Senior Spielbergo

Ah another blog failure

2011-02-22T07:21:00.001Z

Well this one lasted slightly... longer than the last one. I think I need something more interesting to write about, that is my problem.

Fun at the auction

2010-07-03T16:28:00.000+01:00

I quite like auction sales, they are a bit of fun and you can often pick up some pretty good bargains at them. Went to one today with my Dad, which in this case was a liquidation auction sale for a local furniture shop that had gone out of business - everything had to go, everything brand new, and quite a lot of stock. I manage to get a decent deal on a new bedstead and some chairs, and my Dad also got a few items.

Anyway getting towards the end and my Dad was a bit distracted as we sorted out moving some of the items we had bought early on and they got to the sale of bedding supplies. Now prior to coming my Dad had received a fairly simple request from my Mum, which was that she wouldn't mind a few pillows if they have any of the Feather & Down type. Due to the destruction my Dad got back to the bidding area just before the last couple of pillow lots were announced, but fortunately the last one on the list was "an assortment of Feather & Down pillows" - perfect he thinks. Now again because he just got back he didn't have a chance to track down the lot itself in the warehouse, and so effectively bid blind. Still there was virtually no other bidders there at that point and got the lot for a princely sum of £25, and all of the goods were brand new anyway so didn't really need inspection. After securing it I was sent to locate it while he sorted out paying.

Well I found it - lot 285... At which point I decided to ring my Mum to enquire exactly what his instructions were:

Me: Emmm so you wanted some pillows?
Mum: Yes, but only if they are the Feather & Down type
Me: Well he got the right sort... How many did you want?
Mum: 4 would be fine
Me: 4? Well he's got a few more than that...
Mum: Well 8 would be fine I guess as we could replace the guest room ones as well.
Me: so no use for any more than 8?
Mum: Emmm no... How many has he bought?
Me: Emmmm well more than that... I'll probably take 4 off you myself, but well, emmm...
Mum: How many has he bought?
Me: Well it's difficult to say...
Mum: why?
Me: Well theta is kind of too many to easily count...
Mum: What????
Me: Emmm, yep, maybe some difficult fitting them in the cars.... If I was a betting man I would guess there are about 300 of them....
*silence*

So yes Dad accidentally bought roughly 300 pillows for £25. Looks like out local charity shops are going to benefit from this one. Anyone need any new pillows?

Seriously???

2010-06-21T19:46:00.000+01:00

Want to know when is the best time to run to the loo during a movie? Apparently there's an app for that!

Tennis Ball Canon

2010-06-16T22:20:00.000+01:00

Well over the last few weeks we have been setting ourselves a bit of a project, which was basically to build a tennis ball canon. Our goal was fairly modest - to get something to work using compressed air, and be able to propel a tennis ball further than we could physically throw it...

Anyway, one child's air rocket toy, some metal tubing, some fibre glassing and a car tyre pump hooked up to a car battery later and we had our prototype ready for test firing outside (we have been putting one or two marks in my ceiling with earlier incomplete models).

This was our first test at "full" power, which we approached we a fair bit of trepidation, mainly because we were aiming for release at 180 psi which was about on the limit of what we thought our pressure chamber could take, so we were a bit concerned that our release device was not going to be the first thing to fail ... Anyway here was the result:

So we achieved our aim as it went (into the wind) roughly twice as far as any of us could throw the tennis ball...

More Music

2010-06-11T21:27:00.000+01:00

Just discovered these guys who I've got to say are lovingly irrelevant (and I mean that in a good way). I suspect this is more one for Chemie than Squid however...

Rob Sawyer

2010-06-07T19:41:00.001+01:00

Went to "The Splash" (The AquaSplash which is an occasionally used night club right on St Ouens bay in Jersey) on Saturday night for a live music night which was pretty cool. They termed the night "Sunshine" and rather than the usual stuff they play up there they went with a more laid back theme which was quite a pleasant change. The highlight was a guy called Rob Sawyer (official site here) who was over from Australia who was really very good. He plays guitar in a similar way to Richard Thompson with a hybrid picking style that I do find very impressive (mainly because I can't do it so am jealous). Anyway he was good enough that I bought one of his album off iTunes which I am working my way through, so you guys get to have a song of his:

My MG Lives!

2010-06-02T20:11:00.000+01:00

Woohoo, my good old MG Midget once again lives! It’s been pretty nice weather lately so I thought I would get the old girl running again (I think she needs a name - maybe Megan), and a bit of money + a tow later she once again lives!

As proof we were messing around with the HD Hero Cam yesterday and got some “onboard” footage - unfortunately we forgot to charge the battery and it died before we got anywhere interesting. Still I do like the shots you can pull off with this thing, and I especially like the cool sky reflection off my shinny car.

MG Lives! from James Edmunds on Vimeo.

Thoughts on the D90 for shooting Video

2010-05-09T19:03:00.000+01:00

Well I have recently returned from the Lake District where we shot a short film using the Nikon D90 Video capable SLR and thought I would share a few thoughts on it. I suspect it may well span more than this single post but we shall see how my disorganised brain decides to process my thoughts.

Video Capable SLR’s

So why would you even want to shoot video with an SLR? Well there has been a lot said about their virtues and problems elsewhere so I’ll attempt to summarise them fairly quickly. The disadvantages are quite numerous and largely stem from the fact that the SLR is a device that has evolved to perform its primary purpose – namely shot still images, it has not been designed from the onset to shoot video. Now because of this the form factor is not particularly suitable for shooting video, as it’s difficult to keep steady for hand held shots. The sensor is not optimised for taking video so it’s rather slow which will result in some interesting “jello-vision” on certain shots. It’s audio capabilities are limited to say the least. The recording format is pretty limited, and it tends to be pretty fiddly to operate given the menus and the like aren’t exactly optimised for video. You also have to do pretty much everything like focus and exposure manually.

I’ll probably cover some of the above limitations at a latter date, but given the shear number of issues compared to a regular camcorder, why would you want to even consider using one for your short film? Well the answer is something I always dislike when I come across it on the various film making format but is something that has been prevalent ever since the camcorder made film making accessible to the masses, and that is the ever illusive “film look”.

In essence ever since people had the ability to shoot their own movies, people have always strived to replicate what they see on the big screen and make their movies look more like “proper” Hollywood style movies. Now these “proper” movies have for many, many years always been filmed on 35mm film and there are a few different elements to that method of filming that results in the so called “film look”.

The first was a problem that was fairly simply solved, that of frame rate. In simple terms film has always been recorded at 24 fps and video was shot at either 30 fps (in NTSC countries) or 25 fps (in PAL countries). The difference is noticeable but was quickly solved by more and more video cameras coming out allowing the option of shooting formats (the D90 shoots at 24 fps), and I won’t dwell on the issue save to say that the issue that once was is no longer.

The next element, which I will very quickly gloss over, is the subject of dynamic range and the intrinsic qualities of chemical film as opposed to a digital sensor. This is in many ways still an issue but better quality sensors and the advent of color grading software being available to such low budget film makers as us means it is relatively straight forward to replicate the film look (such as crushed blacks) in that respect.

Now onto the meat of the discussion, and the reason why many people, including me are interested in using D-SLR’s (such as the D90) for film making and that is the optical qualities of shooting on 35mm film. Now the single biggest remaining obstacle in making digital look like 35mm has been the issue of sensor size. Most camcorders you regularly come across utilise a sensor in the region of 1/3” or sometimes even smaller, and if you spend a lot of money you might get one with a sensor of 1/2" or 2/3”, maybe. Now compare this to the sensors utilised in D-SLR’s in the following diagram:

As you can see the sensors in most camcorders are comparatively tiny! Now the important factor is that for an APS-C sensor D-SLR such as the Nikon D90 the sensor size is approximately 24x16mm, and this compares far more favourably to the academy format 35mm film image size of 22x16 mm (yes it is called 35mm film, but due to the nature of the format the actual image size is much smaller – look it up on Wikipedia if you want more details) than any of these much smaller sensors.

So why is this important? Well without venturing into the realm of discussing optics in detail, essentially by doing this it means that the ultimate optical path taking by the light that reaches your sensor is now very similar to that which would reach something produced on a “proper” Hollywood film camera. A 50mm lens on the D-SLR should give you a very similar image to a 50mm Film camera and the same should be true on ever other lens you therefore use. The result? Well the image will look more “film like”. Now this is something quite difficult to describe but I shall attempt to give a couple of examples:

Example 1 – Bokeh

If you’re a photographer in any way you will almost certainly have come across the term “Bokeh”, but if you haven’t it basically refers to the aesthetic quality of the blur that you get in any out of focus areas of an image. Now this is quite a difficult thing to quantify, but essentially depending on the optics involved sometimes the out of focus areas will create a blur that is pleasing to the eye (i.e. good Bokeh) and sometimes it will not be (bad Bokeh). Typically a camcorder will have a very small, relatively low quality fixed zoom lens which is never going to be able to give you that real nice Bokeh you can get with high quality lenses. By utilising the D-SLR platform you can utilise very good quality glass that will give those out of focus areas a very nice look, which is hopefully demonstrated with this frame grab:

Example 2 – Depth of Field

The second big issue is depth of field. Essentially the bigger the sensor the easier it is to create a much narrower depth of field in a shot – this is due to the increased angle of incidence generated between the sensor and the lens. Camcorders generally with there small sensor size try to have a very wide depth of field as this makes it easier to keep things in focus, while the style in cinema has often been a very shallow depth of field, especially in close up shots. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is to focus the audience’s attention on the element you want them to be looking at – if you have two people in shot you can “select” which one is in focus and thus the attention is focused on them. The second is to add an element of a third dimension into what would otherwise be a very flat image – by selecting various depths it gives the audience a sense of distance between objects that might otherwise be lacking. Take a look at the following two shots which demonstrate a shift of focus with a shallow depth f field, which hopefully demonstrates how one subject can be made the focus of the shot and how a sense of that missing 3rd dimension can be put in place:

Hopefully the above explains why people are raving about D-SLR’s for indie filmmaking, and my first impressions are the same – it really does produce nice images. I shall probably put some more thoughts together at a later date, and almost certainly highlight some of the issues with it, but that is for another day.

For some far more knowledgeable people talking about D-SLR’s for film making check out this video log. It also has the added bonus of featuring Shane Hurlbut who was the poor DP on Terminator Salvation who suffered the very famous Christian Bale rant.

Hey I'm on IMDB!

2010-04-29T07:26:00.000+01:00

Just noticed I now appear to have a profile on imdb. Sweet! Someone is clearly out there plugging that old documentary...

Spring is here.

2010-04-10T18:38:00.000+01:00

It is Saturday, the weather is lovely and spring is here. Time for the first BBQ of the year and I am cooking Espetadas! Complete with proper racks for the first time!

Hmmm tasty. Now for a soak in the hot tub...

More 80's Music at The Pool

2010-04-07T20:43:00.000+01:00

More great 80's music being played at the pool today, this time thanks to Lionel Richie:

Now that is an 80's music video!

