worth the trek

As a long-time fan of the modern Star Trek era (ie. everything that took place from the first episode of Next Gen to the last episode of Voyager), I was looking forward to the latest Star Trek movie with a little trepidation.

I really wasn't interested in seeing Kirk & co; give me Jean-Luc Picard and his Enterprise crew, Ben Sisko and the DS9 cast on the deck of the Defiant, or 'Whatever happened to the Voyager when it got back from the Delta Quadrant?'... anything but the corny old-fashioned space-Western that launched the franchise.

Wow, was I in for a surprise when I caught Star Trek 11 on Saturday! Great cast, great story, great action, and a wonderful concept - using the well-worn and well-loved time travel device to really change history, so that everything useful could be kept in this old/new Trek mythos, and anything not useful could be easily ignored. I even loved seeing how the original Spock was incorporated in a meaningful role into the story! For the first time, I can really say that I'm a fan of the 'original' Trek... and roll on #12!

a gamble pays off

One of the first things that I twigged to after I brought home my new blu ray player last Christmas was that Australia is now in the same region as Europe, in the blu-ray world.

This means that we're no longer so much at the mercy of local distributors as to when we're able to acquire new release movies, or how much we can be gouged for them. For example, it's now possible to buy latest release blu-ray movies from the UK and France that aren't even released here (such as Faubourg 36, Ghost Town and Zack and Miri Make a Porno), and to pay less, even including postage, than the average $40 a disk that we'd have to pay here.

Recently, I picked up a buzz on the internet that many Zone A (USA) releases were actually region-neutral, although I couldn't definitely confirm it from a trusted source.

After some research, I decided to take a chance, and I ordered season 3 of Weeds from Amazon. I watched the first 2 seasons of that show on dvd here over a year ago, and really enjoyed it, but so far, no release here of season 3 has been even scheduled, while season 4 has already been solicited in the US.

Today, my package from Amazon arrived (somewhat beaten up in the post, I might add, although the disk itself was safe). Nervously, I placed the first disk in my player and waited. It seemed to take ages for it to recognise the disk, but then... success! It worked!!!

Which means I now have a whole new range of options available to access blu ray product from outside Australia.

I watched the first three episodes of Weeds 3 tonight... at long last, picking up on the cliff-hanger ending from season 2... it was great! And I'll definitely be ordering season 4 when it's released soon.

poetic justice

One of my long-time favourite lunchtime haunts, Mary Martin's bookshop and cafe at the Paramount on Bourke St, was forced to close up last Christmas, after the landlord at Paramount demanded a huge rent increase.

I walked past the old store today and noted, with some satisfaction, that it is still empty, with no sign of a new tenancy. What a pity... prime Bourke St shop frontage going to waste AND not bringing in any income for the poor landlord. Too bad :-D

i know what i like

I've always loved the painting Collins St, 5pm, by John Brack. I've admired it many times at the NGV, marvelled when its partner, The Bar, was displayed alongside it, and then delighted when the The Bar at last came into the (rightful) possession of the NGV as well. The NGV currently has a Brack exhibition at its Australian gallery, so that had to be worth an afternoon visit!

I was looking forward to seeing whole galleries of Brack's moody Collins St-esque painting. To my surprise, Collins St and The Bar seem to have been, literally, in a class of their own!

The majority of the works on display seemed to have little relationship to my two favourites. The experience was rather like when you hear a new song that you really love, so you decide to go out and buy the artist's latest cd, then find that nothing else on the album is like the tune that inspired you to buy it.

There were some striking individual pieces, particularly a portrait of Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage, which I've seen often over the years, but had never imagined to have been created by the artist of Collins St, and in his later years, Brack produced a series of eye-catching paintings based on postcard collections... you have to see it to get it, but I liked many of them.

However, they were probably in the minority. It was worth the effort to go see, even though I was disappointed that most of the art on display wasn't to my taste... that's the chance you take with any art exhibition, of course, and it didn't lessen my appreciation of the artist or his efforts.

