It may not have been the grand scale of the 2011 Secular Ball but Atheist Society made show we showed out the academic year with, well, not style, given it was Red Hot World Buffet, but certainly quantity.
Sarann and Moz are clearly moving up in the world – their new house has four bedrooms, a jacuzzi bath and most importantly, a bar. So it was only right and proper that we welcomed it in style with a vegan BBQ, that also featured giant jenga that Sarann had had made at a timber yard.
Having relatives from Canada visting, we decided (well, my parents decided, I turned up and ate) to throw a family BBQ. My camera battery was on its lasts legs though, so I only got pictures of the fire.
The seventh book in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series focuses on Djelibeybi, an ancient kingdom not unlike Ancient Egypt.
I hugely enjoyed the start of the novel in which it discusses Teppic at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork, as well as the description of the kingdom and many interesting rituals and customs presided over by the high preist Dios. My attention trailed a little towards the end, but overall it is one of my favour novels in the series so far.
For project nine of the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual, Persuade With Power, I presented a talk entitled “In Defence of Nudity”. It certainly wasn’t one of my best speeches, but I somehow muddled through to take home the best speaker ribbon.
With limited time before Wendy House takes a massive three-month summer break, we partied hard post-Eurovision.
It came round so fast. Falling on the same night as Wendy House resulted in us having a Eurovision party slash Wendy House night, which meant that we did at least have the same generic music from two different events.
The best entry of the night was clearly that of Finland’s Krista Siegfrids, though it did surprisingly badly in the voting. The important thing is though that it annoyed the whole of Turkey for daring to suggest that gay people should have equal rights – what more could you possibly want from a song?
Last month, Dr Joely Black presented a history of tarot. Joely was an animated and interesting speaker who is well worth going to see. If you missed it, you can watch it online via Worfolk Lectures.
We also tried out the new Leeds Skeptics t-shirts, as James models in the photos.
Watching Star Trek Into Darkness was also my first experience at Everyman Cinema. I’m sold.
I thought the improvement in the experience over your traditional cinema was well worth the extra money. We dropped by for dinner first and the food was good, the sundaes were even better. Unfortunately the restaurant is separate to the cinema bit so we couldn’t pay our bill and buy our glasses at the same time.
Having a bar and being able to take proper drinks into the cinema is great. Everyone was very friendly too – several of the staff commented in detail on how good the movie was (without giving any spoilers) and the ushers show you to your seat when you arrive in the cinema.
The sofas are probably the best bit – it was far more comfortable than regular seating and allowed me and Elina to cuddle up together like we would if we were watching a film at home. There was also plenty of isle room and a ledge and enough room to put your feet up without reaching the row in front.
It isn’t quite how I first imagined it – a sprawling mess of mix match sofas – they are all the same, fairly small for a sofa and in rows like a traditional cinema, but still far better than your usual experience.
They also had carpeted floors that somehow weren’t sticky and unisex bathrooms in which every cubicle had it’s own sink and hand dryer. It was clean and even had rolls of toilet paper out.
All in all, for the amount I go to the cinema (not often) I think it is well worth paying a few pounds extra for the Everyman experience.
Watching Star Trek Into Darkness was my first experience of 3D cinema.
On the whole, I’m not totally sold on the idea. Comfort-wise, it was fine. It was uncomfortable at first, but that was probably because I was expecting it to be and once I settled into the movie, it was fine.
I found the 3D pretty tacky though. It reminded me of pop up books where there are just certain things that pop up – one character would be further forward than another but everything else still felt rather 2D. I also didn’t like the way they would constantly only have one character in focus at a time.
A few of the effects worked quite well though, I think I probably ducked a few times when things came flying out the screen. It was good, but I can’t say I was amazed.