Communications

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The Lost City

I drove the short distance – too far to walk but possibly cycleable – to the cinema in Rochester, although really it’s in Strood. As are the rules since sometime in the past I check the state of the tide and this time I was quite excited as the last time I was here the tide was quite low and now it’s was actually pretty high and I had the chance to take a contrasting photograph.

Medway At Rochester Low Tide
Medway At Rochester Low Tide
High Tide In Strood
High Tide In Strood

When looking at the two images I can let you know that I cropped the low tide one a little to remove the vast areas of mud. But you can see the difference especially when you look at the footpath on the right of both images. They were taken from reasonably close to each other and I’m quite proud of that, I didn’t even look at the old image yesterday.

After I’ve watched a film I consider a set of questions to decide on the IMDB rating I’m going to give it. There’s a communication from ages ago that explains the rules. It’s nearly ten years of these rules and I think I’ll have to celebrate that somehow. Once I’ve rated the film I then generally tweet the result:

So, you know what? I enjoyed this film. I laughed [not always at the same things as everyone else] and I thought it was a fun silly lost treasure movie. I think it was loads better than Uncharted although one of my sons does not agree with that assessment. I had fun watching this and it was right mix of silly and action that worked. This film is essentially a modern version of Romancing the Stone which, I think, was a pivotal movie from my youth. I have watched Romancing the Stone recently and it does not hold up to the ravages of time. Anyway, back to The Lost City. How does Sandra Bullock do it? She’s 57 or so and yet she looks ageless. She plays this perfectly and is great at her job – I guess you expect an actor to be good at their job so not that surprising maybe.

The lead male character was played by Channing Tatum and I’m not fussed for him either way. During the opening scene I thought he was just an older Brendan Fraser and that would have made this whole movie amazing but it was Tatum, I just didn’t recognise him. Brad Pitt’s character was my favourite and I think I actually jumped at his final scene! I enjoyed this film, it was silly and fun and worth a watch.

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Vulgar Display Of Power – Pantera

There are those people who fixate on a couple of bands and then there are others who just like lots of slightly different same sounding stuff. I’d like to think I’m in the second group but I’ve obsessed over bands in the past and some I’ve seen multiple times. Anyway, that’s a really boring way of saying that Pantera are OK but they never really hit home with me for some reason. I got this album and really like Mouth for War, Walk and Fucking Hostile. I think I remember being at a concert in Brixton (?) when Fucking Hostile came on in the before the gig music selection and I really enjoyed it. But, that’s about it. For some reason I never quite got into Pantera.

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You’ll Get Bored Soon

I’ve been playing a lot of Gran Turismo 7 because it’s fun and looks nice. There’s a photo mode which I mess around with now and then but it’s not really why I play the game. You can take a car and place it somewhere in the world where GT7 people have got high res images of certain locations. Then you can pretty much adjust every aspect of the car, position, lighting and camera details until you get the photograph you want. I then screen shot the best ones and we are at a stage in device connectivity that these media files now appear on my phone in the PS app. I quite like how it all links up. This makes it quite a bit easier for me to save the pictures rather than using a USB memory stick or sharing to Twitter and then downloading that file.

German In Germany
German In Germany

This image was set up and taken quickly for a bronze trophy within the game. You have to photograph a BMW Gr3 car at the Nürburgring. Fortunately I had won a BMW Gr3 car for completing some challenge or other so I already had that vehicle. The other photograph trophy is an Audi R18 at Le Mans and I’ve got to save up to buy that particular car as it’s three million credits in game and I only have about 1.2 million at the moment. The time will come though. In a short while I’m going to work on the Dirt Track trophy so look out for that tweet.

Bora Horza Gobuchul Racing Form
Bora Horza Gobuchul Racing Form

This is my car at the Nürburgring, I own a grey Prius like the one on the photograph except mine doesn’t have a body kit fitted to it, or a wing. While you can’t see the details in this photograph I have modified the car body as far as I can and reduced the weight of the vehicle by taking out everything that’s not needed. The engine has been tuned to a high degree and the suspension and brakes have been uprated. I’ve install some super sticky racing tyres and added a few racing details for fun. I think I’ll take a few more photographs of this car with a standard Prius next to it so the details stand out a little more.

