Raithe

Now I'm stuck pondering on just what it would be like if hollywood went musical and did A Shoggoth on the Roof... "Tentacles!!"

Survived along a bit with a grinding headache.. caught Inception.. waiting to hear news because my father got taken into hospital due to intense pains rotating around his stomach and kidneys. Apparently his appendix is inflamed, but they don't know if that's the cause or if it's simple kidney stones or other things.. They took him off in an ambulance with the words "it might be a few hours because he's not in life threatening situation" but we still haven't heard anything. Not even sure if we'll have to pick him up today, or whether he's going to spend a few days there... The slightly twisted black humourist inside me is doing the "if worst comes to the worst, does this mean I'll have to start collecting two "primary carers allowance" from the government...

On another slightly perception thing.. Forgetting the whole was the entire film a dream or not... The totem's as used weren't a definitive "reality/dream" identifier... they were meant to be warning items that someone else was creating the dream.. which had to mean if the totem didn't feel or act "right" then it meant that person wasn't in reality, and wasn't in their own dream. Arthur's "only I know the specific weight/balance of this loaded die, and no-one else handles it and would know how it feels." Also represented by the way Sato realises it's a dream within a dream because the carpet isn't a proper wool... (hm, an entire carpet used as a pseudo-totem.....) They never said that Cobb was using the spinning top as his own totem.. just that he liked playing with his ex-wifes totem and kept it with him..

Have to say, Saint's Row 2 did remind me of the outright fun/enjoyment you could have in a sandbox game after GTAIV kind of dragged it down...

Finished off some shelving.. then dealt with the joys of sorting out the dvd library now there's storage for it.. Worked on a little plumbing issue... repairing taps ..then found out the waste pipe to that sink has a slight crack..but it's an old lead pipe so thats a bit of a pain to deal with. Heh, and the house is old enough that the stop**** for the water is about 6 inches from some electricity junctions.... Downloaded and installed C# Express, have to sit down and try getting some refresh on how things work..

Heh, I've got the "Complete Recordings" of all three LoTR films... put them on my ipod and if I try playing them back to back its about 10 hours of music... Good for putting on low in the background when going to sleep..

Hm, I didn't think he was there seemed to be plenty of things he reacted to that could only be seen.. the twist was just that the book was But that might just be me missing some other clue...

Decided to give DA: Awakenings a try... firmly not as grindworthy as Origins was.. so far it feels like the pacing is a lot better. I'd say the VO is fairly good quality.. but the one problem I have is that one actor provides a bunch of voices.. and one of them is a significant character... It's one thing when it's a bunch of random one line npc's in the background.. but when it includes the Senschal you talk to, one of the bad guys, and a few others.. it gets a bit noticable. Can't think of the guy's name, but I'll always remember him for playing Giles old friend in the Ripper/Janus episode of Buffy tVS..

On a totally random tangent that's flipping back to DA:O ... Alistair as King.. has gone through the Joining and as such, is going to suffer through the whole.. Warden's don't reach old age, and generally have to kill themselves off because the darkspawn blood causes them to 'change'. Relating to that, was there any lore mentioned as to how having gone through the Joining will effect any future kids you have? I mean.. as King he's got to get some heirs in or there's all sorts of trouble for the monarchy... Or was that point totally skipped over? Of course, with DA 2 stretching out to a 10 year time frame post DA:O events.. it's possible that is something that could turn up in the background story.. the King's son/daughter being affected in some strange way ...

I've had the collective Babylon 5 scores running in the background today.. Christpher Franke did good work..

Well they were "contemporary detective novels" mostly when they were originally written... The new Sherlock series is actually quite well done for shifting it to the current day. Although they do use a lot of the pseudo-victorian style fiddle type music for background...

Walsingham, speaking from experience (having been on both sides of the fence on this one) just having a friend remind you that they're there if you need them is helpful with depression. The careful nod of "I'm around if you need to vent. Or just for general company if you need it." can have a definite boost. The trick is always finding the balance of being there without making them feel like you're constantly trying to push into that personal bubble. There's that wonderful screwed up area when you don't want to deal with people that much, and having friends and family constantly push to get in can just put your back up and make you even more resistant.. And then there are days when you don't want to deal with people, and having them push slightly can get you out and about and feeling better. It can be a bit of a crapshoot on what it turns out like. On a seperate note, finished off a bit of the redecorating today.. a little bit of diy and assorted fixing doors to new base units and wall units put in... Chasing up that meds were had on time, and then catching up on some tv watching that has been stacking up for awhile.. (the last few episodes of Fringe season 2)... hm, and bugger. Just realised I missed the new episode of Sherlock that was on tonight..

It has a bunch of cool characters and the vampires are vampires instead of emo boys for teens. I find it quite sexy and gory, well written, and with an ok plot. Some plotlines are better than others but that's what happens in these sorts of shows. Jason Stackhouse, Eric Northman, and Lafayette are all really great characters. I had a problem getting into it.. but then I was coming at it as someone who has read the books... So while I can intellectually recognise why some of the changes were made and why they suit a tv version better.. it just doesn't click right for me. That and the central plots kind of dragged out, and the cheap sex seemed to get thrown in every episode as a way to show off some nudity... but it had a damn good theme tune...

