Raithe

I have to admit, I can normally take or leave Russel Brand. Sometimes he can be amusing but othertimes he just leaves me cold. But this time around.. it's quite entertaining. During an interview on american tv (Morning Joe) he does the standard joke around to a point. Then he begins to get annoyed that they're pretending they can't understand him, getting his name wrong, and referring to him as "he" as if he wasn't in the same room as they were.. At about the 5:30 mark he promptly takes over the show and presents how professionals should be acting. http://youtu.be/jKti4DkqXJs

So sounds like a plan. Get suited up, hit the Randolph for afternoon tea, then onto the Ritz for ****tails? I went with the Ritz first because I've had a few friends say they do a rather amazing and non-ridiculously costing afternoon tea... But if we have someone who has made the proper comparisons...

I can't get scones any more. Grandmothers and mum are dead. And before anyone says it: I'm not baking my own scones. If I'm going to go gay it'll be done properly, with plenty of drugs and parties. Ah-hah! Next time we're all up in London, High tea at the Ritz.. Great scones with lashings of jam and cream..

Errands. Laundry. Lots of laundry. Household chores, running back and forth with the dogs. Dealing with an attention seeking/brush seeking cat. Hoovering. Mom's having a few bad days, and her pain issues are kicking in bad today as well. So regular heating up of wheaty-bag-doohickies that she can put against her joints for some help, and making sure her meds are available. Have to head out this afternoon to help pick up a new mobility buggy as well, supposedly this one will fit in the back of her car so she can take it out with her. So then it'll be figuring out exactly how it folds down, how easy it really will be for mom to use it, sorting out ramps to get it on/off the car, and then making sure there's space and area in the garage for it... Currently taking a moment for a cup of tea and a warm scone.

Went to a bbq. Well, it was actually a big kind of "post wedding celebration for the friends and family that couldn't make it to the wedding in Mexico" type of thing. Involved various beers, port and cigars. Ended around a big fire in the yard. Also included tequila and axe throwing. Yes. In that order.

The random playlists suddenly threw up the "Classic Rock Love Songs" selection... Nazareth, Deep Purple, Whitensake, Billy Idol, Roxette, Skid Row, Motley Crue, Meatloaf, Mr Mister and the assorted others.. Man, that just suddenly threw me into nostalgia and remembered break-ups from the far past.

I simply can't get over the sheer lunacy of suggesting the Spartans should be held up as heroes of freedom and justice. It's complete nonsense. They had the morals of a hungry wolfpack! But they did have a lot of good "female equality" as well as being utter bastards to their helot slaves.. They considered a woman dying in childbirth to be the equivalent of a man dying in battle...

Just for Oby..

While everyone's psyching up for Superman.. I'm pondering when I'll be able to get a chance at catching Much Ado About Nothing.. http://youtu.be/AAMsDP_DMHE http://youtu.be/4Bvva_cplAs innerspace - Much Ado About Nothing

This better also come as a cheap upgrade for those who already own the game. They were intentionally vague on the way the non-WiiU versions are going to be released, I think a part of it is that they're looking at the technical options. Obviously, if you're going to have the graphical engine rewritten, it might not be something doable in a patch. OTOH, if they release it as a Blood Dragon price level stand alone game... I could live with it, but I'm sure a lot of other people would throw a hissy. Just to be clear. I'm speaking about the PC version. I assumed as much, but I think it's unlikely they'll, say, give a free patch to PC users and not to console gamers, even if it would be technically viable in one case and not in the others, and sort of unrealistic to expect it. A selling point seems to be different kinds of developer commentaries you can turn on in the menus (that pop up at the relevant parts in the game, looking like infolink messages)... Squeenix could be testing different models in the franchise (see the ipad game), so they might go as far as see how many people would be ready to cough up for a movie type "double dip". I mean, I'll go on record now that I'm ready to play 20 euros for this with the features I've seen, if it's a new disc release and especially if it takes advantage of the blu-ray's availabe space, unlike the original version. The fact that I have basically 0 games I'm looking forward to for the rest of the year might be adding to my willingness, but still. Semi-related. That Order whachamacallit and Watch Dogs have been the two games I've been eyeing for release/near it purchases. Not sure if they've announced release dates for either one of those just yet. Might be a really dry year for gaming purchases... Well, think about how they did the Missing Link DLC. That pretty much installs itself as a "seperate" game as is because of the changes to the engine they'd made, so I'd guess the Director's Cut would most likely be similar if it's done as an "update" style of dlc.

