Raithe

A Long Way Down. Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots and Aaron Paul as four strangers who all meet each other on New Years Eve as they plan to commit suicide jumping from the top of a London tower block, and end up forming a pact to not kill themselves until Valentines Day. As the story moves along it cycles from each one's perspective in a way. A bit of wry and black humour, along with a certain dose of sentimentality and drama. Manages to pull of that strange mix of light-hearted but sombre atmosphere along the way.

Mind Hacks - A Spooks Guide to the Psychology of Deception The full article expands on it all, for those with an interest...

Hm, since the training has been going.. .relatively well, I thought I'd look at properly registering for Tough Mudder. Although now seeing that the registration fee for the event is £109 then a further £10 insurance cover, and another £10 handling fee.. I'm having to ponder on whether that's actually worth it for my budget.... Hmm. Now I've got to figure out if with everything else going on and planned for the next few months I've actually got the money to spend that just for a few hours of slogging my way through and helping the charity.

For just a little bit of that boogie-woogie.. http://youtu.be/m9RpxjI3AtM

http://youtu.be/uXOdL7YJRNs

Oh, and just to round out the 4th of July Weekend some fun trivia...

Taking the slow weekend to marathon my way through Continuum season 3...

So to help restore some equilibrium..

Finished off the Arson Desk on LA Noire and wrapped up the game.. Hm., yeah, I really can't see what the fuss was about this game. Well, apart from the gimmick of the facial expressions and such. Constantly going "oh, I sort of recognise that actor". The story was base pulp noir which I guess was to be expected, but something just felt off about it. Maybe not so much character agency to it, more just going through the motions. Ah well, I guess it worked out for the few pound it cost on the steam sale but I would have been heartily disappointed if I'd picked it up for closer to full price when it first came out.

To be fair, it was a lot more then that. For example, the founding fathers didn't like that the British intended to keep the treaties we made with the locals and weren't taking their land..

Had a dabble on the Age of Decadence demo. Definitely unforgiving, although it can get a tad irritating at times. You need to complete things to get skill points, but you keep failing skill checks to begin with because you don't have skills.. and pretty much all combat will kill you. Because you don't have the skills to dodge/block that well, while all of the enemies do... But still, does look quite interesting in that it encourages non-combat solutions to most things - As long as you have the right skills to do so. Unfortunately, a lot of the "bonus" missions will have you end up in combat in one form or another. Or at least that's the way it seemed.

It's a bit twisty, but it does have that interesting side to it. Having to keep things separate to represent the different bodymods you might end up in. The setting is great, the mechanics just a bit too much....

NSA targets the privacy conscious For those interested, the full article is a lot longer, that's just the header of it all..

Happy revolution day you dang colonials..

For the pop culture take.. George Takei - What if Hobby lobby was run by muslims imposing sharia law on workers?

I've been having a slow, steady roll through LA Noir having picked it up. I'm not being hugely impressed by it, but I'm curious how the story goes. The interrogations are quirkily interesting, but the open world aspect seems kind of pointless since there aren't really any reasons for you to be randomly wandering around since anytime you do get out in a car.. You're meant to be involved in a criminal investigation.

Back from tonights workout. Strength exercises, a bit of core work, followed by a run with sprint intervals... Okay, now I need tea, food and collapse.

BBC News - Authors Cosplaying as their favourite childhood characters...

A friends teenage daughter had an accident and spilt a boiling kettle down her side, so I've been talking to my friend to help her not freak out while she's at the ER and the doctor's are taking care of the daughter. It's ... annoying to not be able to provide any more help then simple moral support at such times.

The Grand Budapest Hotel. It's... a typical Wes Anderson film. That slightly dreamy, ever so surreal quality to everything. Some well known names and faces doing little background roles. All set up within a flashback within a flashback. The old author reminiscing on how he was told the story 30 odd years before.. and then the flashback of the man telling his younger self the story. The story of a legendary Concierge at a grand hotel in an obscure Eastern European country, and his lobby boy protégée. Love, Murder, Sadness, Stolen Art, Silliness... http://youtu.be/2bTbW70umbQ

io9 - Psychologists find that nice people are more likely to hurt you...

Heh. Apparently the network is shooting down John Constantine smoking on the show..

I have felt utterly crushed with exhaustion today for no apparent reason. I keep finding myself starting to nod off only to start awake with a jerk.