I've been persevering with the cricket, battling my utter lack of co-ordination, and inability to catch, throw or hit the ball. My results so far have been less than stellar, with a grand total of 1 run in 4 innings, and handing over about 15 runs an over when I bowl (including a metric shitload of wides). Occasionally I show moments of competence, however I'm not really getting the feel for it, as I only get to practice/play once a week.
This Sunday we played Sonning (and we play them again next week). They fielded a fairly young team, compared to our usual suspects (which includes some extremely good batsmen/bowlers). We batted first, and a couple of our lads took it on themselves to rack up immense scores (one guy got 92, and the other retired "hurt" on 105). I was in for all of 1 over, and managed to scrape together 2 runs, including a nick that sent the ball into the stratosphere, before being dropped. We had a final total to defend of 256, which in a 40-over game is fairly excessive. It did lead to general good moods at the tea break (well, that and the cakes...)
Fielding was a quieter affair. We didn't put forward our best bowlers (which would probably have turned the game into a rout), and as a result I had a spell in. I've really struggled with the bowling side of things...there are a lot of things to do at the same time, and I tend to forget one or the other, and end up putting it very wide. While Waseem and Sami were in the process of losing 4 cricket balls in the trees surrounding the ground I'd been doing a lot of practice in the nets, focusing on getting my technique vaguely bowling-like. The result was that I put in 3 overs with very few wides (as an added bonus one of the young lads I was bowling to chased everything, and managed to touch 3 or 4 wides with the bat, instantly negating the free run...). He then did me a bigger favour and skied one straight to our best fielder for my first wicket! In retrospect I still don't feel bad in any way about cheering myself wildly as the catch went home!
I had a good chance to make it 2, as the last man put one straight back to me, but he had the indecency to put it to my weaker side, and I dropped the catch (he was even younger as well...). I have no doubts that a better batsman would have been smashing me everywhere, however I'm still new to all this, and I'm happy that I managed to bowl a short spell without bowling too much complete crap. It was a good day, and probably the first one where I didn't just feel like dead weight on the team. It will be interesting to see what team Sonning put back against us next week...Englefield is a much smaller ground, and it's much easier to convert bad bowling into boundaries...
Monday, 23 June 2008
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
The Death of Dune
I'm setting myself up for abuse simply by writing this, but I've just finished reading the Dune series of books, and I found the ending to be a real let-down.
I suspect a good number of people have read the original book by Frank Herbert, which typically gets universal acclaim, and indeed made it onto the 100 Greatest Novels by the BBC. Its a great book, that takes on and deals with vast subjects...not only the story of the people it involved, but of their families, the politics, religion and nature of the universe, as well as a huge amount of detail on the world itself.
Frank Herbert went on to write a long series carrying on after Dune, and its here that he lost a lot of readers. While Dune itself was focused on the planet, future books in the series become more and more about people with strange powers, and huge upheaval of the human race. I personally enjoyed them...they had an epic feel to them, and while the subject matter was sometimes a bit cranky (and it gets really strange once you reach God-Emporer of Dune) it painted the world very well. Even later in the series there is a shift in focus to the Bene Gesserit (which is effectively a military knitting circle). The series covers thousands of years in total, though it carries through certain characters and themes, and focuses on certain time periods very heavily. As with many old-school sci-fi authors, the underlying themes are very much based on society, and how it copes with situations.
Frank Herbert had the indecency to die in 1986, leaving the series incomplete (the last book he wrote being the 6th, Chapterhouse:Dune). It's very much a cliffhanger, with an ongoing theme of a huge, unknown threat being levelled against the entire human species. He had always planned a 7th, and final, book to complete the series, and had completed notes on the book, but just hadn't gotten round to writing it.
At this point in steps Brian Herbert, his son. Together with Kevin J. Anderson (who is probably best known for being a co-writer of the X-Files) he has spent the last 9 years visiting the universe his father created and expanding it/raping the corpse (delete as you feel appropriate). He started by writing a series called the "Prelude to Dune", which covers the history immediately before the original book. With the best will in the world he is not the writer his father was, and the guidance he got from Mr Anderson is obviously less cerebral than Frank Herbert. The end result is a writing style with a bit less delicacy, and less refined. It does read a bit like a screenplay. That said, it dealt with the subject matter fairly well, and for the most part avoided doing a Star Wars Episode 1 by introducing glaring continuity errors ("I don't remember owning any droids"). As someone who has read the original series, it was great to see old characters back, and to revisit the world. I will admit to a small amount of pink-vision. Even at this point, however, the shift from social commentary to character-based plot was already showing through.
Next up came another series, which covered a part of the Dune history with was often referred to, but never fully explained...the Butlerian jihad. Without wishing to spoil the story too much in the Dune universe there are no computers/robots etc, and it is explained several times that "thinking machines" are banned due to a slight Terminator-style issue at some point in the past where they took over. Over the course of three books Brian and Kevin depict this key part in the history of Dune, I suspect without too much attention to his fathers notes. There is some mention in Dune of key families, and their alliegence during this time, however I suspect it didn't include giving the AI Overmind that much personality, or giving him a sidekick. Again, while it didn't do too much in the way of continuity errors, and did meet all the requirements it felt a little over-hammed. Fine in separation to the Dune series, but other than that it didn't blend too well, either stylistically, or content-wise.
