A couple of months ago I saw a trailer for this movie, liked the trailer so got hold of the book, read the book and didn’t like it (review here) and now it was time at last to watch the movie.
I liked the movie. I found it extremely funny, very quirky and entertaining. The movie tells the story of the U.S. Army’s First Earth Battalion which was an experimental unit to bring New Age theories into the army. Soldiers practiced meditation, primal screams, remote viewing, etc. and ultimately tried to stop the heart of a goat by staring at it.
The movie gains over the book by having a coherent narrative to tie the various stories together, however it does let the book down (IMHO) by not showing how these experiments with the paranormal has led to more ‘legitimate’ military programs such as the psychological techniques being used for interrogation in the ‘War on Terror’.
Although this was an entertaining film in its own right, some of the biggest giggles came because the psychic spies also called themselves Jedi and this story is being told to Ewan McGregor with lines like “could I become a Jedi” “what does it mean to be a Jedi” etc.
Nice little film, but will be as good on the small screen as on the big one so wait till it comes along.
In the ongoing tour of restaurants starting with a different letter of the alphabet we have reached ‘k’ and so Ketchup, in Ashton Lane.
Ketchup is a burger bar, but with an exceptional menu. Not only are the burgers very good, but you can also choose venison, lamb, ostrich and pork. They also have Kobe Beef, which is the legendary Japanese cows that are fed on beer and massaged…. sounded good, but I didn’t go for it.
I had “The Goodfella – Think you’re a wise guy? We pile on pepperoni slices, mozzarella cheese and balsamic-marinated tomatoes, then add red onions, romaine lettuce and an olive-herb mayonnaise” (obviously without the cheese – because cheese is evil).
The food was fantastic, absolutely fabulous – fries to die for, salad perfectly dressed and delicious. The atmosphere is nice, informal and a sort of 50s kitsch brought up to date. On the down side the service was a little patchy as there seemed to be not enough people on even though it wasn’t that busy at 5:30 on a Tuesday evening. We had to wait at the door with no staff anywhere in sight for two or three minutes then it took a long time to get served at each stage and they always opened with ‘has anyone… yet’ like no one knew who was supposed to look after our table.
That said the staff were friendly and helpful, the food arrived very quickly and no one was trying to push us out the door at the end of our meal so over all this really wasn’t a problem at all.
I would totally recommend Ketchup as the best burger ever!
Musicademy provides training resources for worship musicians, worship leaders and churches. Among the resources are instructional DVDs and recently I’ve been trying to learn Bass guitar using their Beginners Worship Bass DVD. It has been slow going because of my irregular practice, complete lack of any background in music and not really liking worship music much, but I will persevere.
Anyway, it is a privilege to blog for them about my passion, the integration of video in worship. If you read it, do let me know what you think.
My ongoing quest to work through the Pratchett back catalog continues. I decided to read the books according to ‘type’ as described in this diagram and have worked through all the ‘Watch’ and ‘Death’ books as well as the odd other ones not specifically in sequence. This book “The Truth” falls in the group of books under the heading Industrial Revolution and deals with the introduction of the printing press.
The dwarfs who run the press are in it for the money, and naturally their appearance in the city doesn’t go down well with the guild of engravers for whom this new technology is obvious competition. But who actually needs things printed in the city of Ankh Morpork where it is unusual for people to be able to read.
It turns out that what the city needs is a free press – though not free in every sense – and so is launched “The Ankh Moorpork Times: The truth shall make ye free . Extra” paper.
Concepts of journalism are new and developing with tough decisions about what exactly is news – root vegetables which look like …ehh “bits” always seems to go down well, but political intrigue and investigation doesn’t seem to sell so well. Indeed, in time a red-top competitor turns up, which appears (with the help of CMOT Dibbler) to be simply ‘making up’ stories!
With Pratchett technology tends to come down to boxes with imps in, such as the iconograph, which is a small box with a hole in one side which is covered over. When the iconograph is put in front of a subject and the hole is uncovered for a short time, the imp inside paints a picture of what it has seen through the hole. In The Truth, the Times hires Otto as an iconographer, a vampire, but one who has signed ‘the pledge’ so is trying to go without blood. Otto is developing new ways of making iconographs in the dark by using the light given off by a salamander when startled, the only drawback being the effect this light has on vampires often causing Otto to crumble into a rather inconvenient pile of dust after taking a picture.
This is Pratchett at the top of his game explaining and expanding how new technology is developed on discworld, there is a plot to take over the city and Captain Vimes and The Watch are just around every corner.
I’ve always looked on blogging as a personal record for myself of what I’ve been doing, ‘reviews’ are more reminders of places I’ve eaten, movies, books, etc. to remind myself as much as anything else. It is also nice to share the odd and quirky things that you find in life or online.
