A bit of background. Linda, who is one of the people I work with at QUT, is a bit of a mad LOTR fan. Recently she had a financial opportunity to purchase something she had had her eye on for a while - a replica of Aragorn's sword. We had been eagerly awaiting the news that it had been delivered to her house about a week or so ago. Also, every six weeks, our section has a meeting, and of the items each time is a "show and tell" from a staff member. There was no-one scheduled for this meeting, so Linda volunteered. I'm sure you can guess what the theme would be. So today, after lugging the item round in a cardboard box on the train all the way to work, she brought it in to show us. Myself and a few other people got a bit of a early bird look and hold of the sword before the meeting. I was mightily impressed :) Being a geek, I had an appropriate thrill when I was able to hold it. Linda also bought the matching scabbard which really completed the whole thing (and drawing and sheathing this thing is a real bitch!).
Anyhow, the end of the meeting came, and it was time for show and tell. There were quite a few strange looks at the start of the meeting when Linda dragged in this large, but nondescript box. However, there was a generaly sense of awe and everybody was pretty impressed with this particular show and tell. Or "show-off and tell" as Linda said :)
Unfortunately I didn't bring our digital camera to work to take a photo, so I had to use the one at work, which doesn't have great resolution or picture quality, but I took what I could get (who knows, there may be another chance in the future to pose with it again - I think everyone in the office would like to see the sword at least once more :) ). So the picture below is me, holding this beauty of a sword. As you can see, it's quite a big piece. 4"5" or 135cms long, made of 420 stainless steel, and weighing around 4 kilos. Very impressive.
And no, we didn't swing it around or run anyone through. But we were very tempted :)
Posted: 10:45 PM
May the comments be with you. 3 so far.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Weekly Geek Rant #6:
Thought I'd start with a real geek rant this time. I was witness to two incidents that offended me greatly as a geek. Both incidents occurred as part of 'At The Movies - with Margaret and David' that aired on Wednesday last week.
Incident #1: David Stratton introduces the movies to be reviewed in that edition of the show. One of said movies to be reviewed is Fantastic Four. As part of the introduction, David uses one of The Thing's catchphrases (not one of Burgo's catchphrases). David however, manages to get it wrong. "It's clobbering time!" says David. You dick. The Thing does not use wonderful grammar. The Thing says "It's clobberin' time!". Note the conspicuous absence of the 'g'. Sigh. Nitpicky? Not if you're a geek.
Incident #2: Margaret Pomeranz is discussing Fantastic Four with David. She comments that she is 'getting a bit tired of cartoons being made in to movies'. If I had any hair left I would pull it out. Margaret: Fantastic Four is not based on a goddamn cartoon. It is based on a comic. Yes there is a difference. If you can't work out what the difference is Margaret, I'm not going to write in and tell you.
OK, rant out of the way. Review time. This weekend, Kirsten, Daniel (not Dan) and I went to see War of the Worlds. I enjoyed this film. Definately a blockbuster. I haven't seen the 1953 version in a long time, so I can't compare it to that. I might do that in the future. While I enjoyed the movie, I wasn't quite as blown away as I was hoping I would be. The film maintains a great atmosphere of foreboding, then terror, awe, deperation and several other emotions. I quite often felt myself getting lost in the moment. The visual effects were great, as I come to expect from ILM. The sound was awesome, particularly the tripods energy weapon effect, and the musical-or-is-it sound the make when they appear to communicate. Again I had to wait until the end credits to see if John Williams had indeed done the music, as it was different again from his previous efforts. Good stuff though, and well suited to the tone of the film. This film is also really a two-actor show. Dakota Fanning is the most talented little actor I've seen. Tom Cruise isn't bad either - I forgot he was Tom for most of the movie, so that's a pretty good effort.
Without spoiling things for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, the only thing that stopped me frmo feeling this was a great film, rather than just a very good film, was the ending. It's nothing to do with the plot, or any of the 'why's'. It's just that for the climax of such a big movie I was expecting something, well, bigger. But apart from that, again I don't have any other critiscisms.
I give it 1.8 out of 2 thumbs up! :)
Posted: 9:35 PM
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