Raithe

It's not like you could actually fire that many rounds through an M60 without barrel droop and premature cookoff... or so I've heard. At least the video clips of the "new" M60E was quite suitably impressive a few years back..

Okay, for the slightly bizarre pondering.. The random thought struck me on whether it's actually possible to create a new "nation" as it were in this day and age. I'm not talking about the natural evolution of countries to grow, split, change politics and wotnot. I mean more in the lines of.. if you got a few hundred folk together and settled on some uninhabited island that isn't under any countries control, could you declare it an independent nation? Creating an artificial "culture" or general differences to other societies? What would it take to do so and be recognised as such? Established infrastructure and government? Legal issues in ownership? Having some folks say "yes, we've created a new nation, now the UN must recognise us." ? Would the people there still be viewed as whatever "nationality" they'd originally been? But still, throwing the floor open to general thoughts on the subject...

And they've got Karl Urban as Dredd. And the man loathes wearing helmets. Apparently it's become one of those amusing in-jokes in hollywood that he keeps getting into films where his character is supposed to be all helmeted. And he always finds reasons why he can get away without..

For the weird.. The reference of "May the Fourth Be With You" was first used.. by the Tory party as a bit of advertising/pr back in 1979 for one of Maggie Thatcher's election. Having it turn into a recognised geek cultural thing came yeears later. Actually decades..

Star Wars Day - May the Fourth be With you..

Since it's May the 4th.. I'm pondering if I can get away with doing bugger all work effort, and spending large chunks of the day playing Star Wars games instead..

For the nature shot... I can't quite decide if it's all the Shadowrun or just this view that make me want to visit Crater Lake at some point..

Hm, although looking at Amazon to check on some book release dates and I see Space Marine is going for

I'm not quite sure what happened today. After spending large chunks of yesterday hiding from the headache.. I sat down to achieve some work.. started having a poke at reading and understanding some things from Prince2, ITIL, and Modaf..and somehow ended up going to project managent and then onto Arcologies, Future Architecture, and the assorted basic sciences, methodologies and funky art surrounding them...

And who has been following anything about Masdar City? A solid attempt at a "proto-arcology" style city.. Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company working with the British architectural firm Fosters and Sons have been working on this for a few years now.. Even though the finished date has been pushed back by a decade..they're still cheerfully developing and building it. BBC Fast:Track - Masdar City http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyghLnbp20U&feature=related

Ah, actually that's kind of a subtle disguise. It's actually a way to sneak in on the whole Rogun the Butcher arc of the storyline.

For the totally random Interest - What are peoples favourite time periods/places and why? Are we going to focus on a decade in the 20th century, or ancient history? Various Empires or just periods of growth and mythology? In the midst of my assorted science and related matters and courses, I took Classics at college and wound up with a wide range of Ancient Greek and Rome battering around in my brain (that and too many years role-playing has scattered my interests all over the place). I've travelled through Cairo and walked around the Sphinx, even taken entrance into one of the Great Pyramids (they're suprisingly cool on the inside) which has helped expand my Ancient Civilisation interests.. (that and probably playing waay too much Civilisation as I grew up...). Hell, take the slide into the early Phoenicians, the ruins at Crete - If you ever get to look at Knossos Palace and the likelihood that it's behind the early stories of the Labyrinth... Even the wanderings into Mesopotamia and the growth of Sumeria, Babylon... The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire - Politics, Intrigue, Treachery, Warfare, Lies, Sex and an amazing amount of letters and firm records of it all going on... Even the split of the East/West Roman Empire. Byzantine Rome turning more Greek and the battles they had with the Persians.. I've also enjoyed the wanderings around the Topkapi Palace (the treasure rooms and harem are amazingly fun) and that expanded my enjoyment of the Ottoman period.. Ever since reading Shogun, I've had a certain love interest in medieval Japan - combined with interest in philosophy and martial arts its just interesting to see how a culture develops and wars.. In a similar manner, the Warring Period of early China and the unification of the Warring States.. hell, if you can't enjoy the period in which Sun Tzu gave us the Art of War... Or to sidestep onwards.. Renaissance Italy. The Artists, the Politicians, The Clergy, The Moneylenders and the Scientists... "You know what the fellow said

I recently stumbled on this, referencing one of my favourite cult movies of all time. "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzaii Across the 8th Dimension!" It's a video of Kevin Smith at the NY Film Festival a few months back talking about how this movie shifted his worldview and has both Peter Weller and John Lithgow along to talk about their experiences in making it waaay back in '84. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8R8wmlggwc * Warning, it's Kevin Smith so some of the language might not be the cleanest...

Yes, why can't he be normal and go over the same circular piracy discussion every month, instead?! No, why can't he find a site that he could share those photos without fear...

