Posts filed under "reviews"
One of the things that I’m hoping to cut by at least 20 minutes is my commute. Currently it takes between 38 and 40 minutes (including parking). The part which took the most was actually from Saida to Beirut which took a little more than originally anticipated. In contrast once I was in Beirut the drive to Dora area took no more than 4 minutes or something silly like that.
Truth be told I can live with that kind of commute for a little while. I’m guaranteed a place to sit, don’t have to wait for the next train to come along. Don’t need to be squeezed getting on and off. No sweating like a bastard because it’s 35 degrees down there in the summer. Sure I get the odd asshole who cuts me off, or yells because he thinks the road is his own and can go anywhere he damn well pleases (without indicating), but it’s a small price to pay. The commute is about 10 minutes more than it used to be in London.
One of the things I’ve done is actually started downloading some audiobooks and lectures that I’ve been meaning to listen to for ages. As I wanted something relatively light, I’ve started with the first Harry Potter audiobook. After many many years of people TRYING really hard to get me to dip my toe in this universe, I’ve finally taken the plunge thanks to Stephen Fry’s amazing voice and reading abilities. To be honest with you, I wish he’d read all of my audiobooks. The man is amazing at it. I’ve heard about 3 chapters so far and it’s all very predictable so far and really can’t see what all the fuss is about.
Let’s finish the first book, since at least then I can claim to have given it some of my time before I write it off. Let’s just say the concept has never really appealed to me.
HTML5 for Web Designers - This is looking like a must read for this year. I’m planning on starting to get back into web designing for some small side projects and this would be a good book to get into.
The Daily Zoo 2 - Having just bought the first book, I can tell you that this is an amazing art book, with an amazing story behind it. Draw an animal every day for a year…well two years so far and counting.
Spider-Man The Other Review - I do have another website…I’ve not been giving it much love. Fortunately the excellent James Huff has taken it upon himself to start reviewing again, which is only a good thing. Hopefully I’ll get inspired to start review some stuff in the not too distant future as well. If you’re into graphic novels and the comic book form, Splash Panel has got only good recommendations. We’d don’t review books we didn’t like.
All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.
It’s been YEARS since I read Animal Farm by George Orwell, so much so that I’d completely forgotten the story. I know it mirrored Communism but couldn’t really remember the details. If you’ve not read it in a while, seriously you’d do yourself a massive favour in rereading it when you’re older because it really does make for better reading with older eyes. Also this time around I’ve got the power of the internet in front of me so the following links can only add to the general enjoyment of the work; comparison chart of the characters and the wikipedia entry.
Inglourious Basterds Comics - With the Tarantino dialogue I presume and the EXCELLENT RM Guerra (he of amazing Scalped series from Vertigo). Beware, this isn’t safe for work (I’m linking to Playboy)…yeah I can already hear the comments from Stathi and my brother.
http://www.brokenkode.com/inglourious-basterds-the-graphic-novel
Lemonade - Documentary on some of the 70,000 people who lost their job in this, the latest great recession, within the advertising industry. What’s interesting to me is the fact that due to ‘Mad Men’, I’ve been able to peer into this little industry and the characters inside. The documentary itself looks relatively pedestrian and very, very American but at the same time there is something nice from people that have lost their jobs that move forward to something bigger and better. I know several friends (good and talented) that have had to do this.
In case you’ve not gone out and bought this, you owe it to yourself, really you do. Don’t believe me, here are a couple (one, two) of reviews.
Lone Wolf and Cub Reviewed - Epic series, epic series of posts reviewing every volume, with loads of images and explanations. Excellent work for those who have read and enjoyed the series like I have.
Blacksad Gallery - Without a doubt, one of my favourite series, and a huge inspiration for me in the art department. If there is one thing that ‘Aitus Moralis’ is trying to learn is just the general attention to detail that this series claims. The other is the mixture of inks and watercolours onto a page. Truly stunning work that deserves your attention. Book Three is coming out this November (not sure who is going to be publishing it in English though). Here is a review I wrote 2 years ago regarding the first book.
Safari 4 is now out of Beta. And you can definitely tell that they have been listened.
Tabs
First off the location of the tabs has changed. In the Beta, they were located at the top (like Chrome). It was an interesting experiment that doesn’t fit within the Mac mold. The only way to make the tabs work, is for the top menu to completely disappear. Clearly this was too radical (or cannot be done?) that they’ve opted to put the tabs back to where they have always gone.
