Happy New Year!

And so begins 2005 – may it bring much peace and happiness.

As I was making my morning coffee, I was looking at the instant jars, and just thinking about the colours. Caf is usually red (or perhaps black), whereas decaf is usually green. Presumably this is a reflection on society’s attitude to caffeine – red for danger, green is safe! However if you think in terms of “stop” and “go”, it’s quite another story.

Anyway, it’s goodbye to 2004, and as usual it only seems like yesterday i was having to remember not to write 2003 on cheques. What an extraordinary year it was; the death of my Dad, birth of my son, got my PhD, ditched my filofax & film SLR for digital counterparts – obviously these vary in magnitude, but (for example) I’d run my life using a filofax for 11 years – nearly all my adulthood! Incidently, the Canon 300D is awesome.

If I’m honest I face 2005 with some trepidation. 2004 was jolly hard work, and the thought of another hard year… Still we can only look forward with hope, the days are getting longer again, Ben continues to grow and delight, and the house is so close to being done…

Incidently, the reason for the long gap between the last two entries is not laziness/busyness/apathy (for a change), but rather because we’re having our new kitchen fitted, which of course entails turning off the electrics, so I’ve been powering down my Linux server just in case the electrician chose that day to visit.

‘Course I needn’t have bothered, as workmen never worry too much about turning up when they claim they will, so in something like 2 weeks of keeping the server powered down, the sparky came once. Needless to say it’s an annoyance to have to power it down – it doesn’t perform any critical function on my network at home, but I do use it to handle DNS queries (as NTL’s are so ropey, plus I can then put fake names on all the machines on my local network), and I also tend to back-up my data onto it as well as onto DVD.

… but it is also how I manage my website – I have a local database which stores all my Letters from Leeds and reviews, etc, and I mirror my ISPs webserver, so I can test stuff works before I upload it. Of course, all my scripts are on this machine, so when it’s down I can’t fiddle with the website. I keep meaning to put a web front-end on it, but my setup works for me, and I’ve got other things to do with my time!

Ben is crawling!!! 🙂

He’s been oh-so-close for a few weeks now, but he definitely managed several succesive leg and arm movements to get across the floor. I know that in real terms this is a pain the bottom, but it’s still exciting.

So that’s the weekend fitting stairgates, fireguards, plug covers, …

What a great film this is! I’m a big Pixar film fan in any case, and once again I felt like this film just nailed it. As always the animation is superb, cartoony enough so you’re never distracted into wondering if it’s “real” (although I do have to add that the volcanic island is breath-taking, and at times I did a double-take as to if it was really computer generated..)
The characters are also very good, although I didn’t end up caring for Mr. Incredible and co. in quite the same way as I did for, say Nemo or Woody. But this is clearly a franchise scenario – expect Incredibles 2 any time soon – so I guess there’s a bit more space for character development yet. The story and script are just fab, absolutely spot on. That said, I wouldn’t come away quoting any one-liners; in many cases the comedy was visual (Elastigirl in particular is pure genius here – whoever thought of that super-trait needs promotion! I can’t say too much without spoiling, sadly)
The only thing that surprised me about the film was how… well I’m torn between wanting to say “dark” and wanting to say “true”. People actually die in this film – usually quite violently – although not at all graphically. One sequence goes through a serious of super-heroes demising through mechanisms such as being sucked into a jet turbine (which, to be fair it is actually quite funny! I won’t say why it’s funny, find out for yourself). In another sequence, there’s the list of supers who have been killed by the baddies. Speaking of baddies, no end of these get killed, mainly through being blown up in their aircraft. In any other cartoon you’d expect them to miraculously escape harm (beyond being dazed), but this particular film established very early on that people actually get hurt – after all a significant premise is that people start sueing the supers because of injuries they sustained while being rescued. Don’t get me wrong, by no means is it blood and guts – for instance when the super is sucked into the turbine, the turbine is panned off-screen, just behind the super, who also suddenly disappears off screen, followed by a slightly off-screen explosion and an emergency alarm sound from the cockpit. The implication is inescapable, but not actually shown.
I found surprisingly few ‘in-jokes’ too, perhaps I’m getting too old, but references to other films where obvious by their absence. The best example (non-example?) is at one point where the speedy little boy (“dash”) is being chased around a forest-type setting. A nod at Return of the Jedi is screaming to be made, but none particularly is. I guess the whole sequence/concept is one big nod – a low level rush through tree trunks – but I felt the irony was lacking, somehow.
Speaking of Star Wars, they also had the trailer for Episode III, which I already watched on da ol’ PC, but is so much better on the big screen.
In summary, another hit from Pixar. Kids will love it (although it might lead to conversations about death – “Mummy, what happened to that person when they got sucked into a jet turbine?”), and adults should enjoy it too. Can’t wait for the next one.
Seen at Ster Century, Leeds

Well, advent has begun! Advent is one of my favourite times of year, although technically carols are meant to sung between Christmas and Epiphany, I do enjoy singing them, and I love the heavy expectation in the run up to Christmas Day. Traditionally advent is a time of reflection – a bit like Lent – before the joy and celebration of Christmas, but that seems to have got a bit turned on it’s head; now we party until January 1st, and then reflect (from bed, with an alka-seltzer!)