Stabbing painful over the eye headache. Laid in bed all morning in the dark. Came down for a cup of tea, some paracetamol, checking emails for any emergencies, then disapearing back to the dark and hoping the dog doesn't eat the cat.

Escape from New York is a classic. Its a cheesy, poking fun at itself classic, but it's worth watching at the cinema any chance you get. Films that pretty much rip it off, even if they're fun films themselves, don't necessarily deserve cinema viewing.

Heh, that reminds me.. one of my friends is getting married. The bride is Mexican, so the plan is for the English side to head out there for the actual wedding. In discussing whether to hold the bachelor party in the UK, or in Mexico, the groom was saying he wasn't sure strippers is the best route and that maybe we should just go for a hunting cabin, beer and such like. The bride overhears and isn't that happy with the idea of killing small animals. Groom asks her if she'd prefer he spent the night with strippers around and she was kind of "eh" on it. So he stopped, had that whole "lightbulb over head" expression and went with "Okay, let's combine the two. We can go to Las Vegas and kill a Hooker!"

Word of God is that the actors playing Londo and G'kar tossed a coin to decide who was going to be the "bad" guy ... and from a general perspective, they're both so well written with the way they evolve, it's hard to tell who you could say is "bad" or "good"...

I can't seem to stir much gaming enthusiasm at the moment. Or at least, what I do stir tends to slide into TOR play. Waiting on ME3 dlc stuff before I get back to that.. I haven't turned on steam in about a month.. And I've got a batch of Saints Row the Third to actually amuse myself with at some point.. but eh.. mood.

And for the news related commentary..

It's one of those things, the pilot episode has some really bad special effects by todays standards.. But at the same time, B5 as a whole helped break the ground for developing good special effects (for the 90's) on a tv series budget rather then needing a movie budget. I wouldn't say the effects make or break it, since a lot of it is more about the characters, the dialogue, and the effects of their actions more then big action flash. Although like any sci-fi show, they do have their action sequences and space combat. It was also a break from standard shows in that JMS developed it with a plot that ran through 5 years. It wasn't episodic in the standard sense. There were a bunch of episodes you could enjoy watching on their own, but the majority of it was geared around a continuing flow of story and character growth - and that was one of the things that turned off some people from watching it. There were some highly entertaining/enjoyable characters in it, especially as you watched them develop. It does come across more as an ensemble cast then strictly about a couple of heroic figures - although the networks insisted on one shift, that led to a bit more light put on the human Captain - But they still had the rest putting in a fairly equal shine in the long run. The story runs from 2258-2262, based on the Babylon 5 space station. Set a little after an accidental war that nearly destroyed them, the humans try to establish a way to ensure that doesn't happen again by creating a place for all races to talk on neutral ground. The cast based around the human command crew, and the various "key" alien ambassadors and aides. So the five dominant races and then the assorted minor ones.. All shown with a fairly rich background and perspectives, all trying to get what's best for their species. As expected, a fair chunk of politics kicks along, races that don't like each other, have gruge history, conspiracies and assorted fun and games. Throw in the reveal of a pair of "Elder Races" that manipulate the younger races in an ongoing war of philosophy (Pretty much the split of "Law & Order" vs "Chaos and Growth") and levels of xenophobia versus cooperative good. JMS hits a lot of political / social landscapes in the stories and does the usual sci-fi poke at "modern themes and events". General exploration of war, peace, sacrifice, authoritarianism, free will, unrequited love, duty and all that. JMS actually wrote around 90+ of the total 100 and someodd episodes, so it's all pretty coherent and tied together. And he put in a whole bunch of red herrings and emergency trap doors in the storyline so he could react to external pressures and demands (such as if an actor left or such like) and still have the storylines make sense.

No. The Shadows and Vorlons were pretty consistent throughout, and even the reveal of Lorien in the 4th season wasn't close to the level of Radiant Youth/Starchild/Godchild. Because they thought it was going to be cancelled at the 4th season, JMS basically crunched the storyarc of the 4th and 5th season into one.. and then they got the notice that they were in fact getting a 5th year. So he stretched out the "post vorlon-shadow" war thing and sketched the "birthing pangs" of the Alliance. Kind of took a step back from that grand "elder aliens manipulating" and took a walk on "youngsters finally growing up" edge.

As a continuation later in the day... Trying to read some things and develop some work. But so far, meh. Something just isn't focusing and tis a day that's making it all mental scattering rather then striking genius...

The US actually shot a pilot episode for a Stateside version, and they even had Idris Elba taking a role in it. But apparently it never got picked up..

Oh, no. Not so much arguing against it just.... It's not a film I'd go to the cinema to see. It's a film I'd enjoy watching with mates around, a few drinks, and a big screen tv as we enjoy the cheesey entertainment. It's Escape from New York done today. Good, fun, not overly complicated, a chunk of snark, some amusing violence. It is what it is.