Mark Thomson: November 2007

dvd

Blades of Glory

10:57 AM

Funnier than expected, and most of the laughs coming from Will Ferrell's character. When he's switched on he's hilarious, but not always - Stranger Than Fiction being a recent example. The story is a sports-comedy in similar vein to Dodgeball - sports film about a ridiculous sport - and although the ending is pretty predictable, it's more about what happens along the way...

Sketch: Colored Martians

8:21 AM

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Sketch: Man

2:30 PM

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Sketch: Gun Girl

8:19 AM

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Sketch: Hack'n'Slash Characters

8:18 AM

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Sketch: Brit

8:17 AM

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Sketch: Martian

8:16 AM

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Sketch: Simpsons

8:13 AM

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dvd

Disturbia

9:26 AM

Pretty much a remake of Rear Window, it seems to be unable to decide if it's a teen romance comedy or a thriller. Little happening but teen romance, comedy, and boredom intermixed with the occasional is he/isn't he a killer plot, until the latest 30 minutes when it kicks into full-on thriller mode and goes for it. Shia is likeable as always, and...

It was easier to build the pyramids

4:20 PM

The house is progressing and we've finally got most of the details hammered out. Rob's just got some fine details to sort out this week, septic, air conditioning, and some minor plan changes to do, and we're on our way to a preliminary contract. There's been a few price shocks (just about needed the paramedic's shock paddles when I got the quote for...

dvd

They're back baby!

4:07 PM

UPDATE: Bad news everyone! Those asinine morons at Box have removed the trailer from You Tube. I guess they don't want publicity to sell their DVD's. Go figure! Till then check it out here.Ezy have a page up for it here, but no release date yet.Yay Futurama's back! Can't wait for this to come out. No word yet on when it's released in...

dvd

Sunshine

2:10 PM

Visually it's amazing, story-wise it's a mess. Nothing much happens for awhile, then a series of random events occur causing the heroes to spiral into disaster, and then it ends leaving you going 'meh! - what was the point of that??.' I don't know whether they actually picked up a looney, or whether the crew just went nuts? They make some comments about...

Cool Animated Advert

10:10 AM

Check out this cool animated advert featuring a hand drawn characters adventures, and the animator intervening to help the character through his or her day. ...

dvd

Back to the Future Part 1

1:01 PM

I still remember seeing the first part of the trilogy - I missed out on seeing it at the movies with the family, and had to wait for it to come out on VHS. Still it was a fantastic movie, and even today there's never been another film like it. The story line is so cleverly thought out and meticulously constructed, and the...

dvd

Back to the Future Part 2

10:22 AM

Usually Part 2 isn't a favourite with most people, but I like the complexity of it. Lots more time travel, technology, and general mind-bending-ness appeals to my inner geek. The effects are an impressive leap beyond the previous installment, and the different versions of Hill Valley are very well done. It's interesting to see the town evolve through the different time periods. Also,...

dvd

Back to the Future Part 3

12:37 PM

Probably not my absolute favourite of the installments, but it's still a fun installment. I find the love story tends to slow the pace down a bit, especially after the frenetic pace of the previous part. But the continuity is good tying up loose ends while still retaining links to Hill Valley, the McFly's vs Tannen's etc, and the Wild West setting makes...

Settling in

11:27 AM

We're finally settling into our new digs. One thing's for sure we can't complain about the lack of space anymore. Everyone seems a lot happier and more relaxed - less like caged animals. I think it's going to be good for us being out of the tiny little shed. I don't want to sound ungrateful though, because our inlaws were very generous to...

tech

How to recover a malfunctioning HD

11:05 AM

The Unix utility dd is a disk copying utility that can be used from the command line to create a disk image. It can make a bit copy of the drive it's copying. If you have a drive that spins up, but does not mount because of damage, you can use the following:dd bs=512 if=/dev/disk1 of=/some_dir/image.dmg conv=noerror,syncUsing the switch noerror allows the copy...

Sketch: Bender

8:50 AM

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Sketch: Alien

8:24 AM

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