Adrian Mateljan

My main PC, bought early 2006, was specced to play Oblivion with a fast 40GB SATA hard drive as its primary drive and an older 80GB Westen Digital “Caviar” IDE hard drive repurposed from the PC it replaced as a secondary drive - because 40GB just wasn’t enough. Earlier this year, the 80GB drive died. Thankfully it showed symptoms first, and held out long enough for me to retrieve the data I had on it…

Anyway, owing to wanting to dispose of it properly - or just because I am a collector of junk computer components - I haven’t yet gotten rid of it. Today, that foresight (read luck) paid off - and it isn’t the first time. So here are two ways to get some extra miles out of your dead hardware!

• Hammer - recently I had to put together some IKEA shelves that required, of all things, a hammer - and it was the one tool IKEA didn’t provide. I don’t have a hammer, but the hard metal casing and heft of the hard drive proved up to the task. Watch out for the screw holes though. Also, I have noticed some indentation on the case - so I don’t think it will be a replacement hammer indefinately…
• DVD unlocking device - Lou received a Christmas gift from her friend Kim in Australia, the “Iron Man” DVD. Unfortunately, the store magnetic lock had not been disabled. A quick search on the Internet provided some handy instructions involving hard drive magnets. I have since placed the magnets on our “munitions” cabinet, converting its gothic charm to a more steampunk one (and keeping them away from sensitive electronic devices)

What uses have you found for old hard drives?

Wishing all of our family, friends, colleagues and readers (past and present) across the globe a very merry Christmas.

Love,
Adrian, Louisa & Kobe

Adrian’s Rating: 8
First Watched: Sunday 21st December 2008 (DVD)

Between poor reviews and not having been inspired by Brendan Fraser lately, I wasn’t expecting much. Sometimes I wonder how much preconception and mood play in what I like and don’t like - I guess I will have to wait until I watch it again. First time through - this was simply fun to watch. That is the point right?

Adrian’s rating: 6
First watched: Saturday 20th December 2008 (DVD)

Nothing special here. Even though I enjoyed The Mummy and The Mummy Returns - I even enjoyed The Scorpian King - this was mostly tedious for me, and certainly the worst of the franchise (although, there is a sequel to The Scorpian King that I haven’t seen yet…) Even Indianna Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a better film. Doesn’t even warrant a Tilt: +1 The Mummy due to a number of reasons including the lack of Rachel Weisz as Evelyn (replaced by Maria Bello) and Yetis - don’t ask.

The highlights for me came pretty late in the film as the two undead armies faced off - some physical humour as a skeleton in the background turns around and accidentally knocks off a comrade’s head and later another skeleton acting visibly confused after losing his head to the enemy. As I said, nothing special.

Adrian’s Rating: 6
First Watched: Saturday 20th December 2008 (DVD)

Formulaic. Nothing remarkable. ‘Nuff said.

Adrian’s Rating: 7
First watched: Saturday 13th December 2008 (Cinema)

I was left enthralled by the concepts and ideas of the story, but somewhat disappointed by the end product. Not that the film is bad, there just seemed to be a lot of potential it didn’t live up to. I am not entirely sure whether the challenge of bringing the ideas to the screen was too great or whether it is the usual problems involved in converting a book to a movie (I haven’t read the book). Or maybe it was simply that the book “Inkheart”, as the core of the plot, is itself uninspiring and forms a weak foundation to build the rest on top of. I guess I won’t really know until I read the book…

Adrian’s rating: 7
Last watched: 11th December 2008 (DVD)

Fun but nothing special.

Adrian’s rating: 8
First watched: Saturday 29th November 2008 (Theatre)

Very entertaining, humour ranged between excellent and excessive - but it is Monty Python… I was concerned it would be too excessive for my taste, but apparently not, and I hadn’t realised that dancing girls were such a large part of the selling point. Lou had wanted to go and see it for a while, and given its run ends January next year, we did and it was great fun.

Adrian’s rating: 7
Tilt: Futurama +1
First watched (incomplete): 22nd November 2008 (DVD, owned)

Fell asleep before the end, so only a 7 - it was a long day and there was no milk for coffee. Otherwise seemed like standard Futurama fair.

Writing these semi-regular updates is really highlighting for me the need to jot things down as they happen rather than try to remember them later. Still, I guess this helps limit things to the highlights…

This fortnight has mainly been about furniture - looking at it, ordering it, collecting it/having it delivered, constructing it and placing it. We now have a side table for the couch, bedside tables to replace the cardboard boxes next to the bed, desks for my computers and miniatures and shelving for my bits and bobs.

We also took delivery of a new fridge and dryer - but they are more Lou’s department…

Lou has already started planning our next holidays - a week in Snowdonia, Wales in February and then a week in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida in May. I think she has Egypt in her sights for later in the year, meeting up with her sister - so next year we will actually be making good on the reason we came across to the UK from Australia in the first place!

Speaking of meeting up, plans are afoot for a return to Disneyland, Anaheim, California in 2011 with Iain and Bern (again!) - but this time with Sean in tow.

Till next time,
Adrian

Update: Forgot to mention, finally got a RedDot entry out and have been enjoying playing Fallout 3 too!