LeMarchand

IME most teachers will never find that time and will try to cling on to "what they know". Best to rip the plaster off. I've had heads being talked into purchasing the "great" software that teachers learnt on in Primary.

Had the usual "We need this NOW!" notice, so went for ShotCut. The options already mentioned look easier, but we're not on A3 or A5.

I don't think the part of "Enzo Pavone" was written with BB in mind, so you may be on to something.

I was going to use Macrium to convert a bootable USB to ISO the other day and found out it's no longer free. How inconsiderate! ImgBurn to the rescue.

Mme LeMarchand wanted an easy watch last night, so we stuck on My Life is Murder, an Australian/New Zealand co-production starring Lucy Lawless as as an ex cop who helps the local police with various cases. For some reason, Bill Bailey turned up as a possible suspect. I could just about understand previous guest star William Shatner having enough cachet to warrant flying him out there, but Bill Bailey? Or was he touring there and someone thought they'd ask him in for a guest role?

Season 2 coming August 29th.

@ICTDirect_Dave's sister site has these: https://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/hp-elite-display-e223-22-led-monitor-with-stand Might be worth asking how many? Actually, plenty atm. https://ict-direct.co.uk/stock-list/

Have you still got an "untouched" one? I normally allow any new model to setup as a standalone and then back up the drivers.

That's what we do too. One new wim meant we had to make some changes to outdated lines in the answer file, but it seems to still be working. Looking at the approved way is on my list, though.

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/roger-corman-dead-producer-independent-b-movie-1235999591/ Legendary movie producer and occasional actor, Roger Corman, has passed away aged 98. It could be argued that, without him, people like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese and James Cameron amongst many others may not have got their starts in the biz.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Cinema) Generations after the death of Caesar, clans of apes are the dominant species on an Earth that looks very much like the one of Horizon: Zero Dawn (without the mecha-dinos). Humans have regressed to mute savages who still manage to keep themselves clothed, When a warlike clan destroys his village, Noa sets out to track his clan down in the hope of rescuing them and is joined by wise orangutan Rakka and a human woman they name Nova. Pretty good, but overlong and is definitely the first part of a trilogy while the first three felt more like stand-alone stories following Caesar. Mother of the Bride (Netflix) An over-protective mother (Brook Shields) is shocked to learn that her daughter's fiancé is the son of the guy who broke her heart in college. Below average rom-com. The bride comes across as incredibly shallow and self obsessed but, given that most of the main characters are in their 60s, I don't think her age bracket is being targetted. Nice to see the doctors from "Star Trek: Discovery" and "Lucifer" in other roles. Admittedly, he just seems to be playing a slightly camper version of the same character (and above his age as he's in only 50) while it's a surprise to learn that she's in her mid-fifties.

Started watching Shardlake on Disney+. Too dour, poorly lit and slow to keep me awake, but Mme LeMarchand has enjoyed the first two eps while I enjoyed a snooze.

Hmmm... currently cheaper than Spotify, too. Plus they have an album from one of my artists that they've forgotten to release to Spotify. Might have a free trial over the summer hols.

Finished the new, now cancelled, Quantum Leap. One of those "comfort shows" - an undemanding, easy watch. Not brilliant, but watchable. They made a weird decision in S2 that spoiled the show somewhat, especially as it seemed likely to have been reversed had the show carried on.

That's some amazing growth from Arbor!

As it says "gigs" in the description for this section... Mme LeMarchand has a friend in Leipzig and had been wanting to visit her and one of my favourite bands sometimes play there. Over Easter the stars aligned and so we went to see the friend and watch Mono Inc. Thanks to Spotify for the intro to the band and thank goodness Mme LeMarchand likes them too. We're probably behing the "P". Great gig. Singer Martin Engler did a walk up the aisle to only a few feet away from us. The Germans still seem worryingly into the synchronised clapping and chanting, though . Would definitely like to see them again. Couldn't go last year when they played three gigs over here; hopefully they'll be back. No official or decent quality clips yet out from the current tour, so here's one of our favourite songs from their repertoire (that they didn't do this time around ) from their last "Symphonic" Tour in 2019.

I love using Spotify, but hate having to pay for it - and rarely do. I recently thought that a Prime sub is both cheaper and has the added delivery and video benefits. Anyone tried both and can comment? I actually play my "Discover Weekly" and "Release Radar" on Spotify every week and have been introduced to some great music. Does Amazon do anything similar? What about the year end "Wrapped"? Are there any limitations (apart from sound quality) with the "included" tier compared to the "pay us even more" tier? Is the Prime Video the "ad-free version, or is that at extra cost?

Targetted ads. One extremely left-wing site I read now takes paid articles to help with the bills. Given that their writers spend a lot of time railing against capitalism and possibly some of them are on benefits, some of the "articles" seem rather strange, like the one below. I'm assuming the 165 likes are the staff + friends upvoting to keep the spots coming in. I'm also too tight to pay for Spotify and so get ads. Occasionally these make sense - once in a blue moon a band I like may be plugging their tour - but would someone on the free tier really be in the market for a luxury car? For that matter, would they be high up enough in a company to have the power to use Spotify as a marketing tool? It also seems strange that such ads are often near ones extolling the ad free benefits of paying for the platform.

The Fall Guy (Cinema) After a stunt goes wrong, Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) loses his mojo and self-sabotages his relationship with camera operator/budding director Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). 18 months later, he is called in to save Jody's first movie by finding its missing star. The dialogue isn't as sparky as the trailer makes it seem (great editing in the trailer plus a few excised lines - though not as many as in the second trailer) but it's a lot of fun with some great stunt work. Hannah Waddingham is almost unrecognisable under a black wig as the producer and yes, Lee Majors does show up. There are also a couple of other cameos and some fun aural Easter eggs. Worth a look and worth staying through the credits to see some behind the scenes footage of the stunts which lead to a fun mid-credits scene. Shame that it's only doing "OK".

In some cases, like The Geek, the app is formatted better but on the whole i do agree - why have dozens of apps when you need one? I'm guessing it's to do with the increased possibilities for making money through data slurping with most apps.

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (Netflix) My comments on Part One still hold, apart from the bit about Christmas - though I still struggled to stay awake. The character development for the team this time was limited to a just-before-the-battle "back story around the campfire" type scene. I'm sure that most Zack Snyder films would be closer to 90 minutes if he laid off the slowmo but the film does look good. Not sure it was worth the wait and I'd rather see a sequel to "Army of the Dead" or even his Director's Cut of "Sucker Punch" than the proposed FOUR more entries in this saga (two more duologies). A lot of it just didn't make sense, like why was the piffling amount of grain the community could harvest - surely not enough to feed even the crew of the dreadnought - of such import? Why harvest by hand when they had gravity wagons? Why did Kora revert to her old, godawful haircut?

Trying to pick between a couple of AirBnB getaways for the end of the month. Looking at local pubs, and took this shot on May 6th. Nothing is clickable. I don't think they've fixed it yet.

https://gizmodo.com/banned-bluey-episode-dad-baby-now-on-youtube-in-us-1851452765 An episode of Bluey deemed too contentious for the Yanks has now been given a release over there on YouTube. Here it is:

Looks like ITVX are airing it from May 16th. Could never get into the original, but I know it has plenty of fans. This one seems to have snuck out in Australia last year without much fanfare and to less glowing reviews.

Animal rescue stories (both with some weird editing).