Sunday Triple Bill

posted by Jaitu at 07:58

Yesterday we decided to have ourselves a 'slobby day'. To this end we set out in the morning to get shopping and recycling out of the way and returned home laden with an armful of cheap DVDs and cheaper snack foods. The movies, needless to say have left a far more pleasant lasting impression on me than the still active snack foods which are even now craving attention within me.
We watched three movies which I shall present in no particular order except that it is the particular order that they were watched in.

Eagle Vs Shark
A low budget film from New Zealand. It follows Lily, a socially inept likable 'loser' of a girl as she is let go from her job at the 'Meaty Boy' fast food restaurant and finds love with her dream man Jarrad - an even more inept loser played by Jermaine Clement from Flight Of The Conchords. Jarrad, it turns out, is hell bent on a revenge mission against the man who used to bully him at school.
The weakest of the three movies but still very watchable. If you like Napoleon Dynamite or Flight Of The Conchords then there's a strong chance you'll enjoy Eagle Vs Shark.

JUNO
By far the filmiest film of the three and overall the most complete. Juno is a sixteen year old girl that finds herself pregnant and decides to give it up for adoption. Despite the subject and the, in my opinion, slightly off-putting trailer this is a very entertaining and frequently funny movie.

Be Kind Rewind
In some ways my favourite of the three (although in many other ways Juno still takes it). Mos Def and Jack Black accidentally erase all the videos in a failing video store and have to record their own 'Sweded' versions to keep their customers happy. Anyone who has seen and enjoyed anything from Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Chemical Brothers and Bjork music videos including - 'Let Forever Be' and 'Star Guitar') will enjoy this film immensely. Gondry has an amazing talent for simple creativity. As the following trailer and it's own 'Sweded' remake should demonstrate.

'Sweded' Version of the Trailer

Wrong.

posted by Jaitu at 10:10

Another clip from YouTube that has nothing to do with anything.
This one is of an inappropriate design for a kids slide.
OK, the quality of the image and camera work leave a lot to be desired but it's almost worth it for the terrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody alone.

New Shirts

posted by Jaitu at 17:50

El Diablo has provided some new shirt designs for the shop.
I'll probably make more of a fuss once the shop itself has been redesigned.

A Quick Note.

posted by Jaitu at 07:53

A while ago a lot of people got quite excited by Mentos and Coke. Two men that got particularly excited were the guys from Eepybird. Now they are back with a new display. Click the video below to see what you can do with nearly three hundred thousand coloured post-it notes.

EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

If you want to see the original Mentos and Coke experiment then look below.

The game's Bond, Premium Bond

posted by Jaitu at 19:04

I have been buying premium bonds on and off for a couple of years and so far the return has seemed reasonable. The other day Doug and I were discussing potential savings plans and the subject of premium bonds came up. Doug pointed me to a very informative article at Money Saving Expert that goes into incredible detail regarding the actual apportionment of winnings and the probability of return on your investment. The information is represented in such a way that remains simple enough to follow. There is also a calculator tool which gives very interesting results.

Ferrari's International Assistants

posted by Jaitu at 17:31

This afternoon we were treated to one of the more exciting Grands Prix of the season in which Lewis Hamilton started from pole, quickly lost the lead then much later regained it, gave it back, took it, lost it and finally won.
It is very disappointing therefor to find that Lewis has been stripped of the win after the race stewards gave him a post race 25 second penalty for a marginal incident with Kimi. What makes this all more irritating is that following Lewis cutting the final chicane - after making contact with Kimi [Correction: they didn't make contact, Lewis cut the chicane partly to avoid it.] - he correctly gave the place back before going on to pass Kimi legitimately. Lewis gained nothing by cutting the chicane and Kimi lost nothing. It was suggested that Lewis may have had a momentum advantage as a result of cutting the chicane. Surely any momentum gained would have been surrendered by backing off to allow Kimi back through?
Earlier in the weekend Honda's Ross Braun (previously one of the Ferrari dream team) categorically denied that Ferrari ever receive favourable treatment from the F.I.A. However, with Felipe Massa receiving nothing more than a fine following an unsafe release in the pitlane at Valencia (which could easily have resulted in injury) the inconsistency in penalties seems pronounced. It becomes increasingly difficult to argue that the apparent leniency afforded to Ferrari and the comparatively severe penalties seemingly handed to Mclaren whenever and wherever possible is purely coincidence.

I'd Recommend More Than-A-Lot

posted by Jaitu at 15:41

No, this has nothing to do with any kind of insurance product.

Thursday night we went into London with our neighbours to see Monty Python's Spamalot. Spamalot is a musical stage show based, mostly, on the classic film Monty Python And The Holy Grail. The film focused on Arthur - King of the Britons and his quest to find the holy grail. The show follows roughly the same course with some minor and some major changes to make it more suitable for stage production and to set it quite distinctly apart from the original source. There is more than enough of the original to keep fans happy but I don't think you have to be a fan or have any prior knowledge of Python to enjoy the show. One of our party is not too keen on the movie but found the show to be an excellent evening's entertainment. All the new material fits nicely and is genuinely funny stuff. There is a touch of the post-modern self-referencing that I would ordinarily put down as an easy way out but in the context of Python's anarchic humour is is not an issue.

I cannot recommend this show highly enough.

Below is a clip from Australian television with a report on the London show. It is from a couple of years ago and features the original cast. Possibly the entire cast has since changed and currently Sanjeev Bhaskar is playing the part of Arthur brilliantly.

Also the Aussie reporter seems to think that Holy Grail and Life Of Brian are the same film.

Pop Thorn

posted by Jaitu at 18:39

Whilst glancing out of the window at the pouring rain today I noticed that my dripping bike had lost some definition around the front tyre. My keen mind and deductive reasoning led me to conclude that I had a puncture.
I made a deal with myself that if it was dry when I left I would fix it properly - by which I mean replace the inner tube and not faff with a puncture repair kit. If it was still raining I would just pump a load of air back in and see how far I could get.
In the end it wasn't raining but it was almost an hour later than I had expected to leave so the "just pump a load of air back in" plan seemed preferable. I gave the tyre a quick once over to see if there was any obvious damage and was disappointed to find a woody stub sitting flush with one of the tread blocks. Further fiddling left it clear that no amount of pumping was likely to improve the situation.
I took the wheel off and extracted the offending item from the rubber. It was a little more substantial than I had anticipated. I took a poor quality image, in the fading light, of the thorn I took out next to the valve stem of the deflated tube as as a record.

The amazing this is that I know exactly where I would have picked this up and it is around two miles from work. Somehow I had managed to ride that far in the morning with no indication of the puncture.

Speed, Speeder, Speedest

posted by Jaitu at 19:05

Never mind the 'interestingly' styled G-Wiz electric 'car'.
What you really want is a full-size, all electric and almost as practical real Landspeeder. Capable of 25mph and several miles on a single charge this has to be one of the more desirable fully electric vehicles around. Sadly it is, of course, a one off.
More info, pics and video at http://www.reallandspeeder.com/