Raithe

BBC News - North Korean officials visit London Salon over their Kim Jong-un 'bad hair' advert

... And for some bizarre reason the cat decided to crap in the upstairs toilet. Okay, the carpet of the upstairs toilet. Which someone apparently stepped on. So there's been the taking it up, and replacing it with new carpet.... Maybe it was in preparation for his visit to the vets tonight.

Gokusen. The live action version. There's always something entertaining about the culture shock value of watching Japanese drama-comedy, and some of the styles of acting, especially for anything that's an adaption from a story that started as manga. Basically, a first time teacher arrives at a school, only to find she's been handed the class full of hard-core delinquents and troublemakers. Of course, what no-one knows is that she actually grew up as the 4th generation member of a Yakuza family, and that her grandfather is the family head who raised her after her parents died. Queue Japanese comic relief moments, along with over abundance of sincere "facing the students properly" and not automatically assuming they're all lawbreaking hooligans and a waste of space..

Having a real day of not focusing. Decided to have a small break from the work I was attempting and started up some Civ. Got caught in the "just one more turn" and seem to have lost the day...

It's that weird thing with digital goods. In a lot of ways they seem to use it as an excuse to give you the worst worlds of it being a product you're buying or a service they're providing.

Hm, pondering on the question of graphics cards. My current one is an MSI GTX560 Ti Frozr II, the sole remnant of the pc which blew up last year. But the fan's been making rather dodgy noises off and on the last 5 months or so... Novatech has a rather nice deal going at the moment for the MSI GTX 750 Ti, so I'm dealing with temptation and whether to break into some of my savings now.. or to wait a touch longer until what's in my machine properly self-destructs...

Gamespot - Watch Dogs : The terrifying power of smart phones Some interesting bits and pieces about Watch Dogs, the development and goals. It'll be curious to see how well some of it actually turns out in game.

Heh. Just for the point it makes.. If your friends ever say they have ADHD...

http://youtu.be/UyRph58PSWQ

Not so much weird as.. BBC News - Scramble over 'heartbleed' bug exploit

The city or Orje in Norway has installed "official" crosswalk signs encouraging the style of the Ministry of Silly Walks... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By95MlAGTjE&

Of course, I did mean to say I half expect that to be an April Fool's joke.. but just that it was being reported in the British newspaper's today rather then last week... Although that could just mean they picked up the story by accident...

On the movie trivia news...

Hm, after a bit over 15 hours of gameplay, I finished off Arkham Asylum, with my completionist pushing me to finish off the Riddles as well (but not bother with the challenge maps). I think I might make it the full trifecta and re-install Arkham City and have a run through of that....

Ouch. At least it was recognised and things halted there. Now you can put it past you and move on for fresh horizons... while pondering on which sharp sticks to prepare in case you meet the buggers in a dark alley somewhere...

I have to admit I'm mixed. The soundtrack was pretty damn good, and it was..interesting to see a Hollywood interpretation of the classic story. It's a shame they decided to go back and shoot some more /re-edit it to make it more 'Keannu" based. Although the bit that did make me snicker was the synchronised seppuku at the end.

Since I wrapped up all the story and case files stuff on Batman Origins.. I decided to have a minor bout of semi-nostalgia and re-play Arkham Asylum to see how that feels nowadays.

Just to wrap up the Frozen Overload... http://youtu.be/GEZKeD_-IWY

Hm, a little concerned over a friend. Her 15 year old daughter got approached in the mall by a modelling agency. Apparently, it is one of the more legit agencies in the US and they were doing a mall recruitment process - target rich environment of pretty girls I gather. She got a call back, and they wanted to sign her. And apparently her mother's ex who had taken her to the call back appointment lost the ability to say "no" and signed the contract for her. Of course, because she has no experience in the business, they want her to take classes (at least 10 weeks of) before they'll get her work. They're paying "half" of the costs, but expect her to come up with the other half. Something about that just flares up some of my paranoia. Her mother's a bit concerned, but it is a legit and recognised modelling agency, but she's also pissed off at the ex for not saying they should take a day or two to think it over first. Anyone know if that's a standard practice of modelling agencies? What are the big danger signs to look out for, or the positive signs? I don't want to push the paranoia since the kid is practically walking on air at the moment... But I do want to help make sure I can give some helpful advice to them.

Well, it kind of naturally flows into the next two movies of the Hunger Games which are going to have all the same damn problems...

Game of Thrones.. if it were a 70's sitcom.. http://youtu.be/KEursnYll7w

Oh the initial Hunger Games isn't too bad. I find the concept of the districts and the way everything rolls along to be a bit dodgy, but I'm fine with suspension of disbelief for what you get. My issues are more when you go onto the next two books. Things start to just get very messy, and I found the finale pretty much a throwaway mess of character turns, dodgy reasoning, and clutch-it storytelling.

Wrapped up Batman Origins. Well, the storyline, all the Case Files, all the Most Wanted. Let my ocd run wild with the Enigma datapacks and picked all those up. Got all the medals for the Combat Training..but I'm not bothering with the challenge maps and such. Kind of feel the whole Initiation dlc that came with it sucks. It's not really a story as it were, just a couple of snapshots around a series of Extended challenge maps, that annoy because you fail at any point and you have to restart from the beginning again.

To help balance out all the guns..

Saw Divergent. Yet another one of those YA book trilogies with a strong female protagonist that's being turned into a set of movies. I actually quite liked this one, think it makes a lot more sense and has more coherency then the Hunger Games. On movie related news.. Luc Besson is back with what looks like could be an entertaining one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcLERVsu1O8& Even if it does use that annoying "humans only use 10% of their brains" crap line.