Movies

I've seen two new movies this weekend - Die Hard 4.0, and The Simpsons Movie. I'd have to say that I wasn't hugely impressed with either.

I did quite enjoy Die Hard 4 - the story wasn't bad with what the baddies were up to and all, and the dialogue had the same feel to it as the first one. But the action sequences and stunts were ridiculous. Okay, so it's a film, but still - there were just a few too many points where McClaine should totally have been dead, or where things just didn't make sense. Like the bit where the bad guys redirect all of the gas lines in America to the station where McClaine and his hacker geek pal are. For one thing, it takes only a minute or two for the gas to reach critical levels, and for some inexplicable reason, it is all on fire and exploding as it travels through the pipes. Why the hell was it on fire? Or the bit where a military jet takes out one support for a freeway overpass thing while trying to blow up a truck, and the entire structure collapses like a chain of dominoes. It just doesn't make any sense. There are quite a few movies aroud these days where the makers seem to have decided that things should be as spectacular as possible, and common sense, physics and the intelligence of audiences be damned. I just think it's astounding that in the process of making a film like this, no one watches the dailies and thinks "Hang on, that is just too fucking stupid, even for an action film." Even some of the smaller things like running someone over with an SUV, and having them bounce up onto the windshield rather than get knocked over and go under the vehicle. Shit like that bugs me.

And The Simpsons Movie - it wasn't bad, it had some funny moments - but on the whole it felt like an extended episode of the TV show. Which isn't too surprising, I guess... But the thing that sucks is that it felt like an extended episode of the recent series, which I didn't really like. They seem to have really hooked into the pattern of Homer doing something retarded, Marge leaving him, and then things eventually coming right. I just don't see that as funny. I don't know - it never even occured to me that there should be a big screen transition for this show. It is a great show on the whole - although the last two seasons have been a bit so-so. Urrgh, this is somewhat disjointed. I don't really know what I'm getting at here. Except that basically, I think they should consider retiring the Simpsons soon. I read an article in Empire about the maknig of the film, and they said that they would continue making the show until they run out of jokes. I think they kinda ran out of original material a while ago, and that perhaps they should give it a rest. The other thing that sucks is that I really quite liked Futurama, which I think still had a reasonable amount of life left in it, and that got cancelled.

Oh, bollocks - I can't be bothered writing any more about all this.

In general, life is much the same as ever - I haven't been called on to do anything more as union rep recently. They have arranged a date for my first training course though - it's on my birthday. Bum... But that's a Tuesday, So i'm looking at going up north to visit my folks in the preceding weekend. I have been working quite a lot of overtime of late, as we are short two operators in the insulating department, and I could do with a break.

Anyhoo, it's a lovely day outside, so I'm going to go have a shower, and then maybe wander down to Hagley park and enjoy the sunshine.

Apologies

Okay, I just read my previous post, and felt I should apologise for the wasy it deteriorated. I can barely remember writing it, to be honest. I was feeling a little blurgh last Saturday and had a few drinks to make myself feel better. Or at least so I didn't care so much about feeling a bit off. On top of being really tired, this lead to the mess that last post became.

At any rate, what I was getting at with the guy from Mains is that he kept asking my co-worker if they could explain why their pattern of sick leave usage had improved in the last three months. The whole thing was nonsense - the "pattern" that we were discussing was one Sunday a month between February and April this year. And the person still had sick leave in hand - admittedly only four hours, but it still seems a bit crap to hassle someone for using their sickleave. Although this is where I find things difficult - I can see where the company is coming from, and I have a different attitude toward things like sick leave than most of the staff.

To me, sick leave is a necessity, something that should be used only when really needed. Most people at work treat it like a right, like it should be used in the same way as holiday pay. Like they look at how much they have accumulated, and decide "Well, I'd better have a day off sick soon because I've got lots of sick leave just sitting there." I prefer to let it accumulate, because you never know when you might catch some sort of lurgy, and need real time off that isn't covered by ACC or whatnot. Plus there is the point the Mains production leader was making - that if you have a family, you never know when you may need to use your sick leave to look after other people. Although that was a good point, he was still cock... A really overbearing, striaght-talking SOB.

The meeting had a fair amount of fallout - the union rep on dayshift got all upset about the Mains person being there, and had a go at our Production Leader, and complained to the Factory Manager. Personally, while it was a mess, I didn't see it as that big a deal. BUt i did get the impression that the person who was being talked to was a little intimidated, which I should have put a stop to. But in the end, I had a good chat with them, and explained where the company was coming from, and told them to just forget about the Mains guy because he had absolutely no influence in proceedings. And then later in the shift, When the uber boss turned up, we had a very brief meeting with him in which all he said was just keep an eye on your time off, and that was it. He also said that he rated the person in question as a real worker, which I thought was good point, because they are a fairly solid member of the team. And they felt much better anout everything after that, and we all lived happily ever after... Well, the rest of the week went smoothly, at any rate.

And now, I'm off to have breakfast at my sister's place. Well, I'm going to have a shower, go to the supermarket and pick up some bacon and things, then go to my sisters place. Mmmm, bacon...