It’s been a double film weekend! The first film was on Saturday and I don’t think I knew anything about this before I entered the theatre. The poster and booking images made it look like an action film. The tide was pretty high as I entered the cinema, only a few feet of mud viewable. I went to the cinema at Rochester. One day I might go to the one at Ashford, just for the shock value! I rated this film on IMDB, there’s a communication covering the rating system here, make sure you search for Runner and not The Runner both are films out this year – this particular film gained six stars from me.
I quite enjoyed this film. It was a stupid action movie with some characterisation. The pairing of Owen Wilson and Reacher made sense and worked well. You kinda end up thinking they are like that in real life. The story was pretty bullshit, but then it always is isn’t it? It was nice to see the scenery around Brisbane – I enjoyed that. I will warn you that the last fifteen minutes of the film seemed a bit of a gore fest with blood and injury everywhere. I guess that’s what you want from your macho actors. Oh, and for some reason I didn’t care for the little girl because of her angel story – that can get in the sea.
I was doing a thing in X-Plane when the beauty of it struck me. Look at the water, look at the reflections in the glass, and look at the countryside. Just beautiful.
Views of water and countryside from the cockpit
The text boxes in the air just off the nose are other aircraft inputted to the simulator by an add-in I use. It makes flying around less lonely.
Typical isn’t it? No rain in south east UK for absolutely ages and then the day you want to wander around outside looking at pretty aeroplanes the heavens open and makes everything wet. I took some work people on a trip to Biggin Hill to attend the Air Charter Expo – a trade event organised by a friend of mine. He gave us free tickets with the aim of getting people interested in aviation based careers. This event covers the charter side of aviation and this is the third time I’ve been. I previously attended in the guise of an RAFAC Officer and wearing that uniform definitely gives you some kudos around the hangar but this time I was a civilian.
Getting to sit in small private jets with values ranging from GBP5 million to GBP50 million was fun. Overall I think I had two favourite aircraft of the day. First was the lovely little Cirrus SF50, a small jet for the owner pilot to take the family out for taking the family out for the day. It was cute. My most favourite was the Cessna Grand Caravan EX. It just looked chunky, solid and had plenty of space inside. The official website shows it can be fitted with floats and so I have decided I love it.
As this was an event for selling things to people of high net-worth there was also a car parked outside with the aircraft. I didn’t really recognise it as my car knowledge is mostly over ten years old but when I got closer I could see it was a Koenigsegg. I think the rain makes it look better, like it’s sweating. Nice looking car.
I try and have a play in my flight sim a few times a week. It’s nice and calming, I get to see the countryside and it makes me happy. My initial plan for today’s flight was to take off from Biggin Hill and then head to the coast, go low level over the Channel and then land somewhere in France. However, after take off I thought I’d do some sight seeing over London. I turned west. I could then see Canary Wharf, the City and beyond, but there was a little target right in the middle. A small square on the screen. So, it just had to be done. I was flying the L29 and it’s a lovely little plane, not much fuel capacity but flies well. I pointed the nose at the square and off we went.
Threading The Needle
I’ve called this communication Doing A Pollock in honour of the actual RAF pilot who flew his Hunter through the bridge. I love how his unit was posted to Africa after his stunt!
This site ponders along not really doing much and there’s about three people actually look at it. I don’t mind that. I’m not making any money from this and it serves more as a repository of films and bands I’ve seen than anything useful for anyone else. What I’m saying is that I expect no real traffic on this site so I was somewhat surprised a few days ago when I got a massive spike in viewership.
Potential Hacking Attempt
For some context the maximum views value is 5000. I shouldn’t be anywhere near that. Around this time I also got an email saying my website was under attack, mostly from the USA.
“we’re sending this notice to make you aware that there is a higher volume of the attacks than usual”
This website was hacked about ten years ago and it took me a while to fix it. I was actually impressed with how the attack worked but it was rather annoying. So, as I write this I will download another backup of this site!
I’m considering adding a permanent page to this site where I write stupid little things that I think of during the week. I’ve had this page before and it was called “This Week” and that was a generation of this site from the early 2000s. I don’t want to join Twitter or a different social media site I’ll just end up following the usual people I’ve followed in the past and when they aren’t friends – journalists and politicians etc – it negatively affects my mental health. So, there might soon be a page linked from the home page with stupid things that I notice during the week.
