Continuing the blog's zombie theme, I recently watched Warm Bodies at the cinema and In the Flesh on TV. I think they both deserve credit for doing something a bit different with the zombie idea.

Warm Bodies wasn't quite what I'd expected from the trailer. In fact, I stopped watching the trailer part-way through, because I was worried that it ( Read more... )

Today I went up to Reading for a Zed Events zombie experience. I really enjoyed it: it was expensive (£139 + train ticket) but well worth the money if you can afford it.

I heard about this through Emma Kennedy's Guardian column last year. Basically, it's the adult equivalent of playing "let's pretend" in the playground at primary school, e.g. "We' ( Read more... )

This weekend I've been at Picocon (ICSF's annual convention). I used to go every year, but my attendance has been a bit more sporadic in recent years, partly because I've often been busy with SJA duties. I'm now trying to get a bit more balance in my life so I made an effort to attend, and I'm glad that I did. This was certainly better value than ( Read more... )

Whenever I read a book, I put a review on Goodreads. This includes graphic novels and TPBs, but it doesn't work so well for individual comic issues or a series as a whole. So, here are some thoughts about comics I've read recently. I'm keeping spoilers to a minimum, but please proceed with caution if you're sensitive about that.

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The weather's been getting a bit warmer recently, which is good for cycling: I put my thermal jacket away a few weeks ago, switched to a short-sleeved jersey yesterday, and wore shorts instead of tights today. Unfortunately, I've seen some remarkably poor driving from other road users: I've had two close calls, and a car hit me this morning.

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A year ago, I wrote about disaster recovery scenarios. A related concept is contingency planning: the idea is that you can deal with problems that arise and continue working as usual, so you don't actually have a disaster to recover from. For instance, if a server has a single hard drive, and it fails, you will need to re-install the operating ( Read more... )

After last week's post, I had a fairly productive weekend, getting rid of a lot of old books via Freecycle. I've now been able to completely empty one bookcase (by shuffling books around to fill gaps), although sadly it means that I don't have the same logical sequence as before (e.g. all computer textbooks in one place). Ah well, no matter. As ( Read more... )

A quick round-up of book reviews from the past month; I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum.

* "Pyramids" (Terry Pratchett).

( Good )

Today's post is brought to you by the word "zombies". (It also contains minor spoilers for a few comics and films.)

Generally, I've never really been a fan of zombie films. I've heard good things about the "Evil Dead" trilogy (specifically the chainsaw), and I've enjoyed seeing Bruce Campbell in other films. However, I tried watching The Evil Dead ( Read more... )

Continuing my recent series of "meta" LiveJournal posts (i.e. posting about posting itself), here are my thoughts on the "gay rights" meme that was going round a few weeks ago. It's taken me a while to find time to do this, so it's not exactly topical anymore, but I think the general principles are still valid.

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