penguin – Page 101 – Fooyah

May 11 2015May 11 2015

Chilston Park

On Sunday I went for afternoon tea with Sally at Chilston Park.

The weather was lovely and as we had arrived early we decided to wander the grounds. Unfortunately for me there was a large outdoor chess set not far from the house. We decided to play. From the outset it was clear I was going to lose. I’ve never been great at the strategy involved, I tend to get bored and just attack, just for the fun. Fortunately for me, our appointed time for tea arrived before I could lose the game in spectacular style. We went inside to have tea and cake.

The interior of the house was lovely with some odd lion/dragon things guarding the fireplace. There was a wonderful wooden staircase and portraits hanging everywhere. Our tea consisted of Lady Grey tea with some wonderful food.

This was a very pleasant afternoon in very pleasant surroundings, even the Hen Do was quite reserved and quiet. I am looking forward to the next time I get to do this.

May 11 2015May 11 2015

Boxtrolls

Unsually for me I went to see the Boxtrolls at the Odeon Cinema in Maidstone. My normal cinema is the Cineworld at Rochester. As ever I rated this film on IMDB, see this communication for an explanation of my rating system.

I rated The Boxtrolls (2014) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/HuUTV4OU0b

— Ian Parish (@iparish) May 11, 2015

I saw this movie on a Saturday morning kids club event. This meant I only paid £2-50 for each of us to go. Overall this was a perfectly well made kids film. The animation was lovely and the whole concept was typical fairy story. My son really enjoyed it. I will point out that I don’t like overly large machines used in films [like the spider thing in Wild Wild West] there are issues with structural strength and manufacture [flying airbases in Avengers] but the one in this film gets a free pass as it was used well.

I’m not sure I’m that fussed about seeing this film again, I expect my children will want to see it. Hence I gave a 6/10. It’s worth a watch with kids.

April 28 2015April 28 2015

Cylon

It’s a Cylon Minecraft character made from cardboard and painted. I didn’t make this, it was made for me and I feel proud to be the owner of a Minecraft Cylon. It matches the Cylon in my dining room.

For those of you unsure of what a Cylon is, then you should go here. For those of you unsure of what Minecraft is, go here.

Also, for those of you who haven’t seen the BSG series you might want to know that “Nothing but the rain” is a quotation from that series.

“What can you hear, Starbuck?”, asks Adama.
“Nothing but the rain.”, she replies.

April 5 2015April 5 2015

Thunderbirds Are Go

So people. What I thought of Thunderbirds Are Go:

Oh my! @ThunderbirdsHQ was so awesome. I loved it and I loved watching it with my kids. Brilliant!

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 4, 2015

Quite simple really. I loved it.

The show looked brilliant. The mix of miniatures and CGI was perfect. For a great example of where this works well you could see Moon. For examples of where just CGI doesn’t work see Star Wars Episodes 1-3. The whole look was organic, more natural than pure CGI.

I have no idea of which Tracy brother is which. I just can’t do similar faces and names. I will probably end up knowing them by colour. Quite clearly Kayo, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and Parker were obvious. The others? No idea. My facial recognition fails me completely.

The vehicles looked and sounded brilliant. I had two “moments”. The first was when TB2 took off from Tracy Island and there were a couple of “boom” sounds that made me shiver. Then, and this is just brilliant, when TB1 flew there were condensation clouds behind shock waves that made my hairs stand on end. Yes, I am that much of a nerd.

Who cares if the story was over the top, that’s just what we want. Overall, this was a great piece of television. It is something I am really looking forward to sharing with my children The wait for something like this has been too long!

Nerd Stuff:

The animators have been very clever. They have given the humans a slightly shiny face in homage to the plastic models of the original series AND at the same time they have avoided falling into the UNCANNY VALLEY. Well done. Any more realistic and people would have felt an urge to throw up and turn off. Also, creating a smooth surface with certain reflective properties saves a ton of rendering time.

If you aren’t sure then think about why in Toy Story ALL the characters have plastic faces [rendering time] and then think about Monsters Inc, only one character has hair, why? Rendering time and computer power. I saw a documentary about Pixar where they essentially said that if they tried to re-create Cars using the computer power available when they made Toy Story the rendering would have taken around 2000 years. Computers are awesome.

[I had watched the Reggie Yates documentary called No Strings Attached, but I got bored. It was a modern documentary with reviews and reminders bracketing every advert break and that ruined it. Not worth watching.]

