Tiger

For the first time ever, I took part this morning in the "Tiger" experience. I'd had fears about going with them due to bad stories and their reputation for being very "tight" on a lot of their criteria. Was it all a media beat-up? I was soon to find out.

I got to the airport nice and early, just in case they decided to close the gate a bit early, and walked straight up to one of their counters. They had 3 counters, running,

"Hobart"
"Melbourne"
"All Flights"

I decided to line up in the "Melbourne" queue (because I was going to Melbourne). After a few people checked in, confusion broke out as we all were apparently in the wrong lines, plus they weren't taking Hobart passengers in the "All Flights" queue. We rearranged ourselves and got in the right queues. I got served pretty well, but was a tad surprised that they weighed hand luggage. Each to their own though.

I went and got some food and a paper and headed to the gate with plenty of time to spare. I sat for a while and then heard them call out a "final call" for all passengers going to Melbourne. Bewildered, I joined the small line, only to discover this was for an earlier Melbourne flight. I sat back down again and time started to get close to our departure time. A voiceover then came advising we'd be boarding in 45min, which turned into an hour. I wandered around, looked through the bookstore, then headed back to the gate.

Once onbaord, I sat down, got comfy and pulled out my magazine. I then heard some loud talking going on, which sounded like a couple of blokes mucking around. Turns out 2 guys were feuding because an older man born in a different country had reclined his chair, which squashed the younger guy, who said he "had long legs", to which the older guy replied "that's not my problem". The older guy then went on a rant, to which the young guy replied "we'll sort this out in Melbourne". Cool, a fight on the tarmac! The flight attendant attended to the matter and just asked the younger guy to swap seats with his partner. All was soon sorted and we were on our way.

We made up some time in the air, but landed an hour and a bit late. Annoying. Also annoying is the long walk from the tarmac to the terminal, but I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too. By the way, the young guy with the apparent long legs was the same height as me. Lame.

In summary, delays happen on all airlines, but not a great first experience with the new kid on the aviation block. Will try and avoid them in the future.

Tv Update

A lot of people have been asking me what I'm watching on tv these days lately, so here's an update.

TALKIN 'BOUT YOUR GENERATION
Generally if you pop Shaun Micallef's head on the tv, I'll watch it. This show isn't bad. It pits 3 regulars from the Baby Boomer generation (Amanda Keller), Charlie Pickering (Gen X) and some annoying guy from Gen Y (?), with a guest celebrity each week from the same generation to answer some really easy questions based around standouts from each decade (ie fads, tv shows, music etc). The questions are a little too easy and the guests get a little too much time to rabbit on, but it's decent. Probably a bit like an hour long version of "Spicks and Specks" at about 1/3 of the pace. Micallef is the highlight of the show with his quirky faces, one-liners and intersting intros. Pretty good, but not gripping ie good show to watch while doing odd jobs. Here's a sample



SPICKS AND SPECKS
One of the best Aussie shows, which generally now gets really good guests. There's a good mix of easy and tricky questions, with a stack of interesting facts (which I love). Not "must see", but if I don't watch, 8 times out of 10 I'll record. Here's a clip



LIFE ON MARS
Gave up on this a while back when they started jerking around the timeslot. Overall maybe a little too slw, but maybe I'll get it out on dvd one day.


24
Due to the dumb timeslot and my laziness at bothering to record it, I decided a while back I'll wait til it's out on dvd. When it is I'll probably take a few days off and get right into it- if it's good. Early reports are the start was awesome but it waned near the last few hours (as it normally does).


THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE
Think I'm a bit over the show, just too many guests that suck. Needs to stick with male comedians as a general rule I think. My favourites have been Bob Franklin, Tony Martin and Merrick Watts thus far. Here's a clip from Bob's recent show



CHASER
Last night's show was a bit of a let down. The guys just keep pushing the boundaries and pretty much all the jokes tried to contain an element of racism, sexism or similar. Getting away from some of their clever, wittier stuff and just going for the off joke. Bummer.

ONE HD
Watching a fair bit of this, mainly the NBA but also a few other bits and pieces, especially One Week At A Time, which is solid. The best addition to tv since "Webster".

