Books, movies and moving grounds

25 August

The Hunger Games. We’ve seen adds for it on Netfix, I’ve seen the books about in various places, but yer no wot? I’ve never really fancied them, and neither has Jan. For me, reading the shout on the back of them told the story, and of course, the goodie always wins. Then I found the full set in a pack in The Works for a fiver, a saving of £12, so I went for it. What a fool I’ve been! I really enjoyed all three of them.

So when we were searching through Virgin movies and found what I though was all the films too. We watched #3 last night, with me watching the clock with the story line in my mind. It ended early, so there’s a fourth film to watch. Jan found the four film pack on Amazon and its due here tomorrow. Of course, you can never get the full story into one two-hour film, but the parts left out are not so vital.

As I was leaving The Works yesterday I saw another book set, The Maze Runner, another 4 for a fiver offer, I was sorely tempted with them, but even at that price, cash was a tad short at the time, so I’m hoping I can get them next time I’m in town.

That earthquake in Italy is a bit of a shockers folks. Even so, there is a history of quakes in Italy, so why the shock I wonder? Perhaps it’s just the latest one and it reminds us of just how close to home it is. At least we don’t have any fault lines here in the UK, even if we do get the odd quake here. What we don’t have are active volcanos, Italy has two of them, and don’t forget, it’s not all that large a country really land wise. The death toll increased by 50 while I watched the news last evening. It’s fairly low at 120 deaths (now stands at 247 as of two minutes ago on MSN), when it comes to quakes in urban areas.

A few years ago where there was series of quakes that seemed to be moving along a fault line between the African, Arabian and Eurasian Plates. The movement that began a theory was runs along the lines of the quakes becoming stronger as they moved causing a major threat to Istanbul, before continuing on towards Italy. I’ve not seen much of it for a few years now, but who knows eh, it might well start to move again. Perhaps the last on in Italy is part of it …    

And so the largest aircraft in the world has crashed on only its second test flight. This aircraft is another balloon design but using helium and not hydrogen to inflate it. This idea keeps on being tried but so far no-one has been able to bring one to market after the Hindenburg disaster years ago. Germany used them as bombers in WW1 and in WW2 they were used as barrage balloons, and attempt at trying to prevent the bombers from Germany. However, I can’t see them ever being a commercial success. But what do I know; I once said that compact cassettes wouldn’t ever catch on … well, let’s move on shall we.

There does seem to be thing with new technology that a number of different systems come along at the same time all doing the same thing, like with PCs and Apple. Think back to the video players, VHS, Beta max and the Phillips 2000 system. Slowly it was VHS that won out. Right now we but DVDs simply because of the extra cost of Blue Ray discs and players. Again, Blue Ray won out over the other systems on the market at the time. Now there’s HD and of course 3D. I won’t be going for 3D, can’t be bothered with it.

Today’s photo is another flower at the zoo …

Today’s funny …

A young man, hired by a supermarket, reported for his first day of work. The manager greeted him with a warm handshake and a smile, gave him a broom and said, ''your first job will be to sweep out the store.''
''But I'm a college graduate,'' the young man replied indignantly.
''Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that,'' said the manager. ''Here, give me the broom, I'll show you how.''