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QotD: Pleasepleaseplease!
What was the one toy you wanted as a kid that your parents never bought you?
Submitted by Princess of Darkness.
I wanted this toy so much that it hurt, but I never got it.
Even getting the Millennium Falcon a few years later didn't make up for this. Ah, well.
Fashion's in the Details
Lorna and I were watching Project Catwalk, our guilty Sky Three pleasure, waiting eagerly to see which of the three dress designs would win.
And they didn't tell us.
We suspected it was the one you can see to the right, because someone from that team was this week's winner, but we didn't know for sure. It was never explicitly said in the show. And that left us feeling curiously unsatisfied.
Niggling details.
(It was that dress. We found the result on the website.)
Gates has encountered an error...
So, Bill "Kermit the Geek" Gates has been doing the media rounds promoting Windows OSX, or whatever it's called.
Unfortunately, things went wrong on The Daily Show:
DVD review group
I've just set up a DVD review group, not unlike Piers' Book Club.
Join up and share your reviews at What Should I Watch Tonight?
(And please promote it to your neighbourhood, too)
DVD night: The Odd Couple
Friday night's viewing from our Amazon DVD rental account was this old classic:
![The Odd Couple [1967]](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/wp-content/772/2007/01/6a00d8341da3af53ef013486ad1097970c-200pi-1.jpg "The Odd Couple [1967]")
Whatever the reason, I was looking forward to it. The Odd Couple is regarded as a comedy classic, and it lurked somewhere in my brain as a "movie to see".
And you can see why the movie (and the play it is really obviously adapted from) has been so popular. The performances are really excellent. Matthau starts off as disgusting and unlovable, but wins your sympathy as the feel goes on. Lemmon charts the reverse journey. The supporting cast are good, even the ghastly Pigeon sisters from London, and the film, while wearing its stage roots on its sleeve, makes a reasonable transition to celluloid.
But, nearly 40 years on, the whole concept has lost its bite. Men leaving together just doesn't seem so strange any more, and the obsessed housewife role adopted by Jack Lemmon's character seems an oddly-conceived and slightly offensive mix of female, gay man and OCD sufferer stereotype.
There's some moments of real wit in the dialogue and the relationship between the two main leads is often compelling. But, in the end, the societal mores being explored in the movie are becoming so alien to us today that it just doesn't have the power it did in the 60s.
Get a UK Mac
Over in the US, Apple has been running the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads for a year or so. Some of them are painfully funny. Now, Apple UK has remade some of them, and added a few new ones, with Mitchell & Webb in the lead roles.
I actually thing they work a little better than the US ones, because the PC isn't a hell of a lot more likeable than the Mac, as is the case with the originals.
Commenting Geeky Fun
Thanks to a discussion in the office yesterday, and a little bit of research, you can now sign-in to comment on my main blog using either your Vox blog address or your Livejournal username. Cool!
Piers and Karl might like to note that this is OpenID in action.
Blog Me Once, Blog Me Twice
Here's a little experiment. I hope it will solve a little problem.
You see, my number of blogs has been proliferating rather stupidly of late, but it's settled down to this Vox blog and One Man & His Blog as my main two. And I'm pretty happy with that set-up. I love Vox and find it a pleasure to use.
But I really don't want to lose touch with my Livejournal friends, either.
Now, I though the problem had been solved when Vox added the ability to cross-post to Livejournal. But, no. All that got posted was a nasty little extract that was nothing more than an advert for the content on Vox. Not very fair on my LJ flist.
However, as of today's Vox release, I should be able to post the whole shooting match across onto Livejournal, even as I post to Vox. Will it work? I hope so.
QotD: Take That, Writer's Block!
How do you beat writer's block?
Submitted by marvel is my pen name.
Generally, I find I need three things:
- A pressing deadline
- Too much coffee
- Sleep deprivation
Together, they do the job beautifully.