After a grey and dismal weekend the weather is finally cheering up a bit this afternoon, a weak sunshine is bravely having a look at South London and deciding whether to stay or not. Not enough sunshine to dry out the dampness where it has been raining all weekend or to warm the air, but it is a start.
I've not been up to much today; pretty much confining myself to bed based activities as I'm storing up my energy for the long trip to Suffolk and back tomorrow (I think it is a three hour train journey each way!). The Amantadine seems to be helping a bit - but I've noticed playing Xbox and typing here has really made my arms ache after not very long. Ah well, I've not much work to do on the train, so apart from conversations with my boss maybe I'll get some sleep travelling tomorrow.
I spent most of the morning (and the afternoon so far) pottering around with Fable II on the Xbox 360. I've finished the main game, and the add-on (Knothole Island)... all that remains are a few outstanding achievements, which seem to be taking as much time and effort as everything else put together. They are all the sort which seem to require co-operation with other online gamers, which I never thought was so much of the point with this particular game. It is the one thing that really annoys me about Xbox 360 games... the achievements, one of which in every game is very hard to do... so I can not say for any of these games that I have finished them, not really.
I took a brief wander in the garden to check on the progress of the tadpoles (still wiggling) and see how the pond is looking (murky, but the plant life finally seems to be sprouting). Whilst I was there watching Jaws very ungratefully not eating the lunch with which Rich had so thoughtfully provided him I noticed a 'splosh'... a frog was my first thought, but no! A mostly brown with some gold large-ish type fish. A survivor from the heron massacre. Here's hoping that there are some more where he came from!
I've been reminded this weekend why we don't much watch UK made TV in this house. On Saturday was one of the 'specials' that comprise the end of the Russel T Davis and David Tennant era of Doctor Who. Now, let it be said - Doctor Who never much impresses me and I'll probably stop watching when Tennant leaves as he is pretty much why I watch. This show was the same old fare through and through - London (always London) threatened by an alien threat... the Doctor (with a little help from U.N.I.T) saves the day. Some more (yes more) new aliens are introduced, some definitely bad maybe some good... doesn't look like any peripheral characters will be sticking around for the next episode "The Waters of Mars" airing later this year.
Also all over the weekend TV Channel 'Dave' (so named because appently everyone knows a bloke called Dave) was screening three new episodes of Red Dwarf... some ten years since the last series ended and some twenty years since it first hit our screens. The cast did well (considering that they are all a fair bit older than when it all started) - however in good Red Dwarf tradition the new shows completely ignore the end of the previous series and pick up where it suits them. Most of the fun comes from the Dwarfers being on Earth and my favourite bit was definitely the Smart car done up to look like Starbug. Red Dwarf itself clearly benefited from the leaps and bounds in production technology - the old spaceship never looked so good! Could the three episodes lead to more? It doesn't seem to have been ruled out, and the ending of this mini-series defnitely wasn't definitive. Let's hope if there is more that it won't be another ten years!
Finally we also watched Sky One's 'Skellig' on Easter Day. Except that we didn't, not really. I wanted to watch it because it was billed using words such as 'fantasy' and 'magical' so I thought it might be my kind of thing... also because Tim Roth (who I quite rate) was starring. We watched about an hour (half the show) during which nothing really happened and so we got bored and swithched off. Things might have picked upafter that, but the thought of what might be missed didn't outweigh the thought of watching another hour of the same.
So, UK TV oh-for-three (that is a strike out!) compared to Lost and the new episode 'Dead is Dead'. Setting aside a few very bad wigs (they dressed up Michale Emerson in very bad wigs to play a younger version of his character, but got a different actor to play the young Charles Widmore!) this was a superlative episode. Focussing on the 'other half' of the Ajira survivors (that is Sun, Frank, Locke, Ben et al.) it was brilliant to have the verbal sparring between Locke and Ben back. It was also good to get a bit (tiny bit) more history filled in of Ben and Widmore. And of course, Smokey was back; summoned by Ben to 'judge' him - and another dead person when Alex turned up to chastise her father. If UK TV struck out then Lost was an out of the ballpark home run!
