Garrulous Geek

So, on Saturday Alison and I went out with my brother. We went to a pub with a hearse parked outside it (no word of a lie) and had a drink and a chat. My brother has just finished uni. He got a 2:2 and was declared employee of the year in Bars/Ents, so that's pretty well done. It was good to chat and catch up and hear about what he's doing. Alison laughed a bit at the pair of us ranting away, putting the world to rights. Still, someone has to do it, eh?

After the pub, we went along to the cinema to watch Batman Begins. I indulged my Revels habit for the first time in ages, which was nice, and had my phone on vibrate so my dad could text me the result of the Murray/Nalbandian match. Gotta admit I was quite gutted at the result, but a good effort nonetheless. Anyway. The film had pretty naff trailers with the exception of a proper full on long trailer for Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Woohoo! However, as Alison said to me, it's still difficult to tell if it will turn out to be any good at all. I have faith in Tim Burton as a weird, dark director and Johnny Depp's ability to act like a total nutcase, so I have faith that it will turn out well. I'll let you all know what I think in a month.

Batman was rocking. It's dark and gritty in the way that the first two (Burton directed) films were, along with the comic books and the like. It's good to see Bruce Wayne creating Batman out of what has happened to him, and all the training and so on. The development of all his gear, the Batmobile, Batcave and so on is also well done. You really get the feeling that this is where Batman, uh, Began.

The cast is absolutely wonderful. Bale is great as the cold, hard Batman and as the smooth Wayne. Morgan Freeman does a fine turn as the research lab type person, and Michael Caine very nearly steals the show thanks to some great lines. It's even got Gary Oldman in it as Sergeant Gordon! Amazing! Liam Neeson as the trainer is great too. The villains do a good job of being weird and creepy.

The action and the effects are good. If I had any complaint it would be that it was hard to spot quite what was going on at points, but I guess the point is that Batman is fast and near impossible to follow, because that's how some of the action turned out. The plot is good, barring obvious movie physics microwave related idiocy, but we'll let that slide. The pacing works well, and the tension builds very satisfactorily towards the end.

Go and see it. It's awesome.

Well, I went home and booked an appointment with my doctor. While sitting at home waiting the three hours till then, my dad texted me to ask if I'd heard the news about an asthma warning. Something of a coincidence that I couldn't breathe, so I called him and had a quick chat. He'd read this article about asthma in the paper which says that pollen and smog and thunderstorms and stuff have been triggering a lot of asthma. It was good to know what was causing it at least.

So I went along to the doctor and had a chat and she said she'd give me some pills and new inhalers (my old inhaler expired in 2003 - no wonder it was doing no good) and then offered to nebulize me, which was pretty cool. A nebulizer is a machine that creates a nebula (hence the name) or fine vapour of liquid medication so that you can inahle it directly. Basically, you sit there with an oxygen mask on and this machine puts a mist of salbutamol into the air you breathe which relaxes your lungs. It's a very relaxing experience, especially after spending a whole day struggling to breathe.

So, anyway, I've now got to take a weeks course of steroid pills to prevent my body having another reaction to all the pollen and smog and stuff. I have to take 8 pills a day, all at once. Weird, huh? They're these little tiny scarlet pills, about the size of the hole in a Polo mint. Quite why I couldn't just take two regular sized pills is beyond my medical knowledge, but there you go. Either way, the pills work and I can breathe again, which is the main thing.

So I'm not dead.

I'm going to tell you all about Batman Begins this afternoon.

My asthma is playing up.

I'm going to take the afternoon off and try to go to the doctor.

Curses.

It's freaking baking. It's about 30 degrees or something absurd.

This would be all fine and dandy, if I worked somewhere with air conditioning. As it is I'm wearing linen trousers, sandals and a t-shirt, and working in a room with all the windows wide open, and I'm still well hot.

The servers down the corridor are not happy. They're in a room that doesn't even have any windows to open, which isn't really a surprise being as there's probably close to Ã

See? I told you so. (Flash Player required)

...but it's still the same.

I've upgraded the blog software I'm using to a new version. If anyone's tried to view the site this morning and it's not worked right or looked weird, then that's why. It should all be OK now though.

Things should look and function pretty much the same. If there are any problems or anything doesn't work right, let me know and I'll look into it.

About the only real difference that might benefit you guys is that, after some fiddling, you can now use things called permalinks. This makes it easier to link to a particular entry as they can be called in a more "human-friendly" fashion. Click the title of this post and then look at the URL in the address bar for an example.

So... that's about it. Have fun.

