Lots to catch up on and at the same time, not really that much.
I signed up to Blockbuster’s online DVD rental service last week so I’ve been catching up on movies I missed. I have to admit to being very impressed with the service. I had done one of these schemes before and didn’t last long. I never got the movies I actually wanted, i.e. the ones at the top of the list. So far in two postings from BB, I’ve had my top three movies both times. So I’m going to keep them on after the trial and see how it goes. Also impressed by the turnaround. I sent two movies back on Thursday and had two back to me by Saturday. So I have watched:
– Identity was fun, not a bad thriller to start with (helped by a decent cast) and a nice twist of the type that I like to end it pretty well.
– 25th Hour. It was setup in everyway to be the type of drama that I really enjoy but it just seemed to miss on everything it promised. Nothing was wrong with it, and I did enjoy it but it could have been better.
– Dogville. I got about 20 minutes into it and I didn’t like it at all. The set threw me, it certainly helped put me off, but not a single thing in the first 20 minutes interested me.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I’m not actually finished this, I’m about 70 minutes into it. So far, nothing special, occasionally funny and Drew Barrymore again playing more attractive than she really is, which is I guess a plus.
On the cinema front, it’s quiet. I was at the premiere of I (Heart) Huckabees with Alex last week. was not the best movie ever. It was funny in places but it really wasn’t anything special. It had it’s head stuck up it’s arse way too much. Not a bad movie but not one I can see myself watching again.
I found it fairly hard to read text on a screen during my cold, hence the lack of updates and various other things I’ve not gotten to, so I’ve been catching up on books. Jamie lent me Christopher Brookmyre’s One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night which was a whole lot of fun and I’ve picked up a couple more of his books. I seem to have jumped back into a crime mood and I’ve been reading some Michael Connellys. Mainly Bosch stuff, all solid but unexceptional. I finally got around to reading The Poet which I did enjoy a whole lot and will pickup the follow-up whenever it comes out in paperback. Nothing in particular lined up to read next, I have a very tube unfriendly omnibus to wade through and then I do actually want to read some Iain Rankin I think. Highly rated but I’ve never gotten around to checking any of them out. I have Watchmen so I’ll start off with that. Finally on the books front, the new Alastair Reynolds is out at the end of the month and I’m looking forward to that a lot.
Unsurprisingly I gamed a bit over the weekend. I’ll ding 31 in CoH later tonight, I only need about 10k. It’s gone pretty quick even with a whole load of debt due to lots of team fun. It’s so much easier to work off debt and indeed make money now. 30 seems to have been a massive change. Street hunting actually earns nice XP and cash very quickly. I think it’s due to being able to hunt 2-3 levels above safely enough, and indeed I think given enough inspirations I could go 4-5 levels above. The XP doth flow. The news on Issue 3 is good, it’s going to reward level 50’s big time. I’m sure there will be stuff in there for everyone else, it would be nice to get a bit closer to the big five O during the next few weeks. Alts on hold.
In hindsight, Dark Armour was a really poor secondary choice, I should have gone regen. It’s handy in places but most of the time it’s not so. I’ve just picked up Obsidian Shield and I do love that (no psionic/hold etc affects me), it’s helping me bigtime with Vamps and Ritki already. Very unsure what to take at 32. Cloak Of Darkness sounds really good, the associated stealth would be awesome. I like the idea of opening the fighting pool. The more I read, the more I think it should be opened up to boost my defence. It will leave me with more attacks than I need tho, I may wait and open it with my next respec, in fact I think that makes a whole lot more sense. All fun and games still 🙂
NME is running with the U2 album leak (surprise surprise). Hopefully it will be moved forward, that would be a good thing. Reports in this afternoon are all good.
Bendis and Maleev are off Daredevil as of December next year. So only around 12 issues left. It’s been a good strong run, could be close on 50 issues. It’s been the best thing on the shelf for a long time and I really can’t see a follow-up sticking to such high quality. I’ll hold till closer to the time to see of course.
Saturday night I had a ticket to see the Polyphonic Spree, I really wasn’t feeling up to it but I figured they would at least put a smile on my face. Thinking they would be on stage around 9, I thought I would skip the support and get there sometime after 8. So I took my time and got there about 8.20 to hear them in full swing. I hadn’t taken into account that it was on in the Astoria which then reopens for GAY at 11 or 12. Turns out I hadn’t missed much. The entire place was alive when I got in there. I was stuck at the back on the far left but I had a good view of the stage and the crowd. There was no mosh pit but at the same time there was no-one standing around. Everyone was moving and having so much fun. It was an astounding sight.
I owe the Spree an apology. I saw them about a year ago in the Forum While I enjoyed it a whole lot, I really did think they were a novelty act and said as much (and a little more). I only booked a ticket for this one because it was a) something to do and b) not a bad follow-up album came along a few weeks ago. Happily go and see them live again, I felt a whole lot better afterwards and was grinning like a loon throughout. Great gig. In the encore, average Solider Girl it never works as well as it should or at least as well as I expect live. Great flute intro to it, I thought I knew it straight off but she teased it out for a moment and then the song, average…until they cut the music and Tim led the Astoria in an acoustic version. Then, then it was glorious. It was one of those perfect moments in music. I’ll be there the next time they play London.
Emails are strange beasts. Often I’ll take time over them and work things out and look at them at least twice. Other times like now to two friends in Dublin, I’ll just start typing and lay out whatever I intended to write to them about and just ctrl+enter to send as soon as I sign my name. I do this a good bit, there have been times when I’ve signed emails “s” instead of “d” and various wrong letters in “Dave” due to my fingers being off and not even noticed till I actually see the email sending. I don’t do this in work, it would be bad. Work emails can take several drafts and every now and again a read-over from someone else before send is hit. It’s just not worth the hassle that could come with it otherwise. It’s rare that I spellcheck my personal emails, it’s rare that I don’t spellcheck my work emails.
I tend to spellcheck everything that gets posted here. Twice for LJ. Once using whatever client I write it in (usually AOL within work) and then in the LJ client I use to post, it does it automatically before posting. I often don’t accept the spelling changes, as far as I am concerned “tho” is a perfectly legitimate word to use, and I use it alot.
Reading a nasty (and as yet unsubstansiated) report that Apple’s latest OS X update leaves your hard drive marked as Read Only when it’s done. I do have my doubts but it’s a good source on it. Why there would be a need to do anything like that I don’t know, having just typed all that really does leave me to think the report is wrong. I guess I’ll find out shortly.
I’ve had this one saved for most of the day. It’s just been sitting here in a window getting stuff throw at it every now and again. I sometimes prefer to write like this, it gives me a long time to organise my thoughts or more so to not post 10 times when I can roll it all into one.