24: The Game

On the Easter weekend I started playing a game I'd barely touched since I got it 2 years ago- "24". My lovely wife surprised me with a PS2 for my birthday in 2006 and got me this game plus some other one that wasn't as good (I think I sold it on ebay). I played it a couple of times but thought it was pretty crappy, mainly because I couldn't work out some of the key features and am not great at these games generally. With a fresh attitude and time on my hands, I pulled it out on Good Friday and once I'd completed the first 2 levels I was hooked.

From what I followed, there is a home grown terrorist (Madsen) who is going to wreak havoc on LA by generating earthquakes. You generally play Jack, but also a little Chase (who is undercover in Madsen's crew), a little Tony and even some Kim and Michelle. The best part of the game is the variety of scenarions: from driving cars, to just shooting people, to helicopters, to interrogating people, cracking codes...plenty of variety. Some are not as fun, but you appreciate a break from just blowing people's brains out. There are probbaly about 5 or 6 really hard levels where I decided to get some "assistance" (read cheating by getting infinite health and/or ammo). Most of the levels I struggled on were acknowledged as being hard by the walkthrough notes, so that made me feel better.

It took me just over 6 weeks and maybe really around 24hrs to complete. I used a combo of holidays, late nights and time home alone to work on it and enjoyed it immensely. I used cheats for the last 1hr6mins, where the amount of men coming at you was mental.

Overall a really good game. I'm not a gamer at all, but I liked it, probably mostly because I love the show and it wasn't ridiculously hard. If you're still not sold, check out this awesome trailer.

Lebron

Had the opportunity Saturday to sit down and watch some NBA- Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Cavs and the Magic. The Cavs were heavily favoured to win this series easily but lost Game 1 at home, putting them quickly on the backfoot. Game 2 started well for the Cavs and by halftime they had a good lead, thanks to LBJ and my fantasy basketball favourite, Delonte West. In the 2nd half thought the Magic came out smoking and kept it close until the 4th, when they hit the lead in the dying minutes and had a 2pt lead with 1 second left. Then Lebron, the freak, did this



Just amazing. You'd be pretty gutted if you were the Magic. Should be another awesome series and must go to 7.

Seven Pounds

Got this out Friday night for our weekly dvd night. I'd heard mixed reviews and was unsure if Tara would like, but knew she'd like it more than "the Wrestler", so gave it a go. Here,s my review.

"Seven Pounds" is a the story of Ben Thomas (Will Smith, in his best work since "Hitch"), an IRS agent who seems to be on a mission he help radically alter the lives of a bunch of strangers. Gradually his story unravels that brought him to this point- in a nutshell he killed seven people in a car accident and seems to be trying to make up for it. His wife also died in the accident which really set him off.

Ben stays reasonably detached from the people, until he meets Emily (Roasario Dawson, in her best work since "Josie and the Pussycats"), a lovely lady who needs a heat transplant bad. Ben starts getting very close to her, so close in fact he expresses his love physically with her. Ben must decide if he'll let her know his secret and if he'll go through with his plan. Will Ben go through with his plan or will he give it all up for Emily, who may die anyway if no donor comes forward? See it to find out.

***************SPOILER ALERT********************

I'd heard mixed reports and some about the unusual ending, although I gotta say it played out pretty much as expected. Something different, but nothing to write home about. Another semi arty-farty movie by Will Smith that doesn't cut the mustard.

The Jordan Rules

Have been slowly re-reading this classic over the last few months, mainly in spurts of 1 or 2 pages as I spend time in the quietest room in the house.

"The Jordan Rules" follows the Bulls for a year, luckily it turned out to be the year of their first title in the dominant Michael Jordan era. It follows the team on the road and give great insight to the inner sanctum and the experiences of all the team, from the superstars like Jordan and Pippen, down to the crappy ones like Stacey King and Dennis Hopson. It shows Jordan's strengths and weaknesses ie he can be a massive jerk, the strategies of Phil Jackson to motivate his team, especially MJ, the workings of GM Jerry Krause......all a basketball junkie would be interested in knowing. An especially good re-read 18 years after the book was written, considering Jordan's early exit from the game, where the young guys ended up and what became of the team. One of the best basketball books I've ever read, and I've read about 7 of them, so..........

Death At A Funeral

"Death At A Funeral" is the story of a bunch of family and friends coming together for a funeral. The funeral gets off to a rocky start due to some feuding between brothers, the accidental drugging of one of the guests and a midget with an agenda. Yep. Soon all of these wacky circumstances become entwined when the midget threatens to expose the secret life of the deceased unless he gets some money. Before you know it someone gets knocked out, the drugged guest strips down and threatens to jump off a roof.....hilarity ensues.

