Festival Fever

Summertime is here and it is the festival season again. What surprises me every year is the number of festivals around. I'm not just talking of the big festivals (and my God there are a lot of those) but also there are lots of smaller festivals that hardly get much national press but yet exist all over the place. The big festivals usually have some kind of televised coverage and this year I managed to catch some of Glastonbury on the TV. I don't think I was blown away by most of the acts I saw, Jack White's performance was a bit disappointing but Metallica's set, which I watched live, was what I would consider a triumph. How nice to be sitting at home watching it than out in the field. I've looked at the line ups of some of the festivals and in a future post I will put out there my own top festival line up for my imaginary festival. The festivals I think most worthy of attention are the ones below, Bloodstock Open Air has the coolest logo in my opinion.

Nandos

Over the last few weeks I've been to two different Nandos restaurants a couple of times. I'd never been to a Nandos restaurant before and I have to say I enjoyed it. I found the food very tasty. It was quite simple - pitta bread, chicken, rice and peas. I had the hot sauce and it wasn't too hot but was spicy and tasty. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that you pay for the food when you order it before it arrives. So when you've finished the meal, you can just leave and I actually prefer this. My wife doesn't rate it at all surprisingly but I do. It's one of my favourite restaurant chains now although it doesn't surpass Wagamama who produce probably tastier food on balance.

 

I cooked my own version of a Nandos meal last night for the family. I cooked rice, sweetcorn, roasted vegetables and chicken (obviously) and served it on a plate with chicken and salad in a pitta bread. Only I had chicken cooked in the sauce though, it was very tasty and I used the sauce I bought a few days ago from Tesco who were selling it cheap. I've still got a bottle of the mild sauce left. I will have it again soon but I'd prefer to have it with peas than sweetcorn, I also used some Linghams sweet chilli sauce on mine.

 



Soundcloud

On my tablet I've had the Soundcloud app for a while. This week I've actually used it a bit more and I have to admit I quite like it. The music is very good and it is useful as a tool to discover new bands I'd not heard of before. I have only just logged into the desktop version and created my account. Worth checking the service out if you enjoy music.

Brazil 1 Germany 7 (World Cup 2014)

Germany got through their semi-final match with a total drubbing of the host nation Brazil. The pictures below tell the story. It was like a casual Sunday game for Germany who easily tapped 4 goals into the Brazil net within the space of 20 minutes. It was hilarious to watch really because Brazil were such a joke. I could not believe what I was seeing and I think millions of other viewers probably felt the same. It was so notorious a defeat that it became the most tweeted sporting event ever, reaching nearly 37 million tweets during the game. That's another unbelievable statistic. I enjoyed the game in a cruel way, it felt slightly sinister to take pleasure in such an agonising defeat. Brazil has to face the Netherlands in the third place play off, which I think is played today. If Holland play how they do in some of the matches I've seen and if Brazil play how they did on Tuesday I think I can see another collapse coming. But surely, Brazil now have to play for pride? Surely they cannot afford a defeat? Let's see...

Blisters

The shoes I wore for the Cancer Research UK relay at the weekend weren't great for my feet. I have toes that rub together and blister quite easily. Maybe I should plasters on my feet as a prevention measure? It's a bit late to think of this now. I wore an older pair of training shoes because I thought I would ruin them in the mud, thinking the weather would be wet. But actually, after a downpour on the first morning, which we avoided anyway. The weather the rest of the weekend was quite good. It was good enough to be able to forget about it mostly and concentrate on enjoying ourselves. I was vey tired yesterday afternoon once we got home. I started to watch the British Grand Prix but eventually fell asleep. I popped the blisters today and squeezed out the juice, so they're a little painful but not as bad as they were last year. It helps me think about the people who have had their lives touched by cancer and remember that they're pain is far greater than anything my blistered toes give me.

Tent out again for another year

At the weekend I was part of a team of people raising money for cancer research. It was an event we also did last year. It's not an easy event for a number of reasons but it has some nice qualities, such as getting together with other families and helping each other with tents and setting up. We haven't used our tent for a year, so it was good to get it out again. It's a sizeable tent, not exactly huge but too big for a single person to erect. It always reminds me of an armadillo in shape. There are a couple of tears in the ground sheet but I hope to be able to fix those with some tape or tent repair fabric. The outer fabric is still waterproof, which is good. We bought the tent from Costco a few years ago.