So then we come to the most recent two books..."Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". It should have been a giveaway that a story-arc that Frank Herbert planned for one book was eventually published as two. These books represent the culmination of the Dune series, and are allegedly based on Frank Herberts notes for Dune 7. The first one was passable, however the second was bloody awful (and I've really, really been trying to give this leniency upto now). It's full of contrived situations, awful dialog, and horrendous continuity. One of the main issues is that it re-introduces many concepts and characters from the Butlerian Jihad series, and this finally breaks the continuity. There is information suddenly made available that quite literally magics up from nowhere. Several people develop insane abilities from thin air, and it reads in places like badly-produced fan-fiction. Its a crime against the entire series. Its even got a "happily ever after" ending to it where everyone hugs and is best friends, which is never what Dune was about...I mean, God-Emperor was all about how shit a situation like that was for everyone involved! The story covers 14 books in total, over the course of 43 years, and right at the end its screwed up fatally...
I'm quite depressed after finishing it...I can't unread it, and to some extent it's soured Dune for me...perhaps I was better off always wondering what the big threat was, rather than have Brian Herberts sledgehammer of crass pour it into my ear like so much hot tar. He's already announced plans for a new book, a sequel to Dune no less (that fits into the time gap between Dune and Dune Messiah). There is no way that this can be good, as it deals with more core times in the Dune timeline, and will undoubtedly contain huge signposts of contrived plot to link to the later books he's written. There is also a new film in the offing, which they hope to turn into a series. Brian and Kevin are involved, so my hopes are very low...
There is another series of books I've had on the go for a long time ( The Wheel of Time ), where the author has also recently died just before writing the final one. Another author (friend of the family) has picked up the baton, and is currently in the process of completing it, with input from several other sources, and the notes of the author. I desperately want this book to be good, and to do justice to the series (which is massive...11 books of huge weight, and an overarching plot and storyline with insane levels of detail). Robert Jordan was part of a community of authors, and always worked closely with his family and friends, so I'm holding out hope that the spirit and integrity of the series can be maintained to the end.
I suspect a good number of people have read the original book by Frank Herbert, which typically gets universal acclaim, and indeed made it onto the 100 Greatest Novels by the BBC. Its a great book, that takes on and deals with vast subjects...not only the story of the people it involved, but of their families, the politics, religion and nature of the universe, as well as a huge amount of detail on the world itself.
Frank Herbert went on to write a long series carrying on after Dune, and its here that he lost a lot of readers. While Dune itself was focused on the planet, future books in the series become more and more about people with strange powers, and huge upheaval of the human race. I personally enjoyed them...they had an epic feel to them, and while the subject matter was sometimes a bit cranky (and it gets really strange once you reach God-Emporer of Dune) it painted the world very well. Even later in the series there is a shift in focus to the Bene Gesserit (which is effectively a military knitting circle). The series covers thousands of years in total, though it carries through certain characters and themes, and focuses on certain time periods very heavily. As with many old-school sci-fi authors, the underlying themes are very much based on society, and how it copes with situations.
Frank Herbert had the indecency to die in 1986, leaving the series incomplete (the last book he wrote being the 6th, Chapterhouse:Dune). It's very much a cliffhanger, with an ongoing theme of a huge, unknown threat being levelled against the entire human species. He had always planned a 7th, and final, book to complete the series, and had completed notes on the book, but just hadn't gotten round to writing it.
At this point in steps Brian Herbert, his son. Together with Kevin J. Anderson (who is probably best known for being a co-writer of the X-Files) he has spent the last 9 years visiting the universe his father created and expanding it/raping the corpse (delete as you feel appropriate). He started by writing a series called the "Prelude to Dune", which covers the history immediately before the original book. With the best will in the world he is not the writer his father was, and the guidance he got from Mr Anderson is obviously less cerebral than Frank Herbert. The end result is a writing style with a bit less delicacy, and less refined. It does read a bit like a screenplay. That said, it dealt with the subject matter fairly well, and for the most part avoided doing a Star Wars Episode 1 by introducing glaring continuity errors ("I don't remember owning any droids"). As someone who has read the original series, it was great to see old characters back, and to revisit the world. I will admit to a small amount of pink-vision. Even at this point, however, the shift from social commentary to character-based plot was already showing through.
Next up came another series, which covered a part of the Dune history with was often referred to, but never fully explained...the Butlerian jihad. Without wishing to spoil the story too much in the Dune universe there are no computers/robots etc, and it is explained several times that "thinking machines" are banned due to a slight Terminator-style issue at some point in the past where they took over. Over the course of three books Brian and Kevin depict this key part in the history of Dune, I suspect without too much attention to his fathers notes. There is some mention in Dune of key families, and their alliegence during this time, however I suspect it didn't include giving the AI Overmind that much personality, or giving him a sidekick. Again, while it didn't do too much in the way of continuity errors, and did meet all the requirements it felt a little over-hammed. Fine in separation to the Dune series, but other than that it didn't blend too well, either stylistically, or content-wise.
