Raithe

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...

With a damn good soundtrack. If you like orchestral scores that pluck at the soul.

For another classic example.. One of the key reasons why the UK was still having to deal with rationing up until the mid-50's.. was that the UK was the only country that the US demanded repay the war loans they'd given us. Now, I don't object to paying back a loan.. but when the US basically said "don't worry bout paying it back" to every other country they'd given loans to.. but demanded that the UK pay back.. it does kind of smack of a bit of a strange relationship for such "bosom buddies". And for a funny point in how things can totally filter through society... The Great Escape.. a classic film, but made during one of those low-points in the American-UK relationship. And all the key English cast get killed off by the end of the movie.. while the Americans survive...

To put one possible spin on it, Obama's father did grow up in British Occupied Kenya didn't he? (and with all the fuss and bother, there's the hint that Obama was born there as well.. although that's a whole nother matter... ). So there's that possible reason for his continued snarkyness over the Brits. Of course, I like how all his speeches Obama has made sure to say "British Petroleum" rather then BP. Trying to highlight the british connection mayhaps. Although technically the company changed the name to just BP years ago.... And yes, Bhopal.. how many people dead? How many birth defects resulted from it? And which government protected the company owners and refused to extradite the CEO who jumped bail in India? I know a lot of Americans and get on well with them, but frankly, their government does tend to be really quite slapworthy.

But we got some great episodes of MASH out of it. Although a lot of the MASH episodes were inspired by events that happened during Vietnam rather then strictly Korea... (just for the pedantic trivia...)

Okay, is it me, or are things being a little weird again... The US senate has attempted to "order" Jack Straw, and a couple of other MP's to appear to answer some questions regarding the release of the Lockerbie bomber.. and are causing a bit of a stink over their refusal to do so (please note, however much I dislike the annoying people who were the Labour government then, they had nothing to do with that.. it was the Scots who decided to conduct the release). However, when the inquest into the legality of Blair stepping into the Iraq War was happening over here and the Americans were invited to attend.. they ignored. For both the Iraq War and the Gulf War a few years before.. when the Americans were asked to come along to the inquests into several "friendly fire" incidents where American troops shot up British troops.. they ignored all requests and never showed up. The moment it's the other way.. then they cause a bit of a fuss because the Brits won't go to America when told to... Don't yah just love it?

You say it like it's a bad thing. Be sure to take a ride on one of those upright gas canisters, aim the grapple at the top part and then shoot it. It's one thing to do it when you want to do a crazy stunt thing.. but when you're chasing someone in a car ahead of you... they take a sharp corner.. you react automatically by trying to do a handbreak turn to follow them.. but forget to hit x instead of space and go flying off in some other direction.... It's got a mix of fun and some annoyance factors.. But wide open and crazy explosions count for the good Plus it's a damn pretty island...

Put Just Cause 2 on for the weekend.. some fun explosions.. but the habit of hitting space for a handbreak is really ingrained... so I keep meaning to do handbreak turns and end up parachuting out....