Author: Grant

Mo Movies

Last night we took Nykolai and one of his friends to the Astor to see Kung Fu Panda. So glad we did as it was a great movie and we haven’t laughed so much in ages. We’ll definitely be picking up this one on DVD.

I’ve also realised I’d forgotten to list a few other movies we’ve seen lately, including:

Prince Caspian:
While a fun movie, it wasn’t anything super spectacular and was about on par with the first Narnia movie. If anything, it was not quite as good as the first. Still, worth seeing and maybe one day we’ll buy both of them on DVD.

Spiderwick Chronicles:
This was also a fun movie but, once again, nothing amazing or worth writing home about. Not in any real hurry to see it again but I’d probably get it on DVD.

Iron Man:
This was a great movie and we really enjoyed seeing this one. We went Gold Class to see it and I’d quite happily go and see it again in the cinemas. Definitely one for the DVD collection.

Night Watch and Day Watch:
A pair of Russian movies that are very grainy and raw – a good pair of movies that tell a story that spans them both. Based on the books of the same name, the movies a similar but with a few plot twists and changes. They’re not the usual Hollywood style movie having a dirty, disjoint and off-center feel to them. Oh yeah, and they’re in Russian with subtitles. While we enjoyed the movies and may very well wind up with them in the DVD collection, I have to say I preferred the books more. There’s a third book called Twighlight Watch that I’m about to start reading. It’s apparently going to be made into a movie as well so we’ll see how that all hangs together next year when it’s due.

Indiana Jones – Crystal Skull:
Returning to the adventure of the first movie, this one substituted religious mysticism for science fiction as the driving force behind the search & discovery. A good story with the usual larger-than-life action stunts that kept your attention right through it. Definitely a keeper.

Munchkins Engrossed

We’ve got one of Nykolai’s friends staying over with us tonight. We had talked about going to the movies but Kitt’s sick and I’m zonked after a long week. So, to make up for not going out to see Hancock and Zohan, I picked up a copy of Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii.

I got home about 7pm with the game and they started playing. It’s now gone 10:30pm, they’ve eaten dinner (go pizza!) and they’re still buried in the game. I went in before to see how they were doing:

“Hey munchkins, how’s it going?”
“Good”
“You guys tired?”
“Nope”
“It’s 10:30, you know…”
“Really?”
“How’s the game?”
“Great”

All this while totally focused on the screen and the game. Kitt went into the lounge before to get a couple of things and they were fully engrossed in the game, hardly even reacting when she climbed over the couch to get back out again.

Guess it’s not a bad game then…

Hurricanes Galore

Gotta feel sorry for the folks in the Bahamas and the Carribean – they’re getting pounded by a series of tropical storms and hurricanes this season. We’ve already had Tropical Storm Fay go up the edge of Florida and Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana. Now there’s Tropical Storm Hanna which was a Hurricane for a short period before it dropped back to TS level. It’s working its way to Florida and North Carolina with a good chance it’ll go back up to Hurricane status. All of these are dumping massive amounts of rain on the area causing flooding, wind damage and general chaos.

As if all that wasn’t enough there’s also Cyclone Ike that’s way out in the Atlantic and was Category 4 (on a scale of 1 to 5) but is (as of the moment) Cat 3. Plus there’s Tropical Storm Josephine all the way over closer to Africa. You can see a lot of this over at the National Hurricane Center

Given the season officially started on June 1st and we’re up to the J’s already, if this keeps up it’s going to be one hell of a bad time to be an insurer. The folks who live around this area are going to be in for a rough ride – glad I’m living well away from it.

Busy Day

Yesterday wound up being quite a busy day. I spent some time in the morning racing Nykolai in Burnout with smash competitions and trying to clock best time in a champ car. From there it was a walk down to Carlisle St to get food to make for dinner then lug it all home.

Once home I headed over to Reservoir so I could drop off AG’s extremely cool “oil can guitar” that he’d picked up in South Africa. An amazing piece of work where the body is literally an old oil can with wood neck, hand made pickups and controls. From there we drove over to Brunswick East to pick up AG’s car that had been sitting under a tree for months while he was overseas. Clearing off the collection of possum poo, cobwebs and leaves was the least of the problems. Battery was dead (jump started from my car) and brake fluid was very low, but we got it running and ready to go.

