Last weekend I started a little side project visualizing the UK box office. I was at Culture Hack Day and the UK Film Council had provided some cool data to play around. It contained info on movie screenings over the UK, not only “real” cinemas, but also screenings held in universities, galleries, etc. And it would have screening times, ticket prices, geolocation and more cool stuff. Only… that data wasn’t actually completely available yet. So instead I started looking at the box office data from the UK Film Council site, and whether or not I could do something with that. Eventually I want to use that advanced data though and merge that into what I’ve created now.

I started off with a ‘simple’ overview of 2010 (see here for the actual version):

It shows the weekend gross per weekend for the 50 highest grossing movies of 2010. It’s interesting to see how well some movies perform in comparison to others. I also made a larger version with 100 movies where you see in a bit more detail how the movies are doing.

I then had a look at the highest grossing movies of 2010 (see the full version here):

Not much surprise there, although it’s a bit depressing to see how much money bad movies can make (Twilight, Clash of the Titans, Valentine’s Day…).

The next step was making a similar graph as the first one, but only for the last couple of weeks (see here for the full version):

The current week is still missing (waiting for the UKFC to update their website), but it’s great to see the jump The King’s Speech made last week.

Finally I made charts for every week I had, showing the percentage of the box office each movie took (see the full version here):

I really like these and the different patterns you discover. Like Valentine’s Day was the highest grossing movie in the week of Valentine’s Day, but only by 2% (with Avatar beating it the next week).

This is only the first step in this project; I really want to do more with the data I have. The next things I’m focusing on are making the graphs embeddable, adding notes and interesting dates to each graph (like when bank holidays were, or important events that might influence movie-goers etc), grabbing more data about the movies (like director, actors, writer, etc) and being able to show that data when you click on a movie.

I’d love to hear though what you all think of the graphs, and what type of stuff you’d like to see. It’s been fun working on this and I’m hoping I can do more with it!

I loved the first part of this fantasy series! It was a great mix of romance and fantasy, and some awesome world building with its own unique mythology and gods. I’ve been waiting for the second book for some time, and now I can’t believe I manage to miss its release back in November!

Here’s the description from Amazon:

In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a homeless man who glows like a living sun to her strange sight. However, this act of kindness is to engulf Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, leaving their desecrated bodies all over the city. Oree’s peculiar guest is at the heart of it, his presence putting her in mortal danger – but is it him the killers want, or Oree? And is the earthly power of the Arameri king their ultimate goal, or have they set their sights on the Lord of Night himself?

Suffice to say, you should start with the first in the series (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms).

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.27 and on Amazon.com for $11.19.

I haven’t done a proper New Year’s resolutions blog post this year, but one of the things I want to try to do is workout more. I’ve been trying to do more pilates and Wii sport (yeah, I know that’s not “proper” working out, but it’s COLD outside), but I really need to get out of the house more and start running again.

So when Nike contacted me whether I wanted to order a pair of shoes through their online store for free, I thought that was a great way to get running again! About 3 years ago, I ordered a gorgeous pair of Nike shoes which I completely customized (see above). You could choose your own colours, put special text on them and even choose different size shoes per foot. Now for most people that last option is completely useless, but for me with my two different sized feet (which is so very very annoying) it’s perfect. I wish more companies offered the option of doing that!

After looking around on the Nike website though, I realized that I’m still perfectly happy with the Nike pair I still have. They are 3 years old, but still perfectly fine. So instead I surprised Cristiano with a gift voucher! He customized a cool pair of running shoes, so that we can start jogging together again.

The Nike store customization site isn’t much different than it was 3 years ago. There’s quite a huge range of models to pick from, and with each model you can choose from a range of colours (and in some cases also materials). Then with some designs you can choose different sizes per foot, and the type of width (narrow, regular or wide). Finally, with almost all the shoes you can specify your “iD”, special text that can be anything you want, although it depends per model where that text is placed and how many characters you have (with some it’s on the heel, others on the side, and with others on the front).

The easiest way to customize a pair is to start off with a blank pair. You can then see exactly which pieces of the shoes you can choose the colour for and keep track of which ones you’ve already selected. Btw, if you’ve got the Nike+ iPod set (or plan to get one in the future), make sure you pick a model with a + in the name; those designs have special compartments in the soles to place the iPod transmitter.

