Month: March 2008

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Retro lift

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Lift like TARDIS that only goes to the 70s

Lift like TARDIS that only goes to the 70s

We’re moving offices at the moment as we’ve completely outgrown our small serviced offices and have signed a lease on an entire floor in the building literally across the road (so no wacky races with vans and things will be required). The building across the road is perfectly fine, but the landlord hasn’t quite finished refurbishing it yet and has a few things still to do, including the refurbishment of one of the two lifts. One lift is all modern with digital controls and voice floor announcements and all that jazz, but the other, although functional, is still as it was installed when the building was built in the 70s.

It’s totally retro, with big clunky buttons, wood paneling, an old fashioned floor indicator panel above the door (which doesn’t work) and inside the emergency phone cabinet is this fully functional dial telephone (pictured). It actually works too! It’s like going back in time 20 years.

I’ve also added a third monitor to my Mac Pro at work, because I’m greedy and I can. It was a spare monitor I had at my Dad’s house, liberated from the Rhydio office in 2006, and so I thought I’d put it to good use. Very soon I’ll wonder how I worked without it and be wanting a fourth one, which will be entirely possible since my Mac Pro has 4 monitor ports.

three-monitors

Because I am greedy

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Railair links

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What is it about these “Railair links”. They are neither rail nor air; they’re frigging bus services, nothing more, stop trying to dress it up. Buses are shit and not a viable form of transport unless you’re poor, a murderer, or a combination thereof. Don’t make bus services out to be anything more glamourous than they actually are with poncy names like “Railair”, it’s not fooling anyone. It’s a bus; a cheap and inadequate substitute for proper public transport.

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Cloverfield

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Watched Cloverfield in the cinema last night. A brilliant disaster movie which involves a mysterious monster attacking New York City, the origins nor fate of which are ever revealed. The film is shot entirely from the perspective of a small group of people who are recording events using a camcorder as they attempt to escape and survive the chaos around them.

Although sometimes very difficult to watch due to the jerky camera movements, the constraints that the film makers placed upon themselves by choosing this format have lead to a great deal of consistency with the film. There is no back story, you only get to know what the characters get to know, save perhaps for a few vague news reports from televisions in the background in a few scenes. Most disaster movies are plagued by implausible scientific and/or political back stories, plus equally implausible technology and military strategy, but there’s none of this with Cloverfield and it’s very refreshing. You’re left with many unanswered questions at the end of the film as a result, but that’s the point, you know no more than the protagonists.

I suppose you could describe it as Godzilla done right, although in all honesty I’ve never thought that Godzilla was an entirely terrible film, despite its widespread panning.