SNIP Blog

It's the end Dr, but not as we know it

Well we all watched it right? At least a lot of us did – the finale of Dr Who (The end of time) or the end of Tennant.

I’m certainly not an avid Dr Who fan, more a casual observer who has an interest in SciFi. Dr Who has always had that background appeal though, even if it to rekindle those childhood memories of hiding behind the coach when the Darleks come on. I think a lot of people would agree though, that David Tennant has certainly re-born the Dr Who franchise, and become probably the current generations favourite Dr Who.

Certainly for me, he re-captured my imagination for the long standing series with his enigmatic screen presence and dominating crazy/wacky Dr persona. He was almost perfect for the role. I think he brought more to it then just crazyness though, as there was/is something charming, sweet, even maybe innocent about Tennant as an inndividual that he seemed to bring to the final episode so honestly, it did make for a truly epic episode.

The second part of The End of Time was infact one hour twenty minutes, rather than a straight hour. I think the show was really split into two parts: 1st hour was the show conclusion and the last 20 mins was really Tennant saying goodbye to the universe (Universe being the Dr Who universe, not literally).

For me, what made the episode WAS that last 20 minutes. I think it demonstrated just what an impact Tennant has had on the show that they felt enough to give him a dedicated 20 minute farewell. Sure, the main story was classic Dr Who layered in cheese, but this finale felt like a Hollywood movie, it was visually deep and covered with gloss. Almost like, hey it’s Tennant’s last show – screw the budget.

The way Tennant portrayed the end of his character made him look vulnerable, scared and genuinely distressed about his imminent departure. The sweet spot you could argue, was his final line of “I don’t want to go!”. That one simple line, of just 5 small words for me, was the bomb, the money shot, the “I don’t want you to go” moment – honestly, that line was magical. Props to you sir, who ever scripted that.

As with all Dr Who regens, the season ends with the new kid on the block left with about 5 minutes to affirm their place on the Dr Who block. Let’s face it though, it wouldn’t matter who it was doing what ever they wanted, it would be a miracle if they could turn you around in that short time, following Tennant’s departure. Did he do it for you? Is it too soon to say? Don’t worry, the grief process works in 5 stages, one of them being acceptance – you will be ok – you will be fine.

So we will have to wait now, to see where the Dr Who franchise goes next, will it ever be the same though?

Hey Not blogged on here for ages, and as 2009 was about to come to an end I thought I should put one last blog form this decade.

I’m sure this entry will be more of a diary come journal come memory for me rather than an interesting Diggable post for anyone else, but hey – you don’t have to keep reading.

I can honestly say, that I think the last ten years of my life have been the most significant of all my 38 years alive on this planet. A lot has happened, good and bad I guess. Some major events and some minor ones too.

I completed my nurse training, got my first proper job and earned over £10,000 per year for the first time in my life. Nursed dying people. Changed jobs. Got jaded in my work. Got inspired in my work. Still do my work.

I got married and had a child. Had holidays abroad. Bought lots of useless soul sucking gadgets. Got debt. Made friends. Lost friends. Bought a house and got a mortgage. Bought more needless items of consumerism.

Went to the pictures by myself. Downloaded many gigs of torrents (and uploaded only a fraction – sorry Demonoid). Got an iPhone. Started various blogs and bought some domain names. Come up 1st when you google my name. Found a hobby in photography. Watched loads of TV shows.Subscribed to loads of Podcasts.

So busy and so many things that I’ve done. I remember feeling really weird when it was 2001 as it finally became the year of the masterful Sci Fi 2001 A Space Odyssey. Now it’s almost 2010, which is the year of the sequel, will I feel weird again? Who know. Who knows what even the next decade will bring. More tech, more gadgets, more explosions and acts that make it to Sky News? I guess so.

I’m rambling now and on the verge of getting pompous and pretentious so I’ll stop. If you are reading, then I hope you too had a significant last decade and like me, realise how fast life whizzes past. See you in 10

Due to the recent start of Fit4fun at my place of work – I joined a gym yo both get fit and loose a few pounds (or 10).

The first few sessions were both horrid and embarrasing, but after todays session I actually quite enjoyed it.

After the initial warm up (when I feel like quiting) I start to get into the stride of it. Today I was able to do all of my tasks, which is nice and it felt like progress.

I never thought I would be able to jog for 10 minutes on a treadmill – w00t!!!

