What happens when we sleep? I'm presuming that for the majority we recharge, characterised by total or partial unconsciousness.
Not for Katie, a student living with her partner Micah who claims that a presence has haunted her since she was a child! I'm referring to the Paranormal Activity movie which presents the story of a young couple "engaged to be engaged" who have a dangerous presence in their house.
Presented from the perspective of Micah's video camera, purchased to capture the paranormal activity. This means that without any ambiance, the ambiance in the cinema is the people that choose to be loud and provide spoilers! Damn them! Paranormal Activity is worth watching although I wasn't impressed with the finale, there is an alternative ending apparently which attracts my interest. That I'm sure will feature on the DVD/Blu-Ray release and I would suggest this as a purchase/rental for when you're alone..
When I woke up in the morning yesterday I wasn't really feeling like anyone famous! Fast forward 24 hours and I definitely have a Sean Combs demeanour!
I had brushed my teeth with Vodka and left for what became an eventful night! The agenda was to discuss pedicures on our toes and the boys blowing up our phones. Actually the conversation centered around tattoo's and the Hills. The later obviously being for the purpose of humour, but you knew that right?!?
There were unexplained photographs although I'm concerned that there wasn't a shoe perspective as isn't that the standard?! I managed to misplace another umbrella but it could have been worse especially had I travelled to Brighton and returned home with many unaccountable items. That scenario was reserved for anyone that travelled south for the weekend. Personally I felt that Newcastle should have been the feature but I wasn't in any position to make decisions as the curtain came down and I awaited the view from the afternoon..
The morning started with a telephone call to inform me that the children wanted to attend their activities. I had arranged this prior to receiving the reminder! After a journey through the Enchanted Forest I received an update that they weren't feeling too well and had decided to stay home.
I sense a conspiracy!
With no alternative arrangement for the short term I travelled to the Gym. It's all about the Saturday morning workout! There's always the usual suspects from the week in attendance and it would appear I'm in this category as well. Received the expected telephone calls and also the unexpected which always becomes colourful!
Anyway, tonight I'm scheduled to participate in a 'girls night out' who knew?!
Another week resigned to the archives, the buzz term in the office appears to be stakeholder management at the moment! I have heard this a few times recently and today I had to provide a presentation about all the excitement.
It was impressive and had Paul Daniels attended he would have liked it, not a lot but he would definitely have liked it! I decided that I would reward the achievement with a new haircut. Who doesn't want to look silky smooth, without referring to the Paul Mitchell handbook though I opted for Tony & Guy's!!
Arrived full of anticipation and although there was a delay to the schedule, the silky smooth look was magnificent and thankfully I wasn't too late for the rendezvous. The dinner arrangement wasn't disrupted because it was organised for later in the evening. Made impressions at several bars around Hoxton and Shoreditch before arriving at Pizza East which I thoroughly recommend because the food and service were excellent! After cocktails at Beach Blanket Babylon Shoreditch we headed for 93 Feet East which always provides a great night of entertainment! Weren't disappointed either as we really enjoyed the music and the dance moves on display were exceptional although I felt that my 'crab' received the most acclaim! The evening ended by trying to make people yawn but this didn't work too well!!!
Location based services, utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of mobile devices, continue to gain momentum.
Now not only do I have to keep up appearances on Facebook, share what's happening on Twitter but I also have to check into places of interest, restaurants and bars! Everyone is going to know that I check into plenty of bars, is that a good thing?!
I have interacted with location based services for a while and I still think we're yet to see the killer app introduced. I feel that Foursquare and Gowalla are close to realising the potential, but would like to see services pushing towards a standard! I rate the ability to publish to the Facebook newsfeed, to-do lists, history/stats, the ability to upload photos and I would also like the ability to interact with friends and their activity.
With Facebook Connect, the option to publish to the newsfeed encourages friends to participate. I have noticed several of my friends now using Gowalla since I began publishing my activity and I'm sure this will continue to increase in popularity. The to-do lists on Foursquare are a great method of discovery, I have spoken to friends about this and they're intrigued so it's definitely an attractive feature.