Maxitone Meal/Snack Replacement

I've been trying to cook Low GI recipes for a few weeks, trying to find the balance with lifestyle and weight loss. I was nearly 73kg but now am 67.9kg, so it has been helping but I would like to lose a few more kilos because I'm fairly short and have a naturally slim build. I look better when I'm not pudgy around my middle. My wife wants to lose more weight than I do, so finding the combination that works for both of us is difficult. This is why a low GI diet works quite well, it helps us to eat healthy but also fill up on nice tasting foods. The trouble is we both have a sweet tooth and there are some foods that tempt us too much. Feeling hungry between meals is a killer, sometimes fruit isn't enough. So, my wife has been talking about trying these shakes you can buy. On Sunday, Boots had some on special offer so she decided to use up some of her Boots card points.
I'm trying my first shake right now, to replace breakfast. It tastes alright, I added the water to the powder in the shaker we bought and left it to cool in the fridge for 10 minutes or so. The product is marketed to a female audience, so it is all a bit too pink for my taste but I can live with the feminine branding, I'm man enough to take it!

The Music Charts

In early July the music charts are going to include streaming statistics when they are compiled. Services like Spotify, Deezer, Napster will be included. It will be interesting to see whether this makes much of difference. I used to religiously listen to the chart show on the radio when I was a teenager interested in such things but my interest has waned considerably since those days. The music industry has changed so much since the early days. I reckon most acts now make more money from playing shows than they do from royalties but I suppose royalties can pay for years into the future. Writing a successful Christmas song seems about the best way to make a lot of money for not doing very much.
I listen to some music on Spotify but I only have a free account. I have considered a paid account, mainly to avoid the adverts, which are very annoying.

Kevin Turvey (Rik Mayall)

One of my favourite comic TV characters was created by Rik Mayall in the 80s. Mayall was one of the Comic Strip comedians and was already edgy as an angry young man can be even before The Young Ones. I loved Kevin Turvey's ridiculous investigations in and around Redditch in the West Midlands. I liked the fact that he had a Midlands accent and that he was an underdog, one of life's less successful people at a time in the eighties when success was all that seemed to matter to the media.

England Knocked Out

England played their second match of the World Cup on Thursday evening against Uruguay and again lost it effectively ending their hopes of progression to the knock out rounds. Their first two matches were against tough teams, Italy was our first opponent, but the score was the same in both games. The opponent score first, England scored an equalising goal but then the other side catch England with a winning goal to leave England adrift at 1-2.
I don't think the manager should be fired, Roy Hodgson has done the job asked of him. The team played well but were missing a star player who can make some magic, which the best sides seem to have. We certainly don't have a Luis Suarez, like Uruguay, or a Mario Balotelli, like Italy do.
England's final game will be on Tuesday against Costa Rica who are on top of the group. I'm excited in a way because I think England will beat them, as mad as that sounds. It's a shame that it won't make a difference.

Weekend thoughts

It's Friday the 13th today. My children thought we should go out for a meal tonight, I suggested Nandos because I'd tried it recently in Manchester and enjoyed it. My children had the mildest chicken but it was still too spicy for them. I had Hot but to be honest I thought it was just tasty, not mega hot as I'm not a heat freak. My wife seemed to enjoy hers because she ate it all but often leaves some chicken because she doesn't like wobble. I don't think she encountered any wobble tonight because she ate it. I don't get that I had to pay however, if it was supposed to be a Father's Day treat in advance of Sunday. Ah well. I don't have very high hopes for the rest of the weekend. I have a strong feeling that it's going to be one I think I might rather forget.

World Cup 2014

Not so long ago I blogged about not being very excited about the World Cup this year. Well, that has changed a little bit over the last 24 hours. I have watched  two games now and am starting to think that I might enjoy the tournament more than I first thought. I watched the first game played by Brazil and Croatia, and tonight I watched Spain against the Netherlands. Spain were the title holders from the last World Cup but tonight they were drubbed. They really were slaughtered. It was entertaining to watch though but I'm so glad I'm not Spanish tonight. England play tomorrow night and I always feel quite tense when England play. I will watch the game though (hope that we win convincingly).

