Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince July 22, 2009
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General, Television.add a comment
It was our 3rd wedding anniversary today. Wow – 3 whole years. I’m ashamed to say I don’t actually remember what we did on the other 2 anniversaries. I’m pretty sure in 2007 we probably went out for dinner and last year I was the size of a balloon awaiting the arrival of Evie 3 days later. We decided that we’d drag my brother in to babysit the squeakface (Evie) whilst we went out for dinner and a cinema date. It was boiling today (well for a Winter’s day it was 23deg) and we decided rather than go out for a meal it would be lovely to have a BBQ at home. Went out to get some food for the barbie and when we got home it was grey outside. By the time we BBQd it was actually raining so hubby was doing it on the veranda!
We pre-booked our tickets online for the Greater Union at Hurstville. A few weeks ago we got a flyer to join the Cinebuzz Club in the post and it included a code to get all movies for $10 (apart from Fri/Sat nights) so we utilised our cards and also got to pick our seats for a $1 booking fee online. We went to see the latest Harry Potter installment. It was really dark in tone and although I had read the book I kept wondering what was going to happen. In my mind the last 2 books pretty much seemed to blur into one story and I kept thinking things were going to happen that didn’t. Also Slughorn was nothing like I had imagined him to be – I had thought he was older and more rotund for some reason. It seemed rather depressing and everything was in either sepia or a greyish-blue tone. I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the teenage romance bits or not. They were awfully bleurghsome, but they did provide relief from the doom and gloom – likewise the dark parts of the story provided relief from all the Won Won, dodgy looking at the floor parts. The other thing I was surprised with is Emma Watson (Hermione) she was far less hammy than in the previous movies (they showed them in order on telly over the last 2 weeks). Considering the book and movie is called Half Blood Prince, there was actually very little about it in the movie other than the inscription in the book and the bit at the end with Snape. I can’t quite remember, but I thought that this book had more about Tom Riddle’s beginnings (i.e. his parents, Gaunts etc). Malfoy’s character was much better too, less Dick Dastardly snarling/grimacing and more to him. Even Gollum and his relatives appeared for a cameo (ha ha). Overall I enjoyed the film and would recommend it.
Soniq QPi600B DVD Player June 23, 2009
Posted by graciek in Computing, Life in General, Television.Tags: soniq QPi600b
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So, our 11 month old has shown us her supreme technology skills by knackering up our old Wharfdale DVD player (it was brought over from the UK and had a DVD recorder and freeview integrated – but neither were useful in Oz anyway). She’s obviously seen those testing machines at Ikea and decided to repetitively test the drawer open/close mechanism. So hubby popped to JB Hifi in search of something fairly el cheapo off-the-shelf with the best specs he could find 
We ended up with the Soniq QPI600B DVD player at just a smidge over $80. It has HDMI and also a nifty iPod dock that pops out at the front (hmm not sure this is a good feature or not with the “DVD Destructo” around). Annoyingly the DVD was locked to region 4 – rubbish if all your DVDs are UK region 2!! Hubby couldn’t find a hack online for unlocking it and was going to take it back to the shop. I however said let’s just try a few off the internet, and yay, one of them worked. So if you’ve bought one that needs to be unlocked here’s the instructions:
Switch on the unit
Open tray
Press 5168
Change the region code to “Test 0″
Exit
Hubby is delighted as now he can watch his Sharpe DVD marathon!!
Star Trek @ IMAX June 6, 2009
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General, Sydney, Television.Tags: IMAX, star trek
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Went to Sydney IMAX to watch the new Star Trek. It was bloody fantastic. Later doing our sums and conversions we worked out we were watching on a screen 120ft wide or ~1200 inch telly!! At first it was a bit strange as I found myself actually having to move my head around to see what was going on. Some of the space scenes where you marvel at the magnitude of the vista were spectacular. Being at the IMAX meant we also got very HD close ups and in particular we noticed Chris Pine/Kirk was a bit stubbly and spotty on his neck ha ha!! I’m no Trekkie but I have watched a few of them and did enjoy this latest one (I have vivid memories or should be nightmares of watching Wrath of Khan when I was about 10 and being scared to put my cycle helmet on). It was fun playing guess the crew member when they appeared on screen and comparing them to my memories of the earlier incarnations in real time (or later incarnations in Star Trek history). The new style transporting was kinda cool too – reminded me another show where they had nanobots repairing something (can’t remember what that show was). It cost $20 to watch it at the IMAX (with a Sydney Guide 20% voucher) and $16 at our local normal cinema. It was def worth the extra 4 bucks to see it in larger scale.
