Jenni's new bike: Scott Contessa 50

Looks good, no? I am jealous. It's a ladies MTB but it does feature a traditional diamond shaped frame (Aluminium 6061) with ladies geometry. Why can't mine come in a similar light blue colour, and not boring black?

The fork is a Top Gun (by Scott?) thingy. I suspect that it will go in about a year's time to be replaced by something better, maybe a RockShox. Rear derailleur is a Shimano Acera while the front is a Shimano FDC-051. Gear shifters are from the Shimano EZ-Fire Plus series.

Technorati tags: Scott Mountain Bike MTB Bikes

Irresponsible commuters

Utter disbelief was what I felt when I read this BBC magazine feature (The new commuter belt). That people would even consider commuting weekly or almost daily to work by plane and that the article seems to be treating such a practice as acceptable just boggles the mind. I can understand if you plan to live in Lille and travel daily to London on the Eurostar, but to do so by plane from Barcelona?

Sure London may be a expensive but you can easily move to a town just outside Greater London. If you are desperate for more disposable income then walk or cycle to work. I just could not imagine people would even consider commuting by plane to work. My only hope is that oil prices continue upwards and that the Treasury considers implementing a huge aviation tax.

Technorati tags: Commuting Environment Air Travel

Mercury Music Prize 2006 nominations

Pretty good list, filled mainly with indie and britpop albums. Similar to last year's nominations, a couple of songwriters are also included and that hip hop is largely ignored (inserts unfunny evil laughter). Disappointed to see Editors (okay, but not great), Muse (average) and Arctic Monkeys (overhyped monkeys) making the list though. I never 'got' Radiohead so I am a little bit sceptical about Thom York's The Eraser.

I would have preferred if they would have nominated Dirty Pretty Things and Belle & Sebastian to satisfy the mainstream indie crowd. I do hope that Isobel Campbell (former Belle & Sebastian vocalist/cellist) and Mark Lanegan (okay, he isn't British but so what?) wins with their debut Ballad of the Broken Seas album If not there are many who I think deserves to win, including Hot Chip and Guillemots.

However knowing that this is the Mercury Music Prize, I believe the judges will cock it up once again. I predict an easy win by the Arctic Monkeys, followed by a chorus of "what the fuck" follow up blog posts by people like me. We will see.

Technorati tags: Indie Britpop Britrock Mercury Music Prize

Product Review: FranceMed Pharma's Magicool

Ah, another mini head-wave threatens Briton. Here is something that you may find useful. The Magicool.

We bought a couple of these about three weeks ago and used one during the first summer 'super heat-wave'. Now the manufacturers claims that this is the world's first and only safe instant cooling spray. It works as a personal air-conditioner and is apparently CFC free.

It is simple to use really. Just spray it all over your body (a couple of seconds per surface) from a foot away, like you would normally do with a deodorant or hairspray. It does work, for a while (about a minute), before you start heating up again. It provide light relief from when you are truly experiencing heat exhaustion like we did during Wimbledon. We also used it when we went cycling and when the cheap fan stopped working.

The downside is these products, while easily obtainable in health stores (we got ours at Boots), may frighten easily paranoid people, especially if you start spraying yourself while traveling on the Tube. Also, the scent while smells like cheap fragrance. Fortunately unlike deodorants, it isn't permanent. It is musky, almost like bad vanilla. The 'unscented' version, weirdly enough, seems to smell almost as strongly as the scented version.

I do find it better if you just splash some water but recognise that not anyone can do that and in certain situations - it would probably be frowned upon. Like when you are trying to sleep. So despite it's rather overhyped marketing content, Magicool does produce, albeit briefly, cooling elements for that emergency situations when you just need a temporary relief from the hot summer days.

At a fiver a pop, it is pretty pricey. Best to get them during one of those '3 for 2' offers or by trading in your loyalty points at Boots. It isn't the best cooling product out there (paddling in Trafalgar Square fountains is easily the best cooling method in London), but it beats having to visit the hospital due to heat exhaustion.

Technorati tags: Magicool Summer

Brilliant graffiti

By BunnyKitty.com and JerseyJoeArt.com

Technorati tags: Brighton Graffiti Art

More monkey business from the Middle East

In retaliation to kidnapping one guy (wrong), you kill 100 people (very wrong). Nice one. There is no right in this conflict and yet sometimes the media overplays the defence of a country.

The ego that is being displayed by a military that has 1000 times the budget of another country is just mindblowing. And yet we are seeing the same thing happening in Iraq. Start a mess by creating a war, claimed to have won the war, backtracked by claiming that the war isn't over and now, a total civil war. Way to go destroying a whole country.

I do not 'support' any spoilt brats in this conflict of egos. I wish governments on both sides of the pond to just go away and let the people decide without a single fucking bullet in sight. The people suffering most are the innocent civilians who are being bombarded using precision missles and such, just as in Iraq.