A quirky Britsih comedy which takes a while to get going but the last 20mins are right up there with the best dark comedy around. A solid cast and great storyline make this one of the better "laugh out loud" movies I've seen in the last few years. Well worth a look.

Armageddon

Stumbled across "Armageddon" the other night on Foxtel, and with little to do and my brain reasonably empty, decided to rewatch it. When I first saw this at the cinema back in 1998, I remember thinking it was one of the dumbest films ever plus I was completely fed up with the "natural disaster" genre that was drowning society. Would time change my perception?

"Armageddon" deals with the question "what would happen if a meteor bigger than earth hit earth?". For some reason the US discovered this threat and decided they alone could come up with the answer. Their solution was to send a bunch of misfits who drill for oil into a spaceship to land on the meteor, drill a huge hole in it, then send a nuclear bomb inside it and blow it up from the inside. Genius.

NASA enlists the "world's best driller", luckily also American Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) to come and help select the best drill and a plan to get the bomb into the meteor. Harry thinks it will be easier to use his crew who he's used to working with, rather than professional astronauts and scientists. Reluctantly NASA agrees and starts training the crew for the most important job ever in the world. During and after the tests it's clear the team isn't up to it, but they go anyways. Will this cast of misfits save the world? Take a wild guess.

Worth watching for the pure comedy factor, if you can overcome the normal US arrogance and ridiculous storyline. A solid cast, given little to work with, covers a multitude of flaws, most noticeably the crappy Aerosmith theme song. Gets bonus points for Pete Stormare who plays the Russian astronaut.

The Majestic

Running out of "overnight" options, I decided to look for some weekly's I never got round to seeing. Man is that hard work. Settled on 2 movies for the kids, and 2 for me and wifey. The first we got around to seeing was "The Majestic".

"The Majestic" is set in the US in the 1950's where the Government is extremely fearful of the threat of communism spreading on it's shores. The Feds are on a witch-hunt, looking for any possible people who may be spreading the communism message and even those showing interest in it. Upcoming Hollywood writer Peter Appleton (Carrey, in his finest work since "Dumb and Dumber") is one such suspect, and when his career looks shot due to a pending enquiry, Peter one night drives out of town to deal with his frustrations. Due to a strange sequence of events, Peter falls into a river, bumps his head and gets amnesia. He is awoken by a local the next day, who takes him into town for some breakfast and time to work out what happened. Peter can't remember what happened in the accident, let alone the last 30+ years of his life, so stays and tries to work it out. Very quickly though an old man notices him and is sure Peter is his son Luke, who was believed to have died in WW2. He looks the same and seems to have several similar characteristics, so everyone goes along with it, even though Peter (who doesn't know who he is don't forget) isn't so sure. Before long Peter has embraced who everyone thinks he is and starts to relax into his surroundings. Is Peter really Luke? Is Luke really Peter? Does Peter really exist? Does Peter just look like Luke? Is Peter dreaming? See it to find out!

I really enjoyed it because it kept me guessing, was set it a nice little town and it had a nice little story. Carrey does a nice job and is backed up by a solid cast, especially the dad, and more "hey it's that guy" guys than you could poke a stick at.

Death To Smoochy

"Deatb To Smoochy" is the story of the meteoric rise to fame of loveable kid's character "Smoochy" (played By Shedlon Mopes, who is really Edward Norton). "Smoochy" gets his break when "Rainbow Randolph" (Robin Williams) is busted taking bribes for kids to appear on his show. Overnight Randolph becomes a disgrace and the network ,headed by Nora (Catherine Keener), sets out to find the next tv star. "Smoochy" becomes an overnight hit, and consequently everyone now wants a piece of him. Randolph wants to kill him, slimy agent Burke Bennett (Danny Devito) wants to get in on the action, powerful people want to get on his show, charities want money.....things needless to say get out of control. Sheldon, a man of integrity and values has to work out if he'll go along for the ride or, as Marcia Hines would suggest, stay true to himself. Will he sell out? See it to find out.

Different, not that great in my view, but at least it was interesting. A pretty strong cast, which was good as the film probably needed it.