Since when did Bunnings sell TVs? April 5, 2009
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Hubby went out to Bunnings (big DIY place) today to get some stuff to fix the downstairs laundry sink leak. He came back 2 hrs later with a 42″ plasma TV. He got it for our new house’s rumpus. Actually it was on offer at KMart for $799 and is the Telefunken one. I’d say the picture quality wasn’t particularly high end and the edges were a little blurry when viewed from right in front of the telly. But seeing as it’s going in a room where the sofa is 4m away from the TV it’s gonna be fine. Mostly it’s for everyday telly watching (not DVDs, cinema experience) and probably playing Wii (which isn’t particularly high resolution anyway). The brightness and contrast are good though as we managed to watch in bright daylight without having to close curtains or strategically position chairs/coats etc For just shy of AU$800 it’s pretty good. Half the time it’ll prob just end up having “In the Night Garden” on it when Evie works out how to work the DVD player. She’s 8 months old and she’s already worked out how to open the “secret” control panel of her uncle’s VHS player. She’s an engineer always taking things apart (just like her Mummy) ;
News in Australia January 21, 2009
Posted by graciek in Australia, Life in General, Musings, Television.add a comment
Well seeing as today is consumed pretty much by the inauguration of Barack Obama in the US I thought I might blog about the state of the news in Oz. The news seems to be pretty dire here. No not bad news, but the lack of topics really. A glance on most paper’s front covers on a normal day would be full of pictures of sportsmen and women. It’s also very optimistic – not much about the economy other than specific stories of hard luck businessmen. Such a change from the UK newspapers 6 months ago where it was all doom and gloom! I’m also finding it hard to not laugh when you read some stories about some poor sod who got “bashed” – yes they do actually print it as “bashed” rather than “assaulted”. In fact the International news is pretty awful too, the whole of the Gaza issues were summarised in 3 sentences in a box about 2inches high near the bottom of the page. Well, at least it made it to the news! Today’s newspapers are full of the Inauguration which goes to prove that things do actually occur outside of Australia.
Equally the TV news is terrible too – so much sport and entertainment. In fact telly is a bit naff here in general – feels a bit like watching Channel 5 (proliferation of US sitcoms/shows). Well that should encourage me to be not so much of a couch potato , except it’s so bloody hot outside I can’t bear to spend more than 15 mins in the sunlight (keeeeergh – vampire noises). Neighbours starts next week – that will be entertaining as it will be like watching a movie (albeit a dodgy soap opera) but missing out the middle section.
F1 = WWE November 2, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Television.Tags: formula one
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Is it just me or does the F1 seem to be turning into some kind of unbelievably staged championship? These last 2 years it’s gone down to the wire at the last race. Today was even more unbelievable as it came down to the last lap!! It seems like throughout the season once one driver started to get a bit too far ahead in the points some kind of mishap would happen (Massa facing the wrong way round and engine troubles earlier on, Hamilton either making a spectacular mistake or having places/points taken off). Today’s race was like Wacky Races (except they didn’t have insta-oil slick, ACME anvils or concertina wheels). I must confess I’m not that avid a follower of F1 but as hubby and other friends are I seem to end up taking a passing interest. I don’t really support anyone, but do actually enjoy the WWE shenanigans. I do however find it rather iritating how the BBC coverage is so biased towards Hamilton (and to a lesser extent the other Brits).
Saturday Night TV September 20, 2008
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The autumn/winter line up started tonight on BBC 1. There were 3 new shows on tonight.
