]]>I guess a good a place as any is to decide what form you want fuzzy-blue to continue on and I would say there is two main paths- the ‘Megaman’ Route and the ‘Mario’ route. If you take the Megaman path, then Sonics revival won’t be too hard to pull off- it simply means accepting your franchise has one central gimmick which is tied inseparably to its existence on retro consoles. You wanna go down that route? Super! Just hire some fresh faced game developers who grew up on the Genisis and put them to work cranking out old style Sonic titles for portables and cheap downloads. The only downside to that is its pretty niche and has little room for long term growth. If you want growth, you have to go down the ‘Mario’ route and that’s much more difficult as it requires breaking down your franchise to its basics and working out how to apply those basics to a whole new form.
Step 1: Find A New Purpose For Speed.
Mario jumps high and gains abilities by wearing gaudy costumes. Link has a sword. Mario and Samus have upgradeable guns instead of hands. Sonic runs really, really fast, which is great for getting from point A to point B but not so great for exploration, puzzle solving and combat. But without his speed, Sonic is nothing- it’s his ‘thing’ so you need to use it. But since speed is no longer interesting… you need to use it creatively. I say go back and refine the hell out of it, by letting him build up Super Speed by running a certain distance whilst holding down a button. Also build in a Super Speed Dash Move as a combat option; limited by a gage of some sort that keeps the usage down and is replenished by, oh I dunno…the rings, for example? And hey, seeing as we all know Sonic drowns so easy, which not have it so that at top speed he can run on the surface of water? Or maybe you can do that thing where you move so fast the world around you slows down- a Sonic Hyper Mode if you like? Basically, this is just a philosophical shift; it’s not the GAME that’s fast, it’s a game ABOUT a guy who is fast.
Step 2: Kill The Cast.
Yes, Sonics friends suck. You wanna get serious about saving this franchise then it’s time to thin the herd! You need the hero, you need the sidekick, you need the ambiguous anti-hero and you need the villain… I guess Amy can stick around too. Everyone else is a waste of space; no more Shadow, no more Big, no more rabbits and cats and bats and whatever other animals they decided to throw in. In fact, let’s make this the beginning of the next game: Dr Robotnik decides he’s had enough and murders everyone! Sonics new motivation: Revenge. See, now you have a bad-ass hero and a villain who you actually want to destroy with the added bonus of never seeing Cream again. This brings me to my next step.
Step 3: Characterisation.
Fundamentals people: Just who exactly is Sonic the Hedgehog? Willing hero, unwilling anti-hero, rebel, loner, white knight or rogue? … Why are we cheering for him, who are his friends, why are they his friends and more importantly who are his enemies and why? These are questions that need answering and if done correctly, you can have a kick ass narrative on your hands. Seeing as the game’s continuity is shit… let me have a quick shot at reworking this:
Sonic; loner, keeps to himself; doesn’t get involved and doesn’t have to. Why? Because he has the ability to run the hell away from anything and everything. Maybe he finds himself in some place new (or not, hints at back-story) that is having problems with an evil bad guy. Maybe in an act of random selflessness (or maybe not so random, hints at back story) he saves a local from the baddie… a cute little kid who will forever idolise Sonic from now on or a girl who will be smitten with him or both!? Let’s say Sonic gets his ass handed to him in this fight, so the kid and girl take him back to their village. Sonic finds out the village is in trouble as the bad guy is oppressing them… but there is Sonic: the hero! He has super powers! But he doesn’t want to be as he has no stake here. He doesn’t even know the bad guy (or does he, hints at back-story) but everyone believes in Sonic and his deep down heroic character! MAYBE the village already had a guy who was supposed to be their champion like Knuckles perhaps? But Knuckles can’t defeat the goons like Sonic can… I bet he resents the hell out of that. And the bad guy; he’s a scientist right? Maybe he does experiments on animals, like turning a particular hedgehog into a radioactive blue speed machine? Maybe that very hedgehog, before he was blue, lived in a certain village where he was picked on so he ran off and was never seen again? I wonder…
OK, no one is going to give me a book award for that; it’s pretty standard stuff but I’ll toot my own horn and say it’s not bad for a random idea thought of on the Acropolis. I’m just demonstrating you don’t need to turn Sonic into a werewolf or have him involved in love relationships with humans.
