The Bellarine is the Tesla capital of Australia

In the past couple of weeks I have seen three Teslas, two in Queenscliff and one in Ocean Grove.  They were all different colours so they we not the same car, if that's what you were thinking.  Before this I had never seen one in Australia, and have still not seen one outside of the Bellarine Peninsula.  I'm happy to claim the title of Tesla capital

How to fix App Cannot Be Downloaded At This Time

Yesterday my iphone 4S started refusing to download apps from the app store, with the error message App Cannot Be Downloaded At This Time.  A quick search of the Internet offered various solutions including

• Turn on Airplane Mode for 10 seconds
• Turn off Wi Fi settings
• Turn off Auto date, set date to one year in the future
• Log out of app store
• Turn the phone off and on again.

I tried them all and they all failed.  Finally I found the simplest of solutions.  All you have to do is turn off your wi-fi router, and then turn it on again.  For some reason (don't ask me why) this resets your app store.  It worked for me!

The Force Awakens: The Honeymoon is over

OK I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so naturally I saw The Force Awakens on opening night,  Of course I loved it.   But the more I think about it the more the gloss wears off.  There are a few things that trouble me about this movie...here goes

1. Is it a reboot of A New Hope?  Is it a remake?  Is it a sequel?  Kinda sorta all three without being any.  That does not sit well with me.  How can a planet-like super weapon be built and destroyed three times in under a century....by the same people!
2. Kylo Ren.  Not the most inspired villain.  Cool new force powers though.
3. Han Solo's (a-hem) story arc.    NOOOOOOOOOOO!
4. Chewie.  Let's face it Chewie was awesome and I have nothing bad to say about him.
5. Leia, on the other hand, was terrible.  She had nothing to do. And what's with her voice?
6. Poe.  How did he escape the crashed TIE fighter?  Even though we knew he wasn't dead because he was in the trailers flying X-Wings.
7. Max Von Sydow should have had a much bigger part, he was great

BUT!  The final shot with Luke just about made up for all the film's shortcomings.  I cannot wait for the next installment.

The Almost Flood

A couple of production sketches

These were done by a wonderful illustrator called Dante Prado

Chinese Sci-fi

I had never even heard of Chinese science fiction until I discovered this book.  It won the Hugo!  I have not read it yet but have it on order.  I hope to review it later on so stay tuned


The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Oh yeah, I'm taking back this blog

Originally I set up this blog for a uni assignment.  I just rediscovered it and realised it has been getting some decent traffic over the past few years.  So I'm re-adopting it.

Quidditch is just Aussie Rules with broomsticks

I watched the first Harry Potter movie with the kids yesterday, they hadn't seen it and I hadn't seen it since it was released.  The thing that stuck me, apart for how young the main actors were (and how bad they were at acting. Granted, they got much better in later movies..) was how much the Quidditch field looks like an Australian Rules football oval.

This is a Quidditch Field

This is an Aussie Rules oval

I remember thinking this at the time I first watched it 15 years ago, but promptly forgot.  The similarities are uncanny, I can't believe it's a coincidence.  Note the three posts in Quidditch, there are four in aussie rules, but as you have to kick between the post, it leaves three scoring areas (the same as Quidditch.)  Even the field line markings are the same

I'm not sure JK Rowling intended this.  But I'm certain there must have been an Aussie on the production design team for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.