Monday 25 December 2017

Merry Christmas 2017!

Why not keep it simple sometimes? It was a nice day.

Will watch Star Wars again tomorrow, but in 2D. And with another set of friends in another country :) Somehow I manage without Facebook still.

EDIT 2017-12-25: Second review of Star Wars: I stand by what I said before, i.e. it's a nice film, but too many new characters are introduced, while at the same time many characters are heavily underused or misused. Also a German audience is more fun than a Swedish one ;) "The best moment in the film" was met by 100% silence except 1-2 young girls very quietly uttered "ooooo" and "aaaaa", and even afterwards it was completely silent for a very long time. I'm much like that myself, friends in the US sometimes ask me why I don't go bananas when something amazing happens...

Tuesday 19 December 2017

The battle has only just begun

Maybe it was "The battle is only beginning". I'm terrible at remembering quotes, but Luke said something like that towards the end. Uh-oh, spoiler alert!

3D is still trash btw. Jerky, and I see shadows from unfiltered light, ugh. Gotta keep trying though, one day it might be good. Not gonna happen until they go to >= 48 Hz.

So, spoiler-free opinions, hmm. I went in without having seen anything, except a few pictures on some trashy web-sites somewhere, so I had zero expectations. It's a very pretty film, of course. Surprisingly good. I like to say that "VII = bigger * IV + more - lotsa_charm < IV", and now "VII < VIII = (V + VI) / 2.3 < min(V, VI)" (see the final order in a later paragraph). My prediction about a spiced up Hoth variant came true (wasn't a prediction at all, I mean seriously, they had to have it). And the parts about the Force were really clunky, they didn't bother to do anything new with that. "Oh right, we need something about the Force, err, copy-paste a few lines from the previous films, sound ok? Just make a fun death scene so people laugh." On that note, it was a funny film from time to time, but man CG animals are so incredibly annoying. Bah, I need to lighten up.

There was one perfectly executed "woah!" moment, and the reaction in the cinema was amazing; absolute silence except for one guy exclaiming quite confidently "woah!". I'm not a big fan of hocus pocus in films, but this was really good. I saw the moment coming from parsecs away (what? they talked about parsecs in the film), but I would have chosen a much closer "destination". Anyway, what happened probably looked better, and yes it looked great. Best part of the film ;)

Some people in the audience stood up and clapped their hands at the "sage mode" scene, that was really stupid. I felt like performing the sacred rite of face palming right where I was sitting, but what's the point when nobody can see you in the darkness.

So, now it's IV >= V > VI > VIII > VII. Wait, why does this whole series start at IV? And yeah, IV >= V, because of that one sunset scene that I've written about before. That to me is film mojo. It's life.

Last day at work tomorrow, then I'll vanish back home to safety.

Ah yeah, the keyboard kit. There were a few issues: there was a USB mini B cable in the kit, not a micro B which the Pro Micros need, and the acrylic case plates had the wrong dimensions. So it's still lying around in its box. Seems like the seller will send a new case for free though, so I just need some patience.

AoC, do it. Little late now though. And there's Project Euler if you want the real deal, I should continue on that.

Violin practice is grueling, but when I suddenly do something good, I'm so happy.

Finished!