Thus ends my Sonic the Hedgehog rant. Next up: whatever crops up, but most likely a Part Two of my Race rant seeing as a certain game has been out for the past month. Oh… and pictures, of course!
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For a lot of people out there, Valkyrie Chronicles isn't even on the radar as a good game. In fact, most people will tell you it's a movie starring Cruise, set during the second world war and is about the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.
Valkyrie Chronicles is a PS3 game released last year and flopped massivly in sales. However, it is also regarded as one of the best strategy/ RPG's on the platform. The game is set in Europa, a fictional version of Europe, in 1935. Because of its abundance of Ragnite Ore, which can be refined into a powerful fuel, the neutral nation of Gallia comes under attack from the East Europan Imperial Alliance, which is itself engaged in a war with the Atlantic Federation. Players take control of an uprising of Gallian nationals, dedicated to repelling the invasion. The game's visuals, which feature SEGA's CANVAS graphics engine, has received a lot of attention - with CANVAS, the game's entire graphical style is built to resemble a watercolor painting in motion.
The game however, is now out of print. If you want to get your hands on it then Ebay is the easiest option. But each copy sells for a ridiculously high price tag...
So if you havn't amanged to get your hands on the game, have no fear. An Anime was announced a few weeks back, and it is set to air in spring 2009. That's by the end of this month!
Judging from the image above, the anime is not too shabby at all. I’m actually liking it so far. Looks like it won’t be much different from the game and the quality looks great.
Visit the Site Here.
]]>(Apparently I got the title wrong. It's 'Innocent Life: Harvest Moon'. She's correcting me now...)
]]>I also only have 100 euros left to buy food and travel. Methinks I will need to sell some of my possessions just to survive (bye bye Ipod)
]]>WASHINGTON, D.C.- Executives from the Umbrella Corporation today asked the US government for nearly $100 billion in aid money. They said without such funding, the world's largest pharmaceutical bioterrorism researcher could go bankrupt as early as June. It would be the company's second bankruptcy, having restructured several years ago after running a gauntlet of lawsuits and criminal investigations.
'This isn't just about keeping the Umbrella family together, or making sure our 10,000 employees have paychecks to put food on the table,' Umbrella founder Ozwell E. Spencer said in an impassioned speech to the U.S. Senate earlier today. 'It's about hope. It's about mom, baseball, and apple pie. It's about keeping the United States at the forefront of exciting fields such as pharmaceutically mind-controlled super soldiers.'
Spencer said that simply powering the containment tanks at Umbrella's Washington, D.C. facility of super-mutated biological weapons costs several million a month. He added that the company has been genetically engineering the creatures who can no longer be deemed 'human' so that they can sustain themselves only on the flesh of the perpetually homeless. While Spencer stressed that only grown males were intended to be among the sustainable food sources for these creatures, he did admit that, 'there are some glitches that have yet to be worked out.' Last month's glitches alone tallied three women, a small orphanage, and a stray cat.
Opponents to the proposed Umbrella bailout, such as Senator Ron Davis, have criticized the company for stepping up its outsourcing in recent years. 'Umbrella practically owned Raccoon City as the rural town grew into an industrialized metropolitan center,' declared the senator. 'But after the city was devastated by an unrelated catastrophe, Umbrella turned its back on the hard-working Americans of Raccoon City who survived physically, if not mentally. Instead, the company turned overseas, using subsidiaries to set up operations in rural Spain and the African nation of Kijuju, where labor is incredibly cheap and frequently homicidal.'
