Going to the cinema within twenty four hours of a bender weekend in LA might not have been the best of ideas! But I went anyway. I’d like to convince myself that I watched a lot of this movie but, to be honest, you didn’t really have to, so there were definitely parts that I skipped through some voluntary eye shutting.
On the way to the cinema I took note of the tide and it was actually quite high. No mud bank to be seen. The water was a little choppy from the high winds being experienced. Driving over the Medway motorway bridge required more concentration as the car got blown around a little. I think there are storm warnings out for a few days this week. After the film I rated it on the IMDB website and there is a whole communication covering the grading system written here. I then tweeted the result from my PC as I’ve removed Twitter from my phone for mental health reasons [good ones].
I knew this film would be terrible but I didn’t really to be as bad as it was. It really struggled with the whole “I know something that everyone else thinks is stupid” thing. Most of the film was irritating. It looked great but that doesn’t really help when the story, plot and script are all pretty shit. At least I knew what I was getting myself into.
I did spend most of the movie wondering who the actress who looked like Halle Berry was and it turned out to be Halle Berry.
This is communication number 2010 and so here are some things that happened in that year:
Sometimes things turn out right. I remember at college often listening to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones and thinking – yeah, things seem to turn out ok in the end. Now, I know that for some people things are shit. I’ve had my shit times, I guess I’m just a glass-half-full type of person most of the time. This last weekend was one of those times where over the last year things seemed to work against me some of the time but I ended up being fortunate. Let’s just make one thing clear though – I do not believe in karma or any such “the universe owes me bullshit”. All of this is the result of random happenings and any other such thoughts are pure folly. For the last weekend to happen to me, my niece had to have some rough times, but things are looking good for her now and I’m glad.
On Saturday I flew from LHR to LAX. The flight left around 1000 hours and eleven hours later landed at around 1300 hours local. The reason for this long flight was to meet the rest of the Fulham Five as we were going to have the [almost] ultimate Superbowl party. You see the story starts thirty years ago with a bunch of students watching the 1992 Superbowl in university halls. There were drunk promises to do this sometime in the future at a real Superbowl. This was the year it happened. This year also happens to be close to the half century celebrations for us all too. It seemed fitting for us to travel to be together.
The Grand Canyon
I was collected from LAX by the guys in their Dodge Ram hired tanker and we headed to the LA Convention Center for the Superbowl experience. My fine for turning up to the party a day late was to wear a Britney Spears t-shirt, it could have been worse. At least I stood out among the NFL fans. Parking turns out to be reasonably tricky in the centre of LA, more so when you need half a block just to U-Turn the vehicle you are in! Beer. We wandered around the convention centre looking at the experience and taking photos. The shop was impressively big but, also at the same time, remarkably hard to find! There were lots of activities to take part in but queuing isn’t really the thing you want to do, so we chatted and wandered.
Beers In LA – The Theme Of The Weekend
We then headed to the apartments in Marina Del Rey. Dinner was booked for 2000 and so there were deadlines to try and make through the weekend. A quick freshen up and change of clothes and we headed via Uber to Santa Monica and Del Frisco’s Grill. Dinner was nice and we discussed three times over what actually makes sport – sport. I don’t think we decided on an answer but that doesn’t matter I’m sure there’ll be other times when we can try and get a decent definition completed. The pier was then calling but the answer was very much a -NO – as it closed about ten minutes before we finished our dinner. By this time I had been up for a day and a half so I was kinda glad it was time to head back to the apartments and sleep. A slight aside is that Santa Monica Pier is the start of Route 66 so maybe someday I’ll have to drive the lot? or at least visit the other end of the road.
Sunday, SUPERBOWL SUNDAY, started with being surprised I actually slept around five hours and didn’t wake at three in the morning. There was definitely sunlight outside when I finally decided it was time to wake. Jase went for a swim in the Pacific and I paddled. We had a nice walk along to the marina breakers and watched some impressive sky writing. I knew that as long as I kept my caffeine levels high enough I should be good for most of the weekend and so I just kept drinking coffee. Turns out there’s quite a bit of helicopter action along the beach, not sure why, I tried not to answer questions that seemed a lot of effort. Breakfast was somewhere on W Washington Blvd, I’m not sure where, I just spent most of the weekend following and not making decisions – it’s nice to have a break from all that grown up stuff – thanks Mazz for being Dad.
