 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the 3rd of February, 1960, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) davidstewart/David Stewart, one of Ireland's most prominent fans, was born. Over the years, he was one of the most recognisable Irishmen in SF fandom: few people who attended Octocon wouldn't have met him, but he was also to be seen at Eastercons and Worldcons. He was a large man, both in body and spirit, and usually the centre of friendly chat. Today, he should have been celebrating his 50th birthday. Sadly, he died of oesophageal cancer in his late 40s, and his funeral actually took place during the 2007 Octocon. This evening, I will be raising a glass in his memory. I hope those of you who also knew him will join me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The daily quest Among the Champions must be one of the best ones to do once one is allowed to do it. What is this quest? It's to joust against, and defeat, four faction champions, at the Argent Tournament grounds. If you're doing any of the dailies given up there, then you really want to be doing this one. It can take as little as 5 minutes, you don't have to leave the Tournament grounds, it rewards you with over 20 gold, and there's no chance of suffering any damage. Best of all, it appears that it doesn't matter how low-level your equipment is, you won't do any the worse at it, because this is a 'vehicle' quest: you are assigned a standard mount, with standard abilities. ( And, as I said, jousting is easy. )Tags: world of warcraft
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Last night, I tried an interesting experiment: a sweetcorn and mussel loaf. What I did was as follows. Firstly, I made a bread dough. It was a fairly plain one, basically white bread flour with yeast, salt, water and some olive oil in the mix. Once risen, I rolled some of it out flat (the rest made a separate loaf), and lined a loaf tin with it. Meanwhile, I'd made a white sauce to which I'd added parsley and tarragon, before also adding some pre-cooked mussels and also some sweetcorn. This was cooked to the point that it was thick rather than runny. I added this to the loaf tin, and then covered that with a lid, also of rolled out dough. I pierced the lid a few times to avoid any explosions, and then put the whole thing in the hottest oven I can get for 35 minutes. (I also had a pyrex jug of water in there, to crisp up the crust a bit.) The result was really rather yummy, having produced pretty much exactly what I'd hoped. Tags: cooking
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We saw Avatar last night.
As far as the story goes, well, we've probably encountered it before more than once. It's not District 9.
But the SFX? Wow! Pandora is probably the most beautiful alien planet we've ever seen. Dangerous, yes, but lush and glorious, with believable creatures designed by Wayne Barlowe. (Well, believable if you bend the square cube law a bit, and given alien physiology leading to carbon fibre permeated bones, and an atmospheric composition comprising goodness knows what, flying creatures able to carry 10' aliens manage to carry it off.)
And those tall aliens? They're this side of the uncanny valley. They manage to be strange and yet not repellent, despite their blue skins, noses that are more like muzzles, and their inhuman height.
In total, this film will be earning back Cameron his investment, and it's going to be providing the technical tools for the next generation of SF films. I'd love to see this technology used to film C J Cherryh's Atevi.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The snowy weather hasn't been good for traffic since Friday. The Eurostar trains are an example of this. We were a little surprised to get a phone call at 23:15 last Friday, from happydisciple, asking if he and sierra_le_oli could borrow a bed for the night, as the train taking them back down to London after a company do at Trinity Hall in Cambridge has let out its magic train juice, and was looking doubtful regarding its likely ability to get as far as Finsbury Park. We of course said yes, and I popped out to get more milk ( bellinghwoman had promised to get more on her way back from a lunch down in London, but she'd been a little over-indulgent ("the second bottle of champagne may have been a mistake") and had decided that crashing out for a few hours was a better idea than getting the milk. I, expecting her to be getting some, had not bought any when out shopping earlier). So we had a nice evening chatting with them, before packing them off to bed. And a nice breakfast the following morning, though not on the enormous bellinghbreakfast scale, before they left at about noon for a train that alleged it was on time. Oh, and happydisciple? VMW Co is likely the Vintage Malt Whisky Company, making this the Islay I have.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
About a month ago, I decided that my home PC could probably do with a little more RAM. It was previously running a 32-bit variety of Windows, which meant that any more than its installed 3GB of RAM would have been pointless, but I had upgraded to 64-bit Windows 7.
So I decided that I'd up the amount to 8GB, which would be 4 sticks of 2GB each. I then went off to look for suitable memory, and settled on a pair of Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB kits (matched pairs of 2GB sticks, DDR2 800MHz). Why that particular memory? Well, a good brand, 4-4-4-12 timing rather than 5-5-5-15, and heat spreaders to help keep it a bit cooler.
Note to mention the price: £50 + VAT per kit from Novatech. (No, don't look, it's now £75 + VAT per kit). They didn't have it in stock, but never mind, I wasn't in a hurry, this was a luxury upgrade, not a required one.
It finally arrived yesterday, and I installed it. It's nice RAM, if a little underutilised, but it was going to be future proofing. There's just one feature ...
That 'Tracer' in the title?
It means that there are LEDs on the RAM packages. There are blue LEDs along the pin edges, nicely lighting up the circuit board, and red/green LEDs along the opposite edge, merrily chasing themselves in random patterns.
It's a shame my case cover is opaque and that whole effect is totally wasted.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We went off to the cinema yesterday afternoon to see this rather engaging animated feature. Annoyingly, since 'it's a cartoon', and the latest instalment in the Twilight series is also out, it's getting limited showings (none in the evening at our normal film watching time). Which is a shame, as it's not bad at all. Planet 51 is effectively Planet 1951, being very like America in the 1950s. At least, like one if everyone has greenish skin, antennae and no nose, and the wheel has been displaced by levitation pads to such an extent that even a VW van hovers. But it has comic shops and the first sight of hippy protesters, and a xenophobia powered by films of alien invasion. Into this lands an astronaut, Chuck Baker, who's supposed to make a few steps out onto an uninhabited planet, plant Old Glory, and return to his command module, there to press the button that will fly him home again. Sadly for him, the planet is far from uninhabited, and when he stumbles through a barbecue and gets separated from his craft, the anti-alien hysteria latches onto him, and he spends the rest of the film in jeopardy of getting either just left behind as the orbiter heads home automatically, or cut up for experiments in the infamous (and, of course, totally non-existent) Base 9. Happily for him, he has the help of a local, Lem, who is just starting his job as assistant at the local planetarium. It's a delightful story, one that explicitly hangs a lampshade over the fact that both humans and aliens are speaking the same language, and implicitly hangs another one regarding the 1951-edness of the planet. There are a lot of nods to other SF films, from the Close Encounters cloud maelstrom to the E.T. bicycle in front of the moon, as well as other references (surely Lem's name is one). But there are also a number of cute characterisations, from the alien (and very Giger-styled) 'dog' that urinates acid to break its chain, to the astronaut's small 6-wheeled robot probe which, being called Rover', also behaves like an intelligent dog. There were a number of places where we were laughing out loud, and I think we'll be buying this on disc when it comes out. In the meantime, this is recommended, if you can actually find it on a screen. Tags: film, reviews
Current Music: Florence + the Machine - My Boy Builds Coffins
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous 
angry
curious
.
amused
mischievous
confused
