Gadgets, Gear, and Drones
Being based on a book, I wasn’t expecting too much from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But still it managed to be below my expectations. Sure there are funny moments (usually from Marvin the depressed robot) but overall it’s just not worth it. You probably are interested about this movie because of the book. My advice: Stick to the book.
Rating: 1/5
The Batman comic books were dark and Batman Begins, although sanitized for a lower rating, is faithfully dark too. As befitting a comic book-based movie, there’s the evil mob boss, the corrupt cops, psychopathic criminals, and, of course, the crafty arch-villains. Against this array of bad guys stand Batman and a few friends: the love interest, the sidekick (Alfred, no yet Robin), the incorruptible cop (played well as usual by Gary Oldman), the gadget maker (Q anyone?), and of course the gadgets. As a prequel, the movie successfully spun the Batman legend into a cohesive beginning. But this is more than just the beginning of Batman, it is the reinventing of Batman back to what he originally was. During the course of the movie, he transforms from a scared young boy to a lost soul, to a knight errant, to a ninjutsu trainee of a shadow society called the League of Shadows, and finally to the Dark Knight of Gotham City. The result is the best Batman movie ever. It helps that Christian Bale fits the role very well. In this movie, he is dark, brooding, and tormented. Typical Christian Bale and fittingly Batman AND Bruce Wayne. I look forward to more and better Batman movies. Batman has begun!
Rating: 5/5
I’ve always liked film noir. Their raw and unsweetened portrayal of reality strike me as brutally honest and true. I also used to like (I wonder if I still do) comic books or graphic novels as comic book fans prefer to call them. They provide you with the words as books do and the images as movies do while still leaving something to your own imagination. Put the two together and you get Sin City, a tour into a city that’s about as dark as it can get: Kidnapping, rape, torture, mutilation, murder, cannibalism, corruption… You name it, it’s got it. And it’s not just the bad guys doing those things. Practically everything is over the top: the action, the blood, the gore, the dialog, even the narration, that you can’t help but feel juvenile glee especially when the bad guys get it. It is at various points suspenseful, exhilerating, depressing, amusing, even heart-warming. A twist of Tarantino and heaps of Rodriguez and Miller. It’s great! Go watch it!
Rating: 5/5
I was able to test the Garmin Foretrex 101, a nifty lightweight wrist-mounted GPS (Global Positioning System) unit, under actual conditions for the first time during the recent Makiling climb. Although it doesn’t have loadable maps, it does have most of the features of bigger GPS units: track recording, waypoint recording, navigating the tracks and waypoints, and trip log. It also has user replaceable AAA batteries. A similar model, the Foretrex 201 has a built-in rechargeable battery which doesn’t really make sense for an outdoors device.
My main complaint is that it loses track of GPS signals when there’s thick forest cover above. But then, that’s typical of most GPS units. Oliver, who was carrying a higher-end Garmin GPS unit during the climb, encountered the same problem. In any case, this didn’t hamper the usefulness of the device all that much.
Rating: 4/5
I’ve had my Suunto Observer for quite a few years now and it’s still ticking albeit with a battery change or two which isn’t really a big deal since you can just buy its CR2032 batteries from photo or battery shops and change it yourself.
So what’s the big deal with this watch? Well, for starters, as Suunto would say: It’s more than just a watch, it’s a wrist computer. Aside from watch features like time, date, day, second timezone, stopwatch, countdown timer, and alarm, it also has an altimeter, a barometer, a thermometer, and a compass. And all these features do work and work well.
And you can be sure they will keep working: The watch is encased within a solid chunk of stainless steel case (there’s also a titanium cased version) and the face is protected by mineral glass. Mineral glass is not as tough as sapphire but it still withstands a lot of abuse. The caseback as well as the bracelet is a polymer so it won’t freeze on your skin. It is water resistant to 100 meters. Good enough for rain and the occasional dunking. It’s not recommended for diving, although I’ve dived with it quite a few times with no adverse effects.
Best of all, it looks as good in the office as it does on the trail.
Rating: 5/5