...was to reply to a comment. Seriously, I'd got a comment on a YouTube video (which is now a rare enough event that it merits being remarked upon!), and I wanted to reply. Google, in their infinite wisdom, wouldn't let me reply without generating a new bleeding Google+ page attached specifically to my YT channel... as if one useless G+ page attached to the top level of my Google account wasn't bad enough!
I'm getting seriously hacked off with the whole YT/G+ thing.
Back in the day, if you wanted to be on YT, you had a YT account. You logged into that account, and you could add videos to your channel and leave comments and stuff, just like what happens on any other website whose designers have brain cells. End of.
Now? Sure, you can sign into YT, albeit using your Google account, and post videos, like before. But it seems that leaving comments requires the existence of at least one (preferably fifteen) G+ pages bolted to various parts of your Google account like so many tumours. That's basically what it comes down to - unifying YT accounts into Google accounts, fair enough, but now they've gone and given YouTube cancer. G+ is a hideous, cancerous growth infecting the system and ruining everything, and I FREAKING HATE IT. You hear me, Google? I'll bet you don't, but I'm gonna yell at you anyway: I HATE GOOGLE+. ALL OF IT. IT'S STUPID AND POINTLESS AND ADDS NOTHING TO THE YOUTUBE EXPERIENCE, UNLESS YOU COUNT FRUSTRATION AS AN ADDITION. GET IT?
The thing is, it does nothing. If G+ did anything that was worth doing, then I might not mind adding a page or two, but it doesn't. It does nothing. It's one more platform where you can allegedly connect with people, but I've never made a single meaningful connection on that platform. The people I actually want to talk to, I talk to on Skype or Steam - or, shock horror, in person! Going through the treadmill of adding them all as contacts on yet another online platform does nothing for me. And even when I add people there, they don't do anything there to make it worth my while having bothered to add them there. And neither do I. The cool stuff is happening on other platforms. ALL OF IT. Nothing - nothing whatsoever - of any interest happens on G+. You go to any G+ page you like, and it's got the same hollow, vaguely depressing feeling that an empty room has. And I find it very, very frustrating being forced to connect a bunch of depressing empty rooms onto my YT account.
Dear Google: G+ has failed. Please kill it immediately. Keep Google accounts by all means, but please delete every trace of G+ code from the system, take down all those soul-crushing empty pages, and let the world go back to the way it should be. And fire the person who instigated G+, because they're stupid.
Thank you.
- The Colclough
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts
Friday, 5 December 2014
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Twenty Questions: The Beginning
Okay, so I've gone and done it again. I've challenged Hannah 'LikesSheepBaa' Newcombe to another blogging race. If you were reading this blog, hers or both back in January, you'll already know that I initiated the "First 11 for '11" race, and ended up losing it by 10 posts to 11. Which means, of course, that I've got a score to settle!
There has been considerable debate over exactly what form this challenge should take, but we eventually settled on "Twenty Questions": each of us writes out a list of 20 questions (hence the name) and sends it to the other, and each question must form the basis of a blog post. First to answer all 20 questions wins.
That was the short explanation. There are some other rules too: minimum word count 100 per question, not including peripheral stuff like the post title, tags etc; each post must include stats at the end (same as the ones featured in "First 11 for '11", with a couple of additions); each blogger must comment on all of their rival's challenge posts. And we both have to be finished before the start of this year's Root Hill camp, on Saturday the 20th of August. The good news is that the questions can be answered in any order. I intentionally made my questions a mix of the very easy and the rather more arcane (I'll be very interested to see what order H answers them in), and it seems she's done the same.
So, here are the questions I sent her, which you will hopefully be able to read the answers to across the course of the next three weeks over at http://hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com:
...and here are the ones she sent me:
Some of these will be very, very easy. Like number 1. Others, like number 2, will be rather more difficult.
So I've got about 20 days to answer 20 questions... better get started. And since there's no better place to begin than at the beginning, I may as well kick off with Question 1: "We’ve reached the end of the Harry Potter era. Thoughts?"
YES!!! *Punches the air and other excitable gestures*
Pretty much ever since I became aware of the existence of Harry Potter, circa 2001, I've been waiting for it to end. I don't have all that much against HP, apart from the ridiculous overblown fuss that everyone else has been making about it. It's just another fantasy series, really, but it's been hailed as the best thing since sliced bread, and crooned and drooled over by hordes and hordes of people as if it was the greatest story ever told. Which it isn't.
I've made a point of not following the series, just to assert my human right to nonconformity. That's not to say I'm completely ignorant of it, mind you - I know what all the books are called, what years they were published (or at least most of them), as well as what years the films came out, who directed them, and who wrote the scripts and the scores for them. I didn't set out to know all that stuff, I just absorbed the information by accident, because I have the sort of mind that can and does absorb that sort of information by accident.