The only downside seems to be, that when I hopped on the scales for a cheeky look, I don’t seem to have lost any weight.

I know I have only been to 4 gym sessions and losing some weight in that time (a week) may be over ambiscious, but I was hoping for at least a few pounds ……

You have to love these stop motion videos, purely for the time it must have taken.

This one is kinda cute as well

Came across this CreateHDR website the other day, where you get to upload an image then move some sliders around to produce a HDR type image.

It's HDR, but no as we know it

It’s not bad, considering the original files are not RAW, but on some of the examples on the website, I prefer the original image. Still, it’s free and worth a look

After what seems like an eternity, the J.J Abrams show Fringe is set to return to our screens – we hope.

The show had a rocky start, losing viewers and ratings, but for those who persisted the investment has paid off.

There has been much speculation as to whether the show would be canceled, but discussion over in the TV.com forums seems to suggest the show will run for at least one full season.

Let’s hope so – as I for one will miss some of the classic quotes from Victor. In fact, I remember a discussion like this back my lab!

BOOM!! Headshot!

OH MY GOSH!! I have invested time in this show which, after a great start, took a dip (losing viewers) but has slowly regained control as a watchable show.

This weeks episode of The Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles was great. Full of surprises. I hadn’t realised that the season was coming to an end and to therefore expect some action, but this episode could have almost been the season finale.

It has however, placed itself as the prefect pre-season finale, what with some major character killing and the upcoming meet of Sarah and Weaver. Bring it on

Today, 4th April 2009,  saw The Rifles Parade in Exeter city center. Exeter City Council report that today,

“… a parade by The Rifles Regiment who, only a few days earlier, will have returned from a tour of Afghanistan. This event, for which HRH The Duke of Gloucester will be present, will include a short service of thanksgiving for them returning safely as well as a service of remembrance for their colleagues who sadly did not return home.”

Welcome home lads

I decided to go along with camera and iPhone to try and record some of the event both in photos, and on Twitter.

It was a strange event, in that I had no real oppinion of how I felt before I went along. There was however a big turn out which was impressive and good to know there is support for the troops at a local level.

The police presence was not over powering, but enough to be aware they were there. There is always a risk of protestors these days, and the only trouble I saw was a travellor/homeless type lass have her bongos taken off her.

Lets be having those bongos please

I was quite clear to see, from both reaction of the crowd (seen in the photos) and by the number of people that later shouted abuse at the lady , that her presence there was not liked. I’m not sure whether she was playing them or just being a pain but either way, she had them taken off her.

Police trialing new communication device

Read more…

Wow, this weeks episode of Dollhouse was fantastic. Almost at the mindf**k stage even. Just when I thought the show was peaking too early, it slides back into 5th gear. Very good.

As always, my scene of the show goes to …

Death by fire extinguisher

A classic scene, even if the device was probably made of foam, it still made me go “oooooooooooh”

Taken from Twit_ch tweet stream, I see there is a domestic violence add featuring Keira Knightley. The advert is calling for a donation for the Womens Aid charity.

You can watch the advert online at CutMovie.co.uk – the name will become clear when you watch it. Please be warned though that the clip shows Keira having the shit kicked out of her …..

It’s Thursday so it’s Lost day, and with out any major spoilers the episode focuses in Kate and what happened with son, Aaron. Watch the episode if you want the details.

During Season 5, I have found that each episode choses one character then flits to and fro from past, present and future supplying back fill on the plot.

It's a chatfest bewteen these two

Although they currently lack the pace and drama of previous episodes they are slowly pulling things together. This weeks episode highlight for me, was the short but very comical exchange between Hugo and Miles re. time travel. Hugo makes a classic Back To The Future reference, and their dialouge makes the episode for me.

Homemade Bokeh baby

As it’s Wednesday and Happy Bokeh Wednesday on Flickr, I thought about what I could do to create my Bokeh photo. As I was walking Lucy to Nursery I spotted a giant Dandelion which gave me an idea for a shot.

When I got back home, I taped the Dandelion to an old tripod and set up a small shoot at the top of the stairs, outside the bathroom (a good source of natural diffused light in my house). I took a few snaps but decided something was missing – of course, the bokeh.

The first thing that came into my head for some man made specular lighting was … some crinkled tin foil as a back drop. A little bit of trial and error, and an aperture of f1.8, and the above image was created.

Not bad …. I mean not great either, but for a quick rushed job it served a purpose.

