Squash VS Tennis

Last night I played a couple of games of social competition Tennis. Infuriatingly our opponents were dirty Smurfs one of whom was particularly patronising. But I digress, I usually play Squash on a Monday night (just with a bunch of the lads) and it is a lot of fun. But what I have noticed is that the techniques for holding a Squash racquet and playing a shot is very different from those techniques used in Tennis.

Most obviously is the force applied to the ball and height of the return. Squash is played on a court about the size of half a Tennis court. However in Squash the surface area of play is much greater (incorporating the side walls) also the height of the playable shots is much lower than a Tennis net. The strokes I play in Squash are forceful to carry a small heavy ball against the wall for the effect of the rebound.

So as a comparison in Tennis I'm trying to land a ball within a smaller playing surface area on a flat trajectory. The net (sic) result is a major modification of how I hold the racquet and serve and return and more or less every thing. This manifested itself in very slow play, though I was happy with the accuracy. Tennis is just another skill to learn but I am amused at the experience that Squash has given me for both sports.

For the record I lost every game, but did win a couple of points.

Movie Review: C'or it's Thor

or alternatively 'You're thor?!? I can hardly walk!'

Firstly I should say that this was my first 3D movie experience. So on the basis of a single 3D movie I can't say it did much (in an obvious fashion) for my viewing experience. I didn't feel things leaping out of the screen and in most cases the screen looked a lot like some of the 3D comics I have. By which I mean each scene with layered foregrounds etc looked like a stage set from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Flat trees and rocks in the foreground, flat trees and characters in the mid ground etc.
Though having said that I did have a feel of largeness of space for the Bifrost gateway. In my opinion when 3D actually adds an extra dimension then it might be worthwhile. For example compare the differences between colour and black and white movies. The initial colour movies were perhaps a little gimicky (eg secret garden).

But what did I think of the film? I thought it was perfect for the material, lots of biff, lots of comic book banter, great linkages with the other avenger films and very pretty to look at. It's nice to see that studios can commit to an idea of a good plot connecting multiple movies and characters. Perhaps someone explained to them that not arsing around with a character or story (Judge Dredd, HHGTTG) will get more geeks into a theatre.

Tidying Up

I have undergone some Autumn tidying. Or clearing as the case may be. I've boxed up a large number of books and CD's from the study. Partly because CJ can reach the lower shelves (an activity of seemingly endless satisfaction is pulling CD's out of the shelf then separating case from disk, repeat) and partly because it recently occurred to me that despite owning hundreds of CD's I mostly listen to a small handful of them at any one time.
Part of the epiphany is due to the appalling GUI that comes with an iphone. While trying to load a new CD I managed to erase all the 1,000+ tracks I had. The software is just horrible to use and after destroying my avant garde collection I realised that most of the music was there to impress other people. I didn't listen to it. Using itunes is such a pain the arse that I have not bothered to load more than a couple of CD's. I can't say that my musical experience is diminished. I find the MP3 format quite frustrating for good quality music so the convenience of the medium is tampered by the dissatisfaction of the form.

So oddly this lead to a cleaning out of the library in the study. Perhaps minimalism is the the new maximisim. Who knows...