I still don’t have the real Bora Horza Gobuchul because, oddly enough, the parts that are needed to replace the stolen parts are in high demand because too many of the catalytic converters are being stolen. I probably could get a decent one from eBay, and it might even be the one from my car, but it’s with the garage people right now and I’ll leave it there. Meanwhile I have an FR branded Ibiza which you might think was a little hot hatch but it most definitely not. I’ve counted the cylinders and I got to THREE before I ran out of cylinders to count.

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Volkerball: Live In Nimes – Rammstein

There’s a lot to say in this communication but also at the same time every song on here is covered in another communication where I review the studio album. So, there isn’t a lot to say. Except, Rammstein have the best fucking sound I have ever heard live. The show is amazing but the sound shocks me at how good it is. I’ve seen them three times and haven’t had a bad experience. Wembley Arena, Donnington, and Milton Keynes Stadium, every time it was an amazing experience and I loved it. This is a band who knows how to put on a show and knows how to create an album. See it, love it.

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All Gold – Licence Tests – Gran Turismo

Today was the day I managed to complete all Gold in the Gran Turismo 7 Licence section of the game. I had been struggling with the final test which was a drying lap around Spa in some crazy-assed Porsche. I struggled so much that I even watched some YouTube videos about completing the lap. I spent around 300km yesterday going around Spa and in that time I think I managed to complete about THREE laps. I constantly went off track or crashed. Today I spent another few hours working on this. The idea being that the track settles in my brain over the night time and I get better each day. I’m not sure I got better because it took another 395km to get a lap completed within the Gold time. I did find that I was getting better at Eau Rouge and was generally coming off in the later part of the lap more and more so I knew I was getting better and it was only a matter of time before I smashed it!

It doesn’t look much, the video. But trust me. It took a fuckton of effort to get to that point. If you touch the wet line you are fucked. If you touch a kerb you are fucked. If you accelerate too much in some corners you are fucked. Basically you are pretty much fucked at every stage of this track. You need to pull off a perfect lap and also make sure you don’t crash on the last few corners which you only see a few times because you spend the rest of the time in the chuffing barrier.

Here’s a map of Spa and here’s my list of troublesome corners in this test:

  • La Source
  • Eau Rouge
  • Radillon
  • Les Combes
  • Malmedy
  • Bruxelles
  • Double Gauche
  • Las Fagnes
  • Paul Frere
  • Blanchimont
  • Chicane

That’s right people, pretty much every shitting corner caused me problems and I crashed regularly at every single one [except Kemmel]. Obviously I crashed most at La Source because once you’ve crashed there you can’t crash anywhere else around the circuit.

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It’s Beautiful And Hard Work

I’m clearly still playing Gran Turismo 7. I have the PS5 version and I have to say it looks absolutely amazing. The lighting is fantastic. I’m enjoying the game but it is quite challenging and I’ve struggled at a couple of the licence tests and also some of the circuit experiences.

I took quite a while to complete the Brands Hatch circuit experience mostly because it was in a Radical and they are a touch twitchy as you head around the track. I got there but it took about an hour. I’m currently on about two hours of work on the final licence test. I’ve passed at the silver level but I really want a gold. That would mean I have every licence at gold level and I would consider that an excellent achievement. The test is around a drying Spa circuit in a 1970 Porsche beast that doesn’t like a single wet patch. You have to really stick to the dry line around the circuit and so you don’t have any room for error. I’ve found it so frustrating I’ve even watched a few people on YouTube to get some tips.

This is not a helpful comment - GT7
This is not a helpful comment – GT7

Sometimes when you come off the track again at any of the bloody corners – I’ve crashed at every corner multiple times – you get this chap popping up onto your screen telling you to watch the demonstration. At first this seems like good advice but after two hours of trying and seeing this comment multiple times you end up telling that person to “fuck off” whenever they show up. I almost want to scream “leave me alone”. It’s emotionally challenging and I’m not sure how I will feel when I finally shave the last three seconds off my time and get gold.