I’ve been watching Dollhouse now since Episode 1, and after a rocky start it seems to be picking up. For more details on Dollhouse click me.

I am liking it more and more now, buying into the characters, looking out for their safety etc etc, but it is hard to ignore the blatant dress code of some of the Dolls. Maybe this is a play on the Doll theme, but Episode 7 reached a new peek for me.

Seeing Eliza Dushku ambling around in her extremely short skirt with thigh length fishnet type stockings, was just kinda ….. weird. It took me away form what I assume is trying to be a serious TV show for the geekdom, into a cheesy tackfest of hot chicks.

Both on their own I have to say are great but combined – I’m not so sure

Seems that my neighbours were burgled yesterday

The eerie thing is that it happened while I was sat down stairs watching a movie. They took her LCD TV, some money, a passport, some jewelry amongst other items.

Dam!

I need to look into some home security

I’m sat here watching 2001 A Space Odyssey in HiDef (on a 360 HD DVD player) thinking, dam this film looks amazing for 1968. Then I start thinking about the format I’m watching it on and ask, what ever happened to the HD Video war?

I am always on the look out for new gadgets or tech to buy into, yet this supposed HiDef revolution doesn’t seem to be lighting my fire. It is hard to believe that not so long ago, movie studios and hardware manufacturers where fighting to get you to buy into their format, before HD DVD finaly collapsed against the might Sony.

But what has happened since then to the triumphant HiDef format – Is there a BluRay player in every room? Does every household now own a HDTV and are DVD’s now obsolete with the domination of BluRay? Well the answer to all those questions ….. no! Infact ever since Sony won the HD format war, BluRay and its HiDef veil seems to have, well fizzled out.

The average person on the street, I don’t think, can really tell or be bothered about the difference between DVD and HiDef DVD, at least not enough to buy both a brand new TV and replace their DVD collection. It has to be said, that running a DVD movie through an upscaling DVD player (onto a HDTV) looks even better than DVD, although obviously not as good as a BluRay DVD.

Even though I could buy an entry level BluRay player to go with my HDTV – I don’t want to. Sure I don’t watch that many DVD’s these days, but the bang for my buck over my current upscaled DVD setup is just not high enough. So if Sony cannot get wimful geeks like me to buy into this technology, what hope is their for the average shopper in the highstreet.

I’m sticking with my DVD setup for now, until at least BluRay players are about £50 – £100 for a decent machine.

Twice now following a Windows XP install followed by Windows XP SP 3 I have found that subsequent Windows Updates fail to install.

After some research, the technique that seems to work for me is to register the wups2.dll file, from the Windows Support pages:

To register the Wups2.dll file in Windows, follow these steps:

1.    Stop the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:
a.     Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
b.     At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
net stop wuauserv

2.    Register the Wups2.dll file. To do this, follow these steps:
a.     At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\wups2.dll
Note For a computer that is running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
regsvr32 %windir%\syswow64\wups2.dll
b.     Click OK on each verification message that you receive.

3.    Start the Automatic Updates service. To do this, type the following command at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
net start wuauserv

4.    Exit the command prompt. To do this type exit, and then press ENTER.

Oh my god – I am SOO low right now!!

You cannot believe the tech day from HELL I am having trying to upgrade the components that I ordered in the prvious post.

Sure – they came before 10am which is amazing considering I ordered them last night at 1950.

The mobo swap out was straight forward, but I struggled to get the CPU fan back in place – got there in eventually.

The PC booted up and went through some driver installs, so far so good. I decided to activate XP, it did it sweet that was a bonus and saved a phone call.

Next up I tried to install the GFX drivers – a PNY GeForce 7300 GS card – lame but passively cooled therefore quiet. But this is where things start to go wrong – VERY wrong.

After the PC reboots – the screen res diverts to a shocking 800×600 at 4bit – YUK.

I can do nothing to change this – the driver is showing the card installed and all working, but numerous attempts fails to get the card to run properly.

Next stop I download the latest nForce chipset drivers from the nVidia website. I install them. There are a few rouge device blips that are still waiting for drivers. The PC chomps away, added new bits of hardware then BOOOM!!!! Windows XP pops up a dialogue box:

Since first installing, this PC’s hardware has changed a lot and therefore needs re-activating.