I’ve user various ‘rules’ to blog such as trying to blog once a day, trying not to blog for a month, doing a weekly summary of good things and bad things from that week (might do that again it was very cathartic). Anyway, one thing I’ve always been slightly confused about is how any of it is of interest to anyone – if it is I am very pleased but I think if I started to think about writing for an ‘audience’ it would change how I approached a post.
So a few weeks ago I was surprised to get an email from an author offering me a copy of his book to review. There was an outline of the book and a link to a web site with a sample chapter and it did look like a book I would enjoy. It also looked legitimate rather than a scam so I gave him my address to post the book to.
It arrived today.
I do hope it is good, as I would feel very guilty about getting a freebie and then having to give it a bad review.
After many months of neglect I have finally managed to redesign the Deep River web pages. These now reflect much more what we do with DeepRiver, rather than selling video, photos, DVD’s, etc. we are better placed to actually go along to a church or event and run the visuals for them or train them how to integrate visuals into what they do.
If you could choose the cast of an Action Movie how would it compare to the cast list for ‘The Expendables‘ due for release next year?
Sylvester Stallone
Jason Statham
Jet Li
Dolph Lundgren
Mickey Rourke
Bruce Willis
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Eric Roberts
OK, so a lot of them are past their prime, and no doubt some will be cameo roles but still this is some line up! It would have been good to see Bruce Lee or Patrick Swayze around for this sort of thing and I hope it is a decent film so they don’t just make fools of themselves.
This story is set in a small town in California on the lead up to Christmas, where the angel Rasiel is sent to earth to grant a Christmas Miracle. Meanwhile someone (accidentally) kills a man in a Santa costume, she wants to call the police but is persuaded by a passer to hide the body beside an old graveyard, mainly so that he can get to know her better and doesn’t have to spend Christmas alone.
The local sheriff runs over Rasiel – who gets up and walks away since he is an angel – this drives the sheriff to his pot smoking habit. Meanwhile the sheriff’s wife is off her meds, which isn’t generally a good thing because she tends to take on her former B-Movie character of “The Warrior Babe of the Outland” and wonder around with a broad sword.
It turns out that a small boy also saw Santa getting killed so thinks that Christmas will be somewhat a let down and Rasiel asks this boy what he wants for his Christmas Miracle. This is how the angel Rasiel ends up standing over the grave carrying out a miracle to raise the dead… this is a little bit careless because, as mentioned, santa is burried beside a graveyard and the raising of the dead miracle isn’t restricted to just the one body.
That’s why the annual Christmas party in the church hall is interrupted by the sudden appearance of zombies hungry for brain, and the Warrior Babe of the Outland and a slightly stoned sheriff.
OK, so I’ve given away a fair amount of the plot here, but the book is more about the journey than the plot. There are a lot of characters in this book, and I found it hard to keep up with who was who a lot of the time, but the characters are all well written and the plot moves along at a good pace.
I think this is a little more for fans of the author who have read more of his material than I have because according to a short explanation of what other books various characters appeared in before. I didn’t like it as much as LAMB, but it was an entertaining read.
I’ve watched all seven seasons of The West Wing in around eight weeks. Not particularly deliberately, I tended to watch a disk at a time (4 episodes) and a few times much more but not necessarily every night or even going out of my way to watch it. The program is simply and brilliantly addictive.
From just about the pilot episode they got it right. The casting, set, acting, production, camera work and above all the writing is amazing. The pace and sheer amount of plot in each episode makes it compelling to watch – the trademark “walk & talk” shots particularly involving Josh, Sam or Donna are always fun and speaking of fun there is so much slapstick humour woven into a show – which somehow works along side very serious subjects.
I am really glad that I didn’t discover this TV gem while it was being broadcast however, for the simple reason that the end of each season is such a clifhanger that I really enjoyed being able to play the opening of the next straight away.
However, in my humble opinion, the show goes downhill around seasons 6 and 7. These shows are still very compelling television but for some reason by then there are no more jokes, a lot of the action is no longer in The West Wing but out on the campaign trail and the cast are scattered all over the place. It is still very enjoyable but not in the same league as the earlier seasons.
Anyway, if you are like I was a few months ago and people keep going on and on about how good The West Wing is and you can’t see what could possibly be that good about what is after all just a TV show. Trust me – it is worth getting hold of, it is worth watching and you will get something out of it (even if that is just a vague idea of how US Politics might work).
PS, can I get seasons 1 and 2 back some time I want to start again.
I liked the movie. I found it extremely funny, very quirky and entertaining. The movie tells the story of the U.S. Army’s First Earth Battalion which was an experimental unit to bring New Age theories into the army. Soldiers practiced meditation, primal screams, remote viewing, etc. and ultimately tried to stop the heart of a goat by staring at it.
Posted by grayza 
Ketchup
Posted by grayza 
Posted by grayza 