Being able to provide historical data and statistics obviously has advantages, location based services potentially could offer coupons and promotions and it's all about the freebies!
Providing the ability to upload photos, allows us to add our identity to the location. Whether it's to capture the moment or to just upload something random, it's personalised! Finally interaction is primarily why I contribute to social networks so providing multiple layers for communication enhances the usability and likelihood that the service will become widely adopted!
The Google Chrome OS has generated significant interest across the Internet and anticipation continues to build with the open sourceChromium OS available! From what I have read, Chrome OS appears to be an evolution of the Chrome browser. The operating system has been designed to provide web applications with the full functionality of desktop applications.
Every application will be a web application with data backed up to the cloud. What's impressive is that should anything happen to the hardware we will be able to log into the cloud to retrieve the cached data!
The Chrome OS strategy comes down to services, servers, security but what interests me most is the Chrome version of the iTunes app store. Apple have shown what can be achieved and no doubt Google will experience similar success and profit providing third party applications through the operating system. I have predicted that next year will be strong for Google with Android but Chrome OS also has the potential to be a game-changer. I'm intrigued and will follow developments with anticipation. What are your views?!
New Moon, the Twilight sequel, eclipsed the record for a single-day opening at the North American box office, and has also achieved one of the biggest weekends ever in terms of overall ticket sales.
New Moon continues the dangerous romance between high school student Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and 108-year old vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Making being pale desirable, intense intimate moments with the couple barely able to kiss without consequence and with the accident prone Bella there's never a dull moment in the Cullen residence.
The story starts with Bella concerned about her age, at 18-years old she's definitely pushing retirement. I'm not going to reveal too much but after she's nearly eaten at her birthday party at the Cullen house, Bella is devastated by the abrupt departure of her vampire love, who decides that being with him isn't the best lifestyle choice. After falling apart, her spirit is rekindled by her growing friendship with the irresistible Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Suddenly she finds herself drawn into the world of the werewolves, ancestral enemies of the vampires, and finds her loyalties evaluated.
Film analysts and the blogosphere have been particularly critical about the underlying message from the movie. A professor of gender studies even views New Moon as an anti-feminist film that reinforces gender stereotypes to a "scary" extent. I enjoyed the following perspective from Skepchick which highlights the areas in a great context -
The messages behind Twilight? Be weak, let your man protect you. Be careful, don’t get him angry. If he hurts you, it’s your fault. Abuse is part of life. Accept it. If he really loves you, he’ll try not to hurt you but don’t be surprised if he does. You probably deserve it. You are nobody without your man, so don’t bother trying. (Skepchick)
Overall I really enjoyed the movie, which has a decent soundtrack as well. This may be a film full of gender stereotypes—testosterone-driven male aggression, females who pine away over lost loves, boys who fix motorcycles and the girls who watch them but it's werewolves against vampires and it's fun! New Moon has actually made me want to read the other books in the series. I want to learn more about the wolfpack, hunt the woods in tight-fitting denim shorts and get ripped from eating giant muffins!
Werewolves appear to be a popular choice at the box office recently; XMen Origins presented the Wolverine story and the trailer for The Wolfman looked impressive. I'm full of anticipation for Eclipse and if anymore villains are introduced we may see the Mystery Machine and Scooby-Doo make an appearance! Let me know your views in the comments..
Image by Daniel Semper via Flickr![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a8449bef-c8e8-49ef-b7ec-c530d3c04763)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2d802814-49a1-46f7-9afc-773c6b66987d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2da56079-4d12-44a6-b427-4c0d36b2e540)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c2ab35d7-1432-4ca3-8b5d-3fe484b65f7e)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c3790e3d-3e3a-41d0-8056-a8cf0434299b)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4f1543b6-0612-4436-8cc9-ed0b02f9c479)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7eadc6a7-d0e5-40cd-881e-a3b9d4156814)