After Spencer's appearance before Congress, Atlantic Colgate Securities' Wilson Evans downgraded Umbrella stock from 'Hold' to 'Sell.'
'After years of stagnant revenues and slipping profit margins, we have lost faith in this management team,' Evans said in a note to investors. 'While they undeniably lead the world in turning ordinary people into turbo-freaky killing machines with, like, a bajillion tentacle knives, we are beginning to rethink the profit potential of furthering humanity's evolution by devastating the world's population. Also, we believe the corporation faces customer confusion issues, as Umbrella has been responsible for roughly a dozen different viruses on the market in the span of about a dozen years. Do they really expect consumers to understand the difference between the T-Virus and the T-Veronica Virus, or Las Plagas and Uroboros?'
In other bailout news, after being denied federal funding last month, the Mishima Corporation declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy today. 'It turns out holding a no-holds-barred international fighting tournament to determine the company's CEO wasn't such a hot idea after all,' lamented one executive who wished to remain nameless.
]]>*facepalm*
]]>I'm in Greece for my Study Tour at the moment, so preparing for the trip sort of took priority (of course, Resident Evil 5 always remained number one for me...). We left on Sunday morning at half five and arrived in the afternoon knackered as can be. Unfortunatly, the rest of my grop decided they wanetd to play a game of 'guess the ancient Greek character' for two hours... so I didn't actually get to sleep until two am local time 
(You may have noticed that this is an actual blog... blog. That's because there are people in line to use the Hostel computer, so I need to update this quickly. This is all off the top of my head baby!)
Today was pretty intertesting to tell the truth. We woke at eight (six hours sleep for the lose) and hiked to the Acropolis. Ya wanna know the truth? It's not as impressive as it is made out to be. I also broke my friends camera and failed to map read our way to the Agora. Yes, we got lost and it was all my fault.
So that's pretty much day one of my two week study tour. Hopefully I'll get some pictures uploaded soon, especially the one of me playing the DS infront of the Parthenon but for now, I must dash- some Chinese students are dying for the computer.
]]>Basically, he's asking not only Watchmen fans but also detractors, mixed-feelers and even non-carers to go see it 'again' this weekend. His reasoning is sound. Hollywood math is all about how hard you drop in the second weekend, and if Watchmen takes a Jonas Bros. level tumble in IT'S second weekend the verdict will be in: Only 'fanboys' care, you can't make money just off them, next time cut it to a PG13, get Beyonce' working on a theme song and hire Bret Ratner. I'm with Hayter on this one - a movie this uncompromising needs to be seen as a success, to encourage more like it to be made.
If you have ANY inclination to see this again, do it today or saturday. Take friends. Spend 7 to 10 bucks, and help make the movie world a better place.
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...just think about it.
]]>For the fans: Neil McDonough and Michael Clarke Duncan are M. Bison and Balrog, Robin Shou (Liu Kang from the "Mortal Kombat" movies) is Gen and Chris Klein is Charlie Nash (the "Charlie" who's murder Guile is supposed to be investigating.) Vega turns up approximately twice, lamely. It's a weirdly schizoid adaptation, on the one hand trying to "Dark Knight-ize" the franchise by eschewing the game costumes and grounding the main backstory amid a ghetto-gentrification real estate swindle in Bangkok; but on the other hand Gen teaches Chun-Li to throw magical fireballs and Bison gets a REALLY icky origin story to explain super powers... that he never actually uses. FWIW, Nash survives the movie, presumably saving his death for the never-to-be-filmmed "Legend of Guile" movie. Quick mention at the end of a "Street Fighter Tournament" that Mrs. Li ought to investigate, and a "Ryu somebody."