Pet hate: Beats headphones

I like good sound quality don't get me wrong. But really, the cost of Beats headphones is surely so absurd! And yet people pay these prices. I think anybody who pays that much for Beats headphones is completely stupid. And get this: you even look stupid wearing them! That's right. People who wear Beats headphones think that they look cool and trendy. You look like Jerks! get real. Here's how trendy you are: see the photo below? That's Craig Oliver, he's the Director of Communications for the Conservative party. How bloody cool and "down with the kids" do you feel now?  The other annoying thing about Beats is the recent deal they have done with Apple. It's not a deal Steve Jobs would have made, I can tell you that much for nothing. Utterly astonishing move by Apple, the soul has really gone out of the company.

I like good quality audio from my headphones and I also like headphones that don't leak sound. Nothing as bad as sitting on public transport and some idiot flooding the carriage/bus/whatever with the sound of an annoying fly buzzing around. My favourite headphones, after years of trying different brands is that Sennheiser makes the best audio quality headphones.
The following are a few of the models I use.

World Cup 2014

Funny I know but I'm less excited about this World Cup than previous ones. Perhaps my feelings will change (they can depend on the infection of excitement around me) but my level of excitement is extremely low at the moment. I haven't seen much about England in the press, which is odd because I think in the past the build up has been massive. The amount I've seen so far this year has been very little, I haven't desired to buy a football top nor a commemorative World Cup football. I bought a replica football for my son during the last World Cup. This year I have only had one conversation with him about it. I hope the football raises the interest rather than all the politics that can surround these big events in sport.

Sad News - Rik Mayall dies

It was a shock and very sad to hear this afternoon of the death of one my favourite comedic actors, Rik Mayall. He was aged only 56, a young age to die. He first caught my attention, most people's attention I'd say, as the character he played in The Young Ones. It was an anarchic sitcom in the life of ordinary working class university students. I liked the way he played slightly mental characters. The character in the series Bottom was very funny and I liked the cameo roles he had in Blackadder and those he played in various The Comic Strip Presents. I thought he played the character Alan Bastard well in The New Stateman but it wasn't a character I particularly liked but that was probably the point. Sad, sad news for someone who brought a lot of pleasure to watching the TV. It's hard to describe the effect of The Young Ones but for me it really was a show that changed my world. It probably played a part in convincing me to go to university.

Space 1999

I've been loaned the first series of the 1970s sci-fi show Space 1999 by a friend. It was produced by Sylvia Anderson, wife of Gerry. The series has gone down in history in the same way that U.F.O. and other Anderson productions. I remember watching the show and it seeming quite scary when I watched it as a kid, I don't remember the details of the episodes as a kid but I remember watching the show and making Lego models of the communicator and the stun guns. The first series aired in 1975, I was only 7 at the time. I certainly remember the second series, or rather I remember the character Maya who could shape shift, her strange alien eyebrows scared me! The series is set on Moonbase Alpha, which suffers a catastrophic explosion knocking the moon out of Earth's orbit and sending it through the cosmos on an extraordinary journey. I've watched three episodes so far, the third was the strangest, titled Black Sun the moon passes through a black sun and because it used a shield was not destroyed. Very weird. There was also some illusion to an unseen benevolent force protecting them. It was the most expensive British TV show ever produced at the time. The sets were fantastic and the special effects. The great thing about the show as far as I was concerned at the time was the Eagle Transporters. These were the space ships that they used and featured heavily. My toy version was a die cast model. It had a central transporter pod that could be dropped. This had opening doors. I loved it. It's only later that when I remember it, mine was green but in the TV show they are white. I remember green and blue ones. You could also get ones that had winches to lower radioactive canisters, these were white. I don't know why they didn't make them all white?

Mine looked like the one on the left

Gorgeous looking interiors

Pacific Rim

I bought this film on DVD a couple of weeks ago and on Saturday night I finally got to watch it. I thought it was very good actually, a good action film. Perhaps a little bit implausible but nonetheless entertaining. The director has made other interesting films in the past, such as the Hell Boy films. He manages to create a world that is somehow believable and yet strangely implausible. The art direction is excellent. The way the machines and the creatures move was also very good. I've played a few mech videogames and this brought the whole genre to life for me in a way I've not seen in a film before. The mechs were called Jaegers (in Front Mission Evolved, the videogame, they're called Wanzers) and the alien monsters are called Raichu (I think but my memory might be playing tricks). I think the film will also improve on further viewings. There is a lot of visual detail in the film to enjoy. The scientists are quite funny in their mannerisms.

