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By Threelight, 15 July, 2010 12:09 pm

Last night I was channel-hopping at around about midnight (as you do). I’d noticed that Syfy (once called, er, SciFi) was having some technical difficulties in showing something – the technical difficulties message was in French, don’t you know – so first they showed an old Superman animated short, and then this:

Corny, but it did make me laugh. The story of the whole thing is here. What surprised me though, is that they did manage to get someone with an amazing likeness of Young George.

Excellent!

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By Threelight, 5 July, 2010 8:59 pm

I’ve had a funny relationship with my blog over the past month. I’ve not felt ike posting at all, mainly due to things happening around me, both at home and at work. I can very easily blame work for this, and I think I will.

I work shifts as I’ve pointed out before. Sometimes I have a run of earliy shifts, and sometimes a run of lates. Also the nature of the work I due is fairly soul-destroying, but in this current economic climate, I am probably best off where I am. That’s the paradox (or contradiction, if these are the right words to use) that I just have to live with.

Unlike previous jobs I’ve had, this one has me going in at weekends, and working evenings, sometimes close to midnight. There are some runs of shifts like the one I have just gone through, I am only able to have the one day off, and then back to work for a few more days.

When I first got the job, the Bigwig told me that I would not want to go back to a normal 9-5 Monday to Friday existence again. I now know that that is complete and utter bullshit (pardon my language, kids!).  I enjoy going into work during the day and finishing during the day, and I loathe the fact that when I start the early afternoon shift, I know that quite a lot of people in the same office (but not the same department I should add) are leaving in a couple of hours time, so I always ask why I’m there at such an hour when the office is not as busy.

The nature of the work I do is soul-destroying, and the environment in the department I work in is not conducive to good working (I can go on about the latter, but I daren’t). But I think I’m best where I am.

Weird.

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By Threelight, 5 June, 2010 9:42 pm

Must have been one of these one-day/two- day bugs going round, but yesterday morning I was feeling like I’d swallowed sandpaper (I hadn’t), felt like I had not slept all night (had at least 4 hours, but am certain I got a good night’s sleep), and generally felt a bit down-in-the-dumps. I’d gone to work on Thursday feeling marginally in a better state than Friday, and saw the shift through.

As a result of waking up one hour (8:00 approx), having some breakfast, and then going to bed for even more sleep (an hour), and not feeling any better, I decided that, under the circumstances, the best thing would be to call in sick. Now I’m not one to just call in sick because I want the day off because it’s a sunny day; there has to be a reason why. And I had the reason why.

When I phoned in, I was made to feel bad for taking a sick day. Hmmm, in all my working life I’ve never come across that before. If you were sick, you were sick, simple as. At least in a largish department where I used to work, you were at least trusted (well, I was).

My line of work means you have to be 100 percent just about all the time.  If not, you’ve had it. That’s not an excuse for taking a sick day admittedly, but if I had gone in yesterday I would have been worse.

As it happens I feel a lot better today (the first day of my “rest weekend”), but am spending the weekend not doing much to make sure I’m at 100 percent when I get back in.

I suppose it doesn’t help when your’re doing important work (as a department, not just me), and your superiors don’t see you in that light.

Oh well.

*sigh*

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By Threelight, 30 May, 2010 11:21 pm

As mentioned in my last post, I went to see Iron Man 2 with Polyhex and Agent. Okay, now the trouble is that I maybe enjoyed it a bit too much! I really, really liked it. Okay, not as good as Iron Man, but it sweeps you along at a fair whack. Of course, thius is where I usually tell you how I shouldn’t really divulge the plot, but at the same time telling you what happened in the movie, but not this time.

All I can say is: “Wowser! Scarlett Johannson!” My liking of Scarlett Johannson is evident, since I first began to take notice from watching “Lost in Translation”. But it’s good that she’s in more movies like these.  But what an attractive woman she is. “Hubba Hubba” us another phrase to bring to mind. In another decade, I’d use the word “Schwingg!!”

Gratuitous picture below.

I was in a quiet cinema with only about 10 people in there (including the 3 of us), but still, I enjoyed it immensely. The only person I think was wasted in the whole movie was probably Gwyneth Paltrow, but good to see Samuel L. back, even though middle aged spread appears to have caught up with him a bit.

Now, when’s this one coming out on DVD. One for the collection methinks.

Rating: ****

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By Threelight, 28 May, 2010 3:03 pm

Wow, something like 3 weeks since I last posted, and a corny joke at that, but a good one I think.

I had done that post whilst the bathroom was being re-done, re-tiled, and just about re-everythinged. So, in the 3 weeks since that post, let’s see what happened (don’t fall asleep please):

1. We have a new bathroom with an even bigger shower than before. And it’s absolutely fantastic. Completely changed, and very bright and cheery (if bathrooms are allowed to be bright and cheery).  

