marramgrass

21st 2 lbs.

Still.

More thinking and strategising, then more doing, required.

Cloverfield yesterday after I finished work. I’ve heard some very positive and some very negative reviews of this movie. Here’s mine. I’ll try and avoid spoilers.

In short, pretty good stuff. The hype machine did its job and I was genuinely excited to see this film. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s an old-fashioned monster movie with the tension turned up — they managed to make the characters sympathetic enough to increase the tension, but with minimal back-story. The monsters are class and the handheld filming is very effective, but I had to take regular breaks from looking at the screen: I doubted all the tales of the film inducing motion sickness, but on the big screen it hit my stomach hard. The sound design (no music on the soundtrack until well after the closing credits have started) is actual genius. I don’t use the word lightly — I suspect the audio is a major part of the strength of the film.

I’m conflicted, though.

I’ve read a lot of debate over the destruction of New York-9/11 parallels (for example). I’m not in a position to call that one, since I’ve never even visited the States. I did think about it while watching some of the early destruction scenes, although I can’t say if it’s because I was aware of the discussion beforehand or if it was something the film would have provoked in me by itself. Anything further is too easy for me to say from several thousand miles away.

What I can expand on is my internal argument that runs thusly: “The total lack of exposition is great!” “I want to know all about the monsters!” “It’s always fun to be left with questions.” “Where’d they come from? What happened to her? Why is it happening?” “Too much detail would have totally ruined it.” “But I like detail!”

There’s room for a whole mythology here, and part of me longs for it. The crew probably have it all written down somewhere, and I want to know. But I don’t. But I… You get the idea.

Cloverfield is definitely worth the short running time, just sit as far back from the screen as you can stand :-)

The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have have caused a bit of a stir yesterday. He certainly got the politicians jumping :-)

On the surface Dr Williams’ remark seems a pretty daft thing to say, but giving it some thought it leaves me with a couple of questions.

In civil matters (divorce, property disputes, etc.) it may make some sense, as long as all parties agree. Then it becomes mainly a contractual thing (beware, IANAL). Still, let me emphasise may and some. I’m not qualified to go any further, so I’ll leave it with a question mark: ?

The bigger question I find is that of what it means to be a ‘multicultural’, ‘diverse’ or ‘plural’ society?

Law is a different case, of course, but more generally if we want to be able to say we accept and value other cultures, are we kidding ourselves if we then go on and insist that cultural distinctives get left at the door (or the customs checkpoint)? How do we integrate and celebrate difference, rather than ending up with some sort of cultural lowest common denominator where differences are glossed over in case we find we disagree on something? (When did we forget that it’s okay to disagree?)

I had a chat with a friend recently who helps out with a youth group in a church of a mainstream Protestant denomination. One of the young people who comes along is Roman Catholic with a big wide Republican streak. This young person asked if they could do something to commemorate the events of Bloody Sunday, as you’ll surmise a controversial suggestion in that context. I don’t know how that conversation went, but consider this: with all this talk of A Shared Future, how can we acknowledge and accept a shared past and a shared present?

Love him or hate him — I’ve many friends who’ll be distressed when I say I have a soft spot for him — Rowan Williams has certainly got people talking.

Time for an article-type thing that I’ve had stewing in my mind for a couple weeks. It’s very computer-y, but if you use a computer for anything at all, pretty much, then it may be worth reading. It largely deals with Mac-based solutions and software, but those that aren’t specifically available for Windows will have something very similar out there. I’m not joking, this could save you a whole pile of heartache and frustration.

Everyone who uses a computer knows you should regularly and reliably back up your hard disk, especially with all the music and the sentimentally valuable photos we all have lying around these days. Between the desktop computer and this laptop, I’ve got about 60 GB of photos (some of which could be replaced with some hard work, many of which couldn’t), maybe 30 or 40 GB of music files (all legitimate, I might add), and several GB of other stuff, include some critical work files that I really can’t lose.

