Sunday 31 December 2017

The 42nd Post.

A bit of a change to my usual 'last post of the year' and as I write this I worry that I am becoming a grumpy old man.
My first smart phone was an iPhone.
My current smart phone is an iPhone.
It is the same phone and I've had it for about 4 years now.
To me 4 years isn't very long at all.
I have an iPhone 5C.
For 4 years I've been pretty happy with it. I do love its ease of use.
I bought my daughter an iPhone 5S a year ago.
The only real difference being the amount of storage capacity, her's is much bigger than mine and the size of mine was a mistake from the start. A mistake that has caused me to be careful with the number of applications I download and to have to frequently manage the space, deleting emails and managing photos etc.
It was something that I've managed to get my head around and something that I've been able to deal with, although it has been frustrating at times.
Now I'm getting messages to upgrade to iOS version 11, from 10.3.3.
I worried about the fact that doing so might actually grab a bit more of my most precious smart phone resource:- Space.
From SETTINGS I can see that the 10.3.3 iOS takes a hungry 578.8 MB. That seems a lot to me but its a great little device so I'm sure its all for a good reason.
I asked my daughter what iOS she was on.
'iOS 11' she informed me, as if that's what everyone should be on.
Fine.
'How much space does that use?' I asked.
'1.36 GB' she said, 'and I'm running out of space.'
Bloody marvellous.
I don't have that much space, it's been ages since I have had that much space. I can't afford to lose that much space. I've long since run out of sacrificial applications.
And what on earth is Apple doing between versions that requires so much extra space anyway?
I feel that I'm being ripped off by Apple.
They have been caught out already for nudging people to upgrade their devices to the latest version by slowing down older machines.
I think they are also making the smaller capacity phones obsolete by guzzling up as much space as they can get away with in their operating systems.
Sadly I think I'll be moving to Android next year when my contract expires.
I love the iPhone.
But I'm sick of being taken for a mug...

Movies of 2017.

I'll confess to see mostly movies about Superheroes with my daughter Jemma but I also took time to see the last Apes movie in the trilogy and the sequel to my favourite film of all time, Baderunner.
It's always difficult listing things in some kind of order as they all have something different and overall then only assessment I feel qualified to talk about is 'How much I enjoyed them'.
So.
Here goes.
In order of my enjoyment.
Thor - Ragnarok
This had the feel of a buddy movie, and whilst it had a similar feel to the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, with Hulk playing the role of Drax to Thor's Starlord and even Valkyrie playing Gamora, I went along for the ride and really enjoyed it. There were some great one liners and I loved the way the even the trailers were misleading when put in context of the surrounding movie.
War of the Planet of the Apes
A great ending to the trilogy, and I hope not the parking of a great re-imagining of the franchise.

I loved everything about this movie. I really 'human' story with a message. Some really nice touches, one of which explained humanity's loss of the ability to speak as seen in the original. Yep, I really hope they do more.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2
Yep, this one was almost as good as the first and like the Thor movie it never let up from bugging to end. One of those films where the end credits surprise you more for them coming what seems like too soon than the little extras.
Drax is excellent and baby Groot is used really well. The soundtrack is fabulous too. Sure it plays a bit with comic book mythology but I'm not going to complain at all. Comics are comics and movies are movies. I love the little changes, otherwise what's the point really.
Wonder Woman.
Certainly the best of the DC movies to date. Human story, well developed characters, not too much CGI and an actress who carried the role really well.

I had worried that this would feel too much like Captain America, a warrior out of time, but it had its own thing going on and just flowed so well.
Logan.
A bleak end to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine run but the best of the lot.

I just wish they'd been allowed to make this type of movie for all of his solo outings. Powerful stuff.
Justice League.
Yep, I enjoyed it. So there.

There has been a lot of criticism of this movie but I was always going to watch it regardless. A lot of the criticism I'd read was actually, well, just wrong. Written by people who must have on half watched the movie. It's a shame that the internet gives a voice to anyway (yep, I see the irony there, with me writing the post). I loved the Flash and the scene when he was spotted by Superman despite feeling invulnerable moving at speed is the standout scene for me this year. Yes, it was dark, but it allowed all the characters to have screen time and certainly sets up an interesting future for the franchise. This is if people stop listening to know-nothing critics and give the films a chance.
Bladerunner  2049.
It didn't ruin my favourite film.

I actually allowed myself to go to this despite my fears that it would ruin the myth that follows the original, Bladerunner.
It didn't and I enjoyed the movie.
Not as good as the original, or anywhere near it, but a decent film with a great soundtrack and some amazing visuals.
SpiderMan - Homecoming 

Although it felt a bit too much like the main Marvel movies and didn't really stamp its own identity on the franchise (which Ant-Man did so well), I enjoyed this latest version of Spidey and think it is probably the best to date. I also liked some of the more subtle changes to supporting characters and thank somebody somewhere that it wasn't another origin story.
Plenty of movies lining up for next year, should be a good one.

Saturday 30 December 2017

Street Art in Birmingham.

Every now and then I'm really impressed with a piece of street art. I came across this a few days ago whilst meeting up with my daughter in Birmingham.
I need to explore Birmingham better and see what other artworks have been produced around the city.

Friday 29 December 2017

Bargain at HMV.

Spotted this bargain yesterday in HMV.
Yep, for £9.99 I can get this DVD of a film that intrigued me when it came out. Or, I could combine it with another £9.99 DVD and pay an extra 2 pence, for a total of £20.
Bargain.

Tuesday 26 December 2017

New Steampunk comic.



Accent UK will be producing a Steampunk comic next year. Short stories featuring some very unique characters, with a twist. I'll not say more than that at the moment but the first story is in and I'm working on the script for the second one as I type this.
Gary Crutchley will also be contributing story and art in his own little tale, leaving only Colin to sort out his contribution.
Here's a teaser image.
with art from the very talented Russell Mark Olson, creator of Gateway City.
I'm hoping to Kickstarter this one to get it in front of people outside the UK.

It's a cracker.

Just to show that you can learn something new every day, I got this in my Christmas cracker.
No, it wasn't that the jokes were getting better...
I never knew that's where the X in Xmas comes from.

Sunday 10 December 2017

Me and Elvis.

I've always enjoyed listening to Elvis, who doesn't really.
Imagine my surprise then when up in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery I managed to take this selfie...

The magician's knot.

I forgot to mention that when I got home I found that somehow the magician had managed to get the knot that he'd cut from two pieced of string, that become one, to somehow turn up in my room.
Now that's magic.

Steve Tanner's 50th.

I've been busy of late with a new job and other things and so haven't updated the blog as much as I should have.
I wanted to share this photo though that I took at Steve 'Timebomb' Tanner's 50th Birthday party that we were invited to.
When Steve greeted me at the door I asked..
'Do you expect me to talk Godfinger?'
To which Steve replied...
'No Mr West, I expect you to die!'
You can't beat lines from classic movies :o)
We had a really enjoyable evening, I was magician's helper for a while and had to look after 'The knife'.
Yep.
A great night chatting, eating some wonderful curries and drinking with Steve and his family, Colin and Karen, Dave Morris and Liz and Paul Birch and his wife.

I've just booked Meanwhile event for next year.












I really enjoyed this year's event and so booked early for next year.
If you are in the area and want to see what a regional show can be like them pop along.