The work on the tabs doesn’t stop there however. They’ve gone back to allowing you to select the whole tab rather than a corner to drag them across. That was a function that really pissed me off with the Beta.
Speed
It’s definitely MUCH faster. Both at loading and at rendering pages. In fact I’ll go so far as to say it’s giving me the same speed surprise I had when I first ran and installed Google Chrome (read item 4). Clearly Apple aren’t resting on their laurels. They’ve taken it back to Google who only recently released their Alpha version of Chrome for the Mac.
Buttons and Interface
In Safari 3 I often resorted to hacks to add some much need functionality, such as a bloody tab button. Yeah I know it’s cmd+t but dammit I wanted a button for when I was feeling bloody lazy. Thankfully they’ve brought in a bunch of buttons that can sit in the menu now. Another favourite is removing/adding the bookmarks bar button.
Loading and Reloading
The loading graphic has also changed now. I don’t actually mind this at all. In fact I would go on to say that I actually like this, however I actually liked the previous integration of the blue bar across the entire address book a lot more.
Reloading a page is still in the address line; When this was first introduced I was not a fan, however this has grown on me.
Overall impressions is that this feels like the next logical step forward for Safari. The Beta actually for once showed that they are willing to go back on their original ideas and that they do actually listen to user’s opinions, which is always nice.
Bluebird - Yet another Twitter client. This however looks a little better than Twitterific, which has just stagnated, although not as good as my current twitter client of choice, Destroy Twitter.
MacHeist 09 - For those in the Mac community, you probably know about MacHeist. I bought last year’s bundle which I believe was a hell of a lot stronger offering than this year’s. Is it me, or is it not selling as quickly as the previous bundle did? I could be wrong, but it seems to be stuck under the $300,000 mark (for charities that is) for the last few days. From all the apps on offer, I only am interested in LittleSnapper and maybe iSale. Apart from that, the rest of the bundle doesn’t particularly interest me (Espresso would be nice, but I already own Coda).
Terminator Salvation / Trailer 2 - Oh now that is more like it. Is that NIN in the background?Maybe McG has created something worth watching, as long as I can get the whole Christian Bale outburst thing, I might even enjoy this.
Saulius review Pixelmator Sprinkle’s new feature - I’ve been using Pixelmator for nearly a year now and month in an month out the guys have been doing a bang up job of moving the software forward. What’s incredibly pleasing to see is just how far this little application has grown in a year between version 1.0 and the current version 1.4. A great deal of the gripes that I had have been rectified and here’s hoping that the few I have left will be addressed soon (grouping layers and better text control).
Battlestar Galactica promo - Deadlock - And since we’re talking about BSG, here’s the promo from next week’s episode. Can you imagine the conversation that Sol will have with you-know-who. Awkward. (Obviously don’t go if you’ve not see the final episodes)
http://www.brokenkode.com/battlestar-galactica-promo-deadlock
This was a HUGE Battlestar Galactica Episode. This post is rife with SPOILERS, so if you’ve not seen the episode go somewhere else, nothing to read here.
No Exit answered many questions that have been lingering with most of us for years. As the EW review says, I definitely feel like i’ve deserved this particular episode dammit. I sat through years of BSG goodness, and dammit I wanted some resolution. However this episode didn’t give you everything. It answered (or tried to answer) a number of questions, however these are some of the questions outstanding.
Who Nuked Earth?
So on Kobol, humanity was born. 4000 years ago a tribe from Kobol left for somewhere else. These were the tribe that eventually came to Earth. As it turns out this tribe was completely made of Cylons created on Kobol; back then they could only reanimated themselves. These Cylons left Kobol 2000 years prior to the rest of the tribes leaving Kobol, since they wanted to have their own world (which explains why the left earlier and in the opposite direction to everyone else). Over time they learnt how to reproduce without copies. Emulating humans as best they could.
Eventually these guys (over the course of several 1000 years) forgot how to do this, because they didn’t need know. The lingering question remained however was who nuked Earth? Was it themselves? Unfortunately this little interview snippet doesn’t really shed much light on that question. For the sake of argument let’s just say that a war began between the Cylons and Humans from Kobol. The 5 Cylons were warned (through the ‘Head’ characters) and so they went off to stop the same from happening to the rest of the colonies and trying to actually live together in peace.
