The other thing I was thinking about on the train were my ambitions in life. My three ‘wish-list’ ambitions are to write a book, make a movie, and create a computer game. Now it could be argued that I’ve already done all three. My PhD thesis is basically a book – in Germany you have to register an ISBN and publish your thesis! I guess I’m thinking more along the times of (a) a novel, and (b) something that might actually get read. In terms of a film, last Christmas I made a “Ben’s first year” DVD, which I’m actually quite proud of. Edited together a year’s worth of fottage, threw in some cuts and effects to make a little story, added titles and background music. I was really thinking more along the lines of a proper plot, possibly even with actors. And computer games – well I wrote quite a lot of an online MUD called The Land of Drogon, which is still going actually. And I’ve done the usual Tetris type fiddling. But I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a proper arcade game, perhaps on PS2Linux. Clearly these 3 goals are not necessarily unrelated.
Other ambitions of mine range from the trivial to no-hopers, I won’t specify which is which!
In no particular order:
Go into space.
Drive a high-performance car on a test-track.
Go on a skid pan / become an advanced driver.
Go to a Grand Prix.
Get a photo published/win a prize.
Successfully bake brandy-snaps.
Formally study theology.
Learn Greek.
Learn how to draw/sketch.
Learn Python.
Go to India, China, Egypt, and South America.
That will do for now.
I should add the more intanglible but ultimately only really important “follow God faithfully”, “be a good husband”, and “be a good father”, which are my mission in life, I guess.
Sometimes I daydream on the train what I would do if I won the lottery. Actually I don’t play the lottery, so I probably have to give it back – but if ERNIE came up say. Obviously some would go off to needy causes and family, and equally obviously mortgage would be paid off – but after that?
I don’t think I’d give up work, although I suppose I might give up paid work. No, I don’t know actually, maybe I’d drop to part-time. Anyway, I was turning my thoughts to what I might spend cash on if money was no object, and to be honest I can’t really think of a lot. I guess we might be a bit lazy and get workmen in to do the last few bits and pieces on the house – perhaps even build a new garage as ours is in danger of falling down. And if we hadn’t recently done up our kitchen and bathroom, they’d be strong contenders.
But housey things aside, I probably would buy a much faster computer with a nice big monitor. At the moment it’s horribly painful editing together footage of the young master – two or three orders of magnitude slower than real-time. We might get a faster internet connection too. I guess my other expensive hobby is photography, and I would be sorely tempted to trade in my lens for some nice L glass, and possibly even buy a one of the top-range cameras. To be honest, for all of this we’re maybe talking 10-15 grand all in. I know that’s a lot of money in any sort of objective sense – but it seems a little unlikely that if a few million pounds dropped into my lap, I’d only really want to splash out 1% of it. Actually I like the idea of having a laptop, and one of those clever PVR-DVD burner things would be dead useful (especially as our VCR is on it’s last legs).
But the truth is, I’m happy with my lot. More than happy actually. I don’t particuarly want a flash car, or a plasma TV. I’m quite happy having low-key holidays staying with family. Eating simple fare, that sort of thing. I don’t really want eight thousand DVDs and CDs. Or hundreds of books. I’m not so self-deluded as to think that there wouldn’t suddenly be a large number of items that we find we can’t live without (such as a coffee roaster!), but neither do I lie awake at night wishing for that Ferrari, or yacht, or whatever. (although I would splash out on going to the Monaco Grand Prix, come to think of it).
PS The title is an Abba lyric, not a complaint! 🙂
Clearly going through a bit of a martial arts phase at the moment – what with Hero last week, Kung Fu Hustle today, and Flying Daggers on the way too! Still, gotta love them.
So Kung Fu Hustle… bit of an odd film, to be honest. A strange combination of cartoon violence and real blood, although very much at the cartoon end of the spectrum. Definitely corners on rails as far as the plot goes, but then I guess this film was never really going to be about the story.
A good friend saw it first, and was mildly disappointed – in a way I’m glad as this lowered my expectation enough to take this film as it came, rather than hoping for great things. It suffers a little from “the best bits are in the trailer”, but it must be said that I thought this version of “lots of men in suits attacking a single man” left poor Neo very sadly wanting. Come to that, the slow-mo bullet-time type stuff was very nicely done as well. In fact, the special effects were fab, and there were quite a lot of genuinely funny parts, although almost entirely shadenfreud.
