Gregor Smith

Blog

  • The Nightmare Before Christmas

    It’s been a while? What’s happened between then and now? Well, Sunday and Monday, Robyn and I were down in Peachtree City offering help to the family of Eric Ulrich, the man murdered by his wife last week, and while we did what we could, I think we made a difference, especially on Monday when I helped them move the big, heavy furniture items out of his house. On Halloween we fought through traffic to get up to Buford so we could see Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas… In 3D!

    The Nightmare Before Christmas

    Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas Town, and is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween, but alas, they can’t get it quite right.

    Hard to believe, but this movie is 13 years old… It’s been at least 11 since I last saw it so this was a welcome revisit to Halloween Town, and I had totally forgot how awesome it really was, add in the bonus of 3D and it’s well worth the price of admission. Now I wonder what other 2D movies they will “3D”, the possibilities are endless…

  • Managing

    So since my last proper post, I’ve managed to bag myself a job, and I’ll be honest, it’s not the greatest job for a cornucopia of reasons but it’s only temporary to get us through the holiday period which is fast approaching.

    So other than the job, my time has been taken up with Football Manager 2007, only a couple of hours here and there and my old Championship Manager/Football Manager fix is in full effect, so much so that Robyn chastised me for talking tactics with my brother last weekend. I’ll be honest, I’m now on my second game after a brash resignation and auto save managed to screw me first time round.

    So for obvious reasons I go Rangers, and art imitates life too much, poor inherited team, no money, no luck.

    Football Manager 2007

    I spent the entire £2M transfer fund on Steven Naismith from Kilmarnock (prolly the best £135K I’ve ever spent in my Championship Manager/Football Manager career), David Clarkson from Motherwell (though he’s not as good as he was in previous games so he’s on loan to my feeder club Stoke City), Hakan Yakin from Young Boys of Bern (he was the majority, and worth every penny) and Clint Mathis from the MLS for free. As it says I’m currently 2nd in the SPL (ha!) 3 points behind Hearts and just ahead of Celtic. I’m also facing a mutiny as I sold Thomas Buffel to Liverpool during the January transfer window (mainly for the money) and Karl Svensson got pissed and after I said we have more than enough cover he handed in a transfer request and the rest of the squad want me to keep him…

    I have to say, this is a very involving game, especially compared to older versions, the Svensson incident is a great example. I keep finding new things all the time, like getting older players to tutor younger ones so they improve quicker, complaining about bad refereeing decisions, praising other players so they become unsettled and allowing you to swoop in and buy them…

    So I love it, though Robyn probably hates it

  • Too Close to Home…

    A man was killed in Peachtree City after his estranged wife shot him in the car park of his work. The man was Eric Paul Ulrich, my mother’s cousin’s husband’s brother… I’m utterly stunned.

  • Enron Explorer

    Enron Explorer. Read all the emails of a dying company written by those with their heads in the noose. All nicely tagged and searchable.

  • How Not to End a Marathon

    How not to end a marathon. As he crossed the finish line of the 2006 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, Robert Cherulyot slipped on a logo at the finish line and cracked his head on the pavement.

  • At the Car Wash…

    Flickr: At the Car Wash...

  • Pink and White

    Flickr: Pink and White

  • Little Miss Sunshine

    This goes down as the most belated movie “review” I’ve ever done, as I went to see this fine, fine, funny movie over a week ago with Duane. It’s not because it’s bad or anything, quite the opposite, I’m just really lazy like that.

    Little Miss Sunshine

    Where was I? Oh yeah, Little Miss Sunshine, this can be wrapped up in seven words “dysfunctional family go on a road trip” but really, it’s so much more than that. As I said, it’s the tale of a dysfunctional family who drive from New Mexico to California so the young daughter can take part in the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant, along the way they fight and argue and eventually come together when needed. The characters are very engaging, from the loud, abrasive, heroin snorting grand father (yes, you read that right) to the silent, angst-ridden, Nietzsche reading teenage son, they are all very well written and portrayed on screen.

    While it’s a funny, funny movie, it’s also very touching and highly recommended, in fact I want to go see it again.

  • Explosions of Colour

    An awesome Sony Bravia advert. Shot on location in Glasgow, Scotland.

  • The Curse of the Yankees?

    Following Cory Lidle’s accident, a private plane carrying Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez overran a runway at Bob Hope Airport. If I was a Yankee, I’d avoid air travel for the time being…

  • Flash Earth

    Flash Earth. A wonderful site that combines pretty much every satellite aerial imagery site you can think of to show what Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and NASA would show on any point on Earth.

  • Grey’s Anatomy

    AKA: Things That Piss Me Off

    Dear ABC,

    We live in a wonderous age, if not for all the shit going down this would truely be considered man’s golden age. We can put man on the moon, tourists in space, we can cure almost any disease, the limit is only your imagination… So I ask you this.

    In this golden age of man, we can pause live tv, we can rewind it, we can fast forward through annoying commercials that no one cares about, and as a broadcasting corporation you provide some excellent entertainment, and god bless you for that. But why, in your infinite wisdom, can you make programs like Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal and Lost end on time while Grey’s Anatomy has over run it’s timeslot 2 out of the last 3 weeks?

    Now imagine sitting down to watch this thrilling show and just when the good bit is about to be revealed, my TiVo is asking me if I really want to delete this show…

    Awwwww hell to the naw!

    Is this some sick ploy to drive people to your site to watch that “Grey’s Anatomy Moment”? Do I really have to ask my TiVo to record those extra minutes you decided to sell as adverts? Is it too much to ask that when a prerecorded show ends at 10pm, it really means 10pm?

    Now I have to wait till tomorrow morning to find out what I missed, not cool… Not cool at all.

  • Plane Crash in New York City

    BREAKING NEWS

    A small plane has crashed into a high-rise residential building at 72nd Street and York in Manhattan in New York City. No further details immediately available.

    Plane Crash in NYC

    EDIT: Police are en route to the site, said to be at 525 E. 72nd Street. Flames and smoke could be seen pouring from the high rise apartment as fire engines raced to the scene.

    BBC Coverage

    CNN Coverage

    EDIT (5:21pm): ESPN reports that New York Yankees relief pitcher, Cory Lidle was the pilot of the plane… It was only a few days ago he was pitching for the Yankees against the Tigers.

  • Grind House Trailer

    A trailer for Grind House. A case of two movies in one here by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. And it looks SO awesome… It has everything, mindless violence and a chick with a gun for a leg… Yes, a chick with a gun for a leg!

  • Google Does Buy YouTube

    Google announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community. Damn, just damn… The world HAS gone mad afterall…