Info and forum posts by 'JohnnyTV'

RE: [VIDEO] The Substance

I went to watch it with a mate last week and we both thought it was great
The third act is completely bonkers but made it a film I won't forget in a hurry! The satiric premise was really interesting too.Lots of elements/inspiration from other films in it like The Fly, Death Becomes Her etc - just thought it was a really fun movie to experience if you like horror stuff but can see how others wouldn't feel the same ha ha.

RE: Heels

Not to spoil things but it was cancelled after season 2 and apparently ends on a cliffhanger :(

RE: Inside No 9 (Psychoville writers' new show)

I feel it's been very hit or miss for the last few series but the last episode of this one was the best in a long time for me.

RE: Pet Insurance

It's a total gamble. My dog (my first one I've had) is 11 now and has been insured for £1500 since I got him when he was 3.

Had a couple of things in his younger years but nothing much but just over 2 years ago he was diagnosed with cancer so since then he's had 2 operations, radiotherapy and CT scans every 3 months and is currently on medication that works out around £10 per day. I'd maxed out the insurance 3 times and have probably paid out around £4000 - £5000 myself in that time but I don't have any kids and so would do anything for him but if I wasn't in a decent financial position it would be a nightmare with having to decide if to get a loan etc.

Obviously other people have dogs with no issues but if you do get hit with things like this the prices are mad and no amount of putting money away each month is going to cover it. I've spoken to other pet owners that have spent way more than I have, the costs escalate very fast!

Whenever I get another dog in the future I'd insure them for a higher amount from the start as you can go down in levels of cover but not up!

RE: [VIDEO] I think I need a new tv

I've always gone for Samsung for the last several TVs I've bought and always been very happy with them, I'd recommend them over any other brand.

From the ones on Richer Sounds I'd go for the one you'd linked to - as mentioned above the thinner bezel means you could go for slightly bigger if you wanted, my parents changed from an old 32" a couple of years ago to a 42" and there was no difference in the size of the set - I'd suggest measuring what yours is at present including the bezel to get a better idea.

And you will definitely see a big improvement from a 10 year old plasma even if going for a TV that's a lot cheaper compared - technology moves on so much that I've seen big differences in 5 year old models compared to new.

RE: [VIDEO] Coronavirus, anyone starting to get worried?

I don't think there's anything wrong with buying aclhohol or other "non-essential" items if you're going to the shop already to buy essential items, it's going there just to buy it that is the issue as the sole purpose of your journey is not essential - you're just adding more risk of everything (coming into contact with others, having an accident in the car on the way there etc) hence the fine.

I did our weekly shop last weekend (normally pop to the shops in between but haven't been doing) and to be honest couldn't get out of there fast enough. Was pretty quiet but whilst some things they'd put in place were good, others were bad. Tannoy announcements every 5 mins saying to stay 2 metres apart yet there's a security guard less than that away from the entrance door as soon as you go in and tons of the aisles were being restocked so rollcages blocking half of the aisle off and the poor staff having loads of people going right next to them to get past. I understand the shelves need to be filled but if you care about the staff coming into contact with others and stocking overnight isn't enough, close it for an hour or two in the middle of the day as well.

The checkout girl said there are tons of people just going to buy their dinner then going back the next day, and the next :/

This item was edited on Friday, 3rd April 2020, 07:35

RE: Going to New York... advice?

As I was gutted to find out, FAO Schwarz closed in 2015 :(

RE: Going to New York... advice?

We went for a week for our Honeymoon in May 2014 and then went back for a few days last month to see it at Christmas (awesome but glad it wasn't the first time we were going as it was sooooo busy in Times Square / Rockerfella compared)

Anyway, taxis to/from the airport are a fixed price at around $60 so would recommend using the Airtrain to Jamaica station then the subway as it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper. The website rome2rio.com is great for telling you where to get on/off. Getting around definitely walk (one of the best things is just walking around and seeing everything) and use the subway as it's by far the cheapest method - you pay once when getting on so can go as far as you want for the same cost.

You can get a Three sim card over here for your phone for £15 (you need to unlock your phone and use the sim card once over here) which gives you 15GB of data and 1000 mins/texts to use in any country so would definitely recommend that so you can use google maps to find where things are easily.

Things to do (I'd recommend to book these in advance as much as possible and you'll probably be better off booking everything separately and save money compared to the City Pass). Oh and remember to take photo ID with you all the time as you need it for some things like Statue of Liberty.

