As Cold As Ice….

Sometimes something trivial happens in a film, something so small that nobody notices it, but these are the mistakes that should mean you don’t make it to the end of the movie, or you’ll put yourself through hell to get there when it should have been easy. This happened to me watching The Day After Tomorrow, now I loved this film, despite sitting next to a science author who specializes in climate change so yes I know the science is off but hey I sat between to paleontologists when I first watched Jurassic Park.

So the situation that you never know might come up in your everyday trying to survive lives…

…you’re stuck in an old library, it’s getting cold and you’ve been told it’s going to get a LOT colder; you retreat into the one room with a working fireplace. Time to burn stuff right?

Yes, yes indeed it is time to burn stuff, so you get the books, they’re made of paper they’ll burn well lets get them all in fact lets take every book in a massive library and chuck them onto the fire. Now here’s my issue, yes paper burns easily and hot but also quickly, so why did the theoretically intelligent people in the room not notice all the lovely wood around the place oak tables and hardwood chairs? You use paper to get the fire going and then small wood then bigger pieces and now suddenly rather than having to constantly throw books onto the fire you can have a nice steady fire roaring away, and who knows maybe you’ll make it to the end of the film in relative comfort.

So remember book burning is all very well and good, but the shelves they’re on burn so much better.

Just curious

As the title says I'm just a little curious as to what brings people here, why not comment and let me know.

Also I watched Tron Legacy today and the more I watched the more I thought to myself, surely a hacker in a world inside a computer would be able to break the rules a little more, because lets be honest isn't that the best way to survive inside a logical computer environment. So next time you're trapped inside the Grid, use your evolutionary right to be chaotic and illogical, see how they cope with that.

There Be Dragons!

So I watched Sucker Punch last night, not really anything to be said on here about it as to be honest why would me rules and thoughts be relevant in an environment mostly created by the imagination of a less than stable mind. However one sequence involved a Dragon and this reminded me of a rant from the depths of time (well 2002)…

… 2002 was a good year stuff happened and also the world ended, well at least according to the film Reign of Fire it did anyways. Now throughout history there have been stories and legends about Dragons, I like Dragons they’re pretty cool. In these an angry Dragon would cause mass terror and devastation this is legitimate, a hundred years ago if dragons appeared they would cause devastation. Now here is my suggestion of how to really survive the film Reign of Fire. Let the Government sort it out. Sounds a bit lazy, yup it sure is but it’s what we pay our taxes for, but lets look at this another way. The dragons in that film could be killed with mediaeval style weapons but somehow managed to evade and destroy the entire worlds military might in a short period of time.

So Rant time it is, we live in a world where we have developed the Sea Harrier which can hover, is close to as maneuverable as a bird. We have anti aircraft cannon that measure their shots per minute in the multiple thousand and can fill a large area of the sky with lead. Missiles have been developed that travel at hypersonic speeds to destroy other small missiles travelling at similar speeds. So how are we meant to believe that these winged predators somehow managed to evade all of this?

Now it could be argued that the worlds advanced military technology was caught by surprise (wouldn’t be the first time) or maybe the missiles etc weren’t able to find the dragons on Radar (unlikely but I’m grasping at straws here). So maybe it’s time for us to take over from the government on this one, what could we use to kill a dragon…

…Well my first choice is to mention that in this world of ours in a large proportion of it, hunters are allowed to legally own depleted uranium bullets for the fifty cal rifles to go out and shoot deer. Now I’m thinking that a weapon/ammunition combo designed as an anti material weapon should be able to cope quite easily with a wussy creature that can be killed by ballistae.

So probably the easiest way to survive a movie here, pay you taxes or let over zealous hunters do what they like to do, sounds like the best way to stay safe against these dragons. One last thing, if the dragons are Eastern and magical all bets are off and it’s time to hope for a different solution.

Scream if you want to go faster.

As you may be able to tell I’ve watched a few films with car chases in recently, but this is a pure and simple rant that’s been brewing for some time I will try and keep a lesson in survival in here somewhere!

I live in a European country which is considered by our European neighbours to have a rather pedestrian attitude towards speed in that our motorway speed limit is 70 mph. We have cars which have an electronic limiter of 155mph because travelling beyond that speed is considered to be starting to be unsafe by my Germen brethren. The not so far away Isle of Mann has a section of road through the mountains that not only is part of one of the fastest road races in the world (one racer past an average of 140mph over a 34 mile track of twisty mountain routes), but it is open to anyone the rest of the year with NO SPEED LIMITS! 

Now with that all in place why do I repeatedly see in Hollywood films cars being driven really fast away from various police, bad guys etc, then a shot of the speedo and bam 50-60mph?

This is not a fast speed, in gone in 60 seconds a car hit 100mph and the police helicopter claimed not to be able to keep up, over here non suped up police cars can hit 120, there’s modified Volvo’s on the force that can hit the 150 mark fully laden with equipment. Can I only assume that in these films I see that the protagonists don’t really want to be free they’re just teasing the Police? So here’s my tip for this one, you’re organising a bank job or some other sort of crime, be sensible and buy a European or Japanese car as your getaway, and then when you scream you want to go faster... you will!

Cars have three pedals you know?

Ok first off I apologise to any Americans or others who use automatic vehicles, yes I realise they only have two pedals.

Now that that’s over with, here’s the meat of the issue, you’re driving along and you notice you’re being followed... they get closer, maybe a shot is fired (all depends on the type of film this is), maybe they bump you trying to drive you off the road. Your instinctive response it to drive faster, harder and like a lunatic through the traffic. Unfortunately the car following you can see every move you make and the traffic ahead of you, they can anticipate every move you make as you steam along blindly hoping to escape. So here’s today’s tip, look for the opportune moment, let them pull along side, and hit the brake, then turn at the next available turning. Suddenly that car that would have stuck on your tail until you were royally screwed has blasted off at speed and has no idea where you went, and you get to turn another corner, drive safely and calmly maybe even get out and walk and they’ll never see you again.

So remember the brake is there for a reason.