I've read the first book and a half (when I had absolutely nothing better to do), and while I thought they were passable enough bits of literature, I'm not sure they're the healthiest reading matter for young minds, and I certainly didn't think their plotting or phraseology was scintillating enough to merit all the hype. The storyline hung together well enough, but I didn't think it attained the intricacy of, say, Doctor Who's Pandorica storyline. The use of the English language was fine, but it wasn't a patch on Douglas Adams (who, let's not forget, described the Vogon Constructor Fleet as "hanging in mid-air in exactly the way bricks don't", or something very similar).
I've seen tiny snippets of the first film, but not enough to comment on. I've seen the second in its entirety, and boy it was disappointing. The adult actors were fine - sometimes great, even, especially Alan Rickman - but the child leads came across unspeakably hammy by comparison. I'm told they've improved in the more recent films, but that doesn't change the fact that the world is forever saddled with their utterly atrocious early performances. Towards the end of Chamber of Secrets, Radcliffe's delivery of a certain line about the powers of phoenix tears made all my insides and brain juices squirm like mealworms in a fisherman's bait tin. Don't get me started on the phoenix, either. I'd heard the music for Chamber of Secrets long before I saw the film, and it led me to expect something a bit better from the VFX department. As in, it made me think the on-screen depiction of the phoenix would have a certain majesty, or at least dignity. It doesn't. What a disappointing bird. Although I will admit that from the trailers and things I've seen, the cinematography and effects seem to have improved as the series has gone on.
Sometime last year, they released the first teaser poster for Deathly Hallows, featuring Hogwarts half-destroyed and on fire, with the tagline "It all ends here". I loved that poster. In fact, it's one of my favourite posters of all time, mainly because of that little word 'ends'. The last film is currently in cinemas; soon it'll be out on Blu-ray and DVD, and then, there'll be nothing else to do, nowhere else to go... and maybe the world will finally shut up about it all. The silence will be golden.
I think I might have got a bit carried away there. Pretty sure that little rant is more than 100 words 8p
As per "First 11 For 11", the challenge requires statistics:
- The Colclough
There has been considerable debate over exactly what form this challenge should take, but we eventually settled on "Twenty Questions": each of us writes out a list of 20 questions (hence the name) and sends it to the other, and each question must form the basis of a blog post. First to answer all 20 questions wins.
That was the short explanation. There are some other rules too: minimum word count 100 per question, not including peripheral stuff like the post title, tags etc; each post must include stats at the end (same as the ones featured in "First 11 for '11", with a couple of additions); each blogger must comment on all of their rival's challenge posts. And we both have to be finished before the start of this year's Root Hill camp, on Saturday the 20th of August. The good news is that the questions can be answered in any order. I intentionally made my questions a mix of the very easy and the rather more arcane (I'll be very interested to see what order H answers them in), and it seems she's done the same.
So, here are the questions I sent her, which you will hopefully be able to read the answers to across the course of the next three weeks over at http://hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com:
- Where did the sheep obsession come from?
- If you ruled the universe, what’s the first law you would pass?
- What’s wrong with Doritos, anyway?
- Who is your anti-role model?
- How big are your feet?
- Do you like mornings?
- Beethoven or Bieber?
- Ink or acrylics?
- What’s the most overrated book out there?
- Would you prefer an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse?
- What’s the strangest activity/project/group you’ve been involved with?
- If you had to choose between your eyes and your ears…?
- If you wrote a comic strip, what would it be about?
- What’s your most recently formed life ambition?
- So… what to do when life gives you lemons?
- Which is the best chocolate bar, and why?
- What would your dream house be like?
- Has Steven Moffat dropped the ball?
- Why is your car called that?
- Is this the last question?
...and here are the ones she sent me:
- We’ve reached the end of the Harry Potter era. Thoughts?
- If you were an animal, how on earth did you become an animal?
- How would you describe your taste in music?
- If you were a character in Doctor Who, who would you be? (Side note, my friends have decided that I’m Donna. Take that as you wish!)
- Do you have a favourite medium to use when doing artwork?
- How tall are you?
- If you were a shape, what shape would you be?
- What is your favourite character that you’ve created so far?
- Do you have a favourite novel?
- You now have a type 40 TARDIS. Where and when would your top destinations be?
- What is your earliest memory?
- What is your suitcase packing method?
- Please can I have your bank details?
- Do you like broccoli when it isn’t named Albert?
- Sheep or cows?
- Zombies or unicorns?
- What is your favourite smell?
- Would you ever go bungee jumping?
- If you were prime minister, what would you do differently?
- If the answer is 42, what is the question?
