Losing it[1]

With all the changes I’ve been making to the site, I’ve been doing a lot of reading over at the WordPress support forums. Unfortunately, they seem a little broken at the moment. This is never a good message to see.

Well, not the full routine, but a good start to the week. Did the usual 10km on the bike, the ooh oww crunches, the Bullworker and the weights. I did attempt to do a bit of rowing, but that felt like a bit too much, so I stopped.

I just need to do three more sessions between now and Friday.

And to keep doing that every week.

Yes, it’s another Erast Fandorin novel! This was the second to be written, and fits directly between The Winter Queen and Murder on the Leviathan. If you haven’t read the books yet, do yourself a favour and read them in the correct order, not the order the UK publisher seems to think is a good idea.

This time, the story is told from the viewpoint of Varvara Surarova, a progressive young woman who is trying to get to the front of the Russo-Turkish war to join her fiancé. Fandorin is trying to get over the events of The Winter Queen, but becomes involved in events when it becomes apparent that there is a traitor at work.

As Fandorin fans[1] would expect, there are diversions, red herrings, misdirections and a lot of fun along the way. I’m looking forward to the next one in the series.

[1] Sorry. I won’t do that again.

I didn’t get round to seeing this one when it was in the cinemas[1], even though it sounded like the kind of thing I’d enjoy. Anyway, I eventually got round to buying it on DVD and watched it last week. Ashton Kutcher stars as Evan Treborn, a young man whose life has been plagued by mysterious blackouts. One day, he starts to read the journals he has kept since childhood and finds that he can move back in time and change what happened. The tagline of the movie is “Change one thing - change everything”, and that’s what happens to Evan and his friends. As he keeps trying to make things better by changing the past, a new present is created, each worse than the last. Eventually, he makes one final, drastic change to his past…

What’s interesting about The Butterfly Effect is the way the main characters change each time Evan changes the past - the actors have the challenge of playing something like four different roles each, and make a superb job of it. Each time Evan wakes up, he has to adjust to a new reality - some more disorienting and disturbing than others.

The movie is visually impressive, as well as being rather more intelligent than the average Hollyweird production. There are brilliant effects for Evan’s journeys back in time, and for the memory flashbacks he experiences when he wakes up.

Thrilling, intriguing, thought provoking. A good movie that I’ll need to watch a few more times, as I’m sure I missed some details the first time. If you liked Donnie Darko[2], you should like this too.

[1] This happens a lot
[2] And if you didn’t, what the heck is wrong with you?

Considering I had a pizza and a bottle of wine last night, this morning’s weight wasn’t too bad: 207.2 pounds (14 stone 11.2 pounds, 94.0kg). I’m planning to do some exercise later….