Hole in the Wall – WTF was that about? It was awful stuff. Zelebs dressed in silver lycra (yikes My Hairy Biker – just, NO!!) trying to pose in various positions to fit through a hole in a moving wall, else get knocked into a swimming pool. Where/Who originated this idea? Was it some kind of Japanese import as it really felt a bit like something out of Takeshi’s Castle (great middle of the night insomnia/looking after insomniac baby TV glob). Will I watch it again next week – I hope not, I’d rather change Evie’s stinky nappies.
Merlin – Absolutely loved it. Was a nice first in the series show that introduced the way they were taking their spin on the Merlin folklore. It will be good to see how the characters develop. Richard Wilson was quite funny in his medieval version of Victor Meldrew (actually it wasn’t too moan and groan, but def lots of his sarcastic tonings). Gwen oops, must remember this is not Torchwood, I mean Lady Helen/Witch was creepy. Wonder why they all fell asleep and got covered in cobwebs (I thought they were getting frozen and it was frost/snow at first). I hope that Merlin gets more types of powers too – lots of telekinesis in this episode, but I guess as he’s now got a book of magic he’ll learn some more (that bit where he got the book really reminded me of Charmed).
Strictly Come Dancing – hmm somehow I always seem to end up watching this even though I’m not really into ballroom dancing. Hubby and I joined the dancing society when we were students and gave up after a couple of tries. My conclusion = hubby has no rhythm and it’s hard for me to let him lead when he dances to something other than the music. Also not helped when he tried to spin me by pressing his hand into my face (hmmm).
Lost in Austen September 10, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Television.Tags: lost in austen
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Watched Lost in Austen on ITV tonight. I actually caught it from about 1/2 way through and I was totally confused as it seemed to be Pride and Prejudice but had no Elizabeth, but Fanny Price instead. And Fanny Price seemed to be from the future. After a while I finally worked out what was going on. I like Jemima Rooper as the lead actress – I kept trying to remember where I’d seen her before and then I realised that she was the posh one from As If. It was so funny how Fanny/Amanda kept trying to make things right and it kept going off the plot and it was interesting to “meet” these great literary characters who’ve been so immortalised in period dramas and for them to be not quite how you imagined them in real life. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the rest of the series.
Maestro August 26, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Musings, Television.Tags: conducting, maestro
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I’m loving this TV program called Maestro. Basically they have a number of “celebrities” with some kind of musical ability and teach them how to be conductors. Some have been hilariously bad (Peter Snow, felt like a VW beetle trying to go up a hill with 10 elephants in the boot!!), some have been surprisingly good, and some extremely irritating (there’s something quite annoying about both Katie Derham and Jane Asher). It does remind me of when I used to play in youth orchestras (every Sat morning when I should have been having a lie in I was at school) – wow in fact I think in my 6th form I was in 3 different orchestras at the same time (I must have had no time for any social life)! Anyway, back to Maestro… I really like Sue (who doesn’t seem to need to breathe 
), I find Goldie to be be quite jammy, Alex is hilarious (he should use his hair to conduct with more often, ha ha).
Wow – Beijing Opening Ceremony August 8, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Television.Tags: beijing olympics opening ceremony
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Today 08/08/08 the Beijing Olympics started. With much excitement we all sat down to watch the opening ceremony. The ceremony was fantastic, just the sheer scale of things and the number of performers involved. It’s a shame that the BBC commentary was a bit rubbish – they didn’t really explain any of the Chinese tradition or symbolism, there wasn’t much more described other than that which you could see for yourself anyway. My Dad was very excited about the ceremony and ensured that we were recording it on DVD for him (he also has a DVD recorder, but he sometimes gets the buttons programmed in wrong). Unfortunately the coverage overran by 1/2 hr and our DVD ran out of space just before they started the torch lighting. Wish that we’d cut that hour or so of athletes entering behind their flags out. Thankfully I missed most of that bit because Evie needed a feed and we had a mini catnap.