It also wasn’t quite as zany as I had hoped – the trailers give the impression that people periodically break into choreographed routines in a faintly Northern Exposure style sureality, but sadly not.
On balance I’d have to give this a high score. Glad it’s in my collection, as it would definitely survive another viewing. I guess the director’s commentary would be worth catching too. Don’t expect anything particularly original, or to be challenged by plot – and enjoy the action.
In the funny way the web works, I recently ended up looking at a site all about how to make the best coffee. In fact here it is: the coffee FAQ. The upshot seems to be that you need to grind your own beans, but what’s more those beans need to have been acquired within the last few days. This is totally unfeasible for our level of coffee drinking – it can takes us a couple of months to get through a bag of pre-ground!
One idea from this site (that does sound a bit wacky) is to roast your own beans at home! You can use a pop-corn maker to do so, and of course you can roast a very small amount, that you will use up in a few days. The green beans last for many months – even a year, so that’s no problem. To be honest this really appeals to me; partly for the sort of Heath Robinson aspect to it – but mainly because I really enjoy coffee, and with a relatively small outlay (less than fity quid, I would hazard), I could get a roaster, grinder, and some green beans. Gotta be worth a try!
Incidently, Sweet Marias has got loads more information about the equipment and the process.
I’m a great fan of Frank Peretti (This Present Darkness, etc), and tend to snap up his new novels pretty quickly – like Monster for example. Anyway, he’s got this new series going called The Veritas Project (nothing to do with Killroy-Silk!!). The basic is that there is a family of undercover agents who are hired by the US government to look into strange goings on, particularly if there’s a spiritual dimension.
The first one was Hangman’s Curse, and I’ve just finished
Nightmare Academy. I really enjoyed both, and feel like I’m getting to know the family, if that makes sense. I don’t know if he plans to release any more, but they’re a good read.
Incidently, Going Postal (second most recent Pratchett) is but brilliant. Possibly the best Discworld novel to date. I speed read Thud over Christmas, and to be honest wasn’t greatly impressed, but that might have been because I only had 2 days to read it!
My current book is Labyrinth, but Kate Mosse, which – after a slow start – is going together nicely. It doesn’t quite pass the “accidently start the next chapter because it’s such a page turner” test, but it is definitely a “H’mm – well just one more chapter tonight”. There’s a nice literary device of telling two stories interleaved, about two girls with the same name in the same place, but seperated by 800 years.
One of our New Year’s resolutions was to make sure the missus and I both get some “time out” in the week, when we can just do our own thing. Her’s is to go swimming, mine is to watch movies!! So I’ve signed up to easyCinema DVD rental, and the first disk arrived yesterday, happily co-inciding with a day off (Hero was the first disk – see the review in the reviews section).
The only depressing thing – there’s about 60 films I’ve missed that I want to see. It’ll take me forever!
Well, what a surprising film, at least in terms of story. I won’t go into too much detail, as I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say it’s not very Hollywood.
Very Crouching Tiger in feel – sweeping scenery, sword fights that are closer to ballet, beautifully filmed and choreographed… very much a visual delight. The story is told as narrative by the nameless hero of the film, who has defeated China’s three greatest assassins, and is now standing before the King of Qin.
Hugely impressive set pieces – the palace and steps are fabulous. The thousands upon thousands of soldiers are very impressive, and the arrow sequences are good too. Favourite moments are when Broken Sword and Flying Snow storm the palace by defeating 3000 of the palace guard, and when Snow and Nameless defend off the arrows from the Zhao school.
Probably not a keeper – once is enough – but definitely glad I finally got around to seeing it.
Well, in the event it was a much better year for me personally than last year, although of course a year marred by ongoing terrorist and insurgent activity, and four massive natural disasters.
It’s hard to know how to sum up 2005. A year of jolly hard work, to be sure, and plenty of work trips, to the exciting climes of Oxford, Edinburgh, and Nottingham. I’m completely settled in my job now, which is good, even though my contract is up in only 18 months. Ben just keeps getting more and more fun to be with – we spent today doing a giant Thomas the Tank Engine floor puzzle! Well some it, anyway. He’s worryingly addicted to Baby TV (which is actually a TV channel I have no reservations about him watching – it’s stimulating and educational without any negative messages or vibes). We don’t really like him watching loads of telly, and when he comes down first thing in the morning and stands in front of box asking for “bebe tv bebe tv” it’s not the best. But it is particularly easy to distract him at this time of year; lots of new pressies.
