I’m currently listening to some old episodes of Net@Night, one of the TWiT stable of podcasts, and Leo Laporte was talking about feed readers. The episode is about a year old now, and even back then he was discussing the fact that everyone gets their news from Twitter, they choose a few key sites to visit every now and then, and that having a news reader is just too much information.

It’s a good film. As I mentioned at the start, I was anticipating a Full Monty style film and it is just like that, if a little harder to understand, and a lot more gritty. These people have real problems and dancing is a way out for the boy, rather than stripping being a temporary solution. Also, What’s it like, like? is my new favourite saying.

Ooh, it’s completely crazy, this one. Getting children to use their imaginations is good, and the anti-bullying message works as well. I’m not sure about the gratuitous emotional bit towards the end, but it’s aimed at children and not me.

Wow, this film drags on a bit. It wasn’t even that long and still the story was quite drawn out. What is essentially a bit of a battle managed to fill over two hours. I don’t really understand why the children felt so compelled to get involved, really, it’s not like they didn’t have enough going on in their lives! Still, the snow looked good, and the ice palace was fun.

If you ignore the really bad reindeer flying graphics, then the film is actually alright. It’s an interesting take on the Santa story, and it has enough real life stuff to counter the quite fantastical idea of a polar bear directing the traffic. You have to suspend your disbelief, but it does promote the nice message that Santa does indeed exist.

This is such a terrible film, with weird characters that make strange decisions. However, I do like some of the dialogue, and even though the hate-turned-love story is so clichéd, the insults are quite fun. I also really like Ross being in it.

A conversation about skiing over on Sidepodcast got me thinking. I have only ever tried skiing once, on a dry ski slope and it was during a school trip. My school had this Activity Week thing, where you forked over a lot of money to go on nice trips abroad, and if you couldn’t afford to do that, you stayed in school and did something like chess club for a week. It was supposed to expand your horizons and give you a nice, team-building, life-skills-growing break from the stress of studying. You only did it when you weren’t in an exam year, and to be honest, it was more stressful than any paper could have been.

A video for you today, from a couple of years ago:

Here’s a video that my dad found mentioned in one of those computer magazines. It’s always difficult to listen to someone moan about the trials and tribulations of being famous, but if it’s got to be done, you’d want it done this way. I have to say, if I saw Biff and summoned the nerve to speak, I’m pretty sure my first question wouldn’t be: Was it real manure? I’m not sure it would be any of my questions, actually. It’s never even crossed my mind!

This time Franck is actually on stage, no ice cubes in sight! Also, love the “just woke up” hair.

Franck gets a mention at Autosport. Shame he is not in the video itself, but I love Allan calling him Monsieur Montagny.

In preparation for watching The Incredibles 2, I realised I had to watch this one again. I had zero recollection of what had happened in the first movie, and as my initial summary says, this wasn’t a Pixar movie that I felt had rewatchable qualities. I still think that. To be honest, I just don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s good, and entertaining enough, and Edna is still one of the best things in it. The concept is intriguing, but is the world of superheroes one we need more of at the moment?

Eight Songs The song choices are by far the hardest part. My mother left her choices on the previous post, and told me that it took her the best part of an hour to narrow it down to eight. I’m not sure how long I’ve spent thinking about this as I chose them over a period of several days, by writing one, then going away to ponder and picking it up again later. Here goes:

Ah, hmm, well, this is quite embarrassing. I quite recently wrote a post about swearing off Twitter, and naturally, after making such a fuss about it… well… I’m back on Twitter. So, moving on. It appears that my old installation of Smarter Than… was hacked and the feed essentially ruined (thanks to John for alerting me to the fact). Something weird was happening with the site a while ago as well, so I have bitten the bullet and decided to head on back to the hosted Wordpress.com. Dealing with self-hosts is always a pain, and aside from the lack of theme choices, the dot com version seems to work as well as you’d hope.

Today, Autosport and Castrol announced they were teaming up to produce driver rankings, on a weekly basis. There is a secret formula that works out whether a driver should move up or down the rankings, presumably based on his performance, although it’s hard to tell. They were released today, but already have a year’s worth of data in them - and get this, Franck started 2009 in 20th position, but is currently sitting in 243rd.