I am reading a new Web Comic

2010-04-07T17:33:00.000+01:00

Thanks mainly to this video:

I have started to read a new web comic... Basically I saw this and realised that the first two mentioned on University Challenge were the two other comics I read (Ctrl Alt Del + PHD Comics) and the third was one I wasn't aware of. But if it's good enough to make it into University Challenge then it should be good enough for me.

So having spent the last two weeks catching up on several years worth of comics I can now recommend Questionable Content. It's a bit random, and I don't really follow indie music - but I do love the little robot guy. Anyway enjoy.

What I have learnt about Road Bikes

2010-04-05T08:08:00.000+01:00

Well I've been out a couple of times on my new bike in the past week (had a week off) and so have had my first experiences of a road bike. I would say they are mixed.

On the plus side, once up to speed on flat ground it is absolutely great. You can really motor along at a good rate of knots, it's light and responsive and pretty easy to travel at a reasonable speed. On the negative side, at low speeds they are wobbly as hell (always possible that this is partially my own lack of riding experience) and on any kind of bumpy ground you get a pretty rough ride (zero suspension + tiny tires = not built for comfort).

I've also got bad feeling that that these things are potential money sinks. I'm already eyeing up a set of clipless pedals (one thing I have learnt is that feet in clips is lot better way to cycle than feet out of clips) and at least one of my friends is trying to convince me of the merits of a good set of aero wheels... I've only had the thing a week! This does not bode well.

Official Selection

2010-04-01T08:35:00.001+01:00

Apparently "Man With the Seasons" (a short documentary I did the editing on last year) was chosen for the "Official Selection" at The Reel Earth Film Festival in New Zealand which is an Environmental Film Festival taking place at the end of May. I have no actual idea what that means, but I gather that means it is being shown there so that can only be a good thing.

A nice little app

2010-03-30T14:55:00.000+01:00

Just a bit of a hats off to a handy little app for the iphone / ipod touch if you are looking to start running. Namely the “Get Running” App:

It’s a very simple cheap app (£1.19) that provides a good little bit of functionality for people either starting out or re-starting out on a running program. In my view (and one shared by many others) the best way to start running without doing yourself an injury / demotivating yourself is with a run / walk program, and one of the best is the C25K (Couch to 5K) program, which is ideal for beginners / people who have not run in a while – this is what get running is based around.

Essentially what the program does is guide you through a series of timed walks and runs, gradually building you up until after about 8 weeks you should be running 5K non stop 3 times a week. The only slight annoyance with this program is you tend to wind up constantly looking at your watch and trying to remember how long the next stage is going to be – this is where get running comes in.

A very simple application, you simply set it going, crank out your favourite playlist on your iPod and it will guide you through each session with convenient voice prompts at all the required intervals. It works well, giving you a warm up phase and cool down phase, together with the various intervals that make up today’s run / walk program. It is pleasantly integrated, nicely fading down your iPod music to give you the various prompt then fading back in your music so you can get on with the run. It even provides some quite nice motivation, encouraging you at various points reminding you that your “over half way there” and things of that nature (you can also set exactly how much motivational comments you want, so if you just want the intervals that’s all you get, if you want a bit more encouragement you can get it).

Overall though a good little app if you want to get running. Time to cue up the rocky soundtrack playlist and hit the seafront!

My Other New Toy

2010-03-29T14:58:00.001+01:00

It was my birthday yesterday (grand old age of 28) and I do have a further new toy, namely a new camera:

The Nikon D90, is both an improvement SLR wise on my old D40 (can use older none AF-S lenses like the good old 50mm 1.8, higher MP, better dynamic range, more autofocus points, the list goes on) but also a new tool in my film making equipment bag. You see this SLR has video.

Now I’ve been after an SLR with video for a while and I am very keen to try it out. Why you may ask? Admittedly there are some obvious weaknesses, the codex is far from great, the slow read reset rate of the sensor will indeed result in “Jell-O vision” if you shake it around too much, and the sound recording is pretty rubbish. However what you do get is a great big sensor instead of the little tiny one you get on every other digital camcorder ever made. What does this mean you ask? Well quite simply you get a 35mm equivalent depth of field. Essentially that nice aesthetically pleasing quality of film to only focus on a very narrow area of depth- and man does it look pretty. This is basically why people who have been looking for that ever elusive “film look” having been raving about SLR’s now having video.

Not had much of a chance to play with it as of yet but I did shoot this last night during my birthday cocktail party which demonstrates it’s narrow depth of field nicely as well as it’s ability to do things like rack focus. Please forgive my steady hand – it was literally the first time I had pressed the record button on this camera (and only did so because my mate was also curious about it). Will hopefully give it a proper testing in the next week or so.

My New Toy

2010-03-27T16:52:00.000Z

Having finished my swimming challenge, I feel it's time to try something new. In this case cycling. Well it's my birthday tomorrow and I had to spend my winnings from the swimming challenge on myself so today I popped down to the local cycle shop (conveniently about 200 yards away) and came away with the above.

It's a Trek 1.5, and is apparently a suitable starter Road Bike. I hope so as I have never set foot on a road bike before (had mountain bikes as a kid) and don't think I've actually been on an actual bike in about 10 years... But they say riding a bike is well, like riding a bike. Hope so. Anyway I'm off work for the next week, the weather is supposedly going to be quite nice so it's time for me to get on my bike.

Victory is Mine!

2010-03-18T19:00:00.000Z

Victory is mine, victory is mine! Great day in the morning people… Victory is mine! Today I drink from the keg of glory. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land!

Josh Lyman, The West Wing

I am done. Finished. Complete. The challenge has ended. Concluded. Terminated. Call it what you will, as of yesterday it is now over, and the Scottish One owes a couple of people a Macky-Dee (or possibly money - there seems to be some confusion there).

Now for some statistics. Everyone loves statistics. Well maybe not, but I’m sure I could find some statistics to support that assumption… Anyway:

Distance covered 73 km or 2,920 lengths
Time taken 67 days or 9.57 weeks
Number of sessions 39
Average 1,089.55 m / day or 43.58 lengths / day
Sessions per week 4.07
Distance per session 1,871.79 m or 74.87 lengths

Challenge time “spare” 298 days or 42.57 weeks

Anyone got any other fun statistics I could come up with?

Anyway I think we may need to tweak it next time round (either up the distance or decrease the time), but I do think it made a good 10 week challenge. So what next?

What was playing at the pool

2010-03-08T19:30:00.002Z

I was just stepping out of the shower towards the pool tonight and this came on over the radio:

I hate to say it but I do absolutely love this sort of 80's cheese! Yey!

The End is in sight

2010-03-05T19:20:00.001Z

Just passed the 3 quarters mark on my swim challenge (well 76.71% complete to be precise). Which means if I maintain my current rate of 1,037 m/day I should be finished in just over 2 weeks. Yey!

CD In microwave

2010-03-02T07:32:00.000Z

It has been done many times before, but this was my first time with a CD:

I'm now thinking of ways of make this EXTREME!!!!

Why we should leave the US Healthcare debate alone

2010-02-26T07:59:00.000Z

I don’t harp on about it anywhere near as much as a certain other blog, but I do like to keep an eye on the ongoing healthcare reform attempts going on across the water. For us Europeans the American system just boggles the mind – we just can’t begin to fathom why they don’t have a similar system to us. I mean as much as we complain about it, we basically love our NHS (well your NHS and my small island equivalent). We like that we never need to be concerned about having the right cover, or that our insurance premiums will go up, or getting a long term condition or any of that rubbish the Yanks have to deal with on our daily basis.

We’re basically used to what we have, and we like it so it’s hard to understand why those “evil” Republicans are so hell bent against the idea… At this point it is worth pointing out that in my view the Democrats aren’t a lot better and most of their suggestions are just improvements on a broken system rather than the complete rebuild it actually needs. Still at least there ideas are a move in the right direction and getting that universal coverage in place is certainly nothing to sneeze at (plus I suspect that many of their ideas if carried will ultimately lead down a path that a single payer NHS type system will be inevitable – but that’s another topic).

Anyway when you stop and think about it from the Republicans perspective you can kind of (well kind of) get what their problem is with the idea. They have a system already in place that the majority of Americans are happy with – yes there are some holes (and some pretty big ones at that), but the system by and large seems fairly popular. First point for a conservative is therefore why rock the boat? If it isn’t broke don’t fix it and all that jazz. The second issue is they are quite firmly behind the idea of small government – Now the NHS in the UK comprises £119bn in costs – which means to add it on (if we didn’t already have it) would increase spending by about 30%. You ask any proponent of smaller government if they want to take a system out of the private sector and increase government spending by 30%, I’m pretty sure they are going to turn around with a very large NO!

Now I know, and most of you know that a lot of these arguments are fundamentally flawed – however to be perfectly honest that doesn’t really matter. This sort of thing is very often an instinctive call initially and trying to get someone to change their mind on that first instinctive call is pretty hard unless you have a very good argument to persuade them.

And yes Squid I know all those 50 million uninsured and 18,000 dying each year should be a good argument – But well it hasn’t worked so clearly it isn’t.

Now one argument I haven’t seen floated around to attempt to convince the Republicans that healthcare reform might be a good thing, and would actually appeal directly to their instincts is this:

Us Europeans as well as Canada and a whole bunch of other countries, free load off the American Healthcare System.

Or - US dollars subsidise our Healthcare.

And this is also why we should probably stay clear of the US Healthcare debate… If they ever cotton on and fix it all of our tax bills may be set to rise…

How is this the case you may ask? Well it’s actually fairly clear from what the Republicans keep telling us. We all hear about how the American Pharmaceutical Industry is the largest in the world – and they are right. They tell us that they pour billions into research every year – and yep right again. AND they explain that the reason why drugs are so expensive is because of all the money that has to be spent on research which ultimately has to be recovered – and to be honest that’s a fair enough point (putting other issues aside for the time being) – that is the price you pay for being on the cutting edge. In simple terms while that pill may only cost 10c to manufacture, it may well have cost $100 Million to make the very first of those pills and in order to stay in business (and yes make a profit – that is what businesses do) they have to reclaim that cost somehow and as a result they actually charge $10 for that 10c pill.

Now as the Republicans quite frequently point out, a big advantage of their existing system is the promotion of competition. Drugs companies have to spend all this money on research in order to stay ahead of their competition as the company that produces the best product is going to sell more drugs and thus make more money. Now from my view this is in fact one of the few, and possibly only positives about the American system. It does indeed promote innovation and development and as a result a great many good new drugs and procedures emerge from these companies.

The kicker however is of course all this costs lots of money and no one likes having to spend $10 on a pill.

Now onto the main point I wanted to make – and the one that surprises me the Republicans don’t seem to have cottoned onto – We Europeans get to buy all these drugs and things, but we don’t spend anywhere near the amount the Americans spend.

We all should be aware of this fact already as the Yanks are constantly complaining about how cheap drugs are in Canada and Europe (or even Cuba), and it’s as a result of our single payer systems. Basically we won’t pay silly money for drugs and having a single payer system means we can essentially tell American Drug Companies to stuff it if they try and charge us such silly money. They have the choice of selling us that drug at 20c a pill or selling us none of that drug and we’ll just take a cheaper (possibly not quite as up to date) alternative. As it still makes them some money the drug companies of course still accept the cheaper price.

So essentially the pill costs 10c to make and a whole load of money to research. From the rest of the world the Drug companies might claw back some of their research costs (plus admin + profit) to the tune of 10c per pill, leaving the American people having to pay $10 a pill (thus $9.90 going towards those research costs + the usual admin + profit). So by way of this simple example the American who buys the drug essentially funds all the research costs of 99 Europeans / Canadians buying the drug.

Now these are all numbers plucked out of the air somewhat but I think you get the essential point. Yes the American Pharmaceutical companies do, partially as a result of their system, spend a lot of money on research – and this is money they need to somehow get back in order to stay in business. And yes the drugs they sell to us are far cheaper than those they sell in America. The result should be fairly obvious.

US dollars subsidise our Healthcare.

And more specifically every American Citizen paying for health insurance is helping us over in Europe and Canada get better drugs cheaper than we should otherwise have it.

Kind of surprised the Republicans are happy with this one… Still keep quiet… We like our cheap drugs…

What I am Listening to At The Moment

2010-02-24T07:54:00.001Z

Good Morning! Yes I am currently bouncing around my apartment listening to my iPod and I currently have this playing:

As with a lot of stuff, thanks to Scrubs for reminding me of this song!

Anti-swim

2010-02-23T12:42:00.001Z

I discovered the other day that 3 of my mates who are not involved in the swim challenge have aparently got there own bet worked out. Is it some kind of competing fitness drive type bet you ask? No is in the answer. They have instead decided to bet on which one of us will be the first to fail!

The term Grrrr, come to mind. But also thanks! I consider this motivation, so therefore I must push on and prove the doubting individual hence forth known as "The Scottish One" wrong.

Now let's have a look at swimming by way of some numbers:

We are 44 days into the challenge.
Our combined target total for this stage is 26.4km.
Combined we have covered 62km in the water.
This means combined we have swam an equivalent distance of England to France 1.82 times
Which is a total average of 1,409.09m a day.
Or an individual average of 469.70m a day.

Individually

J
Has covered 9,750m
Is 13.36% done
That is a rate of 221.59m per day
Maintaining current rate will result in completion in 285.44 days
Predicted completion date therefore 5 December 2010

M
Has covered 7,750m
Is 10.62% done
That is a rate of 176.14m per day
Maintaining current rate will result in completion in 370.44 days
Predicted completion date therefore 28 February 2011.

Me
Has covered 44,500m
Is 60.96% done
That is a rate of 1,011.36m per day
Maintaining current rate will result in completion in 28.18 days
Predicted completion date therefore 23 March 2010.

In respect of my personal target completion:

My birthday is in 33 days.
I have 28.5km to go.
I need to do 863.64m per day, or 6045.45 per week.

And The Scottish One has 0 chance of winning his bet.

Happy Man-Cake Day!

2010-02-16T23:37:00.000Z

What do you get when you combine the weekly Man-Night, with Shrove Tuesday? Why of course the rather unfortunately named Man-Cake Day!

Basically it's Man-Night... But with added pancakes. What could be sweeter? Of course this gives us the opportunity to try stupid pancake related stunts, of which this was the most (OK possibly only) success story:

Hat's off to R for what will I hope will become a more commonly used line "That is insainly cool!"

Swimming Update

2010-02-14T19:19:00.001Z

Well it comes to the end of week 5 and deliberately I have now just hit the half way mark at 36,500 metres. This lends weight to my initial thought that 200m a day was too small a goal. Still I have now adjusted my target and will aim to try and get this done by my birthday.

As you can see the other two are still slacking off:

Halo Reach

2010-02-14T11:31:00.002Z

Is looking pretty sweet...

Superbowl Review

2010-02-10T20:09:00.000Z

Well the Superbowl has been and gone and a good night was certainly had by me. The Saints won, which I’m pretty pleased about (mainly because I didn’t want the Colts to win), and I had a bunch of the guys round for “Dan’s Superbash II”.

We stepped up the food this year and had a multi-bird roast (other wise known as a bird, within a bird, within a bird, within a bird) as the main course leading into the game. This combination of turkey, duck, pheasant, and pigeon mixed in with Cranbury and Orange stuffing along with the trimmings proved very popular and of course was washed down with plenty of American Beer (including Coors Lite the official beer of the NFL). Followed that with some Lemon Drizzle Cake, then the game. After the hot dogs at half time we barely touched the nachos or the curry chips…

All in all good fun, and as most of us had the day off on the Monday a nice relaxing long weekend was the result…

Baking with Spielbergo

2010-01-31T10:02:00.002Z

This is a nice easy cake, made all the simpler by the use of the Magimix (which I have decided is great). Today I give you the Lemon Drizzle Cake:

Ingredients

For Cake
225g unsalted butter
225g self rasing flour
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
Zest of 1 lemon

For Drizzle
85g Caster Sugar
Juice of 2 lemons

First take a loaf tin (21 x 10cm in my case) and line it with greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees (for fan assisted).

Next add all of the cake ingredients into the Mixer.

Press the magic button and 30 seconds later you should have cake mixture, yey! I like Magimix!

Pour mixture into the loaf ton and smooth out the top with a spoon. Now simply place in oven for approximately 50 minutes. YOu should be able to tell whn done once it has risen, slightly brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean (i.e. not gooey)

Once cooked remove from oven but leave in tin to cool. Spear the top all over with a skewer.

While cooling quickly mix together the lemon juice and sugar to create the drizzle:

Now “drizzle over the top of the cooling cake. The juices should go dwon your skewered holes into the cake while the sugar should crisp up on top of the cake. Allow to finish cooling then pop out of the tin and your done:

Hmmmm Cake

Location:Lewis St,St Helier,United Kingdom

Swim Rant!

2010-01-28T19:40:00.003Z

Right due to a combination of the pool being really busy and the fact that I have had a cold the last two days (thus making swimming more painful) I’m afraid you will now get what will be m first (and hopefully minor) rant.

Spielbergos Rules for Correct Lane Swimming Etiquette

1. If the following criteria applies:
a) The lane you are in is very busy
b) You are unable to swim in a straight line
Then backstroke is not the stroke for you.

2. This is not GTA, extra points are not earned for crashing into people

3. It is not acceptable to completely block the end wall. I accept that people may wish to stop at the same time, however it is perfectly possible to stand to the side rather than create an impenetrable wall of bodies.

4. I am more than happy for you to work on your freestyle kick, and I am more than happy for you to bring a float along to practice doing just this, however realise that it might be a good idea to do so in a slower lane. If this fact isn’t immediately obvious the 6 or so people basically forced to tread water behind you should be an additional hint.

5. I’m not a fast swimmer, especially of freestyle, however if we are both swimming freestyle and I’ve patiently waited at one end of the pool to open up a reasonable gap while you not only reach the other end but also complete your turn, I should not still be being held up on my return leg. One of us is in the wrong lane, and I’m pretty sure it’s not me.

6. Lane swimming time is not the time to prove you can touch the bottom of the deep end.

7. Yes showering before swimming is mandatory. As is basic personal hygiene.

8. Related to the above – Another reason for showing is to remove any copious amounts of deodorant / perfume / other products you may have on. Swimming into an area of weird smelling water is not pleasant.

9. Walking along the shallow end is not swimming.

10. If you’ve cut yourself before hand make sure you use waterproof plasters. It isn’t pleasant to be dodging floating escapees.

Apple’s Latest Toy

2010-01-27T20:27:00.004Z

I probably join a lot of bloggers in noting that tonight Apple unveiled it’s latest top, the iPad.

It looks pretty nifty I’ve got to say, and as with most things Apple related it’s damm tempting, it's kind of a new take on a Netbook combined with an e-book reader. I've been toying with getting an e-book reader and this looks like it could be that and more. Plus you know it's Apple and Apple are cool...

I'll wait until some impartial reviews come out but it should be available at around the same time I will hopefully be finished by Swim Challenge so I might well get one of these as my reward...

Weekly Swim Graph

2010-01-25T10:15:00.001Z

Continuing my weekly swim graph routine I present the latest "Graph"-ical (see what I did there), instalment. It's week 2 and I've just passed the 20% point, plus M has made the fatal error of going on holiday for 10 days so unless he takes time off from skiing to seek out a pool, I suspect he is going to fall behind.

Location:Jersey

This is pretty cool

2010-01-20T21:03:00.003Z

This is very Minority Report like but still very very cool. While I highly doubt that this is going to take over on ANY kind of practical level, it is a very cool concept and it's nice to see Sci Fi coming to life.

Spielbergo's First Cake - Phase 2

2010-01-18T19:56:00.001Z

Well made my first cake yesterday so today I thought I would try and decorate it... Kind of messed it up, mainly due to using to runny a icing for the actual word bit... Still here is the result:

It's kind of readable... And it's the thought that counts right?

Update: Hmmmm cake tasted goooooooood...

Week one complete

2010-01-18T11:00:00.001Z

Well week one of our swimming challenge is complete, only potentially 51 to go...

Still we are all nicely ahead of the curve so off to a good start, plus I'm in the lead which is always fun. I think a graph is in order:

Location:Jersey

Baking with Spielbergo - Part 2

2010-01-17T17:39:00.000Z

Well as of Friday I have a new tool in my armoury , namely a food mixer as recommended by the lovely Chemie, the Magimix 3200:

It's pretty efficient for what it does, and I used it to make some good pancake batter yesterday, but today it was time to give my first cake a go, so I give you:

The Victoria Sponge Cake

Ingredients

For the sponge cake:

225g softened butter
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
225g self raising flour
2 level teaspoons baking powder

The Rest:

Raspberry jam
Two 8 inch sandwich tins
Greaseproof paper

First thing to do is to preheat the oven (160 degrees for my fan assisted oven) and then grease the two sandwich tins + line the bottom with the greaseproof paper.

Now the Magimix makes the next bit easy, simply put all the ingredients in as so:

Then press the magic button, and 20 seconds latter you get cake mixture:

Damm site easier than this hand mixing craziness I was previously employing. Definitely two thumbs up for this product.

Anyway divide the mixture in two and place in the sandwich tins flattening out as much as possible (this I admittedly didn't do too well so I ended up with a slightly lop sided cake - but you have been warned)

Place in oven and leave until it has risen and the cake is nice and "spongy" - for me this was about 23 minutes, and you should end up with two sponge cakes looking like this:

Leave to cool, then once cooled remove from tins and pick one as your base. On the base cover with "a load" (technical baking term) of the jam, then "plonk" (again another technical term) the second sponge on top.

Sprinkle a bit of sugar over the top and you should have your Victoria Sponge Cake:

Yey cake! Hopefully I did better than Tomsk's first effort...

Baking with Spielbergo

2010-01-15T18:02:00.000Z

In my continued effort to muscle in on all my other friends blog content, I present the first instalment of Baking with Spielbergo… I’ll probably wind up reviewing books next…

Right just from the start, I can definitively say that I have never done baking (by which I mean making cakes etc) before, but ever wanting to improve my skill set (especially when it comes to food) I decided that 2010 I was going to learn. So it begins, and to begin with I’m starting off simple with:

Iced Fairy Cakes

Ingredients:

Butter
Caster Sugar
2 Large Eggs
Self Raising Flour
Baking Powder
Icing Sugar

Right, start off by preheating the oven to 200 / 180 Fan, and place fairy cake cases into muffin tins.

