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Random thoughts of a Brit living in the Imperial Valley of California

Archive for April, 2007

Its Not a Big Truck!!

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Are your tubes full of enormous material?

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April 30th, 2007 at 9:52 am

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Lamb or Poodle – You Decide!

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Was gonna just post this on my del.icio.us feed but its too damn good to get overlooked there. According to this article at metro.co.uk, thousands of people in Japan have been (ahem) ‘fleeced’ into buying neatly coiffured lambs they thought were poodles. Entire flocks of lambs were shipped over from the UK and Australia to Japan by an internet company and marketed as the latest ‘must have’ accessory. But the scam was only spotted after a leading Japanese actress said her ‘poodle’ didn’t bark and refused to eat dog food.

So, carefully study the images above and see if can spot which is lamb, and which is poodle. And, please, no ‘sheepdog’ jokes.

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April 26th, 2007 at 9:43 am

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Happy St George’s Day!

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England Flag

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April 23rd, 2007 at 10:49 am

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Single of the Week, no the Month!

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Great pop tune from the UK – Sexy in Latin by Little Man Tate. I love the lyrics and Mark will no doubt appreciate the chick in the video.

Available on iTunes if you are so inclined. I know I was.

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April 20th, 2007 at 10:17 am

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Love Frys Hate Frys

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You can’t beat the big window shopping experience that is Fry’s but it’s also dangerous. Take tonight: I went just to look around, enjoy the ambience etc and find they are selling a 250Gb external hard drive for $60 after rebate. Now I don’t really need one, but it’s $60. For 250Gb. Yeah, $60. So I bought it.

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April 19th, 2007 at 8:32 pm

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iPod Whine

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Got two complaints about the iPod:

  1. When I say play all songs by artist X, I want all the songs involving said artist not just the ones in which artist X is solo. For instance the Robbie Williams Swing When You’re Winning album is largely duets but if I choose Artists then Robbie then that album I only get the solo songs. Not what I want.
  2. I want the new Search feature from the latest iPod models. I am not going to shell out more $$$ on a new model just to get that feature. Perhaps if I could get more adept at getting the “fast forward” feature up when scrolling through the albums/artists list it wouldn’t be so bad but I don’t seem to do it right and end up getting a sore finger when trying to get to Working Week.

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April 13th, 2007 at 8:35 am

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Mini Movie Review: The Prestige

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The Plot Turn of the century magicians take rivalry and revenge a bit too far.

Stars Hugh Jackman; Christian Bale; Michael Caine; Scarlett Johansson. David Bowie was in it and I didn’t even notice it was him!

Mini Review I hadn’t heard of this film, buying it for its highly thought-of Blu-ray transfer, but I am glad I did. I was a little confused at the beginning, not being able to get straight which magician was which (maybe a little less wine next time) but the story unfolds steadily building up to a classic twist ending. If you liked Memento, you’ll love this one too. Indeed, about 30 minutes after the movie was over I had a couple of “of course” moments as I realised the significance of things I had overlooked. Scarlett Johansson provides ample eye candy, Michael “my name is Michael Caine” is always perfect as the refined English gent, and the two stars do a great job as the scheming illusionists.

Picture This is the fourth Blu-ray movie I’ve watched. I’m not watching on 1080p, only lowly 720p, so am maybe missing out but the picture was crystal clear and some of the vistas in Italy were outstanding, as was the cinematography when in London. I read that this is one of the best high-def pictures out there and I have no problem believing it.

Audio I made a mistake and did not choose the uncompressed 5.1 PCM soundtrack, but the regular Dolby Digital 5.1 was fine. Its not a movie with amazing sound effects, rather the soundtrack is unobtrusive. At times we could not understand some spoken conversations but this happens with other movies when the sound is only from the front centre speaker.

Rating A definite 5 out of 5.

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April 10th, 2007 at 7:59 am

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Funny Video of the Day

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Two of my least favourite people on the telly but funny to watch. I’m tempted to say the whole thing was scripted, though.

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April 6th, 2007 at 6:50 am

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Return to Sender

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On March 19th I blogged that my citizenship application was under way. Yesterday my application was returned to me due to insufficient postage coupled with a note that “the receiver declined to pay the additional postage”. With all the money thats been spent with them on my behalf, its a bit cheap of the INS not to pony up the 33c!

Of course, it could have been worse – the letter could have been returned by faceless goons in the middle of the night and stamped “return to sender” on me. I know you’ll all be relieved to hear that I am still in the country and the paperwork has been returned with more stamps.

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April 5th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

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Deal of the Day – $60 iTunes Gift Card for $45

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Go to this link at BestBuy.com and order 4 $15 iTunes gift cards, and only pay for three of them. Better still, shipping is free and (in CA at least) no tax to pay!

Too bad I don’t know anyone who just bought a new iPod and has a birthday coming up.

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April 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 am

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