Thursday Thirteen - Random likes

I was going to do a Thursday Thirteen on music again, like one of my old traditions :-) But I'm going to go random instead, partly inspired by the wonderful madness which is the new Alice film.

1 - Alice in Wonderland. It's not often I get tempted to watch films several times at the cinema but this one definitely gets in that category. Humour runs all the way through and the animation is incredible. It's like live action. Every thing about this film is amazing, I'll definitely be checking out the blu-ray when it comes out.

2 - Mansun. Music :-) One from a while ago. My sister kept letting me listen to the odd Mansun track and I kept going back for more. I now have their entire back catalogue. Here's "I Can Only Disappoint U" from Later as an example of one of their best.

3 - Snow Queens and Sunshine. These two lovely ladies have been amazing over the last few months in putting up with a nutter who's insecurities have been kicked into top gear by the work situation. Now that's resolved, I'll hopefully settle down a bit and give them an easier time of things. That said, they're great sports and can ably deal with their pet Mad Scientist. Thank you for helping keep me sane !
(Not quite sure if "sane" if the right word ...)

4 - Olympics. I didn't watch as much of this as I'd have liked, as the Vancouver events were in a bit of a hostile time zone ... I enjoyed what I did watch. Highlights were Amy Williams winning the Skeleton bob and watching Ice Hockey players clobber each other. Oh yeah - it was scary watching the crash in the women's downhill where one of the competitors must have thought she was doing the Ski Jump event. It was good to see her competing to the full in her next event.

5 - Technology. After holding off for a while, I went for the new tech at Xmas. I've since been enjoying HD telly and the improvements of a blu-ray player. I'm also on my third laptop ... and incidentally about to take on my fourth laptop, although the fourth doesn't really count as it's a work one.

6 - Cardigans. Nooo ! I haven't gotten old and retired the jumpers ... If you can remember back a few years, there was an album called Gran Turismo with the song Favourite Game on it. The people behind that have brought out a lot more music over the years and a not insignificant amount is actually a lot better than Favourite Game. I've just received their Super Extra Gravity album through the post but here's a link to 3.45am No Sleep, one of the highlights from Long Gone Before Daylight.

7 - 3d. This seems to be becoming the Next Big Thing. The marketing and ideas people always like to keep the tech market moving on and need new crazes to provide the drive. A few years ago it was HD, now it's 3d. Yeah, I'll go for this eventually but at the moment, I'm just not bothered enough to pay the extra cash for what I believe to be a placebo effect.

8 - Games. From something that's just caught on to 3d to something that's been doing 3d for years. The PC games market has been able to portray believable 3d worlds on to a 2d screen for quite some time now, without needing glasses or special kit to do so. The brain can do a remarkable job of filling in the detail.

9 - New job. Same team, different role. Had another bit of New Job Geronimo today as I did the admin'y stuff for a meeting which was very effectively run by my 3rd RO. After some of the meetings I've been involved in where there's not much progress but far too much talk, the meetings today were quick, sharp, effective. I hope to learn something while he's still on the project :-)

10 - Watchmen and other blu-ray. I have a little collection of blu-ray movies now ... Watchmen and Terminator 4 are the highlights, although I was reminded of the Total Charm which is Wall-E. Still not convinced if it's worth upgrading to HD unless your old kit breaks but these three films would go a decent way towards persuading someone ...

11 - Snow Patrol. Eyes Open with the signature track Set The Fire To The Third Bar will be the next album I listen to. These guys are a prolific group bringing out a lot of very high quality music. Also put this one down because of all the snow we had this year. It was great fun driving in it and seeing how far I could get before the traction control gave me control back. Was on my very own Snow Patrolling in Scotland a couple of weeks ago, it snowed as we got off the plane but it had turned to rain by the time the taxi ride finished.

12 - Books. Kinda stalled here at page 800 of 950 in a Timothy Zahn triplet. Must get back to it over this weekend so I can finish it and get cracking on another author. It's not that they're a bad trilogy, Timothy Zahn is one of the better "intelligent sci-fi" authors out there. I'm just looking to read about a different world.

13 - New Life. There must be something in the air ... There's a few babies on the way for people I know, with a couple already arriving. We appear to have lost one of our gaming people as his attention has been grabbed by the little one, plus The Boss is on maternity leave as she looks after the MiniBoss. Hope they all do well. It'll be good to see The Boss when she comes back :-)

Right - that's my 13. Time to take a hint from Mansun, which is currently playing the track "Goodbye" from their Little Kix album and maybe another hint from the next track coming up which is "Sleeping Satellite" by Tasmin Archer.

Heh heh heh - sleep later, music now and embarassing a couple of special ladies tomorrow morning when I let 'em know I been writing about them again.

Linkbacks :
1 - Americanising Desi's 13

PS Drop me a link to T13's and I'll add it above. And last of the last : Here's a link to the new Thursday Thirteen home.