Some of these will be very, very easy. Like number 1. Others, like number 2, will be rather more difficult.
So I've got about 20 days to answer 20 questions... better get started. And since there's no better place to begin than at the beginning, I may as well kick off with Question 1: "We’ve reached the end of the Harry Potter era. Thoughts?"
YES!!! *Punches the air and other excitable gestures*
Pretty much ever since I became aware of the existence of Harry Potter, circa 2001, I've been waiting for it to end. I don't have all that much against HP, apart from the ridiculous overblown fuss that everyone else has been making about it. It's just another fantasy series, really, but it's been hailed as the best thing since sliced bread, and crooned and drooled over by hordes and hordes of people as if it was the greatest story ever told. Which it isn't.
I've made a point of not following the series, just to assert my human right to nonconformity. That's not to say I'm completely ignorant of it, mind you - I know what all the books are called, what years they were published (or at least most of them), as well as what years the films came out, who directed them, and who wrote the scripts and the scores for them. I didn't set out to know all that stuff, I just absorbed the information by accident, because I have the sort of mind that can and does absorb that sort of information by accident.
I've read the first book and a half (when I had absolutely nothing better to do), and while I thought they were passable enough bits of literature, I'm not sure they're the healthiest reading matter for young minds, and I certainly didn't think their plotting or phraseology was scintillating enough to merit all the hype. The storyline hung together well enough, but I didn't think it attained the intricacy of, say, Doctor Who's Pandorica storyline. The use of the English language was fine, but it wasn't a patch on Douglas Adams (who, let's not forget, described the Vogon Constructor Fleet as "hanging in mid-air in exactly the way bricks don't", or something very similar).
I've seen tiny snippets of the first film, but not enough to comment on. I've seen the second in its entirety, and boy it was disappointing. The adult actors were fine - sometimes great, even, especially Alan Rickman - but the child leads came across unspeakably hammy by comparison. I'm told they've improved in the more recent films, but that doesn't change the fact that the world is forever saddled with their utterly atrocious early performances. Towards the end of Chamber of Secrets, Radcliffe's delivery of a certain line about the powers of phoenix tears made all my insides and brain juices squirm like mealworms in a fisherman's bait tin. Don't get me started on the phoenix, either. I'd heard the music for Chamber of Secrets long before I saw the film, and it led me to expect something a bit better from the VFX department. As in, it made me think the on-screen depiction of the phoenix would have a certain majesty, or at least dignity. It doesn't. What a disappointing bird. Although I will admit that from the trailers and things I've seen, the cinematography and effects seem to have improved as the series has gone on.
Sometime last year, they released the first teaser poster for Deathly Hallows, featuring Hogwarts half-destroyed and on fire, with the tagline "It all ends here". I loved that poster. In fact, it's one of my favourite posters of all time, mainly because of that little word 'ends'. The last film is currently in cinemas; soon it'll be out on Blu-ray and DVD, and then, there'll be nothing else to do, nowhere else to go... and maybe the world will finally shut up about it all. The silence will be golden.
I think I might have got a bit carried away there. Pretty sure that little rant is more than 100 words 8p
As per "First 11 For 11", the challenge requires statistics:
- Twenty Questions status: 1 down, 19 to go (*checks Hannah's blog for recent updates* looks like I'm winning... for now...)
- Days until Root Hill: 22
- Latest book read: Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre
- Latest film/TV watched: Sherlock: The Blind Banker on iPlayer
- Latest music listened to: something Tim wrote for the next Arbitrary Stopframe (coming soon!)
- Latest edible item eaten: toothpaste doesn't count, does it? Before that, dinner. I'm afraid I can't remember what dinner was.
- Predominant colour of clothes: blue (watch this space: blue could become a recurring theme, I think)
- Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Create Post; Blogspot Dashboard; hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com)
- Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1322; Fort Paradox #68
- The Colclough
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Mixed Stuff
Yay for anthology blogs! At least this time I've got a keyword that conveniently helps describe all of my points...
Mixed Reactions: Tim told me yesterday that he has written the last-ever episode of Sidewards - again. This time, I'm told, it really is the end, and there are only a few weeks left before the final instalment of the strange but hugely enjoyable sandwich-assassin-fuelled weirdness is published online. I'm really looking forward to finding out how the plot resolves, but there'll be a little sandwich-shaped hole in my internet life for months afterwards.
Mixed Media: speaking of webcomics, yesterday I finished illustrating Fort Paradox episodes 67 to 70, using a technically complex art style that gives a parchmenty look (appropriate, considering the subject matter - you'll see what I mean when I publish the strips in a few weeks' time), which involved hybridising pencil sketches, an ink drawing, a failed attempt to incorporate oil pastels, and quite a lot of digital manipulation and arty-farty typography.
