(no subject)
This has been rather a good week. It started off a bit sucky as work was a bit frustrating. It's quite annoying to not be able to do the thing you need to do because of the limitations of the language you are working in. The Guy continues to be a crap manager and I had a conversation with him that went like this:
Me: I've put error handling in this C# code that will deal with any errors, but the underlying C that it relies on will only ever return success or will crash, not return a meaningful error.
He: Well, don't rely on it staying like that, make sure you put error handling in.
(repeat ad nauseam)
I was only telling him because fixing the C so isn't my department and I thought it might be something he should be aware of. But no, instead we have 5 minutes of him comepletely missing my point and failing to listen to what I'm actually saying.
But I can't complain too hard as I only worked for 3 days last week, as I had Thursday and Friday off. Because Thursday I was going to Thorpe Park with some friends from home for one of their birthdays. And because my life can never be simple this meant going back to Crawley. Because Thorpe Park is a pain in the arse to get to via public transport anyway, and even more so from north of London. So it was easier (for some value of easier) to take two days off work, go down to Crawley on Wednesday after work, stay with in Crawley Wednesday night, get driven up to Thorpe Park the next morning, go back to Crawley in the evening and then go back to Cambridge on Friday.
So yeah, that's what I did. Thorpe Park was ace. The Saw Ride and Vortex weren't running which sucked because I was looking forward to going on both of them, and we got rained on a few times, but it was a good laugh and the queues weren't too big. And I swear they've sped up Colossus.
Friday morning I went to see The Hangover: Part Two, which was entertaining enough, but would have been better if it wasn't basically identical to the first one. Note. For. Note.
http://cracked.tumblr.com/post/5043893399/trailers-for-the-hangover-1-2-side-by-side
Read that. It highlights how similar the two trailers are. Now imagine the *entire film* is like that. So, yeah.
On Thursday I got a text from an old school friend asking me if I wanted to go to The London Expo on Saturday and I said "hell yeah". It amuses me that they're trying to position themselves as "London's Comic Con". I suppose it does feel more like Comic Con than any of the others, with stuff going on outside the centre and more exhibitions from companies showing off their new stuff, but it is still very heavily anime biased and until they give it a much broader appeal, it's just not going to cut it. And the stands were mostly for video games, so, eh. (BTW, Batman: Arkham City looks amazeballs)
However, it being a less popular con meant I didn't have to queue up forever to get into the Futurama panel, which was just great. Those guys understand their audience and realise that, yeah we're interested in your answers to your questions, but we also want you to do the funny voices. So that was cool.
And I bought some more shinies. I got Essential Captain America Vol. 2 for £6 (Amazon price £9ish), and vol 5 and 6 of Scott Pilgrim for £5 each (RRP £7.99) I also bought a Stargate Comic because it basically looked *awful*
I assume that's supposed to be Daniel on the cover, event though his glasses are the wrong shape and he has Spock Eyebrows. And look that the woman. SPINES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.
I also managed to accidentally bump into Helly, Ben and Squirrel who had decided to go to the expo too. Random.
Pretty good week, all told.
Oh, yeah, and I've watched about 75 Atop The 4th Wall reviews in the last two weeks. And I'm totally not starting to have a tiny little bit of a crush on Linkara. Nope. But hey now I know what's wrong with these guys:
Youngbloods Disease. It has struck down many a superhero in their prime.
And, yesterday I finished reading 1602. I loved it. There was just so much detail. So much detail that I missed. So many moments of joy when you realise who someone is, or what event they are alluding to. Neil Gaiman is just a genius. *gushes*
I put off writing this review for a little while because all the AT4W watching I'd been doing had made my inner reviewer voice sound rather like Linkara... not obsessed, not obsessed, not obsessed. So now I've had a little bit of a break from watching them, I thought I would bring you:
Another Year (2010)
This film was on my list because I had seen the trailer for it and it looked like a nice, gentle People Stand About In Rooms And Talk About Their Feelings sort of drama, and I never got round to seeing it at the cinema.
