Is there food?

What is the point of [this](http://www.horrorchannel.com/dread/modules.php?op= modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2782)?

Near Dark is a great film in so many ways: the direction is superb, the performances from pretty much everyone are faultless, the effects are fantastic (people bursting into flames had never looked so good). Why would anyone, in their right mind, want to remake it?

I hope to God people stop remaking classics and start thinking of some new ideas (or steal old ideas and give them new names - that would be fine).

Serenity has opened in the States, and it looks like it hasn’t done as well as some people had hoped, but it’s not doing badly.

Joss Whedon has responded, and he thinks word of mouth will work it’s magic.

I’m going to go and see what it’s like this weekend, so part 2 of this post will concern itself with my thoughts on it.

And the Land review, like an insatiable army of the undead, is still coming. As is my take on “A History of Violence”.

Sorry about the sidebar wierdness that’s going on (if anyone actually notices that there is any wierdness: move along, nothing to see here, these are not the droids you’re looking for), I’m playing again :)

Ronnie Barker died today.

I grew up on Ronnie Barker. I think “The Two Ronnies” was some of the first comedy I was into, with Porridge, and Open All Hours coming later, as I grew up and caught the repeats (they were slightly before my time). In an age where something as criminally lacking in humour as “Only Fools and Horses” can get as many repeats on the BBC as it does, a comedy with the incredible writing of Porridge really deserves more screen time than it gets. Barker’s performances in Porridge were consistently superb, as were his performances in pretty much anything he turned his hand to.

A sad day, indeed.

Just a quick post with a couple of potentially useful freebies:

• PrimoPDF - A free PDF generator, which could be handy.

• The 46 best-ever Freeware Utilities - Lots of useful stuff, some of which you might already know about, some of which you might not.

Seeing as I’m posting links to things today, let’s have a list of links to all the upcoming zombie movies on my radar:

• Risen

• Infected

• Locked Away

• Boy Eats Girl

• Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis

• Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave

• 28 Weeks Later

Enjoy :)

I said I’d follow up with what I thought of Serenity, so here goes: Go and see Serenity now! Once you’ve been to see it, tell your friends, tell your family, and stop strangers on the street and tell them how good it is. This is one of the best films I’ve seen all year. Even without having seen the series it was based on (Firefly, for anyone that doesn’t know) I was totally blown away by it. It’s written like no other film I’ve seen this year, and while the style might not be too everyone’s tastes (“this is going to get pretty interesting”, “define interesting”, “oh god, oh god, we’re all going to die?”) any film that can include the phrase “twix my nethers” and get away with it is ok in my book. The dialogue has a magnificent feeling of flow and energy that just seems missing from most things I’ve seen this year. Serenity looks fantastic, is brilliantly acted, has action, tension, atmosphere, and comedy in equal measure. I really can’t praise it enough. It’s by far the best thing Joss Whedon has made so far; if his version of Wonder Woman is half as good as Serenity we should be in for a treat (if you’re interested, I have high hopes for Whedon’s version of Wonder Woman, he’s suitably distanced from the franchise thus far to bring too much “baggage”). If this film does well enough, there will be sequels. And if the sequels do well enough, it might make a comeback on TV. I want to see more of these characters. Yes, I know I can - I haven’t watched my dvds of the series yet - but I urge everyone who reads this to check Serenity out. I think you’ll enjoy it!

Apparently, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre has been voted the best horror film of all time.

Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, I do rate TCM very highly. I hate picking favorites, and try to avoid naming them whenever I can. I’m on the fence for this one, I’m afraid.

What I do disagree with is the exclusion of Black Christmas from the list. In my eyes, Bob Clark got there first with this film. It predates Halloween, is scarier and far more disturbing than Carpenter’s “classic”. Halloween is a good film, but Black Christmas is a better film.

And WTF is The Shining doing in the list? Why people rate that so highly, I’ll never know.

Maybe I’ll try to do a top ten myself at some point. If I can force myself to pick 10…

When I was much younger than I am now, I used to have a real passion for “choose your own adventure” books. The idea was you read a few paragraphs, and then you had a choice, for example: “You come to a cliff. If you would like to jump off, turn to page 64. If you want to find another way down, turn to page 136” - you turn to page 64: “You break both of your legs and spend the last few moments of your conscious existence screaming in agony. The end”.

