These days it seem to be harder and harder to find a movie that rather than rely on special effects depends on the actors and people that they play to create the tension and mood. I must say in many ways “The Taking of Pelham 123” really does deliver thanks to great strong performances from Travolta and Denzel Washington.

Funny enough the special effects used in the film, although in places quite impressive, especially the futuristic hovering over the city map, actually felt more like a commercial break than part of the story. You have this great back and forth with the two main characters and then every couple of minutes it goes all zoom-in, zoom-out, speed-up, slow-down, a car chase here, a car crash there, end then back to the plot…

There are a few inconsistencies and an annoying teenage girlfriend who obviously doesn’t get what a “hostage situation” means. Ah, those clingy teenagers that need to here “I love you” every five seconds… Secondly the final scene made me crave for some kind of twist after the credits, rather than the several shots of a train in the underground.

Overall however it was a great experience. The special effects seemed somewhat disconnected but they did not get in the way of the story and acting. And these definitely stood out considering the amounts of mediocre stuff out there. One thing did bug me though - what’s with the glittery earrings???

The last couple of days I have been quite busy. Amazon managed to deliver my new EA Sports Active: Personal Trainer (Wii) game on the very Friday before the long weekend here in the UK. I must agree with someone mentioning recently that we are really spoiled by Amazon these day, especially when it comes to item delivery… I always go for Super Saver, which states 3-5 business days, but more often actually gives you next day delivery. Great way of getting a loyal customer base there…

I have enjoyed Wii Fit (Wii), but after a while it does get slightly repetitive and the UI isn’t great for proper workouts, I’d love to be able to adjust the length of the yoga positions for example. And yes, you can just do several in a row, but having to go through the comments and the score and the gazillion buttons on the way, just to get another 2 minutes… well you guessed it.

It was very disheartening when I read an article some time ago about how Wii is actually built, which essentially killed any hopes for a major update for Wii Fit to be released. So it was either what you have now, or waiting for Wii Fit 2…

In the mean time I tried a few other games that either use the Wii Balance Board, or are linked to physical activity. It is quite shocking how under used the Balance board is. I had a go at the All Star Cheerleader (Wii), which is quite fun, until you do try to use the board with it. Again a bit of a fail on the UI side. Instead of initializing it once, it does the board initialization every single time you start a sequence, so basically you spend 50% of the time waiting and 50% playing.

Then I decided to go fit more seriously and got the Sports Active. The videos and advertising set my expectations quite high and I must say I haven’t been disappointed. The interface is pretty, and quite well polished, definitely a step forward in the right direction. The game is easy to navigate and fills in Wii Fit’s biggest gap - workout sequences.

There is a fair number of ready made workout sets - great for people like me, who usually if left alone would skip the warm up and cool down phase and just stick with the three or four activities I like over and over again. Which as anyone can probably figure out can quickly lead to the routine becoming boring and possibly not as effective as it could be.

However Sports active does not stop there, and for more advanced fitness users you can create your own workout - in fact you can create more than one of those, so you could have less and more lively routines depending on your mood. The interface for creating the workouts is simple and intuitive. I really liked the fact that it shows how much cardio, lower and upper body you chose, and the set length. You can also adjust the intensity too!

At the moment I have been following the 30 day challenge route, and I must say even though the workouts are only around 30 minutes long they really get you sweating. The feedback that you are given is I would say at a good level - not too much to get annoying, but enough to give you a nudge here and there as well as motivate you to finish off the last few reps if needed. Worth noting is that I have actually seen a slider in the options menu about the feedback verbosity, so there is a good chance that when you do start getting annoyed with an overly cheerful virtual trainer you could possibly quiet them down…

Now for a few gripes I found. The very first thing that you will notice - lack of scales functionality! Why oh, why, none of the fitness games other than Wii Fit seem to incorporate that seemingly simple feature? You have optional support for the balance board during the exercises, so you would think it wouldn’t be that hard to push it this little bit further.

Second thing is the system sensitivity. My place isn’t huge, so I’m not always exactly lined up with the tv, and sometimes the controls had a slight problem picking up that, yes I am doing it correctly. Though a lot of these can be figured out after you have done the exercise a few times, as the requirements for controller positioning are not as complex as you might think.

Overall however I have been pleasantly surprised with Sports Active, and even have been looking forward to my daily workouts - that’s a shocker!