Marina Del Rey By Night
Ades and I took the other three to the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and then returned to Venice to find somewhere for us to watch the match. I had previously decided I would cheer for the Rams because Jase supports the Bengals but I knew that secretly I wanted the Bengals to win. I honestly didn’t mind who, it was amazing and coincidental that it was two of our teams that had made it to the World Championships. Adrian and I found the Venice Whaler and queued for a short while to get into their Superbowl party. Honestly this is where things can become a little blurry so the order of the following things might not follow an increasing time reference.
The bar was definitely very full of Rams fans and so we decided to cheer everything for the Bengals. There’s no point trying to endear ourselves to our ex-colony. When the Bengals ran on to the stadium Ades and I cheered loudly. The rest of the bar went quiet and a big guy called us out for not knowing anything about NFL. He chilled shortly later but it was funny. We ate a little food but mostly we seemed to drink. We did tequila shots with some people over from Wales, called and Aussie a cunt quite a bit and generally had an amazing time. I think we chatted to an American woman who claimed to be a scouser but I’m reasonably convinced she was slightly crazy. After the match the three who could afford tickets to the real game arrived and we chatted and had a good time.
Pacific Paddling
I think Jase and I walked back to our apartment and slept, soundly. Monday started with another walk along the beach and a paddle. We saw dolphins from Venice Pier and I promised Jase that I wouldn’t propose to him. Happy Birthday Rich. Later we were picked up by Jase’s American dad and had lunch at Tony P’s dockside grill with his US family members. I had a quite large pasta dish. There’s never really the need to worry about a food order being enough to fill you in this country. After this it was time to head to LAX and think about the administration of the journey home. Jase blagged me into the business lounge and many chocolate brownies were eaten. We both avoided alcohol as there does come a point when you need to stop and start to get the liver and kidneys cleaning you out. The flight home was only nine hours and I managed to sleep for a fair bit of it.
This Bird Took Me Home
This trip has been thirty years in the making and was a weekend of such relaxed fun I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. The relaxation that comes with being with close friends who you’ve known for thirty years even if you haven’t seen them for a few years is impressive. It was like we were all mentally nineteen again and just having a great time. I was very obviously the oldest person in the Venice Whaler for most of Sunday though. Not that I care. I had a great time.
How It Started – The Early 90s
How It’s Going – 2022
This is communication number 2009. I should be writing stuff below this explaining some things that happened in that year. But, I shan’t sully this communication with irrelevant details.
It has been a huge length of time since I last wrote on here and I’m not really sure what it is that caused this hiatus. I’ve been busy, but no busier than previously. I wonder if it’s a cognitive load thing in that certain aspects of work have been quite high loading and there’s only so much cognition I have? Who knows. I do know that this is probably one of the longest gaps between communications. I’ve just checked and the last communication and it was published or last edited on 10th January which is almost a month ago! I am horrified.
So, the reason for this communication is that I’ve been supporting independent artists again with their creation of content. This time it’s Faderhead. I pledged some money on Kickstarter for him to complete an album and I got my name in the thank yous along with a hard copy of the CD. I did this a while back for a previous album he produced. I don’t know why I’ve decided to support him, I mean I like the music, I guess it’s nice to feel involved with something like this.
Faderhead – Years Of The Serpent
Above is a picture of the CD and the note I got along with it.
This is communication number 2008 and recently I’ve been adding information about that particular year at the end. I can’t remember when I started it but the point was to count down to my 2000th comm. So, in 2008:
Stock markets plunge, fuelled by the sub-prime housing crisis.
So I went to Cineworld at Rochester to see a film. It was actual daylight when the film started and the weather wasn’t that bland grey that we tend to have all the time, there was sun. It wasn’t a warm day but it was a pleasant day. So, to help with the records I took a picture of the river and mud banks so I can say that the tide was low. There are other pictures I think and I might even, one day, walk further along the bank to take a picture of the mud banks that I look for. I wouldn’t be surprised if a photograph like that already exists on this site, there’s a lot of stuff on this site that I’ve forgotten exists!