As a random side note, the new episodes are the longest consecutive run of FP strips to use the Candara font - the previous record being three, for strips 26 to 28.
Mixed Shades of Green: remember that pencil-on-canvas sketch of a kingfisher in action, which I mentioned a couple of posts back? I said in my last post that I'd painted the sky in, and this morning I've done a second, rather more involved round of painting, this time focussing on the vegetation. It took five different tubes of paint (only one of which was green) and five different brushes to create what could be described, in a reductionist analysis, as a big blob of green. But I'm quite pleased with my big blob of green, so I've decided it's time to take another photo and show you my progress:
Mixed Quality: I saw the Doctor Who 'mid-series finale' A Good Man Goes to War the other day, and I feel compelled to comment on it. I'm amazed that a certain sheep-liking ginger person hasn't blogged on this topic yet, what with her well-documented obsession with all things Whovian, but that's beside the point.
The point is that for me, AGMGTW was a very mixed bag, brilliant and depressing in equal measure. It had some excellent lines (I found Rory's final remark before the title sequence particularly funny), and lots of lovely VFX stuff, and so on and so forth, and in several places it showcased the usual Steve Moffat cleverness. And that Sontaran was hilarious. But there were problems, on a scale I haven't seen before in a Moffat-scripted episode. Spoilers follow, so if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to skip the rest of this post - if you're going, then take a biscuit, and I'll see you next time. Otherwise, you're in for some ranting and railing.
Moffat, like Davies before him, seems to have something against the Church. Yes, I know, that's common enough, but it does get depressing when one's favourite science-fantasy telly show feels it has to join in the bashing. Granted, Moffat's bizarre depiction of the 51st-century 'Church', as a pseudo-faith-based interplanetary military organisation, seems to be stabbing mainly at Roman Catholicism (what with a reference to 'the Papal Mainframe') and high-church Anglicanism rather than the smaller, more down-to-earth Baptist congregations like the one I belong to, but it still irks a bit.
Some of the supporting characters were frankly unnecessary. Lorna came across (IMO, anyway) as an insipid example of the 'person who is in awe of the Doctor and desperate to meet him' archetype, and I really couldn't work out for the life of me why 'Thin One' and 'Fat One' had been included at all. I don't think they added anything interesting to the plot whatsoever, and they should have been cut from the script before the episode got anywhere near the filming stage. I've written some screenplays, and I know a thing or two about writing out unnecessary side characters, and I'm sure AGMGTW would have been better off without those two.
So, that's the thematic and narrative problems whinged about. And finally: anatomy. Yes, you read that right. The thing is, I'm a great stickler for basic anatomical plausibility in fictional creatures. I can accept the hypothetical existence of a faun, a unicorn (provided you assume the horn doesn't grow until after birth, so the baby doesn't rip the mother apart from the inside), a dragon, and many other things, but there are some fantasy critters out there whose anatomy just doesn't make any sense. As I explained in this post back here, I dislike centaurs on the grounds of their badly-thought-out physiology. You try to figure out the skeletal structure or the position of the major organs, and you'll quickly find out that they just don't fit! Which is where the Headless Monks go wrong as well. The phrase 'Headless Monks' does sound rather funky, but the literally-headless chaps in AGMGTW have a few fundamental anatomical glitches. You've got to wonder: how do they eat, drink, taste, breathe, smell, hear or see? Most known higher life-forms do all those things with their heads, and if the Monks don't have a head then they could face some serious difficulties. Well, not 'face' the difficulties as such, since the face is part of the head and they therefore don't have one, but you know what I meant. My suspension of disbelief can stretch to cover the Weeping Angels, the Vashta Nerada, the Star Whale, the Pandorica, Sardick's sky machine, the Silence, and many other things, but people who stay alive without heads? Sorry, Steve, you've lost me.
Here's hoping the monsters in the next few episodes make a bit more sense.
And, for those who are still reading: sorry about the whinyness.
Have a biscuit.
- The Colclough
Mixed Reactions: Tim told me yesterday that he has written the last-ever episode of Sidewards - again. This time, I'm told, it really is the end, and there are only a few weeks left before the final instalment of the strange but hugely enjoyable sandwich-assassin-fuelled weirdness is published online. I'm really looking forward to finding out how the plot resolves, but there'll be a little sandwich-shaped hole in my internet life for months afterwards.
Mixed Media: speaking of webcomics, yesterday I finished illustrating Fort Paradox episodes 67 to 70, using a technically complex art style that gives a parchmenty look (appropriate, considering the subject matter - you'll see what I mean when I publish the strips in a few weeks' time), which involved hybridising pencil sketches, an ink drawing, a failed attempt to incorporate oil pastels, and quite a lot of digital manipulation and arty-farty typography.