Here’s the design Cristiano ended up with:

It might be a bit of a cheesy tip, but for me having a pair of pretty jogging shoes, ones that I actually put some of my own time into designing, is a great way to motivate myself to run again. Just looking at the pair above makes me wanna go outside and run again!

If you want to design your own pair of Nike shoes, check out the Nike store. Fill in the code FREEDEL at checkout to receive free delivery.

I’ve been really slack the past couple of months with writing up reviews of all the movies I’ve seen. One of my New Years resolutions is to blog more regularly about the movies I have seen, but I thought I should catch up with writing up some of the stuff from last year. I was shocked to realize my last proper review was back in August (seriously?!? How did that happen?), that’s too many movies I’ve seen that I didn’t end up writing about!

There are at least 20 movies I hadn’t written about yet, so I’ve split it up into two posts. Ten reviews today, and 10 more in a couple of days.

Tron: Legacy

As I’ve said in previous blog posts, I enjoyed Tron Legacy. There’s a lot about the movie that’s not good (especially the plot), but it’s still a lot of fun. Seeing it at the IMAX was really worth it; the visual effects and the 3D are gorgeous. And the score by Daft Punk? AWESOME. The story though was very disappointing and I wish they’d have come up with something better. There are just too many plot holes and inconsistencies for me to really love this film.

Inception

I know, I know, it’s really bad of me that I haven’t even written about Inception here! I love Christopher Nolan’s movies, so I was really expecting a lot from Inception. I know so many people who adore this movie, but I didn’t like it as much as I was hoping to. It is a good movie, but I was hoping for something a bit… smarter. Yes, Inception is a confusing and complex movie, but I wish it was less straightforward, and made use of the dream element much much more. Nolan introduces rules to the world of dreaming, while in reality anything is possible in dreams…

The Social Network

I wanted to like The Social Network and I sort of did. It’s one of those movies of which I wonder if I’m maybe to close to the “real” world (like how CSI would be for actual crime scene analysts). Some stuff in The Social Network just feels over the top (the hiring-interns scene… yeah, it’s exactly like that in real life… “take a shot for every 10 lines of code you write”). Maybe I should rewatch it again, but first time around I didn’t find it amazing.

Megamind

I wasn’t expecting much of this movie, but it turned out to be quite funny. It “stars” Will Ferrell as Megamind, an evil villain who tries everything to bring down his arch enemy Metroman (Brad Pitt). Once he does though, he realizes that without his arch enemy his life is empty. The story is a bit predictable, but it’s still sweet to see the transformation Megamind goes through.

RED

This movie was a lot of fun. Take a bunch of old actors, throw in some action and a touch of romance, and you’ve got yourself a cheesy yet romantic over-the-top action flick.

Scott Pilgrim

Again another movie I liked, but didn’t find as fantastic/awesome/phenomenal as most people seemed to think it was. Yeah, it did look sort of cool, but I just didn’t like most of the characters. Neither Scott or Ramona were particularly likable (although Knives was awesome!). I did like the video game references, but the movie came nowhere near my favourites list of this year.

The Next 3 Days

This movie starred Russell Crowe as a teacher whose wife (Elizabeth Banks) gets convicted for a crime she says she didn’t commit. Crowe becomes obsessed with figuring out how to help her escape from prison. It was an okay movie, nothing spectacular, but great for a quiet night in. Crowe is great as the husband afraid of losing his wife forever, and will do anything to get her back.

Easy A

I loved this movie! It stars Emma Stone as Olive, a teenager who lies about losing her virginity. Before she can admit it’s a lie, it spreads through the rumour mill at her high school and Olive is branded a slut. Instead of denying it though, Olive decides to embrace her new identity and tries to take advantage of it. The dialogue in this movie was awesome with some of the snappiest oneliners of the year. Plus even though it’s about sex and losing your virginity, the movie is really sweet.

Salt

Angelina Jolie as a spy? That should be awesome, right? It sort of was. On one hand I really liked that they attempted to make a smart movie: barely anything was explained with unnecessary over-expository dialogue, allowing the viewers to make their conclusions. On the other side… it was predictable.