I've not been up to much today; pretty much confining myself to bed based activities as I'm storing up my energy for the long trip to Suffolk and back tomorrow (I think it is a three hour train journey each way!). The Amantadine seems to be helping a bit - but I've noticed playing Xbox and typing here has really made my arms ache after not very long. Ah well, I've not much work to do on the train, so apart from conversations with my boss maybe I'll get some sleep travelling tomorrow.
I spent most of the morning (and the afternoon so far) pottering around with Fable II on the Xbox 360. I've finished the main game, and the add-on (Knothole Island)... all that remains are a few outstanding achievements, which seem to be taking as much time and effort as everything else put together. They are all the sort which seem to require co-operation with other online gamers, which I never thought was so much of the point with this particular game. It is the one thing that really annoys me about Xbox 360 games... the achievements, one of which in every game is very hard to do... so I can not say for any of these games that I have finished them, not really.
I took a brief wander in the garden to check on the progress of the tadpoles (still wiggling) and see how the pond is looking (murky, but the plant life finally seems to be sprouting). Whilst I was there watching Jaws very ungratefully not eating the lunch with which Rich had so thoughtfully provided him I noticed a 'splosh'... a frog was my first thought, but no! A mostly brown with some gold large-ish type fish. A survivor from the heron massacre. Here's hoping that there are some more where he came from!
I've been reminded this weekend why we don't much watch UK made TV in this house. On Saturday was one of the 'specials' that comprise the end of the Russel T Davis and David Tennant era of Doctor Who. Now, let it be said - Doctor Who never much impresses me and I'll probably stop watching when Tennant leaves as he is pretty much why I watch. This show was the same old fare through and through - London (always London) threatened by an alien threat... the Doctor (with a little help from U.N.I.T) saves the day. Some more (yes more) new aliens are introduced, some definitely bad maybe some good... doesn't look like any peripheral characters will be sticking around for the next episode "The Waters of Mars" airing later this year.
Also all over the weekend TV Channel 'Dave' (so named because appently everyone knows a bloke called Dave) was screening three new episodes of Red Dwarf... some ten years since the last series ended and some twenty years since it first hit our screens. The cast did well (considering that they are all a fair bit older than when it all started) - however in good Red Dwarf tradition the new shows completely ignore the end of the previous series and pick up where it suits them. Most of the fun comes from the Dwarfers being on Earth and my favourite bit was definitely the Smart car done up to look like Starbug. Red Dwarf itself clearly benefited from the leaps and bounds in production technology - the old spaceship never looked so good! Could the three episodes lead to more? It doesn't seem to have been ruled out, and the ending of this mini-series defnitely wasn't definitive. Let's hope if there is more that it won't be another ten years!
Finally we also watched Sky One's 'Skellig' on Easter Day. Except that we didn't, not really. I wanted to watch it because it was billed using words such as 'fantasy' and 'magical' so I thought it might be my kind of thing... also because Tim Roth (who I quite rate) was starring. We watched about an hour (half the show) during which nothing really happened and so we got bored and swithched off. Things might have picked upafter that, but the thought of what might be missed didn't outweigh the thought of watching another hour of the same.
So, UK TV oh-for-three (that is a strike out!) compared to Lost and the new episode 'Dead is Dead'. Setting aside a few very bad wigs (they dressed up Michale Emerson in very bad wigs to play a younger version of his character, but got a different actor to play the young Charles Widmore!) this was a superlative episode. Focussing on the 'other half' of the Ajira survivors (that is Sun, Frank, Locke, Ben et al.) it was brilliant to have the verbal sparring between Locke and Ben back. It was also good to get a bit (tiny bit) more history filled in of Ben and Widmore. And of course, Smokey was back; summoned by Ben to 'judge' him - and another dead person when Alex turned up to chastise her father. If UK TV struck out then Lost was an out of the ballpark home run!