As a random side note, the new episodes are the longest consecutive run of FP strips to use the Candara font - the previous record being three, for strips 26 to 28.
Mixed Shades of Green: remember that pencil-on-canvas sketch of a kingfisher in action, which I mentioned a couple of posts back? I said in my last post that I'd painted the sky in, and this morning I've done a second, rather more involved round of painting, this time focussing on the vegetation. It took five different tubes of paint (only one of which was green) and five different brushes to create what could be described, in a reductionist analysis, as a big blob of green. But I'm quite pleased with my big blob of green, so I've decided it's time to take another photo and show you my progress:
Untitled Kingfisher Painting (still a work in progress... but this time with more progress!)
Mixed Quality: I saw the Doctor Who 'mid-series finale' A Good Man Goes to War the other day, and I feel compelled to comment on it. I'm amazed that a certain sheep-liking ginger person hasn't blogged on this topic yet, what with her well-documented obsession with all things Whovian, but that's beside the point.
The point is that for me, AGMGTW was a very mixed bag, brilliant and depressing in equal measure. It had some excellent lines (I found Rory's final remark before the title sequence particularly funny), and lots of lovely VFX stuff, and so on and so forth, and in several places it showcased the usual Steve Moffat cleverness. And that Sontaran was hilarious. But there were problems, on a scale I haven't seen before in a Moffat-scripted episode. Spoilers follow, so if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to skip the rest of this post - if you're going, then take a biscuit, and I'll see you next time. Otherwise, you're in for some ranting and railing.
Moffat, like Davies before him, seems to have something against the Church. Yes, I know, that's common enough, but it does get depressing when one's favourite science-fantasy telly show feels it has to join in the bashing. Granted, Moffat's bizarre depiction of the 51st-century 'Church', as a pseudo-faith-based interplanetary military organisation, seems to be stabbing mainly at Roman Catholicism (what with a reference to 'the Papal Mainframe') and high-church Anglicanism rather than the smaller, more down-to-earth Baptist congregations like the one I belong to, but it still irks a bit.
Some of the supporting characters were frankly unnecessary. Lorna came across (IMO, anyway) as an insipid example of the 'person who is in awe of the Doctor and desperate to meet him' archetype, and I really couldn't work out for the life of me why 'Thin One' and 'Fat One' had been included at all. I don't think they added anything interesting to the plot whatsoever, and they should have been cut from the script before the episode got anywhere near the filming stage. I've written some screenplays, and I know a thing or two about writing out unnecessary side characters, and I'm sure AGMGTW would have been better off without those two.
So, that's the thematic and narrative problems whinged about. And finally: anatomy. Yes, you read that right. The thing is, I'm a great stickler for basic anatomical plausibility in fictional creatures. I can accept the hypothetical existence of a faun, a unicorn (provided you assume the horn doesn't grow until after birth, so the baby doesn't rip the mother apart from the inside), a dragon, and many other things, but there are some fantasy critters out there whose anatomy just doesn't make any sense. As I explained in this post back here, I dislike centaurs on the grounds of their badly-thought-out physiology. You try to figure out the skeletal structure or the position of the major organs, and you'll quickly find out that they just don't fit! Which is where the Headless Monks go wrong as well. The phrase 'Headless Monks' does sound rather funky, but the literally-headless chaps in AGMGTW have a few fundamental anatomical glitches. You've got to wonder: how do they eat, drink, taste, breathe, smell, hear or see? Most known higher life-forms do all those things with their heads, and if the Monks don't have a head then they could face some serious difficulties. Well, not 'face' the difficulties as such, since the face is part of the head and they therefore don't have one, but you know what I meant. My suspension of disbelief can stretch to cover the Weeping Angels, the Vashta Nerada, the Star Whale, the Pandorica, Sardick's sky machine, the Silence, and many other things, but people who stay alive without heads? Sorry, Steve, you've lost me.
Here's hoping the monsters in the next few episodes make a bit more sense.
And, for those who are still reading: sorry about the whinyness.
Have a biscuit.
- The Colclough
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Saturday and Stuff
Spent Saturday in London with friends from Root Hill. Despite having been to RH itself 5 times, this was the first time I'd been to any reunion thing. Partly because I'm not a great traveller, and because it's expensive (although, to be fair, Sam's train ticket was a lot pricier than mine), and because I'm not always in the loop with these things, and so on and so forth. But it was a good day. It was good just being around other people instead of staying in the same house all the time. Not sure how good my presence was for the other people, mind you, but it was good from my POV.