I liked the Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston Fighting Fantasy books, and the Cal Phoenix Freeway Warrior series, but my personal favorite series was “The Way of the Tiger”. This series was far better than all the others thanks to playing the same character throughout. And probably because you got to be a ninja…with shurikens…and other ninja coolness.

What’s better than ninjas? Zombies! It looks like Dead Ends is a “choose your own adventure” book with zombies! They’ve just published chapter 5. I just fell at the first hurdle, but I’ve bookmarked it for another go later…

I’m a big fan of David Cronenberg. Cronenberg, Argento, Romero, and Carpenter are my four favorite all time horror directors. I’ll probably regret saying that at some point; some spectacular piece of horror cinema that I’ve forgotten about will no doubt rear it’s horrifically scarred visage and prompt me to eat my words. In fact, whilst typing that last sentence it already has; I missed Bob Clark off the list. I best move on before I think of any more. I’d heard that A History of Violence wasn’t typical Cronenberg. The trailer certainly gave the impression that it was Cronenberg’s most mainstream film, and in many ways it is. The film focuses on Tom Stall, small town guy, cafe owner and family man. When two road-tripping killers arrive in Tom’s diner, he’s forced to deal with them, an action that brings with it terrible consequences for him and his family. A History of Violence features film stealing performances from Ed Harris and William Hurt, credible performances from Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello, and not enough of Stephen McHattie’s particularly aggressive half of the homicidal duo who decide to rob the wrong diner. On the face of it, it’s a well made action thriller, with good set pieces, some humour, and some gore. Initially, I felt the film ended too soon. After more thought, I don’t think it could have continued much longer than it did. That’s possibly the biggest compliment I can pay to A History of Violence; it didn’t leave me after I walked out of the cinema and back into the light of day. It’s a thought provoking film, and I kept trying to make sense of the film’s message. Cronenberg’s usual themes of infection and body- horror aren’t initially apparent, but after consideration, I think they are present. The film seems to treat violence as a contagious disease, spreading from each of the films characters as they come into contact with each other. The body-horror is served up thanks to the particularly graphic shots of the results of the violence (missing jaw’s, a bloody pulp where a nose used to be, that sort of thing). and whilst it’s not as bizarre as something like The Fly or Videodrome, this still feels like Cronenberg territory. I’d recommend A History of Violence - at the very least it’s a well made, entertaining thriller.

This has taken me so long to write. I thought that seeing George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead twice would make writing something about it easier, but I’m not convinced that it has. I thought for a little while that I might just wait until I’ve got my hands on the dvd and watch it a third time before finishing this post, but I need to get it done. Land of the Dead centres on Riley (Simon Baker), a good man who’s job it is to lead a team of scavengers out into deserted cities to find supplies for his employer, Kaufman. Kaufman lives in Fiddlers Green, a plush tower block inhabited only by society’s elite. Those deemed not worthy of The Green live in squalor in the surrounding city. On his last night out, Riley’s team attract the attention of “Big Daddy”. Smarter than your average zombie, Big Daddy follows the departing convoy towards Fiddlers Green, his zombie chums in tow. Land of the Dead isn’t as effective as Romero’s previous three zombie outings, in any way. That doesn’t make it a bad film though. The music is reminiscent of Day in places, and features an effective, haunting leit-motif to evoke a sense of sympathy for the zombie horde. Speaking of which, the scores of seemingly more intelligent zombies are handled with Romero’s usual ease; they’re a logical evolution of Bub, and as such are nothing that’s not been hinted at before. Somehow, this feels more natural thanks to Romero’s influence; his zombies genuinely do move with a style and purpose which is distinctly Romero. Who else could have dreamed up the “sky flowers”, fireworks designed to distract the zombies while the scavengers go about their business. In much the same way as the zombies have evolved naturally, the humans have gone the same way - the scavengers are a more organised version of the raiders from Dawn’s final scenes. There’s some nice gore effects in Land, although its not as strong as Day, or Dawn for that matter. I suspect there may be more in the “Directors Cut” dvd - time will tell. Fundamentally, this is a zombie action/adventure movie; it works (despite having a slightly “goofy” plot) but feels somehow less “real” than it’s predecessors. It’s not as satirical or involving as Dawn, not as claustrophobic or creepy as Night, and nowhere near as horrific as Day. It has a distilled, comic book feel that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but left this hardcore zombie aficionado wanting a little more. There’s no attempt to work out where “they” came from (although the credit sequence provides a nice recap), or how to cure “them”. The zombies are just accepted, and as a result this feels entirely more comfortable than the other films. There’s never any tangible sense of danger or dread, and do we actually care about any of the characters? Perhaps the most sympathetic character in the film is a zombie! But is all this the point? I suspect it is, but it’s handled in slightly too heavy handed a fashion for my liking. In summary, this isn’t as good as the first three, but it’s not a bad film. I just don’t think it quite works the way Romero wanted, for whatever reason.

