Yet Another Blog

I went to see Signs t’other night. Great movie with quite a few “jump in your seat” bits – although the ending was (as everybody kept telling me) an anti-climax. Basically aliens invade the planet, and they leave signs for themselves to co-ordinate their attacks, in the form of – you guessed it – crop circles. Unfortunately the movie is flaky in several places.

Here’s one bit I don’t get: in the movie they say that all the past crop circles were fake, made by big men with large wooden boards and way too much free time. If that’s true it’s a bit of a coincidence that aliens use *exactly the same* sort of patterns in crops themselves when they come to invade. I mean, it’s not as if the fakers thought “ooh, aliens definitely use this technique – let’s fake them” because there were no previous aliens attack (that I remember) – so what? The fakers pre-empted the crop circles that aliens would use when they eventually come down to earth?

Nah.

Also, there was not enough of stuff being blown up for my liking. If I watch an alien invasion movie I at least expect to see one spaceship shooting a building into rubble. It’s almost a given. Even War of the Worlds had it.

In my view, if you want to see a mediocre movie with some tense moments and good acting, see this movie. If not, go do some knitting or something.

Sven gives this 5/10.

So, I went and watched XXX last night with a couple of mates. All in all I enjoyed it. A great movie to watch – if not for the dazzling display of ridiculous stunt action, then for the suprisingly good acting by Vin Diesel and quite good scenery.

Bits of it were dubious. My physics studying friend, Chris, helpfully pointing out that tesla coils in a nightclub are probably unlikely to be safe, and I also noticed that a snowboarder is probably not likely to be able to travel at the same speed, or faster than an avalanche and be able to stay standing up.

Then again, the unrealistic stunts and death-defying activities are what makes James Bond very good and exciting. You definitely got that feeling with XXX – an Americanised (-ized?) version of James Bond. Lots of gadgets, ladehs, and miscellaneous exploding vehicles and buildings. Vin Diesel played the part well and I look forward to XXX2.

Sven gives this 8/10

xXx – the new movie with Vin Diesel about a guy who loses a packet of extra strong mints (that joke’s been brewing for a while, sorry), is in cinemas from tomorrow and I’m going to watch it at the Odeon in Southampton, so expect some kind of review. I haven’t had particularly high expectations because I’m not a massive fan of action movies – but still it seems to be a popular format. So much so that xXx2 is down already for a late 2004 release.

There. It’s happened. The first in a long line of Christmas adverts soon to blast our televisions. October 15th was the first day I saw an X-Mas ad this year, for Hobbycraft. I don’t go into Fareham town centre very often so I have no idea whether Woolworths is emblazened with decorations yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

The MySQL dolphin has finally got a name. But did they listen to my persistant rants that it should be Bob, because Bob is clearleh the random name of choice. (it was also 3rd most popular candidate)? Not bloody likely.

Instead it’s Sakila, which Ambrose Twebaze tells us originates from SiSwati (Swaziland readers will recognise this as their local lingo). It’s also the name of a town in Arusha, Tanzania. What bet it actually means something rude in Swahili or something, and he is having a laugh at all of us right now. I know I would if I had the chance.

Anyways, dolphins sorted. We can all get on with our lives. Mmmmmm…… tuna sandwich.

Oh the fun of working in IT…. 🙂

Two IT guys were walking across the park when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?” The second IT guy replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, ‘Take what you want.’

The second IT guy nodded approvingly, “Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn’t have fit.”

———–

An architect, an artist and an IT guy were discussing whether it was better to have a wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship.

The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.

The IT guy said, “I like both.”

The artist said “BOTH?”

The IT guy replied “Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they
will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the office and get some work done.”

———–

An IT guy was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.” He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.” The IT guy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to his pocket.

The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you for a week and do ANYTHING you want.”
Again the IT guy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back iinto his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess, that I’ll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?”

The IT guy said, “Look I work in IT. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog – now that’s cool.”

Found on the ‘net like everything else that is great in life.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

MIT are offering their course/lecture notes on the Internet for free. Now, if they could just release notes for 101 World Domination classes I’d be sorted.

At the moment I’m tidying up the front page somewhat. Basically my idea that each day should have a seperate page didn’t work, so I’ve put up to a month on one page. It should all be fine – not too many graphics to load.

I know I’m going to need to read this document again when it comes to HCI design at uni. It makes a very good (and reasonable) point about the five most easily accessible points on the screen for a user. That being the point directly under the mouse already; and the four corners of the screen.

This made me think about it a bit and realise a potential problem with Windows 98’s HCI (I haven’t seen this picked up yet on that document but it’s probably been realised somewhere): If you push your cursor right down into the bottom left of the screen and click – it doesn’t work. You actually have to move up and right a bit to get to the Start menu! Once you notice that you begin to realise how annoying it is and how easy it could’ve been to fix! (after all – the X icon in the top right of maximised screens appears to have a padding between it and the edge of the screen but click the corner and it works!).

Does anybody know if this was fixed in XP?

I’m thinking of changing the style of this blog to have several days’ worth of entries on the front page….hmmmm.

In other news I watched a good movie tonight, Road to Perdition tonight. It was a very good movie, although a little predictable and fairly hard to follow who’s who. Very good acting though, on all parts and not just Tom Hanks’. I reckon it’s worth watching!

Just noticed that the advert for Faking It on Channel 4 has a bit of music in the background that I can’t get out of my head recently. It’s Police, Every Breathe You Take, mixed with a Mafia stylee bit of music. It was also in a recent episode of the Sopranos where the FBI are following them all. Excellent mix, and I can’t find it anywhere. Bugger.