Spectre movie review

Paul, Phil and I took in the 8:30 screening of the latest James Bond movie - Spectre last night at the Eldorado.

Hmm what do you say. It's not one where one waits for the DVD. I don't reckon I could make it through if I was watching it on DVD. I found it tedious. There were a few times when I sat foward in my seat to avoid going off to sleep.

Daniel Craig playing James Bond seemed dull. The whole thing seemed to lack the sophistication that we associate with JB.

After a opening sequence which in hindsight was the highlight of the film we were treated to a lack luster opening credit sequence. Made me dream of those siluette sequences of the mid 1970's with "Shirly Bassey" or "lulu" singing.

The film then seemed to turn into a travelogue. I wondered whether the producers had emailed cities around the world offering to shoot some of the story and then chosen the cities who offered the best price and then run a script workshop to work out what they would actually film. Then shoved it all together.

Jemma Music Captain

Congratulations to Jemma who made music captain.
I arrived to find the school assembled with half a dozen rows of parents at the back.

They announced various best and fairest type awards - actually I think they were termed "Most improved".  The preps did very well. Small classes - more awards.  A predominance of girls getting awards.  In fact I thought the only preps getting awards were girls although this was later clarified in that one boy got an award but he likes to have gold braid in his hair and wore a tutu in the school play.

This year we had two girl captains announced.  No boys.  I had seen this before.  Year before last possibly.  I mentioned it to Megan and she commented along the lines that the boys were a pretty poor lot and you have to pick from the best talent available.  Now where have I heard that line before.  Oh yes now I remember - On the radio - Pretty much whenever there is a discussion on gender bias in Senior management.  In the latter context, I have heard the explanation that men promote men because we feel more comfortable employing or promoting those like us.  So if Boards and Senior management at loaded with private school boys there is a greater chance of a similar person being employed.  Hmm so I wonder when the head and deputy are both women  Hmm I wonder.

Then to draw in more pet peeves.  Firstly when the kids get to school they have to sit.  No running around for these kids. Oh no.  Not enough supervision.  Of course this impacts significantly on boys who then enter class full of boisterous energy, can't sit still and a labelled as being disruptive / unable to concentrate and so on.

Then the move of Gr7 to high school.  Now the juniors in primary school have even less mature role models to aspire to.  And did I see that illustrious publication "The Courier Mail" showing record numbers of the new grade 8 kids being suspended and expelled.

And finally I still cant get my head round why the school entrance age is tied to June whereas sport is age based on the the calendar year.  I wonder if the politicians and public servants somehow thought they would not have kids almost a year apart sitting in the one classroom.

Oxley SS play

HOTY 2015

We were boat 165
Thursday
Did the internet check in thing and in the process changed my return flight from Tuesday to Monday.  In the process I had to use the chat thing because it seems Qantas group all flights under the one booking number and once I had a boarding pass for one flight it locks out changes on other flights.  The end result of this was some concern regarding my boarding pass for the outbound flight.  I decided therefore to get to the airport a bit early just in case.
Adrian gave me a lift to Yeronga station.  Local train to Park Rd and then change to the airtrain to the airport.  
The printed boarding pass worked for my baggage check in and so all was good. While doing the baggage thing a familia voice called out and there was Steve Cleasby and his wife C??? checking in their bags.

The three of proceeded through security and onto purchase coffee etc.  Rob Pullar joined us in the departure lounge.
4:40 boarding and what do you know, my boarding pass was now invalid.  The customer service desk managed to work out the issue and provide a new one.  Seems the system had moved me to a new seat.
5:00 Fly out.
In Mel
Baggage collection took ages.  Then we lined up to catch a taxi but turned out we were in the queue for the bus.  Moved to the correct queue.

Rob and I were staying at the Stamford.  Steve was somewhere nearby. 
Neil and I were twin sharing a room but Neil did not arrive till Friday.

Friday
Bit of a leisurely start.  Walked to one of Melcournes laneway cafes for brakfast.  Bought a Myki card from 7-11.
Most of us then met up and took a tram to Hawthor 


Saturday - The day of the big race

With Johnny Commino in the coxes seat the pre-start wait was very non stressful.  There was no current or tide to speak of.  His skills as a great cox showed as he got us focused with various exercises - Hands away, roll-ups and so on.  

Then we were off.  John kept up the words of encouragement and Jeff our stoke set a good stable rate.  With everyone focused, the boat sat up and that was to me a huge relief.  That meant we  

Sunday

Audacity - Record and Playback way too fast

Megan was trying to record using her EQ laptop and Audacity.
The files recorded played back way too fast.

The solution (After research and random computer button pushing)
Untick everything in the Transport menu

No idea why check boxes associated with what look like signal routing would affect recording speed.  Bug?

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=65027

 "Software Playthrough" should not cause a "Chipmunk" effect, though I can see why it might.
If the computer has difficulty keeping up with full duplex sound then it is likely to cause bits of audio to be missing from the recording (drop-outs). If the drop outs are occurring very frequently then the resulting recording will play too fast because there is only a fraction of the data that there should be. As most consumer grade sound cards are intended for little more than playing computer alerts it is not terribly surprising that the sound card drivers are often not optimised for full duplex high quality audio.

 Maybe too many windows open and too much EQ security overhead?

BA Falcon UTE Spark Plug and Coild Pack Replacement 1

The ute has been running rough for ages.  Planning to replace the spark plugs and the coil packs.  Sometime ago the mechanic told me that one of the coil packs was on the way out.

http://autofix.com.au/blog/ba-bf-falcon-6-cylinder-spark-plug-replacement

SPARK PLUGS
It would appear that we need to buy Platinum or Iridium plugs.
The gap is supposed to be 1.4mm
Supercheap auto offer plugs  $60 for 6
http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/online-store/products/NGK-Laser-Iridium-Spark-Plug-FR5EI-13.aspx?pid=206673#Recommendations

Ebay offer "genuine" ford ones for $40 and NDK for about $60 so supercheap are competitive and less hassle.

Touch footie

Chris came and played touch footie.