Is it just me, or is the new iPod really not that exciting? Apple are trying to make it sound exciting, yes, but a large part of me (the part that would usually be reaching for the credit card about now) really couldn’t care less. Are the magic reserves starting to run a little dry at Apple?

For a start, the drive sizes aren’t anything terribly excited. I’ve got a 40gig 4th generation iPod at the moment, and moving from 40 to 60 isn’t a terribly compelling reason to upgrade. Where’s the 80gig drive that we know Toshiba have in production?

Then, there’s the video. Is that supposed to make me want to upgrade? So I can watch a handful of pretty crappy short films from Pixar? If you live outside of the US, there’s no “Desperate Housewives” episodes, or “Lost” to download, so your (increasingly inaccurately named) “iTunes Music Store” video content boils down to some low res music videos and some Pixar cartoons. Yeah, I could encode my own video from various sources, but I can already do that, and in a far higher resolution I might add, and on a far superior screen with my £179 PSP. Apple are supposed to be about elegant solutions.

So let’s see if any of the other features can convince me - the size: not interested, a bigger, more colourful screen: nope, TV output: still nothing. I really don’t care. I don’t even care about the “me too” media centre application (Front Row), or the new, slimline iMac.

After all the hype, this is a big let down for me. A nice 80gig iPod, with that shiny new screen and video playback, which supported wma, wmv, and ogg vorbis, would have set me back £300; I’d have been powerless to resist. As it is, I think I’ll wait for the next “one more thing”.

(Besides, I’ve just checked iTunes, and my mp3 collection currently stands at 62gb so I’m going to have to wait for that 80gig device!)

I really did think that Apple’s announcement wouldn’t be met with such enthusiasm - I guess it might just be a Brit thing (TechDigest weren’t massively enthused either, neither was [Ashleigh](http://www.nakedcleaner.com/ Home/tabid/36/EntryID/89/Default.aspx)).

A reader by the name of [Pathway](/2005/10/12/apple-release-video-ipod-world- shrugs/#comment-27) posted some comments in my previous post, and I wanted to respond here in a bit more detail.

For starters, if you’ve never owned an iPod, don’t own a PSP, or similar, and have been holding off getting a new mp3 device for some time, then this must be pretty exciting for you. In all honesty, if I didn’t already own an iPod, I’d have been camping outside my local Apple shop for one of these. If I had a local Apple shop…

I still don’t think the video content is that impressive for Europe. I’d love to see a day when, instead of having to wait for UK networks to buy the rights to Lost or the other “next big thing” (so that would be Fathom, Threshold, Invasion, etc) I can just nip onto the iTunes Music Store and buy them. I just don’t think that’s realistic in the next few years, if ever.

I also think that having the ability to download video to my iPod and then plug that into my TV and get playback of a reasonably high quality would be fantastic. My ideal future would be one where I don’t need to use my PVR (Sky+) to record programs, but where I pay a monthly sub to someone (maybe Apple, maybe Sky) and am allowed to download the programs I want to watch, place them lovingly on (in?) my iPod, and watch them on my TV. That would be cool. I have a suspicion that Apple think this would be cool too; how else can you explain Front Row? Is this the start of Apple’s assault on your living room? Maybe. A Mac Mini running Front Row, connected to a TV and a wireless network, and loaded with the potential to legally download episodes of the best shows on television could be where Apple is heading.

