Spriggsblog Goes To The Movies

 Quotation Of The Day:  Billy Wilder -- An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing.  But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.

This being part 2 of my year-end wrap-up, this edition dealing with the movies (or more accurately, the DVDs)  i have watched this year.

Well, i'm a bit of a list freak, and i've kept track of everything i saw:

Jan. 11: 48 Hours

Feb. 8: Taxi Driver

Feb. 12: The Replacement Killers

Feb. 15: Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon

Feb. 27: Goodfellas

Mar. 2: Heaven

Mar. 9: Salt

Mar. 22: The Net

Mar. 30: 25^th Hour

Apr. 12: The Ghost Writer

Apr. 13: Green Zone

Apr. 22: The Bourne Ultimatum

Apr. 23: The Bourne Supremacy

Apr. 24: The Bourne Identity (yes, i know i watched them in reverse order)

Apr. 26: Leaving Las Vegas

Apr. 27: Smilla's Sense Of Snow

May 1: The Adjustment Bureau

May 2: Romy And Michelle's High School Reunion

May 12: Eastern Promises

May 23: La Femme Nikita

May 24: Mean Streets

May 25: The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3

June 21: Duck Soup

July 19: Get Shorty

July 20: Salt

July 21: The Adjustment Bureau

Aug. 9: Inglourious Basterds

Aug. 17: Adoration
Aug. 24: Independence Day

Oct. 10: Sleuth

Oct. 11: Blow

Oct. 24: Source Code

Oct. 25: Candyman

Oct. 28: Frantic

Now, i love films, but what a dismal record since October!  There have been just so few evenings when i seem to have had the requisite two (or more) hours to spare, so i've been watching episodes of television series (on DVD), things like Father Ted, The Big Bang Theory (thanks, Jen!), Hill Street Blues and The Rockford Files.  Also, you'll notice that most of the above are older movies, most of them i've watched two or three (or more) times.

And i won't keep you in suspense, i know you're dying to know what was my favourite new film of the year.

Grabbing the top spot is  (ta-daaa) "The Adjustment Bureau" (Matt Damon, Emily Blunt).  But a very close second is "Source Code" (Jake Gyllenhall, Vera Farmiga).

Which kinda sorta leaves "Salt" in 3rd place, as it was (i think) the only other "new" film i saw in 2011.  And it was all right, lotsa action and very entertaining.  But there was something ... like when the character played by Angelina Jolie watches her husband be murdered and does nothing.

Th-th-that's all folks!

Year-End Wrap-Up, Part 1

Quote of the day: Richard Thompson -- We sing Hallelujah / at the turning of the year.

Right, well i haven't written anything in a bit -- primarily because, until Christmas Eve, i hadn't had a day off in ten days -- something i'm a bit angry about, actually.  But it's over and done.  And i had a super Christmas; i hope that you, my regular reader, had a great one, too.

I suppose it's not too early to start by "best of 2011" lists, but i'll start slowly -- with my favourite folk music CDs.

1. June Tabor & The Oysterband -- "Ragged Kingdom"

2. Bruce Guthro -- "Celtic Crossing"

3. June Tabor - "Ashore"

And special mention must go to "Another Christmas Present From The Albion Band."  But as it's live recording from 1986, i don't think i can include it.

And that's my top 3.  I don't buy a lot of folk music albums, although i love it.  But most of the performers i grew up with, are either no longer active, or are shadows of their former selves

Today Is The Tuesday I Should Have Had Last Tuesday

Quotation of the day: Woody Allen -- She wore a short skirt and a tight sweater and her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak.

Time constraints seem to have resulted in me only posting to this modest li'l blog o' mine on my day off, which, most weeks, is Tuesday, but there was no post last Tuesday.  Why (i hear you ask)?

First, last Monday, i started to feel the symptoms of a cold; by Tuesday it was full-blown and i spent the day coughing and sneezing (with eyes and nose streaming).  Poetic justice, really:  i was talking to someone at the pub last week about the 'flu shot -- i said i'd never had one and boasted that i hadn't had so much as a cold in about ten years (a fact i attributed to my healthy lifestyle: i drink and smoke too much and try to avoid fresh fruit & vegetables).  Three days later, aaaa-CHOOOO! Sniff, koff.

But that's not the only reason there was no new posting last week.  I had computer problems all day.  Again!  Good grief, i love computers when they work, but i seem to have so many problems with mine.

It began in the morning, when i discovered that i couldn't send any email.  I did some Googling, tweaked some settings, disabled my firewall, even power-cycled my modem.  Nothing.  Then i tried disabling my anti-virus and re-booting and ... Windows wouldn't load!  It loaded my wallpaper, but nothing else, no desktop icons or Start Menu, just the wallpaper.  I thought at first that Windows was lost altogether, but after five minutes, my screen saver kicked in so i knew that i still had an operating system, just no way to use it.

So i plugged my network cable in to my laptop and did yet more Googling (coughing and sneezing all the while).  I found a few possibilities, but nothing worked.  "Why," i cried in despair, "do my computer probs seem to be unique in the history of personal computers? Why?!?"  And i added a superfluous "aaaah-CHOOO!"

