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.
Pink at the O2 – 1st May
Posted: Tue 5 May, 2009 Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish) 3 Comments »I’ve seen Pink in concert before – but it was many moons ago, back at the Manchester Apollo. In fact, having checked back, it was pre-D4D that I went, which gives a fine range on how long ago it was.
Anyway, at that point it was small venue and her first tour in the UK. She was fantastic then, but the stage was pretty minimal.
What a contrast to this tour. The Funhouse tour is – to say the least – spectacular, and a world away from that first tour. Right from the start, as Pink comes out of a magic box, you know it’s going to be something special.
I won’t give away the surprises in the show – suffice it say there’s a couple of superb covers of tracks I honestly never thought I’d say that about – but it’s a spectacular in every sense of the word. The really impressive part is where Pink also goes up on a trapeze – while singing “Sober” – and does so perfectly, even while doing the drops etc. It’s a truly impressive sight.
In fact, the entire show is stunning, from the lights to the multi-video-screen backdrop, the runway out into the audience, the trapeze and ropework, the entire stage set – it’s just stunning.
Well worth going to see if you get the chance.
Mileage (Part Two)
Posted: Sat 2 May, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Reviews(ish), Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »So, yesterday – all told it involved 310 miles, 8 hours of driving, and one exceptionally knackered Lyle.
The drive down to Wokingham from home was OK, not too painful (even on the M25, which was slow but not abysmal) and I did it in 2.5 hours all told. Drop off Hound at her place of residence for the next week, have some lunch, and it’s half three. So I decide I’ll head over to Greenwich and the O2.
It’s at that point that I realise I haven’t got the normal sat-nav in the car. I had it the day before for the drive to Welwyn Garden City, then Herself used it in the evening, and I’d forgotten to make sure I got it back. Oh bollocks.
So instead I had to trust the POS sat-nav thing on my phone – a heap of crap called Wayfinder. And Jesus H Christ on a warped pine crutch, it really is a piece of shit. First of all it took no less than fifteen minutes to find where the fuck it was – although that may be a fault of the phone’s GPS rather than Wayfinder. However, the fact that it was consistently 400 ft out was entirely the fault of Wayfinder, and meant that it had a nasty habit of saying “Oh, you wanted to turn left back there“. Now I’m sure that’s fine out in the arse of beyond where 400 ft doesn’t mean a thing – but in central London, 400 ft is the equivalent of about six roads.
Wayfinder also wanted me to go some deeply surreal routes. My original idea had been to go southbound (anticlockwise) round the M25 from the M4, get to the junction for (probably) the A2, and belt straight up to Greenwich – probably the longer and (in theory) quicker route. Only (as usual for the M25 on a Friday) it was jammed solid for about six junctions. Fuck that, thinketh I. (And bear in mind here, Wayfinder was trying to tell me to go northbound on the M25 instead)
So – straight along the M4, into the city, through. Only that was buggered too. (And Wayfinder kept planning on taking me back north of the river for some fuckforsaken reason)
So – round the infamous South Circular Road. I know a bit of it, but not all of it, so I might have to rely on satnav a bit. And there laid my biggest mistake of all. Because Wayfinder didn’t want me to take the simple South Circular (A205) route round to the A2. It wanted to take me the tourist way (and also possibly to get up to the M40 and go through from there). Every fucking time. And be 400 ft out in its estimations. All the fucking way round.
Eventually I gave up on it, once it tried taking me through Elephant and Castle.
From there, and pretty epically lost – I knew very roughly where I was, where I needed to be, and roughly the roads I needed to take – I finally found myself, got back on the road I wanted, and once I’d done that it was a 30 minute run through to the O2 itself. I should have been able to do the route in 90 minutes, give or take – maybe 2 hours in shitty rush-hour traffic.
Instead, because of the cuntbrick piece of shit satnav software, it took me three and a half bollocking hours to do fifty miles. Yeah, go on and laugh, fuckers.
By contrast, the drive home was two hours door-to-door, and belted past. We got home at 1:15.
I’ll write more about the Pink concert itself later or tomorrow – but for now let’s just say it was fan-bloody-tastic. Well impressed all round.
New MP3 Player
Posted: Sat 10 January, 2009 Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 1 Comment »Over the Festering Season break, and as part of an impetus to get me back to the gym, I invested in a new MP3 player – the Sony Walkman S638F, with 16Gb of storage. Equally, my last MP3 player (purchased before I even started D4D™!) has now disappeared – although I’m sure we’ll now find it this weekend – so there was another valid reason to buy a new one.
Yes, sure, I could’ve bought an iPod instead, but considering I only paid £85 for it, I couldn’t have got a similar spec (or even a better spec) one for the same price. Plus well, I’m not a massive fan of Apple’s stuff anyway, and I’d rather have something different. The Walkman had a damn good review in the Register, and fitted in with other requirements as well, so it was pretty much the obvious choice.
And I have to say, I’m really pleased with it. The sound quality is spectacular – having been tested on some of my favourite tunes, I’m tempted to say it’s actually the best music player I’ve had since the old Panasonic ‘cobra top’ ghetto-blaster (which still lives on nearly fifteen years after purchase, and is an evil beast of a thing that used to be able to drown out the next-door pub’s disco-night)
As per my last post on MP3 players and storage (back in 2005) I really don’t see myself filling up that 16Gb unless I also download some videos from the BBC iPlayer site to watch on it while at the gym. I might fill it- you never know- but at the moment I’m using 7.5Gb of the available space, and that’s got enough variety to keep me going all week.
We’ll see.
But in the meantime, if someone’s looking for a new MP3 player, the Walkman ‘S’ range comes heavily recommended.
