On Friday I went to the cinema to see the new horror film Paranormal Activity. I hadn’t heard much about the film other than it was supposed to be really good. The fact that the film started at 11.40pm should have given me an insight into what to expect. The film started in a strange manner, documentary style. It reminded me of the Blair Witch Project, apart from the location and character types.

The whole film was based in one house and the plot focused on the lives of a recently moved in together couple. The man was obsessed with filming the strange goings on in their house, we later learned that the woman had always experienced a demon or ghost in her sleep. So this made sense. Each night we saw footage of noises and doors opening and closing on their own, seemingly on their own. Each night things got weirder, and scarier.

The film culminated with the woman being dragged from her bed and chased after by the male character. From then on she seemed very different. It was like she was possessed. The final scene saw the woman stare at the man for hours on end as he lay in bed asleep. She then left the room and went downstairs. All we heard then was a massive scream and the man ran down the stairs to follow her. Then there was silence. We then heard footsteps coming up the stairs, we didn’t know who it was. The next thing we saw was the man being thrown into the camera recording everything. The woman was covered in blood and had killed him. She was possessed by her demon. The man was dead. The final line of the film was “Micah’s body was found along with the footage. The whereabouts of Katie are unknown”. Spooky, but a good film. 7/10.

One of the many CSS tricks I like to use is something called moz-selection. Those of us that use anything but Internet Explorer to view websites (geeks yeah, but for good reason) will be able to view this trick by highlighting text. Any developer will know that Internet Explorer is the bain of our lives. It treats code differently to other browsers and we hate it for that. Why should we build something differently to accommodate a really boring, non-user friendly browser? Anyway, if you have Firefox or Safari then when you highlight any text on this website you will see what this trick is I am referring to. The code that makes the font highlight the colour it does is below:

::selection { background: #A71700; color: white; /* Safari */ }
::-moz-selection { background: #A71700; color: white; /* Firefox */ }

This is simply placed in the style sheet. Currently it is not supported by Internet Explorer (no surprise there then) but it is just a neat trick that makes your website stand out and have something a little more unique. I have to credit CSS Tricks for this feature and for many others that make code-writing a lot easier! Anyway, enough of the geeky stuff. Thanks for reading.

Recently I decided to think about what films would go into my top 10 of all-time. It’s something we have all thought about and I have a number of fantastic films I had to cut out. Initially I came up with a top 15 and had to cut 5 out for the list. The intial list included The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Se7en (1995), The Dark Knight (2008), Pulp Fiction (1994), Schindler’s List (1993), Grease (1978), The Green Mile (1999), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Casino Royale (2006), The Last Samurai (2003), Gladiator (2000), Die Hard (1988), Armageddon (1998) and Lucky Number Slevin (2006).

Finally I decided on this top 10 in order:

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. Gladiator
3. Armageddon
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
5. The Dark Knight
6. Grease
7. The Green Mile
8. Schindler’s List
9. Se7en
10. Die Hard

So feel free to add your own, tell me where I am wrong or simply marvel at my great top 10 list. There will be more top 10 lists on the way so keep a look out for them. Thanks for reading.

Well it’s Monday again, I feel like there are two Mondays in a week at the minute it comes round so quickly! I started off the weekend going for a drink with colleagues on Friday evening, the week was finally over! A stressful day ended with a welcomed beer. The plan on Saturday was to sleep in all morning – this didn’t happen and I spent most of Saturday being pretty tired. It wasn’t the most exciting day I’ve had but the second part of it was much better.

I went to the pub with Tom to watch the United – Everton game, hoping we could get back to winning ways in style. My hope became reality as we strolled to a 3-0 win. By full time I had had a fair few pints and was absolutely starving! I was going to Laura’s 21st birthday party at the Novotel and ended up eating at the buffet there. I couldn’t wait for the adults food and had to break into the chicken nuggets and chips due to having about 6 beers and some Vodka by this point! It was a good night but I was ready for bed earlier than a 23 year old should be on a Saturday night – I must be getting old!?

X Factor was on and the surprising thing about the results was that neither Lloyd or Danyl were in the bottom two! It was Olly and ‘Jedward’. There was only really going to be one winner as John and Edward wimpered to a finish, their rendition of “No Matter What” by Boyzone wasn’t quite their style. I think they were pretty nervous though to be fair. It’s a brave statement to make but next week it has GOT to be either Lloyd or Danyl who get voted out! Anyway we shall wait and see. It was a great weekend overall, and now a new week begins.

Well, it is nearly the weekend again which means that X Factor is back on our screens. The remaining contenders are (in no particular order) Lloyd Daniels, Olly Murs, Joe McElderry, John & Edward, Stacey Solomon and Danyl Johnson. I think last week was a close call between Jamie and Lloyd as to who was going to be voted out. It happened to be Jamie and although he perhaps had the better voice, Lloyd was evidentally more popular. Looking at the line-up remaining, Lloyd is the standout weak performer, he has a lot of admirers and may continue to develop (don’t forget how young the lad is) but at the moment I don’t think he is good enough to get anywhere near winning the show.

This week could see Lloyd leave. I also think that Stacey will stay until the end, she may not win but as the sole female left in the show, I think she can feel quite safe. I’m not saying that it will be fixed to keep her in the show but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her in the final 3. This week sees a line up of Wham! songs, classics like “Club Tropicana”, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, “Freedom”, “Last Christmas” and “I’m Your Man” could be some of the songs sung by the X Factor hopefuls. It is fair to say that with each week the competition gets tougher, and to cheekily steal a line from the show it really is “Time to face the Music”.