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Recommended Viewing

• 300†
  Does exactly what it says on the (comic book) tin. Loved it.
• Little Miss Sunshine†
  Very funny, disturbing (the beauty pageant) and completely messed up -- but in a good way.
• Laputa: Castle in the Sky†
  Story great, characterization a little on the weak side -- though the big robots are cool.
• Porco Rosso†
  Stylish, funny, exciting.
• Grave of the Fireflies†
  Very sad, which was a little unexpected since I didn't know much about it before watching it. Can be a little too slow in places though, otherwise it's very good.
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind†
  The story can get a little dense at times what with the various factions, but still really enjoyable, inventive and engaging.
• X-Men: The Last Stand†
  Opportunity, talent, money - all blown. Over 3 films X-Men has hinted of something great that could have been, this last one says "No, sorry - not going to happen". Bah.

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Nikon D50

Yesterday after much researching I bought myself a new camera, a Nikon D50. My reasons for choosing the D50 were:

• Cost: The D50 is one of the cheapest SLRs around
• Body size: I have big paws <beat> and something like the Canon 350 is a tad on the small size whereas the Nikon’s are a perfect fit.
• Noise: Since I rarely go to print with any of my pics the higher resolution of the Canon 350 isn’t a big selling point, the amount of noise generated by the CCD and present in the final shot was a slight concern and the D50 beats the others in my price bracket.

Please note I am not a camera expert, I know very little about the technicalities of cameras and had to ask a lot of people for advice. (Hat tip to Rory and Paul.)

Other than what is particular to me if you are in the hunt for an entry level Digital SLR my research would recommend the Nikon D50, Canon 350D and the Nikon D70s (or indeed the D70).

One final thing to note. Jessops in Belfast charged me £119.00 for a 1GB SanDisk ULTRA II SD Memory Card. I bought it having done no research into the price of memory cards, I just knew I wanted something fast and reliable. You can buy this exact card for around £70.00 in most places online, Jessops own online store sells them for £90.00. The moral of this story is that someone at Jessops in Belfast is going to have a really bad Monday afternoon when I get there.

0 CommentsOctober 29, 2005

Efficient

From Thierry Henry a quote which doubles as a master class in how to succeed, as true in my work as it is in his:

“One thing you can’t teach to players is mentality and desire.
“Individually they are frightening with what they can do with the ball. I was the same when I was young, thinking about being elegant and doing skills.
“Soon they will realise you only exist in the game when you are efficient. In football you need to be aware of that.”

efficient
adj.

1. Acting directly to produce an effect: an efficient cause.
   1. Acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort.
   2. Exhibiting a high ratio of output to input.

1 CommentsOctober 22, 2005

Trains

When I was walking up to get the train a wee boy about 6 years old was standing by the side of the road on his own. As we passed he picked up a stone and winged it at a passing bus, then looked at me as if I’d stolen his lunch. When I got to the platform an unforecast shower of bricks arrived and peppered the train and the platform. People duely moved back, the conductor told the drive to “get the train the fuck out of here”. Apart from that no-one was either excited or unexcited, it rains a lot here I suppose.

On the train home tonight there was a copy of the Daily Ireland sitting so I had a read, never read it before, no prior knowledge of what it was about. Interesting choice of font says I to myself, a little too harsh on the serifs for my liking, distracting rather than anything else, maybe they’re trying to hark to some celtic thing. Maybe I’m thinking about it too much.

I noticed a lot of the articles in the Daily Ireland refer to a place called ‘the North’ which I’m fairly sure doesn’t exist. Perhaps they mean ‘the north’ or maybe Northern Ireland, but a place called the North doesn’t exist as far as I know. In the sport pages they seemed to be really pleased to see the PSNI get “hammered” in gaelic football, plenty of observations on PSNI vehicles at the ground and players who wouldn’t give their name to the press.

There was also an article about how Father Alec Reid shouldn’t have called all unionists Nazis, he should have just called most of us Nazis. And that buisness with the IRA blowing things up and murdering was simply terrible but unionists deserved it.

Am I alone in thinking that there is a whole economy dedicated to keeping people at odds with each other? I mean, think of the people who’d be out of work if we all got on.