WTF!! I’ve not added any new hardware since activating – just installed some drivers

I continue to try LOTS of different things to fix the display drivers – no luck – it seems screwed. As a plan B, I decide to back up my data, photos and music etc, to the second partition on the new drive. Then I discover that, as there was an existing drive in the loop with my old copy of windows installed, the new windows has installed onto J drive, and not C – Don’t you hate that?!?!

With a 4 bit display, I paifully copy all of my data from one internal drive on the second partition of the new drive – get it? My plan is to then re-format the old drive, remove it from the PC then re-install Windows again with the hope of a) the Display working and b) getting Windows back on C drive.

By this time I’m tired and fucked off, and not thinking properly. I’m in the Manage Drive option from My Computer and looking at the two installed Hard Drives. I click on the first partition to delete and remove it. Then I have an idea, ad try to rename the partition letter from within this application.

But I get a strange error message, telling me I can’t rename Boot drive letters.

Boot drive letter- What?

Then it hits me – like a great big hard lump of smelly dig shit right in the face. I’ve just deleted the partition  that has ALL of my backed up data. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Right now – I’m desperate. My little office is fricking boiling because the PC has been on all day. I’m in the process of re-installing Windows now for the second time today – I still have no idea whether the GFX card problem will be resolved. I’ve just deleted ALL OF MY FRICKING DATA – Photos, Music, Videos the whole bloody lot, and for what? Just to gain 3GBps rather than 1.5GBps

Like I said – I feel low right now

Freecycle is a concept that has been around for some time now. Basically:

Don’t fill our landfill holes with stuff you could give away

That is the basic concept of this community. You have something that you’re about to throw at the tip? Don’t, put it on Freecycle instead.

It works very similar to an online auction site in that you post a message for something you want to get rid off to a message board. People who are then local to you and also view the message board can reply and show an interest in the item. Simple.

Yesterday I manage to Freecycle two items that have been sat in a cupboard taking up space but I cannot bring my self to throw out – Yay! And I got absolutely NOTHING in return!!!!

Huh?

Well that is what you feel at first, but remember Freecycle is a community, and although you give stuff away for nothing you also get access to a collection of stuff that other people don’t want – for free!

With this in mind, you should remember that if your junk has some potential worth maybe you should consider just trying to sell it secondhand instead. Freecycle is basically just like a virtual tip where people get access to it’s list of contents with an opportunity to take it rather than have it dumped.

I don’t think it will be for everyone, and like BitTorrent fileshares, it will only work if people both give and receive into the network. So go on – check it out, you won’t believe the crap that people Freecycle

I need help!!

After endless hours of watching Balaromy on CBeebies, my mind has gone numb.

As you could imagine, my mind now starts to wonder and every time I watch the show  and the song starts about what colour house they should go to, I can’t help but think about … what colour panties Miss Hoolie is wearing!!

Yes I know it’s wrong and perverted, but is does show you that a human mind subjected to tedium and boredom can and will distort.

Hope we go to the pink house today

On Friday, Project Gotham Racing 4 is out for the XBOX 360!! w00t!!! Only that’s not the case, at least for me.

There was a time when I would be trying all my game stores in an attempt to get the game a day early just to be first to play it, yet with PGR4 I find myself pondering whether even to get it on Friday at all.

Now it must be said that driving games are not my favourite genres of game. I’m pretty shit at them and tend to usualy come last in a Multiplayer game, but this is not the reason why I’m shunning the title. It’s more to do with title saturation.

Back in the olden days, an A list title would come out and you were left hammering it for months while waited for some tiny rumour that a sequel may happen let alone make it to gold. These days, your still winding down from the games hype when you are reading about when the next title is out, let alone in development. I find it a strange time to be releasing PGR4 right now, when Forza 2 is still a relatively new release, and also Halo 3 is still exerting its might over gaming time.

I played the Demo of PGR4 yesterday, and although it does look ….. different …. from PGR3 is it such a huge leap? Of course there is nice weather effects to look at and the infamous motorbike inclusion, but is it not just a reskinned PGR3?

I don’t know, I’m a gamer who’s interest is slowly fading over the years with change, but my appreciation of upcoming titles just seems diluted now compared to how it used to be. I remember being so hyped over the Zanzibar video pre Halo 2 release, yet this time around I was ….. yeah it’s Halo 3, I’ll pick it up (I was at Tesco at midnight to be fair to get the game).

Looking at the release line up for the 360. I wonder whether too many A list killer titles can actually have a negative effect on a console rather than maybe 1 or 2 annual titles. Who knows, more to the fact what do I know?!!