The fact is by calling the kidnapping of two soliders an 'act of war' is mindblowingly ironic as the state itself has kidnapped thousands of innocent people, locked them up in self-imposed villages of prisons, blew up buildings used by civilians and murdered journalists and peace activisits.

Last I checked, if other governments would to align their policy of agression to Israel's, then many countries in the world would do just well to declare war on Israel themselves, including the British government. Unfortunately as it was with Saddam Hussien's Iraq (similarly sponsored by the west in the 1980s), they just won't do a damn thing to stop innocent people from being killed until it's too late.

It is no wonder there are people who view Israel as a pariah state. Give up the guns, start the negotiating process again and for once try not to be a cowboy. To the muslim 'freedom fighters', stop fighting for a change and stop giving the Israel government an excuse to kill innocent people.

Film Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

When I visited Disneyland (Anaheim) many years ago, I rode the Pirates of the Carribean theme ride. It was a pretty good experience. It was also the time when I started playing Lucas Art's Monkey Island series of video games, which contains references to Pirates of the Carribean theme ride. We all loved immersing ourselves in pirates lores when we were growing up and I wouldn't expect nothing less from you.

We went to the theater to watch Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest during the weekend, armed with a not too high expectation. I am aware that Hollywood loves to butcher good franchise. Lucky for us, apart from being too long, a rather dodgy opening and long sequences, it was a pretty entertaining film. The first Pirates of the Carribean film was one of my favourite action/comedy films that I watched numerous of times. This was one of the Jerry Bruckheimer films that was respectable (he hasn't got many you have to admit).

Dead Man's Chest is an excellent sequel. Quite a number of people has dubbed it the equivalent to Empire Strikes Back - a sentiment I agree with. The original comedic and carefree attitude of the first film is retained while the action, intensity and 'darkness' level has been notched up several times up. They even brought back Pintel and Ragetti, probably to boost the comic level of the film, to such a great success. Mackenzie Crook was brilliant.

Body counts do rise up early on and the gory effect were pretty decent for a 12A film. Character development, already pretty good in the first film, retains the same pace in Dead Man's Chest. The 'love triangle' setup for the third film will only pave for further character development - something we should thank the scriptwriters for. I am also glad that key (main) characters from the first film has returned, and judging by the ending, more will be in the next sequal.

CGI effects were well done. I would even class it close to the effects of Lord of the Rings series of films. It is years and leaps ahead of that other dreadful CGI crapfest that graced my unfortunate eyes (Harry Potter 4). I read that Bill Nighly's character (Davy Jones) was 100% CGI, which was quite a shock to me. Maybe photorealism effects has finally arrived. Davy Jones does seem more 'real' than even Peter Jackson's snarling little ex-hobbit.

The other special effect - to boost the cup size of Keira Knightley wasn't as impressive though. The apparent clevage that she boasted during a scene was pretty in your face, but when she turned her body suddenly her chest seems flat. Still kudos to the airbrushing team for creating what seemed at first to be quite an impressive set of bosoms. Unfortunately the costume department failed to provide proper padding later in the film to reflect her early hourglass figure. But then again, the costume department did a great job for most part of the film.

The plot can get lost during the numerous side quests of the protagonists and plot holes. I am also disappointed that the film auteurs has decided to create a rather long and pointless sword fighting sequence towards the end, which can get a little bit boring after a while. That and the fact that the film was just too long.

We truly enjoyed the film. In an age where we hardly go to the movies after cancelling our annual cinema membership, I am glad that we chose something that was enjoyable. We eagerly await the finale, out next year.

Technorati tags: Disney Pirates of the Carribean Dead Man's Chest

Brilliant headbutt

Everyone seems to be talking about it, so I think I will just chip in my opinion.

I believe that most people isn't giving Zidane a whole lot of positive spin over the incident. Come on, he single handedly improved the coverage of football. Italy may have won, but hardly anybody is talking about them. Without his awesome headbutt, today's papers would just be full of default articles by pundits about how deserving (or not) the Italians were (and the occasional England crisis opinion).

I actually fell asleep during the dull match. Most overpaid and spoilt players (from all countries) feign injuries even when they are tickled, but the way that Italian player fell down was just awesome. The quality of the headbutting was either brilliant or the Italian was diving, again, which wouldn't surprise me.

No idea what the guy said, but maybe Zizou should have kept his cool. I would try too if I were in his position. But people have limit and people do crack. I may have if someone were to wind me up with a serious comment.

From that sort of reaction I can only imagine something racist was said, but who knows, eh? Nobody is saying that what he did was right, but jolly it has been one boring World Cup final, and a headbutt was something Fifa needed.

We had moments of brilliance in this whole World Cup of course - comedy refs, melees and of course England getting kicked out again. While the media is having a jolly time slating Zizou we should remember that most people here also worship football thugs, including Becks, Shrek and Keano among others.

Technorati tags: World Cup Zidane France