paranormal activity review

ok so just finished watching paranormal activity. every since i first heard of this movie i really wanted to see it. and it's been a long time (that review was written in jan 2008). i generally don't like buying into the hype but that seems to be the way paramount want to sell it with a trailer like this:



looks pretty good right? yeah i thought so too. paramount seems to be marketing this movie in a weird way. it was filmed in 2007. all the early reviews i read were very good, so what the hell paramount!? what's the hold up? now in 2009 they've decided for some reason it's time to release it. but they can't just release it, that'd be too easy. it's already a movie with nothing but good reviews so let's release this as agonisingly slowly as possible with exclusive tiny screenings in america first, then have all the new good reviews push people into demanding their local cinema show it - which only applies to america. which of course leads to more people raving about it.

well yesturday a good quality version of the movie leaked online. usually i normally make a rule of going to the cinema to see a new film i wanna see whenever possible, obviously. it's just better. but in this case i'm happy to download it early. fuck you paramount. if this had been available to see at any cinema around me between 2007 and now i'd be more than happy to go pay to see it for a better experience. that said i'll probably pay to go see it anyway when it comes out (plus apparently there's some alternate endings in existence...).

sorry. paramount rant over.

i thought blair witch project was ok. cloverfield was great and i loved rec/quarantine (also check out the rec 2 trailer if you haven't already 'cause that looks fucking great!). but hype's a difficult thing. i read alot of hype behind the film (as any of my twitter followers will probably know) but overall i still really liked it. there are parts in the film that are genuinely really creepy. more so than... well probably any film i can think of. but i can see it turning into another blair witch project. the early adopters (see the over reactions of the dumb americans in the trailer) will say how fucking scary the film was and then everyone else will go in with high expectations and say it's more stupid than scary. so you can't win either way.

i really liked it. maybe a little more than drag me to hell because it's going for scary and less comedy. the more i think about the ending i saw the creepier it seems but there are so many different ways it could have gone so i look forward to seeing the dvd extras when it eventually comes out.

i recommend you watch it. if you don't believe the hype then you'll probably really like it... if that makes sense.

4 creepy goings on out of 5.

iphone 3gs review

i've been an iphone user now pretty much since they released the first model in america and i've never looked back. it's quite weird how different it feels to other phones i've had in the past. the general mobile phone rule is about a month after you buy a phone the next generation of models come out that look cooler, have more features, better camera, are smaller, lighter, faster, better... but even since i bought my iphone in 2007 i haven't wanted to change to a different phone. sure other phones do the same stuff (arguably better in some cases). other phones have better cameras, replaceable batteries and probably plenty of other features. but overall nothing seems to handle everything as well as the iphone and this is mainly due to it's app store and it's ongoing firmware updates from apple.

i was happy enough with my first generation iphone and probably would have stuck with it alot longer had i not lost it at this years reading festival moshing. so it was time for an update so i figured i might aswell push the boat out and grab a 16gb iphone 3gs. when it was first announced it was definitely an update i could have skipped and waited for the next generation model but being forced to upgrade i'm pretty happy i did.

the main updates were the massive speed increase (it's really noticeable), improved camera, video recording, 3g internet speeds, voice control, gps and it's built in compass (to orientate google maps). so a pretty decent upgrade really, and overall this thing is pretty fucking great.

essentially this thing is just catnip for geeks.

and being a geek i love that i can use this thing for pretty much anything, anywhere. i can check my email, facebook, twitter (and take pics or videos to upload to these) keep up with rss feeds, watch youtube, check web sites, ebay, play games, find out where i am/what's around me, use as a sat nav, listen to music/podcasts, watch movies/tv shows, check train times, the list goes on.

obviously computers have been able todo pretty much all this stuff for ages but having all this on something pocket sized i just find really cool. infact for a few tasks i'm actually starting to prefer using my iphone over my laptop. some things really do just work better on the iphone. like checking train times for example. i can open up the national rail app, have it find my location and all the nearest train stations and all their train times (and which ones are late). it's just quicker and easier on the iphone than on a pc.

