Zorac's LiveJournal

A couple of movie reviews for y'all this evening. Italian Job, The (1969) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). A pair of top notch heist movies, the former about to get a remake, and the later is a remake of the sixties original. Possible spoilers within if you haven't seen the films...

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Just finished building the all-time largest LEGO model. With 3104 pieces and a construction manual that runs to 228 pages of A3, this thing is BIG. Yes, folks, it's the Imperial Star Destroyer, all 37" of it. The problem now is finding somewhere to put the darned thing...

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Another Oxford Harry Potter fandom mini-meet this evening, with myself, cygnusfap and annamilton. We had dinner at a Thai place not far from Carfax - not something I normally go for, but it was all very nice, and even wasn't as hot as the menu threatened it would be. Much discussion of both the canon and the fanon, the movies, LotR, etc both at the restaurant and back at Cygnus' afterwards where we also Y!M+webcammed with thegraybook, owlman et al. OK, that's enough name-dropping for one evening ;-) I'm off to bed...

Just watched the extended DVD version of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. It's a long time since I last saw it, so I'm not really in a position to do a comparison with the original version. There are the obvious additions such as Galadriel's gift giving, but more it's just an added feeling of depth, more characterisation etc. 5 weeks tomorrow until The Two Towers...

OK, so here's a strange little Potter fic I cooked up last night. The idea's been bouncing around my head for I while now and it ties into the novel-length fic I'm working on. It didn't come out quite how I expected, but ... well, have a look for yourself.

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It is with a heavy heart that I report the death of my paternal grandfather. He passed away peacefully in his sleep on Saturday morning, aged 92. It pains me to admit that I did not know him as well as I should have.

He studied medicine at Cambridge and later served as a medic with the paratroops in the Second World War. His first wife, also a doctor, sadly passed away shortly after I was born. I first remember visiting at "The Workhouse" - his home in the Lake District, then latterly, after he re-married, down in Hastings. He also served as patriarch at many a family event over the years, most recently his own 90th birthday celebrations two and a half years ago.

A friendly and oftentimes jovial man, he enjoyed his comforts - food, drink, holidays (albeit never travelling light). I have vivid memories of a time we were camping with him one summer in France, it's pouring with rain, but this isn't going to stop him from cooking up a delicious three-course meal on the limited kitchen facilities of our two tents.

Unfortunately, old age finally caught up - a series of strokes taking him in and out of hospital over the last year or so, the most recent attack leaving him little chance of returning home. He is survived by his second wife, three children and four grandchildren.

Rest in Peace, Grandpa.

So, it was off to see the wizards this evening. A packed cinema - with plenty of unaccompanied adults. Initial reaction: well, I left with a big silly grin on my face, so...

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Oh, and a word to the wise - don't leave the cinema before the end of the credits.

Review: James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear is another interesting piece of science fiction, although this one is more social since than some of his other work. The premise has a colony at Alpha Centauri which was established by a robot probe with cloned colonists and their robot carers. The main story takes place some 40-50 years later with a society very different from ours - technology provides pretty much everything at minimal cost, so there's no need for money or a concept of material wealth, plus many other differences for a society which has evolved from scratch without the baggage of the past. The conflict comes with a colony ship from Earth whose leaders expect to come in and smoothly take over only to find there's no government to take over etc. Plenty of interesting ideas and well executed.

Meta-Review: I just love the double act of reviewer quotes from two giants of the genre on the back cover:
'Arthur C. Clarke move over' - Isaac Asimov
'Much though it hurts me to say so, Isaac, you are right. Welcome, Jim Hogan, to the hardcore science fiction club' - Arthur C. Clarke

New toys arrived today, including (inspired by this post in jiggery_pokery's journal) an Evil Clock featuring the image to the left (one of thegraybook's user icons, taken from a comic reworking of a scene from her fic Draco Veritas. Sadly it no longer seems to be available, so I guess I'm one of very few people in the world to have a wall graced by this fabulous timepiece!

Well, that was a weekend and a half.

Full report on my weekend in Düsseldorf:

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