This idea of advent reflection makes sense – after all it was 30 years after the birth of Jesus before he really began making his mark, and certainly the birth of a child was not the relatively safe procedure it is for us in the West these days. I guess there was excitement about it though – Mary going to see Elizabeth (who herself miraculously conceived John the Baptist), birth of a first child, let alone virgin birth with visitations of angels.

Still, I do approach advent with anticipation – for me Easter is a deeper celebration, and Easter makes my life as I know it possible… but without Christmas there wouldn’t be an Easter!

Had my SonyEricsson K700i for a bit now, and what I great phone – does everything I want a phone to do, and seems to have been designed really nicely. The repeating alarm is great – you select what days you want it to go off (so I don’t need to remember to switch if off on Friday, and then on again on Sunday), and it will play an MP3 as the alarm signal, so I’m lulled gently awake by the Moonlight Sonata.

There have been complaints about the battery life, and I don’t really see it. Ok, so it’s not got the charge of, say, the T68i, but I find I can comfortably go 3 or 4 days without charging it. It did nearly run out of charge on one trip to Oxford, but I was using it to check my e-mail quite a lot, and to phone home, so I can forgive that. I did mention that it’s got a POP3 and IMAP e-mail client built in?

The screen is lovely, clear, bright, and colourful, and the web-browser does a pretty good job of rendering webpages. The camera – well, it’s a 300K pixel camera in a phone, nothing to write phone about, but does what it says on the box. Oh yes, except for that horrible crunch sound you can’t turn off with the new firmware (R200L or something? Will look it up later)

It’s funny how the busyness of the trains’ vary. All this week I have arrived at my local station at about the same time, got the same train into work, amd arrived at Leeds statation at about the same time. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were fairly quiet – plenty of Metros left, platform not too crowded, one or two people standing by the time we got into Leeds. At Leeds, I sailed straight through the ticket barriers.

Yesterday, platform was heaving, all the Metros gone (one of my pet peeves), people were being turned away at the penultimate stop because there was no room, and Leeds station was jammed solid with people queueing just to show their tickets and get out!

I can’t for the life of my work out why this should be. The busy local train might be due to an earlier train being cancelled, but that wouldn’t explain the Metro‘s running out (other people on the platform had them, so it was that they hadn’t been delivered) – although if there had been a cancellation, I suppose some of them may have got bored and picked up a paper when they otherwise wouldn’t. Incidently – why doesn’t eveyone get one? ANYWAY, I know that the ticket barrier at Leeds was probably a coincidence of a few busy trains arriving at once, but to be honest queueing like that is my normal morning experience, and I was amazed not to have to on Monday through Wednesday. Is there some secret half holiday I don’t know about?

Another film bites the dust – Hideous Kinky with Kate Winslet amoungst others. Not bothered to do a full review as there is nothing really to say; I guess I suffered for not having read the book first, but found the whole film pretty uninspiring. Beautiful photography and costume, but no real character development (or affinity), no great journey, plenty of stuff never explained properly – all art and no substance!

On a happier note, I ordered my new camera last night (thank you again, Cici, for your generosity in death as you were in life). A’s going to wrap it up as a Christmas present for me, but I will get to have a microplay when it arrives; just to check it’s all working and doesn’t need sending back.

End as I finish – two films on time-shift (i.e. video from TV), Bandits and The Siege. Can’t say I know much about them, but both have high calibre actors (Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thorton, Cate Blanchett in the first case, Denzel Washington, Annette Benning, and Bruce Willis in the second), so figure they were worth the effort of setting the video…

Snow. SNOW! Only halfway through November and it’s snowing. Ok, so it’s not going to settle, but it was definitely snowing when I went outside just now. It has been blooming parky all week, and that just proves it!

Actually, it has settled a little – the lawn had a light dusting of white when I glanced outside. Mind you, I’m not going to complain if we have a nice snowy winter – love it: curled up in front of the fire with a book and a hot chocolate looking out at the deep white snow outside.