Monte Carlo

This is a tragedy. It will be interesting to see how the interim government performs. It is centre-right and socially conservative, sceptical of the EU. As another poster suggests, beware the EU bearing 'gifts.' My sympathy goes out to our Polish friends.

Is the new engine optimized so mere humans can play it, or will I need a new Area-51 Mega-Rig to run it?

Army of Darkness is usually the opener of any "Horror Night In" movie-thon at my place. The original Dawn of the Dead back-to-back with Sean of the Dead was a hit last time too, by this time it was about 0200 so we finished off with Dog Soldiers for the lulz. The damage was 7 bottles of vino, 3 XL Dominator pizzas and 2 litres of ice cream.

Stalking through central park, stealthed up? Yes please.

Still finding it incredibly stable. Elf chick = extremely annoying. The Architect = Looks like a new modern romantic circa 1983. Tunnels = not enough. Lewt = most phat, which is gooood. Actually, it's OK, I guess I'm 25% of the way through. I don't understand the hate, but conversely I'm not feeling the love either and micro-ing 4 guys with all the high level abilities becomes a chore (even for me). I'm playing on Hard, no FPW so far so I can see why people are saying it's easy.

I suspect that was Ike the President, as opposed to Ike the General speaking.

^ I read somewhere that they hope to explain some of the context around why they used atomic weapons. As for controversy over saving 'X' amount of lives, all I can say is what controversy? Backward militaristic monarchy attacks democracy in cynical act of aggression. Democracy losing thousands of it's young men fighting back. Miracle weapon offers opportunity to end it all by killing lots of the other side. Big ethical dilemma, perhaps, but one that was taken in 1945. Looking at it now, an acknowledging the human tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the villain of the piece remains the Imperial Japanese Government, as much as I'd blame Dresden on the Nazis.

Come on, comparisons with BoB are completely valid. It's a part of the same arc that Hanks and Spielberg have openly discussed travelling on. I agree that the European Theatre is more cinematic - familiar, open terrain and toys to film like assault guns and tanks. The Pacific is hand-to-hand combat in dense jungle. Nonetheless, these are issues that a skilled production team should square away before breakfast. I suspect the source material might have something to do with it.

^ I take your point, maybe I didn't make myself clear. Take Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. It's a classic example of literary war fiction. It's set in the South Pacific and it's about a small unit.

Good point, dude. Then again, this sentence is so garbled that if I were an English teacher I'd probably take to drink.

^ Strange, seeing as BoB does that too. Many of Easy Company are changed by the war, for better or worse. It's early days for The Pacific, I grant you, but Guadalcanal hasn't really drawn me into the drama (it's had 1.5 hours so it should have done - The Wire it ain't) and the characters are unremarkable.

Wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. Then again, you're a Communist and therefore history is just for airbrushing, right?

Maybe it's the contrarian in me, but nothing would be more likely to make me blade the game savagely than an email like that. The tone of the email is ridiculously precious, if it's that good then reviews will be of negligible impact anyway.

I have recently been enjoying: Florence & The Machine (Lungs): Siouxie and the Banshees meets Kate Bush. Strange, but in a groovy way.

I urge people to read The Moon's a Balloon even if they haven't a clue who David Niven was. It's laugh-out-loud funny and beautifully written.

Hmmm, I gave up on Doctor Who after John Pertwee and David Tenant, a gurning ham of an actor, drives me nuts. The show is so damn pleased with itself.

OK,

The BBC has more details, including a photo of the deceased. The relatives are trying to claim that they genuinely didn't know he was dead BBC linkie

^ Pretty common when people have been arrested in the UK.

Just Wiki'd BoB - that was 110 million in 2000... just as big a budget just a less glamorous location.

They filmed The Pacific in Australia with a massive budget (150 million US dollars, that's a lot of steel helmets and rubber rifles), BoB was filmed by and large in a parking lot in Hertfordshire here in the UK in 2000 / 2001. They used lots of CGI in BoB (some of it now looks slightly dated, for example the air armada scenes in Day of Days).

Quoted in 'Hero or Coward' by Elmar Dinter. Or, as Stalin famously said, "It's takes a brave man not to be a hero in the Red Army."

So, this German lady tries to smuggle her dead father's body out of the country on a flight to Berlin. To avoid paying

It's getting better, I will happily concede, now I've got to Amaranthine. Although the 10-quests-a-second is a bit much. Then I ambled off to the woods to fight with crazy elf chick and found... ack... another freaking Dragon Age puzzle. Noooooo.

Band of Brothers is awesome, for me personally it's one of the best pieces of TV drama ever made.