Raithe

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.

Woke up to the joys of having slept in a position that gave me a totally dead arm.. It's always fun trying to flop around and get some sensation and movement back in a limb....

Ah, have you seen the old british tv mini-series Ultraviolet? Jack Davenport, Idris Elba, Phillip Quast, Susannah Harker - In an interesting take on vampires in the modern age. They did it in, hm '98 or so. Works quite nicely, done in a mostly understated way. Davenport plays a policeman who gets pulled into a secret government organisation that hunts Vampires after his best friend goes missing on the night before the guys wedding. Elba is the hard core squaddie who survived a vampire attack during the Gulf war that killed the rest of his mates, Quast plays the philosophical priest who leads the team, and Susannah Harker as the science type supporting them.. During the entire series they never actually use the term "Vampire" either... Nice elements of horror / conspiracy and a few other things thrown in the mix.

Did you have anything against 5th Element?

Lockout. Otherwise known as "Spaaace Jaaaail!". It does pretty much come across as an "Escape from New York" variant, with Guy Pearce as "Snow" the ex-government agent replacing Plisken, and a giant space station replacing New York as the prison. And they've kept the "president's daughter" in there... Cheerfully fun in that cheesey, watch it without taking anything too seriously sense. It's an excuse for two characters to be running around and nearly making it through locked doors while being chased by extreme prisoners driven partially insane by the cryo-stasis used to store them... In many ways, there's not so much a flow of dialogue, as a flow of snarky comments - especially from the "hero" but that works with this type of movie. Not sure that I'd say it's worth a trip to the cinema, but it's up there for a dvd night with the mates and some drinks.

Hah! I watched and enjoyed. Technically I got pulled into it by the gilfriend at the time. Since then I've developed a sincere appreciation for it. You might not like it, but JMS is fairly influential in certain areas...

For the wall of text - something that amused me during a description of exposure to vacuum in space.

I know a few people so I'm giving it some thought. Heh, of course that's turned out to be an interesting issue - ordering a Kindle and Amazon will automatically set it up to your account unless you tell them it's a gift. So several have been stolen en-route, and the thieves get to buy books and such via the Kindle since they weren't set up with passwords or wotnot. Although that was some months ago, not sure if they've solved that problem yet...

See, my parents got me into reading when they gave me Enid Blyton books when I was around 5. Since then.. I've just collected a steady growth. Last time I took a full count (not including rpg books or comics/graphic novels) I had just under 6,000. That was about hm. 3 or 4 years ago.

Yeesh. Caught a bit of a documentary about "Extreme Couponing". Okay, spending a "minimum" of 35 hours a week on collecting/arranging/organising coupons, so you can go and do massive shopping sprees that end up costing you $0.. and having hordes of stuff you don't actually use for years if at all.... That's a point where you aren't "saving money" just losing a serious chunk of your life. If the choice is spending a hundred bucks or so, and getting 35 hours of your life back... Edit: Hm, and my mothers kindle is starting to go. The battery isn't lasting as long as it should and it doesn't let you switch the thing off. Or rather you can..but then it'll randomly switch itself on or into standby mode over the course of a night.. And kind of annoyed with Amazon about it - looking at the possibilities of picking up a replacement, the UK versions cost ridiculously more then buying it in the US. And Amazon.com no longer allows you to buy them and get it shipped across to the UK (which is how I got it for her birthday about 3 years ago). I mean, seriously, Kindle Touch 3G in the US = $149. Or.. in the UK =

See, back the other year when I emptied my room out to redecorate.. I ended up utilising the front room to pile my "library" in.. And this is what it looked like:

And with good insulation..the heating bills will drop a fair bit over the winter...