In the most recent season of Lego we have the latest addition to the family:
It’s a thing from a movie.
Lego 63 – Model 76109
It Seems A Lot
A little while ago Sony Entertainment made a video giving a run down of my time on the PS4 and you can see that in this communication. I guess these types of videos don’t take a huge amount of effort to produce and they might even have started on Faceshit, I don’t know. However, the other day Strava came up with one for me. I use Strava to track my running and other exercise. This year I’ve also done some rowing on the erg and a little swimming.
Here’s my Strava video:
Bumblebee
The other day I went to see the Michael Bay film Bumblebee at Rochester Cinema. On the way to the cinema the tide was low, but was lower on the way out, possibly at a minimum, all the mud banks were showing. Out in the river there’s a crane on a barge! A proper crane with wheels and stuff, just sitting on a large barge. I do love the big stuff we make. So, I started looking for a satellite picture of the mud flats at the edge of the river and ended up getting excited about the historical photographs available in Google Earth. I probably owe them something for using these clips.
If you move slightly further east from this picture you can see the Shorts Brothers Flying Boats resting on the river Medway, that must’ve been such an amazing sight. Sunderlands taking off from the Medway before Shorts was relocated to Northern Ireland.
Next up are the 60s decade of sex and drugs and rock and roll. No motorway though.
The original Medway motorway bridge opened in 1963 and on closer inspection I think the construction work in the photograph is the building of the supports.
By 1990 you can see the bridge and then the area that will be reclaimed for the entertainment complex.
In this photograph the cinema and nightclub are there, along with the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link bridge for the high speed train network and another road bridge. I think the original is also being “beefed up”.
The bridges are complete and it looks like there is a trail bike track the other side of the railway.
This last picture has the new housing estate in the Medway Gate. I’m not sure what their sunlight is like as they live in the bottom of a pit.
Back to the process of writing this film review. I rated the film on IMDB, as usual, and there’s a communication buried in this site to explain the rating process. I tweeted this result, because it makes this site look prettier than me just writing the result.
I rated Bumblebee (2018) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/7HMrwujRr6
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 28, 2018
Well, this film was the usual mess of a Michael Bay film. It starts somewhere and leads us in the knowledge of how Bumblebee and the others got to Earth along with some stuff about saving the world. It really wasn’t an interesting film and I got bored with the middle hour. Worth a watch if you want to complete your set of Transformers movies. But much like the very first movie the transformers were too “busy and quick”.
Would robots fight each other the same way that humans do? Would they try to hit each other about the head until they pass out? Would they have a voice module in the same place as a human? Would they have independently developed bullets and missiles that look like our Earth weapons?
I think not.
Fleisch – Fire
Fleisch were the main band in the venue Fire last night. They are an industrial metal band from somewhere up north. The first band though were called AlterRed.
I honestly can’t remember a huge deal about AlterRed! I don’t remember hating it but I don’t remember being incredibly impressed. It was watchable. I think Smith and I gave it about a 3/10 score, although the grading system for watching bands isn’t as rigorous as the cinema review section of this site.
I didn’t take any photos during the gig, it wasn’t that sort of place so I have found a music video and you can judge for yourself:
The only other band playing that night were Fleisch. There were better and rated at about a 5/10 by Smith and me. I’m not sure the sound was super brilliant and I certainly didn’t get a Rammstein feel, which they claim but it was a good performance. What I don’t understand is the need for separate bass tracks in the backing track and also a bass player, one or the other folks. Your sound doesn’t need two lots of deep sounds, one will do.
Here they are, again, no photos from me:
Christmas Views
Although these weren’t taken on Newtonmass Day they were taken in the 2018 season and in the area of the Medway Valley. Not sure what they say about this area though.
Actually, two of them do point to the idea that the Medway valley area is rough as fuck.
Aquaman
I’ve got to stop doing this. I think to myself that I’ll go to the cinema and there’s not a lot on that I want to see so I go see the superhero film. Even though I know superhero films annoy me. Even though I know I don’t like them. Even though while I can appreciate the canon, I don’t care. Film versions annoy me. There was even a guy in the cinema wearing a jacket with patches all over it, each one was a superhero patch. Gosh I hate these films.
I rated Aquaman (2018) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/PiPc3tyOpb
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 24, 2018
That score isn’t really a surprise is it? This film is about privilege, it’s about the firstborn child born to a queen out of wedlock who then claims the throne to be his own. If this was a true patriarchal society then the half-breed usurper wouldn’t have any grounds for complaint. This, once again, is a film to reinforce the idea of our position in society is one we are born to. I don’t want to rant again like one of my recent movies and so I shall pour a glass of red wine instead. Read my rantings here.
There were two female characters? Out of thousands.
One of the women imprisoned the father into a daily ritual of being at the dock at sunrise just in case she came back. What utter psychological abuse.
This is another film about how beating up people and asserting your physical strength over every other aspect of your personality will win. What a load of bullshit. It was annoying and stupid.
Die Hard 30th Anniversary
Last night I went to the cinema in Rochester [not in Rochester] to see the latest action film release – Die Hard 30th Anniversary edition. This was an utter delight but there are conventions I need to follow here and although I broke them for the review of Skyscraper I shall not be doing that now.
It was dark driving along the promenade road but I could see the state of the tide reflecting lights from the houses and boats on the other side of the valley. The water was not covering the mud flats at the edges of the river and so that tide was definitely not in.
I also rated this film on IMDB and there’s a communication that deals with the rating system, you should probably read it and the follow up.
I rated Die Hard (1988) 8/10 #IMDb https://t.co/RhFmtENJpF
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 22, 2018
What is there to say about this film? It’s iconic and brilliant. It has so many moments that are captured in the collective psyche that there were many times the entire audience [the cinema was full] giggled or laughed or just huffed a sound of appreciation at the film. It’s worth watching and seeing over and over.
Yippee ki-yay
Paying For It
I often think that musical artists get the raw deal with regards to money and effort. So, a while a go I decided I would PAY for individual albums rather than just stream stuff. I do understand that actually owning music is a decreasing trend, even when it’s electronic files but I am sure that the artists will get more money from me paying for an album rather than the streaming rates they get from Spotify or whatever your chosen music service is.
This month I paid for the album Black Piranha by Klutæ. It’s a project of Claus Larsen who is also Læther Strip.
You can listen to other songs from this artist here, Black Piranha isn’t on Spotify:
You might even want to pay for it properly.
Merlin
A couple of nights ago I was watching television in the evening when I could hear the sound of a large or low helicopter. I didn’t move but consulted 360 Radar and observed that it was a Royal Navy Merlin helicopter flying over. It struck me as a little odd but not enough to make me move. I see Apaches and Chinooks a couple of times a year and given there are DIO training areas in east Kent there’s reason for the activity.
Turns out I was rather wrong.
The next day there was quite a bit of news about the Special Boat Service or maybe the Royal Marines on social media although most of the mainstream press kept away from it. I probably should have followed the Merlin on 360 Radar a little longer, but my television show was deemed more worthy.
Killing Joke – Killing Joke
This is the last of the “k” albums. I got this album after getting Pandemonium by Killing Joke which is an awesome amazing album. This one though excites me less so. I don’t often listen to it but there are some highlights.
Requiem, Wardance and The Wait are all excellent songs and The Wait has been covered by Metallica so that gives you an idea of the influence of this band and their music.