One World Observatory - this is new but is amazing and offers a 360 view of the city from the highest building. I'd recommend doing this in the day and would say it's better than Rockerfella though that is very good too

Empire State Building - do this at night, it's open till the early hours but pay the little extra for the fast pass ticket and you'll skip hours of queueing

Statue of Liberty - definitely do this, the tickets include the ferry and aren't expensive at all

Helicopter ride - it's not cheap but offers a great view of the city

Movies tour - these are great, take around 3hrs and take you round the city on a bus showing you locations from the movies such as the Ghostbusters fire station, Friends apartment building etc

Madison Square Garden - if there's something on that you want to watch (we saw a basketball game)

Central Park - it's a huge area to walk round, there's a zoo too but it's only small

Ground Zero / 911 Museum - I'd recommend going first thing (book tickets in advance) and allowing a morning for it

The High Line - an old train line that you can walk around to see the city (would take around an hr to walk it all)

If you've got extra time Coney Island is cool to visit (especially if you watch Mr Robot) - the rides will be closed but it's surreal going to a beach! Getting the subway costs like $3 and takes an hour to get there from Manhattan.

And if you're staying in Times Square take some ear plugs and ask to stay on the highest floor possible if given the choice ;)

RE: Pretty good. Pret-ty pret-ty pret-ty good.

Funnily enough we were introducing 2 of our friends to Curb recently and also chose The Doll as the first ep to show them, classic

RE: Changing jobs.....need to make a quick decision.

I'd say enjoyment in a job is worth far more than money ever will be. If you've paid off your mortgage you could easily afford to take on a lower paid job with far less hours than you've been working and enjoy life and spare time some more - no point in being miserable or stressed in a job if you don't need to be and your spending habits will always adjust to what you're bringing in. So many people spend a lot of money on stuff they don't need and they work themselves to the bone to pay for it.

My wife was in a well paid job for a few months but really hated it and the people she worked with, it was a small company made up entirely of two faced and lazy people and she dreaded going in every Monday morning. She quit for a job that was much lower in salary but she loves working there and has been there for 3 years now. I'd much rather see her not being unhappy in work and sacrifice a bit of additional income each month than imagine what she'd be like if she'd have stayed there. Not worth it at all.

RE: [VIDEO] I'm going to hospital today

Great news :)

RE: 30 years of the Amstrad CPC 464 and Sinclair QL

Amstrad CPC 464 was my first computer, think I was about 6 at the time and I'm 31 now - gaming is still my favourite hobby but work means I can't play as much as I did back then sadly.

Great memories of playing Oh Mummy, Detective, Hunchback and Dizzy.

RE: [VIDEO] I'm going to hospital today

Sounds like you're doing really well - keep staying positive :)

RE: [VIDEO] I'm going to hospital today

Great news, really pleased for you and your family :)

Camera choice help?

I know this should go in the Photography forum but to be perfectly honest I didn't even know it was there until I went to create a new thread!

Ok, I'm looking for some advice on a decent easy to use camera - SLR's look good but I really have no idea what I'm doing and have just made do with a digital one before now. This one is a wedding present and we're going to New York for the honeymoon so I'd like to get some really great pics to remember.

Budget is around £200 - £300 and as I say the simpler the better really as it will likely be used for when doing touristy things where I need to take a quick snap and don't want to spend ages looting through lenses etc.Any help to point me in the right direction would be much appreciated - with the wedding in less than 4 weeks I'm running out of spare time to spend hours on various shopping sites trying to guess what the specs mean :)

RE: [VIDEO] I'm going to hospital today

Seems like you're doing really well - keep up the positive attitude and fighting spirit :)

RE: The Wii U Thread

Nintendo have made the same mistake time and time again with their home consoles since the GC (and would have been in a similar situation with the N64 too had it not been for Rare) and that is - too few third party games/multiformat games on the console and massive spaces between first party releases.

The first party ones are nearly always great and quite often the best of the generation (Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid Prime respectively) but they are far too sparse in the release schedule. The Wii U (and they were stupid to name it that as it was only going to cause confusion amongst the casual gamers) has been out around 15 months now and how many great exclusive essential games are there out for it? Super Mario 3D World and maybe Pikmin 3 at a push? How many major third party releases has it missed out on? This page shows what a sad state of affairs it's in: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/25-best-wii-u-games

I loved my Gamecube but a handful of games can only get you so far before you're looking elsewhere. I've had my 360 since a year after launch, play games a lot in my spare time and I've always had a big backlog of games I want to play for it. If I bought a Wii U now I can guarantee it'd be gathering dust in a couple of months time. There are even more games I'd rather play on the Xbox One already.

Nintendo need to use all the cash they've got to position themselves better and get more games out on their platform. Buy up some talented developers to make exclusive games for them, maybe even purchase a couple of smaller publishers, make their in house development teams larger - they've got dormant franchises like F Zero, Pilotwings, Metroid etc that they could be doing things with and would spark a lot more interest. Mario, Zelda and Mario Kart can only get you so far every generation.

