T-shirt becomes tote bag

I recently stumbled upon this interesting tutorial that shows how to turn a t-shirt into a bag. I decided to try with an old t-shirt that I was actually thinking of throwing away. Instead, I know have a very sturdy bag that I use to carry my lunch box at work

And the verdict on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is… Not as amazing as some reviews say, a good movie nonetheless. But I am afraid I won’t be able to look at Daniel Craig for a while without thinking of Simon’s Cat YouTube videos. I don’t want to write spoilers, but I just had to mention that reference. There are a couple of scenes that made giggle more than one spectator in the theatre. The movie is good, anyway…

I know, I know… it’s been ages since my last post. Well, here it is: some wacky photos I took in London on New Year’s Eve. It was spectacular and at some point I stopped snapping pictures and just enjoyed the 12 minutes fireworks display. You can find the BBC video here

...hello?!

Please, let director and cast do what they do best.

If you’ve read recent movie reviews, you might have guessed what film I’m referring to. If not, well… I’m talking about Dream House.
The infamous trailer that many say spoils the entire film, doesn’t really spoil that much. Or let’s put it this way: it spoils something, but not everything. As you watch the film, it is clear that the director tried his best and the cast is amazing, but for some reason the production decided to change the film so much that neither the director nor any member of the cast wanted to promote the film. Something must have gone very wrong. And you can probably sense it in the second half of the film. The story is deeply psychological, not a horror-thriller overseen plot. Yet, the depth of the characters never develops fully. The cast is left with very little to play with and the ending is so rushed that you might even wish the same pace was given to the ever-boringly-slow Twilight – Breaking Dawn, part 1.

Shame, because this could have really been a great film. It’s not always that you get to have 3 actors who can talk without saying a word. Not all can do that and if the plot had been properly developed, I’m sure it would have led to an even more outstanding performance. Instead, you end up seeing Craig & co. trying, really trying. There’s something more beneath the surface, something more they want to show. Sadly, it won’t happen in this film.

Anyway, if you don’t mind looking a bit further than the first visual impressions when you watch a film, you might enjoy Dream House. I found it a story about love, loss, guilt, helplessness, acceptance (and not all this whirlwind of emotions refer to Craig’s character). Truth is, thanks to whoever ruined it, this is probably not one of those films you’ll want to re-watch, but given the other choices at the moment, it’s better than the usual Christmas stuff. In my area, we’re still waiting for the second Sherlock Holmes and the remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (wow, must be Daniel Craig season) but with my usual luck, they are both coming out when I’ll be in another country, umpf…
Next cinematic mission: Another Earth. Its director/writer won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival this year. I guess it must mean something.

@sbvet1

… texting without knowing cell phone numbers.

After I decided to kill my Facebook page, enjoyed Google+ (which remains a bit desolate, compared to FB) and reverted to good ol’ emails, I’m now finding Twitter very useful for a number of reasons that I will explain below.

1. Newsfeed

Twitter is the perfect news reader. Google Reader is very good for keeping up with various blogs and website you follow, but for news, I think Twitter is still the best choice. You just have to “follow” this or that newspaper, magazine, agency… anything you are interested in, and you can easily get headlines and links into your Twitter stream/feed. You spend less time browsing through websites and you can easily skip to news that interest you the most. Because let’s face it, anyone who uses the internet is at some point forced to deal with the infamous “information overload”. We were looking for something and suddenly / 3 hours later, we still haven’t found it, but instead we read about all sort of news, completely unrelated with our initial search. So, if you want to read the news, but at the same time avoid wasting too much time doing so, Twitter and a good Twitter app. are probably your best choice. I’ll talk about Twitter apps in another post, as there are quite a few with different features.

2. Work

Although I am still not sure merging private usage and work usage of social media is a good idea, I find Twitter a good way to keep up to date with news and events related with my work. More and more companies and scientific magazines have Twitter accounts. Organisations, discussion groups, conferences organisers… the Chief Scientific Adviser of the British Government! All have Twitter accounts and spread news about events, publications, reports of all kind. Then Twitter can be quite useful.

3. Social activities

A lot of cultural organisations, centres and interest groups now use Twitter to advertise their activities. Cheltenham Festivals, for instance, has a few Twitter accounts, one for each festival basically, and following them is a very quick and easy way to receive news on events and guests. Another example, I am part of a Swedish Club and we organise events, as well as weekly classes. I write the newsletter and a group member runs our Twitter account, keeping everyone up to date with what’s going on. This leads to my next point…

4. Texting

Now a lot of people use smart phones or can text their Twitter messages to a number and it will show up on their account. Even though I have my friends’ phone numbers, we might not text because international texting isn’t usually included in phone plans and therefore it could turn out to be quite expensive. But many have internet/data usage included in the plan and if not, there’s still the option to send a text to a “Twitter number”. The same happens with Facebook and status updates: you can sort of text yourself a status update. Therefore, now I can text with friends I usually just email with or occasionally chat on Skype. If you have friends abroad, then this trick could be useful. If you don’t have friends abroad, well, it could be useful too. In fact, I don’t know some friends phone number (see, Swedish club members) but we Twitter-text and keep in touch anyway. This is also a good way to deal with privacy issues and having to distribute your private phone number to many people. If you text via Twitter, no one will see your phone number so, problem solved.

In conclusion…

I still think that emails are the best way to keep in touch. They are quick and don’t necessarily have to be long. Some people might argue that emails are dead and social media is taking over. Are they? Well, I might be the wrong person to discuss this matter, as I do use emails and I still love sending postcards. The obvious problem with snail mail is that people move, the address changes and so on. Instead, you can keep your email address virtually forever and use it anywhere. This being said, Twitter might have interesting features and be potentially more useful than Facebook. There is something about Facebook that just doesn’t seem to get along well with work, privacy, sharing with friends and family. It’s all very confusing and layout tweaks and privacy settings constantly changing do not help. Twitter is less intrusive and can also be used as newsfeed. Next time I will write about a few Twitter applications I tried and what I think are the strengths and limitations of each one. I’m not an expert, then you’re more likely to read comments from the user’s point of view.

Addendum edit 20-Nov-2011: some randomness in London

*bored smiley*

Any suggestions?

If only they could talk...

Cleaning up the list of social networks, keeping 2.

The joy of reading a book I’ve read many years ago.

A warm Sunday night.

A movie in the backyard.

October at its best.

The challenge I am talking about is to visit 40 countries before you turn 30.
I stumbled upon this blog a few weeks ago and it’s really enjoyable to read, full of information and well written. However, if I wanted to take the challenge, I would be facing two major obstacles: 1- I do travel for work, but not that often and not to a different country every time, and 2- I listed all the countries I’ve been to already (visited or lived in), leaving me with 18 countries to visit in 7 years. Quite a challenge indeed!

So, here it is… “the list”

1. Italy
2. France
3. Monaco (should I also count Vatican City?)
4. United Kingdom
5. Ireland
6. Netherlands
7. Denmark
8. Sweden
9. Germany
10. Austria
11. Switzerland
12. Tunisia
13. Gabon
14. South Africa
15. Botswana
16. Zimbabwe
17. United States of America
18. Ecuador
19. Colombia
20. Venezuela
21. Santo Domingo
22. Aruba