The Plan
Now John Cavil as the evil super villian is pretty interesting, except the producers of the show obviously know that for him to pull of something like this there must have been a pretty intricate plan. So they’re going to be releasing a movie called ‘The Plan’ to further elaborate on this series of events and how it actually came about.
Daniel
As for Daniel, he’s basically Kera’s father. Simple. Before he dies he goes off and has the first hybrid baby. Now obviously the question is how did this actually happen? I always thought that the problem has always been that they couldn’t really have babies. Athena was meant to have had the first one with Helo, so there’s a loophole here, but I can’t remember what the deal is. But anyway, Kera is a hybrid, with a link to her dad, so she might be getting some of his memories? One bit of evidence that’s small but points in this general direction is that like her dear dad, Kera is also an artist.
I seem to always reread Sidekicks by J.Torres and Takeshi Miyazawa whenever I come back to Greece. It’s such a well put together book, which I find a crime that it’s not such a massive hit. The last page of the trade (which is the first edition of The Transfer Student) has a great way of ending, which I have always loved.
Have you ever had one of those days? One of those days that changed your whole week? One of those days that determined an outlook for an entire month. One of those days that you look back on after a year and think. “Yeah. That’s when it all started.”
Today is not one of those days, but I really want one of those days to come soon.
In anticipation of the new Watchmen movie (hopefully coming to a cinema near you), there is actually a slew of great books on offer to enhance the whole experience. If you’ve not read the source material, SHAME ON YOU. Your homework is to buy the Absolute Edition of this masterpiece and get reading. If you’ve already done that, don’t forget to grab the Dave Gibbons artbook, Watching the Watchmen.
If you are more into movie related books (I personally do like a good one), there is the standard Film companion (which is probably the weakest offering actually) as you can have the Art of the Film which is bound to be more interesting, especially when you get work by such greats as Adam Hughes (who has always been one of my favourite artists of all time). But possibly my favourite tie in book of the entire movie might have to be the Portraits book, which is a collection of black and white photographs taken during the making of the movie.
Don’t forget to read these books while listening to the official soundtrack. Yeah this movie is going to make someone a TON of money, some definitely from me.
Slumdog Millionaire was released this week and it’s the latest effort form director Danny Boyle. I’d heard literally NOTHING about this movie but I knew from the way that it was being talked about that it might be a pretty good movie. I was wrong. It’s an EXCELLENT movie…see what I did there?
If you’ve not heard about it, starts off with the interrogation/torture of a young man who as we find out quickly is from the slums in Mumbai who manages to gets on the show ‘Who Wants to be a Milliionaire’. The story basically weaves the questions asked on the show with his life spanning across three time periods.
The situations and the character development is incredibly well paced and the story, much like the show keeps you on the edge of your seat. If I had a complaint it’s the fact that the ending that I came up in my head for the movie would have probably made it into more of a classic than it is destined to be.
That’s two in two movies I’ve watched this year, both of which have been absolutely supreme. So much so I can claim that this one is also in my top ten of the year (the other being Persopolis). Caramel is basically the Lebanese Amelie. Believe me I don’t say such things unless I actually mean them, but everything about this movie was a joy to watch.
The movie is set in Beirut, and considering the times that Lebanon is going through right now, it was extra special for me and heartbreaking at the same time to watch this movie as I got to see more elements of the country and the people celebrated rather than destroyed. What’s even more special to me about this movie is that it portrays the city as something vibrant rather than how it is traditionally shown broken, battered and bombed. It gives it a certain filter and lets it shine slightly. Sure there are times when I felt that it would have been nice to show the city at night, but that’s a minor point and the director Nadine really gives us a Beirut to wonder about.
The story centres around 5 women living and working in Lebanon and how their romantic lives evolve along with the expectations of the world they inhabit and their families and upbringings. The great thing about this movie is that none of the characters are perfect, in fact all of the women are far from perfect, they’re all real and that adds the most amazing layer to the whole story. They each have their own problems and obstacles to overcome which slowly unfold throughout the movie.
My only fear is that people in the Western world may not appreciate some of the situations and customs that inhabit the story. While they’re not crucial to the enjoyment and understanding of the story, it adds a whole other dimension to the story that they are portraying, in a certain way you have to be Lebanese to appreciate that this is actually true and it’s the reality. Specifically the police scene and the hotel scenes. Trust me when I say this, that’s all true, no dramatisation for the movie.
