My ears pricked up when I heard the phrase ’4D’ and I was truly looking forward to it.  According to my neice, 4D means you get to smell all the scents on screen.

Hmm, intriguing.  How was that going to be acheived?  Via some special fragrance being sprayed at regular intervals in the movie hall?  I couldn’t wait to see it.

I am not going to go into too much detail of the film as I do not wish to ruin it for those of you who haven’t seen it yet.  However, I would discuss my overall experience.

I was a bit worried that the price would be exorbitant due to the 4D element.  It turned out that it actually cost about £30, which for 1 adult and 2 kids was kinda reasonable.  Perhaps going to see the movie midweek and early afternoon helped keep the ticket price down.

Anyhoos, after ordering our usual movie snacks – popcorn, sushies, nachos and hotdogs – we made our way towards the screen room.  At the entrance, we were given  3D glasses and a card with several numbers on it. Um……huh?

The movie itself was quite good. The special effects, the acting, the one liners, and the overall storyline seemed to cater well to the mixed crowd of  both children and adults.  Jessica Alba’s character kicked butt and looked hot while doing it, even though she was in her latter stage of pregnancy.

What completely and utterly ruined this movie was the numbered cards we were given.  Now these cards were meant to add that extra D factor to transform this movie from 3D to 4D.

In my opinion, they shouldn’t have bothered. The way it worked was like this.  At various intervals during the movie, a number from 1 to 8 would flash up on the screen and then you have rub the corresponding number on your card to smell it.

What the?  Firstly, a majority of the smells all seemed the same and secondly, a lot of people seemed quite frustrated as they were not able to rub it vigorously enough to release the scent.  As a result, rather than being absorbed in the storyline of the movie, many of the veiwing customers spent a large portion of the movie trying to scratch and sniff those smell cards.

Our 3D Glasses

Since when did a scratch and sniff card make a 3D movie 4D?  This movie would appeal to toddlers  for visual  effects and for being quite loud.  For the kids old enough to understand and follow the storyline, it was quite annoying after a while.

Many complained that all the numbers smelt the same, of bubblegum, which  may actually be a good thing as I do not think people want to smell baby diaper poo.

Others, like myself, were able to distinguish 3 different smells:  bubblegum, citrus, and old feet on the scene that  was meant to be baby diaper poo.

In addition, did the movie producers stop to consider that some children might actually be allergic to some of the smells.  My 11 year old neice who is severly asthmatic and has chronic eczema seemed okay, but I was relieved to have  her Epi-Pen (adrenaline shot) nearby, just in case.

The Smell Card

Back View of The Card

Like I said, great movie, nice SX, good storyline, but the Spy Kids 4 movie should have remained a 3D movie.

Before long, what was meant to be an organised and relatively peaceful demonstration disintegrated into  several nights of anarchic free-for-all as an increasing trail of mindless destruction and violent rioting spread from London to Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool and Nottingham.

This ‘copy cat criminal activity’, as labelled by the Police, was despicable and simply inexcusable. Shops were looted, buildings set on fire, businesses were ruined and citizens were under attack……..by other citizens!!  I mean, what is the point in all of that?!  How is this fighting for jusitice?!  How is this beastly & brutish behaviour going to solve any of the problems relating to  benefit cuts, unemployment, and inadequate housing?

Do many of these rioters even remember what the original protest was all about or are they simply operating under classic mob mentality, taking advantage of  an already unstable situation to satisfy their own materialistic greed?

The rioting slash protests, rather than trying to get a point across, has degenerated into craziness.

The Fire & Police services are all being stretched to their limits,  as they try to restore order, contain chaos and deal with acts of violence and arson on individual persons and businesses.

The economic downturn already left many independent businesses with more than enough troubles on their hands.  Many are simply trying to survive  the seemingly never-ending recession, whilst providing goods and services for their community.  They certainly do not need this.

A lot of these so called rioters are simply opportunists.  Many of them are not the ones starting the fires or smashing the windows.  Like scavenging vultures, they simply trail in after the destructive rioters and grab whatever spoils they can.

It is a major sign of a highly dysfunctional society when children as young as 7 are running wild and amock in the streets, hooded and masked.  Shouldn’t they be watching cartoons, playing with their Etch-A-Sketch or even be in bed, rather than perambulating the streets at ungodly hours of the night?!

Limiting the attacks to major businesses might  have made some sense in a David versus Goliath kind of way, but the indiscriminate attacks on both large and small shops, as well as hurting general members of the public is ridiculous, pointless and will acheive no goals, except  breed further violence and disturbance.

It is heart-wrenching to see our streets devastated and ravaged, and looking like a scene from a war-torn zone.

We are much better than this, people.  This is NOT  the answer.  There are other  more productive and legal ways to make a point and effect change.

Let’s build each other up, support those affected by these heinous crimes, reprimand the instigators, ,have a cuppa tea, put our thinking caps on and come up with better solutions for our problems.

It is the sleek, fast and powerful HTC Android Desire S, which I got on a monthly contract.

This is my 1st Android phone and I have to say that I am pretty impressed.

One of the best features of this Virgin phone is that two similar phones can get free calls between each other.
Of course, my husband had to get one too as he loves the HTC Desire phone and we get to call each other for free, which is quite handy as we make a high number of calls to each other.

Here are some of my favourite features of the phone:

• front and rear facing 5 mega pixel auto-focus camera.
• HD camcorder.
• Highly responsive touch screen.
• Much faster than  a Blackberry.
• Aggregates all your contacts via Facebook, Twitter, Mail and more in one handy phonebook.
• 7 fully customisable home pages that you can slide to the left or right and customise with your preferred features, widgets or apps.
• A FriendStream feautre that combines Facebook & Twitter, allowing you to update multiple social networks at once and also lets you keep updated with your Facebook Friends & Twitter Followers.  Perfect for bloggers and social networkers alike.
• The Locations apps:  an online mapping app, that can act as a real-time GPS and is much faster than Google maps, with not roaming charge for information.
• Soundhound: which  gives you information on a song currently playing.   Simply hold the phone up towards the music and it will give the artist name, album & song title.
• Quick Office – to create and edit documents.
• Seriously fast when accessing the Internet.
• Facebook, Twitter, Voice Recorder, Weather, Youtube, Stock Market and more as standard.  This makes it ideal for bloggers, social networkers, mobile bloggers, and business users alike
• Hundreds of more free apps via the Android Market, which is unbeatable to rival iPhone Apps Store,  to meet every need.

Check out my video review of the HTC  Android Desire mobile phone below.

My main gripes with this phone are:

• Although the body is made from strong, yet light aluminium, the touch screen is made from glass, which is prone to sratches.
• Very low battery capacity.  If you use the phone regularly, you will need to charge it every 12 hours.

Do you have a HTC Desire Smartphone?  How does it work for you?

That’s all for now, folks.

:  )