... oh yeah the iphone can also send and receive texts and phone calls!

another couple of useful apps i've started using recently are evernote and read it later. you can use both whether you have an iphone or not. both offer a similar service to the google stuff i mentioned in my useful web apps blog post a while ago but these seem superior (mainly 'cause google won't integrate it's services into google chrome).

the main advantage to using these tools is the changes you make are synced online so they are always up-to-date from wherever you access them from. anyway here's a couple of vid's to show what they do.




yeah she was kinda annoying but that was the best vid i could find to sum up what evernote does. but it's pretty useful and completely free so give it a go.

derren brown's jedi lottery trickery

ok so last night derren brown apparently predicted the lottery result. i'm a big derren brown fan and fascinated by his jedi powers. here's a clip of the live prediction which i actually missed so thanks youtube!

i just found this link posted on derren's own blog of what other people think. looks like these are all the wrong answers to get people talking.

my thoughts? first of all it's obviously a trick. he can't actually predict the lottery result - and even if he could he's not gunna tell the nation. i'm pretty baffled how the live trick was done but derren brown cannot predict the results.

two reasons: not so long ago he did a tv episode titled 'the system' fooling people into thinking he had a guaranteed method to predict horse race results (watch it here if you haven't seen it) which turned out to be a way of bending the truth to susceptible minded people. the other reason is what he says in the first video in this post. first he says he will predict the results (which he appears to have done successfully), then explain how he did it and how you can do it too, but it's the following show title: "how to control the nation" that seems to point to it obviously been fake.

my theory is the whole lottery trick is actually part of the "how to control the nation" show 'cause it's obviously a big way to grab everyone's attention and get them interested. chances are fridays show (where he apparently will tell the nation how to win the lottery) it part of a trick to get the nation todo something they wouldn't normally do to confirm that derren is basically a mind reading jedi who knows what your thinking and can make you do whatever he wants you to.

anyway that's my guestimated prediction. maybe i'm wrong and from friday onwards winning the lottery will become alot easier for the world.

reading festival 2009 round up

[now updated with the bbc's tiny slice of covereage from their highlights]

delayed blogging due to a few weeks of being busy and last week was reading fest weekend! last year was my first year there and it was awesome. so far i've been to v festival 2007, glastonbury 2008, reading 2008 and 2009. v fest just felt like a big lifeless corporate money maker (kinda how you'd expect i guess). glasto is just the king of festivals mostly for it's shear size, atmosphere and diverse lineup. but band wise i'd say for me reading fest is the strongest.

last years headliners (rage, killers and metalica) seemed much bigger to me compared to this years (kings of leon, arctic monkeys and radiohead) but i'm a big kol fan and i like most arctic's stuff so that's good enough for me (sorry, i just don't know enough radiohead to call myself a fan).

probably the best news though was rumors of them crooked vultures doing a secret set on one of the side stages. there were already rumors they'd be there a few weeks before the festival but i managed to confirm the rumors were true on the saturday with the help of an iphone and twitter (it's awesome when twitter comes thru and you find a really good use for it) as they played the leeds festival the day before. so i knew where they'd be on and at what time! perfect!

here's the short clip from bbc's highlights. mcfly!? fuck off.

we got there about four bands before they were due to play so we could get right to the front for them. the plan worked brilliantly and by 4pm we were about two rows from the front - which was worth it even if we did have to put up with patrick wolf's set. by then the place was pretty rammed, the crowd were riled up and there had been alot of moshing to even bands you wouldn't expect it for.