In terms of my toys, my old K700i bit the dust (which was a shame, ‘cos I loved that phone). I do like the Z520i, and can’t see me changing it anytime soon. In fact I’d go further than that; I really like my Z520i, but it doesn’t quite do everything I want. Bosh var. The GPS went off on eBay too, and I haven’t yet replaced it. When I do it’s almost certainly going to be a Garmin Etrex Legend with EU basemap. The right features of the right cost.
I haven’t look back at all from my big switch to digital – in fact I even upgraded my Palm to more capable model when my only Palm III died. The Tungsten E2 is fab – the only two things I don’t like about it are that it’s very hard to work in the dark, and that it doesn’t have built in WiFi. Otherwise I love it – screen is great, apps are great, bluetooth is great, battery life is fine. I can highly recommend it. The 300D is great too – something like 2,500 shots now, and I love being able to take really risky shots knowing that I’m not wasting film. The quality of photos it takes still makes me go “wow” when they come up the computer screen for the first time.
It was a little sad to part with our Punto, although I really like the new car. My favourite aspect of the new one is it has little storage cubbyholes everywhere. It’s really good to be able to stash away stuff you hardly ever use, but want to always be in the car. Like a footpump, or binoculars, or a spare waterproof outfit. And the boot is just gorgeous. I’m really looking forward to our trip to Bristol early next year when we won’t be bursting at the seams!!
Anyway, if I keep rambling it’ll be midnight… Happy new Year to one and all. Here’s hoping 2006 brings peace and blessings to us all. Resolutions to follow.
Eeek – just bought a new car. Well, that is it’s a new car for us.. ’tis actually 3 years old, but with only 10k on the clock. We didn’t particularly want to have to buy one yet, but our poor Punto is ailing, and the good lady needs a reliable car for work.
This is actually the first time I’ve bought a car – although I paid for at least half the Punto, A. did the actual buying. This time it’s me (and in an interesting reversal, she’s paying for it). It’s going to be very sad driving the Punto to the garage tomorrow afternoon, as that’ll be the last time we drive it. It really has done us proud over the last 6 1/2 years. Many trips to London, Cornwall, and Norfolk. One or two to Wales and Scotland. Made it to 60,000 miles in all (most of which were down to us – it was a 12 month old courtesy car before and had only done a couple of thou, I think).
The new ‘un is a Renault Megan Scenic Authentic (to give it it’s full name) – one of those cars that’s a cross between a run-around and a people carrier. It’s not particularly wider or longer than a Punto, but it is taller, and better use is made of space to let it sit 4 comfortably and 5 at a bit of a squash, with plenty of boot space. The Punto on the other hand only really seats 2 comfortably, and 5 is a very friendly experience. It’s also a bit lacking on the old boot space (It is so annoying to have the take the wheels off the pushchair to fit in the boot).
The whole car buying experience leaves a bad taste in the mouth though. You feel like you could probably get a couple of hundred off if you bargained and were a hard customer – my attitude has been that if the deal seems fair I’m happy to run with it. And you basically have to trust the garage aren’t pulling a fast one in terms of the condition of the car. Still, it’s just lovely to drive, and everything works as far as I could tell.
The saddest thing of all? It cost slightly less than the Punto when we bought that 7 years ago!
Yum – went for sushi today, at Little Tokyo in town. I opted for the sashimi bento, which was a new experience on both counts. I must admit that raw fish (and jellyfish) has never been near the top of my “food I want to eat” list, but you’ve got to try these things. I was actually quite impressed – really very tasty, and the whole bento box thing in general is a top plan.
The restaurant itself was fine – we ate downstairs, but there was a huge fishtank against one wall, which looked a bit like a window as long as you didn’t actually look at it. The service was a little variable; the starters and mains arrived quickly, but the deserts – while very tasty – arrived one at a time over 15 or 20 minutes, and weren’t exactly what was ordered at first. We decided the waiter didn’t speak any English.
The menu was reasonably priced, and as I said the food was well received by all. If I went again I probably wouldn’t bother with desert or coffee there as it was so slow.