The screenwriter on this was Justin Marks, currently just about the hottest writer in Hollywood apparently owing to his ability to turn out functional scripts for "fanboy" properties at a good clip thanks to a near-encyclopedic knowledge of - and legitimate enthusiasm-for - the material (he's also behind the initial scripts for the planned "He-Man," "Supermax" aka "Green Arrow in Prison" and "Voltron" movies.) For what it's worth, he DOES seem to have a knack for building a working narrative out of the largely-incidental backstories of properties like this. Whether or not his stuff can lead to GOOD movies remains to be seen, though I'll note that THIS one would've at least been campy fun if they'd been allowed to wear their game costumes.
On a totally different note: my absence is all down to one thing, and that's university. No time for blogs of epic length and themes. No time for ranting and raving about major releases like Watchman and Killzone 2. No time for silly narratives about my pyrokinesis skills. There's only time for banging my head against the wall in despair.
This, in short, means I have just joined the Twitter scene as a perfect form of procrastination and blog updating. However, my computer is being a huge bitch, so I can't actually get the widget on my blog page. Maybe some time in the future, eh?
]]>This expanded, loosely-adapted film from David Fincher keeps the title, but swaps ironic for wholly-appropriate by changing-up the central gimmick: The film's Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is born as a tiny infant but with all of the physical traits (maladies, more specifically) of a near-death 80 year old man and ages "normally" in terms of his mind but in full-reverse in terms of his body - as a "child" he looks for all the world a frail, weathered old man; but as he ages he only gets stronger and better-looking.
The result, as you might expect, is that THIS Benjamin gets a certain number of benefits from his condition - 'old looking' enough to gain access to life experiences and information otherwise not offered to a boy, blessed with the body of a 20 year old with which to put a lifetime of wisdom to use in his waning days. He's less of a tragic walking-commentary and more of a magical being walking backwards through history; and the film is less of the expected allegorical ponderance and more of a biography of a man who can't possibly have existed yet seems to thanks to technical wizardry and damn fine acting from Pitt.
As you've probably heard by now, this one is a real stunner: A thoughtful, ultra high-concept art film doing a spot-on impression of a sweeping middlebrow epic. One imagines that many who see it will enjoy it right off the bat, but only discover later upon reflection just how unique and "different" the film they saw actually was.
It'd be unfair to dwell on the various colorful characters and fascinating times Button finds himself in over the course of his (you'd think) already unique-enough life, as I'd prefer people to discover them on their own. I will single out, however, how refreshing it is to see both Cate Blanchett (as Benjamin's almost-perpetually out-of-reach love interest) and Tilda Swinton - two actresses too-often tasked with playing icy, quasi-masculine hardcases - get to let their hair down as old-fashioned Hollywood glamour-gals.
This is already the surprise-hit of the Holiday season, so I probably don't NEED to tell you... but if you haven't seen this yet, you really should. It's one of the ones we'll be talking about for awhile (though I'm ALREADY dreading the innevitably "fun" the "Epic Movie" guys will have at the expense of the old-man-who-says-he's-a-toddler concept.)
]]>I dunno what movie everybody else on the web has seen. Mine had a decent prologue and a couple of shapely boobs, but the rest? Pure shit. The kills are lame, uncreative and shockingly bloodless. The cast of victims-to-be are broad and unlikable even for THIS franchise. And since when is Jason Vorhees a ninja? Not only can this character we're told is a shambling, mentally-handicapped hulk scramble up a bulding like Jason Bourne, he's a crack-shot archer and a master of electrical-espionage. And why the hell does Jason, of all movie-monsters, need his own Batcave secret lair? That's like if The Wolfman had a helicopter.
]]>Is it actually possible to take pride of this country.. We have 13 year old kids coming forward to say they're the father of a baby from some skank, those stupid scummy chavs that live off benefits because they messed around in school are living off our tax money.. And they have the nerve to try and intimidate people that walk past them and listen to their stupid RnB/hip hop/MC whatever it's called music? LOL.. What happened to the strict schools that used the cane, capital punishment? I've seen so many wimps in my school say to the teacher "but we were talkin bout the work sir" BS. They just talk about some skank they're going to sleep with then dump a day later. Seen it all before Burberry Boy and I wouldn't take any stick from these kids if I were their teacher.