And yes, what I thought it was was exactly what it was. It follows the main couple, Tom and Gerri, through the seasons as they deal with their friends' and family's crises. Not much happens, a few people get their hearts broken and life goes on. An enjoyable, meandering story, but not necessarily one I feel compelled to watch again.
Mostly notable for two things:
1) One of the characters is from Crawley, which is revealed thusly:
"My car broke down on the motorway on the way to Brighton and I got towed to Crawley, which is the last place I want to go cos I grew up there and I hate it"
So you know, pretty accurate. So I spent the rest of the film thinking "well she doesn't sound like she's from Crawley." But she was the most annoying character in the film. So you know, pretty accurate. She was one of those absolutely neurotic, wrapped up in themselves, everything that ever happens to them becomes a drama people. The sort who is just exhausting to be friends with. The kind where you sometimes wonder why in godmotheringfuck you are even friends with them in the first place.
2) It doesn't end. This is my number one pet hate of these kinds of films. The story doesn't end. It just finishes. There is no conclusion. No closure. I know it's supposed to signify that life goes on, that time is an endless circle and that we have seen but a slice of the life of these characters and they will continue, as will we all, in the same comfortable rut that we have always been in, and other such pretentious bollocks, but it just irritates the fuck out of me. This film ends with a bunch of the characters sitting around the table chatting, as we zoom in on the Neurotic One as she realises that all her hopeful little fantasies about her friends' son (did I mention that? Yeah, she was in love with Tom and Gerri's son, and thought that they had a connection. And is thus heartbroken when he brings home his girlfriend. It's not completely creepy, as he is in his 30s and she is late 40s, early 50s, but she's known him since he was 10, which brings the creepy right back) were never going to happen and that she will be alone. FOREVER. Fade to black. It's just so... unsatisfying. You can end a film whilst still implying that life goes on. You can conclude a story and still show there are more to tell. Why just finish your film, practically mid sentence. It's like they writer just couldn't think of an ending.
All in all, a pleasant film, but please dear god, end your films properly!
Me: I've put error handling in this C# code that will deal with any errors, but the underlying C that it relies on will only ever return success or will crash, not return a meaningful error.
He: Well, don't rely on it staying like that, make sure you put error handling in.
(repeat ad nauseam)
I was only telling him because fixing the C so isn't my department and I thought it might be something he should be aware of. But no, instead we have 5 minutes of him comepletely missing my point and failing to listen to what I'm actually saying.
But I can't complain too hard as I only worked for 3 days last week, as I had Thursday and Friday off. Because Thursday I was going to Thorpe Park with some friends from home for one of their birthdays. And because my life can never be simple this meant going back to Crawley. Because Thorpe Park is a pain in the arse to get to via public transport anyway, and even more so from north of London. So it was easier (for some value of easier) to take two days off work, go down to Crawley on Wednesday after work, stay with in Crawley Wednesday night, get driven up to Thorpe Park the next morning, go back to Crawley in the evening and then go back to Cambridge on Friday.
So yeah, that's what I did. Thorpe Park was ace. The Saw Ride and Vortex weren't running which sucked because I was looking forward to going on both of them, and we got rained on a few times, but it was a good laugh and the queues weren't too big. And I swear they've sped up Colossus.
Friday morning I went to see The Hangover: Part Two, which was entertaining enough, but would have been better if it wasn't basically identical to the first one. Note. For. Note.
http://cracked.tumblr.com/post/5043893399/trailers-for-the-hangover-1-2-side-by-side
Read that. It highlights how similar the two trailers are. Now imagine the *entire film* is like that. So, yeah.
