Watched Sherlock – the abominable bride with friends. The series continues its high-quality mysteries, keeps deepening the relationship between its principal characters and does it all with a clever twist on time-travel. If you like the series, this is more of the excellent same.
Author Archives: cafedave
Underestimating the power of a fresh start
Today was a fairly poorly-considered start to the year. Instead of having a ready-to-use check list of all the things I want to do differently, I treated it as any other day. Failed attempt to sleep in – kids had other ideas. Attempts a Christmas present jigsaw puzzle that proved too hard for the kids. …
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reflections on being given a CD for Christmas
Never mind who gave it to me, or what it was: this is more about changing media consumption habits. A cartoon on the topic of “what drew me to vinyl” started me down this rabbit hole. We’ve seen with the slow closing of video rental stores the future of a business whose chief point of …
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audio book: The Martian
This XKCD cartoon first made me interested in the book. I was wondering whether or not to keep my Audible subscription, and this book popped up on the recommended list. Maybe I’d been spending too much time thinking about left-brain puzzles, but I really enjoyed this book: the structure is fairly predictable, but the author …
movie: The Lobster
Movie: The Lobster Colin Farrell again shows his commitment to his craft knows no bounds. In a dystopian future, single people have 45 days to find a match or they are turned into the animal of their choice. If you find that premise interesting, and you can push through some uncomfortable scenes, there’s much to …
apple TV: Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall
Stan: Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall With the upcoming Bond movie Spectre, there are all manner of Bond related promotions in progress. On Netflix-competitor Stan, there’s current access to all the Bond movies, so I thought I’d revisit the Daniel Craig Bond movies to see how they stand up. Casino Royale is from 2006, and it …
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movie: Bridge of Spies
Movie: Bridge of Spies I went into this fairly spoiler-free, having not heard of the historical person the movie was based on, and only watching the trailer briefly, and seeing this Tom Hanks / Jimmy Fallon piece. Spielberg is in good form here, even if the absence of a John Williams score (and indeed the …
favourite TED talk
This is one of my favourite TED talks ever. Solar Crowdsourcing (3:34). There are some technical problems early on, but stay with it.
Audible: I, Partridge: We need to talk about Alan
Audible: I, Partridge: We need to talk about Alan [a fictional autobiography from, and read by, Steve Coogan’s character Alan Partridge). If you’re at all familiar with the work of Alan Partridge, you’ll know what to expect here. A man so narcissistic that he can narrate the birth of his son, and insert anecdotes about …
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Side projects
I’ve had a chance to look through some of the projects I’ve been aiming to start over the last while. A video from Gary Vaynerchuck talked about the 7pm-2am window to work on other projects, starting something big. At the moment, I’m pouring that energy more into my main job: there will come a day …