Into a large bowl mix together 100g of butter, 100g caster sugar, 100g self-raising flour the 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon of baking powder and beat until well blended and smooth.

Now this felt like too much hard work, so I’m looking forward to trying out my newly acquired Magimix 3200 on the next project… Anyway, once blended fill each of your cases with the mixture.

Bake these in the oven for 15-20 minutes (I did it for 16 as they were by that stage well risen and brown). Hopefully they should look something like this:

While they are cooking you can prepare the icing, which is basically just 225g icing sugar mixed with 3 tablespoons of warm water. I went off recipe at this stage very slightly and also mixed in some vanilla flavouring – because that is tasty good.

And now you get to what was clearly the tricky bit, whereupon you have to spoon the icing over the cakes, ideally evenly, which for me was quite a challenge. You can also then decorate with sweets / hundreds and thousands should you desire. Here is my quite feeble attempt at decorating:

Not great… But they taste fine. Clearly I’m going to have to work on the decoration side. Next time round I'm going to give Victoria Sponge Cake a go.

Music for Wednesday

2010-01-13T18:07:00.003Z

Not sure how I've come back to this one, but I do like this song and it's a great sing a long number:

I give you a cool live version of "If I had a Million Dollars"

It Begins

2010-01-11T21:20:00.000Z

Right it’s a new year and therefore it’s time for the good old short lived New Year resolution type thing. This year me and my mates M and J are doing a long term swimming challenge type thing. It’s something M and J did last year, which is basically to set a very easy target but with a long term duration.

Basically the idea is that you have an easy target – swim just an average of 200m a day. But spread over a long time – so we have to keep this up for a full year and do 73k in 2010. So in principle all you have to do is one decent 1400m session a week – but because it’s so long term the idea is if you miss a session, or go on holiday or something, you have to play catch up to ensure you meet the target. This way in principle you should wind up keeping doing the activity ong term and not quiting after a few months.

We have a shared spreadsheet (courtesy of googledocs) so we can keep track of each other progress (for added competition) and a gentleman’s wager of £500 which must either go to charity if we fail, or be spent on ourselves if we succeed.

Today was day 1 (much to my annoyance as apparently the 6k I did last week doesn’t count). I have of course decided to get off to as fast a start as possible to allow plenty of opportunity to slack off at the later stages… J decided to go at lunch time and then ended up having a surprise meeting so is the only one of the three to be already behind schedule on day 1! I feel a graph illustrating my potentially short lived day one lead is in order:

Now I expect mocking from those people who actually are good at swimming.

Mattress Dominoes

2010-01-04T20:23:00.001Z

Recently in Jersey we attempted to break the World Mattress Dominoes Record... Don't know what that is? Here is a demonstration and "test" at my local swimming pool:

So very cool...

It wasn't broken due to not having enough people... Here is the actual attempt:

But here is to next time!

Back on the Rock

2010-01-03T13:21:00.000Z

Well I am safely back on the Rock having emmerged safely from darkest Oxfordshire. A land of poor mobile phone reception and the constant threat of ice on the roads. Jersey appears to be the same as always and pretty much as I left her. My plants are all alive as well which is a plus!

Location:Peirson Rd,St Helier,United Kingdom

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T11:23:00.001Z

Welcome into 2010 everyone! Goodbye to the nought'ies and welcome into what I am sure will be known as the teen'ies...

Location:Hook Norton,United Kingdom

Sherlock Holmes

2009-12-30T08:44:00.000Z

Saw Sherlock Holmes last night and thought it was pretty cool. It was daft, it was silly and most certainly wasn't Sherlock Holmes but fullfilled the all important movie criteria - it was fun. Do not go expecting a detective story, go expecting a rather silly action film in a similar vein to "The Mummy" and if you like that sort of thing, you should not be disapointed.

Not going to give you any spoilers, the plot could not really be described as it's strong suit anyway, but worth going to see if you like fun films.

Location:Hook Norton,United Kingdom

Need to give myself a kick

2009-12-29T11:31:00.001Z

Well currently sitting in the darkest depths of Oxfordshire in preperation for Operation New Year Fun Time and I note that I haven't updated this thing in a while. To be honest I think the main problem is trying to decide what this Blog should really be about. So far it has been a bit if a mishmash of various different topics that I have a passing interest in, be it NFL, Film or iPhone related gadgetry. I'm not too sure if I could concentrate on a single particular theme which I think would make this Blog a bit more focused and probably more interesting. So for the rime being I think it shall continue to be such a random mishmash until such time as I come up with a more specific theme.

Location:Hook Norton,United Kingdom

Best Official Review Ever!

2009-12-02T20:06:00.001Z

Link Here

Anyone who has ever played a board game, RPG, or similar with me knows I am a big fan of rules, and love a complicated rules based argument. This is probably why I love American Football, because at times it really is quite amazing how complicated the rules can get. Hence why I've got to love this Official Review (which I watch every week)... It is about the most convoluted sequence of overlapping rules I've seen in a while...

Oh and I'm awarding Kodos points to the first person who fully understands what happened in this play.

WOO HOO!

2009-11-26T23:04:00.000Z

it appears RealDirector has upgraded to version 2.0! Not yet had a chance to play with it (although with the NFL half time show on now that's what I'm going to do next, but according to the review pretty much all my wishes have been granted. Most importantly it has added the ability to record and add additional audio tracks! Woohoo! Plus several over cool new features but I'll leave the review for that.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T17:38:00.000Z

For those of you over the pond, Happy Thanksgiving!

More importantly, it's time for a good evening of football for me. I've got my bit of Turkey in the oven roasting away, hopefully in time for the break between games 1 and 2. A nice relaxing evening before I head off to Edinburgh tomorrow.

First game is the most interesting to me as it is Packers vs Lions. Should be interesting, on paper you hand it to the Packers no question, but I wouldn't be surprised given their big win last week and the news that Stafford is healthy if Detroit plan to make a game of it. Especially given Green Bay are even more banged up than before and they are both playing off a short week.

We then follow it with Raiders vs Cowboys and then Giants vs Broncos. 3 potential playoff teams in the mix there so still a lot of interest in the results.

Christmas is coming

2009-11-23T19:15:00.001Z

So it is time to deploy Christmas tree:

Got to finish decorating it, but it has lights on!

Who came first?

2009-11-18T16:15:00.000Z

You know that age old debate between the chicken and the egg? It's time to settle it once and for all:

How do you cook yours? New potatoes.

2009-11-18T13:43:00.000Z

Over here in the fair old isle of Jersey, we take our Jersey Royals very seriously. They are after all our National Food and one of many things our island is famous for. Now because they are so important, there are of course various contrasting opinions as to the best way to cook them.

For me I favor:

Clean, then boil the potatoes for 20 minutes in a covered pan. In with the water add a dash of salt and some fresh mint.

While boiling, take some butter (ideally President), and mix it with a dash of olive oil, some garlic purée, and some fresh rosemary, to create some lovelly Garclic and Rosemary butter.

Once the 20 minutes are passed drain the potatoes and place them straight back in the pan. Plonk the butter on top, re-cover and put back on medium to hot heat. The butter will rapidly melt over the top, now proceed to very lightly pan fry these potatoes in the butter for five minutes while frequently shaking them up to ensure all the potatoes get evenly coated. Then serve.

That's my prefered method. What is yours?

Passer Rating

2009-11-18T11:37:00.000Z

Time for another NFL related post methinks, and this time I shall attempt to explain the mystery that is a QB's passer rating.

Now passer rating is a bit of a confusing stat, mainly because it has been artificially created and seemingly without a lot of common sense applied. Any statistic that for some reason ranges between 0 and 158.3 is always going to be a bit bonkers.

Essentially though passer rating is made up of 4 seperate components which are based on:

1. Completion percentage (passes completed over passes attempted)
2. Passing touchdowns pe attempt.
3. Yards per attempt.
4. Interceptions per attempt.

All of these are put together in the following all important formula:

Which gives you the passer rating. Kind of... In fact there are actually "caps" on each of the 4 variables to ensure the end value lies between 0 and 158.3. Basically:

1. Completion percentage must be greater than 30% an less than77.5%.
2. Yards per attempt must be greater than 3 and less than 12.6
3. Touchdowns at no more than 11.875%
4. Interceptions at no more than 9.5%

Hope that makes sense!

Basically it is a bit of a mess, but all you really need to know is the average is in the low 80's, anything above 100 is a real good game, anything less than 65 sucks. Oh and to get a perfect passer rating you need to throw at 77.5% completion ate or higher, at least 12.5 yards per attempt, a touchdown every 9 attempts and no interceptions.

It does provide a pretty good overall judge of a quarterbacks performance, although it suffers from not reflecting sacks, fumbles and and quarterback rushing plays. Still a very good guideline generally for a quarterbacks performance.

So finally let's take a look at the current top 5 passer ratings in the NFL:

1. Brett Favre - 107.5
2. Drew Brees - 104.6
3. Peyton Manning - 104.2
4. Aaron Rodgers - 101.8
5. Tom Brady - 100.6

Oh, who is that no 1? Who would have thought..,

Starting The Advertising Early This Year

2009-11-16T00:01:00.003Z

Come February it will be time for “Dan’s Super Bash II”, otherwise known as the second installment of my Super Bowl party. Was pretty good last year, we had Roast Turkey Dinner, plenty of American Beer, a good game with plenty of snackage throughout. Anyway as this is the sequal I feel hype is going to be required, so while it is still early it’s time to start the advertising campaign.

So earlier today (well yesterday now as it is 00:01) I now have one modified NFL highlight video adapted for purpose:

It features Wes Welker, who is probably my SECOND favorite player in the NFL.

Two birds with one stone

2009-11-15T18:11:00.002Z

Thought I would kill two birds with one stone on this post. First a follow up on my previous post mentioning the new editing ability of the iPhone thanks to this new Reel Director App. I’ve been messing around with it and while limited it is pretty damm neat. With the iPhone 3GS you’ve got a reasonable quality video camera in your pocket, and the ability to do things like time lapse shots (which I’m a fan of), now thanks to Reel Director you have the ability to edit the sots together on the fly as well. Basically it’s pretty sweet, and so very close to exactly what I want, it would just be great if you could do one more thing – add a music track! Seriously give me that and clunky interface or not, it would be able to do everything I want it to do.

Anyway in order to mess around with it a little, and also to play with the time lapse function I threw together the following video, which leads me onto my second bird to kill:

Basically this is the controversial segment from the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 game, which I’m currently playing through (and is very good by the way, probably do a review of it at some point). It definitively smells of a game company seeking to create controversy for controversy sake, presumably to sell more copies of the game. Given the phenomenal opening week sales it probably wasn’t required, but it certainly got a few headlines which no doubt helped. Basically your supposedly undercover as a big bad terrorist and you have to go assault an airport full of civilians. Now you can in fact walk through the level and never fire a shot personally, but it does basically encourage you to join in the mindless slaughter and the above is the result.

I’m not sure how I really view it, violence in video games is pretty common place, and certainly in games like GTA have long established the “bad guy” type sequences whereby you aren’t exactly a stand up member of the community. This however did feel like an additional step that I personally have not seen before. It’s one thing to be in the mindset of fighting police and the army, who are clearly out to get you, but this is the first time I’ve seen something whereby you are butchering innocent civilians. A step too far? Possibly. I certainly didn’t like the segment, as far as I could tell it added nothing to the game, so why put it in? I guess because this sort of thing sells more games – which I suppose is the real shame.

Proper Video Editing for the iPhone

2009-11-13T11:45:00.000Z

I recently got my hands on quite a funky app for my iPhone, called Reel Director. Basically it expands on the existing (very limited) editing ability of the iPhone and allow you to combine clips, titles and transitions to do proper editing on board your iPhone. It's pretty cool and ticks all but 1 box in terms of what I would like it to be able to do, which is the ability to add music over the top of the clips (which is apparently being worked on).

It's far from perfect, it's a little annoying you can't retrim a clip once you add it, you have to delete it and add it again, and the controls in relation to titles and transitions are a tad limited. Still it is a HUGE step in the right direction and I suspect in the not too distant future I will be able to create nice little holiday music videos and get them all on YouTube all right on my iPhone.

For more details there is a review up here.

Another Brett Favre Milestone

2009-11-13T10:59:00.001Z

Turns out that with this Sunday's game against the Lions, including playoff games this will be Brett Favre's 300th consecutive start. Starting back in 1992, that is pretty impressive. His current star wide out Percy Harvin was aged only 4 when this streak started.

One out of six

2009-11-13T10:07:00.001Z

As previously discussed, 6 seperate things have to occur in order for the "dream" result of the Vikings securing the division a full 5 games before the end of the season:

1. Vikings must beat Detroit at home.
2. Vikings must beat Seatle at home.
3. Vikings must beat Chicago at home.
4&5. Green Bay must lose 2 out of their next 3 games.
6. Chicago must lose one of their next 2 games.

Well last night Chicago, mainly as a result of Cutler throwing five picks, accomplished number 6. In what was a decent defensive struggle, and a game Chicago constantly threw away, they lost 10-6 to the 49'ers.

So 5 to go, and two of them play out this coming Sunday. The Vikings take on the 1-7 Detroit Lions, and Green Bay have a very tough game against the Dallas Cowboys. All the experts are calling it the right way for it to be 50% towards the dream, but all you can really say is that on any given Sunday, one team will win and the other team will lose... Just got to hope it's the Vikings doing the winning and Green Bay doing the losing.

I have Modern Warfare II

2009-11-12T12:38:00.001Z

But I refuse to kill civilians... Cops not so much... That is all.

A good week for the Vikings...

2009-11-09T13:51:00.001Z

And they weren't even playing!

Yep this week was the Vikings' bye week, a chance for their divisional rivals to close the gap, but they decided to pitch in and help Favre out by both Chicago and Green Bay losing. The Green Bay loss was the most suprising, coming against the previously winless Buccs. Sure it was on the road, and facing a team just off a bye week, but it was still a game they should have won. Most notebly Rodgers did extend his getting sacked numbers (now at a league high 36!) and threw 3 picks, so that probably didn't help matters. He holds onto the ball far too long, and that is just plane silly when your O-line is as banged up as the packers is. Stillthe rather drunk Tamper Bay fan I met on the train the other week, must be happy.

Let us turn now to the big board:

As you can see on record only the Vikings are currently in 3rd place in the league and firmly in control of their division. Their next three games are at home and they have got to be hopeful about winning them. After that things get tougher as they have quite a few tough game to finsih off the season. Now what would be really good, is that mathematically the Vikings "could" actually secure the division in just those first three games. They have to get very lucky, as they need to win all three and for Chicago and Green Bay to drop 2 out of 3. But given the schedules this would not be a total suprise.

Green Bay have to face Dallas and San Francisco the next two weeks, both tough games and both teams who are really fighting for their division. Unless they can fix their O-line two losses in those games would not be unexpected, both teams have a better record than Green Bay. They finish with what should be an easy game against Detroit.

Chicago have a tough road game against the 49'ers Thursday off a short week, then face Philly and finally the Vkings themselves on the road. All of which you would not be putting any safe money on the Bears. So again two loses out of three would not be unexpected.

Favre and his Vikings on the other hand have three home games, the first two are on paper easy, against the 1-7 Detroit Lions and the under performing Seatle Seahawks. The third game against Chicago would be the only one where you would expect any difficulties but based on record and previous victories you would still expect the Vikings to br 3-0 on those games.

So that would be nice, wrapping up the Division by week 11 would indeed be pretty sweet, but I suspect not. I think Green Bay may well be able to win at least 2 out of the 3 (if Rogers can stop getting sacked) and I would be suprised if someone random hands the Vikings a loss. Would be nice though. Win the division with 5 weeks to go, and either concentrate on getting an extra bye week, or give players a chance to rest up. Can but hope.

Happy Birthday to the Ryans

2009-11-05T12:19:00.001Z

Coincidentally it is both Bryan and Ryan Adams' birthday today. Now of course Bryan is the older, wiser and clearly better Adams, while Ryan is a whinny whinny white boy (3WB) that only statisticians would like... But I never knew that a well as sharing a name with all but one of the same letters, they also share a birthday. And it's fireworks day as well! So let the rockets launch for Bryan! And maybe throw in a small damp sparkler for Ryan as well.

Someone has my Blues Brothers DVD!

2009-11-05T11:02:00.001Z

Someone out there has my precious copy of The Blues Brothers (actually someone else also has my second copy as well, but that is a mute point). Who are you?

I've clearly lent it to *someone* but I'm not entirely sure who. It is possibly the Greatest film Of All Time so need to track it back down... That or buy a third copy...

A Random Statistical Interlude

2009-11-04T18:39:00.000Z

Before I give the current NFL weekly update for Favre and the Vikings I noticed the following random factoid. Apparently last Sundays game (which was great by the way) was the first ever NFL game to finish 38-26, which surprised the hell out of me! I mean they have been playing this game for quite some time, so I would have thought pretty much every score would have come up at least once. Evidently not.

I guess when I think about it more it kind of makes sense. Given the scoring system there is quite a large number of possible scores (apparently 1,275 if you go as high as 50-50) and only a limited number of games played (13,703) with some scores considerably more likely than others (given you can only obtain scores of 2,3,6,7 or 8 and the nature of the game) it makes sense that some have been missed. It just amazes me that a game score that was just field goals and touchdowns (the only slightly unusual thing was a missed 2 point conversion) hasn't happened before.

See here for a full list of all scores ever recorded. Apparently 20-17 is the most common score in Football - 2 touchdowns and 1 field goal each + 1 extra field goal for the winning team.

Flash Forward Update

2009-10-31T21:48:00.001Z

Last episode seemed pretty good... Maybe the start of it coming around? I hope so.

Also apparently the acting is officially really good. I shared a plane journey back from London with a couple of proffesional actors and they only had good things to say about Ralph Fienes.

Book Review - The Lost Symbol

2009-10-31T20:48:00.001Z

Just finished Dan Browns latest book and I have to say "Meh..." It was alright I guess, but nothing particularly of note. A good gauge for me on the quality of a book is how long I take to read it. If it is good I won't put it down and hammer thought it in a few days, a week tops. If it is poor, then It won't keep my interest very long and I'll be forever putting it down and it will take much longer. This one took 3 weeks and last night I couldn't even be bothered to stay awake to finish the last 20 pages- it just wasn't anything special.

It follows the usual Dan Brown style of exploring an interesting segment of our history or culture (in this case The Masons) while wrapping it in a mystery thriller. And as is usual bits of it are interesting and clearly well researched and bits of it aren't. Putting aside some of the annoying pseudo science that appears the stuff on the Masons is quite interesting, but fundamentally the actual mystery itself isn't. I think the problem is Brown always tries to create a sense of urgency through the use of a compessed time frame and deadlines (this book takes place over 12 hours) but that on it's own is not enough to actually give that sense of urgency and the writing fails to pick up the slack.

Basically quite missable.

Cat Blog

2009-10-31T20:17:00.001Z

The Big Black Furball of Doom! Otherwise known as Jimbob the Cat. Currently unimpressed by the fireworks going off.

Trailer Time - Avatar

2009-10-31T08:59:00.010Z

Today we have the latest trailer for Avatar, James Camerons latest epic work. Got to say it looks waaaaaay cool. The question remains will it live up to the hype?

Official Avatar Movie

Friday Night Music

2009-10-30T21:16:00.002Z

Pete Townsend on VH1's storytellers, a show I always liked and a song I've always loved. Just great.

Hey we got reviewed!

2009-10-30T13:48:00.001Z

There was evidently a reporter at our last (again sold out) screening and we got a review in the Jersey Evening Post. It had a 2 page spread on the story of Mr Bosdet so at the very least word is getting out! Soon we shall have to redo the narration as we will no longer be able to say "he is now largely forgoten".

It's Magic!

2009-10-29T10:40:00.003Z

Last week the great almighty Apple released the magic mouse the latest in mouse technology.

Now I've never really thought there was much you could do to improve the mouse but by the looks of it Apple have managed to do it. It looks cool! Want one!

Fast Forward… Or Slow Rewind?

2009-10-28T21:58:00.001Z

I, like quite a few other people, have been watching the first series of a new TV show called Flash Forward, and at first I didn’t quite know what to make of it, but now I do, and the best word I can come up with is disappointed.

I suppose a brief spoiler warning is now in order, and while I promise to be fairly general here it is:

****** SPOILERS*****

***** HONEST – NOT PARTICULARLY BIG, BUT STILL SPOILERS!*****

Now the basic premise of the show is (in my view) great. Essentially it is the world just as we know it, and everyone is going about their usual lives when all of a sudden everyone on the planet blacks out for a period of 137 seconds. Now the immediate issue is the mass carnage that occurs as a result of pretty much any vehicle that happened to motion at the time crashing, people dying on the operating table, and along with anything else that requires immediate human supervision apparently also kangaroos crop up on the street…

Well that’s pretty cool in itself but the main thrust of the show is once people realise what happened in those 137 seconds – and they weren’t simply out cold. Instead they discover that each and every person has instead experienced 137 seconds of their lives 6 months in the future. Now this sets up a whole range of interesting things happening, suicide risks find new meaning in their lives, wives discover they will cheat on their husbands, all sorts of cool stuff.

Now all of this results in the all important questions, how did it happen? Will it happen again? And can we stop it happening again? So in a search for these answers the series follows the exploits of a team of FBI agents together with their friends and families as they try and piece together the mystery – fuelled in a large part by one of their number having seen himself in the future doing just that.

All this sets up a bunch of interesting things, exploring the idea of predetermined destiny, the question of if you can change what is happening, and the idea of a self fulfilling prophecy. All of this is good, so what is the problem?

