Author: DJ Doena

Outlander

DVD / Blu-ray, Short Review
Outlander (2008)

Director: Howard McCain

Jim Caviezel … Kainan
Sophia Myles … Freya
Jack Huston … Wulfric
John Hurt … Rothgar
Ron Perlman … Gunnar

Synopsis: Earth is actually an abandoned colony by the human race and of not much importance.
In the year 709 by our reckoning a spaceship crashes in the cold of Scandinavia. Aboard is a surviving soldier … and something else. Soon he’s captured by the local Norse warriors who think of him as a member of a rivalling tribe.
But then a beast of myth starts attacking their village except that this “dragon” is real and only the Outlander can help them defeat it.

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21 Jump Street

DVD / Blu-ray, Short Review

Director: Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Jonah Hill … Schmidt
Channing Tatum … Jenko
Brie Larson … Molly Tracey
Dave Franco … Eric Molson
Rob Riggle … Mr. Walters
DeRay Davis … Domingo
Ice Cube … Captain Dickson

Synopsis: The old 21 Jump Street program was discontinued at some point but someone up there in the hierarchy thought it a good idea to get these old ideas out of the attic.
Schmidt and Jenko went to the same high school but only became friends seven years later when they both joined the police force. And since their first bust goes totally bust and they look the part they get sent to the new 21 Jump Street program.
Back again in high school they learn that a lot has changed since their days and now they have to find the supplier of a new and dangerous drug.

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The Librarian: Quest for the Spear

DVD / Blu-ray, Short Review

Director: Peter Winther

Noah Wyle … Flynn Carsen
Sonya Walger … Nicole Noone
Bob Newhart … Judson
Kyle MacLachlan … Edward Wilde
Kelly Hu … Lana

Synopsis: Flynn Carsen is what we call in Germany a “Dauerstudent”, a student who never leaves the comfort of the university – until he’s thrown out. He then gets a mysterious invitation to apply for a job at the library. But not any library, the Library.

The place where they keep the Ark of Covenant, Excalibur, Pandora’s Box – and one third of the Spear of Destiny. Unfortunately that piece is stolen shortly after he started working there and now he has to make sure that the other two thirds that are hidden around the world don’t fall into the hands of the bad guys.

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Purchase Diary 2012 – October

DVD / Blu-ray, Purchase Diary 2012

Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe (2011)


04 Oct – €7.27 (£3.92) @ Amazon.co.uk

U.S. Marshals (1998)


11 Oct – €4.80 (£2.98) @ Amazon.co.uk

Bond 50 (1962 – 2008)


11 Oct – €111.51 (£89.23) @ Amazon.co.uk

Leverage: Season 4 (2011)


11 Oct – €0.00 ($24.28) @ Amazon.com (paid via gift certificate)

UHF (1989)


11 Oct – €6.04 (£3.96) @ Amazon.co.uk

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Beauty and the Beast (2012)

Short Review

Beauty and the Beast (2012) @ Wikipedia
Beauty and the Beast (2012) @ IMDb

Nine years ago Catherine Chandler’s mother was killed in a botched robbery but Catherine herself was saved by a mysterious beast in the woods.

Now she is a successful police detective in New York. But it’s there that she meats the “beast” again. Vincent is a former soldier who took part in an experiment that re-wrote his DNA, making him faster and stronger but also more aggressive. The project was abandoned and Vincent believed to be dead. With the help of his friend he’s hiding from the world until Catherine steps into his life again.

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Person of Interest

Short Review

Person of Interest @ Wikipedia
Person of Interest @ IMDb

After 9/11 Harold Finch (Michael Emerson, LOST) built a machine that scanned every internet communication, every phone call, every surveillance camera recording for possible threats to the United States. It divides the results into two categories: major casualties and minor casualties. The government was only interested in the list with the major casualties.

The machine cannot foresee accidents or spontaneous acts of violence but it does see planned crimes.

Harold has made it his mission to help those people the government deems of no interest to them. But he has to work in secret, no one can know the machine is giving him information. So the information has to be sparse – only a social security number. And that is not always the victim’s number.

