IMS_Blog

I’m shocked and horrified. Just before I wanted to know what 20 US dollars equalled in good old UK pounds. So without thinking I just banged “20 dollars in pounds” into the google search box in Firefox. And it didn’t tell me!! Variations on the theme didn’t work either. Seems Google Calculator doesn’t do currency conversion (even roughly, let alone realtime). Come on Google, get your act together.

Well, that was quite a busy weekend, comparatively. Started out on Friday when Rachel and I went to see The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse. That was quite fun, although one undoubtedly needs to be a fan of the TV series to at all appreciate it. That also raises the question of whether it can justify a trip to the cinema to see it but given my track record of actually getting around to seeing all the movies I want to, and the fact Rachel made me ;-), I suppose it’s not bad.

Saturday saw more movie going, this time to take in Batman Begins. That was fun, and a good rebuilding of the batman franchise in movie form. It’s a film which delivers as much Bruce Wayne as Batman, though at times I personally thought it was getting slightly bogged down in its own knowledge of the importance of this. Once past the silly science (it’s comic book so, hey, who cares? It’s not the worst there’s been) then the action is fun and energetic to a climax that is handled competently enough, even if it isn’t particularly original or inspired. There are problems though. Gotham for one, whilst there, feels more like a bright sheen against which to play the movie’s tricks than an actual place. Also, the movies whole concept of “begins” has perhaps seeped too deeply to its core so at the end the whole thing can be seen as the overly long opening shots of the movie its makers intend making next. At least its good fun along the way though, and that next movie will probably be worth seeing.

Sunday we were going to see the British Cycling National Road Race near Helmsley but due to laziness and not-being-botheredness didn’t. Instead Rach and I wandered down to the National Railway Museum (because we like it there) for coffee and scones (and, it turned out, cake). Having enjoyed the refreshments we had a little wander around (the Flying Scotsman poking out of the works into the great hall) before heading into the centre of York. There we spent some time trying to find a pub with an actual beer garden. York Brewery’s The Last Drop Inn should advertise their space as a beer courtyard rather than garden. The Golden Fleece has a more spacious area, although again the word “garden” may have been a little overused. More like yard. On from there to another York Brewery pub, the Three Legged Mare (or Wonkey Donkey as it’s fondly known). Again a small area, but at least it does have a garden feel. Finally the Royal Oak, sans garden, provided food (prawn salad complete with excellent bread rolls).

Well, the fixtures for the 2005/06 premiership season are out. Tough start for the lads away to Arsenal. Dates for the diary are the 22 October and (getting very near the end of the season) the 17 April, when we once again get a proper north east derby. The end of season run in doesn’n actually look that bad (if you discount the unpredictability of a derby and just except we’ll win) until you notice that we’ve somehow ended up with Chelsea as last game again. Of course, all this is before the TV people have their play to mess up the schedule. Ah well, haway the lads

Or, an I’m not dead post. Phone line is sorted and nice, clever Sky+ was installed yesterday. However, failure of he hard disk on the main PC has resulted in a broadband delay :-( New drive is on order and should be here by Thursday. More pizza and beer may be owed to Ed to help with a fresh install. Or perhaps I’ll just buy him a spare umbrella ;-)

The new house is nice, complete with the Flying Scotsman parking up at the end of the garden between runs. Still surrounded by boxes though. It’s as if we just aquire new ones to replace those we manage to get rid of. Ah well, better go and put some shelves up, or sort out the ever increasing length of grass in the garden, or, well, a million and one other things it seems

I managed to catch some of Live 8 (oh dear, am I the only one thinks that name is too clever for its own good). I’m not about to try and fathom whether the whole extravagancer is actually doing any good or not (it did keep occuring to me to wonder how much those sets cost when all was needed was a mike and some speakers). I just enjoyed the interactive coverage (even though it could have done with more information about who was appearing where and when). Possibly worth it for Rachel to say (I paraphrase) “I think The Who are quite good”. Er, no, really? Well I never :-)

This weekend I finally got around to investigating the loft in the new house. Strange the things people leave behind. Rummaging around with nought but a trusty maglight meant I ended up bringing down things I might not have bothered with on Saturday, but today I finally managed to find the switch for the light up there (hidden beneath insulation and not at all obvious—I ended up tracing the wiring by torch light).

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