Started the day with a scenic tour of some of London's train stations while we waited for people to turn up, and as soon as we'd got the group together we went to Leicester Square and split up again for lunch - I say 'split up', although most of us ended up at the same table in KFC. KFC was, as usual, KFC, so the food wasn't anything out of the ordinary. (Random aside: my first introduction to KFC was in Hong Kong, where there was at outlet in the shopping centre that we lived on top of. We spent a lot more time at the McDonalds though.)
Then came Harrods.
I don't like Harrods.
I think I went once before, years and years ago, but I didn't really remember much. But it only took me about two minutes after walking in the door this time around before I decided that the shop really wasn't my scene. The whole building seems to be a labyrinth of small spaces, filled with far too much stuff and far too many people, with nothing to indicate where the exits are. We got split up and a bit lost somewhere around the second room, and out of the original fifteen/twenty-ish-strong crowd, I ended up touring the building with a splinter group of just 3 or 4 other people. I think I kept mumbling something about the exit most of the way around the building.
There were two bits that sort of appealed: the Lego area within the toy department (whatever some people might say, you're never really too old for Lego), and the audio-visual department. The AV area was showing a looped clip of Avatar on most of the screens, but I think they'd set up the TVs' colour balance wrong - yes, it's a very colourful film, but I'm sure the blues and greens weren't that overblown in the cinema.
The photo frame upstairs was unforgivable. They had this 5 x 7 inch photo frame (not a digital one, just a bog-standard photo frame) made of metal settings and crystals, that looked just like some average piece of aluminium and cheap-coloured-glass tat from a downmarket gift shop, but apparently this one was made of rare and expensive metals and gemstones instead… so they had the nerve to ask £35,000 for it! I kid you not. A photo frame with an asking price of thirty-five grand. I just stood there and stared in shock, and mumbled things about broadcast-quality 1080p HD cameras, very nice cars, and employing a full-time servant for a year, any of which would cost about the same amount of money.
Enough about that.
We relocated to the science museum for the rest of the afternoon, which was much better. Last time we were there, I didn't get to see the 'Birth of Hi-Tech Britain' gallery, and had a nagging sense of 'should have done that' at the back of my mind ever since, so I took the opportunity to make up for the omission.
Dinner happened in the basement of a Pizza Hut in Piccadilly. A lot of the pre-dinner conversation involved talking to Hannah about Doctor Who and the relative merits of Steven Moffat - it's nice to be able to talk to someone about DW without having to stop every two minutes to straighten out the chronology or explain what an Ood is. My younger brother and sister have some sort of working knowledge of the show, but they can't always remember what happened in what order, and they'd probably draw a complete blank if I mentioned 'Hartnell' or 'Pertwee' or something like that.
The pizza, surprisingly, turned out to be an avocado-scented sock instead... uh... no, actually, it was pizza, just like it said on the tin. I won't bore you with a long description of the pizza. You already know how it goes - dough, sauce, cheese, etc etc. (Speaking of avocado though, are you reading Fort Paradox, and if so how is your brain coping?)
So now it's over, and I'm back to the usual set of other stuff. I'm nearly finished editing the Root Hill video (just 2 or 3 months in the cutting room this time, instead of 5 ish!), and I'm starting to think it would be a good time to cut together the aforementioned trailer. Watch this space.
And finally: I'd like to say thank you to everyone who responded to my 'How much have I told you?' research exercise last week. I'll post the 'answers' - i.e. a list of who/what all those things are, and where they come from - later this week, so you can find out what those names are all about. 8]
- The Colclough
Started the day with a scenic tour of some of London's train stations while we waited for people to turn up, and as soon as we'd got the group together we went to Leicester Square and split up again for lunch - I say 'split up', although most of us ended up at the same table in KFC. KFC was, as usual, KFC, so the food wasn't anything out of the ordinary. (Random aside: my first introduction to KFC was in Hong Kong, where there was at outlet in the shopping centre that we lived on top of. We spent a lot more time at the McDonalds though.)
Then came Harrods.
I don't like Harrods.
I think I went once before, years and years ago, but I didn't really remember much. But it only took me about two minutes after walking in the door this time around before I decided that the shop really wasn't my scene. The whole building seems to be a labyrinth of small spaces, filled with far too much stuff and far too many people, with nothing to indicate where the exits are. We got split up and a bit lost somewhere around the second room, and out of the original fifteen/twenty-ish-strong crowd, I ended up touring the building with a splinter group of just 3 or 4 other people. I think I kept mumbling something about the exit most of the way around the building.
There were two bits that sort of appealed: the Lego area within the toy department (whatever some people might say, you're never really too old for Lego), and the audio-visual department. The AV area was showing a looped clip of Avatar on most of the screens, but I think they'd set up the TVs' colour balance wrong - yes, it's a very colourful film, but I'm sure the blues and greens weren't that overblown in the cinema.