Well it’s not the acting – that seems fairly up to par. The production values are good, and in virtually every way the show seems to tick most boxes. It has mystery, intrigue, and strong characters. What it doesn’t however have is decent writing. Now I may be picking on the writers too much and it could I suppose be down to the edit, but I strongly suspect that it is a case of a great concept being marred by inferior writing, or possibly stifled writing, with the writers possibly being shoe horned by some higher-ups. But basically the episodes at the moment feel just a bit to slapped together, and a bit to formulaic. Most annoyingly they are also at times repetitive and especially annoying in their constant insistence of relying on the end of episode tiny reveal to make you watch the next one technique.

I really hope it gets better, as I really like the concept, so I’m not going to be switching off just yet. But the clock is most definitely ticking.

The Big Game Cometh

2009-10-28T17:49:00.001Z

Well Favre and the Vikings suffered their first loss last Sunday to make them 6-1. It was not unexpected, on the road against the Stealers but by all accounts it was a close game, which is a positive sign. If I was going to pick a game which they were going to lose it would most certainly have been that one.

The important game however is this coming Sunday when we get Favre Bowl Part 2 – The Vikings @ Green Bay, or the day Favre returns to Lambeau Field but this time as the opposition. It is big game, not just for the hype of Favre returning to Green Bay at the head of their divisional rivals, but it’s importance for both teams at this point in the season. Viking win they basically seal the tie break against Green Bay, and allow them to go into the Bye week 7-1 with Green Bay trailing 4-3 and a fairly comfortable route to the divisional title with Green Bay having to win 3 more games than the Vikings over the last 8 games. However if Green Bay win that opens back up the tie breaker and allows them to potentially just have to win just one additional game than the Vikings and really opens things up.

It’s going to be interesting – and once again it’s going to come down to a battle of the lines. We’ll have to see if over the last 4 weeks Green Bay have managed to heal up on that front.

A Quick Book Review

2009-10-24T16:23:00.001+01:00

Well I am on a train so I thought I would do a quick review of my travel book, Digital Film Making by Mike Figgis.

Mike Figgis is a Director and the man who among other thing brought us Leaving Las Vegas. I obtained this book as a swap between one of the Directors on my last Bosdet documentary. He got In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch (very highly recommended) in return.

Basically it's an interesting "primer" book towards the art of film making in general, covering topics ranging from choice of equipment, to location planning, to dealing with actors, to post producton. Quite unusually for a well known Director it benefits from being quite unsnobbish towards budget and equipment and concentrates on general tips and tricks that will help a budding director, regardless of if he is shooting a no budget short or a well financed 35mm epic.

If it has a weekness it is quite a general overview. It is a short book and covers a very wide range of topics so it doesn't ever go into any areas in great detail. What it does do however is reveal what are clearly the authors handy tips, or even just things that are just worth thinking about at each stage of the process. In that way alone it is quite valuable as it gives you things to think about from a guy who has done it all before that maybe will help you avoid some pitfalls whilst in the course of making your film.

Overall worth a read. It's short but sweet, and while the topics covered can be found in greater detail in other works, it is certainly a good starting point for a budding Director.

Blogging on the Run

2009-10-24T14:09:00.001+01:00

Well life has been a bit hectic lately so this is very much blogging on the run. In this case from the airport as I depart for the NFL London game. I believe the term is LONDON BABY!!!

Promise to get back to Blog soon, I have seen a few new films, had a visit from Big G, and discovered a great new iPhone app, so got a few things in the pipeline. Plus of course the latest from the NFL, and maybe even a vaguelly political post.

Catch you soon.

6-0 Baby!

2009-10-18T22:09:00.001+01:00

To quote Arthur Welsley "it was a close run thing" but even a close run thing counts in the W column. Vikings beat the Ravens 33-31, and it was a last minute field goal miss that bagged Favre and the Vikings the victory.

An early good start 14-0 had me lulled into a false sense of security but the game turned out to be a lot closer then the start would have predicted. I knew it was going to be a tough game, and it most certainly was but add an extra number into the win column and I'm happy.

Go Vikings!

Premier Complete

2009-10-17T23:02:00.000+01:00

Well it is done - Just got back home and everything went well. Fully sold out, just over 100 people there - We even had a dignitary in the form of the islands former Bailiff. We've got a couple more showings in the next few weeks, but definitely time to relax.

Premier Tonight

2009-10-17T16:28:00.000+01:00

Well it's finally here, and after a few missteps the premier should go ahead tonight. We have the room all set up, a screen, a projector + speakers and amp all rented and in place. Ran through everything last night and it all seems to work. 3 and a half hours and counting.

Cooking with Spielbergo - The Product Placement Edition

2009-10-15T19:34:00.000+01:00

A quick segway while I give a hats off to a rather good cooking product specifically the Tefal Actifry:

Now I will fully admit to being a bit of a sucker when it comes to Kitchen related gadgets (well gadgets in general), but this is a particularly good innovation so feel it is worth highlighting. You might recognise it if you watched the latest series of The Apprentice as it was one of the items the contestants had to sell in the tele-marketing segment - But let it be known I owned one waaaaay before that.

What does it do? Well in simple terms it is an alternative to a deep fat fryer, allowing you to cook predominantly chips, but also other items you would normally fry. Now I hate deep fat fryers as they are a pain to keep clean, messy, a fire hazard and if you care about such things - produces unhealthy food. Now the Actifry basically allows you to make great tasting chips without the hassle of a deep fat fryer. Rather than tons of oil, 1kg of chips only requires a single spoon of oil and ou get chips that taste just as good - if not better than those that come out of a deep fat fryer - only without the hassle and with significantly less fat.

The other major advantage is the small amount of oil required means you can do wonders in the taste department as rather than simply plane il you can mix into the oil various flavourings to create "custom" chips. My personal favourite being mixing in just a little bit of curry powder into the oil to create wonderful chips with just a hint of curry taste.

Basically it's a kitchen gadget that actually works, it produces better quality food, simpler - So hats off. Spielbergo endorses this product.

Finally an example dish: In this case Fish and Chips the Spielbergo way, Salmon Fillets pan fried in a mix of Garlic, Butter and Vegetable oil, seasoned with garlic + mixed herbs and served with asparagus and the previously mentioned Curry Chips. Hmmmmm tasty....

Made the TV on a technicality

2009-10-15T15:21:00.001+01:00

Made the local news (kind of). Well at least the film did and all those little "highlights" Channel cut into the interview were all put together by yours truelly - so that kind of counts...

Call it almost broadcast work.

Shameless Self Promotion

2009-10-12T21:21:00.003+01:00

It is now done so I present you with a brief teaser for my latest completed editing project, Bosdet - The Man Behind The Glass Window. Premiers this Saturday (we've sold 90 tickets!), and soon to be available on DVD:

NFL Update

2009-10-11T21:12:00.000+01:00

Just a brief NFL update this week to note that Favre and the Vikings have gone 5-0 with what looks from the scoreboard at least as a fairly convincing 38-10 victory over the St Lewis Rams who fall to 0-5. Talk about two teams going in the opposite directions.

A nice birthday present for Favre who turned 40 yesterday, so as a late birthday tribute lets go with the Legends tribute video that aired 2 years ago:

They clearly weren't expecting him to be still going strong two years later.

Done Done. Onto the next one!

2009-10-11T13:52:00.000+01:00

Final weekend of editing finished, and finished early no less. Woohoo!

To celebrate I think a bit of Foo Fighters is in order:

Stargate Universe

2009-10-09T20:05:00.000+01:00

********** Non Spoilers **********

Some quick non spoiler related comments: Basically it seems pretty good. Now it is very much early days yet and it is difficult to make any real judgements based just on the pilot, but I was pleasently suprised. The overall concept is very good, the characters are varied and interesting, and the overall production seems high quality. Worth watching - at least so far.

********** Spoilers **********

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Right final spoiler warning.

Concept: in a similar vein to the start of Atlantis the series focuses on a group of SGC personel stranded away from Earth, however in this case instead of a pimped out Ancient City they wind up stuck on a badly damaged Spaceship stuck on autopilot and instead of a well prepared expedition team they are a bunch of ill prepared mismatched group. I hate to use the terms 'darker' and 'edgier' but it is.

Essentially to escape an incoming attack on an offworld base a group are forced to leap through the Stargate to an unknown location which turns out to be this ship. The group consists of some military, some scientists and some civilians, most of which would be considered completely unsuited to the task at hand. A key theme is clearly going to be the concept of operating out of your depth and they play to this well with the well trained but complelty inexperienced 1st Lieutenant having to take charge while the CO is out cold and the young medic who quickly realises she is the only one with any medical training at all - no doctors and no real equipment.

Along with the few military personel there are a bunch of scientist types (including Robert Carlysle as a scheming very Baltar like character) and other random people such as a cook?an accountant and a Senators aide. In the pilot they are already arguing and disagreeing with each other so it bodes well for interesting interaction in the long run.

A brief danger danger Will Robinson aside: There is one character that upon arrival did produce a oh oh he is going to suck moment, and that character is Eli Wallace. Eli is an early 20's slacker / geek who is introduced in a very convoluted way - and I was decided concerned at first about his inclusion. Basically the SGC in an effort to solve a really tough maths problem imbed the problem in an MMORPG so young genius minds the world over can try and figure it out. Young slacker Eli figures it out and is promptly visited by Robert Carlysle's character and Jack O'Neill (who is now apparently a Lieutenant General having gained a star somewhere - I mean he was stuck at Colonel for like 10 years or something but once he made that jump he just keeps on up the ladder), who beam him up (literally) and risk him off to the Icarus project. Now his character has clearly been introduced to be the Geek from the audience actually going on the missions as well, and that initially worried me - But actually he turned out to be quite likable. Sure he's assimilated being off planet and the whole space travel thing rather too well to be realistic but he likable and I guess that makes him OK (at least so far). We also had a quite genius moment whereby as his "indoctrination" he gets to watch SGC instructional videos, (presented by Daniel Jackson no less), which is just brilliant to anyone who has had to sit through such things at the start of a new job.

Anyway so they are stuck on this ship and initially they have the problem that the thing is billions and billions of light years away from home, on autopilot and also badly damaged. Life support is failing because of various hull breaches which are not possibly sealed, and even if they do get if fixed the carbon dioxide levels are going to rise as the scrubbers are down and they will be dead within a day.

They manage to trace the leak (which would have killed them in an hour) to a broken shuttle craft connected to the Station, and Kudos at this point has to go out for having the first politician on such a show who isn't a dick. Sure you thought he was going to be a dick, and he was displaying some dick like tendancies, but God Damm if he isn't the one to step up and sacrifice himself for the good of the others. Bravo for breaking the cliche SGU! Anyway he saves them for the time being by sealing the ship from the inside (inner doors were jammed so only way to seal the breach was for someone to close it on the other side), but the carbon dioxide problem remains.

At this point you get what is likely to be the central premise of the show - The ship drops out of FTL near a set of planets and powers up it's Stargate to one, giving them the option to go there. The catch is there is a timer and they only have 12 hours before the ship once again jumps to FTL. The crew decide to send a team out to find the necessary parts to get the scrubbers going, and that is where the first part ends.

All in all I thought it was pretty good. It's got a lot of scope for good ideas (how to fix the ship, character interaction, having a limited window of time at each planet etc), and I'm definitely series linking it on my Sky + box.

Ready for NFL London!