Urg. Something kept waking me up throughout the night. So presently I am staggering through the morning in a sleep deprived haze clutching at mugs of tea in an attempt to achieve some form of brain wakefulness.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Light entertainment, a few smiles, a bit of magic,with Steve Carrol, Steve Buscemi, and Jim Carey doing fairly solid performances with what they've got and Olivia Wilde adding a touch of sex appeal, whilst Alan Arkin, James Gandolfini and a bunch of others flesh out the support. Unfortunately the main character isn't that likeable for most of the film, so that loses out some of the appeal, and the script seems a little choppy. With the talent they had, they really should have been able to get something a lot better.

Hm, realised that for the past week or so I've actually pretty much only been eating one meal a day and surviving on many cups of tea. I need to start keeping an eye on that..

I ask you, is this: the face of innocence?

Heh,a guy I know watched "A Clockwork Orange" for the first time in his life over the weekend. He was all "Why the **** didn't you guys warn me about this film??"

Ros, that pretty much screams out as a "Lex Luthor" moment kidnapping Lois Lane. Just what are you up to???

On book news.. Iain M Banks is now deceased, and has joined that great library in the sky...

I think that's where you fail to pick up the extreme Englishness of Dredd.. You see him as bland, where he's more a force of nature who lives purely by a set of white/black rules and never compromises them. The Stallone film was fun as a movie, and it tends to follow the more zany elements of the comic, but it lost out the grittyness that always balanced out the wacky in that quest to make it all summer blockbuster popcorn action. Dredd 3D leaves the wackyness and focuses more on the extreme crime and core nature of the Judges. The new Dredd drives back to what Dredd actually is. In most stories the protagonist undergoes some form of character evolution, they change and learn something from what they've undergone. In Dredd, there's only one thing that changes. That's his willingness to accept that Anderson has what it takes to become a Judge. Apart from that, he's exactly the same type of character that started the film. Stern, unforgiving, exact in what he does, and pretty much the walking stiff-upper lip. You see the villainess as one note and boring, and I think they captured the idea of that type of gang leader quite well. Former prostitute turned underworld crimelord by being smarter and more vicious then anyone around her. There might be certain elements of cliche to it, but that doesn't make it one note. It comes down to perception and what you take away. You took away that, I came out with a different view. Stallone Dredd - fun but silly. amusing lines and cheesy action. Entertaining and I wouldn't flip the channel if I found it on tv. Dredd 3D - enjoyable, grim, mayhaps a little claustrophic, captured the Dredd I know from the comics. One I plan to get the dvd of sometime in the near future.

Finished off Remember Me. Eh, yeah, flawed but interesting. That's where I'm going to settle on it. Very linear, very little actually getting to "feel" the world around you even if it does look quite glossy and nice in the background. One thing that's kind of disapointing is that the whole "remix people's memories" thing that they were pushing, only happens 4 times in the game and is strictly story related. I was hoping there'd be something a bit more to it then that. There's some cluky dialogue, although I have to say that the voice work for Nilin is pretty damn good at capturing the mix of emotions through the story. The "your choice of combining these moves in all sorts of wonderful ways" really isn't that impressive, and the combat starts to bog down at a couple of points where it's all "swarms of enemy".

And the French are still annoyed that it's based off GMT and not Paris time.. It seems every decade or so they make another attempt to get it changed...

Well from my understanding, the author of the book actually based half the characters on people he knew. And especially around a girl he'd been in love with but couldn't do anything about because of the difference in social levels and money.