The photo frame upstairs was unforgivable. They had this 5 x 7 inch photo frame (not a digital one, just a bog-standard photo frame) made of metal settings and crystals, that looked just like some average piece of aluminium and cheap-coloured-glass tat from a downmarket gift shop, but apparently this one was made of rare and expensive metals and gemstones instead… so they had the nerve to ask £35,000 for it! I kid you not. A photo frame with an asking price of thirty-five grand. I just stood there and stared in shock, and mumbled things about broadcast-quality 1080p HD cameras, very nice cars, and employing a full-time servant for a year, any of which would cost about the same amount of money.
Enough about that.
We relocated to the science museum for the rest of the afternoon, which was much better. Last time we were there, I didn't get to see the 'Birth of Hi-Tech Britain' gallery, and had a nagging sense of 'should have done that' at the back of my mind ever since, so I took the opportunity to make up for the omission.
Dinner happened in the basement of a Pizza Hut in Piccadilly. A lot of the pre-dinner conversation involved talking to Hannah about Doctor Who and the relative merits of Steven Moffat - it's nice to be able to talk to someone about DW without having to stop every two minutes to straighten out the chronology or explain what an Ood is. My younger brother and sister have some sort of working knowledge of the show, but they can't always remember what happened in what order, and they'd probably draw a complete blank if I mentioned 'Hartnell' or 'Pertwee' or something like that.
The pizza, surprisingly, turned out to be an avocado-scented sock instead... uh... no, actually, it was pizza, just like it said on the tin. I won't bore you with a long description of the pizza. You already know how it goes - dough, sauce, cheese, etc etc. (Speaking of avocado though, are you reading Fort Paradox, and if so how is your brain coping?)
So now it's over, and I'm back to the usual set of other stuff. I'm nearly finished editing the Root Hill video (just 2 or 3 months in the cutting room this time, instead of 5 ish!), and I'm starting to think it would be a good time to cut together the aforementioned trailer. Watch this space.
And finally: I'd like to say thank you to everyone who responded to my 'How much have I told you?' research exercise last week. I'll post the 'answers' - i.e. a list of who/what all those things are, and where they come from - later this week, so you can find out what those names are all about. 8]
- The Colclough
Monday, 15 November 2010
Find Chapel, Apply Crowbar, Remove Digger
Really.
My church is inconveniently situated on the wrong end of a dirt track running through common land, and the track is constantly getting potholed. So we've had some contractors in to rearrange the surface of our 'car park', to try and make it less lumpy. We're not allowed to use concrete or anything, but we can at least level out the unintentional scale replicas of the Alps which keep growing outside our front door.
Unless someone steals the digger, that is.
The contractors parked their mini-digger inside the church's front porch overnight, and sometime on Wednesday night, someone smashed the doors in and nicked it. As you do - y'know, stealing large machinery from chapels. Apparently it turned up again somewhere else on the common, probably having run out of diesel, but that doesn't change the fact that our doors are bashed in.
I didn't see the damage until yesterday, and it didn't look as dramatic as I'd expected... until we unscrewed the doors from the emergency framework which is holding them in place. Then one of them fell right off its hinges. So until we can get new doors made and fitted, we're going to have to come in a few minutes early for each service, get in by the back door, and take the front doors down so we've got an emergency escape route at the front of the building.
It's all covered by insurance (I'm told), but it's still going to be a lot of hassle. We'd all love to express a <sarcasm>huge debt of thanks</sarcasm> to whoever decided that it would be a nice idea to pinch some heavy plant from inside a place of worship and take it for a joyride. Clever you.
Well, it's all going to make for a very interesting interpretation of that line about forgiving your enemies, and all that...
But the good news is that the car park is a lot flatter than it used to be, so at least we won't have to traverse so many mini-Himalayas every Sunday.
Okay, rant over.
- The Colclough
PS. totally unrelated paragraph: I've just made the new (widescreen!) 2010 version of the Root Hill Films logo, which will go on the front of the video. One more thing off the checklist 8]
My church is inconveniently situated on the wrong end of a dirt track running through common land, and the track is constantly getting potholed. So we've had some contractors in to rearrange the surface of our 'car park', to try and make it less lumpy. We're not allowed to use concrete or anything, but we can at least level out the unintentional scale replicas of the Alps which keep growing outside our front door.
Unless someone steals the digger, that is.
The contractors parked their mini-digger inside the church's front porch overnight, and sometime on Wednesday night, someone smashed the doors in and nicked it. As you do - y'know, stealing large machinery from chapels. Apparently it turned up again somewhere else on the common, probably having run out of diesel, but that doesn't change the fact that our doors are bashed in.