Tracy Chapman – Hammersmith Apollo
Posted: Tue 16 December, 2008 Filed under: Reviews(ish) 1 Comment »Two years on from the last time we saw her, Tracy Chapman returned to the Hammersmith Apollo, this time doing a solo tour. (i.e. with no band)
Thankfully, this time the crowd were much better behaved (well at least while Chapman herself was on stage) which meant we could enjoy the gig without wanting to strangle anyone. There’s still a couple of rants to be written, but that’s something else entirely. Anyway, it turns out that in this concert (and, I assume, others on the same tour) she’s also taking requests from people – there were cards in the entrance hall, and people could fill them in and request favourite songs. As she said, this meant that the show was a lot more random than could be done with a band.
All told, pretty much all the favourites were played, along with tracks from the new album. She didn’t perform a couple of my personal favourites (In particular “Change”, “You’re the one” and “Another Sun”) but that’s fine – the tracklist was still excellent, with Fast Car, Across the Lines, SubCity, Talkin’ about a Revolution, and many others. In short, almost a “Greatest Hits” performance, with just Chapman and a guitar.
The stage set also deserves a mention – while it was minimal, the backdrop of a sky with projected sun going through from dawn to dusk was fantastically done, and the very simple setting of a few lightbulbs hanging above the singer somehow made the entire thing quite magical. It sounds really simple – and it was – but it worked, and that’s always the important thing.
In all, Tracy Chapman played for two solid hours, despite having a cold/cough (she said that at the previous day’s concert, she’d induldged in some cough-syrup, which apparently led to some interesting spoken parts) and really was just a fantastic performer. The interludes where she talked were great, showing her intelligence and humour (at one point saying that if she went off for a costume change, she’d only come back wearing a different pair of jeans) and a building a real rapport with the audience.
If I’d been smarter, we’d have got tickets for both shows (last night and tonight) and just stayed in London overnight. But we didn’t, so we’ll just have to live with only seeing her once this tour. It would’ve been worth doing.
Sony C905 Mobile
Posted: Fri 28 November, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Photography, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »Ten days ago, I got the new mobile phone that I’d been whittling on about – the Sony-Ericsson (SE) C905. It was an upgrade from my old SE K800i, and so far I’m impressed with it.
While I don’t use it that often, the 8Mp camera on the phone is impressive when it comes to everyday photos. I haven’t played with night or low-light shots etc. yet, but I’m sure I will at some point. But (as last weekend’s photos of the snow show) it certainly brings out some good results in general use.
There are annoyances, but they’re more down to decisions by the maker than the phone itself – for example, the simple changes of function buttons, so where one used to use the right-hand control button to get to an option, it’s now on the left. (which the “Back” or “Cancel” button now being the right-hand one) I know I’ll re-learn the muscle-memory to take me to the correct button before long, but while getting used to it, it’s an annoyance.
And the thing is, there’s a lot that hasn’t changed. The menu system is much the same as it was on the K800i, so you kind of expect the option buttons to remain the same too.
The a-GPS is still incredibly slow when it comes to finding itself, and the navigation software isn’t all that great (although that may change over time) but it’s better than nothing, and will probably get tested over time. We’ll see.
The keypad takes some getting used to – there’s no real definition between the keys on each row, so it’s (currently) very easy to hit the wrong key while touch-typing a text message (Yeah, I can do that. I know, I’m sad.) or whatever, so you do need to check the screen before sending. But it’s a good responsive keyboard, which helps.
Call quality is the same as I had on the K800i – no problems, no issues, and all calls come through nice and clear. Because we’re out in the sticks, we don’t have full 3G coverage, so I can’t comment at all about video call quality – but then, I’ve never used them anyway, so *shrug*.
Internet and GPRS access are decent – even better, the phone also has Wi-Fi, so it can connect over a wireless network if one’s available – and generally pretty usable. Email send/receive over the mobile network is slow, but acceptable if I need to use it instead of the laptop for some reason…
Overall though, it’s a really nice bit of kit – of course, I’m sure it’ll be completed outmoded within 18 months, but that’s the way of things at the moment. As it is, it’s a good phone, and I’m pleased with it.
Frankie Boyle, Cambridge Corn Exchange
Posted: Tue 25 November, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Reviews(ish) 6 Comments »Over the weekend, we went to see Frankie Boyle’s live show at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. Never heard of him? He’s one of the primary panellists (and probably the most consistently rude/offensive/’edgy’/dark one) on BBC’s “Mock The Week”, which we’ve always enjoyed, so we figured it was worth giving a go to the live show.
All in all, it was OK. There was a significant amount (I’d say probably 40-50%) that we’d already heard on Mock The Week, or other appearances he’s made, which I have to say I find pretty disappointing. Comparing his show to that of Dara O’Briain (who we’ve now seen twice) it was obvious that Frankie Boyle’s show was a lot more scripted, without the audience involvement that O’Briain brings to his show. Boyle’s conversations with the audience felt like they were pretty much a template, there wasn’t anything that flowed from those conversations, and so it all felt quite stilted in some ways.
Also, he was only on stage for seventy minutes. No encore at all – just a “Thanks, you’ve been great, bye.” at 10pm. Fortunately there’d also been a warm-up act, so it wasn’t a rip-off of Sarah Silverman levels – but I suspect we’d have felt a lot more annoyed if we hadn’t only paid £10 each for the tickets. (thanks to a ‘restricted view’ that really wasn’t)
So yeah, it was OK. I don’t think we’d bother going to see him again – in direct contrast to having seen Dara O’Briain twice in three years, as well as having the DVD of his live show – but it was OK entertainment for a Saturday night.