2009-10-09T17:26:00.000+01:00

My Wes Welker Jersey arrived in the post today so all set for NFL London in just a few short weeks. I'm fairly confident the Patriots will stomp all over the 0-4 Bucs and with Welker back in the team I'm routing for them.

In case you don't know who Welker is, feel free to check out his article on Wikipedia. Why do I like him? Basically because he was an undrafted player deemed too short to compete in the NFL (he is only 5 foot 9), yet he was given an opportunity and excelled when he got his move to the Patriots. Now he's their leading receiver in terms of receptions and all purpose yards, and there is something I like about a guy 2 inches shorter than me showing up all these 6 foot 5, 6 foot 6, 1st round draft choices.

Oh and all the ladies love Wes Welker.

Apple Color - Moan

2009-10-06T16:34:00.001+01:00

A (hopefully) brief rant about Apple Color today I am afraid. For the last week or so I've been doing the grading for the documentary that seems to have partially taken over my life and at times it has really been a struggle having to fight the software.

Now don't get me wrong I think there is a lot about Color that is very positive and the functunality gained by it's inclusion into FCS is enormous. Let us not forget that this was a piece of professional software originally costing many thousands of pounds (called final touch) that has been given to us for free with a bundle costing around £650... But my God it is buggy and sone of these bugs are really rather annoying.

Bug 1: Loss of all Motion data from EDL when round tripping through Color. Essentially when you round trip through Color along the way any settings saved in your Motion tab simply disapear. So if you have a load of photographs with Keb Burns type effect (like me) you'll have to accept a lot of copy, paste attributes in order to fix it all after you have done.

Bug 2: Color really doesn't like speed changes. Essentially if you use any kind of speed changes on clips (got a few to gain a more stable stationary image) Color will lose track of th correct in and out points. What this means is that instead of rendering just a 10 second clip you will instead end up rendering the full media file (which in my case is a full half tapes worth of footage so 30 minutes of DV). This of course makes your render times insainly huge and consumes vastly more hard drive space. Only sollution is to "prepare" your sequence file by pulling out all clips with time changes, removing the tine change, then sending to Color and then after round tripping back to FCP restoring the speed changes. Bit of a pain, but nothing compared to the render times I was enduring before figuring that one out.

Bug 3: Pictures in general. I've not completely figured this one out yet, but Color in general does not like still images, and some of them will cause it to crash on load. I've yet to figure out exactly what aspect of certain pictures it doesn't like (I'm thinking it might be very large resolution images) but whatever it is is simply annoying. So far if a sequence doesn't load it's a case of going through deleting pictures until it works then after round tripping reinserting them.

So overall Color can be a bit of a pain to work with (although still a great tool). Basically if you are going to use it be aware of the above (and I'm sure there are others), and prepare your timeline in FCP accordingly, it will save you hastle in the long run.

Favre Career HIghlight

2009-10-06T09:22:00.002+01:00

Just as a very quick follow on from my last post, it appears in defeating Green Bay Favre has become the first quarterback in history to beat all 32 NFL teams. I guess playing for Green Bay all those years meant that was the last team he had left to beat.

Another record to add to his already considerable resume.

Favre takes Favre Bowl I

2009-10-06T08:56:00.000+01:00

Yep, Favre and the Vikings have beaten the Packers 30-23! Highlights up here. This puts the Vikings at 4-0 and at the to of that division (with Green Bay now at 2-2 and third).

Notable that once again Favre, the king of the interception threw zero picks and was generally accurate with the ball. The real battle though was as predicted the battle of the lines, and it was this that clearly swung the balance in the Vikings favor. The Packers D line did do a good job of stuffing the run and kept Adrian Peterson limited to 55 yards, crucially though they were not able to get any pressure on Favre who didn't suffer a single sack and seemed to have all day in the pocket. So unsurprisingly he was able to burn them. The flip side to this was that the Vikings D line ran all over the Packers O line sacking Rogers 8 times in the game including a lost fumble and a safety. Jared Allen especially was a beast racking up 4.5 sacks including that safety.

Still early days for the Vikings, but couldn't ask for better than a 4-0 start. Next 4 games should be interesting, first on the road against the Rams (0-4), which in principle should be easy but wouldn't be surprised if they are out to cause an upset. Then 2 very tough games against the Ravens (3-1 at home) and the Stealers (2-2 on the road), which are both likely to be a real challenge for the Vikings, but on the plus side bot Green Bay and the Bears have these games to come as well. Finally before the bye week we have Favre Bowl II, where they have to travel to Lambeau field and play Favre's old team yet again, with the advantage of being at home and a few more weeks to nurse their O-Line back into shape wouldn't be surprised to see them put up more of a fight the second time around.

The Truth Will Come Out!

2009-10-05T12:55:00.001+01:00

As you may have noticed (and in fact I have already commented on), a certain Mr Squid has been accusing me of bad spelling. Basically over the difference between “Senor” and “Senior”. Now I am happy to concede that my current spelling of “Senior” makes very little sense, and in fact misses the crucial Simpsons reference, THERE IS MORE TO THIS STORY THAN FIRST APPEARS!

Now casting my mind back to the far reaches of my creation (well Baptism possibly more appropriate as it was just a name – or possibly Confirmation as I already in fact had a name originally), I direct you to this article.

This was initially published by Squid himself, and in fact was the first time the name Spielbergo came into existence on the Blogosphere. To quote:

“(whom I in fact love dearly, and shall henceforth be referred to on these pages as Senior Spielbergo)”

And henceforth I was indeed…

It should be noted that the inputting of my name was taken directly from this Blog article (copied and pasted in fact), originally so I could be identified on the comments page of his very Blog. So as to avoid confusion it has never been changed since that first Genesis day.

Therefore while an error is indeed present in my name, I think it is fair to state that my “Parent” is largely, in fact I’m going to go as far as completely to blame.

So you heard it hear first, Squid is not only behind on the Blogging front (as evidenced by my incredibly well put together and not altered at all graph), he also is to blame for brutal spelling mistakes the world over, and also me having a confusing Blogger name.

Unsupportable fact of the day: Through a bizarre time warp effect Squid is responsible for a misspelling in the American Declaration of Independence – Can you find it?

NFL Update

2009-10-05T10:24:00.002+01:00

Well it’s week 4 so start of the bye weeks and therefore slightly less action taking place, however a quick recap of a few important games

Detroit 24 – Chicago 48

An important divisional game and one where Chicago made it brutally clear that just because they’ve finally won a game Detroit are still no where near approaching being out of their slump. Most importantly it seems that after Cutler’s miserable first week performance, where they lost to Green Bay and he threw 4 interceptions, he has now had enough time to gel with his receivers and is looking like the pro quarterback we know he is. It doesn’t bode well for Green Bay as they only just managed to get the win in the first week with the 4 interceptions. Take them away and I think there is a very real chance (depending on the performance of the Vikings) that Green Bay may be relegated to 3rd place in their division this year (but hey at least they are going to be better than the Lions).

Seatle 17 – Indianapolis 34

New York Giants 27 – Kancas City 16

Not much to say on these two games apart from the Colts and the Giants are very much the teams to watch this year. The two Manning brothers are both off to fliers with their teams respectively 4-0 and with very comfortable wins all the way. Possibly a Manning Super-Bowl? Maybe although I wouldn’t be surprised at an upset of two come the playoffs (come on Favre you can do it!)..

Baltamore 21 – New England 27

This was a fun game, and very interesting to see how New England are adjusting, especially on defence. They have switched from a mostly veteran line up to a newer younger and faster acting defence, especially in the secondary. These guys can certainly hustle and they were making a lot of plays on a lot of balls. Time will tell if they are all fully up to speed, but with a coach like Belicheck I wouldn’t bet against them. The offence looked OK, not quite where it was but Brady looked pretty sharp and connected well with Welker + Moss when he could, and most importantly their run offence now seems to have come together. A very close game, that very nearly went down to the wire until a final play drop by the Ravens. An important win by the Patriots against a tough team, both teams now 3-1, Ravens topping the AFC North while the Patriots look to be in shootout for the AFC East with the Jets.

New York Jets 10 – New Orleans 24

Didn’t get to see much of this one, but interesting to see that New Orleans is most defiantly the real deal this year. They have always been able to put up the points, and Drew Brees is most definitely the man, but it appears this year the Defence has finally shown up to the party. Clear favourites to take that division – be interesting to see if they manage to get beyond the Wildcard round however… First bad game for Sanchez it appears on the Jets front, wait to see how that pans out, as it’s looking like between them and the Patriots for the AFC East.

San Diego 28 – Pittsburgh 38

Now this was a bit of a random match, it started off as an absolute pummelling by the Stealers – to the extent that they were up 0-28 and people were actually leaving the stadium because they were assuming it was all over. The Chargers did not score until 5 mintues left in the 3rd quarter, and at no point before then did their defence ever look like they could stop the Stealers, or that their offence would move the ball at all. LT did virtually nothing (7 carries only 15 yards) and the Chargers looked all but done. Then all of a sudden Rivers finds his rhythm and a series of masterful drives and an onside kick later and all of a sudden and they bring it to a single score game 28-35! They didn’t manage to pull if off as a last 5 minute drive by the Stealers to bag a field goal but it beyond reach but it was a hell of game of two sides.

To highlight an individual performance, Mendenhall had an absolute break out game (165 yards rushing + 26 receiving leading the league this week with 2 TD’s) and really stepped it up in the absence of Willie Parker. The guy was evening stunning in the blocking game! That’s how you firm up your place on the depth chart.

Monday Night Football

Of course all of this is preamble – what we really care about this week is Favre Bowl I. That’s right tonight’s the night where Favre and the Vikings play their first game against his old team the Packers. It is going to be sweet. Critically important for both teams, the Packers need it to stay up in contention in the division, and the Vikings need it to make them the clear leaders and maintain their ground against the Bears. The Vikings are at home so for this leg the advantage is with them, and you just know Favre will want to put one over on his old team, but I suspect the two real keys are going to be the battles of the lines and how well Green Bay can contain AP. Based on this it is really going to be down to how well the Packers D-Line perform, as I can’t see the already depleted O-line of the Packers standing up to the likes of the two Williams and Jared Allen, especially missing their starting left tackle. Therefore to stay in it the D-Line is going to have to step up and shut down the run, otherwise AP is going to be running all over them all-day and Aaron Rodgers is going to spend most of his day buried in the turf.

Now if only there was some way of watching Monday Night football in this country without having to resort to internet streaming sites! Grrrr!

Finally my current prediction update:

AFC North - Baltimore Ravens (2)
AFC East – New England Patriots (3)
AFC South – Indianapolis Colts (1)
AFC West – Denver Broncos (4)

2 Wildcard births – New York Jets (6) and Pittsburgh Stealers (5)

NFC North – Minnesota Vikings (Go Favre) (2)
NFC East – New York Giants (1)
NFC South – New Orleans Saints (3)
NFC West – San Francisco 49’ers (4)

2 Wildcard births – Chicago Bears (5) and Philadelphia Eagles (6)

Wildcard round:

Pats beat the stealers, Jets beats the Broncos.
Bears beat 49’ers, Eagles beat Saints

Divisional round:
Colts beat the Jets, Pats beat the Ravens
Vikings beat Eagles, Giants beat Bears

Championship

Colts beat Patriots
Vikings beat Giants (here is where it is a bit dicey, but what the hell – go Favre)

Superbowl XLIV

Vikings vs Colts

And of course Favre pulls off a miracle come from behind victory – while Payton is consistent, accurate, but lacks enough crazy.

