Some presents I got today. Blu-Ray Firefly update from old DVD set and a box from the Pi-Hut with 7-port hub.
February 14, 2016
August 8, 2015
Shelf Repair
There was a noise in the night which was most likely this shelf collapsing on the left side as a support peg snapped.
Unloading the shelf’s double layer of books.
I had to raise the shelf one notch as one of the predrilled peg-holes had been damaged by the collapse. Then I restored the books in a slightly different way as the shelf height was too low for the taller books in the back layer (stacked horizontally instead of vertically).
Fortunately I managed to find a pack of shelf support pegs from the last time I had a shelf collapse. Unfortunately I think they are the same pegs as the one that broke this time so it might happen again. Maybe I’ll get stronger pegs next time.
July 31, 2015
New Boots Again
Getting ready for when the current pair wear out (soon). I’ve had these before and they are quite good for the price.
July 8, 2015
Penny Dreadful and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
These both finished seasons recently so I thought I would comment on them. I much preferred Penny Dreadful of the two. It had a better cast, better writing, better production values and much better acting, direction and photography. JS&MN clearly suffered from a limited budget compared to PD. JS&MN had few and unspectacular special effects shots whereas in the finale of season two of PD they had Titanic scale visualisations of three different vessels at sea (did they get a three-for-one deal?) just to show three of the characters departing.
The darker and more adult tone of PD would have served JS&MN better than the whimsical BBC-costume approach they took. JS&MN had limited sets and locations some of which (faery in particular) looked very poor. The directing and photography of JS&MN was very basic compared to PD, and some of the acting was in bizarrely different register to the rest. Many of the problems with JS&MN could be attributed to lack of money, but it is surprising that the BBC cannot make genre drama as handsomely as Showtime. Of course the BBC has a long record of being bad at genre so this disappointment isn’t so surprising.
Ultimately
My predictions for the Game of Thrones finale were pretty accurate. There are many popular fan theories about what happens next and it seems certain that we will find out the truth of these early next season. I’m not hugely invested in any of them myself but I do think the most obvious is that
June 9, 2015
Penultimate Predictions
Just one episode to go in Game of Thrones season five and some of my predictions have been correct. What’s left for the final episode?
Shireen’s immolation wasn’t something I had predicted and I expect there will be other major events in the final episode that I also didn’t predict. With Jorah surviving the coliseum battle but doomed by greyscale he could die anytime. And next season – well that will be all unknown all the time!
June 4, 2015
Revisiting predictions for Game of Thrones season five
I previously made some predictions about major book storylines that might make it into this season of the TV show. With just two episodes remaining it looks like I wasn’t too far off.
So after ep 9 it will be pretty clear what is left for the finale!
May 21, 2015
MacJournal
As I previously mentioned I switched to using MacJournal for blogging as my previous blogging software ecto hadn’t been updated to use the new Photo software and so I could no longer post pictures easily. I did have a problem including html tags to interact with plugins such as the obfuscated text plugin used for the previous post. But an email to their support system soon gave me a response that solved the problem and now the software does everything I need.
May 20, 2015
Thoughts on Game of Thrones Season Five
With four episodes left in season five I count at least three major events from the books that could make it into this season, maybe four. I’m pretty sure at least two of them will. Spoilers ahead.
So what are these events?
- The betrayal and stabbing of Jon Snow
- The blinding of Arya
- Cersei’s shaming
- Daenerys flying on Drogon
It seems certain that the third of these has been filmed and so will definitely appear. It seems very likely that the betrayal of Jon Snow will feature in episode 10 and that more than one major event will feature in that episode. It seems likely that at least one of the events on the list will appear in an earlier episode leaving one or more of the others to also appear in episode 10. Given that the series has moved past and deviated from the books to some extent there is scope for at least one other major event that isn’t in the books. I won’t have to wait long to find out if I’m right.
May 13, 2015
Pegler i-Temp revisited
Back in December I installed several of these programmable radiator controls. A few days ago the meter reader came and I got my new statements. Gas consumption down 10%, rebate and monthly direct debit reduced. The annual saving is more than double what the PRCs cost so that’s a win. Should do even better in future as I hadn’t installed all of them due to old valves that needed replacing.
