You guessed right, the screengrab is taken from Shaun of The Dead. In this scene, Shaun (Simon Pegg) and his band of survivors, bump into Yvonne (Jessica Stevenson) and her gang of Doppelgängers.

Not long ago, I discovered Black Books. It provided me with the most wittiest and funniest moments I had with my tv. When checking the characters, I was drawn back to this scene in Shaun of The Dead, a movie I’ve seen some five years ago.

• Nick Frost (1) played the security alarm installer in Black Books S1E5 – The Big Lock-Out
• Lucy Davis (3) was Becky, Fran’s high school friend in Black Books S3E2 – Elephants and Hens
• Dylan Moran (4) was Bernard Black. Created, written and performed in every Black Books episode.
• Simon Pegg (6) was Evan, the evil manager from Goliath Books in Black Books S3E1 – Manny Come Home
• Jessica Hynes (8) was Yoga teacher Eva in Black Books S2E5 – Hello Sun (who’s up for some rice cakes?)
• Martin Freeman (9) was Manny’s doctor in Black Books S1E1 – Cooking The Books.
• Tamsin Greig (11) – Oh, Tamsin Greig, the lovely Fran Katzenjammer. Performed in all Black Book episodes.
• Peter Serafinowicz (not in these grabs) was Howell Granger, sexy sexy Howell Granger in Black Books S1E5 (with Nick Frost).
• Matt Lucas (13) was not in the series, but his other-half, David Walliams, was a customer in Black Books S1E6 – He’s Leaving Home.

What a great re-union! But it also makes one wonder about the size of the talent crowd in the UK. Every British comedy I see has to do with one or more of the guys in the screengrab.

Thanks for reading!

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Growing up, we had a colour tv at home. My parents had a betamax video player and an 8mm reel projector. Fast forward time. In the past 2 decades I’ve owned: betamax, 8mm, vhs, vcd, svcd, dvd, bluray, crt, lcd, tft, 2400 bps, 14400 bps, 28800 bps, 57600 bps, 10mbit, apple2, amiga, 8086, 286, 386, 486sx, dx2, pentium pro and list goes on.

I enjoyed my 14k4 modem more than the 10mbit of today. Surely it wouldn’t play any YouTube videos (barely even ansimations), and would most likely take 25 minutes to load a Facebook page, but how about this — constraint made me browse no more than 3 sites at the same time, I would seriously consider before downloading anything, and words had meaning: I would read, rather than skim around, see the images and skip to the middle of the video just because there’s no time, I must do more more more!

I still consider my Sankyo 8mm projector as the best piece of equipment I ever owned. Films rare had any audio, and that would also be mono. Considering the loud noise of the rotating gears, you couldn’t hear anything even if you wanted to!

So why all of this? The never-ending flame war between audiophiles. Are audio tapes really better than cds? Here’s my take.

When I asked around, the term “soul” came up often. Wikipedia’s definition is so broad that I wonder it’s definable. My opinion on this subject is that inanimate objects seem to have soul when they degrade in time, as their owners.

Oxygen wrinkles my skin; my 8mm reels desaturate for the very same reason. Audio cassettes, floppy disks, vinyl records, kodak film, they all grow old, they all evolve, change, die. Maybe that’s the `soul’ ingredient — these things aren’t forever.

Optical medias, MP3s, digital video, these are immortal. They are plastic, not real, they are like the soda bottles that you throw away and hope they will decay in the new 10,000 years (give or take). Take a moment to sit back and contemplate on the subject for a while. I will stop right here and give you some space, I’m not here for long either

Photo by streetpreacher

On the back of the payment slip, there is a registration form for EDI, a foundation for transplants & organ donations. Yes.

Is this the most tactless time and place to recruit new members, or what? I figure the great exposure and the association between the two, but come on! Why push it in my face that I’m going to die? Is by paying the fee, I’m concluding my life, signing the dotted line and wishing doom upon myself?

Hmpf!

Something has been rooted deeply in my childhood that the finest psychologists and your favorite fireman cannot help me. What is wrong with the screenshot on the right?

As an avid adventure gamer, I have played and completed most of Sierra Online’s quest games. Spending countless after-school hours. I loved every single moment of it and it substantially improved my English (who else played Leisure Suit Larry with an English dictionary?!).

But what stayed with me most is the scoring system. See, Sierra seems to be the only developer who limited a game by the maximum score. You can complete an adventure, save the King, slay the Wizard, and still have some points missing. How is that possible? From a different point of view, it’s like saying — you can do something well, but we know how you’d make it perfect. We’re not telling.

This has contributed a lot to my terrible fashion of perfectionism. Everything can be done better, up to a point. There is a state where things are Perfect. Have you ever seen another game (collecting items aside,) where your highest score has an upper limit?

Nowadays people compare themselves to their friends by the money they have in the bank. And why is that? We are competitive bastards. That’s what we are. Choosing my over other forms is simply because it’s numeric. $2 is greater than $1. Three houses are more than none.

Why not compare the number of good friends you have? Your lifestyle? The hours of days you have free for yourself? How many hobbies do you practice? Can you quantize love? freedom? happiness? success? how? why? why? why?

This post is far from perfect. I win.