So then we come to the most recent two books..."Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". It should have been a giveaway that a story-arc that Frank Herbert planned for one book was eventually published as two. These books represent the culmination of the Dune series, and are allegedly based on Frank Herberts notes for Dune 7. The first one was passable, however the second was bloody awful (and I've really, really been trying to give this leniency upto now). It's full of contrived situations, awful dialog, and horrendous continuity. One of the main issues is that it re-introduces many concepts and characters from the Butlerian Jihad series, and this finally breaks the continuity. There is information suddenly made available that quite literally magics up from nowhere. Several people develop insane abilities from thin air, and it reads in places like badly-produced fan-fiction. Its a crime against the entire series. Its even got a "happily ever after" ending to it where everyone hugs and is best friends, which is never what Dune was about...I mean, God-Emperor was all about how shit a situation like that was for everyone involved! The story covers 14 books in total, over the course of 43 years, and right at the end its screwed up fatally...
I'm quite depressed after finishing it...I can't unread it, and to some extent it's soured Dune for me...perhaps I was better off always wondering what the big threat was, rather than have Brian Herberts sledgehammer of crass pour it into my ear like so much hot tar. He's already announced plans for a new book, a sequel to Dune no less (that fits into the time gap between Dune and Dune Messiah). There is no way that this can be good, as it deals with more core times in the Dune timeline, and will undoubtedly contain huge signposts of contrived plot to link to the later books he's written. There is also a new film in the offing, which they hope to turn into a series. Brian and Kevin are involved, so my hopes are very low...
There is another series of books I've had on the go for a long time ( The Wheel of Time ), where the author has also recently died just before writing the final one. Another author (friend of the family) has picked up the baton, and is currently in the process of completing it, with input from several other sources, and the notes of the author. I desperately want this book to be good, and to do justice to the series (which is massive...11 books of huge weight, and an overarching plot and storyline with insane levels of detail). Robert Jordan was part of a community of authors, and always worked closely with his family and friends, so I'm holding out hope that the spirit and integrity of the series can be maintained to the end.
Thursday, 5 June 2008
I'm not scared...
...well, maybe just a little bit...
I'm meeting Gill's parents tomorrow. Unfortunately the only thing that I can think about is that bloody Dr. Pepper advert.
I'm meeting Gill's parents tomorrow. Unfortunately the only thing that I can think about is that bloody Dr. Pepper advert.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Spam and Chips
About a month ago I swapped over to using GMail as my primary email account. I've been very impressed with it, as I've ad bad experiences with web-based email before. I've always had my email infrastructure set so that swapping should not be the hardest mission in the world...I have a number of "public" email addresses that are typically forwarders to a single inbox, so changing over was mainly a technical matter of repointing the forwarders and letting a couple of people know. I'd had the GMail account set up into Thunderbird et al for a couple of years previously, so that was all ready to go.
One additional thing I did was set GMail up to also pick up the old account. That way I could remove it from my updates, and ensure that any replies I did to those emails came from the new main account. All the PC's I use also now have the Notifier installed, to let me know when messages are received (funny when 2 are sitting next to each other, and both bleep at the same time...)
One issue I've always had previously is spam. I get lots of the stuff, mainly due to the fact that I have catch-all's on my domains. Thunderbirds spam filter really struggled to ID and clean it all up, and I often had to can through and flag the various offers of crap I got. GMail has managed to pick up about 95% of everything coming in, and cheerfully assign it to the bin. Its also let me see for the first time exactly how much spam I get..in the last calendar month I've currently had over 11,000 messages flagged as spam! That's getting close to 400 a day. In comparison I've had about 300 valid messages...
Once I got used to the "conversation" display of emails its very intuitive, and save a lot of searching through inboxes. I've also set up a number of rules to flag different types of emails under different categories (based on certain keywords or senders), and this lets me just change the view to emails regarding a certain subject..again very handy!
One additional thing I did was set GMail up to also pick up the old account. That way I could remove it from my updates, and ensure that any replies I did to those emails came from the new main account. All the PC's I use also now have the Notifier installed, to let me know when messages are received (funny when 2 are sitting next to each other, and both bleep at the same time...)
One issue I've always had previously is spam. I get lots of the stuff, mainly due to the fact that I have catch-all's on my domains. Thunderbirds spam filter really struggled to ID and clean it all up, and I often had to can through and flag the various offers of crap I got. GMail has managed to pick up about 95% of everything coming in, and cheerfully assign it to the bin. Its also let me see for the first time exactly how much spam I get..in the last calendar month I've currently had over 11,000 messages flagged as spam! That's getting close to 400 a day. In comparison I've had about 300 valid messages...
Once I got used to the "conversation" display of emails its very intuitive, and save a lot of searching through inboxes. I've also set up a number of rules to flag different types of emails under different categories (based on certain keywords or senders), and this lets me just change the view to emails regarding a certain subject..again very handy!
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