 

 

X-Men Days of Future Past

On Friday I had the day off from work. My son had a friend around for the day and I decided it would be a good treat to take them to see the new X-Men film. I'd heard good things about the film before seeing it but the film was far better than I expected it to be. I didn't really like a lot of the third X-Men film, The Last Stand. But in this film, there is time travel involved. It all hangs together convincingly though (sometimes time travel in films can be really confusing).

 

 

The day off was good, I suppose I could have done more but I was in part recovering from a difficult week. It was difficult in two main senses: I was away from home for an extra night, I was recovering from my back injury from the Saturday before AND I was recovering from a painful episode of piles - brought on by constipation that the codeine-based painkillers I used for my back gave me. It all turned out okay though and I was glad I took the day off, it was needed.
After the film, I took the boys for lunch, it was a Kentucky Fried Chicken - not really the same as it was when I was a kid. I had a wrap meal and it was so so. Presentation was a bit sloppy.
I was lucky I didn't get a parking ticket on getting back to my car. I'd parked in a bay that gives 3 hours free, I'd also bought a ticket and didn't realise I didn't need one. The parking attendant was writing me out a ticket but fortunately I could explain in person that I was leaving and he let me off, which was quite decent of him I thought. I do think that rules are stupid sometimes, I mean I'd bought a parking ticket and it was just that I'd parked in a 3 hour free zone. Apparently the rules are that the car can only stay there for three hours regardless if you've bought a ticket or not. I find that confusing when there is a parking meter close to the parking bays. It's not like the signs give you much of a clue either! I'd paid for parking, it was just that the silly rules applied in a way that was not obvious. At least I escaped without a fine that time.

Sheffield Space Centre at MCM London Comic Con 2014

I visited the Sheffield Space Centre book stall at the London Comic Con. Last year I started my Bleach collection and this year I bought several more manga books to add to my collection. Last year, we visited Forbidden Planet and I picked up a copy of the first volume of Attack on Titan. It had just come out and had got good reviews. This year I picked up the second volume whilst at Comic Con. I also picked up two new series: the first is a Manga that has been around a long time, Full Metal Alchemist. I got the first volume. The second one I picked up was one I had never heard of before but the person standing next to me said it was very good, so I thought why not. It was a series called Black Butler, I got volume 1 of that. I've also read the first volume of another Manga I got last year, from a shop in Manchester, called Uzumaki. I'll post more about that another time. Photo of the Sheffield Space Centre stall from Comic Con below. I'd love to visit the real shop sometime when I'm in Sheffield next.

MCM London Comic Con Saturday 24th May 2014

Well, this weekend the highlight was Saturday. I had to get up early to catch the train at 6:33am. I took my son and his friend and his friend's dad came along too. We get along well and it was an enjoyable day out all in all. I took a camera with me and took a few photos of people in costume, something I wanted to do in previous years but didn't get around to it. Well, I kind of did the first year I went on my own but I didn't take very many. I guess I didn't take that many this year either but I thought I'd try to get a few of the characters I like. See what you think below.

Arch Enemy's new vocalist

I have two Arch Enemy albums. They are really heavy with female growl vocals by the superb Angela Gossow. Angela has decided to move into the band's management instead of being on the frontline. The new vocalist will be Alissa White-Gluz, who is herself awesome, from the band The Agonist. The Agonist have replaced Alissa with Vicky Psarakis. I haven't got any albums by The Agonist but I have seen videos from both and they are awesome songs. The Arch Enemy and The Agonist new albums are going to be awesome.

London Comic Con

On Saturday it's time for Comic Con! I'm excited by the prospect already. It's a very early start as we're catching the 6:33am train into London but it will be worth it to get there early. I'm looking forward to walking around the show and seeing all the cos players wearing their costumes. Last year was good but this year will be even better. I'm taking lots of cash with me to buy stuff. Last year we went to Forbidden Planet and the Namco Fun Station but this year I'm not sure whether we'll do the same. I think it would be good, at least to go to Namco. I hope to take a camera with me and take some photos, in previous years I've not done much of that.

Skyline of the Future

I was in Manchester overnight this week and from my hotel room I had quite an interesting view of the skyline. It looked to me like something out of Bladerunner or something. There is a very tall tower that I think is a Hilton hotel and this dominates because it is so tall. There are some smaller domelike structures that I don't know much about. I took a photo of the tower on another occasion and you can see the two photos here.

