One thing I’m quickly discovering about having this blog again is that I don’t feel so guilty about always closing so many tabs at the end of a web surfing session and I finally have an excuse to clear out my bookmark folders which is so backed up, it’d make the Collyer brothers blush.

Anyway, here’s some articles…

Citizen Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick’s films were landmark events – majestic, memorable and richly researched. But, as the years went by, the time between films grew longer and longer, and less and less was seen of the director. What on earth was he doing? Two years after his death, Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate and let loose among the fabled archive. He was looking for a solution to the mystery – this is what he found.

One bit in particular I loved…

(In fact, I soon discover, Kubrick did write back to fans, on random, rare occasions. I find two replies in total. Maybe he only ever wrote back twice. One reads, “Your letter of 4th May was overwhelming. What can I say in reply? Sincerely, Stanley Kubrick.” The other reads, “Dear Mr William, Thank you for writing. No comment about A Clockwork Orange. You will have to decide for yourself. Sincerely, Stanley Kubrick.”)

Also…

China unveils rival to International Space Station
The project heralds a shift in the balance of power among spacefaring nations. In June, the US space agency, Nasa, will mothball its whole fleet of space shuttles, in a move that will leave only the Russians capable of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The $100bn (£60.5bn) outpost is itself due to fly only until 2020, but may be granted a reprieve until 2028.

Spaaaaaaaace.  It’s awesome. There’s also a further write up on the facts at bad astronomer here.  And finally…

Zaarly Makes It Possible To Buy Pretty Much Anything
That’s where Zaarly comes in. Zaarly is an almost shockingly simple app that lets you list whatever it is you’re looking for, be it a set of 17th century porcelain shepherdesses, tickets to an Evanescence concert, reservations at a fully booked restaurant or whatever else you can imagine paying for the privilege of having. Zaarly makes it so that anything–object, experience or otherwise–can be for sale.

Boston.com’s The Big Picture photo blog. If you’re not a regular visitor to this brilliant site, you should be.

This beautifully shot time-lapse video of the Milky Way galaxy shot a top of El Teide, Spain’s highest mountain.  With it’s high altittude (3718m) and lack of moisture, the images this guy has gotten are pretty damn amazing.

A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the 9th April () and at approx 3am in the night the sandstorm hit me, making it nearly impossible to see the sky with my own eyes.

Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. To my surprise, my camera had managed to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island making it look like golden clouds. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way. So if you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32.

Be sure to check it out.

I really, really can’t wait to see this.  It’d better be available in 3D here or someone is losing an eye to compensate.

It’s been a growing (if not re-emerging) trend of looping .gif files on the internet and I’m totally digging it.  One site in particular is https://iwdrm.tumblr.com/ where the pictures are themed around movies and quotes from them and the quality and selections are really, really good.

This one isn’t from a film (I think), but I really like it and will just leave it here as well…

So…  blog.  Blogging.  Finally.  Again…

What the hell happened?  Why the year+ absence?  I’ll distill it down to one thing…  laziness.  Pure, uncut, 100% laziness.  After an unannounced one month break from blogging and the internet, I simply got lazy and then blogger switched off of custom html support and rather than doing the labourous task of moving/revamping it over, I got my priorities cris-crossed and decided to watch 365 new movies in 365 days.

Watched the shit out of those 365 films too and can hardly remember the most of them on an individual basis.  Instead, memories of 2010 have blurred into a singular haze of some weird Frankenstein monster like creation of movies, festivals, work, partying and I think there was some sleep in there at some point.  Averaging it out, I must have spent a total of 30 straight days watching movies.  Totally a smart thing to do.  I looooove the idea of watching a movie again.

Actually, it would have been much more rewarding had I had this blog up and running and blogging about it at the same time, but… well…  like I said, had my priorities a little messed up and when you’re sometimes watching 4-5 movies in a day just to catch up with your film count, you don’t have time for things like blogs, friends, food or bodily hygiene.

But anyway, blah blah blah, other things also happened, but who the hell really cares?

Fact is, this site and blog is now back up and I’ll be the first to say, I’m gonna be rusty at this to begin with so bare with me a bit.  Writing just the title of this post was enough of a task and really pointed out just how out of practice I am.  No idea what the tone or style of this blog will be from here onwards, but there will still be lots of links, videos and assorted random things discovered around the place and hopefully…  a lot less procrastination.