Reilly2040's Blog

Just for anyone that was wondering if I was still going to “re-spin” my Dr Who video

I definitely am, but annoyingly the Nero project file had become corrupted. Originally I’d figured that I could fix a few of the pacing issues by re-juggling the existing clips, but with the project file dead, it meant I’m going to have to rebuild the whole thing from scratch.

Something that hasn’t been helped by Nero deciding to become very unstable on my home PC, and crashing constantly.

As a result, I’m taking the advantage to look into getting a proper movie editing package. I’m on a budget, but I’m currently looking at Ulead Video Studio 11, and I’ve downloaded the trial to see if it’ll be worth getting.

This was the view from my office last night. Really nice dramatic sky.

So, with my front headlight bulb failing, and Halfords refusing to replace it, I finally decided to just book the car into a garage and get the driver’s side electric window fixed at the same time.

However, it turned nasty when the garage informed me that the window needed a new regulator, which would need to be an official part and would cost £220 (apparently for other cars, they maybe cost about £80).

*sigh* I really hope my car is better behaved next year breakdown-wise.  This year’s been really nasty for repair bills.

I was chosen to be best man at a wedding over the weekend, but the bride and groom decided that they wanted to steer away from the more traditional best man gift. As a result, I’m now the (very) proud owner of a Master Replicas ForceFX Lightsaber.

I’m amazingly impressed by it. I’ve seen them in shops before, but it doesn’t compare to actually getting to try one out. The metal construction is fantastic (especially when you’re used to the cheaper plastic toys), the blade gives off a fair amount of light (as you can see), and the sounds are clear and crisp.

While they’re more expensive than the plastic versions, they have been dropping in price over the last year, and I can’t recommend them enough to anyone that’s ever thought of nabbing one. Well worth it.

Well, I’m back from 7 nights staying in New York City. Its the second time I’ve been there, so I’d seen a lot of the big tourist attractions before, but this trip had a different emphasis. We were based a bit further out of Times Square than before, and we’d booked up a Broadway show this time.

Some random thoughts in no particular order:

It really is a one-of-a-kind city. I seriously doubt there’s anywhere like it in the world, and its really somewhere most people should make the effort to go at somepoint in their lives.

New Yorkers have a bad and undeserved reputation. My experiences of them have (with a few rare exceptions) always been very positive, with everyone being very friendly and outgoing.

Avenue Q is great. A brilliant show that I can’t recommend enough.

Central Park needs signs. Badly. Expecially when you’re guzzling gallons of water due to the heat and really need to find a toilet.

Central Park is however, beautiful to walk around, and a great haven from the rest of NYC.

Fairway Market is how other supermarkets should be. Despite stocking a lot of known brand products, they also have their own farm to source their various fruit, veg etc from. Its like a great mix between a normal supermarket and a proper wholesalers. Its great.

The Tavern on the Green Restaurant is another stunning location everyone should check out while they’re over there.

Toys R Us Times Square has a big wheel in the shop itself. That’s just cool.

45.23809523809524% of me is a huge nerd! How about you?

Had a great day out playing Paintball on Saturday. The morning was a bit of a write-off. The full-head safety masks, while protecting my noggin from the oh-so-sore headshots, also resulted in a lot of sweat, which completely knackered my visibility. Which wasn’t much use when I was trying to spot people crawling through the undergrowth.

The afternoon was a lot better though. The game areas were more open, so you could actually see where people were to shoot at them, while there was still plenty of cover.

I’ve hurt like heck the last two days though. Some sod shot me in the shoulder blade at close range, which has come up in a fairly spectacular bruise, but other than that, its the general joint and muscle pains, which are to be expected.

My original hope for this week had been to get today (Friday) off, so I could stay up throughout Thursday night and watch the election results come in. I’ve never managed to do so yet, although I do find the coverage very interesting. Sadly my request for the day off was denied, so once again, I’m stuck waiting until the next election.

So, I did my bit, voted, and then went off to bed, expecting to wake up this morning and find out who was now in charge. Wow, was I in for a shock.

Admittedly, piloting any new voting system is always going to go wrong. The Government’s record with IT projects is legendary. But its gone spectacularly wrong. An unprecedented number of spoiled papers, counts abandoned during the night and general chaos. And all this with a vote that’s too close to call.

Whoever wins, it’ll surely be a hollow victory, with speculation as to whether or not the spoiled papers (currently they’re predicting they could reach 100,000 spoiled) would’ve changed the results.

There seems to be a lot of questions being raised as to whether holding the council elections on the same day as the parliament elections was a good idea. At this point, I’d think its fairly safe to say the answer is no. This is a sad day in Scottish politics.

Well, that’s another thing crossed off the list

We were pretty impressed with Bespoke Cakes, who we’ve ordered this from. Looking forward to tasting it come the wedding

Well, I cracked and went over to my folks tonight to meet the two new pups. Both are cracking wee dogs. Devin (now that I’ve got the correct spelling) definitely seems to be the more mischievious of the two, but both were great natured, and didn’t seem too fussed by my being around. The pup that was being called Jake, has now been renamed Rex.

Here’s a couple of videos of them in action, destroying both plants and the clothes pole.

Devin

Rex