Quiet day

I've had a quiet and restful Saturday afternoon and evening. My wife and daughter have been out all day and I dropped my son off at a friend's for a sleepover after lunch.
I mowed the grass and intended to have a videocall with my brother. we started but then his power went off so that killed it after a few minutes. Shame I was looking forward to a chat. never mind, we'll do it another time. I watched a Blu Ray disk I bought on Tuesday, it was Retrospect by the band Epica and it's very good.
I picked up the 6th instalment of Batman Eternal and the second volume of the Batman Court of Owls story. I've also picked up my copy of volumes 1-3 of the manga Bleach by Tite Kubo. I do like the style of it, I'd forgotten how enjoyable to read it was. It reminds me I have some other Manga volumes to read that I bought last year but haven't picked up. I feel a bit guilty about that! Especially since we have Comic Con coming up next Saturday!
This morning I enjoyed a Costa coffee blended with ice and it was very delicious. I enjoyed it while reading the paper and sitting in the window of the shop watching people go past. It was very relaxing.

Comics

I frequent my local comic shop regularly enough to have some standing orders. The first ones I started with was a series called All New X-Men. I have also been getting The Uncanny X-Men. I have progressed to getting The Punisher and I also get The Green Lantern for my son. A while back I bought the collection of Batman stories called Court of Owls volume 1. Today I spent some time reading it and I think it's fantastic. I've also recently starting getting the weekly Batman Eternal comics, I've read the first two and have three more to read but I'm hooked already.

Eurovision 2014 result

The Eurovision is now over for another year. Austria won it on the night, I thought the song and singer gave the best performance so it was a deserved win. I liked Armenia's entry (but the singer was a little creepy) and I thought Italy's entry had some merits being a slightly edgier tune. So for the first time in years I actually scored the same highest points to the act that was also the winner.

Lost Girl

his is another American TV series that I have discovered through Netflix. I have only watched the pilot episode so far but I enjoyed what I saw. The central character learns in the pilot episode that she is not human. She has a power to extract the life force out of people and enchant them through contact with her. She discovers that there are other non-humans living among us, a species called Fae. There are two factions: light Fae and dark Fae. She was asked to choose which faction to join or face death but she chose to live as human. She's got a young female thief as a partner who she rescued her from a rapist after he tried to drug her. She learns that she is a Succubus, a kind of female seductress in fantasy and folklore, which makes the series somewhat similar to Grimm but the show is made in Canada. I quite like the fact that it is more quirky than average and I didn't think such a show would be popular but it seems to have a good following and is into it's 4th season.

Eurovision Song Contest - 5 days to go

It is coming soon. It is the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 and it will take place in Copenhagen on Saturday 10th May. I love getting in some alcoholic drinks, some snacks and sitting down to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. I print off the scorecard every year and score each act. That's taking it a bit far I know but it makes it slightly more entertaining than just watching the songs and the boring scoring. The scoring in the last 10 years or so has been so boring because UK never gets any points, well not enough to be a serious contender anyway. Even so, I watch in the hope that one year the UK may achieve the impossible and win it.
I've only heard the UK entry once so far. It's not a song I would go and buy but I can tell it's a catchy tune and to me it sounded more like the kind of song that I would expect to hear in the contest. It's performed by a young lady called Molly, I hope she does well. She's the most attractive person we've had performing in a while. But because most of the UK entries just disappear, the acts who perform the songs seem to fade away as well. We've had Andy Abrams, Blue, Bonnie Tyler and Engelbert Humperdink each do a turn but to no avail. Come on the UK!

Grimm

A TV series that is available on Netflix that I have been watching recently is Grimm. I think it's quite good so far, I've watched 2 or 3 episodes something like that. The show is similar to what I regard as the trailblazer show of the type, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because it is set in modern America but has fantasy elements - similar to the Grimm Fairy Tales. So, it's the classic good v evil set up. The good guy is a police detective who has a partner but the partner is unaware that his colleague is also a kind of guardian who has knowledge of evil creatures passed down through the generations of his family. If you like fantasy and mild horror then I think you'd enjoy Grimm.

Another blog??

