Sunday 22nd June 2008

Ultraviolet was good but it could have been so much better. It is by the same director who stun the world with Equilibrium. (I saw this movie in rather surreal setting of my university lecture theatre, during an overnight stay back in mid May 2004). I can talk about it freely now, as some long four years have past but preferred not to mention it at all on my blog then in case the hierarchy of the university were reading my blog. My house mate Nav had 24 hour overnight access to the labs inside the Hawthorne Building and we decided to go in one evening, for me to disappear at the precise moment the PhD student came around to check everyone’s pass and get them to sign in. We had a bit of a cat and mouse game to play with security, as the master plan was to go into the main lecture theatre and put the DVD (rented from a shop on Narborough Road) onto the full screen protector. The sound could have been better (it is only decided for speech) but it was great fun! Ultraviolet is much the same in look and feel but the plot is poor and at times it becomes difficult to follow. The action sequences paired with some fantastic CGI are amazing to watch but at times, too much is happening for your eyes to cope with. Milla Jovovich is perfectly cast as the heroine and gives a good solid performance. It is such a shame that there were no great actors to support her. There are parallels with another movie I saw recently AeonFlux both in terms of narrative and plot. Towards the end though you feel it has all been a blood bath for nothing and I cannot really recall seeing any gun-kata point two zero as promised by the director. Great action, so really would only recommend to the guys out there and make sure you get the Unrated version which features a few extra minutes not shown in the theatrical release. A mild Saturday, I got up at 9am and after breakfast watched Click and then Football Focus. I then got ready and went to the temple with my family in Slough. We got some food there and then headed back home. As soon as I got home, I picked up my recommended reading list and walked to the bus stop. Caught the 15:17 bus into town and more precisely the new library. I was very impressed. The image of an old, smoking, dusty environment has been replaced with bright green walls, plenty of computer screens and clearly marked book shelves. I took the lift up to the first floor (yes I know, I’m very lazy) and took a look around. There were some self service machines to borrow and return your items. I looked for a few books from my list and in the end had to consult a member of staff. He was extremely helpful, firstly showing me the computer terminal to check for books, then directing me to the ‘Classics’ section. This was were I was going to find the meat of my list. I thanked him for his time and went ahead and picked up my second book. I had already found Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. I picked up Animal Farm by George Orwell. The book had been featured recently on the television series GREEK (UK viewers will see the episode in a few weeks). So hence I thought I would give it a read, both books are around 200 pages so should not take me that long. I then decided to look at the non-fiction section and picked a book from the musical score section. National Anthems from Around the World. Something to try on the piano perhaps. I then had to get my pin confirmed before trying the self service machines myself. You insert your card, enter you pin and just stack the books in the open shelf and it automatically reads the barcodes and away you go. Receipt printed with due date and I was off. I went to Clinton Cards and then after a short walk around Eden, decided to head home. I was home by 5pm.

Turtle Wax Car Care Pack

My sister, Samantha called me on Saturday afternoon to let me know she had bought me a Turtle Wax cleaning kit. I was annoyed because I have everything I need and all my products need to cleared by Crystal Detail. I assumed she got me one of those Turtle Wax packs which includes sponge, clothes, shampoos and waxes. In fact it was a interior and exterior spray set. Useful but will see what Pav says on MSN tomorrow after reading this. To be honest apart from a quick vacuum, the interior gets little attention from me these days. Unlike in the days of my Punto when I would spend a good half an hour spraying and buffing every piece of trim. I watched Death Proof after the football. I was extremely disappointed. Sure I had expected a different type of movie, it was a slow start but once it got going I thought it would improve. It did not, in fact it got worse. It was a cult slasher movie with Kurt Russell in one of his bad guy roles with a fantastic cast of female actresses refered to in the opening credits as “The Girls”. The ending was rather pathetic and pointless. The action sequences and general special effects were very good but it was shot like an old movie from the 1960s. I was going to watch Planet Terror straight afterwards but instead decided to chat to a few friends online and then go to sleep. Back in 1992, I was at my cousin, Anita’s wedding. It was one of the main wedding receptions before the big day over in Gerrards Cross (later that summer). The party took place in Flackwell Heath, a few miles from home. My aunty drove me, my sister and Dad home that evening. I remember when we got in, I put on the TV and watched the climatic race of a movie. Thankfully it was on ITV so with the commercial break came the name of the movie. This was a time before digital television, electronic programme guides and time shift plus one hour channels. I really enjoyed the movie because it starred my childhood hero, Michael J. Fox. It had everything a young eleven year old boy would want in a television movie, a big car chase and the underdog winning in the end (or so I remember). The movie was called High School U.S.A. Obviously I completely forgot about the movie until recently when I was looking at Fox’s filmography on Wikipedia and then took a punt with a search on BT Junkie and believe it or not, there it was. It has taken me several days to download at an average rate of 5kbit/s. I decided to transfer it across to the XBox and watch in the living room on the big screen. A perfect movie for a Sunday afternoon? It wasn’t perhaps perfect but it was very good and enjoyable. Crispin Glover was great and I enjoyed the build up of the story up to the race. The last time I had seen the movie on television (some sixteen years ago!) I had seen it just from the start of the race. Great fun and well worth waiting for and very funny but obviously showed it’s age (twenty five years no less) I have made an executive decision. To drop Hollyoaks permanently from my viewing radar. I have watched it regularly to the point of the divine over the past three years or so, with many of my posts being inspired by the show. (Here are a few examples from the archives) However, with my new gym regime, I only get to watch four episodes (two on Tuesday and Friday respectively) during the week and never catch the Sunday omnibus edition. However, that is not my main reason for dropping it from my schedule. It is the storylines (which have gone from bizarre to downright ridiculous) no longer appeal plus all my favourite characters have either been killed off or left. There is little to inspire and at the age of twenty-six I feel perhaps I am out of the age bracket the show is looking for. After two false starts in 2004 and 2005, Nav is back blogging. He was my housemate in my final year at Uni in Leicester. He was studying Masters with my other housemate Paul at De Montfort. He has started a work blog called Foobar Ramblings. Three posts already from the first day but expect a mixture of helpful posts along with techie commentary related to his work. He has moved to Wimbledon from Acton now and we are trying to arrange a weekend to meet up. Most likely when he gets back from holiday in mid July.

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