Finally, it occurred to me (with no help from Google) that maybe Windows Explorer had crashed when i re-booted earlier, so i decided to re-boot again, this time into "Safe Mode With Command Prompt."  At the prompt i ran "explorer.exe" and Eureka! (as Archimedes said).  Windows loaded.  Whew!  I'd just spent a fair chunk of the hard-earned on this compooter at the repair shop a few weeks ago, maybe i could avoid further expense.

It seems that i had two different problems, then, instead of (the premise i'd spent most of the morning working on) just one.  Whilst in safe mode, i ran an anti-virus scan, an anti-spyware scan, i defragged, i deleted temp files, all this diagnostic shit that one does on a regular basis (when one remembers).  And re-booted.

It worked! Hurrah! But .. i still couldn't send email.  GRRRRRRRRRRR!

I plugged the network cable back into the desktop and went to visit Mr Google yet again.  A couple of ideas came up:  i uninstalled and then re-installed both my firewall and anti-virus software.  Still no ability to send email, and then i discovered something else.

I use Thunderbird as my email client, Avast as my a/v program.  I went to an Avast forum and learned that Avast and Thunderbird are traditionally in conflict, something to do with the way each handles security settings.  I disabled Avast's email scanner and ... it worked.  I could send email again and all was right in the world.

But it was now almost 7 p.m.  I'd spent over twelve hours on it (and used an entire box of Kleenex), so i was in no mood.

 

And that's Emily Blunt to my left there.  She has absolutely no relevance to this post, i just wanted to cheer myself up :o)  Today, i'm having a good day.

English As She Is Spoke (Even)

I've noticed a rather bad habit creeping into my speech lately, and it is the use of the adjective "even" where no adjective is or should be required.

For example, i find myself saying things like "i didn't even notice that" (instead of "i didn't notice that") or "i didn't even reply to that email" instead of "i didn't reply."

Christ, you'd think i learnt English through a correspondence school or somefing.

The Rock's Electric Lunch

Quote Of The Day: Cat Stevens --Music makes you cry

Well, so, i listened to 94.9 The Rock's Electric lunch today (as i am wont to do on my day off)...

Vanessa wasn't working, perhaps she's finally gone on maternity leave, i dunno. It was Lee Eckley (sp?) (a new guy) instead.  He seems ok, but he's not Vanessa....

Anyway, here's the playlist:

Pink Floyd – Comfortably numb

Saga – Scratching the surface

Guns 'n' Roses – November rain

Crowbar – Oh what a feelin'

The Romantics – What I like about you

April Wine – You could have been a lady

Green Day – When i come around

The Beatles – Here comes the sun

Elvis Costello – Alison

Harlequin – Thinking of you

George Thorogood – Who do you love

The Headpins – Don't it make you feel

My Wars With Technology, Part 564 + Vanessa Murphy

Quotation Of The Day: Carrie P. Snow -- Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.

And so, a week or so ago, my DVD player died.  It simply would no longer play any discs i inserted.  Occasionally, i would get a "bad disc" message, but usually i just got a big fat nothing.  So, that evening, i was in the mood for dinner 'n' a movie, and so i dug out one of my old videotapes, slid it into the VCR and ... it wasn't working either, grrr.  What, i said to myself as i smashed my head against the wall, are the chances of both of these FREDs ("f*****g ridiculous electronic devices) dying on the same day?!?!?

(In retrospect, i now think it's probable that the VCR had gone belly-up some time ago; i just hadn't tried to use it in a while....)

And so, after a week of fruitless searching through troubleshooting forums (fora?) on the Internet (and also incidentally, fruitless searching for the player's users' manual), yesterday, i gritted my teeth, dusted the cobwebs from my wallet, and bought a new Toshiba SD5300 DVD player (oh, look, there's its picture:








 And i was pleasantly surprised to find how inexpensive they are nowadays.  It was a little more than half of what i paid for my last one, a couple of years ago....





Now i just have to figure out how to set it up -- which if course i won't do if  i spend my entire day off drinking beer with my butt parked in front of the compooter (as i am wont to do la la).

Now, veering tangentially from that subject, on to something more organic -- Vanessa Murphy ;o)

As it's my day off, i of course listened to Nasty Nessa's "Electric Lunch" on 94.9 The Rock.  Here's today's playlist:

Elton John - Rocket Man
Rush - Time Stands Still
Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight
Steve Earle - Copperhead Road
April Wine - Roller
The Black Crowes - She Talks To Angels
Metallica - Master Of Puppets
DeFault - Live A Lie
Rick Derringer - Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Koo
Theory Of A Deadman - Bitch Came Back (great band, great song!) 
The Who - Pinball Wizard
Bryan Adams - Kids Wanna Rock.


Is it any wonder i love this station?

(Incidentally, Vanessa is about 10 months pregnant at the moment, so she could disappear at any time.  Whatever, then, shall i do?)

Seether

I can't contain myself.  I just bought the new CD by Seether (www.seether.com) "Holding Onto String Better Left To Fray" (daft title!) and it's without a doubt the best album i've bought all year.

They seem to have been around for a while but, to my knowledge, i'd never heard them until recently, when (my favourite radio station) 94.9 The Rock started playing a couple of tracks from this CD, "Country Song" and "Tonight" and here's the video for the latter: http://www.vevo.com/watch/seether/tonight/USWV41100046

Album of the year 2011 (unless the forthcoming Kate Bush CD is "Hounds Of Love II" LOL