Air Display while at Spa - GT7
Air Display while at Spa – GT7

At least the whole game looks amazing. The above clip is from a race at Spa and these aircraft I could only hear while the race started. I couldn’t see them from the car. I had to go to the replay to see them. Such attention to detail is pretty good. I also think the lighting in the “winner” screen is gorgeous and it makes me feel good:

Winning screen - GT7
Winning screen – GT7

Right. I have to get on the PS5 to have another day of swearing at the Spa circuit and hating my car.

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Volcano – Satyricon

I got some Satyricon albums when I was due to see them as part of a festival in 2014. The festival got cancelled and I didn’t end up seeing this band. I might have listened through this once, I’m not sure. I didn’t like it.

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Morbius

So, yesterday I took the short trip to Cineworld at Rochester to see the Sony Marvel film Morbius. I had booked to see something about a lost city but have decided to see that film over the weekend. I might try and find somewhere with a 4DX cinema to watch a film as it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those. Luckily for me Ashford Cineworld has been upgraded to a 4DX. Unluckily for me Ashford is at the other end of Operation Brock – the massive queue of lorries on the M20 trying to cross the channel. I start these communications by saying what state the tide was in as I approached the cinema and I can tell you it was low. All the mud bank was showing, the barge was in its own little pool and the water was very low. See this picture.

Medway At Rochester Low Tide
Medway At Rochester Low Tide

After I watch a film at the cinema I then rate it on IMDB and there’s a whole system about how that works. See this communication about how I decide what score to give a film. Then, when I am active on Twitter, because I have times when I remove the app from my phone – it’s not a healthy place to be -, I tweet the result to my millions of followers so they can see what I thought.

So, what did I think of this film? It was boring and unimpressive. I wonder if we’ve reached peak superhero? I know that I generally don’t like superhero films and this one was one of the worst I have seen. It was all pretty standard and just “meh”. There are a couple of things I made a mental note while watching to try and remember to write about and so here we go: Morbius’ pin is the “last six digits of pi” reversed and I wasn’t sure whether to burst out laughing or not at this. Was this deliberate or a pure accident? Pi, when expanded in decimal number system, is an irrational number and so there isn’t a last digit of pi. Was this a clever joke or a stupid mistake? I’m not sure. Morbius requires human blood but there’s no explanation why it has to be human. The bats don’t drink the blood of other bats. Why would he need to drink human blood? This didn’t make sense. Also, at the end of the film his girlfriend – who appears at first just to be a co-worker but then they kiss on the roof tops and that was definitely NOT mentioned before that point – turns into a vampire thing because Morbius bit her. What? How did that happen? Why did that happen? This movie is a load of crap. Oh, and at the end in the final big fight the two chaps seemed to fall a good few thousand feet off a building which wasn’t really that high. I’ve no idea how this happened. Oh, Morbius gets a lab from come counterfeiters but then doesn’t really use that place for anything except building a centrifuge which he could have ordered from Amazon a lot easier.

I did watch Joker recently on Netflix after Smith recommended it. I was told there isn’t really any superhero stuff in it. This was a good film. Joker is more a social commentary than DC film and there are plenty of lessons within. Don’t waste your time with Morbius. Watch Joker instead.

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Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses – Slipknot

I’ve had this album playing while I’ve been sorting out my SSL certificate on this website. So, given the music has finished I’ve been working on this for about an hour. I’d like to say I managed to do it all myself but I had to employ some lovely people at my hosting company a few times to guide me through the process. I think it’s something I did about two years ago so it’s unlikely for me to remember all the things I have to do. I also find that terminology changes between help pages and the actual webpages that you are trying to edit so it can be a pain sometimes when you aren’t sure if you are doing the right thing.

This album has some awesome songs on it, mostly I think I know them from the Antennas From Hell live album but they are still good songs. I highly recommend The Blister Exists, Duality, Before I forget.

It’s a Slipknot album. It’s what you expect. Chaos and noise. It’s great.

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How Long To Platinum?

I was a little upset the other night as I had finished a particular championship on Gran Turismo 7 and I got the ending movie! I wasn’t expecting it so soon. I’m hoping they add more championships over time but there’s still plenty of game content for me to work through. Apparently I have 294 trophies to get through to unlock the platinum trophy. Now, I have never unlocked a platinum so maybe I won’t make it but it is something to aim for. I had the following in a nice email from the Sony people:

GT Finale Email
GT Finale Email
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