On Thursday I got a text from an old school friend asking me if I wanted to go to The London Expo on Saturday and I said "hell yeah". It amuses me that they're trying to position themselves as "London's Comic Con". I suppose it does feel more like Comic Con than any of the others, with stuff going on outside the centre and more exhibitions from companies showing off their new stuff, but it is still very heavily anime biased and until they give it a much broader appeal, it's just not going to cut it. And the stands were mostly for video games, so, eh. (BTW, Batman: Arkham City looks amazeballs)
However, it being a less popular con meant I didn't have to queue up forever to get into the Futurama panel, which was just great. Those guys understand their audience and realise that, yeah we're interested in your answers to your questions, but we also want you to do the funny voices. So that was cool.
And I bought some more shinies. I got Essential Captain America Vol. 2 for £6 (Amazon price £9ish), and vol 5 and 6 of Scott Pilgrim for £5 each (RRP £7.99) I also bought a Stargate Comic because it basically looked *awful*
I assume that's supposed to be Daniel on the cover, event though his glasses are the wrong shape and he has Spock Eyebrows. And look that the woman. SPINES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.
I also managed to accidentally bump into Helly, Ben and Squirrel who had decided to go to the expo too. Random.
Pretty good week, all told.
Oh, yeah, and I've watched about 75 Atop The 4th Wall reviews in the last two weeks. And I'm totally not starting to have a tiny little bit of a crush on Linkara. Nope. But hey now I know what's wrong with these guys:
Youngbloods Disease. It has struck down many a superhero in their prime.
And, yesterday I finished reading 1602. I loved it. There was just so much detail. So much detail that I missed. So many moments of joy when you realise who someone is, or what event they are alluding to. Neil Gaiman is just a genius. *gushes*
I put off writing this review for a little while because all the AT4W watching I'd been doing had made my inner reviewer voice sound rather like Linkara... not obsessed, not obsessed, not obsessed. So now I've had a little bit of a break from watching them, I thought I would bring you:
Another Year (2010)
This film was on my list because I had seen the trailer for it and it looked like a nice, gentle People Stand About In Rooms And Talk About Their Feelings sort of drama, and I never got round to seeing it at the cinema.
And yes, what I thought it was was exactly what it was. It follows the main couple, Tom and Gerri, through the seasons as they deal with their friends' and family's crises. Not much happens, a few people get their hearts broken and life goes on. An enjoyable, meandering story, but not necessarily one I feel compelled to watch again.
Mostly notable for two things:
1) One of the characters is from Crawley, which is revealed thusly:
"My car broke down on the motorway on the way to Brighton and I got towed to Crawley, which is the last place I want to go cos I grew up there and I hate it"
So you know, pretty accurate. So I spent the rest of the film thinking "well she doesn't sound like she's from Crawley." But she was the most annoying character in the film. So you know, pretty accurate. She was one of those absolutely neurotic, wrapped up in themselves, everything that ever happens to them becomes a drama people. The sort who is just exhausting to be friends with. The kind where you sometimes wonder why in godmotheringfuck you are even friends with them in the first place.
2) It doesn't end. This is my number one pet hate of these kinds of films. The story doesn't end. It just finishes. There is no conclusion. No closure. I know it's supposed to signify that life goes on, that time is an endless circle and that we have seen but a slice of the life of these characters and they will continue, as will we all, in the same comfortable rut that we have always been in, and other such pretentious bollocks, but it just irritates the fuck out of me. This film ends with a bunch of the characters sitting around the table chatting, as we zoom in on the Neurotic One as she realises that all her hopeful little fantasies about her friends' son (did I mention that? Yeah, she was in love with Tom and Gerri's son, and thought that they had a connection. And is thus heartbroken when he brings home his girlfriend. It's not completely creepy, as he is in his 30s and she is late 40s, early 50s, but she's known him since he was 10, which brings the creepy right back) were never going to happen and that she will be alone. FOREVER. Fade to black. It's just so... unsatisfying. You can end a film whilst still implying that life goes on. You can conclude a story and still show there are more to tell. Why just finish your film, practically mid sentence. It's like they writer just couldn't think of an ending.
All in all, a pleasant film, but please dear god, end your films properly!