all five horizons » geekified

Back in the TV saddle

Kate — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:14:49 +0000

When we moved house, we were offered a new Sky Plus box. The upside to this was that our old box was a bit iffy and normally to replace a box it costs muchos £££. The downside was that all the shows which we had recorded but had not yet watched were lost. Add to that the chaos that followed our house move / baby arrival and we have missed a lot of TV. Now that we seem to be getting at least a couple of hours in the evening while Evelina has her last nap of the day or after she has gone down for the night, we have started getting our Sky Planner filled up again. Tonight, in addition to a lot of old QI on Dave, we watched the last in the series of Stormchasers on Discovery HD.

Stormchasers is basically a documentary show about several teams of storm chasers who hare around the flat states of the US looking for tornadoes. This is a show about the weather but with some added Dramatic Music and creative job titles (did you know that there is such a thing as an Extreme Meteorologist?), they have made weather sexy. Well, kind of. Even with my high threshold of geekery, I found myself cringing slightly at the dorkiness of the guys on this show. However, I do like despite the very real danger and urgency that they all still have impeccable manners. There is A LOT of talking up of the drama: use of words like hardcore and incessant flapping on the part of one team member in particular, Reed, along with the previously mentioned Dramatic Music, all make for a bit of headache of excitement. I also found it quite off-putting that Reed looks like a less good-looking Michael Weatherly.

That said, there is no denying that the footage they do manage to get of these fearsome twisters is remarkable. Sure, you have to put up with three or four teasers before they show you money shots but generally it is worth it.

The last in the series saved the biggest twister for last and it was quite compelling and exciting with the teams all converging on a massive tornado in Minnesota back in June 2010. After some terrifying footage, the show ended on a sober note when they realised that the twister had ripped through the town of Wadena, with deadly consequences and causing a massive amount of damage. One of the teams was in the town itself when the tornado hit.

Filed under: Screen Tagged: Discovery, geekified, Michael Weatherly, postaweek, postaweek2011, QI, Stormchasers, teevee

PicApp for WordPress users

Kate — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:10:53 +0000

WordPress has just annouced a partnership with premium photo service:

We all love adding great images to our blog posts, and today we’ve enabled a new WordPress.com Shortcode that adds millions of available premium images to the mix, all for free.

The Shortcode is for a service called PicApp, which offers up to the minute sports, news, and celebrity images from some of the top photographers and agencies throughout the world.

So I thought I would try it out and searched for Dollhouse and found this rather lovely picture of Tahmoh Penikett with Eliza Dushku.

So simple! Love it!

PS Please watch Dollhouse if you can. I will be your friend for life. SAVE DOLLHOUSE!

Posted in Screen Tagged: geekified, PicApp

A change of scenery

Kate — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:00:48 +0000

In Spring, I found this adorable site with pretty wallpapers and since then, my work and home computers have been decorated with this gem:

It gives me inspiration daily. But it was time for a change so I was delighted to discover that they have just announced a new set of Summer wallpapers, all with the theme The Five Senses. I chose this for its relaxing air. Hopefully, it will help in my never-ending pursuit of serenity.

Posted in Journal Tagged: geekified, serenity, wallpaper

I love my flippin’ toy

Kate — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:42:25 +0000

On Saturday we went to the Gadget Show at the NEC in Birmingham. We were hoping to see loads of futuristic new gadgets and things we hadn’t seen before but in reality it was just a load of stands selling stuff. There was a cool display of metal scultpures which were pretty cool:

And also a very skinny TV which I was initally impressed with seeing until I realised it was in the window of every Sony Style shop on the high street.

The only gadget I was interested in seeing was the Flip which was something I liked the look of but had never seen close up. I loved it! Rich bought me one (show offers are a bit irresistable like that!) for my birthday (in July!).

I have been irritating him ever since by making banal videos. Here is one of our garden, for example (if you click through, you can watch in HD as I got the HD model).

Or our trip to Hatton Locks, near our home in Warwickshire:

I have to practice using it as I do not have a steady hand apparently. Overall, though, I am thrilled with the quality of the picture and how easy it is to upload to Youtube etc. I would much prefer to use Vimeo as the interface is nicer and more suitable for personal blogging type videos (YouTube is more cluttered and is full of TV/movie clips or viral type videos). The only problem is that to upload multiple HD videos per week you have to subscribe and its $60 per year. I might leave that until I have ton of decent videos to share (and not just the drivel above).

Posted in Journal Tagged: camcorder, Flip, Gadget Show, gadgets, geekified, Hatton, NEC

Cool Tweeps

Kate — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:33:43 +0000

As I think I have mentioned before, I think I can probably draw a direct link between my reduced blogging here and my love of Twitter. Now that all the cool kids are doing it e.g. Russell Brand (@rustyrockets), Ellen Degeneres (@TheEllenShow), Martha Stewart (@MarthaStewart), Dooce (@Dooce) and Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon) for starters, I don’t doubt that there will be a lot people out there think ‘but why?’. The reaction to Facebook’s latest Twitter-inspired change suggests that not everyone is really that into the idea but I would really urge you to give it a go if you have the least bit of inclination because once you get tweeting, it is addictive. Here are just a few of my favourite tweets that have entertained me along the way:

Rainn Wilson (@rainnwilson) is the utterly superb Dwight on the US version of The Office (which I still maintain is brilliant if a completely different show to the UK original). Do I really need to introduce Stephen Fry (@stephenfry)? No , I didn’t think so. He is one of the wisest men on TV / the internet / the planet.