Down By The River
In the photograph you can see the mud banks on the opposite side of the river, clearly showing that the tide is low. Also, if you look at the bridge supports you can see the green slime where the river covers and then exposes the concrete. Hence, the tide was low. Looking at the shadows and area of light on the far bank it is clear the sun is directly to the right of the bridge. The shadows are long. Both of these facts indicate winter – low sun – and time of image – early afternoon – due to the direction of the bridge – a little bit below east.
I went to see the film The 355. I didn’t really know anything about it before going except that it was an action film with women in the main roles. After the film I thought for quite a while about how to rate this film, there’s a guide to the ratings in this communication. I settled on scoring this film an eight out of ten.
I think I might watch this film again one day. Mostly I will be watching it to figure out what the fuck the plot was and what was happening. There was a general consensus of which city each section of the film took place. There was some aim for each scene to achieve and I think the film got there. What I didn’t really understand was who owned the MacGuffin at various points through the film. I’d quite like to see a diagram of what the film makers thought was happening at each stage.
There’s also been some criticism of this film because the lead actors are women. Well, those so called critics can go fuck themselves. What a stupid world we live in at the moment where people can’t accept the breakdown of traditional gender roles. All the people who think like that can fuck off and die. Well, I guess they will die eventually and with luck those thoughts will die out at the same time. We should be progressing as a society not constantly striving to go backwards.
My suggestion to make the film a little better would be to say that the MacGuffin is a quantum computer. The little USB box that turns any device into a super cracking computer able to shut down aircraft or power stations is just a silly looking USB device. It’s explained at various times that it’s a collection of algorithms or ransomware etc. That isn’t how any of those things work. An easier, and more correct, explanation would be that it’s a quantum computer. Once those babies are made and work all current security protocols are screwed. Everything we think about internet security won’t work. It would have been a more realistic explanation of what the device is.
I found it curious that the film thinks you have to have an actual auction to cover the fact that you are also running an auction on the dark web. Nope. You can just run an auction on the dark web. You don’t even need the product to be nearby. It certainly doesn’t need to be linked to a physical object in a real auction. The people bidding on your MacGuffin clearly don’t need to be anywhere near the real auction. The two events can be divorced entirely. This part of the plot made zero sense. It was worse than terrible.
Now, here’s a little more of a justification for giving this film an eight out of ten. The last few Bond films I have watched I have spent quite a while trying to figure out “why is he going there”, “what is going on”, and more generally “why?”. Plenty of Bond films are just as terrible as this film is with respect to plot devices, MacGuffins, characters, killing random people, shooting up cities in far away places, having coffee in Paris. I couldn’t really see any difference between this film and a Bond film except that I don’t really like Bond anymore. I think I grew up.
This is communication number 2007 and so here are some things that happened in that year:
The first iPhone is released. It wasn’t actually that good in terms of technical specs.
Live Earth concerts are held to raise awareness of environmental issues. How’d that work out?
Start of the financial crisis 2007-2008. The effects are still being felt.
I actually managed to get out of the house just in time to return to work. However, I did get a short trip to the beach, well, when I say beach it was next to the sea, when I say sea it was an estuary, and by beach I mean a stone beach. There are some sandy beaches in Kent, they are just a little further to get to and sand is over rated.
Thames Estuary
This image has all the colour and style that was available that day. It was nicely calming to be here. The sea / estuary was pretty quiet and there wasn’t any wind. On the horizon line you can see a little but of Southend in Essex and I think there might be two ships in the frame too. One of the ships seemed to be anchored while the other was definitely underway.
The Homeland
Here’s a close up of Southend. Part of me thinks I should head over there and look back at Kent. I can see Southend from a couple of places down this side of the estuary and it’s been an absolute age since I was in Southend itself. I can vaguely remember being on the pier. But that’s it. I can’t remember much else.
My website UI is telling me there are four links within these communications that do not work and so I’ll have to spend some time going through them and trying to find new links. Just another thing to do in terms of website admin – does it never end? Just joking, it’s actually pretty simple to keep this site going, I mean, any old fool can do it.
This is communication number 2006 and just below there are some things that happened in that year. I really now need to start thinking what I’m going to do when I get beyond communication number 2022. I was going to just make up outrageous things that I think could happen in those years. Or, perhaps I should just stop. I’m not sure. I quite enjoy having a particular format to these notes. I’ll think about it.