He needs help. Someone who can handle the “hand-to-hand” business. And for this he recruits a former special forces soldier the government thinks is dead (Jim Caviezel, Outlander). They also have the help of two detectives, one straight, one crooked. Together they try to protect people who don’t even know that they’re in danger.

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Arrow

Short Review

Arrow @ Wikipedia
Arrow @ IMDb

Five years ago a yacht sank in the middle of the ocean. Aboard were billionaire Robert Queen and his son Oliver, the girl Oliver was sleeping with (who’s not his girlfriend) and at least one business partner of Robert’s. Only Oliver survived and he washed up on the shore of an island where he lived for the following years.

Now he’s back in his hometown but his life has changed. On the surface he’s still the same playboy that he was before the accident (if it was one) trying to get back into the life of the high society and to reconcile with his former girlfriend Laurel who lost her sister on that yacht.

Beneath the surface Oliver has come back with a mission: To free the city of the corrupt and powerful who are destroying it. He becomes the Green Arrow, a mysterious vigilante who hunts down the people on his list until they’re either properly prosecuted by the law or dead.

Both his lives aren’t made any easier by the fact that his mother is somehow involved in the accident but also hired a trained bodyguard for her son (which makes it harder to slip away) but also the fact that his former girlfriend Dinah “Laurel” Lance is a district attorney and her father (who lost a daughter that fateful day) is a police detective who holds a serious grudge against both Oliver and the Green Arrow.

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Comic Book Men

Short Review

Comic Book Men @ Wikipedia Comic Book Men @ IMDb Comic Book Men is hard to describe as a show. It’s not a scripted reality…

Windows 8 – The Keyboard Shortcuts You Should Know

Misc, Software

Windows 8 was written primarily for touch devices such as tablets and touch screen monitors.

If you’re a classic mouse and keyboard user there will be some challenges.

For example, did you know that if you want to close one of the new Metro apps, you have to push your mouse to the top of the screen until it turns into a hand and then you have to drag the app all the way down to the bottom of the screen until it disappears?

Also, the new Windows 8 is designed to have a special function in every corner of the screen. To open the Start screen you have to move your mouse into the lower left corner until a small Start screen popup appears and then click.

But what if you have two monitors and the right one is your primary monitor just like in my case? Try to quickly hit the small area on the bottom left of the right screen when the mouse cursor has a whole other screen to wander into…

That’s why I’m glad that I grew up during DR DOS and MS-DOS and still know how to use keyboard commands and shortcuts.

For example, I have not opened an MS Office program via icon in years. Not in Windows XP, not in Windows 7 and I won’t do it in Windows 8. You open the Run window via Windows key plus R (Win+R) and type “winword” or “excel” or “powerpnt” and off you go… For the Calculator “calc”, the Character Map “charmap”, the Paint program (e.g. for quick screenshots) “mspaint”, …

Luckily for me, Windows 8 brings some new shortcuts with it which can be used to open the most important functions. The keys used are not always intuitive but my guess is that the alphabet has only so many letters and many are already in use.

But nevertheless, why the function “Find Apps” has the shortcut Win+Q instead of Win+A and “Find Settings” has Win+W instead of Win+S I do not know.

So, here’s a list of shortcuts new and old that might come in handy for the usage of Windows 8:

Windows key (Win) – Formerly opened the Start menu, now opens the Start screen (no need to find the lower left corner of the screen). Press Win again and the Start screen closes.

Before Windows 8 I found this to be pointless unless you were unlucky enough to have a computer without a mouse. Now it actually becomes useful.

Win+Q – Opens the search for applications in the former start menu.

Win+W – Opens the search for settings.

Win+F – Opens the search for files.

Win+E – Opens a new instance of Windows Explorer.

Win+R – Opens the Run window.

Win+I – Opens the Settings sidebar.

Win+P – Opens the multi-screen options (e.g. to use a projector in a meeting).

Win+D – Shows the Desktop. Another press of Win+D returns all programs to their previous state (important difference to Win+M).

Win+L – Lock computer.

Win+X – Show a list of shortcuts to various system functions.

Win+C – Show the right side bar (no need to find the lower/upper right corner of the screen).

Win+M – Minimize all windows and thus show Desktop.

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