And, as [Pathway](/2005/10/12/apple-release-video-ipod-world- shrugs/#comment-27) says, these things will sell like delciously warmed cakes over Christmas. Consumers might actually be able to get their hands on an iPod, which is more than can be said for some “must have” items this Christmas.

Looks like Captain Jack Harkness is getting his own series. Torchwood (as it will be known) is going to be written by Russell Davies, and feature the further adventures of Doctor Who’s Captain Jack. Apparently, it will be “adult” oriented.

I think this sounds like a great idea. Jack was an interesting character, with an as yet unprobed back story. I warmed to him far more than I thought I would during the few episodes he appeared in, and I look forward to learning more about him.

At the end of the day, this is a new, original, sci-fi series from the BBC, and that can’t be a bad thing. More please.

I’ve put together another new design for the site, which is currently being integrated. By “integrated” I mean “hacked cheerfully”. It’s the best way.

If you experience weirdness, loss of hearing, itching, nausea, or involuntary spasms, enjoy it while it lasts :) (By this I mean: Comments look odd, but they work, asides don’t look right, but that’s a cosmetic thing, and the navigation bar might do odd things).

I downloaded the “Land of the Dead: The Road to Fiddler’s Green” demo last night. For those that don’t know, this is the computer game tie-in to Romero’s movie.

Sadly, it’s not very good. It uses an old version of the Unreal engine, and while it doesn’t look terrible, it’s dated by today’s standards (Doom3, Half Life 2, FEAR). I could overlook that though, as long as it played well, and it doesn’t.

For a start, the zombies, even basic zombies, are seriously tough hombres. It was taking three or four shotgun blasts to the head to floor them. Now, anyone who knows anything about zombies should know that when you shoot a zombie in the head, they die. Next, even in the early moments of the demo, you get vomiting zombies, that try to spew some sort of unpleasant gubbins on you. These are even more armored than their less vomity brethren, and take many more shots to kill. So, we’re already so far away from the traditional idea of zombies that this isn’t much of a tie in. Another example of this is one of the loading screens contains something along the lines of “zombies will eat human flesh if they can get their hands on it, but they much prefer brains”. WTF? Romero’s zombies do not eat brains.

I’ve still got my hopes set on Dead Rising capturing the feel of Romero’s movies best; I’m surprised he’s not suing Capcom actually.

I did like the way the zombies munch on you after they’ve killed you though, that’s a nice though :) I also liked the golf club/spade/hammer melee action (even if it did take eight to ten hits with the golf club to down a zombie).

All in all, the demo is probably worth a download (unless you have to pay per megabyte or something). I won’t be buying it though.

I got linked to from [here](http://news.com.com/Apple+bloggers+hot+for+iMac%2C +not+for+iPod/2100-1041_3-5894360.html?tag=nefd.pop) over the whole video iPod thing. Neat.

Last weekend, I got to see Lord of War. My wife is a big Nicolas Cage fan, and I was intrigued to see what the film was like, so off we went. The film isn’t bad. It’s imaginatively directed, with some excellent camera work, and effects shots (the “life of a bullet” sequence during the opening titles is very clever, even if it does use some iffy cgi which comes off looking a little too “Toy Story + Bullets”) and the performances, on the whole, are good. Cage does what he does best; playing the confident, cool risk-taker with a fast mouth and a talent for getting into, and out of, trouble. Ethan Hawke makes an appearance as Jack Valentine - a government agent with an unfeasibly hard name, who’s intent on putting an end to Cage’s gun running exploits, but gets precious little to do. Similarly, Bridget Moynahan and Jared Leto, as Cage’s wife, and brother, don’t really get a great deal to do either. The film claims to be based on actual events, with Cage’s character (Yuri Orlov) supposedly a composite of five real arms dealers. It tries to be the “Goodfellas” of arms dealing, but doesn’t really succeed. Given that Cage so easily overshadows his co-stars, it’s difficult to feel terribly involved with anyone other than Yuri himself. Plus, the runtime is a little too high (although it’s only just over two hours, maybe the pacing could be better), and there are occasions where the film feels a little too “clean”. After the graphic scenes in A History of Violence, you would expect a film with an apparent anti-gun message to demonstrate the horrific consequences a little more. Overall, I’d say Lord of War is worth seeing, but I wouldn’t rush to the cinema. Tomorrow, I’m going to see Domino. My expectations are low, frankly, but we shall see.

