Raithe

For the festive spirit...

I've been doing bits and pieces of Christmas shopping over the last few weeks, and in the middle of a conversation with my sister.. I suddenly couldn't think what or if I'd actually sorted out her Christmas presents yet. This could mean digging out all the stashes and double-checking before it gets too late.

To return to the general assortment..:

Poking at work, babysitting my sister's dog (because she's got some Christmas lunch work bash), and sorting out mom's drugs - have to check whether prescription needs refilling before Christmas... Plus the assorted back and forth of various tasks, although I did take a few minutes here and there to give AC:Revelations a try since I picked it up silly cheap in one of the sales in the past few months. Sometimes a good stabby-stabby is what you need to pick you up.

What is kind of funny with the Guns of Navarone, is that David Niven actually spent time with the Commando groups during the war, and Quayle was in the SOE doing crazy stuff with the Albanian partisans. One of those interesting quirks of casting where the actors really did have some experience.... On that slightly related note, I also find it amusing that one of the few times Christopher Lee has willingly made any practical mention of his time with the SOE was during an argument with Peter Jackson on the LOTR set - When Wormtongue gets stabbed and falls off the tower, Lee didn't like the way it was being handled and snapped out something along the lines of "That is not what someone sounds or looks like when you stab them in the back and throw them off a tall building. Do you know what it's like? I do!" As to hard to sit through.. Hm, I don't know about that. Frankly I have a soft spot for a lot of the classics. The likes of Cary Grant, David Niven, Peter O'Toole, Audrey Hepburn, they covered a nice range of screwball comedies, light hearted heist movies, and some thrilling action moments.

Well by the standards of warfare at the time, Mr Cromwell was fairly restrained..

Now I'm waiting for the assorted 40k "For it is mutant and must be cleansed" quotes to begin..

Congratulations on that slow descent from party boy to "Serious Adult" then... Mayhaps we should get Ros to organise a Christmas party for all Obs Europeans to gather at and be impressed..

Suffering bouts of procrastination. I know a couple of things I should get started on but keep staring at the screen and not engaging. The cat seems to have scratched an eyelid, so it's got a bloody eye. The weather is rather rotten wintery rain outside. My dad is being a general Grinch over Christmas as usual, my sister has pretty much stated she might do a flying visit on Christmas day but she won't be lingering - I can actually understand that, we normally gather together for just a couple of hours for everyone to open presents, then disappear to different areas of the house until Christmas Dinner is served, at what point we all go off to our own corners again. Due to various things, the front room has a whole bunch of non-Christmas stuff in it, which is why I went with the smaller tree rather then the big 7'+ one, and not getting out all the decorations for the house. Tried having a poke at sorting out the usual Christmas gathering of friends, but no-one can figure out if they're going to be in the country or out, dealing with family visiting, or whether they can get their kids taken care of. So that keeps turning into a waffle rather then any clear decisions made. Oh and I've been invited to another wedding in Mexico in April, but I doubt I'll be able to make that.

Heh. That reminds me of the story of some terrorists travelling through Europe back in the 80's, they set the bomb in one country as they were traveling but forgot about the time zone difference when they got there.. so it went off an hour early in the van they were all in.

Psych - The Musical. There is something to be said for a dose of utter silliness. Especially when wrapped up in extra length "musical" episode.

It's slightly disconcerting to have a phone call with someone, and just as you're about to hang up find that you've got a bloody nose.

Hm, there's something to be said for Sam Manekshaw. The first Indian Army officer to be promoted to Field Marshal. His career ran through four decades and five wars... That, and he's pretty good for quoting: "I wonder whether those of our political masters who have been put in charge of the defence of the country can distinguish a mortar from a motor, a gun from a howitzer, a guerrilla from a gorilla, although a great many resemble the latter. "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha." On being asked what would have happened had he opted for Pakistan at the time of the Partition in 1947, he replied "Then I guess Pakistan would have won (the 1971) war."

Okay, I'll admit, that one was a cheap throw. Although I was balancing the urge to say that or "Tony Blair". I would throw in for more serious consideration "The Information Age" given the shift in privacy issues nowadays..

Congress.

I mentioned Peter O'Tool had died to someone, and they promptly said "Oh no. Dr Doolittle and 'enry 'iggins!". I wasn't sure whether to slap my forehead, slap them, or just grit my teeth.

We could always throw in mention of this guy.. Pyrrhus of Epirus: The man who won his battles, but lost his war due to the costly nature of his victories over time. How many generals actually lead to fresh sayings and new terms used in the language? The good old pyrrhic victory.

Yeah, that's been an on/off bug for awhile. From what I've heard it doesn't always turn up, but by now so many people know of it's possibility, they tend to be careful of the attacks to not cause it to go active. It's along the lines of if you attack one with immunity near the start, it sets something up so immunity never drops, so you have to be really careful about only attacking the ones without shields from the get go.

Eh, they're by.. Max Allan Collins, the guy who wrote Road to Perdition. He's done a bunch of movie-novelisations as well. For what they are they aren't bad. There's no major screws loose, but they do follow the season 2 feel more then the season 1 style of Dark Angel. It's more that they flesh out what was actually going on with the cult and answer some of those mysterious hooks and questions. He pretty much crams what the planned "Season 3" arc was to be into one and a half novels.

Just for the effect... http://youtu.be/oiSn2JuDQSc

With SR4 they somewhat moved away from "porn" territory, which, supposedly was something THQ more pushed them to do than what the devs wanted to do themselves, and more into just straight goofball wackiness territory. Except they kept the sexual jokes and "The Penetrator" in the game. That's kinda why I'm boggled at it, the game. They have gimps and hookers and references left and right... hell even the DLC is "ENTER THE DOMINATRIX" and yet in game it feels like they try to say "SEX SEX SEX... aww we don't deal wit dat" I mean the entire backstory of Kinzie is that she got fired for being a dominatrix.... and yet her "super form" is basically her in a body suit and a hoodie. Hm, no, Kinzi got fired from the FBI because Matt framed her for all sorts of **** because she kept trying to catch him. That's why she hates his guts. The Enter the Dominatrix DLC is generally a lot of self-referential humour. The conversations between the gang as they talk about how the original "Enter the Dominatrix DLC" was reaaally supposed to go and why it didn't happen. It gets very meta, and very silly. But it did make me chuckle quite a few times.

great movie, the entire vengeance trilogy is just so sad I wonder when Hollywood knows how to make tragedies again, because right now they only know the heroes journey. I finished watching dark angel (tv series) I love season one, the Character of Max is perfect, I don't think there would be anyone who is closer to my perfect woman, but by looks and personality. But the second season ****s it all up, it's plagued by terrible writing, clichéd storylines, exposition dumps, and very out of character dialogue. Seeing a strong woman turned into whiny weak girl was a real shame. Seeing sociopathic characters show feelings and care out of the blue doesn't make any sense. It had some interesting things, but the first season is much better in quality. If you want the "finale" , they did 3 novelisations. Well, one is the story of Max post first escape, up until her arrival in Seattle. The 2nd novel is 1/3 the final episode of season 2, and 2/3 what's going on after, and the 3rd novel wraps up what was actually going on with the weird eugenics cult. Edit: And yes, the 2nd season gets very weird and incredibly plot-holey. I mean, c'mon. One minute they had no idea what any of the escaped group looked like after all this time and the next "oh we've actually had clones of you guys back at base that we forgot to look at."

Tried playing some Far Cry 2. Not really feeling any magic from it. Some stunning vistas, but the running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth isn't really catching me.

Sad movie news.. Peter O'Tool dies, aged 81.