The UK version now has Marco Pierre White running the show and it is far better for it. What an inspirational character. And what a bunch of bozos he has to manage. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Sep 6 2007 by TV Treats
Archives for Entertainment
Review of Jamie At Home
More reasons to like a guy I previously could not abide. Some great veg recipes from his garden. Makes me feel bad for neglecting my own. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Sep 3 2007 by TV Treats
Review of Hot Fuzz
Yes it's a dumb movie, but so what? I had a great belly laugh and revelled in its silliness. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Aug 25 2007 by The Live Arguer
Review of The Simpsons Movie
I took my kids to see this weeks after it had opened. Despite reading both good and bad things about it I was still looking forward to it.By the time we got to the end, my kids we getting antsy, it wasn't grabbing them entirely. Like me, they loved a lot of the individual jokes and scenes but it did not hang together as a great movie.Obviously they have a lot of characters to fit in but I felt more from Skinner and Burns would have helped a lot. It was missing an edge and the EPA/President stuff was pretty ham-fisted.I find it hard to believe they spent the years they talked about writing this, it felt very rushed, unfinished and storylines just petered out without resolution.Things I loved - the booing of Green Day when they tried to talk about the environment, the superglue on the crotch and Flanders "devil's curly hair quip".I'm not very PC but the constant gay jokes started to become almost offensive and the goddamed leprechaun character should have been shot during script revision 2.Well worth watching on DVD or Cable eventually but not a classic by any means. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Aug 19 2007 by The Live Arguer
Review of Peel
When I started using Last.fm about a year and a half ago, I thought that was the only playlist I would ever need. I was very happy to scrobble my life away listening to recommendations from my neighbours. I dont like organizing my music - I go into a frenzy about once a year where every single tag must be perfect, and I usually spend about eight hours capitalising song titles and adding in album information. The rest of the year, I like to just click play and leave it at that. The greatest thing about Last.fm is that it knows exactly the kind of music I like, and it finds me more of the same. On the other hand, the downside of Last.fm is that it knows exactly the music I like, and always finds me more of the same. Im not sure exactly why I overlooked the existence of MP3 Blogs, but I know that extreme laziness is at least partly to blame.Now I have found Peel, named after the man. It is basically just a music blog feed-reader for the Mac, really nice and simple and easy to use. I have it set to auto-download new tracks from my favourite music blogs, and I will manually play the latest music from the for blogs that I dont trust quite as much (I dont want to accidentally auto-download any Sean Ban Breathnach tracks). The best thing about Peel is that it automatically creates a playlist for each blog, and adds the downloaded tracks to iTunes. For some reason, I really hate making playlists. Now that Im sold on the product and will happily fork out $15 on a licence, I need to find my favourite music blogs. I was very pleased with the ones that came with Peel.Aquarium DrunkardFluxblogMusic for RobotsSaid the GramophoneI know of a couple of music blogs from Ireland which I visit occasionally (please let me know which ones Im missing, because Id like to check them out):MP3 HuggerNialler9Im working my way through this list to find some sites that I like - please let me know if you have any recommendations. My feature requests:A maximum file-size limit for auto-downloading, so that I dont waste my bandwidth downloading 100mb+ podcasts which happen to be in mp3 form.The ability to view the title and description of the post accompanying the song. Im probably missing out on interesting trivia here, or possibly even some important note left by the blogger. I might subscribe to a music blog that I dont really like, if I felt that it produces the occasional gem, and it would be handy to see the title of the post, just the bogger refers to it as the greatest song of all time or something.It is a great app though, I would advise all you Mac users to check it out. Windows people, Im sure there is something very similar that you can use. Linux guys, you could probably write a script that does this without the need for a fancy GUI anyway. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Aug 18 2007 by James Galvin
Review of Nike +
Nike +
I do a lot of running on a weekly basis and I'm constantly looking for things that will make my runs more enjoyable and successful. New trainers, better clothing, etc, etc. However, one thing I would never change is music, I bring an iPod Nano with me on every run. When I heard about Nike+, I was at first sceptical about it but then I gave into temptation.After a quick calibration over a few hundred metres, simply select your workout type, playlist and away you go. The Nike+ kit consists of two parts. A small pedometer device that goes into your shoe and a small receiver that plugs into the port of your iPod Nano. Nike manufacture shoes specifically for this system with a cavity under the insole for the pedometer but it isn't necessary to purchase these shoes. I have an old pair of Nike Shox and the device fits snuggly under the lining of the tongue of the shoe. The system allows you to input your weight also. So, while you are running about it is estimating your calorie burn rate. There is even a workout that is based on calories burned rather than distance, great for anyone trying to shape-up. Over a recent 11km run the accuracy of the device for distance was out by about 5% (underestimated). However, that's more than acceptable to me as pedometers by nature cannot be wholly accurate and this route involved many uphill and downhill sections hence varying my stride. When you complete your run you get a full lowdown on how you performed and during your run you get updates everytime you run a kilometre or mile (your choice) and also regular updates on your distance left after you hit half-way in a distance run. You can also hear your average time per km/mile all without ever having to look at the iPod. Another nice feature is the "power song" feature. Every runner has a song that releases a bit of adrenalin, "Eye of the tiger" or whatever you want. 
I always wished the iPod had this feature and now it does by simply holding down the centre button for a second or two.When you get home, it's still not over. Connect up your iPod and launch iTunes to transfer your data to the Nike website. You can store your past runs, track your progress, set goals and challenge somebody in Boston to a virtual race. Overall I'm blown away by this simple little package that cost less than Euro 30. I don't think I'll ever run without it again. If I had to say something negative I'd be stuck but I guess it would be that the receiver that plugs into the iPod needs power obviously and depending on the state of your iPod battery it might not last some of the longer distance runs unless you're a top athlete or your iPod is always fully charged. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Jul 20 2007 by Jonathan Brazil
Review of Irish Snake Oil
Irish Snake Oil
We're doing some playing around with video reviews right now and what better thing to try it out on than the saviour of the Irish tech industry. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Jul 7 2007 by Argolon Solutions Team
Review of V for Vendetta
I hadn't heard many good things written about this movie when it came out but I finally decided to watch it on Sky Movies recently. I was very pleasantly surprised to find an interesting, exciting, well written movie which made up for the horror of the second two Matrix movies.Basic plot is a dystopian near future where UK is a fascist state run by a dictator (John Hurt) and his secret police.V is an anarchist/terrorist who blows up the Old Bailey, hacks into the emergency comms system and tells everyone to turn up at the houses of parliament in one years time to take power back for the people.V spends the movie in a Guy Fawkes mask and it is testament to Hugo Weaver that his voice is rich enough to pull this off.Natalie Portman gets sucked into his world but has a less extreme vision than him.Lots of stuff about viruses, germ warfare, experiments on undesirables etc. Pretty standard fare for any dystopian movie.The plot rollicks along with lots of depth. The colour schemes work extremely well.Alls well that ends well and the nasty dictator is toppled but V dies in the process.My main gripe with the movie is that dystopian futures in books/movies are always run by fascists whereas, apart from Hitler, all recent dystopian pasts have been run by communists. I read up on the graphic novel on which the movie was based to discover that it was written in the early 80's and the author thought Maggie Thatcher would lead the UK to a world like V's. What a numbskull. .... Read Original Full Review.
Rated /5 on Jul 5 2007 by Auld Blogger