I’m a big fan of Tony Scott’s last film, Man on Fire. It blew me away with its stylish direction and editing, with a very distinct look that worked in the film’s favor. The clever use of captions and unique approach to subtitles, coupled with a fantastic soundtrack resulted in a brilliantly tense and thrilling film. Coupled with impressive performances from Denzel Washington, and Dakota Fanning (with solid support from Radha Mitchell and Christopher Walken) Man on Fire is probably my favorite Tony Scott film. Many people didn’t enjoy the editing style, however, and accused it of being too “MTV”; too much a case of style over substance. I can’t really describe Domino, Tony Scott’s latest film, as a case of style over substance because I don’t find it to be particularly stylish. Let’s put it this way: either Scott has come off the A.D.D medication he was taking during the production of Man on Fire, or he needs to lay off whatever he’s smoking now. Domino is a confused mess of piss- coloured filters, idiotic repetition of lines of dialogue, rapid fire editing, and blurry camera work. There’s a section of the film, within which “our heroes” (Mickey Rourke, Edgar Ramirez, and Keira Knightley) are tricked into taking Mescaline. Scott shoots this using filters, blurry camera work, fast cutting, and a “hardcore” soundtrack, presumably to simulate the altered perceptions of the characters. There’s a problem here though - the rest of the film is created in exactly the same way! The “clever” subtitles make a return, but now they feel somewhat old and unnecessary. Kiera Knightly is way out of her depth. She doesn’t cope well with the vast majority of the dialogue, and is effortlessly acted off the screen by Mickey Rourke, Christopher Walken, and Delroy Lindo. I’d go so far as to say that Mickey Rourke is one of the few good things here, even if he is criminally under-used. My gut feeling about Domino, is that it’s trying too hard to emulate Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (which I rate very highly, by the way). It’s trying to portray a similar “bad people as media icons” message, it tells its tale in similarly jumbled fashion (start somewhere, flash back a bit, come back to present day, flash back again, end up where you started and continue the story from there, all recounted by Domino during an FBI interrogation), and features characters which continually spout cut-rate Tarantino-esque dialogue. It all feels terribly unoriginal. Throw in two “stars” of Beverly Hills 90210 (Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green for those that care, or remember), Jerry Springer, and a bizarre Tom Waits cameo, and I’m arrive at my unshakable belief that this is Scott’s attempt at Natural Born Killers. What’s even worse is that Domino has virtually no action, tension, momentum, or humour. It drags along for just over two hours, with no interesting set-pieces, or insightful dialogue, and it’s “explosive” finale feels like a tired rehash of Scott’s True Romance. Domino is easily the worst film I’ve seen in the last twelve months, and while this year has been a particularly good one, Domino would rank as a bad film whenever it had been released. I only hope that Scott starts (or stops) taking the drugs before embarking on his remake of Walter Hill’s classic The Warriors. Just to end on a positive note; it is nice to see Dabney Coleman working again :)

I got an email inviting me to try Flock earlier. Seeing as I’m such a big fan of shiny new things, I’m currently having a play with it.

First impressions are excellent, actually…

I’ve just downloaded the trailers for a couple of new movies from Daves Trailer Page.

The first I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while. James Gunn’s Slither is just the kind of cheesy looking horror film I get excited about. It appears to pay homage to various classic horror pictures (Cronenberg’s Shivers being an obvious one) and bears more than a passing resemblance to the great Night of the Creeps. Plus, it’s got Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker in it.

The second, I’d kind of written off. I enjoyed the original Underworld more than I perhaps should have. I expected it to be a stinky, dreadful pile of lycanthrope droppings, but it actually surprised me by being a reasonably entertaining little film. When I heard they were making a sequel (and that they were using the now tedious “it was always intended as part of a trilogy” line) I felt certain that it would suck harder than Kate Beckinsale’s character in the first film (she’s a vampire, geddit?). I’m genuinely amazed that the trailer looks pretty good. Better than that, it’s now on my must see list (even if it does look a little Van Helsing).

If you’ve got bandwidth to spare, I highly recommend having a look at these two. If not, you really should check Slither out, at least.

I didn’t realise, but Black Widow Games have been working on a full game based on the “They Hunger” series of mod packs for Half Life. Called “They Hunger: Lost Souls”, the game is being worked on by Neil Manke (creator of the They Hunger series), but it appears he’s now got a team of designers working on the game. Plus, he’s upgraded to the Half Life 2 engine. According to the site, they’re currently looking into a distribution method which reduces the cost for the gamer, which is nice. I’d be willing to bet that this will be sold through Steam, when the time comes.

This is Writely then? Nice.

This post written using Writely - thanks to Gary for pointing me in its direction. I’m enjoying all the examples I can find of shiny AJAX goodness, and Writely appears to be more shiny than most :) I’m not sure whether I like the concept of posting to my blog using another composition engine, but Writely certainly offers some interesting possibilities for document collaboration.

There are a couple of issues with the blog post though - the time is waaaay off (it appears that Writely is marking the post with its local timestamp, rather than that of my blog. And I don’t appear to be able to change a post title after writing it (found it!)

It looks like I might have to force myself to watch Children in Need this year. According to [Gallifrey One](http://www.gallifreyone.com/cgi- bin/viewnews.cgi?id=EEFpkVpyVAxevIqoXM&style=newsrss&tmpl=newsrss) (the leading Dr. Who news site, imho), there’ll be a short episode screened during the evening. This should give viewers the first real chance to see David Tennant’s take on the good Doctor. Looks like Who did well at the National TV Awards too, winning the all 3 of its nominated awards (for best Drama, Best Actor, and Best Actress).

Thanks to Ashleigh for hooking me up with an Orkut invite :)

The BBC have [apparently](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radi o/4371974.stm) received complaints (and have been slapped by OFCOM) because they showed Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction ten minutes after the (9pm) watershed. Excuse me? What’s the point of even having a watershed if you have to wait for sufficient amount of time before showing adult content! Perhaps we need to have layered watersheds, which allow increasingly extreme content as the evening gets later /sarcasm.

So, after all my recent negativity about the Video iPod (sorry, “iPod with video”) I’ve now gone and bought one. Or, more specifically, I asked my parents to bring me one back from New York while they were in the good old “yoo ess of aye”. See, they’re cheaper that way, and having sold my trusty 4th gen version (which has served me well over the last 18 months, but is slightly lacking in capacity) it’s cost me about £40 for an extra 20gig of space, 8 hours of battery, and a colour screen. Oh, and video.

Setting the thing up wasn’t easy though. The iPod would sync a few hundred songs, then unmount itself. After a couple of attempts, I rebuilt my PC but the problem continued. I’d get a “write failure” on the iPod drive, or a delayed write failure. I couldn’t be sure whether this was a problem with the new iPod or my PC, as I always used Firewire on my 4th gen device. Apple have robbed me of that luxury with the Nano, and now the 5th gen (with video).

Thinking it might be the iPod itself, I took it into work. Mark (who should blog, but doesn’t, so no link here I’m afraid) tested it with the extensive collection of audiobooks in his iTunes library. It worked without a hitch.

I decided it must be a driver, so rebuilt my machine again, and didn’t install any drivers. Before sync’ing again, I ran the iPod software update to clear off the audiobooks. The updater started, and immediately crashed with a “write failure”. The iPod, for all intents and purposes, was dead. It was an ex-iPod, etc.