Who actually would want to live in this country? Apart from Top Gear, F1 and Football.. Why should we live in this country, the economy is poor, the education of many people are in the toilet and company's are going bust and making more and more people redunant every day, you'd be lucky enough to get a job at McDonalds or Burger king these days.. If it's going to get worse I don't know how I might get a job in a Law Firm
I wish it was the 1950s, capitol punishment.. The cane and kids that had manners..
What a load of crap.
]]>This trial version is the prime example of why I usually avoid downloading demos: There’s the opening screen disclaimer about how the game isn’t finished and might contain bugs (If you've ever taken a writing workshop, you’ve probably encountered several people who try to temper expectations for their work by muttering something like, "I didn’t work very hard on this," or, "I just wrote this last night, so it’s not really done." And you think, "Great, thanks for valuing my time, douche." That’s the same impression I get from disclaimers like this. You know, sort of.). You’re dropped right into a scene without any context or build up, although presumably it’s intended to showcase the very best the game has to offer. There may be important gaps you're not even aware of. All in all, this is not the ideal way to experience a game. Let’s not forget the cursed ‘end demo’ sequence, which forces you to watch a trailer displaying the date of release every time you die…
…I hate demos.
Saying that, I played the Valkyrie Chronicles demo last night and loved every second of it because it had NONE of the above faults! Now that's what I call a demo!
]]>But instead, I'm gonna post my desktop because loads of other people have and I feel left out:
Oh, apparently the 'Angel of The South' is gonna be a giant...horse. Yeah, I dunno about that.
]]>From what I've seen altogether too often, this might come across as an odd combination to many people. After all, Pokemon's just a thing for little kids. One would think that I would have outgrown it by now, and would be on to bigger and better things, like Gears of War, or Call of Duty, or any of the other examples of mature games that exist in the market today. No such luck.
I think we all went through a certain phase during our childhoods. When we were little kids, the sky was the limit as far as our imaginations and fantasies. It was all perfectly well and good, too, because we were kids, and that's what kids do. But then, at some point, we were all confronted with the same dreaded query that heralded the beginning of the end of our childhood:
"Aren't you getting a little old for that?"
It would become a progressively more familiar refrain as we grew older, starting as a simple question and growing more and more into a stern demand. Eventually there were several actions and desires that simply became too socially unacceptable for them to continue. So, they stopped. For some, this repression is more subconscious and automatic; for others, it's more along the lines of being dragged kicking and screaming into reality. But, at the end of the day, we all arrive at the same location - children become teenagers; teenagers become adults. Our old desires are stamped out and replaced with new desires that are more in line with the expectation of our peers based on our age.
And whenever this happens, it usually comes with little protest or question. It's just the way things are - of course people desire and enjoy different things as an adult than what they did as a child. But there's an obvious question to ask: why? Why does one's age dictate what one ought to partake in, or what one ought to enjoy? At its heart, it's really a very peculiar notion to say that something someone has enjoyed for a long time, and which that person still enjoys to this very day, ought to be ceased on account of the fact that the person has existed on Earth for an arbitrary number of years.
This widely accepted phenomenon becomes even stranger when one considers the nature of something like Pokemon. If one watches the anime, one will find that it expresses things that are applicable at most any stage of life: friendship, loyalty, humility, good sportsmanship, and a wide variety of other qualities.
I'll always remember when Gabe from Penny Arcade recounted his experience going to a Gamestop Pokemon tournament. Most of the competitors were, as expected, children, but the real notable point that he took away from it was the demeanor of the kids: with few exceptions, the losers never failed to lose gracefully and thank the winner for the game, and the winners never failed to stay humble and compliment the loser on their abilities. It seemed as though the children had really taken the Pokemon experience as a whole to heart in a way that left a lasting impression on Gabe and the way that he approached the games.
One can then compare this to the experience one receives through the more mature games like Gears of War, a game that enables the player to take a chainsaw to a bad guy's head, with predictable results or Grand Theft Auto, which allows the player to re-enact any number of crimes within the bounds of the games. Given the temperament of your average Halo 3 player compared to the temperament of your average Pokemon player, I don't think it's exactly a tough decision regarding which I'd prefer to play with.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not intending to rag on mature games, as that would be awfully hypocritical - I play them too, and heck, I own and have enjoyed both Gears of War and Grand Theft Auto 4. There isn't anything wrong with them; they just offer a different experience from the so-called "kiddy" games.
What I do want to rag on is this strange notion of needing to "outgrow" things like Pokemon. It would be fine if there was something obviously bad about Pokemon and something inherently better about Gears of War, but really, the opposite is kind of true. Nearly everything that we're supposed to outgrow are things that exude and express happiness, joy, friendship, and other positive qualities that would make life better if more of it existed. Conversely, the things that we're supposed to grow into are things that exhibit death, darkness, killing, blood, violence, and other such wholesome things.
The bottom line? In effect, we're being told that we must outgrow kindness and friendship and replace it with violence and death. I hope I don't have to go into detail regarding why this is, well, kind of messed up.
This effect doesn't just manifest itself with video games, either. Harmless pastimes we enjoyed as children are expected to be replaced with things such as sex and alcohol. Open emotions are replaced with repression and callousness; childlike friendliness is replaced with suspicion and apprehension. If I were asked to name one single thing that I felt was fundamentally wrong with the world, this would be it.
I'm not here to tell you to put down the mature games. That's not my intention, because I recognize as well as anyone else that there's an undeniable satisfaction derived from blowing some guy's head off in a video game. What I am here for is to ask people to please bring to a halt this notion that there exist "kiddy" games that they're too old for. Pride in what is good is a positive thing, but pride for the sake of pride can only lead to a darker, unfortunate place, and pride is the only thing preventing the enjoyment of such things. They haven't changed - we're the ones who changed, and needlessly so.
If you see yourself at all in what I'm saying, I encourage you to stop yourself the next time the thought wells up in your brain that something is beneath you due to your age. If you honestly, truly don't enjoy something after having given it a fair chance, then that's fine, but otherwise, the only person hurt as a result is yourself. It's a difficult barrier to break, to be sure, but those who succeed in doing so are universally happier for having done so. One of the surest signs of true maturity, and one of the first requirements for profound contentedness in life, is reaching the state where you no longer care whether or not what you're doing in private is mature.
]]>So here's that meme everyone has been doing, but done according to Tunafish1 Time (thats 5+ hours after everyone else):
1.realize that my last kiss I've come to - Was a huge drunken mistake, and it shall never happen again! Oh look, Malibu...
2. I am listening to - The sound of my housemates having a dick comparing contest with Halo 3.
3. I talk - when needed- unlike my 'journalist' (if you can call writing for Redbrick journalism...) alter ego, I'm quite passive, tolerant and easy going.
4. I love - RUBIX CUBE!!!!
5. My best friend - Has long since parted ways with me. I think the last time we talked was in Year 12. Still thinking of her though. Hey Ami!
6. My first real kiss - Can't say I have had a real kiss yet.
7. Love is - ..... *brain asplodes*
8. Marriage is - Not for me as yet. I prefer the single life at the moment thanks.
9. Somewhere, someone is thinking - 'maybe I should see someone about...it'
10. I'll always - Be intelligent, ambitious, couragious, strong and deluded.
11. The last time I really cried was because - I thought I was going to fail at my University essay...turns out I was totally, totally right.
12. My mobile phone - Is going to be replaced in two weeks! W00t!
13. When I wake up in the morning - I instantly found a more comfy sleeping position which I never knew existed.
14. Before I go to bed - I try forcing myself to dream about marshmellows. True story.
15. Right now I am thinking about - How to answer this question.
16. Babies are - Erm... nice if they're not mine
17. I get on Myspace - NEVER!
18. Today I - Said 'chillax' to a total stranger. *facepalm*
19. Tomorrow I will be - Having a lecture on Forensic Anthropology... which has absolutly NOTHING to do with my actual course
20. I really want to be - Home...
just copy and paste the pic into photoshop or paint and then host it.