Joshua Green Allen (@fireland) is a writer who is consistenly funny in his tweets. Alan Carr (@alancarr) is adorable yet acerbic. Love him.

Tina Fey (@tinafey) is the brilliant actor/comedian who is on Saturday Night Live amongst other things (which we can only catch snippets of through nbc.com). And my favourite tweet ever comes from hotdogsladies (@hotdogsladies).

You can find me @allfivehorizons should you decide to give in and join in and to those already following me: hiya!

Posted in Journal Tagged: geekified, let's blog

It’s almost here!

Kate — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:43:02 +0000

I have had all these plans to share pretty pictures of my fantastic Christmas tree (haven’t got round to taking any yet though), to boast about my superb crafting skills (except I havn’t finished the felt decoration I am making and am unlikely to before the Big Day), to take you step by step through my cookie baking adventures (well, I did bake one batch of cookies but again, there is no photographic evidence) and to show you all my lovely wrapping (handstamped thank you very much – but again, no pictures).

The moral of this story is that I need to get my bloomin’ camera out and get snapping. Maybe tonight? Or tomorrow? It’s not to late, Christmas is still 35 hours away!

Last night we went out to The Moon and Sixpence in Hanwell, Oxon for our work Christmas do which basically consisted of the Managing Director (aka Dad), the Financial Director (aka Mum), the Claims Manager (aka me) and our IT consultant (aka my husband). It was delicious and we had a fantastic night. I was also lucky enough to receive some vouchers from the Directors so I am trying to decide what to get from John Lewis.

So far these are in my wish list (I cannot get it all!):

And then there is some serious decision making to be made. I want to replace my food processor. Do I go for a new Magimix? A Kitchenaid food processor? Or a Kitchenaid Mixer (which I really want but is more expensive and does less than what I already have) and seperate blender?

In other news, my cold has *almost* gone so I hope to be fully clear of it by Christmas. I will also be able to knuckle down and get my next assignment written – eek.

Posted in Journal Tagged: geekified, good times, holidays, home sweet home, it's all relative, let's blog, studyin', stuff I Like, workin', writin'

It’s been a while

Kate — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:28:43 +0000

Wow, I haven’t posted for AGES. Sorry about that. Truth is that I am kind of stuck. I like the structure I have here – the different blogs for my many diversions – but keeping it up is a real drain. I don’t even mean the posting but the fact that I have to deal with 6 installations of WordPress with 6 different databases – there must be an easier way but I don’t know what it is. Also, I really am starting to hate my front page. I may have to do something drastic. I am also sick of not being able to track my stats. I realise that my readership is modest but at the moment it feels non-exisitent, which is another reason why I haven’t written for a while. WordPress 2.7 has just been released and I need to decide how I am going to handle this since I have already upgraded my test blog and I love the new interface. I am just not sure if it is worth the inevitable pain it will bring if I try it here. I want a new theme that actually works properly with 2.7. I want this to be simpler. I want to enjoy blogging again. God, this is so boring. Here is a funny picture to amuse you while I sort out my blog issues!

And if anyone wants to help me out, I would love to hear from you!

Posted in Journal Tagged: geekified, let's blog, rants, yawn

Winter wonder

Kate — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:57:54 +0000

I am starting to get into winter. Autumn: I love you but your time is over. I have already changed my iGoogle theme to ‘Winter Village‘.

And I have just changed my work pc desktop to this Christmas Lighthouse from Interfacelift (the best source of free wallpaper I know).

What with Bury’s Christmas Fayre this weekend and Blenheim’s Spirit of Christmas next Friday, I am going to SO be on top of Christmas this year. Have I convinced you? Hmm, not sure I have convinced myself!

Posted in Journal Tagged: geekified, holidays

Making progress

Kate — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:18:05 +0000

Whilst I am well aware that others have a lot more work to do on their houses than we do, I am starting to feel that the decorating is never ending. We now have all our new carpet (looks FAB!) and the hob/sink are finally fitted in the kitchen (we bought the sink in March!). We have painted the landing, our bedroom and the spare bedroom. We now have the stufy left to do (need to finish stripping all the paper and then paint), the hallway (paint the walls and gloss all the wood/metal-work) and the snagging.

I spent all day yesterday stripping wallpaper and now my fingernails hurt! The stuff they had on teh wall will only come off by picking it off. Water doesn’t help get rid of the border (it actually hinders progress). Not a pleasant job but at least I set up our spare TV and DVD player so I could watch all The Office season 4 extras (so many deleted scenes!) and some of the first season of One Tree Hill (aw, they look so young. I want to go back to WIlmington).

I really have to crack on with my OU course now. I am getting further and further behind but it is so hard to write with a house in chaos. I know this is an excuse but it’s a pretty plausible one, I think. I am not over-flowing with ideas at the moment anyway, so I really need some regular peaceful moments in an environment that is tidy and quiet. am I the only one who cannot work in clutter? Does anyone have any suggestions for finding sancutary? We do have a shed but a) it’s getting a bit chilly and b) it is full of garden stuff.

Anyway, once the house is all finished and things are looking spick and span, I will take some pictures so you can admire our work .

Posted in Words Tagged: geekified, home sweet home, studyin', writin'

Gadget!!!

Kate — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:10:47 +0000

I am now a proud owner of a new phone – a Sony Ericsson K770i in Truffle Brown. So perty.

It still takes lovely pics, for example of my lunch. I love free upgrades.