robots

Miscellany

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It’s July, which means that we’re now more than half way through 2010. Still feels like April for some reason, despite the very summery weather we’ve had lately.

I haven’t had chance to blog much so this is a summarised version of things that I would have devoted posts to had I had the time.

Films:

  • About a year ago I wrote about films which I own but haven’t watched. I finally watched Robots last night and it was actually better than I had expected. The computer animation is wonderfully detailed and it’s a lot of fun. I’m starting to wish I’d watched it sooner.
  • On a related note, I have copies of Eragon, Ghostbusters II and the first Twilight film which I own but haven’t seen. All in good time, I suppose.
  • I saw the trailer for The Last Airbender a couple of months ago and it looked good, but the reviews of it suggest it’s totally rubbish, so I’ll give it a miss.

Your Freedom:

  • I was intending to write something about the government’s Your Freedom site, which asks the public for ideas about laws that need changing or repealing. It’s a good idea but badly executed, and Chris Applegate sums it up much better than I can, so read his blog post.
  • But, for the record, I’d like to see the Digital Economy Act repealed.

The Internets:

  • Some time in late April our ADSL modem at home started acting up, and ever since it’s been happily dropping packets left, right and centre. It’s a Netgear DG834GT, which isn’t a bad model but it’s several years old and has been rather over-used. The wireless has gone as well, so I’m using my spare Netgear WGR614 as an access point. Anyhow, we’re finally getting a new modem from Sky and so I’ll actually be able to do things like play World of Warcraft without lagging and download files without them timing out.

Holiday:

  • Things will be quiet around here again as Christine and I are off to the Isle of Man for a week, starting tomorrow. We don’t have a solid itinerary but are planning a trip to see the Laxey Wheel and a train ride up Snae Fell.

The film queue

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On Saturday I moved house again, although this time the move should be a little more permanent. I’m now living in North-East Bradford, rather than in the western area around the university, in a refurbished Victorian stone-built terraced house with two other lads. It’s a nice house, although it does mean a longer walk to work.

Unfortunately we don’t yet have internet – that’s a story I’ll leave for another entry – so I’m using the opportunity to watch some of the films that I own on DVD which I haven’t seen before.

Thus far I have watched the remaining episodes of Torchwood Season 2 that I haven’t seen – previously I have watched the first 4 and last 4 episodes, but missed those in the middle of the series. This included the episodes ‘Adam’ and ‘Dead Man Walking’ which are quite important to the overall story arc – having watched these episodes now, the final episode makes more sense. I also watched Baseketball, a film starring the creators of South Park, which I enjoyed but would only recommend to those who enjoyed South Park or Team America. Otherwise you’ll find it puerile and immature.

On my list to watch next are:

  • The Dark is Rising – a film that Hari wanted to watch and that we rented from LoveFilm, but haven’t yet got around to watching
  • Nacho Libre – kids film starring Jack Black that I picked up cheaply in a sale
  • Hellboy – heard mixed reviews, some people say it’s great, others hated it
  • Robots – another kids film
  • The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian – Thought the first film was very well done, but never managed to see this in the cinema.

Incidentally I posted a similar list this time last year – so a year later and I still haven’t seen Hellboy or Nacho Libre.

I also have various DVDs like The Simpsons Movie, Shrek the Third and most of the Matrix Trilogy which I have seen in the cinema but haven’t since watched on DVD. I’m going on holiday a week today and at the current rate we won’t have the internet installed by then, so I have another week of keeping myself busy.