8 CommentsOctober 19, 2005

Tossing Cameras

Since someone asked, here is how I produced my camera toss picture

First off I opened Photoshop, made this image fullscreen and switched off the red channel. Then with all other lights switched off I set the timer on my little Sony DSC P72 and spun it from the doggle in front of the monitor, about 30cm away, making sure it was in mid spin when the camera actually fired. So, I didn’t really toss the camera, I was too scared for that.

0 CommentsOctober 17, 2005

Get well soon

Our local shock jock Stephen McCullugh is not well. He was getting better but seems to have slipped back into the gaping maw of infection. We wish him well, but if the worst should happen we’ll place his body on a longboat along with his XBOX, a copy of LotR and a few carefully selected wimmin’ and set the whole thing alight, letting the wind take it all into Lough Neagh.

2 CommentsOctober 17, 2005

Pixar videos on iTunes

Did you know you can buy Pixar shorts such as Boundin’, Red’s Dream and Luxo Jr. on iTunes for only £1.89? No, neither did I.

0 CommentsOctober 12, 2005

Everything is broken

It struck me today that everything is broken. People are broken, software is broken, the process is broken, the hardware is broken and the buildings that house all these things are broken (you’ll pardon me if I keep the specifics to private conversation). This has always been the case but I’m slow and I am just seeing it now. Where once I would have pulled the legs of a few people in frustration at all this brokeness getting in my idealistic way I now realise that I have to triage the situation and start fixing things — even things that may be outside of what I’d consider my sphere of influence — that’s the only way people will be safe from me rampaging towards them with a maniacal need to tear their limbs off.

Take this site for an example, it’s broken. There is no classification, no sorting, no labelling, no way of finding things other than a string search. It’s very poor. There’s no clear way to navigate, there’s nothing to really tell you what’s going on, here’s no explanation, no justification, no calming words of introduction. And let’s not mention the broken author, nooo…

So I view things differently, I grow up. I’m not looking to find a perfect picture to settle into (and if I did wouldn’t that just make it imperfect?), I’m aspiring to create a perfect picture around me, all the while knowing that in this life I won’t ever make perfection but in aspiring I fulfil my role and am happy.

2 CommentsOctober 11, 2005

Arachnophobia

I just saw a very big house spider, far bigger than anything I’ve ever seen on this island before. What with daddy long legs and giant house spiders I’ll be glad when things get back to normal on the insect front.

8 CommentsOctober 3, 2005

Push The Button

I know my hidden looks can be deceiving
But how obvious should a girl be?

Difficult question, too obvious and risk being labelled as a ‘sloot’, not obvious enough and you’ll appear, as Foreigner put it, Cold as Ice. The grabbing him by the tie and riding him like some sort of rodeo bull as illustrated in the video is perhaps tending to the former.

I’m busy showing him what he’s been missing
I’m kind of showing off for his full attention
My sexy ass has got him in the new dimension
I’m ready to do something to relieve this mission

Is your sexy ass any relation to Magical Trevor? Magical Trevor can take cows to new dimensions just like your ass. I’m only asking.

If you’re ready for me boy
You’d better push the button and let me know

In my head is some poor soul frantically fumbling for this button. Frazzled hair and a face of panic as he screams “WHERE IS THIS BUTTON!?” But only in my head. On the comedy channel.

0 CommentsOctober 1, 2005

The Jungle Paintball, Desertmartin, Northern Ireland

Yesterday we went paintballing at the expense of The Company. Our company and 2 other Belfast companies took part and it was great fun even if I did pick up a couple of souvenirs. These where done after I had been ‘killed’ and had my gun in the air and back to the apposing team. I choose to read nothing into that at all. Anyway, The Company won, beating the combined forces of the other 2 companies by one game. I’ve now been paintballing twice and I’ve also done that lethal pelletball airsoft stuff (stay away!). Of Escarmouche (Monaghan) and The Jungle I’d recommend The Jungle, though are are both excellent The Jungle has a better set up inside a lovely forest and better access for Belfast. The Jungle is where we were yesterday.

0 CommentsOctober 1, 2005