The Smile-Manner Squadron

I came across this story whilst flicking through the BBC site. It was on the most e-mailed list so it seems others feel the same way I do.

The Japanese feel that the 'old ways' of etiquette and politeness are being eroded in modern Japanese society. Any other country would put this down to changing times and accept the sad inevitability that this is just the world we live in now...

Not Japan!

They send in The Smile-Manner Squadren to put a stop to people talking loudly on their mobiles, listening to their MP3 players at annoying volumes and (this is Japan) not respecting their elders and social betters.

This makes me really happy. I'm sure there are people that think this is ridicules (I'll refrain from throwing in a Big Brother/Thought Police reference) and in some ways it is - manners shouldn't have to be enforced (no matter how cool the name of the enforcers is). However, I would happily have this in England. The English are supposed to be known for their manners but that doesn't really equate to the experiences most people have of our fine race (sarcasm?).

So the next time you see some teenagers playing music through their mobile phones on the bus or train, think about the world we could live in if only we employed the Smile-Manner Squadron.

Movies of Last Week

The Hunger
Deliverance
Grease
Bubba Ho-Tep

Movies of Last Week

The Green Mile
To Kill a Mocking Bird
Eastern Promises

Eastern Promises

I've just finished watching Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg's latest film. One thing I really can't get my head around is that fact that Cronenberg is not considered one of modern cinemas greats. His last two films, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, are arguably two of the most stunning pieces of cinema of this century. Both films have been highly praised by critics but very few people seem to have seen them and although recognition from the film academy has provided a few nominations, performances from Viggo Mortensen and Cronenberg's direction clearly deserve more.

As anyone who speaks to me will know, The Fly is one of my all time favourite movies. I also consider Videodrome and Scanners as two of the best ventures into body horror by any director. Cronenberg, however, has moved away from the grotesque body and seems to be focusing realistic and altogether more disturbing event - violence, human trafficking, rape and families being torn apart by lies (made even more frightening when it's set in your future home city). 

These latest ventures may not make your skin crawl like watching Jeff Goldblum pull out his finger nails but at least you know the chances of becoming a human/fly hybrid are slim to none... getting embroiled with the Russian Mafia on the other hand...

Applecare 2

Success!

My iMac is covered under warranty until 2010.

Applecare

I've been trying to decide on whether it was a good idea to purchase 'Applecare' for a while now. I'm not usually one for buying extended warranties but I kept having a really niggling feeling in the back of my head over my iMac. If a console breaks after 18 months, it's not a tragedy. It's not an essential tool and will only cost around £200 to replace (probably a lot less than it's price 18 months prior). Even a regular computer tower is easy to fix yourself with it's easily accessible insides.

An iMac on the other hand.

Everything is soldered to the logic board (motherboard) including the CPU, GPU, sound card, USB, Firewire.Add to that the fact that the monitor is attached to the thing and it really starts to look like a DIYers nightmare. I wouldn't even know where to start taking it apart.

For this reason I have done the responsible thing and acquired myself an extra couple of years of peace of mind. I even shopped around a bit. Apple sell Applecare for £139.00.  It's a bit less with the student discount (available to me if my girlfriend uses her name and card) but it's still more than I can comfortably afford at this time.

eBay to the rescue! I managed to grab a great bargain - £65 from an American seller.

Now lets just hope an American code works over here in Blighty...

Another reason to hate Windows Vista...

... As if you needed any more.

I'll set the scene.  A friend of mine purchased a shiny new Sony Vaio laptop. It came pre-installed with Vista as most computers do nowadays. It quickly became a bit of a running joke - his two favourite wording being 'fucking' and 'Vista'. 

Now I took it upon myself to tout the advantages of Ubuntu Linux - free software, easy installation, can easily dual boot with Windows.

Or so I thought.

Apparently Vista doesn't like it when the partition it resides on is split or resized. I discovered this halfway through partitioning the drive using gParted.  This, as you can imagine, caused me quite a bit or worry. I had rendered my friend's computer unusuable (well, it was running the Ubuntu Live CD fine). 

After much googling I found that Vista required me to insert the Vista DVD and perform a system repair which would put everything back to a nice workable state.

This would be easy if it were not for the fact that my friend has a Sony Vaio. I like Sony, I think they make excellent consumer electronics but the fact that they don't include system disks when you buy a computer is awful.  What you get is a 'Recovery Partition' that not only steals 9GB from your hard drive but can only be booted from Vista (What the fuck!?!). 

So to fix my friends computer (well, I say fix, I mean return it to it's previous state.  To fix it I would have to continue with the Ubuntu installation) I had to illegally download a copy of Vista just to use the system repair utility.

