Rain
Posted: Fri 15 May, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Green, Green Garden Leave a comment »Out of interest, am I the only person who’s been pleased that it’s rained this week?
There’s a reason for this, rather than me just being a grumpy anti-sun person – it’s that our water-butts were beginning to run low on water. I’ve written before about our collection of water butts – enough to hold about 1,850 litres (roughly 400 gallons) of water all told – but the levels were getting pretty low all round, due to not having had any rain in a while.
So yes, I’m generally happy to have had a couple of days of rain – all the water-butts connected to proper drainpipes had completely refilled, although the ones linked to the greenhouse didn’t do so well. We obviously still need to work on that a bit.
Anyway, with the water-butts happily full again, I spent some time this evening moving water up to the butts by the greenhouse, two watering-cans at a time. It means that the larger butts are back to being about half empty again, but if /when we get more rain (which is the current prediction) then the larger ones attached to drainpipes will fill up again a lot ore easily.
But still, yes, I’m happy that it’s been raining. Go figure.
The Next 30 Years
Posted: Thu 14 May, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts, Writing Leave a comment »Charlie Stross is one of my favourite current sci-fi authors, and this post goes some way to explaining why.
It’s the text of his keynote speech for LOGIN 2009, a conference for online games developers, and the speech is about the changes he sees coming in gaming over the next thirty years. He’s already written a novel based around some of these ideas (“Halting State“) and is currently writing the sequel to it, so I think it’s fair to say he’s done a fair amount of research and thinking about this subject already.
All told, it’s an interesting and entertaining read – and I’m sure it would’ve been even better to see him make the speech in person.
Shark vs. Octopus
Posted: Wed 13 May, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »(via Chris)
An early contender for “Shittest Film of 2009” (No, not Wolverine) – “MegaShark vs. Giant Octopus”
The trailer, mind you, does have to be seen to be (dis)believed…
Unshattered
Posted: Wed 13 May, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »So, that’s the rear window on the car now fixed, and I can drive again. Happy Day. So now all I need to do is go down to the place where it got broked, and sort out repayment of the excess with them.
And if anyone cares, I used AutoGlass, who are the recommended people when using Tesco Car Insurance. We’ve used them before (when Herself had her back window stolen while we lived in Bracknell, and for one other broken window incident) and they’ve always been impressively efficient.
In this case it took longer than expected (i.e. fixed today instead of yesterday) because the window that broke had to be ordered- it’s not a common one to break, apparently. So it got ordered from their central depot thingy when I called yesterday at about 3pm, was delivered to Norwich first thing this morning, and fitted here by half twelve.
I’d say that’s going to be pretty impressive by anyone’s standards, to be honest.
Shattering
Posted: Tue 12 May, 2009 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Another dollop of my luck with the car occurred this afternoon.
Coming home, I went past a field where a tractor was towing a grass-mowing implement.
Something (I assume a stone) must have flicked up from the grass-mowing thing, and shattered one of the back side windows completely.
Luckily, I went straight in to the place that owned the field/tractor, and they’ll pay the excess that I’ve got to pay for the replacement glass.
So it could be worse – but it would be better if it hadn’t happened at all.
No-Fly
Posted: Tue 12 May, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Creativity Leave a comment »How to break a jet engine in creative ways – Lesson 1
Suck a metal luggage cart into it
I can just see the conversation at “lost luggage” now.
Well, we know where it is.
Yes, it might be a little bit damaged…
X-Men Origins : Wolverine
Posted: Mon 11 May, 2009 Filed under: Reviews(ish), Thoughts 2 Comments »On Friday, we finally got round to seeing X-Men Origins : Wolverine. I’ve liked the previous three X-Men films (Yes, even the third, although it was nowhere near as good as the first two) and the trailers looked stunning.
The entire film can be pretty much summed up in the following :
OK, so there’s this guy who’s pretty much indestructible. Let’s complement that with an impregnable metal skeleton.
Oh fuck, he’s gone rogue. Kill him.
Um. How?
All told, it’s an OK film – but not a great one. Gordon commented about some of the ropy CGI effects but I’ve got to say, I thought there were a number of other times where the CGI looked seriously ropy, and in ways that detracted from the film.
As mindless entertainment, it’s OK – nothing earth-shattering, but not abysmal either – just don’t go thinking into it too much.
Was it worth seeing? Yes.
Would I bother seeing X-Men Origins : Magneto, or even Wolverine 2 ? No, not ’til it comes out on DVD, I expect.