into the cinema. I like bridges. When you think about the things we can do as the human race when we put our minds to it, it’s remarkable. We can travel with ease and talk to practically anyone in the world via a small device we can carry. On the negative side we don’t yet have the political ambition to stave off anthropogenic climate change, or even to make sure the end result is the least worst possible outcome because we really are changing our planet and beyond recognition.

20130801-204623.jpg

Posted on

Butt It’s Hot

It was a hot day today. The car said 32C at one point! I decided to spend some time in the direct sunlight in the garden fitting a water butt. That was a bit stupid. Had to spend the next hour drying out the sweat from all my clothes. Mind you, the water butt looks good and we should have its first rain tomorrow.

20130801-204247.jpg

Posted on

Not Quite True

This shop makes a false assumption. I can confirm to you that I’m not that fussed about cake and neither are my kids! Not everyone loves cake!

20130731-205547.jpg

I’m probably being a bit picky here!

Posted on

Lovely View

Such a wonderfully classic view that makes me feel proud to be British! [that takes quite a bit]

20130731-172351.jpg

Brilliant Victorians and their wonder at everything new!

Posted on

Sonos

I have installed some Sonos components in my house. I have been really impressed with the simplicity of them. They work really well. My only complaint would be that I have to physically turn the speakers on and off as I walk around the house. I don’t want them screaming out all the time to no-one.

I want an RFID chip installed in my arm and detectors placed in my house and then that connected to my Sonos system controller so it knows which speakers to turn on and off. THAT would make me extremely happy and also BIONIC. Yippee.

I lied, I have another complaint. As the Sonos controller unit reads my iTunes library I think it should be able to write to it so I get a “played” count whenever I play tunes. There are some tunes on my NAS drive that aren’t in my iTunes library but then I couldn’t care about those. It is highly unlikely I will ever play those through the Sonos system.

Posted on

Fire Running

About 30 years ago I can remember playing a game of “fire running”. Every now and then in the good old days parents would burn the garden waste on a big bonfire. These were wonderful times of cooking apples and potatoes (not together) in foil in the embers and generally doing boy stuff with flames.

The best thing we ever did was place a plank of wood on a big fire. The wood was probably 1″ by 4″ by 10′. I am aware that wood burns but that just adds to the fun.

Start about 4 metres away from the fire making sure that the flames are high and it is burning properly. Then RUN. Don’t lose your footing as you run up the plank and over the fire. Jump from the top of the fire and then land with style.

This is what being boys and summer is all about.

 

Fire Running
Fire Running
Posted on

Download 2013 – My Saturday

Saturday started with a slight disaster. Andy had forgotten to inform our landlady that we wanted breakfast so she wasn’t prepared for us in the breakfast room. She did manage to cobble together some food and so things weren’t so bad after all.
We waited outside our guest house for our lift to the festival. Stella and Graham eventually turned up and I started an epic day of rum and Jager. We knew we were planning to meet up with some friends inside the festival so today was going to be a bit strange with 4 of us having to decide what to do together rather than just Andy and me.

As we were walking in from the close car park (about a mile away) I could hear UFO on stage and I’m gutted I didn’t see them, I really love the tacky 70s rock sound! Once inside the festival we browsed the shops. There wasn’t anything that really stood out at me although I did buy a “Power Up” t-shirt. Eventually we met up with Dave, Jon and AN Other.

Black Stone Riders are just Thin Lizzy without the singer and Gary Moore (RIP). I just wasn’t that interested. There was no progression to the sound of the new stuff. It was just extra Thin Lizzy, add 20 years to the music and make it sound the same.

I tried with Mastodon, I really did. I just didn’t get on with it and thought they were a bit rubbish. Since Download I have been trying to listen to The Hunter in the house and it still doesn’t really do anything for me. This is a shame as I’ve been looking for some new sounds to get into.

Sky Valley Mistress. Hmmmmm. Well I wrote this down in the list of bands I watched on the Saturday but I can’t remember. There, said it.

Alice In Chains came on next and I really like their music. It’s moody, depressing and haunting. They sounded really good and it was nice to see them for the first time since 1991 but I was hungry. I am ashamed to say that Andy and I went to get some food.

Motorhead were OK but really just what you’d expect from Motorhead. I would have liked to hear the song “Motorhead” because it’s among my favourites, but then it’d be hard to beat the classic “No Sleep ‘Till Hammersmith”.

We headed back into the crowd for Queens of the Stone Age and . . . . . we just chatted all the way through their set. They were really uninspiring and boring. It’s a shame because I actually like two of their songs but they just didn’t really do it for me. I even turned away from the stage to chat to my friends!

We were in place for Iron Maiden. No moving now except inwards. Really looking forward to it. The lights dimmed and there seemed to be some activity on the stage when a Supermarine Spitfire (possibly VC version – it had straight tipped wings) flew over the crowd from behind the stage, circled a few times and did some more fly overs. Absolutely brilliant. Best bit of the day so far.

Maiden came on and were typically Maiden. It was a very good show with lots of fire, Eddie and singing along. There were a few songs I would have liked to hear and a couple I would have preferred they hadn’t played. I think they played two from the Fear of the Dark album which I don’t care for. I’m waiting patiently to hear Revelations live. Maiden were good, but I found that Slipknot blew them away. Maybe because I’ve seen Maiden about 6 times since 1988?

Maiden 1 Maiden 2 Maiden 3 Motorhead 1 QOTSA 1

Posted on

Aesthetic Perfection

Saw Aesthetic Perfection at the Camden Underworld last night. There were four bands on the bill. Apart from the headliners the only one I liked was Kommand and Kontrol. They had a good mix of electronica and guitars, they considered themselves The Gentlemen of Electronica, worth a watch.
Aesthetic Perfection were good but let down, as other bands were, with some technical issues. During the evening speakers stop working, microphones died and guitars died. The sound was poor as the PA speakers were aimed too directly towards back, the closer to the stage you got, the worse the sound (more than at other venues).
Aesthetic Perfection essentially showed the other bands how to do it. Odd make up, hard sound and disturbing lyrics. Everything that makes a good evening!

20130712-072935.jpg

20130712-073013.jpg

20130712-073427.jpg

Posted on

Confirmation

I don’t think it’s right that I went to a college that has so many odd things about it. I love the fact it was odd but there are problems with that.
If I meet someone new I have to try and explain some of the things about IC because it was part of my life. I can mention any of the following:

  • Mascotry
  • Constituent College rivalry
  • Imperial Rag Mag
  • Kamikaze Parachute Run
  • Field Cup
  • Tie Clubs
  • Traditional Bar
  • Pots
  • not NUS
  • Bo
  • CGCU Bar Nights

And these would probably be met with a bit of a “really?” nod. “Yes” would be the reply.
These things can only be confirmed by someone who’s been there and been in the same social group. Obviously those are the people I am still in contact with and so confirmation is required.
I have had the job of confirmer a number of times.

Ian, could you just explain Spanner and Bolt to X who doesn’t believe me.

I explain about my past love Spanner and its companion Bolt and although X now believes the stories they still have that look of “your place was odd”.
It sure was!

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress