Just thought I'd provide a quick SITREP on whats going on at the moment. Being killed by the new house, furniture, and electrical appliances. Oh and the costs.
So I'm going to be uber busy the next few weeks till early January 2008. Poop
As I was reading my normal set of bookmarks, I came across something very intresting on the Register's website here. The title of the newspost is Microsoft's sex-obsessed RoboSanta spouts filth at children. Now if that doesn't catch your attention, I don't know what will!
The amazing guys at Penny Arcade are at it again with Child's Play 2007. Its a year long event, cumulating around Christmas. If you're not sure what it is, go ahead, click the pretty banner and have a look.
I've sneaked a copy of The Transformers The Game (PC) and I've also seen the exact game on the PS2 from a cousin in law. I don't understand why game developers make one version of the game, mainly for a console, then port it over to the PC with a huge "PC" logo on it, but in the end its only a port. There doesn't seem to be any new features and functions (LOOK! I HAVE A MOUSE! USE IT!) and the game start splash screens can not be skipped, which sucks.
Also a pain is the very PS2-ish menu. I was half expecting to see the save game message from the PS 2 when you choose the save game profile number. Abit something like this:
"Do not remove memory card while game-save is ongoing! This can render you impotent!"
All in all the game is ok, a 6 out of 10 in my book.
Well over the weekend I caught the movie Beowulf and I must say that there are a few things that hit me when I watched it.
The first thing that came to my mind was the sweet animation work done. Other people would go 'eh, cartoons' but I went 'oooohhh wonder how much processing power went into that!'
Secondly, I must say that the detail to the actors (motion capture as well) was amazing. Really good work done on the face and hair animations.
The movie was ok. Anyone who has some general idea on the original epic poem will have an idea of how the movie would go, its already done, fight mead hall monster, fight monster's mom, then fight dragon.
I loved the dragon. It was awesome. Dragon. Sweet. Yay dragon. If you can, just watch the movie for the dragon. Its a gold dragon! Thats all for now.
Had a pretty blah morning today. The car was stuck in mud, a first for me. Reversing and driving forward just got me stuck even more, and when I got out I noticed that I had dug a gash in the ground and grass about the length of the car.
After 15 minutes I figured I should just reverse the car (there was a big thorn plant behind me!) and I managed to get on the road.
Half way to work, I noticed a scraping sound much like sandpaper on metal coming from the back left wheel. Since I was in the area, I dropped off at the service center, where they went on to remove the wheel, dust and sand the inner brake and put the wheel on again. There wasn't anything wrong with the disc or the brake pad so they didnt change that. All was well!
Well we launch our man into space sometime today (10/10/2007) and I'd just like to wish the team going up good luck. I hear the norm is to stop half way with the bus that takes them to the launch pad and pee on the tires. Awesome!
Well it looks like Halo 3 is doing insanely well on the games front, drawing huge amounts of profit in the first day itself. I cant say that I don't WANT to play it, its just that I don't have the consol to play it on.
I'd just like to extend a very happy birthday wish over to a friend of mine, Mr. Sukovich. He's 28 today. At least thats what he says, you can never trust someone in Sandistan!
I read A LOT. And early on I got hooked on a series called Wheel Of Time. The author, Robert Jordan, has now passed away.
I'm sad but at the same time annoyed that the series may not be finished. He knew about his condition a while back, but even then the books that he kept writing seemed to go into sub-plot after sub-plot. Sad.
What freaks me out even more is that I was there a couple of months ago, and this really makes me worried when think of traveling with budget airlines.
Being out of the loop for a bit (IE: not having time for the PC) I was unaware that an amazing driver has now passed on.
As I was driving to work today the news came on the radio saying that McRae and his son were confirmed dead in a helicopter crash. I confess to not being a huge rally fan, but he's been around for a bit and I did enjoy the Sega game that came out with his endorsement (if I'm not mistaken) and Ford had a good go as well.
Well I was minding my own business today packing stuff and moving them about in my car porch and suddenly this lady walks up with a guy and starts talking to me.
Like talking to me. As if we went to the same school (not possible, since she was a little more my mom's age) and I was like wtf? what is this? After talking to me for about 1 minute on their aim to bring some good back to the neighbourhood, I was convinced that they were some friendly neighbour that I've never seen around before (stranger things have happened!) but then the guy swings out this doctor's bag and slips out some pamphlets. The hammer drops. She goes,"We are also known as Jehovah Witnesses. I dont know if you've heard of us?"