After going through the inevitable “oh great, an expensive paperweight” panic, I decided to try to reapply the firmware update on my iBook. Presto, hey, the update worked and the iPod came back to life. Does that make it a zombie iPod? I don’t know…

So, my next step was to unplug EVERYTHING that used USB, and try to sync the iPod again. Sure enough, several hours, 50 gigs, and 9000-odd songs later, the iPod is properly sync’d.

The moral of this story? The new iPod is a power hungry little beast when used with USB (which is the only option these days) and won’t warn you if it doesn’t have enough power.

What do I think of the new iPod? It’s very nice. The screen is nice and large (although meagre and puny in comparison to the PSP), the sound quality is better than my gen 4 (slightly bassier and with a little more depth), and the build quality, and overall size, is very agreeable. The case is OK - you can’t use the iPod whilst its in the case (although it does give you an instant, high capacity iPod Shuffle if you try to), and I suspect it won’t stand up to much (the case, not the iPod).

If you’ve never owned an iPod, or still own a gen 3 (touch buttons and wheel) or older (ie no clickwheel) then you will more than likely adore this generation of iPod. If you’ve got a black and white gen 4, and can find someone to buy it, then this is a worthwhile upgrade. 60gig photo owners are unlikely to be terribly excited by this though.

Blessed is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most excruciatingly unfunny sitcom I have ever had the misfortune to see. Twice.

It’s quite an achievement to strip Ardal O’Hanlon of his capacity to be funny, but Ben Elton has done just that. It’s bad enough that O’Hanlon’s character spouts large chunks of Elton’s stand-up routine, but so do all the other characters. Having Mel Giedroyc read Elton’s script turns her, uncannily, into a female version of Chris Barry’s Gordon Brittas character. Dressing her character in a milk stained nightie (two large damp patches around her breasts) isn’t even funny once, let alone funny for two whole episodes.

The whole thing tries to pass off the most cliched, abysmal baby jokes as being hugely comic, and sports the “clever” device of having the characters play a game of “most appropriate song” at random moments (in which Ben Elton demonstrates how clever he is, that he knows all these songs AND the person that wrote them).

Perhaps I’m too close to the subject matter, but how anyone could find this amusing is beyond me. The BBC really need to find some new comedy writers. Pretty much every recent BBC SitCom has been utterly abysmal (“The Green, Green Grass”, and “According to Bex” to name but two, even if the later did have Jessica Stevenson in it).

Maybe it’s time to write a zombie SitCom and pitch it to the BBC? People liked Shaun of the Dead…

Seeing as I’ve already posted about Writey today, I might as well get a link to Goowy posted too. Goowy is an online personal information manager, that’s definitely inspired by the cult of Apple. It’s full of shiny AJAX goodness, and is well worth having a look at. I’m not sure that I’m going to make the jump across from Gmail just yet (or Google Mail, for us UK types), but it is an impressive app, all the same.

The Psychotic Monkey has posted of his love for games, specifically Everquest 2.

I played Everquest for quite a while, getting several characters to (around) level 20, and one character up to the lofty heights of level 28. For those that don’t know, the higher the level, the more experience your character has. With higher levels, comes more powerful skills and abilities, and the potential to use more powerful (and ideally cooler) equipment.

My higher level character in Everquest was a short, stocky Dwarven fellow called Belvin. Belvin was an agreeable sort for his first few levels of existence, and even managed to be reasonably personable up until level 20, at which point he could buy himself a new, shiny suit of armor. Soon after, Belvin got bitter.

Belvin, you see, was a healer. He was gifted with the ability to soothe the ills of his companions, restoring lost hit points, and making sure everyone spent more time on their feet than off them. Being a healer meant that Belvin got virtually no new cool abilities, no cooler weapons to use, and very little cool armor once he climbed into his tin-can at level 20. “Exciting” new abilities comprised mainly of improved heals, that meant that a greater amount of health was restored with each use.

As a player’s level increases, so too does the challenge they face. This means the healer spends more time healing, and less time doing anything else. The “new and cool” healing abilities rapidly become lacking in usefulness, and the healers companions take more and more damage. As a result, Belvin’s life became very, very dull. What began as a happy, jovial sort of adventurer soon turned into a grouchy, unpleasant little creature with poor personal hygiene and no desire for further adventure.

