Severe Jam Damage

I meant to blog about this on Wednesday but as with every other thing I meant to blog about lately I haven’t had the time or patience to string more than two words together at any one time.
Anyway, what was my point?

oh yeah, Heroes.

The first season is finished and I watched the last episode there on Tuesday night thanks to er, modern technological advances and eh, stuff. Channel 6 is showing the first season here, but they are only at episode 14. Now that its finished I’m wondering what to do, pretty much all the shows have ended this week - Desperate Housewives, Heroes, Lost ends on Monday and Ugly Betty is finished next Thursday - which makes me sound like an awful couch potato, but really I’m not. I only watch a few shows (Grey’s season 3 has just started back on Living) so I don’t really watch THAT much telly.

Which reminds me, feckin’ BIG BROTHER is starting next week, so I really WILL be avoiding the television for the summer - or at least trying to.

Hmm, this was going to be a post about ‘Heroes’ and how much I loved it, and what wonderful eye-candy (episode 20 especially!) was on show and etc, etc. It was the small touches that I liked to pick out. Not the Stan Lee cameo, or the number of times the ‘Godsend’ symbol showed up, or George Takei’s licence plate (NCC-1701). Unlike Lost (season 1) I wasn’t so caught up in the mystery of it all. I just enjoyed it for the characters and plot in which the writers actually rewarded us viewers with ANSWERS.

The bits I loved were more subtle. The camera work is amazing, tilted shots, perspective, focus. Those shots you’d expect to see in a comic book panel, but without being a hokey Batman homage. Episode 17 ‘Company Man’ is an example of those little touches. (and the later episodes as well, which I WON’T spoil for those who haven’t yet seen them.) The zooms across the front lawn, tilted perspectives in the hallway, its all good.

Can’t wait for Volume 2!

Photo courtesy of HeroSite.net

Nothing going on here today, but if you want a bit of a laugh try the lads at CurryChips.

Normal service will be resumed when I get some spare time.

One word:
Gorefest.

Ok, actually I’m going to have to expand on that.
FUCKING GOREFEST!

That better?
For those who haven’t figured it out, I’m talking about the sequel to 28 days later. It’s not as good as the original because by now we are used to the superfast zombies and this film continues in that vein. Theres also an underlying political message that’s writ large in very broad strokes that made me turn off the brain and try to ignore whatever the director was trying to put across.

But the first 15 minutes are worth the price of admission alone.

After that we’re into plot and exposition territory - but not too much as its not long before all hell breaks loose again. The gory scenes are incredibly visceral - especially sitting five rows from the front. One scene about half an hour in had me hiding behind my hands, but that couldn’t block out John Murphy’s score. ‘In a Heartbeat’ thrums mercilessly thoughout, getting deep into your blood.
It is (as with the original) filmed digitally and the jump-cuts and slashes can be almost headache inducing on a big screen.

There are a couple of ‘what the…’ moments that lie like huge gaping holes in the plot, but soon enough someone is ripped to pieces by ravening hordes of the enRAGEd so you forget about it. The cast is fairly unknown - the exceptions being Harold Perrineau (Micheal from ‘Lost’) and Robert Carlysle - but strong enough for it. The yanks aren’t overpowering and the kids are good without being cloying. London is once again amazing - and you are left wondering how the hell they managed to film so many landmarks completely deserted?

Overall pretty enjoyable - turn off your brain, ignore the political shit and enjoy the gore.

In the office the third lift over is always breaking down. Arrive at floor and ‘ping’ the doors open 2 inches and then stop. This means standing around in the lift for 5 minutes until the doors reset themselves and close, then shoot you up to a floor you don’t want to be on. Once the doors open we are so happy to be free of the lift that we walk back down to the sixth floor, rather than take the chance on the lift doors getting stuck again.
Never, never, never has a man the likes of the Diet Coke Bloke come abseiling to our rescue. Our office is full of overweight, middle-aged men in glasses who guffaw loudly at their own jokes and sport large red whiskey noses. Which, if I told you where I work would make perfect sense.
Think, old school.
Think, old boys club.
Think, money.
If anyone did come abseiling into the lift it would be one of rather large and out of shape security guards. Then again, I guess Coke wouldn’t sell half as much if the Diet Coke Bloke had a beer belly and combover.

Just sayin’ like.

About a month ago I bought myself a new lens for the Nikon. Unfortunately for whatever reason I didn’t get a chance to try it out before I went to Barcelona so I was sort of worried about how it was going to perform.
It’s a Sigma 28-300mm MACRO. Anyway, here are the results:

This was taken at the macro end (300mm) of the lens. No photoshop, scanned straight from the negative. And this one:

was at the wide-angle end (28mm). What impresses me here is that there is no vignetting. The kit lens that came with the F75 (A Nikon) has some pretty bad vignetting when I shut it down to 28mm - however the new ‘generic’ lens has absolutely none.

I think this is going to become my new favourite thing.