Bonfire hangover

Hi guys,

Hope you all had a wonderful bonfire night out. We went to Lewes for our bonfire celebration. The parades, bonfire and fireworks were organised by the Lewes Societies and Lewes Bonfire Council and was attended by tens of thousand revelers.

We arrived at Lewes Station along with thousands from all over the South East. We viewed the procession in the high street before walking one mile to Waterloo bonfire site (there are five separate bonfire/fireworks site), a soggy field where I ruined my trainers.

A 15 minutes fireworks display later we joined a 300 yard deep queue at the station. Fireworks continued around us as people toast Guy Fawkes Day 400 years after the attempt bombing of Parliament.

Pictures up tonight.

Nip/Tuck : The Complete Second Season DVD boxset

Thanks to Jenni, who gave me this: the Nip/Tuck's Season Two DVD boxset!



* Five DVDs.
* 1.77 widescreen aspect ratio.
* 736 total running time.
* 16 episodes.
* Uncut. Uncensored.
* Dolby Digital Stereo. (no 5.1 sadly - but this is a telly drama)
* No bonus features. Not even chapters! No bonus unaired scenes. (only available on Region One - boo to Warner Bros!)
* Comes in foldable digipak storage, not the crap thin DVD cases that comes in many new boxsets (eg. Desperate Housewives)
* Genuine. Not some taped over the air shit.



You can get it here (non-affiliate).

Am tired now. Thank god for the one extra hour of sleep.

My wish list is still here. ;)

Screencaps from the DVDs (taken via PowerDVD):

Still twenty-something

Got this at Victoria Station on Friday on the way to Brighton. Hei, it is celebration time, so what the hey:







The night before, Jenni made this trifle:



... and this lovely lamb steak dinner:



We had peri peri chicken for dinner at Nando's on Duke Street, Brighton last evening:



Gift time! Starsailor's On the Outside:



...and Ian Brown's The Greatest

BT BSoD phone kiosk

This must be the hundredth BSoD BT internet kiosk (this one from Leicester Square tube station) I have seen (although I have seen more BSoD cash machines). Silly of BT to get fleeced by MS. A normal BT kiosk will usually display this.

Bloggers meet-up

We came a little bit late as Jenni and I took a little bit longer looking around Carnaby Street. The new rucksacks by Crumpler is awesome.

We met at Rendezvous in Leicester Square. I am not a fan of Leicester Square although I do find the cafe quite pleasant. It isn't an outlandishly stylish place. It was sober enough for us.

I won't bore you with details on what happened. It isn't something I tend to blog about. We had fun getting to know each other. Patrick, Ken and Vysia were the only other Malaysians who came. Plymouth must be really boring because three of V's mates came and joined us. We were left wondering whether the elusive and fabulous Jay would make an appearance.

Well it was a small gathering. For what is worth it was rather impressive enough what with the short notice.

And it was a gathering of geeks too. Similar to that other blogger meeting (all bloggers are geeks).

We had dinner in ECapital in China Town (here is a review by The Guardian). Apparently it is the only real proper authentic Shanghaiese restaurant in the whole of Blighty. I don't admit to being an expert on Shanghai food so I will leave it there. Did not really appreciate being 'shooed' out so soon but then it was a snip at £78.

Most of us stuck together till 10pm when we separated after having a drink in Borders at Charing X Road.

Perhaps it was the double espresso that I had which gave me a severe headache on the way back. Firstly I forgot that the Piccadilly Line was close from Hyde Park Corner. Second it was actually faster to walk north up to Tottenham Court Road and taking the Central Line back, rather than walking down to Leicester Square.

We did agree that Plymouth should be our next venue for any meet-up. Okay, anything west of the M25 is pretty much alien to me and Plymouth is as far west as you can ever go in the South West.

-

BTW, a Beeb employee recently published an article which looks into the types of browsers and OS that are used by people visiting the BBC front page webpage (www.bbc.co.uk). It is a rather interesting read.

Mobile devices are now capable of accessing the full BBC website while retaining the proper formatting. Access' NetFront v3.3 Technical Preview adds VGA support for Pocket PC among other things. While it is a crippled version (no Java/Flash - but who cares?) this is by far the best web browser you can get on a mobile platform.




