Tempus Fugit

My apologies for neglecting blog duties recently, I’m finding there aren’t enough hours in the day to fit everything in and the blog is the last thing on my mind right now. A rather bad spell of writers block has also been upon me of late, and sods law will, naturally, dictate that I get the idea for half a dozen posts in one day and then don’t have the time to sit down and write them.

I’ll be back on the job market in a couple of weeks time when my current contract expires, so have spent the last couple of weeks brushing up my skills. If I never have to listen to another peppy trainer tell me how great Exchange and Sharepoint are I will die a happy man.

Inbetween trying to translate what the Dutch American Sharepoint guru is saying I’m working my way through the Halo 3 campaign. I’ve posted most of my thoughts on the Red Rant forum already, but the round up is I’m loving the game but the single player campaign so far is very much Halo 2.5. It looks great, plays great, sounds great…yes it’s Halo! The game scored a prestigous 10 in Edge this month mainly thanks to the superb Forge mode and community features, which are the main things I haven’t played with yet. I’m around half way through the campaign and aim to get it completed sometime this week.

On the TV front all of the big shows have just started up again (minus 24 and Lost, which will reappear in January and February respectively), and some promising newcomers are just waiting to be cancelled. Geeks who like action and comedy should check out Chuck on NBC (Monday nights just before Heroes for my friends in the US). Despite having the highest viewing figures for a new show this year, I would say avoid the new Bionic Woman. It looks great but the characters and performances in the pilot seemed very lazy, and the obligatory “troubled sister” plot made me want to wretch. Must do better.

Californication continues to impress with it raunchy craziness (a second series has now been confirmed), Eureka plods along without a lot of the charm the first season had (season three confirmed by Sci Fi last week) and The Office and My Name Is Earl both restarted last week with one hour premieres that reminded me just how I missed them over the summer break. Right now I have the first episode of Bones season 3 and the premiere of Journeyman sat in the queue to watch. Just as soon as Desperate Housewives is done (I’m writing this on the sofa while Sally gets her new Wisteria Lane fix – Nathan Fillion FTW) I’ll be checking those out.

Movie-wise I haven’t watched that much lately, especially not in HD as I’m going through a disc drought right now. Last weekend I finally got to see 1408. Stephen King+John Cusack=Movie Gold. The region 1 DVD has just been released and the directors cut of the movie is superb. Shot very much in the style of The Shining with its camera work and pan and scan scenes it has a definite Kubrick vibe early on, with the lobby sequences eerily echoing the party scene in The Shining where Jack Nicholson walks through the ballroom.

I will readily admit I’m a great admirer of John Cusack, his performance in High Fidelity ranks as one of my top ten of all time and as he spends large chunks of this movie on his own in a single room it is a testament to his skills that I didn’t find myself losing interest at any time. I would say this is the best movie adaptation of a King chiller in a long time, probably since The Shining. Fans of well plotted and acted psychological thrillers should check this one. It’s worth noting that anyone who saw the movie in theaters should enjoy the original directors cut ending that is in place here.

Thanks for sticking with me, hopefully I will have more to write about soon!

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