A while ago, they finally debuted Desert Island Discs as a podcast via the BBC. It took a while to sort out due to rights restrictions both with the music played, and with the original format owners, but it’s there, available to download, hosted by Kirsty Young. I only listen to the people I’m interested in, such as the recent David Tennant episode, but it’s good to have the option. For some reason I have a mental block when it comes to radio via the iPlayer so podcasting is a good way for me to get this content.

I’ve left it a while to write about the last David Tennant episode of Doctor Who because I was trying to convince myself that it hadn’t actually finished, and that he was still floating around in his TARDIS somewhere. I have plenty of questions about the story itself, including why Time Lords would want time to end, who the Time Lord woman is and how she got through when no one else could, why the Doctor had so much time before he regenerated, and where the Master disappeared to.

The storyline with Pip wanting to leave college is really annoying me. I can understand David and Ruth’s reluctance for their daughter to make a rash decision, and the compromise of giving it another go for one more term is a good one. But they are so dead set against her leaving, praying that she’ll have changed her mind before another term is up, it makes me cringe. I did exactly what Pip wants to do, began A Levels but found it a waste of time so I left and got a job.

A few weeks ago, I left Twitter. I was a sporadic Twitterer anyway, but I did like reading the updates from everyone and keeping up with people I otherwise probably would not. I gave it up for many reasons, but mostly because all the changes that have been made recently take away functionality for the way I use Twitter. They are obviously focusing on the general public now, and that means making Twitter mainstream, instead of leaving it how it was.

It’s Franck’s birthday today and our favourite Frenchman is 32 years old. Happy birthday!! Let’s hope for some good racing this year to be the best present ever.

A news item I have been catching up with on Buzz Out Loud recently has me a little bit stunned. In Chicago, a young woman was at a birthday party where they rented out an entire cinema for the duration of a screening of New Moon. She was filming some video of the party-goers and managed to get about three minutes of the film on camera as well. This is odd to me because I can’t imagine the cinema letting a camera get in the screening in the first place, but still, perhaps just a short word to say: “Please don’t film here.”

Rumour has it that Amanda Holden is going to present a new game show based on the Crystal Maze. I can’t tell you how many parts of that sentence are just so. very. wrong. It’s not just that she is completely the wrong person to continue the tradition of Mazing. It’s that there are reportedly celebrities being lined up to play. And why is it “based on” the game? What tweaks are they going to make to completely ruin it?

I don’t know how I would have got on with the story if I didn’t already have characters and faces in my head though, as I didn’t find them particularly strong. Emma is an unlikely heroine, and even Mr Knightley doesn’t come across in the book quite as well as you would hope a dashing costume drama gentleman would do. (This may also have to do with how crushable Jonny Lee Miller was.)

Apologies to Mr C, but I was really not a fan of this. The idea behind the story is good but it wasn’t until I got halfway through the film that I really understood what was going on. The mood lighting and smoke machines got annoying after a while, and most of the time I was worried for poor J.F.

This was definitely a surprise. I was sure I wasn’t going to like it, as I mentioned above, but in the end, it was really good. It was too long, obviously, and some of it was a bit too scenery based, but bits of it were funny and that helps a film no end.

Ooh, at last, something from the movie industry that is both progressive and good! Presumably in an attempt to both halt the many unauthorised film clips available, and perhaps monetise it along the way, Paramount have opened up a site that allows you to select a clip from a movie, and purchase the licence to it. From the article where I learned of such things: Paramount will initially restrict use to business customers — advertising agencies, mobile carriers, foreign broadcasters — that want to license pieces of films for commercial use. The plan is to ultimately open the site to consumers. People wanting to embed a specific scene from “The Godfather” on their blog could go to ParamountClips.com and buy it.

The story is good, although I always worry when a book starts with a long list of characters, setting up the group for the rest of the pages. I am always concerned I’ll never remember them all, but of course, a good writer makes that problem go away, as Crichton inevitably does. It feels like one of those books you never really get too involved with, as it just follows the events as they happen, thus making it a page turner without you being emotionally invested.

I’m always concerned when writers bring in secondary characters in a plot, only as a device to continue the series onwards. The worst example of this is the Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novels, where some long-lost children were discovered just as the main character was getting on a bit. Conveniently, they both have the adventurous spirit that he does and the writing can continue!