One day while looking for shoes in Camden (where else would you go looking for fancy shoes, when you prefer a Not So GirlyAvoid Heels Style…) in London we were browsing through several stores and goofing around a bit. In one of the shops I happened to find an advert for the “Anti Shoe”.

It obviously sounds like a very bizarre idea in a shoe store. It was a very small shelf under the brand MBT with just a few designs available. Being a very curious creature I just had to try them on to see for myself what is so special about them.

At this point I probably should mention that this wouldn’t be the first “Anti Shoe” I have heard of. I’ve read before about different initiatives trying to aid our poor spines and feet in different ways. One of which was extremely thin soles which encourage walking barefoot-like. This came with a whole lot of theories about the superiority of toes first walking… Though this is a topic for another day.

Back to the MBT shoes then. The feeling was definitely strange. A bit like if someone had put a tennis ball in the middle  of your shoe and asked you to go for a walk… Though even despite the odd impression, they did make you “roll forward” with a certain lightness.

However I did not buy them back then. Firstly I don’t trust things like that without doing some extra research on customer satisfaction… Secondly the price tag doubled my caution.  When a product is expensive and pretends to be some sort of genius invention there is high risk of charging for some gimmick and or brand name, rather than providing actual, long term value.

Surprisingly I found glowing reviews online. Not only that but it proved to be a medical product claiming to relieve spinal problems, and give your whole leg, as well as your behind an extra workout just be the share fact of walking. Well, who could resist that?

After much deliberation (and a few long trips with my soles ending in blisters…) I thought maybe I should give them a try. This is where I hit a slight retail problem. I was told that because they are classified as a medical product, you cannot buy them online and only certain stores sell them. And even when you find the few stores, they do not stock the whole range (which is not huge to start with).

The problem here was aesthetics… Most of the designs are quite sporty, and I like only two, or three at most. Every store we went to they didn’t have the one I liked, or if they did, it wasn’t in my size. Very frustrating indeed. When I almost gave up hope, I actually got what I was looking for at the last store we had on our list to check. Hurray!

After a whole day of walking from store to store, I was keen to give my new shoes a spin and see if they actually sooth the creeping in sole pain. And they did! What I did not realize was that the “leg workout” tag line was no joke. That day I definitely said hello to some leg muscles I didn’t quite know I had…

The first week in the new shoes seemed an odd trade. I have exchanged the sole pain for pains along the back of my legs. But hey, at least it made me feel like I really am getting a workout. Not to mention the funky “ball rolling” feeling that came with the shoes. In a way you could compare it to climbing stairs, or constantly doing toes - heels, heels - toes while walking.

After a while I must say that the purchase was definitely worth it and I’m considering getting another pair - sandals this time for the coming summer. My feet seem to have gotten used to the funny feeling though, as if the “ball” has gradually disappeared. Maybe I just got used to walking in them.

I heard about the Moleskine notebooks years ago. I stumbled upon them while looking for programs for my tablet pc for taking notes while at university. The software choice was not huge and trying to find some templates I kept ending up on pages selling notebooks like Moleskine or similar single page templates for custom binders.

Back then I looked at it and wondered to myself, why the hell would I pay extra for this not-even-so-fancy notebook? Every now and again I used to keep diaries, and just wrote my thoughts down in simple little notebooks kids use in primary school. Paper is paper, I thought.

And then recently I got one for my birthday… Oh how wrong was I. There really is something special about these notebooks. The texture of the leathery cover - hard but flexible, and the smooth papyrus feel of the inside sheets have something inspiring about them. The tactile experience does in a way help me feel creative.

It really is not the same as typing away or even writing on your usual paper. The thin, soft pages with there yellowish tint do make you feel like an old-school artists doing your sketches or taking notes. The story goes that these notebooks were used by some famous names like: “Van Gogh, Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse and Céline”, to quote the official website.

There are two extra features a Moleskine notebook comes with - a little string for bookmarking and, at least in my version, a pocket at the back. It’s a great way to put away small things like business cards or other little scraps you need saved quickly for later and/or kept together with your notebook.

Finally this leads to a quick mention of the Moleskine variety. The notebooks come in many styles, the flexible cover being just one of many options. Also the inside pages can be be blank, ruled or squared, just to mention some of the types.

Maybe just having one makes you a snob that tries to give them more meaning than they have. But maybe they really are a great experience for any kind of notetaking. I definitely prefer to think it is the later.