Another Pair Of Eyes

Obligatory Christmas Post

Slightly late, but….

Merry Christmas everyone.

That is all.

What do you do for Christmas?

Tabloids

I was going through some old files on my familiy’s old OLD computer when I found a folder filled with a few of my homeworks etc from when I was in year 7. Apparently aged 11 I still had a healthy cynicism when it came to tabloid reporting. This was based on ‘Stone Cold’ (if I remember rightly) and the assignment was to write a tabloid-styled article based on the ending of the book.

Strange reading things you wrote more than a decade ago…makes you feel old.

Susan Fail

Also, I found this on failblog and I was in stitches.

Home

I am home.

And there are no builders, and everything is quiet and finished and the view from my room is beautiful.

16 weeks is a long term. I’ve got a lot of work to do. Instead, though, I’m just watching the snow fall.

Real News

There is a big shortage of real news.

Wait. That is a lie. What I actually mean to say is, there is a overbearing quantity of news which is a long way from newsworthy. By this, at the moment, I largely mean X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing evictions being posted on national news. Report on Copenhagen or something instead, something that actually is important at the moment. I couldn’t personally care less about who is winning [insert TV show here] and presumably those that do have either a) watched the show and know already, b) have friends who have told them or c) will find out when it is inevitably pushed into your face by radio presenters the next morning. When I am reading the news, especially on a respectable news channel such as the BBC or broadsheet papers, I want meaty, factual, important issues (including those taking place more than an inch beyond the border) rather than superficial commentaries on what is basically a soap opera. I have no quarrel with the shows themselves or people who watch them, but I do take issue with them consistently appearing in the top ten news items on the BBC news website.

Rant over.

No, today has not been a good day and I am ratty.

And I was pretty annoyed that No. 9 turned out to be 10% ITV, 90% Simon Cowell talking about X-factor.

Secrets

Watch this, then read. Or just read, but it won’t make much sense.

I wasn’t sure that there was a lot to this video, with the exception of the section from about 3:30 to 4:12. I was going to say more, but I don’t think there’s anything I want to add.

Defying Gravity

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit of  TV show/film whore. I like nearly everything, even the things I know are complete trash. There are plenty of things which I’ve watched and enjoyed while simultaneously cringing at the shocking horror of the acting or the shallower-than-puddles scriptwriting.* However, this doesn’t mean that I can’t see higher quality bits and pieces when I see them. I don’t recommend bad films, I just watch them. Films I recommend are things like V for Vendetta, Spy Game, Pan’s Labyrinth, and notably not The Core, xXx (the second version of which doesn’t even deserve the title of ‘film’) or War, Inc.**

Defying Gravity is different. I’ve not finished it yet, it might still turn into a shocking set of terrible clichés, or do that US thing of turning into a great big piece of we-love-god-and-he-loves-us evangelistic crap.*** So far though, I’m hopeful. Its intriguing and strange. You have to follow the story from reasonably close to the start, and even though sometimes it seems a bit like they put a bunch of lunatics on a spaceship it does make sense. It’s based around mankinds first mission to Venus on a ship which is set to travel a six-year tour of the solar system, and its a bit about dealing with being in space and being separated from husbands and wives and etc. But mainly, its about the crew coping in space, and specifically with something other which has been put on the ship and is referred to only as ‘beta’.

Irritatingly, as with many shows which I liked, it’s been cancelled after the first series. I guess it just didn’t have enough vampires or martial arts in it or something. If you can, get ahold of it from the beginning and watch it. Skipping to halfway through will ruin the grand suspensey theme running through the first half of the series!

*there are also exceptions. Notable amongst these is ‘The Marksman” which is one of the most awful things I’ve ever seen. Really.

**Three notable ones, the latter two of which were SO bad I couldn’t even like them.

***Knowing, anyone?