I have decided to start a new film review service but don’t worry I’m not going to be adding these to this website. I’ve found that I often start watching the same film on Netflix or Amazon Prime but I only notice about fifteen minutes into the film. I get quite a few recommendations and neither service particularly remembers which films you have seen before and I don’t really go in for rating those films on those services.
Prime RecommendationsNetflix Recommendations
Now, I like space films which are clever or just space films which are well written. I’m not that fussed on how well made they are. I’ve even recently watched a spate of second world war films but not because I’m fascinated with the war but more because of the stories they hold and things I didn’t know about. Most war movies are utterly depressing and full to the brim of the definition of survivor bias.
Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of terrible films on both of these main streaming services so I have created a spreadsheet to start avoiding watching them again. I’ve only just started this so it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes before I’m referring to it before I watch something. I will also add to the list as I discover films I’ve already seen and try to write down what I think. I will not be adding the reviews of these films to this site. I’ve got plenty to write about here once I start heading back to the cinema and once things start happening again.
This is communication number 2005 and so here are some things that I note took place in that year:
The Airbus A380 makes its first flight.
The Provisional IRA downs all arms.
Hurricane Katrina
Drawings of Muhammad are printed in a Danish magazine.
It’s been just over a week that I’ve owned the PS5 and after the initial joy of cabling and getting it in place I have been messing with some of the settings to get the best experience. The good thing about modern appliances is that they can “see” what they are connected to and output the correct formats for whatever gear you have. So, the PS5 is outputting 7.2 sound into the amp. I did have a problem with the picture format though!
The Current Set Up
The above picture shows a real mix of technologies and brands. There’s a Logitech G29 steering wheel, an Nvidia Shield Pro, the Sony PS5, a Sony AV amp, a Sonos unit, some Bose speakers, the Philips TV, a Sony speaker and a Sony PS camera. I think it all works together pretty well and even if people freak out about it they should realise that audiophile types are rare and most people can’t hear or see the difference between many basic makes and low end cables! I used to think that expensive cables were a thing that could improve your experience, but the answer is “no” they do not. Most of my speakers are connected by quite think mains cable. There isn’t a need for expensive cables.
So, back to the picture output from the PS5. I tried selecting a 4K HDR output but the PS5 was adamant that the receiving device wouldn’t be able to handle this. The PS5 wanted to downgrade the signal to 1080P for HDR rather than 2160P. Well, if I have to choose resolution over HDR then it’s the resolution that’s going to win every time I reckon. Every couple of days over the last week I would remember this issue and I played with the TV settings trying to find the magic button that would clear the way for these signals. I was pretty sure that 4k HDR was possible on the television. I couldn’t find the correct combination of settings.
I once again tried messing around in the PS5 settings to see if there was a thing I could do to fix this. I even bypassed the PSVR thinking there might be a thing inside that unit that meant it couldn’t bypass a 4k HDR signal. I also tried plugging the PS5 directly into the television but this didn’t change anything – I am aware now that this is because only one of the HDMI inputs to the TV is really set up for the best quality signal. I tried googling again and found a Forbes page which looked promising. The page suggests setting an input device to “enhanced”. This seemed like some kind of BladeRunner reference but I decided to go ahead and see if I could find this setting. Then, I remembered the AV Amp.
Why an amp needs to have a HDMI throughput setting set to “enhanced” I am not sure. But there it was, in the amp settings. The option to allow the HDMI bypass to be set to “enhanced”. I switched this. Then I restarted all the devices, because it seemed sensible to do so. I headed over to the PS5 and it was in “screen set up” mode. It wanted me to set up screen size and some HDR settings. I was reasonably excited and once the settings were made the PS5 is now outputting 4k HDR. It took a week of not-really-worrying about it but also knowing in the back of my mind that I could improve the look of the games.
I will say that once I’m engrossed in playing a game I don’t really concentrate on what the graphics look like. I don’t really notice the little details. It’s something I’ve always been conscious of. It’s the gameplay that makes the difference for me as a player. I know there a people out there who quite like just watching games and I understand that the graphics can really make a difference to them, but, for me, if the game play is good enough then you don’t really notice the rest of it?