Suddenly, over the festive holiday period, I have become obsessed with accessories. I have never been interested in that kind of thing before - except for an ill-fated venture into necklaces and nail varnish when I was in my teens. Since then, the only accessories I have really been bothered about are a ring from my dad, an engagement ring and a wedding ring. Roll on Christmas, and all of a sudden, I have this craving for all things accessories. I have already mentioned the bracelet that went a little bit wrong. It is in safe hands (not mine) and being fixed as we speak. I also bought another one (with matching shoes - crazy!) to go with Christmas party clothes.

I have returned with another episode of Media. Future. Change, catching up with some of the news from the past few weeks. Google have been dominating things recently, with lofty goals and tons of new products, but there’s plenty more to discuss in this episode. It’s down to the user to be sensible Coming up today we’ll discuss how you can celebrate New Year at home, why Switzerland isn’t a fan of Google, and when video viewers are switching off.

Try five new foods Complete the archives of this site Make that fish video Reach Film Watch 50 Go outside more Okay, the last one isn’t exactly quantifiable, and that is the key to achievable goals, but still, it’s an aim. I’m keen to hear your resolutions, if you have any.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart… But the very next day, you broke it. Oops.

Mashable has a brief article about a new advert taken out in the USA Today newspaper from chewing gum company Trident. Supposedly the tweets were discovered naturally, rather than the writers being sponsored to talk about the gum, and everybody was consulted to make sure they approved being included in the ad itself. A bizarre concept of micro-blogging turning back into print media.

For a long time, the Christmas Number One single in the UK has been rubbish. I don’t remember the last time there was a decent song at the top, but then again, there haven’t really been an enormous amount of worthy festive songs released recently anyway. For the past few years, the Yuletide number has been dominated by the Simon Cowell sponsored X Factor winner, and that’s usual a cover version of a song that has nothing to do with snow or Santa or anything.

The BBC released some statistics to coincide with the iPlayer’s second birthday ahead of the festive season. Some facts: Average of 5 million unique users a week iPlayer on mobiles peaks on weekday nights between 7pm and midnight The top streaming series for the year (Top Gear) generated more than 1.5 million streams, whilst the top radio was just 183,000. Supposedly Mac users prefer comedies, while PC users prefer dramas. Just after these numbers were released, the BBC Trust provisionally approved plans for the Beeb to get involved with the Project Canvas initiative.

After the success of the chocolate covered pretzels, my mother and I decided that baking mince pies would be the next challenge. It is Christmas, after all. After a bit of a delay as we tried to locate some mincemeat (silly supermarket two for one offers resulting in empty shelves), and we were ready to go. Now, I cook and I bake and I enjoy it, but I’m not so good at the bit where you have to dive right in and get your hands dirty.

I was determined that my Etsy purchase would be a one off, because despite all the proof that Etsy can be addictive, I’m so not into gathering stuff. Oops. Here’s what I got from my second Etsy delivery: This is a nifty little keyring type device that has space for tissues (a free pack came with the delivery as in the photo), plus a lipstick, or in my case some lip salve instead. On the back, there is space for something thin, like a business card or similar. I haven’t found anything to put in there yet, but my plan is to attach this to my keys to make it easy to find in my bag.

I’m not sure how long this has been around for, but I noticed today that YouTube have a new section called Shows. This is an expansion of the idea that broadcasters and networks have been signing up and posting clips of their TV programmes to YouTube in an attempt to a) stop people ripping their stuff and b) still use the site as a marketing tool. Now, though, there is the option to watch full episodes of selected shows. The first thing to note is that the list of networks is extensive. They are including both online and television networks alongside each other - which is good. The lines between these two formats are becoming blurred.

When I first gave up Christmas, I was so anti-everything-even-slightly-resembling-the-C-word that it was a lot of effort. I blogged about it a lot, I made rules, I set up a website, I wrote articles and guidelines about how to avoid the festive season. It was exhausting and a lot of it made me very angry. Everyone has to have a cause, I guess. Now, with the benefit of several years experience, I have realised what the cause really is. I’m not anti-Christmas. I just want everyone to do what they want to do.

