Dance popping

Here's a cool dance video for the weekend. I've only watched it, like, three times already:

Film: Warrior

Warrior is a first rate beat-em-up along the lines of Rocky and The Fighter.

Tom Hardy is on fine form as a pyscho fighter (I think he's a good actor but he needs to move fast to avoid being sterotyped by Hollywood), as is his brother, played by Joel Edgerton.

I don't think this one is going hang around on the big screen for very long but it's definitely worth watching. You could say it punches above its weight! (Oh no)

****

Film: Drive

After slogging through a class on corporate reporting I thought this movie has potential to lighten the mood and lift the spirit. But no. The opening pink font and funky eighties style music was but a trap which I fell into. After the first twenty minutes or so, Drive escalates into a heavy, violent film, albeit one that is beautifully made with great acting throughout. The mood is a noir-ish one that keeps you on edge most of the way through. It's a great piece of work but I still need something to lighten up.

****

Odeon voucher

If you like films, print off this Odeon voucher for 40% off the standard price. You can print them off repeatedly until the offer expires on 13th October and there are no awkward restrictions.

I may well put this offer to good use now that some decent films are out (Warrior, Tinker Tailor). Just need to find the time is all.

Best ever visual auditory illusion - McGurk Effect

Great post in Alphaville on UBS $2bn hit

"It’s very helpful for UBS to have an individual trader to blame. It distances the bank from the event, and the individual can be pilloried as the rotten apple in a barrel of perfect Golden Delicious. The truth, as the ever-lengthening line of these disasters demonstrates, is that the banks encourage reckless behaviour. Nobody gets fired for making $2bn from a rogue trade that comes right. If his bet on black comes up, he gets a life-changing bonus. If it’s red, it’s not his money."

Link to the full piece.

Cool victorian pictures

From the rather wonderful site that is Retronaut. Click on the link to see the full collection.

Another horrible word

It's nowhere near as bad as 'tipping point' but the phrase 'having the bandwith' is starting to gather momentum. I think it's near the tipping point. I don't have the mental bandwith to cope.

Crazy Angolan puppet magic

Putin Calendar?

Here be a great collection of photos of Putin in various poses. We need a leader like this. Real man!

A couple of pics

The last picture of this season’s sunflowers. Double bee bonus!

Now the sunflowers are dying and the bugs are a comin’

NS&I inflation linked certificates are no more

The latest issue of government inflation linked bonds has been pulled and we can expect a long wait until the next batch.

Apparantly the investment industry were up in arms at the distortionary impact of the high rates of return of offer. Myself, I think RPI + 1% is perfectly reasonable, and while this may translate to a return of about 5%, in real terms it is just a paltry 1%. That's what you really get for locking your money away for five years, 1% a year. Look at any other safe bets mind (e.g. regular gvt bonds, strong corporates, bank saving rates, etc) and you will most probably lose money in real terms.

Sneakering suckertash

... like a sledge hammer, my next round of accountancy studies is at my door, and my evenings and several weekends will now be given to traipsing hither and thither to various colleges of bean counting to learn the art of the pro forma and the trusted techniques. Of course this means my blogging will again recede into the background.

Yes, woe is me.

E4 & Friends

E4 is broadcasting its last ever episode of Friends on Sunday. I can't remember watching anything else on E4 other than the odd episode of Smallville, so it will be interesting to see what fills the space.

Firefox 6

After some prodding I have installed Firefox 6.0 on my old machine. It is rather wonderful. My igoogle homepages are so fast they seem to be preloaded in the background. The upgrade itself was simple and also very fast.

In today's age it would seem that Firefox has lost it's trail-blazing lead (in terms of advantages) over the competition, and Opera, Safari, Chrome and even Internet Explorer are all pretty good bets for your internet browsing needs. For me, I'm still liking and sticking to Firefox. It offers lots of options to customise and there are stacks of useful add-ons. But there are two over-riding reasons for sticking with Firefox:

Firefox is the name of a cool Clint Eastwood film:


It is also the name of an old home arcade game that I used to play in the mornings before heading off to school: