Beowulf and Grendal: review

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 24th, 2007 in News and weather | 0 comments

Referring back to my Jan. 14th post about “Beowulf and Grendal”.

Last night I watched it:  My rating will have to be a compilation of the actual movie,  and the effort that the crew and actors put into making the movie.   The scenery was awesome.  The crew must have went through a herculian effort to complete this film under those conditions.

The story line follows the ancient story fairly closely and tries to give a fairly accurate representation of life in those times.  It was a bit dark at times,  and sometimes just a tad hard to follow,  but overall it was pretty entertaining and even carries a moral message.  All in all,  “Beowulf & Grendal” starring Gerard Butler,  get’s 4 out of 5 stars.

~~GB

 

 

Heroes ,,, 24 ? and Fishing Hurts?

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 22nd, 2007 in News and weather | 0 comments

Wouldn’t you know it,  Heroes and 24 are on during the same time slot this season.  Out of maybe 3 or 4 shows I look forward to, and,  I have to choose between them. 

If that isn’t enough to get me going,  look at this new idea from the “great minds” at PETA.

Fishing Hurts

~~GB

Secondary sight for the LR-308B

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 18th, 2007 in Shootist | 0 comments

I posted the following to WWW.AR15.COM and am waiting for a thrashing.  So far no responses.

I have a DPMS LR-308-B with a Bushnell 3×9 scope mounted as the sole sighting device. I can’t afford the more expensive side of sighting so that’s out.

The Bushnell works quite well out to around 300 yards, but I’m looking for something I can use for close range stuff. I had originally considered the new Bushnell red dot, but didn’t really want to have to swap the scopes when I wanted to change ranges.

Be gentle, but what do you think about a Laser sighting device as that secondary system? Shooter’s Guides list a 5w tactical green laser for under $200. It claims to be visable to 100 yards in daylight, but I’m thinking that anything beyond 50 yards would be scope range.

Thanks for the input,
Greybeard

3.5 floppies and XP

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 15th, 2007 in Technology and Music | 0 comments

This is a pretty old issue but it’s the first time I’ve run into it.  Yesterday I ran into a need to use 3.5 in floppy disks,  for the first time in a couple of years.  I pulled out a sealed box of pre-formated TDK MF-2DD EB disks that I’d had in my desk for a few years.

To my surprize XP said these disks were not formated and that I could not format them??  A quick trip to the MS Knowledge base, came up with article 140060.   It seems that some older pre-formated disks do not contain a media descriptor byte in the BIOS parameter block (BPB) of the boot sector.  But I can fix that by reformating them on a Windows 98 machine!! 

What a crock,  I just have to dig through storage and find an old junker,  so I can manually format a couple of dozen brand new high quality disks,  so they’ll work with XP.   HMMM,  I’ve got a box of old salvaged AOL disks, that reformat just fine,  guess I’ll use them. 

~~GreyBeard

Beowulf & Grendal

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 14th, 2007 in News and weather | 0 comments

I watched a 2007 movie called “Grendal” on the Sci-Fi channel last night.  It was NOT very good!

NOTE:  This was not,  the 2005 movie titled “Beowulf & Grendal”, starring Gerard Butler.

Of B&G,  the Chicago Sun Times said:

“A semi-mythic period piece, Beowulf & Grendel offers sublime scenery that’s breathtaking and bone-chilling.”

The Boston Globe said:

“Trying to give us the true story behind the epic, the movie only reminds us of why humans write epics in the first place.”

The only notable thing about “Grendal” was the appearance of Marina Sirtis (Star Trek’s “Councelor Troy) as the mad queen.  (sorry to say that Marina wasn’t looking up to par).

On the other hand,  “Beowulf & Grendal” looks rather interesting.  If anyone has seen it,  I’d be interested in your take on it.  The reviews on it are all over the charts.

~~GreyBeard