Chindie

Arrival has the right amount of explanation, and it's not difficult to understand. I just found that entire turn to the film intensely unsatisfying. The film presents a logical and somewhat scientific approach to a fantastical thing, and that thing is itself engrossing. And then it I don't think it's a bad movie by any means, but there's 20 minutes of a movie that ends up switching something that might have been a top 10 all time for me, into something that would struggle to get into the top 100.

Thanks. Some googling suggested this should be the first port of call so good to have that reiterated. A job for tomorrow evening. Thankfully seems less involved than other VAG cars of the same era.

It's going to flop. Nobody needs what this does. Out and about you have your phone to offer any number of distractions, iPad on longer journeys, at home it's not dislodging the other 2. It's only use is people who want to game in the living room while the telly is in use, and again the other options offer plenty of opportunities to sit in the living room and do something other than watch TV. And Nintendo fans. It may do a bit better than the WiiU, but that isn't hard as a competent marketing scheme can do that on its own.

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This whole day. Struggled to sleep last night. Driving into town went round a roundabout and went an enormous puddle. Heater instantly mists the entire windscreen up. Which then wouldn't clear. Went round a right turn and had a sloshing water noise in the passenger side of the dash or footwell. Got to my destination and had to walk a bit. White van goes past and soaks me with puddle water. Have a fairly unpleasant rest of day. Walk back to the car at the end of the day, drive out of the car park, turn right, sloshing noise, instant fogged up windscreen. Won't clear again. Have to stop start all the way home waiting for the screen to clear. Even wiping it does nothing, is almost like it's covered in a slightly greasy substance. Get home, look at passenger footwell, it's absolutely soaked. Get out wet vac thing to try to get as much up as I can. Get a fair bit up, floor mat is soaked so hang that up over the bath to drip dry, return the car and decide using the hand tool vacuum thing will take to long, put the main head in the footwell. It promptly drenches the wet floor even more. Struggle to get that up, give up, pull the machine out, covers my shoes and trousers in soapy cleaning fluid. Go back to bathroom to wash hands before I smash the car up, discover floor mat is drip drying over the bathroom floor rather than the bath. And best of all, I've no idea why the screen keeps refusing to de mist or where the water in the footwell came from or what the water noise in the dash/footwell is. I swear the next to go wrong will end with something being broken with terminal intensity. Even if it has to be me. Absolutely seething.

Saw Fantastic Beasts last night. I'm not a Harry Potter fan really so I'm not the target audience really, but we went to see it anyway cautiously optimistic that the films have generally been decent enough. It's OK. But not much more. The plot is an afterthought, and the movie plays that way, essentially lacking a villain until the final 20 minutes, and beforehand a series of linked set pieces. It shoe horns in underdeveloped ideas and tosses them in with little thought (the romance(s) are awful), most notably the threat of the film which is just a bad idea done badly across the board (the threat is caused by something that doesn't gel in a world that asks you to accept a subculture of wizards, and that's really saying something. And the visual design for it is something every single fantastical movie should know to avoid by now). Casts fine, CGI is generally good, it just doesn't quite work. It's also odd how badly the Potterverse 'fits' America, it just doesn't sit the way the original movies did, even with the period trappings trying to give it character. It's an origin for a movie series that already exists. On a significant up note though, there's one beast that steals the movie, and whoever did the work developing the look and mannerisms of it is brilliant.

I'd be interested to see if you still felt like that at the end. I found it catastrophically dull. Well made and with a few nice ideas and themes and good cast... But dull dull dull.

Or we could ask parents to be, you know, better parents. Also, I think we can assume that 47% of children aged 11 to 16 are liars. And 'encountered' is a very nice way of saying 'searched rabidly for'.

Not quite I'm convinced there's just some weird hive mind in the men's office toilets of Birmingham. Every office I've worked in has been a horror show every time you set foot in the gents. Only seems to be Brum too. **** vile.

Bolt vs Phelps on the pool... Anyway. GSP doesn't look like he'll be back any time soon. Negotiations for 206 fell through and he's now taking about potentially going elsewhere. I'm starting to wonder if we'll see him fight again. I remember hearing one major issue was the Reebok deal which I don't see him getting round. Also Fight Night double header this weekend. Hall v Mousassi might be interesting. Hall with spectacular KO or Mousassi to dominate? I'd go with the latter.