2. There’s now a coalition government. For once all the prediction polls were correct. Right, enough politics.

3. I am now nearing the end of an 11 day break. I go back to work tomorrow. Strange, but it feels a lot longer than 11 days, and ever now and then, I have to check the calendar to see whether it really was 11 days. And yes, it’s the last day today. I got a lot done in that time, which I’m particularly happy about. I went to see “Iron Man 2“ with Polyhex and Agent. And, with some spare time, watched “Avatar“. Reviews of both will come later on (hopefully not that much later on than Iron Man 3 comes out, and James Cameron begins to film Avatar II: The Return of the Blue People, or something like that.). Apart from that, did loads of sorting out, and filing and cataloguing of my DVD collection, as well as some of my vast music collection (change that to Various Artists compilations collection). All in all, it wasn’t particularly wasted, even though on 2 of the 11 days, I was marvelling at how slow the time was going, and how chilled out I was.

So there you have it. May not seem like much doing, but it was a welcome break all the same. Now I just have the hell-hole called work to contend with. Could be worse. Could have no job I suppose.

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By Threelight, 4 May, 2010 10:57 am

If yu don’t want to know about a certain level of a certain top-selling console game and it’s effect on my gameplay, then please go to another post (there goes my audience).

Okay, the rest of you people, and including X-Box 360 players, listen up. I’m talking about the multi-selling game Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Last week I finally decided to buy the game at the reduced price (I was never going to buy it at the full price anyway, that’s why I’m not keeping up with what the rest are playing).

Admittedly there is a warning at the beginning of the game that a level in said game may be offensive, and whether you want to play it. I said “Sir, yes Sir! Of course I do, Sir!”. Having heard something about it, but only snippets. I also hadn’t read the Wiki page.

What I didn’t know is that this mission (or level) comes early on in the game, and it allows you, basically, to kill Russian civilians as part of an undercover operation. I suppose it’s how you react to it that matters. I chose to just follow the main character in the level rather than be involved in the shooting. I’m wondering whether any other gamers had done that while playing the level. The sound and visual effects are a bit, well, strange, with screaming civilians being shot all over the airport. I suppose the reason why the level was included was to give you that “crisis of conscience”  (okay what would you do in this situation?). Once that level is finshed with, the gameplay continues apace.

But that bit of the gameplay did take me a bit by surprise.

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By Threelight, 1 May, 2010 9:55 pm

I have quite an extensive book collection, collected over a number of years. In my library I have all the Ian Fleming-written James Bond Novels. And just the other day, I finished the last book of the entire series. It’s only taken me around about 3 years. I’ve not been reading them one after the other, but rather whenever I could read them, out came the novel next on the list. I read them in the order they were published, rather than all over the place, as I’d read elsewhere that Fleming would sometimes refer to novels gone before in whatever he was writing.

In these days of politcal correctness, some of the writing is quite offensive. But the novels are very much a product of their time. But for all their faults, I prefer the Jmaes Bond of the novels than the earlier movies. The difference is that in the last 2 movies, James Bond bleeds, and in the books he bleeds. One of the things I like about the film version of “Casino Royale”, is that it’s probably as close to the book as possible, even down to the quote of “The bitch is dead” at the end of both book and movie.

If you thought that the quote “Bond…James Bond” came from the scriptwriters of the movies, think again. It’s in the books. And also the quote, “We’ve got all the time in the world” (at the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). What I’m seeing in my mind while I’m reading is a different character entirely to the one on film.

If I had to choose my favourite book out of the lot, ‘twould have to be the first one, “Casino Royale”. Excellent pace, excellent imagery, and an excellent way to torture your hero in the very first book (near enough the same in the movie, if you want to know). And the worst, has to be “The Spy Who Loved Me”. Yuck. Ugly book. Just wanted to get to the last page and forget about it. Just didn’t work for me at all.

I wonder whether the reason why they’ve put the new James Bond movie on ice, is because they’ve run out of fresh ideas?

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By Threelight, 28 April, 2010 4:18 pm

About time too.

Peter Jackson has a Knighthood. We ll deserved. Even though it’s probably down to just 3 movies, but boy, those 3 movies are amazing. Whatever your views are about Knighthoods, OBEs, MBEs etc, he’s earned it.

That is all.

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By Threelight, 27 April, 2010 10:53 pm

At the moment there is a small amount of upheaval in Chez Threelight. We are having a new shower put in at present, and it’s likely to be a week until everything’s back to normal, and we get a new shower. The two contrasts of workmen, the one now vs the one last time (January 2009, if memory serves) is striking. This one turns up on time (unlike the one last year who turned up at odd times and worked until about 8 or 9pm). The sheer professionalism of the one here now is there to be seen. There is a lot to be done, ripping out what the former “workman” did. At least here, everything will be wired in and all correct. I could go into a long list about what was wrong last year, but it’s such a long list, I could be here all night (wrong procedures and wrong parts).

So, soon we will be getting a brand new bathroom (again), The old one has been ripped out, along with the sink which will be repositioned to a more logical place than it was before. And also the shower will be slightly bigger. Hopes are high that it’ll look quite good.