I didn't see the damage until yesterday, and it didn't look as dramatic as I'd expected... until we unscrewed the doors from the emergency framework which is holding them in place. Then one of them fell right off its hinges. So until we can get new doors made and fitted, we're going to have to come in a few minutes early for each service, get in by the back door, and take the front doors down so we've got an emergency escape route at the front of the building.
It's all covered by insurance (I'm told), but it's still going to be a lot of hassle. We'd all love to express a <sarcasm>huge debt of thanks</sarcasm> to whoever decided that it would be a nice idea to pinch some heavy plant from inside a place of worship and take it for a joyride. Clever you.
Well, it's all going to make for a very interesting interpretation of that line about forgiving your enemies, and all that...
But the good news is that the car park is a lot flatter than it used to be, so at least we won't have to traverse so many mini-Himalayas every Sunday.
Okay, rant over.
- The Colclough
PS. totally unrelated paragraph: I've just made the new (widescreen!) 2010 version of the Root Hill Films logo, which will go on the front of the video. One more thing off the checklist 8]
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Please evacuate Godalming...
...because I plan to destroy it, just as soon as I take over the universe and have all the planet's bulldozers at my command.
Mum decided this morning that we should go to Winkworth Arboretum, which from our point of view is on the far side of Guildford. I drove, and she navigated, while the younger siblings sat in the back seat, and for once in their lives made relatively few annoying noises. It was all going so very nicely - until we came to a really stupid junction on the Hog's Back, where the 'straight on' bit looks like a right turn, and the bit that looks like it goes straight on is in fact an exit, from which you get fed onto a random dual carriageway of doom, which cuts through the middle of Guildford, and then disappears on the other side - without any exits!
Well, by now we were heading north-east of Guildford, when we'd planned to turn right in the town centre and head out southwards, and we ended up doing a huge loop around the country lanes outside the city (at one point, we went through Chilworth, and I was very unhappy to find myself there, because in my universe Chilworth counts as very far away from home), until we found ourselves re-joining our planned route at Godalming.
Plain sailing from there on? Yeah, right. Godalming seemed to be just a huge mass of badly-signposted roundabouts, mostly surrounded by traffic jams. And one of them was partly shut because it was half-way through being re-turfed - by 7 or 8 workmen, who were just standing around eyeballing the stack of turf as if they expected it to lay itself. Needless to say, it did nothing of the sort. The whole town was the last thing I needed after our ridiculously huge detour. Hence my decision to bulldoze it someday.
Well... the arboretum was very nice, once we got there - I have photos, which I might get around to showing you sometime - but I've decided that next time anyone proposes a day-trip, I'm going to glue myself into my chair to make sure I don't have to go. Because I've had enough of a road trip today to last me for years.
Speaking of photos, I have graduation ones: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=303702&id=729711216&l=6994d1b393. Me in a funny hat and a superhero cape B]
So, rant over.
Hopefully I'll write something a bit more positive next time... 8p
- The Colclough
Mum decided this morning that we should go to Winkworth Arboretum, which from our point of view is on the far side of Guildford. I drove, and she navigated, while the younger siblings sat in the back seat, and for once in their lives made relatively few annoying noises. It was all going so very nicely - until we came to a really stupid junction on the Hog's Back, where the 'straight on' bit looks like a right turn, and the bit that looks like it goes straight on is in fact an exit, from which you get fed onto a random dual carriageway of doom, which cuts through the middle of Guildford, and then disappears on the other side - without any exits!
Well, by now we were heading north-east of Guildford, when we'd planned to turn right in the town centre and head out southwards, and we ended up doing a huge loop around the country lanes outside the city (at one point, we went through Chilworth, and I was very unhappy to find myself there, because in my universe Chilworth counts as very far away from home), until we found ourselves re-joining our planned route at Godalming.
Plain sailing from there on? Yeah, right. Godalming seemed to be just a huge mass of badly-signposted roundabouts, mostly surrounded by traffic jams. And one of them was partly shut because it was half-way through being re-turfed - by 7 or 8 workmen, who were just standing around eyeballing the stack of turf as if they expected it to lay itself. Needless to say, it did nothing of the sort. The whole town was the last thing I needed after our ridiculously huge detour. Hence my decision to bulldoze it someday.
Well... the arboretum was very nice, once we got there - I have photos, which I might get around to showing you sometime - but I've decided that next time anyone proposes a day-trip, I'm going to glue myself into my chair to make sure I don't have to go. Because I've had enough of a road trip today to last me for years.
Speaking of photos, I have graduation ones: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=303702&id=729711216&l=6994d1b393. Me in a funny hat and a superhero cape B]
So, rant over.
Hopefully I'll write something a bit more positive next time... 8p
- The Colclough
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