Martin Freeman News

[Carol the Dabbler]

That's one thing that felt really weird about Hawaii -- the weather was really warm, like summer in Indiana, but the sun went down around 6pm.

[Pseudonym]

Sunset is about half nine. And then it's back up about half four.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Summer when Duluth, MN has sun a few minutes longer than Minneapolis, MN because it is further North by enough to counteract its distance to the East until about this point in August when it has 1 minute less sunlight and I have 3 minutes longer because I’m just far enough West.

[Pseudonym]

I should add it swings the opposite way in the winter and gets really depressing when we only get eight hours of sunlight. When I worked somewhere with no windows I'd get to work in the dark, leave in the dark, and only see any sunlight on the weekends. 

[Artemis]

Haven't heard of Ghost Stories before, I'll be giving that a try.  I'm with Arcadia: I like scary, but not gory.

I started Cargo but never finished it.  Not because of the gore, but because it was too depressing and I really wasn't up for that.

 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

About half nine. And then it's back up about half four.

You’ve got me beat. Sunset is about a quarter past 8 with sunrise about a quarter to 6. If I lived about 4 hours or so straight West, I would have sunset that late or later, but sunrise would also be later. (The benefits and/or drawbacks of living on the East side of the time zone line.)

[Arcadia]

18 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

I should add it swings the opposite way in the winter and gets really depressing when we only get eight hours of sunlight. When I worked somewhere with no windows I'd get to work in the dark, leave in the dark, and only see any sunlight on the weekends. 

Yeah, that's what I figured … you're about an hour off from me, I think. I remember when I was a kid in Washington state, we'd be outside playing until after 9:30 at night in the summer, and still have enough light to walk home by. It was magical. Here, it's total dark by then.

But I agree about the early sunsets in winter. I teach night classes, and have to drive to work in the dark in the winter. Ugh, ugh, ugh. At least my day classes start late enough that the sun's up, but in my former job, I had the same situation you did. Oh how I hated it. (Whoever thought it was a good idea to deprive employees of windows should be shot. There, I said it.)

[Carol the Dabbler]

23 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

... when I was a kid in Washington state, we'd be outside playing until after 9:30 at night in the summer, and still have enough light to walk home by. It was magical. Here, it's total dark by then.

As Camper said, a good bit of that is due to how far east or west you are in your time zone.  Indiana used to be in the Central zone, but then the politicians decided to move us into the Eastern zone. As a result, our clocks are about an hour and a half ahead of the sun in winter, plus another hour in summer.  It's kinda ridiculous.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

When my brother was at Uni we had fun with daylight savings as he was in Terre Haute, IN where they didn’t do dst. So we would have to remember when he was an hour ahead and when he wasn’t.

[Pseudonym]

We have daylight saving time, but it doesn't make a huge difference imho - I always forget which way around it goes but tbh I's rather have an extra hour of sun in the evening then have it be light at half 4.  Even though the sun sets at half nine it is still usually fairly light for a while. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, SherlockedCAMPer said:

When my brother was at Uni we had fun with daylight savings as he was in Terre Haute, IN where they didn’t do dst. So we would have to remember when he was an hour ahead and when he wasn’t.

Ah, yes, I recall Indiana's golden age, when we never had to change our clocks!  Back when I was a kid, we were on Central Daylight year-round.  Then I lived out-of-state for a while, and when I moved back, we were on Eastern Standard year-round.

Note:  That's precisely the same clock setting, just under a different name.  I preferred to think of it as Eastern Standard in the winter and Central Daylight in the summer.

Then some brilliant politician decided that we should be like all the other little boys and girls, and go jump off the roof start changing our clocks twice a year.  *grump*

Camper, did your brother attend Rose or ISU?  (I'm a Sycamore myself.)

[SherlockedCAMPer]

He attended Rose.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

When he was a student in the mid-90s, it was a small section of the state that didn’t change while most of the rest did.

[Carol the Dabbler]

14 minutes ago, SherlockedCAMPer said:

When he was a student in the mid-90s, it was a small section of the state that didn’t change while most of the rest did.

Those little time-zone pockets have been pretty common here for a long time -- but usually it's in parts of Indiana that adjoin a major city in the next state (Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville), and near as I recall, there isn't much across the state line from Terre Haute.

To be honest, I'm not sure whether there are still any areas that aren't on Eastern time.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Yes, there are.  But Vigo County (TH area) isn't among them.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Martin Freeman is going to be on stage in London next February, in a one-act play by Pinter called The Dumb Waiter.  He plays a hit man (as he also did in the film comedy Wild Target).

[Carol the Dabbler]

Another review of Ghost Stories.  I'm now leaning more towards the getting the DVD.

The review mentions a couple things I had not been aware of:

* Freeman narrates the last third of the movie.

* One of the co-creaters was also in on League of Gentlemen.

[Arcadia]

It's been so long since I've used it, I'm not even sure my DVD player works anymore. I'm not even sure why, it just stopped being a thing I do. But this sounds like something I'd be interested in seeing.

Am I correct in remembering that a Blu-ray player will also play DVDs? I don't really want to switch, but I get the impression DVDs are being phased out. 😠

[J.P.]

So far I know it will. Our Blu Ray drives at work do. Was also considering buying one, but I realized watching stuff online is cheaper in the long run, and doesn't produce clutter. Or I don't care that much about movies as I used to do.

[Arcadia]

1 hour ago, J.P. said:

watching stuff online is cheaper in the long run

Does that include the fee to actually have high speed access to the internet, though? Because that's pretty darn expensive.

[Carol the Dabbler]

As far as I'm aware, yes, Blu-ray players will also play DVDs.  So if you're looking to buy a new machine, it'd make sense to get a Blu-ray (after verifying that it does indeed play DVDs).  I don't know as DVDs are being phased out in any deliberate sense, but as Blu-rays become more popular, they're likely to go the way of the video tape.

[Arcadia]

Well, I started thinking that when they released Star Trek Into Darkness … because the Blu Ray version had extras, but the DVD version didn't (which really annoyed me....) And when Infinity War came out, at first the advertising made it sound like there wouldn't even be a DVD version. Either the DVD was released later, or the advertisers just "assumed" "everyone" would "only want" Blu Ray......  

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

... or they just "assumed" they could charge more for a Blu-ray. 

 

 

[Arcadia]

Precisely.  

[SherlockedCAMPer]

4K ultra is becoming popular with Blu-Ray being the current standard. I’m finding most dvds being released theses days are either blu-ray with digital or 4K & Blu-ray with digital. There are still some movies that are a few years old in blu-ray & standard dvd with/without digital. Digital would be the download version for anyone who might be wondering.