Blreary Eyed, but it was worth it

A bit bleary eyed this morning. Mainly on account of being up until one am last night getting a Playstation Portable on day of release. I wonder if I am getting too old for such exploits, but then again I truly hope not.

The machine is very nice. It fulfills my two major criteria: it is shiny and not that many people in the UK have got one yet. I think that will change in the future though, as the marketing gathers pace and the appeal of the machine itself (which is considerable) starts to shine through.

I've bought some games as well. I'm not usually that good at video games. I play through all the easy, "learning", levels of a game and then give up when they get a bit taxing. At least with the PSP I can put a video on at that point....

Driving Miss Daisy (and all the other Dukes)

Went to see Dukes (or perhaps Doooks) of Hazard tonight (seem to be watching a lot of movies at the moment - which is nice). On the way to the cinema nature treated us to a very impressive special effects show of thunder, lightning and torrential rain. Once we had got there, waded through the car park and found our seats it turned out that the film was OK. I mean, nobody is going to go to a movie version of a TV series like Dukes of Hazard and expect anything that special, but it did the job.

Things have changed a bit though in Hazard county though. Bo Duke has turned into a raving loon and Luke Duke now looks old enough to be his dad. Daisy is much more agressive than I remember and Sheriff Hogg has slimmed down a lot. But the car remains the same, and the noise it makes when they rev that Dodge Charger is about worth the price of the tickets alone. They must have got through quite a few cars.

If you go and see the film, stick around for the end titles where they show what happened to an awfull lot of vehicles. Take-offs usually went OK. Landings usually made the car shatter into little bits, leap over the intersection or dive into the bushes. Or all three. But a happy ending and a bunch of car chases, how can it go wrong?

Would this work?

Proposed email to all academic staff:

The sergeant looked down at the clipboard in his hands. Ahead of him stretched a line of people, desparation showing in their eyes as they waited for their chance to plead for the last few places in the sole remaining star transporter that would soon be leaving forever the doomed planet earth.

"And why do you thing you should be allowed to escape certain death?" he asked the nervous figure in front of him.

"Er, well, when Rob Miles asked for my preference for lab. demonstrators for the new semester timetable I gave him the information straight away" came the trembling response.

"Good enough for me" replied the sergeant, standing aside and allowing one more person through to salvation.

So give me the information please folks, you never know when it might come in handy...

Product Placement

Went to see "The Island" tonight. It is a "wham bam" action adventure with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as clones (the product) escaping from the laboratory where they were grown as walking spare part repositories for their "sponsors". It takes a little while to get really going, but once it is under way there is a whole lot happening, including a lot of chasing.

Now I'm not particularly against chasing. I spent a lot of time aged five and six enjoying games of tag. But watching other people being chased for long periods of time does get a little wearing, even with the special effects and jazzy camera moves. You start to think "either they get caught or they get away, can we please cut beyond the chase and find out what happens next..".

Anyhoo, a pretty good film. It doesn't make any great philosophical points, the thing that it brought home most strongly to me is that people with small, rimless, glasses who speak with an english accent are very likely to be baddies, and if they are played by Sean Bean the probability rises to 100%.

The most important question for me though was this; If you have invented a machine that can manufacture Scarlett Johanssons, why would you stop at just making one?

Progress Bar

Progress Bar
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

I spent a big chunk of today installing software. The way I see it, watching progress bars is kind of like work (in that something is working at the time) but you don't actually have to do anything - which is nice.