Owning my own domain to keep this blog on has some advantages. One of these is the statistics that I can view. I can see who (vaguely speaking) is visiting my site, where they are located (hello to my readers in Jordan, Singapore, Iran, Turkey...) , which sites they came from to get here, and so on. I can see how many people are looking at the site and which pages they're looking at. I can see what operating system you're using (74% Windows, 18% Linux, 2% Mac, 6% other) and what browsers you're using (45% IE, 35% Firefox - the good browser - and a few others). I can see how long people stayed here (lots of visits under 30s so either people get bored quick or they're just snagging the RSS feed).

I can also see what people searched for at Google that found my site. So I can see that some people actually want to "download Monster In Law" which amuses me, being as I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. Someone wanted to know "how to build a modern tent" which presumably found them this entry about our camping trip. Someone else wanted to know how to be "taken off telesales lists" which I can empathise with, so hopefully he found the TPS either through my page or some other one.

Why all this navel gazing though?

3 people have found my page by searching for "nick moaned when alison was sucking him". Now, I have probably mentioned the name Alison a few times, for reasons that should be fairly apparent to more regular readers. I don't think I've mentioned anyone called Nick, and I certainly don't think I've made any note of the former sucking the latter. I'm pretty certain I'd remember making an entry like that.

Perverts indeed.

Alison and I went to see Sin City on Friday. I've not been to see an 18 at the cinema in ages, so the adverts for online gambling and Southern Comfort surprised me a bit, but there you go.

The film was heavy duty - lots of violence, sex, violence, nudity, violence, blood, violence and violence. It was pretty violent too. In many ways it's impressive that they made a film out of it all, given the brutal, gritty nature of the original novels. They've done it though, and they've done well.

The film isn't all that deep in terms of story or character, but it does extremely well with what it's got. The stories and characters are engaging, and there's enough of what's necessary to get you engaged and close to the characters and what they're doing. I loved Mickey Rourke as the unstoppably hard Marv ("Is that the best you've got, you pansies?") on his rampage to find who killed the one woman who ever showed him any affection. The cast as a whole is very strong, with Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Bruce Willis... you name it.

The big deal with the film is the stylisation. The whole thing is in black and white with selected bits in colour to highlight things, mostly blood but also people's eyes and a couple of other things. The whole procedure leaves you with a very high contrast appearance with a few details picked out for extra emphasis, much like the comic books it's based on. It works really well, and it is like watching a full motion graphic novel.

I've come across some complaints that the movie ends up being style over substance. In many ways it's an accurate statement, but I don't think it's a bad thing. The style is so tied in with the substance that you couldn't really separate the two. The substance is that it's set in a gritty city with nasty, brutal characters committing grevious acts of revenge and violence. I'm not sure there is any other style than film noir for that something this intense. You couldn't do this sort of thing in full colour, partly because of the violence, but mostly because it would spoil the effect. The whole thing works together - you are telling comic book stories in a comic book manner.

On a slightly tangential note, I've read a site or two this morning commenting on all the terrible things that go on in this film - the parental watch type sites. I find it slightly amusing to be honest. When you're dealing with a film called Sin City, that is rated 18, I think it's a bit redundant to be counting how many times someone says "ass" and taking note of who's smoking cigarettes and drinking irresponsibly. When people are having their limbs cut off and being decapitated, there's bigger things to worry about. I think it's fair to say that people under 18 shouldn't be watching this. For that matter, a lot of people over 18 probably shouldn't watch this, but I doubt they'd want to in the first place. Anyway!

The film is very good. It's hard hitting, grim stuff and it does exactly what it says on the tin and more. The characters, plot and dialogue are extremely suitable for the genre. The photography, effects and overall look of the film are stunning. The violence is outrageous and over the top, but if you can stomach that then the film is great.

Rambling review over.

I'm not overly keen on advertising at the best of times. I certainly dislike advertising that I haven't invited or accepted in some way, like junk mail or spam. I absolutely despise intrusive, invasive advertising and marketing that interrupt my life. Telesales are criminal in my world view. If I wanted a mortgage, I'd go to the bank, not sit around scratching my arse waiting for the phone to ring, thank you very much.

Far worse than all of these, though admittedly rarer, are the deviants that spam fax machines. My parents have a fax machine, which my dad originally got for business reasons a few years back, but which is hardly used these days. It sits around and serves as a phone in his study. Recently they have had to outright disable the fax receiving capabilities as people have started sending out junk faxes about time shares and polls on this, that and the other, usually in the hope that you'll call some premium rate phone number and they'll make cash from the call or something.

Consider these various methods of marketing:

• Spam e-mail can be downloaded relatively quickly for those in the broadband world, and can be deleted fairly painlessly, or filtered away.


• Junk mail can be shredded and recycled, and you can call someone and tell them you want to be taken off their list.


• Telesales people can be told to take you off their list, or you can apply to the Telephone Preference Service to avoid being added to lists in the first place.

On the other hand, faxes are slow, they tie up your phone line for a long time, they use your paper and toner, and it's almost impossible to get off their lists.