Finished off Red Faction Guerilla.. Kind of having a burn out on Just Cause 2... Not sure what sort of mood I'm in to dabble on games in the background at the moment...

It all depends on which period you talk about.. back in Henry VIII day, England was the grand cuisine center of the known (european) world... The Victorian era had a lot of wide influences brought back.. but it's really been the 20th century that's seen us slide back to the view of bad food by the rest of the world...

Hm, maybe we need to send Ubisoft a few boxes of condoms. "We might be getting shafted, but you better use some protection..."

There is much to be said, for a well made breakfast fryup on a day thats cold, wet, and you have to put in a lot of physical work... It just doesn't work so well if you're stuck as an office drone. But, the UK style of cooking is rather eclectic. We have a broad based history in treating our food like our language. We rifle every other culture we meet , adopt and assimilate. For remember... "We are the anglo-saxon collective. Your linguistic and cultural differences will be adapted to our own. Lower your pants and prepare to be boarded."

We just have to be careful of turning this thread into a North / South flame war There's a long and storied reason behind it , but the Southerners tend to get viewed as more prissy, over-cultured, and slightly effeminate... and the Northeners have the uncivilized, struggling to be men's men while swigging beer stereotype. And even government forms these days seem to hide the term 'English' for any box-ticking that needs doing.. Then tend to give the choice of putting Irish, Scottish, Welsh, or British... which is a touch annoying.

I can agree with a lot of that.. There were flaws, but they didn't interrupt the enjoyment of the game..or its replayability. Maybe it'll follow in the style of Deus Ex, become a cult thing and get a sequel in a few years time..

To go with the pop culture reference.. (that might pass over a few heads..) "Of course! Lager! Nothing kills a vindaloo like lager." The reason for the cliche over conversations on weather over here.. is because it can change so damn fast. Dialects. Yes, the difference in regional dialects is extreme. Stick someone from Southampton in a room with people from Glasgow, Cardiff, York, London, and Manchester.. they will have a bloody hard time holding a conversation everyone understands. Oh yes, with the old buildings.. half my city still has Norman walls.. and pre-Normal fortifications around the place.. and of course a lot of the buildings are around a century old at the least. Well, apart form the stuff that was bombed out during the war. Very few private houses are built with any form of a/c whatever.. but most will have radiators for the winter.. Our monarchy has been fairly equal opportunity for a fair while now... whether to be a King or Queen doesn't really matter. There have been the occasional discussions/suggestions made that with the age of Charles , they might skip from the Queen to Prince William.. which I think would be a shame. From what I've seen, Charles would make a fine King. * Oh, one thing that threw me when I visited the States, drivers can go through a red light if they were turning right... Key thing is not over here.. that would cause a crapload of accidents.. Retraining for our roads is a key event. I've seen friends and relations who were visiting the UK from abroad get seriously scared when they were in cars going around winding country roads that were barely wide enough for two... and had hedgerows so you could barely see more then 40 feet ahead...

I know Reading is supposed to be one of the IT heavy areas in the country.. A lot of Software/Hardware companies seem to be around that area..

Hey, I'd like to say.. we have good food in England. The Scots, Welsh, and Irish aren't too bad for grub either. Its the joys of culture, what's good to one group is completely upchuckable to another.... Well, the Labour government had been screwing things over for the past decade so there's still the recovery from that.. there's the dangers of how much the EU is infringing to deal with as well... Also, local prices can shift a lot depending on whether your North or South. There's also a bit of a stereotypical cultural divide there as well.. traditionally the North was a lot of the heavy industry and the South was more commercial. Much as we enjoy poking fun at our own weather, it tends to be highly variable.. as the saying goes, "other countries have a climate, where the UK has weather." Steer clear of London, it's hellaciously expensive. The rest of it.. well, there are pros and cons in lots of ways. Are you wanting to be heavily in the urban environment, or on the outskirts of a city? Or slide a bit more into the "country environment" that's spread around?

I hope the narrative will be similar to what AP did with Leland. If it is, then I'll be less concerned about that aspect of the game. If they manage to put something in similar to Leland telling you events that he thought had happened..but you'd done something different and they managed to have Mike smirking slightly in the background... That was a nice touch. It's that sort of thing that raises the bar for other games to meet.. and it would be nice if Bioware could pull it off.

I was half-reading it as the whole.... embellishing narrators as an excuse to make the action much more..cinematic. Sort of a whole "yes, we know you can't actually spin around 15 times with a sword in each hand and cut a swathe through a horde of darkspawn while hopping on one foot... but we're going to give you a quick button that lets you pull off that maneouver because it's not you, it's someone telling your story later...." So rather then the grim, gritty, and closer to reality (that magic wielding fantasy worlds can potentially be) physical world, they can make things just a touch more.. cinematic silly with that narration device.

Hm.. I haven't gotten around to playing the expansion for DA yet.. I think the grind to finish DA:O might have sapped me somewhat... But I do find the idea of a ten year span for the sequel to be interesting.. Putting a bigger shift on potential character development and just how you might be able to affect the world around you over that time frame... Might make me start poking the DA bandwagon again...