Stuff-O-Rama

The latest of Marvel’s supers to get an outing Ironman does a great job of taking the original material and ‘modding’ in light of modern events.  Gone are the Chinese Communists who capture industrialist Tony Stark replaced by Afghan Terrorists, and if you know the back story to Ironman there’s plenty here, even down to the final battle with Obadiah Stane.  They even throw a bit of life imitating art, or might be the other way around, as both Tony Stark the character and Robert Downey Jr the actor have had alcohol problems.  And of course Stan Lee gets a cameo doing a respectable impersonation of Hugh Hefner.  

I heard a few people say if the best superhero movie they’ve seen, and the reviews seem to suggest that, but when I asked Mrs C what she thought she replied that whilst is was a fine example of the genre it was a bit ‘lumpy’…and I tend to agree.  In a few places it seems to slow down unnecessarily and maybe the odd nip and tuck in the editing suite could have smoothed those ‘lumps’ out.  Don’t get me wrong as superhero films go it’s a cracker, the flying sequences are wonderful, but I never really connected with Ironman in the same way I did with say Spiderman and the every so slightly superior XMen.  There I said it…XMen is the best superhero movie ever made. 

Been using my LoveFilm membership to catch up with movies missed at the cinema, the latest being The Last King of Scotland starring James McAvoy and Forest Whitaker and I wish I’d seen it on the big screen as it’s very, very good indeed. 

Based on the Giles Foden novel of the same name, published in 1998, it’s a fictional account of an idealistic young doctor who becomes the Ugandan leader’s personal physician.  Both Whitaker and McAvoy are sterling in the lead roles and Whitaker undoubtedly deserved his 2006 Oscar, he’s frightening, childlike, charismatic, amiable and brutal…sometimes seemingly all at once.  I won’t give anymore away but if you haven’t seen it rent it or buy it as it’s a cracking movie. 

I’m not sure what I expected, the film poster seems to promise slapstick, but here is an incredibly thoughtful, dark, funny, bloody wonderfully acted piece of cinema.  Have them speak French, add some subtitles and you’d have a classic Gallic movie.  And to cap it all they avoid the typical Hollywood happy ending. 

Reviewers have compared it to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, they always seem hell bent on comparing on movie with another, but I think that’s like comparing Heart FM with Radio 4.  Daft. 

Go see it. 

If you’ve never played D&D this won’t mean an awful lot, but to all those who spend any time playing D&D Gary Gygax is a seminal figure whose death will be marked by a raising of a glass and a hearty thanks for taking us out of our normal life’s…if only for a brief moment.

Now and again you stumble across something that makes you go <insert superlative of choice>.   The World Wide Telescope does just that and you don’t even have to an interest in astronomy to see how genius it is.  The client will be available for download soon…

It even made Scoble cry.

The success of the iPod and portable music players in general has meant that many have abandoned the idea of what we’d would consider a typical stereo or HiFi setup,  however almost every speaker dock I’ve every taken to time to listen to is a compromise of size and sound quality.  Some are frankly rubbish.

Wandering through my local John Lewis yesterday I clapped my eyes on a Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin for the first time and I had to stop and take a closer gander.  It’s a stunner.  It’s bigger than you might think too and a not insubstantial 16Ibs in weight.  And the sound is as you’d expect from B&W…

There is only one small issue though and that’s the price.  A credit card frightening £399.  But you know what…an object like this speaks to the heart as much as the head and is for me at least sums up what Donald Norman called Emotional Design. 

Shouldn’t all the things we live with be as much about the head as the heart?

I picked up a Ryobi One Plus starter kit a few weeks ago, it even came with a free additional Reciprocating Saw, and I have to say I’m impressed.  The 18v rechargeable system works well, in particular the Drill, Driver and Circular Saw which I’ve got the most use out of so far.  Only the Mini Vac seems not quite up to muster and will undoubtedly end up on eBay in the next few weeks. 

I’m becoming a big fan of Ryobi kit, I already have the Compound Mitre Saw, as they seem an ideal balance between price and quality.   Of course I could have gone for DeWalt  instead but for the price one cordless drill I can have a whole box of Ryobi kit and I don’t think the price hike reflects the difference in quality.

I never thought for a moment that the Binge Thinking History Podcast would have taken off quite as well as it has.  OK…it’s not getting monster downloads like my mate Pete Cogle does with his fantastic Dub Zone, but for a history podcast it holds it’s own and bubbles under or on occasion breaks into the top 20 or 25 on iTunes both in the US and UK. 

Now it gets it’s first, or that may be second review by history blogger and podcast reviewer Anne Frid De Vries. 

And a must listen from Dan Brown.  Surely not that Dan Brown.

The next episode of Binge Thinking History is up and posted.  It’s the 2nd part of my look at the Battle of Britain and as I’m finding out it’s going to take a few more episodes than a thought to cover the subject as there is so much more to the story of the summer of 1940 over Southern England.  And Aldertag or Eagle Day hasn’t even happened yet.

Is it possible to drive across America without giving any money to ‘the man’?  No chain stores, no chain motels and no chain petrol stations or gas stations you must, in the 2700 miles from San Francisco to New York.  A sort of Naomi Klein Road Trip.  What started as an experiment to understand how much America is dependant on ‘chains’, ‘multiples’ or ‘brands’  and to see if you can travel across the country only using ‘independent’ and ‘Mom & Pop’ businesses, it ended up as a wonderful picture of an America that is essentially what we all, even those of us who aren’t Americans, understand the country to be.  The backbone of America is not MacDonalds, Starbucks or Wal-Mart but the thousands of small independent businesses that to glue to country together.  Dave Gorman gave us a glimpse of an America that might soon be gone forever. 

Even the car he drove was a metaphor.