after what felt like forever of setting up and mic checking they finally emerged. everyone went mental. and once they started playing they went even mentaler. as expected they sounded amazing. however in all the mentality my pocketed iphone somehow became depocketed. so if your wondering where my pictures from the weekend are, they are probably smashed up somewhere in that field. here's what it was lost in - there will be a handsome reward if you can spot it. was quite a bazaar experience being equally excited and gutted at the same time. but not to worry, review of my shiny new iphone 3gs is probably coming up sometime soon. plus i managed to score tickets for them at freaking plymouth in december!

after the m.i.a iphone had pissed on my festival poncho it was time to get on with the festival good times. one thing i thought was very weird this year is how the the bands before the headliners (with the exception of kol/kasiers friday night) just felt more powerful and had a better atmosphere than the actual headliners. wtf is up with that!? on saturday the prodigy were fuckin awesome, great band, great songs, the crowd went apeshit (as expected) ... arctic monkeys were fuckin dead on stage, as was the crowd. exactly the same happened on sunday with bloc party rocking the party and radiohead killing it. very weird, but i guess radiohead were never really gunna rock the party.

on friday night we dodged the kasiers and went to see friendly fires on the nme stage instead. wow, what a good call. they were infinitely better. i really like their album so we great to get to see them live. after them it was back to the main stage for some king of leon action. i'd say they were the best headliner even if they were pissed off but i would have liked to hear more from their first two albums. ho hum, t'was great to see them live again though.

and that was about my reading festival. one more thing before i'm done. it's great seeing all these cool bands in one place over one weekend but sometimes you do need something to break up all the music - which is where the alternate stage comes in. we tried to get into the tent on friday to see some of tim minchin's set. i don't know much of his stuff but what i heard was good. on sunday we caught quite a odd choice for reading which was a lecture on watchmen. was interesting to see what was basically a film studies lecture at a music festival, but did help break up the music a bit, so that was cool.

later on that afternoon we managed to catch adam buxton's bug show thing. it wasn't what i was expecting but still very cool. if your new to bug (as i was) he basically shows a series of cool music videos from artists you've never heard of with a few of his own songs/videos mixed in. here's one of my favorites from the ones he showed at reading:

now the song will go round in your head all day again and again and again and again!

ok that'll do. end blog post.

them crooked vultures

i guess this blog is kinda just for sharing whatever i think is something cool or interesting - and it don't get much cooler that this. them crooked vultures are basically a hard rock supergroup consisting of josh homme (from queens of the stonage), john paul jones (from led zeppelin) and dave grohl (from foo fighters/nirvana).

i'm a pretty massive foo fighters fan anyway and dave grohl on drums is pretty fuckawesome anytime. queens of the stoneage rock and led zeppelin... well i'll be honest i don't actually know much of their stuff yet but i'm giving it some more listens :)

so far most of the stuff the band have done has been really secretive. unlike most bands these days nothing has leaked online yet. they've done a few secret gigs so far (so there are a few bad quality videos on youtube) but bar that all we have are these videos.

they've also done this pretty cryptic google earth link that they post on their facebook/twitter pages every now and then. it zooms into where ever they are playing next before any venues have been accounced.

i'm pretty freaking excited to hear whatever these guys do and rumor has it they are supposed to be playing reading festival 2009 (which i also happen to be attending).

awwwwww yeah!

cannot. freaking. wait.

inglorious basterds review

been a while since blogging, should hopefully pick up the pace again soon! so another film from a few of the ones i wanna see has now been seen.

going in i knew it was a pretty long film at 2hrs 45mins which is fine if the movie's good but i still would have liked a couple of trailers, but ho-hum nevermind. and if i'm gunna spend 2hrs 45mins watching someones film quentin's are generally a safe bet. i'd say i'm a big enough fan to watch whatever he makes. it's pretty unanimous that reservoir dogs and pulp fiction are great films and among the favourites among most of my friends and myself. jackie brown... meh it was ok i guess and got a little better towards the end. death proof i did kinda like mostly from the last 30mins. i quite liked kill bill though but i haven't seen it for a while but probably would have been better edited down to one really good film instead of two alright ones. but watching inglorious basterds it did feel kinda like kill bill in a few ways (probably just quentin's style of the 00s). the titles, chapters and i'm sure some of the music was actually from the kill bill soundtrack.

