The natural end product of budget travel
We’ve all by now no doubt experienced the process of booking with “budget” airlines:
- Flight, Free
- Check-in surcharge - £10
- Checked Luggage Surcharge - £15 per bag
- Online booking surcharge - £5
- Priority boarding surcharge - £10
- Airport Taxes - £60
Seen here is what might be a budget airlines safety annoucement in a few years time…
Journey 3D
Oh dear.
Oh dear.
(note, this review may contain spoilers)
Mainstream 3D films really need to get past the “playing with 3D” gimmicks before they’ll be taken seriously. Beowolf 3D was good - because it used the 3D to add depth - it was like “looking through a window”, rather than having characters in the film throw/push/hold things into the forground all the time, which is precisely how Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3D spends it’s time.
Once you’ve survived 20 minutes of balls, sticks, and tape measures being waved into the foreground space - the film picks up, but only by lifting a series of set pieces from other blockbuster movies of the past - and it’s just soooo predicatable as a result.
Underground - check.
Mine car “rollercoaster” from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Check.
Swams of insects/birds/bats/fish flying through the screen (as seen in pretty much every themepark 3D film). Check.
Floating Rock Stepping Stones (from pretty much every Super Mario Bros. game)
Implausable creatures underground. Check.
Inifinite Fall sequence where the characters stop screaming, have a conversation, then start screaming again. Check.
Well, as a technical demonstration for live action 3D movies, it’s passable, but as an action adventure movie, it’s not a patch on either National Treasure 2, or Indy Jones 4.
That Feelgood Feeling
Last night, I went to see the new movie version of “Mamma Mia!” - now, I know it’s not my normal fare of action/sci-fi/thriller type movie - but having seen the stage version earlier this year in Bristol, I wanted to see how well it had translated to film.
You can tell a lot about how the audience found a film by watching as they leave the auditorium - most of the time, people have a fairly neutral expression, of if a film was really good a smile. Mamma Mia - people were walking out humming and singing “Waterloo” (which is the song they use over the closing credits). Note to everyone, do not leave the theatre until after Waterloo - the visuals on screen are laugh-out-loud funny.
Generally the film has taken the stage show pretty faithfully, added some spectacular locations, some “jumps” between scenes which weren’t possible on stage, and a ton of energy. This is a cast who are clearly enjoying themselves (although Pierce Brosnan’s singing voice is nothing to write home about). There’s lots of little touches which came from the stage show - including the “Flipper Dance” making a brief appearance.
I’m not going to go into the plot here - firstly, so I won’t spoil it, but moreso because it’s mostly irrelevant, being simply there to hang a series of Abba hits around.
Despite going on my own - I enjoyed it - I suspect because it was a full screening and the audience were having a lot of fun - unlike most films where anyone who says anything is likely to be “sushed” - in this one half the audience were singing along, and nobody minded!
RIP HD-DVD. Finally the war is over.
As the song says “War, What is it good for, Nothing”
Of course, I’m talking about the High Def. Disc format war in this case - today Toshiba issued a press release which basically says “We’re not making the players any more” - and as they were the major player behind the HD-DVD format, that’s pretty much the end of the battle. The format has been on it’s way out for a while now, as studios have been pursuaded to change sides towards Sony’s Blu-Ray format - which had the major advantage of being supplied “built in” to the Playstation 3 games console - effectively pushing blu-ray players into homes who wouldn’t necessarily pay for a standalone machine.
Now the war is over, people who’ve been holding off buying a HD player to wait and see which format wins - and who don’t want to be lumbered with the Betamax of the new millennium - can now safely buy a Blu-Ray player or PS3. Until of course the whole “profiles” problem rears it’s head, with a next-generation of blu-ray disc possibly being incompatible with current players - unless the players are updated. Of course, this is entirely dependent on the manufacturer.
In my opinion, a sensible choice of player at the moment is actually the aformentioned Playstation 3 - as it’s blu-ray decoder is software based, it should be upgradable via a download (which given that the PS3 has both wired and wireless network capability should not be a problem) - plus it’s only a little more money than a standalone blu-ray player, with the bonus of also being a high quality games machine.
Pimp my House 2007
Well, here we go again, it’s approaching Christmas, so it’s time for some more houses with lights set to music…
Another XKCD - Wasteland
Found on XKCD and reproduced under a Creative Commons license (click for full size):
It’s true. It’s all true.
Yes, the truth about working in IT. (via Gadgetopia)
To pick two from the list…
Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs
and of course…
It will be your fault when users make silly errors
Yes, IT is not the glamourous career path it used to be. It’s not all about new technology (usually it’s about very very old technology)
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