And it was a nice way to spend a dull Autumn afternoon.

one of those days

Saturday was one of those days. I was supposed to be having a late lunch with a friend, but when that was cancelled at the last minute, I was left with the afternoon unexpectedly free. I wanted to do something with the day.

I checked Your Movies to see what movie I could catch, but there was nothing that particularly caught my eye. (Ok, I really wanted to see the new Star Trek film, but I'd already promised to take my kids next weekend). It was too late to catch the midday sessions of the two other films that I might have gone to, so as the afternoon started to tick away and nothing special came to mind, I finally decided to just go out, catch whatever bus or tram was coming, head into the city, and see what I could find!

As it turned out, the tram came first, so I headed down Dandenong Rd and St Kilda Rd. As we travelled, my mind churned thru some of the options for an afternoon's entertainment... movies were out; I was already too late to catch the footy at the 'G (and even if I did go, it was only Richmond and Brisbane playing); the shops were all open, but I didn't need anything, and I knew that if I ended up at South Melbourne market or Melbourne Central or DFO, I'd only be tempted to impulse buy.

As the tram stopped outside the NGV, I considered a stroll thru the galleries, and then I remembered what I'd been trying to find time to do for the past few weeks! Next stop: Federation Square.

revisited revisited

They say 'you can't go home again'. That's how it feels to watch the recent movie release of Brideshead Revisited, when you remember watching the terrific tv mini-series from the 1980's.

There were lots of little things that I liked about the movie... the beautiful cinematography, Emma Thompson, the art deco ocean liner, Emma Thompson, the Brideshead mansion (reprising its role in the earlier miniseries), Greta Scacchi, Emma Thompson, the most amazing sound quality that I've heard on a blu ray disc yet, ... oh, and did I mention Emma Thompson? (ok, it wasn't her finest performance, but even on a bad day, she's fabulous!)

But it just wasn't the same. They had to cram a - what? 8-hour or so mini-series into a 2-and-a-bit hour movie... too much of the fine detail of the story, and most importantly, of the characters, was lost. It ends up being a beautiful cinematic experience to watch, but without the payoff of a great story to go with it. Shame. I wanted it to be much better. This one gets 3 stars on the David-Margaret scale.

Oh, and Anthony Edwards *owns* Sebastian Flyte, so they shouldn't even think about trying this again! :-)

mystery of the missing megabytes

Twelve months ago, I was on a standard 2Gig-a-month download package from my ISP, and it was ample for my needs. I don't do online games; I don't download movies; I buy a few tracks from iTunes every month or so; I don't need much. Or at least, I didn't.

Around a year ago, I suddenly started to find myself struggling to keep within my download limit. For several months on end, I had to cut back online activities for the last few days of each month, to ensure I didn't blow it, and get dropped back to dialup speed. Then one month, I absent-mindedly and unusually bought an entire album from iTunes at once, and used up my monthly download allowance in less then 3 weeks!

Aghast at the thought of ten days on dialup, I contacted my ISP with a view to purchasing an extra 1Gb of download for the month. I also considered just upgrading to a 3Gb-a-month package; after all, I seemed to be using around 2.2Gb each month now (somehow).

Of course, I couldn't do that. They don't sell you downloads in quantities that you need; they make you buy more than you need, and then don't allow you to carry over the unused portion each month. That's fair (in fascist-world!)

So, cornered, I upgraded to a 5Gb-a-month package. It was double what I needed or would use, based on recent trends, but I had no option (aside from dialup speed. brrr!)

The upgrade didn't especially change my online habits. About the only thing I took up that would increase my usage was the wonderful Picasa; otherwise, it was business-as-usual. I struggled to use 3Gb for the first few months... and then, strangely, inexorably, my usage started to creep up again.