The director Nadine Labaki (who also wrote this) does a masterful job of injecting so much humour and warmth into this movie, which is where the direct comparison to Amelie comes from. It’s been a while since I was given a set of characters that were all likeable and beautiful in their own right. In my view this is probably one of the hardest things to do in a movie and Nadine hit all the correct notes on this front.
One thing I want to comment on is the beauty of the lead actress and fundamentally the sex appeal that she oozes and that is lacking in a lot of American shows that I watch. It struck me as odd that this woman who isn’t stick thin as is required by the 10pounds-added-by-the-camera world that we live in. Sex appeal cannot be brought or added on, it’s just there, in a Marilyn Monroe kind of way.
Finally I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the excellent soundtrack that was chosen and composed by Khaled Mouzanar (whom the director I believe is engaged to, good name btw son) which fits the movie feel to a glove and adds yet another exceptional layer to the movie.
I honestly don’t want to give much more about this movie other than it’s something that people who enjoyed Amelie would find the same kind of magic in this movie.
That’s two in two movies I’ve watched this year, both of which have been absolutely supreme. So much so I can claim that this one is also in my top ten of the year (the other being Persopolis). Caramel is basically the Lebanese Amelie. Believe me I don’t say such things unless I actually mean them, but everything about this movie was a joy to watch.
The movie is set in Beirut, and considering the times that Lebanon is going through right now, it was extra special for me and heartbreaking at the same time to watch this movie as I got to see more elements of the country and the people celebrated rather than destroyed. What’s even more special to me about this movie is that it portrays the city as something vibrant rather than how it is traditionally shown broken, battered and bombed. It gives it a certain filter and lets it shine slightly. Sure there are times when I felt that it would have been nice to show the city at night, but that’s a minor point and the director Nadine really gives us a Beirut to wonder about.
The story centres around 5 women living and working in Lebanon and how their romantic lives evolve along with the expectations of the world they inhabit and their families and upbringings. The great thing about this movie is that none of the characters are perfect, in fact all of the women are far from perfect, they’re all real and that adds the most amazing layer to the whole story. They each have their own problems and obstacles to overcome which slowly unfold throughout the movie.
My only fear is that people in the Western world may not appreciate some of the situations and customs that inhabit the story. While they’re not crucial to the enjoyment and understanding of the story, it adds a whole other dimension to the story that they are portraying, in a certain way you have to be Lebanese to appreciate that this is actually true and it’s the reality. Specifically the police scene and the hotel scenes. Trust me when I say this, that’s all true, no dramatisation for the movie.
The director Nadine Labaki (who also wrote this) does a masterful job of injecting so much humour and warmth into this movie, which is where the direct comparison to Amelie comes from. It’s been a while since I was given a set of characters that were all likeable and beautiful in their own right. In my view this is probably one of the hardest things to do in a movie and Nadine hit all the correct notes on this front.
One thing I want to comment on is the beauty of the lead actress and fundamentally the sex appeal that she oozes and that is lacking in a lot of American shows that I watch. It struck me as odd that this woman who isn’t stick thin as is required by the 10pounds-added-by-the-camera world that we live in. Sex appeal cannot be brought or added on, it’s just there, in a Marilyn Monroe kind of way.
Finally I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the excellent soundtrack that was chosen and composed by Khaled Mouzanar (whom the director I believe is engaged to, good name btw son) which fits the movie feel to a glove and adds yet another exceptional layer to the movie.
I honestly don’t want to give much more about this movie other than it’s something that people who enjoyed Amelie would find the same kind of magic in this movie.
For the last Battlestar Galactica season, I’ll be reviewing each episode from this 3rd episode, ‘The ties that Bind’. So if you’ve not seen the episode yet, I suggest you stop reading and come back once you’ve done so. I guess you can consider this your SPOILER WARNING (that’s for the entire post in case you were wondering).
Plot Threads
So Kaylee was the centre of this particular episode and the fact that she found out that her husband, Colenl Tai and Tory are all Cylons and obviously her obvious murder once that toaster kills her after she’s taken the child from her.