My Cake Adventure:
(page may need refreshing)
Well, Space Monkey definatly thinks so- he sent me an e-mail of epic proportions listing just about every video he has ever seen ever. As I trenched through the mountain of Stephen Fry clips and Bill Baily standup, I realized that youtube videos are a great way to get to know someone even better. I for one did not know that Space Monkey liked to watch slowed-down photography or The Lion King 2. So,Below are some of my favourite videos currently available at YouTube and not one of them is video game related! Wow...
Rowan Atkinson Plays The Invisible Drums
Before he was Mr Bean or Blackadder, Rowan was part of a group of students who performed comedy at University. He was so good, that he soon got his own show and this routine shows the brilliance of his mime technique!
Full Metal Alchemist is one of the most serious animes out there when it comes to its major themes: Politics, War, Love, Loss and Sacrifice. So When Colonal Mustang; a loyal member of the Government Army declares his plans for when he becomes Furor...it's a pretty big shock.
In my early teens (when I was fit and healthy), I danced. To be more precise, I was part of the 'popping' community and thus had inspirations to become like Hyun Joon: The King of Popping. Now I eat Ben and Jerry's Phish Food whilst watching this clip. George Sampson... this is real talent!
The Easy Peasy Way To Get The Lawn of Your Dreams
Ah, they don't make adverts like they used to...
Combine the awesomeness of Nightmare Before Christmas with the mediocrity of Fall Out Boy, and you should get a horrible cover of a brilliant song. Instead, you get a Youtube video with near-perfect lip-sync and a rocking vocal track that is just as (if not better) than the original.
]]>Your Country Needs You was at least consistent – a farce from start to finish.
Who selected the original contestants was a mystery, as was the role of Girls Aloud mogul Colin Barlow who disappeared after the first show.
Taking one look at his abysmal shortlist, Lloyd Webber magically produced a well-known face from the London musical scene, Jade Ewen who could have been announced as the winner in the first week. She was the only one who looked as if she might make the last 50 in The X Factor.
Andrew Lloyd Webber meanwhile has had a lovely time out of it, plugging his musicals and even interviewing Vladimir Putin in Moscow. His theory was that the Europeans resent the fact that we don’t take Eurovision seriously.
He then revealed he and Diane Warren had written this year’s entry in two feckin hours.
Guess what? It sounded like something from a musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber! Seeing as there have been only two decent songs (‘Starlight Express’ and ‘No One Would Listen’ which never got published) from him in the passed how-ever-many-years-he’s-been-stealing-melodies-from-Mozart-and-Bach, this doesn’t bode well.
On the plus side, at least The Twins have now been consigned to the bin-bag of reality TV history. Yayzah!
]]>Until January 1999, only 800 visits were recorded (about 4 per day), but without warning that jumped to 15,000 per day. The Web site spread by e-mail, early blogs and bumper stickers and was eventually even featured in a television commercial for Internet Service Provider Earthlink. Over the next few years alternate versions of the Hampsterdance appeared, such as for birthdays (the hamsters are slightly modified to hold presents). In 2005, CNET named The Hampster Dance the #1 web fad.
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The Oracle of Bacon: 1994.
Does anyone remember this? I certainly do. This global success arose when Kevin himself claimed (in 1994) that he had worked with everyone in Hollywood or someone who had worked with them. The theory follows the premise that because of his diverse acting background, it is possible to link Kevin Bacon with any other actor in a small number of steps. It is based on a similar premise to the Six Degrees of Separation theory, which argues that every person on the planet is an average of six relationship (family, friendship, work associate etc) steps away from any other person.
