Author: Ian

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Sonic The Hedgehog

Yesterday I took a half term trip out to see Sonic The Hedgehog. I know Sony spent a ton of money [or someone did] to change the look of the creature and I was curious to see what the film ended up like. Sonic The Hedgehog forms a massive part of my history, I played it a lot in 1991/2. I was in my first year at university and Big Jim had just moved into halls. He owned a Megadrive AND a television which seemed impressive, none of the rest of us had such stuff. Jase had a TV and I remember watching Rumpole with him on a tiny screen but everyone else relied on the communal television.

Big Jim never locked his door and he was happy enough for us to play his Megadrive when he wasn’t around. There were quite a few nights when I would get a bottle of wine, a few CDs, and head down across to Jim’s room to finish Sonic The Hedgehog. This was in the days before save-games on consoles and so every game was a fresh start. I can’t remember which level of Sonic it was now, but there was one where you would gain four or five lives every time you did it [100 rings]. This meant that the aim was to die before the end of the level and go back and get more lives. It was the only way to ensure you had enough lives to finish the whole game.

It would normally take about three hours, a few CDs and a bottle of wine to get the game done. It was good fun. It was also the start of my downfall I guess? I bought a Megadrive in my second year of university and that probably had the effect of ruining at least two of the educations being paid for by the state. It’s OK though. I realised my mistakes and have been paying it back to society for the last thirty twenty five years or so. It was worth it and without the Megadrive this site wouldn’t exist in this state.

The weather wasn’t great on the drive to the cinema but I did remember to look at the river to gauge the state of the tide. It was pretty low as all the mud bank was visible. Upon leaving the cinema the tide was lower as a boat that was floating earlier was then resting on the bottom of the river. So I left the cinema pretty much at lowest tide [not checked online].

After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB using a system I developed many years ago. This rating will probably cause some consternation amongst readers of this site, but I don’t care. I then tweet the result and here is that tweet:

You know what? I quite enjoyed this film. Yes, it was a kids’ movie, no, there wasn’t really enough adult humour, but overall it was quite good fun. You could watch any kind of kids/alien/monster film and it would be the same as this. Pretty sure I saw Monster Trucks a while back and it’s exactly the same. Alien thing befriends humans and then solves some puzzle or problem while being chased by the evil government. I think there was the possibility of more “Sonic” specific ideas that could have been placed within the film but I still enjoyed it.

I need to talk for a short while about Dr Robotnik. I wasn’t really aware of who was in the film before I went to see it and after a short while I recognised the facial contractions of Jim Carey being Jim Carey and I thought it was him but at the same time I didn’t recognise him. While watching the credits I had to wait quite some time before Jim Carey’s name came up and I was starting to worry that maybe it wasn’t him. It was. This film has Jim Carey being Jim Carey and it was glorious.

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Rammstein – Rammstein

I do love Rammstein. I know I didn’t really rave about Mutter but this particular album is great. They really are master craftsmen of new German metal. I have no idea what they are singing and to me that doesn’t really matter. The music does enough for me.

  • DEUTSCHLAND – great opener. Lovely song. [probably about killing or something – I don’t do lyrics at the best of times].
  • Radio – these chaps are the best at writing brilliant melodies along with a special beat that makes you move.
  • ZEIG DICH – I’m not sure how this band do it. They make an up-tempo song that you think is going to roll along and then the bridge hits you in the face.
  • Auslander – This is one of those songs where I start thinking it should be a club track. I can imagine dirty nightclubs with all their dance beats playing and then someone puts this shit on and all of a sudden the whole club becomes metal fans. I think it’s also about immigration – but in a good way.
  • SEX – not sure if this is about the joys or the horrors of sex but it’s a bouncy song with superb riffs. Plus, everyone gets to shout out SEX which is fun.
  • PUPPE – Gosh this song starts out all lovely and gentle and you believe it’s going to be sweet and then BOSH it hits you straight in the face. Brilliant.
  • WAS ICH LIEBE – it’s perfectly good.
  • DIAMANT – Lovely and smooth. Could be about death and murder, I wouldn’t know.
  • WEIT WEG – It’s that little melody at the beginning isn’t it? I know a band are good song writers when they do something I wasn’t expecting but it fits the song and makes you think – wow, I’d never have thought to do that. Maybe my imagination is rubbish but there are only a few bands that surprise me.
  • TATTOO – The melody in the chorus is lovely.
  • HALLOMANN – This song rounds off a lovely album. I don’t think that any Rammstein album has disappointed me.

To tell you how good this album is can be summed up with the fact that their key changes don’t annoy me. I thoroughly enjoy this band. Their music is delightful. The live shows are stunning, full of theatre and sound perfect. I probably couldn’t rave enough about them.

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Back To The Money

The BBC is still the best news site this country has and unfortunately it’s going to be destroyed by the current government because they report on news and are independent. Oh it’s not a glorious future for our country. Mind you, there are still times when the BBC News section falls into the populist click-bait type of “news” which isn’t news but more magazine. Perhaps I should expect it and be forgiving but I can’t. Some of us have to talk about what we see.

Not a “news” story

Money.

There, that’s a simple, easy, quick, and honest answer.

There are all these people out there around my age with money to burn and they will go and see this because they remember Back To The Future being a good film and they will want wholesome entertainment for the rest of their family. Just to be clear BTTF is a good film.

These juke-box musicals or film translations are easy money and rely on the original ideas being burned into the brains of the middle-aged. Have a look around and see all the shows and shit with their origins in the 80s.