So why, you may ask, am I going on about this? Well, because some dumbass has been spamming our phone line for months now, trying to fax us junk. The phone rings, but when you pick it up there's just an intermittent beep while their machine (or computer) waits for a fax response. We can't get their number and they seemingly don't care that we're ex-directory and have applied to the TPS.

Fiends.

This morning we got a call at 6am, an hour before we normally wake up. There it was, beeping away at us.

WE DON'T EVEN HAVE A FAX MACHINE

I'm back at work now, after my few days off for the half term. Alison and I had a fun time camping down in Essex, apart from the rowdy army lads camping just near us on the first night. Singing their obscene songs at two in the morning... the fiends. The tent also got a metaphorical baptism of fire, involving a lot of water. How's that for an utterly inappropriate metaphor, huh? Anyway. The point is it's the first time we'd used the new tent (bought for us by Ali's mum for Christmas - nice) so we weren't sure how well it would hold up to the weather. After we'd put it up we nipped to Safeway to get some stuff and while there it rained so much that everyone just waited in the foyer of the shop instead of going into the car park and there was a trolley traffic jam while people waited for the rain and lightning to stop. Anyway. The tent survived, which was good.

On Saturday we went to Pete Myers' wedding. This meant getting changed into my kilt while stood in a tent, which was a new and interesting experience, but there we go. We arrived just barely on time, thanks to dodgy directions from both the AA (regarding where exactly to turn left) and Pete Myers (regarding when exactly to turn up). The service was rocking, and brought back a lot of memories of my own wedding just under 9 months ago - at least in part because we had one of the same readings and at least one of the same songs. They got married successfully, as one would hope, so that was all good.

The reception was good fun. Alison and I got put on a table with three other recently married couples and one couple who were trying to get married if only her dad would let them. We had a good laugh on our table, and the people were very interesting. It was something of another world as they were all arty types from London talking about sculpture and weird theatre shows and stuff. Living in London sounds busy and exciting and quite glamorous, though I don't think I could keep up with it. I'm sure it suits them down to the ground, but I don't think I could hack it and I suspect the romance of it would fade quite quickly for me. Anyway.

After the meal there was a Ceilidh which was good fun. Wearing a kilt to that kind of thing can be a risk as people make the mistake of thinking I must know what I'm doing, though in truth I'm a terrible dancer. Still, it was fun if a bit cramped in the hall we were dancing in. I danced once with Alison and once with Laura, and did one dance that involved swapping partners the whole time, so that was fun. After a few dances we left and went back to our tent as we were knackered.

I was really proud to see Pete get married. I've been out of touch with him for years since we went our separate ways uni-wise, so it's good to see that he's doing well and has become who he is today. It's interesting because he hasn't changed all that much. He's still really energetic and chaotic, but I think he's managed to focus that on his acting and music and stuff, which I hear have really blossomed; and also - more importantly - on his faith in God and work in that kinda region. It's cool because all the stuff that I kinda worried about with Pete has actually turned out to be for the best. I always thought "Man, he really needs to calm down." but it turns out he just needed some direction and something to channel all his energy into. Before he was just crazy. These days, it seems he's still crazy, but he's crazy with some kind of purpose. I find that quite enlightening, as it makes me realise that maybe some people who seem so messed up or out of place just need to find their niche where they can do their thing and apply their skills.

So... yeah. That was a pretty cool weekend. Good to see Pete get married, good to meet his wife Katy, good to see a whole bunch of friends from the Wirral again. Rocking.

Alison and I have come to stay with my parents for a couple of days. Well, that is to say we got here yesterday and are going tomorrow. It's half term so Ali isn't at work and I've taken a whole bunch of time off so we're having a break which is very nice. We had an interesting drive yesterday (30mph in 2nd gear up 15% hills anyone? Talk about your scenic routes...) and then had supper with my family, less my brother, and Ali's mum who had dropped by too. So that was nice.

Today I've fixed several computers, making this something of a Busman's Holiday but nevertheless. After that we did a bit of shopping, and then I went to have a filling at the dentist, which was a barrel of laughs as I'm sure you can imagine. Still, it's probably better than having my teeth pulled.

This evening I went out to the pub (alone, as Ali wasn't feeling too good) to meet my friends Andy, Laura (who is blogless) and Matt (who may or may not have a blog - you can think of him as Schroedinger's Blogger if you like). It was good to catch up with them and find out what they're doing. Always a pleasure. Our inane jabbering amused the Geordie next to us, who said that we had "restored his faith in the youth of today". So that was nice.

Right. I'm going to bed now as I'm tired. I have a few other things to blog about, but they will have to wait till tomorrow morning, or maybe even next Monday. I'm away this weekend as it is my friend's wedding. Alison and I can't afford a hotel so we are going to go camping nearby because we are hardcore. Oh yes.

Good night.