Right about now, alarm bells started going off in my head. Not klaxon's. Oh no. I reserve the klaxons for when someone tells me they're with the Church of Scientology.
So I do what everyone in my position does, I tell both of them politely, "Uhm I'm pretty tied up right now...."
Does this put them off? Heck no! She goes right through, and the guy waves more pamphlets, "Can I speak to someone else in the house then?"
Another point in time where I go WTF?
I tell them no one's home, and I need to go pick up some dry cleaning. She SAYS "Oh I'm sure there's someone else at home we can speak to, we need to spread the word and do good!" Now, I dont know about you guys out there, but when I tell someone that there's no one at home, then they should just get the message or trust me, plain and simple. By now I've had enough and I tell her thank you and walk into the house and close the door, leaving the both of them standing there. I peek out of the window and I see another 4 people come up to the first two at my door and talk to them, each of their partners carrying a similar bag!
OH NO a group of Jehovah Witnesses at my door! A bunch! A squad! A phalanx! I dont know what the official plural form for them, I'm busy freaking out. What if they scale the gate?
After a while they leave. I like religion. I LIKE MY religion. I felt pretty disturbed after that.
What do YOU guys do when they come up to you and dont leave you alone?
From time to time, I tend to come across a webcomic or two thats worthy of a Blog post. Today is one of those times where I've had a chance to read over an amazing webcomic called 'Basic Instructions'.
As the title says, the comic is about Basic Instructions given to the man on the street on how to accomplish tasks.
I visited Ikea over the weekend, and I must say, its an amazing concept. The Ikea here is the largest concept store here in South East Asia, and its great to be able to see how items go together as a whole in a specific room.
Just to keep Hurk and Gibzon happy, I bought a bottle of Elderberry Juice and some Lingonberry jam. Both good. I cant quite describe the juice or the jam, its just one of those things you'll have to taste to figure out.
I've just come across an application for my Nokia N70 that's not only super helpful but also.... FREE!
Yeah, free. Its a clock screensaver but with large fonts. Users of the N70 might know what I'm talking about when I say the clock screensaver on the N70 (default) is not very easy to read as the font size is like 5 or something
In order to not offend anyone, I'll put up a SPOILER warning here. Don't read any further if you've not watched the movie
Now don't get me wrong, the movie was amazing. But amazing because like, say you're stuck in a dry desert and any brackish water would be awesome. That kind of amazing. Only... uh, less dramatic. It was fun!
My main gripe was, dude its an awesome movie, awesome material (the transformers!) and we've got awesome tech to make them come real on the silver screen.
SO WHY DID WE WASTE IT SHOWING SO MANY HUMAN CHARACTERS?
So before I rant at random items, I'll make a list:
1. Not enough transformers 2. Not enough lines for the transformers 3. Not well designed robot mode transformers (except Prime) 4. Poor character development (for the transformers) 5. Not well paced action sequences 6. Easy way the transformers died (ok ok maybe this isn't too big an issue)
1. Well as you know by now, there just isn't enough Transformers in the movie. I mean, its called the Transformers Movie but we're stuck with like roughly 10 transformers (5 on each side). Come ON. Give us MORE.
2. You'll have to wait SO LONG for any of the transformers to speak, and even then, there are so few lines in between. I wanted a long speech on honor and stuff from Prime (like he's known to do) but NOOOOOO you just get "hurry up!" and stuff. Poop.
3. Have you sat down and really looked at the other transformers in robot mode? Like, really looked at them? No? Yes? What robots? Well the only robot (IMO) that's really done well is Prime. Look at Ironhide or Ratchet. Just a bundle of tubes and cables glued together to look like a humanoid robot. Shameful.
4. We just crashed here and we've already downloaded the internet and have developed characters like an urban street talking race car and a trucker. PLEASE. GOD. HELP. ME.
5. Some bits of the movie was slow. Then CRASH BOOM BANG movie gets so 'busy' you don't even know where to look. Well, that bit is Bay at 101% I guess.
6. So we get just a few minutes of the Transformers and then BANG in a short fight some of them are dead. Wow. If I was a 20 foot tall robot I'd want to last a lot longer you know? Thats just me of course.
I enjoyed it (this is for the fanboys out there - heck I'm one of them) but come on give us MORE.
Don't get me started on the wrong name issue between Devastator / Brawl. Someone should read up or get their facts straight.