first of all the film feels like it's being really falsely advertised. watching the trailers and tv ad's it's not just a group of guys killing nazis. infact you really don't see alot of the basterds at work (which is kind of a shame 'cause i'd like to see that movie too). the problem is the people who see the trailer and want to see it will get something they weren't expecting and the people put off by the trailer may actually like the film.

the acting was all pretty great. brad pitt and the rest of the basterds were all pretty awesome. mike myers had a cool cameo. but the stand out was probably the rob bryden lookalike christoph waltz as lt. hans landa - the jew hunter. every scene with him was pretty awesome. he's kinda scary and funny but kinda likeable at the same time (for a jew killing nazi anyway, which can't be easy to pull off).

most of the scenes in the film did seem to follow the same pattern of building tension for as long as possible and build to a true taranino style stand off. obviously it's still pretty violent. its pretty gory in places and there's alot more humor than i thought there would be (which is always welcome). for some reason the film kind of reminded me of 'there will be blood' - although i'm not quite sure why yet. could be just from all the extended dialog scenes.

anyway that'll do. review over.

overall, good film! 4 nazi scalps out of 5.

some thoughts on windows 7

this week i made the update from windows vista to windows 7 on the work laptop and overall it does seem pretty good. who'd have thought windows vista could have been improved upon! i should note that i did the update option as opposed to a complete reformat, 'cause i'm lazy like that. the update process took about 4-5 hours but overall there seems to be a pretty good speed increase in booting up and shutting down (which kinda is expected as vista is pretty much the slowest operating system there is).

i've been using it now for a few days and it does seem a definite improvement (again not difficult coming from vista). since buying a macbook (for home) i'm pretty converted to mac os x and given the choice i'd much rather be running that, but from what i've seen it looked pretty complicated to get it installed on most normal pc's and i'm just not that bored enough to get into it that much. so for the time being windows 7 will have todo.

so being a mac user i do like the new windows 7 taskbar 'cause microsoft being microsoft has attempted to copy the mac os x dock. the new windows taskbar takes up much less space and just looks alot nicer. one feature that seems to have been left out is stacks (a mac os x feature) that allows folders placed in the dock to be opened so you can access more from one icon on your dock. there seem to be a few apps out there to get around this and the one i'm trying out is called standalonestack2 (catchy name i know). it's compatible with windows xp, vista and 7 so may be something you wanna check out anyway. for more info and to see it in action check this out.

another cool thing i noticed about the new taskbar is when your copying files it shows the progress bar in the background of the icon. so you can see when your files are done copying without having to minimise everything else.

another slightly changed feature is the "gadgets". basically they are little things you can add to your desktop to get in the way (like a clock, calendar, local weather, news headlines, etc). in windows vista these were limited to the left or right side of your screen but now you can just throw these anywhere on your desktop. it's a useful feature to have if you actually use them but still doesn't compare to the infinitely better mac os x dashboard.

another "big" feature added to windows 7 is the resizing of windows. if you want to compare two websites side-by-side you can just drag the window to the far left or right of the screen and it'll resize it to fit half the screen. once your done you just drag them back and they return to their previous size. kinda cool i guess.

given the few days i've been using windows 7 these seem to be the most noticeable and stand out features - so far anyway. i'm sure/hope there's more under the hood but it definitely seems a worthy update from vista (but then so was windows xp...). it really should be a free upgrade from vista but any way microsoft can make more money they will, and if they can confuse people with all their stupid different versions at the same time all the better. seriously, is anyone gunna make sense of this:

but i guess for the time being this is a free and worthy update from vista so i'd recommend doing it (especially if your already on vista, but maybe if your on xp too and fancy a change). obviously backup your shit first - just incase.

now here's a quick video on microsoft's innovation in windows vista :)