Raithe

On a book related note.. Darrell K. Sweete died. 1934-2011. While you might not recognise the name, he illustrated an amazing amount of sci-fi and fantasy books over the years. Tor - Darrell K. Sweete

Kind of late there, buddy. Dang, it's always the little things that slip your notice.. my bad.

And just in time for that Christmas season, and that spirit of good will on earth and to all men.. - Left Behind: Eternal Forces A game that's all set to ship to around 10,000 retailers across America, aimed to be a "beacon of light that could shine in the dark world of video games", where the player is a member of a "christian gang" in a post-apocalyptic New York and you have to convert or kill jews, athiests and other unsavoury types in the employ of the Anti-Christ to advance a level.

What can you say, whoevery it was, they were an "artist". And on other points.. Beta Test brought in over 2 million players

And for the ultimate in geek points.. the guy who made a photomosaic of the TOR loading screen.. using screen shots of his time in Beta testing..

Steamcleaned the downstairs carpets yesterday.. This afternoon the puppy threw up on them.

Did you never see the original Thomas Crown Affair? Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway have one of the most seductive chess games you'll ever see... But for the funny..

Not being a great monday start. That lurking headache, general tiredness and a feeling of depression making it kind of hard to find my oomph today. The wind is cutting coldly outside, the pooches are being up and down. My thoughts seem to be skittering rather then producing work. Found that mom forgot to order up her prescription last week, so now we're out of some of her meds and have to try to get them tomorrow. But I've got some warm bread pudding that gran made, and a fresh cup of tea. So I shall see whether that manages to roll the day onto a better direction.

And in movie land.. some great quotes from Terry Gilliam in a recent interview Terry Gilliam on Tintin and Transformers...

Got my sister to take out the dogs for many hours..and then steam-cleaned the carpets downstairs.. If the timing works, they should all be dry by the time she and the animals get back... Then I'll have to give some thought to getting the decorations out of the attic and put the tree up at some point this week...

Caught a replay of the "Women of Sci-Fi Calender documentary" from a few years back, which was..quirkily interesting Michael Shanks (aka Daniel Jackson of Stargate SG1 fame) apparently came up with the idea, and Christopher Judge (Teal'c of SG1) is a photographer in his spare time. The whole assortment of Sci-Fi shows filmed in Vancouver being really quite familial, they got a bunch of their friends and relatives to turn up and be the stars of a Sci-Fi calendar. Kind of amusing the behind the scenes and seeing them chatting and acting as their real selves rather then the assortment of characters they're so known for by the fans. But yes, the likes of Erica Durance (known more for Smallville, but also guest starred on SG-1 and other sci-fi) happens to be married to Judge's brother. Shanks is married to Lexa Doig (of Andromeda fame), and then they pulled in friends from the various shows they all work in .. So Teryl Rothery, Ona Grauer, Laura Bertram, Rachel Luttrell, Brandy Ledford... Some interesting background chat, and just how interrelated it all gets. Also having these actresses who were all "wow, modelling pinup style for the cameras is a lot of hard work in its way"

And I played on an East Coast US server over the beta stress weekend with no problems.

And now they've done the announcement that all game testing will end this weekend. This upcoming Sunday at 23:59 cst. Thats it, the game will be wrapped and on its way to finalisation..

I've used the game launcher to update it , but alas, no "play" button for me at the moment... I guess that's the system until early access kicks in, putting on the launcher to catch the updates in a semi-regular fashion until the final release is out...

An amusing review of Saints Row from Rock Paper Shotgun

Hm, between the weather and the dogs the garden has turned into a veritable mud-pit. Joys. Trying to figure out when I can get my sister to take them out for 4 hours or so, then I can get the cleaner out and have a big go at the carpets before we get the christmas decorations out. Pondering where to put the tree.. Having the joys of a lingering headache to keep me company this morning, and I seem to having a case of brain-dead about writing up a case-study style documentation type of thing.

Replaying Saints Row and picking some of the alternate mission endings just to see how that shapes things up. That and having moments of stress relief with utter chaos, mayhem and a little weirdness in the game.

Unfortunately , it's a BBC thing, each episode is about 90 minutes, and there were only three episodes for the first season.

A brief look at some of the shifts in ME3 combat ..

MMOMFG - A ToR preview based on several weeks on the Beta..

I find it quirky that there's that whole "show skin/flash flesh" and people get considered to have lower intelligence, lower self-control etc.. And I'm thinking of the various girls I knew at university who were studying to be doctors, nurses, etc... who paid their bills by working at some of the.. a.. gentleman's clubs in the area.

It was a quite nifty series. The second episode is generally considered the weakest, but the third when Moriarty comes into play was rather brilliant. And there is going to be a second season. And for the random trivia, the guy who played Mycroft? Is also one of the writers of the show..

Having another doodle-around on Saints Row the Third causing chaos and mayhem. I've got all of the Fallout New Vegas dlc now added, so at some point when I'm in the right mood I should start that up again.. but like Hurl, I find I'm waiting for TOR to release so I can jump back into that after my weekend run...

And for the quirky science.. The Psychology of Nakedness...

It's always fun to struggle with those moments of creative genius. Most especially when you can pull the draft of a brief together in a very short time.. and then when you sit down to rework a few sections, make the summary snappy, and then produce a companion document ... you end up shuffling a few words around over hours and not having any of it actually sound right...