March 2011

The registration for the seminar is now open and there is a substantial early bird registration discount. Beside this the members of Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian Oracle User Group have additional discount. Please see the details on www.dbprof.com about the seminar registration.

I tried really hard to organize this unique event at the affordable prices for everybody especially in times when the financial crisis is still striking the budget for education.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you will know I fell down the stairs last night. My office is upstairs and I often put mail on the stairs to remind me to take it up. I also have a habit of walking around the house with the lights off in the evening. These two factors combined beautifully yesterday and resulted in me launching myself down the stairs with a couple of empty mugs in my hands. The initial assessment was left knee and right elbow were sore and I had some small cuts on my hands and arms from the shattered mugs in my hands. As the adrenaline wore off I noticed more cuts and various bits of my body started to ache.

Everything is OK this morning. My left knee still feels a bit dodgy, but all the cuts were so fine they are barely noticeable now. Apart from that, it’s just an all-over body ache similar to minor whiplash. Fun, fun, fun…

Cheers

Tim…

First Lord’s Fury is the sixth (and final) book in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. The book follows on from where the Princep’s Fury ended.

This book returns to the juggernaut pace of Captains Fury. I mentioned previously that some parts of the series were quite predictable, but that didn’t detract from the enjoyment and expectation. That is also true of this final book. You are pretty sure where you would like things to end up. The question is, how are you going to get there?

Part of me is very sad it’s over and part of me is relieved as I don’t think I could cope if it carried on. It’s an awesome series, but I quite draining because it is so intense. If this were a 38+ series like Discworld, I think I would have to retire on medical grounds…

It’s about 4 months until the next Dresden Files book is released, so I think I will have a rest and maybe look at the Earth’s Children series, suggested by @Boneist.

Cheers

Tim…

For some masochistic reason you decide to watch Independence Day, realize it’s a steaming pile of crap (of almost Twilight proportions) and decide the only way to make the world a better place is to redo the film properly. What you end up with is Battle: Los Angeles. It’s pretty much the same story.

I’m not saying it’s a great sci-fi film, but it’s pretty darn good. I wasn’t holding out much hope during the first few scenes because the person with the camera seemed to be having a fit. On stationary shots where people were just chatting it looked like the camera was sitting on a washing machine during the spin cycle. Once the action kicked in the camera work seemed much more appropriate, even steady at times.

The feel was very much like that of District 9 and Skyline, which is a good thing in my opinion. Dirty and gritty wins out over Hollywood polish for me. The budget was quite a bit higher than those films, but it had some recognizable actors and everything was so much bigger. It still came in at $5,000,000 under the price of Independence Day, and that was made 14 years ago.

There were a few inevitable bits of cheese and gaps in story development, probably from cuts to bring it just under 2 hours, but it still worked pretty well.

I was surprised to see Ne-Yo in the film, but he did an OK job. If Michelle Rodriguez is one tenth as cool in real life as she is in films, she will be mine. Oh yes! She will be mine! It would be great to have a girlfriend who could beat the crap out of guys if they don’t respect my authoritah…

Cheers

Tim…