Gabby might not be as quick as he was 10 years ago but I still wouldn't fancy being a centre half with him running at me full pelt. Even if you thought he was shit.

Also, that.

McGregor knows there will be contractual issues with the UFC that would prevent it. There isn't a fight there. It's just talk to push his (and the UFC's) brand. Of there's something that McGregor is the best at on the UFC, it's using his mouth to line his pocket one way or another. It's worked because even someone who doesn't really like McGregor that much, me, has ended up talking about him for a few pages over absolutely nothing of any merit. Extrapolate that over the entire net and he's done more than the UFC marketing team could dream of.

There isn't a fight for him to take. It's McGregor trying to raise his profile by tapping into Mayweather's circle of influence (i.e. boxing fans).

I raised the point on the gloves as you seemed to be making a much bigger point of them than they are. As said above, gloves or no gloves, it's still boxing. I'm actually somehow annoyed this conversation is even being had. It almost legitimises something that is just inherently stupid. They aren't going to fight.

Given that the Senate is now 'on his side', whilst they might be able to control the more batshit 'you just can't do this Donald' stuff, they might like a lot of the slightly less insane stuff. And he's also surrounding himself with influential people who like a lot of the stuff he's gone on about. And more. The hope was he'd be a puppet and his cabinet would be more seasoned, if unfortunately Republican, politicians. Even accounting for the President's power being overstated, he's looking like he's surrounding himself with enablers.

Boxing gloves used in an actual fight aren't that soft and padded - I was lucky enough recently to hold a pair of gloves used by a well known current fighter and you'd be surprised how hard they actually are. Different differs will have different preferences in gloves but ultimately they aren't getting in the ring with a load of marshmallow round their hands. And that doesn't account for the wrapping either. And MMA gloves aren't 'unpadded'. The knuckles are similar to a boxing glove. You also have to account for the fact Mayweather made a career of not being hit. And that McGregor will be used to a style of fighting that gives him much more flexibility in striking and offence than boxing. And that Mayweather was never really a fighter that relied on being a pure power puncher. It just doesn't happen. A good MMA fighter in a pure boxing match against a good pro boxer has a punchers chance and that's about it (barring perhaps MMA guys who moved from boxing and kept the skill set). The fight will have never happen, but Mayweather wins unless he's gone to pasture, or McGregor gets a lucky punch, which anyone could as you're relying on luck.

I'm not a good cyclist at all. I've seen cyclists on my route and suffice to say they are clearly braver than me. I'd I cycled to work I'd be dead inside a month. I also wear a suit to work, which introduces a whole lot of hassle twice every day if I cycled.

No he wouldn't.

Also, the current fad of aggressive toilet use. I've noticed in the last few months a new trend to piss you off on the long running series of office toilet related irritants. Guys how slam their way into the toilets, slam their way into the cubicle, slam the seat down, tear toilet roll off as loudly as possible, thump the flush, and clatter back out. Annoying but no big deal. Until your just opening the door of the loos when one slams the door into your hand. Really **** hard. Utter word removed.

Hour and 40 mins to drive 6 miles because of 1 broken down car. **** the state of commuting to north Birmingham.

I know we're all on the McGregor bandwagon but I don't think Mayweather gives a rats arse about him. He's made more money than most of the UFC roster combined ever. He doesn't need to fight him.

I just couldn't take the idea that Which is great shame because the first hour is **** awesome. And it even had the themes it wanted to talk about nailed from the get go and wasn't even that heavy handed with it. And then they ruined it.

What is a database of Muslim immigrants even meant to achieve? They knew who the attackers they've had were anyway. They weren't ghosts in the system that suddenly appeared.

Arrival. Argh. What an awkward movie. There's an hour of this that is absolutely riveting. The idea of a sudden arrival of an alien craft and what would happen is fascinating. Remarkably the idea the journey through linguistics is engaging too. And then it does something. And it becomes a different movie. It becomes a worse movie. The movie veers in another direction and it doesn't need to really, and it makes the veering off the movie. And the sudden turn makes it a discuss over a beer film but as it happened I could feel the satisfaction drain from me. There's such a great movie here and then they lose it. I know loads of people would scream at me saying 'That's the point! That's the whole point!' but it just didn't scratch the itch it provokes. A cocktease of a movie. Absolutely not for everyone too. Or many people. I could see this having mass walkouts because it's not the movie many might think.