I took a trip to the cinema at Strood. I had booked my tickets earlier in the day not really sure if I was going to make it to the film as I had a shitty migraine. The plan was to pick up a delivery that had gone to a collection point and then head to the cinema IF I felt able to. In the early afternoon I was running at 75% no-go and I used the app to see if I could cancel my ticket but I think it was too late to do that. I didn’t want to get a “black mark” from the cinema so I decided I would go. I went to the parcel collection point, it was closed, and headed to the cinema. The tide was high-ish. It was more high than not. There was a little mudbank still showing, I wasn’t sure if the tide was rising or not.
I rated this film on IMDb after watching it. My migraine had not gone but it dissipated for a while and I was able to watch the film although I did spend time adjusting my sitting position, I couldn’t get comfy. To be honest it was a miserable day which has continued to today. Anyway, I gave this film 6/10. Please read this communication to understand the scoring system.
This film was a pretty standard post-apocalyptic movie. I think I’d rather watch 28 days later, it’s a better movie. The thing that possibly saved this particular film was the scenery – it was pretty amazing. Colorado looks such a pretty state. What I don’t understand is the title of the film. It doesn’t make sense. The dog doesn’t really star. There is a star named after the dog but not plural. There is an actual Dog Star but that wasn’t mentioned. There was one dog in the movie. I’m not sure. I will say the movie looked great. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and when you think about great directors putting out mediocre films you have to realise that they probably do the best they can with the script and money that they’ve got.
I’ve had two racing wheel stands that have both had a single point of weakness. The stands were around GBP60 but the angle of dangle was kept secure by a single bolt going through a flange on an axle. Both of these wheel stands failed where the flange met the axle. The design just wasn’t good enough to cope with the torque involved. So, I looked up another stand using Google. I initially searched Amazon but I didn’t want my money passing through that company so the plan was to get an idea of cost and then buy direct from a manufacturers website. Using this method I found GT Omega. I decided to buy one of their stands. It was sent via DHL but I wasn’t in the house so I had it delivered to a pick-up centre. You might imagine I could get the package sent to the DHL centre I can see from my house but that wasn’t an option and I had to go to Sittingbourne instead.
I picked this box up on a really humid day. It was awfully humid. I was grumpy all day and I didn’t enjoy the weather, much like I found the weather this whole summer to be awful. I’m currently looking into buying an air conditioning unit for my house. It’s a small house and I reckon I could make it very pleasant during the heat waves that we are going to keep getting. If you aren’t filled with an existential threat about humanity and the climate then I think you probably just aren’t a thinking human being.
This steering wheel stand is constructed very well. It’s solid. I can’t see any points of failure and it holds my wheel, gear stick and pedals perfectly. I love how Logitech have made their products with securing bolts built in so they can be fixed to third party devices. The HOTAS system I have works in a very similar way.
As you can see the whole frame is pretty solid. I reckon I could stand on the wheel block and it would easily hold my weight. The pedals are screwed in position and now there’s no movement and I don’t have to use my feet to adjust the pedal position while driving. The gearstick is in a more “simulator” position and I try to use this when I drive a car that doesn’t have “flappy paddles”. Overall this is a decent addition to the setup. It even folds up so can save a little bit of space when needed.
The above picture shows my view. Nice big, bright TV. 7.2 surround sound. Telemetry box on top of the wheel showing tire temps and other information. All in all the driving experience got a lot better with this new stand.
I’ve been spending some time in the world of Skyrim. Someone at work mentioned it and I saw it going cheap on the PlayStation store so I think I bought it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, especially as the game is fifteen years old. Then, one day earlier in the summer, I pretty much spent twelve hours playing the game and I decided I would delete it so that at least I have some sense of achievement of real things during August. After I returned from Wales I decided I would start playing again and it was around then I noticed the moon in the game!
I went to see a film at Rochester cinema. The tide was absolute tip top high as I drove along the road by the river Medway. I wasn’t sure how long the film was but I was curious to see the change that would happen when heading home. I rated this film on IMDb after watching it and I gave it a 6/10. There’s a whole list of rules for the scoring system so you should read this communication.
I quite enjoyed this film. I’m not really into superhero movies, I find them remarkably childish and immature – he who has the biggest fists wins. This film had some humanity in it. I liked the fact that Peter Parker had bruises and was hurt. I think we need to talk about physics and all that at some point but overall this was good fun. I definitely wasn’t expecting Jean Grey to turn up!
