Red Tails

A film by George Lucas about the Tuskegee Airmen - the first US Army Air Force unit made up entirely of African American. Does anyone remember the mid 90's made for Tv film - "the Tuskegee Airmen"? Yeah, didn't think so. I remember Laurence Fishburne putting up a bravura performance in it. Far superior to what I saw in Red Tails.
Also, while we are at it, why does Terrence Howard always look as if someone kicked him in the nadgers, took his lunch money and his 401k and buggered his aunt for an encore? I mean, has that man ever played a happy role?
So, back to Red Tails - fantastic action. Fabulous sequences of aerial combat, but completely let down by one dimensional characters and dialogue that sounded like it came straight from the Commando Comics. And the music - dear Gawd... remember Glory? Remember the rousing music. Well, now imagine the opposite. Amateurish, at best.
All in all, a rather mediocre effort. Probably put together with the best of intentions. But hardly worth your time.

Of bootloaders and boiling seas

Bootloaders. What, pray, is a bootloader? Oh you are not sure? Here, read this. Now, in the normal course of events, when your Windows system does something terrible, you usually pray that your backup DVDs are not lost, or your trusty passport drive is still alive and well and thank your lucky starts that its just the last week worth of porn (sorry, work) which is lost. You might buy (beg/borrow/steal) an install disc and voila! Back to lolcats! With a Mac, well if you have Applecare, good for you. Or else, it might just be a 1500$ hit. Now with most flavours of linux, there usually is a way.....

That way goes through the bootloader. This is something that makes strong men curl up and cry. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to rid my computer of the unused Ubuntu partition, and extend Win7 to the liberated space. I also have a Kubuntu partition (totally useful, with tonnes of data). Anyhoo, I did something horrid to the MBR and it refused to boot into anything. Back in the day, I would have enlisted the expert help of mah boys Padala and/or Nandi, or gone seeking the sage advice of Tony the Wise (our sysadmin, a person of Godlike powers). These days, well.. I was forced to walk the path alone. Until helped by Kamerad Kovalsky! Another one of them Wizards.

So... short story shorter - hard disc recovered, and I think I am slightly better equipped to do this myself the next time around. Woot!

Dream sequences

I dreamed last night that I drank a small quantity of some sweet wine, very viscous. I remember wondering if it was Imperial Tokay, and whether in my previous life, I had been a dawg. Rather appropriately, this dream seamlessly segued into my father instructing me in hushed tones that some high personage in the Imperium, possibly the Queen - had passed away. And that he was convinced that there was a mole hidden deep in the heart of the Geological Survey - and I had to bring him some files from Registry so that we could make sure. It was rather trippy. There might have also been something about a gangster driving a Mercedes W140. Although, it should have been a W201. I might need help. I am dreaming of Tokay and Cosworth engines.