I am now too scared to continue with the Ubuntu installation for fear of destroying everything on the Windows side. I am sure that this is a devilish ploy by Microsoft to stop people exploring the wonder that is Open Source computing and frankly, it will work. 

I know I use a Mac, which is probably the most locked down system you can buy, but at least I made a conscious decision to buy one. Most people don't know about anything outside of Windows and Microsoft is making it impossible for people to enlighten themselves. I'm not saying Windows doesn't have it's uses (such as gaming) but a basic Linux installation would be sufficient for 80% of computer users. We just need to move away from the Windows-centric model where everything on the internet is explained as though you are using Internet Explorer.

Anyway, this is probably a subject for a whole other post... 

Movies of Last Week

I'm very pressed for time as I need to get back to work, but here is this weeks Movies post. Have a look at my previous post on Diary of the Dead for my reaction to the new Romero Dead film.

Sin City

Sixteen Candles

No Country For Old Men

Diary of the Dead

Diary of the Dead

I was pleasantly surprised on Tuesday of last week when I discovered that the new Romero Dead film was being released this week. 

I was, however, less than pleasantly surprised when I actually went to the cinema to see it on Friday. I'm not sure I like the emerging 'found film' genre  that we've been seeing recently. I absolutely despised 'The Zombie Diaries' - a low budget British attempt at the zombie genre that was presented in the form of 'found footage'.  Cloverfield is probably the best recent attempt although it still suffered from annoying characters and awful acting...

I think that is the real trouble with these films.  When watching a regular film, we expect the acting to be just that - acting.  The action is stylized and we accept this because it is a film... it's not real.  This does not work when a film is masquerading as a documentary or a home video (with the obvious exception of Rob Reiner's Spinal Tap, Best in Show... etc).  The audience has to be completely convinced that the actors are real people dealing with real (although completely impossible) events.

Anywho... Diary of The Dead has all of these faults and more and this is coming from someone who loves all four of the other movies... hell, I even love the Tom Savini remake of Night of The Living Dead. The acting is atrocious, the characters are arseholes and the story is almost non existent.

I think the real problem is the lack of claustrophobia.  The thing that made the original trilogy, and to a lesser extent Land of the Dead, great was the interaction between the characters while they were holed up either in a house, a shopping mall, an underground bunker or a fortified city. Zombies are just a sideline in these films - a threat that brings a group of mismatched people together and forces them to cooperate (or not) to survive.  

I did, however, enjoy the 'zombies don't run' jokes. You're right George, they really don't.

Xubuntu

I've been meaning to post about this for a while now. As was mentioned in the previous post, my girlfriend's 7 year old Apple TiBook died... well, I think it may just be the power adapter as it was making some iffy, sparky sounds in the proceeding weeks. This forced me to dig out our old 12 inch Samsung ultra portable (PIII 700Mhz, 192MB RAM, 20GB HDD). It was running Windows ME (eugh!) so I decided it was time to try out the streamlined, Ubuntu  derived Linux distribution Xubuntu. 

I am really impressed with it so far.  Obviously my RAM is really hindering performance (the website recommends 192MB RAM but that's probably in the same way that Apple recommends 512MBs for Leopard) but overall, it's definitely usable.

Our living room PC was running Ubuntu 7.10 briefly before it kept confusing guests (and myself a few times I have to admit) and I do really think that this is the version that has 'made it'. The one problem I had when I first tried to use Ubuntu back in the days of 6.06 was my wireless card.  My card used a Broadcom chip and back then it was a real Linux no no. 

Now with 7.10, this is no longer an issue. 

It just pops up with a helpful message informing you that Ubuntu needs to use a 'non free' driver to properly operate your wireless card and once it is clicked... bam... internet without restraints!

I doubt I'll ever ditch Apple for Linux completely but I am seriously considering purchasing a cheap Core 2 Duo Wintel laptop and using Ubuntu rather than forking out £700 on a Macbook.

Things are looking up!

Apologies again for the lack of posts. I've had a bit of a hectic week with all the joblessness and looking for work.  Not to mention the fact that my flat is a bit of a guest house at the moment. We had two friends staying for the week and another who just likes to crash here... it was crowded to say the least.  I have, therefore, spent most of my time entertaining guests not to mention also helping my girlfriend with university essays. 

All of these things add up to one thing... not a lot of activity in my usual life. I don't think I watched a single movie last week (hence no Movies of last week post) as the living room TV and my bedroom iMac (my girlfriend's TiBook died last week also) were constantly engaged.

I have, however, found myself acceptable temporary employment at The Pensions Regulator telling businesses to hurry up and fill in their updated details.