I’ve cancelled my Everquest account now. Releasing an expansion pack that catered solely for a player level that I felt I could never (reasonably) reach given the amount of time I can play, and that I had no desire to achieve, meant that a distinct lack of “new and cool” drove me away. For me, computer RPG’s (since the old days of gold box D&D adventures, and The Bard’s Tale) have always been about acquiring exciting new abilities or equipment, and Everquest really didn’t satisfy that expectation.

These days, I’ve got active subscriptions for World of Warcraft (which, for now, has a larger helping of “new and cool”) , and City of Heroes (which has sucked me back in just in time for City of Villains). Upcoming titles that I’m keeping an eye on are Auto Assault, Huxley, and, of course, D&D Online. I’m sure I’ll post about past, future, and present MMORPG experiences another day.

Rockstar love controversy. The GTA series was in existence for years before anyone noticed, and the only reason people started to take notice was because the media got all in a frenzy when GTA3 was released on PS2. Carmageddon had similar good fortune on the PC years ago, yet subsequent sequels didn’t sell terribly well because the media had a new crusade that week.

The latest of Rockstar’s games to come under the media spotlight is Bully. The BBC are running a news story about “Leicester MP Keith Vaz” (and I am, frankly, sick of hearing from the publicity seeking clown) saying that Bully should either be banned, or submitted to the BBFC for classification. Thanks Keith, you really did your home work there didn’t you?

Two things: One - in the UK it’s been a crime to sell games that are rated “mature” to minors for some time. Games have been granted certificates for some time too. It’s illegal to sell an 18 rated dvd or video to anyone under that age, just as it’s illegal to sell an 18 rated game. Rockstar have always submitted their games to the BBFC for approval, and so far they’ve all been 18 rated (with the exception of Midnight Club). Children shouldn’t be playing them, and the parents should make sure the children aren’t playing them. Full stop. The vast majority of parents won’t (or shouldn’t) allow their children to watch 18 rated spatter films, or porn, so why let them play games? The problem is this: Games have this “cutesy” image, and certain parents are so ignorant that they don’t care what little Jimmy is doing, as long as he’s not bothering them:

• “The children are quiet today dear, did you get them a new game?”

• “yes honey, they’re playing that new Sim Serial Killer game that’s just come out”

• “Ooh, that sounds fun, what’s it about?”

• “Do you know, I have no idea. I think it involves arranging coloured squares or something”

• “How lovely - bless them…”

Two - Bully isn’t even finished yet. It’s still quite a way from being finished, in actual fact. Knee jerk reactions which demand that Bully be banned, or that it will mess up your children are completely misinformed - not just misinformed, but uninformed. They cannot possibly know what the content of the game is like, because nobody knows yet. Rockstar never show their games off until just before their release. How can Keith Vaz and various US politicians and lawyers get all steamed up over what they think the game might contain? Should we ban something, purely based on its title, because we think it might have content that we don’t like?

• “Hello this is Keith Vaz, I want you to ban the game you currently have in development!”

• “Um…do you mean Serial Killer Apocalypse 7, the game that features graphic violence and mayhem inflicted upon realistic virtual representations of human beings?”

• “Yes, ban it, it’s sick and wrong.”

• “Er…ok. We have another game in development that’s similar in content. Should we ban that too?

• “What’s that one called?”

• “Fluffy Bunny Apocalypse 7, the game that features graphic violence and mayhem inflicted upon realistic virtual representations of human beings.”

• “No, no - that one’s fine. Bye, bye.”

I long for the day when gamers get the representation they deserve. There doesn’t seem to be any sensible voice that can state the facts, and the media sensationalism really doesn’t help. As the graphics in games become more and more lifelike (hello, Xbox 360) the media, and Keith Vaz, and Jack Thompson, will all become more and more concerned that little Jimmy is being turned into a rampaging psychopath by the latest version of Grand Theft Auto. Where are the pro-gaming politicians? Surely they must exist. I wonder if David Cameron has an xbox…

::steve(“Steve”):: has found found a great badgerbadgerbadger “tribute”.