Personal – Page 108 – Fooyah

October 22 2016October 17 2017

Lego 36 Model 60122

This is a lava splitting jewel finding machine, 60122:

October 22 2016October 17 2017

Lego 35 Model 31029

The latest addition to the Lego box, 31029:

October 7 2016October 17 2017

I recently completed watching the entire run of Psych. That might make it sound like I did a complete binge-watch of eight seasons but I have completed the show over seven years. I watched some on terrestrial TV, I recorded some from ITV4 and I also bought the DVDs when I got to the last four series.

After nearly seven years I have finished Psych. It’s helped me through kids, divorce and down times. Thanks guys. @DuleHill

— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 6, 2016

I have enjoyed the show thoroughly. It is well acted, written and photographed. I consider it a good use of my time. Like many of the TV shows I have loved it mixed developed characters with fun, jokes and seriousness. I even sat on my sofa and laughed out loud on occasions. Dulé Hill and James Roday were perfect in the lead roles and this is the second series I have watched with Dulé Hill, the previous being The West Wing, a show that left me with similar feelings to this one. Anyway, Mr Hill responded to my message:

@iparish 👊🏾 Boom

— Dulé Hill (@DuleHill) October 6, 2016

So this was a nice touch from someone who I assume is a nice person. However, I would also add that I have no wish to meet my heroes as they would all too easily disappoint.

In other news, but not new news, as this happened ages ago I got followed on Twitter by John Forbes Nash. Yes, that John Forbes Nash. I have no idea why he followed me or how he found me on Twitter. I was quite excited by this. I was also very saddened when he died in May 2015.

October 3 2016October 13 2018

Aesthetic Perfection – The Garage

Last night I took a little journey to The Garage in Islington to watch Aesthetic Perfection. Now, Mesh were the headline band and I had listened to them in advance and I didn’t like it or find it particularly interesting. I was primarily there to see Aesthetic Perfection and to take my niece out for her birthday. It is a good thing that AP tend to tour once a year because that makes her presents easy to organise. This is the second time she has seen AP and my fourth.

The first band on were called Empathy Test, which I have a suspicion is a reference to Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? However, they weren’t much to my liking. There was a singer, two keyboard – programmer types and a drummer. All their songs were well constructed and perfectly fine but not enough to get me going.

Next up were Aesthetic Perfection. I like the Garage as a venue, the roof is nicely curved and I remember seeing Front Line Assembly here a few years ago. The sound was impressive and clear with a stage and rig more suited to music production than Electrowerkz, although Electrowerkz wins in coolness of a venue.

Because this was an acoustic set there wasn’t a drummer and I missed that a bit. I do think that a live drummer adds quite a bit of organic sound to a set. Now, I know they started with Antibody and played more songs but I can’t remember what all the songs were. I should have written them down as they played. The set was good, but missed Spit It Out and Motherfucker, which are songs I do enjoy.

What was nice about AP being second on the bill was that I could get home at a sensible time, but not sensible for a Sunday. It was a very good gig, not quite as good as at M’Era Luna last year but still pretty good. The rest of the Garage seemed to appreciate it also. Especially as I think AP’s music is a little more harsh industrial that the electronic of Empathy Test and Mesh.

Final band on last night were Mesh. Obviously many of the crowd had come to see this band, there were lots of Mesh t-shirts being worn. I decided to listen to a couple of songs. The first was OK and the second was just OK. I didn’t think it was anything special but I did like the stage set up. They had four 1m square LED screens made to look like a mesh of wires which was quite clever. It wasn’t enough to keep me there. We left.

In the picture you can see two of the large LED mesh based displays.

It was a very nice evening. We will hopefully see Aesthetic Perfection again next year.

October 1 2016October 13 2018

Hidden Signs

While I may have gone on about the new bridge and road system around here a little bit that might indicate just how much the bridge changes things for what used to be a quite isolated part of Kent sandwiched between two major conurbations. I do think the new bridge will change that.

Part of the road changes that happened also mean a number of road speed limits have changed to reflect the expected increase in traffic and to reduce the risk of accident [I assume].

Here’s a map of the roads that had a previous limit of the national speed limit:

previous speed limits — Previous National Speed Limit

The newer safer speed limits have reduced the 60 zone down to the following:

This has kinda taken the “fun” out of driving these roads but I guess they are safer now and quite often people would dawdle along at 40 and then NOT slow down for the villages to 30 because they are wankers.

The construction company have put in new road signs but the one at the end of Bull Lane is obscured by branches until you get quite close. This picture shows the BEST view of the sign you get.

It’s only a safety thing. Let’s not worry.

October 1 2016

On Target

Just want to add a fooyah.net/wordpress communication to point out that this is a quality landing:

I did share this from the PS4 to my Twitter feed but the much bigger audience here deserves to see this neat not-crash as well.

October 1 2016

Deepwater Horizon

Popped over the river last night to see Deepwater Horizon. Use the new bridge. As is customary I rated this film on IMDB and you should see my guide to the rating system to get an idea of what the numbers mean. Otherwise you have no relative scale.

I rated Deepwater Horizon (2016) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/NLtlG2UZKI

— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 1, 2016

This film was quite enjoyable (?). While travelling to the cinema I was hoping that they would explain the mechanisms of oil exploration and also the culture of poor safety that lead to the explosion. I also wanted a cunning thriller with footage of inquiries mixed with the main story that I had seen in the trailers which was an action film. I just didn’t want a simple action film.

The film started with an explanation of why rigs get blowouts and some audio from the actual inquiry. This was a good start. The majority of the film was the action part of the film with some lovely shots of the Bristow helicopters flying out to the rig. The film showed the interplay between the BP officials and the workers of the people who owned the rig.

bristol copter

There was quite a bit of tension building with plenty of build up of the explosion that didn’t come. Then finally it happened and the race to escape the rig commenced. The action sequences were pretty good and the fire safety while filming must have been quite impressive.

Once the main action thrust of the film was over there was some short footage of the inquiry and a roll call of those who died in the explosion. Overall this film was ok. It could have been so much better by turning it into an investigation film with the action intercut with people figuring out what happened. I guess those films aren’t as exciting to modern audiences and probably don’t get made that often.