It’s a shame that this character died in this fashion, but I guess finally we’re dealing with some proper ramifications in this season. It’s been a pretty slow burner as the first two episodes have been pretty mediocre as far as I’m concerned. Definitely did not provide the correct level of punch that you would expect from a final season. There’s no time for them to frak around with silly exposition. Each episode has to be complete dynamite, seeing as they only have 22 episodes (19 now) to wrap the entire story and tie up all the loose ends…after a fashion of course. I’m sure they’ll leave some questions for the audience to decide for themselves, but my hope is that the major elements are discussed and explained.
Meanwhile, Kera is commanding a ship through space trying to find Earth, while fucking off everyone around and acting like more of a bitch than she normally can be. obviously she’s changed and it’s going to be interesting to see what exactly happened in the 2 months that Kera was away and why she’s acting the way she’s acting, completely spaced out. Is she the last Cylon?
Then you’ve got the Lee Adama thread. obviously they’ve put him in this position seeing as his and kera’s love thing is all but over, and she’s got her mission and Anders has his, he can now do his thing and screw around with Rosaline’s administration and play politician. Out of all the characters on this show, I guess Lee has had the most change than any other character on the show. He’s had the most friends become enemies, enemies become friend type scenarios than anyone else and they’re poised to continue that fine tradition throughout this series as well. Do you get the feeling that he’s hoping to take over as President once Rosaline kicks the bucket?
As if that’s not enough plot threads, you’ve then got the crazy civil war that’s going on with the Cylons. So half want them to get the Diana’s up and running again and the other half want to neuter everyone apart from a specific number of models. I’m not sure where this is going to be honest.
CGI Cylons
One thing that i definitely noticed and wish they go back and sort out for the rest of the seasons, is the new look of the kick ass Cylons. The whole chromed goodness is pretty awesome as far as I’m concerned. I used to think that this was one of the weakest aspects of the actual CGI work that BSG elevated but they’ve really brought their game up for this one.
Overall I liked this episode a lot more than the other 2 episodes, however they’re still not giving enough information as I’d like and not progressing certain elements of the story as much as you would hope them to, however looking at the trailer for the next episode, they do seem to be kicking things up to the next gear. Here’s hoping.
In a word, RUBBISH. The newest MacHeist is up and running and basically it’s a really poor showing this time around. See the last time was an AMAZING collection of applications that included Pixelmator and VectorDesigner. This time around you have some of the same applications and a few random new ones as well, but NO killer application.
Don’t get me wrong I REALLY rate Awaken, use it every day, I really like Coversutra, use that every day (tried using Cha-Ching but couldn’t really get to grips with it at all); crucially all three of these applications were in the previous MacHeist that was held not 3 months ago. What is the application in that bundle that would make you excited? Seriously? It’s not there. Unless they start adding some good stuff, there is no way that this Heist will be as good as the previous one and for good reason. Who exactly are they trying to get on board on this?
On a personal note, there is really no application out there that I want, apart from maybe a better FTP application (there are a couple of good ones knocking about but I’ve not decided which one i should go for) and a better torrent client (transmission is doing exactly what I want and the development is constant so hopefully there’ll get some basic UI issues sorted out and add being able to search and add torrents from within the application itself and I won’t need a new torrent client either).
So went to Jongleurs yesterday for part of Reid’s stag-do and I’ve got to say that apart from the compare (is that how you spell compare?) and the last act, the other three were mediocre to bad. The first comedian to come on stage, was mildly amusing but crude as you like, the second guy got confused and decided to do something singing but would mumble his lines when he spoke and didn’t come out very well, by the time the third guy came out we were hoping for someone funny, alas we got death on stage. I’ve never seen that before to be honest. The guy was dying on stage as NOTHING he was saying was striking a real cord with anyone. Also as it happened our table was the lairiest of the bunch (get 15 guys on a stag-do will do that) and having most of his material come off as completely ignorant (there is funny and then there is just plan wrong,…since when were people from Sudan, Asian?).
Thankfully the last guy did save the show slightly and had like 100 or so jokes that he kept rattling on and did a very good job of keeping everyone under control. Which basically made me think about standup comedy in general. The first of which is the fact that it is EXTREMELY difficult to do properly (I knew that was the case, but until I witnessed someone really die on stage I wasn’t clear as to the real extent).
The thing is I’ve been listening to the AWESOME Bugle podcast, which is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a really long time. Different format admittedly, however the point still stands that new comedic talents do exist however sadly they were not at Jongleurs last night (and based on that I’ll probably steer clear of the place and look for my standup fix in other establishments).