For a while now, Mr C and I have been engrossed in the Spotify world, only just managing to stop from signing up for the premium service to get rid of the pesky ads. It is too much money and not quite worth it, but only just. Now though, I’m starting to wonder what we ever saw in it. The fact you can play music from many different genres, decades, albums for free is good, but there are drawbacks.

Browsing through Kottke, I stumbled across this interesting item about a potential future for the magazine industry. It links through to the original article, and a brilliant video. It’s a little dry, but the production is great and the concept is fascinating. Things I found of note:

After causing a bit of a kerfuffle with my harsh criticism of the special effects in The Terminator, I was intrigued to see the iTunes Film homepage feature some CGI Trailblazers. Now, we have already established that I am not an expert on movies, but some of these made me ponder. Terminator 2 - I’m saying nothing! Aliens - I’ve seen this one, although I don’t remember it enormously. I seem to recall the CGI being acceptable though. Final Fantasy - No idea. The Matrix - All that high-kicking freeze frame goodness, I’ve reviewed this one in Film Watch. Waterworld - Oooh, I love this film, but is it really that great in terms of graphics? Is it just because of the vast amount of water required? RoboCop 2 - No idea.

We have long said that Leo Laporte and his TWiT network is an inspiration to us, and this video goes behind the scenes of what Leo is trying to do. I found it via the Inside TWiT blog, and they call it the best video about TWiT ever. Could well be. Worth a look even if you don’t like Leo, as there’s some interesting thoughts about net neutrality as well.

I saw this story ages ago, was going to blog about it but promptly forgot. A father looking for his long lost daughter bought a domain of her name and set up a simple message saying: When you read this, please send me an email. Of course, nothing happened for a long time, but eventually the girl in question, April Becker, googled herself and found the site. She emailed the address and after some verification on both sides, father and daughter were reunited. At the time, she wrote on her Facebook page:

Despite the fact that this film is so very dated, and the special effects are nothing to write home about, it did strike a chord with me. The time travel element was good. However, I got a bit bored by the ‘just won’t die’ element of the Terminator. A bit like the slasher films when they always get back up again. Still, I’ll put Terminator 2 on my list.

Rumour has it that the lovely Franck will be at Autosport International in January, racing in a charity karting event. All the information you need: David Brabham will be reunited with his Le Mans 24 Hours winning teammate Alex Wurz and fellow Peugeot Sport stars Franck Montagny and Nicolas Minassian as they join the Celebrity Karting Challenge primarily in aid of Malaria No More UK at Autosport International, on Friday 15 January.

Mr C is often surprised, no, actually, the word is aghast, at the number of podcast episodes I have to listen to and how far back some of them are dated. I recently tried to play him a TWiT episode from March. Actually, even I think that is a bit extreme, but in some cases, it doesn’t really matter how old the information is. I listen to Farming Today, and over the last week or so, I’ve been catching up on some old shows. These are some of the things I learnt, and had a subsequent conversation with Mr C about. I would not have been able to do this had I just deleted the shows as he suggested.

A couple of pictures today: Credit: Brooke/Flickr Lots of pandas: Credit: May Wong/Flickr Plus, I can’t embed it but check out this picture of a lady hugging a panda. I could not be more jealous. Finally, my dad forwarded this news story to me about pandas calling for mates. I refuse to believe that pandas “chirp” and “bleat.” I don’t know what noise they do make, but bleating? Really?

Reading it a second time was just as good as the first… to start with. It’s been a long time since I read it and we know my memory isn’t great, but halfway through the book, I suddenly remembered who the murderer was, which spoiled it a little. I wasn’t 100% on the details though, so I kept on reading, and enjoyed it anyway. Once again, I recommend this book, although the way some of the dialogue is written makes it a bit hard to digest at time. I think it may be oversimplified slightly, to compensate for the number of characters in the book, but naturally, it soon whittles down!

Naturally, Christmas is all about chocolate, but as it is hard to consume the stuff via the internet, I have been looking at alternative advent calendars. There are quite a lot to choose from. Firstly, a totally selfish plug first, we have the Sidepodcast F1 Advent Calendar 2009. If you’re slightly interested in Formula 1, each day of advent there will be a three minute podcast running through the key moments of the 2009 season. If you’re not interested in F1, the good stuff is coming up!