What if my hard disk decides to throw a wobbly? Or the PC explodes? Or my laptop gets half-inched? That’d be bad.

Which is why backup is a good idea — taking copies of your data in case you lose the working copies/originals. For advice all should read, check out The Tao of Backup.

I’m already fairly good about taking clones of hard disks regularly. I’m seeking an additional solution, possibly an online one. Being in an unusually methodical mood, and having other more responsible things to be distracted from, I decided to have a good look at the available options.

Why online?

Here I’m not talking about full-system backups. There is no sensible substitute for using reliable software to take a file-by-file clone of your hard disk (the Leopard-ready update to SuperDuper! has been released today as I work on this). Twice, and then store them seperately. Backing up gigs and gigs of data online is never going to work while those of us lucky enough to have broadband are sitting at the base of a dinky little 256 kbps upstream (the A in ADSL means ‘asynchronous’, which is to say you receive data much, much more quickly than you can send it).

What I’m after is a redundant way to conveniently backup maybe a few hundred megabytes of data (a couple of GB, tops), largely work-related stuff I really can’t lose, to somewhere it will be safe if I suffer a local catastrophe. For this, I have a suspicion online storage may be the way to go.

(more…)

All of a sudden, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It’s only been about three hours since Christmas, hasn’t it?

In my infant and growing discovery of the liturgical calender, Lent is a season that I’m not terribly familiar with. It’s never been more than that funny time when folks give up chocolate, but we don’t really understand why.

Maggi Dawn has posted a timely reminder of a popular skewed understanding of Lent, and points to an earlier series of posts she made in 2005. If you’re interested in the ideas and the history of the season (I am), I suggest reading them. I will be.

We watched The Kingdom at the weekend. It’s one of those very worthy films that feels like it’s trying to say something profound about the state of humanity and of the world.

While I enjoyed the film greatly — some excellent acting — the trouble was that I wasn’t ever sure exactly what it was trying to say. The punchline at the end tried too hard and just confused me, especially in light of everything that had led up to it.

It’s tense and interesting, the acting is superb and the Saudi police colonel in particular is an excellent character, but I just don’t know it wanted me to take away.

Still worth a watch, though, and the opening timeline sequence is beautifully done.

Confession time. I’m a fat pasty. I’ve always thought of myself that way, although I’ve recently realised that when I thought it when I was younger, it wasn’t as true as I thought. It certainly wasn’t as true as it is now.

I can’t make any excuses. I eat too much. I know it. Everyone around me knows it. I occasionally try dieting. It hasn’t really worked yet. My problem is willpower, which is to say my lack of it. I’ve struck a deal with my wife (marrying a doctor has its downsides, too) that each Sunday morning I will be weighed, and she will read the scale. That was my idea — I need the accountability.

But I probably need extra humiliation accountability to motivate me, which is why I’m following another’s example and going rather more public with the whole thing. This scares me, and it’s not something I do lightly.

I have a simple goal: changes to diet and lifestyle leading to sustained and sustainable weight loss at a safe and sane rate. There’s a whole industry built on dieting schemes and fads, but really it boils down to an old piece of advice — eat less and exercise more.

So here goes. This morning I stood on the scale and I was 21 st 2 lbs. Next Sunday morning I will stand on the scale again, and I will be less. I’d better be, or I have the web, and my wife, to answer to.

Five years ago today, I made my first blog post.

I started out of curiosity about this thing that more and more people seemed to be doing, with the simple aim of amusing myself. Five years later that is still my primary aim, and I’m still astonished and humbled by the small (very small in internet terms) but steady trickle of traffic that comes through here every day. So to those who drop by and occasionally leave a comment or three, thank you.

Over the next wee while I’ve a few major things planned round here. There’s a ground-up redesign in the works, and a few lengthy, almost article-like, posts that I’ve been working on for a while. And maybe one or two other bits and bobs, too.

In the meantime, cheers again for being here :-)