BBC News


The Guardian

Film Review: Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is Aardman's first full length feature on the plasticine characters. I have been a big fan of Nick Park productions ever since watching the original Creature Comforts (1990) and ITV's 2003 series. Also the telly ads for PG Tips and Jacobs were also nicely done.

I expect some of you would probably have seen Chicken Run, Aardman's first feature film. If not then you should. It isn't half as good as this but it is still funny.


Aardman's Creature Comforts

Previously Wallace and Gromit have also appeared in three short films as main characters. Spare me a couple of sentences as I describe them a little bit first. Wallace is an inventor who loves cheese. His partner is Gromit, a dog, and is always mute. In a way Gromit is actually more intelligent than Wallace. They live in a house full of contraptions (some of which are based on real inventions).



Anyhow, in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Wallace (Peter Sallis) and Gromit of the veggie farms protection squad 'Anti-Pesto' has their usual time catching cute little bunnies. This is due to the coming annual local giant vegetable competition. Running out of 'storage' space for the captured rabbits, Wallace devised a contraption to brainwash the furry little things into hating greens.

Without warning sprang the 'Were-Rabbit', a cursed giant monster of a bunny who eats everything veggies during full moons. Lady Tottington (Helene Bonham Carter) pleads with the comic pair to capture the rabbit in a 'humane' way while her suitor, Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes) attempts to do it the painful way - by killing it.

The humour is very much adult targeted. I am pleased to see the many nods to classic horror films such as King Kong, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde etc.

I pronounce this the funniest film of the year, and along with Sin City, one of the finest films you should see this year.

Madagascar: The Christmas Caper

Commissioned by Dreamworks Animation SKG, the film was preceded by a animation short, Madagascar: The Christmas Caper, by Dreamworks own in-house animators. Which is a shameful plug promoting their less than stellar Madagascar DVD me thinks. It wasn't as funny and any humour that was in it, was crude and lame in almost every other way.

Big Freeze

It won't quite match the Big Freeze but it will still be bitterly cold here. I am already dreading my ninth winter. I was chatting with someone today who experienced 1963. She told me that it was like the freak 2003 blizzard but rather than just a couple of days it was a whole two to three months. My.

And I blame Bush.

Speaking of dreadful weather (what else is there to talk about?) the seasonal October thunderstorm has finally arrived.


image above live from BBC webcams

My cold is all but gone but since been replaced by a hefty sore throat. Damn it. Went to see my NHS doctor who told me to 'rest, drink lots of water etc.' D'uh!

Someone dropped a leaflet today announcing the dates of the third Hampton Court Palace ice rink. From 3 December to 15 January. Also for the first time Tower of London would be hosting a ice rink too from 19 November to 8 January. Tickets are outrageously expensive. Might as well wait for the Thames to freeze over.

I see that Annie has lost her Sudoku virginity. I am still a Sudoku virgin. Yes I have attempted to solve it but I have very little patience and have never completed a game. Let us say the logic totally escapes me and I prefer cross words. Trust those pesky American media to create a mindless game. I mean I rather play Countdown.

But today I happened to download Resco Sudoku. I have not install it yet but am looking forward to completing my first Sudoku game.

On a safer note I also downloaded Resco Table Soccer (football you idiots!) . I rather have this though:

Malaysian blog gathering London / flu

A quick reminder on this coming Saturday's Malaysian gathering in Central London. We will be free all day so please do come. I am all for anything. Even buka puasa.

Confirmed meeting: Rendezvous, Leicester Square 3pm 21st Oct

-

Two weeks since I caught the seasonal cold virus and two days ago I caught it again yesterday in Waterloo Station. I am feeling very groggy today and may not blog for the next few days.

Sneezing? Check. Runny noses? Check. Watery eyes. Check. Blocked sinuses? Check. Weak body? Check. Paranoid looks from fellow Tube commuters reading about the coming flu pandemic? Check.

The strongest non-prescription medicine I managed to get is Pfizer's Actifed from Boots which is fine compared to the Panadol crap.

A great outcome? I am so not in a mood to even think about food right now. Which is a good thing because I need to lose weight.

-

Nip/Tuck returns today on SkyOne. Crap.

Last I heard is Channel 4 has dumped the series due to 'low-rating'. Well, season two was constantly pushed towards the later slots to make way for craps like Big Brother. The season finale was even broadcasted at 12:40 in the morning no less!

I hope the Beeb picks this up for us terrestrial mortals.