The Man with No Time

I've just realised that I never actually posted about the results of the final series in the NHL playoffs. Woops! To be honest, I was incredibly busy around the time that the series was being played out, and didn't get to see any of it. Nor did I get around to watching the highlights on Youtube of the NHL website, as I had been doing for the previous rounds, so it all passed my by really. Nevertheless, congratulations to the Los Angeles Kings on winning the 2012 Stanley Cup. I think that they were the rank underdogs going into the playoffs, but they played well throughout. In every series they jumped out to a commanding lead through tough, physical hockey, and then held on to win. Perhaps not the most spectacular team, they seemed to be the most consistent from what I saw, and ultimately that's what wins championships. The LA Kings with Lord Stanley's cup. (Credit: prweb.com)

Yesterday evening I took a trip to the cinema to see one of the films on my "interested in" list from earlier in the summer : Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter. It wasn't the greatest film I've ever seen, nor was it the best film I've seen so far this summer. But it wasn't the worst film I've ever seen either. The official cinematic release poster. (Credit: imdb.com)

Time for another film review. This time I'm turning my attention the way of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. A rather nonsensical title (presumably they meant 'dark side ' of the moon), but then it's a rather silly series of films overall. The first one was decent, and the second one an improvement. So how does entry number 3 rate? The theatrical release poster for Transformers 3. (Credit: en.wikipedia.org )

The last couple of years has seen a sharp increase in the number of films of a genre that I'm going to refer to as 'sports docu-film'. These are feature-length documentaries following either a particular sporting event from the perspective of a team or individual competitor, or following a particular sports-person through their career. Such features have typically been the domain of television, and where they have existed they have been very much focused on the documentary style, with a dry, 'facts-only' presentation style. The more recent style has tended more towards cinematography and the desire to tell a compelling story, with more emotional content. As such they fit much better into a cinematic setting than the more traditional version. The film "Senna" is probably the best known example of the genre, certainly amongst the general populace, owing to its relatively wide release thanks to the high profile of both Formula 1, and the legacy of Aryton Se...

When this is posted I'll be well on my way to Le Mans for my main summer holiday this year. My housemate John and I are going to the 24 hours of Le Mans this year; it will be my first trip, but John's 4th. I'm very excited about it. It's going to be very helpful going with a veteran. John already knows the schedule, the best places to watch from, where all of the facilities are etc. So there's loads of stuff that I don't need to worry about, which will (hopefully) let me enjoy the atmosphere and the racing. I'm looking forward to seeing the variety of cars on show this year, and to what I hope will be an interesting race. I've already listened to the preview shows put out by Radio Le Mans, which have really built my enthusiasm up for the entire trip. The race isn't for another week, but we're going for the entire week to catch practise, qualifying, scrutineering, the drivers' parade, and all of the rest of the events in the week leading ...

Last weekend was the Queen's official diamond jubilee, which meant a four day weekend here in the UK.  Time for a holiday! I spent all day on Saturday on a train down to Coventry for my friend James' 33rd birthday party. It was a relatively civilised affair, with little in the way of alcohol fuelled silliness; unsurprising really, as James is teetotal. Not that I minded, as it was a nice evening of good food and conversation, and some of the other people there were friends that I'd not seen in years. After sleeping in on Sunday morning we managed to get a few board games in before I left. James' collection has grown even more vast since I left Warwick, and I got to try out a couple of new games. "7 Wonders" is an interesting card game, and I'd be keen to play it again now that I've got a bit of an idea of how it works, whilst "King of Tokyo" was a fun little diversion, but not something that I'd play too often. We also broke out ...

A few things have been going on in my working life that I thought I'd quickly comment on before the slightly meatier posts that I've got planned for later in the week. I've finally finished the first draft of my third academic publication, and handed it to my supervisor at the end of last week. That's a big piece of work done, as it means that if everything goes wrong I already have enough work for my thesis. I'm still, however, planning to go back to my original area of research (tides in exoplanet systems) and try to get a fourth paper pushed out by Easter next year. I've already started looking back at what I did previously to try to figure out where I can improve my method, and I've got some ideas for things to try out. Obviously I'll need to do make some changes to this third paper once my supervisor hands it back to me, but I'm hoping that those won't be too substantial. On the subject of my thesis, I've actually started writi...