Despicable Me

“It’s so FLUFFY!” Not sure I can add more than that. The movie is okay, but that one line is just brilliant.

We’ve finally gotten around to organizing the next Geeks of London event! 2011 is going to be an interesting year for us, cause we’re going to try to organize at least 12 events in 12 months. It’s going to be great though, and we’ve got some interesting meetup ideas in mind, including laser tag (squee!) and an Oscar related Movie Geek meetup next month.

This first 2011 meetup will be next Thursday the 27th and will be all about gadgets. The idea is to bring along and show off cool new gadgets you got at Christmas, or weird old stuff you still have lying around. Plus we’ll have some drinks and food sponsored by Nokia!

The awesome thing though and something I’m still quite nervous about: I’ll be one of the speakers! I’ll be holding a short 10 minute presentation about gadgets during the event. Eek! On one side I’m really looking forward to speaking there, on the other side… I used to get really flustered and terribly nervous during presentations and it’s something I know I still have to work on. What better way than to jump right in though, right?

You can find more details (including how to sign up) on the Geeks of London site. You can also follow us on the Geeks of London Twitter account.

I’m paranoid about leaving the house without my keys, so I’ve got a special spot in the house where I always leave them. Still this could also work:

It’s only £14.95 on thabto and would make a cute present for someone who always misplaces their keys!

Via ChipChick

The Golden Globes were yesterday and I managed to stay up to watch a live stream of it. The actual awards were mostly quite predictable with The Social Network winning Best Picture Drama and Best Director.

I always love checking out the gorgeous dresses at these type of awards shows, and this year the one that stood out for me was Olivia Wilde. Her dress is just so pretty:

I’m not surprised though; a lot of the dresses she’s worn in the past have been favourites of mine. My all time award show favourite (that I’d so buy if I had an award show to go to) is this ivory Reem Acra:

Very Disney princess, right?

A couple of weeks before Christmas I got an email about whether I wanted to host my own Karaoke party courtesy of T-Mobile. They’d provide a Lucky Voice box to setup everything I’d need for karaoke at home and some vouchers for food and decorations. Cool, right?

So I held a TV show themed karaoke party! I ended up dressing as Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl, and made some awesome TV show inspired cocktails. We created the Walter Bishop (a White Russian with a scoop of cookie dough ice cream), the True Blood (Southern Comfort and raspberry juice), the Miss Geeky Margarita (normal margarita with passion fruit), the Charles Carmichael (espresso Martini), and the most awesome Big Bang Slippery Nipple Grasshopper Concoction (Sambuca, Baileys and Creme de Menthe).

The Party box I received contained everything you need to setup a karaoke night at home. It had a neon pink microphone, a karaoke mixer, a 5m microphone cable and more cables to connect the mixer to your computer or hi-fi. Next to that it also comes with a month’s unlimited access to Lucky Voice home (worth £7.99). Once the month has expired you can easily top up your account with either song credits (50 songs for £4.99, 100 songs for £7.50, 250 songs for £12.50 or 500 songs for £19.99) or unlimited singing offers (24 hours singing for £3.99, 1 month for £7.99, 6 months for £29.99 or 1 year for £49.99).

The karaoke was really easy to setup and the Lucky Voice website is very easy to use. We’ve got a Mac Mini connected to our TV in our living room, which was perfect for karaoke! The Lucky Voice site has over 7500 songs and most of the ones I was looking were there (I think I managed to come up with a couple I couldn’t find, but I don’t remember anymore which ones those were).

The Lucky Voice party box is great if you want to organize a karaoke party at home. If you want to try it out though, T-Mobile are currently offering their customers a free Karaoke night in (just text ‘Lucky’ to 3000 and you’ll receive a special code for 24 hour access to Lucky Voice).

Isn’t this cover gorgeous?

The book is a reissue of a 1995 book, so it’s not really ‘new’ (although I don’t think it’s been in print for a long time). It’s about Niviene, the daughter of the Lady of the Lake, and retells the Arthurian legend from the perspective of the faerie folk.

Merlin’s Harp by Regina McBride is available on Amazon.co.uk for £4.99 and on Amazon.com for $7.99.

I bought this tee yesterday at the David & Goliath store in Carnaby Street:

Cute, right? It was only £10 (instead of the £20 you normally pay for it).