paul capewell’s blog

I should work in tech support. Swear to God. Three things I’ve done today:

• Helped somebody save her documents to a floppy (people still USE those?!) because restrictions on the computers the public can use on our network makes it hard to do so from within Internet Explorer

• Helped save a Favorite/bookmark on our internal network so that it will be there on all the computers after a restart
• Helped recover so-called ‘lost’ files on a friends machine via MSN (it shocks me the amount of times people say they have ‘lost’ their files when in fact they’ve been moved by a program or OS)

So yeah. Simple stuff, but its nice when I appear to be the only one around who knows things like what the C:\ drive is, that you double click icons on the desktop but single-click icons on the Taskbar (no I don’t understand why either…) and that if you get a ‘message sending failed’ email back after sending an email it doesn’t matter that you ‘checked the sent iterms folder and it looked like it had gone’.

I don’t pretend to be an elitist cunt about these things – I only know how Windows works inside and out (well…) because I’ve been using it for so long in all its many incarnations from 3.11 to XP (apart from Millennium Edition – neatly avoided that little disaster), and in some lights, thats totally nothing to be smug about. But its nice.

Plus using Mac OS X on my primary computer since February of this eyar has really opened things up to me. I know this OS pretty well, but obviously am about as much of a beginner as you’d expect from only having used it for a few months. But I know my way around.

And I tinker in the Terminal now and again too.

Well this is pretty interesting: we all know about director’s commentaries coming with more and more DVDs. Sometimes they’re a nice bonus to have, but for some films they wouldn’t be worth touching. (Personally, Cameron Crowe’s tend to be great – the Almost Famous one features him and his mother, while Jerry Maguire even has a video commentary, with the stars on a sofa watching the film as it plays in a quarter of the screen for the viewer).

It goes without saying, then, that Kevin Smith’s fall on the more interesting side of things, so its pretty exciting – but baffling – that, as the New York Times reports, that prior to the release of his new film Clerks 2 (hitting cinemas from late July), you’ll be able to download a director’s commentary from the iTunes Music Store for free, ready to be listened to in the cinema.

In an ingenious new ploy, he has recorded a commentary for “Clerks II” that will be available for free download on iTunes, encouraging viewers to take their iPods to the theater for a second viewing. (Eventually the commentary will also be available on the official movie site, clerks2.com.)

A neat idea for sure, but I don’t really feel the practicality. Personally, to enjoy a commentary track, I need to know the movie pretty much inside out before watching it with it on. Certainly watching a film for the first time with a director’s commentary would be pretty silly – you’d miss heaps, but bone up on useless trivia about stuff you haven’t heard onscreen – and doing so in a cinema seems even more pointless.

Either way, its all hype for a genuinely exciting new release. Clerks 2 and Pirates of The Caribbean 2 are both my tips for this summer. Screw Superman, really.

I do wish I still had my copy of A Clockwork Orange (Gaby has it). I’ve been listening to Sigur Ros’ epic ( ) for the first time in forever and it really reminds me of the haunting soundtrack. Plus, regardless, its an amazing film.

Since getting home from work I have conquered Mount Washingup, showered my achey bones, put on some washing and started tidying up a bit. I also went to Tesco to get some dinner and my current lover, some pain au chocolat.

I’m going to rustle up the dinner, put the lights down low, and settle into part two of Mary Bryant, a pretty great period drama following a young woman (amongst many) as she is transported to Botany Bay, Australia as a prisoner, part of the first settlement there. Also stars Jack Davenport and Sam Neill (with a comedy line about sending people to New Zealand to be gobbled up by the natives). I was suitably impressed by the first part. I’m glad its in two parts as it clocks in at just over 3 hours.

Having arranged July 3rd off work, and with just the hotel and train to book, I am thoroughly looking forward to going to chill out at Vicky’s. There are at least seven brilliant things about the whole event. Hip-hip-hoorah!

Oh and Robert Scoble keeps making me want to look into HDTV. I don’t need that kind of temptation! I do fancy a new TV though. It won’t be an HD one though, not any time soon.