Month-by-month, I approached the 5Gb limit, unable to control my headlong dash back to dialup speed, and now, less than a year after upgrading, today, May 5, I will reach my monthly limit a full 28 hours before the month ends!

What the...? How is this happening? In the space of a year, I'm consuming 250% more bandwidth than I used to need. Where does it all go?

I have a theory or two... but I'll have to wait for another time, when I'm not sailing so close to my limit!

yearly bread

One of the many things that I haven't been able to enjoy in the more than three years since I was diagnosed as gluten-intolerant, is the pleasure of eating a slice of fresh, hot toast for breakfast.

Sure, you can buy gluten-free 'bread' fairly commonly these days, but the only thing that stuff has in common with true bread is a vaguely similar silhouette. The first time I tried it, I was appalled... not only did it taste nothing like any bread that I had ever tasted in my life, but the texture was so different that it felt almost alien. No soft, spongy feeling, but a hard, crumbly concoction, that even toasting couldn't make palatable.

This morning, I attended a breakfast meeting at a local cafe near work, and noticed that they had a gluten-free option on their brekky menu. Watching my colleagues tuck into their toast and crumpets, and with memories of past gluten-free toast atrocities beginning to recede from my memory, I decided to take a chance and order the gluten-free toast, with some honey.

When it arrived, it looked more like real toast than previous items that I'd tried; enough so that I almost expected that I would enjoy it when I ate it. Imagine my surprise... and delight!... when I took that first bite and realised that... it actually did taste good! Not just good, but great!

Yes, nice, almost authentic-tasting, gluten-free toast! I never thought I'd be able to say that, ever. It was so wonderful; I can't wait to go back for more... and it won't take three more years this time.

... I wonder if it would be too much to hope that they might do a fruit loaf variety?

now I get it!

Saw Paris 36 at the Brighton Bay cinema today. I enjoyed seeing the movie just as much the second time around, but understanding it properly made it even better!

Paris 36 is the English release-title of the French movie Faubourg 36, which I bought on dvd a few weeks ago, not suspecting that it would have only French sub-titles! I had understood more than I thought from my original viewing, but had missed a few key parts, including, especially, many of the jokes! This time around, I got the full story, and loved it.

failing all hours

It's a little unfair that Melbourne's train system cops so much flak just because it fails to cope with peak hour services on weekdays.

Yes, the system is crap during the week, and yes, it's due to poor management by Connex, combined with the corruption of a Government that's completely in the pocket of the road lobby, but really, it's not just crap during peak hour... it's crap all week around!

Yes, 7 days a week, 20 hours a day, Melbourne's train network fails to meet the needs of the public, and makes no apology for it!

Out-of-peak services still operate like it's 1969, not 2009.

Today, for example, I decided to use the train to get to the cinema to see a movie. The film started at 11am; the train runs only once every 20 minutes on Saturday mornings. It was scheduled to depart Elsternwick station at 10:47, and arrive at North Brighton at 10:51, allowing just enough time to get to the cinema. The thought crossed my mind that I'd miss the start of the session if the train ran late, but, I reasoned, there's only one service every 20 minutes, and it's still morning... surely, the train couldn't be running that late in those circumstances. Naturally, Connex proved me wrong.

The 10:47 arrived at Elsternwick at 10:57, fully 10 minutes late, with no warning or explanation. By the time I disembarked from the train, the session had already commenced. Luckily, I only missed trailers, so no great harm done, but it does make you despair that you can ever rely on Connex to get you anywhere on time at any time of the day or night.

We all know that Connex and the State Government can't run services during peak periods, but it's hard to believe that those same lame excuses that they roll out also apply to off-peak times. Why don't we have 10-minutes services scheduled on weekends and evenings? This is not the 1960's; people don't stay home and watch tv after hours any more... we want to get out and do things, and we need a reliable, frequent transport service at all hours to do so.

I could go on and on about Melbourne's public transport failures... and I think I will... watch this space.