March 21 2015April 29 2015

Insurgent

I went to see Insurgent. It’s the second film in the Divergent series [if that’s what they are called]. I rated the film on IMDB, as usual, and you should read this communication for a better understanding of how I rate films, it’s subjective you see. I reviewed Divergent.

I rated Insurgent (2015) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/9LN5sHiHhv

— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 20, 2015

I’m not entirely sure this film had a stand out moment. It was a quite pedestrian storyline. I have a feeling it could have been made more exciting, but I may be suffering from YAL overload. You see, I watched Maze Runner recently. It’s probably fair to say that the overall plot of the films are exactly the same. I’m not sure the youth can claim this kind of dystopian future for themselves, but then every generation needs their own films and music to claim. We have to give the youth these views so that they feel empowered to contribute and change the system.

I feel a certain nostalgia for the badfuture films of the 70s and 80s. Granted, we did have a cold war and the threat of death within four minutes [if you were lucky] but we also needed the films to promote social change. The problem as I see it is that the wrong kind of social change happened. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that politics, power and greed gets in the way.

The poor youth of today constantly worried about the extremely low probability of being killed by a murderer [or terrorist as we now call them if they are a little different to us], they must find it very upsetting. Bollocks. It’s been worse in the past. It’ll get worse again.

Anyway, the film was OK. Nothing brilliant.

March 18 2015March 18 2015

GT BD

Gran Turismo is a wonderful game. If you log in on your birthday you get a car from the year of your birth. Me? I was born in 1972. This is the car I got. Sheer beauty.

March 16 2015March 16 2015

Lego 23 Model 60032

Here’s another, these are like buses!

March 15 2015March 15 2015

East Kent Coast

Some pictures from the East Kent Coast.

March 7 2015March 7 2015

Televisions

I guess this is an historical type communication. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to write this but this site does have some odd pages, like this one and this one. The communication about my home network is incorrect now and one day I intend to update it.

I am a bit of a gadget fan. Although I would like to think that I evaluate whether something will add to my life and make it easier before I go ahead and buy something. The Apple Watch, for instance, or any other smart watch is not something that I am currently willing to invest in. I have looked at it, and decided that I am currently happy to stick with my watch and phone as separate devices. My phone is within easy reach and the watch tells me the time and date [if I remember to correct the date at the end of months where d<31]. I also spent quite a long time looking into wearable technology when my Up band died [again].

So, this communication is a list of televisions I have owned. The title really does say it all.

Pre-personal ownership:

<1982 black and white valve based TV, needed to be turned on 5 minutes before you wanted to watch it. Blood was black. Had to physically move and touch the TV to change channel. RF port only.
1982 – 1990 colour TV with remote control AND Ceefax! Probably a 21 inch machine 4:3.
1991-1992 lived in university halls, no need for television.
1992 -1994 bought a second hand TV for £50 from a second hand TV shop. Carried it down the North End Road to Winchendon Road. RF port only. No remote. Maybe 6 programmed channels. Mainly used for Megadrive games. Maybe 21″? 4:3
1994-1999 inherited a 21″ 4:3 colour newish TV. RF and SCART ports. Mainly used for Megadrive games.
1999-2006 bought a Sony 28″ widescreen 16:9 CRT from a TV shop in Brentwood. RF, SCART and S-Video inputs. Remote control. Quite heavy. Good sound but never used it as got into external amplifiers in 1997 or so. Loved this TV but before a year was up a single pixel died in the middle of the screen. I had a new CRT fitted but the alignment and colour mix was never quite correct after that. Used mostly for West Wing, Sony PlayStation and PS2.
2006-2013 Sony HD Ready TV. 40″ 16:9 screen. 720P. RF, SCART, S-Video and 1 HDMI. Mostly used for West Wing, PS3 and Gran Turismo. Lovely television, bought after seeing HD images on similar TV of the Royal Albert Hall. HD looked great, even if it was only 720.
2013 LG 1080P 3D Smart TV. 47″. It has speakers but I have no idea what they sound like as I currently have a 7.2 home cinema amplifier. This TV is used for streaming TV from BBC iPlayer and the Amazon video thing. You can play games on it but they are shit. Both the PS3 and PS4 are wired into this thing. Amusingly I rarely use the 3D effects because I don’t think 3D adds anything to the viewing experience.

So, there it is. The list. I’m not sure I get the 4k thing. Once the resolution is high enough your eye can’t differentiate a higher resolution. I think 4k content providers are also a long way away. Curved TVs – WHAT!!!!? How does a curved TV improve my experience? It reduces your viewing points and take sup more space, surely a backwards move.