The art of bow tie tying

2009-10-02T14:54:00.000+01:00

Well I have to go to a work related Black Tie event this evening which means yet again I have to struggle through the act of tying a bow tie. Now if there was one thing I can say is stupidly designed it is most definetly the bow tie. I mean how much of a pain does an item of clothing really have to be? If someone can come up with a way of tying these thing and easily making both sides the same size I would personally be very thankful.

It just seems stupid to me that the bulk of my preparation is actually going to consist of me constantly tying and untying the damn thing trying to get both sides somewhere approaching even sized.

Challenge accepted

2009-10-02T09:16:00.001+01:00

Aparently my challenge has been accepted by Mr Squid. Nothing like a bit of competition to provide a bit of Blogging motivation I guess.

Of course the childish insults have already begun, and he has of course failed to correctly describe my one third Bean nature (he always was a bit dicey when it came to basic maths), and instead reverted to picking on my spelling... Now I will fully admit that my spelling isn't up to much and had to take special classes in my youth for this problem, but it still seems a tad mean from a man who used to work in the education industry to go picking on someone who has suffered for years with this problem. It's kind of like making fun of a guy with no arms for his inability to clap. Let's make no mistake about it, this is the face of our enemy and here he demonstrates his true colors.

So let the Underdogs of the Blog sphere unite! Let us take the fight to this bastion of hate! We will concquer! We will vanquish! We will continue to support Brett Favre... [1]

Let battle commence!

[1] Don't know if it was on purpose but I like the fact that to illustrate his point Squid used a Republican Representative from Minnesota (Favre's new home)

Blog War!

2009-10-01T14:26:00.001+01:00

A quick shout out to a rival Blog namely Musings of the Cosmic Calamari always worth checking out, especially if you enjoy some Republican bashing. It is most definetly the yard stick among my friends blogs (sorry others but it's true).

Anyway tired of sitting back all this time while Squid "Blogged it the F&£k up" to paraphrase him, this month I have attempted to get back into Blogging, and I think succeeded somewhat (quantity is certainly up,quality still to be worked on). Anyway I felt it was important to perform some form of analysis, so as homage to Squids fondness for graphs I have the following analysis of the month of September Blog Post count:

As you can see mine is CONSIDERABLY BIGGER than Squid's. Read into this what you will, I of course accept that size isn't everything bit just want it clear that this graph clearly shows that mine is BIGGER.

Next month I think I will perform an analysis of how much Favre related content is present in each Blog...

More Favre

2009-10-01T13:05:00.001+01:00

I wasn't planning on any more Favre fandom this week, but I did like this article on nfl.com. I would specifically highlight the following line:

We love it when someone does something crazy on the football field. Favre delivered crazy on Sunday, as he has almost every week for the last 19 years.

Yep - we do like the guy who brings the crazy :¬)

Branchage Starts Today

2009-10-01T10:35:00.001+01:00

As previously mentioned the Branchage Film Festival kicks off today. Collected my pass yesterday (crew discount as well), so should be good. Looking forward to seeing the film "Moon" I've heard so much about.

This little piggy went to University

2009-09-30T22:39:00.000+01:00

Well the other week my little sister went off to Uni for the first time. A happy moment you would think and by all accounts she was settling in well and enjoying herself (apart from the food).

However into her second week, just about to start lectures and she has been hit by the dreaded. freshers flu. Not just any freshers flu mind you, SWINE flu. Yep she's got the blighted, and no sign of a miracle Oink-ment anywhere.

Anyway she's not very happy, they have basically told her she can't leave her room and must remain issolated. The sole support given is daily deliveries of paracetamol, water and food left outside her door and facebook for company. I hope she gets better soon so she can start enjoying her University years (and studying too of course), it's not the best way to kick it off.

Musical Interlude

2009-09-30T20:48:00.001+01:00

For those of you who are not already aware of it's sheer level of AWESOMENESS, please check out the ultimate and best version of the already brilliant Ghoastbusters Theme, this time all Ska-Punked up! In this case you also get to experience the (admittedly poor quality) home made music video some guys have put together for it. Got to love the effort and the song still rocks:

Cooking with Spielbergo - Well not quite

2009-09-28T15:24:00.000+01:00

This isn't the usual cooking post, instead it is more of a shout out for help.

Basically one of my favourate dishes is a Portuguese dish called Espetadas. They come in various forms but typically I am talking about the beef variety. You make them as follows:

Ingredients

Beef (sirloin or rump works best)
Fresh garlic
Onion
Bay leaves (from the herb garden)
Parsley
Salt
Olive oil
Red wine vinegar

Nice and easy this, essentially just creating a maranade for the beef.

1 Prepare the beef by chopping off any fat and chopping into cubes about an inch and a half in size.

2. Combine the oil, vinegar, bay leaves and parsley and place into a dish with the beef.

3. Chop the garlic and onions into fine pieces and with the salt proceed to rub them into the beef while tossing the cubes in the oil mixture.

Stick it in the fridge and allow it to marinade, ideally for about 4-6 hours, but you can get away with less if required. If you can toss them around again every hour or so.

When ready to cook basically pull out the meet and the bay leaves and assemble the kebabs like so:

Essentially, bit of beef, bit of bay leaf and repeat. Place the stick under a prewarmed grill for 5 minutes each side (thats for how I like it, knock off or add a minute or so if you like it particularly rare or well done). Take out and serve.

Now here comes the call out for help. Taste wise these are great, presentation wise however simply sticking them on a plate, or disassembling and sticking on a plate, basically sucks. Observe:

Just looks like a plate of meet (yes you obviously serve it with stuff but the point still stands). Now what they do at the nice restaurants is they have a funky special stand that the Espetada hangs on while you eat, namely somthing like this:

The one above is of the beef and prawn variety (there are several types) but you get the idea.

My question is, where do you get these things from? I can't find them in any shop and my online hunt has so far been fruitless. Any ideas before I resort to asking my local Potuguese Restaurant?

Why at 39 going on 40 you still hire Brett Favre

2009-09-27T22:10:00.000+01:00

So your down 24-20, less than a minute and a half to go, who else do you want under centre?

Drive started own 20, 4 points down, 1:29 left, 80 yards to go and no timeouts.

1-10-MIN 20
(1:29) (Shotgun) 4-B.Favre pass short right to 81-V.Shiancoe to MIN 32 for 12 yards (22-N.Clements).
1-10-MIN 32
(1:09) (Shotgun) 4-B.Favre pass short right to 18-S.Rice pushed ob at MIN 41 for 9 yards (22-N.Clements).
2-1-MIN 41
(1:05) (Shotgun) 4-B.Favre pass incomplete deep middle to 81-V.Shiancoe.
3-1-MIN 41
(1:00) (Shotgun) 4-B.Favre pass short right to 12-P.Harvin to MIN 46 for 5 yards.
1-10-MIN 46
(1:00) 4-B.Favre spiked the ball to stop the clock.
2-10-MIN 46
(:40) (Shotgun) 4-B.Favre pass incomplete deep right to 18-S.Rice.
3-10-MIN 46
(:33) (Shotgun) 4-B.Favre pass short right to 12-P.Harvin to SF 39 for 15 yards (52-P.Willis).
1-10-SF 39
(:33) 4-B.Favre spiked the ball to stop the clock.
2-10-SF 39
(:16) 4-B.Favre pass short left to 87-B.Berrian to SF 32 for 7 yards (36-S.Spencer).

Then you got the following play, check it out.

Totally unsupportable fact of the day: Brett Favre can take pollution down to zero.

Picture Locked

2009-09-27T19:54:00.000+01:00

Well after a rather hectic 2 days of final editing we have reached the stage of picture lock. It looks pretty good, and it being finished is more than a little bit of a relief.

Now it is time to stick it online and let our composer sort out the score for the next 2 weeks. In the meantime I can take a break for a few days before getting on with the Color Grading, which hopefully be fairly simple and just take a couple of days work. After that in a couple of weeks and hopefully all the music in place it's time for the final audio mix and we are done.

20 days to the premier - the end is in sight.

First Political Post

2009-09-26T10:00:00.000+01:00

Nope I'm not planning on encroaching on SpaceSquid's territory instead we turn to the good old local Jersey politics and specifically this story.

Now I follow the States of Jersey pretty well, to the extent that I keep on eye on every vote that goes through, read the hansard etc. Now I noticed yesterday that this particular amendment had gone through and thought it was a bit odd. The Millennium Park is a very worthwhile project but the one thing the current Council of Ministers has been targeting in the present climate is spending cuts and thus it has been put on hold for the time being and possibly being funded through allowing a developer to build residential property in some of the area assigned. Now as the CofM and their supporters have more than enough votes to hold off all the other proposed amendments to the business plan, their not so organized opposition has put forward, I was more than a little surprised to see an amendment funding it get through.

Having looked at the voting record I did note that one or two of the CofM supporters were absent and a few declared an interest, but this should still have resulted in a win by 1 vote - then of course I noticed Senator Maclean had voted for it - odd I thought - but I ended up thinking that maybe someone called in a favor, or maybe he has a particular interest in seeing it get built - either way I though it was a significant loss for the CofM and their first of the business plan debate.

Of course it transpires that what actually happened was:

Senator Alan Maclean said he had meant to vote against the proposal but papers on his desk meant he had pushed the wrong button.
He was told the mistaken vote on the park in St Helier had to stand.

He simply pressed the wrong button! Genius - I would like to think other such items costing £10 Million get passed in a similar way.

To quote a catch phrase of another Jersey Senator - "You couldn't make it up!"

Bruce Campbell

2009-09-25T17:47:00.000+01:00

Just a nice clip of Bruce Campbell being asked what his worst movie ever was:

It's probably not surprising he's the B-movie king.

Quiz Night

2009-09-25T09:47:00.000+01:00

Thusday night last night and that makes it the night for the pub quiz! This week made all the more special because it was Arthurs day, which if you don't know celebrates the birth of Sir Arthur Guinness back in 1725, who was of course the founder of the The Guinness Brewery.

My current pub quiz I can say is definetly the most organised pub quiz I have ever attended, they not only have a PA system but they have big screens up as well where all the questions are displayed in writing - a nice addition. This also allows them to do such things as video clips and pictures added into the mix on certain rounds. We usually do pretty well and are on of the 4 teams regularly competing for the top spots - just the way you want it - an appropriate amount of challenge, not to hard, not to easy.

Well several pints of the black stuff later we ended up 3rd (just outside the money), bit still a good evening. I blame a lack of preperation in respect of the "on this day" round, although we did make up for it in the Guinness trivia round somewhat...

Very slightly hung over today. I haven't drunk Guinness in a while and the stuff they had on tap last night was actually pretty good, so might of had a few too many. Still everyone should raise a glass to Sir Arthur - 250 years and his brewery is still going strong.