I have a secret. Not much of a secret really. A long time ago now, on 28 October 2007 to be precise I started a videogaming blog in addition to this one. I've kept it going, so now it is over 6 years old. Not quite as long ago as when I started this blog but almost. I've been thinking for a while now about starting a music blog. I used to do a music podcast but deleted it after 3 or 4 seasons. I did it very diligently, sourcing podsafe music and writing to the creators and promoting their tours or CDs. I had a BlogSpot blog, an Odeo stream and a Myspace page. Some of the bands even posted complimentary stuff. I enjoyed doing it but it was a lot of work. What put me off eventually was a snotty nosed email from an artist. I liked what she was doing with interviewing bands and so I interviewed a friend of mine. I mentioned it to her in my usual email to artists I featured in my podcast and she wrote me back basically saying I was copying her! I thought she might say something like thanks for featuring her music in my podcast and promoting her stuff but actually she seemed to take offense. I mean, it seems ridiculous that just by interviewing a friend I could provoke that reaction. She wasn't interested in supporting another artist who was struggling to make a go of it, she was self-interested. Well, that whole experience kind of put me off. I know I shouldn't have let it get to me, it was one of a number of things but it did make me reconsider what I was doing. If I do create a music blog it would just be about the music I like. I don't think I would have any ambition other than that.
I have a writing blog and a drawing blog. Neither are very active unfortunately. This one and my videogaming blog are the most regularly posted to. I would think that the music blog would be an intermittent one too.

Colouring markers

One of the most awesome presents my wife has bought me has been my Pro Marker sets from Letraset. I have two sets, they're just called Set 1 and Set 2 and there are 12 markers in each set plus a special blending marker. Each Pro Marker has a dual nib, one end is fine and the other end is the thick angled marker variety. These provide a range of different effects. I'm not very good at colouring with these but that's down to not understanding the techniques properly and me not being a very good artist! I have only used them on about four drawings so far.

Lazer Tag

Sometimes I pick up toys for my kids from charity shops that I haven't heard of and it kickstarts an interest in something from me. This happened this week. I saw a couple of interesting looking guns in a charity shop on Monday and went back on Tuesday and fortunately they were still there. I picked them up for about £2.50 each or slightly less. I just thought they looked cool - I didn't expect them to work.
After the purchase, they were split between my son and his friend and so they aren't a pair anymore. However, they could get together and play them some time. Anyway, I did some research after the fact and discovered they could be linked together to play various multiplayer shooter games. Infact, they seem pretty awesome, if only I'd known at the time of purchase I might have had more respect! They were not sold with the original goggles and rumble packs though - that would be expecting a bit too much and I'm not sure that the goggles really add anything to the experience.

Holiday Humdrum

This is day 7 of my holiday (including the weekend days) and it's today that the rest of the world of work takes a break too, until Tuesday, because it's the Easter Bank Holiday. It's my favourite Bank Holiday because we also get Easter Monday off. I am taking Tuesday off this year in addition to the Bank Holiday Monday, so I get a tiny bit longer than most other working folks.
This week has been largely about the kids. Last Saturday my wife was out for most of the day and evening at a judo competition with my daughter and her friend. Then on Monday my son had a friend over for a sleepover and at the same time my daughter went to a sleepover with her friend. I took the boys to the local country park, after buying them a cool couple of guns (but they didn't really appreciate them!)
Tuesday, Wednesday went by nothing very memorable about them and yesterday it was just my son and I because my wife took my daughter down to Brighton and met up with her friend and her daughters. I did a bit of drawing and colouring with my rendering pens.
I've played a few videogames this week but that's mainly been it. I haven't planned to do very much this holiday and I haven't done much. I'm a little disappointed in myself for not doing more really. Never mind. Still a few days left but today and tomorrow I'm a taxi for my wife and daughter.

