Cyberclogs

OK in reverse order.... I might as well announce on this blog if not anywhere else that next month I'm going to be made redundant at Clydebank College. To quite honest it will be a relief to get out of the place as the management have took it upon themselves to do a restructure of the collge, which means cutting back on budget, which inevitably means jobs will be cut and the old redundancies rears their ugly heads. To be fair its not been a bad place to work, although there have been some days I definitely wished I was elsewhere and the odd member of staff that has made things rather annoying and difficult! (I won't say who!). So I'm now hunting for another job, its great fun of course, not! Applying for anything on the go really, especially in the Admin field, mainly cos I don't have much experience in any other work area (sadly!). But anyway hopefully I will get something, somehow.

Now onto Terminator Salvation, which I went and saw last night. I think it probably is fair to say it is the weakest film of the four but having said that, Salvation is far from a disaster. In fact TS is quite entertaining, my only real problem with it is that it takes itself way too seriously, and it sorely lacks the humour of the previous 3 films. Just imagine the start of T3 and the dreary voice over from Nick Stahl, well its kind of like that tone wise throughout. However the action scenes are actually really good and quite visceral, finally getting to see the human wasteland of the future fully visualised is something of a thrill. The terminator machines manage to keep their menace and are quite scary in places (watch for the "Arnie" cameo). Characters wise everyone is of course deadly serious but the supporting cast do well in their roles especially Anton Yelchin as the young teenage Kyle Reese who is helped by ex-inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) and Moon Bloodgood (yep now there's a name!) is not bad as the spunky, saucy Blair. But I have to say Christian Bale as John Connor just didn't really work for me, he is the weak link in the cast, Christian just seems to have taken playing the part straight just a little too literally, he certainly doesn't have the humanity or vulnerability that Nick Stahl brought to the role. So I think Christian Bale to be honest was mis-cast, perhaps with the right actor in the role, TS could have been even better, but instead I was kind of waiting for some more explosions and action when he was on screen.

Anyway regardless of all that, Terminator Salvation is definitely entertaining, yeah sure its deadly serious but its got non stop action and its action is great and that's enough to reward its place in the Terminator series.

Guess what? Yep, I have the cold again! Well it is the summer (well just about) so guess I was bound to get it at some point, my immune system hasn't had much luck of late over the past couple of months, but I am at least starting to get over (although I am still a bit blocked up) it. So its been sneezing, runny nose, achey limbs, the usual cold joys. But I'm on the mend anyways, so enough of my health worries...

Thought I would blog on the the last two episodes of the Apprentice since I haven't done so since they've been on. A quick recap of episode 11 saw the remaining 5 candidates go through the usual tough interviews stage, most of the candidates faired well except for James who got all flustered in the interview especially with Claude. Claude also read out some crass comments from James's CV one which was a classic said "I put a leash on people who spunk their money up the wall!". It just makes you wonder what kind of idiot puts this sort of thing in a CV and how they could think it would make a good impression! Anyways however the other candidates were not without flaws either, Yasmina was pulled by Claude for not knowing what the term "turnover" actually meant and she didn't know the difference between net and gross profit. Kate was also pulled up for her alleged robotic and efficient manner as well as griping about working within teams comprised totally of women since they she felt they bitch and moan alot (not to sounds sexist or anything but I totally know what she means!). Anyways in the boardroom Sir Alan made his decision and he finally fired James, which to be honest he should have done weeks ago, as James's presence in the show up to Week 11 was a miracle if nothing else, or mainly just cause he made for good TV. Then followed Lorraine and Debra, leaving Yasmina and Kate in the finale, at least Sir Alan got it right in the end.

For the final episode the two finalists Kate and Yasmina had to come up with an idea for a brand new box of chocolates to sell to a certain market and pitch them in front of industry experts. Kate and Yasmina both did very well at this task in different areas although Kate over priced her chocolates while Yasmina's chocolates tasted poor (Strawberry and Basil choccie anyone?! No I didn't think so!). But in the end in the boardroom after much deliberation and cogitation Sir Alan chose Yasmina as his winner and I think once again he chose the right person. To be fair I think it was a real tough call between the two of them but overall I think Yasmina had the right amount of friendly personality, get-up and go, ambition and determination to be the winner. So that's another Apprentice over and done with, and I'll look forward to next year's when we have another 12 weeks of fun again.