Winter wasteland: what an unecessary day- MS Windows is broken on this computer and it’s taking all day to fix it. It has been snowing outside, slushy dull grey day.
Electric Cinema, Birmingham: what a superb cinema- cosy, small, with a bar next to the ticket office, we took our drinks in to see the film- "The Wackness" by Jonathan Levine (2008). the film was superb too. Ben Kingsley put on a captivating performance as s shrink who develops a relationship beyond his profession with a male client. The result was full of charm and wit- he clearly thoroughly enjoyed acting that role, the character was often funny, vulnerable and absurd. The cinematography was good, control of lighting, the very wide-screen format (and the compositions that allows)- assisted by the fact that were were watching 35mm stock. No doubt I missed worthwhile asides, images or other subtleties, so this is high on my list of films- To See Again.
Nice response to my Chernobyl scenery for FSX:
Simviation Forum, he said:
It’s broken the 1000 downloads point now just on AVSim alone. There are numerous other hosts that don’t detail the number of downloads. Anyway, I do intend to work out how to add in Pripyat; the current landclass poly is hardly ideal. It would be perfect if I could place the Ferris-wheel, the Polyssia Hotel and the tower blocks.
Here’s the link to the v1. if any readers want it (Microsoft Flight Sim X only): ChernNPP
First day of the summer break, in a way the best- the whole holiday is ahead of us .
Leonard Cohen, A Thousand Kisses Deep:
This gave me the shivers the first times I heard it.
River Angara, SiberiaScenery for FSX: to replace a 380 miles section of this major river that drains from Lake Baikal in Siberia to the North.From N58° 57.191′ / E101° 14.592′
to:
N58° 6.028′ / E92° 59.629′The default section of the river are left untouched.The default scenery shows this river empty, except for coastlines. For a waterway that is up to 3 miles wide, and a source of hydro-electric power, this is some omission. This scenery fills the gap. I have tried to set the river’s shape to fit seamlessly with the default water shapes, this includes using a similar number of corner points.
As a bonus, I have placed autogen polygons to represent the some of the bigger villages/towns from Kezhma to Strelka.To install, simply drop these files into your addon scenery folder and run FSX. Make sure, of course, that Addon scenery is listed in the Scenery manager.
Solaris: a film by Tarkovsky, as you know, I like Tarkovsky’s films. This one was released around the time of Kubrik’s 2001 a Space Odessy. Solaris has dated less well than the American counterpart, is my initial opinion. That means that Stalker rates more highly for me. Cinematography is where this film-makers appeal lies for me. He shoots moving pictures, and each shot in the film could be printed as a picture and seen in its own right. Stalker has better pictures – I would say.
This has worked well apart from a road that crosses the river, as well as a ridge in the water that stubbornly refuses to dissappear. I have noticed other ridges further upstream in Miicrosoft’s own river polygons; so maybe there is another fault not of my making.
Micycle 