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Time Lapse Plans

I’ve been thinking recently about creating a time lapse film of the view outside the back of my house. I think it would be nice. It’s a big open space and the weather and seasons changing would make it interesting. I quite like the challenge of figuring out the tech to do it. I’m going to investigate a small 1080p camera and then see if I can write some script [or steal it] to capture a still from it every hour or so. That would make a six minute video for a year’s worth of photos. Once it’s created I’ll write a communication on here and let you know.

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Quadrophenia – The Who

This is one of those albums that everyone goes on about. They also go on about the film. The problem is that I never really got the mods and rockers thing. It was slightly before my time and it all seemed rather silly to me. I can take or leave The Who. I’m just not fussed by them.

There are a couple of good songs on here. But other than that most concept albums always leave me a little cold.

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A Migration

A couple of years ago I transferred this website to run from my own NAS Drive in the house. I did this for no other reason than because I could along with getting decent bandwidth. After thinking about it I decided to change back to a proper hosting service and then transfer this website there.

So, I now have new hosting and I have spent the last couple of days getting the website up and running and doing some basic maintenance. I had to transfer the contents to the new hosting company and then a lot of my images didn’t upload so I had to organise some FTP style movement.

It now appears that the website is working well. I have begun to set up a back up service to make sure the years of effort aren’t wasted. I’d hate to lose it all!

I did consider giving up the website. I do however quite enjoy the challenges running it along with making sure I’ve got an outlet for spouting whatever I think. I will keep it going. I’ve just got quite a bit of admin to do with it and the older sites to make sure everything is nice and efficient.

One problem is that my old DDNS addresses will now no longer work. I used that style on a lot of tweets and so if you go back and look at old tweets those links won’t work. Sorry. You’ll just have to search for the communication you want from within this site. Finally Fooyah.net is back to running properly.

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Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine

This might be a shocking admission but I’m not really bothered by this album. Something about it doesn’t quite work for me. I bought it after being amazed with the song “Killing In The Name Of”, which I first heard in its entirety on Radio 1 if you can believe that! There’s a couple of good songs on this one but largely I’m left feeling rather “meh”.

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Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

Another Sunday another storm. This time one that rained on Kent but without the winds. Last weekend was windy too. I got out the house by going to see Underwater last Sunday which ended with me feeling I had intimate knowledge of Kristen Stewart’s stomach. Today, there wasn’t a lot on that I wanted to see so I took a trip to Rochester cinema to see Birds Of Prey.

The tide was ebbing just above half tide I reckon on my way in. There’s a natural fascination humans have with the water, the way the boats rock and nestle on the water, I like it. I am always amazed at the complication we humans have made on this world and the machines were are able to create. Such ingenuity.

After watching the film I rated it on IMDB. This scale has been discussed within this communication and it would be wise for you to read it. This film troubled me while I watched it and I considered leaving many times. I posted my rating to Twitter.

I hated pretty much every moment of this movie. It was shit.

While waiting for the adverts and trailers to be over I have been reading a book on the Kindle app on my phone. It saves me having to see the same trailers over and over if I go to the cinema often. Most adverts are also quite terrible. It’s a shame we no longer have cartoons before the main feature in the theatre. I’m currently reading a book about the development of the F-16XL.

General Dynamics F-16XL

This aeroplane was developed to increase the capabilities of the F-16 Fighting Falcon. I’m only two chapters into the book at the moment and it has covered the approval process along with the design process. I’m still waiting for the first flight. I’m reading a book published by NASA. It’s very interesting and allows me to learn stuff during the dead time at the cinema.

In the past I’ve read books covering the development programme of the X-15 and how the pressure suit was developed. These were both quite fascinating and I’m looking forward to finishing this book as there are still others I want to read. You should have a look at the books published by NASA. They are free and damned interesting.

Glimmer Of Hope
Glimmer Of Hope

Just there is a sliver of lovely blue sky showing promise for future days. This was the view as I returned to the village.

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Underwater

Rather than sit hunkered down in my house away from Storm Ciara I thought it would be better to spend the time in the cinema. So I went to the Cineworld at Rochester to see Underwater. I hadn’t even heard of the film before I booked the ticket but I watched about ten seconds of the trailer and it looked like an underwater adventure/action movie so I could cope with that. There wasn’t anything else on at the cinema I wanted to see.

The roads were covered in detritus of the storm and the river was rather unsettled in the wind, there were waves and everything! The tidal state was quite low, it would have been more fun with water spray had the tide been higher as some might have even made it to the road. I’m reminded of a time I went to Hastings and the sea was raging. The waves were crashing over the sea wall in spectacular fashion. I think this was the time that my dad had a job interview and we drove there. I was in charge of navigation and the M25 wasn’t fully open, the date should be easy to figure out from that!

Stormy Medway
Stormy Medway

I ought to get on to what I thought of the film. But “The Prologue” never gets started [classic Up Pompeii reference there for you]. I rated this film a little while after watching it. I normally do this while walking back to the car but I wasn’t sure. After a little while of thinking about it I gave this film a 4. There is a whole communication that underpins the numerology of the scoring system and you can read that here. Can you believe that on the day of the Oscar ceremony I went to see this film!

The trailers were the first warning. There was lots of trailers for horror movies. I don’t care for horror movies. They just aren’t any good. Once you accept that the supernatural doesn’t exist then horror movies are just shit. Movies with dolls in them are the worst. What a load of shit. I guess people like being scared in a safe way. Like rollercoasters. Anyway, I digress:

It wasn’t a good film. I’m not even sure it was enjoyable. I didn’t care for any of the characters. It’s most important that we ignore any of the physics involved now, I’d already decided I wouldn’t get annoyed by poor science. I didn’t at any point want to walk out so I guess there’s that.

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