It'd never happen (especially given the latest financial results) but can you imagine what a difference it'd make to the whole industry if Nintendo bought EA and made all their releases exclusives for example? Based on company value they could have done that after the success of the Wii. But they seem intent to repeat mistakes and be completely out of touch with anything outside of the handheld market. I think too much time has passed for the Wii U to make a comeback sadly and rumours of releasing another console to match the power of the Xbox One and PS4 is pointless if again there are no games for it.

This item was edited on Thursday, 23rd January 2014, 18:23

RE: I'm going to hospital today

Great news, glad it went well :) all the best

RE: I'm going to hospital today

As Rob said, s**t :( stay positive though, things are much much better nowadays in regards to treatment and keeping focused on a positive attitude (and that goes for those around you too) goes a long way I think.

RE: I'm going to hospital today

Good luck, got my fingers crossed for you.

RE: 10 yrs since I last had a surround sound setup...

I`ve got some plastic trunking for my wires which I got from homebase - it`s sticky on one side so you stick it around the room just under the ceiling, open the front to put the wires in and close again - looks great and was pretty cheap too, think it was about £30 for the whole room which is a front room/kitchen so pretty large.

If I was going to do it again when I move I`d use the same approach as you barely notice the trunking as it`s white and next to a white ceiling in my case.

Oh and I`m not sure what the wireless ones are like now but when I was looking at them a couple of years ago everywhere I looked for ones within my price range strongly advised against them. Not sure if they`re any better now.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 21st August 2013, 11:59

RE: 10 yrs since I last had a surround sound setup...

I`ve got an Onkyo amp and speakers from Richer Sounds for around £320 a couple of years back - great piece of kit - I`ve got my TV, Xbox 360, blu ray player, squeezebox (music player) and Sky all going through it and use a Logitech Harmony remote to control them all which is brilliant.

I`ve tried several of the other one4all type remotes but none of them touch the harmony ones - you setup activities on it for watch tv, watch a movie, play a game etc and with one press of that activity button it turns all the devices on and switches them to the correct input - I`d be lost without one now to be honest and it makes it loads easier for my mrs as otherwise she wouldn`t have a clue how to set everything up so highly recommended.

RE: Alton Towers Tickets...

I used this from Hot Deals UK last week: http://www.cokezone.co.uk/content/merlin/alton_towers_resort.pdf no questions were asked and no proof of a Coke Zone account needed (as I don`t have one)

One tip - if you`re looking to go on the Smiler, either get there for bang on 10am and go there immediately or wait till later in the day. We had to wait close to 2 and a half hours to go on it, but it is the best ride there now (but nothing is worth waiting that long in line for!)

RE: The Walking Dead - season Three

Well that was disappointing. I was quite happy with this series to be honest but the finale just felt like a normal episode, the mid season finale was a hell of a lot better and more exciting.

SPOILER:
I`ve read the comics just recently and didn`t mind the other changes they`d made, it was cool seeing the differences, but if they`d have done the attack on the prison more like in the comics (which I think everyone was expecting to happen even if they hadn`t read them) it would have felt much more like a finale like the season 2 one. That plus a few stupid bits (Andrea had both hands free and a weapon yet still gets bitten? No-one decides to shoot back at the Governor when he goes crazy gunning everyone down?) made this a bit of a damp squib and didn`t set up the next season very well at all in my opinion. I`ll still watch it and I`m sure it`ll still be great but this was one of the worst episodes of the season for me.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 2nd April 2013, 07:44

RE: Any childishly easy web design programs out there?

You`d probably be best off using Wordpress - can host on there for free, there`s tons of free templates that will make your site look decent and it`s not too difficult to learn all the basics :)

RE: Play.com closing down... will be Marketplace only.

To be fair, their prices recently have taken the **** compared to Amazon etc. I`ll happily use Play (and have done lots over the years) but it all comes down to price, and if you aren`t competitive enough I`ll go elsewhere. Ironically it was the other way arounf with Play and Amazon a few years ago for most things I buy.

RE: Best and Worst Movies of 2012?

You thought Casino Royale was ****e!?

Of the biggest releases this year I really enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises, Ted, 21 Jump St and The Avengers. Spiderman was good, Skyfall was ok but expected it to be much better. Prometheus was the biggest disappointment for me, thought it would be awesome but a huge let down.

I tend to wait for dvd for the smaller films nowadays.

RE: The Dark Knight Rises: Batman 3

You enjoyed Batman & Robin but not any of the Nolan ones?

RE: Vertigo - Best Film Ever??

I saw the full list the other day, find it funny there`s literally a handful of films post 1980.

RE: Help with parents property issue please

Would it be classed as a gift though if transferring ownership through a solicitor?

Oh and forgot to say that it`s not affected inheritance wise as the house is worth approx £100k with the inheritance tax threshold only above £320k from what I`ve read, presuming that was correct.

This is a minefield!

This item was edited on Wednesday, 1st August 2012, 15:59