Not long after getting home I got a call from Carlo to see if I wanted to come down to his Flight Experience store and spend some time in their 737-800 simulator. How could I refuse that? So, after dinner it was off to the city and 3 hours in the cockpit flying into and out of airports around the world.

Another busy, happy Saturday but not much time for rest today either: I’m about to head off to Queen Victoria Markets to do the week’s shopping then we have lunch with Kitt’s brother. Maybe some down time will be possible this arvo? Maybe?

Loss of faith in Political Parties

It seems that while they may connect with political causes, young people have lost faith in political parties. They perceive the issues to be bigger than any political party can handle as they’re global issues.

Well, there’s a shock. I can’t imagine how young people could be losing respect for those in power in this (and other countries). I mean, it’s not as if politicians are lying, cheating, conniving bums who are out for whatever they can get, only interested in the voter when it’s election time, change their stance to suit the moment, favour quick soundbites over real meaning and can barely think ahead to the next election let alone do any real long term planning. I mean, really, that’s not like them at all, right?

Oh, was that me being cynical and sarcastic? Ooops – ‘scuse me…

Best Foot Forward

It’s that time of the year once again and last night was Nykolai’s school performance. Usually these are rather cringe-worthy events that remind me all too much of the Addams Family movie so last night’s show was a very pleasant change. Directed by the school’s music teacher, the show was well put together and brought out the best in the kids, really stretching them with memorised lines, choreography and singing. It’s great to see someone bringing out the best in kids, respecting their abilities and not playing down to them. From the wild reactions of the kids when she was thanked for her efforts, it’s clear that they really love her for it.

The only downside to the night was the venue was in a hall, with flat seating and a relatively low stage. We wound up seated at the back and didn’t see a lot of the action, which was a shame.

Exit, Sensis

Since early October 2007, I’ve been working for EDS on a project at Sensis. At first I was sent in to turn around the Transition to Production (T2P) operation as part of the online directories support team (White Pages and Yellow Pages).

At the end of June this year, Sensis IT went through a bit of a shake up and our engagement with them moved as well, with the T2P process now being performed by dev rather than support, etc. As part of the change, I was asked to be Production Support Lead as a temporary role from July 1st until a permanent replacement could be arranged. As of this week, my replacement started and over the next couple of weeks I’ll be handing over to him and backing out.

The Sensis gig has been one heck of a project and quite demanding. It’s taught me a few things and I’ve met a lot of fun people but after almost a year in there it’s time to move on. I’ll miss the people and the fun but I probably won’t miss the health hassles (I’ve been sick so often since last year – I’m sure that place has a problem with aircon or something). Not sure what my next project will be but I expect I’ll know more in another week.

Minor Maintenance – but I did it :)

Still been having problems with the car over the past couple of weeks – seems the lead to the positive terminal on the battery was getting loose. I’d go to start the car, it wouldn’t fire over (just like the previous hassles) so I’d pop the hood, jump out, push the lead back in and try to reseat it in the socket and then fire it up. Most times it worked first go – some times it needed a couple of tries.

This morning I finally got the time to take the positive lead off and disassemble it all (fortunately it’s *really* simple). Cleaned it, repositioned the cables and put it all back together again. So far so good and all seems to be right again. If only getting the breaks, suspension and aircon sorted out were so easy…

More lessons in how not to market your services

About a month ago, I was having a run in with a domain registrar that just didn’t get it. Back then, despite their best efforts, I managed to move my domain to another registrar although they did keep contacting me afterwards about confirming the transfer (ummm, it’s already been done) and then an email re: expiring domain (erm, no, it’s been renewed during the transfer).

Surprisingly, they called me today and left a message saying that my domain was expiring. An amazing demonstration of disconnection between marketing/renewals and actual content. I called back but it was after 5pm on a Friday, so they’d already left. Guess we’ll see how they handle the “Umm, no, it’s already gone” message on Monday.