Pandorum

I'm into my Easter holiday now, this is my third day of leave. Only another three official days of leave left after today. I've spent a couple of days doing stuff for the kids as my son has had a friend staying over. I have managed to watch a film on Netflix on Sunday though - it was a film called Pandorum. The reviews on Metacritic were almost universally bad however it's one of those films that seems to split critics from fans. The fan rating on Metacritic was good. Critics claiming it is boring and derivative of other films, such as Alien. Well, I think there's some truth in it but I didn't think it was boring.
The starting sequence sees the population of Earth increasing and natural resources wasting and global wars developing to capture the resources. An Earth-like planet was discovered and a spaceship built to transport human life to colonise it.
The story begins with a man in a deep space chamber/pod thing being woken up. He's disoriented and can't remember things like what the mission is, what his name is etc. The power on board is flaky, the lights keeps going out or flickering. After a shave and a wash he's looking more human. Another pod lights up and a colleague is awakened in the same manner. The two of them start trying to work out why they have been woken up, what's happened to the rest of the crew, where they are supposed to be and why that seems not to be where they. They can't get into the bridge of the ship. So the younger man climbs into a vent to try and explore the ship.
There was an experiment on board the ship that has bred a super strong race of mutant beings. These have become hunters and our guy meets a terrified member of the crew strung up as bait by these mutants. He is freed and is questioned but doesn't know much other than simply to run away from the mutants.
Our young crew member then runs into two humans, an Asian guy and a young woman who have been surviving onboard the ship and learning to evade the mutants. They are both enlisted to help the crew member.
Whilst this is happening the older crew member meets another member of the crew, or rather pulls him out of a duct full of cables, like giving birth. It seems that this crew member knows a bit more and talks of a condition called Pandorum that affects the mind of those who live in space for prolonged periods.
The team of three head to the reactor core, which they eventually do despite  meeting a non-friendly human along the way. They activate the reactor manually. This sorts out a nest of the mutants but some still remain.
The older crew member and the crew member pulled out of the cables start to have conflicting views, the older one eventually locking the other into a pod. It turns out that the older man was suffering from Pandorum and the other crew member was a mental aberration.
Spoiler alert: the interesting bit is that it turns out the ship isn't in deep space. This explains a sequence when they open shutters to reveal only blackness - no stars at all. It is actually under water on Tanis, the Earth-like planet the ship was headed for. The team of three is reduced to two but they manage to survive the mutant hunters to slip into a deep space pod thing that is ejected from the ship. It fills with water but eventually surfaces and opens, amongst lots of other pods that contain the remains of humanity.
The last shot of the film is a shot of the planet with a population figure of just over a thousand humans.
The stars in the cast are Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster and Antje Traue. Antje is probably my highlight, not being known to me before but she is beautiful. She would make a good Selene in a future Underworld film.

Edging closer to Easter

As each day goes by my consoling thought is that my holiday also gets closer. It's now only three days away.
I'm pretty sure that some years I haven't taken any leave at Easter other than the mandatory Good Friday and Easter Monday Bank Holidays.
I'm glad of the break this time. I love spending time away from work. I don't really have any plans. I should draw up some plans for the break. The nice thing is, once I get home I just need to spend one more day at work and then I'm on my break.

Call of Duty Ghosts

I played this with the father of one of my sons friends on Saturday morning. We had some time after dropping our boys off at tennis and had a cup of tea, a chat and a couple of games in a mode called Gun Game. It's a mode where your gun automatically changes when you score a kill. You go through several different ranges before ending up with the final weapon, the ballistic knife.
I have never played a game with an adult before. It was good playing with another adult. We're going to organise a day playing games with the boys, who also like the games.

AutoSketch SketchbookX for tablet

Time to share a doodle with you, I've been doing a few doodles on my tablet this weekend. In this doodle, you have to imagine the woman has blonde hair.

Pirates of the Caribbean

On Saturday we went into London in the afternoon to go to the Royal Albert Hall. We attended a special showing of the film The Curse of the Black Pearl. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed the score while we watched the film projected above them.
It was very good, the orchestra really got very loud at points. The music for that film is so good. Here's a photo of the stage before the performance began. The synchronisation was off for the first five minutes of the film, eventually it was restored, much to the audiences delight. For a few minutes I thought we would have a Singing In The Rain experience: "no no no" and "yes yes yes" with reverse actions. It was a little like that between Keira Knightley and Johnathon Pryce in the early exchanges of the film. The first Pirates film is my favourite I think.

Lord of the Rings: BBC Collection dramatised for radio

I was in town on Saturday and along with the War of the Worlds DVD I also picked up this collection on gold audio disks. It was only 3 quid so I thought it was a bargain. My son loves the films so I decided to pick it up for him. All the disks were there and there was even a nice sleeve and a booklet and a copy of a map of Middle Earth. On Sunday evening I started ripping the disks to my son's iTunes library. It took a while as there were 13 of them. Actually there were 12, one was missing and unfortunately one disk had what I think was a pressing defect. Even so, it's a huge amount of content for a small amount of money. I might be missing some parts of the story but there is plenty there to enjoy. There are some great voices involved. Michael Horden plays Gandalf and he has a great voice, so too does John Le Measurer.