The game ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ was created by three students - Craig Fass, Brian Turtle, and Mike Ginelli. Apparently the three were watching Footloose followed by the film Quicksilver during a heavy snow storm. They began to speculate on how many movies Bacon had appeared in and how many people he had worked with. Humble beginnings for what is now a popular pop culture trivia game.
As the barrage of trailers have now informed you, this is the story of one Col. Klaus von Stauffenberg, a German military officer who joined and subsequently spearheaded an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler and stage a military coup against the Nazi Elite. You are aware, one hopes, that this didn't work.
So, here's a challenge facing anyone trying to film this story: Everyone knows Hitler wasn't assassinated, so even if you've never heard this particular story you know how it ends. There's two ways, then, to make this work as a narrative as opposed to a documentary:
Option #1: Make a sprawling, likely lugubrious epic that sets up all the context and backstory explaining how things got to this point, who these conspirators were and why they chose this moment to act which won't be especially riveting but will tell a fascinating historical tale.
Option #2: Cut out every shred of context, larger-themes, ANYTHING that isn't directly related to the forward-momentum of the conspiracy and hope that avoiding context will let the audience briefly forget that they already know the ending and can get wrapped up in the thrill of the chase.
Valkyrie goes with Option #2.
It's a well-made mechanical thriller, it just doesn't have any real heft to it. There's no real depth or character to any of the players or the film they inhabit: Tom Cruise - as Stauffenberg - steps onscreen, announces that he's decided that Hitler must be stopped, and spends the rest of the film plowing ahead toward that goal. The movie follows his lead. Who were these guys? What were their motives aside, from the general 'Hitler was bad?' No time for that - it's just straight-on through the exciting parts of what's ultimately a pretty damn clever power-grab.
Up to a point this all works, the movie is exciting and goes along quick and agreeably... there just isn't anything to hang onto after it ends. Change the costumes and this could be the second and third act of an Ocean's Eleven sequel.
]]>The Trojan Coffee Pot had been functioning since 1991, but it was only in 1993 when the camera was connected to the internet by Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson that the coffee pot became the popular landmark of the early web- it was sold on E-bay for £3,350!
]]>Kibo is the username of retro-famous James Parry. Though he had arrived on USENET before this date, his legendary habit of grepping all postings and responding to any and all mentions of his name (whether they be intentional references or not) with a supernatural rapidity had already earned him notoriety in the fledgling newsgroup community. A typical exchange between Kibo and other USENET users were as follows:
Mary Rose Campbell wrote:
>At CMU, we also have something called Gray Matter in the center of Skibo
>(our student union substitute). It's a bunch of shapes, walls, holes,
>and steps covered with the same dark gray carpet that's on the floor.
>It looks like a giant cat toy.Actually, it's a life-size model of S. Kibo himself, my great great
grand-uncle. This was before he evolved past the 'giant metazoic
amoeba' stage a few aeons ago. Now he's a trilobite.-- K.
His legendary postings over the years of USENET's heyday are still fondly remembered by Internet old-timers and he is probably the first true internet 'cult' figure, having his own religion named after him: Kibology.
]]>So, here it is: a first in a series (because one post would be way too long!). A list of all the greatest memes through the history of Internet time! If you have any suggestions of already made memes…or if you fancy a go at creating a new one yourself, why not post in the comments, or blog it...let's see if we can form a meme about memes!
Here we go:
The Birth of The Emoticon: September 19th, 1982.
Today, most emoticons are displayed as small, graphical pictures on internet forums, e-mails and chat rooms but they started their life as simple text used to indicate that some specific text was ‘just a joke’ or to indicate some form of (un)happiness.
The creator of the first every emoticon is Scott E. Fahlman. See, the internet is, as we still know, a strange world where are simple words get easily misinterpreted. Thus, a low tech search for a ‘joke marker’ was formed.
Here’s his original message:
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E FahlmanI propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
:-)
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-(
Nice going, Scott 