This is communication number 2003 and so here are some things that happened in that year:
Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up over Texas.
Massive protests against an illegal war in Iraq. Governments do not listen. This is the start of my realisation that governments do what they want, not what we want.
Two people [not Musk] start Telsa.
China launches people into space for the first time.
All the Rob Zombie stuff is good. I bought a load before seeing him at M’era Luna a long time ago apparently, I seem to remember it was just the year before last, covid has fucked memories. I couldn’t tell you anything specific about this album. I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you got it.
This is communication number two thousand and two. Here are some things that happened in that year:
The Euro becomes the currency of those countries in the Eurozone.
Iraq agrees to disarm wrt UN Resolution 1441.
It’s been curious completing these little lists of things that happened in each year. When I started back in the 1800s I think there were lots of things that stuck out from the rest as I went through the list of events on Wikipedia. I found fires, human rights and climate change things with ease. Now I’m looking at the lists of things from the 2000s it’s becoming harder to find things that resonated with me in that time. The 80s and early 90s were quite clear and events stuck out. But, now, not so much. I wonder if that’s to do with my experience of those years and whether I just wasn’t that aware of what was going on? It will be interesting to see what happens as we come closer to the present day.
It’s been reasonably frustrating to see the current government be so utterly terrible at managing the country. I guess it makes sense in some ways, people who are good at being elected to represent the population of the country don’t really have to be good at project management. They just need to be good at getting elected. Mind you, in most constituencies they just need to be good at being selected to run in those areas. When you look at it you have to wonder why people vote for Jacob Rees-Mogg or Boris Johnson. They don’t vote for those people do they? Otherwise I’m pretty sure they would have to agree that one is a puritanical prick and the other is a liar. People vote for selfish reasons and the tories seem to offer the best deal for selfish people. Politicians are the worst people to have in charge of the massive projects this country is running. We need project managers and people who understand risk.
The current policy of not worrying about the Omicron variant and letting it run wild through the country relies on a couple of massive WISHES. The government aren’t worried about taking precautions, they are a reactive group of people who don’t have the balls to enact what is right for the country. It’s almost as if being popular enough to get voted for doesn’t make you very good at the thing you’ve been voted to do, especially so with the current bunch. For the UK to succeed we need all of the following WISHES to come true:
Not too many people need to self-isolate due to virus.
Not too many people end up in hospital due to new variant.
The vaccination programme means people don’t end up in hospital.
I am horrified at this approach. This gamble based on WISHES. We aren’t being pro-active. We are reacting. The problem is that the reactions happen two fucking weeks too late, because that’s how viruses work. It appears that the government still do not understand any basic biology. If we are really fucking lucky then hospitalisations will remain low and this works. We are hoping for luck. Fucking luck. We are playing with people’s lives while hoping for luck. Precautions are not being taken.
Less Severe
It’s A Numbers Thing
So, Omicron might be less severe. But we didn’t know that until very recently. We kept everything open because we are reactive remember. Let’s go with the best possible number there, 70% less likely to be admitted to hospital. 70%. This seems good. But what this means is that if we were to have a massive peak in infections any gains would be wiped out as the total number of admissions returns to bad levels. This would be bad if the policy had been to keep everything open and say have a massive surge in infections.
Massive Increase In Daily Cases
Fuck. That’s what has happened.
Now, I’m not claiming to be correct and I’m not claiming that we are fucked. I’m not saying the NHS is going to be overwhelmed. I’m saying the risk of that has increased massively and the government are playing a numbers game. Hoping for the best outcome. They are playing dice with the lives of the vulnerable and the unlucky. They are placing bets on being lucky and making everything look like they were geniuses. Quite clearly they aren’t geniuses. It turns out that lots of MPs are just selfish twats who don’t care about anyone:
Oppose Tougher Covid Rules
We currently have a bunch of MPs who don’t understand science, are willing to play dice with the lives of the country and who maintain a liar in power. It’s a fucking depressing world we live in at the moment and I only have so much anger I can maintain. Very soon it’ll be my chance to ignore the news again for a while. I need to get away from being a realist and play my PlayStation and enter a world of happy aliens I can shoot.
This is communication number 2001. Here are some things that happened in that year:
