Category Archives: Review

The Tudors

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After a quick delivery from Amazon, we just spent the past week working our way through four Seasons of ‘The Tudors‘ and it was bloody enjoyable. I used to love History when I was at School. But because of the vagaries of ‘option choices’ back then I wasn’t allowed to choose it as a subject I could study from third year. Boo.

Of course this probably isnt the kind of series you can sit a kid down in front of to help with studying. Because, er, to describe it as a bit rompy is a bit of an understatement … I’m not knocking that of course ;) Really enjoyable and quite historically accurate.

They did well with the story though and really managed to create a great atmosphere.

Thoroughly recommend it, if you like this kind of thing.

The best Sherlock Holmes (DON”T ARGUE)

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After years (I’m not kidding) of hunting I finally saw that Amazon stocked the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone. Utterly bloody delighted as I used to watch them all the time when I was a youngster. Absolutely loved them.

So that was ordered, delivered and now I’m deliriously happy :D

The Grey

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Liam Neeson seems to be morphing into a bad ass in his movies, but he pulls it off and I like it. ‘The Grey‘ – I didn’t know what to expect from this movie apart from the screen shots of him readying for a fight. The premise is not new. X number of people hunted by a deadly foe. It’s the same formula you’ve seen in a dozen other movies at least. But Liam brings just an awesome presence. The direction and look and feel of the film give it a hard, cold edge which also just adds to it. I really enjoyed it.

 

The Morning Papers

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“Why are there no Paper Boys anymore?” I thought to myself this morning while lying in bed. I felt the urge to not move, making my way through a few hundred cups of tea pouring over the papers. That’s what (some) Sunday mornings are about. Nowadays though you have to get up, get dressed, put enough coffee in you to function and head down to the nearest shop. When it’s cold and windy it’s a pain in the arse.

“You could go and get the papers” said MBH hopefully.

“Fuck that it’s freezing and it would require far more energy than I’m willing to spend right now”

My first job was a paper round. It was practically medieval back then. I remember it took three loads of the bag to get all the papers delivered. That bloody nylon strap cutting into my shoulder. Lashing rain or blizzards and two foot of snow didn’t stop the papers being delivered either (I caught Bronchitis from the two foot of snow scenario). But it was glorious to work hard for your own money £5 a week plus £1 bonus if I didn’t screw it up. At that age it was an absolute fortune. Definitely not the major leagues of child labour though. That crown sat with the ‘Milk Lads’. They’d hang off the back of the Milkmans truck and jump off to leave bottles of milk on the doorstep. Remember when milk was delivered? Rumours flew about that they got at least £15 a week. They did have to be up at around 05:00 though. It was a closed shop however, you only got the job by knowing somebody who was already doing it and if a spot opened up. Very union-esque.

None of that now though. The mere thought of it would probably give some EU busybody coniption fits.

Anyhoo, so I’m lay in bed this morning wishing somebody would deliver my paper. I’d already gone through Twitter and my RSS feeds. But I still like reading the papers. Hate the bloody Independent, want it banned from the house as it’s just utter shite. I do like the Times though. I know it’s part of the Murdoch Group but all reporters and columnists aren’t all bad. I decided I’d give the Sunday Times app a go for the iPad.

Surprisingly it’s not too bad. Everything is there as it is in the paper – some of these apps have edited and selected content. I enjoyed it so much I decided to subscribe. So for around €10 a month I get access to the Times, Sunday Times and wedbsite all automagically on my iPad. That makes me happy.

My virtual paperboy.

Page One: Inside the New York Times

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I think this was on TV a while ago, and I missed it. But it was a good compromise choice for us to watch tonight (it was either this or a fight between some lovey dovey thing or a Norweigian film about WW2 – opposites attract thank goodness).

Timely with the Leveson inquiry going on in the UK right now as well. MBH had said on Sunday after reading the papers “Well all the ‘news’ I’ve just read in there I read about last week online”. There’s the crux of the problem with the Newspaper industry. How do you stay relevant in an atmosphere of instant reaction on Twitter and Blogs? I think there’s still a need for serious journalism. The Murdoch Empire may have tarnished the profession in the same way that packaging debt derivatives has tarnished the Banking profession. But there’s still a need for good investigative journalism. It’s finding who are those journalists as well – getting to their voice through the billions of others who want to have or need to have their own say. Investigative and longform journalism is something I will always seek out. At least I heard about ProPublica from that documentary. I don’t think I’d come across them before so I’ll have a look at what they’ve been producing.

Interesting to watch though and definitely would recommend it.

Afterthought: I laugh to myself whenever Bloggers call themselves Journalists – at best Columnists or Opinion Writers but I have seen nothing that comes close to Journalism yet.

Irritating thing #2 today – Zaggfolio didn’t last

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I wrote about how much I liked the ZaggFolio last month. I’d already had it for a couple of weeks then. So by my calculations I’ve had it for around a month.  At a push a month and a little bit. In that time it’s hasn’t gone through any major adventures beyond being carried into the living room from the office. No major travelling or bashing around. Then I noticed this last night (you can see in the photo on the side there). The covering seems to be peeling away from the case. After a month and a bit that’s a ridiculously short time. No rip or tear. As you can see it just seems like the glue has given out.
 
That’s damn irritating.
 
I’m going to have to get some super glue or something to sort this out. They keyboard can be removed and used with the iPad but that’s not the point for me. I have a small form factor Apple wireless keyboard. What I wanted was a keyboard case to keep everything together.

Something I like – ZaggFolio for iPad 2

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I don’t mind the iPad 2 onscreen keyboard. It’s pretty adequate. One of the problems was finding a decent case to angle the iPad for typing. I can appreciate the whole aesthetic goodness theory of the iPad and how some would think it’s sacrilege to cover it in a case. But this is bloody pricey and I use it a lot so it’s going to sit embraced and protected in a case!
 
I read a lot of reviews and articles about people using their iPad as a ‘Main computer’. I know I do so am always interested in what apps they use and how they use it. Goddammit I can’t find the original article tha triggered me buying this – I need to not be so vicious cleaning out favourties. Anyway, it was a good write up of the ZaggFolio for the iPad2. I had seen other keyboards before, and in fact have one of the Apple mini keyboards sitting on the other side of the desk.  But I wanted something that came in a full package, protected the iPad and looked half decent. I think this does the job.  I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now and it works well. It’s not as easy to lie in the recliner and rest it on my chest while browsing the internet at night, but the iPad just slides out if I really wanted to do some chillaxed browsing. The claim is that you only need to charge the keyboard every few months. Seems okay so far and no issues with keeping linked to the iPad. One button tap when it’s been sleeping to re-establish the link and it’s fine. What I was worried about would be the battery life of the iPad with Bluetooth turned on. But I get a solid 9-10 hours out of it. Around 20:00 or 21:00 at nght I notice I’m down in the teens on a battery charge. Unbelievably this irritates me if I have video I want to watch, because the iPad takes a lot longer to charge than the iPhone. How mad is that? Irritated that I don’t get 12 solid hours out of a thin mobile device? I’m the Worlds worst consumer.
 
This means I have five keyboards that I use throughout the week: iPad, iMac, Work Notebook, Second Keyboard when the work Notebook is docked and the MacBook keyboard. There are subtle differences in keyboard spacing between each that catches me once in a while but that’s more to do with the feckin mad number of keyboards I have to use o_0
 
What I really like about using this is it means the software keyboard doesn’t pop-up. So a lot more screen space to play around with. There’s something also very intuitive about just being able to touch or swipe the screen rather than use a mouse or trackpad as well. I’m waiting for the day I try to do it on the Work Notebook … that’ll be embarrassing.
 
Of course I’m already getting the itching in the back of my brain that when the Macbook dies a graceful death, and it’s time to renew, I will be looking for the equivalent of the small form factor Air. But then again why? The iMac still get’s a lot of use, but the MacBook I’m using less and less. That’ll give me something to think about when the time comes.

Too many games

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The past month or so it’s been pretty unbelievable how many ‘Blockbuster’ games have been released. Far too much money and time has been spent, and I still have two I’d like to get. So here are one line reviews of the ones I’ve been playing recently:
 

  • Dead Island: Good concept, but it has been shelved for other releases. Bashing heads NONSTOP can get a bit tedious 
  • Battlefield 3: Throughly enjoyable. Completed SP but haven’t been back onto MP yet because of some of the other releases 
  • Call of Duty MW3: Disappointed. Far too much like it’s predecessor 
  • Assassins Creed Revelations: Oh I so wanted to love this. More of the same again from it’s predecessor though 
  • Saints Row the Third: Never played this series before, but it’s fun and silly. GTA with more dirty humour. 
  • Skyrim: Outstanding. I’ve taken a break at just under 70hours. Never seen a game so in-depth

One of the games which I’d still like to get but can’t justify the time is the next in the Drakes Fortune Series.