Up

So I finally got round to watching Disney Pixar's Latest flick, UP. Being a fan of pretty much every movie that this duo have produced, I had the usual high hopes for this film - and boy did it deliver. I wish I'd have seen it earlier now, and it probably would have been fantastic rendered in 3D but in standard definition it was brilliant. Not at all what I had expected from the trailers, it was a really heart warming story showing that even though the man old man didn't manage to achieve his dreams and had lost his wife, he was still trying to reach his goal. Even when he finally gets to meet his childhood hero who turns out to be evil, he carries on and chooses the right path, turning on his former idol and keeping the promise he made to his young companion to protect the bird affectionately known as Kevin - which is a work of comedy genius in itself. A nice twist on the tale are the talking dogs, not the usual talking dogs that you get in animated movies but to add an added 'realism' to the story, the dogs can only talk thanks to a special collar that translates their barks into English speech. All of the dogs have been highly trained with their primary 'mission' to capture Kevin yet because they are dogs, their canine weaknesses are still embedded deep inside and whilst they are talking or concentrating, they will be very easily distracted by the sight of something moving to which they respond with the outburst of "SQUIRREL". The adventurous duo use this weakness to their advantage when the dogs are set on them, shouting "SQUIRREL" distracts them for long enough and throwing a tennis ball attached to Mr. Fredricksen's walking stick. Overall, a highly entertaining film with scenes of uplifting highs coupled with very moving scenes with the potential to bring a tear to the eye.

A very different episode of Merlin yesterday, this time rather than the usual save the kingdom, or save Arthur, Merlin falls head over heals for a Druid girl whom he rescues from a cage after having been caught by a bounty hunter. He risks everything to stay with this girl, stealing food from Arthur at meal times and smuggling them to feed the girl. Sadly the girl is cursed and although Merlin cannot see this, she begins to kill and knows she cannot stay much longer. Blinded by his love, Merlin tries to find a way to keep her safe but she escapes and is injured my Arthur when she becomes a beast. Merlin takes her to a lake where she is put to rest, a really sad end to the episode.

Top Gear was highly entertaining as usual tonight although there was a complaint from the ranks that it was too scripted. I don't mind it being scripted because for the most part, it is a very funny script and whilst you can see some things coming from a mile off a lot of the scenes are unexpected and create highly amusing situations.

Last but not least on the TV menu tonight, Defying Gravity and things are starting to move forward a bit. The premise of the episode is that the crew are due to film a live commercial for a candy company. I felt a chill run down my spine each time I heard them mention that word, Amercianisms really annoy me sometimes! However, the visions / hallucinations that they have been experiencing recently and were attributed to a contaminated batch of the libido inhibiting halos started to manifest themselves in all but two members of the crew, the reason for which has not yet been revealed. This puts a stop to the commercial and means that the astronauts will not receive their funding unless the problem can be corrected. The crew begin to get suspicious after this comes in a long line of strange occurrences on board and this is confirmed even more so when Zoe finally reveals to Donner about her dream. When he reveals that he had had the same dream they realise that mission control have been lying to them and that it probably isn't a problem with the halos.

Finally to end the day on a high, I have managed to get the prototype GUI for my dissertation complete and working. It's only very basic at the moment but I think I've got to grips with the MatLab programming language - at least to the complexity that I will need for this project.